[Speaker 5] (0:45 - 2:50)
In this lecture, we are going to look at the relationship between the unit of mass and All right, welcome to the May 3rd, 2023 Select Board Meeting. We have several members of the police department, Swampscot Police Department here, and I would ask them to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Speaker 12] (3:01 - 3:11)
which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 5] (3:17 - 3:36)
All right, we're gonna we're gonna start with public comment. Welcome to the May 3rd, 2023 select board meeting. We have several members of the police department.

Swampscott Police Department here. We're gonna start with public comment.

[Speaker 1] (3:44 - 3:50)
I think your first two minutes were pretty awesome. We're now going to critique it. We're now going to critique it for you.

[Speaker 8] (3:56 - 12:06)
I'm Mary DiCillo. I live at 7 Rockland Street in Swampscott. I'm also a precinct four town meeting member.

In addition, I'm a member of the Swampscott Democratic Town Committee. And I am currently now a member of the Swampscott Veterans of Foreign Affairs Auxiliary. The comments I'm offering tonight are my own and do not represent any other person or group.

I'm asking that these be included as part of tonight's meeting. I'm prompted tonight to address this new select board. And congratulations to the new members that have been re-elected and a new member of the board.

I have three things that I'm concerned about around town planning. The first is critical importance of reviewing the town's governance structure in general, updating and publishing the town's organizational chart from the 2016 version, as well as delineating the powers, responsibilities, and activities of each group involved in planning for the town, both volunteer groups and paid professionals. I have a copy I found somewhere of a 2016 organizational chart, but I'd be damned if I could find one on the town website.

So I might not have great, the best computer skills on this. But if there is one, I then disregard my comment on the organizational chart. But I do, it should be on the website.

Okay. I think because people who are used to doing, looking at, like, how does this all relate to each other, I think it's really important. At least for me, I'm a very visual person.

The second point is that town's heavy reliance on a volunteer planning board and planning board chairman to develop and execute plans rather than having a professional planner in place. And the third one is the need for training about open meeting and open records laws regarding the boards, towns, and commissions and committees. The first point is around the organizational chart.

It should be a road map to the town's governance structure, highlighting the vertical and horizontal interconnections between voluntary appointed and elected boards, commissions, and committees, as well as many professional developments within the town. Currently, we have a whole variety of town. We have a new climate committee that's been added, and we have other committees that are all the Harbin Waterfront Advisory Committee.

There's a bunch of committees that are engaged in pieces of town planning, but we don't have a central planning function at this point. And I just am not sure why that is. So under planning, having a central overall responsibility for town planning.

To my knowledge, and again, I'm not completely, again, don't know the end workings on this, I don't know how long we've been without a professional planner, but my guess is that it's been many months, if not over a year, which to me is a real problem. At the time, many projects are either currently underway or in process of being planned and constructed, like Elm Place and the Glover property, or about to be addressed, Hawthorne, Benning Square. And then there are several others that I have written here that you can see when you get a copy of this.

Hadley, the school reuse project, the school building project, the town pier, the rail trail, housing choice, multifamily transit housing, veterans housing, which is now being in the warrant as a proposed thing, other affordable housing, and the Harvard Waterfront, as well as Springbrook, the issues around Springbrook. This is a big agenda. It's a huge agenda.

And absent of a planner that is, or as, you know, I would call it a czar, that's been used as a term at the federal level, we can't rely on the planning board chair, which it's kind of de facto been falling to, I think, in my own opinion, the planning board chair and the planning board to do the planning activities that are sort of far and beyond what a town planner could provide. I do feel like this has some long-term effects, given the wide scope of what we're going to be doing. It's a serious fragmentation of work being done without regard to the waterfront, environmental concerns and matters of development, which aren't being addressed.

Operating in silos, which is what I think we're doing at this point, will only lead to inefficient uses of resources and poor decision-making at the end. My last point here is around town volunteer boards, commissions and committees and open meeting laws. I am kind of a wonk around this.

I'm kind of a stickler about this, but it is an important aspect of what we have to follow under the state statutes. Appointed and elected town boards represent our town. They're not just some offshoots going off doing good work.

The work that the town boards do, as the town administrator has mentioned on several occasions at town meetings, there are over 200 people that operate as volunteers under these very serious boards. And the information that they gather and bring to the town in terms of bylaws and all kinds of things have long-standing, long-impacting relevance to the town and also legal relevance. So these boards have to follow open meeting and open record statutes in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

I would really seek that you as a board please implement in a very strong way what it means to have a quorum at a posted meeting. The other night I was watching a meeting and there was not a quorum. And the meeting was going to continue, despite the fact there wasn't a quorum, because it was viewed as an advisory committee.

That's not true. If you are meeting under the state statute, if you have posted a meeting, a public meeting, it is indeed a public meeting. You cannot, the advisory under the Attorney General's Office, I'm not an attorney, but reading the statute and the advisory, it says it strongly advises that if you do not have a quorum, you do not continue the meeting, period.

That's kind of, it doesn't prohibit it, but it strongly, you know, the language at the very end of the statute is what it says. I don't want us at some point to get into a situation where there are no minutes to a meeting or a meeting hasn't been held in a legal way. That is leaving us wide open for liability suits down the road, and that's not what the town can afford.

So I offer this. I have also included here what I got from the website about the job descriptions. There are two different job descriptions.

One is for a town planner and one is for an assisted town planner. My apologies for not doing a side-by-side comparison. I'm not that great on the computer, like I said.

So I've included this for your reading so that you can see what it is. I strongly recommend and urge you to make sure that this occurs. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (12:06 - 12:40)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't see any additional. Maybe just remind people to raise their hand on Zoom.

Yeah, you can raise your hand on Teams and we can call you. Seeing none on Teams and none in the room, we'll move on. Our first order of business will be the swearing-in of select board members Doug Thompson and David Grishman.

[Speaker 1] (12:42 - 13:09)
Who are you kidding? He's standing back there. Stand in front of the table.

Full regalia. I want full regalia, though. Sean has convinced me that we should have full regalia for this.

And your family should join you, and then we should all sing a song.

[Speaker 7] (13:12 - 13:21)
Okay, so if you could please repeat after me. I, state your name. I'll raise your right hand and repeat after me.

I, state your name. I, David Grishman. I, Doug Thompson.

Do solemnly swear.

[Speaker 10] (13:21 - 13:22)
Do solemnly swear.

[Speaker 7] (13:22 - 13:43)
That I will faithfully and impartially perform. That I will faithfully and impartially perform. All the duties imposed upon me.

All the duties imposed upon me. By my election as. By my election as.

Select board member. Select board member. In the town of Swampscar.

In the town of Swampscar. According to the laws of the Commonwealth. According to the laws of the Commonwealth.

In the bylaws of the town of Swampscar.

[Speaker 5] (13:43 - 13:48)
In the bylaws of the town of Swampscar. So help me God. So help me God.

Thank you very much. Congratulations.

[Speaker 1] (13:49 - 13:50)
Congratulations.

[Speaker 2] (13:55 - 13:55)
Nice job.

[Speaker 1] (13:57 - 14:00)
Thank you. Do you want a picture with your family? You.

[Speaker 2] (14:00 - 14:03)
Yes. Take a two minute break. Drag them here.

I want to do it.

[Speaker 1] (14:03 - 14:07)
Do you want us? Do you want us in the picture? Yeah, we'll call a short recess.

[Speaker 5] (14:07 - 14:09)
Do you want Jared in the picture too? Pictures.

[Speaker 4] (14:09 - 14:11)
Jared. Jared. Jared.

Jared.

[Speaker 5] (15:10 - 15:18)
We want to introduce firefighter puppy Ryan. He might be in the hallway.

[Speaker 1] (15:19 - 15:21)
Do you mind if we just skip over to the beach sticker?

[Speaker 5] (15:21 - 15:23)
That's fine. Yeah, let's do that. We can.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (15:24 - 15:26)
So we're. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (15:26 - 15:33)
Until Ryan's back in the room. We'll move on with the announcement for the beach sticker announcement. And I'll kick that off to my colleague Peter Spellias.

[Speaker 1] (15:35 - 16:13)
Thank you. Mr. Grishman. Hold on.

Put something up here. Nope. Nope.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. Nope. I don't see it.

I don't see you have saved it correctly. Let's just take that off. Nope.

It came in an email. So why don't you just go to your emails. You can open it.

Sorry. Where's a puppy when you need one?

[Speaker 4] (16:26 - 16:27)
Increasing the drama.

[Speaker 1] (16:27 - 18:19)
This really is. So I'll start. I'll start the conversation.

And Miss I, as I understand, you are known to students. I think you're here. You're welcome.

Virtually, you're here. You're welcome to turn on your camera if you want to or not turn on your camera. It's totally up to you.

But each year for the last four years, the presentation will remind me better. The town changed its tradition. There you are.

Hello. I think you might be able to unmute yourself as well if you want to. But each year for the last four years, the town switched from the way in which it did the recreational parking sticker in town and changed from what is a badge-like sticker to one that became a piece of art each year.

And each year, a Swampscot visual arts teacher has graciously offered their talents and shared their talents with Swampscot so that each year when you're driving around town, there's 2,000-plus stickers on people's cars. It's really a symbol of Swampscot and a point of pride for so many people. I'm not going to try to remember all of them without the presentation up, but last year, was it Ryan McDonough did it?

Am I right on that, Miss I? Ryan Townsend. Thank you.

Ryan McDonough is my colleague. Ryan Townsend. Thank you, Joe.

Ryan Townsend. That's fine. You can just stay there at this point.

Did the beach sticker for Swampscot and was really colorful and really exciting and did a really great job. This year, Heather, I don't want to screw up your last name, but Imperatris. I can't hear you.

Sorry. That's it. Try it one more time.

[Speaker 8] (18:20 - 18:21)
Imperatris.

[Speaker 1] (18:21 - 19:16)
There we go. Imperatris. Heather Imperatris is a visual arts teacher at the high school.

With Ryan's help and some others' help, Heather was gracious enough to volunteer her creativity and her talents to create the 2023 sticker. We've been very lucky. Rest assured, if you could see the presentation, you'd see all the prior year stickers, which really have been wonderful here.

So we just wanted to invite Heather here tonight to say thank you. Joe tells me it's Miss I in the high school. So we're going to go with Miss I so I don't ruin it.

So we really wanted to welcome you here and thank you for sharing your talents. I have in my envelope here, but I can't figure out how to put it through the television so that you get it. I have parking sticker number 0001, which is on its way to you and will find your way to the high school tomorrow.

I promise.

[Speaker 12] (19:17 - 19:18)
Thank you very much.

[Speaker 1] (19:18 - 20:29)
For doing that. And I just wanted to, yeah, you do. Just want to welcome you to say anything if you want to, Heather.

You don't need to say anything at all. It's really for us to say thank you to you. After tonight, the stickers will be available for sale online through the town website like usual.

Or you can go into, I believe you still can go into town hall and purchase them on the first floor of town hall. We're quickly scrolling through. That's the first year's ticket sticker.

Just want you to quickly scroll through at this point, please. Thanks. That's the second year's sticker for 2020.

Rachel Eisenberg, who's at the Swampskate Elementary Schools, did the 2021 sticker. And then Ryan did the 2022 sticker, which is so obviously on so many cars around town. And go ahead and down, please.

And then Heather, Miss I, go to the last page, please, has done the 2023 sticker. And Heather, do you want to tell us, I know what this is an image of, and I think many people do, but maybe talk a little bit about your inspiration?

[Speaker 8] (20:30 - 20:44)
Sure. This is from a photograph that I took at Phelps Beach. It was kind of an overcast day, so I did go in and add some more colors.

Yeah, it's a lovely beach. I can't wait to see the sticker around town.

[Speaker 1] (20:45 - 21:09)
You will. So thanks very much for sharing your talents with us. It's very gracious of you.

And I think people really enjoy seeing the sticker and helping remind people, especially people like me that are in commutes every morning when you're going down the laneway seeing all the cars. You know who's from Swampskate because you can see all the stickers, and it's just a nice reminder of our seaside community. So thanks very much for offering yourself for this.

[Speaker 5] (21:10 - 21:11)
Thank you, guys.

[Speaker 1] (21:13 - 21:18)
Wonderful. Thank you, Miss I. Thank you, David.

[Speaker 5] (21:19 - 21:53)
Thanks, Peter. Thank you, Miss I. I'm looking forward to seeing the stickers near and far.

It was exciting being in northern New Hampshire and seeing Swampskate beach stickers. So that was exciting for me. But I'm boring and into those things.

I love it. Okay. So we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the introduction of firefighter puppy Ryan.

So I'll kick this off to Chief Archer. Chief, welcome. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (21:56 - 21:57)
Hello there, Ryan.

[Speaker 5] (21:57 - 21:58)
Oh, my goodness.

[Speaker 2] (21:58 - 21:58)
How are you?

[Speaker 10] (21:59 - 22:33)
Oh, no. Can I work with Ryan? He's our most ambitious firefighter.

Ryan is a software lab. He's 13 years old now. So I think he's going to have a really positive effect on people.

He's going to reduce blood pressure, reduce your respiration rate, and just make people reduce anxiety and make people feel more calm. Ryan's already begun to do that. He's a little bit un-bunctious right now.

[Speaker 2] (22:34 - 22:35)
Is he being insubordinate to you?

[Speaker 10] (22:35 - 23:02)
He's being a little bit insubordinate. We'll have to have a stern talking to later. But the firefighters have really taken to Ryan right off the bat.

And they spend a tremendous amount of time with him. He gets tons of hugs. He gets tons of petting.

And the public's been invited to visit him quite a lot as well. He's going to be a tremendous addition to the department and he's a real benefit to the staff of the fire department.

[Speaker 2] (23:05 - 23:18)
Wonderful, Chief. I love seeing Ryan out there with Swanson firefighters, but also seeing residents stop by to say hello to Ryan and other dogs in town saying hello to Ryan.

[Speaker 10] (23:19 - 23:32)
He's tremendous. Ryan has a tremendous pedigree. He comes from a championship line.

He's bred from Mulligmore kennels and he's been donated to the town by his breeder. Which was wonderful. Mariela Fletcher.

All right.

[Speaker 12] (23:32 - 23:32)
Thank you, Mariela.

[Speaker 3] (23:40 - 23:41)
He likes the clapping.

[Speaker 10] (23:42 - 23:49)
He likes the clapping. He's pretty fearless. Sirens don't bother him.

Bells on the station don't bother him.

[Speaker 3] (23:49 - 23:52)
Your experience has been great with him.

[Speaker 5] (23:52 - 23:54)
So how big will Ryan become?

[Speaker 3] (23:55 - 24:39)
He will reach about 90 pounds. Between 85 and 95 pounds. Before Ryan was born, the chief actually came to me and he knew that we were going to be having a litter.

And he asked for a puppy. And I really thought, no way. But he convinced me.

And then when the litter was about four weeks old, the chief sent over the tones from the firehouse, the sirens. And so we trained the entire litter for the sirens over the course of four weeks. So by the time he was delivered to the firehouse, he already knew all the tones and nothing bothered him.

Nothing fazed him.

[Speaker 5] (24:40 - 24:42)
Yeah. Wow. That's fantastic.

[Speaker 3] (24:42 - 24:42)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (24:43 - 24:44)
Fantastic. What a beautiful dog.

[Speaker 3] (24:45 - 24:48)
Yeah. He will definitely be a very good looking dog.

[Speaker 2] (24:48 - 24:51)
Chief, have you been able to find a uniform?

[Speaker 3] (24:51 - 24:55)
Well, we're still getting him fitted up. Hey. Hi.

Hi.

[Speaker 2] (24:56 - 24:57)
How are you?

[Speaker 12] (25:04 - 25:06)
Yes. Nice.

[Speaker 3] (25:07 - 25:19)
So he's one of seven. And he's what we call pick of the litter. So he went through a lot of testing with other breeders to look at his structure and his temperament.

And he was our pick.

[Speaker 2] (25:20 - 25:32)
So Mary Ellen, what features of the temperament really define a dog that really would work well in a fire department?

[Speaker 3] (25:32 - 26:24)
Well, there aren't a lot of fire dogs out there. There's, I think, five in Massachusetts. There's a couple in New Hampshire.

But when you go through a little testing, go through a couple of testing, when you go through the actual structure of the animal, his angles, his balance, is he a balanced dog, you also want to double check really what does the pedigree look like as far as personality and looks. And then we had someone from Cold Spring Labradors who does, specifically does therapy type of dogs. And she gave us a whole breakdown of really a couple of things to look for, like dropping things for loud noises, pulling chairs out just to see do they run away.

And he holds his own. And he's always been very even keeled and very happy dog. So, yeah.

[Speaker 2] (26:25 - 26:29)
Wonderful. Sounds like qualities that we all should have.

[Speaker 3] (26:30 - 27:04)
Yes. So I honestly, I just thought even up until the day that he was delivered to the firehouse, I really thought this is probably going to go down as one of the biggest mistakes of my dog career. And I was completely transformed at seeing what the fire department does.

Because you have people coming in and out and in and out. How would a dog really handle it? And after a little bit of research, you know, we learned that it should be fine.

And it's been great. The fire department has been really great with him.

[Speaker 2] (27:04 - 27:11)
Great. All right. So are we going to promote Ryan tonight, or are we going to wait for ‑‑?

[Speaker 10] (27:11 - 27:13)
I think we'll have a probationary period first.

[Speaker 2] (27:13 - 27:15)
All right. Another 90 days, Chief?

[Speaker 10] (27:15 - 27:16)
No, it's a year.

[Speaker 2] (27:16 - 27:18)
A year. Got it.

[Speaker 10] (27:18 - 27:23)
No probation. Then you get that protein helmet shield off. All right.

He's fully vetted.

[Speaker 2] (27:23 - 28:01)
Well, Chief, thank you for bringing Ryan by. I'm sure that there will be a whole generation of Swanscot residents that will have a chance to get to receive a little bit of comfort and support from Ryan. Absolutely.

And I do think it really is a wonderful way for the fire department to really have somebody there that really cares about them as well. Absolutely. That's one thing I think any dog owner can attest to, that, you know, you are loved unconditionally by so few things in this world, but your dog is certainly one of them.

[Speaker 3] (28:02 - 28:10)
They have a pen set up out front, a petting pen, so they put them out there and people come by.

[Speaker 10] (28:10 - 28:32)
Yes, if people see him out, let's just hope people stop by and say hi any time they see him outside. Or even if they don't, they can stop by and ask for him. And once again, I'd like to thank Mary Ellen once again for the donation, the funding that we received.

People have dedicated that much more to his training and his upkeep now. Thanks, Chief.

[Speaker 5] (28:32 - 28:33)
Thank you, Chief.

[Speaker 10] (28:33 - 28:34)
Thank you, Ryan. All right.

[Speaker 5] (28:34 - 31:10)
We'll see you soon. All right. We'll move along to the, we have a Children's Mental Health Week proclamation.

I'll go ahead and read it. Town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, proclamation by the select board in observance of Children's Mental Health Week, May 7th to May 13th, 2023. Whereas, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one in five children is diagnosed with a mental health condition.

And whereas, good mental health is a key component in a child's healthy development. And Child's Mental Health Week shines the light on this important matter in the town of Swampscott. And whereas, research has shown that early identification and treatment of mental health conditions among children and youth.

And the involvement of family members in their care and treatment provide children and youth better opportunities for full and meaningful lives. And whereas, early identification and treatment includes timely services and supports for children and youth from a fully integrated team of diverse resources including their families, physicians, schools, and local communities. And whereas, appropriate treatment is family driven, youth guided, culturally appropriate, and equitable across varying communities and populations.

And whereas, appropriately treating the mental health needs of children, youth, and families today is fundamental to the future of our town, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and our nation. Now, therefore, the town of Swampscott hereby establishes May 7th through May 13th, 2023 to be Children's Mental Health Week in the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts. And encourage all faith-based and non-profit organizations, residents, businesses, civic and public institutions to promote this year's theme.

Accept, advocate, act, because awareness is not enough. In order to help increase equitable access to appropriate treatment and support for our children, our youth, and our families with mental health needs. And witness whereof, we have here set our hands and cause to be a fix, the great seal of the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, this third day of May, 2023.

And this is something that's certainly very important. And in town, we have a number, if you need help, you can call 988. And we do have members of the police department here as well.

Is there anything, Chief, that you'd like to add?

[Speaker 7] (31:10 - 31:28)
No, we also have counselors and mental health with us. It's an hour a week. So mental health practitioners available to us every day, 24 hours, 7 days a week.

[Speaker 2] (31:29 - 31:29)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (31:33 - 31:34)
Anything else?

[Speaker 2] (31:35 - 33:20)
The only thing I would add, David, is that if you know anybody that is suffering, if you know anybody that is struggling, please reach out and talk to them. Be a resource, be a friend, be a good neighbor. Check in on people that you know might be lonely, might be going through a difficult change in life.

We've got to be better about this. We've seen too many tragedies. We, frankly, have seen too many individuals take their own lives over the last few years.

In fact, we're seeing some of those things hit quite close to home. Yesterday we had a tragedy in Swampship, and it's important for us to think about our responsibilities to take care of each other. Massachusetts, like a number of states, has an emergency number where you can call 988 on your phone and speak to a person that is trained to help intervene if you have a mental health crisis or you're feeling depressed or lonely or you're struggling with substance abuse.

Call that number, 988, and just reach out or give somebody that number and let them know that there are people that truly do care about them, that care about their family, their ability to contribute and live a life worth having. It's hard sometimes to see that for some people, and it's important that we continue to think about ways that we can intervene and engage individuals that are struggling.

