[Speaker 4] (0:06 - 2:52)
All right, thank you. Thank you for your patience. We're going to start the meeting on October the 10th.

Swampscott issued a release condemning the Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel. We'll certainly, I just want to read this statement before and get started. Swampscott Select Board and Town Administrator issued the following statements concerning the Hamas terrorist attacks and expressing solidarity with the people of Israel and Jewish families around the world.

As we all found out this past Saturday, October 7th, hundreds of Hamas terrorists fueled by hatred for Jewish citizens in Israel attacked innocent children and families with the aim to butcher, kidnap, and murder as many people as possible, said Select Board Chair David Grishman. The town of Swampscott stands with Israel and all those who fight against hate. Swampscott stands with the people of Israel in the wake of this weekend's horrific terrorist attacks and condemns Hamas in the strongest possible terms, said Katie Phelan, Vice Chair of the Select Board.

We all have an obligation to speak out against this hate and humanity. We all have a responsibility to confront hate, and this starts right here at home in Swampscott, said Select Board Member Peter Spellios. Today and every day, the town of Swampscott stands against hate and stands in solidarity with Israel and their right to defend themselves at this dark hour.

Our hearts are broken with the thoughts of so many Israeli and Palestinian families that have been victimized and the innocent civilians killed in these senseless attacks. Peace between Israel and her neighbors is the only path out of this cycle of violence, said Select Board Member Doug Thompson. The evil that has gripped Hamas must be stopped.

We stand with Israel. We stand with the Jewish people. We stand with all of humanity that oppose hate and work for peace, said Select Board Member Mary Ellen Fletcher.

Swampscott Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald shared concerns for both Israeli and innocent Palestinians in Gaza that are suffering because of Hamas. Hamas's brutality knows no bounds with the reports of Holocaust survivors, innocent men, women, children, and American citizens taken by Hamas militants as hostages or brutally murdered. We are praying for all those who are suffering through this incomprehensible inhumanity.

And with that, I just want to have a moment of silence. Thank you. We are going to start.

We are going to have public comment. We are going to have a presentation to the Select Board by Girl Scout Troop 60103, Ainsley Miller and Sophia Armstrong. We're going to do that first, and then we will go to public comment.

We will have everyone who wants to make a public comment can. So Ainsley and Sophia, the floor is yours.

[Speaker 13] (3:00 - 3:16)
Hi. Oh, can you guys hear me? Okay.

Hi, I'm Ainsley Miller and this is Sophia Armstrong. We're Girl Scouts from Troop 60103. We are 8th grade cadets working on our silver award, which is the highest award we can earn on our current level.

[Speaker 14] (3:17 - 4:12)
In our project, we would like to curb the use of plastic utensils at our local ice cream shops that are right on one of our town beaches. Unfortunately, our oceanfront community sees the effects of trash overflow often at the beach, and this is the issue we try to correct because the trash can go right into the ocean. We love the beaches of town.

However, anyone who has strolled down the promenade at Kings Beach on a summer evening can attest that the trash bins are full. There is no place for trash to go except in the ocean. We want to ask the town to adopt a new ordinance to ban the use of plastic utensils and instead use paper, bamboo, or another material that is recyclable.

In addition, we are planning to ask our local ice cream stores to donate the utensils they already have in stock so we can make art with it along with the help of our town's elementary students so we can educate the next generation about the importance of recycling and helping the planet.

[Speaker 13] (4:13 - 4:57)
Our project focuses on solving this problem. Now we know you turned down another request to ban all plastic in town. However, you have banned plastic straws.

We are asking you to also ban plastic utensils in favor of compostable ones. We researched companies that use better plastics and we discovered Amaral Care Royal. This company uses ACPLA plastic starch and wooden cutlery in plastic in place of plastic.

Also, Shake Shack, a nation chain, has adopted this brand of products and they are received well by the general public.

[Speaker 14] (4:59 - 5:10)
The next thing we would like to discuss is changing the trash bins in Horneth Gaines Beach to increase composting abilities. We agree that this would prevent the overflow of trash bins by the ocean so trash doesn't end up in the water.

[Speaker 13] (5:12 - 5:23)
We noticed that especially over the summer, trash bins usually don't ever have a room for trash inside so people simply pile trash on top which is a problem.

[Speaker 14] (5:25 - 5:37)
Furthermore, we would like to request daily trash trucks to pick up more often by the ocean for memorial day. This would definitely help out the problem as well by eliminating any overflow of trash.

[Speaker 13] (5:38 - 6:06)
The trash constantly ends up in the ocean and this is a constant problem the town must resolve. When someone is at mission on the bay outside where the benches are, they can see the trash overflow and it is almost never empty during the summer months. If trash pickup by the beach trash bins occur more often, this would no longer be a problem.

[Speaker 14] (6:08 - 6:25)
To recap, we are requesting that you one, to ban all utensils in lieu of compostable ones, two, change up the current trash bins for four new ones, and three, lastly to have daily trash pickup at all town beaches from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Thank you.

[Speaker 7] (6:25 - 6:26)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (6:34 - 6:52)
Yeah Ainsley and Sophia, I think those are three very easy things that we can do. I know we're already working on one of them as well so we there's going to be a presentation on October 25th.

[Speaker 16] (6:52 - 7:23)
Yeah, next week at D129 at the high school, we're having a public forum at 6 p.m. Everyone is invited. Put out a couple of town-wide blasts on Facebook and a letter that went out to all restaurants a couple of days ago as well as we're hoping to get a letter out to all town meeting members as well. You are definitely welcome and invited.

I'm happy to hear the feedback.

[Speaker 1] (7:36 - 8:42)
You are amazing. You are young citizens that are helping us make sure that the future is going to be better for you and your families. So it's so important that you as young citizens, even though you can't vote, continue to show up and help us.

We've been talking about a single-use ban on plastics for over a year now and by adding your voice to this chorus, we can be one of a few communities in Massachusetts that actually starts to lead on a local level. Even though we know that we need this on a global level, we can in one town start to really send a message to the universe that we've got to do better. So it makes me very proud to see you here today and frankly I hope you'll continue to use your voice to get a whole chorus of folks from your generation to the table and help us pass an ordinance at town meeting that you can be proud of.

Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (8:45 - 9:10)
I will add that if things go according to Wayne's plan and the trash talk comes to fruition that we would love to have you at town meeting to express your experiences about why the ordinance that we're putting forward is so important because it's enough to hear from us or from committees but to hear from you guys, it's a real impact.

[Speaker 4] (9:11 - 9:21)
Absolutely. Thank you so much. All right, we'll move on.

Sean, we're going to take public comment before your town administrative report.

[Speaker 3] (9:22 - 9:36)
Hey David? Yes. Can I just ask, is there only one camera tonight because we're just staring at the three of you, actually just two of you at the moment, but I just wonder if there's a second camera that's going to show us public comment speakers and when people are speaking we're not seeing them.

[Speaker 20] (9:37 - 9:39)
Daniel, is there an answer to that?

[Speaker 19] (9:45 - 9:47)
You could just move the microphone.

[Speaker 4] (9:52 - 9:54)
And it looks like there is a camera there.

[Speaker 5] (9:54 - 9:56)
That's facing us. There's one there.

[Speaker 1] (9:56 - 10:06)
I just don't think the camera that's actually picking up the image is closer to the TV, so I think you have to stand closer to the TV to get on camera.

[Speaker 5] (10:07 - 10:09)
You're welcome to sit in my seat if you like.

[Speaker 10] (10:19 - 10:30)
Okay, great. I'm starting to work. Can you see me?

[Speaker 3] (10:31 - 10:33)
Yeah, thank you.

[Speaker 10] (10:33 - 13:27)
Hi, I'm Liz Smith, Precinct 3. In 2007, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection issued an administrative consent order requiring Swampscott to comply with the Clean Water Act. In 2012, DEP issued a notice of non-compliance to the town.

The Environmental Protection Agency then initiated a court action alleging the town was discharging pollutants into the waters of Massachusetts and the Han Bays. In 2015, the Swampscott Select Board agreed to a consent decree with the EPA binding the town to comply with its terms regardless of the availability of state or federal funding. Here we are, 16 years after the initial order, and we are no closer to the goal of clean waters.

Residents are tired of the excuse that fixing the pipes is too hard and too expensive. If it's that difficult, how have other municipalities done it? Revere has spent $130 million so far, and the work is ongoing.

SOG has closed its administrative consent order by spending the money and doing the work to fix their sewer system. Today, over 50% of Swampscott's pipes are over 100 years old, leaking sewage into the stormwater drainage system. Last summer, Kings Beach was closed over 90% of the swimming season.

In September, we learned that Fisherman's Beach showed extraordinarily high bacteria levels in 2022. The concrete culvert on the beach about midway between the pier and Lincoln House Point had bacteria levels of 81,000 in August of 2022, 173,000 in October of 2022, and 120,000 in November of 2022. These samples were 780 to 1,600 times the safe limit of 104.

These remarkably high bacteria levels were not reported to the EPA or to residents until September 2023, a full year after they were first observed. Where was the concern for public safety on a beach, which is a center of recreational activity for adults and children? Why were these results not reported to the EPA sooner?

Why wasn't this problem dealt with immediately as an emergency? And why was this kept from the public during the entire summer of 2023? The EPA sent a letter to Swampscott on September 11, 2023.

It states, quote, more aggressive action by the town to eliminate sources of untreated sanitary sewage is critical. Why was this letter not referenced during the October 4 meeting when the Select Board reviewed a capital plan recommending an even slower funding schedule for rehab of the leaky sewers? I urge the Select Board to please take the following actions.

Allocate the $2.5 million in ARPA funds earmarked for Kings Beach now to repair the Stacy's Brook sewer and stormwater system and dedicate the remaining $2.1 million general ARPA funds to the rehabilitation of our town's failing sewer system with a priority on Fisherman's Beach. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (13:27 - 13:28)
Thank you, Ms. Smith.

[Speaker 12] (13:36 - 15:35)
Hi, guys. Andrea Amore. I'm Sheridan Road.

I echo Liz's sentiment. We are moving too slowly. I feel like it's very clear that the townspeople want this work to happen.

We've heard it from many different voices in many different forums. Instead of hearing my voice tonight, I wanted to read the email of one of the folks who sent an email this evening imploring you guys to use the ARPA funding, not just the $2.5 million that's earmarked for Kings Beach, but also the $2 million that's been sitting around in a general fund because we are very, very far behind because we didn't, you know, there was, it was a bit swept under the rug that things were this bad for the sewers.

So I'm just going to read this woman's email. Good evening. We need ARPA funding allocated to Kings Beach.

After all these years of discovery, it's time to fix the problem. I didn't appreciate the overall sentiment from our town leadership in a recent patch article that essentially accused the public of not understanding the vastness of this problem. We understand it and we need our leadership to finally take care of it.

Enough is enough. This is a huge transgression on nature. We should be ashamed of ourselves and the place that we hold in the state as the dirtiest beach.

What a badge of disgrace. And our children witnessing these excuses, it's almost as disgusting as the water itself. Everyone is tired of seeing Lynn and Swampscott point the finger at each other, both at the state and the state right back.

Please find a way to work together and get it done. We are not going away, so let's get it done. This is, these are the conversations that we have all of the time.

So my personal opinion, and I believe the opinion of many other people, is if the funding is not used in these ways, in a significant way, and if we don't speed up this timeline, the ways in which the Select Board and the Town Administrator are acting are not in reflection of what the Town wants.

[Speaker 21] (15:37 - 15:37)
Thank you.

[Speaker 18] (15:45 - 15:49)
Hi, I'm Chris Lockley. I just wanted to sort of echo Liz again.

[Speaker 4] (15:49 - 15:51)
Do you address or present?

[Speaker 18] (15:53 - 16:18)
Oh, sorry, 102 I just wanted to echo Liz and Andrew's excellent points. The situation of King's Beach needs to be resolved. And, you know, the way I see it, you know, this is a problem that's 100 years old.

You guys didn't create the problem, but it is our problem collectively as a town. And this could be a legacy for you guys. This could be something that you guys solve for now during your administration.

So I urge you all to take it very seriously and allocate those funds.

[Speaker 21] (16:19 - 16:19)
Thanks, Chris.

[Speaker 4] (16:23 - 16:42)
All right, I don't see any additional public comment in the room or on teams, so we will we will move on. I think we can move on directly to the update on the ARPA proposals.

[Speaker 6] (16:45 - 16:49)
David, there might have been a hand that went up just at the end there.

[Speaker 4] (16:50 - 17:02)
Oh, okay, I can just see view all. Diane, can you identify that person whose hand is up? Okay, well, we can recognize him.

[Speaker 20] (17:19 - 17:20)
All right, Evan, can you hear us?

[Speaker 17] (17:21 - 17:55)
Yes, hi. For some reason, I can't turn my camera on, but I just wanted to say I'm a Lynn resident. Welcome.

Thank you so much. I'm a beach user. I'm a year-long surfer, and I'd really like to see Swampscott and Lynn work together on the issue of water quality in our communities.

