[Speaker 5] (1:28 - 1:37)
We all set?

[Speaker 3] (1:37 - 1:49)
Okay. Hi everyone, welcome to the March 1st Select Board Meeting. And before we get started, if you would all join me in a hug.

[Speaker 1] (1:56 - 2:09)
Thanks everyone.

[Speaker 3] (2:10 - 2:44)
So public comment tonight. We have an important presentation, public comment that we're going to go through before. We do have a public hearing scheduled for 6 p.m., so what I'm going to do with public comment is we just have a quick presentation on something and then I'm going to take public comment. If you're here for public comment for any other issues on the budget or anything else, then we're going to do that after the public hearing. But before that, I think we do have public comment from Heidi Weir from the Senior Center.

[Speaker 9] (3:00 - 3:21)
Thank you very much and thank you Select Board members for letting us share a few minutes of a project that we've been working on with the school. The high school room of color was working with us at the Senior Center to put together this quilt and I'm going to introduce Temi Bailey for a minute just to share with you a little bit about the experience.

[Speaker 14] (3:21 - 4:55)
This wonderful piece was not only from our group at the Senior Center, we also had our girls group as well as some other students in the school who found out about it and were interested and joined in as well. So in the beginning of February, Sabrina reached out to me and Latoya and wanted to collab again as we did last year to try and do a project in a way to kind of do a demonstrational piece that we could present within the high school town hall and just have a moving piece of art that represents the kids, the seniors, and just basically what everyone represents and what everyone stands for in a sense. One of our, one of my kids actually at Blue Bay, he's now a Swampside resident.

He moved here from Florida last year. He came up with this theme right here. Our themes are positivity, persistence, and resilience, which I love myself a lot because it really represents what a lot of these kids themselves have been through and what they go through on a daily basis.

[Speaker 9] (4:58 - 5:14)
So we just want to say that this will be available and we're hoping that it will kind of travel around, maybe to the high school or maybe some places of worship, the town hall and different places so people can see it in commemoration and celebration of Black History Month.

[Speaker 8] (5:14 - 5:16)
Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (5:16 - 5:19)
Good job.

[Speaker 3] (5:27 - 5:59)
Thank you so much, both of you. That's a great project. Excited to share it widely.

Okay, moving on. We're going to move on to a 6 p.m. public hearing that we have for a liquor license, transfer of a liquor license from Zest Friends, LLC, Dockside Pub, Incorporated, located at 286 Humphrey Street in Swampskate. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing?

[Speaker 7] (5:59 - 6:00)
So moved.

[Speaker 3] (6:00 - 6:30)
Is there a second? Second. All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Okay, so this is an application from Dockside Pub, and it's a transfer of the liquor license from Zest Friends, as I said.

Angelica, do you have anything to add to the information that is in our packet? No, I don't. Okay, I believe the applicants are here.

Yes. Okay, do you want to, maybe I can get a mic for you. Yeah, we can.

[Speaker 1] (6:43 - 6:45)
It's for TV more than application. Yeah, it's more for that.

[Speaker 14] (6:45 - 6:48)
It's not really for application, it's for TV.

[Speaker 11] (6:50 - 8:33)
Good? Good. All right.

Okay. So the opportunity came up where Zest Friends was moving out and had a good rapport with the owners there, and it seemed to me that the town didn't have a pub. So it makes sense that, you know, we have 11 years of experience, 22 combined, and we want to put a seafood sort of pub in that spot, even with a little to-go window.

People going on fishing at this beach can walk up and get some fried clams, that sort of thing. I think it would be fun, and I think it would service the city well, or the town. Any questions?

When does it open? We're thinking sometime before June 1st would be good, if we get a lot of yeses from over here. A lot of yeses over here.

I did not know that. I'm new. Oh, there'll be a lobster roll.

There's going to be a lot of – it's going to be steak tips, burgers, appetizers. It's going to be a comfortable pub-type atmosphere. You don't have to get a restaurant that you don't have to go get dressed up to go out.

It's just comfortable. It would be good for families, a lot of table seating, and the bar. I'm excited.

I hope everybody else is.

[Speaker 3] (8:36 - 9:07)
Questions from the board? This is a public hearing. Do we have any public comment in the room or also on Teams virtually?

I thought I saw maybe a hand raised. No comments in person? Is there a hand raised, Sian?

[Speaker 5] (9:11 - 9:13)
I just have one quick question.

[Speaker 11] (9:13 - 9:13)
Sure.

[Speaker 5] (9:14 - 9:18)
It's the same – the hours are the same as Zest Friends. There's nothing different here, right?

[Speaker 11] (9:19 - 9:44)
Or is that not in the permit? I think we put 7 a.m. in the permit, and that's in case we start doing a breakfast program. So, technically, when we open, we're going to be doing, like, an 1130 to 1 in the morning or whenever people walk out.

But at some point, we may do a breakfast there, so that's why I put 7 o'clock.

[Speaker 3] (9:48 - 10:16)
Any other questions? Do I have a motion to close? I'll just call out one more time if there's any comment on Teams.

Okay. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.

Is there a second? All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. All right.

[Speaker 17] (10:17 - 10:17)
Good luck.

[Speaker 3] (10:18 - 10:20)
Do we have any – we have to vote on it.

[Speaker 17] (10:21 - 10:23)
We just closed the public hearing.

[Speaker 3] (10:23 - 10:24)
I'm so excited about it.

[Speaker 10] (10:24 - 10:25)
Nice job at closing the public hearing, everyone.

[Speaker 3] (10:26 - 10:26)
That was good.

[Speaker 10] (10:31 - 10:31)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (10:37 - 10:46)
Yeah, I mean, if this is about this topic, then we'll let Jill provide a comment.

[Speaker 17] (10:58 - 10:59)
Jill?

[Speaker 9] (11:00 - 11:02)
Teams was off for audio.

[Speaker 17] (11:03 - 11:04)
Hi, Jill.

[Speaker 3] (11:04 - 11:12)
We just heard you, and now we can't hear you anymore. So if you unmute yourself, we should be able to hear you.

[Speaker 8] (11:21 - 11:30)
Hi. There was no audio on Teams for the first I don't know how many minutes. But there was no audio.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (11:30 - 12:34)
Okay. Was there no audio throughout the whole public hearing? Okay.

But I would ask again. I think what I'll do is I'll just ask one more time if there – we just closed the public hearing for the liquor license for Dockside Pub at 286 Humphrey Street, and we're prepared to take a vote on the approval of that liquor license. So if you're on Teams and you hadn't heard that because I'm hearing that the audio was out, if you have a public comment, although we just closed the public hearing, we can take that public comment now before we move on to voting.

So if you're on Teams and you would like to make a public comment, please raise your hand on Teams, and we can unmute your microphone. Okay. Looks like Moira, if you unmute yourself.

[Speaker 9] (12:35 - 12:44)
Yes. Hello. Moira Farrell.

I'm an abutter of this restaurant. And can you hear me?

[Speaker 3] (12:44 - 12:45)
Yes, we can. Hi, Moira.

[Speaker 9] (12:46 - 13:01)
Okay. Great. Because the first 12 minutes I didn't hear anyone, and it was very frustrating for me.

So with that said, I was going to inquire, what are the hours of Dockside going to be?

[Speaker 3] (13:03 - 13:22)
Yeah, I believe they're 7 to 1 in the application. And the 7 a.m., that was part of the brief conversation we had that you had missed, and sorry about that. But the 7 a.m. hours is if they were potentially to be serving breakfast? Correct. Yeah.

[Speaker 9] (13:23 - 15:34)
Okay. So just for a little background, when I attended the meetings for when this was first converted into a restaurant, the operating hours were granted from 4 to 10, and it was supposed to be a fine dining establishment with low turnover. So as an abutter who is less than 30 feet from this restaurant, I hear significant noises.

And under the tenure of Zest Friends, you know, from 4 to 5 in the morning for their breakfasts till, you know, 1 or 2 at night for their cleanup, this directly impacts my ‑‑ I hear them. I hear the ovens going. I hear the chatter in the parking lots.

I hear car door slamming, deliveries, you know, the whole thing. I hear it. So if they're asking from 1 o'clock, you know, that directly impacts my ‑‑ you know, my bedroom faces that lot.

That directly impacts my sleep. And this whole actually has been a rather negative impact since the Beatrice is sold back. And I'm really not sure how the B1 districting, you know, got to be a restaurant.

You know, it's one thing when a small seating like G's, okay, fine, you know, they seem very responsible and clean. G's people do clean people with regular trash pickups. You know, I've had rats and things in my front yard for the first time with the Vietnamese restaurant.

Zest Friends tended to be clean, but still had a lot of rodents in my yard, less so. I'm also concerned about if someone could confirm to me if the new owners of this building are the people from either the Village Tavern or the Tin Whistle, can someone confirm that they're their same owners?

[Speaker 11] (15:35 - 15:36)
Village Tavern owners.

[Speaker 9] (15:38 - 17:24)
Yeah, so I have concerns about that. I've had many of ‑‑ I know they've been sued by people who have been beat up at their organization, their Village Tavern restaurant. I've also heard of not treating their people correctly.

This sort of profile of an owner isn't encouraging. And I also heard and saw it advertised in a commercial real estate advert that they're intending to try for a rooftop dining, which I strongly opposed to as well. As someone who walks daily on that sidewalk and as someone who, again, I really, you know, hearing people drinking, you know, at 1 o'clock and 12 o'clock, it's not a good match for being so close to all these residents here that have been really taking the brunt end of this restaurant development business on here from anywhere from parking to exiting out of Blaney Street.

It's very much impacted our property and property values negatively. And I'm fearful that this pub, you know, drinking atmosphere would be a negative impact to me and my neighbors. And with that, I thank you for taking the time.

[Speaker 3] (17:26 - 17:38)
Okay, thank you, Moira, for your comments. I think there was another hand raised. So can we just reopen the public hearing?

[Speaker 1] (17:38 - 17:42)
Yeah, I want to actually, okay, I'd like to reconsider and move to reopen the public hearing.

[Speaker 3] (17:43 - 17:44)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 5] (17:44 - 17:45)
Second.

[Speaker 1] (17:45 - 17:46)
All those in favor?

[Speaker 5] (17:46 - 17:47)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (17:47 - 18:08)
And I would just ask that the statements of Ms. Farrell be included in the public record for this. And I just wanted to ask a couple of questions to this. A couple of things.

I just, and I don't know, here's Sean's here, so maybe you know. So, Sean, did this have to go back to the zoning board or did it not have to go back to the zoning board?

[Speaker 2] (18:09 - 18:10)
I don't believe it.

[Speaker 1] (18:10 - 18:23)
Did you guys have to go to the zoning board? Just the planning board. Just the planning board.

I don't understand that. Okay. Do you understand that bars aren't allowed?

So anytime that you're open, you're going to need to be selling food. Is that understood by you?

[Speaker 17] (18:23 - 18:24)
Yeah, that's fine.

[Speaker 1] (18:24 - 18:26)
No, no, I just wanted to make sure you knew that, right?

[Speaker 17] (18:26 - 18:27)
Yeah, oh, yeah.

[Speaker 1] (18:27 - 18:52)
Bars aren't allowed, restaurants are, which means you have to be serving food at all times that you're open. I'm going to share the, I'm excited for you to be here. Thank you.

And I'm sure you're going to do great. I just want to make sure you heard the comments that were made. Obviously, this is a very different context than the tavern, right, in terms of its neighbors?

[Speaker 11] (18:52 - 20:04)
Yes, as I said, I've been here almost five years, been here four years. I understand the town. My child is in elementary school, just going to kindergarten, coaching the lacrosse team.

My wife is involved with the, she's a class mom. Like, we love the community, and I wouldn't, I didn't come to make a blemish or anything. I just, of course, I want to put something here that the town is lacking and I think that people would enjoy.

So, I understand her comments, and the tavern is kind of its own beast, as you will. I mean, it's a 14,000 square foot facility that fits 400 people in it. So, over the almost 11 years we're open, there's been like four incidents that's happened.

So, I mean, you've got to think, like, just on a Saturday night, there's 400 people in there, and it's not just the same 400 people, it's 400 different people moving in and out. So, multiply that, any people, all those days and all those years, there's going to be something bound to happen at some point. And, you know, every time those things happen, we learn from it, correct it, and those type of things don't happen again.

And that's all I can say.

[Speaker 1] (20:04 - 20:08)
Yeah, no, that's great. I appreciate that. And I understand that completely.

[Speaker 11] (20:08 - 20:16)
And I understand that this is a completely, this is a completely different situation, different community, different clientele, and, you know.

[Speaker 1] (20:16 - 20:38)
Yeah, so this area has been zoned to allow this for decades and decades. So, this is not a new thing, but the concerns are ever present, which is the proximity of the residential right next to, especially on the non-water side. Right.

Humphrey Street, the residence is being there. And so, I think the only thing I'm going to say to my board colleagues is I believe Mission on the Bay is the only one for which.

[Speaker 10] (20:38 - 20:48)
There's four. Tell me. Mission on the Bay, Hawthorne, the Swanside Yacht Club, and Zest Friends were the four that are able to stay open until 1 a.m. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (20:51 - 21:02)
Never mind. I'm not going to say my comment. If we previously allowed 1 a.m. here, then I can't now all of a sudden decide it's not. I mean, to be honest with you, I think most of the time we're not going to be open until 1.

[Speaker 11] (21:02 - 21:02)
Yeah, no, no.

[Speaker 1] (21:02 - 21:04)
And I think Zest Friends never was, right?

[Speaker 8] (21:04 - 21:04)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (21:04 - 21:17)
But that was going to just be a question. I just think as though we've struggled with consistency on closing times. That's all.

And here next to residential neighbors, if we previously came to the conclusion that it was fine, there's no reason to be penalized.

[Speaker 11] (21:18 - 21:29)
And not to interrupt, but generally speaking, even at the tavern on a Saturday night when the whole thing is full, we start moving people out at 1230. So, by the time 1 o'clock comes around, there's no one even in the building.

[Speaker 1] (21:31 - 21:33)
No, I appreciate it. I'm glad that that's going to be a situation here.

[Speaker 11] (21:33 - 21:35)
By 1130, it's going to be done. I believe it.

[Speaker 1] (21:35 - 21:44)
I'm glad that you're a member of our community and you're doing this. I really am. I'm excited for it.

Thank you. We hope never to have to see you again because that means there's no problems.

[Speaker 11] (21:45 - 21:48)
Except in the bar. I understand. I'll see you there.

Not those guys.

[Speaker 1] (21:49 - 21:49)
We'll see you in the bar.

[Speaker 11] (21:50 - 21:54)
But thanks. That's all I have. Any other questions?

[Speaker 3] (21:55 - 23:20)
I think there is another public comment on Teams. Deb Newman. Deb, I think you can unmute yourself.

Deb? Do you have public comment? No?

Okay. Going once. Going twice.

All right. Deb, one more opportunity to unmute yourself and then we're going to close the public hearing. Again.

Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Is there a second?

Second. All those in favor? Aye.

Aye. Okay. Moving on to approval of or vote on the approval of the transfer of the license to Dockside Pub Incorporated.

Is there a motion to approve the license transfer? So moved. Is there a second?

[Speaker 10] (23:20 - 23:20)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (23:21 - 23:22)
Further discussion?

[Speaker 5] (23:25 - 23:44)
The only comment that I do have is to I do have concerns about the neighbors over there with how close it is and I'm anticipating you're going to have great success. So that's the only reservation that I would have at all is just the consideration for the neighbors there.

[Speaker 17] (23:44 - 23:44)
Yeah.

[Speaker 11] (23:44 - 24:03)
My only hope is that we develop a nice relationship. And I don't know who that Moir is. But I hope I can meet her and show her around and work with her.

If she has an issue and things are too loud, maybe we can fix it. That would be great. It's a small restaurant, so it shouldn't be.

[Speaker 2] (24:04 - 24:06)
Those relationships are important?

[Speaker 11] (24:06 - 24:06)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (24:12 - 24:50)
I'm not here to make any enemies. What I would suggest and what's done well previously is I think G is a good example. Greg, before he ever opened his first, went around to the neighborhood and got to know them before there were problems so that when there were problems, you had familiarity.

There's going to be something. It's inevitable and we understand that. It happens with any establishment.

So I think going around and letting them know who you are and giving them contact information is just that gesture just goes a long way for the nights that you're going to need it because inevitably something will happen despite all your best efforts. I understand that.

[Speaker 11] (24:50 - 24:53)
That's a great suggestion, Peter. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (24:54 - 25:15)
Okay. Is there... I think we made a motion, right, and seconded?

Second. All those in favor of approving the transfer of the license from Zest Friends to Dockside? Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Are not.

I see a hand. Congratulations. Thanks for coming.

[Speaker 11] (25:15 - 25:16)
Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody.

[Speaker 3] (25:16 - 27:03)
Thanks for your time. Good luck. Good luck.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

I do see some... I do see hands still raised. We are going to...

I'm going to... As I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting, which I don't think people on Teams heard, we're going to do general public comment before we move on to the rest of our agenda now. I just...

We wanted to do that public hearing prior to, so if you have additional public comment on that issue or any other now, you can do so now. I'll just remind people that it's an opportunity, public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to express their opinions on agenda items or items that aren't on the agenda, but it's not intended to be a discussion or a debate or a dialogue between the select board and residents. Additional guidelines, please, before sharing your comments, state your name, address, and if you know your voting precinct, you'll be limited to three minutes.

You can raise new issues, identify community problems, and comment on past, present, or future board agendas, and absent extraordinary circumstances, we will not respond to the issues raised and they won't be discussed or debated. We request that you speak respectfully and refrain from criticizing or disparaging committee members, town staff, or residents or resident groups or individuals. And also, we request that you refrain from making comments that include commentary or political statements or criticisms of town staff.

With that, is there any public comment, general public comment, in the room or on Teams? Amy? I think we have a little glitch.

Amy, can you help just reset the screen?

[Speaker 9] (27:05 - 27:07)
No, they don't.

[Speaker 8] (27:11 - 27:13)
Hi, Amy O'Connor, Precinct 6.

[Speaker 9] (27:13 - 27:14)
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 1] (27:15 - 27:24)
Yeah, hold on a second. Someone's on the line. We've got a, you've got a, Moira, Moira, you've got a disabled head mic.

Please. Sorry.

[Speaker 8] (27:24 - 27:26)
It's okay. I know it.

[Speaker 3] (27:33 - 27:33)
Glitchy.

[Speaker 8] (27:34 - 27:34)
All set?

[Speaker 17] (27:34 - 27:35)
I think we're good, yeah.

[Speaker 8] (27:35 - 33:22)
Okay. Amy O'Connor, Precinct 6. I am a school committee member, though I am here not on school committee business.

I have found that words really matter, so I've written my comments, so please indulge me as I read them rather than speak off the cuff. Among a number of aggressive comments I found last week at this select board meeting, there was one in particular that really stung. And that was the veiled criticisms of the school department's hiring practice and therefore our cost management.

You see, unlike the select board, the school committee has a very narrow job description. And one of the three main, of the three main responsibilities that we have is the development and oversight of our school budget. It's our most sacred of jobs, and to identify and oversee what money is needed for our Swampscot students.

We're well versed with town guidelines, but what we know keenly is what it takes to run our district to the benefit of all of our children. The suggestion that the school doesn't think twice about adding employees because we, quote, we don't have to worry about paying the benefits is a ridiculous and incendiary statement. Mr. Fitzgerald, yes, we know that health care benefits are expensive and that the schools are the town's largest, the schools are the town, the schools are the largest employer of the town. We have discussed with you managing this since your arrival, and we've also discussed taking more control of it. You admitted last week to wanting to keep control of it, but at the same time, you use it as a weapon to not fund some of our school needs. Higher health costs don't mean lower student need.

And costs would be the same no matter where the cost center is located. Second, our hiring practices were compared to a business. And in fact, Swampscot Public Schools, as everybody knows, is not a business.