[Speaker 5] (33:21 - 33:27)
So, Sean, just for clarification, this is 988 throughout the country, 988 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? Yes.

[Speaker 2] (33:28 - 33:33)
It's in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. I do believe it's throughout the country, but I can't be certain.

[Speaker 4] (33:35 - 33:36)
Nationwide.

[Speaker 1] (33:36 - 35:01)
If I can just say one other thing, and I appreciate it, Sean, you've had a really great focus on mental health. This is about children's mental health, but it's really about mental health, and there isn't one of us up here that doesn't have to deal with mental health issues or have family members that deal with mental health issues. I've dealt with anxiety for a better part of my life and only recently learned to talk about it, and I'm 51 years old.

I don't think I talked about it because you didn't talk about mental health. I didn't want to acknowledge things and at times needing medicine and being on medicine to help me and to deal with those things. I'm glad that I'm now able to share my experience, and I want my kids to see it, and I want other people's kids to see it for themselves too because there is no stigma.

We are all suffering in one way or another, and so I appreciate you keep bringing that topic back to the table here, and I just wanted to use this opportunity to share as well because I think the more we all talk about it, the more we normalize it. I think people will be more likely to reach out to a family member, a loved one, a 988 telephone line, to whomever, but it's okay. It's okay to need things.

It's the most human thing about us, so I appreciate you keep bringing this forward, Sean.

[Speaker 2] (35:02 - 36:34)
Yeah. What I appreciate is that we're a community. A lot of people think that we have these events at town hall or at the beach because we like to throw parties.

We actually want people to engage with community. We want more community, and we want more people to get out and be good neighbors and to meet people and to feel like they live in a town that is wonderful, that does care about them, that wants them to be contributors. We need people to feel needed, and we've got to kind of figure that out.

That said, Swampset's a wonderful community, and we're going to continue to talk about these issues, and we're going to continue to come up with strategies that help us see where these individuals are in our community and try to engage them. We all kind of see, like I know lots of things as a town administrator. I see when people don't pay their bills or when the town treasurer knows things, and we've got to kind of figure out how to engage in some ways just to reach out and let folks know that, hey, we're here to help, really.

We want to make sure that people just don't get to the end of that rope without knowing that we're trying to help.

[Speaker 4] (36:36 - 37:30)
I'll just add just two cents on this. First of all, I just want to thank you, Peter, for kind of speaking forthrightly about the challenges you've had. I think it's true that we all face these issues in one way or another throughout the course of our life, and so I just want to kind of really emphasize how important this is, and without creating a whole topic about this and a whole conversation, I am interested to hear kind of what survey we've done, what knowledge we have, what resources we have, kind of where the mismatch might be, or if that's kind of something that we really need to be thinking about going forward.

I mean, a proclamation is nice, and I know there's been discussion about making something bigger happen, so I'm interested to hear kind of going forward, you know, what the gap is and whether or not our budget next year responds to that or what we need to be thinking about, you know, very concretely going forward. And not to put you on the spot.

[Speaker 2] (37:30 - 39:46)
No, actually, you're not putting me on the spot. I think it's an important conversation. I actually had a meeting yesterday with our Director of Health, Jeff Vaughan, and our nurse, Mia Illingworth, and we talked about a youth risk survey and the type of questions that are presented to our youth that would help us understand, are they using drugs earlier, you know, one year to another?

Are they using alcohol earlier? You know, what are the risks associated with youth behavior? What are the risks associated with, you know, hospitalizations?

Where is the data? Where's the data from the Salem Medical Center? How many citizens have gone into that hospital every month from Swampskate, and what are they being seen for?

And how do we develop a public health plan based on data, both from our school district but also from community, you know, health providers that would help us see as well as the police? Absolutely. You know, we have, frankly, an extraordinary connection with Detective Delano and the Swampskate Police Department.

They've worked for years to try to evolve strategies to address individuals that are addicted to drugs and try to come up with other strategies besides enforcement but engagement. There's more that we need to do, though, because, you know, we all have data sets, but we've got to really get together and have a big tent conversation about how we're all addressing these issues, both from a public policy standpoint, from a law enforcement standpoint, and a public health standpoint. More to come on this.

You know, we're having these conversations, and I'm happy to work with the chair to put this on the agenda and invite our colleagues into a conversation around our responsibilities to public health and public safety.

[Speaker 5] (39:47 - 40:06)
Yeah, I think Doug's question is a poignant one, and so I would ask you, Sean, to continue to keep this up. Sure. Thank you.

All right, we're going to move on. Humphrey Street Traffic Statistics and Updates. Chief?

[Speaker 7] (40:06 - 40:59)
Sure. Thank you for allowing me to be here today. First off, I'll introduce my team who's completely helped me with traffic safety, Captain Joe Cable, Lieutenant Tom Hennessey, and Acting Sergeant John Lloyd.

So thank you for being here tonight and being part of this. So when we talk about traffic safety, I think the question was posed a couple meetings ago about a possible decrease in traffic enforcement efforts, traffic safety efforts, and so I'm here tonight to tell you how important it is to us, and, in fact, there's not been a decrease, and we'll explain that a little bit later. But, you know, our primary function for traffic safety is to ensure that we're always identifying the emergency, the emerging needs of the community, whether it be pedestrian safety.

[Speaker 1] (41:02 - 41:05)
Sorry, Chief, I was just asking. I think you have a presentation. Do we have copies of the presentation?

[Speaker 2] (41:06 - 41:08)
We don't have copies, Chief.

[Speaker 1] (41:08 - 41:14)
I have. I just wanted to ask if I was missing anything. Please continue.

Sure.

[Speaker 2] (41:15 - 41:15)
You're up.

[Speaker 7] (41:18 - 41:21)
Dan, do you have the PowerPoint? I do have the PowerPoint. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (41:22 - 41:29)
Do you want to pull that up, Dan? Yeah. I'm happy to share with Doug.

We can share.

[Speaker 3] (41:30 - 41:31)
This is coming up on the PowerPoint.

[Speaker 7] (41:37 - 44:08)
I'll wait until the PowerPoint's up. Next slide, please. So as I was saying, you know, our primary focus is to collaborate to not only look at enforcement efforts.

We have to educate, we have to inform, and we have to work with our community. And so part of our efforts is a multipronged approach to ensure that we're not just out here giving tickets. We want the community safe no matter what.

I think every one of us in the room has either had a family member, had a friend who's been struck or in a motor vehicle accident. I have. I've been hit by a drunk driver while on duty as a police officer.

I've had friends killed by drunk drivers. And so while this is not just about drunk driving, this is about community safety and pedestrian safety. And so what I brought here, Acting Sergeant John Lloyd, is to talk about some of the things that we've done in terms of educating and informing our community.

When you look at public safety awareness, I don't know if you can see that, but we've attended meetings at the senior center, at the farmer's market. We've held community forums. Last week, in fact, we just conducted another PSA regarding traffic safety.

We've deployed speed boards, and John can talk a little bit more about the deployment of the speed boards, the trailer boards. We've utilized decoy vehicles. Now, we're not going to tell the community or the public, you know, we will put a vehicle out and we will leave it on Essex, for example.

That will slow traffic down. Now, you know, we're all drivers as well. We've sped as well.

We're trying to get to locations. What we try to do is we utilize these efforts, decoy vehicles, traffic posts, education, and it's, like I said, it is a multi-pronged approach. And I'll have John talk a little bit about what he's done in terms of traffic safety, since he was our traffic officer, our safety officer, starting in August.

[Speaker 11] (44:08 - 45:40)
Some of the things you've volunteered on. Hi. So, first and foremost, I would take a lot of the concerns and complaints that we receive through town hall or through the department, and we basically check in and see what's going on.

And just basically see kind of where our primary areas are in terms of where we need to enforce and how we need to do it. The speed boards have worked very well in terms of generating data for us to figure out kind of where we are. For instance, Pine Street was a big one.

Stetson is now on the agenda right now. Franklin. What else do we have here?

Humphrey Street, obviously. And just we have a few more throughout town. And that's really helped us figure out kind of where we are in terms of speed, how many cars have traveled through, average speed where if we need to kind of enforce the area more or if we need to kind of adjust where we're at in terms of speed limits or lack of signage, for instance.

So that's the first and foremost thing that I would do. I'd take everybody's concerns, complaints, and reach out to them and see where we need to react to and enforce. And we'd divvy it out to our guys on the force, and we would work from there.

[Speaker 7] (45:41 - 47:55)
I think it's one of the things, it's more of as well as a personal touch. I've been out with John, and we contact community members and ask them, let me hear. I want them to hear from the chief himself.

I have lots of duties. I have lots of things and priorities I need to take care of. But listening to our community members is one of the most important things for our community members to be heard.

And so having officers, chief, lieutenants go out there and meet them where they are and show us, I think that means a lot. And so besides this listening, the next slide will talk about what we've achieved and what we've accomplished. In 2021, we issued 1,211 citations, just as a side note.

And offline, I can tell you more about what those citations, what they entail. But in 2022, we issued 1,453 citations with an additional 500 parking citations issued. We actually did more work while at the same time we decreased staffing back in July.

So to me, that is an absolute win in terms of now we're never there. But we're gradually getting better year by year in terms of traffic enforcement measures. I'll have another additional thing that we're utilizing is our MRS grant.

I'll have Lieutenant Hennessey talk a little bit about that. But the grant has been tremendous to our department, to the town, in ensuring that we are – it doesn't – listen, we have to be fiscally responsible at the same time being efficient as well as providing public safety, number one. By obtaining these grants that Lieutenant Hennessey has completed, this has increased our personnel hours in enforcement strategies.

And I'll have Lieutenant Hennessey talk a little bit about the Municipal Road Safety Grant.

[Speaker 9] (47:55 - 51:11)
The MRS grant program started as a competitive grant in – I believe it was 2021. In the past, we would get assigned a number. You just had to fill out an application, and it was in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $7,000.

In 2021, the state put out the MRS grant program. Our population gave us a top level of $20,000. So the first year, and it was my first grant, we were rewarded over $19,000.

We used that – at the time, it was almost an all-enforcement grant program. It was speed enforcement, drunk driving enforcement, seatbelt enforcement. And I think it was – those were the things then.

Then 2021, we were put in a higher tier. We could get up to $30,000. We got $27,000 and change.

I have the numbers here. It allowed us to do some more things. It allowed us to do training.

So in addition to the enforcement – and also one thing that I didn't mention. Some of the enforcement is specifically for pedestrian enforcement. So I believe 2022, we were in the neighborhood of $10,000 for just pedestrian enforcement.

The training – we sponsored a training class at SPD headquarters for operating under the influence of alcohol and drugs. It's called the A-Ride Program. Super successful class.

It was taught by Lieutenant Jim Razo of the Lawrence Police Department, who's the drug recognition enforcement coordinator for the state, and retired Sergeant Don Decker from Marblehead, who was the former leader of that program. Outstanding training. Police officers all over the state.

We're repeating that May 18th and 19th. Last year, we trained six officers. This year, we have four officers in the class.

So the MRS grant has been tremendous. One thing that the 2023 grant has allowed – and the state has been evolving with this. It started just really as enforcement, and now it's training.

Next year, I'm going to try to do some equipment to get – but it's also outreach. So I'm having Sergeant Lloyd develop some programs to do for the senior center. So the grant is going to pay for us to do outreach to our seniors, to some of our younger drivers with driver's ed.

So the grant is evolving, and we're trying to evolve with it and use our dollars most wisely. Thank you, Tom.

[Speaker 7] (51:12 - 51:38)
Another thing that we're working on, like I talked about earlier, about a holistic approach, is speed tables. And that's thanks to the efforts of Sean and Marzi, Chief Archer, Max Casper, Geno, and Captain Cable was there. And I'll have Captain Cable talk about some of the proposed things that we're discussing in terms of where we would like to see the speed tables.

[Speaker 6] (51:43 - 1:02:24)
Thank you, Chief. In our discussions with the town administrator, although certainly enforcement is an important component of safety, we spent a lot of time engineering our streets to move cars quickly and effectively. And now we find that to be a less desirable situation, and we're certainly finding that engineering to make them more pedestrian-friendly and slow down cars is a new goal.

So part of that is we looked at speed tables, which we're all seeing as becoming much more common throughout the North Shore here. We had an experiment with them last summer. We're going to go forward.

Sean has told us to identify 20 locations where we'll be able to install these speed tables. So we looked at locations. We tried to identify areas where we had high level of valid complaints about speeding on cut-through neighborhoods with a focus on getting pedestrians safely to schools and parks.

Frankly, although 20 seems a lot, when we go through the list, I'm sure everybody will say, it's going to feel like there's going to be a speed bump. Every 10 feet in the town, believe me, there could be, no doubt, many more out there. So that's the thought process that we've gone into, the numbers that we're looking at.

And these are the locations that we've tentatively identified. So starting here, Stetson Ave, as was mentioned, there's been a real hotbed of complaints. Validly so.

Cars do, it's a major cut-through in the town. It has the feel of a residential street, but the way some of our roads are designed, roads that feel very residential are actually more substantial in the traffic than you would find in other communities. Stetson Ave would be one of those.

And given the straight nature of the road, we've had limited success with enforcement down there. Even the residents, they note in their online complaints that the police show up, the speeding problem goes away, the police go away, the speeding problem returns. And that's because we're very visible to anybody coming down the street.

So we think speed tables would be a great solution. We've proposed two for Stetson Ave. We don't want people to just be speeding up, hit the one in the middle, and then speed up again. So we proposed one as close as safely possible.

The engineers decide at the intersection of Stetson and Barnstable, and a second one at Stetson and Franklin. We anticipate that that will slow down traffic entering Stetson Ave and eliminate the incentive to speed up in between. So we really think the residents will see a strong benefit there.

We also highlight down at the bottom there, if you can see on Franklin Ave, that's one of the significant outlets from Stetson Ave that runs into Paradise Road, and we do receive a fair number of complaints there. And we don't want people to make up for their lost time in Stetson Ave on Franklin. So we've proposed one just past Suffolk Ave on Franklin Ave. Again, given the stop sign and the merge with Paradise at the other end, we believe in this case that one will probably effectively handle the traffic flow on Franklin Ave. Then Stetson comes out onto Norfolk, and all the traffic that's cutting through there now either generally spills to the left to go down Norfolk towards Paradise or more commonly takes a right to go towards Borough Street, the train station, Pine Street, or to wrap all the way around to Elmwood Road and eventually to Humphrey Street.

So we propose three in this general neighborhood to, again, catch the cars that are coming through there. We've proposed Clark Elementary School for now, the speed table at the existing crosswalk on Norfolk. In the future, that will also help just get kids safely to a significant park, and the same thing on Middlesex Ave, replacing the crosswalk closest to Ellis Road in the front of the school.

Norfolk Ave, we handled at the bottom with the one at the crosswalk, but there's also a problem. We've had many complaints from Norfolk Ave as people go through the four-way stop sign at Middlesex and continue on to Paradise. So halfway down the road there, it's a short stretch.

We've proposed one. We don't think that that will give people enough time to really have that speed-up effect because of the length of the street. Next, and we get to the real, I think, heart of what we're all focusing on, Humphrey Street.

We're going to propose six for the total of Humphrey Street, three in the downtown area. It's a major road. A lot of people drive down it.

That may seem like it's going to impact a lot of people. The speed limit down there is actually 20, 25, and most of that stretch, anyways, people shouldn't be going that fast. It's a high-pedestrian area.

It's one of our most dangerous roads in town. And we feel that this is an appropriate focus, despite the fact that a few commuters in the morning may not share that view. 90 Humphrey Street, that is the dentist office at the corner of Monument Ave. The crosswalk there, that's probably one of our most dangerous in town. I could go through all the engineering problems with that crosswalk, but we've had a number of significant incidents there. In fact, a woman crossing with a baby in a carriage was struck there a few years back. So we recommend replacing the crosswalk there with the speed table.

We're not replacing, but putting them together. In front of St. John's Church, that crosswalk also has been historically one of our most used and dangerous. In between, we have the traffic light at Reddington, so that should make that entire downtown area relatively pedestrian-friendly.

Then we move to what we call Upper Humphrey Street, which is our next slide. And we focus a little more up here, because we're going to have the new school, and we're going to be focused on the new, safe ways to get some of the kids to the new school. So once again, we're going to focus on a crosswalk at the Phillips Park, right in front of the police station.

That's the one I'm struggling with. So at Pleasant and Humphrey Street, to get people safely across there, there is currently a light there, but we want to slow traffic down in that area, and it's great to combine the two. Then at the crosswalk, Humphrey, Kensington, and Puritan.

It's not a heavily used one now, though we get many complaints. The engineering of it makes people go through it without seeing the light oftentimes, because they're merging and looking left coming off Humphrey Street. And we expect an uptick in pedestrian traffic there with the new school going in.

And then also with the focus on the new school and getting people to walk safely across Humphrey Street, we expect the intersection at Orchard and Humphrey, where there's an existing crosswalk and crossing guard, to warrant that also. If you travel a little further up, you'll find that there's a crossing, one of those flashing yellow crossing lights at Humphrey and Salem. So we think that with these proposed speed tables on Humphrey, we've gone a long way to reducing speeds to where they will be and getting people safely to a number of parks, beaches, and schools.

Sticking with the schools, you're way ahead of me, Diane. So we were looking at Forest Ave. Obviously, it's been a – it fits Stetson Ave in the way that it handles more traffic than people might think it should. Also, obviously, very heavy pedestrian activity with students going to the schools down there.

We have proposed two for Forest Ave at the moment. We believe that one between Aspen and Sherwood will be effective in slowing people down that are coming onto Forest Ave from the Reddington Street side. Then there's a significant bend in the road that prevents much gain of speed, and then we suggest a second one at the crosswalk in front of the middle school.

We hope that that will be enough to make Forest Ave safe and solve the problem there, but we'll obviously continue to monitor that constructed road and may require more. We move on to Burpee Road. A significant problem there.

Much like Stetson Ave, very difficult to conduct enforcement, very visible. We're easily seen. There is a tendency of cars to come down that hill very fast, and with the park and the school there, it seems to fit that we should probably do something to mitigate the speed coming down to the park.

So in front of the old Michon School, there is a crosswalk, and we have recommended replacing that with the speed table. If we moved it down further to the outlet of the park, we're afraid that will just get people speeding up right after they hit that when they're going up the hill. Finally, Puritan Road.

Similar, like I said, in a road that handles more volume of traffic than people might guess. It's also a long road, and it may end up warranting more attention than it's been given here, but right now we've chosen two speed tables for Puritan Road. One to try and slow down the traffic that's merging onto Puritan from Humphrey Street.

People tend to come off Humphrey Street, try and maintain the speed from what they see as the main road out there, and we're looking to slow them down in between the two outlets of Sculpin Way, somewhere in that area. Then there's two significant bends in the road, which we think will prevent too much speed up. And then another one we recommend at the crosswalk, where people will be crossing from the parking lot of the old kids' cove down to Isman's Beach.

The road is pretty windy after that, and we hope that the general engineering of the road at that point will prevent people from gaining too much speed. But it's another place that we'll have to monitor going forward and make sure we have gotten that right. And then we have three left here.

So Pine Street has been a problem. Again, another cut-through road. It certainly has a lot of commuter traffic, and people do travel down that road a bit faster, and it's another challenging enforcement spot we propose to on Pine Street because it's definitely going to have the problem of slow down and speed up.

So we feel to effectively mitigate the speed on this street, we needed to put one just before Superior Street between Lombard Terrace and Superior Street, and then one down between Boynton and Erie Street. We believe between those two, we will have effectively managed the speeding problem on Pine Street and get people safely to the train station. And finally, Reddington Street.

Now, it's tempting we would like to put it in front of the school, but that would slow people down coming down the hill, but people would be going by the top part of the park pretty quickly. So after a lot of consideration, it was decided to move this up Reddington Street to just past Stone Court. As you're heading down to the Hadley School, slow them down before they get to the front of the school.

Hope that with the bottom of the road, the school visible and the light will avoid that speed-up effect. But another spot that we'll have to monitor. And it also obviously has the benefit, besides the current school being there, of getting kids safely over to the park.

Any questions about any location or a thought process that I can answer for you?

[Speaker 3] (1:02:24 - 1:02:38)
I have a question on just speed tables. What can we expect from this as far as, you know, real results? And how do we actually measure the results?

How are we really going to know if they're working?

[Speaker 9] (1:02:38 - 1:03:35)
I can kind of grab that. I can give you a little personal experience. I live just off of Valley Street in Salem.

Speed limit's 25 miles an hour. It's a cut through to a school. There was a significant speeding problem.

The city decided to put some speed tables there. I believe the average, and I believe I'm correct, 96% of vehicles were traveling over 25 miles an hour prior to the speed tables. After the speed tables were put in, it was almost total compliance.

And I believe the average speed was well below the speed limit. It was probably 15 to 18 miles an hour. So there was a significant statistical drop in speeding.

So that's my personal experience with the city of Salem.

[Speaker 6] (1:03:36 - 1:03:54)
I would say that, I mean, anybody that's hit one of those speed tables anywhere, parking lot, a mall, you don't make that mistake usually too many times. But we will intend to follow up and be able to present data. So we would anticipate right now leaving up speed boards and capturing the data and hopefully showing the effect and getting a real reading on what we've done and what we've accomplished with it.

[Speaker 3] (1:03:55 - 1:04:00)
And are they also going to be down during the winter? Is there an issue with that?

[Speaker 6] (1:04:00 - 1:04:07)
So last night I knew the engineering of it. They were both looking at ones that could be taken down, and they were considering fully built in. I'm not sure where that's ended up.

[Speaker 2] (1:04:07 - 1:06:25)
Yeah. You know, we've actually been talking about speed tables for a few years. I did have Gina O'Krester, our assistant town administrator and DPW director, go over to Salem to look at those speed tables.