So I just want to echo what other people said. And yeah, that's all. Thank you so much.

[Speaker 4] (17:56 - 18:07)
Thank you, Evan. All right, we'll move on. We'll jump right into ARPA.

Sean, are you handling?

[Speaker 1] (18:08 - 18:18)
Amy will be giving the presentation. She has a few slides. Happy to get the board's input.

Great.

[Speaker 8] (18:26 - 24:14)
Okay, so this is just a brief overview of the ARPA funds as we stand right now. So just a reminder, the town was awarded $4.5 million, of which $2.18 is still available to be allocated by the board. That's just an overview of the purposes we've gone over.

This was more just in your packets for review. Yep. And as well as a reminder of the restrictions on what we cannot use it for.

Mostly it can't be used to offset the tax rate, pay down pension, or pay down other debt obligations, or put into our reserve funds. We did receive proposals from public work, our health department, library, and senior center. These are just high-level overviews of those proposals that they submitted.

So the first one is an MS-4 permit for year six from the public works department. This would take 12 to 18 months to complete and about $182,000. This is requirements for the EPA's national pollutant discharge elimination system regarding the stormwater sewer.

Gino had given me a whole proposal that I can give you as well, and I don't want to pretend like I understand it to the level that he does. But this was one of his proposals that he was hoping to include in this. The second is the King's Beach water quality engineering.

This is from the asset management plan that was presented at your last meeting. So can be more than three years, well over the two million dollars that we have. Our health department had two or three proposals.

So this one is the health prevention promotion education programs. It would be spread over two years for a cost of $140,000. Our health department is looking to do free community and resident, as well as town employees, get ideas on topics for healthy living, eating, exercising, mindfulness, stress reduction, as well as emergency preparedness and family preparedness.

They also wanted to include CPR and other topics in that. Nia, our public health nurse, is putting together a full presentation if you want more information on any of her proposals. Their second proposal was mental health support group and group therapy.

Also over two years to a cost of $80,000. This was mostly to address the mental health challenges prevented from the pandemic, specifically related to trauma, loss, grief, and burnout. It would be to post group therapy sessions once a week for 12 weeks, as well as a trained professional to come in to run those.

This was the overview of their plan. I don't know if you want me to read the slide or just jump through these. The third one was relating to climate change.

They were looking to be able to make grants available or subsidize some climate change mitigation factors for our residents. Whether it was solar rooftop gardens, rain barrels, composting, and things along that vein. The library was hoping to get a mobile library, so an EV vehicle, so that they would be able to bring the library out not only to residents that are homebound, whether temporarily or permanent, but also to bring the library out to different events in town.

They have indicated they can specifically pick the books that are on board for the target audience that they're going to. So obviously they would talk about children's books if they're going to a children's event. This would be $75,000 for the purchase, and about 18 to 24 months, most of that is the lead time on the vehicle.

And then the senior center would like to do a lift and lunch program. This would enable them for three hours a day, five days a week, have an additional van driver and a kitchen cook who would be able to provide meals. This would be able to get residents who otherwise wouldn't be able to come to the senior center for lunch.

It would be able to pick them up and drop them off after. It would allow them to be here for lunch as well as, you know, some socialization before and or after. This is also to help get more people in as they are finishing the renovation here in the kitchen, to get more people in and be able to utilize that in the ramp up.

So as you would like, the department heads can provide more information, whether through myself and the town administrator or to you directly. And then obviously the board would need to vote to allocate the remainder of the funds.

[Speaker 4] (24:14 - 24:22)
So just a quick question, so these 13 slides, are these recommendations from town staff?

[Speaker 1] (24:23 - 25:15)
They're not recommendations, they're projects. And the thought was we'd talk with the board and we'd seek some consensus on really where the priorities were. We certainly know that, you know, these are one-time revenues.

They're not going to reoccur. And so the thought was, as we kind of look at a number of the projects, you know, the ones that are kind of ordinary or status of good repair projects or things that we could maybe get state or federal grants for, they probably shouldn't be prioritized over some of the more unique opportunities we have to have, you know, a really special project that otherwise would not be funded through another option.

[Speaker 4] (25:15 - 25:26)
So do we have recommendations from staff as to what we should, you know, how these funds should be allocated? I mean, do we, is there a recommendation, Amy or Sean?

[Speaker 8] (25:27 - 25:47)
These are their proposals, proposals for consideration. This is the extent of what we have. And they were just looking for, you know, if there was any guidance from the board in a direction that you would like to go.

And these were the ones that they felt the strongest about.

[Speaker 1] (25:49 - 26:45)
Candidly, I do think that there are some additional projects that we should be considering. We've had a number of conversations over the last few months about affordable housing or frankly, immigrant housing. When we look around the Commonwealth and we see all the other communities dealing with the complexities of immigration, you know, there may be an opportunity for Swamp to play a role in addressing some of those challenges.

I do think there are some extraordinary one-time uses that we could continue to consider, but wanted to, you know, take a moment right now and just have this conversation with the board and get a sense of whether or not there are priorities that have been presented tonight that resonate with you or whether or not there could be additional, you know, time to really evaluate more options.

[Speaker 4] (26:46 - 27:41)
Yeah, I mean, just my perspective was we were going to have recommendations from professional staff for, you know, for how these funds should be, you know, should be allocated. And those would be presented to the select board for our consideration. I mean, these are, I mean, these are certainly worthy causes in my opinion, and certainly, you know, certainly a number of programs that are, you know, that are unique and much needed, you know, mental health support and health prevention, education, you know, permitting for, you know, the MS-4, you know, a mobile library.

I think those, these are all worthy, but I just want to have some additional information as to, you know, what are the recommendations. So, you know, is that something that could be put together, you know, over the course of the next couple of weeks and presenting?

[Speaker 1] (27:41 - 28:34)
Absolutely. I do think, you know, as I mentioned earlier, there are a few ideas that I think continue to permeate. These are the projects that town department heads and staff have pulled together, but I'm happy to go back and further define a few recommendations.

As you can see, just based on the sheer volume of requests, there's too many projects for us to fund. And again, my perspective on ARPA is these are one-time funds. These are, once we spend them, they're gone.

And we want to have something that really kind of reflects the importance and the uniqueness of these dollars and supports the spirit of some of the ARPA legislation.

[Speaker 3] (28:35 - 28:39)
So, I just, I'm sorry. Katie, go ahead. Sorry.

[Speaker 5] (28:40 - 29:41)
I have a question. The $182,000 request from Public Works, is that not included in the $2 million? That's outside of.

It's outside of that. Okay. And then from this list, I guess if we're coming back to it, I'd like to know how many of these have grant opportunities available, because I don't want to spend ARPA funds on, obviously, we have something we could be spending ARPA funds on.

And if there is another way to source this revenue, I'd much rather do that than spend our funding on these types of projects. Not that any of these are less worthy, but just if we have another way to get money, we should be utilizing it. I also saw that the mobile library, amazing idea.

It's also potentially on the capital improvements requests list for that department also. Not that that means it's coming to fruition. I understand that, but I'm just saying that that's another place where it's living.

[Speaker 8] (29:42 - 29:48)
The director submitted it as a capital request, just to kind of highlight the want for it.

[Speaker 5] (29:48 - 30:25)
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm glad you brought up the word want, because one of the things I was really thinking about on the way over here is it's great to have wants, but if we have needs, we have to attend to needs first. And I tell it to my kids all the time.

Is this a want or a need? Because we have time right now for needs, not wants. And so I just want to be really clear about when departments come back.

To me, they sort of have to rise to that level if they're expecting ARPA funding. So just to keep that in mind.

[Speaker 8] (30:25 - 30:56)
Yeah, we had already excluded any projects that could be covered under grants or some other type of funding. So those didn't even make it to this. Okay.

The only thing that is in here that could be either partially paid from another source is the mental health could be partnered with the opioid funds. And that's something that the health director wanted me to mention to you as well, is that they can partner those two fundings together.

[Speaker 4] (30:56 - 31:01)
Do we have an idea of how much funding is coming in annually, Amy?

[Speaker 8] (31:01 - 31:28)
No. So some of them, depending on which distributor it's coming from, we just have a notation that we're receiving six, seven, 13 payments from them of unequal amounts, and they didn't actually lay out a schedule. So we'll be surprised.

We do know that we have about $180,000 already in-house for that. No. We do have the starter money.

Got it.

[Speaker 5] (31:28 - 32:01)
Okay. So yeah, I guess then if we're looking at two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight options, and we're looking at them all at level playing field, then I would like to know. So if this $80,000 can be used out of the $180,000 we have out of the opioid crisis, maybe that's the best place we should be finding those funds.

If the $75,000 can be looked at for capital out of the capital budget, maybe that's the best place for it.

[Speaker 4] (32:06 - 32:08)
Doug, you have your hand up.

[Speaker 20] (32:09 - 32:09)
And so does Mary Ellen.

[Speaker 6] (32:10 - 35:12)
Yes. Thanks. I certainly concur with your comments, David, and your comments, Katie.

I think that there are a number of things on the table, obviously, in terms of what people have said in public comment and this conversation. And we should also not forget about the ARPA community survey that was done and the feedback that people had there, which I think if I go back to the results there, it was a very, very strong desire to invest a lot of these ARPA funds in infrastructure and in mental health. Obviously, that was a little while ago, but I just want to kind of note that.

So, you know, I feel strongly that, you know, we should be moving in alignment with that and that a large portion of these funds should be used for infrastructure. And we should be thinking about how we can amplify our mental health investments, as we've talked about in previous meetings. So, I have some, I also believe that, you know, in the survey and in alignment with our climate action plan, that we should be thinking about investments in climate related initiatives here that are kind of one time investments, a little bit to Sean's point, that are really, you know, major generational things that we need to be thinking about.

There are a lot of opportunities on the table. Max has been investigating a lot of solar for the new school, solar canopies, moving forward more aggressively with electric vehicles, tree planting was, you know, something that's mentioned in the general capital plan ideas. You know, a comprehensive feasibility study of our opportunities to electrify our town properties.

There are a number of opportunities and things we need to move forward with on our climate action plan to meet our goals. So, I want to raise that up as well. And the other thing I want to note in this context of kind of getting everything out on the table is our historic preservation efforts obviously have suffered because of the lack of funding, and hopefully we'll be dealing with that in the longer term through the Community Preservation Act.

But we have the General Glover that is, you know, on the docket and whether or not we wish to make a down payment or reserve some funds for that as well. So, I have a kind of an overall suggestion for, you know, all of these ideas. But I want to hold off and, you know, hear from others about getting everything else out on the table first.

Thank you.

[Speaker 19] (35:13 - 35:21)
Thanks, Doug. Mary Ellen. Hi.

[Speaker 9] (35:23 - 36:41)
I think for me, listening to all the projects that the staff has put forward, I think they're very worthy projects. I also think the majority of those projects can all be grant funded, or there are other ways of revenue. I think right now we have an incredibly serious issue with Kings Beach, with Fisherman's Beach, and with our infrastructure.

The Finance Committee voted two years ago to use ARPA funds for infrastructure. So, it's my opinion that the full $2.5 million should be used for Kings Beach, that section of ARPA. The $2.1 million should be used for the infrastructure that heads down to Fisherman's Beach. And we can get this at a jump start or just pick up the ball and then focus on capital expenditures for how we're going to get all of the infrastructure up to the part where we want it to be. So, that's where I'm leaning. And I do hear the rest of it.

I think the programs that the staff has put forward are great programs, but I think we can implement them. And I think there's a way to do a lot of things, but right now I just think every penny needs to go into our infrastructure. Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (36:43 - 36:49)
Thanks, Mary Ellen. Peter, go ahead.

[Speaker 3] (36:53 - 42:56)
Thanks, David. Appreciate it. Thanks for everyone's comments.

Doug, I really appreciate your list of things that you've mentioned. And as usual, you've come prepared and thoughtful. Thanks.

You know, I appreciate Sean and Amy, you sharing the staff list, but I don't want it to distract from the fact that if you look at a 30-year or 10-year, 15-year capital plan, you're going to see over half a billion dollars in projects. I mean, there is no shortage of projects. And so, that list, well, are all great items, but it, to me, may distract from the fact that we have hundreds of millions of dollars of competing interests.

And that hundreds of millions of dollars of competing interests is a byproduct of the fact that this generation is paying for no investment coming up to this generation. And so, we're charged with a difficult task of figuring out how to accommodate all these things at the same time, because we can't just choose one at the end of the day over the others. We didn't build schools in our town, so we have been disproportionately for schools since the high school moving forward here.

We have another 60 million dollars for another school in the next 10 years. We haven't spent on the libraries looking for funding to bring it to a 21st century operation in our town. In the next three years alone, there's almost 10 million dollars of facilities requests, just keeping our buildings safe and sound, waterproof, throughout those things.

And that's because for decades and decades and decades, we didn't do any of this. And this doesn't even include money for resiliency, to Doug's point. There's nothing.

I mean, look high and low in these capital budgets for resiliency. Look at what we're spending now on resiliency. We're a seacoast town and we act as though we're Acton or Middleborough or Northborough or North Adams.

