[Speaker 3] (9:59 - 14:44)
Good evening, while I'm waiting for the town clerk to ascertain the quorum, and I understand we're within one or two members, could I please ask, we have a great turnout of visitors, and I'm always happy to have residents who want to come and observe what we do here. Good evening, while I'm waiting, just to facilitate taking votes tonight, so if you have a green visitor's badge, I'd appreciate it if you guys would move to the rear of each of the sections. Thank you for indulging me.

I understand there is, and that is not going to include anybody who's not here during voting. I understand we have a quorum present, so thank you very much, and welcome to Town of Swanscott's special town meeting, December 11, 2023. Before we begin with the business this evening, I am going to ask your indulgence.

I promise to keep my introductory remarks brief. We do have a short warrant this evening, and hopefully we can dispense with it in record time, but as I was observing to a number of folks earlier today, Parkinson's law states that work expands to fill the time allotted unless you are careful about it. So let's see if we can stay focused this evening.

The first thing I'd like to ask you all to do is to remember my comments from before about proper mic technique. You can all hear me now because I'm speaking into the mic. If instead I speak back here like this, no one can hear me, and our poor audiovisual folks will end up turning the sound up so loud we'll start to get feedback in the broadcast.

So please, just right on top of the mic, speak in a normal tone. If the mic is not at the right height for you, someone will help you adjust it. Thank you.

For those who have not been here before, and I don't think there are many of them, I'm going to remind you of how we vote this evening. I will call for a show of hands. Unless I am in doubt, that will be enough to announce the outcome of the vote.

If I am in doubt, I can ask for a standing vote, which will ask people in favor to stand. They will be tallied. People sit.

People oppose stand. They will be tallied, and the results will be announced by me through the town clerk. If at any point someone doubts my announcement of the vote, a standing vote can be forced by this body if ten members rise instantly and ask me to hold a standing vote.

Hopefully that won't be necessary this evening. Finally, I'm going to remind you all that this is a parliamentary procedure. This is not a courtroom.

We are debating. Please address your remarks through me, and I will recognize people to speak and ask them to address the body, not one another. This is not a cross-examination or a place for stump speeches.

Thank you with that. Before we proceed, anybody who is so moved, please rise and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Before we take up the first article, we have a few special things to go through, and it's my great privilege at this point to recognize Mr. Fitzgerald. I think you have a brief presentation for us.

[Speaker 1] (14:55 - 21:08)
It's my great pleasure to recognize one of Swamska's most extraordinary citizens, Naomi Dreeben. Naomi, you're here tonight with your wonderful family, so I would like Tom and Isaac and Marina to come down and join us and share a few thoughts about this extraordinary individual. I've had the good fortune to work with Naomi over the last few years.

Naomi is a champion of so many important initiatives, but what's wonderful about Naomi—hello Marina—Isaac, did you bring an instrument? No? All right, that's great.

I would love to hear a tune, but what's wonderful about Naomi is she loves public service. Naomi was raised by some extraordinary individuals as well. I had an opportunity to meet Seymour and Dr. Pearl Weinstein a few years ago, two really exceptional individuals that focused on family and on education. Naomi was born in Farmingdale, New York and grew up with her brothers enjoying New York City and certainly went off to some extraordinary schools, Cornell and UC Berkeley, to study gerontology. She has worked to make a difference in people's lives from the beginning. She was raised by people that loved people, and it's her service that drew her into her role on the select board.

Naomi served as a select citizen in Swampskate from 2014 to 2020. She was chair for three years in a row, the longest tenure from 2015 to 2018. If you heard her talk about the environment, if you heard her talk about accessible health care, affordable housing, or the broader quality of life issues, you know she cares deeply about these issues.

During her tenure, she helped see the Michonne School be transformed into an affordable housing project for seniors. The Greenwood School project that literally sat for 10 years, falling in on itself, was taken and turned into a beautiful housing project. She, along with her colleagues, took a project that for close to 30 years just was talked about and started to bring it towards reality.

The Rail Trail project became one of the town's cornerstone initiatives. You know, she has to pull budgets together. Nobody really likes to work on budgets, but those budgets are the key to all the possibilities that we can achieve as a municipality.

So she led a zero-based budget conversation for years, trying to focus on how do we get our financial house in order? How do we actually support a new school? These are generational investments that won't happen unless you have extraordinary people like Naomi.

For me, one of the most important things that Naomi brought to the Select Board was that heart and that soul and that mind that says we can be more focused on equality and fairness. She wanted to see Swampskate move forward and leave civil service so that we could really focus on how we hire more women firefighters and police officers and how we really open up this town to those fundamental cornerstones of diversity. Most notable, though, is her care for our seniors.

That degree in gerontology really meant something to her. To think about our senior citizens, the largest section of our population that for, you know, our history, we had a part-time senior center director. We had a budget that was really anemic.

We've doubled the size of the senior center budget. We've hired full-time staff. All of this was part of Naomi's efforts to put $50,000 in our capital plan for a study to kick off our all-ages focus.

Naomi, you've been a wonderful leader. I'm so proud to have worked with you. I'm proud of the accomplishments.

You have an extraordinary legacy, so it's with great fondness and appreciation that we have a small token of appreciation that I know that, you know, most folks probably don't need a chair, but it's my hope that in, you know, 30 or 40 or 50 years, somebody will look at that chair, and they will sit in that chair, and they will think about one of our select citizens that loved this town so much. You are loved by this town, and I want to have everybody congratulate Naomi, so please give her a round of applause. So it reads, Naomi Dreeben, with gratitude for your six years of extraordinary service to the citizens of Swampskate.

Tom, you can either sit in it while Naomi says a few remarks. That's great. Naomi, would you like to share a few words?

[Speaker 27] (21:09 - 21:14)
The few words I have are, I think I got credit for things that a lot of other people did, so.

[Speaker 1] (21:15 - 21:16)
Don't be modest.

[Speaker 27] (21:16 - 21:39)
Thanks, Sean. Thanks to my fellow board members. It has been a real honor working together collegially with the rest of the select board, and I'm really glad that after all these hours that I've spent in public meetings and showing up at all of these things, that my family is still talking to me.

So, thank you guys.

[Speaker 3] (21:47 - 22:15)
Thank you, Ms. Fitzgerald, and thank you, Ms. Dreeben, who has graciously agreed to serve again, as she's been on the Finance Committee for several years since stepping down from the select board, and I'm deeply grateful for your time. Mr. Grishman.

[Speaker 8] (22:32 - 25:42)
Welcome. I'm here this evening to talk about my friend and former colleague on the select board, Neil Duffy. I met Neil when I was running for the select board in 2020.

Both Neil and I decided to run in February, announced our candidacy later that month, and then COVID struck. Hindsight being 2020, maybe the man upstairs was telling us something. Neil served for one three-year term, half of which was during COVID, with marathons, Zoom meetings, numerous town meetings, and special town meetings.

And if you count the COVID years and dog years, and for these purposes I certainly do, Neil is one of the longest-serving members of the select board in this town's history. When we were finally able to meet in person, and it wasn't very often in 2020 or 2021, one of the things I noticed about you, Neil, was the way you carried yourself, and that's something I'll always remember. At some point I mentioned to my wife, and I liken you to a duck.

And don't sleep on ducks. Ducks are fierce creatures, calm and regal above the water, always cool as a cucumber, you are to your colleagues and to the public. But damn, you were kicking like hell below the water to make things happen or just stay afloat at times when life or the town's business got tough.

To many, your countenance, good or bad, didn't change much, and to me, that was definitely a superpower you possessed. Neil, you were so measured, so thoughtful, so calm, and so kind to everyone you engaged with and interacted with. You were exactly what the select board and the town needed during your term, which was defined by a hyper-politicized time in our nation's history, and certainly a divisive time for our town, as there were certainly keyboard warriors galore during the pandemic.

That said, your steady, thoughtful, mindful, and kind leadership was the antithesis of what was happening nationally. The example you set is something I strive for, and others should look to you as a positive example of what a public servant is and what a public servant should be. During your time as chair, the most significant accomplishments that happened, as defined by you, were land acquisitions.

This includes the 10 acres acquired on Archer Street and the purchase of the Hawthorne property. But in addition to those generational impacts on the town, while you were on the select board, you helped manage the town during a pandemic, passed a $100 million elementary school, left civil service, and supported the E&I efforts, which set the town, in my opinion, on the positive course for years and decades to come. Thank you.

So, so Neil, Duck, Duffy, I wanted to take time this evening on behalf of myself and the 15,000 residents of the town to properly thank you for your service to the town of Swampskat. We have a chair for you. Maybe, one day, you will sit, sit in it, and the memories, only the good ones, rush back.

And when they do, please remember, your work mattered, and the town of Swampskat's better for it. Thank you for all you've done and continue to do for our town, and thank you to your family, Allie, Jack, and Shea, for sharing you with us all.

[Speaker 25] (26:09 - 26:50)
David, thank you so much. That was beyond kind. Thank you all for this generous and gracious recognition of service.

I think everything that David just listed, I feel, similarly to what Naomi just said. I mean, those aren't things that, that I did. It's, it's things that we all did together.

And just thank you all for, for your service and for everything that you do for the town. And thank you to the incredibly hardworking and dedicated staff who just work harder than anybody to make all these things happen that we all try to do. So, thanks so much.

