[Speaker 24] (0:08 - 0:14)
All right.

[Speaker 3] (0:30 - 0:38)
Good evening, and welcome to the July 19th, 2023 Select Board meeting. If you'll join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Speaker 24] (0:41 - 0:53)
I pledge allegiance to the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 3] (0:59 - 2:09)
Yeah, and just for the record, this meeting is being recorded. Before we get started, I hope everyone will join me in a moment of silence for Chris Perry, who was killed in a tragic accident at the quarry on Monday. Thank you.

So we're going to get started. We'll have public comment. Public comment will address items that are not on our scheduled agenda.

If anyone has public comment, please rise and speak to the microphone and state your name, address, and precinct if known. All right. Seeing no public comment, we'll move on.

New business. We will first address the introduction of artists who painted utility boxes along Humphrey Street. Diane.

[Speaker 1] (2:13 - 2:57)
So while Diane's pulling up the presentation, I do want to just thank Diane. She actually applied for a cultural council grant, and it has helped us really engage with a number of Swampskate artists and help them really contribute to, I think, just sharing their talents and making our streetscapes that much more enjoyable. A number of these artists really spend quite a bit of time and effort coming up with concepts and ideas.

And it really is wonderful to have artists be supported by a community but also support the community. So, Diane, why don't you tell us a little more about the cultural council and this project?

[Speaker 28] (2:59 - 3:01)
I'm sorry, Diane.

[Speaker 1] (3:01 - 3:07)
Do you have a microphone? Joe Doulet will not be happy if we do not.

[Speaker 28] (3:51 - 4:02)
Right there. Did two of the boxes. A model-head high school student, Sean Stollers, did one.

And then there's a Claire Donnelly, who's a teacher in Lynn. Is Sean here?

[Speaker 1] (4:03 - 4:03)
Yes.

[Speaker 28] (4:03 - 4:28)
All right. Good. And Claire Donnelly, who's a non-teacher in Lynn, did one across the street from the Fish House.

So I'm hoping everybody's – that's one of the leases. It's right across the street from 16 Humphrey Street. We decided to put it there because of the view of the sunset and the Boston skyline.

We thought it was appropriate. Can they get up and say something?

[Speaker 1] (4:28 - 4:36)
Sure, Lisa. Would you – or would you – I'm happy to bring the microphone to you, but if you wanted to talk a little bit about – Yeah.

[Speaker 27] (4:38 - 5:52)
Thank you, everybody. I appreciate it. Thank you, Diane.

You did an amazing job. You can see the utility boxes, or if you're strolling Humphrey Street, it certainly is beautiful. You asked what was our – and thank you to the cultural council as well.

My inspiration was the right whales. I moved to Swanstown about six years ago, and I had no idea that these creatures go right by our waters every spring. And sadly, there's only 350 left in our waters.

And Salem had a film festival where there's a movie called Last of the Right Whale. And interestingly, they're working very closely with some grants and organizations to use these ropeless tracks. So as an artist, something I also paint on – the other painting I do are navigational charts.

When I first moved here, I couldn't find canvas, so I grabbed a navigational chart and started painting on that. And my inspiration for that was these right whales as well, that I leave parts of the charts open so you can see it. And thank you so much.

This is – it's just awesome to be able to connect with the community in this way. It really is. Thank you.

[Speaker 24] (5:53 - 5:54)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (6:04 - 6:06)
Yeah, Sean. Sean, would you like to come up and say a few words?

[Speaker 28] (6:08 - 6:09)
Go back to Claire.

[Speaker 31] (6:15 - 7:12)
Hi, my name's Sean Stolarz. I am a rising junior at Bishop Fenwick High School in Peabody. So my box was inspired by traditional Dutch Delftware, Turkish ceramic pottery, and fine china.

I was really inspired by all the intricate line work and blue colors on the blue plates. So on my box, I covered the entire thing with this detailed blue line work of flowers. And then on the back of the box, I incorporated a face which blends into the flowers, which kind of gives it a sense of mystery.

Because it's not noticed at first glance, but it also kind of ties into my artistic style. I'm really happy with how the box turned out, and I hope everyone who walks by can see some beauty in it. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 28] (7:19 - 7:30)
So then the last one, of course, is Across the Street from the Fish House. That was painted by Claire Donnelly, who couldn't be here tonight. But hers, too, is just beautiful.

The colors, everything about it is beautiful.

[Speaker 1] (7:32 - 8:06)
So, Diane, if you go back, that's Egg Rock, if you're familiar with that. There was a lighthouse on Egg Rock way back in the day. And there was a famous story about a dog that lived at the lighthouse that actually rescued somebody.

It's just great to have that history and that sense of place show up. And, Sean, that face on that box was so amazing. I didn't see it when I first looked at it, and when I saw that, I thought, holy cow, it really is amazing.

So, really great.

[Speaker 28] (8:06 - 8:07)
So that's it?

[Speaker 1] (8:07 - 8:08)
Yeah.

[Speaker 28] (8:08 - 8:14)
I hope to have – I have six more that the town owns. I'm hoping to get more money, and we can do four or six next year as well.

[Speaker 1] (8:14 - 9:06)
So, Diane, thank you. You know, I know that people – yes, absolutely. Thank you, Diane.

People may think that art is actually not important, and we have a lot of important things we're going to talk about. But this is as important as any of the things that we're talking about. This is about our creative energies.

It's about celebrating our sense of place. And, frankly, I really, really appreciate the fact that we had a group of wonderful artists. I hope we have more, and I hope if there are artists out there that are listening or if you know some artists that want to paint a few utility boxes or a couple of pieces of concrete that line some of our roadways, you know, please have them stop by Town Hall.

I know somebody – I work with somebody that would love to talk to them. So, thank you. Thanks, everybody.

[Speaker 14] (9:06 - 9:07)
Can I make a comment real fast?

[Speaker 1] (9:07 - 9:07)
Yeah, go ahead.

[Speaker 14] (9:08 - 9:39)
In addition to the art in its splendor on display right now, the stages at which you all took to develop it and sort of keep it undercover was a topic of conversation in our household. Like, what's it going to be? What's it going to look like?

And it created a sort of – reinvigorated a little artistic style in our family. So, I mean, I hope that's what happened to other community members, but I just wanted to convey that because, I mean, I think that's part of sharing your gift is to hope it inspires others. So, thank you.

[Speaker 3] (9:39 - 10:08)
Yeah, and I will share with Sean. We saw you set up for a few days, and my son walked by on the way to get ice cream, of course, because we had to get ice cream multiple days. And, no, he just – he thought it was the coolest thing that the town was allowing someone with such a gift to paint, and that inspired him as well.

So, I just wanted to share that with you while I can. Any additional comments from the board? Okay.

Thanks again.

[Speaker 14] (10:09 - 10:09)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (10:10 - 13:59)
All right. We'll move on. Briefly, we're going to talk about the Community Preservation Act discussion.

We're just going to give a brief overview this evening, and then we'll just kind of go over what the CPA is. So, really briefly, the Town of Swampskate's been active in the acquisition of properties for open space. We're going to be discussing later an RFP for affordable housing, veterans' affordable housing on Pine Street.

And there's been a swell of support to provide funding for a number of preservation of historic properties in town, including the Pittman House and the General Glover House. And tonight, I'm hopeful that we can, with the indulgence of the board and certainly with the feedback from the board, we start a public dialogue regarding the Community Preservation Act, which, in my opinion, was really created to help towns like Swampskate provide a funding source for these initiatives. We're already doing many of these.

Last year, we acquired open space, and we're talking about affordable housing, but we need to figure out how we can do this in a bigger way, a more sustainable way, and in a way that will be more transformative to the future of Swampskate. So, first and foremost, communities that are considering a CPA would create something called a Community Preservation Committee. This statutorily has members of five committees, which would be included.

That would include a member from the Conservation Commission, a member of the Historical Commission, a member of the Planning Board, a member of Park Commissioners slash Open Space and Rec, and a member of the Housing Authority. And there can be anywhere between five and nine members. The role of the CPC would be to work in conjunction with professional staff to evaluate our community needs, as well as affordable housing and preservation needs, make recommendations to appropriate funds, etc.

The CPC would conduct an annual need study and consult with various municipal agencies, and they would hold at least one public hearing as part of an initial process, as well as an ongoing annual hearing while providing recommendations of a budget. We're still reviewing our tax rolls, but just kind of ballparking, we're thinking that a CPA in Swampskate could generate somewhere along the lines of $700,000 to $800,000 a year, with the implementation of a 3% number. Additionally, there's a state match, which in 2022 was approximately 38%.

So I think this is an incredibly exciting opportunity for the town to literally put its money where its values are, and to provide a recurring revenue source that allows investment in affordable housing projects. We have an incredible Affordable Housing Trust fund with a wealth of experience. However, as you all know, funds are finite and non-recurring in nature.

And we've made strides to invest in open space. This board acquired, made the largest open space acquisition in a half a century a year ago, thanks to this board and thanks to town meeting. And we have a very hardworking historical commission in Nancy Schultz, and they need sources of funding to help preserve our history.

And in my opinion, this is our moment in time to really affect change in a big, powerful way. So with that, really I want to have a conversation with the board, and hopefully we can work with Sean and town staff to pull together a presentation that can really work to help further this mission. My goal would be to set this up and to work towards bringing this to our annual town meeting in May.

[Speaker 6] (14:01 - 14:15)
Yeah, you want to just say a little bit more about the process, the public process that happens with the committee and then the voting town meeting and then a town-wide vote and just kind of how that works for people's education?

[Speaker 3] (14:15 - 14:50)
Sure, sure. So we'd set up the CPC, the Community Preservation Committee. It can be up to nine people.

We would meet. We'd discuss the needs. The goal would be to have a presentation to the select board around the March time frame so this could potentially be on the warrant for a town meeting.

It would go to a town-wide vote, I believe, of majority rules there, and then it would go to a town-wide vote that would coincide with our presidential election in November. So it would be November of 24. Sean?

[Speaker 1] (14:50 - 16:47)
David, I would be happy to come back in a few weeks and provide the board with a more detailed presentation and the community with a more detailed presentation. I think a number of the department heads have discussed this over the last few years as we've really looked at affordable housing or environmental protection or acquisitions of open space. To me, we're on the precipice of so many historical preservation opportunities, and it just would seem to me we should at least understand the support that the Community Preservation Act could lend to a lot of our committees and a lot of our hardworking volunteers.

This is not just about the select board. We've got literally hundreds of volunteers on these committees that could gain access to millions of dollars of state funds. I look around and I see other communities doing so many extraordinary things.

We're doing extraordinary things in Swampskip, but we don't get a nickel of any of those community preservation dollars, and it would just help us do more, and I think these are the opportunities that we are trying to take advantage of. So I'm happy to come back. I think we can come back with a slide deck to just kind of go over some of the basic tenets of how we have to support the outreach and really engage our committees and give them a voice in this process.

It is something that we're going to need quite a bit of a chorus to advance, and I think we have those individuals, and I'm certainly happy to lend the administrative support of the town team to that. Thank you, Sean.

[Speaker 4] (16:48 - 17:18)
I'd really like to see, as soon as possible, that we incorporate what the financial impact is going to be, because it's great to say how much money is out there, what we can do, but if you're talking about adding another 3% levy after we've just purchased a school, we've got to really look and see how to make that. I think there are ways to make it work to our benefit and also to show what other communities have benefited from, to just really make it very literal.

[Speaker 1] (17:19 - 18:17)
Mary, I really appreciate you reminding us all about the financial challenges. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to keep the town budget steady, but I also look at those opportunity costs as well, and I think if we're going to think about this, we should look at it in terms of not just the investments that we're making but the lost opportunity that we miss out on. Let's look at this in the broadest possible way and just understand for the acquisition of the Hawthorne, it was a $7 million investment.

If we had this Community Preservation Act over the last 10 years, how much would that have been if we could have received some state help? We spent $1.2 million in a piece of open space as well. Again, these are all lost opportunities, and I would look backwards as well as forwards if we're going to look at the financial implications.

[Speaker 6] (18:19 - 18:50)
I'm just going to triple down on that just to make sure people understand that basic point because there's no doubt that there is a tax implication, and yet we're effectively, if we're doing these things already, we are missing out on basically free state money. So this is a real opportunity. If we're going to keep doing things like historic preservation, affordable housing, open space, these are funds that the Lincolns and the Sudbury's and everywhere else around, they're getting free money from the state that we're not getting to do the same thing.

[Speaker 3] (18:51 - 19:08)
Certainly our friends in the HOT and Peabody and Beverly are enjoying the fruits of the CPA. And 195 other communities within the Commonwealth also are as well. So, Sean, is the first meeting in August too aggressive?

[Speaker 1] (19:08 - 20:00)
No, I don't think the first meeting in August is too aggressive for just a general overview. I think we'll likely want to have a few more strategic meetings with a few of our committees. We may want to host a Community Preservation Act Summit as a board just to make sure we marshal the appropriate boards and committees that deal in these three key areas.

And we probably have 10 committees that are advancing affordable housing or senior housing or veterans housing or public housing, open space, our open space and rec committee, rec committee. There's so many committees that are going to need to just be part of the stakeholder group. And that may take a few more months to marshal.

[Speaker 3] (20:00 - 21:40)
No, no, no, understood. And just to share with my board members as well as the public, those conversations have started with some of those chairs and some of those members of the five statutory committees. I do have to talk to the Housing Authority as well.

But, you know, those conversations, those one-on-ones are advancing, and there's been nothing but support and a willingness to help with the lift. Anything additional? Okay.

So, Sean, we'll come back on August 2nd with additional information. Okay, thank you. All right, moving on.

Kings Beach updates. So before we get started, I just want to let the public know, all of us sitting up here, we want to resolve the problems that are happening at Kings Beach. I don't think there's anybody here that thinks we're doing enough.

But it is a complex problem. It's a complex problem. It has many stakeholders.

It has state and federal partners. But that's not an excuse to not want to move as expeditiously as possible. It's just there are stakeholders, and we certainly want to take that input in.

And I certainly appreciate everybody who is here in support of Kings Beach to resolve this matter and just know it's a very, very high priority for myself and for members of this board as well as town professional staff. So are we kicking this off to Kleinfelder, Sean?

[Speaker 1] (21:40 - 24:06)
Yes. First, I just want to just recognize just how important this is for everybody. We've talked about this previously.

The town has been focused on efforts to address the bacteria contamination of Kings Beach through consent orders from the EPA. But we've also been really looking at an aggressive strategy to try to address how we identify a remediation of that impairment and come up with the funding. We've had some really eventful conversations over the last few weeks.

I do want to recognize our legislative delegation, both Senator Creighton and Representative Armini, who's sitting right here, but also Representative Ehrlich. And former Mayor and former Senator McGee. It hasn't been lost on any of these individuals.

The town has received $2.5 million. The city of Lynn has received $2.5 million through ARPA funding through that legislative effort to start a really aggressive effort to connect local, state, and federal officials to come up with a solution. We are absolutely committed to fixing that problem, but it is complicated.

That said, we have Dave Peterson from Kleinfelder. The town has engaged Kleinfelder to help us support a study of alternatives. We've gone through an initial feasibility study to determine what would be most practical in terms of installation and maintenance.

But recent meetings have advanced an option that, frankly, this board and the town has really hoped to see move forward. And I think there's some positive movement that things that perhaps have looked too expensive seem now to be most achievable. So that said, if we can invite Dave Peterson to begin the presentation, we can follow up with a few comments at the end.

[Speaker 3] (24:14 - 24:14)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (24:25 - 24:39)
Joe, could we turn up the volume? I'm sorry, please. Joe, we've been talking about you.

Is there a way we can turn up the volume for Dave?

[Speaker 24] (24:43 - 24:45)
There's someone that's presenting from Teams.

[Speaker 14] (24:46 - 24:48)
I'm presenting. I'm just speaking.

[Speaker 1] (24:48 - 24:51)
But Dave's speaking, so we have to see if we can increase his volume.

[Speaker 18] (24:55 - 25:12)
I don't think we can get to this. So I didn't know we had any presentations through Teams, so I have to take this through for a second.

[Speaker 23] (25:12 - 25:18)
I don't think this feeds it.

[Speaker 30] (25:24 - 25:26)
And then if we do that, we might get some feedback.

[Speaker 14] (25:30 - 25:31)
We can try it.

[Speaker 1] (25:31 - 25:32)
Dave, can you speak?

[Speaker 14] (25:37 - 25:38)
It's coming through.

[Speaker 5] (25:38 - 25:42)
Okay. We're going to turn some speakers on.

[Speaker 1] (25:59 - 26:33)
Dave, we're just working out a few technical logistics. It'll be two minutes. Right.

One second. I am not, you know. That's what they're doing in the back.

So they're going to try to amplify. We'll get a microphone and put it next to the speaker. This will not be high-tech, but I think we can amplify that.

[Speaker 3] (26:54 - 27:34)
It's always something. So we can try that in the back. Like where my uncles do tech.

[Speaker 23] (27:52 - 27:54)
Why can't they put the speaker in the middle?

[Speaker 1] (27:57 - 28:09)
We only can use one. Always the troublemaker, Bill. I trust Joe.

Joe will be able to get this.

[Speaker 28] (28:10 - 28:16)
Anything for the technical know-how? It's not me this time. That's all I'm going to say.

[Speaker 24] (28:17 - 28:27)
Do you want to check? We're going to try just micing this.

[Speaker 1] (28:29 - 28:34)
Dave, could you just say a few things?

[Speaker 3] (28:40 - 28:45)
He's on mute. Diane, can you allow him to speak, please?

[Speaker 28] (28:47 - 28:47)
He was unmuted.

[Speaker 1] (29:03 - 29:44)
I think people can hear you, Dave. I'm wondering if we can increase the volume. Dave, what's your favorite ice cream?

Dave, do you like pizza? All right.

[Speaker 23] (29:45 - 29:47)
That's better. All right.

[Speaker 1] (29:48 - 29:50)
Your favorite pizza, Dave, is?

[Speaker 3] (30:07 - 30:08)
Dave Peterson, the floor is yours.

[Speaker 24] (30:36 - 30:55)
As Sean alluded to, this is a very active project. There's a lot of stakeholders involved. It's very complex.

And we're really working hard and diligently to bring this forward as fast as we can, but at the same time making sure that the investment is going to be effective.

[Speaker 2] (30:57 - 33:12)
So I just wanted to give sort of an overview as to the process that the town and stakeholders went through last year to identify a multi-pronged approach to getting the King's Beach up and running. And I'll just advance with one slide. This slide, I think, isn't all that long.

I really want to encourage discussion and questions, so feel free to interrupt any time, anyone on the board. So the project, I think, is obvious to everybody in the room. And so I don't need to spend a ton of time on that, but I did want to talk a little about the goals of the project that we set up as a team as we got into this.

It's one of the elements we're looking for. And as part of our project, we looked at multiple alternative technical approaches that we could consider for resolving the beach closings faster than would otherwise without our folks' attention. And I want to correct that out of the state.

This study was completed towards the end of last year, and since then we've been working really hard at finding a funding pathway and making sure that we have full support across the entire coalition that we've been working through. And as Sean says, we're making really good strides, I think, on that. On the next slide – actually, let's get two slides.

This is just an overview map, I think. I assume most everyone is kind of familiar with these two large box culverts that discharge onto Kings Beach. It's right on the tap line that's lit.

The culvert on the left is actual water that flows out from lit. And the one on the right is water that flows out from the swastika. As you can see in this picture, the sand on the swastika side is far more built up than the sand on the lit side, which kind of tells you that there's more water that flows out from the lit side than the swastika side.

And that's true on a normal day-to-day basis. There's more of a groundwater-based flow flowing out from the lit side than the swastika side.

[Speaker 24] (33:12 - 33:19)
However, during wet weather events, there's almost as much water flowing out from the swastika as from lit.

[Speaker 2] (33:19 - 57:58)
So these are both very large drainage conduits, and they pretty much flow during low tide all the time, even during dry weather. And basically, what that is, that's a former brook that was put into a conduit and drives the weeds that build in here. And so this map just kind of shows the city of Littleton and the town of Smallscot side-by-side, and it colorizes the areas of drainage that go to the beach.

Hundreds and hundreds of acres, and we wanted to, as a coalition, we wanted to be sure that if we're going to be addressing the water quality issues at Kington Beach, at this point at the beach, we can't just dissolve the Smallscot side and ignore the lit side. It has to be something that addresses both over and side-by-side. And that's kind of been a missing ingredient for decades.

And this effort that we undertook last year was one of the largest efforts that I thought brought the city of Linn, Mayor Nicholson, Linn Water and Sewer Commission, and Smallscot's leadership all to the table. Next slide. As some of you may be aware, there's a beach water quality report that gets pushed out annually.