There's nothing reflected. There's a lot of talk. And I know the Harbor Advisory Committee in particular has been the one talking the most and the loudest about the pier, which is just going to be underwater.

And looking at things like the living reef or alternatives to help protect the harbor, help displace wave action to ensure that it doesn't become not part of our main waterfront area, but part of the waterfront itself. And so we don't even have the numbers for resiliency yet reflected here. We don't have the numbers to replace, reflected here, all the water lines.

We're talking about sewers, but we have water lines that also are aged. We don't have significant upgrades to roadways and things of that nature mentioned here. And so when we're looking at all these things, we have to focus on all the things here.

I agree and I appreciate the reference to the survey that was done by staff. And that was a pretty exhaustive process that led to, I think, some really good information for us. And the respondents were about 45% seeking infrastructure improvements.

And the rest of it seeking things for parks and recs, for schools, public health, for small business, for individual assistance, for digital upgrades, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I do heed the fact that 45% infrastructure is really critical. And we do need to look to do that.

And I do think we should get some guidance from that. However, I also referenced that there is $2.5 million already going to infrastructure. And that's doing enough million dollars that wasn't planned and is going to infrastructure.

So it's not as though we're starting from zero. It is committed. It is done.

That $2.5 million is going towards infrastructure and it's going to Fisherman's Beach and that area, which I think is really important. I think the direction that Sean is looking for, if I'm reading between the lines, and what staff is looking for from us is the idea of should they be spending time identifying projects either on the capital list, not on the capital list, worthy projects, et cetera, or are we just going down the path of saying, nope, spend the $2.1 million on whatever phase of Stacey Brook or IBE. Is that what we're doing?

And I think if I'm hearing correctly or reading between the lines, I think that's what they're asking for. Staff's asking for that. And I think that's a very reasonable thing for us to be giving them.

And maybe it's not as binary. Maybe we need to hear a little bit more feedback from them to understand what they believe the competing demands are with that money. And so it's not necessarily a yes or no tonight from us by any means, but I think that's the type of feedback that would benefit Sean and the team.

From my perspective, I appreciate all the communications that we've got today about Stacey's Brook, about King's Beach, about Fisherman's Beach, and agree with all of them. And if that was the only thing on our radar, it would be a slam dunk and no problem. But it's not.

We have all these other things, and we've got to figure out how to balance them because there have to be ands in between these things. There can't be ors in between them. And sadly, that wasn't even an issue generations ago because it didn't do anything with all due respect.

You go back in the town reports, which I have recently, to go read what they did for capital articles. You don't read things like we're talking about now. And we just need to make these investments here.

So substantively on Stacey Brook, we do have a plan. The updated capital plan that we have out there shows that the town, consistent with what they said nine years ago when we signed the consent decree, that every other year, two and a half million dollars was consistent with a program that EPA allowed another town to do to continue an IBDE.

[Speaker 4] (42:56 - 42:58)
Hey Peter, your sound is going in and out.

[Speaker 5] (43:00 - 43:01)
All right.

[Speaker 3] (43:01 - 43:02)
I don't know why.

[Speaker 19] (43:03 - 43:07)
I want to check something. Hold on a second.

[Speaker 3] (43:17 - 46:50)
Sorry about that. Anyways, I think we should have a conversation about the efficacy of what we're doing and what path we're going on. I really appreciate it when Ms. Smith comes to the meetings. She's attended more meetings, select board meetings than I have in the last six months, I think. And so I really appreciate that because she is studying it and really learning the issue quite well. And that's really helpful to us.

But I think what can't be lost here is that we actually have had a plan. And the reason we've had a plan is because we have to live within financial means of a plan. So we had to come up with something that says, what are we to do?

And so there is a plan for 2.5 million every other year. And it goes into water and sewer bonding because it gets charged through water and sewer. And it's being cognizant of the fact that we need to be careful about rate increases on water and sewer because a lot of the people can't handle those increases in our community.

We're very cognizant, especially about our seniors in the community here. So I want to hear more about IDDE. I want to understand and I want to have much more clarity than I think, frankly, any of us have to date, despite best efforts by staff and public participation.

But we should focus and have conversations about what can we truly solve and how quickly can we solve it alone versus with, we were just talking about grants, with the fact that we're going to need a financial partner to help us with some of these things. Fisherman's Beach and Phyllis Beach outfall, those are, as I understand it, directly caused by sewer lines and swamp scot. We should absolutely 100% be doing everything we can as quickly as we can to be addressing those.

I think the 2.5 million begins to look at and deal with the Fisherman's Beach area in particular, which I think is a great opportunity for us. But at the same time, and I think, again, we, no matter what, we need to clean up our own mess in swamp scot here, but swamp scot represents roughly one-fourth of the outfall through Stacey Brook. And I think that what we have found is to our dismay that even after phase one and the millions of dollars that we spent on phase one doing this work, we didn't see the results that we wanted, which speaks volumes and speaks volumes to the fact that the magnitude of the problem is much bigger than probably any of us know here.

And we do need partnerships here because this is at the end of the day, a regional thing. And we are six years ahead of wind. We were six years ahead of them in terms of doing the IDDE and their effort here on this.

We're glad they're doing it. We're glad we're doing it. But I think we need more information because I'm not convinced we're putting money in the right place.

And I know some people say the outfall would be a waste of money. And some people say the UD would be a waste of money. Some people say IDDE continuing doing it this way is just a waste of money.

And I don't think we have enough clarity candidly yet. So I'm all for putting lots of money towards it and we've got to do it. We need to have a commitment to it, but I don't think that we have the requisite information.

And again, I don't think the intention tonight is to vote on any of this. We have time. I know that everybody hears the urgency of fishermen in Kings Beach, but I don't think there's clear evidence here that what we're doing is the most effective use of our money, especially if we have the opportunity to leverage our money for much bigger funds and bigger partnerships with partners who do have the capability of fixing this issue a lot quicker than frankly we will be able to by ourselves.

[Speaker 4] (46:51 - 49:34)
Thanks, Peter. Just from my perspective, we have $2.5 million that the state allocated us through state ARPA funds in conjunction with $2.5 million that was granted from the City of Lynn. I mean, to me, I want to get that $2.5 million in play. I'm looking at an email from our consultant, Kleinfelder, who had a scope of work as to how that $2.5 million would be allocated with the Kings Beach Basis of Design Report, a UV pilot, Phase 2 IDDE in design, and Phase 2A construction that comes to $2.79 million. To me, that $2.5 million is sitting there. We could take action with that $2.5 million and really move the process forward in a way that's going to help clean up our mess. I also want to be working collaboratively with the City of Lynn and our state and federal stakeholders and representatives to make sure that we're getting every dollar, every dime that we can, because this is going to be an enormous impact on the taxpayer if we are to try to go at it ourselves. I don't think that's the intention of any of us. I don't think that's the intention of the Save Kings Beach Group.

I think they're bringing attention to this, and we're putting this on agendas so we can continue to bring attention to it and have town staff continue to focus on solving this catastrophe, this environmental catastrophe, this environmental justice issue that's at our doorstep. Doing anything other than working diligently to solve the problem is not enough. We didn't create the problem, but it is ours, and we have the moral obligation to make sure that we're doing everything that we can.

I would like, with the approval of the Board, to authorize the town administrator to work as expeditiously as possible to get the $2.5 million of state ARPA funds in play so we can start this most important work. I would like to have town staff also look at the $2.1 million and make recommendations as to how that can be. Sean, tell me, how much time are you going to need for that initial analysis?

[Speaker 1] (49:34 - 52:19)
I think a few weeks. I think we need some time to work with our regulatory agencies. I think we've sent off a request that was designed or developed by Kleinfelder, that scope for the $2.5 million, to mask DEP back in, is it August, Andy?

August 24th. We're waiting months to hear from DEP. We're under a consent order.

We want the EPA, we want DEP to really be our partners. They have that scope. I expect to hear from them soon.

But it could be a few more weeks. I reached out to them this week. In terms of ARPA, I think a few weeks and we can be back to the Board, I would say, maybe either at our next meeting or the meeting after.

I do think, listening to the Board, look, there are a lot of important concerns. Katie, your concerns about making sure that there aren't grants available. There are a lot of grants out there, a lot of grants for infrastructure, a lot of grants for things that are generally considered to be ministerial.

I know fixing Kings Beach doesn't sound ministerial, but it basically is the bricks and mortar of how we manage the town. We have to keep these systems in a status of good repair, but the town spent 100 years ignoring them. We can't fix those problems overnight.

It's going to take us some time. But we want to really work with our state and federal agencies to expedite a lot of this work. In terms of ARPA, I do have a hope that there's a generational project that otherwise would never be achievable that can be accomplished through these funds.

To me, I want a grand idea. I want a big idea. I'm not sure that idea is in the packet before you.

Again, I think about resiliency. I think about some of the concerns about historic preservation, other things that frankly need to be part of our operating budget, part of our priorities. I think we can use this to seed important funding opportunities, but it's going to take a few more weeks to really get that recommendation to the board.

But happy to work with the board and meet with the board and continue to talk about what would be the best use of these limited dollars.

[Speaker 4] (52:19 - 52:28)
So two things. So the $2.5 million, how expeditiously could we get that? That's the ARPA money?

Yeah, the ARPA money.

[Speaker 8] (52:28 - 52:34)
We're just waiting on the approval from the regional director of MassDEC on the scope of funds.

[Speaker 22] (52:34 - 52:35)
That's Eric Wardle.

[Speaker 4] (52:35 - 53:00)
So is there anything that we can do at the state level to push this forward? Yeah, I think there's all sorts of... Six weeks after initial communications go out, that's not really trying to solve a problem in my opinion.

I'm not upset with you. I'm just saying it's frustrating that six weeks is going by without a response.

[Speaker 1] (53:00 - 54:20)
I think it comes at a time where I think the state... We've reached out to the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and we're working with the Secretary of Environmental Affairs, the Undersecretary, to really explore some strategies. And I think there are a lot of conversations that are happening right now around Kings Beach and around the consent orders, both in Swampstreet and in Lynn, that frankly are starting to generate a lot of discussion.

But I agree that these dollars should be employed immediately. And it's my hope that we can get approval and consensus to spend these dollars. Kleinfeld is ready to work.

I talked to Gino Cresta, our Assistant Town Administrator and DBW Director today. He is ready to move forward this fall and continue to get into some of the IDDD efforts that would help us identify some of the illicit connections within the Kings Beach area. We've done a lot of that, but there are still a few opportunities for us to strengthen some of the illicit detections.

[Speaker 3] (54:21 - 59:19)
Hi, Sean. David, I'm sorry. I just want to stay on the question that you asked, which is about how to get this done.

And Sean, you said come back in a couple of weeks. And I appreciate you coming back with a list, but I just want to kind of go back and say again that I think what we really need to do is enhance our education and our technical education. And because I still sit here and, again, appreciate the emails, but if you saw all the emails, there's lots of different opinions about what we should be doing.

I know that a lot of these were facilitated emails to us, but even facilitated emails came with lots of different opinions and from people who have diverse backgrounds. And they can all be right. You can all be right.

And I don't know that answer. And I just, I would like, I think it's a good use of some time tonight for us to be talking about how do we advance holistically this conversation to not make us, because I don't want to feel better spending $2.5 million on how Kleinfelder's memo says, unless that's the way we should be spending the money, right? This is the, we shouldn't be satisfied saying, Hey, we're spending $2.5 million. Hey, we've already spent six and a half million dollars, you know, but that's not how we should feel satisfied here. So I really, I would like to talk about how we advance the conversation. And I want to lift you up because you have done Yeoman's work and the conversations with the state and the federal government.

The fact that Seth Moulton is mentioning this project in Washington at hearings, committee hearings, is because you've lifted up the conversation. And you facilitated the working with Lynn, et cetera here. But I think it might be at a point and at a place where it needs to be a bit brought more open as a dialogue, Sean, to understand these conversations, to understand the basis of things, because it's not that we don't believe you can get to the best information.

It's that I think our community is going to need to know that best information, because that community is going to be asked to fund a very significant check for that, whatever it is, and whatever the solution is at the end here. And so I just want to talk about how we not sit for two hours and listen to another presentation from Kleinfelder, because I don't, we've done that. But to really get more three dimensional with our thinking and our talking here, and I'm loath to use this, I'm loath to ever desire more process here.

But I've got to say, we have a number of really talented citizens that I want to have us talk about inviting into the conversation. Because I think not only would we have the benefit of their smarts and their passion for the topic, but we would also, at the same time, be educating the community at the same time with what we're doing here, because this is so important. It's not as easy as saying, just write another check.

We can do this all right now, by the way. But we won't be doing anything else in town, if we do it all right now. So therefore, we've got to make strategic decisions.

And I think talking about, you know, where does Swampscot want to be? What does Swampscot really do support? I don't know.

