[Speaker 10] (0:25 - 2:43) . . . [Speaker 12] (2:52 - 5:13) . . . . [Speaker 9] (5:13 - 5:16) . . [Speaker 3] (5:19 - 6:04) . . . . . . . . . . . . And I take it you two are related? Yeah. Oh, good, good. So, thank you for coming down, and we hope that when you become 18, you'll vote, and come to more select board meetings, but you want everyone to stand for the pledge? Okay, we'll do that. [Speaker 12] (6:04 - 6:05) Or maybe when you're 16. [Speaker 3] (6:09 - 6:09) Wanna start? [Speaker 14] (6:10 - 6:23) 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 3] (6:24 - 6:27) Thank you. Good job. [Speaker 9] (6:27 - 6:27) Nice job. [Speaker 3] (6:32 - 6:50) Okay, so I just wanna add this meeting is being recorded, and we'll start off with public comment. Does anyone have any public comment? Public comment? Oh, we've got Laura raising her hand first. We'll start with Laura. Laura Lau, please. You can just say your name and your address, please. [Speaker 8] (6:56 - 9:26) Mara Lau, Outlook Road. Close enough, right? So, thank you for hearing me tonight. I just wanna mention a few quick things that have been on my mind. So, the idea of the community center that was raised at town meeting sounds like a fantastic idea and will hopefully house all of the things that we need for our citizens that will kind of support our kids all the way for our seniors. It's needed, and I think we've all known that it's been needed for some time. I do think that, you know, I wish we had thought about this a few years ago for obvious reasons, but I am glad to see that there was a conversation about it. I do wanna put out there that I really hope that there'll be a much more intentional direction about including community in the thinking about how it happens, where it happens, how it happens, because as I've been saying for well over a year, that has been lacking in other areas of town that, and I'm here to just continually remind you of that. So, I just also wanna mention that it was a little disappointing that Hadley didn't seem to get, you know, kind of a closing party, which would have been a little bit pleasant to see. Maybe that's still on the radar, but. It's in the works. Okay, great. I'm glad to hear that. Thank you, Katie, appreciate that. Because I think after 113 years of educating students, it certainly deserves a closing party. So, that's kind of it for tonight, and I just wanna also mention that, you know, it has been stated about public comment, and public comment is not easy to get up here and do, as I have stated many other times, but in the spirit of the fact that we are a town, not a city, and this is the way municipal government works. I want a continued reminder and spirit of that here, so that if anybody has anything to add to my public comment or questions for me, Sean, you're welcome to give my information out to anybody who wants it. [Speaker 2] (9:26 - 9:27) All right, Maura. [Speaker 8] (9:27 - 9:35) I have had people knock on my door after my public comment, and I am happy for that, too. So, thank you very much. Appreciate being here. [Speaker 12] (9:35 - 9:35) Thank you, Maura. [Speaker 7] (9:49 - 11:53) Righty-tighty, right? Okay. My name is Moira, not to be confused with Maura Farrell. I live at 16 Blaney Circle here in Swampscott, and I'm coming here tonight to ask the select board what they are going to do about the rats in my neighborhood. I had gone down to the Board of Health the beginning of June to show and explain that I am now seeing four to five, six rats a day in my yard while I sit in the garden, daytime, not evening. They're larger. I also showed him examples of a week's worth of photographing the dockside dumpster that is in front of my porch, and they rarely close the doors to the dumpsters, particularly the side door to the dumpsters. Frequently, the top drawers are not closed, but certainly I think that this non-closure of a dumpster door is attributing to the many rats in my neighborhood. I did go to the Board of Health, and he said that he would talk to the dockside about this problem, and I continued to take the photographs for 30 days, and I have 27 photographs of the dumpster doors being opened, and I'm here to ask, first of all, what is the ramifications of someone who, a business that is not closing dumpster doors, and secondly, what is the Select Board going to do about the infestation of rats in our neighborhood? [Speaker 3] (12:00 - 12:14) So, because this is resident comment, we have to keep a policy that we don't comment on here, but I promise you, someone will call you tomorrow. I will call you myself tomorrow, and then Sean is gonna call you. We are going to deal with this starting tomorrow morning. [Speaker 2] (12:15 - 12:18) Moira, I will reach out after I speak to the Health Director. [Speaker 7] (12:19 - 12:20) Would you like to see the photographs? [Speaker 2] (12:21 - 12:26) I would. Is there any chance you could email them to me? I'll write my email down for you. [Speaker 7] (12:26 - 12:27) I have your email. [Speaker 2] (12:28 - 12:33) Okay, send those to me, and I will make sure that we're down there tomorrow to address this. [Speaker 7] (12:33 - 13:11) And just in conclusion, there has been work done at the restaurant at one in the morning, an HVAC system, albeit not as loud as the cleaning of the vents, but it was after one o'clock, and I'm hearing sawzalls or sanders or doors slamming. Again, not a good neighbor. That was indicated at the beginning of efforts, and actually, on the contrary. Thank you. [Speaker 3] (13:16 - 13:19) Is there anyone else for public comment? [Speaker 6] (13:24 - 17:09) I'm Rachel Teradash. I live at 71 Middlesex Ave. I'm back to talk to you about Big Blue Bargains. So I'm one of the board members for Big Blue Bargains, and I'm going to remind you a little bit of the history. I know some of you, many of you have heard this before, but because I think it's important. So Big Blue Bargains was started back in 2012 by a group of motivated parents who saw a need to supplement the cultural enrichment at the Swampskate Public Schools. They opened a thrift store, Big Blue Bargains. The proceeds of the thrift store all went to cultural enrichment in the Swampskate Public Schools. It was divided up between all the schools. They also got their volunteers from the schools. It was entirely staffed by community volunteers. There was no, every single person who staffed any part of that was a volunteer. Nobody was paid for their service. In, during the COVID lockdown, for obvious reasons, they had to close, they lost their space. We started a little over a year ago to try to find a new space to reopen. And with the select board's help, we were able to find a location. We opened up at 491 Humphrey. We spent six lovely months there. We were just getting back into kind of the groove of everything. We had incredible community participation, incredible donations, a large group of volunteers that