[Speaker 1] (0:17 - 0:47)
Okay, thank you for joining us at the Select Board meeting, January 22nd, 2025. And this meeting is being recorded. Before we start, I just want to thank Nate Beischeim, Nathan Kent, and Joe Doulette for taking care of the video and the production here tonight.

And we have some special guests to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, so if you could join our special guests from Big Blue Bargains for the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Speaker 17] (0:49 - 0:51)
Okay, ready?

[Speaker 15] (0:52 - 1:07)
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 1] (1:07 - 1:14)
Okay, so could you take a moment and introduce yourselves to us? My name is Ellie.

[Speaker 15] (1:15 - 1:18)
My name is Maxie. My name is Penny.

[Speaker 1] (1:19 - 1:20)
Penny, and do we have somebody else here?

[Speaker 15] (1:21 - 1:21)
Who's that?

[Speaker 1] (1:23 - 2:20)
Ben, we have Ben. Well, thank you very much for coming and saying the Pledge of Allegiance. We really appreciate that.

Thank you. You can come back again in two weeks if you'd like. All right.

Okay, so now we are going to read the proclamation and adoption of our January 27, 2025 International Holocaust Memorial Day. Okay. Let's just see if I found it.

Do you have it? Hold on one second. Want me to read?

Yeah, that'd be great. Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 3] (2:21 - 4:59)
Whereas the town of Swampscott will never forget the events of the Holocaust and the millions of Jewish and other minority groups who suffered and died during the most tragic genocide in modern history. And whereas anti-Semitic incidents continue to increase in the United States, once reaching an all-time high in 2021, with a total of 2,717 incidences of assault, harassment, and vandalism reported to the Anti-Defamation League. Whereas since the Hamas massacre on the Jewish state on October 7, 2023, the ADL has recorded an unprecedented rise in vandalism, harassment, and assault directed at Jews and Jewish institutions.

Whereas this year on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2025, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. And whereas honoring the victims and survivors begin with our renewed recognition of the value and dignity of each person, it demands from us the courage to protect the persecuted and speak out against bigotry and hatred. And whereas on this anniversary, we recommit ourselves to combating the global rise in anti-Semitism and the evil that threatens not only those of Jewish faith, but those of all faiths and backgrounds.

And whereas recent acts of hate and swamp scots serve as a painful reminder of our obligation to condemn and combat rising anti-Semitism in all its forms, including the denial or trivialization of the Holocaust. And whereas this anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made confronting this terrible chapter in human history and on our continuing efforts to end genocide. And whereas the definition of anti-Semitism reads as follows, anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews which may be expressed as hatred towards Jews.

Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed towards Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and or their property toward Jewish communities, institutions, and religious faculties. And now, therefore, on behalf of the entire Select Board, we do hereby proclaim January 27, 2025 as Holocaust Memorial Day in the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts and encourage all faith-based and non-profit organizations, residents, businesses, and public institutions to acknowledge, honor, and value Jewish people's historic and current contributions locally and beyond, while also recognizing the ongoing and interconnected struggles of all Jewish communities locally and beyond.

And witness hereof, we have unto set our hands and cause to be affixed this great seal of the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts this 22nd day of January, 2025.

[Speaker 1] (5:02 - 6:09)
Thank you, Katie. Okay, so now we're going to... What we're going to do is we'll move to public comment.

I just have to set... Actually, can you take care of the timer? Sure, not a problem.

So we're going to move to public comment, and I just have to remind everybody it's three minutes, and what we'll do is 15 seconds before the three minutes, we'll just give you a little bit of a heads up, okay? We want everybody to get their three minutes in. And also remember, for people who aren't aware, the select board does not respond to public comment, and in public comment, you can say whatever you want, you can read whatever someone else wrote for you, you can...whatever it is. You feel comfortable, and you do your public comment. So is there anyone here for public comment? Brian Watson?

Oh, and please state your name and address.

[Speaker 8] (6:11 - 9:14)
Brian Watson. In light of the three-minute limit, I'm going to just quickly read two or three sentences. I know that tonight you'll be talking about the formation of a committee for the Horton site, so just a couple of reminder thoughts that I'm sure you've got in your minds.

When the committee's created, it will be important that the committee is committed to a clear, open, and logical process and sequence of tasks that both assist and educate the townspeople regarding that very process, the goal being to follow a process that includes developing and diagramming a number of simultaneous plans, four, five, six, seven, we don't know how many, but they'd all be possible options, and those plans would portray a variety of solutions to the site.

The committee would assist the town in evaluating the various plans, comparing them to each other, and assessing the plans for their various pros and cons. Every plan will have things to recommend it, and every plan would have things that could be viewed as disadvantageous. The idea ultimately is that the town will settle on a plan eventually that it thoroughly understands and that embodies a smart combination of properties and characteristics.

It will be important that the community members selected for the committee want to follow such a sort of deliberative process, rather than endorsing any particular plan, at least in the initial exploratory phases. Eventually, it would be only natural that committee members might, toward the end, develop a plan that they like. But for the first stages, when the town is being brought through a series of plans, say there's eight plans on a board, the committee has to be an honest broker in evaluating each plan, putting aside personal preferences or what have you.

We've got to measure each plan by a common yardstick, establish the pros and cons of each plan, and so forth. And then democracy will start to take over when it's ready to take over and people are informed about each plan, and then the town can start to focus in on a plan it likes. But I think the committee has to be an honest broker at least initially for a wide variety of plans.

Let's look at all the options that are possible and viable, and then slowly go through a process that weeds them into one or two options. So I just wanted to state that that process is important for the committee to execute. We don't want a repeat of what happened two years ago where the process really was not logical, it wasn't deliberative.

One of the nice things about not having a consultant... Okay, one of the nice things about not having a consultant is we won't have the consultant's hourly clock ticking, so we can take our time, we can go through the plans and make sure we've done due diligence on every plan.

[Speaker 1] (9:15 - 9:19)
Thank you, Mr. Watson. Rachel?

[Speaker 12] (9:24 - 11:10)
Hi, Rachel Teradasch, 71 Middlesex Ave. I'm also here with Laura Lynn, Hannah Provines, Katie Carolice, and our Big Blue Bargains children. This is five of our 13 children that we have between the four of us. So we came tonight because we wanted to talk to you, as we have many times.

We are the board members for Big Blue Bargains. If you haven't heard of Big Blue Bargains, we are a local 501c3 nonprofit thrift store. We were started in 2012, we're staffed entirely by volunteers, and all of our profit goes back to the community.

About 10 months ago, just after we learned that we would have to evacuate our property on Humphrey Street, we came here and asked the public and the select board to help us find a new location for Big Blue Bargains. Since then, countless members of the community reached out to us to show their support and suggest locations. Doug, David, and Danielle each made a point to find board members during town hall summer concerts and movies.

We saw Katie at sporting events and Mary Ellen at farmers markets. Every single one of you let us know how important it was for you to help us find a way to open. David and Max Casper met with us to tour possible locations at the old Clark School, and after discussions with David and Mary Ellen, we agreed that the Clark Portables were the right fit.

With the approval of the school committee, we've found our new home. We're here tonight to thank all of you, the select board, the school committee, and each member of our wonderful community who has supported us, volunteered, shopped, or donated items. We're excited to announce that our grand opening will be February 1st from 9 to 1.

Our sign is up, and we are excited to see you at 155 Norfolk Ave, the Clark Portables.

[Speaker 1] (11:11 - 11:24)
Thank you. Very exciting. Ben, did you want to talk?

Are you a resident comment? Okay. Katie Arrington?

[Speaker 11] (11:32 - 13:07)
Just for clarification, this is the only time for public comment. Good evening. I'm Katie Arrington, 40 Roy Street.

To be prepared for this discussion over a week ago, I asked for the town to provide me with any opinions from town council regarding the citizens petition I filed in November. I'm told that such opinions are public documents. I received nothing in response to my request.