And we've talked about putting in temporary speed tables, the ones that you can remove during the winter. But we also have looked at speed tables that are referred to as speed pillows that are plowable, that have design for water to flow through them and help us ensure that we have a more permanent solution. You know, picking these up and putting them down can be, you know, labor intensive.

We've looked at these locations in Swampskin and identified years' worth of complaints by neighbors, significant pedestrian safety concerns in terms of just the design of the roadways. Every one of the intersections that we have in town, we're not really designed for pedestrian safety. And where we see crosswalks that are absolutely way too long, that sit on slip lanes, you know, really do pose a clear and present danger to safety.

And so we're looking at ways that we can use, you know, the most knowledgeable department in terms of public safety, our police department, to prioritize where we make these investments. As Captain Cable said, you know, we have some serious problems. We could put more than 20, we could put probably 80, you know, and we're going to have to get to this incrementally, but we want to prioritize these investments over the next few months to ensure that we have the most maximum benefit to the town.

With that said, you know, we're buying two portable, removable speed tables and we intend to install, you know, at least 10, if not 20, permanent speed tables to ensure that these roadways will have a permanent safety measure that's part of the infrastructure.

[Speaker 5] (1:06:27 - 1:06:29)
So I had a quick question for Lieutenant Hennessey.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:29 - 1:06:33)
I'm sorry, are you done? I just wanted to, I'm sorry. Are you all set?

[Speaker 3] (1:06:33 - 1:06:34)
I'm done. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:06:34 - 1:06:52)
No, I was just curious, Lieutenant Hennessey, are there grant opportunities for public safety infrastructure that are available that we could potentially be applying for? Because if there is a greater need than these initial 20, I'm just curious as to those.

[Speaker 9] (1:06:52 - 1:07:23)
The MRS grant wouldn't do something like that. I'm sure there are other grant opportunities. I try to stay abreast of everything that we can get through the Department of Local Services and things.

I haven't seen anything of that nature. I will redouble my efforts to see if there is something that we could grab onto. I know Margie is really up on all the grants, so maybe she knows something I don't.

Thank you.

[Speaker 7] (1:07:24 - 1:08:06)
David. Excuse me. There really are a lot of grant opportunities through the Department of Justice, the COPS office, and there are lots of, in fact, last year we got two individuals trained to be able to write grants.

That is not, it's very expensive training, actually, but I think it's important because it will pay, like Lieutenant Hennessey has shown, it will pay dividends for all of us in the future. So we are, I'm actually in correspondence with somebody from the DOJ to assist us. She was sending me grants, but she thought I was still in Arizona, so they didn't apply in Massachusetts.

So they're also sending me more. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:07 - 1:14:40)
Any other questions? Yeah, a couple. First of all, thank you for your focus on this and for being here, all of you, tonight.

This is not quite the conversation I thought we were going to have tonight, but I appreciate that we're having it. I candidly believe that we need to have a deeper dive into really what resources we put towards this topic, and I believe that everybody's busy, so it's not like those people are not being busy, but I was just looking through, our town clerk is working on town reports and looking at the data in there to say, what does the town report tell us? It's pretty sterilized, so we read it.

It doesn't really tell us the story. It doesn't tell us the challenges, the difficulties, the man hours, the woman hours that go into things. But I think as though having a conversation about where we are putting, we spend a lot on public safety, and I support every dollar we spend on it.

So it's not a question about saying, should we spend this amount of money? It's just about understanding what is it that, and what does what we invest support, so that we understand it. Candidly, I'm convinced about the true focus on pedestrian safety.

No disrespect to anybody in here. I appreciate a presentation with 20 speed pillows, but I'm the least qualified person, probably in the town of Swampscott, to suggest traffic calming measures, but I think I'm the one that at least twice suggested speed pillows, right? The idea should not originate from us.

It shouldn't have to be a constant conversation here, and I hear you talk about permanent and temporary, and I can't believe we're talking temporary still. Again, the ones that were put up last year, every single traffic calming measure that we put up last year, even though I pointed out two weeks ago that not a single one had been put up, not a single one has still been put up, right? And so that tells you something about our mindset, our institutional mindset, and frankly, institutional mindset and where we're putting our resources, because, and again, no one's sitting around with free time.

I do not believe anybody's not doing something that's worthwhile. It's just maybe a reallocation of resources that we just got to look at here. I look at the statistics, and I'm not sure what to make of them, but I want to delve into them.

I want to understand what does four citations a day in 22 really mean? From the outside, I see four citations a day, and I'm like, that just doesn't seem, how can we only be doing four citations in an entire town of Swampscott a day on average? Now, there's a good reason.

I'm sure there is, but that's the conversation, and I don't think it's, I don't mean this to be a back and forth tonight, but I think let's find a time to have that conversation so that someone like me can see that and say, just on traffic safety, I know there's investigations going on. I know there's a whole bunch of follow-up things, court dates. Again, everybody is busy, so I do not believe anyone's wasting time here, but to contextualize that for us to help us understand, again, I'm just reading the annual report from 22, and that's where it is, and then we see in the budget this year where the revenue line from fines and forfeits, we don't care about the revenue there, but it just tells us something.

Something has changed drastically this year compared to all the prior years, pre-COVID and COVID. Something has changed, and I'm sure there's an explanation there too, but that's the conversation that I would like just to get into, because then it just helps inform maybe some structural changes that we need to make, because I appreciate that Sergeant Lloyd has been assigned to it now, and we have someone really focused on it, and I believe in you, and I believe that you'll bring some great ideas to bear here, but there's something in the numbers that I don't understand that aren't self-explanatory. I don't, again, as to the speed tables, thank you.

I'm not sure the speed tables is the answer. I mean, it's an A answer, but it feels like it's being responded to as, well, you asked for speed tables, here are speed tables. I would like to know who's reviewing them.

I'd like to know what the spec is, not because I know, but I also want to know who's the traffic engineer that looked at this to say, this is a good idea. We previously rolled out some speed bumps on Puritan Road, and that good intention as it was resulted in, I think, a pending litigation against the town for a personal injury and someone being seriously injured, right? And so that was kind of spontaneously put out and then taken off.

You know, I think it behooves us to, if we're going to do this, do this right, and I'm not saying slow down. I'm just saying let's get the right people on the table. Us spending a little money on a traffic engineer to say, this is the speed table spec that is appropriate for these types of areas.

This is the location of where you were. Should it really be on this crosswalk or should it have adjacency to crosswalks? What is the space from intersections?

All things that I don't know the answer to at all, right? So I just want us to – I appreciate this. This is a great start, but I don't want this to be seen as anything besides the very tip of a conversation that I just – I believe that we have a traffic enforcement problem.

And I used to say it was a speed problem. I don't think – now we're town government, so now I'm going to look at it from our perspective, not from the citizen's perspective. The citizens may say we have a speed problem, but I think we have a traffic enforcement problem.

I don't think the presence is there. I've mentioned before I don't believe Swampscott's one of those towns that when they drive into it, you instinctively slow down. It's just not.

I slow down more in Marblehead than I do in Swampscott. And in Concord or other communities, I travel quite a bit around, and I know what communities I just instinctively slow down because I've always seen people pulled over. And I'm not saying tickets.

I'm not saying revenue. I'm not saying let's take resources off of other things. I just want to better understand it to do it because it just – it doesn't feel authentic yet, and it doesn't feel institutionalized yet.

And again, I'm not advocating for – I believe you are all extremely busy. But I look forward to – and tonight's not – we have so much stuff. That's why I thought the conversation was going to be a different type where we have to do the budget and the warrant stuff, to have you come back and have this conversation because I want – I think we all benefit from understanding those things and to understand what other tools, by the way, besides speed tables, which I don't find personally credible at the moment because we can't even get the stuff that we put out last year out yet.

And again, I know we're busy, but that reflects a commitment. And I just – until I see that, I'm going to stay where my position is at the moment, which is I feel as though you're being reactive, which is fine, but I wanted this to become proactive.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:40 - 1:15:07)
Understood. Peter, if I could just respond to a few of those points. In terms of not getting the infrastructure improvements out that we put out last summer earlier, I'll take responsibility for that, but certainly it will start tomorrow and it will go on for the next couple of days.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:08 - 1:15:11)
But you certainly understand me enough to know that that wasn't my point.

[Speaker 8] (1:15:11 - 1:15:15)
No, no. I know. I know.

I wanted them to happen yesterday, before. Absolutely.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:15 - 1:15:27)
And I appreciate you taking responsibility, but I just want to create a culture. I want to know what more resources we can give to create a culture, a mindset that just does it. And if it's resources or things, then let's have that conversation.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:27 - 1:18:58)
It's a little bit of both, but I do want to say, look, over the last few years, we've started to integrate some focus on pedestrian safety. We've done small projects that would help us ensure that our crosswalks have better striping, and we have ensured that we have strobes. We have worked with engineers.

We've put funding in this year's capital plan to help ensure that we make investments in pedestrian safety. We've met last week. We met with a number of departments to talk about pedestrian safety and getting into the details of how do we have these conversations.

When do we have them? Do we just have them at the select board meetings? Do we have them during roll call?

Do we have them during staff meetings? Do we have them at different times of year so that we can actually prioritize capital investments and we can prioritize the time and effort that we put into grants? We've talked not only within the police department but within community development about applying for COPS grants.

We know that there are other communities that are getting more funding for infrastructure grants to help and support pedestrian safety. Today we had a call with DOT officials to talk about a Safe Routes to School grant that I'm sure we can get. It's just a question of making sure that we're focused on some of these priorities.

In terms of the speed tables, look, we've looked at a number of different strategies to help us ensure that we can calm traffic in town. And it's not just enforcement, but certainly we had a conversation about enforcement. We've had a conversation about coming back to this board in three weeks and talking more about some of the enforcement strategies that include many more things than just simply pulling people over.

There's lots of things that we can do that can help ensure that there's a presence and there's public engagement and there's information that we're sharing with citizens to ensure that they are aware that one of the most clear and present dangers to life safety in this town are the roads. And we constantly have to have these conversations to ensure that every generation knows that they have a responsibility to drive safe, to make sure that they're aware of the risks that we have in town. But look, I think we're starting to blend infrastructure, enforcement, and education in a way that will help to bring a stronger public safety and pedestrian safety focus for Swampskip.

But it has been frustrating and it has taken us too long to try to get here. I appreciate the board's prioritization of this. It shouldn't have to come from the board.

It should come from, frankly, our public safety teams. We have police departments and fire departments that know firsthand the dangers that we have in town. And they can help advise, guide, and support capital investments and public education programs and enforcement programs that make sense for Swampskip.

[Speaker 7] (1:18:58 - 1:20:40)
Peter, if I can add, I mean, I think I'll respectfully disagree in that we have not let our foot off the gas with traffic safety, with pedestrian safety. I appreciate what you say because what you say as a select board member and as a resident, your perception is my reality. So we need to work on that.

We need to continue to work on that. But we continually, this is not once a week, let's bring it up, let's talk about it. We are doing this every day.

And I also don't want the numbers to skew anyone's thinking in that, okay, there's only four citations a day. There are so many variables in a day. And you're speaking to a larger issue that I would be happy to talk about, in that some days we were tapped out yesterday.

Other days we have more time for enforcement. That's what assisted us when having, creating a traffic safety officer. Yes, I can, I'll gladly take more cops on the street for traffic safety measures and other measures.

We've talked about out-of-the-box thinking. How about a mobile radar van? Now, I don't know the legality of that, but let's talk about it.

Let's think about something completely outside the box. How about using drones for traffic safety only, where I can fly a drone over Essex Street and at 8 o'clock in the morning, because I drive in as well, and traffic is horrendous. I absolutely agree with you.

But I just don't want the, I hope that we shed that negative perception that we are letting our foot off the gas, because we are absolutely not doing that.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:41 - 1:21:59)
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. And so I'd like to clarify for that. I actually don't know that's letting off.

I'm just not sure the pedal was pushed enough. If I was to keep the metaphor going, ironically, I'm asking us to go faster with speed control here. But I just, I appreciate, Sean, I appreciate what you're saying.

I do not believe the rhetoric matches the action so far. So I appreciate it. I'm going to put that rhetoric away and play it again in a month and see if I see something that makes me think differently.

I would like, on these speed tables, without slowing it down, I would like some more information so that we have confidence that we're not going to put in, again, if they're permanent, they're permanent. Let's not find out the hard way we didn't do it right. And I want to make sure that we have the right kind of eyes looking at it.

And, again, we're kind of going from zero to 60, again, no pun intended. We have a traffic committee that, you know, meets and meets for hours and hours and hours, and we get extremely few recommendations. And in a two-week time period, there's all of a sudden a list in front of us of 20 speed tables, which is good.

But now we, you know, I just want to make sure, again, I want us to get it done. I want it to get done right. I just want to make sure that we're just taking a breath as well to make sure that we do do this correctly because that misstep can undermine a lot because I hope these are permanent so that no one has to worry about putting them out and putting them back in seasonally because we're not going to do that.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:59 - 1:23:24)
Look, I just want to be clear. When we put these speed tables in, there will be people that will be upset that we put an impediment to their ability to drive as fast as they think they should be able to drive down that street, regardless of what the postings say. People don't generally like to bump into speed tables.

It slows them down. In a world that is more and more congested, we're going to hear complaints about it. But if pedestrian safety is a priority, if we truly want to keep our citizens safe, we've got to be willing to make some of these investments.

We've looked around. We've looked at a bunch of different strategies, more signs, probably not. You need to change the infrastructure if you want to slow people down.

We could spend more time and effort with education and public, you know, programs that would help encourage folks to drive slower. But if we're going to address some of the immediate concerns for pedestrian safety, we need this infrastructure. I'm happy to come back with engineers.

I'm happy to come back with our DPW director and team. We've modeled the design off of some best practices that he has been able to look at. Again, I'm not asking you to come back at all.

[Speaker 1] (1:23:24 - 1:23:41)
I'm just letting you know that my expectation is that this is done correctly. And if it's not done correctly, I agree with you that you are the responsible person that we should be looking for. And where I sit today, I just don't have the basis for the confidence on pedestrian safety.

So you don't need to come back to us. Just let's get it done correctly as far as I'm concerned.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:42 - 1:24:15)
Yeah, I mean, we're coming into a very busy beach-going season, summer. There's going to be a ton of pedestrians. There's going to be a ton of vehicular traffic.

And I would certainly welcome this working group to come back to us in three, four weeks to just talk about the measures that have been implemented and additional ideas that come from the Traffic Safety Advisory Committee and that group. And let's bring forth some recommendations and suggestions, and let's see what else we can do to keep our residents safe.

[Speaker 9] (1:24:16 - 1:25:23)
Chief? I'm sorry. I would be remiss if I didn't say that my officers are out there every day working hard, focusing on traffic safety.

We've had officers from this department recognized by Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Me personally, three times, we've had other officers recognized for excellence in traffic enforcement. We're out there every day.

We're out there working hard. We're doing more with less. So we have never, never not taken our responsibilities seriously, and we have never been one of those departments where you can just drive through town.

You may have that anecdotal feeling that you're going to get pulled over in Marblehead rather than Swampscot. I can guarantee you my guys are out there. They're doing everything they can.

I would be remiss if I didn't say that I'm proud to lead them every day. Thank you. May I?

Go ahead.

[Speaker 4] (1:25:24 - 1:27:15)
So I want to also thank you very much for bringing this information forward. I have to say that having just been out there kind of talking to a lot of people around the community, that there's a lot of different concerns for sure, but this traffic safety probably came up more than anything else. Maybe not a surprise, but just a validation that this is an important topic.

Some people may think there's a million other things that are more important, but there are a lot of people that think this is very important. So I don't want to kind of send a mixed message to you, Sean, or to you all about, like, what we're expecting here, because in some ways it felt like we needed to have this done tomorrow, and then another way we want to wait and get it done right. Obviously ultimately we need to do the latter, but it needs to be sooner.

So I think, David, I want to kind of follow on with what you said. We should bring this back here. It's at that level of priority to make sure that we've got a clear plan, that the traffic committee has been engaged, that other folks around town have been engaged, that we have the right information from traffic engineers, that we can validate the fact that the statistics, Lieutenant, that you quoted about the impact of the speed tables were pretty compelling.

So I'd like to make sure that we can really rely on that information, because that's a dramatic decrease in speeding, if that's really what these will generate. Maybe there's a lot of other alternatives, but it seems like all the places that you talked about are many of the places that people were complaining about it. Maybe a couple others I could add.

I'm sure you could too. But I want to make sure that we're kind of not just talking, but we have a real plan and that we all agree that this is something that we can get done before it gets really busy and move forward on that.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:17 - 1:29:02)
I think in all fairness, you have to look, when you're looking at statistics and you look at statistics and you look at labor numbers and you look at the amount of individuals you have in a workforce and then you look at what reports show as far as how many tickets are actually being written, there is an issue with the amount and then with labor. And I think that's something that has to really be addressed and you have to get some clarity. So, for example, you might say, hey, listen, some of the reasons why these numbers might not really reflect what's going on is because of X.

Another example would be because of X, because our entire department yesterday was dealing with a major crisis at the train station. Our department at one point was spending X amount of hours taking care of kids getting to school when we put them in the new school. There's a story to everything.

And I just think pure communication needs to be delivered to the select board. You might also say, listen, I'm short police officers, so we cannot be putting all of our resources here. Or whatever the answer is, it's just going to come down to communication.

And I don't think anyone at this table is questioning the work ethic or the dedication to the Swarmscott Police Department. I don't. But there is some lack of really getting the numbers and explaining the whole story.

So I really recommend we just work together, get the story out, and listen to neighbors. I mean, I've been very vocal about the speeding around town because you hear it. And I just think this is a good move.

This is a good move, and we're going in a great direction.

[Speaker 6] (1:29:03 - 1:32:25)
Thank you. I suspect one of the benefits of the speed tables is to increase our efficiency. As I've noted, a lot of the roads that we're talking about putting these on are roads that have not lended themselves well to enforcement, but at the same time demand attention because of community concerns, even if we're not getting productivity.

Not that long ago when I pulled the numbers for Stetson Ave, we had posted up on April 13th. I pulled the numbers, and we had run 12 traffic enforcement posts from 6 in the morning until 8 o'clock at night over the first 12 days of the month while people were still complaining that there was a problem there. But in that time, we had only generated four citations.

So we were there to show the public that we're here and we're concerned, even though we know it's not a location that we can generate an effective enforcement response. Pine Street would be a similar one. As soon as you put a cruiser on Pine Street, you basically eliminate the problem because you can be seen by both ends of the street.

So we have to respond to the residents and slow the traffic to some extent, but we're using a very inefficient method by posting a police officer a car. So we think that these rules will allow us to put our people in a place where they can be much more effective. And if we're looking at numbers, probably generate more numbers.

That being said, it's a very complicated discussion as to how we get into where we conduct our enforcement and why there's issues from social justice and racial numbers and the demographics of our surrounding communities and where we can do our enforcement. It's not an easy topic to discuss as to why we might not want people to feel afraid when they come into Swampscott and feel like they've got to hit their brakes. And I think that there's a lot of benefits to that approach that have played out over the last 20 years where you have an island of sort of racial homogenousness in a very diverse area, yet we've managed to interact with that larger public without causing too many problems.

So to do exactly what you're talking about would run counter to what we've focused on for the last three years, which was to eliminate that idea of sort of a heavy-handed approach on the roads coming into town. So there's a tremendous amount to unpack here, and it would be really difficult to do it in this kind of setting, and it's really easy to make the numbers look like whatever you want them to make. But as when I was discussing with Sean Fitzgerald not that long ago about the limits of our resources, he told us, you know, prioritize correctly.

And one of the things that we've been prioritizing in the last couple of years is the mental health task force, the following up with people and things like that, our opioid responses. We may spend two hours, three hours on a call where in another department, in another community, we probably get 15 minutes in a report file. So if the public focus wants us to be on traffic enforcement with the resources that we've been providing, just know that that's going to impact other things that we think are much more significant to the community where a speed table can handle that problem.

So that's all I would say. I do think the speed table is going to help us, but this is an enormously complex thing, and I think it really runs the danger of getting oversimplified in this kind of discussion.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:25 - 1:32:41)
That's a very thoughtful, integrated response in terms of the various priorities, and, you know, if this speed bump table can be effective, obviously it avoids some of these other kind of collateral effects that you're alluding to, which of course are extremely important to avoid.

[Speaker 2] (1:32:42 - 1:35:12)
Captain, I want to thank you for that too. One of the things that you shared that I think would be helpful for the Board to understand too is that when we met last week, you had mentioned you get quite a bit of calls as a department from the months of May through, you know, probably September. A lot of those calls are for parking enforcement, and so we have our police officers pulled off for parking enforcements at significant numbers because we have individuals parking close to beaches, and instead of having our officers out doing other pedestrian safety functions, we've prioritized some of that time and effort.

So we really do want to think about how are we prioritizing these calls for service, and where do we actually draw a line and say this is more important than that, and I think that's the conversation that you want to have, Peter. You want to actually get into the weeds about how do we really prioritize some of these public safety responsibilities that we share. You know, we do have an outstanding police department.

We do have people that care, and I'm proud of that. Yesterday was a very difficult day for, you know, family, but it's difficult for our first responders, and we want to figure this out together. Frankly, the more we talk about these issues without this sense of somehow, you know, we're not all solving for a better future, you know, the more we're going to do some good work, and I do think we're going to put some speed tables in.