Save the Harbor, Save the Bay publishes this on their website, and they're basically aggregating water quality data that's collected by all the Boston area beaches, and it basically identifies how often is the beach closed because of a condition that'll close the beach. Typically, that's a bacteria exceedance. And so the beach at Kings Beach and at Tenny and Beach have historically been the two lowest performing beaches in the Boston area.

And this is just the last six years of data, and the 2022 data, I didn't present that back in October because it hadn't been published yet, but in 2022, the number of beach closings actually went down a bit, so our performance was a little bit better. But that's really, if you look at the very last row in green, if you can see those numbers, that's the total amount of rainfall that fell over that period. And in 2021 was an extremely wet summer, if you all remember.

I remember July being just phenomenally wet. Whereas last summer, it was very dry. I mean, 50 inches versus 23 inches is a big difference.

So you can kind of see the effect of that in the numbers on how often Kings Beach stays open during dry weather. That being said, the overall percentages are quite low relative to other Boston area beaches, and so one of the goals of our coalition is to get Kings performing like other Boston area beaches. We'd really like to get to that 90%, 95% range where pretty much any time it's dry, the beach will be safe for access.

And so that would put us comparable to some of the other Boston area beaches. Next slide, please. So I wanted to talk about some of the goals that the steering group had.

And really, the first and foremost goal was to identify a solution that can be implemented pretty quickly. We've been working at this for decades. Not me personally, but all the communities have.

And trying to get to a solution that can really be effective as fast as possible was really important to us. I kind of indicated this before, but a solution that addresses not just contamination coming out of the Swampscot side, but the Lynn side as well. We can't just address one and not the other.

You still would have a beach shutdown issue. And then something that's sort of a proven technology that is reliable, that's been in existence for a while, and so we don't really want to be a guinea pig, but we're looking to solve a pretty unique issue with a fairly small population. And so what kind of approach can we take to look at?

So I'm going to go through sort of what approaches we looked at. And it'll be fairly cursory overview, but just to give you guys a flavor of what the group did. Next slide, please.

So the alternatives we looked at, we looked at six listed here. And just that very first one, source elimination. This would be sort of the ultimate perfect solution is the sources of contamination during dry weather are not coming from roadway pollution or necessarily seagull or animal waste.

That's usually more affiliated with wet weather where those pollutants get washed off the road, they get into the drainage system, and they find their way onto the beach. But our issue is that we have that, but we also have contamination during dry weather too. And so why is that?

Where is that coming from? And so the town has been looking into this for a very long time using basically an approach that DEP and ETA has developed to identify individual sources of contamination in the drainage system. And so we call that like a find and fix type approach where you're working through each sewer and manhole and house connections one at a time and identifying potential sources and addressing them.

And the town has been working through that for 15 years or so. And the consent decree that Sean referred to from EPA, that was in 2015. Since that time, the town has continued to work on that, but they've sort of accelerated the investment into the source elimination.

So if you've lived in that area, your house might have been on a street that there was some crews the last few years doing sewer rehabilitation, lining work, working manholes and things like that. And a lot of that effort has been... We're through three construction phases on that with more to come.

And so that source elimination is a really key approach and it's highly supported by EPA and DEP and it's got a lot of good effectiveness in other communities. So that's kind of a base and a given that that program's gonna continue. However, the biggest drawback to source elimination is that it doesn't meet that criteria of get it done fast enough.

It's disruptive to the community, it's costly, it takes a while to study it before you put out a construction contract. So is there something that we can maybe add on top of this that can get us there faster? So the second alternative is we call it divert and treat.

This basically is, could we collect the stormwater that is running through those two culverts and actually pump it to Linn Water and Sewers Wastewater Treatment Plant? This would be potentially the fastest, most cost-effective way to do it, but it sort of runs very counter to what towns and cities are trying to do with their sewer system, which is to get stormwater out of their sewer system. We'd be actively pumping stormwater into the sewer system, which causes all sorts of issues from a public support standpoint, a regulatory support standpoint, and operationally at the treatment plant.

The next two are different types of treatment options, so actively treating the stormwater before it discharges onto Kings Beach. The first one would be disinfection with chlorine, and the second one would be disinfection with ultraviolet light. The town of Swamstead actually used to chlorinate the stormwater, and when EPA consent decree came out, that was no longer, I guess, practiced.

The DEP allowed it because there was no other really great solution for Swamstead at the time, and so that was sort of a stopgap measure, but EPA doesn't really allow that without a specific permit, and so that was stopped, but we did explore it under this study. Could we put that back in as a solution, and how does that compare to some of the other alternatives that we're showing here? Disinfection with UV light.

This is, again, it would be sort of an end-of-pipe treatment, so near the beach, and you expose the stormwater to ultraviolet light, which has the ability to disrupt and inactivate bacteria. It's highly effective, and it's used very commonly in wastewater treatment, and not very commonly in stormwater treatment, but very often in wastewater. Dilution is sort of an ultimate solution.

Can we actually just extend the stormwater pipe deeper into Nahon Bay so that the bacteria pollutants don't even make its way into the beach? It goes well past the beach, deep into the ocean, so that's something that we looked at, and then the last was diverting the outfall, so could we physically relocate the outfall on the coastline somewhere that wouldn't impact public health and beach conditions? That was a solution that was practiced in Boston along Morrissey Boulevard a couple decades ago, so that was something that we looked at for this.

A lot of these options we looked at are engineering solutions that have been performed in different places, so we wanted to look at this spectrum of ideas here. On the next slide, so this is a very dense slide with a lot of the metrics that came out of the study. I just kind of jumped right into that, but when we looked at all six of these options together, the first alternative, which is the source elimination, we were never going to remove this from the table.

This is something that is actually fundamental in Swamscott's consent decree with the EPA to continue to do this. It's also fundamental in Swamscott's stormwater permits with the EPA. This source elimination is something that is required irrespective of the issues at King's Beach, so this is something that we can't get away from, but it's also an integral part of the program going forward.

We, as a group, elected to eliminate alternatives two and six, so those are in white, after a preliminary screening, and focus our energies on the end of pipe treatment and extending the outfall. The reasons predominantly for that is we can implement some of these solutions in a fairly cost-effective way, in a fairly quick way, with high effectiveness. The pumping to Linn Water and sewer commission, I think I mentioned before, it was screened out pretty quickly just due to the pumping stormwater to the sewer was really counter to regulatory, I guess, ideology and how you manage the system.

It also would eliminate a lot of capacity opportunity in the city of Linn at their treatment plant, so it never made it very far into the discussion. Then relocating the outfall was extremely expensive and it was fairly impractical when we looked at it, so that fell off the table pretty quickly. We took chemical disinfection, UV disinfection, outfall extension through a secondary alternatives analysis where we did a quantitative and qualitative scoring of the three.

On the next slide, it shows, based on a bar chart, the results of that analysis. We looked at a multitude of different factors. How can we cite this solution in the land that we have available?

Is it reliable in terms of performance? How intensive is it on an O&M perspective? Cost was a major factor as well as acceptance from stakeholders being the folks that were involved in the study last year, but also perceived acceptance with the public.

We had quite a bit of stakeholder meetings to go through the algorithm that we came up with and UV light came out as the preferred option, and that's where our study's conclusion was, was of the technology screens, UV light was the preferred option. I'll say this towards the end, but I'll just mention now, the extension deeper into the solution is something that, even though it didn't rank quite as high, predominantly that was related to difficulties with permitting and just the implementation standpoint and also cost. Those were the major things against it.

However, as an ultimate solution where there's little to no O&M cost on an annual basis and it just simply dilutes, it was from a, I guess, just a pure logic perspective seemed to make sense. So for those reasons, we didn't eliminate it altogether. It's represented as part of our overall multi-pronged solution, so I'll get into that a little bit later.

But chemical disinfection was eliminated for further consideration after this study. Just a couple of slides on UV disinfection. So we looked at parcels in Lynn and Swampscot, and because we're trying to combine the drainage outflow of two different drainage systems, you sort of need to put this facility in the And so that puts us fairly close to the beach, and it puts us fairly close to the Lynn and Swampscot line.

There are maybe three parcels on the Swampscot side that could potentially be candidates. For the purposes of our preliminary evaluation, we put this conceptual layout together. This is at Three New Ocean.

It's literally right at the city of Lynn line. It's a postage stamp lot. It's long and skinny and represents a major challenge for being able to actually site a facility here, and this kind of just shows that challenge sort of graphically.

But this facility would have the ultraviolet treatment would be within a building. It would also have some pretreatment capability to get rid of things like rocks and sticks and some grit and sand that might come down through the drainage system. So pull all that out before it goes through ultraviolet treatment, and actually would get pumped back into Stacey's Brook to King's Beach in order to overcome potential high tide conditions and things like that.

So the next slide is just kind of a cross section rendering of what it might look like. It's a very small footprint in a contained building with a bunch of underground channels and piping that wouldn't be really visible. The next slide is just a highlight of the outfall extension.

So as I mentioned, this wasn't completely eliminated even though it didn't rank number one in that alternative analysis. Our team did a really preliminary estimate on how far this thing would go up to the ocean. 4,500 feet was sort of the estimate based on some dilution case studies that we looked at in other locations.

But really to get that number correct, quite a bit more study needs to be performed. A specialist consultant can do a dilution analysis and looking at eelgrass and other ecology potential environments where the outfall would be. So there's a few steps that would need to be completed to really know precisely where this outfall should end and how long it will be.

So the cost that's presented in the study that we published assumes a 4,500 foot extension, but that's definitely subject to change based on further assessment. The next slide shows the same outfall extension but closer to the beach. So there would be some structures buried within the triangular parcel right at the entrance to Swampscott, which helps with flow control and diverting the flow out of the Stacey's Brook channel into the proposed outfall pipes.

All of the solutions we looked at presumed some sort of a tie gate structure, whether it's at the King's Beach wall or inside the culverts, to kind of help with preventing high tides from coming back into the solution and the hydrodynamic forces that come through some of those tides that really rip up the pump. So this was just a high level sketch up of what it could look like from an aerial perspective. So I'm just running into the kind of summary of recommendations.

The study really looked at a multi-pronged and a phased approach. We wanted to continue the source elimination efforts that have been ongoing. They are proven to be effective.

They take a while, and sometimes you have to go back through the same neighborhoods and fix something that got missed. And so you find yourself sometimes taking one step forward and two steps back in a certain neighborhood. So that's just the nature of source elimination.

So that effort's ongoing and will continue to be part of the program. But the primary recommendation is to seek approval for UV disinfection. This got presented to the board last October, and at the time we kind of got permission to continue seeking funding for a UV disinfection and ultimately trying to put it into a preliminary design phase.

And then the outfall extension, again, is still part of the program, maybe taking a backseat in the first year or so, but absolutely something that we think in terms of a permanent all-time 100-year solution could be the one that is there 50 years from now and potentially UV's not. So that's definitely something that's a possibility, and we want to be open to that and not just close the door on that option. So right now the team is working through funding options that might be on the table for the UV in particular and also source elimination.

And ultimately we're hoping to get into a pre-designed step where we're looking more closely at some of the parameters for UV design. That's going to require some additional water sampling, both during dry and wet weather sampling, potentially mobilizing a UV pilot testing system, which is done in other communities to look at the effectiveness of UV, and also looking at hydraulics. So we're taking two drainage systems that aren't connected now, and we're proposing to connect them together.

What's that going to do to flows and levels of water inside those systems? So there's quite a bit of pre-designed work that would need to be done, and then we begin to preliminary file design and construction. So everything I just went through is pretty much what we talked about in October.

The next slide just sort of talks about recent updates. So in the spirit of a multi-pronged approach, our UV energies right now have been really focused on trying to get some funding support. So there's been a lot of energy thrown with a very broad coalition, as Sean mentioned.

We're working very closely with Senator Triton, Representative Armini, Cahill, Capano, Mayor Nicholson, Linnwater, and Sewer. Save the Harbor, Save the Bay has been a huge champion in this effort. So we really have had a lot of discussions, and we've gained audiences with MassDEP Secretary Tepper and Undersecretary Cooper.

We have a technical review with MassDEP. We've had two leaves with them so far, and we've got another one scheduled tomorrow. So we've put an ask out there at the state level for assistance to help us get funding.

And so DEP just wants to do its due diligence and make sure that the recommendation makes sense to them and can be supported by them. And we're working through their technical questions at the moment. There is a loan program through MassDEP called the SRF program, which is not our preferred approach.

That's a loan program, and we're really looking for a larger, broader support in grant funding. So that's kind of where we are in ultraviolet disinfection is really seeking some headwaters on funding. Source elimination, you know, Kleinfelder started scoping out what this Phase 2 might look like.

So Phase 1 kicked off in 2015 with quite a bit of water sampling and study. And so we're sort of going to repeat that in a new geography that is sort of adjacent to the Phase 1 area. The town, as Sean referred to, has some ARPA funds that have been earmarked specifically for making improvements to Kings Beach.

And so that funding is very likely a potential source for this effort. And then for the outfall extension, you know, our conversations with DEP has continued to show express support for this as a long-term option. The technical works on hold at the moment as we focus on the other two boxes, but we're certainly going to stay engaged with this and keep it on the map, you know, going forward.

So I hope that was comprehensive enough, but not too detailed to kind of give everyone a flavor as to what's going on. Sean, I don't know if you have anything you want to add, but certainly welcome any questions and try to help out with anything people have to know about.

[Speaker 1] (57:59 - 59:27)
David, thank you. And, you know, the only thing I would add is that, look, we have spent a significant amount of time as a community over the last two years in partnership with the City of Lynn and with our legislative delegation. And it is a top priority.

There's really, there's not a week or a month that goes by that we're not really trying to figure out how to address the environmental due diligence associated with our environmental responsibilities. But I'd like to just recognize Representative Armini and ask her to share a perspective. She has been at the table with us.

I'm really grateful that Swampskate has had two absolutely extraordinary state representatives helping us. And Jenny, I can't thank you enough for keeping, you know, the state agencies at the table. I feel as though for decades, you know, we haven't had that level of robust support.

I have been in touch with, you know, our Lieutenant Governor Driscoll. And I'm really, I've never been more confident that we have the team. But I want you to give a perspective as well that perhaps can, you know, help folks understand the work underway.

[Speaker 12] (59:27 - 1:03:31)
Thank you for saying that. And you're absolutely right. The good news here, honestly, is that we have an amazing team in place.

We have an administration. Can you hear me? I'm sorry.

I want to make sure I'm speaking to you. We have an administration that is willing to sit down with us and have very honest conversations. People who are incredibly supportive, particularly of the idea of environmental justice.

As you all know, Kings Beach is the only beach for the city of Lynn, 100,000 people, an environmental justice community. That adds a tremendous amount of urgency to this project in addition to what's needed here in Swampscott, of course. So we have that, you know, this collaboration is incredibly powerful for all of us.

And Chris Mancini is here from Save the Harbor, Save the Bay. His advocacy is powerful. He brings a lot of credibility to these discussions.

As Dave said, we have met with Secretary Tepper, Secretary of Environmental Affairs. We've met with Undersecretary Stephanie Cooper. And so to have these high-level discussions and be able to bring in Kleinfelder and to bring in our local leaders and to bring in someone like Chris Mancini, it shows a level of collaboration and seriousness that is going to pay dividends down the road.

Obviously, the dividends we're talking about are funding. That's what we need for this project. And so, you know, my request to both the Secretary and the Undersecretary was to please take this project on as their own, to really see cleaning up Kings Beach as a statewide priority.

And it's, you know, tomorrow Dave is going to be speaking with, and Sean, speaking with the state again on the technical aspects of this. But believe me, the combination of the technical and the political, we are in a really good place. So I never want any of you to feel like things are being done under the cover of darkness and you don't have enough information.

You can always, always reach out to me at any time and to Senator Creighton, who's been at this for a lot longer than I have and has a tremendous passion for this project. So I hope that you walk away tonight feeling confident that the right people are at the table and that Swampscot is very, very well represented and we're headed in the right, very much headed in the right direction. From what I've seen, it, so what we're, what we need to, short answer is yes.

But what I want, what we need to understand here is that we have a generation that has lost access to this beach. And so in deciding what the best strategy is, we've got to weigh timing and cost. The goal is to get this beach open for our kids as fast as we possibly can in an effective manner.

So as Dave said, you know, source elimination is obviously the most effective, but it's going to take years. And we don't want that for our community. We want our community to have access to this beach as soon as possible.

So we're weighing time and money. The consent decree, remember, doesn't, well, it does. I mean, the consent decree doesn't change.

We're always working with the EPA. In fact, I know Sean has to report to them, what, annually?

[Speaker 1] (1:03:31 - 1:05:14)
I do. The consent decree, just because it's, not everybody might know about the EPA consent decree. It's an administrative order.

The EPA issued an administrative order to the town under the Clean Water Act that requires the town to go through a very detailed legal agreement to invest money to mitigate the impact of sewerage that flows into the drainage system. Mitigate or eliminate? Eliminate, yep.

So, but we're a complicated town, and we have literally hundreds of miles of pipes, and it will take a very long time for us to rip through this entire town. And if we do that, we still do not know whether or not that beach will be usable, because you have an entire city that has a drainage system that we know very little about, but we're starting to get to brass tacks. And I don't want to spend 20 years, every two years, we're spending $2 million on a tax rate.

We're one of the highest taxed communities in the Commonwealth. We have more senior citizens living in Swanskip, more folks that are paycheck to paycheck. And frankly, we have all sorts of other complexities.

And we're dealing with the waters of the United States, and we have, but for the last 12 months, we've almost never had the kind of state partnership and federal partnership. I have Congressman Moulton. I have all of our state and federal legislative elders come together and say we can figure this out.

Now, the UV system, look, from my perspective, we've talked about the pros and cons of a lot of these systems. It's working in Rhode Island, and, yes, it will eliminate the bacteria.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:14 - 1:05:23)
Mr. Demento, please. Please hold your questions and comments. I will recognize you.

[Speaker 1] (1:05:24 - 1:07:04)
I do want to have questions. It's working in a number of different applications. It doesn't require a state or federal permit.

And so when we were moving forward with this, we were looking at how do we get a system that could eliminate bacteria as fast as possible so that the environmental justice communities that live in Swanskip and Lynn could use that resource area. But we had serious concerns about whether or not an extension of an outfall pipe could actually have a longer-term benefit because the UV system has operation and maintenance, and it does impact the property, and it's a tight neighborhood. And so we've been very encouraged that Secretary Tepper and Undersecretary Cooper have really elevated the study of this outfall pipe.

The question is can we expedite the permitting on a state and federal level? Can we really get them to take what we originally presented as an 8- to 9-year permitting timeline down to 24 months or 36 months? That's going to be the challenge.

The funding seems like we're going to have some terrific support from the state, but we're in the conversations right now, and we're doing our best to kind of work with our state and federal partners. And it's our hope that we're going to have an opportunity to present to the town in the near future that will allow us to really move beyond the sense that that beach cannot return to its historic prominence as one of the region's greatest resource areas.

[Speaker 12] (1:07:05 - 1:07:36)
Just to answer your question again, Mr. D'Amato, I'm not 100% sold. I mean I'm sold on UV as an option, but if we do, if, you know, if Cline-Fedler does some more work and DEP does work and says, you know what, we could get an extension of an outfall pipe in three years for this amount of money, sure. Again, we're looking to open this beach as fast as we can while also doing the source elimination.

[Speaker 26] (1:07:36 - 1:07:38)
Are you suggesting DEP's abolition?

[Speaker 12] (1:07:39 - 1:07:42)
We don't know yet. We're still talking.

[Speaker 26] (1:07:43 - 1:07:45)
Never supported or will?

[Speaker 12] (1:07:45 - 1:07:47)
Never supported. What specifically when you say?

[Speaker 26] (1:07:47 - 1:07:48)
The UV system.

[Speaker 12] (1:07:50 - 1:07:52)
They are certainly, they're all ears.

[Speaker 26] (1:07:52 - 1:07:53)
Well, but they are open to it.

[Speaker 12] (1:07:54 - 1:07:58)
They're going to be, they are open absolutely talking to us about that.

[Speaker 26] (1:07:59 - 1:08:00)
So this would be the.

[Speaker 12] (1:08:20 - 1:08:22)
Yep. Dave, are you still on?

[Speaker 4] (1:08:24 - 1:08:25)
He ran out the door.

[Speaker 12] (1:08:26 - 1:08:34)
Dave, are you on? Because I know you've addressed this. And so I'd love for you to address Mr. D'Amato's question. Did you hear him?

[Speaker 1] (1:08:34 - 1:08:36)
I'm still on. Unfortunately, I can't hear the question.

[Speaker 12] (1:08:36 - 1:08:37)
Oh, I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:37 - 1:08:58)
Dave, we had a question from the public saying that the Rhode Island system, like when we went down to Rhode Island, we saw two different UV treatment systems. We saw a wastewater treatment system, and we also looked at a stormwater, a drainage treatment system. So can you explain the difference between both of those systems?