I'm not surprised. After all, it's taken the board about 7 weeks to even acknowledge a citizens petition signed by over 200 residents. I'm confident that any legal opinion will tell you that you can call a special town meeting at any time, but the more I think about it, the clearer it is that this is not a legal discussion.

So I'll leave the legal discussions to you and others. This is simply about what's doing what's right. So I'm here to ask you to do the right thing by calling a special town meeting.

There is nothing stopping you tonight from calling a special town meeting. You can rationalize not voting for a town meeting based on any legal technicality or any reason you like. Nothing you can say tonight, however, changes the right thing to do is to call a special town meeting.

For the first time in decades, the select board has a citizens petition signed by more than 200 residents. If the select board did nothing wrong in its vote stripping the VFW from the Pine Street project, then there's nothing to fear about scheduling a town meeting. I've always found town meeting to be fair-minded.

Tonight, show residents you are also fair-minded. Please do the right thing. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (13:08 - 13:12)
Thank you, Katie Arrington. Mr. Smith?

[Speaker 9] (13:25 - 17:25)
Good evening. Before I begin, I just want to say thank you guys for having us tonight and I want to pull my full support for Mr. Cresta as our next town administrator. I believe that he is the right choice and has my full support as well as many others.

Frank Smith, Archer Street. Since June of last year, this board has held more than non-public executive sessions than public meetings. When public meetings are held, they are often relatively brief and contain little actual debate or discussion.

Most times when it comes to a vote on a matter, it appears the majority of the select board these days, most often select boards Phelan, Leonard, and Fletcher are magically on the same page with each other and little or no dialogue seems to have occurred. You have to stop and ask yourself why when others, including members of the select board recently raised the issue of the large number of executive sessions in the limited public discussion. Select board member Leonard called such complaints and I quote bullshit.

Sorry kids, still here. Her words, not mine. I disagree with that sentiment, but it does seem to represent the feelings of the chair and others.

If there is little to no discussion, where do these discussions happen? In non-public executive sessions? Outside of meetings?

We don't know because the select board has not released the minutes of these over 20 executive sessions since late June. Because not much has happened publicly with the select board these days, I think we should know what is happening outside the public's eye. Therefore for the first time in my life, in November I filed a public records request with the town clerk asking for records of communications by and between Chairwoman Fletcher, members of the select board, and the town administrator at the time.

In response, the town took extraordinary step of asking Massachusetts Secretary of State for permission to charge me $725 to get this information. The Secretary of State rejected this request. Even so, the town still required me to pay $325 to get this information, very public information.

That's a lot of money, especially for a school teacher teaching in a public school such as myself. I paid the amount of money anyways because something had gone very wrong with the select board. Each one of you, the current chair, more so than anyone else, ran on a platform of transparency and community involvement.

Does anyone besides me see the irony that I cannot even pay to get transparency about a lack of transparency? Over 60 days and 325 later, I still do not have a single document from the town. Not a single document.

I received an email on December 17th from about 10 seconds away stating that the requested documents were in hand of town council for review and I would have them in about 10 days. Here we are, still no files, only more questions on these documents. So now, ironically enough, I continue to wait for the request for transparency to be fulfilled while the files I requested and paid for are specifically and methodically redacted.

You have to see the problem here. What you are doing is wrong and while I appreciate everything that you guys do, I really do. As volunteers for this town, I really do.

But this needs to be addressed and the problem needs to be resolved. We need transparency.

[Speaker 10] (17:42 - 20:06)
Thank you, Kevin Reen, Precinct 5. I'm here just to comment briefly and directly, quickly about the petition that is under discussion by the two previous residents ahead of me. First off, I'd like to say that I'm speaking for myself, most importantly, but it has also been brought to my attention that others have felt the same way that I do.

Most importantly, the thing that I'm most frustrated about with this petition is the details. The details weren't presented to all of those who signed and the actions with that, with the information, led to a form of deceit. It was frustrating because when we put our names to something, we also put our ideas, reputations, and our not just that, but our families as we go through this.

I feel it's important now as we discuss this because at no time was it ever mentioned about a special town meeting when the petitions were presented. Albeit very important, I think at this moment a special town meeting would be a waste of money where we have one coming a regular town meeting just a few weeks away. It also leads to a problem.

It leads to a problem that we are now trying to pit policy versus property. What are we really looking at here? What's the discussion for?

We know what we're dealing with. We've elected you all to be the representatives of us. You won the elections fairly.

You've moved forward. You've enacted. You have the responsibility that's been stowed upon you that we have put you in that place.

I think that should have some value and know that you are all doing your best to move with that value. I feel that this petition should be re-evaluated. I feel that it should be looked at.

How many of others like myself might be willing to come forward if they want to speak up and say what information was this? What was I signing because I didn't get that information? I feel that the meeting should be canceled or postponed.

Please re-evaluate this petition and do know that there are a majority of us that did not get all of the information regarding what the petition intended. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (20:06 - 20:13)
Thank you, Mr. Ream. Ms. Arrington, I'm not recognizing you. I don't care.

[Speaker 11] (20:14 - 20:31)
Katie Arrington, 40 Royce Street. The petition is literally one sentence. We deserve transparency.

Ms. Arrington, I'm sorry if someone didn't realize what it said and can't read. Ms. Arrington, please sit down.

[Speaker 4] (20:38 - 20:40)
She makes the rules.

[Speaker 10] (20:44 - 21:12)
This is an attack on people and what they presented and what they did. This is an attack on the methodology and the details behind it. I'm not going to get into the semantics and how it was presented to me.

I know in the conversation that was taking place outside a place of worship where it was in a vulnerable situation what was presented and the sentences that were expressed what the petition was for.

[Speaker 1] (21:13 - 21:15)
Thank you, Mr. Ream.

[Speaker 13] (21:23 - 22:28)
Barbara DiPietro, 94 Eastman Avenue, Precinct 2. I did sign that petition as did my husband regarding the VFW Post property. At that time, I believed we had enough information to make an informed decision and I found out later as Kevin has so well outlined that I did not have all of that.

However, I never thought that this would trigger a special town meeting. I agree. I don't think that we need to spend the money to have a special town meeting just for this.

There's a town meeting coming up if that's what they want to do. That's it. I'd like to thank Geno for flooding Abbott Park.

I lived on Middlesex Avenue. We spent all day there. My kids lived across the street at my mom's house.

My kids spent all day there and my grandkids went there for a skating there. Thank you, Mrs. DiPietro.

[Speaker 1] (22:29 - 22:38)
Is there anyone else here for a resident comment? Seeing none, we will move to the Town Administrator's Report.

[Speaker 6] (22:41 - 23:41)
Before I begin my Town Administrator Report, I'd like to request a moment of silence for the two Swamps Good individuals that recently passed away. First off, Heidi Scheer. To quote a Reach Out post, Heidi was the leading light of our organization, a truly kind individual and an inspirational leader.

My condolences to David and his children. Secondly, Frank DeFelice. Frank was a legendary baseball coach who amassed over 400 wins while coaching the Big Blue.

Frank was also a football coach and a mentor to hundreds of young men. Some of you have seen it. If not, there was a great article on Coach DeFelice's accomplishments in Monday's Daily Item.

For those who may have missed it, my condolences to Mrs. DeFelice and her family. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (23:42 - 23:43)
Thank you, Gina.

[Speaker 6] (23:43 - 24:42)
Okay. Town Administrator Report. We've reached an agreement with the UU Church.

The UU Church is willing to let Swamps Good Elementary School staff use their parking lot, I believe it's 60 parking spaces, in exchange for snow removal services by the Town. The cost is minimal. We'll be out there plowing in the area to swing around the corner.