I think we're going to make the town safer, but I also think we're going to find some more time to actually better engage in a positive way because I don't think it's all about jamming people up, and I don't want you to hear from this conversation that that's going to solve any problems. I think the most important thing that we do is just try to ensure that people just are mindful that pedestrian safety is a very important responsibility. We've had fatalities in this community, and we should do our best to try to avoid, as long as we can, having another one, and the only way we do that is by making investments in infrastructure, in education, and enforcement in a very surgical way.

[Speaker 4] (1:35:13 - 1:35:25)
Can I ask one last, just simple, factual question to make sure I have it right? So is the traffic safety officer and all the speed tables, are those all being funded through this grant? No.

Any of them? None of them.

[Speaker 9] (1:35:25 - 1:36:02)
And actually, right now, Sergeant Lloyd has been redeployed to the midnight shift, so that position is currently unfilled due to staffing. So once staffing is up, we can do more. We've also got more responsibilities with doing background investigations, doing accreditation.

I have my street sergeant assigned to accreditation for several hours a day. We're doing more with less.

[Speaker 7] (1:36:04 - 1:37:58)
I don't want to belabor this point, but that's where I had mentioned to you, Peter, about we need to be able to quantify. So if I look at an officer's shift, somebody who worked, an officer who worked from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., I want to know exactly what that officer did each hour. I want to know.

Now, I might be able to get some of that through my CAD and communications reports, but I want a detailed list. And I think that holds us all accountable to this is what this officer is doing. If an officer is working on background investigations during his shift, his or her shift, then I want that accounted for.

And I want to know, hey, if I go to Officer Doe and say, John Doe, and say, why didn't you make any stops today? Well, Chief, I was working on this background. And again, like Sean talked about, there are so many priorities.

But that leads to holding ourselves accountable and providing some type of a report to you, providing, listen, this is what we did this month. And, you know, I think that at least starts the communication effort that Mary Ellen is talking about. So that's, again, us holding ourselves accountable, us doing better at communicating, but also me holding my officers accountable.

So I think in the future it will help. Right now we don't have the technical infrastructure, the technology to support that, to make it completely automated, but we're working on it. Now, again, another, you know, we all have 20 things, you know, in the fire.

And so that's one of the things that I would like to see in my next year here.

[Speaker 1] (1:37:59 - 1:39:09)
And I'm grateful to you all for what you do. But this is my first time in eight years anybody has ever raised speed tables. So they are the panacea to everything.

Where in the last eight years has that recommendation been? No one has ever come to this board and asked us for speed tables. So there is something that's just not about doing more or less.

It's about saying, hey, we have a need, can you help us with speed tables? No one has ever, not just you, the DPW hasn't come, the town administrator hasn't come, the fire department hasn't come, like no one. And so there is an example of something that's just not a question of man hours or woman hours.

And I appreciate that. I recognize that you guys are doing a tremendous amount here. But I believe the speed tables.

I believe the lieutenant's data from his Xanadu experience in Salem. I do believe it's going to take the pressure off of you. Because those streets are going to start self-regulating, right?

Now you're going to have to chase people down other streets because they're going to find, like water, they're going to find the other street that they can go on that doesn't do it. But over time, you know, I think speed tables is a great solution. I'm very grateful that you're doing it.

I just, again, I want to institutionalize it, and I think we're going to. I think we're going to institutionalize it, but I want to, I'm not going to just glad hand it and pat us on the back yet. Because I don't think we've institutionalized anything yet.

I think this is a good first step, and I appreciate you guys bringing it forward.

[Speaker 2] (1:39:10 - 1:40:00)
Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate you following up with, you know, your responsibilities to go out and look at these locations.

You know, it's a step in a positive direction. I think, you know, like incrementalists, we'll keep moving forward, and, you know, we'll circle back around with the board and the public, and give everybody a sense that we are going to make these neighborhoods safer. Never completely safe.

Everybody's going to have to continue to be just mindful. We live in a very densely settled community that, you know, folks have to be very, very cautious in. But certainly we're going to focus on this.

[Speaker 3] (1:40:00 - 1:40:02)
So when are we going to have this conversation again then?

[Speaker 2] (1:40:03 - 1:41:32)
I had suggested we come back in three weeks after town meeting and have a schedule for implementation for a number of these speed tables. We can certainly show up with the design and give you a level of confidence that, you know, these are spec'd to a standard that reflect the best practice. We've talked a little bit about the public engagement part of this, whether or not, you know, we should show up and knock and talk to neighbors to ensure that folks that are going to live directly next to some of these speed pillows, as we refer to them, because they're not generally referred to as speed tables.

They have a lower profile and, you know, they tolerate snow plows much more, you know, effectively in terms of life cycle value. But, you know, there's going to be a process by which we, you know, have an engagement effort with neighborhoods that are going to have these investments. And, you know, it's our hope that by the end of the summer we'll have at least ten of them constructed.

They range in cost from $5,000 to $12,000. We likely have to go out to bid for these, so there will be a process for that. That adds time, but certainly we're focused on getting this work done this summer.

[Speaker 4] (1:41:33 - 1:41:34)
Great. We have a budget to do it.

[Speaker 2] (1:41:35 - 1:42:04)
We have Chapter 90 money that we receive. We have general fund appropriations, and there may be some unexpended tailings in this year's budget that we could allocate to help ensure that pedestrian safety is a priority. But when we come back after town meeting, we can have those conversations and we can have a discussion about funding and how we're going to prioritize some of this work.

[Speaker 3] (1:42:04 - 1:42:11)
And, Chief, you'll be able to come back and give better communication as far as labor versus pedestrian safety results.

[Speaker 7] (1:42:12 - 1:42:25)
Absolutely. We'll start working on it. Again, there's IT challenges.

I can't get the data that I'd love to get, so we have to manually extrapolate some data, but absolutely I'll be here whenever you need me.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:26 - 1:42:28)
Thank you. Thank you, Chairman.

[Speaker 12] (1:42:28 - 1:42:29)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:42:30 - 1:42:52)
All right. We are going to be moving on. We're going to have a discussion about our upcoming town meeting warrant.

I think it would probably make sense for us to select who from the select board we'll support and we'll present each of the articles on the warrant.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:55 - 1:43:11)
Thank you. Well, I can get us rolling. I'd be happy to support the article number two, the Climate Action Plan Committee, if that's needed.

First volunteer. Thank you, Don.

[Speaker 3] (1:43:13 - 1:43:14)
How many of these are still open?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:15 - 1:43:33)
How many of these articles are still open? I think we need to just not go through a substance of articles, but let's just go through each one because I think there's recommendations we haven't made, some recommendations I don't think we're going to be ready to make because I know there's still pending planning board hearings, et cetera, and maybe do it that way. If we're done with it, we can assign someone to take responsibility.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:33 - 1:43:38)
Yeah, I just thought we could go through incrementally. I was being responsive to the chair.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:39 - 1:43:44)
No, you were very, very responsive, and you started with number two. I appreciate that. I was trying to get the logo in.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:46 - 1:43:52)
And the select board will report at town meeting on the Climate Action Resilience Plan. We have not taken a vote.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:52 - 1:44:03)
Yeah, so can we just spend a second about when are we meeting again and how we're finishing this before town meeting because I don't think we currently have that set up.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:04 - 1:44:22)
Yeah, so I think there is going to be a meeting next Wednesday, the 10th, to finalize this. This will be after the planning board hearing on the 8th, and also they're having a hearing on a number of these articles. They'll have a recommendation, and I think it makes sense for us to meet thereafter.

[Speaker 1] (1:44:23 - 1:45:19)
Can I just please suggest that aside from public comment, there is literally nothing else on our agenda? Nothing. No votes on anything else besides the warrant and the budget because, candidly, we have yet to even substantially talk about capital, right?

I mean, we haven't substantially really talked about the budget, and we're meeting in the half before town meeting. If we're going to suggest something different, then we've opened up CIC and FinCom. We then have to look because we try and reconcile things before town meeting floor, but I would hate that we didn't get comfortable with everything on the capital plan, for example.

We talked about pedestrian safety, but every dollar that's in the capital budget is spoken for, so we know that there's no speed humps in the capital budget for next year. I'm just using it as an example. If we decide that that's a priority and say, hey, we need to refocus this, it doesn't give a lot of time here.

So I'm just—I appreciate that comment.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:23 - 1:45:28)
So are we going to add in another day, or are we just going to try to hammer it all out in one and a half days?

[Speaker 1] (1:45:28 - 1:45:32)
I don't know. It does not feel believable to me that we're going to finish on Wednesday night. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:32 - 1:45:39)
It just doesn't—I mean, unless— The next night?

[Speaker 4] (1:45:39 - 1:45:53)
The next night, the 11th? Well, can I ask—I mean, we're here right now. It's 10 to 8.

I mean, you guys know this better than I do, obviously, but wouldn't it make sense to figure out where we're at by the end of tonight? Yeah, yeah, no, I'm fine with that.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:53 - 1:46:17)
I'm just saying that we're going to go through the warrant here. I think it's a great idea. I just don't have the expectation we're going to get too knee-deep in some of these topics tonight.

Great. As long as we can keep the agendas free. These unscheduled meetings are for a special purpose, and so we shouldn't be, oh, since we're meeting, let's do a vote on liquor licenses or do an appointment or do town administrators report.

These are special meetings.

[Speaker 2] (1:46:17 - 1:46:19)
I'm happy to suspend my reports.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:19 - 1:46:29)
I have no doubt, no doubt. All right. Thank you.

Article 3, we've already addressed. Article 4, operating budget.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:29 - 1:46:37)
Can I just ask a question on Article 2? Are we going to leave it as though we're not endorsing, too, the board is not endorsing?

[Speaker 1] (1:46:38 - 1:46:39)
We have to make a recommendation.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:39 - 1:46:45)
Yeah. We haven't done yet, right, on Article 2? Correct.

Okay. I would entertain a motion. Is it a motion?

[Speaker 3] (1:46:46 - 1:46:46)
So moved.

[Speaker 4] (1:46:47 - 1:46:50)
All right. Who made the motion? You can't make a motion, right?

[Speaker 3] (1:46:50 - 1:46:55)
So he said, because he said he's going to, he entertains the motion.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:55 - 1:46:57)
Gotcha. I said so moved, so that moves. Okay, sorry.

I'll second it.

[Speaker 3] (1:46:57 - 1:46:58)
There you go.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:58 - 1:47:01)
Okay. All in favor of the select board supporting Article 2?

[Speaker 3] (1:47:01 - 1:47:01)
Aye. Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 5] (1:47:02 - 1:47:29)
Aye. Aye. Aye.

Thank you. Article 3, we have addressed previously. Doug, any questions on Article 3?

No. Okay. Article 4, appropriation of the operating budget.

Happy to, if anyone has any questions.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:29 - 1:48:03)
I don't know what to do about it, but I still remain extremely bothered by how we're handling the DEI position in the budget. And I understand that we're going to use ARPA, and we're going to do all these things, but again, I think we're creating a structural problem, and I think we are where we are at this point, and I don't want to have the same conversation again. Nothing seems to have changed in your recommendation so far.

I'm just articulating it. I will vote to support the budget, but I do believe that that was, and the only other thing I would say here is that something's got to give on the senior planning position.

[Speaker 4] (1:48:05 - 1:48:16)
Can I chime in? So if I understand correctly, we're at a place where we have a small allocation for some planning on DEI in the budget at this point? Is that the right summary?

[Speaker 2] (1:48:17 - 1:48:52)
No. So we have an opportunity to hire a consultant, and we've got some funding in the budget to hire a DEI director in the fourth quarter next year after we go through a program to help us identify some of the strengths and weaknesses and really put a game plan in place that would help this position succeed.

[Speaker 10] (1:48:52 - 1:48:53)
Sean, where is that in the budget?

[Speaker 2] (1:48:55 - 1:49:00)
We've got some funding in the HR department budget.

[Speaker 3] (1:49:01 - 1:49:07)
What number is that? Is that 16? There's a diversity coordinator.

[Speaker 2] (1:49:08 - 1:49:11)
It's a $6,000 line item.

[Speaker 5] (1:49:11 - 1:49:15)
How are we going to hire someone full-time in Q4 for $6,000?

[Speaker 2] (1:49:16 - 1:49:45)
We're going to be making a recommendation that we use some ARPA money to help support this diversity position. And so based on some money that we also have in salary reserve, there's likely going to be some additional funding that we can transfer. But aren't we creating a structural deficit?

[Speaker 1] (1:49:45 - 1:50:01)
By Q4 of this year, a year that we didn't budget a full-time position, we're going to start budgeting it using one-time revenues. Do you know now that your fiscal year 25 budget is going to be able to support a full-time HR person? Yvonne, specify anything.

I hear you.

[Speaker 2] (1:50:01 - 1:50:29)
Yes, I have a game plan for it. I do think that there may be some reorganization that we'll have to look at, but I've gone through a number of different strategies with the HR director and the director of finance administration for how we can move forward in a manner that really ensures that we're going to have a successful DEI function.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:30 - 1:51:07)
You know, Peter, I respect what you're saying, but I do not think we're going to be causing a structural problem within the budget for 2025. And I completely support using ARPA money to really look at what the needs are for the entire town, including what our needs are in our school district. And then putting a position in to handle all of our needs and then moving from there.

I think we're going to be fine. I'm disappointed that we haven't done it yet, but we've got it and I think we make a plan and we just move on and get that going.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:08 - 1:52:06)
Yeah, I mean, I certainly have been very public about supporting this as a full-time position. I think that might be prudent for both the town and the schools to share. Those are details that can be worked out later.

So, you know, not to disrupt the flow here, you know, with the allocation that's in here, I can be okay with that on the condition basically that we are committing to not delaying the hiring of someone just because we don't have the funding. We have ARPA. We're basically now saying we're going to use ARPA funding.

When we're ready, we put together a good plan, we get going on it right away, and that we're using ARPA funding in order to make it happen. Yes, that's going to create an issue next year, Peter, I agree. But, you know, we're going to make a commitment to making it happen in 2024 using ARPA and it's going to be a priority having to fit in 2025.

Yeah, John, this needs to happen.

[Speaker 2] (1:52:07 - 1:52:56)
It does need to happen. I have advocated for this position. I believe in it.

There's nothing about ensuring that we have a budget that structurally can support the type of focus on DEI that we need. It's something I care deeply about and I share the board's concern about this. It has been a little frustrating for me that, you know, we haven't spent as much time talking about some of the DEI responsibilities that we share, but, you know, I hope to make that a priority as we begin the next fiscal year.

Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:52:57 - 1:53:01)
I move favorable action, recommendation of favorable action on Article IV.

[Speaker 2] (1:53:02 - 1:53:02)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:04 - 1:53:06)
Any other discussion?

[Speaker 4] (1:53:08 - 1:53:19)
Peter, was there one other item you just brought up? The planner. I did.

Do you want to say anything more about that? Bill it. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:19 - 1:53:34)
There's budget for it. There is budget for it. That budget gets used in tailings this year and flows to free cash and this is, we are 16 months, I think, into that vacancy.

We'll heartily support that. We got to just get it done. Okay.

All in favor of Article IV?

[Speaker 12] (1:53:34 - 1:53:35)
Aye.

[Speaker 4] (1:53:35 - 1:53:37)
Aye. Aye. Thanks.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:38 - 1:53:42)
I move favorable action on Article V, which is the special education involvement.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:44 - 1:53:47)
Second. Any additional discussion?

[Speaker 2] (1:53:49 - 1:54:50)
John, was there any update? The only other update is, you know, I've been in regular communication with the superintendent and the school department finance director. We continue to believe that this is a good way for us to manage.

I'll be meeting with the superintendent next week and we'll be going over the finances for the school district and talking more about, you know, the amount of money that they need to have to ensure that they are meeting the special education needs as they arise and they feel comfortable with, you know, having a balance of 310. They think this is a good starting position. I think we're in a good position as we go forward.

We're going to learn, you know, over the next couple of years of trends that will help us, I think, get a level of funding that will hopefully support the operating budget.

[Speaker 5] (1:54:50 - 1:54:58)
And does the superintendent have an idea of where this will, where the need will be in out years as well?

[Speaker 2] (1:54:58 - 1:55:57)
I don't, you know, I think she has a good sense of the trends, but I don't think she has a crystal ball. And I do think that she is, just like every other superintendent, dealing with an emerging cohort of students that are in need of additional special education services. And I think Swampskate, you know, is going to have to continue to understand how to address those challenges and fund them and in a way that works with our overall financial plan.

And that's why I think having funds outside of the operating budget to address, you know, a spike or a rise in special education services that may be attributable to a pandemic, may be attributable to some other things. It's hard to say exactly what's driving some of those costs, but, you know, it will help insulate the operating budget.

[Speaker 1] (1:55:58 - 1:56:29)
Can I just ask, so is the, as of today, is the delta between what circuit breaker amounts there and the 425, which they have to bake down to, and whatever's in their school operating budget, are they confident, is the school department confident, and therefore are you confident with the fact that there's going to be no request for the 310 as you know it? The 310's going to go in the account, but not need to be immediately used. Because if it does need to be immediately used, I believe that, again, that's not what this account's for.

This account shouldn't be how we're balancing this year's school budget.

[Speaker 2] (1:56:29 - 1:56:49)
Peter, I've made that clear to the superintendent and school finance director, but I, to be candid, I just, I don't know, and I don't have enough of a level of confidence in the numbers to really assure you that they won't have to draw upon that.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:50 - 1:57:17)
So I think it's, I, only reason I'm fine going forward tonight is because the select board has a vote in ultimately releasing those funds and using those funds here, and so this board will have another chance to have that conversation, because it feels like this all happened in a sequence that makes me worry that we balance this year's school budget using this $310,000, we just aren't allocating it yet. And so I just, I worry about it.

I hope I'm wrong, and that would be great.

[Speaker 3] (1:57:18 - 1:57:31)
I think, I understand why you are worried about it, and I would be too. However, the fact that there is an agreement on how the circuit breaker is going to come into play, and what the average is going to be left in that circuit breaker makes me feel a lot better.

[Speaker 1] (1:57:32 - 1:57:35)
I hope so. Thanks. The alternative, Peter.

[Speaker 2] (1:57:35 - 1:57:44)
I appreciate you sharing that, and I appreciate you sharing that. The alternative is a, is a, is a really long conversation.

[Speaker 1] (1:57:44 - 1:58:22)
No, well, the alternative, no, no, the alternative this year, I'm sorry, is to have an honest conversation about our known operating budget for this year. And that can be a long conversation, it can be difficult, but we can't sidestep that by using this, because that's not what this is designed for. If we need it, we need it, but it can't be used as a tool to sidestep a current, upcoming fiscal year balancing discussion.

As hard as, and look, we all find that conversation hard, and we'd love to avoid it, but we can't be using tools like this to avoid that, because the second this is used that way, then it defeats its purpose. And that's all. And I appreciate, Mary Ellen, what you just said, and I hope that they're comfortable by taking down the circuit breaker down to 425.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:23 - 1:58:25)
There is an agreement on the circuit breaker.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:25 - 1:58:25)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:25 - 1:58:26)
So they're all in agreement.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:27 - 1:58:29)
Great. Thank you. So I had a motion.

Do I have a second?

[Speaker 3] (1:58:30 - 1:58:30)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:31 - 1:58:32)
All in favor?

[Speaker 3] (1:58:32 - 1:58:33)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:33 - 1:58:44)
Thank you. All right. Article 6, we had already recommended favorable action previously, as we did for 7.

So, I'm so sorry.

[Speaker 1] (1:58:44 - 1:59:06)
So Article 5 is going to be FinCom. We'll do the motion, so we don't need to speak. Article 6 will be FinCom.

We won't need to do a motion. Article 7 and 8 are also FinCom. I'm just going through it to make sure that we really acted on them.

Yeah. Article 9 will also be FinCom. Article 10 is Pine Street.

[Speaker 3] (1:59:09 - 1:59:16)
Wait. Can I ask a question? Did we already okay?

7, 8, and 9? Because I'm using a different vote.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:16 - 1:59:16)
We did.

[Speaker 3] (1:59:16 - 1:59:19)
Okay. Yep. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:59:20 - 1:59:27)
Article 10, acquisition of land, 12 to 24 Pine Street. I'm happy to speak.

[Speaker 1] (1:59:27 - 2:00:29)
Maybe if I give a two-sentence just update, because we haven't talked about it publicly in a while here. So, we have a signed purchase and sale agreement for that property. That purchase and sale agreement is contingent upon town meeting approval of that purchase and sale agreement.

We currently have it a certain sum of money, but the motion on town meeting floor, my understanding, is not going to be a certain sum of money. It's going to be deleting that language and deleting the bonding language, because we're going to be using ARPA funding. But what I haven't seen, though, is I haven't seen a budget from staff about the cost and just confirming that, in fact, all that's coming out of ARPA.

And, you know, we have due diligence costs. We have closing costs. We have a whole bunch of things to kind of just, and at some point before town meeting, we need to vote and work with FinCom to have FinCom modified.

It's, they haven't voted yet, I don't think. But we just need to get to final motion language that is different than this, because I don't think this language is what's going to be moved on town meeting floor.

[Speaker 4] (2:00:31 - 2:00:38)
And are you saying, Peter, that we need a clear kind of accounting of what the ARPA funding is? Yeah, well, it's going to be a rounding error.

[Speaker 1] (2:00:38 - 2:01:09)
I mean, like, to be clear, the purchase price and then closing costs and do it so that we, and I think we should be getting an update on ARPA generally. I appreciate that you're saying we're going to use ARPA for DEI, we're going to use ARPA for this. But I, to Mary Ellen's point, and she's been consistent on this, it would be great if we understood the vision for ARPA as opposed to using it as a, well, we have ARPA, we can use.