I mean, I hear you and I hear the mayor talking about UV and you talking about the outfall and terrific, but I and I hear about IDDE, but I also see the results after $6.5 million of IDDE that, you know, Stacey's Brooks aren't impressive, but that's because the problem may not be on our side of the line. We still got to do it, but we're not getting the results we want. And I just want to suggest, and again, I'm low to create process for no reason.

But here, I think having and talking about having a group, especially given the fact that a group has some individuals have stepped forward that are really impressive with their seriousness. And we're not all going to agree and we're not all going to see the same way. But that's the point, right, is to bring the ideas and the expertise to the table and challenge it.

Because I think that process is going to lead to a better result for us. So I just wanted to throw that out there for you all to think about and talk about, because I actually think that's the next thing we need to do here. The 2.5, fine. We're going down the path. If DEP says that's the right thing, we all believe that what that memo from October, sorry, from August 24th says is the right thing to be doing next. Yes, we should be doing as quickly as possible if we all believe it's the right thing to be doing next.

But I want to have, again, as the remaining money and just frankly, what we're doing holistically onto this project, never mind just the money, I feel like we've got to do some things differently. I think we have to be talking about it differently. I think we've got to be educating ourselves and each other differently as we make this decision, because we're going to have to make not just hard financial decisions.

We're going to have to make hard strategy decisions as to which path we go. How do we do it? How do we get to the end we want?

And I think having community buy-in is critical in this because it impacts all of us. Thanks. Thanks, Peter.

[Speaker 4] (59:19 - 59:21)
Doug, you've been waiting patiently.

[Speaker 6] (59:22 - 1:03:26)
No problem. Great points, Peter. I think on the 2.5, the only thing that we all should be aware of is that all of that 2.5 right now, the way the memo is structured to DEP is not necessarily all for source elimination. There's about 400,000 that's either for the outfall design or for the alternatives report for Kleinfelder. So when we talk about the 2.5, we just should be really clear about the direction we're giving to Sean. I vote for basically that all going to source elimination and our share of the Kleinfelder alternatives report.

I do think it's premature to hop on the outfall bus. To Peter's point, I think beyond the source elimination efforts that we need to do, I still think it's an open question what the kind of belt and suspenders and bigger solution needs to be. So that's kind of my position on the 2.5. I'd just like to lay out kind of a straw man to deal with another question that Peter raised, which I think is a good one as well, that I think we need to give Sean and town staff a general direction on the 2.1. Tonight I think that would be helpful, whether or not we're all thinking that the vast majority of that is going towards infrastructure as well, or if there is a kind of a breakdown within that 2.1. And in this regard, I feel as though another million of the 2.1 should go towards Fisherman's Beach and the issues that have been identified there for source elimination. And that with the remaining 1.1, that the staff proposals amount to about 500,000. And in line with what I mentioned earlier about the climate generational investments, those will total millions and millions, but having a down payment of 500,000.

So basically I'm saying with the 2.1, a million for fishermen's, a half a million for climate related, another half a million for the town proposals to be vetted more thoroughly over the next few weeks, as we've said, and 100,000 for historic preservation slash the Glover. To just kind of round this all out, I do believe that in line with the asset management plan that heard about last time, that we need to continue to make investments in our infrastructure. Those would fall under the normal capital planning process.

We need to, in addition to the 2.5 I'm mentioning here for Kings and another million for fishermen's, we need to get back on the bus of the regular two, two and a half million in the capital planning process. With more information, as Peter is saying, is that just the pipes or is there something more? And I do think that we're going to need to think about as we talk about our sewer rates, maybe our water rates, whether or not we have the right level of investment per the report from Kleinfelder.

So I'm trying to just lay out a straw man for us to react to and without getting into the kind of nitty gritty maybe, but just kind of the bucketing of whether or not we're on the 2.1, we're talking about all infrastructure, or if there's maybe some more infrastructure and some allocation to other projects. Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (1:03:27 - 1:03:30)
Thanks, Doug. Mary Ellen.

[Speaker 9] (1:03:33 - 1:03:51)
I just had a wanted a clarification on the 2.5 that was given. My understanding is that is just for not for fishermen's. Peter, you said, did, are you thinking that that can also go for fishermen's?

[Speaker 19] (1:03:55 - 1:03:56)
Yeah, Peter.

[Speaker 3] (1:03:57 - 1:04:35)
Sorry, guys, I'm just looking at the computer. Yeah, I'm looking at I'm looking at the memo here. And so the memo is, and I guess I probably did mistake that.

So there's the numbers on the memo, just to be clear, is the Kings Beach basis of design report 187. The alcohol design is 200. Doug, I think you inadvertently said for that one's 300,000 planning.

No, I was saying the 400. Design is 400,000. And then the phase two construction is 1.712. million for 2.5. So I stand corrected on that.

[Speaker 9] (1:04:38 - 1:05:52)
I agree with Peter, I'd like to see a committee formed together of people that have been heavily active in doing research and getting information on this. Once we have a committee, I'd like to have the opinion. I'm not comfortable with the request to DEP for the use of money, because I'm really not sure some of those ideas that are printed out there are in our best.

So we'd like to have a committee together to give an opinion on it. So I'm going to answer with Peter completely. And as far as the 2.1, you know, I would like to keep everything open and have a conversation. I am still behind infrastructure. And I'd like to know what the project estimates are for fishermen's because in the Kleinfelder report, I'm pretty sure the Kleinfelder reports are that they have a, they have the numbers or they have a plan on exactly how to fix fishermen's, but I haven't been able to get any information. So if you have that info, Sean, that would be great.

So we know what is it going to cost to deal with fishermen's.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:53 - 1:07:12)
Yeah, if I can just raise up one point though, in this, which is we're going to need to have consulting dollars out there. I mean, look, we're not going to be able to do this. We're not, we're going to have to staff a committee if we do a committee, but even if we didn't have a committee, we have to have Kleinfelder or whoever our consultants are, and we have to have money available to pay for them.

And even if they are being paid to work and contemplate things that we disqualify as options going forward, we need the technical experience at the table. And we are blessed with a lot of really smart people in town, but we need to supplement all of our experience, all of our knowledge, and then our passion with making sure that whatever, however we allocate dollars at the end of the day, we do allocate some general dollars for our consultant to make sure we do have the technical support at the table for us, because we are ultimately going to be charged to make the decision. And just like a whole bunch of the advisory committees we have, we want the advice, we want to hear it, we want to debate it with each other, but we also need to be able to check it at times and make sure that, frankly, I would see Kleinfelder part of any committee process, because I think you have to have that expertise at the table and let's have debates and discussions about things. And so we're just going to need to have a budget for that.

So when we do get closer, if now's the time, whatever, I just want to make sure we do allocate some funding for technical support.

[Speaker 4] (1:07:13 - 1:07:57)
Thanks, Peter. Yeah, and I'm 100% behind setting up an infrastructure committee and getting that, you know, starting to advertise and building that committee and having that, you know, ready to go as quickly as possible. I'm looking at a memo from July 6th, which the 2.5 I have, it just outlines Kings Beach basis of design 190, a UV pilot for 100, phase two IDDE and design 500,000, and phase two A construction $2 million. Is this not, was there a refined, Sean, was there something that was refined since that July 6th email that has more?

[Speaker 1] (1:07:57 - 1:08:34)
Yes, you know, we've got an updated scope that was put together on August 24th that includes, you know, $187,000 for Kings Beach design, $200,000 for the outfall extension, pre-design and modeling, $400,000 for phase two of the IDDE work and $1.7 million for phase two construction. Got it, just a little different than what? Sure, that was what we originally sent to DEP.

Got it, got it.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:35 - 1:14:23)
So a couple things. One, can we have a more specific slide with those numbers on it next time for this discussion, which understands not just, you know, yes, we could spend all of this and 10 times this on the issue, but what exactly you want to spend $2.1 million on if all of the ARPA funds, all of the additional ARPA funds went to Kings Beach, what you're prioritizing those funds for. And then I want to echo Peter's point.

You know, it's extremely frustrating to feel like you're trying to move in the right direction, signing off on lots of funds being spent and then having not the results you want, right, to come back. So, you know, it's also frustrating to have the EPA send a letter that basically says you guys aren't doing enough. And so, you know, I understand we wear many, many hats on this board and we have to consider a lot of different projects.

I just, I disagree with Sean's point that there isn't a project in this package that will be generationally life-changing because cleaning up Kings Beach would be generationally life-changing. So, that's not to say that no other project can come forward and be as important or can, that I'm not, I'm just saying yes, rubber stamp, spend all the money that way. I'm just saying when we go back to staff, that is my feedback.

Like, I'm looking for that type of project that's going to, you know, to also change generations going forward. And to your point, Sean, other than that project, I think all of these are admirable projects. I am a big advocate of mental health awareness and support.

I would love to spend two million dollars building a life center for our aging and young community. Like, I would love to find a million ways to spend this money. But the fact of the matter is we're going to have to fix the pipes regardless.

And if the pipes don't fix the Kings Beach problem, we still have to fix the pipes. So, I think, like, I just want to be smart about how we're understanding. To me, fixing the pipes and Kings Beach, fixing the Kings Beach would be a lovely byproduct of fixing the pipes.

But fixing the pipes is still a problem. And we still have half of our pipes over 100 years old. I know we have competing interests.

But I just think we just really need to put that in perspective, even if it doesn't fix Kings Beach. It still has to be a priority. Mary Ellen's talking about the importance of infrastructure.

And most of the feedback from our survey was saying to spend this in infrastructure. We're going to be putting this responsibility on our taxpayers regardless. So, I just want to be thoughtful about when we come forward with a proposal for this money.

And we're talking about it in the lens of Kings Beach, but also in the lens of infrastructure and what's that going to take off of the burdens that we're going to have regardless going forward from here. If you added up everything in this packet, you're not, you're just, as Doug said, just over a half a million dollars. You still could allocate $1.6 million in addition to the $2.5 million to fixing pipes and infrastructure. That's great. But unless we commit to that two-year cycle of constantly being on top of things and not taking our foot off the gas pedal, we're going to be in the same position three years from now, four years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now. Hopefully we won't be here, but there will be other people who are here and they might not have the same passion or notice of this issue.

And so, I just want to gather more information. I want to be smart about how we spend this money. It is the only money we're going to get to spend like this.

So, I would just like to see more information about how bringing forward, if this is an infrastructure fix, what we're prioritizing, what infrastructure we're prioritizing to fix, understanding how much the Fisherman's Beach area to fix that would cost in its totality. And then if not, what a variation of that is. And then also, I fully echo the sentiments of starting an infrastructure committee.

One of the questions I asked at the last meeting was, great, we have this nice little pocket of green that we spent $6.5 million on, but how do we keep it green? And yes, there's all this red and we have to worry about that too, but that too is the juggling of many hats that we have to wear. So, we've spent the money and we want to see it stay green.

How do we do that? We also talked about instituting some conversations about residents taking responsibility for the laterals and also understanding if there's some funding that we can partner with residents to get some of those things fixed. So, I think there's a lot of stuff on the table.

It feels overwhelming, but if we could just organize it in a way so that when we're talking about this money, when we make a decision, we can understand exactly how we are spending it and not, oh, we thought we were spending $2.5 million to fix Fisherman's Beach and we're actually spending it to fix King's Beach. And so, I just need more specifics to make a decision, but yeah, I'll get off my soapbox.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:23 - 1:15:08)
Thanks, Katie. David, I'm wondering if, so we're not, we can't do things so spontaneously here, but I'm just wondering, and I guess I'm going to volunteer, see if Doug will volunteer with me, if maybe Doug and I spend a little time brainstorming with staff to come back with a formal recommendation for an advisory committee for this board to take action on. And I'm not trying to put it off.

I want it to happen quickly, but I don't think we should just be on the spot here, just creating something without thinking about exactly what we want the scope to be and expectations to be, so we can have a bit more of a thoughtful conversation on that at our next meeting and just come back. And again, Doug, I'm volunteering. You can always demur, but we've worked on other things similar before and had success, so.

[Speaker 21] (1:15:10 - 1:15:12)
Okay. I'm supportive of that.

[Speaker 5] (1:15:13 - 1:15:21)
Sounds great. I think Mary Ellen might have lost power in her phone if we don't see her on there. Her phone has died, so.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:21 - 1:20:01)
David, I just, you know, I just wanted to just mention, look, I get it. I've been here for over six years. I get how frustrating it is to have that beach be broken.

It's a threat to public health. I grew up going to that beach. I grew up bringing my family, I bring my boys to that beach.

It's a beautiful, gorgeous beach that overlooks the capital city of New England. I have spent more time trying to encourage our colleagues on a local, state, and federal level to get out of, you know, the same mode of just doing the same thing and expecting a different result. I don't believe that spending more money here is going to solve the problem for this generation.

I do believe that the money we spend is valuable, but I don't believe that I will live long enough to actually see that beach brought back to a productive, safe use for anybody. I believe that Kings Beach needs the full measure of local, state, and federal officials to do our job and to protect human health and to protect the people that deserve to have that resource area. It's an environmental justice malfeasance of government on every level to have that beach stand as the worst example.

It has been a race to the bottom to think that we have spent six and a half million dollars and literally are in the same position after six years. I won't do it. I won't be part of this.