[Speaker 2] (1:08:59 - 1:10:59)
Sure. So the stormwater system was installed at Mystic Beach, kind of near the Mid-Southbound Newport line. And that system is, it runs one, two, maybe three times a year during, like, really, really intense, you know, rainfall events.

And they have a large catchment area that goes to a water body called the moat, and the moat then discharges the truck onto the beach. And so that system is designed to try to eliminate bacteria that are going to the beach during these, like, really intensive rain events. And there's also a lot of, like, vegetation that grows in the moat that kind of gets ripped out during high velocities, and that can carry a lot of, like, sediment and issues and bacteria as well.

So that system, I think it went online, I want to say, around 2010, maybe a little bit after that. And so it's a little bit of an older type of UV technology, but that was the main reason why we went down there. But we also went to their wastewater plant, which is a much newer system.

It's only a year or two old, and it's highly efficient. The actual amount of energy used is a lot less than the older generation of light bulbs. But that was used for wastewater disinfection.

So at their main wastewater plant in the city of Newport, most of it goes through all of its treatment processes, the final process of disinfection just to kill all the bacteria before it discharges. And so it's the same exact technology with the idea of killing bacteria. It's just two completely different applications.

And so it was a great opportunity for us as a team to go down there and see both installations, talk to the operators, talk to the city, and try to understand them a little bit better.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:03 - 1:11:16)
Mr. Demento, look, we're not going to do this, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to allow the questions to come from the board, and once the board has exhausted their questions, we will open it up to the public and we will recognize you or someone else. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:11:19 - 1:11:21)
Okay. Sure.

[Speaker 4] (1:11:25 - 1:12:37)
I'll go first. So I have a couple questions, and Gino, I might need your help on here. I did look through some of my past notes from the finance committee, and I also looked through some of my old notes on some of these conversations.

And it seems to me that source elimination and the consent decree, there's a couple topics. One is in the consent decree, a fisherman's beach was also mentioned in the consent decree. Isn't that correct?

Okay. So we've got fisherman's beach, we've got king's beach, and when I looked at some of my notes, it looks like we allocated funding in 2016, 2018, and 2020. We approved funding.

But we didn't approve any funding in 22 or 23. We do have 2.5 million of ARPA money that's coming in specifically for this situation. And then when you go back, outside of what we allocated at town meeting, when you go back and you look at the spending, it looks like our spending was only, is our spending only 5.5 million?

Do you know?

[Speaker 25] (1:12:39 - 1:12:40)
I bet you that's close.

[Speaker 4] (1:12:40 - 1:13:01)
In that ballpark. Which means that if it's only 5 million, I think we still are out another million and a half. My point, what I'm really trying to get to is, I don't think we have a clear capital plan on how we're dealing with the lining of the pipes, with the source elimination.

[Speaker 25] (1:13:03 - 1:13:16)
Well, that's not entirely correct. We do have a plan. The plan was to spend roughly $2 million every other year.

Right. And we just put a quick halt on this because we're starting to examine the UV treatment. That's the only reason we didn't ask for more.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:16 - 1:13:23)
But the UV treatment is, we can't stop source elimination even with the UV treatment. Or is that?

[Speaker 25] (1:13:24 - 1:13:26)
Oh, you're right. That's part of the consent decree.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:26 - 1:13:27)
Part of the consent decree.

[Speaker 25] (1:13:27 - 1:13:28)
But there's no timeline in the consent decree.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:29 - 1:14:03)
Okay. But we also have, if you look through the presentations from Kleinfelder, we have a failing or an aging, excuse me, let me say aging infrastructure that really needs a lot of help. And it's concerning to me that we are not really addressing this.

And one thing I hear constantly is about kicking the can down the road. And my worry is that if we are not investing in source elimination, are we kicking the can down the road for future generations in Swampscot? And that is a big concern that I have.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:03 - 1:16:11)
I just want to be clear. We are not kicking a can when it comes to source elimination. We have an affirmative responsibility to always have a status of good repair with these pipes.

We have a DPW department that is out there in the middle of winter, in the spring. They're always responding to repairs. We have an ancient system.

We have clay pipes that were put in 100 years ago halfway around this town. And we are going to spend the next 20, 30, 40 years replacing these pipes either through a methodical or through a fix and maintain process. It makes much more sense for us to go through a process.

We just finished, we got a grant to do a status of good repair study that, you know, we worked with Kleinfelder on to look at every single pipe in this town. We are on it. We are looking at the capital plan that would help support a responsible, steady annual investment.

Simultaneously, we're trying to work with the state to figure out, how do we do it in a way that does not add an incredible tax burden to Swampscot taxpayers and balance all of these fiduciary responsibilities so that we can manage it all and be as careful financial stewards as I think you would expect us to be. But all of that has to come together strategically. You know, we've got a lot of the irons in the fire.

I have to sign a piece of paper every year under pains and penalty of perjury that we track down illicit discharge and detection. If we see a problem, we have to chase it. We have to find ways to protect the environment.

We're not giving up on illicit discharge and detection. It's going to take us a long time to go through the entire community, neighborhood by neighborhood, responsibly, and do it in a methodical way that helps us address any type of impairment that we may have on Kings Beach or on Fisherman's Beach or on Phillips Beach or on Eisman's Beach. All of these beaches potentially have drainage systems that may impair the water quality.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:11 - 1:16:48)
So my point that I'm trying to make is we do not have anything on our capital plan for source elimination or for lining pipes or for infrastructure repair when it comes to what goes on underground. We don't have it on our capital plan. We need to have it on our capital plan.

We need to get focused on it. The last time we voted as town meeting to put money towards it was in 2020, and we still haven't even spent all of that money. That's correct, right?

Do you know?

[Speaker 25] (1:16:49 - 1:16:58)
We did spend most of it. And when you're going to find out, we did ask for additional money for I believe it was a quarter of a million dollars to study the areas outside of Stacy Brook.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:58 - 1:17:22)
Okay. So I just, just from speaking from my point is I would like to see a clear financial capital plan on what we're doing. And I'd also like to see more information being presented like a website, a sheet to our website, a page to our website really outlining what our plan is and what our test results are and what actually is going on to help with more transparency here for people.

[Speaker 25] (1:17:26 - 1:17:42)
Sean alluded to, I don't want to speak for Sean, but as you were just talking about the capital plan, the client was working on, I think in the next couple of months you're going to see a presentation from them outlining exactly what you just said. Okay. Not only to the sewer system, but the water system and the drainage system.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:42 - 1:17:48)
Is that the re is, is that, you know, we had that grant Ron was Ron and you did that grant.

[Speaker 25] (1:17:48 - 1:17:49)
That's exactly what it is.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:49 - 1:17:50)
So is that the report that's coming out?

[Speaker 25] (1:17:50 - 1:17:51)
We'll be seeing that shortly.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:52 - 1:17:53)
Okay. This summer.

[Speaker 25] (1:17:54 - 1:17:57)
Yeah. Summer highlights. This summer.

Yep.

[Speaker 4] (1:17:57 - 1:17:58)
The recreation movies.

[Speaker 25] (1:17:58 - 1:17:58)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:18:00 - 1:18:04)
All right. Yeah. So that's, that's all I have to say, but you're right.

[Speaker 25] (1:18:04 - 1:18:04)
We needed that plan.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:04 - 1:18:53)
I, I do think it's important for us to get this study done because the study will actually help us cost out. You know, how do we do this methodically? How do we do it in a way that makes sense?

And, and I, I fully expect the EPA is going to come back and talk to us. Once we figure out how to address King's beach and say, Hey, you know, keep up with that administrative order. They may update that.

We may be invited. I, you know, I think we, we did get an invitation to another meeting. I would expect that they're going to want to hear that, you know, we've got that plan and we're going to, you know, keep faith with, you know, some of the environmental responsibilities we have just to ensure that these pipes are gonna not impact drainage that ultimately impact the water quality of, of our public resources.

[Speaker 6] (1:18:56 - 1:20:39)
I think that mostly addressed my question. The fact that this report is coming because it does feel like there's an important piece of missing information here, which this is now going to address. And I think it leads to people's confusion about why don't we just fix the pipes?

And I think it's because we're all, there's numbers. There's a very specific number down on this page, which actually makes you one to think that it's actually the least costly option, at least for swamp Scott. But I think that's a misnomer given the fact that we don't really know how much it's going to cost and how many more pipes, what percentage are done, how much more do we have to do?

So I think that we need to reclarify what's on this page. Because I think the argument that it's going to take us a lot of time on its own doesn't seem to hold a lot of water with me. Because if you really felt like that was the way to solve the problem at its source and you knew where to go, I mean, we're talking about alternative solutions that are going to cost $80 million and they're going to take three years.

I mean, there'd be a massive amount of disruption if we're going to actually fix it at the source. But I think there's, it's still vague to me about how doable or not doable that is, how much it actually costs, how long it would take. And I think that would help everybody if we get more clarity on that to realize what maybe Dave, the Kleinfelder, or you all that have been more involved in it, understand what the issues are, why that really isn't a plausible sole solution.

[Speaker 14] (1:20:42 - 1:21:32)
David, you might be able to sort of speak to this a little bit, but even if we sleeved all our pipes and solve the Swampscot part of the issue, Lynn is not in the same point of the process as we are, correct? That's my understanding. I mean, Lynn is doing their initial investigations now.

They started last year. And so, but what Lynn will tell you, because we've talked to them a lot last year, is, you know, they're under a concession period for the same thing, but they've also been, since they're a combined sewer system, they're also under different consent decrees to separate the sewer and the drain systems, which are, you know, historic systems.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:32 - 1:22:27)
They addressed the Eastern Lynn, sort of Eastern Avalor, or I believe in the 1990s. And so, you know, whereas Swampscot has pipes, you know, in the Stacy's Brook area that goes back to the 1890s, Lynn's pipes are about 100 years younger. So that would suggest that, you know, they don't have the same, you know, nature of concerns.

But that remains to be seen. I mean, they definitely have bacteria in their outwash, just like Swampscot has. The concentrations can be just as high.

And so they're on a map to try to figure out where they are. So, you know, Swampscot started in 2015 with the consent decree. You know, we were doing work well before the consent decree.

But let's just say we started in earnest in 2015. Lynn is, you know, seven years behind.

[Speaker 24] (1:22:28 - 1:22:44)
And it's a much, much larger area. And so, you know, probably more just complex in terms of its infrastructure, its size, and miles of pipes. remains to be seen where that goes.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:44 - 1:22:56)
So that's one of the main reasons why, you know, source elimination, you know, in Swampscot, you know, could be affected in Swampscot, but if Lynn's not doing it too, then we're still going to have filters that come into each.

[Speaker 6] (1:22:57 - 1:23:02)
Can I just a little technical? Is this study that's coming out in the next couple of months, is that just Swampscot or Swampscot?

[Speaker 1] (1:23:02 - 1:25:29)
Just Swampscot. So the one point I just want to just reinforce, and because I do think it's hard for folks not to understand, like, look, just fix the pipes. You'll fix the problem.

It just seems simple. But if you look at this through a, like, a model, and you start to look at the underground pipes that, you know, you can't see when you drive through the town, it is just an absolute spiderweb of connections, and they're all interconnected. Drainage and wastewater.

And so these systems are old, and, you know, they still work, and we've done our best to maintain it. We have an excellent Department of Public Works, and we're out there, but they're clay pipes, and they do break, and they, you know, at any point, you know, we might, we might see a loading. So one house, one house fails, that the beach will be shut down.

Like, one property can add the bacterial loading that would shut down that beach. And so when we, when we think about, like, the efficacy of, of just spending that $2 million every couple of years, the next 20 years, and claiming victory, we won't have a safe beach. We'll spend $20 million over the next four years.

We won't have a beach we can use, and you'll look at us. We'll have public meetings. People will show up here by the hundreds and say, what do you mean we can't use the beach?

You just asked us to spend $20 million of illicit discharge and detection, and we still can't use that beach? And, like, we will have to just sit here and say, that did not give the solution to solving that bacteria loading to the beach, because that beach actually, Stacey's Brook, runs, like, there are all sorts of contaminants that run into that Brook. There are illicit disconnections on both sides.

If you've worked in real estate, like you have, Mr. Demento, you may know that some people 100 years ago, they, they didn't, they put their drainage into, or the sewage into city drain, and we still find these connections. Gino, how many have we found over the last five years? Probably a half a dozen.

Half a dozen. One of them would shut the beach down. And so, again, like, we're still, like, we have to go through this entire, you know, illicit discharge and detection process, you know, and for me, I just, I don't see how that's going to get that beach open sooner.

That's why I've always thought we, we need a solution that.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:31 - 1:25:38)
One second. I just want to make sure that my, that members of the board are, have asked their questions and made their comments. We all set?

[Speaker 14] (1:25:38 - 1:25:39)
I'm ready for public comment.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:40 - 1:25:41)
Okay, great. Go ahead.

[Speaker 24] (1:25:41 - 1:25:43)
Thank you. Can you come to the microphone? We're going to get to the mic.

[Speaker 14] (1:25:47 - 1:25:56)
I know just the folks at home who are watching, they can't hear you because you don't have a microphone, so I want them to hear the important things that you have to say.

[Speaker 26] (1:25:56 - 1:27:17)
Thank you. Thank you. I'll follow the chairman's directive.

You keep talking about clay pipes. Two thirds of the town is not in the Stacy Brook drainage area. Two thirds of the town is not the old, old pipes, certainly down on young Avenue.

They don't have old pipes. All of those areas that were developed in the fifties and the sixties don't have clay pipes. So that's one of the things we're talking about a total of 23 miles of sewer system pipes in the town that could be inspected.

So all, all of that stuff with the clay pipes and all that, is it really relevant? And when you say we have this terrible system, isn't it correctable for 23 miles and the Lynn problem? I agree with everything.

All of you people have said Lynn problem. They've been under consent decree since 2004, but they got to get their act together. We are only here to do what we can do for the swamps get in, but all that stuff about clay pipes, it's just not.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:17 - 1:28:09)
So I, I, I want to answer the first, is it correctable? Yes. It's just time and money.

And the question is, you know, we're sleeving these pipes. We've, we've actually had a great deal of efficacy with just putting a sleeve through the pipe. It's just, it's a question of disruption.

We rip up the, the bituminous pavement on every street we go through and neighborhood by neighborhood, it's costly. And my, my hope was that we would get, you know, some state and federal financial support to, you know, fix this problem so that, you know, we could continue to do the sleeving of these pipes over the next 20 years while enjoying that resource area, because we've come up with either an outfall extension or a UV system that, that allows everybody just to enjoy that, that resource area. Thank you.

[Speaker 10] (1:28:10 - 1:28:12)
Hi guys. I'm Andrea.

[Speaker 1] (1:28:13 - 1:28:14)
Name it, name an address.

[Speaker 10] (1:28:14 - 1:32:02)
Oh, sorry. Andrea Moore, 15 Sheridan road. I think that this actually is, is kind of hitting on a passion that a lot of the people from our group sort of represent, which is, you know, we, first of all, I want to acknowledge, like really appreciate all of the efforts, energy, especially tonight that you guys are devoting to this.

That does not go unseen and unappreciated. And I know that there are some very, very passionate people in the room tonight who care a lot about solving this. And so, you know, I would, I would encourage everyone to, to see that as passion.

I think that there are a lot of people who are very upset about how long it's taken. They're feeling upset about the lack of transparency. I think hearing tonight that things haven't been addressed since 2020 does make me feel a little bit deflated hearing that there haven't, that there isn't any money that's appropriated right now does make me feel like, like there can be more transparency and a broader plan.

And what you're talking about, right. Is it, and you know, like it's very expensive to rip up the roads and do all of these things. But if there's no plan in place and like, you know, and like perhaps some of the roads that have been redone, we are not going to have to redo and then repay those taxpayer dollars.

So I think that there would be, it would definitely benefit everybody to be able to have a comprehensive plan of these roads are happening these years, and it's going to cost this money so that things aren't done twice. And we can be most efficient with a very expensive and convoluted problem. So I think that that's, that's one thing I wanted to comment to.

And then the second one is public awareness about this issue. So you have seen perhaps on our group, save King's beach, that there has been very obvious both website, social media and physical signage in many of our other North shore communities. And there have not been those types of efforts in swamp Scott yet.

I am very hopeful that we can have that. And listen, like I'm, you know, not everyone goes to the town website to see if the beach is closed, but I think just putting that as a banner somewhere, at least swamp Scott is acknowledging like, Hey guys, like this is a problem in our community. And we're, we're putting this banner up here to help protect you in the best way possible.

Because the reality is people can translate a website into their own language. They can't translate a sign. Right.

And I even, I went for a run a couple of days ago on the beach and I saw a woman walking directly through the outfall, like barefoot walking from Lynn to swamp Scott. And so I ran down and I asked her, I was like, are you from here? She goes, yeah, I live in Lynn.

And I'm like, are you aware that you just walked through a contaminated outfall? And she's like, Oh, I thought it was okay because the sign from Lynn wasn't up. And so, you know, it's just like, it's really just a lack of general awareness still to this day about where the issue is.

Epicenter, which is Stacy's book, but beyond that, just the beach in general. And so I really do believe that there is more we can do both in swamp Scott and Lynn and with DCR to just draw people's awareness. Cause she asked me at the end of our conversation, what should I do when I go home?

I don't have bleach. And she was thinking she was going to bleach her feet, right? Like that shouldn't be a 21st century problem.

So those are the two things that I would humbly request there to be a little bit more planning and transparency on. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:02 - 1:32:07)
Thank you, Andrea, Andrea agree with both of those points and appreciate that.

[Speaker 16] (1:32:18 - 1:35:43)
Hi, I'm Liz Smith. I do thank everyone, including Dave for putting together this presentation, but I want to say it's. Disappointing because this is the same presentation that was done back in October.

There has not been an update to you guys since March 3rd of 2021. On source elimination. At that point in time, it was said that the project was coming in well under budget two years early.

And with a greater scope, I can only find 4.8 million that have been spent. I don't know. Maybe it's 5.5. Maybe I lost a few hundred thousand, but there's nothing on the capital plan. There hasn't been anything for at least a year. There was nothing appropriated in 2022, 23, and not for next year either for 2024. So what's happening?

That's what I thought we were going to get. I've heard the whole thing about the UV. I know that you guys are meeting with Lynn and the steering committee and this and that.

And the other thing, there was no update on that either. There was a meeting on June 30th is my understanding with undersecretary Cooper. There was a meeting with the EPA on June 14th.

Where's the update on those things? What is really happening? When is the transparency going to start?

When are we going to start getting the test results? Where's the testing? Everyone has this feeling or belief that, Oh, everything's much better.

We've done this work and now it's better. How do we know? Nobody knows.

Nobody's telling us. We don't see any test results. They're not publicly available.

The reports that go to the EPA, they should be publicly available. They're not available anywhere. You have to go to the EPA and ask for them.

Believe me, that's how you get them. So. I'm extraordinarily frustrated.

I want to know how much has been spent so far. I want to know when are you going to put it on the capital plan? I want to know.

Even if you're getting two and a half million from ARPA, shouldn't it still be on the capital plan? Right. It should still be part of our capital planning process.

I want to know where you're going to put this UV thing. It's not going to fit on that. Dave said postage size lot.

That's cramped. You saw how close the houses were to it. So what are the other options?

It has to be in Swanscot. It has to be close to the beach. When are we going to hear more information about this?

I'm sorry. It's really, really frustrating. I've already seen this presentation before from October.

I've been waiting since March 3rd of 2021. I've watched that thing like three times. Is there any new information?

And the only other thing I want to say is at that meeting. There was discussion of the laterals, the service lines, and Peter brought up. Who's responsible for those?

Is it the town? Is it the homeowner? And the answer is the homeowner.

And Peter said, well, we better have a policy because how are we going to handle this? We have crumbling, aging laterals. And we only have to fix them if they go across a drainage ditch.

But a lot of them do. And we need to fix them. And who's going to pay for it?

And where's that gone? And at that same meeting, it was said that there was a $150,000 grant from the DEP. And that there would be a draft plan, five-year capital plan, 20-year sustainable funding in October of 21.

Is that the plan that you're talking about, Gino? Is that the plan that's coming in the fall? Because that's, like, two years late.

So, you know, if we can solve the problem with a solution that everybody agrees on, I don't see it happening. I think we have to do this work and fix these pipes. Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (1:35:43 - 1:35:48)
Thank you. Sean? Sean, do you care?

Yeah, I'm happy to.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:48 - 1:38:47)
So, look, I hear the frustration that we haven't spent, you know, millions of dollars more in addressing the IDVE issues. You know, we need to prioritize where we spend some of those dollars. And that's why we went through this asset management study.