And we kind of seem to be eating away at it. And I know there are plans and works, and you've been talking about stuff, but we haven't talked about ARPA in forever. I just want to make sure that.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:09 - 2:01:14)
I'll get a budget together for this, more on ARPA, and we'll schedule some time to update the board in the next few weeks.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:14 - 2:01:33)
No, I actually think you need to update the board next meeting, because we need to at least have a certain, I need to at least have a certain feeling that using the ARPA fund is leaving enough available for what the other intended purposes were. Because if that's what we're doing, which I think we've all talked about that, but we're doing that without the clarity as to the remaining funds.

[Speaker 2] (2:01:34 - 2:01:37)
All right. I will give you a spreadsheet with that information.

[Speaker 3] (2:01:38 - 2:01:43)
I don't think we've had a robust conversation about where we want to be using.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:43 - 2:01:46)
No, we have not. Well, I think, I was meaning staff level.

[Speaker 3] (2:01:46 - 2:01:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:01:46 - 2:01:48)
I believe staff's had a conversation.

[Speaker 3] (2:01:48 - 2:03:10)
I just have a question about Article 10. Here's a concern that I've come up with. So, of course, I'm in support of buying this property if we're going to be using it for veterans, senior housing, something.

What I learned was at the Michon, we have less than 25% of the residents at Michon, I brought this up last time, are Swampstack residents. So when we did the, I don't want to call raffle, but what? Lottery.

Lottery, right. When we did the lottery, my expectation was, and I thought up until just a couple weeks ago, that 70% of the people went into that lottery would have, 70% would be Swampstack residents, 30% would be non-Swampstack. It's less than 25%.

If we're going to be spending ARPA money to the tune of $1.7 million on this property, how are we ensured that Swampstack veterans are going to benefit from that? So is there a mechanism or how is that going to happen there? I just really want to make sure that this is clear because if it's not, I'm not going to feel as good about this as I did prior to it.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:11 - 2:04:28)
I understand. Under fair housing laws, we're going to be partnering with an individual or a firm that would help us ensure that we had a successful project. There are income restrictions.

There are certain thresholds. I think one of the ways that we can help Swampstack veterans, ensure that they can have as fair of an opportunity to receive some benefits, is to just ensure that we reach out to all of them and let them know that this is coming together and ensure that they are aware of the dates and the timelines. I still believe that this is a wonderful project for Swampstack.

I still believe that it's a wonderful project for our veterans. But we've scheduled a meeting with some folks at DHCD to kind of look at ways that we can help ensure that we do everything we can to ensure that Swampstack residents are going to be able to fairly get considered for housing. I think the question is a little different.

That's what I'm hearing.

[Speaker 3] (2:04:28 - 2:05:09)
Yeah, it is a different question. Do we even have a market analysis that we know that we can fill this with 70% of veterans? Are we allowed to have a dual preference?

Or a tribe preference? Are we able to say to the state, we want Swampstack seniors, veterans preference so that we get that covered? Or Swampscot veterans?

Whatever it's going to take, I'd like to know are we going to be there. I'd like to be able to go to a town meeting and say, we're going to be able to take care of Swampscot senior veterans.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:09 - 2:05:20)
And will there be enough people? Like if Michonne's ended up with 25% people from Swampscot, we just need truth in advertising basically about what this project may or may not ultimately be.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:22 - 2:08:37)
Not so much truth in advertising. It's just understanding what the advertising means. Which is, and I think Mary Ellen, I don't have an answer that's going to make you feel good.

I have an answer, just not going to make you feel good. Which is, we talked earlier, we're going to try and set up a meeting to understand how the lottery at Michonne worked and how the marketing plan worked to understand what was the outreach by the nonprofit partner. The town didn't do the lottery.

The nonprofit partner does it and they retain a third party to do the lottery. And there's a marketing plan that goes along with that. So we've never done a DNA forensics on that.

And I'm glad you're bringing it up as a topic. So hopefully in the next week we're going to have a conversation to at least understood how B'nai B'rith did it at the Michonne and the marketing. One or two, so we as a board, when we issued the RFP and we ultimately executed agreements with them, we voted to include the maximum preference allowed by the state.

Considering that 99% of the money came state money, the state guidelines restrained us here. And so we did the maximum in the state, and the state, generically speaking, the maximum as a zip code preference is 70%. It's still subject to them reviewing it to say, does that still meet fair housing laws?

Is this still being made available enough to a broad enough group of people? So we did do the preference. One or two things happened at the Michonne, and we don't know what it is yet because we haven't done that forensics yet, which is either the demographic doesn't exist in the quantity to the point that you just made at 30% of AMI and 60% of AMI, which is very low income.

Let's not mix words about it. 30% is called homeless set-aside. It's kind of what it's euphemistically referred to at the state level.

Just to give you a sense, if you're at 30% AMI, it's because you do not have sufficient funds to pay for your own housing. Period. Hard stop.

It doesn't matter where it is. And then 60% AMI, and that's what those programs through the state fund at. The tax credits max out at 60% of AMI, so it's not as though you can get that same state funding for 80% AMI or 100% AMI.

Those programs don't exist the same way as they do for 60% AMI with an allocation at 30% AMI. So do we have enough demographics that comply with that? A working theory could be we don't, and that's because people who are here that maybe on a weekly or monthly basis aren't flush with cash and therefore aren't able to pay rent still have assets and other things that may disqualify them.

We're going to get smarter about that. Alternatively, they are here, right? And another thesis as to why they may not be here is because at 30% and 60% AMI, you probably already couldn't afford to live in Swampscott.

So if you're here, you're just barely affording to live here. You're really struggling to live here at those income levels, so it could be that you did at one point live in Swampscott, but you've since moved out because you had to because Swampscott became unaffordable. So that's a possibility as well.

[Speaker 3] (2:08:38 - 2:08:50)
The 60% AMI is between $55,000 and $60,000. That's what was explained to me last week. So I would think that we do have retired people in that area.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:50 - 2:12:07)
So I agree with you. So that takes me to point number two, which is there's a marketing problem. And that the marketing and any supplement that we would have done on the marketing, we didn't do the marketing, we didn't do the lottery, right?

That was all done by the nonprofit. But let's understand what they did for marketing. Let's understand what we did for marketing and see if there's a way that there was a gap there that we didn't catch and word didn't get out.

I think there was 150-some-odd applicants for the lottery, only 27 Swampscott residents, and only nine ultimately took a unit of those 27 because they either didn't qualify or they didn't have interest in the other one. So I think it came out at nine. So we should understand the marketing because the marketing is really critically important.

And in a community like this, you can see where that actually wouldn't be as obvious a marketing plan as it would be perhaps in other communities that have a greater percentage of these type of affordable developments in their communities. We don't. We have very few.

And so it's not in our vernacular. People aren't regularly calling up town hall every day saying, of our 200 units of affordable housing, are any vacant? Any vacant?

Any vacant? It's not even in our psyche, so to speak. So I think we need to understand that.

As that applies to the veterans' housing, it's as follows. Working backwards, I do think there's every opportunity for us to do a much better and much more specific marketing plan because we have partners, topical partners in VFW, in Veterans Crossing, in our veteran service agents, et cetera. So it's not just senior housing like the Michonne is.

It's now veteran senior housing. And so I think we have a much more obvious in-place vehicle to help us with the marketing and the education to be able to get better results. However, I don't think the state at the end of the day is going to allow us to say it is Swampscott veterans.

We're going to end up going through a very similar process like we did the Michonne. And so I agree with you. It would be good to understand the demographics.

I don't know how we understand the demographics, to be honest with you. I'm not sure where that information is and how we actually do that. But I think it's also really important for us to really focus on the marketing piece because I find it very hard to believe that in our community, especially our aged community with the number of veterans.

I remember Mike Sweeney coming and talking to us and veterans agents and others, and they threw out numbers like 2,000 veterans in our community, like in Swampscott. We have a high number of veterans. That we can't market this actively and very personally market this to find it, I just don't know the answer.

And so I can't tell you that we're going to end up with a project that's going to a development that's going to have 70% current Swampscott residents in it. There's nothing I can say, and there's nothing the state would say if we asked them here tonight. I say with a high degree of comfort that would get you comfortable on that answer.

They would say, we can work with you on the marketing plan, but the preference is just that. It's not a guarantee of anything. So, again, I think I'm giving you an answer, but not one that necessarily you like because it doesn't give you the answer that you hope for.

And I hope for as well, by the way.

[Speaker 5] (2:12:07 - 2:12:19)
So how do we educate ourselves in the next 12 days leading up to town meeting? I mean, what additional information, what calls, what can we do to better inform this board?

[Speaker 1] (2:12:19 - 2:12:57)
Yeah, I mean, we should get together with our veterans agent ASAP tomorrow or Friday and sit with him, and he has better access than we do to the veteran community here in town and to know who that is. And let's start there. Again, I don't, if others know, I actually don't know how those statistics, down to like knowing Swampscott veteran, this is, the qualification methodology isn't as simple as saying, you know, this is what they claimed on their taxes.

It's not that simple a qualification metric, so it's not, it's going to be imperfect no matter what, but it will be illustrative to us perhaps.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:57 - 2:14:16)
A couple other thoughts about that. David and I were part of a debate that was crossing, and I asked the question of Commander Blonder, and he said about 500, he thought, number of veterans, and maybe 2,000 veterans and their families in Swampscott, which is still, no matter what, it still is a significant number of people. In this project, I think we're all generally wanting to do this.

I certainly, I speak for myself, very interested in moving forward with it, but it is important for us to just be clear, you know, maybe there's truth in advertising, and you inferred something, you know, more than you wanted to infer, but I just want to be clear for all of us when we're going forward. We know some of the fair housing restrictions, but if we go into it knowing that there are only 100, you know, people in this town that were income-eligible veterans, and there are 30 or 40 units, let's just present that information so people are aware of what we're investing on a basis. And I think, you know, the commander hopefully will have some insight.

I know when people fill out their, you know, census, town census information, I think there's a veterans category there. Are there not low-income housing waiting lists that people would have access to that would allow us to try to get some of this information together?

[Speaker 2] (2:14:18 - 2:14:24)
I'll reach out to our veterans agent and the commander of the VFW and have a conversation. I'm happy to join a call.

[Speaker 3] (2:14:25 - 2:14:26)
We might want to get Tim Martin Epstein.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:28 - 2:14:28)
Yep.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:31 - 2:14:46)
And we also, again, on this one, I think we also wanted to invite the Affordable Housing Trust. They're meeting at the same time as us tonight again. And I hope that schedule changes because you are a member of that committee and it precludes you from actually being there.

So I hope that can change, but maybe we can invite Kim.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:48 - 2:14:49)
They've reached out. They would like to meet with us.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:49 - 2:15:03)
But maybe we can have them then whatever night we're meeting or nights we're meeting next week, because I do want to hear what their level of, even if they haven't taken a formal vote, if their commitment here is because their investment, this was an important thing that we all talked about.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:03 - 2:15:17)
Yeah. The meeting did start at 530. We had a robust debate for half an hour.

I had to leave before a vote was taken. But they were weighing in on this particular article.

[Speaker 8] (2:15:17 - 2:15:18)
On your financial statement?

[Speaker 5] (2:15:19 - 2:15:26)
Article 10. They were weighing in on their support. But we can hear from the chair at our next meeting.

I'll invite her.

[Speaker 3] (2:15:26 - 2:15:32)
Are they weighing in on their support on the article or are they also weighing in on the amount of investment they're putting in?

[Speaker 5] (2:15:32 - 2:15:36)
I wasn't part of the conversation. I had to join this.

[Speaker 3] (2:15:37 - 2:15:42)
I'd like to make sure we have that number up front.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:42 - 2:15:43)
Understood. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:43 - 2:15:49)
So, David, maybe you can, it sounds like they may need to reconvene another meeting. So just maybe if you can follow up with Kim.

[Speaker 5] (2:15:49 - 2:15:50)
We'll do.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:50 - 2:16:10)
After this meeting just to say I share Mary Ellen's feelings about that. And, again, it's, tenant is not the right word, but we want to know what their conversation has been at least, even if they're not, we just want to know where they are. In fairness, they haven't been involved in a lot of the process, so I don't want to, there's a lot they don't know about it as well.

So I just.

[Speaker 6] (2:16:12 - 2:16:12)
Understood.

[Speaker 1] (2:16:13 - 2:16:53)
Yep. More work. So I think that we skip over 10 and 11 for tonight.

Article 12 disposition of land. Yeah. So if I can maybe just give you a brief update on that one.

I think as though I'm going to ask that we have an executive session. Before our next meeting. I have the elementary school.

So I don't think that we're prepared tonight to. Make a recommendation pending our executive session and then public conversation after that.

[Speaker 5] (2:16:54 - 2:16:55)
Do we need 30 minutes or do we need an hour?

[Speaker 1] (2:16:58 - 2:17:09)
You need an hour. And hope it takes 30 minutes. That way we won't be starting our regular meeting late.

Sorry. 5 PM.

[Speaker 3] (2:17:10 - 2:17:17)
You know what? Can. Before you book it for 5 PM.

We'll just double check with Katie because she has a really hard time getting 5 PM.

[Speaker 9] (2:17:17 - 2:17:18)
We'll do.

[Speaker 5] (2:17:28 - 2:17:35)
Article 13. We had recommended favorable action previously. I assume then come and make the motion on the floor because they recommended.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:36 - 2:17:43)
Okay. Same with 14. Same with 15.

[Speaker 5] (2:17:43 - 2:17:56)
And that takes us 16. 16. Appropriation for recommended capital projects.

We haven't spent much time. Or any time. Talking about this.

[Speaker 3] (2:18:01 - 2:18:03)
Should we come back to this one?

[Speaker 1] (2:18:06 - 2:18:09)
We're already here. Well, I'm just thinking.

[Speaker 3] (2:18:09 - 2:18:11)
No, no, I'm just going to take up a lot of conversation.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:12 - 2:18:13)
I'm I'm with you. Yes. Fine.

[Speaker 5] (2:18:15 - 2:18:20)
So we're tabling 16 for our next meeting or we're tabling 16.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:20 - 2:18:22)
After this. Maybe. I don't know.

[Speaker 5] (2:18:25 - 2:18:28)
Article 17. We've recommended favorable action.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:29 - 2:18:35)
So the planning board will make the motion on that. We didn't we didn't recommend favorable action yet. We didn't take a vote.

[Speaker 3] (2:18:35 - 2:18:36)
We have to vote on this now.

[Speaker 5] (2:18:36 - 2:18:39)
We didn't take. No. It's written.

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:39 - 2:18:43)
No, Mike. This is the version that we got tonight. It says that we'll report a town meeting.

[Speaker 5] (2:18:44 - 2:18:48)
Article 17. I thought that's amended. General bylaws.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:48 - 2:18:57)
You're looking in your packet. Look at the hard copy. I don't know what.

I don't know why your packet would be any different. The hard copy.

[Speaker 3] (2:19:01 - 2:19:03)
This article doesn't require a two thirds vote.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:05 - 2:19:33)
I think it does because it's an amendment to the zoning bylaw. I don't. I think town council has a pine because there's special permit provisions still in it.

I think we'll ask again. I think last meeting we asked you came to go back. The town council on every zoning article again to confirm.

But I think he responded last week because town council said it still required two thirds because there still were special permit requirements. I don't. I don't believe that not.

I believe that might be the answer he was given. I'm not sure that's the accurate answer.

[Speaker 3] (2:19:33 - 2:19:38)
Okay. So, you know, Monday night at the open at their open hearing. They said it was only 50 percent.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:40 - 2:19:43)
I don't believe that. So we should like hire attorneys to look at this.

[Speaker 2] (2:19:44 - 2:19:48)
This was sent to KP. We have town council. I will get clarification.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:48 - 2:19:53)
I mean, I know the moderator is going to be going. I think I'm sure meeting with town council sometime before town meeting. But.

[Speaker 4] (2:20:02 - 2:20:43)
So. Besides that piece, we can still. We can make a recommendation.

Of course. So, well, I have. There have been, you know, Mary Ellen and I are both at the planning board meeting the other night.

There was a long discussion about this. There. About parking spots and about doors in the front of buildings.

And. Well, I feel like. I definitely am supportive of moving forward with this.

I think there were some elements introduced that made this a little bit more accessible for accessory dwelling units. But generally speaking, I think. I would be supportive of moving forward with this.

[Speaker 3] (2:20:49 - 2:21:02)
So I'm in support of moving. Actually. I'd be more in support if it was by special permit.

However. It's not by special permit, but I'm still going to support it. But I really wish it had been by special permit.

[Speaker 5] (2:21:04 - 2:21:05)
I'm supportive of article 17.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:09 - 2:21:25)
I'm supportive as well. I think it's a bit more timid. A step forward than I was hoping for.

But I appreciate the planning board. Has worked really hard on a whole bunch of things this year. For that reason, I would recommend favorable action by the select board.

This is like we're recommend favorable action on article 17.

[Speaker 5] (2:21:26 - 2:21:48)
Do I have a second? Second. Any other discussion.

All in favor. Aye. Thanks.

Article 18. And then zoning bylaws. Site plan special permits.

Do we want to hold off on these?

[Speaker 1] (2:21:49 - 2:21:56)
No. This one happened at Monday night. The planning board also talked about this one.

And so the planning board voted favorable action on that as well.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:01 - 2:22:03)
Make a motion to support article 18.

[Speaker 5] (2:22:04 - 2:22:09)
Second. Any additional discussion. All in favor.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:09 - 2:22:10)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (2:22:13 - 2:22:17)
Article 19. Heavy school overlay district.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:17 - 2:22:37)
We're talking about that on Monday. So I suggest any. Any articles that they hadn't had the public hearing on.

I would suggest that we just not take action on it. You actually gave it to me. Like board member Thompson just thanked me for my good idea that he gave me.

I just want the record to be clear.

[Speaker 5] (2:22:37 - 2:22:47)
All right. So we'll we'll hold on. We'll hold on that until the until our meeting on the 10th.

We'll do the same for article. Article 20. And 21.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:48 - 2:22:50)
That one. They talked about last 21.

[Speaker 5] (2:22:50 - 2:22:57)
They talked 21. They did. OK.

Sorry. I did not meet. I did not make that meeting.

I did not. 20 21. Yes.

But 20. No.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:57 - 2:22:57)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:00 - 2:23:04)
So article 21. They recommend a favorable action. And I would recommend favorable action.

[Speaker 5] (2:23:05 - 2:23:23)
That's like a second. Second. OK.

Any additional discussion now. All in favor. Aye.

Article 22. And then general bylaws adoption of section for town clerk ministerial changes. We already recommended favorable action.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:24 - 2:23:30)
Yeah. But we've got to assign someone to this because the town administrator can't make a motion. So someone one of us has to move it.

[Speaker 5] (2:23:30 - 2:23:31)
Mary Ellen.

[Speaker 3] (2:23:32 - 2:23:33)
Sure. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:35 - 2:23:40)
When I think administrative bylaw changes. Mary Ellen, you're the first thing that came to mind.

[Speaker 3] (2:23:40 - 2:23:41)
Oh, thank you.

[Speaker 5] (2:23:46 - 2:23:56)
Article 23. Amend general bylaws. Earth removal.

Sponsored by Iraq. We had a recommended favorable action on this article. That's fine.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:00 - 2:24:03)
Article 24. Who's going to. If I'm up there.

No. Earth removal can be. I think.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:03 - 2:24:04)
Oh, they're going to do it. Right.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:04 - 2:24:09)
Make the motion. So John. Yeah.

John or Joe. I'll do it. Okay.

Got it.

[Speaker 5] (2:24:11 - 2:24:19)
Article 24. Amend general bylaws. Prohibit feeding of wildlife.

We're going to need someone to do the motion.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:19 - 2:24:25)
And I would recommend favorable action. A recommendation of favorable action by this clerk. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:24:26 - 2:24:29)
Any additional discussion. All in favor.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:29 - 2:24:30)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:30 - 2:24:38)
Aye. Mary Ellen. Are you comfortable.

At least making the motion. You don't need to speak to it. Someone else can speak to it.

Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (2:24:38 - 2:24:39)
I'll make the motion.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:39 - 2:24:42)
So do you want to. We want to find someone else to speak to it.

[Speaker 2] (2:24:43 - 2:24:53)
We have a presentation. The ACO has been working with Deb Newman. And there you go.

Perfect. Helpful to have both of them. All right.

[Speaker 5] (2:24:57 - 2:25:08)
Great. Article 25. Amend general bylaws.

Gas. Gas powered leaf blowers. We recommend a favorable action.

Doug.

[Speaker 4] (2:25:11 - 2:25:17)
Wow. Assuming that's fair. You can demur.

No. It's fine.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:19 - 2:25:21)
We won't tell your landscaper.

[Speaker 4] (2:25:23 - 2:25:26)
I've already told my own landscaper. So we might tell the landscaper.

[Speaker 5] (2:25:31 - 2:25:35)
Article 26. Amend general bylaws. Amendment to plastic shrugs.

[Speaker 4] (2:25:35 - 2:25:42)
I'm sorry. Can I just ask a question? Go ahead.

Where did this originate? I actually don't know the background.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:43 - 2:25:48)
Well, the language is Marbleheads. Right. But I asked the town administrator to include it in the board for our discussion.

[Speaker 4] (2:25:49 - 2:25:51)
Oh, you did. I wouldn't want to take it away from you.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:51 - 2:26:01)
No, no. I'm happy to make the motion. It doesn't matter to me.

Marblehead actually has a further foreign article this week that I've been trying to get. And I just haven't gotten it yet.

[Speaker 4] (2:26:01 - 2:26:01)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:02 - 2:26:03)
They passed it last night.