I don't think it's going to be much of an expense. Preliminary meetings with the Tri-Chair, School Committee, myself, Mary Ellen, Glenn Pastor, Superintendent Angelakis, Amy. To start working on the preliminary school budget.

Thank you, Amy, again for your help with that, as always. Finished up the 2025 expectation meetings with all the department heads. Went very well, everybody's on board.

May have been some confusion about when we're going to be opening up on Fridays.

[Speaker 3] (24:42 - 24:44)
I knocked on the door on Friday.

[Speaker 6] (24:45 - 29:03)
Monday, February 3rd. 7 a.m. to 12 p.m., 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. Had a meeting with the Clearview representatives to get an update on their due diligence progress. Initiating talks with Mission on the Bay regarding their seawall repairs.

That's ongoing. I met with Wind, Water, and Sewer representatives to discuss construction of a weir wall inside the Stacy Brook culvert. The weir wall will be necessary if the town moves forward with the UV pilot program.

Hope to have an update on by the next select board meeting. All right, Kings Beach. We will be opening the bids for Phase 2A of the Stacy Brook Sewer System Rehabilitation Project on January 30th.

Estimated value of that project is $2.5 million. Special thanks to the DPW staff for their efforts and another great job with the snow removal over the weekend. I would also like to thank Diane Marchese who reached out to me over the weekend to assist with getting out some information on social media regarding the snow emergency.

Thank you, Diane. The Marshall Street Outfall Sewer Infrastructure Improvements Project is moving along as scheduled. Anne Greene and her son have two to three weeks left remaining on their sewer main replacement.

Then we'll transition over to CIPP rehabilitation. Finance. Continue to meet almost daily with Amy on the FY26 budget development.

Amy is continuing to meet with department heads to review their preliminary budgets. Again, thank you, Amy. Patrick has been meeting with the Capital Improvement Committee and school department stakeholders for their FY26 capital requests.

Things are moving along pretty good. I believe there's two more meetings scheduled, one for tomorrow at 11 a.m. and then a subsequent meeting the following Thursday to wrap up the department head's request. We'll be sitting down with our team to finalize the request.

Community development. Margie, Mary Ellen, and I networked with Representative Amini and state staff to discuss support for infrastructure projects around the Haby, Kings Beach, Fisherman's Beach, and the like. All right.

Now let's move on to facilities. Building department received bids for the Auditorium Lighting Project. So I was happy with that.

Town clerk is working on getting new software for streetlights and dog licenses. He also recently mailed out the annual census. I think that's due at the end of the month.

Police department made plans with a Chariot I.M. event last Sunday where there were over 300 attendees. Police department is reviewing all policies and procedures but MPAC accreditation, many revisions to approve. Health department continuing to work on the FY26 budget with Amy.

Collected annual data for textile recycling. Combined, we collected over 21,000 pounds of textiles. That's almost 11 tons that were kept out of the solid waste system.

Human resources continue to meet with department heads to discuss the 2025 expectations. Things are going well. Recreation department is in the process of putting together summer programs on the website and planning upcoming town-wide events.

Finally, Senior Center is busy planning the next conference on March 22nd. This will be on retirement. Details will follow.

Senior Center is also working with the Room of Color at the high school for a new Black History Month program. Library opened up the bids for the library entrance redesigned with Max Casper.

[Speaker 1] (29:06 - 29:08)
Any questions?

[Speaker 4] (29:10 - 29:24)
I have a question. The UU Church agreement for snow removal, that is all that we're paying in exchange for? How many parking spots in what parking lot?

Is it that lower lot?

[Speaker 6] (29:25 - 29:28)
It's the one closest to the elementary school.

[Speaker 4] (29:28 - 29:30)
Do you know how many spots there are?

[Speaker 6] (29:30 - 29:32)
For some reason I heard 60.

[Speaker 4] (29:33 - 29:40)
Between 40 and 60. So they don't have to pay anything for it, you're just to plow it.

[Speaker 3] (29:41 - 29:43)
And we have to insure the lot as well under our policy.

[Speaker 1] (29:45 - 29:50)
It's similar to what we did when we used St. John's for the Blaney School.

[Speaker 4] (29:50 - 29:54)
Okay. Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (29:56 - 29:59)
So that will take relief off with the teachers, right?

[Speaker 4] (30:04 - 30:05)
Go ahead, David.

[Speaker 7] (30:07 - 30:14)
Does that address all the parking concerns for all teachers and faculty at that elementary school?

[Speaker 6] (30:14 - 30:15)
That's my understanding, yes.

[Speaker 4] (30:15 - 30:24)
So like events and stuff, people can use it at parents or whatever going in. Can they use that lot then, do you know?

[Speaker 6] (30:24 - 30:25)
I'm not sure.

[Speaker 3] (30:29 - 30:44)
I would have to look again at the agreement. I don't know if it's just during school hours that the lot can be used, because that is how the easement is. We can only use the easement during school hours plus or minus an hour on each side.

So I wouldn't be surprised if it was similar, but I don't recall off the top of my head.

[Speaker 1] (30:46 - 30:52)
Yeah, I saw that, but I didn't see where they spoke to. Well, I would think if you reached out to the UUN...

[Speaker 4] (30:52 - 30:53)
Yeah, I think it's great.

[Speaker 1] (30:53 - 31:04)
I mean, I didn't know it was even a possibility. I would hope that they would be fine with that. Hold on a second.

Is this it? Insurance coverage.

[Speaker 16] (31:11 - 31:17)
7 and 4 on evenings and school days until 8.30 p.m. Oh, great.

[Speaker 4] (31:17 - 31:33)
That's even better. I had a question, too, about the Lynn water sewer situation. So where does it stand at this point?

The conversations, the discussions between Swampscott and Lynn.

[Speaker 6] (31:34 - 32:30)
So we're talking about the UV pilot program? So we're making some headway with them. The latest estimate they came up with, which increased by over $200,000 from the initial estimate, is now $700,000.

We're working with... Lynn's doing the majority of the work right now because they have contractors on board. We need to have a mason on board, an electrical contractor, a few others, but they have a general contractor we met with.

The pilot is going to be set up in Swampscott, so it's going to be two trailers. It's going to be a trailer that's going to treat it and send it back, but then we're also going to need a generator to keep everything running. We're working on the noise attenuation now because we know we've got to keep it under.

So there's a little bit of work ahead of us, but they're looking to have a town hall summit to discuss what is going on with both Lynn and Swampscott residents.

[Speaker 1] (32:31 - 32:34)
When will they have all the information so that it can be brought to the board?

[Speaker 6] (32:35 - 33:01)
As I explained to the mayor, what I perceive the select board is looking for is a recommendation from the Water Infrastructure Advisory Committee. Not sure they're going to be able to make a vote on that tonight because they don't have the firm numbers. We've asked Kleinfeld to firm up that $700,000 number because in a matter of months it jumped from $500,000 to $700,000.

So before I could bring that to you all, I want to make sure we have a firm number to know what we're getting into.

[Speaker 7] (33:05 - 33:07)
And do we have a location?

[Speaker 6] (33:07 - 33:26)
Right now the location for this is in Swampscott on Humphrey Street on the other side of the Triangular Grass Island. So we didn't want to put it on Lynn Shore Drive or Humphrey Street on that side as well. So it would be on the other side.

We'll probably lose a bus stop and parking, but it would still maintain two lanes of traffic.

[Speaker 7] (33:27 - 33:33)
And public safety is evaluating just for sight lines and just public safety in general?

[Speaker 6] (33:33 - 33:36)
Actually, we haven't brought them on board, but I will make sure that we do so.

[Speaker 4] (33:37 - 33:40)
So where exactly is that? Can you give me a landmark?

[Speaker 6] (33:40 - 33:55)
Yep, so if you're coming, heading from the Town Hall and down towards Lynn Shore Drive and you wanted to take a right on Eastern Ave, take a right on Eastern Ave and there's a stop sign right there. It's right there on the right-hand side of that Triangular Grass Island.