We did get a grant. And we're going to have a map of every drainage and every sewer pipe and water pipe. And we're going to be able to say, all right, where does it make most sense in terms of how we prioritize some of the work?

How do we integrate that with our road surface management? So, if we're paving certain roads, mobilizing contractors, you know, can we actually get those efficiencies? Because, you know, those are important financial logistics that we're trying to manage.

That said, you know, we do have a few of these irons in the fire. And we will be back here, hopefully before the fall, with a report to the board to really update the community on these costs. They're going to be significant.

Like, I'm just going to be candid. Like, it's tens of millions of deferred maintenance. You know, it could be 20 million.

And we're going to have to kind of figure out how to, you know, continue to work with state revolving loan funds and try to manage these as financially responsibly as possible. I'm not looking to duck that conversation. I'm happy to be more transparent about it.

I'm enthused that I have a group of passionate citizens that care about these issues. Because I, as a child, I grew up going down to that beach. I bring my boys down to that beach to fly kites.

I want to be able to believe that we can bring that back to a resource area that we can all, frankly, go down and celebrate. I want, in the next few years, for everybody to go down there and just think we finally cleaned that up. And I do believe you should walk out of here with that sense that we are on a path, finally, with the significant help of state and federal leaders to actually get the right investments.

That said, we have not forgotten about those responsibilities to continue to address these infrastructure problems. But it's a fair criticism that we haven't spent money over the last couple of years. And I do think, you know, the fact that we got $2.5 million in ARPA probably was a sense that, hey, look, we've got some federal money and we can apply that. But, you know, frankly, we need to get back to putting those capital plans together and just giving everybody a sense of confidence that we're going to stay on that illicit discharge and detection path.

[Speaker 3] (1:38:48 - 1:39:01)
Mr. Tan, Administrator, there was also a question from Ms. Smith just about an update about the meetings with the undersecretary. Yeah. So can you speak to that, give us a brief update?

Sure.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:01 - 1:40:47)
I think, you know, meeting with the secretary was helpful. The secretary did kind of raise, you know, some concerns about the technology with UV. She raised some of the same concerns that Mr. Demento had raised about, you know, we don't see UV a lot in drainage applications. You know, our team from Kleinfelder felt very strongly that UV can be a solution. Kleinfelder is one of the best engineering companies in the nation. They are technically sound and we went through a detailed study.

You know, she talked about, you know, a few different programs. Frankly, we're very candid. You know, we have a lot of other responsibilities in the local tax base, including the status of good repair for all of our pipes.

And we just needed more financial help than just a revolving loan because that's just basically, you know, they save us on the interest, but we pay a lot of money there. So I'm looking for the state to either put it on its capital plan. I've talked about environmental bond bills.

I've talked about a number of other federal water acts or other things that really could be helpful. I just think we need, you know, both the state and federal government to be financial partners too. I'm happy to, you know, work with the board and work with the town to be a financial partner, but I don't think we should be paying the lion's share.

I think we should pay a proportional share. I don't know if that answers the question, Ms. Smith, but we'll be more transparent. We'll have more of these meetings and we'll have more spreadsheets so you can understand the incredibly deferred maintenance that we have all inherited.

That said, we're going to fix these problems. Sorry.

[Speaker 23] (1:40:48 - 1:42:09)
My name is Christopher James, 100 Vantage Towers, here with Safe Kings Beach. So I just had a couple of questions. One of them is from someone who couldn't be here today.

So they said, what do we need in order to get the state to start approving more funding, and is there any kind of, like, timeline for that? And I also just wanted to say there was an idea floated earlier about, you know, putting something on the website. I think that that's a great idea, like to increase the transparency so that people can see, like, this is where we're at in the process, kind of, like, get everyone on the same page, because I feel like there's a lot of, like, you know, people coming in at the last second, not knowing kind of what we've already talked about, like what, you know, the things that were already, you know, brought to the table. Also, I wanted to say, what are some of the barriers between testing every day?

Because I know that Lynn tests every day, so how come Swampscot doesn't test every day? That's the first question. And the second one is, can we get signage also in Spanish?

Because I didn't see that on the Swampscot side. And then my third question is, what are we doing in terms of, I know that, you know, everyone's meeting with Lynn, but there are Lynn residents who don't know what's going on. There are Swampscot residents who don't know what's going on.

So is there a way to have, like, a joint meeting for, like, everyone to attend, like, both temps?

[Speaker 1] (1:42:11 - 1:45:08)
So great questions, you know, Christopher. I think, you know, first, you know, the testing, you know, the town actually is required. Every municipality with a beach is required to do certain testing.

Lynn actually, that beach is owned by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, so it's not a city beach. And the state has a different regimen for how they test beaches than municipal, you know, officials. So our requirement is weekly testing, and we typically do it after a rainstorm or a rain event.

And so we are out of sync. I have talked to our director of health who does that testing, and, you know, I've shared that, frankly, I would like to follow the same regimen as DCR. The board has voted, and I sent a letter to DCR and with our legislative delegation to ask the state to take over the portion of Kings Beach that the town actually took back over back in the maybe 60s or 70s and give it back to the state because, frankly, we've just spent $6 or $7 million repairing the walls that we could have spent on our pipes.

These are things that cities and towns do where we want to give it back to the state and get on that same regimen because I do think it's confusing. Like, we should not be on, whether you're a local government or a state government, we should all communicate the same thing about the water quality of that beach, but we're testing at different times and different frequencies, and it is creating some confusion. We do meet, I do meet with my colleagues and Lynn, meeting next week, and these issues will come up, and we will find out how we can get better information systems out there.

I've said it many times, I don't believe, I mean, the flags look like it's a day of the races, I don't care what color it is, I'm not a big fan of the flags. I do think there's better information systems, multi-language systems. There's 40 languages that are spoken within a five-square-mile radius of Swanset, and we need to be more mindful that we have a diverse region that needs a diverse range of how we engage them.

The comments about the website are very helpful. I will work with our team, and we will think about how to get a landing page that really people can go to, and people can really just get some information from. It needs to be easy to find, and we can put these presentations up, and I realize some people are getting frustrated seeing the same old presentations, but there's still a lot of good information in these presentations, and there are a lot of folks that are coming to Swanset or just need to refresh on some of these things, so we'll use that as a tool to help everybody just stay aware of things that are important.

[Speaker 8] (1:45:12 - 1:49:57)
Hi, Wayne Spritz, 91 Farragut Road, Precinct 3. So I just want to kind of reiterate a couple of points that the previous commenters were making, which is signs. I walk that beach section along the sidewalk all the time, and can't tell you how many times that I see young kids in that area, and this is just a continued lack of communication, and there's no excuse for it.

We've been talking about this since last year. It was brought hugely to the public eye, and this is something that could be changed tomorrow. I don't understand why we're just going to still talk about it.

It needs to be done. It needed to be done last year. This has to stop.

The excuses have to stop about reporting, not putting the reporting up for public view, and not getting better signage. The signage can happen tomorrow. My God.

Let's just do it. Make the signage happen. I'm just done with the excuses.

I can't tell you how many times we've walked by down there, and the Swampscott side says one thing, the Lynn side, of course, the DCR says something else. It's like people's lives are being affected on a daily basis, especially when it's this hot and people want to go to the beach. I see people coming from out of town that aren't from Lynn that show up there because they're visiting from out of town.

They know nothing, and they speak English, and yet there's not enough warnings. So that's just one piece. But what I really – the intention of my main comments and efforts were really to kind of get a more technical understanding of some things, and I don't know if it's the right place for that at a select board meeting, but I really wish you would hold a combined Lynn and Swampscott public hearing to discuss this particular topic, bring in several engineers from Kleinfelder.

I mean, first of all, thank you, thank you, thank you, because it means the world to us that we have political backing. But for every ten comments, nine of them are about funding and wanting to do the right thing, which I appreciate, but there's a lot of technical aspect to this that I think we'd all like to hear a lot more about, and maybe this isn't the venue for that, but I do think that as an engineer myself of 25 years, I don't directly deal with environmental, but very adjacent to it for much of that time, and I have a lot of questions, a lot of technical questions, which is regarding the UV, which is regarding why does it necessarily have to be the same. It's Swampscott. I've really heard nothing about Lynn.

Lynn, God bless them, they've known about this problem for 50 years, right, and they have chosen a number of different means to avoid fixing the problem, and I'm glad that they're doing an IDD program. We all should be. But at the end of the day, this has to be a combined multi-city solution, and this is why I'm so incredibly happy that we have state representation bringing that together.

I know you guys are working together, but I'd like to hear more of an engineering presentation as to the technical aspects of why we're doing it in this way and not doing it in the other way, and that's the stuff that I think would be great to be published on a website or on something that we can gather the little web of information that some people know a little bit about this and some people know a little about this, but there's nothing gelling together. I don't know if that's something that we have a lot of private citizens that are really taking a stand, not a stand, but trying to organize.

There's kind of waves of more interest every couple of years. You see a little bit of interest. I think this is a group that has really chosen to deeply get involved, and I've tried to encourage them to try to get all the information together.

Since the 70s, things have been going on. We have one person that knows one thing, another person that knows another thing. You've got – it's just – I think we can do better, and I know you're trying to do better, and I applaud that.

So that said, hopefully you can hold a public hearing with the engineering group in the next month or two. We can ask those questions. We can get some feedback.

We can have a more kind of, you know, without wasting any more of the select horse precious time with this because there's a lot more business to be taken care of. Thank you. Thanks, Wayne.

[Speaker 3] (1:49:58 - 1:50:07)
Sean, I mean, we keep hearing, you know, the signage, signage, signage, signage. Can we please address that?

[Speaker 1] (1:50:07 - 1:50:31)
Look, I talked to the director of health today about the signage. I share some of these concerns. I mentioned that earlier.

You know, I am concerned about people walking that beach just unaware, and so you're right. We need to have better signs. I'm concerned about people just walking in that outfall.

I see the kids there. I use that beach, and it's just not – I don't want to give an excuse. We will get some signs up.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:31 - 1:50:40)
But also the publication of the test results and the utilization of the website for dissemination of information.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:40 - 1:52:38)
We'll get a landing page, and we will put a lot of – we have over a 100-page report that provides a lot of technical specifications about why each of these options were evaluated and what the pros and cons were for each of the options. We can absolutely get that information up, and we can talk more about that. We've had meetings.

We'll continue to have meetings, and frankly, we'll do better. But we're doing as best as anyone ever has. And just in fairness, like, we have never been on a precipice where we're about to solve a problem, and it's not because of these meetings.

All due respect to everybody, these are important. This is part of our democracy. But the work that happens that solves these problems involves an incredible amount of hard work.

I can't explain to you how difficult these meetings are. These meetings with state and federal officials are very difficult. And going out there with your hat in hand and begging them to actually prioritize this little town and this incredible city, and I don't want to hear, frankly, with all due respect to everybody's opinion about Lynn and Swampstead and what Lynn's doing.

It doesn't matter. It does not. I want everybody to just understand we get no benefit of saying somehow Lynn's not doing enough.

That city is so complicated. And for us to sit here and somehow think they could do anything more, it's just not fair. That city has more problems to shake a stick at than we could ever imagine.

And we sit here trying to figure out a lot of problems too. We're a small town with a small staff. I do have an extraordinary Department of Public Works.

I have an extraordinary team that can get more information up on the website. These are fair criticisms. I will take them back.

But we are on a path, and we are going to fix that problem by hook or by crook. And we're going to try to find funding to do it because we need whatever funding we have to fix all the other problems that we have in town.

[Speaker 8] (1:52:39 - 1:53:23)
Just one follow-up question I felt was important and something else you might be able to take action on immediately, which is I was giving a presentation for SWAC last week, actually, over at the Senior Center, and I met a nice gentleman who was explaining to me that he is on Kings Beach and he regularly cleans up on Kings Beach, and he came across syringes, which is not apparently uncommon. However, he felt a little confused by the town when he went to ask the Department of Public Health, hey, there's a problem, can you fix it? They referred him to the police.

The police then cross-referred him back to the Board of Health. He was just like, can you directly help address it? Yes, I can.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:23 - 1:53:39)
Please have that individual contact my office, and I will help ensure that that public health and public safety issue is addressed immediately. By the way, SWAC is Swampscot's Solid Waste Advisory Committee. Not everybody knows that, Wayne.

[Speaker 10] (1:53:41 - 1:54:45)
I'm sorry, I just had one more too. My question was in regards to the enthusiasm that you share about the extension of the pipe into Nahant Bay. You know, I'm not an engineer, so sort of like on a high level, that solution concerns me personally because it feels like we're just extending a problem rather than fixing it.

And I think the other thing that makes me particularly concerned was that chart that Save the Harbor, Save the Bay published, which was shared in Kleinfelder's presentation, which showed that Nahant's actually not doing very well, especially in 2021 and 2022. So I would be concerned that that would potentially either solidify their problem or exacerbate it. And I don't want Nahant to be closed the same way that Kings Beach is, because then all of a sudden we're going to make a crazy, jagged pipeline that goes whatever direction.

So again, I don't understand that solution, but I think I would just like to express publicly my concern.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:45 - 1:57:36)
Let me, if I can just give a quick hit pocket. I'm a liberal arts guy. I have a degree in public administration, and I'm not an engineer.

And so Dave Peterson and, you know, some of our clientele folks can talk about it. I originally got behind the pipe because I actually was concerned about more things than bacteria. I think there's more things coming off our roads, like forever chemicals and other, you know, toxins that are in that outfall pipe that I don't want my children or your children or anybody else putting their toes in.

I actually, I was more concerned that we would fry bacteria with ultraviolet lights, but still have lots of problems, and I could hear the future screaming at us. And so I have shared these concerns with my colleagues, but frankly, I have to work with stakeholders, and they were more concerned about getting a solution that could address the EPA and DEP's concerns about bacteria, which I thought was very limited in fairness. And so my concern about the pipe was, you know, put it out far enough that dilution could be the solution.

Those, whatever's coming out of that pipe is getting on the near shore and getting into the water anyways, and it's diluting into this incredible ocean. And look, I don't want to add more contaminants to that ocean. I'm trying to ban single-use plastics.

My Solid Waste Advisory Committee has promised me that they'll get that back up before a fall town meeting. So I'm very much interested in banning plastic straws and banning all things that are going to impair our environmental responsibilities. But I do think the outfall pipe buys us time.

It buys us time so that the future can come back and help us get better at screening what goes into that pipe and perhaps get better at science and get better at some of the technologies that will help us be better environmental stewardship. So I'm not sure that helps you, but it basically was an option that I think could have avoided further contaminants. That wasn't supported by the stakeholder team.

I agreed to support the ultraviolet because, frankly, I'm just trying to get a solution that's most cost effective. But I'm very, very excited about the fact that my environmental team, the undersecretary of the EP, is now thinking about extending that outfall pipe because she sees the cost benefit in that option. Swampscott resident and executive director of Save the Harbor, Save the Bay, Chris Mancini.

[Speaker 18] (1:57:36 - 2:00:11)
Yeah, Chris Mancini, 68 Walker Road. Also the ED of Save the Harbor, Save the Bay. We work from the Huntsman and Taskett, inclusive of Lynn on the state beaches.

I've been part of the steering committee. And just thank you all for doing this extensive update today. I just heard a couple things.

I do have a question, but there was a question about the funding. Is it just for Swampscott? Is it for Lynn and Swampscott?

My understanding from the steering committee meetings is the assessments that Kleinfelder did are for a cumulative solution. So extending the outfall UV protection, that covers Lynn and Swampscott, although both each individual city and town is responsible for their own source elimination. That's the one place that's separate because you have your own pipes.

I also would love to share kingsbeachma.com is a website Save the Harbor put together. We're trying to get a lot of updates and transparency about all the stuff that goes on, caveat being we're a small nonprofit. We're doing our best.

We, for example, have not gotten an update on the DEP meeting that's been referenced a couple times. It's not up there yet, but we have a draft summary that our staff's done. So we are trying to stay on top of that stuff.

And then, again, my understanding of this whole process with the six options, whether it's UV or extend the outfall or whatever it is, all of those are in addition on top of source elimination. And that's still my passion. The story I keep telling is in East Boston, we had a real big problem on Constitution Beach, and they found the magic bullet.

They found a restaurant, a 500-capacity restaurant that was plugged into the wrong pipe. They moved the pipe, and now Constitution Beach gets 95% on an annual basis. We can only hope that Lynn finds that restaurant or Swamscott finds that cracked pipe.

But as you said, it's a lot. And I believe from the meetings I've been in that everyone is looking. So I have that same question, I think, that Liz asked, which is we'd love to see the plan, see it keep coming up in the capital budget.

And then my question is following Phase 1 of the source elimination that Kleinfelder led, Phase 1A, 1B, 1C, I know there's follow-up testing to be done to see how effective that was. And, Gina, does that come out in the report you've referenced for this fall? It's a separate report, but speaking with Dave, we still have to do a little bit more testing.

[Speaker 25] (2:00:11 - 2:00:43)
We should have those results within the next 30 days. Oh, awesome. Thank you.

Thanks, Chris. I'd just like to mention one thing. I don't want to get into an argument with anybody, but to say we haven't been doing anything, Phase 1C, we're still working on it.

I don't know if anybody's been out in the area. We've seen the National Water Main trucks out there. So Phase 1C has not been completed.

So we are still working on it. And that doesn't mean we shouldn't be asking for more money to keep going, because I fully support that. Dave and I had this conversation today that we're going to start the design work for Phase 2.

[Speaker 3] (2:00:44 - 2:00:54)
And, Gina, just to be clear, there was supposed to be a Phase 1D as well, and that Phase 1D was then integrated into 1C?

[Speaker 25] (2:00:54 - 2:01:03)
1C, because we were getting nice, good prices for all the work that we were doing. Thank you. So now we're on to Phase 2.

Got it.

[Speaker 22] (2:01:06 - 2:02:48)
Hi. Great. I'll be quick.

Thank you so much for all the great information and tremendous passion. It's been remarkable. Mar-a-Low, Outlook Road, Precinct 3.

Just a couple of quick thoughts or points, really, and semi-questions to our presenter, Dave. So it was mentioned about assessment after the work is done and the pipes are changed out, and how do you go back and assess a neighborhood? I wondered how that actually happens and how you test that.

And then he also mentioned that the UV treatment source would be kept separate so that the source, the Linn side and the Swamp Spot side, would come together and be treated as one, and I guess I wondered why that was the case. And then just it does sound like at some point everybody's house to street is going to need some attention in terms of, you know, your waste. So it would be great if we could kind of get on that, you know, in terms of, you know, even disclosures, you know, as homes sell and such, because that's huge.

You know, that's huge for homeowners. And then the weekly testing just clearly isn't enough. We were, you know, it can be continued.

We could all get up and say that. There's got to be another way, and that has to be done daily, and that just seems like it has to happen really quickly. Okay, thank you.

[Speaker 4] (2:02:50 - 2:02:55)
Sean, I have a question. Can we just follow Linn's testing if they're doing it every day?

[Speaker 1] (2:02:55 - 2:04:14)
You know, I think we can, and I will follow up with my Department of Public Health and see if we can do that. I've suggested that, and I think there's a concern that we have a state requirement to test weekly, and, you know, they have wanted to follow that protocol. But, frankly, it doesn't make sense to me that we would have a state agency that's testing every day and we just wouldn't follow that same testing protocol.

Maura, your question about why are we going to combine the pipes between Linn and Swan, just because it's all getting out to the same beach, and at some point we're just going to combine it because it makes sense, you know, from a financial point to have that efficiency, especially if we're going to construct an outfall. Or if we're going to construct a UV, these systems are connected. You get on there and they're literally side by side.

And, you know, just because we're not going to build two $25 million systems right next to each other. At some point we just have to remember that we're still all the same government. We're local, state, and federal.

It's not North and South Korea. We're in it together, and we want to make sure that we're as efficient as we can be.

[Speaker 24] (2:04:16 - 2:04:17)
I know.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:18 - 2:04:36)
Look, we've gotten beyond the whose responsibility is it. We all are just owning it. And financially, if we can come up with a solution that actually makes sense for everybody, that makes the best sense for the state and federal partners because we're hoping they're going to fund 80% to 90% of it.

[Speaker 29] (2:04:39 - 2:05:44)
Good evening. My name is Carmen Martinez. I'm a Linn resident.

And I'm here actually to broaden my knowledge because as a lot of residents here, I don't actually have the tools or where to look for information. And I'm here to express something to keep in mind. I feel like pollution goes way past municipal boundaries.

And I'm happy that you mentioned that you're meeting with Nicholson. And I feel like that's something to look forward as an update for residents, I guess. It would be great if we could all join forces and create a meeting on both ends because I feel like it's an issue of the whole North Shore, right?