were very, very consistent in there, and a couple people that came occasionally. But then in September, that building was sold. So I'm back now to, I'm sorry, not in September, April. So I'm back to ask the select board, the town, the community to help us find a new space. So just as a reminder, here is what Big Blue Bargains has contributed to since we reopened. We partnered with the Swampskin High School Life Skills Program. Students would come in weekly to assist with every aspect of running the store. We created a community where we have everyone from high school students to seniors volunteering together. And if you know those of us on the board, we have many young children between us. Two of them are adding to that number of young children. So they would also be in there all the time engaging with all the volunteers and folks who came in to shop. We contributed to the following community causes. The Polar Plunge, the Andrew Keter Scholarship Fund, Friends of the Swampskate Senior Center and veteran Sid Novak, Swampskate Elementary School Holiday Fairs, Friends of the Swampskate Public Library, Costumes for the Rec Department's Costume Sale, the Joran Foundation, Peter Cipriano's Coat Mission, Eyeglasses for the Lions Club, the High School's Unified Sports Team, the Middle School's Book Fair, the High School's Drama Department and the High School's Washington, D.C. Trip and then the Elementary School's Field Day. We have community members reaching out to us every week asking when we're going to reopen, where we're going to reopen. So the enthusiasm is definitely still there. So I'm back to ask for your help to find our next location. It doesn't have to be where we are forever, but hopefully a place that we can open up even temporarily just to keep sort of the momentum going. We will also be at the Farmer's Market this Sunday with a little pop-up. Some of you may remember we did that last year at the Farmer's Market. So we'll be there this Sunday. We will also be coordinating with the Bentwater Brewing event for the 50-50 raffle. So if you have suggestions, comments, helpful ideas, please feel free to reach out to us on Facebook. There's a Big Blue Bargains Facebook page on Instagram, but we'd love to hear from anyone in the community with any ideas that you have or spaces, locations, any leads. So thank you. [Speaker 3] (17:09 - 17:54) Thank you. Is there anyone else for public comment? Okay, so with that and the indulgence of the select board, would you mind if we go to the consent agenda because we have the bagel man here and I would like to get him through the agenda right away really quick. So actually what we'll do is we'll do the presentation of awards and then we're gonna pull something out of our consent agenda so that we could get citizens home. So what we'll do is Katie Phelan is the liaison to the Conservation Commission. So with that said, Katie. [Speaker 5] (17:54 - 19:01) Okay. We have some lovely recognitions of appreciation to two retiring Conservation Commission members. Mary Molly O'Connell, who I think is on Zoom. And Jonathan Grabowski. We, in recognition of your extraordinary contributions to the town and to the commission, we would like to celebrate all the efforts you've given to this town and just appreciate the time and energy you've taken away from your family to serve the town. It's really something that really should be applauded, not just today but every day because it's quite a endeavor to contribute so much time and energy. So we just wanna convey our appreciation to you and your families. Thank you. Thank you. All right, I have to go. I'm gonna come up. Thank you. [Speaker 3] (19:17 - 19:18) Thank you, Jonathan. [Speaker 5] (19:18 - 19:23) Are you just going to say a few words and then we have Molly's turn. [Speaker 13] (19:23 - 19:47) I'll just quickly say it's been a pleasure I've been serving alongside Tony and the whole CONCOMM over the last six years. I don't know that I deserve this, but it's been a lot of fun. And I especially have enjoyed getting to do the site visits and kind of see Swanscott and hopefully push towards a better, sustainable environment. Thank you. Thank you, John. [Speaker 5] (19:54 - 20:01) Molly, would you like to say anything? No pressure. Oh, she has her hand up. She does. [Speaker 3] (20:02 - 20:48) She doesn't know. Molly, you should be able to speak for yourself. Well, does it look like Molly? I think probably. [Speaker 5] (20:51 - 20:55) Molly, if you decide you'd like to say something, just raise your hand and we'll answer. [Speaker 3] (20:55 - 21:29) We'll come back to you, Molly. Maybe she wants to do another term. She revokes retirement. She's revoking retirement. Okay, so next, we're just going to jump to the consent agenda, and I'd like to just pull out the meeting minutes because I didn't get them all into Diane. So if we just go to A, B, and C, we've got Dave Aldrich, grab the bagel. We've got Emmanuel Mendez for employee of Sunrun, and we have Joseph Robinson of Revise. [Speaker 1] (21:30 - 21:32) I'd like to pull out B, please. [Speaker 3] (21:32 - 21:33) The what? [Speaker 1] (21:33 - 21:35) Pull out B, Sunrun. [Speaker 3] (21:36 - 21:36) Emmanuel? Okay. [Speaker 9] (21:38 - 21:41) Okay, motion to approve the consent agenda, items A and C. [Speaker 3] (21:41 - 21:43) Second. All in favor? [Speaker 9] (21:44 - 21:44) Aye. [Speaker 3] (21:46 - 21:48) We're all set, Dave. Great. Thank you. [Speaker 11] (21:48 - 21:49) Could I say something? [Speaker 3] (21:49 - 21:51) You can, real quick. [Speaker 11] (21:51 - 23:19) I didn't want to sound so assertive before. So I would like to say that every minute that I'm in the town hall is a complete pleasure. I get incredible support, and I feel so welcomed, and I'm grateful every minute that I'm doing business in Swanscot, whether we're donating to the polar plunge or the holiday fair or the random acts of bagelness at town hall. It's a thrill. I've got to tell you, it's a thrill. And Mr. Fitzgerald is just a rock star in my eyes. And when we had the opportunity to bring CBS TV, it was not hard to bring the chief, the fire chief, set up at the monument and do that random acts of bagelness. And I made a point to thank the people of Swanscot and what a delight it is to be in this community. So I'm very grateful. I will serve you well. I had a ball at the Fourth of July races and met a lot of new people, and I will continue to give back and do whatever we can to support the greater community. So from the bottom of my heart, I thank you. [Speaker 3] (23:19 - 23:27) Thank you. Doug, did you want that off to another meeting or did you want that separate by itself? [Speaker 1] (23:27 - 23:29) I just want a discussion about it. [Speaker 3] (23:30 - 23:55) Okay. So we'll just I'm going to leave it for after the rest of the items. Okay. Okay. Okay. So now we're going to move to discussion and possible vote on the FY 25 water and sewer