[Speaker 4] (33:55 - 33:57)
Okay. Are there houses there, like abutters?

[Speaker 6] (33:58 - 34:00)
Yeah, there's five houses on the other side of Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 1] (34:00 - 34:45)
Okay. So what's really important is that the long-term costs and what are the chances of whether or not this is going to work. If it's a gamble, it's a gamble.

I think many people are going to be good with taking a gamble, but we also need to know, let's just say it does work. What is after that? What are the numbers after that?

What is being prescribed for? Where do you want to put something? I think for us to really sit and get supportive of this, there's a lot of information that needs to be addressed.

[Speaker 6] (34:46 - 35:00)
Yeah, I don't think a lot of those questions are going to be able to be answered, especially with the location of a permanent treatment plant, if we were to go that way. I know there's been one proposed location, and I'm not so sure that location is desirable right now.

[Speaker 1] (35:01 - 35:06)
I'll be clear right here. I will not be a vote for that location in that little neighborhood.

[Speaker 3] (35:08 - 35:15)
Yeah, I just want to make sure for the pilot, it is a 3-month period, and it's during the summer months.

[Speaker 6] (35:16 - 35:16)
Absolutely.

[Speaker 3] (35:16 - 36:10)
So I want to make sure that we've evaluated that location that's been suggested for the pilot for its effect on the neighbors, because it's not just noise, but if they have a porch and they look out at the beach every day, now they're looking at this. So we should be having a serious conversation about understanding that that could work. There's a cost-benefit analysis of if it should be there, and then if it's determined by Water, Sewer, or us or anybody that it needs to be there for lack of another source or something, that we have an open dialogue with the abutters and the other members of that neighborhood just so that they understand that it's a 3-month period, what its purpose is, how it will affect potentially the reopening of Kings Beach, etc., so that they really understand what it's there for.

[Speaker 6] (36:11 - 36:12)
Agreed. Okay.

[Speaker 4] (36:12 - 36:17)
And has there been any talk of any other spot, or is that really...

[Speaker 6] (36:17 - 36:24)
Well, the pilot pretty much has to go down close to the ocean, because what we're doing is catching it at the end of treatment and then sending it right back out.

[Speaker 4] (36:24 - 36:43)
Right, so if we've pretty much identified the spot, we're at the end of January, right? I think the summer's going to come up way quicker than anybody knows, and I feel like we haven't really done any outreach to the people that live near where we're proposing this. So I think that has got to be at the top of the priority list.

[Speaker 6] (36:44 - 36:54)
So we can do that, and that's part of what the town hall is going to be about. There's going to be representatives from land, the state delegation to explain and answer questions, that sort of thing.

[Speaker 5] (36:55 - 37:10)
Doug? Yeah, I think the $700,000 was just the beginning. It costs $700,000 for a pilot.

How much does that cost to actually operate this thing?

[Speaker 6] (37:11 - 37:20)
Well, the operational costs are unknown, but the estimate the client probably gave us back was I think between $5 and $10 million to construct the facility.

[Speaker 1] (37:20 - 37:36)
I think we need to really have... I think we need some serious information, and we've made that clear to the mayor. Asking this board for support, we have to have serious information.

[Speaker 6] (37:37 - 37:45)
I think step one is to find out if the pilot of the UV treatment is going to work. Right. Step one.

[Speaker 4] (37:45 - 37:51)
Well, we're never going to know until we try it, right? I mean, in theory. I don't know.

I mean, that's a big...

[Speaker 3] (37:51 - 37:57)
Yeah, it's a large gamble. We don't know.

[Speaker 4] (37:57 - 37:58)
We have no other choice, do we?

[Speaker 3] (37:58 - 38:05)
Well, yeah, we have other choices. But this is meant to run parallel with fixing the pipes.

[Speaker 7] (38:05 - 38:09)
But will fixing the pipes alone solve the problem?

[Speaker 6] (38:10 - 38:10)
Probably not.

[Speaker 3] (38:11 - 38:13)
I think we've talked about that a lot.

[Speaker 6] (38:14 - 38:34)
But we are making unbelievable progress. See the condition. We're not talking about Stacy Brook right now, but the pipes that we've replaced up on Greenwood Ave, Millet Road, Aspen Road, they were just deteriorated.

Raw waste is going into the ground. I guess that's neglect over the years, so we have to fix the pipes regardless.

[Speaker 4] (38:38 - 38:58)
I remember over the summer asking for the health department to update or give us more information about the rat situation. I haven't heard anything. And where do we stand with that?

I mean, have you heard anything from Jeff? I haven't, but I think Diane's raising her hand right now.

[Speaker 14] (38:58 - 38:58)
Sorry.

[Speaker 1] (39:09 - 39:28)
Just so when you are bringing a presentation, we just really want to know what are the actual actions the town is taking to correct it, not the presentation we've had in the past or the homeowners, but what is the town doing to correct it?

[Speaker 4] (39:29 - 39:43)
I mean, I know we asked about it over the summer. David asked about it recently. It's been crickets.

I haven't heard a thing. I mean, from what I've heard from people, it's still a very big issue for a lot of residents.

[Speaker 1] (39:45 - 40:37)
I do want to just ask, I want to go back to the pilot program again. So what we're talking about here is the possibility of getting a pilot together. Let's just even say it's a million.

And then what are we thinking as far as long-term costs and how would we finance those long-term costs? And the chances... You don't have to get...

These are the questions that are going to have to be addressed. And what are the chances? Because in the conversations I had with Sean, I think there were a number of things being addressed that how many days would the UV really be able to be used?

I mean, I just want to make sure we have all this information to make a good decision.

[Speaker 6] (40:40 - 40:41)
We can get that for you.

[Speaker 5] (40:44 - 40:50)
Thank you. Different topic? Yeah.

Clearview, can you say a little bit more?

[Speaker 6] (40:50 - 41:40)
Yes. So they reached out to me because they knew there was a little transition in management here and they wanted to meet with me. We went and had a nice lunch together.

I paid for everyone. It was a very productive meeting, I thought. They have due diligence right now.

I think their due diligence period is set to expire on February 28th. They may be coming back to us for a two-week extension. As I said, they lost a little bit of time with the holidays and the New Year's, which I agree.

I don't think the two weeks would be a big deal, but I'll leave that up to everyone else. But I think we're moving along. They also asked for me to bring a restaurateur to the meeting.

And that, I think, was very productive.

[Speaker 5] (41:43 - 41:56)
What is the next... Anyone remember? What exactly happens if they have no due diligence?

They have to say, we want to proceed.

[Speaker 3] (41:56 - 42:08)
Yeah, they're locked in. They still have the ability during their due diligence period, if I remember correctly, to terminate based on their findings.

[Speaker 5] (42:10 - 42:15)
We probably hear an assessment now of the remediation costs.

[Speaker 3] (42:16 - 42:18)
That would probably be what I would suspect, yeah.

[Speaker 16] (42:19 - 42:22)
Is there a deposit due at that time?

[Speaker 3] (42:23 - 42:41)
I can't recall. It seems like that would be likely. I'll have to look at that, review the LDA, and I can report back in two weeks if that's helpful.

Or email. I'll talk closer so we don't have to do that.

[Speaker 5] (42:42 - 42:45)
Briefly, the seawall, are we ever going to see that thing fixed?

[Speaker 6] (42:47 - 43:09)
We are definitely going to see that fixed. I'm going to have to reach out to their engineer. I'll have to do that tomorrow.

They brought forward three proposals for us on how to fix it. Naturally, they want to do the cheapest one, to pretty much leave the riprap there and put some revetments on the side of it. I'm not so sure that's in the best interest of Swanscott.

[Speaker 5] (43:11 - 43:17)
Does that tend to be brought back here, or how does that work? I'd be happy to bring it back here.