Like if we really want to take the leadership on coastal community, on how, like, plastic banning, like all these things, I feel like we should gather forces on both ends. And that's all I have to say. Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (2:05:44 - 2:05:45)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:05:45 - 2:06:28)
Really great. And thank you for being here. You know, I do work very closely with Mayor Nicholson.

I will tell you he's as passionate about fixing that issue as anybody in this room. And I do believe that his leadership is probably the most important in terms of making sure the state can really help us. So he's been a powerful advocate.

So has his predecessor, Mayor McGee. And I really feel fortunate that I've had a chance to work with both over my tenure here. Chairman, I am just the help.

Sure.

[Speaker 8] (2:06:34 - 2:08:04)
Sometimes some of these things don't come very clear in terms of how they're thought out. You know, one thing kind of leads into another. But I did ask the question before, which is why is the – my understanding is why is the plant, the UV treatment plant, only considered on Swampscott town property if it is going to be combined?

That's question one. Question two is, Sean, I applaud you for what you're saying is that, yeah, you're right. UV only hits the bacteria and viruses and things that are infective, right?

And I am very, very concerned about all the other washout things that, in fact, would be diluted through a pipe going out further out. So did anyone look at the old wastewater treatment plant that was near where the police station is to be able to utilize that? Yes?

Okay. I didn't – that might be deeper in the report than I wasn't aware of. And then, lastly, to the question of the obvious, Kings Beach is one of the – the only place where we find that very special certain algae growth, right, and it has a certain smell to it that is completely unfriendly to the use of the beach, let alone the bacteria count.

Do we know what else is in that outfall, like other organics that could be feeding that algae? Is that a part of any of the conversations with Kleinfelder that could be put into future pieces of this to understand what else is in that water that could be, in fact, feeding that – the algae bloom that we get on a regular basis? Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:08:06 - 2:09:48)
Wayne, I like the questions. So the site selection really hasn't been finalized. And so this is a preliminary design development.

So, you know, basically we looked at a couple of sites and we said, where could you put this? But it wasn't a formal site selection as if we were moving forward with the construction of a new municipal facility. You'd have to spend a lot more time going in there and doing borings, trying to figure out, you know, is this really going to work?

Logistically, it's just preliminary feasibility. We haven't determined that the only place would be that site. But it is – you know, we live in one of the most densely settled regions of the Commonwealth.

Swanskip's one of the most densely settled towns. If you look at the neighborhood right next to Swanskip and Lynn, that's a very densely settled – and so we don't have a lot of options. And, frankly, using the public prominence or the roadway or trying to bury something under – it's costly and complicated.

So we've identified a few of those concerns, but we're – you know, this is preliminarily. And so there's nothing that's baked in the sun. In terms of the algae, there's a lot of science to this.

Apparently, when they put the causeway over to Nahant, they basically locked up the algae and it sits there and bakes in the sun and that gives you that wonderful welcome to the North Shore. And so the fact that that water doesn't move, I think, is principally responsible. And, again, I'm not an environmental engineer.

[Speaker 6] (2:09:48 - 2:09:51)
There's a Ph.D. that lives on Lynch Shore Drive that studied that.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:51 - 2:10:48)
Understood. So I would ask you to talk to that individual. We did not study that with this limited scope of work.

That said, it's just interesting. I mean, all these issues are – you would think maybe there's a connection. But I don't believe that there's any – well, I can't even say.

I don't know what comes out of that pipe other than a lot of things that wash off our roads. Whatever's in your car, whatever is on your lawn, whatever chemicals that are out there, they're still going to be there after you irradiate them with ultraviolet light. And that's, again, why I wanted the pipe, because I don't want young children or anybody that's immunoeffected to have to worry that they're not going to be able to walk on a pristine, beautiful beach in a densely settled region of the Commonwealth.

Thanks, Sean.

[Speaker 3] (2:10:49 - 2:11:21)
Just looking at the time, it's 9 o'clock. I think we're going to end this conversation. I think there were a lot of great questions.

Certainly a big thank you to Dave Peterson at Kleinfelder for being here, answering questions, and providing us with an update. Certainly more to come. And thank you to the public for your advocacy.

And I appreciate the very thoughtful questions and comments. And we'll be back very soon with some additional updates. And thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:22 - 2:11:31)
Yeah, reach out again. If anybody has any questions, you want to come in and have a conversation. We need your help, and I'm grateful that you're here.

[Speaker 3] (2:11:38 - 2:11:49)
And with the board's indulgence, I'd like to address the discussion and possible vote on Phillips Beach parking now, just considering we have a large number of folks in the room.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:56 - 2:12:27)
I'm going to ask our Assistant Town Administrator, Pete Kane, to come up and provide the board with an update. We were here a few weeks ago, and there were a number of questions that the board had. We put together a slide deck to help address some of those questions and advance a recommendation.

Pete, if you're ready to go, we can step right into that.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:28 - 2:12:31)
Can you say who the recommendation is? Is it the Traffic Committee recommendation?

[Speaker 1] (2:12:32 - 2:12:44)
This is a recommendation from our Traffic Study Advisory Committee, but also the town departments that have been involved in this, and the town administrator.

[Speaker 5] (2:12:56 - 2:21:59)
Okay. So this is an overview on the Phillips Beach parking and some recommendations that have been put together. As you know, Sloan Scott's a growing and vibrant community.

There's a very active population. A lot of people come to the town due to its quiet nature, various shopping opportunities, ease of access to Boston, and the seaside environment. The town has eight public beaches, the most popular of one being Phillips Beach.

Parking for that beach is limited to on-street parking, which has been provided by the town via recreation parking stickers sold to town residents. With the growing population and increased desire to use Phillips Beach, parking for residents to visit the beach has become problematic. Currently, parking is provided on-street with recreation parking spaces at about 90 spaces.

Two of those are handicapped. The remainder of the streets in the neighborhood are restricted to resident parking, and that accounts for 312 on-street parking spaces. Concerns that have been raised are with regards to non-resident parking, no sticker parking or essentially vehicles without any sticker parking on the streets, out-of-town people, disrespect, trash, and lack of handicapped parking.

The map here shows where the red being recreation-restricted parking, blue is no parking allowed, and all the green is resident parking restriction. So what are some of the factors that are impacting the parking situation? One of those factors has to do with the parking restrictions themselves.

We have recreation or beach parking signs, resident parking signs, and a confusion between those two signs. They are very similar in design, format, and we do note it as recreation versus resident. It's essentially an alliteration, so it is difficult to understand the difference between the two.

In addition, we have enforcement that is happening. The enforcement that occurs is through parking citations that are given. Those parking citations are a $25 parking ticket.

Many don't necessarily see that as a barrier to parking. If they are going to park in private lots, generally it's a higher. So here we see that there is potential where the parking ticket may not actually be inhibiting people to park where they're not allowed to.

When we look at some of the parking citations that have been issued by our police department, this calendar year, townwide from January 1st to yesterday was 346 tickets. That was townwide. Parking citations just within the Phillips Beach neighborhood accounted for 196 tickets.

That's about 56% of the townwide tickets. Just during the summer period, using June 1st as the start, 167 parking tickets townwide, 100 of those being in the Phillips Beach neighborhood, so about 60%. So there are a large amount of the parking citations occurring primarily in this neighborhood.

Another factor impacting the parking, as we noted earlier, is the number of parking spaces. Included in that is that on-street parking in residential neighborhoods typically aren't lined. It's not a standard practice.

And when you have no lines for those parking spaces, it does mean that you do have people that park inconveniently, leaving too much space or not enough space in between the vehicles where they could have fit another vehicle had they moved up further. There's also an ability to park on one side where there may be limited road width and therefore there's a limitation of access based on road width and spacing between driveways or intersections. Some consideration to think about is these are public streets.

Public streets are owned, maintained, and governed by the local authorities, so by the town. They explicitly provide for access and use by the public, which includes all individuals in the public. So the proposal that's been put together to help with trying to alleviate the parking situation includes a number of conditions.

So the first is with the parking restriction, looking at changing that parking restriction. This would extend the recreation parking so that it is now available on the entirety of one side of the street for Ocean, Bradley, and Shepherd, as well as Cutting Road. This would increase the recreation parking spaces to 145.

Four of those would now be handicapped spaces, allowing for handicapped access on both sides of the Phillips Beach entry on Ocean. The logistical issues here that we have to take into consideration is the road widths should parking be permitted on both sides of the street, as well as the turning ability at corners limiting the vehicles from parking near corners. When we look at the parking availability on each of the streets, I'm just going to keep moving this around.

We've broken this down. The engineering department looked at all eight of the streets in the neighborhood, looked at the average road width of those streets, and calculated how many spaces are available. That spacing is based on a distance of 18 feet for a typical vehicle, so that's a typical space allotment for a vehicle in a parallel parking situation, while also limiting the area of consideration of 15 feet from any intersection, as well as 5 feet on either side of a driveway.

Those are standards under the Uniform Traffic Code. What they did is they determined, based on those limitations and a parking space of 18, they were able to come up with the number of parking spaces that you see here on each of the streets. We've outlined how many spaces are available on each street, both for recreation and resident, and then what the proposal is, you can see in this column here, where it changes Bradley Ave. That is 46 spaces of resident to 23 on each side, one side being recreation, one for resident. Cutting Road would be the same. It currently has about 30 parking spaces total between both sides. The proposal is one side of 15 would be recreation.

Ocean Ave. already has a portion of one side of the street as recreation that comes in at 44 spaces. This would be increased to 61 by allowing that entire one side of the street being recreation. And finally, Shepherd would remain the same, where one side of the street is recreation at 46 spaces and the other side is resident at 14 spaces.

This would increase the recreation parking availability by 55 spaces, so from 90 spaces to 145. This is just a context map to give you an idea of all the different streets that are in the neighborhood, in case we need to come back to that of which street is which. But in total, the recommendations include updating the parking restriction sign design to better differentiate between resident and recreation, increasing the number of available parking, recreation parking spaces in the Phillips Beach area, as noted on the table earlier, increasing the number of handicapped designated spaces.

The proposal is to increase it from two to four, and then increasing the parking violation fee from $25 to $75. And then finally, I believe it's printed out for you as well. There is a motion to help clarify the motion necessary in order to increase the fee.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:02 - 2:22:05)
Thanks, Pete. Questions, comments from the board?

[Speaker 6] (2:22:07 - 2:22:12)
I'm interested to hear from people that are here. I can comment after, if necessary.

[Speaker 3] (2:22:27 - 2:22:28)
Mr. Walensky.

[Speaker 19] (2:22:44 - 2:24:13)
Hi, Mark Whiskey, Walensky, 98 Banks Road. And I had an awful lot to say about this, but I like what I see. And I don't think there's a whole lot that I need to add to it.

I think one of the things that I would like to add to it is that one little point, though, which is really interesting coming on the tail of the King's Beach discussion. You know, one little point when I was putting this together. State fund-granting agencies are becoming concerned about public beach access.

This was an article on WGBH News about a year ago, and the quote I pulled out is, we should not be spending a single dollar of taxpayer money on refurbishing beaches, on hardening surfaces, on doing anything coastal, unless the public has full access to those areas. I didn't get the full name of whoever was being quoted, but we should be evaluating grant applications based partly on enhancing public access, but state spending data show several towns received funding for coastal resilience despite limiting beach access to only residents or vacationers renting in their town. And considering also we're in the early stages of getting funding for the harbor waterfront plan, which is all going to be relying on state and federal funding, increasing access, at least to our own residents, makes a lot of sense.

But I'm very happy with this plan. I like it. Thank you.

[Speaker 24] (2:24:13 - 2:24:16)
I have a question, Mr. Walensky.

[Speaker 4] (2:24:16 - 2:24:22)
You had sent us an email, and in your email you had said that you go to the beach every weekend.

[Speaker 19] (2:24:23 - 2:24:24)
That I can, yeah.

[Speaker 4] (2:24:26 - 2:24:33)
And that only, and you have, you're able to have parking, and only for a handful of times have you ever had a problem with parking.

[Speaker 19] (2:24:33 - 2:25:26)
I think there's only a couple of days a year for a couple of hours that we need more parking than we have now. Me and my friend Steve Young were among the primary folks that got the parking expanded to what it has been for the last 10 years. And, again, it's always heartbreaking to see on a gorgeous day like this past Memorial Day weekend, the day before, there wasn't enough parking.

And folks with recreation stickers were creeping up Bradley and Ocean Ave and whatever. It's just heartbreaking to see them getting parking tickets. Folks without stickers, yeah, of course they should be getting tickets.

But if we've got a recreation ticket, we should be able to park in that part of town. And this looks like a real reasonable, it's only a couple days a year that people are going to even creep beyond what's there right now.

[Speaker 4] (2:25:26 - 2:25:57)
The reason I'm asking is because I question whether or not this really is that big of a problem. And after I read your email, I thought, oh, this really isn't that big of a problem. I mean, I have called people.

I've called people on this board to ask if they have problems with parking. And I don't hear a lot of problems with parking. So that's one of the issues that I have is really getting some type of clarification on do we really have problems.

[Speaker 19] (2:25:58 - 2:26:17)
We do a couple of days a year. And I think those couple of days a year are worth increasing the sticker parking. The days we need it most.

Actually, back then I joked on a really nice day, they should flash the snow emergency signs and have a beach emergency, and it's okay to park everywhere.

[Speaker 24] (2:26:19 - 2:26:20)
That might be a good idea.

[Speaker 19] (2:26:23 - 2:26:27)
Anyways, I like what I see up there, and I support this. Thank you. Thank you, Whiskey.

[Speaker 13] (2:26:38 - 2:26:54)
Barry Craft, Blanchett Ave. I've only got one question for Peter. You mentioned there was 167, I don't know if you can go back to that slide, parking tickets. Do you happen to have information as to how many of those were non-Swamp Scott residents, out-of-towners?

[Speaker 5] (2:26:57 - 2:26:58)
Don't have that.

[Speaker 13] (2:27:03 - 2:27:07)
Would that be important information to have when you're talking about parking tickets?

[Speaker 5] (2:27:07 - 2:27:09)
It could. It could be.

[Speaker 13] (2:27:09 - 2:27:18)
So let's say, for example, 170 of them were out-of-towners. Would that influence anybody in terms of the parking situation? I'm just saying that it's relevant.

[Speaker 25] (2:27:19 - 2:27:20)
Thank you.

[Speaker 17] (2:27:26 - 2:30:55)
Hi, my name is Jared Bridge. I live at 42 Shepherd Ave. And as I said a couple of meetings ago, I live where the riffraff parks because they all think they're far enough up to not get a ticket because they don't get tickets. The key is more enforcement, it's not more spaces.

You started your presentation with Phillips Beach is the most popular beach and parking is problematic. But I would like to know what data you have that states it's problematic. That statement is just a general statement that doesn't mean anything to me.

What it does mean to me is the data. I wrote you guys an email. I don't know who got it or who didn't.

I did not get any replies. I was going to read it. But instead of that, I'm just going to real quickly say that Memorial Day of 2022 was a Monday.

Eighty-seven degrees and sunny. One ticket written all day. In 2022, between Memorial Day weekend and Labor Day weekend, there were 15 Saturdays.

There were only tickets issued on five of these days for a total of 26 tickets. Eleven tickets were written in just one day. So that left ten Saturdays with no tickets.

Sunday, same time frame, 15 of them. There were ten days where tickets were issued. May 22nd was a random Sunday last year, and it was the first really nice beach day.

Between 75 and 80 tickets were written. So what happens is we have enforcement to start, which is great. And people then have to realize, oh, I can't park here.

But it doesn't last every day. It's not consistent throughout the season. So the enforcement dies down.

People come park. Sorry. Again, I didn't want to read the whole thing.

Now I feel jumbled. Another issue found when reviewing the data seems to indicate that most of the tickets show enforcement's only done during a small period of time, not consistently throughout the day. It would be far more effective in the neighborhood if every couple of hours, say from 8 to 6 p.m., which would be five times a day, that people were coming through, that police were coming through and writing tickets. Stating all of this, I certainly don't want our police force to have to spend their entire time writing tickets, and I'm sure that they can't. But it's all about enforcement. It's not about adding more parking spaces.

Today at 6 p.m., before I came here, I drove through Ocean up to my house on Shepherd. There were 36 cars parked at the beach, 14 with no stickers. That's 39%.

At Preston Beach, when I drove up thereafter, there were 10 cars parked in a row, 8 without stickers, no tickets. It's an enforcement issue, and if you add more spaces, you're just adding more places for people to come park that don't want to get a sticker anyway because they don't think they're going to get a ticket. And I do like the fact that we're going to increase the ticket prices because most people in this day and age don't care about $25 if they're trying to go to the beach.

Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:30:56 - 2:30:57)
Ms. Shanahan.

[Speaker 9] (2:30:58 - 2:34:05)
Hi. My name's Jackie Shanahan. I live at 37 Blodgett Ave. I've been notifying the neighbors throughout just about the status and what's going on with this, and I'm sure you received my email earlier today. I did speak to Mr. Wolchinski on the phone. We had a great conversation trying to come up with something that would be amenable to all because I know that he had a petition that you signed, Mr. Grishman, and we had a petition as well that we put in on 626 by email, 62 signatures, seeking an incremental change. It's not an all-out refusal.

I do want to thank Peter Kane for that proposal. This hasn't yet been shared with the community. Obviously, they can watch it online, but I just want to point that out that it has not yet been shared, and I don't think that it's a formal recommendation from the traffic committee, given that they disbanded before a formal recommendation was given.

Although we had a very productive meeting with the community at the traffic committee led by Chief Archer, I thought a lot of great information was shared, and I thought it was very helpful. The handicapped spaces, of course, sounds like a great idea. I've never heard the suggestion before of painting spaces.

That's also a great idea in terms of maximizing space. I don't want to reiterate everything that I said in my email. It's many of the things, including a fine increase, maybe not to $75, but to $50 at least to be a deterrent.

I think that the evidence that has been given to you and analyzed in terms of the parking data on a more micro level shows that there is some movement for an incremental change, which I said in my email, and not a sweeping change. If you do want to consider a sweeping change, it should be town-wide, because the facts that we have provided to the board in terms of statistics do not align entirely with what Mr. Cain had said, and I think that Barry, who is our numbers guy, is going to speak to that a little bit more. On the surface, based upon what we have found in the enforcement, I think an incremental change is supported.

I think we had a great conversation today, and I do think that what I've sent to you is a fair representation. I've tried to be as transparent as possible about that. Again, I live on Blagedav.

I don't live on some of these roads being considered. The other thing I would like to mention is I know that Kevin Reen really wanted to speak. He had some information that he wanted to share tonight, but he was taken away on a police business.

So if the board is considering voting, I would appreciate the opportunity to at least have him put in his two cents, and people from Ocean Ave, he had some information to put in, and not that I want to drag this out any farther. I think that's all I have, so thank you. Thank you, Ms. Shanahan.

[Speaker 3] (2:34:06 - 2:34:26)
I'd actually like to hear from the fire chief, just as a matter of public safety and process. There was a comment made that this wasn't a formal recommendation from the Traffic Safety Advisory Committee, so I just want to see if you can just speak to that a little bit.

[Speaker 7] (2:34:26 - 2:41:46)
I'm Graham Arch, I'm the fire chief, and formerly a member of the Traffic Safety Advisory Committee. We've had several members elect not to be reappointed. This is a modification of the recommendation made by the Traffic Safety Committee.

It's a modification based on input that we've gotten from people in the neighborhood. It's scaled back quite a bit from the original proposal that was made. We took into account general feelings about people in the neighborhood, about the amount of parking that's necessary, as well as specifics.

Kevin Meen had brought up points about very specific aspects of the topography and the layout of the streets. There were certain corners and curves where it wouldn't work. I believe this latest iteration of the proposal takes that into account.

I think it's mentioned in the slideshow about setbacks in driveways and things like that. We were asked to examine this issue, and we have done that. It's our feeling, I think I can speak for the remaining members of the board, but it's our feeling that it's an issue of fairness to expand some of the recreational parking in the area.

We feel there is an imbalance between the amount of demand there is to visit the beach and access to the beach and parking to the beach. I'm sorry you don't agree with that, but that's the feeling of the committee. The other thing I'd just like to say is if there is no demand, then there is no harm of expanding recreational parking.

The cars won't materialize because the signs changed. It won't. We've gone back and forth on this.

We've refined it. We've brought it back down. I just feel like sometimes we're getting lost in talking past each other and looking at the map and seeing where a change in parking regulation is proposed, and I feel like some people are visualizing just cars bumper to bumper all the way where those regulations say they can park, where residents of Swamp Squat can park on those beautiful beach days to get to the beach.

Respectfully, Barry, I don't think parking at Preston Beach on Atlantic Avenue and telling people to walk a half mile to go to Phyllis Beach is a reasonable alternative. That's my opinion. I just think that's too far.

If that's too far, it's inconvenient for able-bodied people. It's certainly too inconvenient for anyone who is less than able-bodied. I am sensitive to the concerns of people in the neighborhood.