I have told everybody I am not coming back asking for another nickel and to think that somehow I have to stand up and say, I'm actually trying to help this town fix that beach. The EPA, when it gave us that consent order seven years ago, has to own that they weren't really focused on solving that problem. They have to own that, and they have to recognize that we need to do better.

By better, I mean find a solution. I hear the board's concern. We do need to have better conversations, and we do have outstanding citizens.

I believe you care as much as we do. I believe that you are willing to help us connect to a broader group of Swampskate citizens. I want them to believe that when we are focused on solving this problem, just like we're going to build a $100 million elementary school and cut a ribbon in a few months, that we can actually cut a ribbon on Kings Beach and fix that problem too.

I do believe we need state and federal partners. I want them to do more than send us letters to say, be more aggressive. My response to that is, you too.

You be more aggressive. You help us. You give me the names, and you tell me how many people in every state agency that regulates anything to do with the water quality at that beach.

Tell me what they have done over the last 30 years to help us do anything more than spend this money on IDDE, because it's not getting us to a better place. I want us, not a future board, not a future group of citizens. I want us to fix this problem.

Frankly, we need as much help as we can get. I don't believe we've dusted anything under a rug. I'm not inclined to go to another photo op with a bunch of people saying, hey, look at us.

I'm not. I'd rather sit in a room and sit down and kind of figure out, all right, what is the empirical validity of the dilution effect on bacteria? Where is the science behind how we can actually mitigate the impairments at Fishman's and Phillips?

I do agree with one of the comments that we should spend a little bit more time and effort on Fishman and Phillips because we've ignored it forever. This asset management report that we did has given us a wider lens to say we've got other opportunities to protect our unique problems. The regional problem should get the regional and state and federal support.

With that said, I do really appreciate the fact that we have citizens that want to volunteer. I'll do my best to work with Peter and Doug and anybody that wants to elevate the advocacy for solving this problem sooner than later.

[Speaker 4] (1:20:01 - 1:20:05)
The squeaky wheel always gets the grease, so let's continue to be squeaky.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:05 - 1:20:14)
If you go back, this is the first generation that actually, in a very meaningful way, has started to say, let's get this done.

[Speaker 20] (1:20:15 - 1:20:16)
Thanks, Sean. Doug?

[Speaker 6] (1:20:18 - 1:21:26)
I was just going to briefly. I can hear the frustration from Sean's perspective. I know he's put in probably hundreds of hours on this topic and definitely has perspective and information that maybe not all of us have.

I don't think any of us here today are sitting and saying we absolutely 100% know that just fixing the pipes will be the 100% solution, but it seems as though many if not all of us are saying it definitely needs to be a major part of the solution, so let's get going on that piece. I think the direction you're being given, I suppose we'll vote on that next week or next meeting, but just wanted to kind of provide that nuance, Sean, and recognize all the work that you've done on this. The other solutions aren't off the table, but I think there's just a pretty clear desire to get going on continuing our work on fixing the pipes.

Appreciate that.

[Speaker 4] (1:21:26 - 1:21:32)
Thanks, Doug. We do have a hand up from an attendee, Cindy C.

[Speaker 20] (1:21:34 - 1:21:35)
Can you unmute her?

[Speaker 19] (1:21:38 - 1:22:04)
Cindy, just state your name and your address, please. Cindy, I think you can unmute yourself now.

[Speaker 11] (1:22:07 - 1:22:08)
All right. Can you hear me now?

[Speaker 20] (1:22:08 - 1:22:09)
Yes, we can.

[Speaker 11] (1:22:10 - 1:24:27)
Cindy Cavallaro, Precinct 3. I'm just a little concerned about the confusion or the desire for more information than we already have. The citizens have totally brought this to the forefront, which is needed to be done, but to hear someone say they're not going to see it in their generation or their generation or compare it to fishies is like comparing apples to oranges.

Unless Kings Beach is making fishies a toilet bowl, but it's become itself. It's a very small part. I think you should consider being just as equally passionate about getting DCR involved, get the state to take over that part.

I'm willing to give up that little part of Swampskate and just call it Kings Beach and let DCR take care of it all, but we can't do that or that hasn't been brought up as an option, but there's enough people, private citizens putting time, effort, and their own money involved to try and bring this to the important level that it is. We shouldn't be making these statements about not my generation or that next generation. You know what?

We've got senators that we need to stay on top of that have been by our sides for other things of less much importance. We've bought an open space that we were promised as a town meeting member from Mr. Spallios who came out like Oz behind the mirror. Oh, and look what we have here now.

And now we're talking about building. The only thing protected are the people from Archer. We're paying taxes on stuff we haven't even built yet.

And this new million dollar elementary school, when did this happen? And I try to attend as many meetings as I can. We are just penny wise and brain cells stored many times over.

Town government needs to work harder and work better. And as far as these meeting and these committees and these advisory things you want to do, it's a waste of time. It's a waste of time.

You've got enough slides, enough information from private citizens and from your own information that you said you gathered to be able to put two and two together and figure it out. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:24:28 - 1:25:37)
Thanks, Cindy. I will say that the town administrator has been working with, you know, has been writing letters to DCR asking them, imploring them to take over the Swampscott portion of Kings Beach. We have to bring our seawalls into a status of good repair prior to their really consider them really considering that, you know, you know, and I believe in 1968 Swampscott decided to to take back its beaches from DCR's predecessor.

So, you know, we we need to be we certainly need to be mindful and thoughtful and careful as we're as we're moving forward so that we do not repeat the same mistakes of the past. I believe Swampscott taking over the beaches from DCR's predecessor in 1968 was an enormous mistake and it's cost our town tens of millions of dollars that we could have put into anything else other than seawall repair and beach cleanup.

[Speaker 1] (1:25:38 - 1:26:30)
Yeah, that's accurate. The board did vote to authorize me to direct a letter to Senator Crichton and seek a meeting to turn Kings Beach back over to DCR. Our Conservation Commission has also gone on record supporting that.

So, there's been an ongoing effort. The, you know, it is a process. The state doesn't certainly want to assume any additional liabilities or costs to but, you know, we're going to try to ensure that that entire resource area is supported by the state.

It's a big huge Department of Conservation resource area and it's the worst beach that they are responsible for and we want their voice in the concert of opinion about how we get broader state and federal funding as well.

[Speaker 5] (1:26:31 - 1:26:46)
So, if there's been a request from DCR to spend money on seawalls then is that not a way we should be looking to spend ARPA funds? If we can't give it to DCR until the seawalls are repaired then.

[Speaker 4] (1:26:46 - 1:27:04)
Well, that hasn't, that wasn't their recommendation. It was our recommendation. We can't, you know, we're, they're not going, they wouldn't even consider it until that, until those capital, that capital has happened.

They haven't, they haven't said, they haven't made a, they haven't responded. I don't believe there's been a response.

[Speaker 1] (1:27:04 - 1:27:08)
No, there hasn't. But Katie, you know, it could be a project.

[Speaker 5] (1:27:08 - 1:27:21)
It looks like they're not even going to consider it until seawalls are repaired. And 45 percent of the survey respondents requested that we spend this money in infrastructure and we haven't been putting money into our seawalls. Then is that not another way that we should be looking at to spend ARPA funds?

[Speaker 1] (1:27:22 - 1:28:03)
It's, it's absolutely another way. But, you know, I, I would again probably just, you know, share that that's, that's ordinary kind of maintenance. Like if we were really doing the things that we should, like that would be in a capital plan.

And we would, we would just every 30 years, we would, we would have a $10 million tranche of funding that would help maintain it. We're going to get to a point where we're, we're doing the maintenance that we deferred for generations. And so I hear your point.

I think you make a good point. But we only have such a small amount of money here. I understand.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:05 - 1:28:47)
We're doing it. I mean, the last three fiscal years, we've had money. Three, three-fourths of Fisherman's or Kings Beach is done.

There's money coming in the next fiscal year for Fisherman's Beach. So this is actually an example. I just want to, I agree with Katie, by the way, if not, I don't think it's going to unleash DCR, sadly.

I don't think DCR really has any interest at the moment of taking on more beach. But that's just an opinion. But we are doing the walls.

And again, for the first time in a generation, we're doing the walls. So we're doing it. So I actually just want to, again, lift up Shawn and the team for the fact that they have been, it is in the plan to do it.

Maybe not big enough, fast enough, but that's, again, probably always the case.

[Speaker 5] (1:28:48 - 1:29:19)
I think to Peter's point too, if it's not big enough, fast enough, or if the prioritization of it should be skewed, then maybe there is a greater benefit to an infrastructure committee to understand what all the wants are and then to prioritize them. And obviously priorities change, but to be continually looking at the prioritization of them and what the next steps are, not just to bring them to good repair, but to keep them in good repair. Not just seawalls, but all infrastructure in town.

[Speaker 4] (1:29:21 - 1:30:59)
I think we can move on from this topic. I think briefly we can have a conversation about the review and discussion regarding possible updates to the town charter. I know I have requested some information that could be shared with the board, a consolidated list of requests from chairs of boards and committees within the town.

I believe we had that, and I believe we also were waiting for some additional information. We don't have all of that information. That information has not been shared widely with the board.

I think we still need a little more time with it, but I do want to propose that we table that discussion and come back and schedule a meeting solely to address the charter revisions. What I'll do is once I have a document, I can circulate the 2016 charter, what has been proposed, and we can then have a robust discussion. Maybe that's next week.

Maybe that's next Wednesday. I know we're not scheduled to have a meeting, but I think this is important enough that we're setting time aside to be able to address this as a one-agenda meeting of the select board and invite the public and board and committee chairs to come into the conversation as well. I just want to open that up to thoughts from the board.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:01 - 1:31:17)
I think that's great. I don't think next week is a reasonable timetable. I think, frankly, when we get it, we need to sit with it.

We need to absorb it. I would just ask for it to be put out. Again, not to delay.

I just don't think it's reasonable that we're going to get the information in enough time to give us enough time by next Wednesday to absorb it.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:19 - 1:31:20)
Fair enough.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:23 - 1:31:42)
I do like the idea of a dedicated meeting, though, and let's invite those people who've chimed in with ideas because several committees have chimed in with ideas. Staff may have ideas. Others may have ideas.

Our meeting agenda sometimes gets so full it doesn't allow us to sit and get as granular as we should. This is a topic that certainly we should be granular about.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:43 - 1:32:22)
Perhaps it's possible to have our first meeting in November or either on November 1st or the second week of November, say November 8th, dedicated to this topic. Sean, do you think that's enough time to be able to finalize this and to distribute to the board so we can sit on it and have adequate time? Would November 1st be?

I just think this is important. I think this is something that we want to make sure that we're advancing and having conversations about since it will be a substantive change to our charter. Well, any change is substantive.

[Speaker 5] (1:32:25 - 1:32:59)
Yeah, I think it would be helpful to have, obviously, a red line of the 2016 charter with the proposed changes and then some background on sort of the suggestion of change, right? Because it all comes from some sort of catalyst, right? So it would be great to understand if other committees or boards brought it forward, you know, sort of what they're looking to accomplish.

That way we're not, you know, bastardizing their suggestion by our own editing and we're sort of trying to stay true to what they're trying to accomplish there. So that would be helpful.

[Speaker 20] (1:33:03 - 1:33:04)
Doug, thoughts?

[Speaker 6] (1:33:06 - 1:33:19)
All sounds good. You know, both these topics are critical following up on our previous discussion and this discussion. So 1st and the 8th for meetings, whatever the order is that things are ready in advance is good with me.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:19 - 1:33:37)
Okay. Yeah, let's Sean, let's work on pulling that information together and sending that out to the board sooner rather than later. Please.

Unless anybody has anything else on that. Well, more information to come there. Capital Improvement Projects?

[Speaker 3] (1:33:38 - 1:33:38)
Mr. Chairman?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:39 - 1:33:39)
Sure.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:40 - 1:33:54)
I'm going to, I apologize. It is 1251 a.m. where I am. So I'm going to bow out and miss the rest of this meeting.

So I apologize. Okay. Have a good night.

[Speaker 11] (1:33:55 - 1:33:56)
Thank you everyone.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:56 - 1:33:56)
Take care.

[Speaker 11] (1:33:58 - 1:34:19)
If you don't mind just taking a little more information, this is Cindy Cavallaro from Precinct 3. When you talked about the walls being a definite repair thing that we need to do, I'd like to just ask a question. Why was Mission on the Bay allowed to open without having the property authority to tell them it was okay to open?

We're going to spend all this money on walls.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:22 - 1:35:05)
I mean, Cindy, they did repair the wall temporarily and they've been given an approval to operate by our building commissioner. So it's been inspected. It goes through a monthly inspection and they're working on a design to repair that wall.

I met with the owner of the property this week and along with the building commissioner and I expect to see by the end of the week a design that will help us ensure a critical path for the repair of that wall system.