And unlike the current movement around this country to privatize public education, these are major red flags in a Massachusetts town. We hire educators judiciously and as appropriate for all student needs and in line with the best practices, not only with an eye, not with an eye on profits, or to please corporate shareholders. The majority of the FTEs that we have added since COVID are part of our special education program, or and program seeking to counteract the giant impact that our students have spent of COVID, that our students have spent a year in their bedrooms learning.

We are still battling back from that and will be for a long time. For these hirings, we're unapologetic. We're a public school, so we do what educators deem right for our young citizens.

Insinuating that we're flip about hiring demonstrates your view of the school department and the professional assessments made by our district leadership. Much time was spent last week on the true costs of education in Swampscot, somehow suggesting that there's a sleight of hand. But the truth is that Swampscot has a full grasp on these numbers and already provides these numbers to the states.

Educational assets are human assets, and people are expensive. We have to do our absolute best for these kids post COVID, and it's part of why Swampscot is a desirable place to live, and why new people move to this town, because we can do that, because we have the funds to do that. Last week, the town administrator submitted an underfunded school budget for vote.

Our submitted budget is higher than usual, and this includes rising fixed costs, unprecedented increases in our special education tuition, and restoration to the cuts the town previously asked for but have never been corrected. Make no mistake, an underfunded budget means cuts. Rising costs have outpaced the town guideline.

And while the town has record amounts of money in free cash, in stabilization funds, and other similar savings, not growing the school budget to keep pace with actual costs means cuts. So while you crow about holding tax rates to low records and simultaneously purchase money-generating property to turn into a park, our school services will be limited while we grapple with a generation of students with monumental hurdles, massive disruption, levels of anxiety not fully understood, and special education costs that continue to outpace this. This year alone, that change is a 14% jump in cost.

The town administrator is going to counter that the teacher contract is too rich, but that's simply not true. That after 10 years of well below market raises, Swampscot has finally given our educators raises in line with what other unions in this town have been getting. And in your parlance of give to get, we got significantly more hours on learning and are maintaining a happy workforce against the national teacher shortage.

So we continue to hear the changemaker's talking points about taxpayer burden for homeowners and at the same time we're looking at turning a marquee revenue generating property into a park, which is already adjacent to a park and already adjacent to a beach. So I ask, if we're in better financial shape than ever, if we have savings that are far outpacing our own town guidelines, we're taxing well below state limits, and we're purposefully limiting business revenues, at the same time that our schools are educating a generation of students with learning loss, spiraling fixed costs, mental health fallout, and teacher shortages, what does it mean? And it means cuts.

So we implore Swampscot and its taxpayers to fully fund our budget because it's what's right.

[Speaker 3] (33:25 - 34:19)
Thank you, Amy. Just for folks here and virtually we are having on our agenda a joint meeting with the finance committee to discuss the budget, and this will be our initial meeting to discuss the budget very soon. So we'll be probably discussing a lot of what was just mentioned in that public comment.

Is there any other public comment on teams or in the room? Not seeing any. Okay.

Moving on to appointment of Cheryl Moschella, or direct Moschella. I'm sorry. For director of assessment, and I was going to ask if you were here, but you're here, clearly.

Thanks. Sean, do you want to? Sure.

[Speaker 2] (34:19 - 35:08)
Really, I'm thrilled to welcome Cheryl. Cheryl has been recommended by our Board of Regents, probably in the last six weeks. And Cheryl comes to Swampscot after really an extraordinary professional career of a certified residential real estate appraiser, and she's worked for a number of financial companies as an account manager, as a regional manager, and certainly has impressed everyone with her acumen and her experience.

Cheryl, I wanted to just ask you to come up and introduce yourself.

[Speaker 8] (35:14 - 35:52)
Okay. I've been a real estate appraiser for 18 years. I'm also a Redding resident, and I'm on the Board of Assessors in Redding, and I have been for three years.

In this part of my career, I was looking for a change. I think this is a nice complement to my real estate appraisal career. I, as an appraiser, have done a lot of appraisals in Swampscot over the years.

I like the town, the people that I'm familiar with the town, the people that I've met here. I think it's a good fit. I'm happy to be here.

[Speaker 2] (35:53 - 36:06)
So with that, I would recommend him as the town's assessing director and move forward with filling this important position.

[Speaker 3] (36:08 - 36:15)
Thanks, Sean, and thanks, Cheryl, for coming, and welcome. Do we have any questions from the Board for Cheryl or for Sean?

[Speaker 15] (36:18 - 36:19)
Test, test, test, test, test.

[Speaker 3] (36:19 - 36:26)
Motion to approve Sean's recommendation to appoint Cheryl Moschella. Moschella?

[Speaker 6] (36:26 - 36:30)
Everybody butchers it, so sorry. I just did it again. Moschella.

[Speaker 3] (36:30 - 36:37)
Moschella, as the director of assessing. So moved. Second.

All those in favor? Aye.

[Speaker 17] (36:37 - 36:39)
Aye. Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 3] (36:41 - 36:43)
Are you related to the Moschellas in town?

[Speaker 17] (36:44 - 36:44)
Sorry?

[Speaker 5] (36:44 - 36:46)
Are you related to the Moschellas in town?

[Speaker 1] (36:47 - 36:51)
I think it's like the other Moschellas. Yeah, that's the Moschellas.

[Speaker 17] (36:51 - 37:02)
That's the Moschellas, that's why. There's a lot of cousins. I don't know.

Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 13] (37:13 - 37:19)
No, Cheryl, you can stay for the rest of the meeting. If you do, you'll have to reconsider our vote.

[Speaker 1] (37:20 - 37:26)
We would have known that beforehand. This is an updated presentation.

[Speaker 11] (37:26 - 37:27)
Amazing.

[Speaker 17] (37:27 - 37:33)
Another update? Yeah. Okay.

Just a couple of changes. How are we doing on time?

[Speaker 3] (37:37 - 37:57)
So, next on our agenda, we have affordable housing opportunities. We actually are here to discuss an exciting opportunity, a specific affordable housing opportunity, and I'm going to turn it over to David Grishman to lead that conversation. Sure.

[Speaker 7] (37:57 - 41:22)
Thanks, Neil. So, affordable housing. The town of Swampscott has largely been reactive to matters of affordable housing rather than proactive.

Really, other than the 38 units at the Michon School, the town really hasn't done much of substance as a town to address housing, especially affordable housing, within the town of Swampscott. Additionally, the town of Swampscott hasn't done a great job supporting its veterans and veteran services. We all know or have heard of the VFW swapping five lots to the town for a long-term lease at the current VFW location.

Good deal for the town, not so much for the VFW. Unfortunately, we've played ostrich with our veterans, and our words of support for veterans over the years have really rung hollow. We've done the same thing when it comes to affordable housing.

Both of these issues are incredibly unfortunate, missed opportunities, and while I've given up all hope of a better past, I think we can hold out hope for a better future, and tonight we can start to rectify these two situations. Here's how. So the town of Swampscott has an agreement in principle to purchase 12 to 24 Pine Street, which is approximately 15,700 square feet of land adjacent to the VFW post 1240, which is located on town-owned land.

The Pine Street property has been for sale in recent months, and the select board has been discussing the purchase of the property over the past few months and has reached an agreement with the current owner. During this period, Peter Spellios and I have met with the leadership of the VFW post 1240 to discuss the select board's interest and working with the VFW and a housing not-for-profit to construct approximately 30 to 40 units of veterans' affordable housing on the Pine Street property in town-owned land. In addition to the 30 or 40 units of veteran affordable housing, it's our intention that the project will include space for a new VFW post, additional spaces to provide services for veterans living at the property, as well as other veterans in the Swampscott area.

The discussions with the VFW post 1240 have really just begun and will continue, together with discussions of the associated veterans' groups, local veterans, and residents in the coming weeks about making this possibility of veterans' affordable housing project a reality. Subject to these discussions, it's the select board's current plan to seek Swampscott town meeting approval in May to acquire the property and to allow the property and the town-owned property where the current VFW is located to be redeveloped. So, as part of the redevelopment, as I said, 30 to 40 units of veterans' affordable housing, a new VFW post 1240, including a canteen, and other spaces to provide support services for veterans in Swampscott and beyond.

And the select board's support of the project is 100% dependent upon the project being affordable housing for veterans. Speaking for myself, I'm incredibly excited about this opportunity. We're going to make the largest investment in both veterans and veterans' services, as well as affordable housing in the history of the town.

I couldn't be more excited.

[Speaker 1] (41:23 - 47:29)
Mr. Spellios, any other thoughts or comments from you? Additional updates? Thanks.

Thanks. I just want to start with just acknowledging your role in this, David. You have, and I've said this previously, and you have from the moment you got on this board.

You've been consistent about two topics in almost every conversation, affordable housing and veterans' services. And you've been frustrated at times with the slowness and the response. I think it's, we have a $79.76 million budget. We spend $50,000 a year on veterans' services. $79.7 million budget, and we spend $50,000 a year. Now, that sounds awful, but that puts us on par with 98% of all the communities in Massachusetts.

And so the problem's not just Swampscott. The problem's everywhere in how we deal with these things. And we, and David, you have pressed it, and I'm happy to have participated and to join you in this.

But you've been leading this, so thank you for that. I think it's, a few years ago, we made the decision as a community to take the Machon Elementary School, once it was no longer used as an elementary school, actually 10 years after it was no longer used as an elementary school, and dedicate that to affordable housing for seniors. And ultimately, the board in town meeting approved 38 one-bedroom units for over 55 affordable residents, and it's been completed.

It's beautiful. It's tremendously successful. Those residents are our neighbors, and many of them were our neighbors before, but now they're neighbors at the Machon School, and it gave us a roadmap, a roadmap that's been tried and tested in the public sector, in the private sector, elsewhere about how to create affordable housing.

And so our hope here is to recreate that success and take a parcel that was on the market for sale that happens to be adjacent to a town-owned parcel, but a parcel that was already approved for significant development, 21 units of development. It was already approved for larger units than likely what will happen now, so it was going to be developed anyways. And a lot of pluses to that was removing, frankly, a somewhat blighted commercial building that sits in a residential neighborhood, and so that's still going to happen, but now what we're going to be able to do is, in addition to providing the veteran senior housing, which I'll talk about a little bit more, we're also going to be able to control the development of that for that neighborhood to make sure that development of that project is done in a way that's least adverse impacts for those neighbors who, for years, have had to deal with a lot of impacts from that commercial property being there. I'm really grateful for the discussions, the preliminary early discussions we've had with the VFW post-1240 leadership. We have a lot more things to talk about with them and appreciate their openness, and I'm not going to characterize it all.

We're going to welcome them to speak, to characterize themselves. We have a lot more conversation to have with our veterans community, but a key element, and I'm going to say it again, that David talked about was that, and my colleagues can correct me if I'm wrong, but this is 100% dependent upon this being veterans affordable housing. That is what motivates us.

That's what drives us to do this. There are other benefits that flow from that, like the ability for us to help the neighborhood and do the development in a really neighborhood-appropriate way, but that's not the driver. The driver here is, and it's dependent upon this being affordable housing for veterans.

We've also committed to bringing and having the VFW posts be part of this project. We're also committed to having other space within the residential building be space where it can be a service space to provide services to veterans, both that live there and veterans in the North Shore area through this. This is somewhat unprecedented.

You're not going to find other communities that are doing this, but what's also unprecedented is a real resurgence in the VFW and our veteran community in recent years. Four of the gentlemen are here tonight that are responsible for it, and there's many others, I'm sure, but you've raised the consciousness that we need to be focusing on those things. Patrick Burke, in particular, I'm going to call you out just because you have not shied away from knocking on doors and ringing doorbells and insisting to have the dialogue, and you've been right the whole way through, and I'm sorry we haven't had the dialogue sooner with others.

But this is, to me, a very exciting path. The last thing I'm going to say is while we anticipate signing the purchase and sale agreement as soon as our next meeting, that would still be dependent upon our conversations with the VFW. That would be dependent upon town meeting approval.

Next meeting, if that's the case, at that point we'll talk about the economics of the deal and share more broadly the economics of the deal. But I will say this. The initial intention at this point is for this project to be funded in significant part with the use of a portion of the town's remaining ARPA funds that we received through the American Recovery Act funds.

And we would also anticipate the Affordable Housing Trust had a meeting tonight, otherwise we would hope that they would have been able to join tonight, but we will also be working with the Affordable Housing Trust. Swampscott Affordable Housing Trust asked them to contribute. And just like the Michon School, we will be doing an RFP for a nonprofit housing partner to actually do the development.

The Michon School was done by B'nai B'rith, who's a nonprofit housing organization. We have to do an RFP like we did for Michon School. We would do an RFP again to do this project with a housing nonprofit.

That housing nonprofit would be making a land payment just like, if you will, consistent with how B'nai B'rith did with the Michon School. So the cost of the town will be reduced by those items, and we'll get into more detail. I know members of the Finance Committee are here tonight, and they will certainly have questions as well, understandably.

But in two weeks' time, we anticipate being able to get into more detail about it. That's all I have. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (47:29 - 48:00)
Thanks, Peter, and thanks, David. And I think I speak for the rest of us when we echo your sentiments. I mean, this is incredibly important, and I agree with the description, unprecedented project and really exciting, I think, for the town and the community and excited to work on it.

And I invite Patrick Burke or others to come down and speak to it if you have questions.

[Speaker 15] (48:01 - 48:02)
Take the microphone.

[Speaker 3] (48:08 - 48:18)
Sorry. Yeah, we can lift it up. We're not on the clock.

Just sit on the floor, Patrick.

[Speaker 1] (48:19 - 48:21)
Give the comments Indian-style way.

[Speaker 10] (48:23 - 48:24)
Crisscross applesauce.

[Speaker 1] (48:24 - 48:25)
Crisscross applesauce.

[Speaker 17] (48:33 - 48:34)
Okay.

[Speaker 16] (48:36 - 49:55)
Good evening. Patrick Burke, 215 Windsor Ave., Swab Scott Mass., Precinct 1. I'm a bit floored.

Peter, thank you for your kind words. Ford, Sean, thank you. This is an unbelievable opportunity for the veteran community.

We've had a very contentious relationship at points, learning on both sides, kind of figuring things out. I think we have a formula for collaboration, success, working together. We have mutual goals in mind.

Obviously nothing is more dear to all of our hearts than taking care of our fellow vets because, God forbid, it could be one of us looking for a home at any time. We're very much looking forward to the process, to seeing where it goes. Malcolm said it best.

This would be unprecedented for anybody, and this would be something we could all be very proud of. On behalf of the VFW leadership team, thank you. It sounds like a great thing.

We're looking forward to working with you and getting through this process. Thank you for looking out for the veterans of the area. Thank you.

Thanks, Patrick, and thanks for coming tonight.

[Speaker 3] (50:02 - 50:04)
Any more comments or questions from the board on that?

[Speaker 1] (50:05 - 50:16)
Pat, Neil, I believe the chair of the Affordable Housing Trust is on her way here, so you should just filibuster or something. Her and Margie are actually on the way over right now, just finished their meeting.

[Speaker 2] (50:16 - 52:32)
I do think it's important to recognize that this is a unique project. We talked about the funding level in the town budget being $50,000, and that does sound mean, but when you think about building veterans housing and really meeting a need for a generation of veterans that oftentimes need housing, need support, need a whole group of assistance. We talked about establishing a satellite location for telehealth, but if we can work with the VFW and the veteran service organizations that have come together over the last year.

This is kind of a new group of veterans groups, five different veterans organizations, Disabled American Veterans and Marine Corps League and VFW. It really is a celebrated group, and I want to just recognize all of those groups that are helping to collaborate and to think out of the box and really find ways and pathways to broader levels of service. Most fundamental is housing.

We know we have a lot of veterans that really struggle, and if we can provide affordable veterans housing, we can wrap around other services that really will help address some of those mental health concerns that we know are going on that. We can address some of the broader needs, too, in terms of access and accessibility. What's most important is creating community.

We want you to feel as though the veterans post, the place where you can go and gather and come together as veterans, really can be enhanced in ways that really meet that spirit. That said, I don't know how long I can continue.

[Speaker 3] (52:33 - 52:34)
You can keep going.

[Speaker 2] (52:34 - 52:35)
We're actually afraid of that answer.

[Speaker 3] (52:36 - 54:04)
As we've been putting it to the test. Coming off of your comments, Patrick, I just want to reiterate. We understand.

It's always when initiatives like these are going on, an executive session or behind the scenes and you're working towards something. I've only been on the board for three years, but it's always great to share it with the public. We also want to acknowledge and recognize this isn't the finish line.

We're just now talking about this publicly. We're talking to you four here tonight, but we know that you four are not the only voices in your community and that you need to have your conversations with each other. There are a lot of questions that need to come to you and through you to us.

We're ready to answer all of those questions and talk through all of those questions and concerns that you all have. I just want to make sure, if that hasn't been clear, that we're making that clear publicly here tonight. I look forward to being at the table with you all as we continue down this road to hopefully making this a reality, an official reality, as Peter and David said, eventually at town meeting.

[Speaker 7] (54:06 - 55:08)
Patrick, again, I just want to thank you for engaging with us. Certainly, you acknowledged the 800-pound elephant in the room at times, the relationship has been contentious, but that didn't involve you. That didn't involve me.

But I hope that we've reset the relationship to the point where we're going to continue having this positive dialogue and continue to just hit the reset button. So I thank you. I thank Dave Emberton and Nelson and certainly Malcolm as well for engaging in these discussions and meeting us.

We'll always make the time to meet with you and discuss any number of issues. So we're here to help. I truly believe that, and I'm looking forward to continuing to build our relationship and move this process forward.

This is quite exciting.

[Speaker 3] (55:11 - 55:37)
Where's Kim? Good timing. Come on down.

Hey, Kim. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

So we're going to move on, but we have Kim Martin Epstein, who's the chair of the Affordable Housing Trust, who just joined us. So, Kim, we've just been discussing this project.

[Speaker 12] (55:37 - 56:01)
I know. We were just having an Affordable Housing Trust meeting, and we're both listening to the select board meeting and meeting. There's, like, a double public meeting happening.

Double meeting. Sorry, I'm panting because I just ran from town hall. From town hall?

I mean, I ran slash Marcy. Ran from the parking lot.

[Speaker 17] (56:01 - 56:02)
I just ran from the parking lot.

[Speaker 12] (56:02 - 58:12)
Where's Marcy? So the Affordable Housing Trust is obviously tasked with helping the town meet affordable housing goals, and we were talking about the housing production plan, and this proposed project obviously meets the requirements of the affordable housing goals in the plan. So that's very exciting.

Thank you for moving forward with what could have only been a thousand conversations and figuring out. One of the things that I wanted to just point out and speak about publicly, because there's very few opportunities for us to do this, is this is the exact kind of project where the combination of the housing, specialized housing, affordable housing, community services, supportive services for a vulnerable group of people who need the housing, will be financed and able to be financed in a way that will make this project happen, you know, with a combination of subsidy and also probably low-income housing tax credits. And the reason that that's important is when you design a project where you put all of these things together, you are able to actually apply for and receive, you know, the nonprofit partner that we eventually choose will be able to apply for and receive significant funding to make this project happen. The number of units will work, and the services that are going to be provided will really make this project work.

This is going to be, you know, similar to the Michonne, a really shining example of something we can do here. So thank you for, you know, the support you've made so far, and thank you to the veterans who are, you know, come on this journey with us, because I think it's going to end up being a really, really excellent project to be proud of. And the Affordable Housing Trust, obviously looking forward to seeing pro formas and schedules of subsidy and things that are going to be needed over the course of the acquisition and then the eventual development, and we're really happy to be able to be in this project from the beginning, because, you know, we didn't exist when the Michonne started.

So this is excellent. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (58:13 - 59:10)
Okay. I just want to just acknowledge Patrick earlier, but Kim, Marzi, Sean, David, who am I missing? Ted Dooley.

