[Speaker 2] (0:44 - 1:06)
Okay, welcome to the Select Board Meeting, June 18, 2024, at Swampscott High School. And this meeting is being recorded, and for tonight's Pledge of Allegiance, we're going to have two of our younger citizens lead us in the Pledge. If you gentlemen would give us your name and your grade.

[Speaker 11] (1:09 - 1:16)
Hi, I'm Joseph Patz, and I'm going into the fourth grade. I'm Henry Schmalz, and I'm going into the fourth grade.

[Speaker 2] (1:17 - 1:20)
Great, so if everybody could stand, and Joseph and Henry will lead us.

[Speaker 11] (1:24 - 1:38)
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

[Speaker 2] (1:40 - 1:42)
Thank you. Good job.

[Speaker 1] (1:43 - 1:45)
Good job, gentlemen.

[Speaker 2] (1:45 - 2:06)
Now you have to promise that you'll vote when you're 18? Okay, good. Thanks.

Okay, next on our agenda, we're going to read the Juneteenth Proclamation. How about if we all go around? Sure.

You want to start, David? Sure.

[Speaker 7] (2:06 - 2:24)
Proclamation by the Select Board. Whereas, on June 19, 1865, more than 250,000 enslaved people in the state of Texas received news that they were free, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had declared all enslaved people to be free nearly two and a half years earlier, and

[Speaker 3] (2:24 - 2:39)
Whereas, since 1865, Juneteenth Day has been celebrated as a special day of celebration for freedom, and the celebration of this day has grown into a day of learning, sharing, and giving respect to the history, culture, and achievements of African Americans, and

[Speaker 9] (2:39 - 2:45)
Whereas, on January 1, 1980, Juneteenth officially became a Texas state holiday.

[Speaker 2] (2:45 - 3:12)
Since then, the federal government, all 50 states, and the District of Columbia have also commemorated or recognized the day, and Whereas, the 117th Congress established Juneteenth National Independence Day and declared June 19th as a legal public holiday. This bipartisan legislation unanimously passed the Senate and passed the House by a vote of 415 to 14, becoming the 12th federal holiday end.

[Speaker 7] (3:12 - 3:28)
Whereas, on July 14, 2020, then-Governor Charlie Baker signed Juneteenth into law to be celebrated as a state holiday to recognize the continued need to ensure racial freedom and equality, and Whereas, Juneteenth is an opportunity to reflect on our nation's history and to celebrate the contributions of all of our citizens.

[Speaker 9] (3:29 - 3:51)
It is a chance to shine a light on the strength of the human spirit and to begin to make a wrong right by working toward a more equitable future for all Americans, and Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in the Town Administrator and each of the below select board members in the Town of Swampscott, we hereby proclaim June 19, 2024 as Juneteenth Day.

[Speaker 2] (3:52 - 4:09)
In the Town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, and encourage all faith-based and nonprofit organizations, residents, businesses, and public institutions to acknowledge honor, value, and celebrate African Americans, and encourage everyone to treat others with mutual respect and understanding.

[Speaker 7] (4:10 - 4:22)
In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands and cause to be affixed the great seal of the Town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, this 18th day of June, 2024. Hooray.

[Speaker 2] (4:23 - 4:53)
Hooray. Then, if everybody could just sign that before we leave. I'm going to just move the agenda around.

Do we have Max here? I'm going to move the agenda around a little bit tonight. We're going to go over, we're going to go to number five, discussion and update on the June 11th presentation and traffic safety meeting for the elementary school.

Basically, we just want to have a wrap up of what happened at that meeting and what the next steps are going to be. Max?

[Speaker 1] (4:57 - 5:00)
Yeah, Max, if you could grab a microphone.

[Speaker 8] (5:11 - 8:30)
During the meeting, we were able to give a quick presentation and then take questions and comments for an extended period of time. I thought it went really well. There was really quite a bit of really good feedback.

We talked about various projects that are at various states of progression, some of which are harder to impact change on and some of which can be changed more easily. But even with that, we've been looking at some modifications to some of the, even the projects that are ongoing and under contract. We're lucky to have a very flexible contractor working on the Orchard Road and Forest Ave project.

And they've been really receptive to kind of what's going on. And we've been able to talk through things with them. So there was a couple of crosswalks on Orchard that had been talked about quite a bit.

And they initially held back on them. And as a result of the meeting, we've decided to postpone those crosswalk installations. I'm sorry, postpone isn't the correct word.

We've decided to not do those crosswalk installations while at the same time sort of reserving the right to see how activity on the street progresses. If we do observe unsafe conditions at that location, crossings at that condition, you know, it could be something we could look at in the future. I think everyone was very comfortable with that.

I've met with the police chief, the fire chief, other members of police department, community development, actually multiple times following that meeting to talk about those items. And we've also talked quite a bit about parking restrictions. That was something that came up a lot at last Tuesday's meeting.

For the most part, the position of the public safety officials is there's not a tremendous amount of additional parking restrictions that they want to enact at this time. They really feel as though it would be more prudent to let things play out a bit and see where the traffic flows go, how people are really reacting to the new flows, the one way, the school traffic. That's when they think there could be a better targeted approach to maybe additional restrictions if needed.

We just don't know exactly how everyone is going to behave in the neighborhood. There was one section on Forest Ave. Extension that is very close to the UU entrance that was probably overlooked in the initial parking restriction that we would be comfortable making a more expedient recommendation. Because we could see parking there that really wouldn't be safe or desirable.

So there is maybe one recommendation that, again, could be forthcoming sooner. But the rest of them, the police chief, the fire chief, we looked at it on the map. We really talked through all the iterations.

And at this time, they do feel like it is best to hold off on additional restrictions until more information can be gathered.

[Speaker 9] (8:34 - 9:04)
Could I say something? Yes. Thank you.

So first, I want to thank Sean for an excellent forum. I thought it was really productive. It was really well organized.

Max Casper, you went above and beyond. And you were thoughtful and really receptive to listening to people and their concerns and addressing them. I was so impressed.

It was really just really well done. And Sean, you put it together so quickly and really efficiently. So I just want to thank you guys for that.

[Speaker 1] (9:05 - 10:17)
Danielle, you recommended that during your first meeting. And, frankly, I think we were remiss not having it sooner. But I really appreciate the fact that we have select board members that actually are connected to neighborhoods and can help us just engage.

That's an area where, frankly, we just need to do more. And I appreciate the residents that came out. Most of the neighbors came with really reasonable concerns.

They understood they had been dealing with a pretty disruptive project for almost two years. And it's tough. We are sincere.

We want to help them address some concerns. The meeting wasn't at the end of the conversation. Max and I and the chiefs, we talked about how do we continue to engage.

We want to go down there and have a neighborhood meeting on site as the project moves forward. But, certainly, I agree with you that Max, his law degree actually was very judicious. You were very, I think, reasonable.

You listened.

[Speaker 9] (10:18 - 10:21)
And you responded. And you, too, Sean, really.

[Speaker 1] (10:21 - 10:37)
Set the tone, though. I think Max has done a very good job engaging with the neighborhood. Max has gone down there.

Max has come back numerous times working with individuals. I mean, the behind the scenes stuff is really important, too.

[Speaker 9] (10:38 - 11:08)
The actual willingness to listen, though, and respond to people with individual concerns and really think about how you could make that happen or make the request happen. Whereas, in the past, you know, maybe it was a hard no. You know, it was the receptiveness and really the willingness to adjust your plan based on people's feedback.