[Speaker 3] (26:58 - 27:07)
Thank you, Mr. Grishman, and thank you, Mr. Duffy. It's a pleasure to serve alongside you. Mr. Spelios, because good things come in threes.

[Speaker 5] (27:16 - 27:51)
Good evening. Last, but certainly not least, we want to take a few moments to thank Laura Spithanus. So, I'd ask Laura and her family to come join me.

And that includes mom and dad. The girls have wanted to do this for years, so they're psyched to be here tonight. Man, hold on a second.

[Speaker 15] (27:51 - 27:53)
Give me the chair first. My dad could sit.

[Speaker 33] (27:55 - 27:56)
I have a chair.

[Speaker 5] (28:02 - 35:17)
That's going to be, my God, that was, that was fortuitous. Well, just block what it says. She said, I love how you say my name.

Do you know how she says my name? Peter. So, it's been years since she's done that, but tonight she was walking down the hall and she said, Peter.

And I'm like, oh, this is so good. It brings me back to some really good memories. As 2019 turned into 2020, while walking out of a select board meeting one night, I gently walked up to her and said, hey, I look forward to supporting your reelection.

She looked over at me and she smiled and she said, thanks. Not anything else, just thanks. A few weeks later came by and I decided this was another chance for me to say the same thing to her again.

So, this time I called her. And she's pretty smart. She knows why you're calling.

I called and I said, hey, I really look forward to supporting you. And it was in this call that she was clearly ready to talk about something, but not very much, just a little something. And she said, I love being on the select board, but there's more important things for me to do.

And that was a clear sign that she had made the decision that she was moving on. There was nothing that I could say or my colleague could say or Sean or anybody could say to ask her to come for a third term on the board. I immediately panicked.

I called Don Haas and I called Polly Titcom. And I said, what are we going to do? This doesn't work.

And I think it was Don, it could have been Polly. We came up with this idea of having a pandemic. And we said, if we had the pandemic and the governor did like an executive order, we could delay elections.

And we did. We actually delayed elections. So, it all turned out fine except for the pandemic part.

But we got two extra months. We actually got two extra months of Naomi as well. And that really benefited us.

So, Naomi and Laura, the only two select board members that have ever served six years and two months. To know Laura is to know three things about Laura. She loves her family.

She loves her community as if it was her family. And she loves her fellow person as if they were her family. As I was thinking about what to say tonight, I actually went back and I looked at minutes and I looked at a couple of videos and boy, I can't stand watching those videos.

But what strikes me and what immediately came to mind was what Laura's perspective was on almost every issue. And it was people. What she cared about most on every single issue that we talked about was how did it impact people?

What did it mean to people? What did people need? So, while I came on the board and I said, oh, we have empty school buildings.

We have an empty senior center. We have an empty police station. We got to fix buildings.

She saw those buildings as opportunities for people. And she saw the solutions lying in those buildings as things that we can do for people, for you, for those much less fortunate than us. Every single time we would have the conversation, it was about people.

We went through some trying times. We had some charged discussions as a community, political discussions as a community. We had to deal with many things.

We had a restorative justice forum that some of you may remember. And I remember sitting with Laura at that forum. And something comes over her face when she starts talking about justice and race and right and wrong.

Something comes over her face. Her face, this normally smile with face that walks down the hall and is so pleasant and says, PETA, turns incredibly serious and intense. And you're now talking a subject matter that's clearly coming from her heart every time she speaks of it, every time she thinks of it.

Those are the things that as I sat tonight, I think most people don't understand about Laura. She's here tonight with her father, Harry, and with her mom, Donna. I want to take this moment, I'm going to stop right here, and this might as well be a whole spathaneous thing we're doing tonight.

But Donna's about to finish 24 years, I think, 24 years on the Lynn School Committee. And that's an amazing, amazing gift to the city of Lynn. We don't get here typically by accident.

I think if you look at all of us and all of you, you're here because of somebody in your future saying it's important to be civically involved and to do these things. And it's very clear, Laura, why you're here tonight. I want to thank you for giving of Laura to us because it took away from you all.

Frank, I'm guessing we caused you to miss a few good dinners out with Laura as she's at select board meetings. But we are really grateful for what you did. Laura's exit, in some ways, is the beginning of another story, which we're not going to really talk about tonight.

But if you haven't been paying attention at all, or if you're just waking up for the first time in five years, Laura left the select board and was quietly working with another, with a group of incredible women, but really spearheaded by Laura, to start Anchor Food Pantry. And this pandemic thing was a nice joke to start with, but it wasn't a joke when it hit. And I can tell you myself, together with our select board colleagues, we didn't have a clue.

We met with the emergency management team every morning. We talked about like, what do we do? Like, how do you respond to something no one's ever been asked to respond to before?

But one of the things that the pandemic immediately did is it brought out from the shadows, something that's existed here forever, food insecurity. As we've become more successful, we've also become more in need. The socioeconomic divide in this community is as great as it has ever been.

The pandemic just brought it out of the shadows. It existed before the pandemic. The pandemic exacerbated it, and it certainly is an issue now.

It is fortuitous that when we shut down town government, Laura and her folks were ready to open up Anchor. We are the luckiest people in the world to have that just happen. They took stock and went to the senior center and took over the senior center, and hundreds of people showed up for food.

Hundreds. If you haven't had the chance to experience it, Laura will tell you the hours when she's going to say remarks, because she always does. She's going to actually tell you the volunteer hours when she says something in a minute.

You should go to the pantry. You should see what's happening in that pantry, because that actually is community. That is people in its greatest form.

But that gift should not be a surprise to those that now are served with her, because that's what she was about when she was on the board. For me, it gives me hope, and I know my colleagues as well, to say this is just the beginning for all of us. There is more for us to do.

There's more for you to do, and I'm very honored to be able to give Laura a big hug and thank her and thank you all for allowing us to have a bit of her, and we're eternally grateful. Thank you, Laura.

[Speaker 15] (35:48 - 37:37)
I'll be really brief, because I know we all want to go home. I'm just going to repeat what Peter said. Just a huge thank you.

That's all I want to say. Thank you to my mom and my dad. They are public servants through and through.

My dad was also a Lynn school committee member and a Lynn city counselor, and they've served their community and taught me how to do the same, and that's where I am. My husband, Frank, and my daughters, Angela couldn't be here tonight, but Nikki and Christina, they allowed me to serve. They really did.

I couldn't have done it without them. They pushed me, and they helped me, and they made sure that I could be the best for this town. And my other thank you is just to all of you in this town for allowing me to serve it.

It was an honor. It will always be one of my greatest honors to be able to do that. Anchor Food Pantry is probably my number one honor to do.

If most of you have already been involved one way or another, when I look out into this crowd, whether you've donated or volunteered or given us support, your neighbors need you. We are in a crisis with food, with the economy, and with food insecurity. So thank you to all that have supported us, and we are always welcome to everyone to come and volunteer.

Next week on our Facebook will be the 2024 volunteer slots. So look out for them. They are a hot ticket item.

Harder to get than Taylor Swift tickets sometimes, they say. So grab them when they first come out. And thank you.

This is a wonderful, given town, and you should all be so proud to live here and be a part of it.

[Speaker 3] (37:48 - 38:19)
Thank you, Mr. Speleos. Thank you, Ms. Spathenis. And it's wonderful to have your energy back in this room again.

It's wonderful that you are sharing it with us in other ways. Thank you for your patience with the introductory material. We are ready now to move on to Article 2, an article considering the transfer-free cash in the offsetting of the tax levy.

Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 2] (38:24 - 49:15)
Good evening, everyone. Eric Hartman, Precinct 1, town meeting member, chair of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends a town vote to transfer the sum of $1 million from free cash to the account of current revenue to be used and applied by the Board of Assessors in the reduction of the tax levy for FY24.

I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee. Is there a second? Mr. Hartman. So this article is a recurring article where we discuss how much free cash or stabilization funds we'll use to limit the increase in the town's tax rate. There are several components to the process of setting the town's tax rate, and really the process began back in May at the annual town meeting when the town meeting approved the FY24 budget. As we know, we've been operating under a policy where we work to limit the growth of the budget to 2% plus $425,000 for new growth.

And we continue to live under that policy as we set the appropriations budget back in the spring. So at this special town meeting tonight, we have the opportunity to look at some of the updated estimates that we have for things we had to estimate back in May. These include what charges the town will have to pay for state assessments, how much we will receive from the state in state aid.

We update our estimated local receipts. And then we make decisions on how much free cash or other reserves we may want to use to limit the growth in the overall tax rate. So the good news is that our estimates for state aid were pretty accurate back in May.

And the actual net state aid that the town will receive is a little over $5 million. This figure is about $63,000 short of what we estimated in May. You could advance to the next slide.

Our local receipts are monies that the town collects. Local receipts are monies that we collect that are not related to real estate taxes. These include items like motor vehicle excise tax, building permits, meals tax, and investment income.

So while some of these categories are down from what we actually collected last year in fiscal year 23, our local receipts are actually trending higher than the estimates that we used when we put the budget together in May. Really by almost $600,000. So this is all good news.

The other item that we've discussed in recent years is that the town has been able to invest its excess cash in safe investments that are bringing solid returns to the town. The town investment income that we received last year was $2.6 million. This was significantly influenced by the excess cash that we had available to us in our accounts because we had issued the bonds for the new school.