Ted Dooley, myself, and some others. I just want to see the point of view. Things are happening when you don't see them.

Kim really assembled a group, and David assembled a group, and we've been meeting regularly to just banter about every possible opportunity for affordable housing, right? And it's been a really healthy dialogue, and at times we leave frustrated, at times we leave hopeful, laughing, sometimes not laughing, but it's really been that kind of focus, which allows us, again, these meetings are really important to share information, but just a reminder, there are just so many volunteers and staff who spend hundreds of hours not in public meetings that are setting up these things to allow this happen, and Kim, you are certainly one of them.

And so your energy on the Affordable Housing Trust is amazing. So thanks.

[Speaker 3] (59:12 - 59:27)
Thanks, Kim. Thanks, Peter. Any other comment from anyone?

Just two minutes. Thank you, guys.

[Speaker 8] (59:28 - 59:28)
Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (59:30 - 59:50)
All right. Look at that. It's 7.01. And we're ready to open our joint meeting with the finance committee. I don't know what Peter's doing. Eric, do you need to open your meeting officially?

[Speaker 13] (59:53 - 59:55)
Oh, okay.

[Speaker 3] (59:57 - 1:00:09)
Diane, can you show me the participant? Yeah. Cinder.

So can you make Cinder a ‑‑ I don't know what it is on Teams.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:11 - 1:00:12)
I can allow her mic.

[Speaker 3] (1:00:12 - 1:00:13)
Yeah, allow her mic.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:13 - 1:00:15)
Eric, you're on there. Pardon?

[Speaker 3] (1:00:15 - 1:00:16)
You're on there.

[Speaker 12] (1:00:16 - 1:00:19)
Yes, I'm on. Can you see anybody else?

[Speaker 13] (1:00:20 - 1:00:38)
You're here and there. It should be possibly a couple of people. You have a quorum?

[Speaker 3] (1:00:39 - 1:00:52)
Okay. Do you have a mic up there? I can't.

Okay. Let's get some microphones. Actually, what do you guys want to do?

I can share.

[Speaker 13] (1:01:04 - 1:01:08)
I think it's going to be mostly listening for us.

[Speaker 5] (1:01:15 - 1:01:17)
This won't be the first one.

[Speaker 16] (1:01:24 - 1:01:25)
What happened?

[Speaker 5] (1:01:45 - 1:01:48)
It's a nice sweater. Nice sweater.

[Speaker 3] (1:02:59 - 1:03:03)
We're just going to take a two-minute break, and then we'll get started with the budget meeting.

[Speaker 5] (1:06:49 - 1:06:54)
Very good. Is she okay? Is she okay?

[Speaker 17] (1:06:58 - 1:06:58)
Good?

[Speaker 3] (1:07:10 - 1:07:32)
Okay. All right. Sorry about that, everyone.

We're back. So, before we get started with the budget presentation, there's a joint meeting with the finance committee. So, I think between who we have on teams as well as in person, we have a quorum.

So, Eric, if you want to kick your meeting off, and then we can get started.

[Speaker 13] (1:07:33 - 1:07:34)
Sure. I'll call the finance committee meeting to order.

[Speaker 17] (1:07:37 - 1:07:38)
That's it?

[Speaker 13] (1:07:38 - 1:07:38)
That's it.

[Speaker 3] (1:07:38 - 1:07:50)
All right. And it looks like we have Cinder, and I think Sunit is on. Suraj is on as well.

Are their mics enabled, Diane?

[Speaker 2] (1:07:51 - 1:07:51)
Yep.

[Speaker 3] (1:07:51 - 1:07:55)
Okay. Great. Okay.

Turning it over to Amy or Sean.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:58 - 1:10:29)
First of all, I just want to thank everybody, thank the finance. Several months we have been working to pull together the FY20-20 budget. This is always a very comprehensive effort.

We began back in December, but really we had a conversation back in the fall about the increasing complexity with putting together a really tight budget. So if we can bring up the presentation, I think we can get started with, you know, we've been looking at national and regional economic data, and it's mixed. I think everybody understands that, you know, we've been dealing with, you know, some of the challenges of COVID-19 and the pandemic, even though we continue to see the challenge with the economy, we have relatively low unemployment rate, which puts a lot of pressure on jobs and employment.

Global supply chains have also been challenging. It seems to have improved a little bit, but we know that we're seeing higher costs for a range of products and a number of services that are higher than a year ago. The Federal Reserve is trying to curb inflation.

We see a lot of, you know, significant, you know, pressure with interest rates continuing to climb. So as we develop the budget, a lot of state finances and uncertain information has come up this week, but certainly, you know, we're still dealing with a very tight conservative estimate on some of the revenues. With this, you know, the town has maintained some good growth.

Our revenue numbers seem to be on target. It also seems to be above our new growth, despite some of these economic challenges. Sorry.

Sorry. So we've been dealing with a lot of financial challenges, like every other city and town. So, Diane, if we can just advance one of the slides.

Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (1:10:39 - 1:10:40)
Yes.

[Speaker 6] (1:10:45 - 1:10:48)
Thank you. Okay. Full screen or small?

[Speaker 3] (1:10:49 - 1:10:50)
You can see it.

[Speaker 14] (1:10:50 - 1:10:51)
Full screen or small?

[Speaker 3] (1:10:51 - 1:11:02)
Yeah. Can you see it full screen? On the computer you can see it?

Okay. All right. So if we can just advance the slides, Diane.

[Speaker 13] (1:11:06 - 1:11:08)
Yeah, we're trying.

[Speaker 12] (1:11:11 - 1:11:13)
Can you X out the participants?

[Speaker 3] (1:11:13 - 1:11:19)
Let's try to get this. Before we go forward, let's see if we can figure this out. Because I think it.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:29 - 1:11:45)
What's hiding? Look at that.

[Speaker 13] (1:11:49 - 1:11:50)
Yeah, I think it will show the whole screen.

[Speaker 10] (1:11:52 - 1:11:53)
Sort of.

[Speaker 17] (1:11:57 - 1:11:59)
I think this might be the biggest.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:11 - 1:12:13)
Is the presentation this thing? Yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:12:15 - 1:12:16)
That's the update.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:16 - 1:12:17)
This is the updated one.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:19 - 1:12:21)
If they don't have it, I'm just wondering if we can give our copies.

[Speaker 17] (1:12:22 - 1:12:23)
All right.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:23 - 1:12:26)
So it's what you guys have here. Also. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:29 - 1:12:31)
I got criticized about paper earlier.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:32 - 1:12:33)
All right. So I think this is.

[Speaker 8] (1:12:34 - 1:12:35)
Can't win.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:35 - 1:12:42)
This is as good as we're going to get it. Okay. Sorry, Sean.

All right.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:43 - 1:14:59)
So if we can just advance to the next slide thing. So the FY 24 budget totals 79,000, 168,000, 623. You know, this is a budget that is 2% plus 425 dollars of new growth.

So it conforms to the select board finance committee policy. This came at a significant amount of effort to really. Cut costs.

Balance the budget using conservative estimates for state aid and local receipts. The budget also includes no cannabis community impact fees. This was a $90,000 reduction.

These host community agreements. We have two cannabis businesses in Swampskate, but they've been subject to current litigation. And it's unlikely we will see that revenue.

The budget does ensure that we have adequate resources for maintaining services. But, you know, we really did curtail a number of new initiatives. We did have a number of departments that requested funds.

Funds well in excess of this number. In fact, almost every department had asked for more than frankly, what we have been able to present. With few exceptions.

The funding does address increased costs due to inflationary pressure. It also includes utility expenses and preventative maintenance agreements that really have helped us curb costs. This budget also includes funding for all town collective bargaining contracts and wage increases.

For union and non-union employees. Next slide. So.

At this point, I'm going to turn it over to our town treasurer. Patrick bloody. He'll give us an update on our current reserve balances and our revenue.

And after that, Amy will step us through the departmental budget. Presentation.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:05 - 1:15:06)
No.

[Speaker 6] (1:15:09 - 1:16:23)
So. Total FY 24 proposed budget is coming in approximately $79 million. And that's broken out into several key categories.

The main functions of government. The largest being education. Next slide.

Before we go into the detail of the FY 24 budget. It would be useful to recap our financial reserves. And our key data points there.

The town continues to benefit from an excellent reserve position. Over the years, we've shown. Growth in this area.

We've reached our highest levels. Of reserve that the town has ever had available. To recap, we have.

Free cash available. After the appropriations made a town meeting of $2.1 million. We have a general stabilization balance of.

$6.2 million. Excess levy capacity of $8.9 million, which is. Significant.

As a percent of the total maximum levy, that's about 15%. Not a lot of communities have that. So that's awesome.

I just want to mention that.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:24 - 1:16:56)
Excess levy capacity isn't really a reserve. It's actually. Recognized by our rating agencies as a sign of our financial strength.

But it's essentially. Untaxed. Authorization in Massachusetts.

Proposition two and a half. We can only tax. Two and a half percent over.

The prior year. And so we've been building up this. Reserve levy capacity.

And again, what I think that shows is that we're. We're trying to stay within our means. And we're trying to be careful.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:57 - 1:17:00)
Can I just ask? Are we doing questions as we go? I think so.

[Speaker 3] (1:17:01 - 1:17:01)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:17:01 - 1:17:15)
I just want to maybe Patrick. Can you just help us understand? I think just people see big free cash.

Big stabilization. They say, well, then why do we have problems funding our operating budget? So it's free cash and stabilization available for use.

In our operating budget. And if so, is it a good idea or a bad idea to use it?

[Speaker 6] (1:17:15 - 1:17:50)
In the operating budget. It's been practiced that we do not assume. Use of free cash or reserves.

To balance the budget. Why? Because it's not.

A. Recurring revenue source. It is a product of.

Revenues and excessive estimates. And. Expenses.

That come in under budget. So that is not a guarantee every year as we tighten the budget. And as economic conditions change and revenue.

Revenue streams. Get tight. That number of windows.

Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:50 - 1:18:01)
Patrick, where do we. We have policies. That give us.

Give us a clear vision on where we're going to be on all of these stabilization funds. Where are we in relation to our policies?

[Speaker 6] (1:18:02 - 1:18:10)
We are. Generally within policy, but I'm not going to talk about it a lot. Because there's actually a later slide that lays out.

Exactly what you are asking.

[Speaker 4] (1:18:10 - 1:18:10)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:18:11 - 1:18:15)
And Amy will discuss that later. You want to go to the next slide?

[Speaker 3] (1:18:19 - 1:18:23)
And members of the finance committee, please feel free to. Jump in.

[Speaker 6] (1:18:26 - 1:19:34)
So just an overview of how the presentation is going to be laid out. We're going to discuss. Generally revenue estimates and the budget process.

And then we'll go through. At a high level, the different functions of the general government budget. We'll discuss challenges that we're facing with the FYI.

24 budget that will be of interest to you all as we proceed. And then. Questions at the end, but certainly questions as we go.

As the board pleases. And the committee. Next slide.

This slide. Shows historical data regarding state aid. State aid is provided to municipalities in the Commonwealth by statute.

And it is determined through. The governor's budget process. And then through additional.

Legislative steps through the house and the Senate. Over the past three years, the town has seen a 3.3% increase in their state aid. Which is not insignificant, but certainly.

We. Always want more help as much help as we can justify and ask for. So.

[Speaker 7] (1:19:35 - 1:19:42)
Patrick. Patrick is the, is the 3.3% increase in state aid. Is that net.

Of what they're assessing us.

[Speaker 4] (1:19:43 - 1:19:45)
Or no, this is just an increase of the receipt.

[Speaker 6] (1:19:46 - 1:20:14)
The receipt side. Got it. And when we did.

Begun to develop this budget. We did not have the. Governor's budget in hand to give us those preliminary state aid numbers.

So we. As is best practice, use conservative estimates. We assumed a 1% growth on state aid.

Since then. The governor's budget has been released and we won't talk about the updates that we got in the final hour. Which changes these numbers slightly.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:14 - 1:20:28)
Can assess that we're really careful when we're talking about increases. We really should be talking about net. Yeah.

Just, I mean, when you get to that slide, because the gross number means nothing. It's the net number that matters to us because assessments are where we're getting. Crushed.

You're right. Yours on assessments. So, okay.

[Speaker 17] (1:20:29 - 1:20:29)
Exactly.

[Speaker 6] (1:20:30 - 1:21:26)
Next slide. Diane. Beyond state aid, we have.

Several. Major categories of other revenues. Primarily property tax.

The town. Continues to be relying on property tax to fund the majority of its general government operations. We also have charges for services, which fund our.

Enterprises. So your water and sewer use charges. Our cable access or charges.

And solid waste fees, such as over overflow bag purchases and things like that. That self-sustain those programs. State aid.

We just discussed. Other local receipts would include departmental receipts. Excise taxes.

Fees and penalties. Anything that is not covered by property tax. A fee associated with a service.

[Speaker 17] (1:21:29 - 1:21:29)
Sure.

[Speaker 6] (1:21:44 - 1:22:58)
Yes, I can speak to it. I'm going to speak in the microphone just so everyone can hear me. I'm going to turn my back to you.

So. There are two revenue streams that. We anticipate from cannabis businesses that we.

Enter into an agreement with and that operate in the town. The first is a local option excise tax, which is 3%. Of gross sales.

And that we do collect from the two establishments on a quarterly basis. They file returns with the state and then the funds are subsequently turned over to the town. 30 days later.

The other revenue stream that is anticipated are cannabis community impact fees. And. The agreements were written so that that would be also a percentage of sales.

There has been contention and. Litigation at the state level. That.

Questions that practice a percentage of sales. So at this time, our ability to collect. As a percentage of sales uncertain and.

The amount, if any, we could collect is uncertain. So we've assumed zero in this budget to be conservative. And that's, that's an ongoing discussion.

[Speaker 4] (1:23:00 - 1:24:03)
I'm sorry. Just for clarification. Legislation was passed in November of 2022.

That unless you can justify using prior year. Actuals. Of the direct impact that that cannabis.

Business has had on your community. And have direct costs that you are not able to just assess a flat fee. With the.

Cannabis company. So for this purpose, we have. At the advice of other communities.

And the advice of the MMA. As we've gone with zero percent, which is what most. Communities have done.

Just because the threshold for. Showing the impact that it has had on the community is so high. Especially when you have cannabis shops in neighboring communities.

And more than one shop within your community, you'd have to be able to directly say that this one. Is what caused. Increase police activity increased.

Wear and tear on your roads. Any other impact like that?

[Speaker 6] (1:24:04 - 1:24:17)
Yeah. Just to answer the second part of Naomi's question in. Developing the FY 23 budget.

We assumed $90,000. Derived from community impact fees from cannabis establishments. So in this budget, we're assuming zero.

[Speaker 13] (1:24:19 - 1:24:26)
Patrick, we haven't received anything that we've got. They might have to give back. Go ahead.

Go ahead, Mary.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:26 - 1:24:29)
Are there other communities that are assessing this tax?

[Speaker 4] (1:24:32 - 1:24:56)
There's impact fee. There probably are. I have not heard of any of them.

But I would assume out of the. Ones that there are there. Most likely is a few.

That are, you have to do it a year in a rear. So it would have to be the communities that already. Had establishments open for more than.

Prior fiscal year. Where they'd be able to track those costs.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:57 - 1:25:15)
So the worry is, are we being too conservative here? I mean, Peter's. Spoke about this.

I don't know if it was the last meeting or the meeting before, but. I do have reservations. If we're being too conservative.

When there are other communities. That are receiving money on these impact fees.

[Speaker 6] (1:25:16 - 1:25:24)
Just to respond a little bit to your point. I think. Budgeting.

This conservatively makes a lot of sense.

[Speaker 17] (1:25:25 - 1:25:25)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:25:25 - 1:25:31)
I think it doesn't preclude us from receiving unbudgeted revenues. If conditions change during the year. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:25:31 - 1:27:35)
So I think that what happened, Mary Ellen was the. Cannabis control control commission has not issued guidelines. Since the legislation was passed.

And so they have not said. Definitively whether or not they're going to effectively invalidate existing host community agreements that have the flat 3%. In it or not.

So there's an interpretation, right? Typically with a statute, there's regulations. The CCC is the one that creates the regulation, if you will.

For, for this law and the CCC hasn't issued that regulation. It is widely believed and abundantly. Conservative town councils across the state have advised and the MMA has advised that.

It's probably going to get next. And so don't assume you're going to get your 3%. If you had it in your agreement.

So I think that's, that's where the confusion is, is that. People are making that assumption now, even though the CCC actually hasn't issued its formal guidance yet to say definitively, we are going to revisit. All the post agreements that have been signed in, as opposed to doing it prospectively.

Which is let these community host agreements play themselves out. For the number of years that they were assigned for. And then the next one, get it right.

And the argument there is the state actually set up the system to encourage municipalities to approve licenses. And as soon as the state, the cities and towns did it. And got the revenue, which the statute allowed.

For some reason, there was a successful lobbying campaign to say, let's now change the rules and take away that revenue that we actually promised the cities and towns to get them to give licenses in the first instance. So the counter argument is you're changing the rules after we gave the licenses. You should at least let us play out the current community host agreements.

The CCC has been quiet on it. It is suspected that they're not going to just let it play out. They're going to support the industry side of this and say that you need to document actual charges.

So I think, while I don't agree with us not seeking them from our applicants, I think for budgeting purposes, I agree. But I personally think we should be seeking them from our applicant and let our applicant kick and scream, frankly, and make a fuss. It's just my personal opinion.

[Speaker 2] (1:27:35 - 1:28:07)
We certainly are going to seek it. It's just a question that gets back to food and budgeting. We don't want to be in a position six months into the fiscal year and have zero revenue depending on it.

It's just too much of a risk for a budgeting purpose. But we'll go after the revenue. We'll ask them to honor their contractual agreement with the town and agree with everything that Peter had said.

It's unfortunate that they've been able to lobby and undermine the good faith efforts to regulate the business.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:09 - 1:28:24)
Something that came up when we talked about this last time was this idea that Terpian Journey specifically is a social equity business and that we could potentially be capturing a portion of their sales tax. Do we find out more about that?

[Speaker 4] (1:28:25 - 1:28:48)
I reached out to the DOR, and Margie has as well. We've been working with them to figure out the application process for that, which would make us eligible for 0.5% of the sales tax that Terpian Team pays over to the state. So we're still working on that.

But I have been told that we'll be able to get it retroactively in the fiscal year once we do get it.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:48 - 1:28:52)
But we're not budgeting for that either, but we're pursuing it.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:52 - 1:28:57)
Yeah, we're unclear because they're a newer business. We're not sure what their revenue is yet.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:57 - 1:29:06)
Right. Don't know what it would be. Okay.

Great. Thanks, Margie, too, for looking into that.

[Speaker 6] (1:29:07 - 1:29:34)
Yep. Just really quickly, two other categories of revenues that are shown on here. Intergovernmental revenues.

These are indirect costs that we recover from enterprise fund operations, which really just means costs that we couldn't otherwise directly account for in the enterprise fund but pertain to those operations and get charged to the general fund. We reimburse for it through an agreed-upon allocation, and that's been best practice.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:35 - 1:29:36)
So what's an example of that?

[Speaker 6] (1:29:37 - 1:29:40)
Postage or our audit.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:40 - 1:29:55)
So based off a percentage, we charge the water, sewer, and cable access for their percentage of the audit cost. But it's not something that we would pay out of each different fund.

[Speaker 6] (1:29:56 - 1:30:16)
Yes. And then there's one-time revenues are shown on here. As practice, we do not budget for one-time revenues, free cash, et cetera, for the reasons that we expressed earlier, but it does show historical use.

So with that, I would like to turn it over to Amy to discuss a little bit more about the budget process.

[Speaker 4] (1:30:20 - 1:32:19)
So our FY24 budget development process, we began the process in early December of this year, asking all of our department heads to come up with two different scenarios, the first one being level funded, so the exact same dollar amount that they had for FY23. They would do the same thing in FY24, reallocating those within the lines for where they feel it's most needed. And scenario two was a 10% reduction.