[Speaker 3] (43:18 - 43:26)
I think CONCOM. They've been before Conservation Committee in the past, and I would think that...

[Speaker 6] (43:26 - 43:33)
I believe the state is making them put a five-foot walkway around the building. That's part of it.

[Speaker 1] (43:36 - 43:54)
Tony is pushing to get all those meetings going. Any other questions? The only thing I want to double check on is on the SRF loans.

I keep asking about that, just to make sure we're in the queue and we're ready to put in our applications.

[Speaker 6] (43:55 - 43:56)
Are there applications in?

[Speaker 1] (43:56 - 44:04)
We have one application in for now, but we're going to keep having to put in SRF. Who handles that?

[Speaker 6] (44:05 - 44:06)
Kleinfeld has been handling it for us.

[Speaker 1] (44:06 - 44:10)
Should we be handling it in-house ourselves with our own engineer?

[Speaker 6] (44:10 - 44:20)
We could. I'm not sure if he may be ready for that. Kleinfeld provides that service free to us, with the understanding that if they get that loan, we're going to be giving them the engineering work.

[Speaker 1] (44:26 - 44:41)
I would like to start looking. We do a lot of business with Kleinfeld. I think it's time to also re-evaluate.

It might be a great decision, but maybe we should be looking at all aspects here.

[Speaker 6] (44:44 - 44:47)
We have the new assistant engineer looking at all the contracts.

[Speaker 19] (44:47 - 44:49)
Oh, great. That's good.

[Speaker 1] (44:50 - 44:51)
Any other questions?

[Speaker 3] (44:51 - 45:05)
I have one. I think I had asked a couple of meetings ago about just a list of open positions in Town Hall and the status of how long they've been open. If we could just get something along those lines, that would be great.

[Speaker 6] (45:06 - 45:08)
We just posted a new one this morning.

[Speaker 1] (45:13 - 45:41)
We're all set with questions? Let's talk about the search committee. Hold on.

I'm sorry. Amy. Amy's going to be the search committee.

We have Amy Sorrow giving us the six-month update.

[Speaker 2] (45:44 - 46:17)
Hello, everyone. This is the second quarter or midway through the fiscal year update. Just at a very, very high level, we're at 48% recognized of our revenue estimates and 47% of our general fund expenditures.

Before I start getting into the weeds, I might as well Tarantino it a little bit.

[Speaker 1] (46:18 - 46:30)
I just have a quick question. Historically, we are at this number generally a little bit below on our estimates at this point in the year, right?

[Speaker 2] (46:31 - 51:25)
Yeah. Usually we're always below 50% at revenue for this time of year. One of our large local receipts is the $2.5 million for motor vehicle excise. That first commitment goes out in February to be due in March. Third quarter is when we really see that get recognized. It would actually be a remarkable well above estimate year to be at or above 50% at this point in the year.

Realistically, if everything was on target, we would be at 46% at this point. We're a little above target. Likewise, it would not be an anomaly to see our expenditures above 50% because we do have some large items that get paid up front such as the pension obligation, our insurance premiums, and a lot of our debt payments.

I have to get a little more into the weeds. Our revenue, much like last quarter, our meals and rooms taxes are performing well over estimate. Rooms taxes specifically, we didn't go up on our estimate on that significantly even though we did increase the actual percentage that was voted at town meetings.

We are already 168% recognized of the full estimate for this year. That's been well above what we had anticipated. Our cannabis sales tax is trending higher.

As I stated last month, we had kind of assumed that with both cannabis shops being aligned that maybe they would cannibalize each other, and that didn't happen. The sales revenues are trending higher. They're about $34,000 over where we anticipated them to be at this point.

Short-term rentals are about $7,500 over and just a notation that our motor vehicle excise is in March, so please don't be concerned about that 14% number. Before I continue, is there any questions on revenue? Those are the highlights.

What's the low light? Those are the highlights. The low light is nothing yet.

In terms of projection, we are, and it might just be because we don't have a building commissioner to fill me in on what's in the pipeline right now, but at this point we're estimating that maybe our building permits are not going to hit estimate this year. That's kind of our big item that we're watching at this point. Hopefully things will continue.

We'll hit it. I'll know a lot better as the month progresses. I would like to also point out that we have a couple items that were not originally budgeted for.

Part of our miscellaneous is our treasure collector, Patrick Luddy, did a great job going out and collecting some past due taxes and some fines and forfeitures, and that is in that non-recurring miscellaneous revenue. Inclusive in that, we have over $200,000 in completely unanticipated revenue. Way to go, Patrick.

On the expenditure side, the same items I feel like I'm saying continuously. Our legal line is trending over. It is projected to be over if things continue throughout the year as it has been.

Likewise, on January 2nd of this year, after doing a quick estimate midway through the year of projection and meeting with Town Administrator Cresta, we had to freeze the police and fire budgets because if they continued at the five-week average of overtime that they were at plus normal payroll, they would far exceed their budgets anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 this year. So we have frozen the budgets of both chiefs at the early beginning of this month. Gina and I have a meeting biweekly going over overtime numbers.

We also have meetings with both of the chiefs to really drill in and hammer home that they need to come in at appropriation. I will obviously keep you updated on that. And then, like I mentioned at the beginning, just a notation that the majority of our debt, pension payments, are made at the beginning of the year.

So in that debt service line and employee benefits line towards the bottom, those are normally this high at this time of year.

[Speaker 7] (51:28 - 51:54)
Yes? Amy, so just looking at the legal liability insurance line, is that mostly legal? Or is that liability?

And additionally, can we get more granular information on those legal expenses, which seem to have jumped from actual 22 to actual 23 and have just sort of leveled off well in excess of that actual 22?

[Speaker 2] (51:55 - 52:02)
Yes. Would you like a breakdown just by which council it was, or do you want it broken down by subject matter? Because I have both.

[Speaker 7] (52:02 - 52:04)
If you have both, that would be most helpful. Please.

[Speaker 3] (52:05 - 52:13)
I think subject matter is really helpful to understand. Like, if we had certain projects happening in those years, why we would exceed the budget based on those projects.

[Speaker 7] (52:13 - 52:23)
Yeah, I'm just concerned that we're over our revised budget item as of 12-31 with six months to go and numerous projects.

[Speaker 3] (52:24 - 52:26)
And normal town business.

[Speaker 7] (52:26 - 52:26)
Yeah, absolutely.

[Speaker 2] (52:29 - 52:31)
No problem. I'll have that to you by the end of the week.

[Speaker 7] (52:31 - 52:31)
Thank you.

[Speaker 2] (52:32 - 52:34)
Absolutely. Do I have any other questions?

[Speaker 1] (52:34 - 52:40)
What about the insurance? The insurance itself? The legal and insurance line item?

[Speaker 2] (52:40 - 52:47)
Yes. So our property casualty insurance? That one is fully expended, so that's at 100%.

We do pay those premiums on July 1st.

[Speaker 3] (52:48 - 52:53)
Do we budget for it at its correct dollar amount? We knew what it was going to be? Yes.

[Speaker 1] (52:53 - 52:56)
Was there an issue with budgeting the elementary school in there?

[Speaker 2] (52:57 - 53:15)
So that one was an estimate when we put it in. So we actually don't have, we just got that bill. So I'll be able to tell you next week where that actually falls in it.

As of right now, it is 100%. With that bill, it will end up over.

[Speaker 1] (53:15 - 53:16)
What was that?

[Speaker 2] (53:16 - 53:22)
The line will end up over because of the elementary school insurance.

[Speaker 1] (53:22 - 53:28)
But why would it have been just an estimate? Because we knew the school was going to be...

[Speaker 2] (53:28 - 53:43)
Because we didn't know what the policy was going to be yet and how much it was going to cost. They were able to give us an estimate based off when we anticipated the building coming online but until they actually shot the policy around and got the official one we didn't actually have a firm number until then.