[Speaker 3] (2:26:03 - 2:26:05)
Huh? They passed it last night.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:05 - 2:26:05)
They passed the retraction?

[Speaker 3] (2:26:06 - 2:26:19)
No. The retraction failed. And then they passed.

Their second article was the fines. Oh, okay. Gotcha.

So they have fines in there.

[Speaker 5] (2:26:20 - 2:26:26)
Okay. So is Article 25 mirroring the 22 Marblehead or the current 23 version?

[Speaker 1] (2:26:27 - 2:26:28)
22. 22. 22.

[Speaker 5] (2:26:29 - 2:26:29)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:29 - 2:26:37)
So do you not want to do it, Adam? I really don't care. I'm guessing I'm going to be speaking to some of the other stuff.

But I'm happy to do it.

[Speaker 3] (2:26:38 - 2:26:41)
Do we have to address fines on this?

[Speaker 2] (2:26:42 - 2:26:46)
So on. That is the board's prerogative if you would like to.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:48 - 2:26:52)
Well, what's the general default if there's not a specific fine provision? What applies?

[Speaker 3] (2:26:53 - 2:26:54)
For the elephant?

[Speaker 4] (2:26:57 - 2:27:13)
Just by logical extension, I almost think that the first step Marblehead took last year was passing something similar. And now next year, they came back and talked about fines. This is kind of like a stepwise approach to introducing people to what's coming.

[Speaker 3] (2:27:14 - 2:27:19)
So to me, it sounded like they made a mistake last year. And they were coming back to fix their mistakes.

[Speaker 2] (2:27:19 - 2:27:23)
I'll have town council draft language for a fine. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:24 - 2:27:32)
Maybe we don't need it. Just let's have an answer to that question to do it. I don't know what the default is.

I can never remember if it's between the criminal and non-criminal fines.

[Speaker 2] (2:27:33 - 2:27:33)
5100.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:34 - 2:27:41)
I know, but I'm just saying I don't know what the default is. Thank you for asking that question.

[Speaker 5] (2:27:42 - 2:27:55)
All right. So we'll come back at our next meeting with additional information, Sean. Article 26, Amendment to Plastic Straw Stir Prohibition Bylaw to Include Plastic Takeout Containers.

[Speaker 2] (2:27:58 - 2:28:54)
Are we retracting this? It's not my recommendation to the board that we retract it. I met with the Solid Waste Committee last week, and they have voted to recommend indefinite postponement.

I don't believe that that is the right course of action. I would prefer to work with the Solid Waste Committee and have the board support this recommendation and include language, updated language, that would allow the Solid Waste Committee to work with the select board and the community over the next few months to report back at a fall town meeting for an affirmative ban on single-use plastics for the town of Swampstead. I think by indefinitely postponing something, it sends a message that perhaps it's not ready, and maybe we indefinitely dispense with it.

[Speaker 1] (2:28:54 - 2:30:41)
But that's just a procedural language. If we don't, we either go yay, nay, or indefinitely postpone. We have to do one of the three things.

You don't want us to do nay. You want us to go yay. But if we do yay, then there's not much to work with the Solid Waste Committee on because we've already passed the bylaw that then has to be implemented.

So the indefinite postponement is just a verbiage, but I guess I would say that I'm encouraged that they have committed to working on a recommendation for fall town meeting. It shows that they understand the importance of the topic. That being said, I also think at some point I want to, I think having their input is really important, but I also intuitively didn't see the charge of Solid Waste Committee having to bless anything having to do with recycling.

Previously, the straws came from the Board of Health, for example, made the recommendation for the banning of the straws and stuff like that. But I'm glad that they're taking an interest, and if they come back in the fall and you've prompted that dialogue, and I think it's great. We probably should have had it before.

I don't know what the right answer is here, but I do think indefinite postponement, given their commitment to come back in the fall, is the right action, and I just would ask us to talk. Lynn Chamber of Commerce quite literally went restaurant by restaurant down Humphrey Street, telling them to show up and oppose, and I think that's just unnecessary, because I don't think that Lynn Chamber actually wants to oppose these things. I think they just want to have a dialogue, and this is just one where a little bit more homework.

I love that you're raising it, but for you raising it, we wouldn't even be talking about this, and nor would Solid Waste Committee have it on their agenda to report in the fall. So you have already prompted change, and I think that if we can get their buy-in and we hear from them, I think it will allow us to craft something that in the fall will be more successful and have buy-in.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:41 - 2:31:34)
Peter, I appreciate that. I think in some ways, look, if there's something I can learn about leadership, it's that sometimes it's worth it to take a little bit more time. I do think the challenges that we're facing with the environment are real and serious, and I think every town meeting warrant should include language about action that has something to do with environmental responsibility.

It can't just be approving platitudes. We've got to get into changing human behavior that will help us ensure that we are addressing the environmental challenges that we should have been dealing with 10 years ago, maybe 20 years ago.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:35 - 2:31:56)
Well, I certainly agree with that. I certainly agree that I think we should pull this one back and not be supportive of moving forward with this as such right now, but make sure that we do have two articles on here, at least about moving forward with climate, and I look forward to finding the right solution to this and other things at upcoming town meetings.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:57 - 2:32:42)
I appreciate that. I agree with you. I will tell you that I did encourage the Solid Waste Committee, if they're going to come back in the fall, they should consider banning plastic water bottles like the one you have, Mr. Spellios, and other things that are problematic to the environment because it's an inconvenient reality that we just need to find more renewable containers for everything that we use, and I have that same problem. I have a bunch of plastic water bottles, but I know every time I buy them, I'm making a mistake. We have to retrain our consumerism, and it starts in towns like Swampskip. It really does.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:42 - 2:33:06)
I agree with a whole lot of this, so engage with them. Engage. I don't think there's a four corners of what you can engage on.

Engage on what you think is the right. Educate, inform, debate. I'm pretty confident I can squarely be behind what you're going to be behind at the end of this.

I think you're on the right path, and I appreciate it. Again, it's the first time we've talked about it, so I'm glad you're doing it. So I would make a motion to recommend indefinite postponement.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:07 - 2:33:07)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (2:33:10 - 2:33:12)
Any additional conversation?

[Speaker 1] (2:33:12 - 2:33:13)
So now the question is, oh, sorry.

[Speaker 5] (2:33:16 - 2:33:26)
Any additional conversation? All in favor? Aye.

We all agree that this is Katie's.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:27 - 2:33:30)
Actually, I was actually going to recommend Doug just because you were already up there.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:30 - 2:33:38)
Yeah, that's fine. You can just do that one as well. And I was at Solid Waste.

I mean, Mary Ellen is the liaison, though. Do you want Mary Ellen to let me know?

[Speaker 3] (2:33:38 - 2:33:43)
No, he's already up there. I'd like to just keep things going as quickly as possible.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:43 - 2:33:43)
Yes.

[Speaker 5] (2:33:44 - 2:33:57)
Agreed. Okay. Article 27, grant of easement to National Grid, 10 Whitman Road, new elementary school.

We had recommended favorable action previously.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:58 - 2:34:04)
And we maybe just, I'm going to suggest for the last three, maybe ask Katie.

[Speaker 12] (2:34:05 - 2:34:05)
Mm-hmm.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:06 - 2:34:09)
Okay. She will make the motion and send those.

[Speaker 6] (2:34:09 - 2:34:09)
Perfect.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:12 - 2:34:20)
And if, David, if you reach out to her and she has any concerns, I'm happy to step in and do anything. I just, yeah, just let me know. That works.

Yep.

[Speaker 3] (2:34:23 - 2:34:24)
Did we vote on these?

[Speaker 1] (2:34:24 - 2:34:27)
We voted on 29. We voted on 27.

[Speaker 3] (2:34:27 - 2:34:28)
27 and 28, right?

[Speaker 1] (2:34:28 - 2:34:28)
We did.

[Speaker 5] (2:34:28 - 2:34:39)
Yep. Okay. Article 29 was the citizen's petition article for resolution in support of changing the state flag and seal of Massachusetts.

[Speaker 1] (2:34:41 - 2:34:53)
I would recommend favorable action on Article 29. Do I have a second? It's a non-binding petition, but I think an important message.

Do I have a second?

[Speaker 4] (2:35:07 - 2:35:20)
I'm going to, I thought actually this had already been voted on, so I didn't study it. So I feel a little bit remiss in just. Dogging your homework.

Do you want to pick it up next week? Yes.

[Speaker 5] (2:35:20 - 2:35:31)
Yeah. Okay. Let's pick that up next week.

That's it. Should we go back to the CIC? Article 16.

[Speaker 4] (2:35:54 - 2:36:19)
So just a baseline question here. I know that they're following the ball correctly. Most of these items have been reported on favorably by CIC and finance committee.

But is that clearly demarcated here? There were some that they were still coming back around to, like each of them, like four or five projects, I think, to give their final approval to.

[Speaker 2] (2:36:19 - 2:36:29)
So have they all weighed in on all of these? I believe all of these projects have been approved by the capital improvement committee. Okay.

Finance committee. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:29 - 2:36:47)
So the finance, the capital improvements pretty much gave an approval of everything. The finance committee on line item number 15, they did not recommend this. Line item 20, they did not recommend that.

[Speaker 4] (2:36:47 - 2:36:50)
Right. That's what I mean. So this is up to date right now.

[Speaker 3] (2:36:50 - 2:37:12)
Incorporates everything. The finance committee was meeting tonight, but revisiting this schedule wasn't on there. And then they have also zero, they put zero out on line number 30.

Did he leave because there's?

[Speaker 2] (2:37:13 - 2:37:13)
No.

[Speaker 3] (2:37:14 - 2:37:15)
Number 34?

[Speaker 5] (2:37:19 - 2:37:27)
I don't think so. I don't know. I don't know.

So, okay. So FinCom was not revisiting their recommendation.

[Speaker 2] (2:37:27 - 2:38:33)
They're, they're good with the five, three, five, $5,340,500 recommended. I will tell you, you know, you've got a town hall that is your civic center. You're not planning on building a new one anytime soon.

You've got a basement that has the largest meeting space that you could use in that facility. You have duct work that brings HVAC into the basement. You have high ceilings.

You could make it accessible. It has an elevator that goes to the basement. I feel as though, you know, we're in meetings at town hall all the time where people are just crammed into tight little spaces.

And I just, you know, again, I'm going to bring this back every year. It just seems to me that, you know, you've got these sunk costs in this facility. Use it.

I feel like we, you know, we're using the basement for storage right now, and we need it for meeting space. It would be prudent for us to invest in that facility. We'd get more functional utility out of it.

[Speaker 4] (2:38:33 - 2:38:45)
So, I mean, out of, you know, $5.7 million, the finance committee didn't recommend three different things. Why was this so important to not recommend to the finance committee? Does anyone have any insight into that?

[Speaker 3] (2:38:45 - 2:38:47)
You mean why didn't the finance committee recommend it?

[Speaker 4] (2:38:47 - 2:38:47)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (2:38:48 - 2:39:03)
One of the reasons why the finance committee didn't recommend it is because this $50,000 is just for design. It leaves out the $300,000 to $400,000 for a rebuild for future years. The expectation and the assumptions of spending was quite high.

[Speaker 4] (2:39:05 - 2:39:07)
The assumption of spending for the design was quite high?

[Speaker 3] (2:39:08 - 2:39:24)
No, the assumption for spending for the build-out. The assumption of spending for the bottom line of what capital project is going to be in the next couple of years was also pretty high. So that definitely played into it.

It was also comments of it's a want versus a need.

[Speaker 2] (2:39:25 - 2:40:30)
I just want to be clear. It's a need. It's not a want.

We are literally jammed up in that building. Going through the pandemic, it was clear we needed more space. We needed more room to meet.

And, you know, I will tell you again, this is just the future talking. Like, making this investment today would be prudent. And getting the $50,000 in place allows us to go out and get cost estimates, do feasibility, try to figure out, you know, how do we, in a way that helps us get a project shovel ready, show up at a finance committee meeting and say, this is the best value project that we can create and perhaps even, you know, put us in a position to go and get grants or other, you know, funding opportunities.

But to me, I just, I think this is a prudent use of a reasonable amount of money to advance a project.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:30 - 2:40:37)
Sean, how large is the space that we're talking about downstairs in the basement of town hall?

[Speaker 2] (2:40:38 - 2:41:38)
I don't know exactly the square footage, but I will tell you that it's three times the size of any meeting space that we have. It has high ceilings. I would welcome any member of the board to come to town hall.

We'll tour it. It is old fieldstone in my last position as a town manager. I literally renovated the basement of a historic town hall, and it became a functional cable studio and IT office.

We hermetically sealed the basement. We wrapped the entire fieldstone with plastic and put floating tiles on the floor and dropped ceilings in. It was almost the same exact thing, and it created an incredible functional investment because you already have the most expensive capital investment in the elevator to the basement.

You have an ADA-accessible space, and we could knock out the blocks, the MU ceilings, bring daylight into the basement, and you'd have a nice meeting space.

[Speaker 1] (2:41:39 - 2:43:05)
So I want to second you on this one. I believe the $50,000 to plan it, even if it sits on the shelves, at least creates a plan. You're actually being damned if you do or damned if you don't.

You don't have a plan, but you're saying I want to create a plan, and then you can actually say this is small, medium, large, and we're not being theoretical about the build-out spaces. If we only want to spend $100,000, what does $100,000 of build-out look like? What does $200,000 of build-out look like?

The need is very clear, and but for COVID delaying our return to in-person meetings, you don't even have enough staff space to collaborate, and Town Hall doesn't work as a very good collaborating space because it's an old home that's been reused, and so there's very little collaboration, frankly, outside of departments. And so I think this is a situation where it would have been great if we could have found another source to use it, but I think you've been consistent in asking for it. You run Town Hall.

You're there every day. People are truly on top of each other, and the committees aren't even back yet. When the committees come back, it's going to be the worst because we can't always meet in high school.

We can't always do these things. We need to use Town Hall. So I'm happy to table it, and we can pick it up next week, but I would not make a formal recommendation but see if we could get board consensus to ask CIC to, I think CIC recommended, to basically ask FinCom to reconsider in hopes that we find a resolution before town meeting.

[Speaker 5] (2:43:06 - 2:43:39)
I want to echo that. I'm certainly in support. Mary Ellen, we've had meetings in the first floor conference room.

We've certainly been to a number of meetings, and it's very, very tight in there if you have any more than eight people. So I would certainly recommend the $50,000. If there's any meeting of any substantive size, it doesn't work on that first floor conference room.

It doesn't work in that third floor conference room. It works for us with five, six.

[Speaker 3] (2:43:39 - 2:44:36)
There's a couple things. If we really need a little bit more space on meeting rooms, we also have a very, very, very large meeting room space in the library on the third floor that is underutilized. So one concern that I have is are we really looking at the space that we have availability use, and we're really identifying all that.

And I'm looking further down, not just at $50,000. And to spend $50,000 and have it sit on a shelf, that doesn't do anything for me. I want to be able to spend $50,000 and then put a plan into place.

Because we have a number of items. If you look on our capital expenditures, we have a number of items that we're approving, and yet nothing's happening. And I really want to get away from that myself personally.

So if we spend $50,000 on this, we really should be ready to drop $300,000 to $400,000 on the next.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:36 - 2:44:38)
But realistically, I don't know who said that number.

[Speaker 3] (2:44:39 - 2:44:41)
It was given at a meeting.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:41 - 2:45:26)
Okay. That just means it was said. I don't put any weight in any number.

If we want $100,000, but that's a, what do you think, finger in the air. At the end of the day, those projects that aren't being done that we've approved, I guarantee there's no design and plans for them because they weren't prepared and they weren't ready to go. For the most part, I think there are things that we're like, hey, this would be great to do, and then there wasn't a plan or there wasn't time to do it.

But here, I think as I look at it, what we want is, hey, Sean, you shouldn't expect $300,000 if you want to do it in the next five years. But what does $100,000 get you? I mean, I hear you about that third floor.

We've sat and had executive sessions there. It's barely comfortable for five of us in an executive session. Like, it's just a miserable, it's not a – In the library?

Upstairs?

[Speaker 3] (2:45:26 - 2:45:30)
No. I said there's a very large room on the third floor of the library.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:30 - 2:45:36)
Oh, you're talking about the library, the second floor of the library. Yeah, but that takes – Oh, no, sorry, I thought you were talking about the third floor in town hall.

[Speaker 3] (2:45:36 - 2:45:37)
No, no.

[Speaker 1] (2:45:37 - 2:46:50)
Sorry, which that room is just awful. I hear there's other spaces, but for town hall collaboration, I don't think town hall employees should have to be walking into the library to collaborate and find space. That space is volumetrically interesting because it's a type of space that you can both see public meetings, you can see collaborations, you can see – it's a team building – I'm going to use a different phrase.

It's a team building space, whereas the first four conference rooms, you have more than four people. You're tipping over each other because of the chairs against the walls and doing it in that third floor space that I was just bashing a second ago. It's just not a particularly pleasant space with any number of people here.

Anyways, I've said my piece. I hear you. I'm concerned about all the money we need to spend, too, but we need to still be setting up things that we – I don't think this is a want.

I do believe collaboration space and this stuff's important. In $5.3 million, $50,000 to set up, I'd rather we do this and maybe we find out we don't need it. Maybe we find out that it's just ridiculous there isn't a $100,000 option, but maybe what we do is we find the $100,000 option that allows us to create that collaboration space because there's zero right now in town hall.

I'm sorry.

[Speaker 4] (2:46:52 - 2:47:56)
I think taking it up next week sounds good. I'd like to get more educated and think this through a little bit more. On one hand, $50,000 in the scheme of things, I understand that.

On the other hand, it does feel as though we always think we need another space as opposed to leveraging what we have, but that may not be possible. I just need to understand better exactly what types of – how often do we need a space that takes more than eight people in town hall? Are we going to be creating a space down in this basement that we use once a month, or is this like a regular – I'd just like to get a little bit more information about really what the utilization and how critical that is.

Sure. I'm happy to come back. The other thing I may just want to add, I want to be respectful of the work the Finance Committee has done too, so I want to really understand kind of where they're coming from.

They obviously looked through this carefully. There are a couple specific things they decided didn't meet the cut there, so I just want to hear more about that. Maybe also hear from CIC since they – And CIC approved it, right.

Yes.

[Speaker 2] (2:47:58 - 2:48:34)
It's helpful. I think both the Facilities Director and the Assistant Facilities Director, they have worked with architects and they've worked with contractors to evaluate the space, and they've actually, I think, come up with some of the numbers based on consultations, but they both have recommended that we advance this incremental request to really get more information so we can come back and have more cost estimates and have stronger concepts for design and project development.

Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:48:35 - 2:48:47)
So we'll have further discussion on Article 16 next week. Anything else warrant-related? Hearing none, we'll move on.

[Speaker 1] (2:48:47 - 2:49:08)
I would, sorry. Sorry, I'm staying in capital for a minute. Sure, go ahead.

Sean, can you please just report back to us? 26 is firearm upgrades. My understanding is that we're replacing some semi-automatic firearms, and I just want to know what happens with those that we decommission.

Are they being destroyed? Said differently, I would like to know that they're not being resold.

[Speaker 2] (2:49:09 - 2:49:12)
Understood. I will report back. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (2:49:14 - 2:49:15)
Anything else?

[Speaker 3] (2:49:20 - 2:49:25)
Oh, you know what? I did have a question on this. Was the $200,000 for Clark School?

[Speaker 2] (2:49:28 - 2:49:36)
Yes. That is for the preliminary design for the renovation of the Clark School.

[Speaker 3] (2:49:36 - 2:50:19)
I just, has this been a discussion at the school committee, and I just haven't done my homework and really looked into it? I'm just trying to get a good idea of what's really going on here with the amount of space that we're going to need, because my understanding is in the new elementary school, the amount of students that are going into the new elementary school is a pretty small amount of number compared to what the school can handle. And then how is that going to play into effect over in the middle school, and then what's going on over here?

Like, do we really even need Clark School? Has there been a conversation about that?

[Speaker 1] (2:50:19 - 2:52:03)
Yeah, so the school committee, going back to when they made the decisions on site locations, and the school building committee was making site locations, they did go through a process of talking about reprogramming the schools. I don't want to overstate what they talked about, because I don't have great clarity. I know from sitting in SBC meetings and sitting with the superintendent, there has been, as I understand it, complete clarity that the plan is that preschool and the administration are leading the middle school, so the middle school can, if you will, spread and take over some space for other needs in the middle school, and that the Clark School was going to be retrofitted for those purposes of the integrated preschool program and the superintendent.

I don't think there is any expectation that just because we're building a school for 900, but we're only going to have an enrollment of 700 and change, that there's going to be empty classrooms. I think there's plenty of programming. Also, I've never once heard, and I can tell you from our design meetings galore, there isn't a single space designed to be an integrated preschool or to be an administrative space.

They're all designed for elementary school needs, so I know for a fact there's nothing designed in the new school to do these functions, which are just fundamentally different than elementary school needs. So the plan has always been to, I can't tell you how to fund it, but to retrofit Clark and keep Clark as an active school building. The school wasn't prepared, I don't think has had any conversations about being that excess property.

That's always been very consistent. We should reach out to them and maybe have someone join us Monday to talk a little bit more about it, but I'm very comfortable with what I've said to you, but I'm happy if you want someone to come talk about it.

[Speaker 3] (2:52:03 - 2:52:14)
I'm just wondering if this conversation should be revisited, because what you don't see in this table here is there's a few years down the road where there's a $6 million request. And it's like, whoa.

[Speaker 4] (2:52:18 - 2:52:22)
It's kind of the same concept, right, as we were talking about earlier. You're making an announcement.