This was our worst-case scenario. You know, with the discussions of an upcoming recession, we weren't sure when it was going to hit, how much it was going to hit. We wanted to go through the exercise of how can you still perform your core function, your core missions to the town with reduced expenses or reduced staffing, however you need to do that to make it happen.

Those department budgets were due back to us December 28th, and then myself and the rest of the finance team met with each department head to go through their different budget scenarios, work out a combination budget that met the needs that they had as well as met the financial policies of the town. As Sean mentioned earlier, obviously most of the department heads wanted more money. We ended up having to reduce a little over $1.5 million from the request from the department heads down to the actual budget that is before you today. In order to balance this budget, we did have to make reductions to snow and ice health insurance, below projections, and a few other key areas, but we did prioritize funding for current staff and the necessary vacancies that we have as well as those core mission-critical programs.

[Speaker 17] (1:32:21 - 1:32:22)
Next slide.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:24 - 1:35:04)
As discussed, our FY24 budget follows our 2% plus $425,000 of new growth policy, giving the general fund guideline of $69,876,998. This budget also includes $9.29 million for the enterprise funds. Water, sewer, and public access are all self-sustaining.

The solid waste enterprise fund, being in its second year, is still subsidized by the general fund tax subsidy. Next slide. I'm going to get into the budget cost centers.

Obviously, feel free to interrupt as you need to. First is the administration and finance department. This is inclusive of the select board, town administrator, accounting, assessing, treasury and collecting, IT, parking enforcement, legal and liability insurance, HR, our salary reserves and end of employment, and the town clerk and elections.

The total of these is a decrease of $49,452, or 1.55% under the FY23 budget. Major drivers in these categories are a new permanent assessor that you just appointed tonight, a reduction in the salary reserve. As you remember last year during the budget cycle, we had increased that because we had ongoing negotiations with collective bargaining units.

Those have been settled, so we obviously lessened the reserve this year. It also includes the anticipated end of employment cost for the town and school for the known retirements. Hearing no questions, next slide.

Next is community and economic development. This is inclusive of the conservation commission, community development, board of appeals, building, health, recreation, and historical commission, with the caveat being this is the general fund portion of recreation, not the recreation revolving fund. This includes an increase of $15,464, or 2% over last year.

This includes the change from a senior planner to an assistant director of community development, as well as an increase of the state weight to measures to increase their fee from $5,000 to $10,000 annually. Next slide. I have a quick question on that.

[Speaker 5] (1:35:04 - 1:35:09)
Why are you changing from a senior planner to an assistant director of community development?

[Speaker 4] (1:35:10 - 1:35:31)
This was because the senior planner position has been vacant, and due to the needs of the department and the hiring right now, that was the salary and title that we had the best chance of getting the most qualified individuals. I believe the town administrator discussed this multiple times with the board.

[Speaker 2] (1:35:33 - 1:36:16)
Yeah, we discussed the importance of filling that position. We did have to go back and update the job description, and it was recommended that we make the position a little bit more attractive to individuals. We found that a number of communities were looking for a senior planner or town planner, and we wanted to increase the salary and really look at an opportunity for a number of individuals to get that career advancement.

And it has worked, and we currently do have a number of candidates that I am interviewing with, and I do believe we will be filling that position shortly.

[Speaker 4] (1:36:24 - 1:37:13)
Next we have public service, which is our facilities, cemetery, public works, and snow and ice. The proposed budget includes a decrease of $91,063 for 4.4% under last year. This includes a reduction to snow and ice of $45,000, which was done to balance the budget.

It also includes some shifting in facilities from a permanent staff member, which has been vacant, to having that be done as a consulting for cost-saving measures. The facilities department as a whole is still split with the staff, 60% school, 40% for the town. Only town expenses are included in this.

The school houses their expenses on their side.

[Speaker 3] (1:37:14 - 1:37:24)
So you're saying there was a position in facilities in fiscal 23 that was vacant, and we're now budgeting for that to be paid for outside?

[Speaker 4] (1:37:24 - 1:38:06)
The facilities director had three positions that he was looking to staff, two of which he was able to staff by taking two current staff members from the school and making them shared positions as well. So they are also following the 60-40 split. The third one was a more specialized position that we've been having a great deal of difficulty finding someone who has the correct experience and licenses.

And in searching for that vacancy, the director has found that he can consult and get a contractor to do it for a much significant savings and still have the same impact. So that's the route that we're taking. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:38:06 - 1:38:23)
On the facility director, if the facility director, during one of our meetings there was a comment that the facility director was spending a good amount of time dealing with the new school building. Are we getting relief from the percentage of his salary?

[Speaker 4] (1:38:23 - 1:38:31)
Is that going into the budget for the new school? The facility director? Right.

His salary is?

[Speaker 2] (1:38:32 - 1:38:43)
It's an operating cost. We're going to have a facility director working on all new buildings or old buildings. It's just part of a facility director's responsibility.

[Speaker 5] (1:38:43 - 1:38:57)
My understanding was that we could include a percentage of that salary in the bonded money that we're getting for the new school or for a new project.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:59 - 1:39:41)
So I agree with Mary Ellen. I think we've had conversations about new projects, but the school aside just for a second. New projects, I think you guys had some preliminary outreach to bond council and town council to say how much of, if we are appropriating, again, $300,000 for an HVAC project, how much can we, what percentage of that can we ascribe to oversight, if you will, of that project and charge back the town personnel?

And I believe there was an answer that came back saying there is a percentage. And so I guess the question is, have we started employing that or in the fiscal year 24 capital projects, is that included in the assumptions so that when we see $5 million of capital projects, we know that there is a reimbursement potentially of up to 5% or whatever the percentage is?

[Speaker 4] (1:39:41 - 1:39:56)
We have not included that in the budgeting for this year purely because if none of those projects move forward, we still have to pay this individual his salary. So for budgeting purposes, we've budgeted the entirety of what we have to pay.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:56 - 1:39:57)
Yeah, that actually makes sense to me.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:57 - 1:40:50)
So I'm very much interested in following up with a project manager or a consultant that would help us with a number of capital projects that tend to take up a lot of staff time that would help us expedite the coordination. So we have looked at language. We've talked to bond counsel about making sure that we can identify and get the right percentage for the contractors.

But the challenge is just making sure the project manager keeps accurate records and they can only charge to each of the projects the percentage of the total project cost. So there's a nuance to it, but I'm sure that we can capture a piece of the...

[Speaker 1] (1:40:50 - 1:42:26)
So is that, I'm sure we can? Is that a commitment starting with the fiscal year 24 projects to start factoring that in? So just make sure then the numbers that you're putting forth for your fiscal year 24 projects assume that as well because you've just taken 5% off those projects effectively if you're going to do that.

I just want to make sure that we still have enough money to do that. As to the school, Mary Ellen, which is a really good question, we pay a pretty significant OPM fee on a project manager, and that's the typical model. The reality is you can't pay anybody to be the owner.

The owner is the owner, and so what happens is, and this is true of all construction projects, but on the public ones and the school side particularly, we have to have an OPM from pre-selected firms from the state for us to interview and do RFPs with. The time, we don't get to charge back Max's time, but to make you feel better, Max is saving the town tens of thousands of dollars each single meeting just because he's there able to make decisions that the OPM wouldn't make without someone from the town or the schools being sitting right next to him and saying, okay, I'm comfortable making that decision. So it's a little bit hollow, but I sit in on the Thursday meetings and listen to him, and he sits on the Tuesday meetings as well with the subcontractor, so he knows where all the problems are, he knows in advance what's coming down the pike so that he can make judgment calls.

So I sit here, it's unfortunate that he gets distracted because there's so many other things that he needs to work on, but I will tell you he's paying us in spades by the amount of money he's saving on a weekly basis being in those meetings. Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 2] (1:42:47 - 1:43:45)
I don't believe so. I think, again, as Peter mentioned, we pay a significant amount of cost to the OPM, Owner's Project Manager. They are hired to represent the owners.

As Peter mentioned, it's important that the owners, the town employees do represent the town's interest. We do have a robust school building committee, and I do think Swansgate is in a very good position in terms of how we have assembled a team to help manage the construction costs and schedule. That said, I'm also mindful of just how constrained our budget is.

Our budget is very tight. We have built a very tight municipal budget, and if we're going to comply to guidelines that have been set to balance the financial priorities of the town, I think we have to do our best to live within our means and be as strategic as we can.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:45 - 1:45:01)
Matt, in the future, I don't know of any school, and I'm not an expert on the 3011 in doing that, in addition to we pay three-plus million dollars for the OPM, just to give you a sense for our project. It's a pretty big cost. I will say that having the Facilities Director be your point person is actually quite brilliant because a lot of the conversations that we're having have operational efficiency implications.

When you make a decision to save on a capital cost, going from one mechanical system to another mechanical system, the tradeoff typically is operational cost differential. You're saying, I'm going to get my capital budget in, I'm fine, but as a result we're just not going to be as efficient with our utilities or as efficient with our energies or as efficient with our windows or our lighting or things of that nature. So having the Facilities Director who's responsible for those budgets, thinking about that when he's making the decisions, he's kind of representing both sides.

He's making sure the capital budget comes in and we're coming in there, but he's also making sure that we're doing no unconscious decisions about operational implications of the decisions that need to be made. So it's actually having that actual person of max, or the Facilities Director who knows both sides, is actually quite good for us because he's balancing those when making decisions as to when we have budget choices and things to make.

[Speaker 17] (1:45:07 - 1:45:07)
Next slide.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:11 - 1:45:51)
So next is our Public Safety, which is Police, Fire, Constables, Harbormaster, and Emergency Management. This includes the proposed budget increase of $339,100, or 4.33% over last year's budget. The major drivers are the Collective Bargaining Agreement, COLAs, as well as an anticipated increase to Lend-Dispatch Contract, which is still in negotiation.

When did that expire, or when is it expiring? Lynn has begun negotiations for FY24, so the Town Administrator is already working with their Mayor and both Fire Chiefs are working together on that.

[Speaker 5] (1:45:51 - 1:45:54)
Are we still under contract, or are we out of contract?

[Speaker 4] (1:45:54 - 1:46:59)
No, we're still under. Next is Human Services. This is inclusive of our Senior Center, our Veteran Services, and Library.

There is a proposed budget increase of $16,686, or 1.42%, which includes continued investments in our Community Programming and an increased cost to the Library Noble Network. Next slide. Our Public and Regional Tech School.

The proposed budget includes an increase of $785,796, or 2.6% over the FY23 budget for the Public Schools, and a $31,524, or 5%, increase for the Regional Vote Tech. This increase does not include the funding to the School Department from Non-Resident Tuition Revolving Fund, which is $1,647,314. Next slide.

[Speaker 13] (1:47:01 - 1:47:06)
Amy, can I ask a question on that? Yes. Unless you're going to go further into school on your next slides.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:06 - 1:47:06)
Yes.

[Speaker 13] (1:47:08 - 1:47:31)
I just want to understand, you know, from the school committee meetings, there were a few different sets of numbers presented, as Amy spoke to tonight. I just want to be clear, like, what's in the version that we're seeing that's been recommended by the town from a circuit breaker perspective and from there being, like, a placeholder for cuts in the original school budget and one of the earlier versions. I just want clarity on those items.

[Speaker 4] (1:47:31 - 1:48:11)
Yeah, so our budget only pertains to the town appropriation for the general fund, so we have no—we don't propose any budget that is circuit breaker. This is the amount that we had given to the school as the recommended budget that is the same increase as the general fund because the school committee hadn't voted in time for us to factor anything in. And this is what we went with is what we can fit in the budget, which is the 2.6%. I know the school committee did end up voting a higher amount than the superintendent originally presented.

[Speaker 2] (1:48:12 - 1:48:35)
I guess it may be better to just answer. This is the number that I set for the school department. I talked to the superintendent about this.

We shared a number of conversations about how we all had to live within, you know, a financial structure that would allow us to balance the broader priorities of the town.

[Speaker 13] (1:48:37 - 1:48:43)
Yeah, no, that answers the question. So it's really just—it's not what was submitted in any version from the superintendent or the school department.

[Speaker 2] (1:48:43 - 1:48:56)
It's really just the— No, the superintendent's initial budget was within line with this. So, again, that's not the school department's budget, though. The budget that is presented is the one that's voted by the school committee.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:03 - 1:50:11)
I wanted to show an overall education cost. So in FY23, public education accounted for approximately 64% of all general fund spending, or $43,467,000, 44% of which was direct appropriations, which is the school appropriations. The other 20% were indirect costs, which I have a list at the bottom of the slide, but it's inclusive of all of the items that the town general fund pays for for the schools, like the property insurance, their portion of the retirement assessment, end-of-employment Medicare taxes, the Essex Voc Tech School, trash, field lining, labor, health insurance, auto insurance, workers' comp, and the debt.

The remaining 36% of the FY23 general fund, or $24,616,000, is shared amongst the rest of the government functions, so public works, public safety, administration, community development, recreation, health, all of that.

[Speaker 17] (1:50:12 - 1:50:13)
Next slide.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:13 - 1:51:25)
Can I just—so I'm glad you're showing it like this. We've talked for years about showing it like this, just so we had it out there. But I do feel as though, again, these are gross costs, not net, right?

So I think it does, in a very small way, but I think it's important just to put it out there, it overstates the actual cost implication because there are some specific line items that help offset some of these specific costs. Let's just use Voc Tech schools as an example. That is a dedicated revenue source for that purpose, right?

So it makes it—I'm now suggesting we go to another level of complexity, just because—and it's really hard to do in one slide, for sure, but the point is it's not going to make a huge difference from what's set here, but there are certain indirect costs, like you mentioned, right? Voc Tech charter school, or things of that nature, that we do have dedicated reimbursement, albeit wildly insufficient. And so maybe there's a way to do it that what we're doing is just the delta between the cost minus how much money we receive, and that delta is what we just use to show it, because in truth, I know money's fungible, it doesn't matter, but in truth, the state does give us money for Voc Tech assessments, right?

So it's just something to think about.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:25 - 1:51:31)
Yeah, so on the state aid, they no longer break out anything for the Voc Tech.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:31 - 1:51:32)
Well, never mind then.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:32 - 1:51:43)
So, yeah, if you fill up our cherry sheet for the last few years, that line's actually zero. So it may be baked into another line, but we don't have a clear revenue line for that anymore.

[Speaker 1] (1:51:44 - 1:51:56)
Yeah, it's interesting because in the budget it does reflect in the budget, but you get a cherry sheet that rolls it up. In the state budget, it does allocate money specifically for these line items, right? But the cherry sheet, you guys don't get that specific breakout.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:57 - 1:52:03)
Yeah, so our vocational school line has been zero for a couple of years.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:03 - 1:52:52)
But I do think it would be helpful for us, just so we can understand just the facts of the costs that we expend, but also the charges that we are also assessed as part of the cherry sheet. We have paid a significant amount more over the last seven years just in charges for charter schools and for other costs. And so when we think about education, there's the Swampskate cost for the Swampskate High School, the Swampskate School District, and then there are other costs that are increasing at rates that are way outside of our financial policies.

So it adds additional pressure on the overall budget.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:53 - 1:53:14)
So I have a little bit of confusion over the school budget. I just want some clarity. I want clarity from somebody.

Yeah. Because I watched all the school committee meetings, and the school committee voted for a higher budget. But are you saying the superintendent, and you had a conversation, the superintendent can work within the budget number that you gave us?

[Speaker 2] (1:53:14 - 1:53:22)
I'm not going to speak to the superintendent, but I gave the superintendent a number that is in this budget, and that's the number that we discussed.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:22 - 1:53:28)
Okay, then I misunderstood, because I thought, that's why I wanted clarity on it, because I thought that you had said that she could work within that number.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:28 - 1:53:55)
Yeah, but she, I think just, I appreciate getting this thing away from the characterization, but she did issue a budget to the school committee that used Sean's number. Then there was a subsequent conversation with the school committee. I think there was a request for her to go back and revisit, and she did, and she came back with a different number, which ultimately the school committee approved.

But her initial produced budget was consistent with Sean's number, but the school committee, through dialogue, and I'm sure she was happy to have more money, but it's through dialogue that they did that.

[Speaker 4] (1:53:56 - 1:55:00)
Okay, thank you. So this is a table that the school actually put in one of their presentations, which I thought was helpful. So they broke down the FY23 budget by the cost centers of the town and the percentage of the total general fund that it was.

I took it a step further and made those Schedule 19 adjustments for the things that the town pays for that are for the school. And so you can see that there. So the total school spending, much similar to the prior slide, is 64%.

So their table in their presentation showed, based off the FY23 average tax bill, what percentage of it was spent on these categories. So I did the same thing just to highlight here where the average single family tax bill was once adjusted for those numbers.

[Speaker 5] (1:55:02 - 1:55:10)
So what you're saying here is on the average single tax bill, what's the number that's shown there?

[Speaker 4] (1:55:10 - 1:55:32)
9,667. Yep, so if you are Swamp Scots, one average single family whose tax bill for FY23 is $9,667, this is where each of those dollars went throughout the FY23 budget.

[Speaker 5] (1:55:34 - 1:55:36)
And what percentage was the school?

[Speaker 4] (1:55:37 - 1:55:40)
63.9%. 63.9?

[Speaker 5] (1:55:40 - 1:55:41)
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 1] (1:55:43 - 1:56:28)
So I appreciate you breaking it out like this, but I cringe when I'm in jurisdictions in the states where they actually on tax bills break out what percentage is assessed because of school versus general government. I think it's just a horrendous policy because it reinforces this idea that only people that have kids in school should be paying for education, and that's just so fundamentally wrong. And so I think this is helpful maybe for some analytics here, but I also want to be careful about isolating it because it's part of our solution.

Yeah, but it's out there now, but it's part of our social contract. Our social contract is we all pay for all, right? It's not based on the number of times you call the fire department or the police department or how many times your street is paved.

Like we all do. So I just really want to say that because I think it's important.

[Speaker 2] (1:56:28 - 1:57:08)
I appreciate that. Look, I want to get away from the us and them, frankly. I feel like, you know, it's important for us to just understand we have statutory obligations to our young citizens, and we have a ethical obligation to everybody else that we balance the financial priorities of the town.

It's just important for us to understand the numbers. And I think Amy and the finance team, you know, have tried to do their best just to say, hey, when we look at the numbers, you know, when we try to get some proportional sense of where we're prioritizing the budget, here's where they lie. I do think it's important for us to do our best to help everybody understand that this is not really where we want to see.

[Speaker 1] (1:57:08 - 1:57:58)
No, right. So I'm just advocating let's get on the cost sides. Breaking it down is helpful.

I think breaking it in percentages is helpful, right? But this is a buffet. When you pay your tax bill, you're paying a buffet.

You can eat one plate. You can eat 20 plates. Who cares?

You're all paying the same price unless you're under 16. But, you know, and I want us to reinforce that mentality because I think it's really wildly important that we do that because you can use any or all of the services. They're there for everyone regardless of demographic and any other difference out there.

I just think that's a really important social contract that we just need to just be careful we don't overanalyze to inadvertently cause a dialogue to get to, you know. I know I get $167 worth of human services. I'm fine with that line item, but I'm not fine with the $105 of community development because I don't even know what community development is, right?

I want to avoid that mentality. That's all.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:59 - 1:58:03)
I also don't want to increase public safety calls so that people feel like they're getting their $1,100 worth.

[Speaker 1] (1:58:05 - 1:58:06)
Fair enough. Fair enough.

[Speaker 17] (1:58:07 - 1:58:08)
Next slide, please.

[Speaker 4] (1:58:11 - 1:58:12)
Patrick, do you want to talk on debt?

[Speaker 6] (1:58:12 - 1:59:18)
I'm going to slide in briefly and discuss our debt service cost center, which is significant. This cost center grew a significant amount for fiscal 23 for our capital needs, specifically our new school project that's underway, which we are all excited about. Just to highlight where the debt service budget is going for fiscal 24, we're seeing long-term debt mature and roll off, so we're benefiting from a 5% reduction in our budget for principal payments.