[Speaker 4] (53:46 - 53:51)
So it took six months from when the building was actually open to find out how much it was going to cost?

[Speaker 2] (53:51 - 53:55)
It's about nine months because it's going to be September through June. Wow.

[Speaker 1] (53:57 - 54:04)
So you're saying that right now you don't know what we're paying for insurance?

[Speaker 2] (54:05 - 54:16)
No, I do. It's not recognized in the second quarter. And when I send the legal, I will just send you a copy of that policy.

Well, the premium invoice.

[Speaker 1] (54:18 - 54:22)
So when do we pay that bill? Why isn't it recognized here?

[Speaker 2] (54:22 - 54:25)
Because we didn't get that bill in the second quarter.

[Speaker 1] (54:27 - 54:29)
You just got that bill the last couple weeks?

[Speaker 17] (54:29 - 54:29)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (54:39 - 56:52)
So as I stated, our expenditure concerns are legal insurance, end of employment. I do want to state that we do have that compensated absence or refund of $150,000 that was voted at a prior town meeting. For right now, I have the cost sitting in end of employment for any departures from the town in hopes that the tailings of this year will cover it and at annual town meeting we'll do a budget amendment to absorb that.

If it looks like we're not going to be able to absorb that within the total appropriation of this year, those will just get reclassed to the reserve fund. We added a second local inspector to the building department. So that is going to drive up some of the cost in that area.

The offset is obviously the vacancy right now in the building inspector. If that position gets filled, that budget could potentially end up over. As I stated, the police and fire budget, specifically the overtime, are already frozen.

And our unemployment, we had an unemployment cost that came through, they filed early this fiscal year at the last moment they could and then got their full allotment since they left. It realistically should have been a last year expense had they filed when they transitioned from the town. But some good news, our health insurance right now is projected to have a surplus in it.

Even the most conservative estimate, we're still expecting to have at least $200,000 in tailings from that line. And we do have some salary vacancies that are providing partial year savings. The diversity coordinator, because we have the consultant for the full year, we do not need to fill that position.

So that is a $50,000 in savings that will be available to cover other areas. We still have the senior planner vacancy of $104,000, the partial year building inspector, and the deputy police chief in the police department. Obviously that money will probably be used to cover other overages in that department.

[Speaker 5] (56:55 - 57:11)
Two things. So diversity coordinator federal level joke but I won't. We're using money out of the consultant line instead of out of this line.

[Speaker 2] (57:11 - 57:41)
When the FY25 budget was developed, they didn't want any structural issue if we did end up bringing on a permanent diversity position. So we budgeted a $50,000 placeholder knowing that the RFP for the DEI consultant was going to cover the entirety of FY25, and this was just supposed to be a placeholder so that if this position was in fact something that was going to be recommended from the consultant to bring on permanently, we wouldn't have a structural issue of now trying to fit an entire salary.

[Speaker 5] (57:41 - 57:48)
Are we likely to have an overage in the consultant line because now we budgeted that as well as this?

[Speaker 2] (57:48 - 57:55)
No. The consultant line was budgeted appropriately and has already been fully encumbered for the $80,000. And that was in FY24.

[Speaker 5] (57:59 - 58:03)
What about these other three positions? Are we actively and aggressively hiring for these three?

[Speaker 6] (58:04 - 58:18)
Two out of the three. Guess which of the two? First two.

Senior planner and the building inspector we're advertising for right now. I don't believe we're advertising for the deputy police chief.

[Speaker 5] (58:25 - 58:27)
Hold from going down that rabbit hole.

[Speaker 2] (58:37 - 59:21)
Different from last quarter's presentation, I wanted to break each enterprise fund into its own slot just so we could see the receipts and the expenditures on the same page for each. So for our sewer enterprise fund, we're at 56% of revenue recognized in user charges for this year. We have run the consumption based off the first two quarters and we are anticipated to hit estimated revenue for water and sewer.

Expenditures are 22.5% at the end of the second quarter. We were waiting on some billing from Lynn water sewer. It's not that we're actually going to come in under, we just haven't received the billing on the largest item in this budget yet.

[Speaker 1] (59:23 - 59:43)
So let's just spend a little bit of time on here because there's some comments out there that we're in the negative numbers on our retained earnings and things like that. So there's a lot of rumors out there. If you could just address where we are with that situation.

[Speaker 2] (59:43 - 1:00:29)
So our retained earnings were certified by DOR in the negative at the end of FY 24. And that was due to a project that was not anticipated to begin. It was debt that was authorized, not yet borrowed.

The project began earlier than had been communicated to the treasurer. So he did not borrow it in that round of borrowing. It has since been borrowed this year.

The net result will be fine. DOR obviously hit it on our retained earnings, but did not actually have any penalty for us because that is an obligation that has to be paid regardless. So it was not a black mark in terms of actual deficit, but it did result in a negative in our retained earnings that will be restored at the end of FY 25.

[Speaker 5] (1:00:31 - 1:00:33)
So it's really a timing issue. It is.

[Speaker 2] (1:00:43 - 1:01:11)
Yes, and once we have the third quarter data, which actually usually comes out in February, we'll be able to better project where the retained earnings are going to end up. So when I give the third quarter presentation, I'll be able to give you a rough idea of where we're anticipating those retained earnings. So we'll have that at least before you're voting the rates for the upcoming year.

[Speaker 1] (1:01:11 - 1:01:16)
Retained earnings at 17% is still below our overall goal. Is that correct?

[Speaker 2] (1:01:16 - 1:01:35)
Yes. Our overall policy says 20% because we had so many projects that we intentionally did vote to use below that. The plan that was approved by the select board was to get retained earnings back up to 20% within three years.

So that way it wasn't too much of a hit on the user charges.

[Speaker 7] (1:01:36 - 1:01:45)
And we're still, and we're still tracking to that, to that goal and we'll, we'll monitor that over the, in your reporting over the next several quarters.

[Speaker 2] (1:01:45 - 1:02:47)
And as we do the projections and look at it as well as any upcoming projects that will be coming out of sewer, we'll give an updated recommendation of where those rates need to be to fulfill the obligations of the enterprise fund and still bring up the retained earnings. The water receipts, we have 41% on the revenue and 50% on the expenditures. The, this one is, we have been receiving the bills from MWA.

So obviously our expenditures are on target. The receipts are trending back just because they haven't been collected. Not that they have not been billed as I stated, our projection and our consumption is trending on target for these to be fully recognized.

Water is actually trending to be a little higher than estimated on user charges.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:52 - 1:03:07)
Can I just have a quick question on the water expenditures? Yes. Are we seeing an increase in what the expenditures are really going to be?

Or are we in line with what we thought those expenditures would be at this point?

[Speaker 2] (1:03:07 - 1:06:24)
They're in line with what we thought they were going to be. The ones that are over such as uniforms, the employees who are part of the water enterprise fund have a set uniform allowance per year. If they choose to purchase all their uniform items at the beginning of the year, the line would trend over.

And I think we did have a couple of new employees who probably did need additional uniforms this year. So there's nothing, nothing that we are noticing as concerning at this point in the expenditures. Thank you.

The PEG enterprise fund, a.k.a. Joe Dulac, the revenues are at 45% and expenditures are at 36% so far. We are going into negotiation year with Comcast. So that is going to be renegotiated.

And everything else here is on target. So we have no concerns with how well Joe is handling his budget. Did he leave?

And then the solid waste enterprise fund, the revenues are at 37%, which is not concerning. The majority of the revenues from this come from the tax subsidy from the general fund. And we only book that entry at the end of the year.

So that one's not alarming to us at all. Waste zero is almost at a hundred percent. That's the bags that we buy as well as the bulk stickers.