[Speaker 1] (2:52:22 - 2:53:04)
I believe this drumbeat to have been a drumbeat that's been happening for quite a long time. This is space needs. I hear you.

I don't think there's an alternative plan at all in place, and I will tell you that elementary school is fully, the design is locked, loaded, and purchased. But maybe having someone, maybe Max or someone from the school department talk with us on Monday or Wednesday or whatnot, or maybe even an e-mail. I don't know.

You're asking a really good question. I'm very confident, though, that this has consistently been the plan. I don't know where that $6 million number comes from, because I'm not privy to any design or specific programming, like space programming work being done.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:04 - 2:53:06)
As I understand it, they're moving the school administration.

[Speaker 1] (2:53:06 - 2:53:25)
Yeah, no, no. I understand that. But I'm saying I don't think they've gone room by room and said, this is where the superintendent will sit.

This is where, you know, I mean, I don't, I'm not privy to that. That's right. But I do believe they have determined it to be a meeting that they wouldn't surplus the school, but they would need to do things to make it.

I don't know where the $6 million comes from.

[Speaker 2] (2:53:25 - 2:53:34)
I can't speak to that. It's a capital plan. It's a planning number.

That $200,000 will help get a solid number.

[Speaker 1] (2:53:34 - 2:53:36)
So would you like someone to come next week?

[Speaker 3] (2:53:37 - 2:53:39)
I would. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (2:53:40 - 2:53:48)
John? Yep. Okay.

Anything else CIC related?

[Speaker 1] (2:53:50 - 2:55:07)
I'm just going to repeat what I said previously. And I appreciate you're making the best argument you could, Sean, but you continue to point to pedestrian safety dollars that are in there because they're in there because our school needs these, our new school needs these additional pedestrian safety issues. There's not a dollar in this budget for anything beyond the immediate proximity of the new elementary school.

So I asked you previously to take a look to see if you could find additional money for pedestrian safety because I think that we had a really good conversation tonight where I think people have maybe collaborated to come to realize that speed humps, pillows, whatever you want to call them, might be a great way to deal with the fact that we can't have the highest degree of enforcement because there's so many competing demands. So, but there's, there's still $0 in here. And I appreciate you're looking at tailings and I appreciate you're going to look at other things, but that doesn't reflect in my view, the commitment that you have stated and the one that I feel as though hasn't been reflected to date.

So I'm just, there's no answer tonight, but I know that that 1 million, frankly, we're going to need grant money even to, even to finish the school stuff. So, so I just, I'm just cognizant of that and I don't want that to be let go that we're just saying, Oh, there's a million dollars in here in pedestrian. We're taking it seriously.

That's specifically dedicated. We know where that dollar is going to.

[Speaker 3] (2:55:07 - 2:55:12)
And so why wasn't that number? Why, why wasn't that number in the S the original school?

[Speaker 1] (2:55:12 - 2:55:18)
I don't, I actually don't know the answer to that question. I mean, it's not eligible for reimbursement. So the town would have paid a hundred cents off.

[Speaker 3] (2:55:18 - 2:55:19)
There's a number of things that are.

[Speaker 1] (2:55:20 - 2:55:47)
I'm just saying, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. Mary Ellen, to be honest with you, I don't think these plans were fully progressed at the time. I think this is an outgrowth of public dialogue through the school process.

And I think trying to be responsive, even after the school was moving forward in the community meetings to say you're, you're raising a good point. Like we need to enhance that. So I think some of it came because of that, but I don't, I don't know all the points as to where it came from, but anyways.

[Speaker 4] (2:55:47 - 2:55:55)
So in terms of process, Sean, you initially recommended this, is this where it started or did it start in CIC for this million dollars?

[Speaker 2] (2:55:55 - 2:56:39)
It started with a proposal that we received from a consultant that we hired as part of the school project. I went over that proposal with the facilities manager and with the director of public works and the community development director. And we went through it.

The number that actually came in from the consult was considerably higher. And we backed into a number that frankly, we felt we could advance with a focus on complete street grant applications, safe routes to school grant application and some work that would be done by the Swanscot department of public works.

[Speaker 4] (2:56:40 - 2:56:58)
And so, you know, in fact is Peter's noting that this really is heavily focused around the new school. It is not, I shouldn't even say heavily a hundred percent completely clear to me a hundred percent around the new school and again, around the new school extends into Humphrey street and intersection of Humphrey and Atlantic.

[Speaker 1] (2:56:58 - 2:57:07)
So, I mean, be generous with your radius there, but it's all about the enhanced pedestrian redirection and vehicular traffic that's anticipated in that area.

[Speaker 4] (2:57:07 - 2:57:08)
So we could get a couple of speed pillows.

[Speaker 1] (2:57:09 - 2:57:17)
You could, I can tell you with great certainty, I've seen the plans and there isn't one speed pillow in this million dollars here, but these are intersection, but you never know.

[Speaker 5] (2:57:17 - 2:57:26)
You never know. So are we, are we anticipating this million dollars is part of a, is part of a larger ask in aggregate.

[Speaker 2] (2:57:27 - 2:58:42)
I think in future years, you're going to see a continued investment for pedestrian safety projects. This is the first tranche of, of significant funds to help address, you know, prioritization of improvements in intersections. But as I mentioned earlier, every intersection in town needs a focus.

We have to get rid of these slip lanes. We have to neck down roadways. We have to think about, you know, raising crosswalks all there, any number of, of investments that we could make.

We have a complete streets prioritization plan that has $20 million worth of projects that have been prioritized based on a study that we did six years ago. So all of those projects need to, you know, be advanced either through France or through capital improvements that we need to continue to make. I've asked the traffic safety committee and I've asked both the police and fire department to champion these projects and, and advance them as part of the annual capital improvement process.

[Speaker 3] (2:58:43 - 2:59:05)
So just so you know, you might want to tell them to add that into the capital in 20 to 28, because the only thing that's in here is for 20, 25 is 150,000, nothing for 26, 27 or 28. Okay. Seawalls.

A lot of opportunity here.

[Speaker 2] (2:59:06 - 2:59:30)
The entire complete street list of projects should be in that capital plan. I know we should add every project that has been identified in every, every, in the master plan, every project that's in the Harbor waterfront plan all should be in the capital plan and it should be a 30 year horizon.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:33 - 2:59:40)
I'm good with capital tonight. Okay. All right.

[Speaker 5] (2:59:40 - 2:59:43)
So we'll move on to a discussion and update.

[Speaker 2] (2:59:43 - 2:59:45)
On Hawthorne pier four.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:46 - 2:59:50)
Oh, am I doing that?

[Speaker 2] (2:59:50 - 3:02:52)
I will kick it off. We had a wonderful event last Wednesday night. I want to thank the team from HDR. I want to thank Marsy, Alaska and town staff for helping to facilitate over a hundred Swampskate residents who came out. Think about the future of the Hawthorne property. We had three renderings of design that showed a few different options for future use. We shared that, you know, we're going to continue to take that feedback, work with our design team and come back with a conversation with the select board after town meeting about what our next steps should be.

We have talked internally about making sure that we're not just addressing, you know, one group of individuals that could perhaps show up on a Wednesday night or a Saturday morning. We have to go out and get more feedback and we have to give more Swampskate citizens a chance to share with us their feedback, but also their ideas about the vision for the site in particular. You know, we talked about Swampskate high school students and different generational groups that may be at sporting events or community events.

We want to find a way to really get more feedback into, you know, what would be a consensus or a vision for this extraordinary property? Look, there were a lot of ideas. It's, it's actually, it's exciting to hear all the different visions.

Some folks think that we should have, in fact, somebody that works for our local access television team said that maybe a Ferris wheel should be on that site, but somebody has advanced, you know, ideas about open space. Somebody has talked about, you know, a balance of commercial, whatever these ideas are, they're wonderful and they're great to kind of throw in the hopper. I want to encourage everybody to continue to share their ideas, but be open to hearing other ideas.

And, you know, we do need to kind of think about a timeline though, and reporting back to town meeting and in getting to a point where we can coalesce around a vision. And that's the conversation. I think we have to kind of work out with the select board over the next few weeks.

What is that timeline? And, and how do we back into a date certain that allows us to advance a project that we can actually take to state and federal funding partners and think creatively about how do we, how do we make that vision become a reality?

[Speaker 1] (3:02:54 - 3:08:30)
So, so can I ask a couple, a couple of things? One, I, I, not tonight, but if you asked me what I lose sleep about, I don't lose sleep about 10 years from now with the Hawthorne. I lose sleep about 10 months from now with the Hawthorne and, and temporary use.

So if you please understand that it is a top priority, I, I, others can tell them if they don't speak to them, but a vacant building is a bad idea. Understood. So we just need to know what that plan is.

And, and that has to be a top a number one priority, more important than what happens a decade from now. It just has to be because anyways, enough said number two is I guess I want to share. And I know that David, myself were like, we're continuing our working group and giving feedback to HDR next week, kind of to give them some feedback.

So I want to hear other people's feedback tonight from the event, because that's the time for David and I to share it with HDR when we joined with staff on, on, on their meetings. But I'm going to share a couple observations myself. I think there was a two, one glaring omission and one constant thing that I heard.

I think people felt like the ideas at the Hawthorne route here. And then by the time they got to the high school, they had gotten narrowed pretty quickly. And that we saw three versions of open space with slight derivations.

Now, admittedly, I'm saying this, even though I've said, I believe this should be prominently open space, what type and how it's done. But I don't think that that means that we negate that process. And I don't, I think maybe HDR went a little bit too quick and gave three options out there that were really derivatives of themselves.

As opposed to three different ideas. And so I just, I say that because I not withstanding my own opinion of where, you know, because I think that exercise is really important. Number one, to verify I'm open to the fact that there's a better idea, right for us to verify ourselves and go through the analysis.

But two, because we can't just say we want everybody's ideas. And I think pretty quickly, something got pretty narrow in my view on that. The second thing that, which is more of what was missing.

And I think we can do, I'm not sure HDR is the one to do it. We can do some of it is we heard a lot of conversation. We continue to hear a lot of conversation about revenue, revenue, loss, revenue, replacement and cost, right?

We hear concerns about all those things, but we didn't have any conversation about that as, as a group. And I'm not sure that that form is going to be the best place necessarily do it, but we can certainly post town meeting. We can bring that here too.

I mean, we can also start doing that and then hopefully bring it to the broader group so that people can see that the revenue, because, because right now people are talking concepts and, and they're all really insightful concepts, but without being, without anybody helping quantify, right. When we talk, just stay on revenue for a second. When we talk about revenue loss or revenue replacement, right?

I think it's, we have to acknowledge what the taxes were that's being paid currently on this property. What would the taxes have been for the new development? What would have been a new development, right?

So that people understand the cost that comes with that so that people can see that and then say, okay, going forward, right? And then this is the interplay with Hadley. The Hadley goes down one path.

Is that an alternative for revenue replacement? If, if the Hawthorne is not, or I just think it's a, it's a pretty dynamic, interesting conversation that I think we would all benefit from. I haven't myself even penciled it out.

To do that. But I think that was completely missing. And I think what that does is not that again, it's planning numbers to what you said earlier, Sean, they're going to be big round numbers.

They're not going to be, you know, to the decimal point. But I think what they do is they tether some ideas in reality. And I think very quickly, it's going to help people make decisions.

For example, if we were to take a 60 unit condominium plan, which we know if we hadn't bought the property was the path that was going forward. And we take the tax revenue from that. We say to everybody, okay, you would have gotten $500,000 a year.

I'm making up a number. I haven't done that math, but $500,000 a year in tax revenue. Right.

And then people are then not just talking about revenue, but they're actually talking about the opportunity costs. They're saying, okay, am I willing to, is that $500,000 of revenue worth it to have a project that didn't have any public access to the water and would be a tall building there again, whatever it is. And people then can at least make a more informed assessment.

It's still opinion. It's still very subjective. There's no right or wrong rule here, but I think in truth, what it comes down to is my guess is where it comes down to is the amount of density that we're actually willing to, the bell curve where people are going to be most comfortable with density there is going to be a fraction of that revenue.

And so is that, how do you feel then if knowing it's, it's a $200,000 of revenue for a medium sized project, does that make sense to you? And then you say, okay, what if I told you that the Hawthorne basically pays that same amount today? You know, and just, and what it does is it just at least helps put metrics and finances, not, not again to the decimal, but to at least help quantify choices because people right now are speaking about revenue replacement.

And I think that's a vitally important topic that we have to be focused on as we're talking about this project. But it was completely, completely missing from that dialogue.

[Speaker 2] (3:08:30 - 3:08:55)
And I don't left it out intentionally to be candid. We left it out because we didn't want the most ambitious ideas to kind of be weighted down with the finances. And we thought we'd introduced the finances at some point.

Once we went, once we collected the biggest ideas, we'd actually temper those ideas. So you're talking to the cost side. I was giving an example on the revenue side, though.

[Speaker 1] (3:08:55 - 3:09:44)
I mean, if people are going to talk about revenue all the time, though, Sean, we, we owe it to them to be able to everybody. If we told them that money, wasn't an issue on cost or revenue, everybody will take open space. That that's not true, but you know what I'm saying?

Right. The vast majority would say, great, let's have open space. Cause it doesn't cost us anything.

That's awesome. We could always use more, but we know that revenue is an issue and we're battling it in school and fire and police. I mean, you battle it more than anybody.

So let's just start quantifying it because it is what it is. And we should be able to quantify that. And again, in a thoughtful, not bombastic or overly dynamic way.

So the numbers are the numbers here so that we can have that conversation because we are sacrificing revenue to create public amenity, period, hard stop. So where's that tipping point for people? Where's the comfort.

So we can at least hear it. And then we ultimately make a recommendation of town meeting and town meeting ultimately makes a judgment call.

[Speaker 2] (3:09:44 - 3:10:19)
Again, I'm going to just, I'm not pushing back, but I want to just, I want to put, I think it's important for people to understand too, that when you create open space, you don't just say no to revenue. You, you actually create value. So let's have that as part of the conversation.

Kind of understand it in the world we live in because it, it happens in communities not too far from here where they built parks in a, in a busy downtown and, and it's actually helped spur I'm with you, but that's all I'm saying is let's have that counterintuitive. That's all I'm saying is let's have that conversation.

[Speaker 5] (3:10:19 - 3:10:38)
Yeah. And look, Tanya Tanya Lillick has provided this board or previous iterations of this board with information regarding property values and, and, and tax information. So I think that was helpful to me.

So maybe that could be shared amongst us to just help further.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:38 - 3:10:38)
Sure.

[Speaker 5] (3:10:39 - 3:10:39)
Informed.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:40 - 3:11:11)
Yeah, I Peter, your points are well taken. I do think, you know, we should come back and we should, we should introduce into the public dialogue, a conversation about the economics of, of, you know, community building. It's, it's more complicated than, than just lost revenue.

You have to see these investments as synergistic. And, and, you know, we need to, we need to think carefully about just how we present that.

[Speaker 4] (3:11:12 - 3:11:27)
Yeah. So I'd like to share a couple of thoughts on this for sure. Having heard a lot of thoughts on this recently, not only from attending the public session, but that was the first thing pretty much everyone wanted to talk about after street safety.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:28 - 3:11:30)
So that's your second, first thing.

[Speaker 4] (3:11:34 - 3:13:46)
So, you know, I went back to kind of the, the, we have purchased this already and there was a, a vote of town meeting and there's, you know, very particulars about, I know there was a large discussion about it being primarily open space there. Ultimately it was passed with, you know, that the ring basically along the water needs to stay open space. Just for people out there that just kind of the facts of like what it ultimately ended up, what passed in terms of the, the article.

And we are starting to spend money very soon. You know, the bonding, we're going to start paying those bonds in the next couple of months. And it's not, we're not, you know, there's, there's lost tax revenue.

That's one piece of it, but we're going to start paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for the bonds this year. So I do think that to this overall point, I'm not sure. I haven't had the direct interaction with HDR, you know, design is one thing, but I'm not sure who's really in charge of the business plan.

Who's really kind of taking into consideration, you know, how these designs are factored into all of the costs and all of the revenue opportunities. This is a major, major investment that the town is making. And I'm not really sure who has the ball to be coordinating all of this and be formulating.

What the expenditures are this year, next year, you know, I know you kind of the ball for the extending the lease. I got the terminology, right. And figuring out a way to keep that site active.

But, you know, this, the clock is ticking on a major, major expenditure. And I do hope that we have clarity or on who's going to be responsible for what very soon. I imagine that falls through Sean, but I'm not sure that there we've got great transparency about that right now.

[Speaker 2] (3:13:46 - 3:14:36)
I certainly just to be clear, I am responsible for that building and I do accept responsibility. And I am worried about a empty building. It's the reason why I've reached out to a number of individuals.

So I'm, I'm trying to put some things in play here that would help us ensure that we're not going to be dealing with an empty building, but we do share some of these responsibilities. And so we're going to have to work carefully as, as communities do when they lead on these issues. This is an extraordinary opportunity.

We stepped in the middle of a, an active development and we helped protect the town from what we thought was going to be an adverse development and secured a piece of open space that is going to be extraordinary.

[Speaker 4] (3:14:36 - 3:15:39)
That is absolutely true. But I just want to like reflect on the fact that we're sitting here worrying about whether or not we're going to spend $50,000 in the capital budget. We're going to be spending $500,000 every single year for the bonds.

And maybe people don't see that, but that's happening too. And so time really is of the essence in figuring out yet. Yes.

The kind of the short-term use is important, but, you know, making sure that we're actually leveraging what we're expending is critical as well. We don't want to rush it and get it wrong. Obviously it's a long-term investment, but it's important that we find the resources to be able to focus.

If that's not something that HDR can really support and we need some other way in order to kind of think about the fuller economics of that. And so it's not necessarily you off, you know, with the 40 other things that you're doing, this is something we really need to be investing in making sure we're managing it well, my perspective.

[Speaker 3] (3:15:43 - 3:18:51)
So I want to say that the, to me, the number one priority is making sure that that building is filled. And I'm more concerned with that than I am with anything else, because I think we have time to figure out that not a lot of time, but first thing I really, I agree with Peter that the number one priority is making sure that the buildings fill to give you any kind of feedback for HDR. I'm going to tell you some, the first time I went to the first one I really didn't feel like it was very well organized.

I, and you know, they ran out of stuff and what the, you put your ideas out there and I walked away just thinking, okay, well we'll see what happens next. So when I go the next one, now I had already spent an entire morning at the first one giving my ideas. I heard a lot of people's ideas and I come to the second one at the high school and none of my ideas were there.

It was just like one big idea of open space. So I really felt like, why am I coming here? Because nobody's listening to me.

And I know that that's how a lot of people in town feel. Why? And I hear it over and over.

Why this idea is already baked. I'm like, well, if it's baked, I haven't heard about it yet. So I would, I would definitely get the point across to HDR on the second visit.

I was a little disappointed because number one, I didn't see any of my ideas. I just saw the same idea in front of me. And then when we were trying to convey information out, you had on people constantly moving around and you would have people of certain committees going from table to table table, putting out their, their ideas.

So what, what frightens me is, Oh man, am I getting their idea at every single table? And then that idea is going to be summarized and, and brought back that that's the big idea when it really wasn't the big idea. So I, I really want to see a balance in there.

I am not in support and I've been, I've said this for one year, I am not in support of 100% open space. And I don't begrudge anybody for having being in support of open space, but that's my opinion. I want to see balance in there and I don't want to see I don't want to see a total loss of revenue.

But so when I come to the next meeting, I really would like to see I'd like to see some of my ideas out there. I mean, I've, I've said it three times. I really like to see a peer on the side and I don't think I'm the only one that has said that, but it might be a pie in the sky type idea, but I'd like to hear it and I'd like to make sure that people stop roaming around and they just stay in their spots.

I just like to see a little bit more emphasis on organization. And, you know, I know Pete Kane was there. He has a lot of experience in this stuff.

Maybe talking to him about what his opinion was or people from the planning board, they have experience in this. They probably could give better insight than I do.

[Speaker 2] (3:18:52 - 3:18:53)
Very helpful.

[Speaker 4] (3:18:54 - 3:20:09)
Well, I think to combine what Mary Ellen's saying with what I was saying, I think the next step, I appreciate the theory of not constraining people and not kind of attaching any type of cost estimate to any of the designs. But I would certainly encourage next time around that we start getting kind of real about it in terms of what these different designs might cost and what the potential revenue upsides of each of them might be so that you have some idea when you're looking at them, the trade-offs. Because there was, there was discussion in the room about, well don't worry about the money.

We're going to find money somewhere else. And so I don't think that was, you know, helpful. Maybe that's true.

That'll be great. But let's live within kind of the reality of our, what we can control right now. We find some future offsets.

That's terrific. But it seems hard to decide when you have no idea what may be an open area that we could have venues that basically generate revenue. That's a great concept.

But I have no idea whether or not that's $10,000 a year or $200,000. Let me be clear. You didn't see a single revenue plan.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:10 - 3:20:16)
Well, some of them were sold though. You didn't see an idea for revenue. Never mind revenue.

There wasn't literally a value.

[Speaker 3] (3:20:17 - 3:20:21)
To your point. There was a little shack or something.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:22 - 3:23:29)
There was. I mean, I think we're going to have one of the biggest bathrooms in the world because everybody wanted bathrooms. We're going to have the nicest bathroom place in the world.

Glass out in the water. But even the venue, they're like, oh, this is a wedding venue. Who's building that $3 million wedding venue?

So I think that I'm not quite where you are in what you're saying. I think the concept of master planning and this divisioning is you have to. And I'm actually going to go the other way.

I actually think as though it wasn't grand enough. The three ideas were, I'm not going to use it, just not grand enough. And I don't think they were three ideas.