[Speaker 4] (1:35:10 - 1:35:39)
Yeah, let's move on. So we can move on and have our discussion regarding the capital improvement projects. I think this is the earliest that we've ever had this discussion, which just shows the amount of importance and focus that town staff and certainly CIC and the Select Committee have on capital.

So Sean, is that something you're going to walk us through?

[Speaker 1] (1:35:39 - 1:35:48)
Well, Patrick has got a list of the new projects, so I'm going to ask town treasurer to provide the board with that. Take us away, Patrick.

[Speaker 7] (1:35:49 - 1:38:33)
Can everybody hear me? Okay. All right.

So to your point, Steve, if you're correct, we've put a lot of effort in this year to try and accelerate the process toward the beginning of the fiscal year. Very early on, I met with Amy and Sean and we kind of came up with a rough timeline for what we want the outcomes to be from department head submitting proposals, committee review, finance committee review, and ultimately select board review and backing into town meeting in May. So we have a good plan in place.

I've been attending meetings with the CIC monthly since July. So right at the beginning of the fiscal year, CIC took their first meeting or so to develop an outline for a new submission form that departments would use to submit their proposals, a little bit different than what we've used in previous years. The purpose of that was to streamline the process, really hone in on the information that the committee relies on to make recommendations and eliminate some redundant information that wasn't used in the last round.

So that's been done. We set an initial deadline for the end of September for departments to submit their proposals. We have a number of proposals and I think it came out to latest count 41 and that has been shared with you all in a list format with just the fiscal year and the expected outlay in the capital plan.

So from here, you know, up to this point, I've met with all the department heads on that list. Amy and Sean have been in on several of those meetings and we have a good idea for, you know, what's been submitted. We also talked about, you know, existing capital projects checked in on status so we can have a good report for the committee and you all about what's already been approved.

And we've also talked about the five-year plan that was approved last year or recommended by the committee and really looked at, you know, what has changed since then, what can we expect to maybe be pushed out or pulled forward, what costs have increased or decreased. So we've had those conversations preliminary with all the department heads. So at this point, the CIC has their next meeting scheduled for November 14th.

We have a monthly, Ryan Hill has set up a monthly kind of standing meeting. So November 14th is the next one and we'll be meeting with Marcie to go over some of the community development proposals and likely Max Casper, the facilities director, to talk about a number of his proposals and have that dialogue with the committee now. And we're really looking to have recommendations from the committee and finance committee settled by, I think, January.

[Speaker 8] (1:38:34 - 1:38:54)
We're hoping to have CIC recommendations by end of January so that finance committee passed February. They're going to do a joint handover meeting. Then finance committee passed February to review and approve that by March 1st, when the town administrator's budget's prevented, finance committee can solely focus on budget.

[Speaker 7] (1:38:56 - 1:39:34)
So that's the outline of kind of what's going on with the capital process so far for FY24. And I've committed to the capital improvements committee and simultaneously finance committee and select board to prepare, you know, a shared file with all the project information from previous years and this year, so that we're all looking at the same set of information. I think that's really going to help us have a productive process.

So I'm prepared to have that as soon as the end of next week and I'll get that going so that everyone is looking at this documentation as soon as possible at their leisure rather than, you know, eking up to a deadline such as, you know, tell me.

[Speaker 4] (1:39:35 - 1:39:55)
Thank you. Yeah, we really appreciate the, you know, the hard work that staff has and just the forward thinking and the planning, which is going into this. So much, much appreciated.

I know it's difficult changing how things have worked historically. So thank you.

[Speaker 5] (1:39:57 - 1:40:41)
Just a quick question. The projects that have been funded, we will have, you said we will have information as to those as well forthcoming. And then will we also or could it also be included, I'm sure it already is, where we are along in those projects, like have we put it out to bid, have the bids come back, you know, whatever the current status is, you know, it's interesting.

No, I know. But it's always interesting to know, like, we fund stuff and then it doesn't get spent for periods of time, which is understandable. But it's great to have the color so that everybody else can understand why it hasn't been spent yet.

[Speaker 7] (1:40:41 - 1:41:03)
Yeah, the report will include, you know, the expenditure data to date. And then it'll also have the qualitative commentary from the department heads. We've had similar reports released in the past, but really trying to go back through it and circle back with everybody in depth and get a little bit more color on each project.

So we'll do our best to have a comprehensive report with that information for you all.

[Speaker 1] (1:41:03 - 1:43:10)
So I think it's important to just context, you know, with the capital planning process, it's not capital budgeting. It becomes capital budgeting once the finance committee and the select board approve the warrant and it becomes part of an annual budget. With planning, the bar for getting a project into the plan is not as high as getting it appropriated at town meetings.

So some of these ideas are, they're good ideas and they, you know, we want to encourage department heads and staff to put ideas in. Yes, we do kind of push some projects back if they're just not really well considered, but, you know, it's not as rigorous as, you know, the budgeting process. The most important thing that has to happen between now and when we put the budget together is the finance team, and most importantly, Patrick, our treasurer, has to figure out how to ensure that our debt service for bonding the projects that we're going to prioritize this year and the projects that we've actually placed in already into our capital plan are going to be able to be consistent with our overall financial plan and budget. So, you know, we have a lot of projects here. We haven't really culled them down.

I do think that there's going to be a lot of projects going to be pushed back for a couple of years. That gives us a chance to actually go out and compete for grants and let these projects really bake in a capital plan. Ideally, we don't want to see projects show up and ask for funding the first year.

We want to see them show up and say, look, I'm looking for this in two or three years as we seek, you know, to refine the scope of the project or, you know, get additional information about the, you know, possibilities of funding them through other means than the local property taxes.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:12 - 1:43:35)
I think, too, sometimes it's great to know when they're funded both ways. So, they're a grant and then we're trying to match funds related to a grant or something like that. It's really important because we don't want to lose the money on the table that we have.

So, we want to make smart financial decisions and spend the money where we're going to get maybe twice or three times as much in return. So, I'm sure the spreadsheet has that.

[Speaker 20] (1:43:40 - 1:43:40)
Doug.

[Speaker 6] (1:43:42 - 1:43:51)
Yeah, maybe I missed it, but where do the, where does committee, board and committee input come in this process?

[Speaker 7] (1:43:53 - 1:44:34)
I can just comment on that. Feel free to chime in. So, at this point, we've worked internally with department heads and CIC is reviewing.

The information is going to be available throughout the process to, like I said, to the select board and the finance committee through, you know, I'll have a shared folder and we're going to stay up to date with minutes and keep you all primed on what's going on with CIC. And then typically once CIC is complete in that end of January timeline is where we're at for this fiscal year. The recommendations will be kicked to finance committee for their, you know, active input in their meetings and the select board as well.

[Speaker 8] (1:44:34 - 1:44:35)
Doug.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:35 - 1:44:49)
Yeah, I'm sorry. I should have been clear. I meant to more like a renewable energy committee.

Climate action, renewable energy, yeah, et cetera, et cetera. Yes.

[Speaker 8] (1:44:50 - 1:45:17)
Yeah, so we put the request out for all the staff. We had indicated that they should share it with all the board and committees that they're liaisons for to see if there were any requests from that. So we did receive some through boards and committees that staff were liaisons for.

But if there's anything that there is no staff liaison for, just reach out to Patrick or myself and we'll help get those requests in.

[Speaker 6] (1:45:20 - 1:45:45)
Can I suggest that that feels a little unpredictable? Can we ensure some way that, you know, just to make sure it's comprehensive, that there's a kind of a direct communication either from CIC or from you all to each of the boards and committees? I wouldn't want to end up, you know, in February with a committee saying, hey, I never heard anything.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:46 - 1:45:57)
Sure. We can do that. We've done that in prior years, Doug, and so we can get a copy of all the board and committee chairs and just make sure that they have a direct communication.

[Speaker 8] (1:45:58 - 1:46:00)
We'd have to get all their contact. Thank you.

[Speaker 21] (1:46:03 - 1:46:04)
Anything else from the board?

[Speaker 6] (1:46:08 - 1:47:13)
Well, I think we've lost, you know, Mary Ellen and Peter here, but and I probably will need to go pretty soon as well. But I think, you know, there have been comments in the past about where does the board's kind of priorities, select board's priorities figure in this? And we're often, it sounds since this is my first trip around, that oftentimes, you know, those priorities aren't necessarily kind of brought to bear until later in the process.

And then it feels a little bit hard to really weigh in on things besides kind of paring down what's been brought to the table at that point. Is that, is that true? Is that a concern?

Is that something that we're somehow going to be have a, I thought maybe today was going to be one of those opportunities to share some of those priorities. I don't think that's really going to be the case. So just wanting to kind of make sure we're addressing that issue.

[Speaker 1] (1:47:16 - 1:48:14)
Yeah, Doug, the reason why we actually started this early was to get the select board's input on the projects and the priorities so that, you know, you can actually advise, guide, and support, you know, you know, what you think would be most helpful. Because ultimately at the end of the day, the only thing that goes on the warrant are projects that the select board approves. And so, you know, you're in charge of putting the warrant together as a board.

And, you know, we thought we'd add another six months to the runway. End of the charter, the town administrator has to put the capital improvement plan together and submit it by March 1st. You know, and that frankly doesn't seem to work for anybody because it's, if we just plopped it on everybody's desk on March 1st, it doesn't give us a whole lot of time to go through a deliberative process for a town meeting that happens in May.

[Speaker 6] (1:48:16 - 1:48:44)
So is there maybe a way to ensure we've got all the departmental and all the committee board and committee input at some interim point, at which point kind of the board looks at the general framework of how things are shaping up and that's a moment to weigh in, you know, I don't know if that's November or December, something like that. Is that a more sensible time to make sure we're kind of generally directionally aligned?

[Speaker 1] (1:48:47 - 1:49:47)
Yeah, I think that, you know, that's a timeline that could work. I want to get back to, you know, we spent a lot of time meeting with department heads and we have to ensure that the debt service for the town actually can fit within the operating budget. So we have a responsibility to, you know, cull some of the capital projects back and you know, that's going to happen over the next few weeks, but certainly happy to schedule some time to have some department heads come in and provide an overview of their projects and give the board a little bit more of a background for, you know, a number of these projects.

We've done that in the past, you know, we've had the police department come in, DPW director come in, fire chief come in and talk about, and community and economic development director come in, so.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:51 - 1:50:04)
All right, thanks. I think we should, I think next we should take up the discussion and vote for approval of the sale of notes. Patrick?

[Speaker 22] (1:50:04 - 1:50:05)
Yep.

[Speaker 4] (1:50:05 - 1:50:05)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 7] (1:50:07 - 1:52:36)
Thank you. So before you tonight, I'm asking for approval on a series of notes which pertain to the project cost for the land acquisition project, which was approved by a special town meeting in June of 2022. A little background you may recall, approximately a year ago I was before the board asking for approval on the initial financing for that project, which consisted similarly of a series upon anticipation notes with a one-year term.

Those are coming due on the 26th of this month, so I've worked with Amy and our fiscal advisor at Unibank to come up with another debt issue to renew that debt in the short term, and we conducted the sale and received bids last Wednesday on the notes, and I'd like to just go through quickly the results of that sale and the bids, so. So the series consists of two notes. The first note is in the amount of $1,650,000 to be dated October 25th of this year to mature on March 7th, qualifies for tax-exempt financing.

We received three bids total on series A. The method of award is lowest net interest cost. It's the most economical method of award to the town.

The high bid was 4.71% net interest cost, and the winning bidder was Fidelity Capital Markets at a net interest cost of 4.42%. Series B is in the amount of $7,225,000 to be dated October 25th, maturing October 24th of next year, taxable basis. Similarly, received three bids. High bid was 6.12% net interest cost, and winning bidder, again, was Fidelity Capital Markets with a net interest cost of 5.62%. So this is before you tonight. We have a scheduled settlement on October 25th, so I'm looking for a vote of the board to approve the sale of these notes. I provided consolidated language on the first page of the memo that you were all given. It's bolded and italicized, and then I would need physical signatures.

I know we don't have everybody here tonight, so maybe the two of you can sign off, and then I'll have a third volunteer maybe stop by the office tomorrow if possible, but I'm happy to entertain any questions.

[Speaker 5] (1:52:37 - 1:52:43)
Can you just speak to why we are sort of looking at short-term solutions rather than longer-term solutions?

[Speaker 7] (1:52:43 - 1:54:09)
I can. So last year, obviously, we looked at that pretty closely. It's a large outlay.

It's not on the five-year plan. It was an opportunity that came up kind of without a horizon to it. Town meeting approved the project, so we look to really maintain budget stability and still, you know, as much financial leverage as we can.

So a short-term note seemed fit at the time. We did a one-year note. Now we are a year later.

We have seen some rate rise, but we've done analysis at this point with the original notes maturing, and we'll realize savings in the long term if we leverage short-term debt now a little bit longer. You'll notice Series A matures in March. We have other short-term debt for the capital projects that have previously been approved maturing in March, so the idea is that we roll up some or all of that in one issue to get economies of scale, achieve some savings on issuing all that debt together in a long-term buyout.