So we were earning money on these dollars while the project was just getting started and throughout most of the project, but now since the project is continuing and a large amount of those dollars have been spent, the amount of income we will earn this year is a bit less. Probably close to $1.2 million, maybe a little bit higher. So more comparable to what we had two years ago.

Still a solid investment return for the town. Next slide. One unfavorable difference to what we considered back in the spring is our new growth.

We typically include a placeholder of $425,000 for new growth, but our final new growth numbers this year have come in at just over $200,000. There is an expectation that in future years we'll have significant new growth because of some of the projects like the Glover, the Hadley, Elm Place, and Pine Street, but these are all at least a few years out. Okay, so those were the updates on some of the estimates that we had done back in May, but let's talk about the main source of revenues to run the town, which is real estate taxes.

Controlling the growth of the town's real estate tax levy has been the focus of the town for many years, and we've got some solid results to show for it, having used disciplined budgeting and striving to limit the levy growth beyond the levels allowed by Prop 2.5. The town's goal is not to have the lowest tax rate in our area, but we did find ourselves on the high end of many of the charts when we compared ourselves to other towns in Essex County, other peer communities that we identified to be similar to Swampscot, and even to our neighbors to the north, Marblehead.

So looking back 10 years, Swampscot had the third highest average single-family tax bill in 2014 out of 34 communities in Essex County. Fast forward 10 years to 2023, we're now the tenth highest. This chart also highlights the overall modest growth of our average single-family tax bill in Swampscot.

Next slide, please. Another way to look at the tax burden for Swampscot is to look at a group of peer communities. The town has identified these 12 communities to be similar to Swampscot and has tracked the 10 years of their average single-family tax bills.

Next slide, please. Back in 2014, the average single-family tax bill in Swampscot was 29% higher than this peer group. As the chart shows over this 10-year period, the peer groups have increased each year and over the 10-year period have experienced a 41% increase.

Swampscot experienced a 13% increase over that same 10-year period and is now just 3% above the peer group. So to be clear, the message is not that we have achieved our ultimate goal or declared victory. We are still higher than the peer group and we are still tenth out of 34 communities in Essex County.

So there's clearly still work to be done. Next slide, please. The last slide in this topic that I'll share compares Swampscot to our neighbors.

Here you can see that Marblehead has experienced a similar increase in their tax rates as the peer group did at 40% over this 10-year period compared to Swampscot's 13% increase. I'm pretty sure Marblehead has won the Thanksgiving Day football game in all of the years on the screen, but their taxes have gone up faster than ours have. But anyway, our disciplined approach to our finances that we've employed over the last several years has really strengthened our reserves and our balance sheet and it's put us in a position to take on some of the projects that we're living through right now.

This disciplined financial approach has also helped the town receive a AAA bond rating from S&P. This is something we've been striving for for many years and it would not have been possible without the fiscal discipline that we've been living under. And having this high credit rating will help lower the interest rates that the town will pay on future bonding.

Next slide. So now before we get into talking about reserves, I just want to have a few comments about this year's assessing process. You may remember that last year our residential property values increased by 15% and our commercial property increased by less than 1%.

This year our residential property has increased again by 8.8% and commercial by 2.3%. The median single family home in Swapscott grew from $685,000 last year to $750,000 in 2024, or a 9.4% increase. This trend continues to put more pressure on the residential tax rate and the recommendation tonight is that we utilize a 175% shift to commercial, which is slightly higher than the 170% shift we used last year. So let's take a look at where we are with our reserve accounts.

Our free cash was recently certified by the state at $3.58 million. This is approximately $1.5 million higher than the low end of our fiscal policy, which is we like to have at least 3% of general fund expenditures in free cash. Our general stabilization fund is sitting at $6.2 million, which is actually $112,000 below the low end of our fiscal policy at 9% of general fund expenditures. And our capitalization stabilization fund is also slightly below at $1.38 million. That's below our goal of 2% of general fund expenditures. So as a reminder, the town meeting voted to use $2.6 million last year out of free cash stabilization and capital stabilization. This was to mitigate the increase in the tax rate, and we had to use these reserves earlier than we had previously expected because the town had taken advantage of lower interest rates and issued the new school bonds earlier than originally scheduled. So we had always intended to use some of these reserves to mitigate the impact of that debt service on the new school, but we made a choice to do it earlier. This decision saved the town tens of millions of dollars over the life of that 30-year bond, but it also meant we needed to start paying for the debt service a year earlier than we had previously planned.

So we tapped into these reserves to help offset that impact, and as a result, some of these balances now are lower than we expected them to be. So with the proposal on the table tonight, we're proposing the use of $1 million of free cash. This will allow us to achieve the goal that we discussed back when we were talking about the new school of limiting the impact of new school debt service to $300 on the median single-family home, and our total reserves will be slightly higher in the aggregate than our financial policies call for, by about $346,000.

Finance Committee did not support the idea of bringing our aggregate reserves lower than our fiscal policies called for. One reason is that when you consider our original models had always called for contributions to be made to our capital, to our stabilization reserve accounts, but we were unable to fund those last year. So in some ways, you could consider the $346,000 an opportunity for a future town meeting to move some of those dollars out of free cash and into stabilization as the original models had called for.

So this use of reserves will result in a tax rate of $1,149 per thousand dollars of value and equates to a $573 increase on the median single-family home, or about 7%.

[Speaker 3] (49:22 - 49:24)
Thank you, Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 2] (49:24 - 49:25)
Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (49:25 - 49:30)
Is there discussion or commentary? Mr. Fitzgerald, do you have something to add? I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (49:39 - 59:02)
So I just wanted to touch base and talk a little bit about the budget, because when we think about taxes, I think we're thinking about revenue, financial position stabilization, but how have we been able to put budgets together that have allowed Swampskate to mitigate the tax increases? So next slide, Diane. So here's our budgets over the last 10 years, and so we look at the way we've built these budgets.

It's the most important thing that affects Swampskate's tax levy. We've spent years looking at every single line item in this budget. When we talk about a zero-based budget, we talk about literally asking every department to come in and justify every nickel and dime.

We've had budgets that have gone up by less than a quarter of a percent over the last 10 years. Generally, they've come in at 1%, 1.7%, 2%. Last year, it went up by 5%.

We have a debt service for the largest capital project that we've had in the town's history for that elementary school. But this is the basis for how we try to define all of the extraordinary investments that we're making. We know that we're facing extraordinary economic pressure.

Inflation is impacting every household, and we're here tonight to really talk about how we not just maintain that focus on budgeting, but how we actually help Swampskate families deal with the pressure and the costs and the costs of just meeting our economy. Next slide. So when we look at the last two decades, when we look at tax bills from 2007 to 2015, over that timeline, taxes in Swampskate went up by just about $2,000.

The average single family tax bill over those eight years was $256. As you look at the bar chart below, you can see in 2017, we started to level out and drop the average single family tax bill. As we tightened up our receipts, as we looked at budgeting as carefully as possible, we've actually been able to bring the average single family tax bill over these past eight years, including this year's, including that $550 increase that we're projecting for this year, to about $157.

Now that's for all of the open space acquisitions, that's for all of the investments that we make as a community. This is what defines that balance. We're managing the day-to-day responsibilities.

A lot of the way we actually build our financial discipline is by looking at ways to ensure that we're not overestimating our receipts, we're not coming in wildly over our estimates, but we're really trying to be as tight as possible. Eric talked a little bit about the AAA bond rating. Just a couple of weeks ago, Standard & Poor's increased the town's bond rating to AAA.

Back in 2017, we were AA-, and we've worked every year with our rating agencies to look at our financial position. We've been meeting with them to talk to them about increasing this bond rating. When we look at our peer communities, we do struggle.

We don't have as much commercial property, but we've put together a financial plan that has built our reserves. We haven't taxed to that two and a half capacity. We've built the reserve capacity, and we've helped rating agencies just see the fundamentals of a community that is focused on the details, and they've elevated our bond rating during a time of rising interest rates to the highest bond rating possible.

That is a true reflection of the partnership that we have between the select board, the finance committee, town staff, and town meeting. Every decision that we've made over the last six years, we've made here, and we've put the bricks and mortar of financial discipline together that has helped Swampskate define an extraordinary potential. Next slide.

Yeah, you should applaud. This is your town. These are your tax dollars, and there's no other community around that has defined the economic performance that has helped you invest in some extraordinary product.

When you cut that ribbon on that new school, it is all because of the work that we've done, and there hasn't been an easy contract to negotiate. There's no easy out here. Everybody had to give up a trash barrel.

I mean, everybody made a sacrifice, and I'm sorry about that, but that's what communities do when they actually start to recognize that their master plan potential is really defined by how we budget. I wanted to just call out in the Standard and Poor's report, they actually recognized very strong financial management in their methodology. That may miss most people.

There aren't many communities that actually have very strong management by the rating agencies, but everything we do, our financial policies, our reserve policy, everything that Mr. Hartman was talking about, that's all the structure that rating agencies want to see. Next slide. So where do we go from here?

It doesn't get easier. It actually gets harder. What we've done over the last six years is we've taken a lot of the inefficiencies out.

Now we have to go at what's marbleized within the existing structures. Harder conversations, but if we give up that focus, I promise you we will lose everything that we've been able to achieve twice as fast as it took us to build it. You'll lose it if we step away from how we've built careful budgets, if we step away from the complicated conversations around budgeting and not get into those critical conversations because they're politically expedient.