I know you don't want, as you said, a radical change. Don't change the character of your neighborhood. You move into your neighborhood.

You like your neighbors. You like the way your neighborhood is. You're sensitive to radical changes.

I just don't feel that this change will impact the neighborhood as dramatically as people seem to feel it will. I just don't understand why the feeling is that an increase of 55 recreational parking spaces is not a dramatically radical restructuring of the neighborhood. That's me just pitching the sum and substance of the conversations that we've had, and we've had a lot of conversations.

In my two years being on the Traffic Safety Committee, no single subject has taken up anywhere near this much conversation, time, research, and analysis. We're looking at it, and we're hearing what you're saying, and we have amended the plan based on what you've said. We may not have amended it as much as some people would like, but we have to ask ourselves, where is that spot going to be?

Will we find common ground where we're there? It's 55 spots. If we're not there yet at 55 spots, when is it going to be?

20 spots? When is it going to be? Okay.

I did get your email today, and I appreciate it. It struck a really collaborative tone, and I really appreciate it. This meeting has become—this subject has become so contentious with people in the neighborhood.

It's uncomfortable for us to have to sit here and feel like you feel we're not hearing you and feel like you feel we're doing something detrimental to you. So I appreciate your email, because it did strike a really—a tone of seeking collaboration and something that you wanted, you know, opening a dialogue and having discussion about it. It's something we can do, and the select board, and if we reconstitute the committee, can look at and reevaluate.

We're rapidly burning through summer, as it is right now. Enforcement certainly is part of it, for sure. It goes hand in hand, but I think it's important, before we enhance enforcement and ramp up the amount of tickets and the frequency of writing tickets, I think it's incumbent on all of us, in the interest of fairness, that we're starting off with a reasonable, fair amount of parking, that town residents who have paid for a recreation sticker have the ability to park and not encroach on people's driveways within a reasonable distance of this town asset. And then, for sure, absolutely.

We can look at ramping up—I don't want to speak to the police about it—we can look at ramping up, you know, enforcement frequency or the cost of, you know, I agree the $25 ticket is not much of a deterrent. You can pay more than that to park legally at a lot of beaches and a lot of places. So that—I just wanted to let you know the thought process that went behind coming up to this recommendation.

We understand that you're concerned, and we've tried to scale it back. We've taken streets completely off of it, off of the recommendation that was on the original recommendation. We've scaled back the amount.

We've refined the streets that are still included, have been refined more finely. We've taken into account setbacks from driveways and hybrids and curves and soft sides. So that's where we are.

That's our best recommendation. It's, you know—and you guys are welcome to—this is now between—we have made the recommendation to the board. I'm happy to hear what you guys have to say about it.

You know, I'm happy to admit if someone comes up with something that we hadn't thought of, it could be things we hadn't thought of. Absolutely.

[Speaker 3] (2:41:46 - 2:41:55)
So, Chief Archer, I just have one question, which is this has been reviewed for safety, and this is wholeheartedly supported.

[Speaker 7] (2:41:56 - 2:42:45)
Several residents have brought concerns about if there are cars on both sides of the street, will there be adequate access for fire rappers to go by? Can there be occasions where people park poorly that obstruct our ability to pass? It can happen.

No more so than in other areas of town. There are whole areas where that happens, and you can count on people to sort of be a little smart about the way they park. No more so than other areas.

If you walk off of Forest Avenue, all those three streets, if people park next to each other, you're not driving through. You lay in the air horn, you try to get them to move the car. But that is not a major concern in my mind.

It's something that can happen and can be dealt with.

[Speaker 3] (2:42:45 - 2:42:55)
Thank you, Chief. You can be next.

[Speaker 30] (2:43:02 - 2:44:00)
Hi. Steven Young from 12 Hillcrest Circle, which is just a few blocks from here. I want to say I support the plan, and thank you for thinking about it and putting so much effort into it.

Hillcrest Circle, if you haven't gone around it, there's parking on both sides of the street, and people do take advantage of that. Sometimes I'm amazed that the garbage truck is able to get around the circle some days, so there is parking issues around town. And if there are people illegally parking there and fills up that area, and I come and I've got a bee sticker and I get a $25 ticket, that is a bummer.

And also across the street from Hillcrest Circle, there's going to be a new apartment building right with 100 and some odd people. I often can't take a left turn out of the bottom of Hillcrest Circle, so there are other issues around town. But I support it and thank you for putting the time and effort into it.

[Speaker 8] (2:44:00 - 2:44:01)
Thank you.

[Speaker 13] (2:44:14 - 2:48:50)
Barry Craft, Bly Judith again. I just want to bring up, can you bring up a slide that talks about the new, the revised parking where Bradley Avenue is? Because one point that's been made is that we want to add overflow parking.

And if you bring up that slide there and you add Bradley Avenue to that, people are going to gravitate towards that corner, right where Bradley Avenue ends and Ocean Avenue begins. They're not going to go parking at the other side of Ocean. Everybody's going to park as close to the beach as possible.

And I would like to ask the chief if he's looked at the traffic situation in that particular corner, because I believe that that is going to be a huge issue if you allow Bradley to be there, primarily at that bottom. Because even though it might be overflow parking, again, people are going to park the closest to the beach as they possibly can. So I urge you to think about Bradley Avenue being part of that, especially down that end.

I also want to mention to the board that I think we've missed an opportunity in terms of getting revenue. We've been at this since maybe the beginning of May, and we've all agreed from the very get-go that we should raise the fines from $25. In the first six months, or the first two this year, we've given out about $5,300 in parking tickets at $25.

If that fee was raised to $75, which it could have been done without any of this discussion, because everybody agrees on that, the town would have made $10,000, and we just blew that money away because we're trying to solve this problem. We could raise the fees fine tomorrow. Why are we losing money every day on this issue?

I just don't understand it. Regarding resident parking, which I know is not an issue, but you had that on the slide, I wanted to go to the train station. I bought a recreation sticker.

Why can't I park there? Why can't I park there? I bought the recreational sticker.

I buy taxes. Why is there a resident parking there? I don't get it.

There's resident parking from 6 to 10, or you can't park between 6 and 10, but you can park after that. So why can't something like that be decided? I also think that, as the Chief brought up, no one wants to go to Preston Beach.

Well, we're only talking about those handful of times when you can't park at Phyllis Beach. And if you park at Preston Beach, you can drop your stuff off, you can go to Preston Beach, and then it's a short walk on the beach to get to Phyllis Beach. I'm not proposing that we change the parking so that everybody has to go to Preston Beach all the time, but no one in the three months that I've been dealing with here, no one has ever mentioned recreational parking for Swampscout residents at Preston Beach, a public beach in Swampscout.

No one knows that that parking exists. There's been two tickets issued on Atlantic Avenue this year. I ride by there every day.

There's Marblehead residents parking there. And if you know, if you're a Marblehead resident, and by the way, if you pay to park in that little parking lot as a Marblehead resident, and it's a crowded beach day, you don't get to park. You have to go someplace else.

And in Manchester, which is similar to Manchester-by-the-Sea, which is similar to the Blagio Avenue neighborhood, it's a residential neighborhood. And if you don't get in their parking lot as a resident by a certain amount of time, you have to wait until someone leaves. Now, I'm not suggesting you wait until someone leaves.

I'm suggesting you go to Preston Beach and park. I would also suggest that if you want to solve the problem without any objection from any neighborhood, any of the neighbors here, why not add the additional 25 spaces on the other side of Atlantic Avenue on Ocean? There's 25 additional spaces, which is 25 more percent parking than we have right now, which is not a long walk to the beach, and it doesn't disrupt anything that we're talking about here.

And if it doesn't work out, we can look at it again next year. But in the meantime, we're losing $10,000 every two months. Thank you.

[Speaker 9] (2:48:50 - 2:51:20)
I forgot to mention, so I've heard safety be brought up a lot, and I know that that's often something people use as a code for, we don't want people parking here. And I just want to be clear that that has been discussed and dispensed with. Chief was great at listening to it, okay?

But if you'll remember from a few meetings ago, I was on Zoom, and when this first came up, and I asked some very basic, simple questions, and there were no answers to those questions. I don't want you to misconstrue organized for forceful opposition. Yes, we are organized.

And I want to take credit for that, because I have the block party list. But don't misunderstand that this is some kind of neighborhood-wide blanket opposition to parking. I think that I've done the best I can to try to narrow the issue.

I don't want the town to trade one problem for another, like abatements, endless abatements. I've tried to pinpoint with data what the issue really is. I've tried to consolidate everyone's concern.

And what I forgot to mention before is what I talked with Whiskey is 25 spaces. There's a difference between additional parking and overflow parking. If there's convenient, close parking, it's not going to be used as overflow.

It'll just regularly be used. And so in order to find a compromise for the neighbors, that was the suggestion that I came up with. So I just want to really be clear about that, that I've tried to reiterate that, that don't mistake organized for fierce blanket opposition, and also that we've really done a good job, I think, in really pinpointing the issue as best we can to help you and to help fire and police so that some of the work is taken off your plate.

And I know it's a little bit much, but people live there, and it's important to them. And so that's what I want to add. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:51:22 - 2:51:39)
Ms. Levenson, and then we'll... I don't want to get up there. Are there...

I can't. I'm not seeing that. But I do want to recognize Ms. Levenson. She's been waiting patiently.

[Speaker 21] (2:51:39 - 2:52:55)
Hi. Thank you. Cheryl Levenson, Shepard Ave. Obviously I've been living with this for about ten years now. And it's true. There are a lot of non-sticker parking. My neighbors and I sometimes talk to them, and they say, well, for $25, we have a whole nice day at the beach, and they don't care about the ticket.

We have commercial vehicles that park and say, oh, I'm a commercial vehicle. I just have the ticket fixed. I mean, these people are telling us this when they're parking illegally.

And there are a lot of cars that are parked in the recreation spots that do not have stickers, and that takes away the space for the residents. The other issue is, Pete, one of the first things you mentioned was a trash issue, which is a huge trash issue. I did not see a recommendation for any kind of help with that.

And now adding spaces and more cars and more people is going to make it even worse. So I was wondering if you had some sort of thoughts on that, because it is very, very bad.

[Speaker 5] (2:52:55 - 2:53:09)
These recommendations are specific to parking. And the point that you raised was concerns that have been raised, not necessarily things that have been verified, but we were looking specifically at parking.

[Speaker 21] (2:53:10 - 2:53:47)
Well, I think it's an issue that has to be addressed, because what happens is after a nice day at the beach, you have trash all over the place. I mean, I love coyotes. I don't mind them there, but they have a buffet.

I mean, we're trying to avoid that, and we're actually inviting them there because there's stuff all over the place. And then the seagulls pick it up, and they drop it everywhere. And, of course, the people who just dump stuff on our lawns is another issue.

But it's got to be addressed. It's usually quite a mess. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:53:47 - 2:54:07)
Thank you. We have two questions, two hands raised on teams. I have a holder.

Yes, I can.

[Speaker 11] (2:54:43 - 2:55:24)
So last year, recreational stickers issued to residents and non-residents. I would like to know how many of those 225 stickers were issued to non-residents. Perhaps it's 55.

Perhaps it's more, and that's also the issue. Why are we issuing recreational stickers to non-residents? Is the gentleman, I forget his name.

I apologize. He wants to address this, please.

[Speaker 1] (2:55:27 - 2:57:41)
I'll address it, Ms. Holder. As the town administrator, I actually gave every town employee, whether they were a resident or not, a recreational beach sticker. I did it because I had a committee that I had worked with to look at ways that we could help town employees feel more appreciated and, frankly, just feel as though we cared about them and their families.

We wanted to make sure that we gave them an opportunity to enjoy the resources of the community, and I've received a lot of positive feedback from that, and I think it makes town employees feel less like employees and more like members of a community. I know that may not sound very popular to some people, but we're not just to help. We dedicate our lives to public service.

We face an immense amount of complexities. These employees keep the pipes working. They come in in the middle of the night during blizzards and hazards.

They teach our children. They care for our seniors. I want them to believe that if they care about this community as much as we all hope they will, that this community will care about them, and so for those that stand up and say, shame on you, Mr. Town Administrator, for giving a few of these beach passes to town employees so that they could perhaps once in a million years take their family down to a beach and sit back and just enjoy a beautiful day, I just have to tell you, forgive me. I don't think I've ever regretted passing those out for a second.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:41 - 2:57:50)
David, can I just follow up on that? Go ahead. Is the number quoted accurate?

Only 255 beach stickers issued?

[Speaker 3] (2:57:51 - 2:57:55)
No, the number's closer to 2,500 recreational beach stickers.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:55 - 2:57:55)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:57:56 - 2:57:59)
But that's not an exact number. That's an approximate number.

[Speaker 6] (2:57:59 - 2:58:05)
Yeah, but it's orders of magnitude different. I mean, if there were only 255 beach stickers, we wouldn't be worried about it.

[Speaker 17] (2:58:05 - 2:58:09)
You're saying 225 relation to employees, not how many.

[Speaker 6] (2:58:09 - 2:58:11)
Thank you for the clarification. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:58:11 - 2:58:20)
Okay. We have a few more questions on Teams, and then we have one more in the audience, and then we're going to cut it off and hopefully take a vote here. I'd like to recognize Jack Bierman.

[Speaker 1] (2:58:36 - 2:58:37)
Okay, can you hear me now?

[Speaker 3] (2:58:37 - 2:58:56)
Yes, we can. Great. Great.

It took a while to get disabled, and then I'm here to thank you. Thank you very much for all the time and effort everyone's putting into this. And I want to say three quick things.

First of all, I think this is a really good plan. It seems pretty incremental to be not a major change in the Monmouth Beach parking.

[Speaker 1] (2:58:57 - 3:00:34)
And I agree with the Chief that if there wasn't a need for this, then, of course, if we do open it up, there won't be anyone parking in these extra spaces, so nothing will change. And I think the reason we need it is because there is a need. And I hate to disagree with my friend Whiskey, but I've had many more times than me to have any trouble parking at the beach.

There have been many days when I've dropped people off and moved my car back home and moved my bike back down to the beach. There have been other times when I've walked three blocks up across Atlanta Avenue or wherever the signs stop, and I've parked there and slept, you know, after dropping people off. And it's pretty inconvenient.

Obviously, all the parking spaces were filled everywhere up to there. I feel, okay, that's fine. I go by three or four streets where there's only one or two car parks and a whole block on both sides of the street, and it seems to me that it's a wasted town asset.

So I think it's great to make it easier for all the people in the town to be able to go to the beach, especially on the days where everybody has to go to the beach. I just want to say is I don't think it's not justified. I understand the reason for it, and I don't want to say no to it, but I think that if they suddenly did a $75 change that they didn't realize, that's a higher number than I think most people would expect.

I think our default bylaw violations would be down. This is even higher than a violation, for example, if somebody beats them up.

[Speaker 3] (3:00:35 - 3:01:04)
So it seems to me that we ought to at least give people written notice that there's a $75 fine. But I heard some words, select words, both in favor of the president. It's a moderate change to what we have.

It's long overdue, and I applaud them. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Jack.

Wait, wait, wait. Sir, I didn't recognize you. We have one more.

Jackie, Jackie W.

[Speaker 10] (3:01:11 - 3:01:13)
Hi, good evening.

[Speaker 16] (3:01:13 - 3:01:20)
Thanks for bringing the time. This is Matthew Grove from Cutting Road. I appreciate everyone's attention to this.

[Speaker 9] (3:01:20 - 3:02:04)
I believe what I've heard is that the proposal tonight is only for parking, and there is no extension to increasing trash removal for police, for instance, to do the tickets. And so if the trash isn't increased, because it is an issue, it does blow around. How do we link that in a way that we actually get action from that?

Because I do think I want to make this welcoming, but I don't want to see more trash blowing out into the ocean, which is where it's also going to blow, not just into the yard. So how can we do that?

[Speaker 1] (3:02:06 - 3:03:27)
You know, Jackie, I appreciate the fact that trash has come up a couple of times, and I do think that's an issue of resonant. Cheryl Levinson brought up a few comments earlier that coyotes and seagulls, actually, you know, will be attracted to this trash, and that's a serious concern. In fact, I'm more concerned about some of that trash than some of the parking concerns, just because I've been down to that beach with my director of public works a few times.

We've talked about carry-in and carry-out and developing an ethic. Like, you go to a number of communities, they've changed, you know, this sense of responsibility that the town somehow has to take care of all the trash. We had our solid waste chairman here earlier for another portion of this agenda, and we've talked about trash at our beaches.

We need to enforce that as well, and if people are littering, they need to be fined. We need to target some of our enforcement efforts not just on parking but on trash, and we will evolve some of those programs to help ensure that if you think you're going to be a scofflaw and show up and enjoy a beautiful day at the beach and just throw your trash around, that's not going to be tolerated. We can redouble our efforts with that type of enforcement.

[Speaker 9] (3:03:28 - 3:03:36)
So then on the day after, you just have a couple of these days where it's going to be packed, and we see trash, then what is the procedure as residents?

[Speaker 1] (3:03:36 - 3:04:17)
Are we going to call the Department of Public Works, and then we do a special, or what can we do? I think if you see people littering, I think, you know, take pictures. If you can untie them, you know, file complaints.

But you can certainly reach out to Public Works. You can reach out to the town administrator's office and say, look, we've got a problem. I'm in a certain neighborhood, and we can do our best to respond and address some of those issues.

We certainly don't – look, Swansket's a beautiful town. We have beautiful neighborhoods. We want to make sure that people are responsible, and, you know, we don't have trash bowling through neighborhoods.

One more question.

[Speaker 5] (3:04:17 - 3:04:23)
Oh, Sean, just – residents should be encouraged to use C-Click Fix as well.

[Speaker 1] (3:04:23 - 3:04:24)
That's right. Yep.

[Speaker 3] (3:04:25 - 3:04:25)
Yes, ma'am.

[Speaker 11] (3:04:29 - 3:05:21)
Hi. My name is Julie Goldman. I'm a resident at 189 Bradley Avenue.

I live close to the intersection of Bradley and Ocean, which Barry was talking about. It's already a congested area, and this is the mouth right at the beach. So I'm – you know, my house is right there in front.

And so I want to know specifically what the proposal is for my street. There's been talk about signage confusion, and I don't see any part of this proposal as to what you're proposing. The signs will say, to avoid confusion, where they will be placed and how they will account for the driveways and this five-foot clearance you want to put on either side of them.

What side are you proposing to put the signs on? How far will they extend on these streets?

[Speaker 5] (3:05:25 - 3:06:12)
Yeah. So the question was, as far as the location for the recreation, it's specifically to one entirety of that side of the street. So it's the entire length of that side of the street of the streets that were noted.

It is primarily the west side for cutting. It's the south side of the street. The sign design is not something that is approved by the board, but it would be developed by Public Works as part of their procurement process.

And the spacing, I don't know if there's a standard requirement for the spacing of the particular sign when placed, but it would be dependent on the length of that road as well as the number of curb cuts because of driveways and how you would space that based on the driveways.

[Speaker 11] (3:06:13 - 3:06:20)
So I'm still unclear as to what side of the street you're proposing it on. I heard you say cutting the south side.

[Speaker 5] (3:06:20 - 3:06:24)
The west side for the other three streets.

[Speaker 11] (3:06:25 - 3:06:39)
And so the additional spaces that you've computed, that takes into account the five-foot clearance around each driveway? And you've picked sides of the street that has the most additional spaces?

[Speaker 5] (3:06:39 - 3:07:09)
No. You'll notice from the numbers that for the two streets that are currently only resident, it was an even number on both sides of the street. So it was just based on the fact that generally individuals are driving to the beach.

They're driving from Atlantic South, so they're going to be driving on that west side, the right-hand side. So that's why that side was chosen. When they're going towards the beach?

Correct.

[Speaker 11] (3:07:11 - 3:07:21)
So you're proposing then to put a recreation permit parking only sign directly in front of my house?

[Speaker 5] (3:07:21 - 3:07:24)
I can't say specifically if it's going to be right in front of your house.

[Speaker 11] (3:07:25 - 3:07:33)
But you're excluding a resident from parking on the frontage directly in front of their house?

[Speaker 5] (3:07:33 - 3:07:36)
No, if you have a recreation parking ticket, you can park there as well.

[Speaker 11] (3:07:36 - 3:09:06)
Currently, I don't need a recreation sticker parking to park there. But now you're telling me I will need to be able to park on the curb directly in front of my house. That just seems absurd.

There's resident-only signage all over town. It's there for a reason that predates me moving to town in 2004. But it's there for a reason.

And it's not just in our neighborhood. It's in front of people's houses because they have a need to park there. They have a need for their invitees to have a place to park.

We're given placards to give out to guests to be able to park there. So you're proposing to eliminate that entirely on the frontage in front of my house. I think that's an absurd proposal.