And then Series B is a little bit different. There's the nuance of commercial activity continuing on the property, so we're paying a little bit of a premium in the short term for that. Long-term, we expect, obviously, the outcome of the use of that property to be eligible for tax-exempt financing, and we'd achieve savings later by issuing long-term debt on a tax-exempt basis, so that's part of the strategy as well.

[Speaker 5] (1:54:10 - 1:54:11)
Okay, thank you. That's very helpful.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:13 - 1:54:18)
Patrick, is there any other news related to this offering that you could share?

[Speaker 7] (1:54:18 - 1:54:51)
Yeah, so as part of the debt issuance, we met with Standard & Poor's and our fiscal advisor, and we went through a credit rating review, and we were really pleased with the outcome of that. We have maintained a double-A-plus rating, and they just upgraded us to a triple-A, which obviously is the greatest long-term rating that the Town can achieve, so I think that really reflects all the financial discipline that the Town has instituted through the Select Board, the Finance Committee, and Town meetings up to this point in the last several years, so it's a great gold star for the Town.

[Speaker 1] (1:54:52 - 1:55:51)
I want to put it in context. Eight years ago, we were a double-A-minus. We worked with the rating agencies.

Six years ago, we went to double-A. Three years ago, we went to double-A-plus, and we finally were able to convince Standard & Poor's that Swampscott was a triple-A community. It is the gold standard for financial acumen, and frankly, I think Patrick and Amy and our Finance Committee and our Select Board and Town meeting all have played a part in some extraordinarily difficult decisions.

You will not find a community around that has climbed four different ranks in bond rating in this short order. It is truly a remarkable accomplishment, and I'm very proud of the finance team here that has helped us shepherd the way forward.

[Speaker 19] (1:55:58 - 1:56:00)
Thank you. Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:00 - 1:56:01)
That's an incredible accomplishment.

[Speaker 5] (1:56:01 - 1:56:09)
It's just as much your gold star as it is the Town, because you guys are the ones keeping us on track, so thank you.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:11 - 1:56:24)
Yeah, this has financial implications, too. We do get lower bond ratings, and over the last few years, every tick-up has meant significant savings for the Town.

[Speaker 4] (1:56:24 - 1:56:34)
So now with where rates are today, Patrick, I ask you this every time. So what is the delta between a double-A-plus and a triple-A rating?

[Speaker 7] (1:56:35 - 1:57:00)
I would expect to see we could reap the benefit of at least 10 basis points, if not more, from going double-A-plus to triple-A. It really depends on the market, but we'll see savings, and especially on longer-term debt when we're looking at the plan and we're seeing projects that could be bonded over a longer term, like 20, 25, even 30 years, those savings will be exponentially increased through the rate, so that's great.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:00 - 1:57:07)
Thank you. So with that, I would entertain a motion, unless there are any other questions or comments from the Board.

[Speaker 6] (1:57:11 - 1:57:12)
Nope. After me.

[Speaker 5] (1:57:14 - 1:57:23)
Okay, so I move that the written votes presented to this meeting in connection with the Town's sale of its notes be adopted as written and incorporated into the minutes of this meeting in full.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:24 - 1:57:29)
Do I have a second? Second. All right, all in favor?

[Speaker 22] (1:57:30 - 1:57:32)
Aye. Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:33 - 1:57:51)
Okay, thank you. Thanks, Patrick. Amy.

All right, we'll move on to MBTA 3A zoning update and presentation. Margie? Good evening.

Welcome.

[Speaker 15] (1:57:52 - 1:57:59)
Angela, if we're the former chairperson of the Planning Board, is here this evening as well. And Angela, are you able to unmute?

[Speaker 5] (1:58:02 - 1:58:04)
Diane has to allow it first.

[Speaker 2] (1:58:20 - 2:12:59)
Okay, I can't get the camera to work, but that's okay. Hi, everyone. It's Angela Ippolito from the Planning Board here with you tonight to put a quick summary of the MBTA communities zoning, which is the section 3A that was voted into law by the state in 2021.

Shortly thereafter, they came out with the initial guidance in December of 2021, and there have been some updates since then. This legislation was enacted as part of the Economic Development Bill of January 2021, and it was enacted to address the ongoing housing crisis. So, as you can see from the slide, it requires that all MBTA communities, of which we are one, shall have at least one zoning district of reasonable size in which multifamily housing is permitted as of right and meets other criteria.

And again, like any other kind of zoning, it does not require us to build anything. It just requires us to adopt the zoning for these particular areas. Cities and towns can have more than one zoning district, and in Swampscot, we are going to have two.

So, I just wanted to give you a quick overview here. Okay, so just to review, because I'm sure a lot of you aren't as familiar with this as we are. The district has to meet the following requirements.

There has to be a minimum gross density of 15 units per acre. The core station zone has to be within a half a mile of the commuter rail station. And in our case, we are a commuter rail community, so we have to have one zone within a half a mile of commuter rail.

There can't be any age restrictions on any housing that does get built, and the housing that gets built needs to be suitable for families and families with children. Let's see. It can either be done as a base zoning district or an overlay district.

We have chosen to do it as an overlay district. The location of the districts have to have reasonable access to transit station and be consistent with the Commonwealth sustainable development principles, which means it has to be in an area of concentrated development. Essentially, in addition to the half mile radius around the train station, we can also have another location that needs to be sited in a place with excellent access to public transit.

So, let's see. All right. So, in August of this year, excuse me, in August of last year, the state updated the guidelines to say that initially we were supposed to have a 50-acre total overlay district, and then they recategorized some cities and towns based upon size, like us, and ours was reduced to a 20-acre requirement.

So, we have to zone at least 20 acres of land. One fifth of that has to be the one that's right around the train station. So, excuse me, one quarter of that area needs to be right around the train station.

So, that means that a minimum of five acres of this 20-acre zone needs to be right around the train station, and the rest of it can be in a different location. All right. So, the areas that, in order to figure this out and to choose the mapping for these particular areas, MARSI was able to get a grant that we were awarded.

We worked with the company Bowler Engineers to do the analysis for Swampscott, and they worked with the Department of Housing and Community Development, which is actually now called the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. They worked with them. They're one of the approved engineering firms that can work with the state and with the participating cities and towns to actually crunch the numbers and do this analysis.

The state put together this big Excel spreadsheet that has all these computational formulas in it. So, Bowler would take all of the numbers from our town in terms of density, population, acreage, so on and so forth. They plug it into this model, and then the model calculates exactly where we need to add density and what makes sense for us and how far off we are from being in compliance.

Because according to the zoning, as a rail community, we have to, and having a 20-acre district, we are supposed to be adding at least 954 units. So, that being said, that's what the state's conditions address. What we have to do is figure out, okay, are we in compliance already?

If we're not in compliance, how far off compliance are we, and where does that leave us in terms of how many housing units do we have to zone to create to bring us into compliance? It's a little complicated, but in any event. So, long story short, we worked with Bowler over the past year.

They've done all the analysis for us. We've met with them on a couple of occasions, and we had proposed a couple of different zones, and those zones were obviously right around the train station was, you know, we had to put one there. So, we sort of outlined where that zone should be, and the other zone that we thought made a lot of sense was the Vinton Square area.

So, we had kind of put that together. Initially, when we were looking at the Vinton Square area, we had wanted to overlay the commercial district itself as well as part of the already developed multi-housing area around there. At that time, we could not overlay 3A and require that any housing built maintained commercial on the first floor.

So, doing it in a mixed-use area was pretty much out of the question for us. As much as we were hoping we could overlay Vinton Square with that, we couldn't. So, we said, okay, let's get as close as we can surrounding Vinton Square, seeing as that particular area is right in between two major bus lines.

You know, literally, it's boarded on either side by these very active bus lines. So, that's how we originally mapped it, and that's what the maps you'll be looking at tonight. Just this past August, it was August 18th, the state came out again, and they tweaked their zoning requirements.

Apparently, there are a lot of people like us who were concerned because they had either strip malls or places where there already was a lot of commercial development. They thought, geez, this would be a great place to add housing to, but we really need to keep the commercial because we want to be able to create mixed-use here, we want the commercial revenue, and so on and so forth. The original zoning by the state did not allow that.

So, just back in August, they came out with this tweak that says, oh, now they do allow it. They updated it, just it was mid-August, saying that you could now, you know, putting multi-family zoning districts in commercial areas and requiring commercial, that's okay to do now. It has to meet some other criteria and so on and so forth.

So now, all of a sudden, we've done all this work. So, I said to Margie, I'd like to go back to Bowler and say, should we look at these zones again and make sure that we created the best zones? Now we can overlay Vinton Square.

Should we do that or not? And we reviewed this thoroughly, went through all the numbers, we remodeled it using Vinton Square, and they said it makes no difference. Essentially, the news is that Swampscott is already in compliance.

The zone that they've marked that you're looking at right now, which is right around the train station, and you can go to the next slide and show the zone that's in Vinton Square, that one, the pink and the red in Vinton Square, they're already in compliance. Even when we shifted the zones in other areas, we were still in compliance because it's an average, on average, of 15 units per acre. So, no matter where we shifted them, the average still came out to at least 15.

In fact, in all cases, it was over 15 units an acre. So, that means that we can implement this 3A zoning without, and we can still encourage the mixed-use zoning, we can still encourage 15 units an acre by right. However, we basically are already at that, we're in compliance already, which doesn't mean we don't want to, we still have to comply with the bylaw and write the zoning.

But that was all to explain why we are keeping the original zones that we had, even after the state updated their guidance. But we did go back and thoroughly review that. So, these are the two zones.

So, there's a little over six acres right around the train station. And then there's about, there's another, let's see, we have another however many in the B3, B4. So, we end up with above 20 acres, but it encompasses a large area of mixed-use housing where it's already been developed, but it does allow for redevelopment.

It does allow it to be redeveloped differently. If that ever happens, it may or may not. But in a case like ours, where we're so built out, we're already planning for a lot of new mixed-use developments coming up.

So, that is just an update on where we're at. We've done all the work with BOLER, we've created all the mapping, all the calculations have been presented. I believe that that's all been distributed to select board members for your review.

The reason we wanted to come before you tonight is again, you know, what you brought up before, we're trying to be very proactive in terms of getting this on your, in your radar for a town meeting in May. We are obligated to enact this zoning next year. And if the obligation is by December 2024, we obviously don't want to wait that long.

Plus that would be pushing us to our fall town meeting. We would like to adopt this zoning in May. To do that, we need a select board to approve of these, of the mapping that's already been done.

And so that we can start working on the actual zoning. We do have a draft of the zoning that was provided to us by BOLER. It differs.

It's, you know, pretty much a boilerplate kind of cookie cutter zoning that doesn't really fit with the language and formatting of our own zoning. So we will need to rewrite that a bit. And that's going to take some time.

And that's not the only zoning piece that we're looking at for town meetings. So we are hoping to get ahead of ourselves here and give you some time to look it over. We need the select board's approval of the mapping, and then we will need your approval of the zoning in order for us to hold a place on the warrant.

And obviously your approval for the warrant. And again, this isn't, you know, we can't choose to do this another time. We have to adopt this next year.

That is the state ordinance and we are obligated to that. So I think that's, you know, I don't know if you have any additional questions for me. I'd like you to take a look at the mapping.

I know that it was distributed to you. I don't know who's had a chance to, you know, look at it and who hasn't. I'm not sure if you have questions.

I'd be happy to answer whatever questions I can right now. I think I, most importantly, I want to make sure that we had some time to get before you and to make you aware of the work that's already been done, you know, and how the goalpost has been shifting a lot from, in terms of the different, you know, compliance issues from the state. But I think we've pretty much got it locked up now.

And I feel very confident with the work that Boulder's done. I believe Marcy does. The planning board's looked at it and we're all in agreement, but we would like to get started on writing the zoning, which we can't do unless these maps are approved.

So that's what I'm here asking for. And I'd like to know if you have any questions.

[Speaker 4] (2:13:01 - 2:13:43)
Hi Angela. I do have some questions. So just about, you know, I'm looking at the compliance section of District 1.

We're talking about six and a half acres, final unit capacity 139, and a density of 21.4 acres or units per acre, excuse me. So it looks like that area is right around, you know, it includes the Elm Place development. Is that right?

Okay. So Elm Place is coming in with 114 units. So would that mean that this zoning would limit future development on the four plus acres to?

[Speaker 2] (2:13:43 - 2:14:30)
Oh gosh, no. No, on the contrary. On the contrary, it would enable, you know, if that land, if you determine that, you know, that we want to develop that land, it would enable anyone to, by right, you know, put housing in there.

We've already met, all we have to do is meet a criteria. So there's a couple, that's why it's confusing, there's a couple of different things going on. So the state says it has to be a zone that allows 15 units an acre by right.

And once you've zoned that, you know, in total, they want to see x number of units there. Well, we already have x number of units there. So anything we want to choose, we want to build in addition to that is allowed.

It's allowed by right.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:30 - 2:14:36)
Okay. That was my question. I just wanted to make sure we weren't limited to 130 pounds.