And that is just remarkable. So I just want to commend you both for that. And the Chief of Police, Ruben, and Gino, everybody, it was just really well done.

[Speaker 3] (11:08 - 11:09)
Thank you.

[Speaker 9] (11:10 - 11:11)
Doug, do you have any questions?

[Speaker 3] (11:11 - 12:07)
I do. Great. I thought that would make you happy.

Well, everyone was extremely accommodating. I agree. On the other hand, I was a little concerned that potentially we were leading people to believe we could have I think everyone was very accommodating, but we were talking about crossing guards.

And by the end, I couldn't really keep track of how many crossing guards we were promising or indicating we would hope to have. And maybe there's plenty of money, maybe, but people to hire. And so I just left there a little concerned that people felt like there was going to be a crossing guard basically at every single intersection.

And I don't know if that was a realistic expectation. I know there was a good intent in that and a desire. But I just don't know where that really practically lands.

[Speaker 1] (12:07 - 12:24)
I had a few conversations the day after. It was said at that meeting the issue wasn't budget. Our school resource officer also did a wonderful job.

But, hey, look, we've got issues. It's about getting staff.

[Speaker 3] (12:25 - 12:27)
That was made clear. Yes.

[Speaker 1] (12:27 - 13:52)
So I immediately thought, hey, we've actually increased some of our senior tax workoff individuals from five to close to 50. And I have a number of ideas about how we possibly could address the staffing in unique ways that would help us minimize the impact of the operating budget. I then received an email that suggested that perhaps there was a financial implication.

And that's not my first position. As the town administrator, I don't go looking to spend money first. We actually look to figure out how to solve some of those pressure points.

And so I think we need a couple more weeks to work with our public safety team, work with our school department, school resource officer, and figure out during the first couple of weeks of this school year, what do belts and suspenders look like when it comes to protecting neighborhoods? The most important thing that we have to do is get to every intersection. The good news is we have public safety departments.

I've talked to the chief of the fire department when we instituted a traffic management strategy for the first few weeks of the Blaney school. We had a fire department and firefighters in neighborhoods in each direction. Those aren't budget impacts, but they're huge when it comes to public safety.

If you have folks going through, students walking through neighborhoods, having a firefighter there.

[Speaker 3] (13:53 - 14:40)
I think you're getting to my main point, Sean, which is that, I mean, I'm not looking to solve it here particularly, but we need a kind of a day one and day three plan that's a little excessive in a way, basically, that deals with that and I think also this resident parking thing. I won't even pretend to understand the pros and cons of not doing it or doing it, but I can feel already, you know, like I'm sure the people on Forest Ave are just imagining the cars lined up, parked in front of their house, you know, like all day long, basically, or, you know, something. So, you know, what is our plan B and how fast are we ready to respond if there is a problem, if we're not going to make it resident parking in the beginning or all that stuff.

So it's not to solve here, but that was...

[Speaker 1] (14:40 - 15:45)
No, I think, look, if we can set the tone and we can actually give people a sense of responsiveness, I think, you know, the first couple of weeks will inform us greatly. We should have another meeting after the first couple of weeks of traffic patterns evolving. We'll know pressure points and we can reach out to the school resource officer and our public safety teams and say where should we make changes, if any, and, you know, how are things working out.

But before we do that, you know, I think we'll have a couple more meetings with the neighborhoods. We'll get into the neighborhood parking. I do think, you know, there's some anxiety about that.

Sometimes that anxiety isn't borne out. So, you know, we do need to have some parking for school pick-up and drop-off. And we've got to figure out how to make sure that that doesn't encumber those neighborhoods in ways that would make them too congested or, you know, difficult.

All right. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (15:45 - 15:45)
Katie?

[Speaker 4] (15:46 - 17:54)
I have just a follow-up on Doug's comment. One of the reasons why I am less anxious about the new school situation is because we live through two new traffic patterns at Hadley and Blaney. And if you were a parent living through those changes, number one, you saw that it could be implemented literally within three weeks, I think, from the decision that we were going to roll through pick-up and drop-off through the three weeks of planning, through the execution, and then at Hadley through the modification of changing from roll pick-up drop-off back to regular pick-up drop-off.

I'm not going to say it was seamless, but for the amount of students that we pivoted on, I think it all happened very efficiently. And the parents were able to be flexible, and the kids were able to be flexible, and we were able to get through that pretty well unscathed. So I have less anxiety about that.

I will say one of the biggest factors that made that easier was having the extra police and fire presence. Max, you were there every day, and Lori was outside every day on the mics and on the walkies, and everybody really worked together to make it happen. And then noticing when things weren't working that we had to pivot and not waiting to torture everybody through what we thought was going to work.

So I have a feeling that that will be well-received by admin and by parents. And then the second thing is because I'm sure Max would like to, once the school opens, not that he's just going to drop the new school and move on to new projects, but I know he has a lot of other projects, so maybe the idea of the traffic committee coming back around so that when we sort of resolve some of these initial opening issues, the issues that maybe linger for the school neighborhood would then have a place to go outside of post-opening. I feel like that would be helpful.

[Speaker 2] (17:56 - 19:17)
David? So my take on the meeting was I shared Danielle's opinion that it was done really, really well, and it was great. But when I was sitting there listening, I heard just excellent idea, recommendation after excellent recommendation, one after another.

You know, the resident parking, I sat there thinking, why not? The one-way, there was a question actually from Mr. Mercarian about the one-way, and I thought, why not? And we don't have a traffic committee that has actual resident representation on it, so I am concerned about just saying, okay, let's just see how it goes, and then we'll come back.

I'm not close-minded to that, but I am concerned because I'm hearing a lot of residents having some serious issues about what could happen in their neighborhood and what that impact is going to be. So I do want to address that sooner rather than later, and I just want to make sure everybody is pretty much on board and feels like, yep, we're being listened to, and this does make sense. So that's where I'm coming from on that one.

And I know you had your challenges over there, and I appreciate your patience greatly. So I think we're good with this one, right? Okay.

[Speaker 3] (19:17 - 19:24)
How have we worked since we didn't do public comment before this in terms of the public that may be wanting to comment on this?

[Speaker 2] (19:24 - 19:52)
Oh, you're right. We forgot public comment. So we could do ñ is there anybody here that has a public comment about this topic?

No? Okay. We'll do public comment right after that.

All right. So we're finished with this topic, and is there anyone here for public comment on anything? No?

Okay. So anybody online? No?

Okay. So next we're going to move to the water and sewer rates.

[Speaker 9] (20:32 - 20:33)
All right.

[Speaker 6] (20:33 - 20:40)
I'm going to go through this at Amy's speed, so jump in at any point. At what? Amy's speed?

Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (20:43 - 21:21)
I'll introduce you then. We have Amy Sorrow, our Director of Finance and Administration, and Patrick Leathery, our Town Treasurer. They have worked on the analysis for the water and sewer rates over the last three weeks.

This is something we do annually and part of our overall fiduciary responsibility. So you're going to see a lot of data. We have kind of tried to smooth some of the rates out, but it's a complicated responsibility.

Given this year, we've made some dramatic investments or recommendations for investments for water and sewer. With that, Amy, take it away.