So we essentially budget for one bulk purchase each year. We've already made it in my meeting with the public health director. He had indicated that we are no longer going to do the mattress tags in the next order, because I guess there were some issues where they were either blowing away or people were stealing other people's mattress tags and they now have a good internal system where people are calling customer service, paying for it.

The exact address and location is being given to them to be given to public works. And that is exactly what is being picked up. So we'll see a little bit of savings in sticker purchases for next year.

Composting is trending high and that's because a black earth is continually increasing the bin fee. We already got notification. They are increasing again.

And each time we get a bill, I remember exactly how much it was per bin when we first started with them. So that is one that is, we're keeping an eye on. Jeff had indicated that if need be, he can cover some of the composting charge with his DEP recycling grant that is received.

So we have a way to pivot if that happens. But as of right now, those are the areas that we're really watching on that.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:24 - 1:06:35)
So we have a request. So first, um, black earth, they don't have any competition, right? If they do, it is very slim and narrow competition.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:35 - 1:06:35)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:36 - 1:06:50)
Um, so the question is the solid waste advisory committee has been requesting additional composting bins in a few other locations in town. And the answer that they're getting is there's no money for that.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:50 - 1:07:17)
And that would be correct. So because the majority of the revenue comes from the tax levy, essentially you would have to increase your tax levy to provide more of a subsidy to this enterprise fund, to be able to allow them to do additional composting. So that would obviously be the trade off.

Unless there was a way to have people start paying our composting fee, but I don't know how that would work.

[Speaker 17] (1:07:18 - 1:07:19)
Hmm. Hmm.

[Speaker 3] (1:07:21 - 1:07:28)
Is there a benefit with black earth to like the more they pick up in our town, the less the charges, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:07:29 - 1:07:31)
No, it's a per bin pickup.

[Speaker 1] (1:07:32 - 1:07:36)
All right. But if you get to a certain level, they, they lower the cost of bin.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:37 - 1:08:00)
Yeah. They also increase it. If there's any contamination in the bin.

And I unfortunately ended up on their email thing where I get all the contamination emails and every single pickup day, I receive at least eight contamination emails that we get hit with contamination fees for when people put non compostable items in those bins.

[Speaker 17] (1:08:01 - 1:08:01)
Okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:02 - 1:08:07)
I mean, there's some trade off. You're reducing the solid waste fees, right? Tonnage fees at all.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:08 - 1:08:31)
No, there has been no tonnage decrease realized. There has to be. Well, I mean, you're saying, you're saying you haven't seen the totality of the fees decrease, but there is a tonnage, the tonnage trend from what we've been tracking over the last five years has not seen a tonnage decrease in what's being picked up in trash and recycling.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:32 - 1:08:32)
I understand.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:32 - 1:08:33)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:33 - 1:08:36)
But there is a tonnage fee as part of what we pay.

[Speaker 2] (1:08:36 - 1:08:37)
Yes. Sorry. I misunderstood.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:38 - 1:08:51)
If there was composting done, the trend would have been higher. Yes. But I think the solid waste has said that the trade off isn't one for one.

And that's great.

[Speaker 17] (1:08:53 - 1:08:54)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (1:08:56 - 1:09:00)
We maybe need some more education so that we're not getting hit with these fees.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:02 - 1:09:06)
Does solid waste know that you're getting, you're getting a number of contamination?

[Speaker 2] (1:09:07 - 1:09:22)
I've been giving them to the health director when they come in. So he is aware. I've also kindly asked him to get me removed from the emails and have them go to himself.

Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:24 - 1:09:29)
I'll follow up. I'm the liaison to the solid waste. So I'll double check with you.

[Speaker 2] (1:09:32 - 1:11:08)
Okay. So as I stated, I'm having biweekly budget reviews with the town administrator. And that is mostly because we process our vendor checks biweekly.

So doing them any more frequently wouldn't give us much insight. The budget for public safety, we're frozen. We're monitoring all the other budgets and we'll act as necessary.

We're also getting to the point in the year where we'll start doing internal projections monthly just to make sure, you know, if anything starts to look like it's starting to get away from us, we can act quickly instead of waiting until quarterly. And we're doing the same projections with the user charges when we get those information from water and sewer. And I am, as you know, David we are actively working on the FYI 26 budget development to come to you with the town minister's preliminary budget.

We have completed all the department head budget reviews. I did the last one yesterday with the police chief. So now it is just, do you know when I hammering away to bridge the gap between what revenue we can actually sustain and the request that came in?

This is my little, we are here on our budget timeline, which is the finance draft budget meetings with the town administrator. And we will be coming back to February 5th to give that preliminary budget recommendation.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:10 - 1:11:16)
And then this is just, sorry, can you just go back one slide? Yes. Does that mean everything above here has already occurred?

[Speaker 2] (1:11:17 - 1:11:56)
The capital is trending behind. Okay. Everything budget development wise is on track.

Capital is trending behind the departments have been defending their requests with CIC. And as Gina stated, they have another meeting tomorrow and another one last week that will get them through all of the budget requests that the departments have submitted from there. The town administrator and the finance team will go through to fine tune what we can actually afford to stay within our debt policy.

And then that is what will be the amended vote of CIC to move forward in the process.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:57 - 1:12:03)
Okay. And that is a little bit different from how we've done it in years past. Just the transition, I assume.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:03 - 1:12:07)
Yeah. That was just because of the transition.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:07 - 1:12:07)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (1:12:07 - 1:12:14)
So typically the town administrator make recommendations to CIC prior does the pruning beforehand. Yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:12:15 - 1:12:16)
Well, there's going to be some pruning.

[Speaker 1] (1:12:17 - 1:13:04)
So I have a question. So two of the biggest issues that we have will be the overtime budgets in fire and police. And every single year it's, it's always, you know, a lot of pressure on fire and police on, on these budgets.

And I'm just hoping that there's something different that's going to happen to really sit and work with them, work with the chiefs on their budgets and not just getting upset and saying, oh, you're over your budget or whatever. I just, you know, I think that I've said this, that these are two individuals that specialize in their craft and just a little bit of help with the management on it or maybe some assistance. And I hope that that's what's happening.

[Speaker 2] (1:13:05 - 1:15:18)
Yeah. So I actually ran 24 years of overtime data for police and fire to get average hours, trends and hours to really take the dollars away from it. Cause obviously the pay has changed over the years from that.

We've utilized that data to back into backfilling for personal days, vacation days, training coverage, vacancy coverage, and all of that. And I've really broken out the spreadsheets that I work on them with to give them all those pieces of data and nice little color coded tabs so they can follow the train on it. So that way, as we're discussing, you know, potential requests that they have to, you know, bring on a new program or do additional training, we can actually set a specified number to that, have that broken out as its own item.

So at this point in where we're at in budget development, both chiefs have expressed that they feel comfortable with the number that we have as the department had proposed overtime budgets for FYI 26. And we went full transparency. We went painstakingly through the equations on it.

So everything is covered. We went through the contracts to make sure every single contract provision is funded appropriately. And we do this every year.

This is the first year we've actually broken it out to really like show the work. So any person could just open that spreadsheet and be able to follow it without having to know any of the background behind it. And then what about staffing levels?

So we budget for full staffing. And that was what we went through. So every, the police department has three vacancies right now.

The fire department has two, those are budgeted to come in at their probationary levels. Any training and field training that they need is included in their overtime budgets. And then obviously all the current staff that we have is budgeted to step up in their contracts where necessary, if they're not already at their top steps and any intended promotions are already budgeted for as well.

[Speaker 6] (1:15:20 - 1:15:29)
So that's good. I want to jump in, but actually we spoke with chief Archer today. He said for the first time in several years, he has zero vacancies and nobody on a long-term disability.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:31 - 1:15:32)
Zero vacancies?