[Speaker 2] (2:14:36 - 2:14:36)
No, no, no.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:36 - 2:14:39)
The opposite is true. It's no less than 130 pounds.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:39 - 2:14:39)
Exactly.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:40 - 2:14:40)
Got it.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:40 - 2:14:41)
Exactly.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:41 - 2:14:42)
That's all I have.

[Speaker 5] (2:14:43 - 2:17:05)
I want to applaud two observations, which, first of all, your flexibility, because I know that this, the criteria has changed multiple times, as you've explained. And yet here you are still presenting to us something that is very thoughtful. And you guys have been very efficient in taking those changes and making them work for us.

And that's extremely appreciated. Going back to Bowler and saying, you know, and now that we have this, you know, change of plans is still the best idea. So I appreciate that.

And I appreciate you asking those questions before coming to us and having the answers in advance. I also appreciate that you're well above compliance. You didn't just stick with the bare minimums of the requirements of the law.

We all know that there is a housing crisis and there is an affordable housing crisis happening, not just in our town, but across the Commonwealth. And you didn't just stick to the minimum gross density. You allowed for an opportunity greater than that in accordance with these, this nice blue table that you presented.

Also, the final unit capacity per district, while that is a floor, not a ceiling, that floor is greater than the state requirement already. So that's something to applaud. Also, the district sizes are greater than the floor that the state provided.

The state said, that came back and said, you have to have 20 acres. Well, if I add these up very quickly, I can see we're over 40. So that's fantastic in putting forward the steps required to invite more affordable housing in town.

I hope that this isn't just, you know, putting the ideas in place, but actually starting the wheel towards fruition of offering more affordable housing units. Hopefully, we will actualize what the law is meant to do, which is effectuate more affordable housing in each of these communities. And so, yeah, I just wanted to applaud both of those things and thank you for your time and energy.

[Speaker 2] (2:17:06 - 2:17:06)
Thank you.

[Speaker 4] (2:17:11 - 2:17:14)
Mary Ellen, is there anything additional to add?

[Speaker 9] (2:17:17 - 2:17:24)
No, I actually, I just got on. I just was able to get back on. So I missed part of it.

I'll just have to follow up with Angela.

[Speaker 2] (2:17:25 - 2:17:27)
We can do that. Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:29 - 2:17:59)
So, Angela, I also want to thank you, Sean. I had an opportunity to sit with Marcie. I'm just kind of curious, you know, based on your perspective, obviously, you know, it's wonderful that Swampskate, you know, has been able to, you know, find that our existing zoning really is ideal.

But, you know, the spirit of this legislation is to actually create more affordable housing. Are we going to be able to create more affordable housing?

[Speaker 2] (2:18:00 - 2:20:52)
Well, let me clarify. The spirit is not, interestingly, it started off not to create more affordable housing. In fact, when this first came out, like if you go back to a year ago, August 2022, a little over a year ago, they had modified some of the conditions.

But they actually were, because a lot of communities said, look, you know, we need to get some affordable housing going. We want to make sure that there's affordable, you know, we want there to be, you know, 40B developments in here. We want there to be a requirement that these, you know, anything we allow, where we are allowing 15 units density per acre by right, you know, we're, you know, darn it, we're going to want some affordability.

And the state said no, because that if you require that level of affordability, you will discourage builders from building housing. So, that's been kind of going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. So, now they're at the point where the state is saying, okay, if you have an inclusionary housing bylaw, you can use that.

And that will be sort of in compliance. But if anything comes up with the state where they, you know, discover, for example, that there's a developer that wants to put up, you know, 40 units someplace, and we're saying, well, you know, four of them, because we have inclusionary housing bylaw that says that 10% of those units have to be affordable. And if for some reason that dissuades the developer, then, you know, the state could literally tell us that we can't do that.

So, it's interesting, because the notion is that any kind of multi-unit building is going to be more, you know, worker workforce friendly type of thing. But, you know, they're really trying to walk a fine line there in terms of, you know, the whole affordability thing and putting builders off. They're afraid stuff won't get built if there's a high insistence on something being, you know, super affordable.

That doesn't mean that, you know, projects like Elm Place can't be there. Elm Place is, you know, it is a very affordable unit. And it's going into that.

It's going to be, you know, in that overlay district. That's nothing against it. It's just that it cannot dissuade any builder from putting multi-unit housing there.

So, it's kind of a little tricky to, you know, walk that line. Which is why the placement of it is so important. You know, it has to be like in an already dense area where in between where you have, you know, access to foot access, like walk out your front door, foot access to either the train station or the bus station.

[Speaker 1] (2:20:54 - 2:21:15)
Sure. Angela, I do appreciate that. I do think some of the area around the MBTA tracks, you know, hopefully will be inspired.

And so, you know, hopefully this will help us with some of the master planning that we envision for some of those areas.

[Speaker 2] (2:21:15 - 2:21:44)
And one other thing, I mean, like any other piece of zoning legislation, this is going to be an overlay. And if we find that, you know, it's working well or it's not working well, we can always amend. You can go back to town meeting.

We can expand the map. We can do whatever we might need to do in the future. But we felt that we had something pretty robust right now to start with.

And that it's more important to just get it right now and be in compliance and get this zoning passed.

[Speaker 20] (2:21:46 - 2:21:47)
Margie?

[Speaker 15] (2:21:47 - 2:22:13)
I was just going to say that it's really, you saw that we really exceed the density right now within certain district within town. So that's great news for us. But obviously the legislation is also about zoning barrier removal, right?

So this way it would allow the creation of more density within housing and really create units where closer to transit oriented sort of, you know, districts and nodes. I just wanted to point that out.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:14 - 2:22:47)
Yeah. And we're in such a supply demand imbalance within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, specifically Eastern Massachusetts and the greater Boston area. I mean, anything that we can do from a zoning perspective to, you know, to generate new housing opportunities is going to help with affordability, even if it's not 100% affordable or 25% affordable.

You know, just greater housing diversity and housing options is going to help. So thank you to the planning board.

[Speaker 2] (2:22:48 - 2:23:33)
And Margie. Margie's done a lot of work with me on this. All right.

So if you could, could we, just to follow up, could we set a time by which we could, you know, get a confirmation vote from the select board where you actually have a chance to look at this and say, you know, make a, take a vote to it, to approve this, the mapping so that we can get started on the zoning. I'm not saying you have to do it tonight. I mean, I know it's, you're already missing a couple of people and I think, but I just would like to try to set, just have set the expectations and when we, so we can move forward as well.

You know how the timeline goes with the writing, zoning and hearings and all the stuff we need to do.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:33 - 2:23:41)
No, I'm just understood. So, so if we were to include this on a November agenda, Angela, does that, does that meet your, your timeline?

[Speaker 2] (2:23:41 - 2:23:42)
That would be great.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:42 - 2:23:43)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:23:43 - 2:23:48)
That would be ideal if we could, you know, get started before the end of the year on writing the zoning, that would be ideal. Thanks.

[Speaker 21] (2:23:49 - 2:23:50)
Okay. Fantastic. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (2:23:51 - 2:23:51)
Thanks.

[Speaker 21] (2:23:56 - 2:24:03)
Alrighty. I don't see anything on our consent agenda. Sean, we did skip your town administrator report.

[Speaker 1] (2:24:03 - 2:27:49)
Oh, are you kidding me? It's the best part of the meeting. All right.

Are we timing this? All right. We are.

So thank you. Thank you to Patrick and Amy again for your work on the town finances. I did participate in a meeting last Thursday with the Kings Beach Steering Committee.

We continue to work on a response to a letter that we received from Undersecretary Cooper about accelerating timelines for the outfall pipe. I expressed my exasperation about, you know, the timeline relief that they provided us. They said that they could take maybe six months to a year off, you know, and a seven year timeline just is not good enough.

We are drafting a letter in response to that. So we do hope to schedule a broader meeting of the EPA, New Hampshire, or I mean Mass DEP and Army Corps and CZM just to really get all hands on deck. Police Department is busy with their screening.

They've had a number of outstanding candidates go through a PT test and oral boards this week. And I'm looking forward to a number of recommendations. The board has supported a recommendation for a bonus for new hires, also a $10,000 bonus for police officers that are certified that want to work in Swampscot.

So eager to fill some of those positions. Human Resources has been busy. Last week I interviewed four candidates for the firefighter position.

Really thrilled to be issuing two conditional offers to individuals that I have no doubt will help save lives and help support some of the extraordinary work that we have ongoing at the Swampscot Fire Department. And we filled a couple of positions at a library aid and a senior van driver. Recreation Department had an absolutely wonderful car show.

I want to thank Danielle and Jackie for this event. It gets better and better every year. We are celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day and we have an event featuring Native American singers.

They will dance at the library and the farmer's market. Two more Sundays of the outdoor farmer's market and one indoor farmer's market on November 19th. Health Department, we have COVID protocols in place.

If you're sneezing, coughing, put a mask on, take care of yourself. We have folks that are coming down with a lot of bugs this time of year. Get your flu shot.

Town is doing a high dose or high dose flu clinic. You can reach out to our Health Department or Senior Center and get some dates. We have a tire collection on Saturday, September 30th.

Reach Arts, I toured the building last week with our rec director and building inspector and facilities director, thinking about opportunities to use that building in different ways. The board will be receiving a request to have a meeting in the near future about roadway improvements around the new elementary school. We're 90% done with some of the schematic designs.

We're evaluating a number of opportunities to address public safety and pedestrian safety. Again, I want to thank Margie for all the wonderful work in the community development department. We are embargoed from announcing a grant opportunity, but when you get the news later this week or hopefully early next week, you'll be thrilled.

[Speaker 21] (2:27:51 - 2:27:53)
Thanks, Sean. Questions from the board?

[Speaker 9] (2:27:56 - 2:28:00)
I have a question, David. Sean, where are we with the planner?

[Speaker 1] (2:28:03 - 2:28:18)
We had a number of candidates that we had interviewed over the last few weeks, but I will have a recommendation probably over the next week to fill that position.

[Speaker 9] (2:28:20 - 2:28:23)
So you'll have a recommendation in about a week?

[Speaker 19] (2:28:23 - 2:28:27)
I'd say a week. Yep. Thank you.

[Speaker 20] (2:28:30 - 2:28:32)
I don't have anything additional. Select board time?

[Speaker 9] (2:28:36 - 2:28:47)
I just want to remind people that we have our public comment over the bylaw on October 25th at the high school.

[Speaker 19] (2:28:51 - 2:28:52)
Thanks.

[Speaker 5] (2:28:53 - 2:30:56)
I would like to comment on the events in town that have been going on through the rec department, through the library, all the no-cost, low-cost events that have been happening. I think outside of just great community that it provides, it's also really important to understand that not every citizen in our community has the opportunity, whether it be financial or otherwise, to sometimes participate in things. You know, Halloween's coming up and it's an amazing time, but not everybody can run to the Halloween store and spend hundreds of dollars on costumes and kids feel left out and parents feel terrible.

So it's really great that the rec department has offered no-cost, low-cost costumes that kids can go and pick out. These are high-quality costumes. It's not secondhand stuff.

It's stuff that we would be putting into the waste stream anyways and we're finding new purpose for them and just really pushing ourselves to think out of the box to make sure that every citizen feels like they could attend each event in town, that they're equipped with the opportunity to participate in a way that makes them feel proud and equitable. So I just would like to just highlight that because, yeah, they're holding amazing events and they're spending their time and energy doing it, but it has so much more meaning to folks than just offering costumes for sale at Town Hall. So I just wanted to highlight that and really appreciate how they continue to push themselves, that they're thinking about those kinds of things, and that we implore ourselves to continue to be pushing for the creation of equity and inclusion and, you know, every version of Swanscott is a little bit different and so it's great that we can see a more clear vision of what Swanscott can be when we, you know, take all those visions and put them together.

[Speaker 1] (2:30:56 - 2:30:59)
Really great to hear, Katie. I'm happy to pass that along.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:02 - 2:31:10)
Yep, I dropped off a number of costumes this afternoon at Town Hall.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:10 - 2:31:12)
Your ugly Christmas sweater.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:12 - 2:31:39)
Oh no, no, Sean, I'm gonna wear that. I'm gonna wear that for the next several years. I don't have anything additional to add, but I do just want to thank you for continuing to bring this to light about these low-cost, no-cost events, Katie, and really, you know, just continuing to beat the drum of equity inclusion of all Swanscott residents.

So, thank you. And with that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:40 - 2:31:40)
So moved.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:42 - 2:31:43)
Mary Ellen, do I have a second?

[Speaker 9] (2:31:45 - 2:31:45)
Second.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:46 - 2:31:47)
All in favor?

[Speaker 9] (2:31:47 - 2:31:48)
Aye.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:48 - 2:31:52)
Aye. Thank you, everybody. Daniel, thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:52 - 2:31:54)
Thank you, Diane. Thank you, Daniel.

[Speaker 4] (2:31:54 - 2:31:55)
Thank you.

[Speaker 19] (2:31:55 - 2:31:55)
Thank you.

[Speaker 21] (2:31:56 - 2:31:58)
Diane, Patrick, Amy.