We are seeing interest payments increase 15%. We have temporary financing that we took on for land acquisition, and also we are taking on for our regular capital plans that were approved in 2020, 2021, and 2022 as those projects roll out. Overall, the debt service budget is increasing 3.1% for $217,000. Next slide.

[Speaker 4] (1:59:21 - 2:00:53)
Employee benefits. This cost center is proposed with an increase of $533,325, or 4%. This is due to an increase of payroll tax based off of our year-to-date trend so far this year.

Increases to health insurance. The actual rates won't be released until just before open enrollment in April, and our pension contribution. As of right now, this 4% is actually not the full amount that we need for our employee benefits.

We had to reduce the contingency to zero on our health insurance in order to balance the budget. It is currently at 2.6% instead of the 5.3% that we had from projections. According to the Massachusetts GIC presentation that they released last month, we could see health insurance increases of up to 8.1%. We will find that out in April. As of right now, as the state aid increases, we will be allocating that money back into health insurance to replenish that contingency. As it stands right now, if one person were to switch from an individual to family plan, or a new hire would take our health insurance, it would now be unbudgeted. It's important to stress this.

[Speaker 2] (2:00:55 - 2:01:49)
We've got a pretty tight number for our employee health care. Tighter than it's ever been. This budget is tighter than it's ever been.

Every year, this budget gets tighter and tighter. I think it's important to understand that as the state budget comes up, the governor releases the budget, and if there's additional funding in that budget, we're going to need to reallocate all of the additional funding likely to these employee benefit lines, just to have enough of the contingency, based on what the group insurance commission is projecting for increases in health care costs. Those are going to be significant.

I don't think it's likely that we're going to see health care costs for the town come in lower than what we've estimated in this budget. We don't have a significant contingency.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:50 - 2:02:58)
I guess I want to ask, last year, just to kind of go through the process, we got to the end of the... We were in a similar situation, again, not just to focus on the town general government versus school budget, but we were in a similar situation where you and the superintendent were charged with working out, reconciling two different numbers, and coming back with a recommendation right before town meeting. One of the budgets or one of the assessments changed favorably.

We were getting more money, or net more money to us, and we actually, in that environment, applied it to the schools, or proportionally applied it to the schools. I just want to make sure that that spirit of... I mean, I'm just looking, for example, in the cherry sheets, which literally came out at 4 o'clock, 3 o'clock today, so you guys are going to talk about it in a second, but it literally came out at 4 o'clock today, which is like the worst day possible for you.

It would have been great if it came out 4 o'clock yesterday, right? But it does show education receipts or Chapter 70 money, an increase. Now, that's a gross increase.

I haven't figured out the net increase yet, but if there is a net increase, just to make sure that spirit of division, because you guys worked fine with that last year. I'm just making sure that that concept, notwithstanding what you just said, because I'm not quite sure what you just said, to be honest with you.

[Speaker 17] (2:02:58 - 2:02:59)
Health care costs.

[Speaker 1] (2:02:59 - 2:03:02)
No, no, I understand health care costs, but I'm just saying...

[Speaker 2] (2:03:02 - 2:03:03)
Seventy-eight percent of these costs are school-related.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:03 - 2:04:04)
No, no, no, but no, no, it's not, but don't... Health care costs are health care costs. It doesn't matter whose it is for the most part.

They're going up regardless of where they work, so let's not focus on it. What I'm trying to say, though, is if the cherry sheets come back favorably over assumptions that you have made, I'm just saying that I don't believe... Last year, you didn't do this, and I don't think you should do it.

I'm just expressing an opinion that you can't just take care of your concerns. I believe the spirit that bridged the gap last year was when the assessments came in or when the cherry sheets came in more favorably net than our general assumptions that that was... The benefit was shared.

How it was, I can't remember exactly proportionally or whatever it was, but that it can't just all be taken... And I know you're going to say, well, I had a... You're going to say, well, I already feel like I'm under-budgeting snow and ice and health care, right, because you said earlier snow and ice.

You're making assumptions, and God help us if Mother Nature tells us differently, but you've done that, and you're saying, well, I want to replenish those before I split the money. I'm going to use snow and ice because that's just an easier concept.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:04 - 2:04:06)
Those are the two things that I'm thinking about.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:06 - 2:04:54)
Right, but I'm just saying I hear you, but then I would also caution you about putting out a budget that has that vulnerability for you. And I know what it did. I know what it did, Sean.

It kept you from having to cut heads and payroll. I get that, but it just makes it harder because if I was sitting on the school committee, I would make this argument. I would say the assessments came in better, then why are we not getting 63 percent of that or whatever it is, 60 percent, whatever the number is.

Why aren't we getting that? Your answer is a fine answer, but it's a more complicated answer, which is, hey, we already balanced the budget on our side disproportionately. Public works is down 4 percent.

Human services is only going up 1 percent. So I need to replenish some of those buckets first. I know that's the argument, and I'm not disagreeing with it.

I'm just saying it's much more complicated. It is.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:54 - 2:06:04)
And, again, I'm happy to have these conversations. We've had a great relationship with the school committee and the school finance committee over the last five years. We've been able to work through any number of complicated budgets and try to keep Swampstead in a very sound financial position.

We've built up our reserves. We've been able to do things in ways that help balance all of the other financial priorities. When we look at the costs associated with all of the town's budgets, there are a lot of reasons why we have budgets that are growing at rates that are greater than that 2.5 plus in growth. 2 plus in growth. Yeah, or 2 percent plus in growth. And, frankly, if we're going to get into that conversation, it's complicated.

The health care costs, the insurance costs, our insurance costs are going to likely be an issue as we deal with a rising marketplace. There's so many responsibilities that we have. So many other departments that are really facing financial challenges.

[Speaker 1] (2:06:04 - 2:06:49)
I hear you. I think we're actually all agreeing on this. Well, you and I, anyways, because we're the only two talking.

I don't think there's actually a substantive disagreement here. I think it's more about, as you're having that conversation, it's more complicated to be able to say, school committee, I want you to understand I would give you the 60 percent, but I've got to first make myself whole on something else that I compromised on previously in order to give you what I already gave you or did whatever. And it doesn't mean the school committee would like the answer.

It's just easier for them to understand it as opposed to saying, well, you just took more of our money. Or we say to them, you're taking more of our money. It helps that dynamic get passed and it helps the dialogue because I think what happens is we get, in the final minutes of a budget, we get information and do that.

But I hear you. I get your challenges. And I'm glad I'm not the time minister.

[Speaker 13] (2:06:54 - 2:07:18)
So, if the state budget was released at 4 p.m., I believe the overall budget went up 4.1 percent year over year. How long does it take you guys to analyze the impact for us? I already did it.

You already did it. How much money could it be?

[Speaker 4] (2:07:19 - 2:07:28)
Well, not could. It's a net increase of $274,945 above what we budgeted for.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:29 - 2:07:32)
So, you budgeted for an increase of what percent and what percent?

[Speaker 4] (2:07:32 - 2:07:49)
We budgeted an increase of 1% in receipts, 2% in assessments. And the net difference between what we budgeted and what the governor has put forward in their local aid proposal is a net state aid increase of $274,945.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:51 - 2:07:55)
No, I got that. I was just trying to compare either percentage to percentages or dollars to dollars.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:55 - 2:07:55)
Oh.

[Speaker 1] (2:07:55 - 2:07:56)
Just because it's hard to.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:57 - 2:08:08)
They went up 5% on receipts and 2.28% on assessments.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:14 - 2:08:19)
So, net good. Yes. Not, but only to the tune of $200,000.

Like, it's not. Not enough.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:20 - 2:08:20)
It's great.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:20 - 2:08:25)
It doesn't solve the problem. It sounds good as a percentage, but in real dollars, it doesn't sound good.

[Speaker 17] (2:08:25 - 2:08:25)
Yeah.

[Speaker 13] (2:08:26 - 2:08:44)
Yeah, okay. Amy, just another question on this employee benefits one. I guess I'm struggling to understand how it's only a 4% increase in this cost center when payroll taxes are up.

Employee health is probably up, I would guess, more than 4%, but I don't know. And the pension is also up close to 6%. So, I'm not quite making the math work in my head.

[Speaker 4] (2:08:44 - 2:09:23)
Yeah, so this benefits cost center is inclusive of payroll taxes, unemployment, injury for police and fire workers, the health insurance, and the pension. So, for this budget, we had reduced the health insurance from the 5.3% that I had projected to 2.6% increase. Overall, it's $533,325 over last year.

So, bringing it from $13,349,404 to $13,882,729.

[Speaker 13] (2:09:23 - 2:09:29)
So, you decreased your estimate for what the health insurance increase would be from 5.3% to 2.6%?

[Speaker 4] (2:09:29 - 2:09:30)
Yes.

[Speaker 13] (2:09:30 - 2:09:33)
And can you just re-explain what the logic was for that reduction?

[Speaker 4] (2:09:34 - 2:09:40)
That was to balance the budget within the financial policies. So, we zeroed out the contingency.

[Speaker 13] (2:09:40 - 2:09:46)
Okay, so it's not something that was found. And I think that's Sean's point exactly.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:47 - 2:11:47)
It's a VIC. You don't have many other lines. You've got collective bargaining contracts that govern all of your police and fire contracts.

You've got insurance policies. These are big numbers. And when you have to go and solve for a balanced budget, it's incredibly difficult.

Last week, we spent days trying to find a half a million dollars. And it's awful because you have to go into the library. You have to go into small recreation departments and take $5,000 a year, $2,000, $2,500 a year.

And you nickel and dime all these programs that are going to be incredibly important to the quality of life of the residents because you know that people are paying in Swampstead among the most highest tax burdens in the Commonwealth. I've had residents in my office probably three or four times a month. I've had a couple in on Tuesday that wanted to know when they could get one of the affordable housing units that we haven't even constructed, that we won't construct for a couple of years, that are in the pipeline.

And again, I'm trying to figure out how to balance it all. I do think we have a good budget. I do think this budget funds most of the responsibilities.

But we are closer on a lot of the contract items than we've ever been. And I can't stress this enough. We've negotiated some of the hardest contracts.

I don't begrudge any of the contracts, but we've gone in and we've gone the give and get. We've got good contracts in an inflationary economy where many other communities are much higher than Swampstead. So I don't want to begrudge any of these collective bargaining contracts, but they are expensive.

And if you want to go into why they're so expensive, that's a much longer conversation than tonight. But every one of the contracts are more expensive than they probably should be. But we're stuck with them.

[Speaker 13] (2:11:47 - 2:12:01)
My question is more this seems like this is not something you can cut because you're not going to offer service. It's the cost of our health insurance. So it's almost like we've got a cut in here that's probably not going to happen that we'll have to make up.

Yeah, he just got his fingers crossed, right.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:03 - 2:12:24)
I was hoping state aid would come in. And I was hoping that maybe our experience might prove out that it's not going to go up as much. We also have vacancies.

We have positions that are unfilled. There are tools and there are strategies that we can employ to try to manage the budget for all of these.

[Speaker 13] (2:12:24 - 2:12:25)
Are the rates known that we're going to pay?

[Speaker 4] (2:12:26 - 2:12:26)
No.

[Speaker 13] (2:12:26 - 2:12:27)
It's not set yet either?

[Speaker 4] (2:12:28 - 2:12:38)
No, those won't come out until usually a week before open enrollment starts. So usually the very beginning of April we'll get those. Just remember, we're two and a half months away from this budget being presented to town meetings.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:38 - 2:12:38)
No, right.

[Speaker 1] (2:12:39 - 2:13:37)
So this is a great example, though, about saying, hey, I budgeted, last year we budgeted three. I believe if I was to be prudent and just do a typical way of doing it, take last three year's increases year over year and equalize for change in anticipated FTEs, I think it should be 3.3. But because I needed a VIG to balance this budget, I'm only doing 2.5, right. And just that clarity, right, having that clarity out in the universe is a tool that if I am, again, the school committee member, that's helpful to know that at least I understand where that is because when the additional revenue does come in, you're saying I've got to get somehow back from that 2.5 at least closer to 3.2 that I think I really needed to do it. I'm just saying that transparency on that is just helpful. I understand why you have to do what you're doing. I'm just saying that you know this stuff.

You know this stuff. Patrick knows this stuff. But the rest of us actually don't know what your real budget number would have been if you didn't need to make that hard choice to balance the budget.

[Speaker 2] (2:13:37 - 2:15:00)
So here's what would have happened. If I went back and said, all right, we're going to take the average, just like we do with snow, take the average of the last three years and we'll budget the average. We did that with snow in this budget.

In this budget, I took the average of the last three years and we budgeted snow because that's generally, it's the best we can do because we just don't know how much snow is going to fall. We don't know how many cases that we're going to have that are going to cost a lot of money in the health insurance experience portfolio. But if I had to go back and turn to the school department and say instead of giving you 2% plus new growth, I have to ask you to pay for, just like every other one of the town departments, a proportional share of the increase in that cost.

I mean it would create such undue pressure. And I'm trying to help these departments continue to sustain important programs, but it can get that much harder. And I don't think people realize how difficult it is to manage and control some of these costs.

Because at the end of the day, we do have the single biggest debt service that we've ever had for a new school. We are trying to make investments in other areas that we haven't really kept up with. And we're trying to keep Swampstead somewhat affordable.

And that's not something that we should feel bad about. All these things are possible, but it's going to require...

[Speaker 1] (2:15:00 - 2:15:36)
No, I understand. But in terms of process, I think you've agreed. At least I just want to make sure you heard what I said in terms of how just to...

You're going to the substance of the choices you need to make. I'm not actually talking about the substance of the choice. I'm just talking about how to document the choices you made so that when we get to the bargaining table amongst ourselves, we just have that so we understood where we started from, so that when the cherry sheets are better, and you say, I've got to replenish that health care line because I'm losing sleep over that health care line, everybody at least knows that that was on the table from day one, as opposed to that all of a sudden being a thing that you need to fund at something else. That's all I'm advocating for on that one.

[Speaker 2] (2:15:38 - 2:16:43)
And look, here, if it's any consolation, I'm always open to sitting down and having a conversation about how to make these numbers work, and I'm willing to think about ways that are more creative. We've talked about addressing some of the structural costs that are rising greater than that 2% plus new growth. I do think if we have anomalies, whether it's health insurance or whether it's special education costs or snow and ice, I think it's helpful to set up stabilization funds that are outside of the general fund, outside of the operating budget, so that we can protect how these costs are shifted to the annual tax levy, because that's what brings stability.

And we have some stabilization funds, and it may be more prudent this year for us to sit down and establish more stabilization funds to stabilize the operating budget and to stabilize the impact on our average single-family tax bill and median single-family tax bill.

[Speaker 3] (2:16:50 - 2:16:52)
Amy? Next slide. Quickly.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:53 - 2:16:56)
Can I just add a quick comment here? Sorry.

[Speaker 3] (2:16:56 - 2:16:57)
Sure.

[Speaker 15] (2:16:58 - 2:18:13)
Just to comment on that table that we discussed earlier with the budget items as a percentage tax revenue. Yeah, I get the comment there. I think on the other side of the argument, I suspect there are certain budget items that have perhaps been maybe continuously underfunded or perpetually underfunded that in aggregate now are perhaps not being funded to where they should be.

So I like that table. I don't know if this is done internally or something we can just do on the side, but it's nice to see how this does actually compare to similar towns or the average Massachusetts. I'm knowing there are obviously differences amongst the towns, but, yeah, I think to the point of making sure our dollars are spent for the benefit of all, we do want to make sure there are things that on a year-by-year basis, I think 1% or 2% here and there may not seem too substantive, but I suspect, again, there might be over a 10-year period pretty big gaps in some of these services.

So just wanted to comment on that. Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:14 - 2:19:07)
Very helpful. We've actually done comparative analyses. We've looked at peer communities based on demographics, based on the features of the community, number of houses, the number of average family income.

We've tried to look at where do swamps get fit in terms of public safety, education, all the different categories, and we have some of that data, and it is helpful. Every community is different, though, and I think it's important for us to kind of just weigh, you know, that it's a good barometer, though. If we're way out of whack with some costs, it helps us kind of look into why.

And we've done that, and, you know, I can get into great detail of those contracts, but we don't have the time tonight.

[Speaker 4] (2:19:11 - 2:20:29)
So obviously this slide was created prior to 4 p.m. today. So this chart just shows our 2% conservative increase in state aid assessments. We've seen an average of 22.5% increase in state aid assessments in the past three years, the bulk of which has obviously been the charter school sending tuition. And like everything else on the cherry sheet, we don't have control over these costs at all. The actual cherry sheet net was $274,945. For the sake of transparency, as Peter just said, we had cut $273,815 out of health insurance contingency, $45,000 out of snow and ice, $16,000 for a mental health referral system that's utilized by the town and school, and $37,000 out of legal and insurance in anticipation of shopping our coats around and hoping to get better pricing.

When did you shop those around? We are in the process of doing that right now.

[Speaker 2] (2:20:30 - 2:21:05)
Just think about, you know, just over the last seven years, we've seen an increase of $1,147,000 in charter school spending. Imagine if we had that, or imagine if it just went up by 2% plus new growth, or it stayed consistent with the town budget. We'd have a significant amount of money available, and these are all costs that are just going up so far above our ability to manage.

[Speaker 5] (2:21:05 - 2:21:11)
Does the charter school funding, does that just relate to when kids leave the district and they go to the charter school?

[Speaker 2] (2:21:12 - 2:21:41)
And so we've seen a shift of students, and so when we look at, you know, the student population in Swanstead, we've certainly seen a decline, but it's not just that those students are leaving the Swanstead school district. Some of the students are actually going to charter schools or going to Essex Tech, and we're paying those costs in either assessments or other charges as well.

[Speaker 7] (2:21:42 - 2:21:48)
So net, we're actually seeing a reduction in net aid from the state.

[Speaker 4] (2:21:49 - 2:21:50)
No, it's a net increase.

[Speaker 2] (2:21:51 - 2:21:59)
It's a net increase. Yeah, but these are just the charges. We get a list of charges, and then we get a list of receipts.

[Speaker 7] (2:22:00 - 2:22:10)
I'm just looking at slide 7. It says, Swanstead has seen a $3.3202 increase in state aid receipts in the past three years. Slide 7.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:10 - 2:22:44)
Yeah, our receipts are higher than our assessments, thankfully. So while the percentage looks much smaller, if you look at the dollar amount in both parentheses, you'll see that the receipts increased on average about $202,000 year-over-year over the last three years, and assessments are $282,000. So yes, our assessments are raising higher than our receipts, but our receipts were already higher than our assessments.

So we're not paying more to the state than we're getting.

[Speaker 2] (2:22:45 - 2:23:36)
Got it. But again, you're looking at slide 7, and if you look at that charter tuition reimbursement, the town received $584,000 in FY22, and we got $12,000 in FY23. So add that to the additional charges, that's a half a million dollars.

And so when you look at the additional charges for the charter schools, it's the loss of that revenue plus the additional charges. And so it's significant. You've got to tie those together to really see the overall impact on the town budget.

And again, if we had that in the budget, if it was stable, you know, we'd have far less of the financial challenges that we get.

[Speaker 17] (2:23:38 - 2:23:39)
Next slide.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:42 - 2:24:46)
This is just another overview of our financial reserves. As Patrick mentioned earlier, our general stabilization should be funded at no less than 9%, preferably 10%. Based off the proposed general fund budget for FY24, our current balance would put us at a position of 8.78%. Capital stabilization should be funded at no less than 2%, preferably 4%. Based off the proposed general fund budget, our current position would be 1.95%. And free cash funded at a level of no less than 3%, preferably 5%, would put us at 3.1%. As you'll remember, when we were voting the use of stabilization, we used the capital stabilization down to the 2% and general stabilization to 9%. So obviously it's a budget increase. Those percentages decrease, but that is not inclusive of any additional funding to be made this year or any interest gains in those funds.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:48 - 2:24:50)
So is any funding being proposed?