You will go back to struggling, and you have a town that literally is the oldest town in Essex County. We have 34 cities and towns in Essex County. You saw the map.

This isn't a race to the bottom. We're not looking to be the most affordable town. That's never been a goal.

The goal has always been let's be the most balanced. Let's be the most fair and equitable. Let's not forget about seniors.

Let's not forget about open space. Let's not forget about schools. It's about balance, but it's also about economic development, something that the town closed its doors to for a long time.

When we look at Vinnin Square, we passed a pretty contentious rezoning for Vinnin Square. That's what we need. We need economic development.

We need to be thinking about how we focus on Humphrey Street, transit-oriented development, housing. We're out to bid for a RFP for a boutique hotel. We've had 15 companies from across New England, some of the best and the brightest.

That will absolutely generate the revenue that we need because I've mentioned this before, we are not going to cut our way out of the problems facing Swampskate. We've cut a lot of those problems away. Right now, we've got to start thinking about how to grow our way out of those problems.

I don't think we've ever been in a better position to show any business or economic development group that we mean business. For me, this is an important message that we need to get out. We're an extraordinary historic town.

There's no town around that really has as much potential as this town, but the FY25 budget starts tomorrow. I appreciate our department heads. I appreciate the work that they've done.

They've really put together extraordinary budgets. They work hard every single day to try to help meet the evolving needs of the community. We're doing it.

It doesn't mean that we can't do it all. It just means that we have to balance those priorities. I want to thank everybody.

I hope we all have a productive meeting tonight and we're home to enjoy our families. Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (59:02 - 59:30)
Thank you, Mr. Fitzgerald. On behalf of the town, town meeting, I would like to thank the town's financial team as well as the finance committee, the select board. Triple A rating is really well beyond anything I could have imagined when I was chair of the finance committee back in the Pleistocene era.

Is there discussion on Mr. Hartman's motion to transfer a million dollars in free cash to offset the levy rate? Mr. Birdhoff?

[Speaker 12] (59:49 - 1:02:15)
Hello. Aaron Birdhoff, Precinct 5. First, I just want to thank the finance committee as well as for their presentation.

I don't think we've had a financial presentation. As someone who generally glosses over when we start talking about town financials, I appreciate that, certainly. But on that presentation specifically, I noticed the chair was mixing the phrase's tax rate with average tax bill.

Those are two different things. I just want to make sure we are clear and maybe we can get some future education as to whether our tax rate is going up or down. I believe it's going down.

I believe we're actually below a lot of communities in the area, even though our average tax bill is going up. We'll get to that in a second. It'd be great to get a comparison on the actual rate against communities.

On the average tax bill part, it'd be wonderful from a statistics point of view if we could use median on that because there are a lot of high value properties in Swampscott and the average will be skewed to the high end, whereas the people here, I assume, want to see what the typical taxpayer is going to be paying for their home residential taxes. In the future, it'd be great to have the median. I can understand why a town governance perspective wants to use an average because you're working that out, but from our perspective, it'd be great to see the median moving forward.

The reason why our tax bill is going up is kind of touched upon lightly, but our assessed values are going up. Our home prices are going up. Until we control that, then our tax bill is going to keep going up.

As Sean mentioned, if we can get more economic development, more commercial rate, fantastic for housing in Swampscott to increase the vibrancy in this town. I think that's what's going to help us control that tax rate because this little tax maneuver that we've been doing, free cash transfer, has always been a mystery to me and kind of weird, to be quite honest. This presentation did not help that.

It seems like we're doing a short-term fix and not actually addressing the long-term problem of increasing our housing, increasing our tax base, etc. So I would love to have conversations about that in the future instead of the free cash transfer.

[Speaker 3] (1:02:15 - 1:02:30)
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Berdoff. Is there further discussion or debate on Mr. Hartman's motion?

Dr. Robertson, do you?

[Speaker 30] (1:02:39 - 1:03:04)
Anita Farber Robertson, now Precinct 4 because the line moved. I used to be Precinct 5. I just want to underline what that gentleman said about using median rather than average numbers.

That median numbers would be much more helpful. I think that's something I asked for once before. I would really like to get those kinds of numbers.

[Speaker 3] (1:03:05 - 1:03:37)
Thank you. I know there are others who have expressed that as well. I'll make sure to communicate that to any members of the select board who aren't here as well as any members of the town administration who aren't here.

Is there further discussion on Mr. Hartman's motion? All those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion to transfer $1 million from free cash to offset the tax levy, please raise your hand. All those opposed?

Motion passes unanimously. Moving now to Article 3, Ms. Fletcher.

[Speaker 24] (1:03:53 - 1:04:38)
Mary Ellen Fletcher, Precinct 4 Select Board and liaison to the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. For Article 3, I'd like to amend the general bylaws adoption of regulations for plastic containers in food establishments. The select board recommends that the town vote to amend the town of Swampscott general bylaws by adding a new article, Article XXX or Roman numeral 30, regulations for plastic containers in food establishments as shown in Appendix A of the warrant with an effective date of 7-1-24.

I move the recommendation of the select board.

[Speaker 3] (1:04:39 - 1:04:41)
Is there a second? Ms. Fletcher.

[Speaker 24] (1:04:42 - 1:05:01)
I'd like to introduce the chairman of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, Mr. Wayne Spritz, to answer any questions you might have. And I'd also like to take a moment to thank the Solid Waste Advisory Committee for their tremendous hard work in putting this together. So, any questions?

[Speaker 3] (1:05:02 - 1:05:03)
Thank you, Mr. Spritz.

[Speaker 6] (1:05:06 - 1:10:17)
Thank you. Wayne Spritz, Precinct 3 town meeting member and chair of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee. And I just want to be able to recognize a couple other members of our committee here, Alex Smolin and Emily Westhoven, all key members in helping do the work that SWAC does.

Go to the first page, please. Thank you. So, as promised back in May's spring town meeting, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee has returned with comprehensive regulation for plastic containers used by food establishments.

At least 100 combined volunteer hours of hard work were put into research, outreach, deliberation, and multiple policy drafts developed by members of our committee. The policy development within this proposed bylaw focused on identifying bad actors and their effects on the environment and human health. We evaluated the policies of 11 different Massachusetts communities and spoke with sponsors of many of those policies.

We found various themes in different regulatory controls that went well beyond food establishments. We found policies that were actually often confusing and spoke with policy makers about enforcement and exemptions. In summary, we learned what to do and what not to do in a very frank way.

Our focus and our task became a highly targeted policy best suited for SWANSCOT. This bylaw that you have in your packet is not what some might consider virtue signaling and it's not a bylaw that's really meant to be plastic-phobic. It's a bylaw about being plastic responsible and plastic sustainable.

We are promoting the usage of containers which are recyclable, compostable, and reusable. And we've been very transparent and asked for public feedback by contacting businesses both in writing and sometimes in person. We held multiple public meetings including a hybrid physical and virtual public hearing.

We solicited and received written feedback as well and we really welcomed everyone to the table with an opportunity to ask questions and to be heard. We appreciate there are some who think this doesn't go far enough and there are also some who think it goes too far. We think we struck the right balance to be effective.

It's a great start. Go to the next slide. So I'm just going to go over the key points of the bylaw.

So first, it regulates which materials food establishments can use for prepared food containers. The list is very clear in section 5. It assures that compostable containers meet the requirements of our composter vendor and protects the compost supply chain from contamination.

It requires on-site recycling by vendors choosing to supply single-use plastics for in-house dining. It protects community health and limits plastic leaching into food. How does it do that?

For one, we're not allowing hot foods to be served in the number one, PET, labeled number one. We're creating a consumer advisory that warns against reheating food in plastic containers and we've prohibited the use of containers which are known to add perfluorinated or otherwise known as PFAS compounds to enhance the product's qualities. We're reducing the propagation of unnecessary utensils and condiments, thus they will only be offered upon request or self-serve.

It applies to prepared foods, not prepackaged foods. And one of the more frequently asked questions that we received is, yes, it applies to the schools, caterers, religious institutions, farmers' markets, food trucks, and groceries if they're providing prepared foods. And last, we believe that the policy provides a reasonable accommodation for changes in the industry, supply chains, and or public emergencies.

And a temporary authority is provided to the Board of Health while any permanent changes are under the authority of this body at town meeting. Living on the ocean, our community is highly sensitive and committed to reducing pollution. SWAC continues to monitor this every month.

As a reminder, particularly in winter, please make sure that you're covering your recycling bins on trash days so the materials do not blow into environmentally sensitive areas. And this bylaw is just one part of a larger, ongoing challenge. In the next few months, SWAC is working on a five-year plan to continue reducing our solid waste footprint on the environment.

Much of this will be done through seeking better partnerships with our vendors, public education, and also better regional cooperation with other North Shore communities. We invite you to be involved. Attend a meeting and let your voice be heard on how we can make the system better for everyone.

And we hope that you will support the passage of Article 3. And on behalf of the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Spritz.

[Speaker 3] (1:10:23 - 1:10:39)
Is there debate or discussion on Ms. Fletcher's motion to adopt this new bylaw? Yes, sir, in the back with the yellow shirt. I'm sorry, the light is a little dark.