I don't see recreation parking around the train station being directly in front of someone's house. On the portion that is in Ocean, it's on the side of the street that abuts the marsh, not directly in front of someone's house. More recently, added recreation-only parking in front of some people's houses on Shepard, which I do not abide by either.

It just seems unworkable.

[Speaker 3] (3:09:07 - 3:09:29)
I do just want to correct one point in the train station neighborhood. There is parking on both sides of the street. It is resident-only.

And those streets are far narrower than the streets that we're talking about. And there are resident-only parking in front of homes as well.

[Speaker 11] (3:09:31 - 3:09:44)
Right, exactly. Resident-only. You haven't put recreation-only parking in front of houses in other areas of town.

Other beaches.

[Speaker 5] (3:09:44 - 3:09:55)
Just to clarify, we only use the parking restrictions in congested areas where there is high demand. So it's not the entire town has resident parking restrictions on the streets.

[Speaker 11] (3:09:55 - 3:10:06)
Yes, I understand that. But it was placed in our neighborhood at some point in time, for some reason, because there was a demand for it.

[Speaker 5] (3:10:07 - 3:10:11)
There was a certain mentality that drove that decision at that time.

[Speaker 11] (3:10:11 - 3:10:13)
Do you have information on that you can provide?

[Speaker 5] (3:10:14 - 3:10:28)
I don't have the specifics, but when a request is made, there's a particular cause, right? And so there was a mentality and a determination that was decided by the board at that time or the residents that a need was necessary.

[Speaker 11] (3:10:28 - 3:10:46)
I mean, the board, I think it was the Traffic Study Committee, reported back in May or March to the Select Board that they receive requests all the time for resident-only parking signs to go up, and they grant them all the time.

[Speaker 5] (3:10:49 - 3:10:53)
Just to clarify, the Traffic Study Committee can't grant a resident.

[Speaker 11] (3:10:53 - 3:10:58)
Was it the fire chief or someone from the police department made that representation?

[Speaker 5] (3:10:58 - 3:11:01)
Well, I'm just clarifying that it's only the Select Board that can make a determination.

[Speaker 11] (3:11:02 - 3:11:07)
Regarding that signage, so anytime that signage is requested, it's brought back to the Select Board?

[Speaker 5] (3:11:07 - 3:11:14)
It has to go to the board. Yeah, the Traffic Study makes a recommendation to the board, but the board is ultimately the one that makes the determination.

[Speaker 11] (3:11:14 - 3:11:17)
And when is the last time one of those has been granted?

[Speaker 5] (3:11:23 - 3:11:28)
I'm not sure when the last time a resident-only request was granted.

[Speaker 11] (3:11:28 - 3:11:34)
Okay, so they're not being handed out currently? Is that what you're saying?

[Speaker 5] (3:11:35 - 3:11:37)
I'm not aware of that change happening.

[Speaker 11] (3:11:38 - 3:11:46)
Okay, that's all. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (3:11:46 - 3:11:54)
Mr. Reed, I did say that we were going to cut off comment. If you can be very brief, I will let you address.

[Speaker 15] (3:11:56 - 3:11:58)
If you give me 60 seconds, I promise.

[Speaker 3] (3:11:58 - 3:11:59)
Thank you.

[Speaker 15] (3:11:59 - 3:15:50)
I apologize for my tiredness. I apologize for my voice. I lost my voice earlier this week.

As far as safety is concerned, from what I have knowledge of with the plan, there's no direct speculation about sidewalks. I was here before. The width on Ocean Ave from the beginning of the entrance to Phillips Beach all the way up to Atlantic Ave is 23 feet, 7 inches.

Through Steer's company, civil engineering corp out of Boston, who I sought advice and recommendations from, they specifically said that median parking from curb to street at a minimum should be 7 feet. If you go 7 feet from curb to inside both sides, that's 14 feet. You take 14 feet of a 23-foot, 7-inch street, you do not have access to allow full capability of back and forth to a street action on a public way.

That's from an engineering company following mass general law. That's not my accusation. That's what I got from a civil engineer.

The second concern that I think that everybody needs to be concerned about, forget parking spaces. Put them everywhere. Fine.

If you're going to do that, you need to mitigate the pedestrian flow of traffic from the street to the beach. If you're not taking into any consideration about people going down the street with their wagons, their toys, their surfboards, their paddle boards, their shovels, their coolers, their chairs, there's no place for people to walk on Ocean Ave. It digresses as you progress down to 106 Ocean Ave and 111 Ocean Ave. It digresses. The sidewalks are excluded.

Everybody migrates to the street. Case in point, I said this before, December 24th, I believe it was 2019. It was a 74-degree day.

Apologize for the year if I don't recall the year. I was struck on the street on Ocean Ave on Christmas Day. Never mind July 25th when it's 97 degrees.

I happen to be out on the ocean because it was 75 degrees on Christmas Day, so I'm taking advantage of it. I think it's imperative that we focus on the pedestrian safety, hands down. Any other street in town that has this type of setup, we would be considering that exponentially, whether it's Sampson Ave, whether it's Ocean Ave. We'd be looking at that. That's the primary cause, people getting safely to the beach. The second thing that I want to bring up is that we're now bringing in an influx of population to enjoy our beaches. I think Phillips Beach is the best beach on the North Shore.

I'm there daily. What is our safety mechanism for the people that are now occupying our beach? We have two lifeguards.

They have minimal, minimal equipment for ocean water response. I can say it with confidence and, in fact, with my experience in ocean water and water safety and my experience in swimming in the ocean, we need a hell of a lot more ocean water safety rescue training, hands down, to make sure that we can accommodate and acclimate the population that are coming to the beaches so that the safety of not only the people getting there, but the people in there. I was in the water today.

It was 65 degrees. There was a rip current center cord underneath the beach. I personally got pulled into the water, coming off my SUP.

Two people saw me as I was exiting. These are the things that we have to be considering and have to be worried about. Walking to the beach, swimming on the beach, and going home safely.

Bottom line, that's it. Forget about the parking. Start thinking about the people.

[Speaker 3] (3:15:50 - 3:15:51)
Thank you.

[Speaker 6] (3:15:56 - 3:17:11)
Anything additional from the board? Yeah. Well, I thank everybody that's come out here.

It's clear that it's going to be impossible to make everybody happy, but I know that you've all spent a lot of time and effort in kind of formulating what's going on here and trying to think it through. I do have one question for the chief. I do really want to make sure that we have a clear read on this corner of Bradley, because I do understand people seeing that, you know, parking's all the way to the end of that street.

That does feel like a really sharp turn there. So I can either pose that to the chief and put him on the spot, or I can ask, are the motion in front of us, just to kind of be super clear about exactly what we're voting on tonight versus what will have to be administratively effectuated. One thing I know we have a proposal on is to vote on changing the parking fee.

[Speaker 4] (3:17:13 - 3:17:14)
That's the only motion we have.

[Speaker 6] (3:17:14 - 3:17:15)
That's the only motion we have.

[Speaker 14] (3:17:15 - 3:17:20)
That's because I think we set the parking fee, so we have to.

[Speaker 27] (3:17:20 - 3:17:20)
Right.

[Speaker 6] (3:17:22 - 3:17:31)
But I assume that in general we're talking about the full page of recommendations that would go into effect as soon as possible.

[Speaker 1] (3:17:32 - 3:18:12)
That's right. We're asking you to follow the recommendation to increase the recreational parking. And so that's essentially the recommendation to the board.

In terms of increasing the parking fine, look, you can do that tonight. This is specific to recreational parking. Or you could take that up typically when you look at fees or fines at the beginning of your budget year.

We typically have talked that we would look at fees and fines and revenue as we develop right before we present the annual budget in March.

[Speaker 4] (3:18:13 - 3:18:15)
But why wouldn't we just do it tonight?

[Speaker 6] (3:18:15 - 3:18:29)
I think it would make sense to do it tonight. I do think we've heard from folks. I'm not trying to delay that.

I was more trying to put it in the context of the package and how soon would things happen, et cetera. But it seems like the chief is really actually dying to ask my semi-quasi-questions.

[Speaker 7] (3:18:29 - 3:18:52)
It looks like the chief is dying to ask. I actually concurred with Captain Cable and Chief Norquesta. I mean, there is automatically a 20-foot hold back from the corner.

So although the diagrams show the color angle all the way to the intersection simplicity, the parking is held back the first 20 feet from the corner. That answers your question.

[Speaker 6] (3:18:53 - 3:20:51)
That is very helpful, at least to me. So I'm generally in support of this recommendation as a full package. But we have to make sure that we're really following through on all of it and even more so some of the other things that have been brought up here.

I would like to add to that package. So I'm in support of the fee increase. I do believe that we should increase the amount of parking.

Whether or not it's 25 spots or 50 spots, I don't know, frankly. I really do believe this is only a couple days a year. And I understand the argument that if you build it, they will come.

And if you create 50 spaces, maybe that will generate even more people coming to the beach. I don't necessarily believe that's the most likely scenario that's going to happen. I do appreciate the fact that people have parking in front of their homes right now.

And this is going to be taking it away. I do recognize that is a reality to what we're doing here. And that's an impingement for folks there.

I understand they have to park across the street, basically, if they wanted to use street parking at this point. I do think that we need to have a commitment to regular enforcement. That's not listed here as part of the recommendation.

But I think we need to make a commitment as part of the compromise here that there has to be regular enforcement. We cannot, I think, as people recognize, we can't have people constantly patrolling there. But if we know there's a warm day, can we have, like, not like people having to call, but that we will have at least one round of enforcement on every one of those kind of hot days.

I think that's important.

[Speaker 1] (3:20:52 - 3:21:22)
Doug, I actually, Captain Cable sent me a list of all of the patrol officers, every member of the department. And I immediately identified the top three that passed out, I think, 40% or 50% of the tickets. But what that said to me was I only had three that were actually really focused on issuing those tickets.

Maybe we have to actually get that out to the entire department so that, you know, we can actually really ensure that we're on top of this.

[Speaker 6] (3:21:23 - 3:22:33)
Yeah. And I don't mean to make it about one officer or anything like that. But I just want you to know we're in the granular level of figuring out who's doing what, when, and how.

Yeah. So that's one. Two, I'm almost done.

The sidewalk. Mr. Reen brought that up. I believe that's a really important piece of this puzzle here because I do think the safety on Ocean at the bottom there, it is an accident waiting to happen.

I don't say that lightly. I don't know what that means. The marsh, you know, everything else there.

But we do need to figure out a way if we're going to increase potentially the number of people there. I think we even if we don't increase the number of spaces, I think we need to address that issue. And the last thing I say is that the trash pickup, just like the enforcement that has to be baked into the sauce.

People don't need to have to call and say, hey, there's extra trash here. We need to have that in terms of our normal flow. It's a hot day.

It's got to be twice a day those days. You know, whatever it is, we've got to, like, be proactive and not have the burden be on the residents to say, hey, you know, there's a coyote having dinner.

[Speaker 1] (3:22:33 - 3:22:42)
I think if we're enforcing traffic down there, we can observe the trash. And if there are issues like we can document those and make sure that we address that. That's all I have to say.

[Speaker 14] (3:22:44 - 3:23:48)
Two thoughts piggybacking off of Doug's thoughts. I, too, am generally in support of the proposed plan. I don't know the correct number of parking spaces, either.

I don't know. But what I do know is two of the things that you brought up, I, too, think need to be fixed immediately, which are enforcement. And if we are going to allow more parking, pedestrian safety.

The first thing I want to understand is if we if it's possible to hire a seasonal ticket writer. Like, it's clear that our police department is already strapped. And so in order to ask them to do more enforcement, it's not possible in the current condition that we have right now.

It's not possible. So in lieu of that, temporarily as a solution in order to get violators the notice that they so deserve for violating the parking, maybe we hire a seasonal. I don't know.

I'm sorry. I don't know. Meter maid.

Yeah. Meter maid.

[Speaker 1] (3:23:49 - 3:23:51)
I think they're parking clerks. Sure.

[Speaker 24] (3:23:52 - 3:23:53)
I'm sorry.

[Speaker 14] (3:23:53 - 3:24:02)
That's not politically correct. But at any rate, you all know what I'm talking about. Have somebody come in who's not on the police force who can come.

Maybe they're only employed on the weekends.

[Speaker 1] (3:24:02 - 3:24:40)
We actually employ specials, Katie. Again, we have retired police officers that are, you know, required to work at least eight hours a month. And, you know, this is a new change.

And typically special police officers would only work details or, you know, wouldn't work shifts. And so I think there's an opportunity for us to have a conversation with Chief Cassata and really look at how do we actually augment staffing in a way that would help us address some of those niche public safety responsibilities. So I'm happy to follow up with that.

[Speaker 14] (3:24:40 - 3:25:51)
Because I don't want to jeopardize public safety by taking active officers off the street to write tickets. And I'm not saying that's not because tickets aren't an issue. I'm just saying they're already limited and I don't want to burden them more if we have a solution that's viable.

The last comment I have is about the creation of a sidewalk and pedestrian safety. Is it possible, and there doesn't have to be an answer today, but is it possible to where there is no parking on Ocean Ave at the sort of mouth of Phillips there, across from where there is current beach parking, to have a sidewalk running there? I understand people would park on one side of the street and cross to use the sidewalk.

But when I open my doors, the first thing my kids do is run around to the car right into the street because they're so excited to be at the beach. If there was a sidewalk I could tell them to get on across the street, God willing, they would stay there. I know that there is sort of a makeshift sidewalk on the street that cars park on.

But occasionally that's overgrown or it's not enough space for wagons to go by or people with backpack chairs, two people to sort of cross. So if there was a place to put folks instead of the street, that would be helpful.

[Speaker 1] (3:25:53 - 3:25:58)
Sure. I'm happy to work with our assistant.

[Speaker 4] (3:26:04 - 3:28:12)
So I'm not convinced we have as big of a problem as my fellow members here on the board say. I think we have a serious problem with enforcement. And we also have a problem where in a May traffic committee meeting, the chief of police said he doesn't even have enough staff to do enforcement.

So you don't have the staff to do enforcement. We have a problem with enforcement. I spent quite a bit of time driving over to the beach during the day on Saturdays and tallying up how many people don't have recreational stickers.

And the average over all of the days that I was there, actually I think I passed Doug one day, it was averaging about 34%, about 34% of people did not have recreational stickers. And I was only looking on Ocean and on Shepherd. So 34% to not have stickers is a lot of spaces that are being taken up for people who could really use the parking.

So I honestly feel that we should be looking at enforcement and really identifying how big of a problem it really is. And if we think it is even a possibility of a problem right now, well, you guys do, I think we should run a shuttle from either the temple, the high school, or the middle school on Saturday and Sunday. It would cost us less than $250 a weekend, less than $1,500 for the season, and just run a free shuttle down to get people down to the beach.

I would prefer that we think outside the box, work on enforcement, and try to really understand the situation a little bit more in detail. And only because I ask people, do you have trouble getting to the beach? And generally here, nope, I don't have a problem.

And I always ask, what time do you go? And if people are going before 11 o'clock, 12, 11 o'clock, there doesn't seem to be a problem. People that go in the afternoons, that might be a different subject.

So hold on.

[Speaker 23] (3:28:12 - 3:28:12)
Nope.

[Speaker 4] (3:28:13 - 3:29:24)
You can't. I got the floor. I also want to say I think it is insane to ask somebody to buy a recreation sticker to park in front of their house.

And to take away parking in front of somebody's house, I just, I think it's wrong. I think it's wrong. And before I be quiet, if we're going to remove resident parking, then what happens when I want to go to the train station at 10 o'clock in the morning and there's no parking for me?

Should I park in the neighborhood on Middlesex, Norfolk? I mean, what's the difference between parking at the beach and for me going over to the train? So I would like someone to really explain that one to me because there's a lot of people that want to be able to get to the train.

So is this, are we going down a road where people are going to be like, get rid of all the residents? I mean, should we just get rid of all residential parking and down? And, you know, so my, so I will not, I won't, I won't be supporting this because I think that there's a way to figure it out before we go further.

[Speaker 3] (3:29:25 - 3:31:44)
Thanks, Mary Ellen. So I will be supporting this. You know, I did like a lot of the ideas that came out of, that came out of this discussion.

It's going on an hour and a half tonight and probably an hour and a half at one of our last meetings. I do think that, you know, we can, we can analyze this to the umpteenth degree. And I do think we spent a lot of time and I do thank, I thank the police department, the fire department, Pete Kane for really putting, you know, a lot of effort and energy into this.

Really examining the average road widths, examining the number of total spaces that are available in the neighborhood. You know, really looking at the number of existing recreation spots that are, that are there today. It's 22% are recreation with 78% as resident parking.

The proposed will, will increase that number from 22% to 36% with 64% of all parking spaces remaining resident parking. I don't, I don't see that as a, as a, as a problem. I see that as something that is, that is going to improve, you know, access to the beaches for all of our residents, which I'm completely in support of.

You know, we had, there was a mention of a sidewalk on Ocean Ave. I'm fully in support of that. I would love to explore that as soon as possible. I think, you know, I think, you know, Mr. Ream made a, made a great comment about pedestrian safety. And I think if we're, I think if we're tasked between pedestrian safety and, and enforcement, I would always choose pedestrian safety. So I, you know, I think the parking clerk idea is a, is a good idea, Katie. So that's a, that's a good idea.

But I do think that, you know, I'm supportive of, of, of higher fines, you know, in exchange for more parking. I think that's, I think that's a fair compromise. And I think the, I think the safety issues addressed by Chief Archer have put me at ease.

So I'm, I'm in support and I would love to entertain a motion.

[Speaker 4] (3:31:50 - 3:32:14)
Well, I'll move, make a motion to increase the penalty for resident parking only and recreational sticker parking only violations. Be increased from $25 to $75 on the following streets. Blodgett Ave, Bradley Ave, Brown Road, Charles Road, Cunningham Road, Longley Road, Ocean Ave, and Shepard Ave. Second.

[Speaker 3] (3:32:16 - 3:32:20)
Is this all, are we, so is that the only thing we're voting on tonight or are we also voting on these?

[Speaker 24] (3:32:21 - 3:32:22)
No, we're just making a motion.

[Speaker 3] (3:32:22 - 3:32:23)
Got it. Okay.

[Speaker 14] (3:32:27 - 3:32:28)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (3:32:28 - 3:32:29)
Aye. Okay.

[Speaker 14] (3:32:31 - 3:32:54)
So I move to take the recommendations from Pecayne and the town officials. And well, I guess not the traffic advisory committee, but the recommendations made, we've already passed the fourth one. So one through three is listed in the presentation.

I move to support those.

[Speaker 6] (3:32:59 - 3:33:01)
Can we modify that?

[Speaker 14] (3:33:02 - 3:33:05)
You can make a motion that's not my motion.

[Speaker 6] (3:33:05 - 3:33:09)
Okay. You have to second it and then you can. Second.

Yep.

[Speaker 25] (3:33:09 - 3:33:10)
And then amend it.

[Speaker 6] (3:33:10 - 3:33:22)
I'd like to make a friendly amendment to your motion to add this piece about traffic enforcement, sidewalk, and trash pickup.

[Speaker 14] (3:33:26 - 3:33:28)
I'm supportive of the friendly motion.

[Speaker 1] (3:33:29 - 3:33:36)
Yeah, the sidewalk is, you know, could be a capital, but we can look into that and advance it.

[Speaker 4] (3:33:36 - 3:33:38)
It's already in capital though right now. Don't we have pedestrian safety?

[Speaker 1] (3:33:39 - 3:33:42)
We do. We're covered. So let's make it happen.

[Speaker 4] (3:33:42 - 3:33:43)
Yeah, let's do it. We're covered. We have the money.

[Speaker 24] (3:33:44 - 3:33:46)
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 6] (3:33:46 - 3:33:49)
Okay. I have a motion.

[Speaker 24] (3:33:49 - 3:33:51)
I have a second. All in favor?

[Speaker 6] (3:33:52 - 3:33:55)
Aye. Aye. Aye.

Opposed?

[Speaker 24] (3:33:55 - 3:33:56)
Opposed. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (3:33:56 - 3:34:20)
We will talk about discussion and possible vote on the draft RFP for 10 New Ocean and 12 to 24 Pine Street for the purpose of creating Veterans Affordable Housing and a Veterans Center.

[Speaker 1] (3:34:23 - 3:34:52)
So this is an RFP that would help the town go out and seek partners to advance an affordable veterans housing project. We've discussed this numerous times. The board has had a few opportunities to look at the RFP and I'm happy to answer any questions or.

[Speaker 4] (3:34:53 - 3:34:56)
I have a couple of questions. Can you go to page three?

[Speaker 1] (3:34:57 - 3:34:57)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (3:34:58 - 3:35:15)
It says Wednesday, June. Is that a line through it or? That's a strike.