[Speaker 6] (21:22 - 24:45)
Hi, I'm Amy. Okay. Jump right in.

So this is just an overview of the background and authority. So town meeting will establish the water and sewer enterprise fund budgets, which already happened May 21st. The board will determine the rates at least annually, and those rates have to be sufficient to generate enough revenue to cover the voted budget and, in this case, you know, try to build back up the replenishment of the reserves.

Next slide. Thank you. So water and sewer rate advisory committee was established in 2020.

That committee recommended the implementation of the tiered base and consumption rates. That rate structure was established to give a more comparable cost per gallon rate, and the board adopted that rate in August of 2022. Okay.

So the tiers, just a quick reminder, they go based off how much usage it is per cubic feet. So this is just tiered structure. If you look at your pie charts, it will show kind of how many households are falling within each of these structures.

For the public at home, we're going to make this presentation available on the website as well so they're not trying to pinch and zoom on tiny charts. Next slide. This is just showing the comparison between the FY21 flat rate and the tiered rate and how that adoption has moved us closer to parity on that.

Next slide. This is showing the budgeted expenses for FY25 as well as the five-year history on that. As you can see under sewer on that deadline, it does have the assumptions based off the $3.5 million project that was voted at town meeting. Patrick had modeled how that's going to look borrowing-wise. Okay. Next slide.

This is just another refresher on the budget. So the water budget was decreasing by about 5%. The sewer budget was increasing by about 2.4. We don't need to relive that. Next slide. This is the past years of the household water usage and consumption data. So we've obviously been working towards conservation of this consumption, but it does also include the assessments and our prorated portion of that.

Next slide. And this is just an overview of our rate increase history. So overall, our combined rates of water and sewer for seven out of the last ten years has only been about 2%.

We've been trying to be very conservative with those in past years, but now has left us kind of behind some of our peer communities, as well as now at a point where we at town meeting dipped below our recommended 20% of retained earnings. So I'm going to turn it over to Patrick to go into some rate options for you.

[Speaker 5] (24:46 - 28:48)
Thanks, Amy. So we've modeled out two rate options for you all, as we do typically each year. So the first rate option strives to replenish our retained earnings in each fund to 18%.

Our financial policy that the Finance Committee and Select Board approved years ago recommends 20%. We're projected to be well below that at the end of the fiscal year. So in addition to the infrastructure improvements we've discussed, funding those, we're also looking to increase the fund's retained earnings to an appropriate level that the DOR would accept.

So option one forecasts a 7.5% increase to water rates and a 19.5% increase to sewer rate, and through that increase it would accomplish both of the goals I described. The next slide summarizes the breakout of the revenue that would be projected if the board chose to go that path. And the second option on the following slide, similar, it takes a more conservative goal of getting us back to 17% of our retained earnings through a 6.2% increase to water rates and an 18.2% increase to sewer rates, so slightly less than option one. And that would allow us to get back to that 20% of retained earnings over a few years. And we have the revenue projections on the following slide as well for your reference. And if we skip right on to the next slide, this shows the impacts of these different rate options and what that boils down to for household use of water.

Rate option one, that would cost about $124 over the next year through the water and sewer charges that are billed quarterly. That's about 34 cents a day. Option two, that would cost on average about $111 over the course of the year, or about 30 cents a day.

Next slide, Diane. Gathered some information from the MWRA. They produce a survey of all communities that purchase water or sewer each year and rank their rates and their average household use.

So I've graphed where we stand for water use. We're at eighth highest out of the 56 communities that were surveyed by the MWRA. And on the next slide, you'll see if the board adopts either of these options, we would be the fifth highest out of the 56 communities that are surveyed.

For sewer, we're on the other end of the spectrum, so we rank 46th out of 56 communities surveyed. With our sewer rates, our sewer rate is extremely low compared to the surrounding communities in Metro Boston area. And on the next slide, you'd see if we adopt either of these rate options, we'd rank about 41st amongst the peers.

So our sewer rate is still well below others, even after a substantial adjustment to fund the infrastructure improvements. And on the last slide there, the last bar chart, I show on a combined basis for water and sewer charges together. That's the bill.

We currently rank 36th out of the 56 communities MWRA surveyed, and adopting either of these options would leave us 23rd. So still pretty middle run out of the communities that are surveyed. And then on the next few slides, I was able to forecast out potential rate increases over the next 10 years based on the work that the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Committee has produced and the Capital Improvement Committee.

We have more insight into what level of investment is needed, so that informs us a little more. So those are there for your reference. And if you want to skip, Diane, right to the next steps.

Amy, if you want to...

[Speaker 6] (28:48 - 29:14)
So the next steps, next week the Water and Sewer Committee is set to meet. So we're going to get their feedback on these recommendations. And then obviously the Select Board to discuss and vote to establish the new rates.

We'll work with the Public Works Department to get the rates implemented for the next billing cycle. And then ongoing, we'll be reporting how the revenues and charges progress through the year.

[Speaker 2] (29:17 - 29:47)
I thought about this yesterday. The Water and Infrastructure Committee, they had the... They absorbed the rate committee.

That committee was set up to break down, you know, look at different things, the possibility of tiers and things like that. I would think that after they've already set that down, I'm really... set that up.

I'm not sure really what function the Infrastructure Committee plays because isn't this now financial?

[Speaker 6] (29:48 - 30:08)
Yeah, and I don't believe they were sure either. And they weren't sure if they should be forming a subcommittee to talk about rates, if the board in their new structure didn't want that committee discussing rates. So that's also something for the Select Board to discuss and determine.

We have a finance committee that I think really...

[Speaker 1] (30:08 - 31:49)
You know, we incorporated the rate committee. We're only three members of that rate committee. And the thought was, let's bake that committee into the Infrastructure Committee.

We just finished our report on asset management. And so they're studying that report right now. They're going to be able to inform and advise and recommend to the Select Board of the Finance Committee what they think would be prudent in terms of the retained earnings.

This is kind of a complicated responsibility because, you know, historically, you know, it's not like we look at the percentage increase and we think, wow, that's a significant increase, but the nominal dollars aren't that significant. And the fact that we are so low comparatively to other communities, that informs us that we just haven't really thought critically enough about where the investments should be made. We could make that same analysis with our senior center, for instance.

Like, hey, it's great, we don't actually spend a lot of money comparatively, but is that a good thing? And should we actually continue to make investments in some of those critical areas as we're getting older, living longer? And I think we just have to be, you know, aware of just how much work we have to do with infrastructure.

I would recommend that this Infrastructure Committee be given all of the responsibility to kind of evaluate this information and come back and make a recommendation. And if you think the Finance Committee should weigh in on that, let's send it to the Finance Committee. Well, doesn't the Finance Committee generally weigh in on this?

[Speaker 2] (31:49 - 31:54)
Not the rates, no. Okay. All right.

Okay, good.

[Speaker 4] (31:54 - 33:11)
That was just good. Yeah. Please.

I was thinking with the projection that you provided of the sewer over the next ten years or nine years, as you provided, I think it does make sense to have the Water Sewer Infrastructure Committee think about asset management and our continued responsibility to the issues that we have going on in our sewer system right now and be able to help us understand this sort of plateau that we're trying to maintain. Obviously, we don't want to see a large spike and then continue in that direction. I think we'd rather see a gradual sort of almost plateau to get us to a point where we're replenishing our reserves in a responsible way while maintaining the maintenance of what we've already invested in and continuing to invest in and not just be a hit every five years because we're catching up to what we haven't managed to sort of figure out the cadence for.