I think they were versions of one idea. I think there needed to be three ideas. I think we need to challenge ourselves.

Because oftentimes where you find yourself is by knowing where you're not here. And we can't discount everything in the world and go through a six-year process of this. But when we start talking about revenue, what revenue do we really think that we need to do here?

Because I can tomorrow, we can all sit and we can pencil out what a 20-condominium building will pay in taxes and what that will look like. And we can do that. And I think that we'll start framing things.

The edges will frame the middle for us as to where it's going to be. But I do think we have to start grand too. And I appreciate you keep raising the Ferris wheel.

Your point about the Ferris wheel is the same thing as your point about that garage in the Harbor Plan or the restaurant on the pier, which is provocative. Dream it. Because you've at least got to start there so you don't get to the end, come up with a conclusion and say, I never even thought that that was possible.

So dream it. And we're probably still in the dream stage, in my view. I hear you about repaying debt service.

We're repaying debt service regardless if something's there or not. We made that decision as a town, so I hear you. We're making a 100-year decision here, so it needs to be probably a little bit slower in my mind.

But I think there's ways that we can do it. I actually think HDR didn't use enough imagination. I don't mean it in a judgmental way.

I think they just could have been bigger in their ideas to evoke. Instead, we talked about feelings of vanilla. This was French vanilla.

This is regular vanilla. And it just felt like, okay, well, I can't discern that. People are going table to table, but I can't.

I mean, I look at these things for a living, so I saw things and I have pretty strong opinions about some of the things that I saw. But they were just versions of open space is all they were. And the biggest thing that they put in there to provoke something was that wild boardwalk that went out there.

And I thought it was great they did that, because you want to know why? They got a lot of feedback about that. That was in the group feedback at the end.

That was one that consistently there was feedback on. Oh, well, we like the idea of having something, but that one that's out there was just a little bit too much for us or something like that. So that was provocative.

And it actually, probably the only thing that was provocative, and it got responses to it. And I wish we had more of that with non-open space ideas as well, because that would help begin the dialogue, the shaping of whether it's mixed use or not mixed use and just help us get there. And we just, you know.

[Speaker 3] (3:23:30 - 3:23:35)
I thought we were going to talk to – what's the name of the company that – is it called Paragon? What's the name of the company that was looking at Hadley?

[Speaker 4] (3:23:37 - 3:23:37)
Pinnacle.

[Speaker 3] (3:23:37 - 3:23:45)
Pinnacle. Wasn't Pinnacle – was Pinnacle going to give us – Nope. Isn't that something we would want?

Well, we – Pinnacle giving us an idea?

[Speaker 1] (3:23:45 - 3:24:07)
We should talk about it. We didn't – we haven't. We only talked about Pinnacle and retaining them relative to the feasibility of the Hadley.

They've specifically not – they certainly know about the Hawthorne and the future opportunities at the Hawthorne for open space, community space, whatever, and so they've taken that into consideration as they are working on the feasibility analysis for the Hadley, but we have not.

[Speaker 3] (3:24:08 - 3:24:28)
I'm just wondering, if you have consultants like Pinnacle, I'm just wondering if we could pose the question. We have Hadley. We have Hawthorne.

What's your opinion on these sites and how to work them together? Just to get a different idea out there instead of looking at it in a vacuum.

[Speaker 1] (3:24:31 - 3:24:58)
We can do that. It's a fine idea. There's no reason not to do that, but we haven't yet asked Pinnacle to do that.

So if we can, I guess, I'm going to try and sum this up. I'm a little concerned that we're going to town meeting and we don't even have an update, to be honest with you, because it feels like we don't have an update because I can't say what's next. But, okay, we are where we are.

[Speaker 3] (3:24:59 - 3:25:00)
Work in progress.

[Speaker 1] (3:25:00 - 3:26:35)
Work in progress. Katie can give that update. I'd second that.

All right. All in favor. But I think really what we've got to do is right after town meeting, we've got to spend some time as a board just talking about that timeline, talking with our consultants, talking with staff, and we've got some homework to do outside this meeting to prepare for that and stuff.

I can certainly help with the revenue conversation. The cost, I'm a little less focused on the cost only because you've got to dream it. I mean, when we sat with Seth Moten, very early on before we even bought the property, he reached out.

He made himself available. He's like, do a design competition. He goes, go big.

He goes, you guys come up with the idea. That's my job then to go do those things. And it was a little bit hyperbolic, I think, but I appreciate the fact that he sees this as a legacy place.

Like, this is the type of place that does get the attention of if you're really doing it, potentially, not just DCR. That's awesome, but what about the National Park Service? Or what about something, you know, you get the federal government involved?

And so he encouraged that aggressive thinking. And so you're right, at the end of the day, we're going to have to pay it, but I've never been, I've never worked on a project where you add things to the project as you build it. You're always value engineering down.

So I want us to start big because that's just reality. If we don't start big, we'll never, if we start small, we'll never get too big. It just never works that way.

So I encourage us to be cognizant, but not too cautious at this stage, because I do believe this is really early still.

[Speaker 5] (3:26:36 - 3:27:06)
So if this is really early, and we're having these discussions, and we want to continue to take in public input, and we're talking about extension of use at the Hawthorne, and we're looking at extending this out through December 31 of 25, my question is, is this enough time? Or should we look to extend the potential, the use of the Hawthorne-by-the-Sea site beyond the December 31, 25, to allow us to?

[Speaker 12] (3:27:06 - 3:27:06)
That's a good point.

[Speaker 5] (3:27:06 - 3:27:11)
Yeah, so let me tell you why I think that date works, because we've talked about it, and I've thought about it.

[Speaker 1] (3:27:11 - 3:27:39)
I think it's incumbent upon, that date was put in there as a check on us, on town administration, to town meeting. In essence, what it requires us to do is go back to town meeting. So we really do have a report to give, and we'll talk about how we do that at town meeting.

But when we go up there, people are going to say, well, that's awesome, you want an extension of use. But what's going on? So we're going to have to, and maybe we can talk, it occurred to me as I was saying, we don't have a report.

We're going to need to have something to say.

[Speaker 3] (3:27:39 - 3:27:39)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (3:27:40 - 3:28:15)
I think town meeting is entitled to have that check continue, and I think giving us two years, if you will, more runway, just realistically, is a realistic ask, and a fair ask, and that we should have to, this board, future board, should have to continue to go back to town meeting. I'm confident town meeting is always going to make the right decision, and they're not going to choose vacant over this, but it certainly, I think, in a very tangible way, holds us to account and forces us to report back. So that's why I was comfortable with that time period and didn't think we needed to ask for more, because I think town meeting appreciates that accountability and that check on us.

[Speaker 4] (3:28:15 - 3:28:19)
And it wouldn't be surprising, based on what I just said, that I think that date's too far out. But anyway.

[Speaker 3] (3:28:20 - 3:28:22)
You think that date's too far out?

[Speaker 4] (3:28:22 - 3:28:27)
Yeah. So I'll tell you why I don't think it's too far out, because I honestly think it's so weird. We've already recommended it.

[Speaker 1] (3:28:27 - 3:29:17)
No, no, no. But it's a good conversation, because we're airing things that I think others think about. Like we're thinking, I want to give Sean enough runway to talk to whatever user or users to be able to say, we want you to invest here and continue to be here, because if it's short-term, they're not going to.

And what I don't want, just candidly, I don't want the first sign of an HVAC unit going out there being the reason that everybody just turns the lights off and goes home, because they're like, well, it's not worth the $100,000 for us to even think about talking to the town about fixing it, because we're out of here. I want them to have enough runway. I'm not even sure two years is enough runway, but it's certainly better than just a matter of months, because businesses can't make investments like that.

They need to at least say, do I have two years clear? Do I have a period of time that I can make my money back or make investments?

[Speaker 3] (3:29:17 - 3:29:23)
So based on that, at least we believe that two years is not enough time.

[Speaker 1] (3:29:23 - 3:29:27)
Yeah. I'm with you. I think this is a compromise.

[Speaker 3] (3:29:27 - 3:29:38)
I didn't even think about it. To be honest with you, I didn't even think about business coming in. And if I'm coming in as a business, I might say, you're only okay for two years?

[Speaker 1] (3:29:39 - 3:29:45)
I am balancing. I put a real hold up. I am balancing where I came out on it, those impeding interests here.

[Speaker 3] (3:29:45 - 3:29:46)
Is that what you're thinking?

[Speaker 5] (3:29:48 - 3:30:23)
Yeah. My thought is if you have Hawthorne continue as a restaurant or if there's a potential interim use as an event space, it might be nice to see what is possible, what could work, and then incorporate that into whatever happens next on the site. So we have a unique opportunity to take advantage of the building.

Obviously, we don't want it to be vacant, and it could be revenue-generating in the interim. Right.

[Speaker 3] (3:30:23 - 3:30:40)
But this is a problem. If this numbers here and you're talking to potential businesses that might answer to an RFP and there's only a date in here for two years, I'm a business. I'm going to be very hesitant in throwing my hat in the ring.

[Speaker 1] (3:30:40 - 3:31:24)
So maybe the way you're raising a really good point, again, balancing those different interests, maybe what we do is if Shine ultimately does the RFP route or does something like that, we actually say, you know, specify the minimum term for which you would be willing to respond to, and we affirmatively put it out there, which when you do that, it's saying, hey, notwithstanding whatever is out there, you tell us what your minimum term is because now you're telling us, I'm willing to do this, but I need a five-year minimum term or whatever it is.

And then, you know, a special town meeting in the fall or late summer, if we're lucky enough to be in a situation where we have that answer figured out, I think going back to town meeting, again, we'll be rewarded with the fact that we're showing our accountability and our responsiveness to town meeting.

[Speaker 4] (3:31:25 - 3:31:26)
Right. We have an actual plan there.

[Speaker 1] (3:31:26 - 3:31:44)
And we have a plan then to say we need more time as opposed to now saying, hey, just trust us, we need more time. I think people do trust us, but I think they like that accountability. Right.

So that's just – let's talk about it more on Monday or whatever day we're meeting next week because let's think about this because we've just raised a bunch of things that I hadn't thought about.

[Speaker 2] (3:31:45 - 3:32:45)
So, again, if you go back to the capital plan, you know, I had recommended we put $100,000 into the capital plan for unknowns associated with town-owned facilities. And if we're going to be a true partner and we're going to help ensure that that building is occupied and we're going to maintain it, we're going to need to think about some of the costs associated with the building that probably, you know, needs some, you know, maintenance. And, again, it was voted down by the finance committee, and I do think it's worth this board thinking about those responsibilities because we want to be a credible partner.

And if we're a landlord and we're going to go out there and try to work with a partner to help us ensure that we have a productive use of that facility for the next few years, let's have some funding in a budget that actually can support being a responsible, you know, partner.

[Speaker 3] (3:32:45 - 3:32:59)
Well, let's have an evaluation of the building in front of us and say this is what potentially is looking like what we're going to need. I mean, just to say, listen, we'd like $100,000 in case something happens. It might not happen, whatever.

That's what the finance committee does not.

[Speaker 2] (3:32:59 - 3:33:16)
So I walked through that building with the facilities director. We looked at building systems. We looked at HVAC, windows, you know, fascia boards, roof.

So provide a report to them. I'm happy to provide that update. It's aged.

[Speaker 1] (3:33:17 - 3:33:54)
Well, no doubt, but that's not going to – I don't think that's going to change anything we're doing at town meeting now, Sean. The reality is that would be, to me, the same thing. If we've got – as part of our deal, we've got to upgrade base building and the tenant's going to do something for five years.

We've got to make a decision at that time. Is it worth us updating base building and updating the HVAC system at the cost of $300,000, right? I mean, in truth, we are going to have some tough decisions to make because this is never going to be – to set expectations.

My expectation is that this is never going to be a windfall of rent that we're going to collect on this building. This is about keeping the building alive and sound until we have a plan to keep forward here.

[Speaker 2] (3:33:55 - 3:34:04)
I'm not putting a new HVAC – I'm literally patching roofs and I'm sealing up windows.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:05 - 3:34:14)
These were not funds for replacing – Again, I appreciate your response to my specifics, but my specific was illustrative.

[Speaker 12] (3:34:14 - 3:34:15)
I hear you.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:16 - 3:34:19)
Mr. Vice Chair, get us out of here.

[Speaker 5] (3:34:20 - 3:34:25)
Okay. We have a discussion and update on the Hadley School reuse as well.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:25 - 3:34:29)
Peter? Can we just assume that we did that by virtue of the warrant article?

[Speaker 5] (3:34:30 - 3:34:42)
I've already told you I think we need to have an executive session. Sure. That's okay.

That will be on the agenda for 5 o'clock – or 5.30, depending on the time. I'll talk to Katie. We'll get that date.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:42 - 3:34:49)
And to be clear, it's for the purposes of discussing some finances and things that are strategic in nature that aren't appropriate for public.

[Speaker 5] (3:34:50 - 3:35:07)
Understood. All right. We'll move on to the Consent Agenda.

The Consent Agenda is designed to expedite the handling of routine and miscellaneous business of the Board. The Select Board may adopt the entire Consent Agenda with one motion at the request of any Board member. Any items may be removed from the Consent Agenda and placed on the regular agenda for discussion.

[Speaker 1] (3:35:08 - 3:35:13)
I would ask us to table the Consent Agenda. I have comments on both sets of minutes, and I apologize. I didn't submit them in advance.

[Speaker 2] (3:35:14 - 3:35:14)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (3:35:16 - 3:35:18)
Any additional discussion? All right.

[Speaker 2] (3:35:19 - 3:39:06)
Town Administrator's Report. You don't want me to dispense with this? Look, I want to thank Town staff for working on the warrant.

I certainly want to thank Jared Laliberte, our Town Clerk. You have in front of you the first Town Report we've produced in probably 10 years. We are working on prior-year Town Reports.

We're going to bind them and do our best to capture that history. It's important that we preserve these histories every year. I want to thank everybody that came out for our Townwide Yard Sale and also our second annual Earth Day event.

These are both events that help us be a cleaner and greener Town. A lot of activities for recreation. We have our wine tasting at the Fish House and dinner and a $10,000 fundraiser for the Town's annual firework event.

We had a meeting, as I mentioned earlier, with the Board of Health or the Director of Health. The Board of Health has addressed concerns they have with rodenticides. I'm very pleased to report that they are coming up with a new certification of rotor control that will be done without the use of second-generation anticoagulant or rodenticides.

These are poisons that ultimately can lead to other deaths of other animals and birds, and we want to prevent that in Swampskip. We'll continue to look at ways that we can be more environmentally careful. I did meet with our veterans agent last week to discuss a number of the veterans programs.

We have an event on May 10th from 4 to 6 p.m. decorating veterans' graves. May 27th and 30th is the annual Field of Heroes display at Town Hall. May 29th is the annual Memorial Day celebration at 10 a.m. at the monument. Memorial Day will be followed by a correlation at the VFW on 8 Pine Street. We have a really terrific caretaker's conference this Saturday at the high school at 10 a.m. We have an all-star group of speakers, and I just want to encourage anybody that's dealing with loved ones that are in need of care to participate in this forum. Registration is required, and I'm sure that you will all get a lot out of this event.

We have a number of busy promotional and hiring processes happening at our police and fire departments. We are continuing to move forward to fill vacancies at Town Hall. I'm assistant director of planning, and I'm an assistant town clerk.

The library is dedicating a lilac tree to Lou Gallo, a legendary Swampskin historian who passed away a few years ago. This will be on Monday, May 8th at 10 a.m. That is my report. Thanks, Sean.

Lastly, I just want to, again, just remind folks to call 988 if you have a loved one that is in need of any type of support or if you need a chance to say hello to somebody that can talk with you about your depression or substance abuse or the challenges that a family member is facing. Just call 988. Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (3:39:09 - 3:39:12)
Any questions? Select board time.

[Speaker 3] (3:39:15 - 3:39:46)
I would like to congratulate Doug and David on their election, and I really appreciate your hard work going out there and putting yourself out there in a campaign. There's no walk in the park. Jurassic Park.

And I love democracy. I love everything about it, and I appreciate you being here. So that's it.

[Speaker 4] (3:39:50 - 3:42:57)
Well, I'm happy to be here, so thank you for that. Just for the, like, one person that might still be awake out there, I appreciate you hanging in, and I'm really excited to be here, and I ran to help try to, you know, bring people together more and help to facilitate all the great plans that are in front of us, as we've been talking about. I love this town, and I really am excited to help contribute to making it even more beautiful and more prosperous.

I heard a lot from people about, you know, a lot of people happy with what's happening and a lot of people that aren't. No surprise that there's a diversity of opinion out there, and some people are happy but really informed. Some people are unhappy and really informed.

There's going to be disagreement, but there's a bunch of people that are out there and not informed, and that's what I think, you know, I've already spoken with Sean about this, and I know I think all of us kind of come into this wanting to make sure that we find a way to engage people more, and maybe there's some kind of new ways of doing that or old ways of doing that, whatever it takes. I think that's a major objective of mine is to try to engage people more, try to have people participate more in these processes, at least get information out, finding new ways to do that, you know, because it's, you know, really unfortunate when people are, you know, kind of understandably kind of opposed to things primarily because they just don't know. And yes, there's a lot of information on the website, but, you know, people are busy and we need to find ways to, in this day and age, to try to bring people in in a very easy way.

So that's easily said, much more difficult to do, but that's something that's kind of a goal for me here is to work on that and to, you know, work with all of you and Sean to kind of figure out a way to do that. The only other thing I'll say is that, you know, all this planning is exciting, but it's also something that I really feel like we need to double and triple down on. We need the planner.

We need probably to engage more professionals. You know, we're starting to run a real estate shop here with these different properties and the different opportunities, and so that takes some real specialized skill and experience and dedicated time. And so I don't want us to kind of just feel like we can probably just do that off the side of our volunteer desks or our loaded paid desks.

Last thing I'll say is, you know, equity, climate, affordable housing are all things that are, you know, I've talked about very clearly that are important to me and I hope to kind of be a contributor here in the next few years. So, you know, my family was here earlier. I want to thank them for sure.

And I'm excited to get to work. So, thanks. Thanks, Doug.

[Speaker 5] (3:42:59 - 3:43:00)
I don't want anything. Peter?

[Speaker 1] (3:43:00 - 3:43:03)
Sure, sure.

[Speaker 5] (3:43:03 - 3:43:19)
So, thinking, I'll confirm with Katie, we're going to have an executive session that either starts at 5 or 5.30 on Wednesday the 10th with an hour allocated for the executive session, meetings starting thereafter. I'll confirm with her.

[Speaker 1] (3:43:20 - 3:43:37)
So would you mind if I suggest that we meet earlier in the week than the 10th in case we decide that we need another meeting, because we're not leaving ourselves much of the way. So I would just consider doing a Wednesday meeting, maybe schedule a, I'm just, I'm sorry, if we needed another meeting for some reason.

[Speaker 3] (3:43:37 - 3:43:38)
We can't post it.

[Speaker 1] (3:43:40 - 3:43:41)
We can't post it.

[Speaker 3] (3:43:41 - 3:43:42)
We need 48 hours.

[Speaker 1] (3:43:42 - 3:43:43)
Exactly so.

[Speaker 3] (3:43:43 - 3:44:05)
Tomorrow. We're not open tomorrow. That should be another discussion.

Tomorrow's Thursday. Oh, tomorrow's Thursday? Oh, good.

I thought today was Thursday. All right, good. So we can post it Thursday or Monday.

All right, so we want to. Sure we can do it Monday? You can find those regular business days.

[Speaker 4] (3:44:06 - 3:44:15)
The only thing about Monday is the planning board here. Yeah, so I actually was going to say Tuesday. Let's do Tuesday.

We can just do Tuesday those same times.

[Speaker 1] (3:44:15 - 3:44:26)
Just confirm with Katie if it needs to change. I think that just gives us. We can always continue our meeting Tuesday night if we need to.

[Speaker 3] (3:44:27 - 3:44:29)
So what are you saying, just do the executive session on Tuesday?

[Speaker 1] (3:44:29 - 3:44:38)
No, I'm saying do both. I hear there's awesome space in the third floor of the library.

[Speaker 2] (3:44:38 - 3:44:47)
In the basement. Let's go to the basement of town hall. It's accessible.

No, that would be great.

[Speaker 1] (3:44:49 - 3:45:00)
I think that would just be good. We'll have the benefit of planning board. Maybe we get done.

But if there's something that we want to go back to FinCom and CIC on as well, it just gives them more runway to know that we're doing that.

[Speaker 2] (3:45:00 - 3:45:11)
So it might be just helpful to post both Wednesday and Tuesday. If you have to have that Wednesday, you can use it. If not, you can just cancel it.

[Speaker 5] (3:45:13 - 3:45:20)
That's a good idea, I think, actually. And we have the rooms. We have this B129 scheduled for Wednesday.

[Speaker 1] (3:45:21 - 3:45:27)
So you'll notice both 6 o'clock, and then the executive session earlier, I'm assuming Katie can do that or whatever.

[Speaker 3] (3:45:28 - 3:45:41)
Oh, hold on a second. I didn't finish mine. I just want to thank Dennis Doran and Joe Dulet for our producers tonight.

Thank you so much for your hard work, gentlemen. Bringing this great show to the people of Swampscott.

[Speaker 5] (3:45:43 - 3:45:45)
I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 3] (3:45:46 - 3:45:46)
So moved.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:47 - 3:45:47)
Second.

[Speaker 5] (3:45:48 - 3:45:49)
All in favor.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:49 - 3:45:50)
Aye.

[Speaker 5] (3:45:50 - 3:45:52)
Aye. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Joe.