[Speaker 4] (2:24:50 - 2:24:50)
Hmm?

[Speaker 1] (2:24:51 - 2:24:54)
Is any additional funding to these accounts being proposed?

[Speaker 3] (2:24:55 - 2:24:56)
In the budget?

[Speaker 1] (2:24:56 - 2:24:56)
Huh?

[Speaker 5] (2:24:57 - 2:24:58)
In the budget?

[Speaker 1] (2:24:58 - 2:24:59)
Yes, as opposed to...

[Speaker 17] (2:24:59 - 2:25:00)
In the budget? No.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:00 - 2:25:15)
Yes, in the budget, please. I mean, so the answer is no, I think, right? I mean, it could be we could decide to do that, but that would just take money from other things.

So this will be the first year in how many years that we're not increasing one or more of those stabilization accounts. Like, first time in a...

[Speaker 5] (2:25:15 - 2:25:21)
Right, but it means we're still compliant within our policies. Mm-hmm. We're just now...

[Speaker 1] (2:25:21 - 2:26:26)
No, we're right on. The other three of them were just below them. Below, as of July, we would not be.

As of July 1st, we would not be, but that's before we use any additional free cash at this year's town meeting to do things or stabilization to do things. And does that include the amount of stabilization you're using to offset school debt costs? No, the answer is no to that, too.

So the point is all these numbers are dropping further by the time we get to town meeting, and we're not... No, no, I'm not trying to be draconian about it. I'm just trying to highlight that that's a stressed budget.

That's exactly the implication of a stressed budget. It's not just the individual health care line. It's our inability then to continue funding our stabilization accounts, which, again, I know we say strong financial position.

I actually just think as though the town has strong credit is a better way of saying it because people see strong financial position, and they're like, well, we have strong financial position. Why can't we fund everybody when we need to? Because that's just not how it works, right?

It's just I'm highlighting that we're now getting to the point where the hard work is really, really hard because we're going to be using these accounts, and they're going to start draining. It's going to be really hard to sit within the limits that we set.

[Speaker 2] (2:26:26 - 2:30:46)
So I think that's going to force conversations that are probably uncomfortable when it comes to economic development. And if folks really think that we're going to cut our way out of problems, it's not going to happen. I've mentioned that a hundred times.

We're not going to cut our way out of these problems. We're going to get this budget as tight as we can, and then it is going to start to, you know, we're going to cut into the bone. And we're close.

And I know that, you know, folks are concerned about, you know, we're prioritizing, you know, some of our efforts, whether or not open space deserves to be funded or whether or not, you know, we can afford to have more health or senior services or veterans. We need all of this. There's not one that we can say is not worthy of a significant investment.

And so we've got to figure out how to balance, you know, these responsibilities. That said, I think I'm picking it up from here. We can, you know, channel into – look, we've got some challenges, as every community does.

You know, we have operating costs that are going up. Health care costs are going up. And we are going to lose some sleep over that.

Our retirement costs are going up. We're paying a disproportionate share of the other post-employment benefits, and it's impacting the next several years of budgeting. We ultimately are scheduled to pay that off over the next ten years.

But it's putting an extraordinary pressure on this budget. You know, we've got increased costs for labor and cost of goods and services. They're going to continue to impact this year's budget and next year's – or the FY24 budget.

We've got to grow the tax base to support demands of service. We do have some new investments in the pipeline. We have both residential – tonight we just approved a new business, and that's new meals and beverage revenue.

And, you know, every business that comes into Swamp Street is helpful. We've got capital projects that we're investing in that are expensive. And there are additional pressures on Swamp Street tax base.

We've had two budgets in a row where we, you know, increased taxes. It looks like, you know, again, this is a budget that likely is going to have a significant tax impact. That said, you know, we have had a prudent use of reserves.

We are in a strong financial position. We've got a strong track record of balanced budgets. We've got a great track record of getting grants and going after additional funding that can help us continue to be innovative, continue to be effective in how we provide services to the town.

You know, but we've got to focus on balancing these financial priorities. I really do think we have an excellent finance team. I think we have a really good handle on the fiduciary responsibilities that we have.

We've got to work from this strong financial base, and I do think we've got to continue to dialogue and we've got to continue to talk through some of these challenges. I do think there's a path forward here for all of these core responsibilities, but we've got to have a lot of careful conversations about this budget. Next slide, Diane.

So there's a timeline. Actually, this is the beginning of the budget process. Certainly this is the town administrator's budget presentation or recommendation, but for two and a half months before this budget really is perfected by the finance committee and by a whole lot of input from the community and from various boards and officials.

I look forward to the questions. I look forward to the debates. You know, it is the town's budget.

Ultimately it gets approved at the town meeting, and it should be a robust part of the democratic budget.

[Speaker 3] (2:30:50 - 2:31:07)
Thanks, John and Amy and Patrick for everything, and the whole team, the finance team for all your work on this and tonight. I'll open it up to questions, finance committee or board questions, comments.

[Speaker 5] (2:31:09 - 2:31:22)
I have a couple questions, Patrick, on debt service. So on debt service, what percentage of the debt service is for the new school? And that's excluded debt.

[Speaker 6] (2:31:24 - 2:31:35)
That is ‑‑ I don't have the percentage in front of me, but the debt service is a little over $3 million right now. Annually.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:36 - 2:31:37)
$3 million out of?

[Speaker 6] (2:31:37 - 2:31:42)
Out of the total debt service budget, seven, just for perspective.

[Speaker 5] (2:31:51 - 2:32:15)
And my other question is, are there conversations with the school as far as, my understanding was that we had a synergy or we had an agreement that we were going to be sharing departments like facility and HR, and I'm looking at this budget, and again, we have another year, the school has HR and we have HR. Where are we at with as far as going back to combining that?

[Speaker 2] (2:32:16 - 2:32:42)
You know, I haven't had any conversations with the superintendent about combining HR. I think the facilities department is a resounding success. I think we have opportunities to continue to look at efficiency in additional areas, but certainly, you know, as the budget gets tighter, I think it offers opportunities for us to really look at consolidating.

[Speaker 5] (2:32:43 - 2:32:56)
I'd like to see conversations around that because we did have a consolidated HR department, and now we have two separate line items for HR, and I think that we should really take a serious look at that. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:33:02 - 2:33:05)
Any other questions or comments on the budget?

[Speaker 5] (2:33:07 - 2:33:13)
Where's the capital list? The capital list? Is there a capital list?

[Speaker 6] (2:33:13 - 2:33:46)
I can speak to that. So a lot of work has been done on the capital plan. I met with the CIC several times in the fall.

I had department heads submit initial proposals to me over the summer leading up to the fall. Sean and I and Amy have had meetings with key department heads over the past few months. Sean and I need to close the loop with primarily our facilities director.

We've had several conversations with him. We just have a few more items we want clarity on, and then I'll be able to put forth a comprehensive list for you all to consider.

[Speaker 17] (2:33:48 - 2:33:48)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:51 - 2:38:36)
So I just have one more thing, and I guess I want to kind of close out where the conversation started two hours ago with some comments about the school and town budget. You know, I don't think it shouldn't be lost on anyone, and I know that the school committee members know this, that there's actually as many school-age kids represented by parents up here as there are in the school committee, right? So we're all parents at the end of the day, and we all have to advocate for our jobs, and the school committee has a very important one with all of our kids.

Our job, though, also has all the veterans and all the seniors and all the people that use the library and all the people that travel the roads and all the people that want police services and fire services, so that's in addition to the school kids, right? And so our pressure is just a little bit different, and I think what I just want to advocate for is getting back to times where the conversations were in the conference rooms as opposed to at a microphone in public meetings, and that goes for everybody. We successfully partnered with the school department and the school committee, to their credit, including the individuals that are here tonight, like to your credit, to be able to put some financial controls in place that was able to get us a vote with 63% of the vote for a $100 million school.

We would have never, ever gotten that done if we hadn't done what we all collectively did together, and the truth is we're not going to be able to do the next thing if we all of a sudden decide to stop that behavior, which got us the success to begin with. As hard as it is, it stinks. We would all love to have a budget that's fully funded, right?

But if we change our behavior now and go back to pre-discipline ways, we're not going to be talking about anything. I mean, we're going to be talking about bare-bones stuff. We're going to be spending our time talking about cutting positions and cutting services, and at town school it doesn't matter.

We're all the same boat here, and so we need to get back to a place where we can all commiserate because we all actually have the frustrations, but understand that it's bad, thanks to the funding models for all of us, for the town, for the school, et cetera. And I think the other benefit to getting back to that is I think it becomes a little less alarmist. An employee from the school department reached out and sent an email imploring us not to cut security at the middle school, and I think it's just unfortunate that that was the rhetoric, that that person believed that was the consequences of such an early-stage budget, which we all know because we get to go do that.

The budget now and the budget in May are very different from each other. We know that House 1 is very different than what House Ways and Means is going to be and what the House final budget is and Senate Ways and Means. We all know that because we've gone through it every year, and we actually know every year that those budgets tend to be better than House 1.

So the draconianness which we're prophesizing right now we know potentially can get better, but we know that in every year we've been able to bridge the gap when we've coordinated and collaborated with each other, and so for all of us, us included. This is not a comment to the school. The school committee are tremendous advocates, and I'm glad they're tremendous advocates because my kids are in school, and I want you to be tremendous advocates, and I don't resent it at all.

I think it's so important. But I just want us to, and that includes us and Sean and you and Pam, and just getting back to that because that's where our success has been. It truly has been, and if we fall off that track, it all goes away, right, and we fall back to where we were when we couldn't do the things.

We couldn't both build a $100 million school and make an investment for veterans' affordable housing, right, and do open space because the truth is it's not mutually exclusive. We have to find a way to do all those things, and up to now we haven't because we didn't have financial discipline, so we didn't do any of them, and so I just really implore us all, and it's our responsibility as much as anybody else, so I'm not pointing fingers or casting blame at all. It's just all of us have to get back to that, and Pam and the superintendent and the town administrator have to take the primary lead, and we stand back typically, Sean, and let you do your thing until we get calls and people saying they want more or they want less, and by and large we understand you're doing your thing, so we sit back, but we just need to all, I think, remember what got us success over the last five years here, and I don't envy your position, and I don't envy the superintendent's position at all here, but I hope that we can get back to it because it's hard for all of us, but we have achieved better results when we've sat in the room and we've invested in each other's problems because we've then come up with solutions together.

[Speaker 2] (2:38:36 - 2:39:55)
I appreciate that. I do think it's going to be important for us to stabilize this budget and to work collaboratively on some stabilization funds. I do think that we have costs that are rising greater than what we would anticipate or would want to see because of unique circumstances, either in the economy or because of the pandemic, and we have to be more mindful of the pressures that's putting on core services.

I've shared with the superintendent that I do think we need a special education stabilization fund. I've said that over the last few years, but it's time to actually put that into place and to take some pressure off of the school operating budget. With that, I do still expect that we're going to live within certain financial parameters that will allow us to meet those broader needs that we have, including investing in the middle school, including a number of important educational capital projects and broader civic projects.

It's all part of a master plan. It can all work, but everybody has to be willing to strike that balance.

[Speaker 17] (2:39:56 - 2:39:56)
Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (2:39:58 - 2:40:24)
Thanks. I just want to, because you're online, the Finance Committee members on Teams, if you have any, just make sure I give you an opportunity to raise your hand if you have any comment. Eric, we're talking about authorizing the sale of notes for our next agenda item.

I don't expect it to be a long conversation, but I don't know if you want to adjourn the Finance Committee now.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:24 - 2:40:29)
Maybe switch to do them out of order and just do the Hadley next, and we'll see if they want to stick around for the Hadley part.

[Speaker 3] (2:40:31 - 2:40:33)
Well, I'm saying they could stick around for the notes, too.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:34 - 2:40:34)
You really can.

[Speaker 13] (2:40:34 - 2:40:35)
It's really awesome.

[Speaker 17] (2:40:35 - 2:40:37)
The note vote is one of the best things we do.

[Speaker 13] (2:40:38 - 2:40:48)
I might adjourn the meeting and let people decide to stay or not, because I know some people have to go. Sure. Yeah, that's fine.

So, T.C., you want to adjourn your meeting now. Can I just get a motion to adjourn the Finance Committee?

[Speaker 9] (2:40:48 - 2:40:49)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 15] (2:40:50 - 2:40:51)
All right.

[Speaker 13] (2:40:51 - 2:40:53)
Folks online? Senate?

[Speaker 15] (2:40:54 - 2:40:55)
Aye.

[Speaker 13] (2:40:55 - 2:40:58)
Thanks. I'm an aye. I don't know if there's Siraj.

[Speaker 3] (2:40:59 - 2:41:01)
You've got Siraj. I don't know if he's there. And Cinder?

[Speaker 17] (2:41:01 - 2:41:03)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:41:04 - 2:41:27)
Okay. All right. Thanks for showing up online and in person.

Okay, moving on to the vote to approve the sale of maturing notes. Patrick and Sean, I'll leave this up to you to explain what we're doing and why we're doing it. Sure.

[Speaker 2] (2:41:27 - 2:41:57)
You know, Patrick has been working with Bond Council. I've worked with Patrick and Amy on just going through the list of projects and making sure that we are keeping faith with our fiduciary responsibility. The list of projects are part of the town's capital funding.

And Patrick, you can regale us with the details of the note sale and some of the financial.

[Speaker 6] (2:41:59 - 2:43:38)
Thanks, Sean. So I'll just briefly summarize why we went out to bid for this note and the results and what you're being asked to vote on. So we went out to bid for a note approximately $4.4 million. This finances projects approved by town meeting in 2020, 2021, 2022. We received five bids on the note. The winning bidder was Fidelity Capital Markets, who holds another one of our notes that we issued in October.

And the net interest cost on the note is 3.51%. Out of the five bids, the highest bid was 4.15% net interest cost. So that's a decent spread. And this note also covers amounts that were financed last year that are maturing from that one year note is due on the 9th.

So this note will be due the 8th to continue financing those projects that we previously issued a note for. You're being asked to vote on the final approval and sale of the note. There's six votes that the board takes.

However, as this practice past practice and Barn Council has approved, you can make one motion to take all the votes together. And that is listed in the memo that was shared with you in bold and italics. And in addition to a vote, I'll need signatures from at least a majority of the board on several documents, which I believe Neal has for you that are flagged.

And that's the same documentation that we've signed in the past for notes.

[Speaker 5] (2:43:42 - 2:43:43)
Oh, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 6] (2:43:43 - 2:44:16)
I wish I had eyes in the back. Bond rating. So last time we reviewed our short-term bond rating was in October.

We opted not to rate for this issue because the fee for the rating likely outweighed the benefit that we would get from it. We were so the rating schedule for short, short-term financing is different. So it's standard and poor's schedule, but we have the highest short-term rating that's available.

[Speaker 5] (2:44:18 - 2:44:27)
So short term, meaning that we're just borrowing money, this is just a ban. We're borrowing money for one year, one year term. Why aren't we?

Why don't we buy it? Borrowing long term?

[Speaker 6] (2:44:27 - 2:44:28)
That's a good question.

[Speaker 5] (2:44:28 - 2:44:29)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (2:44:29 - 2:45:06)
So there's different analysis that we do at the time for the borrowing. The long-term financing is what this debt will most likely grow up to be. But it affords us a year for additional debt to mature before we have to make a principal payment.

The primary benefit of temporary financing is you don't have to make a principal payment during that period. So we just discussed the fiscal 24 budget, and it's very tight. We have additional debt rolling off in fiscal 24.

That will create room in fiscal 25 for us to, you know, bond to this.

[Speaker 5] (2:45:07 - 2:45:53)
I understand that. So my concern, I mean, I hear about the budget. I understand that.

What people also need to understand is we are borrowing again for a note that we had last year that's going to mature. So we just, now we're going into year number two with that same note. That means that's two years without paying any principal on it, and we just keep extending it.

We're also borrowing money on projects that we haven't even started. So probably the good part about that is you're able to put money into savings account, and we're not going to lose anything, I'm guessing. As far as interest, it should be a wash, if not in our favor.

But this is something that does concern me.

[Speaker 6] (2:45:54 - 2:46:02)
Yep. And we're constantly analyzing the costs and benefits of not only costs but timing. So I appreciate that.

[Speaker 1] (2:46:05 - 2:46:13)
I would make a motion that the written votes presented to this meeting in connection with the town sale of the notes be adopted as written and incorporated into the minutes of this meeting in full.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:13 - 2:46:19)
Second. Any further discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 5] (2:46:20 - 2:46:20)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:20 - 2:46:47)
Aye. Aye. All right.

Thanks, Patrick. I'll make sure we sign all these. I have some other things to sign, too.

So moving on to a discussion on Hadley, Hadley-Hawthorne Reuse Discussion, which really is focused on Hadley. When we were at our last meeting, we talked to some level of detail about Hadley.

[Speaker 2] (2:46:49 - 2:47:13)
Trang, I just want to thank you for being here tonight, too. Patrick and Amy, thank you. Trang actually put all the charts and graphs together in the budget book and has done an extraordinary amount of work.

So thank you all. And Diane, thank you. And Jody Watts put the budget book together.

And it just takes a lot of time and effort. So I just want to recognize everybody for that work. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:47:13 - 2:50:01)
Thank you, Trang. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

So, yeah, so Hadley-Hawthorne Reuse Discussion, this is really focused on Hadley. We spoke about it at a higher level at our last meeting and wanted to zero in on this conversation a little bit more. We definitely have been talking about a sense of urgency to move along in this process, and especially as it pertains, I think, to Hadley because of the concern with not having any use in that building or at that property.

And that's coming soon. So tonight I wanted to just further that conversation and really open it up to the board to talk about next steps and really urge us all to start sharing our thoughts and opinions on, you know, we all, I think, are familiar with the potential reuse scenarios for that building. We talked a bit about the Hadley Reuse Committee and their report, and Peter and I had surveyed that committee on some of their thoughts with the Hawthorne in play.

And I think that we need to, you know, the Hawthorne, as far as the Hawthorne process, there will be another public meeting coming in April where there will be a more focused conversation about some of the uses discussed at our well-attended public meeting at the Hawthorne, but also talking about some of the specifics of those potential scenarios and the reality of pursuing them. In the meantime, I think we also need to be working on a track with Hadley and thinking about where we want to go there. And so I appreciate that there's a balance there, but I also, my feeling is, and to push this conversation forward is we have to start actually talking a little bit more specifically about what we think as individual board members and as a board of which ideas make more sense to focus on or think about or ask more questions about, because we need to start moving in a certain direction and get some answers about some of these possibilities rather than, you know, be in a constant state of flux in decision making. So with that, I'd open it up to the board on what your thoughts are. Generally speaking, I think this conversation about budget could inform this conversation as well, but open it up to board members and then I'm happy to share my thoughts as well.

[Speaker 7] (2:50:06 - 2:52:16)
Happy to share my thoughts, Neil. I mean, I think the budget conversation is, you know, as eye opening as it is every year. I don't, you know, Sean, as you say, we're not going to be able to cut our way to prosperity.

We need to start talking about how we're going to expand the pie, expand revenue and drive growth within our town without just, you know, just taxing, you know, to the max. So we, you know, as I look at these properties, as I look at the Hawthorne, as I look at the Hadley School, it's obvious that it's obvious, at least to me, that one of these properties has to be revenue generating. It has to be.

And, you know, when I look at this, do you want to have a revenue generating property, you know, on the ocean or do you want to have a revenue generating property at Hadley? And, you know, just based upon the feedback that was received and provided to all of us from the Hadley Reuse Committee, you know, it seems that, you know, a hospitality asset at the Hadley School would be something that would be able to drive considerable room tax, meal tax and would bring people into, you know, downtown Swampscott, the Humphrey Street area and really help, you know, support our restaurants and businesses in that area. So I'm certainly supportive of the hospitality aspect at the Hadley School.