I think they're probably the best committee to look at that and to sort of get their insight as to what the future and managing it looks like.

[Speaker 2] (33:12 - 33:17)
And the assumption on capital was, did you say 1.7? Did I read that?

[Speaker 6] (33:18 - 33:24)
That's just the debt structuring of it. So based off the sequence of the projects, the 1.7 debt would hit first.

[Speaker 2] (33:24 - 33:27)
Okay. I'm good. Thank you.

Go ahead.

[Speaker 7] (33:28 - 33:34)
Just a quick question. What was the thought process behind leaving the base rate untouched?

[Speaker 5] (33:35 - 33:57)
Sure. So in the past, we've adjusted up the base rate. That does not generate much revenue even if you put a large percentage on it.

It accounts for such little component of the revenue. It would be a decision certainly of the board. If you want to also increase the base rate, that's fine.

It won't make your consumption rate come down materially at all.

[Speaker 7] (33:57 - 34:01)
Got it. And then what's the timing for us to make a vote and make a decision?

[Speaker 5] (34:02 - 34:15)
Water and sewer bills are issued mid-August. That's the first quarter bill for the new fiscal year. So you're going to want to have a rate approved by the end of July.

So you have some runway. Got it. Thank you.

Next.

[Speaker 1] (34:16 - 35:27)
There's a lot of data here. And for me, having our infrastructure committee really noodle this, understand it, and really think about the asset management report and come back and really see that long-range plan. Katie, to your point, we want to smooth out these rates.

The goal is to smooth out the rates so people don't get a surprise that you're going to see a dramatic increase one year to another. But we haven't really done the homework until now on all of the infrastructure. Now we have a report.

It will help us understand life cycles and age of the neighborhoods and really think about how do we, over the next 20 years, move methodically through the town and support these investments. The good news is water, as we've spent a lot of time in Eppertino, has really prioritized our water lines. That's a good thing.

But we haven't done enough for the drainage, and we haven't done enough for the sewer. So we've got to ramp that up.

[Speaker 2] (35:30 - 35:31)
All right.

[Speaker 13] (35:32 - 35:32)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 4] (35:33 - 35:53)
All right. You had, Patrick, sorry for pointing. That was Ruth.

You had said that the 18% would, what are the years it will take us to get to 20 if we continue?

[Speaker 5] (35:54 - 35:57)
Within the next three years, including fiscal 25.

[Speaker 4] (35:58 - 35:58)
Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (35:59 - 36:00)
What is that, for option two?

[Speaker 4] (36:01 - 36:02)
For option two.

[Speaker 5] (36:02 - 36:05)
Really either or. It would be accomplished within three years. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (36:06 - 36:07)
Doug?

[Speaker 3] (36:07 - 36:36)
Thank you. That kind of goes to my point. I mean, you've given us not really very different options.

Right. So it feels like dancing around the head of a pin a little bit here. And then you kind of alluded to DOR and our financial policy.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think we'd all love it if we could smooth this out a lot more than what we just did. But maybe there's a lot of numbers.

Maybe there's a lot of analysis. But maybe there really isn't many degrees of freedom in terms of what we can do here.

[Speaker 6] (36:36 - 36:42)
There's really not. To maintain our AAA bond rating, we do have to stay within a tolerance of our financial policy.

[Speaker 13] (36:43 - 36:43)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (36:43 - 36:56)
So not going up to at least 17 has indicated that it will not be looked favorably on us. That's why 17 was our basis. Okay.

18 was our original comfort point of getting us back there.

[Speaker 3] (36:56 - 37:29)
Okay. And so when you boil it all down, You know, the 18% increase. That's shown on the sewer rate growth on the 10 year plan.

I don't know if it's on the same number on. Yeah, basically written option to 18 or 19%. There's really with what town meeting has approved.

And putting at least half of that into FYI, 25, as you did. There really isn't any flexibility. Is there.

[Speaker 6] (37:30 - 37:31)
Definitely flexibility. If you want to go higher.

[Speaker 3] (37:32 - 37:32)
If you want to go higher.

[Speaker 6] (37:33 - 37:33)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (37:33 - 37:34)
Okay. Right.

[Speaker 6] (37:34 - 37:36)
Yeah. We definitely have. But I just want to make it.

[Speaker 3] (37:36 - 37:36)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (37:36 - 37:40)
We definitely have a floor of, you know, what it has to accomplish.

[Speaker 3] (37:41 - 37:45)
I doubt anyone here is excited about this percentage increase, but that's not really an option.

[Speaker 1] (37:45 - 37:48)
That's a bill that is. It has to be paid.

[Speaker 3] (37:48 - 38:05)
Right. Okay. And then when you did the 10 year projection.

You want to hop in on that before. Sure. When you did the 10 year projection, that doesn't take into consideration anything about all the additional asset management stuff.

It does it.

[Speaker 5] (38:05 - 38:31)
It does. Based on what information we have now, I did try to build that in because we have some information now from that presentation that client builder provided. So that's baked in.

And there is kind of a nexus when you get to like year seven, eight, where we're generating surplus revenue above our retained earnings threshold. And that's where we would have liked to be now when we have major investments we need to make, because we could have been making some of that investment in cash and not incurring finance.

[Speaker 3] (38:31 - 39:01)
I'm sure you did a great job. I'm very suspicious of anything that goes out beyond five years or three years. But the, the, the, the idea here then is to some degree you've already incorporated kind of the big numbers out of the asset management, what we talked about in terms of sewer infrastructure.

And therefore we are really talking primarily about one big year of decline to your earlier point. And then we're getting back down into a little bit more of a reasonable increase each year. Is that fair?

[Speaker 6] (39:01 - 39:05)
Yeah, that was kind of our goal was a catch up and then a maintain. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (39:07 - 39:10)
So why do we not forecast a 20%?

[Speaker 6] (39:11 - 39:20)
The rate we felt was a little too aggressive to jump that much at once, especially where we can accomplish it within three fiscal years. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (39:20 - 39:28)
We did have that initially as a, I'm not advocating it starts with many options and a little bit.

[Speaker 4] (39:28 - 39:29)
Okay.

[Speaker 7] (39:29 - 40:00)
You know, there's not a lot of, of, of smoothing. Yeah. I mean, this is what happens when you wonder when you chronically, chronically under invest name, 2011 0% 12, five 2013 minus three, 14, zero 15, zero 2016 to 17, 18, zero 2019, 7%.

2020, 2%, 21, 4%, 22, 2%, 23, 3%. I just think it's important to read these. And it's one, two, three, four, five.

[Speaker 2] (40:00 - 40:19)
I just, we're going to have to discuss the I and I issue. Cause we keep forgetting that. So we'll have that up on an agenda soon.

Yeah. But do you know, top of your head, how, how much money we have in the I and I fund and how does that play into all of this?

[Speaker 6] (40:19 - 40:24)
I don't know off the top of my head. It's in a separate fund, so it does not play into this right now.

[Speaker 2] (40:24 - 40:29)
And what are we allowed to do with that fund? Are we allowed to use that fund to add?

[Speaker 1] (40:30 - 40:32)
Yes, you are allowed to use that for capital investment.