It's a strike. Okay. The strike didn't come through on mine.

Can you go to page four under submission deadline? It says Monday. I have XXX.

[Speaker 3] (3:35:16 - 3:35:17)
Is there a date?

[Speaker 20] (3:35:19 - 3:35:22)
When the proposal is due. So all dates in the RFP.

[Speaker 5] (3:35:28 - 3:35:29)
Oh, I see the table.

[Speaker 4] (3:35:30 - 3:35:32)
So when are we approving it? Where do we approve the table?

[Speaker 5] (3:35:33 - 3:35:39)
It's right here. The table is right above it. Oh, the table on top you mean.

Correct. Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (3:35:39 - 3:35:40)
That's the complete table.

[Speaker 5] (3:35:40 - 3:35:47)
I just didn't want to have to modify dates throughout and constantly keep changing it. So I just wanted the table to represent.

[Speaker 4] (3:35:47 - 3:35:57)
All right. So these tables here are the ones that would go. This would go into that thing.

Okay. Then that would answer my three questions. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (3:35:58 - 3:35:59)
Doug or Katie?

[Speaker 4] (3:36:01 - 3:36:08)
Oh, wait. I have one more. So what about page six?

Is that coming from the table too? Original copies? Monday?

[Speaker 5] (3:36:09 - 3:36:12)
Yes. That's the submission deadline. So that would be coming from the table.

[Speaker 4] (3:36:12 - 3:36:18)
All right. Thank you. I'm good with everything.

[Speaker 3] (3:36:23 - 3:36:27)
Mine as well. So with that, I've entered that motion to.

[Speaker 6] (3:36:27 - 3:36:55)
Sorry. Just a very minor point. On page 11, Mr. Chairman, if I can ask Pete for a detailed question here. It talks about the easement being represented on appendix D. Just for the bidder's sake, I wasn't able to figure out where exactly that was referencing on that map. So just.

[Speaker 5] (3:36:59 - 3:37:01)
Because it's not marked. I need to add that on.

[Speaker 6] (3:37:02 - 3:37:10)
Okay. Cool. I apologize.

I'm just trying to show off how closely I read this. You're just trying to catch me. Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (3:37:11 - 3:37:12)
That was really good.

[Speaker 6] (3:37:13 - 3:37:46)
And a lot more substantively on page 18. When we say inclusion of affordable housing is one of the evaluation criteria. I think this is the first place.

Maybe I missed it elsewhere. It says the town desires the inclusion of units to be affordable to families earning 80% or less of the area median income. Is it our intention to leave it kind of that vague?

That we're just saying we want a proposal. They're going to propose the different levels of affordability below that?

[Speaker 5] (3:37:47 - 3:38:10)
Correct. Okay. Because generally they're going to break it up into the two classifications.

And so that's how you. That's one way for the selection committee to make a determination. This respondent is actually going to provide a better amount for even lower income.

Or whatever you may choose. But this leaves it a little open. Great.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (3:38:17 - 3:38:19)
I'd entertain a motion. So moved.

[Speaker 6] (3:38:20 - 3:38:34)
I'll make a motion to approve the draft RFP. As presented. For its release.

[Speaker 17] (3:38:35 - 3:38:38)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 4] (3:38:40 - 3:38:43)
Oh, that's right. Because he's. Second.

All in favor. Aye.

[Speaker 6] (3:38:44 - 3:38:45)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 14] (3:38:45 - 3:38:48)
I just want to make sure that the motion doesn't preclude.

[Speaker 1] (3:39:00 - 3:39:03)
We've got to make a few updates. Okay. Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (3:39:04 - 3:39:07)
All right. Moving on. We have, we have the consent agenda.

[Speaker 6] (3:39:08 - 3:39:25)
It's a big moment. Can we just acknowledge that was a big moment right here. That is a big moment.

That's a big moment. So as soon as, as soon as that RFP. You want it?

I just, I just, yes. It's a big moment. I mean, this is a very affirmative action to make a very important.

[Speaker 3] (3:39:30 - 3:39:41)
We'll move on to the consent agenda designed to expedite the handling of routine and miscellaneous business. Discussion and vote on a new entertainment license for Dockside Pub at 286 Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 4] (3:39:42 - 3:39:46)
Can I ask, in the consent agenda, what else was in there? The minutes.

[Speaker 3] (3:39:47 - 3:39:51)
And the vote to approve the minutes. I don't, we don't even have the minutes, right?

[Speaker 6] (3:39:51 - 3:39:53)
There's one page for the exact session.

[Speaker 3] (3:39:55 - 3:40:00)
Okay. So we'll hold the July. We'll hold off on July 12th and we can just.

[Speaker 24] (3:40:02 - 3:40:02)
Yep.

[Speaker 3] (3:40:03 - 3:40:04)
Approve the minutes for the fit.

[Speaker 14] (3:40:05 - 3:40:08)
Do you want to approve the minutes?

[Speaker 6] (3:40:08 - 3:40:12)
Yeah. I want to pull the entertainment from the consent agenda.

[Speaker 3] (3:40:12 - 3:40:16)
All right. Vote to vote to approve the minutes of July 5th. So both.

[Speaker 24] (3:40:17 - 3:40:17)
Second.

[Speaker 3] (3:40:18 - 3:40:23)
All right. Thank you. All right.

And then we'll have a discussion. Discussion on the, uh, on the entertainment license.

[Speaker 4] (3:40:24 - 3:40:34)
Don't really get this. We did entertainment too. No.

[Speaker 24] (3:40:35 - 3:40:36)
Great.

[Speaker 4] (3:40:36 - 3:40:36)
Yeah.

[Speaker 24] (3:40:36 - 3:40:39)
There's another one. Mr. Thanks for hanging out. Yeah.

[Speaker 20] (3:40:41 - 3:40:51)
For yours. Excuse me. 7 Juniper Road.

Entertainment license. Application. Uh, is it written down or are you going to explain all the details on it?

[Speaker 4] (3:40:52 - 3:41:01)
Um, actually, I thought we had talked about this one once before. Is this, this, this isn't new. This is, is this, is this new?

[Speaker 20] (3:41:02 - 3:41:02)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (3:41:02 - 3:41:12)
Okay. So it was a liquor license that, um, we did and that liquor license went until 1 a.m. That's correct. And did zest friends have an entertainment license too?

[Speaker 3] (3:41:12 - 3:41:12)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (3:41:12 - 3:41:13)
And that went until.

[Speaker 3] (3:41:14 - 3:41:20)
I believe it went until, I believe it was until the, it matched their liquor license.

[Speaker 4] (3:41:23 - 3:42:04)
Um, okay. So we're not sure on that though. And then, so the, the issue that I have here is you want to have, you want to have instrumental music, which means live music, right?

And you want to have a audio device, pipe and speakers that will cast music both indoors and outdoors. So, and you're right next to a residential home and you have your, uh, tables right there. So I'm having a problem with the outdoor music because people live right there.

[Speaker 20] (3:42:05 - 3:42:07)
Yes. They live next to a restaurant.

[Speaker 4] (3:42:09 - 3:42:10)
Right. But they live.

[Speaker 20] (3:42:10 - 3:42:11)
I mean, I'm going to keep, I'm obviously going to keep.

[Speaker 4] (3:42:11 - 3:42:16)
The restaurant that right now doesn't have an entertainment license that you're asking for an entertainment license.

[Speaker 20] (3:42:16 - 3:42:28)
Yes. I understand. Right.

Um, I, I'm going to obviously keep the, uh, it's, it's just for diners to listen to something. I mean, it's nothing, not, not a rock concert outside.

[Speaker 4] (3:42:28 - 3:42:29)
Yeah. I understand.

[Speaker 20] (3:42:29 - 3:42:34)
I mean, if there's a decibel limit that I need to stay under, we'll keep it under that particular, whatever that limit is.

[Speaker 4] (3:42:35 - 3:43:26)
So I'm, I, you know, I'm just going to say, I am not in support of outdoor. I'm not in support of outdoor music. And one of the reasons I'm not is because, um, I have had to deal with it, but luckily the eatery that, you know, was providing outdoor music changed after a number of us had to, you know, bring issue with it.

And, uh, sound really does carry. And, um, I'm good with everything if it's indoors, but I think outdoors, there's an issue with disturbing what could, what could happen there. So if there's a way to figure it out, I'm, I'm good with way to figure it out, but I don't really want to, you know, I don't want to put the onus on them to be complaining and screaming and yelling.

And so how, how do we do this? Because I want him to be successful. I want to sit out there and enjoy myself.

I don't need to be listening to music.

[Speaker 1] (3:43:26 - 3:43:42)
So I think it's just important to understand that we do have a business on Humphrey Street that has, um, music, um, that is broadcast off of a deck that essentially is, you know, mission on the bed.

[Speaker 4] (3:43:42 - 3:43:43)
No, music does not come outside there.

[Speaker 1] (3:43:44 - 3:44:32)
Well, you can hear it. And so we had issues when they first opened up. We had a decibel reader and we had a number of complaints and we had police department down there monitoring the decibel.

That's right. And so they kept it to an ambient noise that was no greater than what we generally hear on the corridor. And so from, um, you know, again, from my perspective, you know, we're trying to support a small business.

They're just opening up. And I would, um, frankly just recommend that the board just, uh, work with, uh, this business. If there are issues, we can certainly, um, pull, um, you know, the proprietor back and say, hey, look, we, we have a neighborhood that we're trying to balance, but certainly, you know, I would like to give them the best chance to be successful.

[Speaker 4] (3:44:32 - 3:44:33)
I like to give them a chance at mom.

[Speaker 20] (3:44:36 - 3:45:24)
Um, so this is not my first time. Uh, my restaurant in Salem, we had the same issues. We bought ourselves a decibel reader, kept it under whatever they, I can't remember what it was at the time, but kept it under that.

Um, my managers do that nightly now. Um, basically we just didn't turn the volume dial any which way and just kept it that particular level that was acceptable for everybody and everybody was happy. So I am absolutely not wanting to make any problem with my neighbors for the rest of my life over there and come back here and wait 17 hours to talk to you.

So I'm going to avoid that the best I possibly can by making everybody happy. So I share your concern, Mary Ellen. I mean, I get it as well.

Absolutely.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:25 - 3:45:33)
Total minority. So, um, so if, if we were to turn around, cause I want to say yes.

[Speaker 24] (3:45:34 - 3:45:34)
Right.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:34 - 3:45:38)
Yeah. I don't want to say yes for parking. I would say yes for you.

[Speaker 20] (3:45:38 - 3:45:38)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:38 - 3:45:46)
Um, but what happens if your residents right there start to complain? Are you going to be able to jump in there and control it?

[Speaker 20] (3:45:47 - 3:45:48)
Of course. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:48 - 3:45:50)
Well, I wanted it on recording.

[Speaker 20] (3:45:51 - 3:45:57)
Recorded. Of course. Recorded twice.

So I will, I will absolutely work with everybody.

[Speaker 4] (3:45:57 - 3:45:57)
Okay.

[Speaker 20] (3:45:58 - 3:46:03)
If it's unreasonable, I will come here and let you know that things are unreasonable, but I am a reasonable gentleman.

[Speaker 24] (3:46:04 - 3:46:04)
Right.

[Speaker 20] (3:46:04 - 3:46:11)
And I will, I don't, it's not going to be loud. It just isn't. Right.

I mean, a car going by is going to be way louder than any music that we're going to be playing.

[Speaker 4] (3:46:12 - 3:46:16)
Right. But my point is, I don't want to be sitting in my house. Say I live next door to you.

I don't want to be listening to you.

[Speaker 20] (3:46:16 - 3:46:18)
Of course not. And you won't hear it.

[Speaker 4] (3:46:18 - 3:46:18)
Okay.

[Speaker 20] (3:46:18 - 3:46:19)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (3:46:19 - 3:46:23)
So there is a standard that we do that is public.

[Speaker 1] (3:46:23 - 3:46:43)
We have employed a standard, you know, this decibel reading is basically, you know, you measure the ambient noise of the quarter and we don't want to hear noise that's greater than the ambient decibel of the quarter. So we have trucks, we have cars, we have, you know, noise. Ocean waves, you know.

[Speaker 6] (3:46:43 - 3:46:49)
Because this is really, this isn't necessarily, you're not going to have like a live singer outside. This is like background noise.

[Speaker 20] (3:46:49 - 3:46:50)
That's correct.

[Speaker 1] (3:46:50 - 3:46:52)
Right. No, it's just low grade.

[Speaker 20] (3:46:53 - 3:46:58)
Low grade. Worse speakers you can buy. Can't even hear it.

So it won't be the karaoke?

[Speaker 6] (3:46:59 - 3:47:00)
Won't be karaoke outside? Not on the outside.

[Speaker 4] (3:47:01 - 3:47:02)
We're going to bring David with us.

[Speaker 6] (3:47:03 - 3:47:04)
A special permit.

[Speaker 3] (3:47:07 - 3:47:10)
Okay. I would entertain a motion.

[Speaker 4] (3:47:11 - 3:47:12)
So moved. Oh, you want a motion?

[Speaker 3] (3:47:13 - 3:47:20)
A motion to approve the entertainment license for Doc Size Club 286. So moved. Second.

[Speaker 6] (3:47:21 - 3:47:22)
But I have a question.

[Speaker 28] (3:47:22 - 3:47:22)
All right.

[Speaker 6] (3:47:22 - 3:47:28)
So hold on. I'm sorry. The one we have in the packet is not signed.

Do you have the signed application?

[Speaker 28] (3:47:28 - 3:47:32)
I believe we do. She just didn't get it to me. Okay.

Right.

[Speaker 3] (3:47:32 - 3:47:33)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (3:47:33 - 3:47:34)
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 3] (3:47:37 - 3:47:39)
I have a motion. I have a second.

[Speaker 1] (3:47:39 - 3:47:43)
All in favor. Aye. Aye.

All right.

[Speaker 24] (3:47:43 - 3:47:44)
Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (3:47:44 - 3:47:54)
Congratulations. Thank you. When are you opening?

I'm really hoping September 1. All right. We're working hard in there.

We need the revenue. Get busy. Come on.

[Speaker 1] (3:47:54 - 3:47:55)
You were supposed to be open May 1st.

[Speaker 20] (3:47:56 - 3:47:58)
I had to wait for some licensing. Oh.

[Speaker 1] (3:47:59 - 3:48:02)
Andrew, I already told you I'll be the first customer. I can't wait to see you there.

[Speaker 20] (3:48:03 - 3:48:05)
Thank you very much. Nice job with everything today, guys.

[Speaker 22] (3:48:05 - 3:48:05)
Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (3:48:06 - 3:48:13)
Did you have fun tonight? I had a blast. And we don't have an entertainment license.

[Speaker 3] (3:48:13 - 3:48:18)
I don't know. It's coming up on 11 o'clock. We might have to shut down.

[Speaker 1] (3:48:21 - 3:48:21)
Sleepy little time.

[Speaker 3] (3:48:22 - 3:48:23)
Sean, you got Sean, you got a 90.

[Speaker 1] (3:48:23 - 3:48:24)
You want to do 90 seconds.

[Speaker 24] (3:48:25 - 3:48:29)
Look, if there are questions. Why don't you just read it to us? Anybody has a question.

I'm happy to answer.

[Speaker 1] (3:48:30 - 3:48:39)
But other than that, we cannot. We can catch up. All right.

And then as far as as far as select for time.

[Speaker 3] (3:48:39 - 3:48:40)
Anyone have anything?

[Speaker 14] (3:48:40 - 3:48:42)
I give up my time to move the hour.

[Speaker 3] (3:48:43 - 3:48:44)
No, I have to. You know what?

[Speaker 4] (3:48:44 - 3:49:02)
I want to. I keep giving it up every week, but I have to. There's two things here.

Number one. I just want everybody to know we have a West Point graduate. Carol coaches me.

Cody is on her way to Alabama tomorrow with her parents to start her helicopter training.

[Speaker 1] (3:49:02 - 3:49:14)
Awesome. Is that awesome or what? Love to send a little care package to her.

You know, see me. And we'll get a Swampskate. Package to send off.

[Speaker 4] (3:49:15 - 3:49:16)
You want me to come and see?

[Speaker 1] (3:49:16 - 3:49:20)
Yeah, you can. You don't have to. I'm going to go see Diane.

[Speaker 4] (3:49:21 - 3:50:49)
We're going to we're going to we're going to hook Cody up. I mean, I just I have family that have graduated from West Point. It's it's incredibly competitive to get in there.

It's a challenge to get out of there. And they are always really unique and special individuals. And it's awesome.

So that's congratulations. Cody and to her family. It's really terrific.

I want to say congratulations to our newest Academy graduates from the fire department. That is firefighter. Sorrow and firefighter.

How does Britain say her last name? Carpenter cop Carpenter. So that's great.

Carol Schutzer wanted me to ask you about a planner. So maybe your next meeting you can address what we're doing with the planner. And before I close for the night, I want to just fill you on all in on our Fourth of July races.

We brought the Fourth of July races back and they were a big success for the most part. Everybody had big smiles on their faces. We had over one hundred thirty five people entered.

I'm saying people because we had classes of all different age groups. One of the most competitive age groups was the over 35 under 40 and over 35 women. So we had one hundred thirty five entries and then we had parents and grandparents and neighbors.

[Speaker 1] (3:50:49 - 3:50:51)
And are you going to talk that next year?

[Speaker 4] (3:50:51 - 3:51:52)
It's not going to be a problem. I want to thank Danielle and Caitlin Leonard. They were the race directors.

They were amazing. And their advisor Tristan Smith and all the volunteers. We had varsity athletes come out.

We had more volunteers than you could shake a stick. It was incredibly well organized. But especially I've got Gina Bush to thank because I didn't know you had to plan ahead and make a request to donate to anchor.

And Gina came out on the Fourth of July and helped me bring all we we collected a lot of food and a good amount of money. And she helped bring it all in. And last but not least be Martin Epstein who is one of the best singers.

She should be on the voice. She rescued us at the last minute because we realized we didn't have a recording for the national anthem and B came out and sang without any music. She was great.

So she saved the day. So it was great. And we'll have a great time next year.

[Speaker 6] (3:51:53 - 3:52:05)
I was there and just big kudos to you. Mary Allen and whoever else that was responsible for putting it together. It didn't feel like it was the first time in a while or whatever it was.

It was it was a lot of fun.

[Speaker 1] (3:52:06 - 3:52:15)
People were so happy. 100 percent. Mary and she reached out like I think two weeks before and just said why can't we do this.

I said why can't we do it.

[Speaker 4] (3:52:15 - 3:52:22)
No I actually I applied for it in the winter but I it didn't work. So then I'm like oh let me just call Sean.

[Speaker 1] (3:52:22 - 3:52:39)
Yeah. I like it. It's some of the more memorable events of the Fourth of July and I'm grateful because you know you create a moment that will never be forgotten in those little lives or older lives.

So that's why we do this kind of stuff.

[Speaker 4] (3:52:39 - 3:52:56)
We have mothers in the races and their kids were in the races and the parents had been in the races. So like we had three generations. And I will tell you one group we have to keep our eye on our eighth grade boys.

The first grade boys had to start over because they're cheating.

[Speaker 1] (3:52:56 - 3:52:57)
I'm talking about.

[Speaker 4] (3:52:57 - 3:53:03)
Hey wait a minute. They're not here to defend themselves. They're here.

I don't want to hear any of that.

[Speaker 1] (3:53:04 - 3:53:06)
Those kids don't get to.

[Speaker 24] (3:53:06 - 3:53:07)
You know they were wild.

[Speaker 1] (3:53:07 - 3:53:08)
I don't want to hear about any.

[Speaker 3] (3:53:09 - 3:54:10)
And I just have a and I just have a quick a quick mention. We had we had another successful day at the beach over the weekend. We probably had eight hundred nine hundred maybe even a thousand people throughout the weather held out.

We had that we had that beautiful 24 hour window before tornado warnings and everything else. Ruined our ruined our Sunday. But I just want to give a special thank you to Bentwater to Aaron Reams and Jen and the entire Bentwater team.

They were fantastic to work with. We had we raised a ton of money for for the fish house. And you know we also had a fundraiser with Big Blue Bargains as well.

So they were the recipient of 50 50 raffle. And just a special thank you to my crew including Mark Ficken Michael Sanchez and Frank Smith for setting up and most importantly breaking down and and leaving it leaving no trace in the parking lot.

[Speaker 6] (3:54:10 - 3:54:13)
Thank you David. Thank you guys. Awesome.

Fantastic.

[Speaker 3] (3:54:14 - 3:54:17)
All right. With that I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Second.

All in favor.

[Speaker 14] (3:54:18 - 3:54:18)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (3:54:18 - 3:54:19)
Aye. Thanks everybody.

[Speaker 24] (3:54:20 - 3:54:22)
Good night. Thanks Joe. Thank you.