rates. Amy, do you who's who wants to do that from town hall? [Speaker 4] (23:59 - 24:19) After the last elect for meeting, Patrick and I met with the Water and Sewer Commission to go over the presentation and all the numbers. They were in support of the options that we gave the board. And they are also having a meeting later tonight at 730 just to fill in the rest of the committee on the discussion. [Speaker 3] (24:21 - 24:28) Okay. So this is the second time that we're looking at this. Does anybody have any questions? No. [Speaker 1] (24:28 - 24:32) Are you hoping we'll vote, though, if they haven't fully opined? [Speaker 4] (24:33 - 24:44) Well, so they created a subcommittee of the whole committee just to discuss the rates. So we met with the subcommittee. Okay. So they're just filling in the rest of their committee. They're not taking a vote. [Speaker 9] (24:44 - 24:46) So have they have they made a recommendation? [Speaker 4] (24:46 - 25:09) They were fine with either option. So they didn't feel like either. They didn't feel like there was a huge difference between the two options to really stake a claim on one of them. We did discuss a lot of how we're going to proceed going forward with all the projects that have to happen. So that's going to be an ongoing discussion with us and that committee. [Speaker 1] (25:10 - 25:14) And we talked about last time that finance committee doesn't have to weigh in on this. [Speaker 3] (25:14 - 25:33) Correct. So I think the discussion really is, you know, what options do members of select board favor? I mean, I favor the less expensive to the taxpayer option myself. [Speaker 1] (25:36 - 25:37) I agree. [Speaker 3] (25:39 - 25:43) Okay. So is there any other discussion on this? [Speaker 1] (25:43 - 26:18) I mean, just, you know, to say a word more about that is that we're taking a big chunk. We're making up, you know, on the sewer rates for the fact that these haven't been raised over time. You know, we need to be within a range. You know, we don't have a big, there's a little bit about dancing on a planet. Yeah. But we don't necessarily have to do everything all at once. It seems like you all are recommending that the minimum we can do is what you have here for option two. So that's what I prefer to do. I wish we could spread it a little bit more over a couple of years. But if these are the choices, that's my choice. But we are going to spread it over a couple of years. [Speaker 9] (26:18 - 26:26) Well, that too. Spread it. We got to play catch up a little bit. And then we're going to be, you know, spreading it out over the next. Many years. [Speaker 3] (26:26 - 26:30) Right. And this is the second time we're discussing this. This isn't the first time in front of us. [Speaker 9] (26:31 - 26:33) So can I have a. I'm happy to make a motion. [Speaker 5] (26:34 - 27:06) I just want to highlight what David just said. Because it's important that we're not portraying to the general public that this is like a spike and then we're going to plateau again. That's not the strategy. So the strategy is, yes, there's a spike because we have to replenish earnings that we utilize. And then because of our deficit of the past 10 years, maybe 15, even we we have to be on the incline for the foreseeable future. So I just want to really manage expectations of the public. Yep. [Speaker 9] (27:07 - 27:51) All right. I will motion option two. I move to establish water and sewer rates as follows. Tier one. Consumption rate water, $8.18. Sewer, $7.14. Base rate water, $13.25. Base rate sewer, $20. Tier two. Consumption rate water, $8.47. Sewer, $8.07. Base rate water, $14.35. Base rate sewer, $21.53. Tier three. Consumption rate water, $8.71. Sewer, $8.94. Base rate water, $14.35. And base rate sewer, $21.53. Second. [Speaker 3] (27:52 - 28:07) All in favor? Aye. Okay. Moving forward. We will go to discussion and possible vote on FY24 year-end appropriations and transfers. [Speaker 2] (28:10 - 30:18) These are generally considered the end-of-the-year shuffle. As we've discussed in the quarterly reports over the last year, we've had to take measures throughout the year to increase the budget. Our Director of Finance and Administration, John Treasurer, and Sasha Cuddy have worked closely with department heads. We have a number of end-of-year transfers, as we've had in previous years. We always have shuffles, but primarily we see significant transfers for legal and insurance. We have had a number of real estate transactions, but also some legal issues that have required additional appropriation. We have significant personnel expenses, both with public safety departments. Some of these are due to issues that we really have no control over, and some have to do with issues associated with public safety and standards of staffing that are just expensive. Some of them are related to overtime vacancies, and that has chronically been an issue as we get to the end of the year. I do think both Police Chief and Fire Chief have taken extraordinary efforts to try to control some of these costs over the last year. There is certainly work to do, but the request is to support an end-of-year transfer of $731,586. This transfer ultimately will balance the budget and support an end-of-year within budget. We're not asking for additional appropriation. We're just asking to shuffle some funds to allow us to balance the budget. [Speaker 1] (30:19 - 30:39) Can you just underline that for folks? We talked about challenges in meeting budget. This was tighter than usual, but you all felt like you could actually land the plane. So it sounds like we landed the plane for the end of the felony. I don't think that we really mentioned that publicly. [Speaker 2] (30:40 - 32:35) It's a good analogy. I think the conversations are really difficult to bring everybody in on budget. Really, Amy and Patrick and our department heads have really pressed. We froze budgets. I met with a number of department heads that were really looking to spend their department budgets, but we had to hold on to these dollars to balance the budget. The last place we want to be is going back to town meeting, asking folks to come up with additional appropriations for things that, frankly, they expect us to control. That said, we have gone out. We've renegotiated our insurance contract savings to the town. We've gone out and we've looked at a number of other contracts to try to help control some costs. There's work to do, as there is always. Over the last few years, though, if you look at Swampskate's budget growth, you will see some of the most conservative budgeting around. I think these interdepartmental transfers reflect the ongoing effort every month to kind of look at where we are and how we're going to project to the end of the fiscal year. This is budget discipline. Obviously, we'd love to never have to transfer a nickel in a budget, but we have a big budget and we are going to have unexpected