[Speaker 2] (40:33 - 40:33)
Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (40:33 - 40:47)
So it will have an impact, but we, it'll be baked in. It's not going to be significant, but it it'll be there to kind of offset a piece of some of these capital projects that we have in the future. So it's a good thing.

[Speaker 2] (40:48 - 41:04)
It's just, well, the number one issue I have is when that was presented at the select board meeting that was presented, that it would bring in a half a million dollars every other year. And I really need to have a great understanding on why we're not at that, at that level or projects. What happened?

[Speaker 1] (41:05 - 41:24)
Yeah, we gotta get, we gotta capture new growth. We had such a, a reduction in new growth. And a little, this is a pandemic hangover.

Many communities didn't see a lot of big projects, but when we have a number of big projects, we will get the, it will be a significant revenue.

[Speaker 2] (41:26 - 41:37)
Okay. Cause we have a big project going on. That's not putting any money into it.

And then I guess Mary, we voted for it after Marion court and a couple other projects. Is that what happened there? Okay.

Okay.

[Speaker 6] (41:37 - 41:44)
I do also want to say that the future projections, not big in any usage. So that's all good. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (41:45 - 41:46)
I can only get that.

[Speaker 1] (41:46 - 41:47)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (41:48 - 41:48)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (41:49 - 41:50)
We need some good news.

[Speaker 2] (41:50 - 42:04)
Okay. So does anybody have any more questions, Danielle? I don't know.

Okay. So with that said, how about if we move over to the discussion on the new earth removal permit?

[Speaker 1] (42:08 - 47:06)
Sure. you know this is really an update just to publicly just notice that the town has settled our litigation with a wholesome or aggregate. We have agreed to a permit that includes a number of changes that ultimately I believe are reflect a standard of care that will help Swampskate move forward with a relationship with a wholesome or aggregate that will help move things in a better direction.

I want to really just recognize the work of our Iraq committee and, and really thank wholesome and aggregate individuals who worked with us to resolve a conflict through a federal judicial process. I want to thank the judge who helped mediate the complaint. This permit will limit the number of blasts to 50 per year.

It will limit the most impactful human annoyance element of blasting. That's peak particle velocity. They call it PPV and that is a vibration that affects humans most significantly and causes annoyance.

The M or the mine safety hazard Bureau has a standard of 2.0 in this revised permit, 10 blasts will be limited to 0.75 PPV and 40 blasts will be at 0.5 PPV. That's a significant reduction from that 2.0. This is the most context sensitive permit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There are 200 quarries in Massachusetts.

This provides the town of Swamps with a really standard of care that should help balance the need to support a busy industrial operation with the regulatory oversight that would be prudent for this type of operation. This select board, prior select boards, have worked for years to try to protect and establish this standard and I do think this reflects a partnership though. I do think that we have every reason to believe that this relationship can get better and better with Holsom.

Tanya Taylor, the quarry manager, I think has been a really strong community advocate. She has shared a number of conversations with me about ways that we can work together. It would be helpful, I think, at some point for all of us to head back up to the quarry and take a tour as a community.

Years ago they used to invite the entire town to go up there and see it. I recently have had a chance to go up there and walk through the quarry and it is like no place else I have ever been. It feels like you are on the moon or in some fantastical place.

Geologically, it is fascinating looking at the rocks, looking at the age of the rocks. I think it would be great. I certainly want to thank our members of the ERAC committee.

Most extraordinary, John Piccarello, a resident of the neighborhood close to the quarry. I know John has lived his life as a butter for the quarry, but John was indispensable in terms of working with us. Tony Bandewitz, member of our conservation commission, but also ERAC, has been indispensable.

Joe Markarian, chair of the ERAC committee. All absolutely incredible partners in helping us navigate through a federal disposition. That said, the permit before us will be in place as part of the settlement.

This takes the place of the annual approval. There was some question about the public hearing and whether the board will actually have to meet and approve the permit. This is a permit that has been signed by the select board and the board of health for the next year.

I just want to make it clear publicly that this is the permit that will govern the quarry.

[Speaker 2] (47:09 - 47:10)
When does that expire?

[Speaker 1] (47:10 - 47:57)
It expires June 30, 2025. But it certainly establishes some additional standards to help ensure that we continue to monitor and regulate the quarry. I do think there are a number of ideas and suggestions that we've had over the last couple of years to improve upon the permit.

Those are things that I think we can continue to discuss with wholesome and aggregate officials in the spirit of cooperation. But no changes will be made until we get through the process next year.

[Speaker 2] (47:59 - 48:02)
Joe, do you have any comments as the chair of ERAC?

[Speaker 10] (48:06 - 48:07)
Hold on.

[Speaker 2] (48:08 - 48:09)
We're going to get you a microphone.

[Speaker 10] (48:10 - 49:21)
Just to Joe Marcarion, chair of ERAC, I'm here with John Piccarello and Tony Banderwicz, two of our members who were actually instrumental or at least participated in the settlement team. I did not. They did all the work.

But we're very happy that a settlement has been reached. We think that that's a good cause for both wholesome and the town. As I've been on record saying before, I think that ERAC looks to have a working relationship with wholesome.

They're going to be here for another 50 years, and we think that we can have a good relationship with them. We'll take a look at this permit and the terms, and what we do is we monitor through the course of the year the activity of the quarry in the context of the permit. And when next March rolls around and wholesome has to file their application for the subsequent year's permit, we'll take a much harder look at what kind of improvements can be made in the language of the permit to make sure it's understood and can be implemented without difficulty.

But, again, we're very happy that a settlement was reached. Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (49:22 - 49:39)
I just want to thank Peter Speleos and David Grishman for their hard work. They were involved when we received this lawsuit, and David's here when we're saying goodbye to it. So thank you, David.

That took a lot of hard work. And I think we're all set then.

[Speaker 1] (49:40 - 50:13)
I just want to also just recognize Attorney Adam Sims from Pierce, Davis, and Peritano. Attorney Sims was our counsel, and I think he did a remarkable job navigating through the case and helping us get to a position where many of the changes that we had hoped to see baked into this permit have been realized and will help support this town.

[Speaker 3] (50:14 - 50:23)
I have a couple of people from the Wholesome Iran line. I don't know if you want to give them a chance to say some very nice things about the town of Somerscott or not at this point.

[Speaker 2] (50:23 - 50:29)
They don't have their hands up. Katie Phelan?

[Speaker 4] (50:30 - 51:18)
I just want to say that if the amount of time and energy equates to how much we care for the neighborhoods and the neighbors that are affected most greatly by the quarry, I hope they feel the care and concern that this board, prior boards, ERAC, so many people in this town put into this permit, the conversations, exploring improvements, continuing to educate one another. I mean, in the two years I've been on the board, it might be the most time of any one topic that we've spent is discussing the settlement of this litigation. So it has been quite an education, and I'm glad to see it resolved.

[Speaker 2] (51:20 - 51:45)
Okay. You're here. Good.

All right, so now we'll move on to discussion and possible vote on the DEI consultant. And we had the consultants here a couple weeks ago. And now we just have to discuss which ones we think would be best for us, which is going to be pretty tough because they're all really great.

[Speaker 3] (51:49 - 52:37)
Marilyn, I have just a baseline factual question. Yeah. In the information that we received subsequent to our meeting, especially including on the financial aspect, based on what I saw, only one of the respondents had a very detailed financial proposal that I saw.