[Speaker 32] (1:10:45 - 1:11:04)
Damon Damati, Precinct 6 Town Meeting Member. I actually have a question for Wayne. Right now, what is the impression about how many of these businesses actually would have to make major changes to comply with this?

Because I actually have no idea. Thank you, Mr. Inouye.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:04 - 1:11:08)
Mr. Spritz, anybody on your committee with that information?

[Speaker 6] (1:11:08 - 1:11:43)
Sure, we've done outreach. While from the list that we do have, from the cursory list that we do have, we feel that the impact will be not unreasonable. The containers that are being used that would be prohibited are easily replaceable with other allowed items.

I don't see it being a major impact, and we did not receive a lot of negative feedback at all from the vendors that we contacted.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:43 - 1:11:45)
If I may, Mr. Spritz, the effective date?

[Speaker 6] (1:11:46 - 1:11:48)
The effective date would be July 1st.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:48 - 1:12:13)
So there is a six-month period to prepare for that. There is. Further questions?

All those in favor of Ms. Fletcher's motion to adopt this new bylaw, please raise your hand. All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously.

Moving on to Article 4. Mr. Hartman.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:25 - 1:14:10)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Eric Hartman, Precinct 1, Chair of the Finance Committee. The Finance Committee recommends the town vote to A, appropriate the sum of $103,870 and authorize the Treasurer, with the approval of the Select Board, to borrow said sum pursuant to the provisions of Mass General Law, Chapter 44, Section 788C, and or any other enabling authority for the purpose of improving, renovating, and equipping Phillips Park with four pickleball courts, including without limitation, all costs incidental or related thereto, provided, however, that no funds shall be expended until the town has received a grant commitment or allocation for a portion of such costs under the Park Grant Program 301 CMR 5.00 and or under any federal and or other state program to undertake the foregoing project. B, transfer the care, custody, and control of Phillips Park to the Select Board for and to dedicate said park to park and active recreation purposes under the provisions of General Law, Chapter 45, Section 3 and C, authorize the Select Board and or its designee to apply for and accept on behalf of the town funds granted under the Park Grant Program and or any other funds, gifts, grants under any federal and or other state program in any way connected with the scope of this article and enter into all agreements and any and execute any and all instruments as may be necessary or convenient to effectuate the project on behalf of the town. Said bonding amount shall be reduced by any such grant. I move the recommendation of the Finance Committee.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:10 - 1:14:11)
Is there a second?

[Speaker 2] (1:14:12 - 1:14:34)
Mr. Hartman. This is similar to many other grants we've had in the past where we can get some state monies for some activities the town wants to do. In this case, the grant would cover about 56 percent or 58,167 dollars of the total expected cost and the town would bear the remaining 44 percent or 45,703 dollars.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:34 - 1:14:40)
Thank you, Mr. Hartman. Are there questions, discussion? Ms. Titcombe.

[Speaker 26] (1:14:44 - 1:15:16)
Hi, Polly Titcombe, Precinct 1. Just wondering if any of this money could be used. The Windsor Park had recently undergone improvements, which are great.

There's a new playground area, but I do believe that the like basketball area was going to be either a repaved basketball area or a pickleball court or seasonal for either one, and I didn't know if any of these funds could be used for completion of that park or if we could possibly, I don't have an amendment, but we'd love to see that park completed. Thanks.

[Speaker 3] (1:15:17 - 1:15:20)
Thank you, Ms. Titcombe. Perhaps Ms. Golaska.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:20 - 1:16:06)
Yes, Marcy Golaska, Precinct 6, town meeting member, community and economic development director. Thank you, Polly, for your question. I do agree with you.

Phase two of the Windsor Park redevelopment was to really look at the basketball court and perhaps bring other utilities onto the area. Unfortunately, at this time, our request for projects at that park has not been funded. The park project did fund the rehabilitation of the play area and that was completed about two years ago.

That park is used by the residents. I think it looks wonderful, and we do hope to submit further grant funding to really phase, fix the second or the continuation of the project.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:07 - 1:16:14)
So if I can just clarify, under the terms of this potential grant from the Commonwealth, it is for this specific purpose?

[Speaker 4] (1:16:14 - 1:16:15)
That's correct. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:15 - 1:16:18)
That's okay. Thank you. Thanks, Marcy.

[Speaker 26] (1:16:18 - 1:16:22)
I just want to say thank you, and I do appreciate the work that's been done so far.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:22 - 1:16:28)
Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Tidcombe. Before Mr. Pielot, the gentleman in the back there. Yes, sir.

[Speaker 17] (1:16:30 - 1:18:18)
Yes, hi. In regards to the- Just your- I'm sorry. My name is Ed Toner.

I live on Sutton Place, adjacent to the area where they are planning to put the pickleball parks. That is not open space. That space is being used, and it's been used since I've lived there for a long time.

There are probably 20 plus boats there right now, and in the summer, it's the major parking lot for Eisman's Beach, and in the fall, when there's a big game, it's a parking lot for some of the fans. I'm totally against the pickleball courts. I don't know where else they could find a space, open space, but that is not open space.

That is space that is being used, and being well used constantly all year round, so I would like that to be reconsidered and try to find another area, and I'm speaking for my neighbors as well. I don't have paperwork to prove it, but we all on Sutton Place feel the same way, and we also have the Bertrand House adjacent, and pickleball causes a lot of noise. My daughter plays in Chicago, and they play in an off-resident area in a park, and she's filled me in on that part, so I don't want to hear the noise, and I think the space is being well used now, and it's also a flood zone conservation area, so thank you.

If it's possible to reconsider, please do. Thank you, sir.

[Speaker 4] (1:18:18 - 1:18:25)
Mr. Monterey, may I respond? I just need to provide some comments, too. I'm not sure if that's appropriate at this point.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:26 - 1:18:40)
Let's get through some more commentary and see if there's a consistent thread of questions, and we'll come back to you, but thank you for standing by. Mr. Pielot, you had your hand up, then Mr. Smith in the back. Same question.

Okay, Mr. Norton.

[Speaker 29] (1:18:52 - 1:19:17)
Good evening. Ken Norton, Precinct 3. You all thought you could get through the night without me.

I have a couple questions. Do you have something to put on the screen that gives an overview of exactly where the park will be in relation to this gentleman's question earlier tonight? And the second question is, is it customary to transfer custody to the select board, or is that just a formality?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:18 - 1:19:26)
My understanding from sitting in the meetings with Town Council is it's a formality to make sure that the state monies that go to a park are for something that will remain a park.

[Speaker 29] (1:19:26 - 1:19:27)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:29 - 1:19:31)
Did I see Mr. Smith in the back? Yes.

[Speaker 14] (1:19:37 - 1:22:02)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Jim Smith, Precinct 5, and a neighbor of this location. I joined my neighbor, Ed Toner, my many neighbors on Sutton Place, Robin Lane, Smith Lane, Puritan Road, and those of us who use that path.

I use it pretty much on a daily basis. This is wetlands, people. We hear about resiliency all the time.

That's the answer we have for climate change, resiliency. This is wetlands. That's all filled space, and you want to put down a hard surface.

I walked through that area, the path over to Phillips Park. It's wet all spring. It is soaking wet.

We need to preserve our wetlands. Those of us on Puritan Road have flooding on major rainstorms. You live behind Sutton Place, or Scalpin Way, or Smith Lane, or Robin Lane.

It's soaking wet. This is a coastal community. We can't possibly put a hard surface over wetlands.

There must be another place in this town at a higher level to have the pickleball courts. Now, as Ed pointed out, we're next to an assisted living facility. This is a very irritating sound.

Very irritating. There must be some other place in this town, not next to assisted living, to put pickleball courts. We heard at the very beginning we're going to borrow money for this idea.

We may want to borrow money, I guess, if this pickleball place was put away from wetlands, away from where we need to protect our shoreline, protect our property. Ed floods, I flood, everybody in the area floods, frankly. The idea that you're going to somehow put down a hard surface, it was stunning when I heard about this concept.

There must be another place. I know you're working hard in the town to find a location for pickleball. It's not my sport, but it can't be in wetlands.

We have to understand climate change will overwhelm this town, will overwhelm us. So let's be sensitive to that and try to find a different location. Thank you, Mr. Montoya.

[Speaker 3] (1:22:02 - 1:22:04)
Thank you, Mr. Smith. Mr. Urbano.

[Speaker 13] (1:22:13 - 1:24:28)
Christian Urbano, Precinct 1. Now I've also bounced around. Also the former chair of the athletic field study committee that brought us what I hope everybody enjoys, Bloxfield and its beautiful turf and everything else.

When we were doing our park grant, unfortunately did not get accepted, but when we did our park grant, there was a lot of information we had to do about this. Wetlands and there's a conservation committee that needed to look at it because I believe there's a 100-foot buffer out from that grass you see. So we were concerned about paving back there.

I actually wanted to have the whole thing paved until I learned we can't do that because of all of the conservation and wetlands and issues there. I have no idea about whether that can be handled through regulation, exemption, what have you. But I wonder if we can't just put pickleball courts down on a revamped, repaved basketball court, which is right over there outside of the map we've got there.

It won't be four courts, but it'll be a start. So I'm all for this and so is All Blue Foundation. So the private foundation that partnered with the town to bring Bloxfield through lots of donations.