issues that affect us. We're fortunate in snow and ice this year, as the last couple of years have helped us cushion some of the budget numbers and certainly we've been able to tighten up a number of expenses. With that, Amy, anything else that you wanted to share? Anything you wanted to share, Patrick? [Speaker 4] (32:35 - 33:14) I did just want to say that this is very standard. I don't know of any community that doesn't either amend their fiscal year budget at town meeting or utilize the year-end appropriation transfer. This is just usually a cleaner way to do it because we have more time to get this done versus had we tried to do it in May, and this really allows us a little more flexibility to ensure that the departments that needed to spend money on stuff could still do it while still ensuring that we were going to end the year in the black. [Speaker 5] (33:16 - 33:30) I just have two questions about the funding sources that we shuffled from. They're tiny, but they're deserving, so I just wondered if the veterans assistance and the library expenses, the $6,000 from the library? [Speaker 4] (33:31 - 34:01) No. The veterans service, we budget a flat amount that's been consistent over the years and it consistently has been used. We budget a buffer above what has traditionally been spent just in case additional veterans move into town and therefore are entitled to those benefits. We want to make sure that we have the money available for them. So basically there's just unutilized benefits. Unextended funds. [Speaker 5] (34:01 - 34:02) Yeah, we planned for it. [Speaker 4] (34:02 - 34:07) Every veteran that was entitled to benefits got their benefits. [Speaker 5] (34:07 - 34:08) And the library? [Speaker 4] (34:08 - 34:17) The library, this was just they were able to get some grant funding for some of their programming, so they ended up not needing to spend the general fund portion of it. [Speaker 5] (34:18 - 34:20) Okay, and could they not have spent it another way? [Speaker 4] (34:21 - 34:37) They have an entire other line for their materials that they are required to spend to maintain state aid, so that's where the majority of that was spent. But with the staff they had and the calendar that they already had of activities, there weren't additional that they could have done. [Speaker 2] (34:39 - 35:30) I feel like we should just at least say, yes, there probably were ways that they could have spent that money. Katie, I want to be completely candid. Every one of these departments would love to spend more money than we can afford. When we have budget pressures, we're one town. And this is just the general fund side of the town ledger, so it's not the biggest department. It's the Swampsville School Department, and we've got to make this budget work on the town ledger side. And we have to have difficult conversations throughout the year to kind of ensure that we're spending these dollars as carefully as possible. That said, the library does have a lot of wonderful supporters. They have other funding opportunities, and certainly we appreciate everybody tightening the belt to help us get through this as a team. [Speaker 3] (35:30 - 36:56) Amy, what month did you tell departments they had to freeze their budget? We froze the budget in January this year. January. So that means there's $50,000 from DPW that they couldn't spend that was in their budget that I'm sure they needed for multiple things. And then when I look on the side of where money has been sent, I see fire personnel at almost $340,000. And I have to be honest with this board. I am very alarmed by how high these numbers are, and I'm super concerned about what's happening here. I have been involved in town finances for a long time. I think this is the highest I've ever seen it. The police personnel line item, I think this is the lowest I've ever seen it. The police expenses, the $102,000, $300,000, I'm concerned at the amount that number is and why some of those bills weren't taken care of much earlier and reported to us much earlier. Because when we looked at the Munis reports at the third quarter, the third quarter showed that we were at about 74% of budget, and their budget was within the 74%. So to see this much over in just that last quarter does concern me. [Speaker 4] (36:56 - 38:24) Yeah. When my department was made aware of those bills was when I made the town administrator aware of those bills at the same time. So that's something that we've worked with the departments on to ensure that all the bills are being turned over quickly and following the process. So we've already met with the department heads. We also extended an invitation to all of the department heads to sit down at the end of June to start preparing all of their purchase order requisitions and planning their budget for FY25. And specifically in regards to public safety, I'm working with their departments to put together personnel spreadsheets where we can track out month to month what they're expecting to spend and what they're actually spending so that we can see how the trend is going throughout the year and kind of stop the bleed early if we can. We're also talking about transferring budget monies within the object lines of the budget. So you'll often hear us say overtime's high because there was a vacancy. So on a quarterly basis, we're going to actually adjust the budget for that. So if there was a vacancy for, say, the first quarter, we're going to take a quarter worth of that personnel line and move it into overtime so the budget's actually aligning throughout the year with where it's actually being spent. Okay. That sounds good. [Speaker 1] (38:24 - 38:42) It sounds good, but that would be more reassuring if the funding source for police or fire was actually their kind of baseline and it was being deployed in overtime. But that's not what we're seeing here, right? [Speaker 4] (38:43 - 38:45) So that wouldn't even be before you. [Speaker 1] (38:45 - 38:46) Okay. [Speaker 4] (38:46 - 38:50) So what's before you is the voted legal lines from town meeting. [Speaker 1] (38:50 - 38:51) Okay. [Speaker 4] (38:51 - 38:58) So any transfer from within, say, like police personnel, would never come before this board. [Speaker 1] (38:58 - 39:00) Police personnel includes like regular as well as overtime? [Speaker 4] (39:00 - 39:17) Yeah. So basically if we had a vacancy in a police patrol position, we can move internally with just my signature and the police chiefs to move that money into the overtime line. [Speaker 1] (39:21 - 40:02) So just to follow up, unfortunately, the 339, there's no getting around it, but it really sticks out. And you made a comment, Sean, and it would have been ideal if I would have brought this up ahead of time so you could probably answer it. I doubt you can right now. But do you have any sense of is this – because the police, in some ways, I get more. Like they've been down, right, and using overtime, and