Does that consistent with what others have seen as well? I saw, like, a rate sheet for one of them, one page, and I saw a detailed financial proposal for another, and I didn't even see the rate. Yeah, and just a rate sheet for the third as well.

Just wanted to make sure I was seeing what was available. Is that correct? That's correct.

[Speaker 2] (52:37 - 52:37)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (52:38 - 52:38)
Thanks.

[Speaker 2] (52:42 - 52:44)
So who would like to start?

[Speaker 9] (52:45 - 53:38)
I'm happy to start. They were all wonderful presentations. Looking at it pretty closely, it's something that we see quite frequently.

From my perspective, and I felt that ReadySet was the best option for us. Just in terms of familiarity with, you know, their founder, I believe, was someone that grew up in Boston, went to Boston, and is during a period of time when busing was a thing, and it was really, you know, though the company is based in San Francisco now, I think her perspective on being from Boston and understanding what our challenges might be hit close to home for me. So that really was what put it over the top.

I liked her plan. I liked the approach, and I felt like that was the best one.

[Speaker 3] (53:41 - 53:43)
I'd be happy to roll with that.

[Speaker 9] (53:43 - 53:44)
Okay. You're up.

[Speaker 3] (53:45 - 54:42)
I totally agree. You know, I'll just add a little bit to what Danielle said I was referencing. I mean, they had the most detailed financial plan as well, really got a sense of kind of where they were putting resources, and I just felt like they so had their act together.

I mean, all of them were great in so many different ways, and probably my second is, you know, Rhodes Consulting. But they just, like, it was tight. The communication was very clear, what they would do, how they get the input, the materials they provide, and even asking the question really like, at least the note I took was, do we, like, they weren't presupposing that, oh, this all leads to, like, hiring a DEI manager.

They were like, there's a lot of different things you could end up actually doing. And so it didn't feel cookie cutter. It felt like they were really going to be listening.

I mean, they all felt like that, frankly. But, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I'm ready, set, go.

[Speaker 7] (54:44 - 55:22)
Just for me, you know, I thought I think we would be fortunate and lucky to have any of the three working within the town of Swampskate. You know, from my perspective, I really walked away really having a great appreciation for Marcus Moore. I thought he engaged us, and I think he would be great in, you know, helping us and helping engage with the community.

I just thought he had that je ne sais quoi quality. So because of that, that really separated it from me. So I was with, you know, I was on board with Rhodes.

[Speaker 2] (55:25 - 55:26)
Katie?

[Speaker 4] (55:27 - 57:04)
Well, while I did love the tenacity of Rhodes to present and put us on the spot and make us do a little exercise, I did appreciate that. I agree with Doug and Danielle that ready, set is felt more of... DE&I is a delicate task, right?

Because everybody comes to the table at a different point in their process. So when you're talking about a community who's coming to the table at all different positions of the DE&I story, I feel like you do have to have a certain delicacy about it, right? So that people don't get turned away by the process, so that people want to engage in the process, so that people believe that they're being listened to and heard and that the process is ours to mold.

And I do agree, Doug, that it did feel a little bit more tailor-made to meeting Swampskate where they were in the process, allowing us to mold our own process with their help, and then deciding what happens from there, rather than just saying, well, we work with municipalities and this is sort of how it goes. We get that. And maybe we're no different than any of those municipalities, but when you hire somebody to come in, you want them to listen to you and who you are.

And hopefully they'll help us grow the best parts about Swampskate and they'll help us maybe learn some of the things we can do better.

[Speaker 2] (57:06 - 57:49)
So I really don't have a whole lot more to add. I mean, any one of these companies would be terrific, but I did think Ready, Set! would be the best.

And it was not an easy decision. I don't think I've had to go back and watch a meeting over a couple times and go through notes, but the financials did help me, that they were very clear. I just felt that if they were that articulate and that pinpoint, that that would be the better set for us.

So my vote would be for Ready, Set! So based on that, it's Ready, Set! So can I have a motion to approve Ready, Set!

[Speaker 4] (57:49 - 57:53)
as the DE&I consultant moving forward? Second.

[Speaker 2] (57:53 - 57:54)
All in favor?

[Speaker 3] (57:54 - 58:00)
Aye. Aye. I was just going to ask Sean if he had any input at all into that.

[Speaker 2] (58:00 - 58:01)
No, he's good.

[Speaker 3] (58:01 - 58:01)
He's good.

[Speaker 2] (58:02 - 58:04)
He was part of the committee originally.

[Speaker 1] (58:04 - 58:33)
I had department heads that had input, but I'm glad you made the decision. I think we're ready to move forward and we will reach out to Ready, Set! and we will get going.

I agree with everybody that said that any of these firms could have done a great job. I think we will get the support that will help us continue to make Swamps get a very special place.

[Speaker 2] (58:34 - 58:38)
So with that, we're going to move to the town administrator's report.

[Speaker 1] (58:40 - 1:05:05)
Great. Busy week. Last week, I attended the annual chamber state of the region.

I want to thank Mayor Nicholson and the Lynn Chamber for hosting that event. It's always interesting to hear about all of the important things that are happening in the region. The Naha town administrator was also present.

We are going to continue to move forward with community power programs. Swamps is one of the leaders in renewables. We have a longstanding track record of saving millions and helping rate payers in Swamps with electricity.

We have a number of meetings coming up the first week of July to go out to RFP and really support continuing to provide Swamps residents with not just cleaner and greener energy choices, but choices that significantly save rate payers' dollars over the market. There's no guarantee of these savings, but they have always seemed to prove out. I want to thank SURE and Swampskip's METCO program for the Juneteenth celebration.

This follows up from the Harvest Heritage Festival. It's been a busy month, but there are a lot of really wonderful programs that help show Swampskip celebrating diversity, but also our important heritage. Unfortunately, we do have some hate that continues to show up.

This is not unique to Swampskip, but we have incidents in Swampskip that are being investigated by the Swampskip Police Department that really highlight the importance of having some of these community programs and talking to our young citizens, but also our older citizens and everybody in between, that we've got to be more aware of bigotry and just the hate that exists in our community. This is a month where we celebrate pride, but also so many important programs. It's important that these conversations are held publicly.

Our police department is working with the ADL right now, and we're working to schedule a community forum with Modelhead and the region sometime over the next few weeks. I have had a number of really great meetings with Liz Smith and Dr. Chris Vocky from our infrastructure committee, but really looking at water quality testing. It's my hope that we can invite them back at our next meeting and talk about some of the water quality testing and some of the work that they've been doing.

They really have been doing some great work, and volunteers really do help run the town. I'm pleased that our recreation department is working with Mr. Lockley and helping to support some of the water quality tests, and I think there will be some great public engagement with some of these efforts. I've had several meetings with department heads to advance some of the opera projects that were approved by the select board.

These are important initiatives, and we're eager to get those projects going. We have to spend those by a date certain, so we're up to the races with many of those. Lots of work happening at our senior center.

They continue to receive recognition from AARP. This week they were recognized nationally for writing their annual AARP aging-friendly report. We have so many initiatives at our senior center that are really an example of all the talented staff and individuals that we have down there.

Lots of no-cost, low-cost events. If you weren't part of the town-wide yard sale and you didn't get rid of all of the extra stuff you have, you missed out, but we're planning another one for the fall. This is a great way to meet your neighbors and be cleaner and greener.