I'm supportive of trying to drive revenue and I think that would be an incredible win for our town. Our town used to have so many hotel rooms. You know, we were a seaside community and a destination for folks all over the Northeast and I think to return to those roots with, you know, with a boutique hotel would be something that would be welcomed and I think would be incredibly successful in Swampscott.

[Speaker 5] (2:52:19 - 2:53:53)
So I guess we'll go around the table. I think that this situation with Hadley and with Hawthorne really needs to be looked at in a combination. I don't think that either one should be looked at in a vacuum.

And I completely agree with David that we need revenue, especially after sitting and listening to the school budget and the stress that the schools are feeling, listening to Sean and the town budgets. These budgets aren't going to get any better. They're just going to get worse and I think without a doubt we need to go with something similar to, I agree with David, similar to anything that's going to be general revenue enhancing and also community enhancing such as, you know, a boutique hotel with function centers, with things that we can work something out where the community gets an option into using the facility more.

You know, I think there's some creativity we can do there. I was just in Broughton recently and they have a beautiful center over there, a very small boutique place and it was just, it was gorgeous. I thought this would be something really nice for us.

So that's where I'm coming from. But more importantly, I think both of these properties need to be looked at together. And I am the one select board member who does not support full open space at the Hawthorne.

I do think that some open space is fine, but I do think a chunk of that property's got to be general revenue generating as well.

[Speaker 10] (2:53:56 - 2:55:53)
So for Hadley, I have the same drive as you all, but I don't have the same vision of hospitality. I think being mixed use commercial is sort of the way that I have been envisioning. I've heard a lot about the needs for community space, and a lot about trying to create a central location where community exists, which we don't really have right now.

So having a space where at one floor we have commercial, I mean, yeah, at one floor you would have commercial tenants, which would subsidize the community areas, and then have another space where those community areas are able to be rented out for use, which is, I think, from what I see, something I hear a lot of parents talk about, or folks talk about saying, you know, we can't rent a space to do a birthday party or do whatever they're looking for. And then the civic spaces, or I'm sorry, the community tenants, I think we should have big blue bargains in there.

I think we should have Anchor Food Pantry in there. I think we should have a space where all of those community services are together to create a hub for people who want to utilize them. I think that's really important, and you could offset the community, the lack of revenue from the community spaces by the commercial spaces.

I think otherwise, when you're thinking about community space, to dedicate a whole building to it, you may never have the opportunity to subsidize it with a commercial tenant upstairs or to the side. And so it then becomes a more difficult venture to pursue, because you're always like, well, if we can't, how are we going to pay for it? Who's going to pay for it?

How are we going to keep it in the budget year after year? Something like a mixed use would be able to do that.

[Speaker 3] (2:55:56 - 2:59:07)
Thanks, and I appreciate everyone's digging in and sharing a level of specificity. I'm glad to get into the details right out of the gates. I think I agree generally with David where I lean towards the hospitality use in a boutique hotel.

I think that I'm not suggesting that we're looking at these in a vacuum, so I try to sort of elaborate on that. I just think that when we're looking at both of these, we have to move. There are sort of ways that we need to move on both of these, on each of these individually while thinking about the other one.

And so when I think about this and when I think about it not in a vacuum, I think of the hospitality because I think that's a need. I also think what would drive more people to come and visit Swampscott is an open space area across the street, mainly open space. I'm not against and certainly we're going to have more of these conversations about the Hawthorne using pieces of that property for other uses, but my personal feeling on growth with open space for that property is that a signature open space area would do more to drive growth to that area of our town than to the best restaurant that you can imagine.

And I think that we're assuming that these commercial spaces that would be at the Hawthorne are dynamic, amazing commercial spaces. And I don't know. I'm not an expert in this area, but I don't know enough to know that you can guarantee.

I don't think knowing where we are with our commercial space on that street, we can't guarantee that clearly. And so I think we will be getting into that with the consultants on the Hawthorne. It's like what are the challenges?

We can't just assume certain business is there, but I think that's important for this because we're not making this decision tonight, obviously. We're having this conversation. I think what we don't know is the feasibility of some of these things for that.

We haven't taken that extra step. We certainly know the feasibility on the affordable housing piece because we've done Michon, so we sort of know how that works and are relatively confident about how that works. We don't know how a boutique hotel works, and we need to know that.

And we don't know how a mixed-use approach at Hawthorne may work or not. We haven't done that, but we're doing it now. And so I think that, to me, is important that we need to know these things and that's what I mean by pushing in a direction.

And I think it feels like we're all in agreement that there needs to be some revenue coming from that building.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:10 - 3:06:54)
Well, I haven't said anything. Now I'm just in dissent. I really appreciate the thoughtfulness of everything that everybody's saying.

It actually gave me some additional thoughts. From my perspective at Hawthorne, I, too, am open for other stuff to be there besides open space, but I am going to stay true to what I said when we talked about it publicly and we all talked about it publicly. It needs to be predominantly open space.

And I think any desire that the other stuff is the desire having it being revenue-driven-based decision-making will, I think, unfortunately corrupt the purity of the public space because we're going to potentially want to do more or hope for more than what's realistic in terms of executing and we're going to sacrifice the Hawthorne as an acre and a half. That's it. It's not a lot of space.

It feels a lot, but it's not. And so I'm comfortable with our ability to do affordable housing projects. I'm comfortable of us being able to do things.

Executing the Hawthorne, because if we wouldn't execute it, we wouldn't be the developer. We would have to have a vision. We would have to have a precise execution, and we would need to do it in a way that preserved all the open space.

I think it's just a really high bar, and I don't think that decision should be more what the space wants to be as opposed to having it be revenue-driven just because I don't. If we go for revenue, then I just don't think it's believable that that's going to be a material revenue and a premier open space for people to have public access. So I just say that as kind of a pin in Hawthorne.

I think when it comes to Hadley, I think about how are we going to... I like all the ideas. I really do like all the ideas, and I wish we could figure out how to do them all.

But the one I've struggled the most with is, because I desire it, is the one Katie's talked about, because I totally agree to it. I mean, there's nothing you said that I disagree with, except that I think that none of us envision that we can use the building in the condition it is now. And so if we're not going to use it in the condition we have now, we're going to have to invest in really significant capital.

And that includes ADA compliance. That includes a lot of stuff. And just a little bit of commercial space isn't going to do that, which means it's likely going to be a very material public investment into that building, a town investment.

Maybe we'll get some other funding. And that may be possible. I'm not optimistic, just because I don't know what that funding is, and I don't believe there's a private capital source that's going to see this and say, oh, what an opportunity it is for us to make this a commercial hub.

And so we're going to front all this money. I just don't see that in Swampscot. We don't have it anywhere that's evidenced like that.

So I love the idea, and I think we should explore it, and we should keep challenging ourselves to explore it, because once it's gone, it is gone, right? And to Katie's point, and she's so right on that. I think on the hotel, I agree with David and Neil on the hotel.

But what I want to suggest, you're all saying, and I'm just going to say it again, a hotel is a very complicated real estate deal in and of itself, because it is so not even macro economically sensitive. It's actually micro. It literally is block by block, right, and the way in which the hotels work and whatnot.

And just because a hotel is successful in Marblehead doesn't mean that one would be in Swampscot or vice versa or in Salem. It really is micro analysis. What would drive people to come here, right, and spend cash?

And what's the ADR, the average daily rate? What's the average room rate? What is the average occupation, you know, and rev power, they call it, and all these per occupied room analysis.

All this analysis is really granular. It's not, the sub markets are much smaller than if we were talking office, right? Office is a little bit more geographic spaces.

This area, Swampscot and Marblehead could be an area with Salem, right? Hotels are really specific. When you make a choice about going to a hotel, you're making a geographic, unless you're a business traveler and you're looking for just convenience, you're making a geographic specific decision.

And Swampscot isn't on the path to anywhere except for Marblehead and Salem. But that's it. Like that's, we're out of the way, right?

And what we love about our town is actually the thing that's going to make it the hardest, which is, you know, over 50% of the radius of our town is water, right? So we don't have a natural density here. If we were in Danvers, we know some big hotels that sit there.

Why are they there? Well, it seems strange to some of us. We say, why are they in Danvers?

Well, because their radius is very dense. You actually look at the population centers around their five mile radius, they don't hit water, right? And so they have a much denser and they're right on 95 and they're right on transportation hubs to make it easier.

So, so long winded way of saying something that I probably could have said very shortly, which is I think it, to advance the conversation on the hotel, I think it's in our best interest to do what Neil made reference to, which is to do a feasibility study and to engage someone who knows what they're doing and what they're talking about to do a feasibility study. And that's kind of both a feasibility study and a marketing study. The marketing study talks about the place and the attraction of the place and what the likelihood is that different end users, hotel flags, hotel investors will look at Swampscot, how they would look at Swampscot.

A feasibility study speaks more to the financials, right? So is there a market or is there not a market? And then what do the numbers look like?

And would, what would, what would the town have to do to make it successful? Right? My gut is, because I know other communities that have done this, right?

My gut is the town is going to have to contribute to this. We're going to have to help with real estate taxes and maybe do a real estate tax deal to encourage that because they're going to need it because the revenue in and of itself of a projected hotel is not going to be enough, right? And so we may need to consider that as a town and just know that that's going to be part of our choice if we go that route and not be surprised that in order for it to be successful that may come to the table as saying, are you willing to make a real estate tax deal for them?

The reason hotels get real estate tax deals more often than non-hotels is because they need them, because they're thinner margins and they're harder to underwrite, but also because there's a 6% hotel tax that the community gets, right? So there's another revenue source that we get in addition to what a traditional real estate asset pays us. We will get the 0.75 meals tax, but that's 0.75%, not much to wake up in the morning for, candidly. But the meals and food does matter, and that's going to be part of the analysis as well. About 50% of a boutique hotel's revenue comes from F&B, food and beverage, right? So while we're talking rooms and we're thinking the rooms are the important thing, it's actually the rooms by themselves do not survive.

It's F&B. And so we should assume that any hotel will need that component of food and beverage to create the revenue to be successful. And we need people that know what they're talking about to tell us that and see if it's even worth taking it to the next step, right?

And so what I would suggest is, and I've talked with Neil about this and I mentioned it to Sean, Pinnacle Advisors is in Boston, the premier that the landlords and the flags all use in Boston to analyze hotel investments for them. And whether it's Pinnacle or somebody else that Sean thinks that he should use really to empower Sean to get a feasibility study going now and have it come back to us in the next, you know, whatever, six, eight weeks, whatever time it takes to come back to us so that, you know, again, the feasibility, the numbers part may not be public. Just I'm speaking openly and candidly about that just because that's part of our negotiating strategy in terms of when we do an RFP.

But the market study certainly would be, I think, a public dialogue that we should have just about whether or not there's even a market here.

[Speaker 5] (3:06:55 - 3:07:11)
What about a feasibility study that shows, you know, you really don't want a hotel. What you want is X. I mean, if we say, look, we want to have, we want to maximize revenue in here, what is, just what is the best way to maximize revenue in that space and what are all of our options?

[Speaker 1] (3:07:11 - 3:07:13)
I'm happy to give you that answer right now. It's market rate condominiums.

[Speaker 3] (3:07:13 - 3:07:15)
Yeah. Which we've banned.

[Speaker 1] (3:07:15 - 3:09:43)
I mean, I'm just, I'm telling you, in that I don't, we can go ask someone to tell us that answer. I'm going to tell you it's market rate condominiums. And I think the prior board, when we started the Hadley Reuse Committee, actually put the guardrail on, didn't allow the Hadley Reuse Committee to actually think about market rate.

We took market rate housing off the table. I still believe that it should be off the table. But from a pure economic standpoint, absolutely it's market rate condominiums.

Period. Absolutely. Not even close.

And so I think that, you know, I wouldn't make that choice today still. I'm very comfortable with not having market rate residential here, whether it's apartments or condominiums. Period.

I don't have any interest in that. If the board does, we certainly could have that path. But I think we've gotten, and I think the Hadley Reuse Committee did a good job of kind of funneling down and doing the homework on all these categories.

So in essence, I think they've done, they're a little subgroup. So what they had is they took the committee and then they broke up in subgroups and really spent the most of their time focusing in their subgroups. Matt Kirshner was one of the subgroups, for example.

And, you know, they kind of micro-focused on things to kind of come down to this. I think here, for us to be able to take any of these little things and move them forward, the hotel one we need the most help with, excuse me, just because that is so macro and micro that putting an RFP tomorrow would just be saying, you know, crossing our fingers again, just saying, let's hope to see what happens here. But we would have no reasonable expectation of what the response is going to be.

And it's not just binary yes, no. It's going to be, maybe it's no. No one wants to do one.

That's going to be, I guess, easy. But it's more likely going to be a yes, but this is what we need. This is what the deal structure looks like.

And we need to start knowing that. We need to just have an honest assessment for ourselves that when we're making the decision, we know about the compromises we may need to make to make this a reality. And then make the decision knowing the prospect of those compromises.

We may make the decision to say, we don't want to do it. But right now, we don't even know. And I certainly don't, I'm not qualified to speak in detail and give you any certainty as to what those compromises would be.

Someone like Pinnacle Advisors, or again, there's others. And Sean can track me down. That's what they do.

They advise all the capital investors in the markets and towns. And help towns do RFPs for these things. So that would be my suggestion coming out tonight, which is kind of to empower Sean.

And if we can give Sean, if Neil's okay with it, give Sean kind of consensus. You know, Sean, let's see if we can do that. Because that is a missing piece.

Enough of us have said a hotel is interesting enough and revenue is important enough. That's one that I don't know how to advance that conversation without that information. So, thanks.

[Speaker 3] (3:09:45 - 3:09:51)
Are others in agreement with that suggestion in a step to move forward in finding out more information on that?

[Speaker 17] (3:09:51 - 3:09:52)
I am.

[Speaker 10] (3:09:54 - 3:09:58)
My hope is that it says it's financially irresponsible and we have to do community service.

[Speaker 12] (3:10:00 - 3:10:02)
Hey, you know what? It's all right.

[Speaker 1] (3:10:03 - 3:10:07)
Be true to what you believe. Sean, I think you have it.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:07 - 3:11:08)
You know, I've already taken a look. Look, there are a lot of companies like this. Peter's right.

Pinnacle is the premier firm. But there are firms in New York City, all across the eastern seaboard. Many communities do look at this.

I've worked closely with the former mayor of Gloucester. I invited him down here to walk Humphrey Street four years ago. I had Bruce Tobey in town talking about a hotel for Swamp City.

So, it's important for us to really just explore and think about ways that we can make some of these properties more functional. So, I'm happy to look into this and we'll continue to think about ways that we can grow our way out of some of these challenges. That said, Katie, I do like your idea about a community center, a civic center.

And there are some ideas I have about where and how we can advance some of those important investments.

[Speaker 5] (3:11:08 - 3:11:18)
Well, they might also say this is the amount that we need to make a viable, revenue-generating hotel. And then there's X amount of space left over.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:19 - 3:11:53)
Yeah, I'm going to caution that one. I will say the reuse report kind of already hints to this. It is likely that if you take the annex down, right, because the annex is just in bad shape and the floors don't line up, you're going to need to build something back still to get enough critical mass.

So, just to set it, we'll give you my feel. Yeah, just because my guess is they're actually going to need to add something. Take the annex down but add something new still there.

It still may be the same size of what's there now, but it's not going to – I think it's very unlikely they're going to come back and say they have plenty of space. Right?

[Speaker 8] (3:11:53 - 3:11:54)
I think it's going to be one.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:55 - 3:12:31)
It's my gut because I think we're already on the low side for room count likelihood here for a hotel. The reuse committee did a really great job. They actually talked to end users, and that subgroup did a really good job.

They actually went out and talked to boutique hotel operators and flags to get some feedback and try a market test, if you will, via phone and via Zoom and those type of things. And that just gave a little bit of feedback, not enough for us to rely on, but it hinted clearly towards the fact that we would probably need to be adding space to Hadley.

[Speaker 3] (3:12:34 - 3:12:38)
Okay, great. All right, Sean. Sean, march forward.

[Speaker 2] (3:12:38 - 3:12:39)
I am clear. All right. Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (3:12:40 - 3:12:46)
I assume Neil and I will just continue working. We're happy to work with you as kind of the Hadley liaisons to do that.

[Speaker 3] (3:12:47 - 3:14:21)
All right, moving on to the consent agenda. Before we vote on the consent agenda, I want to remove, just to speak specifically to the one-day liquor license, just to make a couple of minor corrections, the liquor license is going to Bentwater. Gargi Cooper is organizing this event at the high school, and in our agenda it says March 31st, but the actual date is March 24th.

And that's correct on the license, but it's just incorrect on our agenda. So I just wanted to pull that out and also just take the opportunity to plug the event. It's at Swampskate High School.

It's the Swampskate High School PTF in the junior and senior class fundraiser, the Anchors Away auction. A lot of great items will be up for auction. It's in the high school cafeteria.

There will be entertainment, appetizers, and pending our vote, beer and wine. So it should be a great night, silent auction and live auction, $35 tickets that you buy in advance. And as I mentioned, the license is going to Bentwater.

So it will be not only beer and wine, but very good beer. Can't speak for the wine. So if we can vote on that first and then move to the consent agenda after, that would be great.

I'd make a motion to approve that one-day license.

[Speaker 10] (3:14:21 - 3:14:25)
I just have a question about the license at the high school.

[Speaker 3] (3:14:26 - 3:14:26)
Yep.

[Speaker 10] (3:14:27 - 3:14:27)
Can I ask a question?

[Speaker 3] (3:14:28 - 3:14:28)
Sure.

[Speaker 10] (3:14:29 - 3:14:36)
What is the precedent about having liquor at the high school? Has there been any other liquor license issued on the premises?

[Speaker 1] (3:14:36 - 3:14:40)
My understanding is that the superintendent has approved this.

[Speaker 17] (3:14:41 - 3:14:41)
She did?

[Speaker 1] (3:14:41 - 3:14:53)
And so I actually don't remember. I don't have specific knowledge about other events, but I know that they went through the superintendent to make sure that she was fine as the capital C custodian of those buildings.

[Speaker 3] (3:14:54 - 3:14:55)
But I can't answer the other one.

[Speaker 10] (3:14:56 - 3:15:00)
Do we know if we've ever issued another liquor license here?

[Speaker 3] (3:15:00 - 3:15:04)
I don't know. Okay. Do you have any recollection of that?

I don't know the answer to that.

[Speaker 10] (3:15:04 - 3:15:14)
Just curious. It's just setting some precedent, which may be a great thing. I actually could be inviting you to sooner.

[Speaker 2] (3:15:15 - 3:15:52)
I will say that I have had individuals approach me about having a concert at the high school that involves alcohol. Maybe it would be appropriate, or maybe it would send the wrong message to our young citizens. I think we should be able to handle this responsibly.

We've proven we can do this at Milano Town Hall. We certainly think this should be appropriate.

[Speaker 3] (3:15:55 - 3:15:56)
So there's a motion. Is there a second?

[Speaker 17] (3:15:57 - 3:15:57)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (3:15:58 - 3:16:04)
All right. Any further discussion or questions on that one? All those in favor?

Aye.

[Speaker 17] (3:16:04 - 3:16:04)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (3:16:04 - 3:16:34)
Okay, great. So moving on to the consent agenda, we have application for door-to-door solicitation, hawking and peddling license is what it's called, for representative of Sunrun Solar Company. One day change of manager application from Attuchi's, and the approval of minutes for our February 15th meeting.

I just have a question.

[Speaker 7] (3:16:34 - 3:16:43)
So why does the change of manager application for our common VIX come to the select board, Sean?

[Speaker 17] (3:16:44 - 3:16:45)
Why the VIX?

[Speaker 10] (3:16:47 - 3:16:50)
It's a liquor license. It's ABCC.