that might be more expensive. I can kind of create a story in my mind. I'm not sure if it's the true story. But with fire, that's kind of less understandable, less clear to me. I know they've been down a little bit. They have been down. So is this really driven by the fact that overtime is more expensive? [Speaker 2] (40:02 - 42:06) We can prepare some analysis to show you, you know, when you have to backfill, you have one position that's out. You're backfilling for that position at that salary plus overtime. And it adds a significant amount. If you are down two, we've had a number of staff. And unfortunately, these are some serious personnel issues. There are individuals that are out and out with health issues. These are difficult departments, you know, in terms of the physical and, you know, just the overall impact that public safety has on our staff. And you just have to understand, we're going to see some significant, you know, overtime and costs associated with these departments. It's not unique to Swampskate, but certainly our efforts over the last few years, I think Mary Ellen, you raised a good point. You know, the police department has done some things to try to control these costs. And I want to just credit Chief Cassata and the police department with really implementing some staffing shifts that have significantly reduced the costs associated with overtime. It's still a big number, and it's a big number that we continue to have to talk about and try to figure out how can we get back to a standard of budgeting, but also managing that, you know, doesn't require us to transfer as much at the end of the year. I think that's the goal here is to try to appropriate sufficient dollars and try to, you know, get them in a position where they're not freezing the budget in January. Because when we freeze the budget in January, to Mary Ellen's point, $50,000 has to be frozen at DPW. That's parks. That's other things that we need as a community, and we have to do it because we've got structural issues with staffing. And we all know in December, we swore in seven new police officers. That's going to help. That will help address overtime. [Speaker 1] (42:07 - 42:09) It takes a while for everyone to move to the pipeline. [Speaker 2] (42:09 - 42:14) You're not going to see that until, you know, the first, second quarter. I'm worried about the fire department. [Speaker 1] (42:15 - 42:44) Yeah, exactly. So I think it would be to a great advantage to both of you if, like, you know, these are obvious to you when you see them, right? You know, we should have some description, right? So we're not asking these questions in a way, right? So it's clear right away, boom, boom, boom. You can explain 80% of this, right, or whatever it is. So now we're kind of here having this conversation, and now we're asking for the explanation after. So just – Understood. [Speaker 2] (42:45 - 42:56) Yep, we can get some of that insight into a spreadsheet so you can see where from and where to for these numbers. [Speaker 3] (42:56 - 43:16) I think going forward, I mean, we do do the quarterlies. So we'll continue to do the quarterlies, but going forward after you reconcile the bank statements, if you could start sending out the monthly units reports to select board members. Not that we're necessarily going to discuss it in public, but at least the information is there, and people will have a better idea. [Speaker 4] (43:16 - 44:02) Yeah, we've slightly updated the reporting for this year. So we have an additional report with the revolving funds, as well as I discussed with the finance committee last night. We're on a quarterly basis. I'm also going to send out not only the monthly but the year-end projection, so that each quarter – because to your point, some things that get paid, say, in June, it looks misleading because you're looking at it and you're like, oh, they're actually underneath the percentage they should be at this point in the year. I'm not concerned, not knowing that there's a $200,000 payment that goes out in June. So we've projected that it's going to be over. So I'm going to circulate all of that. [Speaker 3] (44:04 - 44:11) Yeah, if you could identify what those separate payments are, because I think they're different for police and different for the fire union, right? Yes, they are. Okay. [Speaker 5] (44:12 - 44:25) I have a question. Yes? The $200,000 legal insurance line, what are we doing going forward to mitigate that? [Speaker 2] (44:27 - 44:57) So we've renegotiated our insurance contract. We've been able to save $50,000, sort of $30,000 to $50,000 on our prior insurance contract. We have gone out and we've met with an additional legal service provider. I think we've looked at some options. But, you know, certainly that's something that we're going to have to lean in on. [Speaker 5] (44:58 - 45:39) Yeah, I think if we're holding other departments accountable to quarterly or monthly check-ins, we should be holding ourselves to the same, because I think this is a line item we control insofar as we, the town administrator, are the ones often spending in this category. What we cannot control is when things come up and we have to spend the money. That I understand. And that's a wild card, because anything can happen at any time, which requires us to seek legal advice. And we should feel free to do so to cover the community. But we could probably be more efficient and smarter about it. [Speaker 4] (45:40 - 45:59) Katie, to that point, and this is more for the public's benefit than the board or the town administrator, we do have insurance that covers some of the legal claims that come before the town. So I just don't want public concern that there's just a runaway train of legal expenses. [Speaker 5] (45:59 - 46:00) Correct. [Speaker 4] (46:00 - 46:04) So our insurance does cover a number of legal defense for us. [Speaker 3] (46:05 - 46:15) What is the process? So do we pay a flat fee, or are we just paying every time we pick up the phone? How does this process really work? We pay billable hours for town council. [Speaker 4] (46:17 - 46:26) And any special council that the board or town administrator seek out for specific purposes, that's negotiated at that time if it's going to be a flat fee. [Speaker 3] (46:26 - 46:29) And has that always been the case, that it's just billable hours? [Speaker 4] (46:29 - 46:29) No. [Speaker 2] (46:30 - 46:31) A few years ago we had a retainer. [Speaker 4] (46:32 - 46:36) Yeah, it's been billable hours for at least the past three fiscal years, I believe. [Speaker 2] (46:36 - 47:32) We've been busy. And again, Katie, I hear you. I think, yeah, we've looked at this line, and we have a lot of irons in the fire. And so we're a busy community with a lot of busy projects and busy legal fees associated with some of these. I think they mirror some of the major projects that we have, and I think it would be helpful for us to itemize