We have our Strawberry Festival, June 23rd from 4 to 8 p.m. on the Town Hall lawn. July 3rd, Fireworks Festival, 5 to 9 p.m. on the Town Hall lawn. We have a Summer by the Sea concert series starting Wednesday, July 10th at 6.30 at Town Hall. We're going to be meeting on Tuesdays, so if you want to catch us, you may see us here on Tuesday or Wednesday at the concerts, I guess. We do have a heat wave. I want to just urge residents to check on your neighbors.

The most important thing we can do is just make sure that we're good neighbors and making sure that anybody that has an air conditioner that's on the fritz, anybody that's a senior, gets some human contact. We do have a few air conditioners in town. The fire department in our library has a library of things.

You can go down and rent, take out an air conditioner and a bunch of other things if you need them. Please call our police department or fire department if you have a resident that needs help during the heat wave. The library and the senior center open normal business hours, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. are generally the hottest times during the day, so head down to the library or senior center. Tomorrow, Juneteenth, is a national holiday in Swamp Street, so the police department at 531 Humphrey Street will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The community room will be available. You can go down and have some light refreshments and just cool off in Swamp Street, so stay cool.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:12 - 1:05:29)
In order for beach quality testing to be done by the lifeguards, I just want to make sure we're taking the proper precautions that if they're under 18, that they're having the proper consent to do training that could be potentially hazardous for them to go in and take the water samples?

[Speaker 1] (1:05:29 - 1:05:42)
Yeah, we are, and we have protocols for safety, and individuals will be trained, and PPE, personal protective equipment, will be used.

[Speaker 2] (1:05:44 - 1:05:50)
So, will the Board of Health still be doing their water testing?

[Speaker 1] (1:05:51 - 1:06:23)
Reindated by state law. Always, they have to do it. We have no choice about that, and it's our hope that we can just make sure that we're in sync.

We don't want to have confusing information, so that's been a big part of the collaboration. We've made sure that Dr. Vockley and our Board of Health are working together, and I think we'll have a good synergy between the Director of Health and Dr. Vockley. There will be two sets of data.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:23 - 1:06:46)
That's okay. Can you confirm what the Board of Health, one, our swimming season is? Because I think there are some signs up that say our swimming season finishes the first week of August.

I think there's just—Liz, is that the case? August 3rd. August 3rd, yeah.

That's what— Okay, I'll— I think it's just a typo.

[Speaker 12] (1:06:47 - 1:06:52)
It could be, but I'll address that. It's news to me.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:52 - 1:07:12)
Just a typo. And then when is the town water testing going to happen? Not the Board of Health, our experiment testing.

Okay. All right, great.

[Speaker 1] (1:07:12 - 1:07:13)
That's my expectation.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:13 - 1:07:17)
I just— And how many days will that be?

[Speaker 1] (1:07:18 - 1:07:18)
It's going to be every day.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:19 - 1:07:31)
Every day, seven days a week? Whoa. And how many locations?

Okay, and what's the plan for Philips?

[Speaker 1] (1:07:32 - 1:07:35)
There's a slide deck that we have that— Oh, I'll wait for the slide deck.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:35 - 1:07:44)
Yeah. I don't want to let anything out of the bag. Wait for the slide deck.

Okay. All right, does anybody have questions?

[Speaker 3] (1:07:44 - 1:08:00)
Yes, a couple. So, can we send out a robocall about the cooling opportunities for people?

[Speaker 2] (1:08:00 - 1:08:01)
We have, haven't we?

[Speaker 3] (1:08:02 - 1:08:03)
Really?

[Speaker 2] (1:08:03 - 1:08:05)
Are you signed up, Doug?

[Speaker 3] (1:08:05 - 1:08:07)
I am. Yeah, I get them all the time.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:08 - 1:08:08)
You didn't get one?

[Speaker 3] (1:08:08 - 1:08:09)
I didn't get one either.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:13 - 1:08:14)
We'll send out another one tomorrow.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:14 - 1:08:15)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:18 - 1:08:21)
Okay. People love these calls. I'm happy to send them out.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:22 - 1:08:23)
Well, that's not the messages I'm getting.

[Speaker 3] (1:08:23 - 1:08:38)
Well, yeah, I'm— This is a little off-topic, but maybe it's kind of on-topic. I don't think we've got it straightened out what number they're coming from still. I know we thought we did, but it still doesn't feel like it's still a 206 number or it's a spam number.

[Speaker 1] (1:08:38 - 1:08:43)
All during the pandemic, it came from me, and everybody would call me, and I was like, why?

[Speaker 3] (1:08:45 - 1:09:05)
Not what I'm suggesting, but anyway, yes, okay. And then I have to say, I mean, I've only been here for a year, but the number of times we've talked about anti-Semitic events is— Mind-boggling. Yeah, extremely frustrating, tiring, problematic.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:07 - 1:09:13)
There's such a rise. I think it's important for folks just to understand nationally, there's a lot of hate.

[Speaker 3] (1:09:13 - 1:10:06)
Yeah, I mean, and we've got what's happened in the Middle East and we've had a session here, a session there, we had a thing about Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I don't know, really, ultimately, what the adjudication is of these cases and whether or not we find out who's done it and if that gives us some sense of where the education needs to happen or the intervention. I guess I'm holding back from asking for a plan, but I feel like we do need to understand cohesively, without divulging what can't be divulged, ultimately, is this ultimately kids from Swampscott? Is it random adults?

Is it kids from— I don't even know where to start with the problem and how we're addressing it.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:06 - 1:10:07)
Talking about it's the right thing.

[Speaker 3] (1:10:08 - 1:10:11)
I think that— Well, it's not the start, but it's not the full— That's right.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:11 - 1:10:48)
So if you want a plan, I think it's very appropriate for you to say, hey, Sean, I think a plan would be helpful. I'm happy to come back with a plan at our next meeting and work with our public safety departments and think about what do we need to do differently to engage people and really bring this conversation to places where it needs to go because I do feel as though this isn't being talked about enough, and it's the reason why I'm bringing it up tonight in my town administrative report. I want people to know it's here.

It's in this town, and we need to talk more about this.

[Speaker 2] (1:10:48 - 1:10:49)
So let's come up with a plan.

[Speaker 7] (1:10:49 - 1:11:05)
Yeah, and let's figure out how we can address this regionally, too, because this isn't just happening in Swampscott. This is happening in Marblehead. This is happening in Salem.

This is happening in Saugus. So I'd really love to have a plan and a more robust update.

[Speaker 4] (1:11:05 - 1:11:36)
Yeah, I think Doug's point, it feels like in the last 18 months, two years, it's been very reactive to events that have occurred, and we haven't been proactive about how we prevent the events from occurring. And so if we had a more succinct plan to be proactive, to educate, to be continuing the process of understanding and acknowledging, then maybe we could get on a better path towards having less of these things occur.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:36 - 1:11:48)
And I'm sure there's stuff that's happening. I bet there's things that are happening in the schools and happening within the police, and part of it might just be pulling it together, understand what we are doing, and then what else we can do. Sure.

[Speaker 2] (1:11:51 - 1:12:12)
Any other comments or questions? Okay, so now we'll move to the consent agenda, and the purpose of the consent agenda is to have one vote to vote on a number of different issues. Anyone can pull out any item out of the consent agenda that they should choose.

I think, Doug, what was the date on the minutes we have to take out?