We still have some money in our coffers that we're hoping to continue to give towards the town for athletic fields and things. So I'll be in touch with this committee or what have you, the pickleball situation, along with Gino Cresta. Hopefully we can maybe contribute to some of it to ease the cost on the town.

But in the meantime, I would love to hear from somebody who actually knows, where are the lines there on the wetlands? Because I've heard so many different stories about is it 100 feet out from the grass or what have you. We all are big on the environment right now, and I would say we don't want to pave over that area if that's going to affect conservation issues.

[Speaker 3] (1:24:30 - 1:24:38)
Thank you, Mr. Urbano. If I'm not incorrect, I believe that's actually Ms. Banderwitz and then Ms. Newman in the back.

[Speaker 19] (1:24:45 - 1:25:45)
Yes, Tony Banderwitz, Precinct 4. I'm chair of the Conservation Commission. I'll just start by saying the commission does not have a plan before it, so I can't say too much, but my understanding is this isn't a wetland that it's proposed in, but it is what you would call the flood zone or land subject to coastal storm flowage.

That doesn't necessarily mean you can't build there. There are certain requirements under the Wetlands Protection Act, but again, it's not before the commission, nothing formal, no plans, so it's impossible to say. But from looking at the picture, it is not in a wetland.

The wetlands are over behind the Bertram House, and I think there are some more over on the right side. But just to clarify that point.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:46 - 1:25:54)
So Ms. Banderwitz, before you take your seat, am I correct in understanding that the Conservation Commission will need to review this?

[Speaker 19] (1:25:55 - 1:25:55)
Yes.

[Speaker 3] (1:25:55 - 1:26:00)
So there will be another series of due diligence and oversight?

[Speaker 19] (1:26:01 - 1:26:28)
Yes, they will have to submit probably a notice of intent, which is basically a permit application showing that whatever the plan is, is protective of the resource, which is the land subject to coastal storm flowage or your flood zone. And if a permit was issued, it would probably have a lot of conditions to ensure that the resource was protected.

[Speaker 3] (1:26:29 - 1:26:39)
Thank you, Ms. Banderwitz. And can you clarify for me, for us, Ms. Glasgow, the timing on this grant? I believe there's a deadline.

[Speaker 4] (1:26:39 - 1:27:45)
Yes, so there is a process in regards to this grant. And that's probably why some of the questions and the comments that we hear today will be addressed at some point. We need to, the town needs to accept the grant application prior to doing a full design and really moving forward with the final design.

What you see on the map is we have, we submitted two renderings as part of the grant application. You see on the right in front of us, the four, the layouts of four courts. We submitted two layouts.

This is one. There's another one, if you maybe advance the other page, for potential location of the pickable courts. Once the town meeting accepts or allocates funding for and accepts the grant, at that point, we'll be able to finalize the design, go through the conservation commission process, as Tony eloquently outlined.

We will have neighborhood meetings. And we cannot start construction until July 1st of 2024. Those are the grant requirements.

[Speaker 3] (1:27:45 - 1:27:47)
Is that the correct?

[Speaker 4] (1:27:47 - 1:28:37)
That's the second rendering. And these are just, obviously, renderings. We will see comments and input from the residents, as well as our conservation commission agents.

In regards to the issue of wetlands and flooding, I wanted just to point out that that's something that we take very seriously, building resiliency and assuring that our infrastructure is safe and that our residents are able to have safe facilities, et cetera. We will assure that we will look at the current best practices for the design. There are options for courts that could be permeable.

There are options in regards to the design. And that's something that we will look and we examine during the design process.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:38 - 1:28:46)
Thank you, Ms. Glasgow. And Ms. Newman in the back, then Ms. Cooper, then Ms. Ippolito. We'll get there.

[Speaker 18] (1:28:50 - 1:30:31)
Hello. Oh, it's too close. I'm sorry.

Dr. Stephanie Neumann, Precinct 5. We've discussed the wetlands and the floodplain area, and I won't pursue that further. Parking is an issue.

The parking lots, the gravel, and the paved area are frequently heavily used. And in the summertime, people go to the beach there, so they exceed the parking space availability. If you put in a number of pickleball courts, I'm sure that's going to be impacted even further.

The noise of pickleball, the sport, local and national news coverage on TV, radio, and in newsprint all have indicated that residents near pickleball courts find the sound produced by the sport intolerable. As Phillips Park is a very flat and wide open area, sound carries especially well. So people living around the park will be exposed to the noise, and across Humphrey Street Hill forms a natural amphitheater, accentuating the noise emanating from Phillips Park.

I'd like to suggest a few alternate court locations. The middle school already has several tennis courts and baseball fields, and the abutting properties are town-owned forests and a golf course, so humans would not be disturbed by the sound or the parking issue. Also, shopping areas are fabulous places for pickleball courts.

You can utilize empty and vacant stores and or stimulate shopping by players before or after their court times. Utilizing vacant stores also dramatically reduces noise since courts will be indoors. So please, I urge you to vote against the appropriation for the park.

[Speaker 3] (1:30:33 - 1:30:35)
Thank you, Ms. Neumann. Ms. Cooper?

[Speaker 23] (1:30:44 - 1:31:49)
Hi, Gargi Cooper, Place Sanct 3. So I was formerly on the soccer committee, the board of soccer, and we just, I just wanted to bring up the idea that there are a lot of safety concerns that go on at Phillips Park during the season, especially with baseball and soccer, you know, soccer fields and lacrosse, with balls flying everywhere. We have some really big safety issues with little ones on, like, on Phillips Park.

So, like, and I feel like that really has never been able to be addressed really well just because of spacing and schedules, as you know, field space is really tight in this community. So the idea of then putting this area with the pickleball courts, which I'm not against pickleball at all, I don't want to, like, make anyone upset. I just think the location is really concerning because I think there's a lot of safety concerns that we should be really concerned about during the seasons of, you know, baseball, lacrosse, soccer.

So I just wanted to put that out there. I don't have a motion, but I just want people to consider that because it's, it's a problem. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:31:49 - 1:31:51)
Thank you, Ms. Cooper. Ms. Ippolito?

[Speaker 21] (1:31:56 - 1:33:14)
Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Angela Ippolito, Precinct 5 town meeting member and a member of the planning board. My only comment on this particular location is that all of Phillips Park is a flood zone.

It's an AE flood zone on the firm maps and the FEMA maps. It falls under our, it's located in two overlay districts, the floodplain wetland overlay district, and it's also in the, and the climate overlay district, the coastal flood area overlay district, rather. There are rules and regulations for what can be built there, and the solid pavement is not one of them.

I've discussed this with Margie earlier, and any, as far as the bylaw is concerned, any kind of construction that would happen in terms of a court-like surface would need to be permeable and would have to have a drainage plan for, you can't displace any water in that zone. So that's kind of the challenge in terms of a pickleball court. I will make one comment.

I thought Mr. Urbano's suggestion of maybe placing them on top of our already existing hardtop, which is where the basketball court is, was a great idea. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:15 - 1:33:18)
Thank you, Ms. Ippolito. Ma'am?

[Speaker 31] (1:33:23 - 1:33:43)
Hi, Marianne McDermott, Precinct 6. I have to apologize. I know pickleball is really popular.

Can you just walk us through the history here in Swampscot? Have the courts at the middle school been relined so they can be shared as pickleball courts the way other communities do? Have we already done that, and the popularity is so overwhelming we need more, for more courts?

Could you help me out with that?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:43 - 1:33:44)
Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you very much, Marianne.

[Speaker 3] (1:33:44 - 1:33:46)
Thank you, Ms. McDermott. Ms. Glasgow, would you?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:46 - 1:38:37)
Yes, thank you. As you know, pickleball is the, is the fastest-growing sports in popularity. It's a sport that's used by individuals of all ages and abilities.

It's really a mixture of pinball, badminton, and tennis. The process for us to try to secure a pickleball court really goes back to at least three years, if not longer. Just around the COVID time, pickleball really became very popular.

We received many, many calls from residents who requested that town try to secure or build pickleball courts. So we have looked at, we have initially looked at options to see if we can convert any of our tennis courts into pickleball courts. As you know, we have six tennis courts behind the middle school.

We did lose two courts at Phillips that were there a long time ago. We used to have tennis courts at Jackson Park as well, and unfortunately those are no longer there. In order to have regulation tennis matches, it's my understanding that you need to have six courts.

Once, when we converted the two tennis courts behind the middle school, we striped them for a shared use. Unfortunately, that didn't work out well for neither parties. The tennis individuals who play tennis there had some concerns about lowering of the nets as well as the confusion of the lines.

Similar issue was brought to us by the individuals who played pickleball. They stated that, again, this time the tennis nets were raised, and then again, the striping, people found it very confusing. And just having the two courts there was not sufficient.

So that's the reason why we try to look at other locations within town to see if we can secure or find another location for pickleball courts. As you know, the town of Swampscott is fully built out. We really don't have additional tennis courts to convert them into pickleballs.

We don't have any additional town land that could be viable option for pickleball courts. So it seems like that this is really a location that works the best. One thing I do want to assure everybody that, you know, we have to follow the process and we have to work under the regulations of the Conservation Commission to meet all of the wetlands regulations.

One thing I did want to mention, somebody talked about really heavy rain events and storms. As you know, last night we almost had over, I believe, two inches of water. I went by the Phillips Park earlier this morning.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to take pictures. I observed limited flooding. There were only two small areas where there was some standing water.