it and really step through and look at what are each of the projects and each of the employment issues that we've dealt with, and what do those cost, just so we can actually have a really careful idea of is this a budget that really looks like it's costing us too much money, or is this a budget that actually looks like it's closer to the major responsibilities that we're trying to address? [Speaker 5] (47:32 - 48:20) Yeah, I just want to be fair to say, if we have more irons in the fire than we had originally expected, then obviously that dollar amount should increase, just like we're saying to shift dollar amounts in the budget to support the things that we are accomplishing. But most of the irons we know are in the fire, and we sort of have a cost idea of those irons. I want to make sure, to Doug's point, some of the data we don't have is, okay, so what did we project? Why are we off by $200,000? Is it something we could have projected? How do we project for that going forward? If we couldn't have, okay, fine, then we understand that. Just to be a little bit more detailed about it. [Speaker 2] (48:20 - 48:46) Katie, it's a really good point. We will come back with some analysis on some of these major numbers so that you have more insight into what discretionary choices could we make this year to help actually address some of these exceedances. And if there are some choices that we can make, certainly we should all kind of highlight that and do our best to make them. [Speaker 3] (48:46 - 49:00) In the under legal for any issues that had to do with the school or the building of the school, is that coming out of the town side or is that coming out of the school building side? [Speaker 4] (49:00 - 49:03) That's coming out of the capital project for the new school. [Speaker 3] (49:03 - 49:03) It's coming out of what? [Speaker 4] (49:04 - 49:12) Anything for the new elementary school. Yeah. It's coming out of the capital project for the elementary school. All the costs are contained, so that's not part of this. [Speaker 3] (49:12 - 49:21) So any legal costs surrounded with the new elementary school are not in this? No. Whoa. Okay. [Speaker 1] (49:25 - 49:27) Right, but the hotel is. [Speaker 9] (49:27 - 49:28) Yeah, they're requiring properties. [Speaker 1] (49:29 - 49:31) Yeah. A hundred percent. [Speaker 12] (49:33 - 49:34) Okay. [Speaker 5] (49:34 - 49:54) Yeah, I think that's the point, guys, that when we are adding these projects on, the budget should reflect the size of the projects we're adding on and what we think they're going to cost from a legal perspective because it's not fair at the end of the year to say, we're over by $200,000. Well, okay, maybe we added five things on top of what we expected or maybe we didn't. That's the information we're just missing. [Speaker 9] (49:55 - 50:02) Or maybe the projects were a little more complex. Sure. And nuanced than originally anticipated when we budgeted. [Speaker 3] (50:03 - 50:06) Okay. Do we have any more? Any more questions? [Speaker 4] (50:07 - 50:12) I do also want to relate to the board that the finance committee did approve this last night. Correct. [Speaker 1] (50:12 - 50:15) Did they have as many good questions as we do? [Speaker 4] (50:15 - 50:16) They had different questions. [Speaker 3] (50:17 - 50:31) Not as good. Do we have any more questions? So can I get a motion to accept the 2024 general fund year-end appropriation transfers? [Speaker 9] (50:31 - 50:35) In the amount of $731,586. So moved. [Speaker 3] (50:36 - 50:36) Second? [Speaker 9] (50:37 - 50:37) Second. [Speaker 3] (50:38 - 50:52) By Doug. All in favor? Aye. Thank you. It's approved. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so now we will move to the discussion and possible vote on the community power rates. [Speaker 1] (50:54 - 51:04) Yes. I have some notes that do not seem to want to share themselves with me on my phone or on my computer. Can you pass that to Doug? [Speaker 3] (51:05 - 51:05) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (51:05 - 51:36) You got the notes for me? You want this? Thank you. Okay. So with this little bit of background for the public, we've discussed this before. We have a community power agreement that aggregates our purchase of electricity for the town. I actually tried to figure out who was the brainchild of this way back when. I haven't been able to actually figure that out. [Speaker 2] (51:36 - 51:37) Is it Peter King? [Speaker 1] (51:38 - 51:39) Is it P. King? P. [Speaker 2] (51:39 - 51:40) King was involved. [Speaker 1] (51:40 - 56:24) Yep. Okay. Well, whoever it was was really prescient because in total, this type of agreement that people are able to choose a different electricity rate rather than just the standard national grid rate, right? And on top of that, by aggregating, we're also kind of getting cleaner, greener power. So people here in Swampscott alone since 2016 have saved $7.7 million because of this aggregation. So we are right now coming to the end of a three-year agreement that we very smartly, not this we, but the collective we engaged in three years ago and decided to do a three-year agreement. And because of that, as people probably are aware, with the Ukraine war and all sorts of other things that happened in the global energy markets, we got in at a price that was really nice three years ago and prices really took off over the last few years and people were locked in at a much lower rate. Well, prices have come down quite a bit, but they haven't come all the way back down to where we started. So the way this works is that our partners at Peregrine, they go out and solicit bids from all sorts of different energy aggregators. It has to happen kind of in a snapshot. They went out and did that, got the bids this morning. Sean and I, as designated by the board, got those bids at noon. We reviewed them with them. And the bottom line is that prices are higher than they were before because it was quite low at that point. But they are still in the new price for national grid going forward. And they only do their prices in six-month increments. So we're still talking about a three-year contract. They do their prices in six-month increments for July to January or whatever it is. They're going to be at 16.055 cents per kilowatt. With our approach for people who choose to do green power here with kind of the basic green power, which doesn't mean all of the green power comes from local sources. There's two different levels, right? One is, you know, green power, but a lot of it could come from wind farms in Texas or whatever. And then there's one that you pay even more if you want green power locally, which ultimately is much better, but it is more expensive. So just to get the kind of the price for that kind of basic tier of green power is 14.837 cents per kilowatt. So even by – and in order to get that green power, you have to – there's a base rate that the