[Speaker 3] (1:12:13 - 1:12:22)
If you want to take them out, we can take them out, or we can just correct it right now. But the 28th, I think, has a typo in the ultimately what we decided on on ARPA.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:23 - 1:12:23)
29.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:24 - 1:12:25)
29, sorry, 29.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:25 - 1:12:30)
So do people want to just make a correction right here, and then we could take it?

[Speaker 7] (1:12:30 - 1:12:35)
I mean, I had an issue with the 17th and the 29th, the minutes of the 17th and the minutes of the 29th.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:35 - 1:12:39)
So you want 17 and 29. So let's take out 17 and 29.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:40 - 1:12:48)
And then I didn't realize we actually had the June 5th minutes in here. Electronically, we didn't have those, but they're in this paper version, so I'm not prepared here.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:49 - 1:13:16)
Okay, now we go 17, 29, and 6, 5. Okay. 417 has come up before, so we've got to, it's going to come up one more time, and then I think we're going to have to deal with that.

So we're going to pull out those, minus those three sets. Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[Speaker 13] (1:13:17 - 1:13:17)
So moved.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:18 - 1:13:20)
Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 7] (1:13:20 - 1:13:21)
Aye.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:22 - 1:13:23)
Okay, select board time.

[Speaker 9] (1:13:24 - 1:14:24)
Danielle? Sure, I will go first, Mary Ellen. So again, I wanted to thank Sean and Max, which I already did, for the community forum.

It was really well done. I'm glad to see we're responding to residents' concerns and really trying to work with them. That was impressive.

The superintendent acknowledged her retirement, or announced her retirement, and I just wanted to take a minute to say congratulations to her on a huge achievement. She is the perfect example of upward mobility. She has done every single job in the school department, starting as an aide, working her way up to a teacher, principal, superintendent, and she's been here for a long time, and I just wish her really a long and healthy and happy retirement.

She's just phenomenal, a great female role model for the kids of this town. And I think that was all I had. I don't have anything else.

Doug?

[Speaker 3] (1:14:24 - 1:14:51)
Just two things, which I'm sure are for a future agenda soon, like just coming back to the housing production plan. I'm sure we get that, hopefully, relatively straightforwardly taken care of. And then this water testing that we just talked about, that we get that.

Because we said we were going to have signs up and testing going by the beginning of swimming, and it sounds like I think we have signs up, and I'm not sure the dates are right, and we have the testing kind of happening, but just so everyone's aware of exactly what that is.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:52 - 1:14:54)
Are our signs up? We have signs up?

[Speaker 1] (1:14:54 - 1:15:04)
I have given direction to have those signs up, so I'll have to just follow up and double check on that. But I expect that they'll...

[Speaker 7] (1:15:04 - 1:16:24)
I don't think they're up. Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood what we were just talking about. Different signs.

No, I don't believe the signs are up as of yet. I did talk to Dr. Chris Fockley this afternoon. He did want me to update the public and just let folks know where the beach is, the swimming beach at Fisherman's, there is no impairment to the water.

There's certainly impairment at the outfall and on the other side of the pier, but in the area where recreation programs are convening and where we're going to have sailing camps and stand-up paddle boarding camps and we're swimming, that is, there's not an impact. In fact, they're not even registering any type of, you know, there's no bacteria in the water from the testing. They also tested at the end of the pier as well since, you know, a number of children, including my own, like to jump off the end of the pier on a hot day, and it's also important just to share that there is no impairment there as well.

Dilution is the solution. And then what else did I... I lost my train of thought.

I'll have to come back to it next time.

[Speaker 2] (1:16:25 - 1:16:56)
Well, we can come back to you tonight, too. For me, I want to thank Joe Doulet, Nathan Kent, and Nate Beischine for bringing us this production. Your hard work every single week is greatly appreciated, and I would also like to thank the Thompson family and the Phelan family for giving us Katie Phelan and Doug Thompson.

Tomorrow is their birthday, and it's a big day, so it's a national holiday and their birthday.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:57 - 1:16:58)
It's a national holiday.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:01 - 1:17:04)
And that's it for me, and we're going to go back to David.

[Speaker 7] (1:17:04 - 1:17:59)
Yeah, last thing. I did attend a Swampscott Housing Authority meeting last week, so it was a good meeting with those guys as well as the executive director, Kevin Johnson. They do believe that a feasibility study will cost at least $100,000.

So I know they're having conversations with the state to see if the state will kick in some funds. The chances of them kicking in state funds for new projects is small. It's not zero, but it's fairly small.

But the executive director as well as the chair of the Housing Authority, Charlie Patsios, they're going to continue to push prod and coal. I have some thoughts. But yeah, they're working on it, but they are going to need at least $100,000.

Sean, I just want to update the board.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:00 - 1:18:05)
Yeah, I've talked to Charlie recently as well, and we're planning on a meeting with you.

[Speaker 7] (1:18:05 - 1:18:06)
Great.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:06 - 1:18:22)
And we're going to share a few thoughts about how we get that feasibility study, because once you get a feasibility study, that's going to help the state recognize how they can help fund some of these.

[Speaker 2] (1:18:23 - 1:18:37)
So I did want to add to mine, if there are any elementary or middle school students that want to come and lead the Pledge of Allegiance, please contact me or Diane, and we'll sign you right up.

[Speaker 4] (1:18:38 - 1:19:20)
You and kids will be very glad to hear that. I already have them signed up. Yeah, but you did.

Two things. One, again, back to the lifeguards. I just want to make sure.

I'm sure this is already happening, but just for the sake of posterity, I want to make sure that especially the lifeguards that are positioned at Fisherman's Beach, they understand the complications, we'll call them, with the outfall, and that they are providing information to folks from out of town who don't, aren't in the know, or even residents who just haven't heard that that is not a safe place to be. I know there's no real demarcation yet by the outfall, but hopefully we'll have some signage going up soon.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:22 - 1:19:23)
You're talking about on the other side of the pier?

[Speaker 4] (1:19:24 - 1:19:25)
Yeah, on the other side of the pier.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:25 - 1:19:26)
There's very few people.

[Speaker 4] (1:19:26 - 1:19:31)
There are, but people walk the beach to collect shells and sea glass and such.

[Speaker 9] (1:19:31 - 1:19:34)
The stand-up paddle board goes on the other side of the pier.

[Speaker 4] (1:19:35 - 1:19:50)
Yeah, and the other thing is the rec programs, while most of them stay to the right side of the pier, obviously we understand the sailing program and the paddle board program goes where the sea takes them, so just making sure that those folks who run those programs are just very aware.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:50 - 1:19:54)
We've been having those conversations, but I will reinforce that.

[Speaker 4] (1:19:55 - 1:20:10)
Right, and I would like to volunteer my time if the Water, Sewer, Infrastructure Committee would like to be at the farmer's market to continue to educate through the summer about where it is safe to swim and where it's not safe to swim in San Francisco, I'd be happy to join you.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:12 - 1:20:17)
Great. So with that said, can I have a motion to adjourn?

[Speaker 12] (1:20:17 - 1:20:18)
So moved.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:18 - 1:20:21)
Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 13] (1:20:21 - 1:20:21)
Aye.

[Speaker 7] (1:20:22 - 1:20:23)
Thanks, everybody.

[Speaker 13] (1:20:23 - 1:20:24)
Good night.