I did not see any additional water or a lot of flooding or anything that, you know, raised my concern of the safety of the residents who live near the park and or the safety of the individuals who would be using the pickleball plane at this location. I also wanted to point out that when we looked at the design of pickleball courts, we really looked at the best practices that are out there. I understand that noise from pickleball courts is really troubling to individuals.

So when we looked at the design, we followed the regulations that the standards are that you should not build pickleball courts within 150 to 200 feet from the nearest residence. So on this map and then the other map, we have identified three closest residents. So if we go, obviously, at the top of the map, we have the Bertram House and that is over 280 feet, I believe.

I should probably look at to tell you that the actual distance, but it's definitely over the recommended distance. Again, the residence at some place to the left of the page, that's about 200, a little bit over 200 feet. And the residents on Puritan Lane, that's over 200 and I believe 18 feet away from the pickleball courts.

And again, these renderings are just for discussion purposes. We have to, once the grant is accepted and town meeting, all of you vote for this project, we will work to redesign it. We will work to site the courts in the best possible location.

[Speaker 3] (1:38:39 - 1:38:53)
Thank you, Ms. Glaska. Before I come back to you, Ms. McDermott, I saw one hand way in the back there next to Ms. Martin Epstein. Certainly, sir.

[Speaker 9] (1:38:57 - 1:41:37)
Hi, my name is Joel Sapp, town meeting member representing the Energetic Hicks from precinct six. So we've experienced this already where I live on Blodgett. The beach club has had pickleball and pickleball is quite loud.

Where, which street were you? Sutton. And Sutton.

So it will be loud and most of the neighbors that live there are very frustrated. One, because they're supposed to be seasonal, but they go, you know, they went all through the winter and it is indeed quite loud. The second part that people are sort of talking about in the environmental piece of this is, well, it's going to go through the conservation commission.

But when the beach club actually renovated both of their tennis courts, they raised the height of the tennis courts, you know, let's say five, six inches, each of which represents about 40,000 extra gallons of water. Um, the second one happened, the beach, the commission didn't have any issue with it because it wasn't because of some piece of regulation. I don't want to go into specifics, but essentially they let that go by.

So it is a floodplain or it is a floodplain. It's a, there's a tremendous amount of water that's now pushed off and you've probably gone by on ocean where sometimes you can't pass by the street. Um, so I wouldn't necessarily rely on the conservation commission necessarily blocking this because of, you know, hardscape or permeable, permeable, you know, courts or something like that.

Um, so I think this is your time to decide if you want to have something like this. I mean, I think it's great. People can have the activity and it's interesting that a lot of people would like to do it, but I guarantee most of the people who want to do it wouldn't want it in their neighborhood.

So maybe when we have extra land available, when some of the elementary schools go down, um, that we could put something like this in if a grant is available. But in my opinion with the, with, um, the additional flooding that will be, you know, that will occur, um, I just don't think it's a great idea. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:38 - 1:41:40)
Yes, Ms. Martin Epstein. Thank you, Mr. Sapp.

[Speaker 11] (1:41:44 - 1:44:09)
Hi, Kim Martin Epstein, precinct three, town meeting member, also a member of the affordable housing trust. And the only reason I'm going to bring that up is because I never thought I would live to see the day as a housing person when classic NIMBY arguments were being used for pickleball. I am kind of floored.

This is a park that is owned by the town that is designed, I would assume, for the use of as many people in the town who pay taxes and want to keep it as a park as possible. And I assure everyone here who's excited about the possibility of a facility that some of us can use that isn't football or soccer or team sports. Some people don't have kids.

Some people don't play those sports. Some people want to play instead of watch. I mean, football's loud.

Football's played at night. Football has lights. Pickleball's a daytime sport that the maximum is, what, 16 people at any given time.

And then it's over and nighttime comes. You can't play pickleball at night easily, I mean, unless we're talking about lights. So I think we really need to understand that nobody ever wants the thing that they say they want for the whole town in their neighborhood, right?

Everybody lives near something that they've gotten used to using and like it for themselves, and they don't want to change in their own neighborhood. It's a tiny town, and each neighborhood has a facility like that. It's either the school park or, you know, a road that they get to park their car on that is, you know, not really their driveway, but they get to do it anyway.

And the minute somebody's house gets built there, they're all up in arms. Everybody does it. NIMBY is like a total thing that we do.

But this is a park that the town owns, and I think we owe it to the commission that's designed it, the Conservation Commission, that is going to take a look at it to move forward with this process and let that process take its course. We're here today to give permission for the process to go forward. If it turns out that it won't pass conservation muster, and if it turns out that we can't get the grant, then we won't.

But to just shoot it down because you like to park your car nearby, you know, I think we really need to kind of stop, you know, overlaying concerns about a Conservation Commission issue with just the idea that some people don't want it in their neighborhood, but other people might like to use this facility, you know, in our town.

[Speaker 3] (1:44:11 - 1:44:28)
Thank you, Ms. Martin Epstein. Ms. Vasilio, then Ms. Valerio, and if I'm missing you, and then Ms. Weir. I will try to get to as many people as I can tonight that haven't spoken.

Go ahead, ma'am.

[Speaker 7] (1:44:28 - 1:48:25)
Hi, I'm Tessia Vasilio, 16 Lewis Road. I'm also the chair of the Board of Assessors. We do, I just wanted to share with you that we have received abatements requests in the past for the pickleball noise over at the beach club area.

It does bother the neighbors there, and we've actually received abatement requests from properties up like the hill there, the cliff across Humphrey, because the noise from the football field is disruptive to the neighbors there as well. I think adding more noise to this area, I live on Lewis Road, which is also a little further over to the right. I hear everything crystal clear over at my house.

Adding, someone mentioned earlier that it's like a bowl, and it echoes, and I believe that to be true. The other thing is, earlier this year, spring and summer, there was so much discussion about beach parking, and there was some parking added for Phillips Beach. Ismans Beach is the only beach in town where the waves are almost non-existent.

There are very, very few rocks, if any. It is so, it's the only beach in town where people who have disabilities or challenges walking, or my mother, she's in her late 70s. When we go to Phillips Beach, she asks me to keep an eye on her when she goes in the water, because she often needs help coming out.

She started going, I convinced her to start going to Ismans, and to take parking away from that area right now, when there is such a need for beach parking, that it was actually added at Phillips. It fills up over at that Phillips Park too, and I have been there for many sporting events, where the lot is more than completely full. It's hard to navigate that area where the pickleball courts go, because it's not paved, so the cars don't line up well.

You can't, you know, it's just people driving around in big spaces, and not everybody is like, there aren't like clear lanes. So I highly, you know, recommend we don't take parking away, because there are a lot of seniors in town. There were a couple of handicapped parking spots over there added this year, which was very nice for her to be able to just park near the path.

It made a big difference. So one last thing. My daughter and I drove around town this summer.

There were a bunch of things that we posted into the C-Click Fix. One of them was that lot. The potholes there were enormous and full of water all summer, and the DPW did a fantastic job.

They went out like the next day and filled them in. I often go down there now to walk the beach, and those potholes are coming back already, and winter hasn't even come yet. So it's just, I don't think it's a great location, and I think we can do better.

I did look on the GIS map for the town up by the track by Jackson Park. It looks like that land, there's some, that's not town land if I'm correct. It looks like it's owned by Lin's Sand and Stone, but there's a lot of space up there.

I'm not sure what the topography is, but there could possibly be another location if they're willing to let us use, have the track field up there, you know, would they be willing to let us put the pickleball courts up there? There's a lot of space up there that's not being used. So that's all.

Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:25 - 1:48:33)
Thank you, Ms. Vasiliu. I misidentified you, ma'am. I'm sorry, do you still wish to speak?

Yes. I'm so sorry. Please.

[Speaker 28] (1:48:37 - 1:49:01)
Hi, I'm Tanya Lilick. I'm precinct four, I think. I'm chair of the Open Space Committee, and Margie, I was just hoping that you might explain the park grant in terms of what the parameters are, whether we accept the money, whether the location is already fixed based on the grant you submitted and what the use is for.

So just explain a bit more about that. I think it could help people.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:02 - 1:49:03)
Yeah, happy to do so.

[Speaker 3] (1:49:03 - 1:49:04)
Please, Ms. Golaska.

[Speaker 4] (1:49:05 - 1:50:07)
Thank you. So the park grant is specific to a location, is specific to a use. So as you know, obviously we requested four pickleball courts to be constructed at Phillips Park.

The way that the program works is that we submitted a grant applications. Once we are notified of our award, town meeting needs to take a vote to appropriate the funding. The park grant is a reimbursable type of a grant.

The town of Swampscott, as a small community, we are only eligible to receive 56% reimbursement rate. That's the maximum amount that we can receive. We were fortunate with this application that we received the maximum amount of funding that we can reimburse.

So at this point, where we are is in order to move forward with the project at this location, we would need a town vote to accept the grant and also move forward with the project.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:08 - 1:50:17)
Thank you, Ms. Golaska. I know I recognize Ms. Weir. I've got a number of people still wishing to speak.

I'll try to get to all of you.

[Speaker 22] (1:50:19 - 1:51:24)
Hi, I'm Heidi Weir, precinct number five, also employee of the town, director of aging services in Swampscott. We love pickleball. Seniors, this is like the number one sport, and we need to get out.