energy companies bid, and then you can add on different levels of kind of localized green power, even in the one that's not all local. And in the past, we were buying 15% local, but 85% could be from wherever. We inched that up. It was like a fraction of a cent basically to do that from 15% to 20%, which put us on par with the vast majority of people in other communities that are doing this. So we're kind of just moving with the general market to say, you know, inching up that green power component. Again, was it like a tenth of a cent or something in order to do that? Step forward. Yeah. So bottom line here is that by doing the aggregation, people have an opportunity to get green power at 7.6% lower than if they took the National Grid basic service. And that equates to, for an average residential customer, about $92 in savings per year. So we're not talking about massive shifts here, but $92 is $92. [Speaker 9] (56:27 - 56:30) And this is just based upon where rates are today? [Speaker 1] (56:31 - 56:31) Yep. [Speaker 9] (56:31 - 56:34) So if rates go up, then savings are greater? [Speaker 1] (56:36 - 57:41) Yes. And the alternative could happen. So that is the decision we had to make because we had a choice of 12-month lock-in, 24-month, or three-year lock-in. And we had a long discussion about that. And, you know, no one has a crystal ball to know exactly where energy prices are going to be in three years. But we felt like the last three years it was better to have certainty. And kind of the escape hatch for anyone is that if the National Grid basic rate really plummets below what this green rate is, people can choose to opt out of that. Okay? So we locked in kind of on the downside, you know, compared to what it could be if we only, you know, locked in for a year or two years. And then we kind of had to back out in the market when it could be going up. We kind of locked in at this level. But then individuals could kind of back out along the three-year process. They're not, you know, each of us as individuals are not locked in for three years. But we have the price as a community locked in for three years. [Speaker 9] (57:42 - 57:46) Okay. Is there a minimum number of households that need to be on? [Speaker 1] (57:46 - 58:09) I don't know. But that was not part of the conversation because we have 4,000 people. Almost, you know, 4,000 households. Almost everybody is on the savings plan, basically. The green savings plan. There's 30 that are kind of at the super green level, kind of choosing to pay. That's like an extra few cents. It's not nothing in order to do that. [Speaker 5] (58:12 - 58:21) So if the national grid price dropped below our bid price, we are still locked in for three years? [Speaker 1] (58:21 - 58:23) We are as a community. [Speaker 5] (58:23 - 58:25) But individually you can opt out. [Speaker 1] (58:25 - 58:26) Correct. [Speaker 5] (58:26 - 58:30) And then there's no penalty to opt back in when the pricing conditions change. Correct. [Speaker 2] (58:30 - 58:30) Right. [Speaker 5] (58:31 - 58:31) Okay. [Speaker 2] (58:33 - 59:48) It's a fantastic program. Certainly Swanscot's been one of the leaders. With this option, we're going to match the city of Salem's level of investment in renewables. I think, you know, when you think about our renewable energy committee's recommendation and some of the things that we've been supporting from a public policy position, this gives us a chance to really step forward, make continued investments. And we're catching it on an upswing in the market. So it's important to understand, like, the costs associated with electricity are projected to go up. We're in the middle of a heat wave nationally. You know, as Doug mentioned, we have the war in Ukraine. We have global demand and supplies under the U.S. Energy Outlook Administration. We have a number of organizations looking to see, you know, additional stress on energy. And this gives us a chance to have stability and rate certainty. And as the town, we're a customer. I want all of the town line items for energy to be stable. I want to be able to have them predictable and steady. So we have three years of a pretty reasonable level of expectations. [Speaker 3] (59:49 - 59:51) Do we have any questions? [Speaker 5] (59:52 - 1:00:11) Do we ask our partners who we were consulting with if other towns, I'm not so worried about the rate because I feel like there's not much to that. It's more the longevity of which we keep the rate. That's probably the more nuanced piece. And that seemed to fall in line with what other communities were doing, did they say? [Speaker 1] (1:00:11 - 1:01:06) Yeah, we had a robust discussion about that. That was the thing we actually talked about the most. It was really a discussion between two and three years. You know, it's a little bit of like, you know, which way do you want to go? And I, I give a lot of credit to Sean in the sense of being very concerned about making sure that we weren't putting ourselves unnecessarily at the whims of what could be out there. You know, it's kind of like the devil, you know, versus the devil. You don't, you know, yes, we're locking in at a higher level than we were at, but you know, I mean, everything shows that, yes, we're getting more and more green power that's lower cost, but energy demand with AI and, you know, just like so many other factors are leading to, it's hard to imagine in some ways that like, we're going to have this surplus of energy supply and prices are going to come crashing down and we're going to be left like, you know, regretting the fact that we locked in at this point. So that was our best, you know, armchair kind of analysis of the global energy market. [Speaker 3] (1:01:06 - 1:01:12) So great. So with that, can we, the last thing I say, can I say one last thing? [Speaker 1] (1:01:13 - 1:01:30) An average residential customer in the program will avoid nearly 2,200 pounds of CO2 in each year. She's equivalent of driving 2,500 vehicle miles, every single customer household by doing this. [Speaker 3] (1:01:30 - 1:01:30) Great. [Speaker 1] (1:01:30 - 1:01:31) All right. [Speaker 3] (1:01:31 - 1:01:45) So with that said, can we have a motion to approve the community power rates? We need to read out the rates. Is there any special language? [Speaker 2] (1:01:45 - 1:01:46) Is there a special motion that we have to read? [Speaker 1] (1:01:52 - 1:02:21) I move to fully adopt and approve of the rates that we've already approved of $14, 14 cents, 14.837 cents per kilowatt hour for the basic green option. And the commensurate price, which I actually don't even have in front of me for the super green option as part of the community aggregation program. [Speaker 3] (1:02:21 - 1:02:23) All in favor. [Speaker 2] (1:02:24 - 1:02:24) Aye. [Speaker 3] (1:02:25 - 1:02:26) So moved. [Speaker 2] (1:02:27 - 1:02:29) These rates go into effect in November. [Speaker 3] (1:02:29 - 1:02:30) All