[Speaker 7] (3:16:50 - 3:16:53)
It has to come to us. No, no, no. The change of manager?

Yes.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:53 - 3:16:55)
Because it triggers something under the law.

[Speaker 2] (3:16:55 - 3:16:56)
It's a great question.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:57 - 3:16:58)
It shouldn't need to, but it does.

[Speaker 2] (3:16:58 - 3:17:20)
Years ago, the board, another member of this board asked the same question, and I said, you know, in the towns Burlington, the town manager has the responsibility of keeping all the liquor license, and all these VIX do. And so that's a charter issue. You'd have to change the charter if you wanted to delegate this to a police chief.

Okay.

[Speaker 7] (3:17:20 - 3:17:22)
Don't you like 20s?

[Speaker 3] (3:17:22 - 3:17:22)
Love it.

[Speaker 7] (3:17:23 - 3:17:24)
Motion to approve the consent agenda.

[Speaker 3] (3:17:25 - 3:17:29)
Second. Further discussion? All those in favor?

[Speaker 17] (3:17:29 - 3:17:30)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (3:17:31 - 3:17:35)
Great. Sean, town administrator's report. All right.

[Speaker 2] (3:17:35 - 3:19:32)
Again, I want to thank the finance team, but also all of the other town department heads for their work on the budget. Every one of the department heads worked hard to put their budget together. They all received late last minute reductions in their budget, so I know that can be disappointing, but I do think we have a solid budget.

Let's see. Our town clerk is busy with dog licenses and municipal elections, so census forms have been mailed out to 8,500 residents, so he has been busy with some of those responsibilities. We're busy putting plans together for our first annual St. Patrick's Day celebration at the Hawthorne. This event will be on Friday, March 17, from noon to 4 p.m. It will feature a local Irish band, the Blue Honey Drops. There is a fixed price for the event at $50 for beef and cabbage meals, and proceeds will benefit the 4th of July fireworks fund. This year, the Tedesco Country Club modified their longstanding partnership with the town and modified our ability to hold an annual fundraiser there to raise funds for fireworks for the 4th of July, and so now we're on a two-year schedule because Marblehead will be able to go out there this year, even though most of the polls are in swamped.

I was really surprised that they made that decision. It doesn't sit well, but... Who negotiated that?

No one negotiated it. This was a unilateral decision by the club to limit the use of that one day a year to raise funds for the 4th of July.

[Speaker 1] (3:19:32 - 3:20:12)
Can I just intervene and say, can we just give Sean the consensus of the board that it would be okay to write a very stern letter to let them know that the unanimous feeling of this board is that it's an unfortunate decision from them? And I think it's important for the residents of Swampscott to understand that that fundraiser, that golf fundraiser, was a principal funding for our 4th of July celebration that we do with Lynn, and that I'm sure lots of Tedesco members enjoy. So I just feel as though I want you to feel empowered.

I'm speaking for myself, but I hope you guys join. I want you to feel empowered to say, what the heck.

[Speaker 5] (3:20:12 - 3:20:19)
I think maybe they made a mistake. Maybe you want to go over there and talk to them. Have a conversation with them.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:19 - 3:20:26)
I think that's what's being suggested. However you want to do it, I'm happy to do it. I think they did make a mistake.

I'm not sure that they know that yet.

[Speaker 5] (3:20:28 - 3:20:35)
Well, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I think that they made a mistake. And having lunch with you, maybe they would change their mind.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:35 - 3:20:36)
You may have to pay for the lunch.

[Speaker 2] (3:20:37 - 3:20:39)
I don't need to find a club member.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:39 - 3:20:42)
They have a club. You may need to find a club member. I will reach out to them.

[Speaker 2] (3:20:42 - 3:20:45)
A club member will bring you over. Unfortunately, I'm not a golfer, so I'll have to.

[Speaker 10] (3:20:45 - 3:20:47)
Well, don't say that as your intro, please.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:49 - 3:20:56)
So anyways, fair enough. I think you're hearing from enough board members that you should feel like you can go see if they want to correct their moves.

[Speaker 5] (3:20:56 - 3:21:02)
Go and knock on their door. I'm guessing they want to. I'll put money on it.

[Speaker 7] (3:21:02 - 3:21:05)
They're good people. And Sean, I'm also happy to accompany you if you would like.

[Speaker 2] (3:21:05 - 3:21:06)
I appreciate that, David.

[Speaker 10] (3:21:06 - 3:21:08)
See if we can give you the golf know-how.

[Speaker 2] (3:21:09 - 3:21:16)
So I'm going to move on. I want to thank the board for approving the vacancy. It would be assessing a director.

[Speaker 1] (3:21:19 - 3:21:20)
Actually, take her with you.

[Speaker 2] (3:21:23 - 3:25:09)
Now that I think of it, take her with you. At least she is the right person. They do have all of their lands in Chapman.

They pay less than anybody. I do want to recognize Dick Simmons. Dick Simmons has worked as our interim assessor over the last six months, and he has been absolutely fantastic.

His acumen, his experience has been absolutely terrific. He's been a great member of the team, and he is sorely going to be missed. I do hope that I can have him back and talk with this board a little bit about his perspectives in that position and perhaps some of the opportunities we have to make some changes.

That said, I want to wish him well and certainly just acknowledge his service. I want to just thank our library director, Jonathan Nichols. Last week, he hosted the Veterans Crossing Group, and he's been working closely with SHORE to work on a collection of oral and written histories.

The board was given a presentation a few months ago about capturing your unique histories, and I would just encourage you to work with SHORE and fill those out and share your background. We are all Americans, but we all have an interesting past, and it's important for Swampskate to really have leaders that celebrate such a diverse group of individuals that work here and live here and invest in public service. I want to thank Mike Sweeney for his work as well.

He's been invited to do story time at the Children's Room, and I really appreciate the work he's doing to pull together the Veterans Crossing groups. Last week, I did receive a call from a resident from the Swampskate Housing Authority seeking a review of handicapped parking spaces on the campuses. I've asked the Police and Fire Department and DPW, Community Development, to work with the Swampskate Housing Authority to identify additional accommodations for handicapped parking spaces in and around each of the three Swampskate Housing Authority campuses.

I did have a discussion with several Swampskate Housing Board members on some strategies for expanding the collaboration between the Housing Authority and the County Departments as well. Lastly, I just want to thank everyone that participated in the SHORE event that celebrated Black History Month this past Monday. It was so impressive to see not only the high school chorus sing, but also hear a discussion about some of the legacies that Swampskate has with slavery and some of the prominent citizens back in the 1800s that had a direct tie to slavery.

It's important for Swampskate to come to terms with that history and just understand that legacy. The truth is important, but it's also important for us to think about ways that we can continue to be more inclusive, and these events and these programs do help us save lives. There are people that suffer in Swampskate and in communities that aren't as open about some of these important conversations, and those that are pulling these events together are doing truly a wonderful service to everyone.

So, thank you.

[Speaker 3] (3:25:09 - 3:26:38)
That's my report. Thank you, Sean. Any questions for Sean on his report?

All right, select board time. I have one quick comment. In some of the technical snafus and public comment earlier, Deb Newman wasn't allowed to make public comments, so she emailed me a public comment.

I'll just read it here. She says, I want to let residents know that if they missed last night's well-attended presentation Living with Coyotes should be available as a recording by Monday. If anyone would like a copy, please email deb4coyotes at gmail.com, and she'll be happy to send it along. She wants to thank you to Katie Phelan for attending last night, and I want to urge other members of the select board and the town administrator to request the recording as the presentation contains a good overview of how a coyote response plan works. As a town, we're already well behind in what we should be doing to ensure that residents are well-informed and feel more self-assured among coyotes. More importantly, we should be able to rely on experts to investigate current circumstances and prevent conflicts from happening, especially as pupping season is only a few weeks away.

So, thanks, Deb, for submitting that, and sorry for the technical difficulties we experienced in the beginning of the meeting. And that's all I have. Any other select board time?

[Speaker 10] (3:26:38 - 3:27:28)
I just want to acknowledge the PTOs of the elementary schools who are working in conjunction to do a lot of programming in anticipation of becoming one school. And they have been, a lot of caregivers have been working very hard to make sure that the experience at each elementary school, whether it's in a swing space or a permanent structure, are having very similar elementary school experiences. And we are having our first someone special dance this Friday night here at the high school.

And it is sold out, which is great news. It's from 6.30 to 8.30, and we're very excited about that. So, keep your eyes peeled for more elementary unity programs.

[Speaker 1] (3:27:29 - 3:28:54)
I have two quick things. I only had one, and I thought of it when Katie was talking. I love the fact that the PTOs did a someone special dance, because I think it's really important because there are a lot of members of our community that that someone special isn't necessarily a parent.

It could be a guardian, it could be a grandparent, it could be somebody else. I think it's really important that that message is sent. So, thank you.

I know you're involved, so I can actually say thank you to you. And then, the other one was, and I failed to mention earlier when we were talking about the VFW and Pine Street. Someone who deserves credit in being in our ears about this and talking about this, and I'm sure you guys are shaking your head, and I'm now going to say a name, and you're going to be like, really, that's the name?

But, in all seriousness, Charlie Patsios is the person. Charlie Patsios has been, for a long time, trying to, he doesn't own the property now, but at one point he did own this property, and for a long time he has been advocating in the way he does for something that has some similarity to what we are now doing. And I just think as though he deserves an acknowledgement, because he has tried, and again, his way to bring people together to have this conversation.

So, I meant to mention that earlier, but I think it's important to say thank you to Charlie for that.

[Speaker 3] (3:28:55 - 3:28:57)
Yeah, thanks for remembering that and bringing it up.

[Speaker 17] (3:28:59 - 3:29:00)
Anyone else?

[Speaker 5] (3:29:00 - 3:29:45)
So, I just wanted to, I missed the coyote issue last night because I was at Solid Waste, and I have to tell you, the Solid Waste Committee is just amazing. Like, who would ever think that recycling could be so interesting? But it really is, and I'll get some highlights from it, and bring that to next time.

But, the coyote issue- Yes, the coyote issue is something I'm very concerned about, because we brought this up about, I don't know, maybe six, eight weeks ago, with the issues that were going on in Nahant, and I just want to know if we could have a real plan from the police chief and the animal control officer and the people working on- Do we have a real plan?

[Speaker 2] (3:29:45 - 3:30:27)
I'll be candid. Like, I trust our police chief, I trust our animal control officer to keep us safe. If residents have concerns about their safety, they should reach out to the police chief or the ACO, and we will respond.

There's a regional conversation happening about protecting coyotes. ACO is involved in some of those conversations. I certainly have given direction to the chief that I don't expect that we're going to be euthanizing these coyotes or going after lethal means of dealing with an animal that, frankly, has been around in these areas since time immemorial.

[Speaker 5] (3:30:27 - 3:30:56)
It's an eastern coyote, and- I'm talking about a pro-act- What are we doing proactively? I mean, I did see- Well, you were on that conversation last night, and my understanding is there were 120 people on that presentation last night of trying to understand what they should be doing in their neighborhoods. I mean, I don't have a clue what I should be doing if a coyote starts to approach.

I'm just asking, what are we doing as far as effectively communicating- Proactively educating.

[Speaker 2] (3:30:56 - 3:31:44)
Educating the community on how we're going to- Let me reach out to our animal control officer, and we'll come back. I do want to just recognize the work of Swamp Food Conservancy. They run a number of programs.

They have been really terrific in working with our library and getting information out so that folks aren't as alarmed about the presence of coyotes. There are things that we can do to help residents feel safe and just understand that there's a way to deal with coyotes in our neighborhoods, which sometimes become their habitat, that allow us to just live in harmony with nature. We have turkeys in our neighborhoods.

[Speaker 1] (3:31:44 - 3:32:30)
With all due respect, I'm just going to double-time in with Mary Ellen here. The only proactive thing that's happened in the town of Swampscott is by private citizens, and that's not okay. Period.

Hard stop. I don't feel comfortable thinking the answer is for me to call the police chief and say, what should I do about coyotes? I don't think our residents should have to call the police chief or the police department or ACO.

I think, again, to Deb Newman's credit and the Conservancy's credit, they're the only ones that are proactive at the moment, and we need to be proactive. I bet you they're willing to be part of that team of being proactive, but they want the endorsement and the support and the backing of the town to do that, and I don't think we've given it to them yet. So I would just encourage that because I think Mary Ellen's focus on proactive is the exact word that I don't think is happening at this point.

[Speaker 5] (3:32:30 - 3:33:40)
I'd like to, at our next meeting, just give us an idea of what's going on and maybe these groups can all work together and just get us somewhere. So I also want to thank the Shore Committee for their Black History Month on Monday night. It was really a great event.

I am so impressed with the high school choir. I never thought that I would be that impressed with a high school choir, but I think I'm going to become a groupie now, get their schedule. Yes, I think absolutely.

And before I close, last week we had a heated select board meeting, and I'm sorry, I am going to bring this up, but we did hear the chief of police say he would like to have a conversation with the select board, and I support that. Katie said she supported it. I want to just put this to bed.

If three of you are not in support of it, then we're not in support of it, but if there's a way for us to facilitate this in an executive session, I would like to do that.

[Speaker 1] (3:33:41 - 3:33:49)
The problem is it's not an executive session. It's a public meeting, and first of all, I'm not aware of any exemption that would allow for a conversation.

[Speaker 3] (3:33:50 - 3:34:43)
I don't even know what the chief wants to talk about, but there isn't. Why don't we find out? Before we can talk more about this, but there's a planned meeting for this week.

We're going to have to reschedule where David and I were planning on meeting with the chief and Sean and members of the union to discuss, to move things forward about how we can have these communications. I agree with Peter where it's hard to set up an executive session. It's a public conversation, and it's hard to have a public conversation about the issue.

We want to have these conversations with them and talk to them about it, so I'm not ignoring it. I think there's a huge challenge with trying to have this conversation publicly because I think so many of these issues are ones that need to be had.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:43 - 3:34:50)
There's a lot of personnel thing, and frankly, we aren't going to be equipped to be able to speak freely because there are certain requirements for us.

[Speaker 3] (3:34:50 - 3:34:50)
Nor will I.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:51 - 3:35:35)
Nor will he, in a public forum. I just want to be clear to those people that said, well, why do they want to do it privately? It's not that we want to do it privately, but there are specific laws in place that protect what we can say or not say about personnel and about things like that, and they can't consent it away.

Publicly, they can say all they want, but it's just going to be us sitting there listening for the most part, which I don't know how that bridges anything, except to have them feel as though we listen to them. But it's not going to be a conversation because we can't. That's point one for me.

Point two is I still continue with the chain of command is the town administrator, and if we are going to start playing that, then I just think that is a very slippery slope, and I'm personally not comfortable doing that, and I appreciate the fact that you are setting up the meeting that you do, and I hope it's productive.

[Speaker 5] (3:35:35 - 3:35:49)
I'm glad to hear that you did set up a meeting. I had no idea. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have brought it up, but I don't know why the union didn't call me and tell me because that's what everybody's perception is, the union's calling me.

So clearly they're not calling me, but I do hope you have a good meeting.

[Speaker 3] (3:35:50 - 3:38:02)
Yeah, and I would say just, you know, I agree with the slippery slope. Like, I just, I mean, we've talked about this, Mary Ellen and I, and this is not a, in my view, this is a much larger sort of philosophical approach. This is not a police union thing to me.

This is a personnel, you know, town operations, town management issue, and I just think that it's important for our select board, for our role is to be separate from. Sean reports to us. The department heads report to Sean, and so that doesn't mean that, you know, other employees report to us, and I think that it's a very slippery slope to have, and it makes it hyperpolitical.

Everything in the operations of the town becomes hyperpolitical, and again, this is not specific to the police department. That just sort of opens up a huge door, which would, in my view, lead to a lot of dysfunction. That's my view.

So I don't want my resistance to be seen as resistance to some sort of resistance to talk to the police department. It's sort of trying to maintain this line and this standard of that's not something, that's where dysfunction and, you know, to use a stronger word, where sort of political corruption, if you will, happens. That's kind of why you have a professional town government in place in the first place is you're not involving elected officials in these day-to-day managerial decisions for employees that actually work, that actually live in the town and know us.

[Speaker 5] (3:38:02 - 3:38:41)
I don't know if that's what the conversation is, is managerial process or issues. I think that what I'm hearing, I'm hearing a chief say he feels that there should be an open conversation, there should be some type of communication to help enhance making the department better and more fiscally responsible. So I am hearing someone, a chief, a head of a department, making comments about having an open communication.

You sit down and you have a conversation there. Anything that's going to move us into a better direction, that's what I want to see.

[Speaker 3] (3:38:41 - 3:39:11)
Yeah, no, and I appreciate that. I just wanted to make clear that my resistance is not some specific resistance towards one department or particular employees, and I don't want it to be framed that way. This is a particular issue that we're talking about right now, but that's where it comes from.

And I've been trying to have this conversation and set it up. It's been challenging on all ends, you know, but we're working towards it, I would just say.

[Speaker 10] (3:39:11 - 3:39:45)
Great. I just have a follow-up to what you just said about sort of the slippery slope ending in some sort of dysfunction. At some point, though, when I look at the sides, I'm trying to find the balance between the dysfunction that we have right now and the dysfunction that we may have if we don't do something.

So if a conversation isn't had, are we satisfied with what is, what there's, I don't know. I just want to think about that. That's all.

It's a balance to me.

[Speaker 1] (3:39:46 - 3:40:33)
Yep. If at the end of the day we think the dysfunction of doing that is going to be better, the better of the two evils, then my suggestion is you need to look at the town administrator, because that's the one that's charged with dealing with dysfunction. We've got to empower him, give him the tools, and not step on his toes and get in his way.

And that, to me, is ultimately where it falls, and I think Sean's willing to have it fall there, to be honest with you. He just wants to don't neuter his ability to do the things he needs to do. If you don't like it, judge him, give him bad reviews, decide, you know, whatever.

But I think that's what I'm hearing from Sean is just let me do my job. And so I hear you. I think it's good that we're moving in the right path, but I would say at the end of the day, if we're not happy and we don't think something's happening at the end of the day, he's the guy I think we've got to look at and hold accountable.

And I think you're willing to do that. You've actually asked for that.

[Speaker 2] (3:40:33 - 3:42:26)
I am. I actually do believe that, you know, the dysfunction that we're dealing with has to do with the most significant amount of change that we have put in place, you know, that both the police and fire department has experienced in the last 30 years or more. It's difficult, and it's frustrating, and it's worth it.

And we'll get through it, and I'm willing to sit and listen and try to help make things better. But I agree with Neil. In some ways, if everything becomes political, if we have to bring everything to this board in ways that really handicap the town administrator or members of this board from discussing, you know, some of the important things that, frankly, we can't discuss publicly because they are personnel, because they are related to collective bargaining contracts, because they may involve impact bargaining on other areas.

It will become impossible for us to really move things forward. It has to really be part of a chain of command. And look, I am sympathetic to the police chief's, you know, responsibilities.

He's been in that position for less than a year, and he's doing his best to try to manage a lot of the change. And it's not easy, but certainly, you know, I don't want that whole conversation just coming to the select board. I think we need to have some of those critical conversations, you know, at the police station, and we have to really think more about, you know, how we manage change, because that's ultimately what we're doing.

[Speaker 5] (3:42:27 - 3:42:57)
So with all due respect, I am going to say that I have heard over and over that the reasons why we have issues is because of change. And I do not believe that the reasons we have issues are because of change. I think we have issues because of communication.

And I'm happy to be wrong, but we've made a change. We've made a change for some time, and I think it's bigger than just change. And I'm just looking forward to a conversation with you guys having a conversation.

[Speaker 3] (3:42:57 - 3:43:15)
That's all. Anything else? That was quite a select board time.

It was. Motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn.

That was good. All right. All right.

All those in favor? Aye. All those in favor?

All those in favor?

[Speaker 17] (3:43:15 - 3:43:19)
I don't know. All those in favor? Aye.

All those in favor?