Seniors need to get out, and they need to move, and it's a wonderful exercise program. We started a few years ago when I think Danielle put some lines down in the tennis courts that Margie was referring to earlier. So for a few hours a week, the senior center members go down, and they play, and the lines are crazy down there.

People are loving it, and they're enjoying it, and they're getting out, and they're getting exercise. So I really strongly recommend that we do something about pickleball, and I'm wondering, Margie, is it possible, do the six tennis ball courts that have to be together, do they have to, I mean, do they have to be together? Can you put tennis courts here and keep the pickleball over at the middle school?

So keep four tennis and two pickleball there, and then put two tennis here.

[Speaker 4] (1:51:25 - 1:51:38)
I would defer to the tennis coach, but I don't think that that would be a viable issue. Be trying to have matches to just the coordination of bringing students from one location to the next, but again, that's something that I would defer to the tennis coach.

[Speaker 22] (1:51:39 - 1:51:43)
Okay. Well, I strongly am in favor of the pickleball courts. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:51:44 - 1:51:57)
Thank you, Ms. Weir. I see a number of people. I've got Mr. Spillers, did you wish to address the body?

I've got Mr. Kraft. I've got Mr. Patsios. Mr. Patsios, why don't you?

[Speaker 16] (1:52:03 - 1:53:57)
Thanks, Bill. Charlie Patsios, Precinct 5. Everybody knows that I can be a little explosive at times if I'm really passionate about something.

I'm really passionate about getting money from the State and letting the town's agencies do their job because I'm not on the Conservation Committee. I'm not with the DPW. I don't understand the different facets that we have to go through in order to comply with the rules, but I do know that if we say yes tonight, we get 56 cents paid by the State, and we get paid, what's that, 44 cents?

And to me, I think that's a great thing. The seniors, I qualify for that now. My daughter says it's a good idea I go exercise.

She said it's low impact, so I'm having second thoughts right now, but I'm still going to say yes. We can find a million reasons to say no to everything that comes up, and God knows, and probably everybody here knows that sometimes I'm on that side of the fence, but not this time. This is one of those things that can be a little disruptive, and we can be fearful of things that might make noise, but it's a park, and that's what happens at the park.

You know, I think someone said about the football games. Yeah, it gets noisy at football games, but I can assure you that when I'm losing, I'm not going to be losing my mind screaming and yelling, but you might hear, you know, the activity out there. This is a good thing for the community.

It's a good thing for everybody here, and I can't think of a reason why we shouldn't explore the opportunity and find out what it takes to get the job done correctly and allow the different agencies in the town to do their jobs. I'm not qualified to make those decisions, but I think we should do this. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:58 - 1:54:01)
Thank you, Mr. Patsios. Mr. Germa, did you wish to speak?

[Speaker 20] (1:54:11 - 1:54:30)
Chair Germa, Precinct 3. I just had a really quick question on clarification. When you say that this is specific to the site for this grant, is it one of these two options or just Jackson Park in general if we come up with a discovery?

I'm sorry, Phillips Park in general.

[Speaker 4] (1:54:30 - 1:54:31)
Phillips Park.

[Speaker 20] (1:54:32 - 1:54:43)
Yeah, so it could be anywhere in Phillips Park. If we voted yes tonight, there could be a conversation and analysis. If there was a wetland issue or if there was a better location sound-wise, etc.

[Speaker 33] (1:54:43 - 1:54:43)
Yes.

[Speaker 20] (1:54:44 - 1:55:34)
Excellent. I just wanted to make sure because we're looking at these two options. There's a lot of concerns around the parking.

I think a lot of us that have been out there during practices and so forth realize there's a lot of space that isn't used that potentially could also be evaluated. So as I look at this, I do value us using our parkland. We are limited on parks that are sports related.

I actually think the location there or up closer to the football field would have less impact. And I also feel when pickleball is, it does create a sound, but the distances that that type of sound travel probably can't be compared to the soccer sounds, the football sounds, etc. that are happening out there.

So I would stand in support of moving this forward.

[Speaker 3] (1:55:35 - 1:55:55)
Thank you, Mr. German. Did I see Mr. Schutzer? No.

That's you. Very good. Mr. Spellios?

Yes, please. Trying to keep track of your hands when you all put them up.

[Speaker 5] (1:55:55 - 1:58:09)
Hi, Peter Spellios, Precinct 3 member of the Select Board. The Select Board did vote to recommend passage of this, but I'm speaking as a town meeting member. Two really quick confessions.

My pickleball partner and I, Suzanne, get our asses kicked by our 80-year-old uncle playing pickleball and his wife. So for that reason, every part of me wants to be against pickleball, because you all know me long enough. I'm really competitive.

I don't like losing. I don't know how to beat them. I don't know what to do out there, but I think that's the point.

We have a bocce court outside the Senior Center. Is that what we're now saying is sufficient for our seniors in this town? That's it.

This is an amazing opportunity to, and I can't believe I'm saying this, do as Charlie says. Charlie, I'm with you 100 percent. This is awesome.

This is great. We're going to find something else to be on the same page about, but let town staff do their job. What you saw earlier with AAA rating, what you've seen in terms of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of grants that have come to this town to create activity, to create livelihood, that's all staff doing their job.

That's, I mean, we can feel good. We vote this stuff. That feels great.

Select Board talks about this stuff, but we're not the ones doing it. It's staff that's doing it. It's Marzee and Community and Economic Development doing it and the grants here.

Our Conservation Commission, please, if you haven't, watch a Conservation Commission meeting. We have some of the smartest, most skilled, knowledgeable people. We have EPA lawyers.

We have professors. We have amazing people on our Conservation Commission. There is a process that needs to go through.

I don't know how that process ends, but I do know that we have benefited from trusting staff to do the job and to go through the process here. That, on top of the fact that this is quite literally the single biggest, I think, multi-age capital investment activity that we have sought permission to do probably every year. The botchy court was donated.

I think it's long overdue and Marblehead has 12 courts. Good luck trying to get a time on them because they are booked forever, so I please ask you to help staff move this forward.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:10 - 1:58:21)
Thank you, Mr. Pelios. Would someone like to raise their hand to be recognized? Thank you.

Mr. Lorber.

[Speaker 10] (1:58:27 - 2:01:15)
Hello. Oh, hi. Terry Lorber, Precinct 5.

Full disclosure, I have two dependents that are employed by Swanscote Recreation. Also, I own permit, mooring permit number 27. So yeah, consider the boat owners.

We're a CSAC community. We should have infrastructure to support those members of our community that own boats. What a unique opportunity we have here is to support, you know, build infrastructure that is focused on our unique asset, which is the ocean.

It's a shame to hear that the pickleball players and the tennis ball players can't get along at the middle school. When I look at them, they look, I can't tell them apart, yet they can't get along. I wish we could try harder to make this work at the middle school location.

I do think we should be improving infrastructure. I have said, hopefully been consistent in my comments through the years, that we don't spend enough on infrastructure. So I welcome us seeking grants to build infrastructure that we all can use.

I think there are some concerns here that the process will work out, but as one knows, once the process starts, the process has a way of reaching a conclusion. It's a shame that this, the Phillips Park is the only park that was considered. I would ask, were there other parks and town-owned areas considered?

There was a great addition to our town was the Squamish place for off-leash time behind the cemetery. I'm also aware that the town stores boats behind that. I don't think you could fit four pickleball courts behind the spot park, but I don't think the inhabitants of the town cemetery will be too concerned with sound issues.

So I would, I do want to support this. This is not my neighborhood, but I recognize the NIMBYism that is at play here. I walked through there on Sundays, and there's a lot of parking there.

It's not well utilized. People don't park very well in this town for some reason, so there's cars all over the lines and space is missing. They also like to park in the no parking lane along the Bertram House there that's just off the map.

So a lot of complicated issues here. If you don't want a pickleball court on Phillips Park, I think there's a pretty clear answer of how you need to vote here. Thank you very much.

[Speaker 3] (2:01:15 - 2:10:25)
Thank you Mr. Lowery. Mr. Demento. Mr. Demento is moving to call the question which end debate on this topic and move directly to a vote. Is there a second? This vote requires a two-thirds vote is non-debatable. All those in favor of Mr. Demento's motion to call the question?

All those opposed? Motion carries unanimously. We now move directly to a vote on Mr. Hartman's original motion to adopt the language which would enable the acceptance of this grant and to further transfer this particular lot from the town to the town for the specific purpose of being a park. All those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion, please signify by raising your hand. All those opposed? Now as this does require a two-thirds vote, I am going to confess that the chair is in doubt and I will ask for a standing vote please.

I would like Ms. Titcom, Mr. Dorsey to be tellers for that section. Ms. Powell and Mr. Lehman, could you be tellers for this section? Mr. Berdoff, you're still here. And Ms. Martin Epstein, would you be tellers for this section? All those in favor of Mr. Hartman's motion, please stand and remain standing. And tellers, please make sure you're counting elected town meeting members.

We do have a number of visitors who are wearing their green badges and are not eligible to vote. Thank you. Please be seated.

All those opposed, please rise. Thank you. You may be seated.

By a vote of 106 in favor, 57 opposed, the motion fails. That dispenses with Article 4. Having dispensed with all of the articles in this warrant, I would now entertain a motion to dissolve this special town meeting.

Is there a second? All those in favor? This meeting stands dissolved.