right, great. [Speaker 2] (1:02:31 - 1:02:33) You won't see these immediately, but they're on the way. [Speaker 3] (1:02:34 - 1:02:44) So I did want to be finished by now, but we're going to have two more. We're going to go back to Emanuel Mendez, employee of Sunrun solar. [Speaker 1] (1:02:44 - 1:04:42) Yeah. Thank you. So nothing about Emanuel. I don't know who Emanuel is, but it's more about, I guess we're under the impression that we must accept these folks. And I have nothing to say per se about Emanuel about Sunrun or anything else, but I just want to be, you know, at least a little PSA about the fact that there is a lot of discussion in the market right now about solar companies that are kind of jumping into the market and flooding with advertising and then disappearing. And people are left with either a contract that never happened or a solar that got put on that never can't be serviced and all that stuff. So this is a very, is becoming a very significant issue like the people that are out there trying to sell you on like lower electricity rates, which then, you know, will like, instead of being part of the community aggregation, there are a lot of people out there trying to sell you on low rates and then they like fly up, you know, in six months. Right. So it's just like a big, as much as three people are listening or whatever, that this is a, this is a, this is a dangerous ball game in some ways that people are playing right now. Not about going solar all for that, of course, but you really have to think about the quality of the company that you're engaging with. Furthermore, I know that in a different little bit of a different context is part of the community first program where we have, it's actually revised another person that's on that we already approved. We went in front of Lynn city council to get them to actually go door to door there. And Lynn refused. Yeah, they refused them and they refused Verizon. So I would like us to, are we a hundred percent sure that we absolutely have to approve every single one of these? Cause either we're wrong or Lynn is wrong at this point. [Speaker 2] (1:04:43 - 1:04:49) Yeah. So I can go back and we have looked at this a couple of years. [Speaker 1] (1:04:49 - 1:04:51) Be mindful of the legal budget. Yeah. [Speaker 2] (1:04:51 - 1:05:34) We went back, we asked town council, individuals have constitutional rights to market. These are, this goes back to door to door sales. And when you decide to selectively discriminate based on whatever reason, whether it's public safety or some community basis, it has to be consistent down the line. Every community is different. Lynn has a complicated, you know, Oh, so if we were to say no to everybody, that might be a different, Lynn may have a policy position that says, okay, we, we actually are not going to support a door to door in any neighborhood in the city or I don't know. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (1:05:34 - 1:05:36) Is that what they did that night? They said no to everyone. [Speaker 2] (1:05:36 - 1:05:36) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:05:36 - 1:05:38) And I think that is closer to that. [Speaker 2] (1:05:39 - 1:06:13) And, and I, I would just caution, you know, if we're gonna, if the board is not comfortable voting on that tonight, that we take this up at our next meeting and, and just think about this as a policy because these individuals are all out there, they're hustling. And I feel as though I think the concern from town council was you may, you may invite a equal protection clause claim that we're not allowing one firm to compete on a level playing field with others. If we've already provided that support, which we have. [Speaker 3] (1:06:13 - 1:06:13) Yeah. [Speaker 5] (1:06:13 - 1:06:16) So what we did tonight, cause we approved another door to door. [Speaker 3] (1:06:16 - 1:06:21) Well, we approved door to door just recently too, but in the consent agenda with the people we did. [Speaker 5] (1:06:23 - 1:06:28) Well revise, but they're, even though they're not solar, they're still doing. [Speaker 1] (1:06:29 - 1:06:36) Yeah, totally. Yeah. Well, I, I guess, you know, I don't want to turn a mountain into a, I want to turn a molehill into a mountain. [Speaker 3] (1:06:37 - 1:06:37) Yes. [Speaker 1] (1:06:38 - 1:06:48) You don't want to make. Yeah. But you know, maybe there, you know, maybe we could talk about putting something in the newsletter or whatever about. [Speaker 2] (1:06:48 - 1:06:50) Absolutely makes sense to do that. [Speaker 3] (1:06:52 - 1:06:52) Okay. [Speaker 2] (1:06:53 - 1:07:15) Might be helpful to approve this tonight and then come back and talk about coming up with a policy that says, here's, here's the number. Here's what we're comfortable with every month. Here's what we're comfortable with every year. And this is, this will be a new policy that says we're at least going to have a standard. I think that's what we probably are missing. And I'm happy to roll up a recommendation to the board. [Speaker 3] (1:07:16 - 1:07:57) Okay. So any more questions? So can I have a motion to approve Emmanuel Mendez employee of sun, solar 16 progress road, bill record door to door sales. Second. And all in favor. I so moved. I want to get into an executive session. So we are going to forego the town administrator's report. Unless someone has a quick question. I don't know if we have a quick question for the town administrator or if you want to just call him on your own. Okay. All right. And, and for select board time, if we have quick select board time for anybody. [Speaker 9] (1:07:57 - 1:08:22) Sure. I have something. Oh, great. So no, July 4th was awesome. You know, there was, there were races, there were horribles parades. There was a fireworks festival and I just want to thank all the volunteers, all the town staff and all the residents for, for coming out and, and really making making the day, the week, the weekend special. So thank you. [Speaker 1] (1:08:23 - 1:08:35) And thank you to the weather. I mean, I mean, it was just incredible. I mean, the number of people out, I mean, I was down at Fisherman's, it was just outstanding. [Speaker 3] (1:08:35 - 1:09:35) Okay. And I want to thank right now, I think the majority of people who do follow what goes on in town realizes that members of the infrastructure committee, Chris, Dr. Valkley, Liz Smith, and a number of other, other members are working very hard at testing the water. People that are involved in the save Kings beach have been really supportive and everybody's working really hard to get those types of numbers and be well educated on to what bacteria levels look like. So I really appreciate their hard work. It's, they're all volunteers. They're doing a great job. So thank you. And so with that, we are going to adjourn and we're going to move into executive session. Thank you. Oh, motion. Great. So move all in favor. All right. So, okay.