[Speaker 6] (1:15:32 - 1:15:32)
Zero.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:33 - 1:15:42)
The two people are, have already signed their offers and are starting this coming month. That's exciting.

[Speaker 1] (1:15:42 - 1:15:47)
Yeah. And how about our favorite department? UPW?

[Speaker 2] (1:15:49 - 1:16:08)
I hear that department heads great. They are fully staffed. We made sure to really look at the part-time staff that comes on, on the summer to make sure that we have additional staffing for that.

And we've also included a budget for additional part-time support in the summer to help with the beach water testing.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:08 - 1:16:15)
Are you going to be looking at adding a winter, winter line items for skating rink? Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (1:16:16 - 1:16:20)
Able to handle that in-house. We are going to have one vacancy at the end of this week.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:20 - 1:16:22)
You'll have, you will have one vacancy?

[Speaker 6] (1:16:22 - 1:16:25)
Conti after eight or nine years with the department has moved on.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:26 - 1:16:26)
Okay.

[Speaker 6] (1:16:27 - 1:16:28)
So we'll be looking to fill that.

[Speaker 1] (1:16:29 - 1:16:32)
But you, you have, that's already encapsulated. That's already encumbered.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:33 - 1:17:15)
I have a question. That's okay. Could you please reiterate, because I don't think I really understand what we're doing this year different than what we've done in years past in order to make sure the FY 26 budget is overtime budget is more accurate than it has been in years past.

Cause it's, it sounds like you said we've done these equations before and I have to assume that every time we do them, we feel confident, right? That they are working. So either something unexpected happens that we don't account for or the equations maybe are not working.

So I just want to make sure I understand if there were additional precautions we took this year that we didn't take last year.

[Speaker 2] (1:17:15 - 1:19:09)
I wouldn't say there's additional precautions. I would say there was additional time spent by my department to really put all of the work and all the documentation on there. So that way the chiefs know how these numbers came to be.

So they have a level of comfort with it. They have a level of understanding instead of just being told, Hey, you have an overtime budget of $500,000, make it work. We're really going through being like, okay, this is the staff that you have.

This is what they have for time off. If you have a hundred percent backfill coverage, this is how much it's going to cost. Assuming that it's the average overtime for that tier.

So obviously covering a lieutenant is at average lieutenant pay and really breaking it down like that. So that way as they're making specific requests, we add that as a specific line item. So for example, in the fire department, we have those new hires who have to go to academy.

That's 10 weeks, 10 weeks of overtime coverage. So in that we take a completely separate line that says new hires, at fire academy, this many people, 42 hours a week, 10 weeks, average overtime of that rank. I want to say it's like $114,000 for just for that training.

And that way we know exactly who has to go to training, obviously assumed all the new people. And that way we have that broken down. So at any point as we're going through, if overtime starts to trend, we can be like, okay, let's stop, go back to the spreadsheet.

Instead of just being like overall we have half a million dollars for overtime, we can be like we had $112,000 for training. What happened?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:10 - 1:19:37)
So it's an education so that when the chiefs in fiscal year 26 are facilitating overtime, they can be making better decisions on facilitating it as well, not just the budget, but actually facilitating the budget or spending the budget, right? They're saying I have to make this decision and this is its impact on the budget and this is how much I have left, and therefore I know I can't make this decision or it's going to impact this decision that I have to make in the future.

[Speaker 2] (1:19:38 - 1:20:01)
Yes, and I think it will also give us the ability to pivot faster. So if something does start happening out of the norm, we are able to recognize that a lot more quickly, having it broken down into smaller buckets to be like, hey, why is this bucket filling up faster than it should? Let's stop and look at that.

And this was never done previously?

[Speaker 4] (1:20:02 - 1:20:09)
We did it just as an overall. Just like a lump sum you have X to use, but not actually break it down the way you just did.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:09 - 1:20:20)
So we did. I just never physically broke it down for them, and so that's where I was hoping this year, and it seemed to be received well in the meetings with both of the chiefs.

[Speaker 4] (1:20:21 - 1:20:23)
They have more buy-in, more accountability.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:23 - 1:21:34)
Yes, and I think just being able to fully grasp, because specifically Chief Archer, he was surprised by how much dollars it cost, because he always knew 10 weeks for Academy, 42 hours a week. We know this, but actually seeing that pulled out, so per person it's going to cost this much in overtime, and it was just like, oh, I never actually looked at it at that level. And likewise with Chief Cassata saying like, hey, we had this special circumstance come up this year.

We didn't anticipate that in our budget. We should potentially look at adding this into the overtime investigations line if we have to partner with a larger group to do some sort of investigation. We think it's going to be X number of hours, and therefore I can be like, okay, so we're going to add that number of hours.

What level of staff is going to do that? So we're going to take that average overtime, so this is the request that you're looking to add to that and really flesh that out.

[Speaker 1] (1:21:35 - 1:22:02)
So I think the bottom line is you in the finance department put a lot of time in figuring out what those overtime budgets should be. It's just that possibly communicating them to the chiefs has been a little bit different, or even the non-anticipated serious injuries that have come up, you can't anticipate those. Sounds like a decent amount of education was happening also.

[Speaker 4] (1:22:02 - 1:22:04)
Yeah, that was the goal, so thank you.

[Speaker 6] (1:22:04 - 1:22:33)
That was the unforeseen. My concern is the police overtime, because I just met with the chief. They have three vacancies right now.

They have one on military leave, one out on disability, and one that's going out that could be a long-term disability that we're going to have to backfill. I think we might have caught a break with the fire department too because one of the vacancies filled by a former employee came back. The fire department?

Yeah. London?

[Speaker 1] (1:22:34 - 1:22:37)
I didn't know you were from there. Either way.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:38 - 1:24:10)
Okay, so where are we? Myself and the town of Ministry will be back on February 5th to present the town of Ministry's preliminary budget. The hope with that is that the select board will give any recommendations or adjustments they wish to have before we return on March 5th with the final recommended budget and the budget book published at that point.

Through March and April, I will be working with the board to develop your annual town meeting warrant, which I already kind of started today by reaching out to some of our department heads to at least get an idea of any warrant articles that are already in process, already working with council, trying to get maybe bylaw language and stuff like that, so that way when the discussion begins, I'll have a full list of potential articles for you to review. Per our timeline, April 16th is the hopeful date that we will close town meeting warrant, but we have until April 23rd if we still have open items before that warrant gets closed, and obviously May 19th for annual town meeting.

And just to be safe, Diane has reserved the auditorium for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of that week. It won't be under construction, will it? No.

The construction, according to Joe, it will be down from mid-March towards the 20th of March, so we'll be all set for May. Okay, great.

[Speaker 1] (1:24:11 - 1:24:42)
That's it. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay, now moving on to search committee decision and possible vote. Select board rep on the committee. This is going to be a little challenging how to walk this through.

So we have a few candidates. I think let's see here.

[Speaker 7] (1:24:43 - 1:24:53)
Did we publish this on the town website to solicit input and feedback from applications and information from residents?

[Speaker 1] (1:24:54 - 1:25:33)
No, we didn't. We just said it at the meeting. Actually, historically, well, we should say historically.

This only happened a couple times, but when we discussed it last week, I had just recommended if we decided to not nominate someone from our board, nominating someone outside, we could do that if the board feels like we should put it out there and have everybody send in applications, but we also are in a position where we need to get this process going quickly. So it depends on what the opinions are here.

[Speaker 7] (1:25:34 - 1:26:38)
No, I certainly understand the want to move the process forward. I certainly want to move the process forward. I'm just thinking that I've reached out to a number of folks.

It's like, hey, I can connect in a couple of days. I'm not available today. So I do think that this is probably the second most important job that we have as select board members other than choosing the actual town administrator is choosing someone who's going to make a recommendation for this.

So I think it would be doing a disservice to take a vote today on this, but to post and maybe take this up at our first February meeting where we have, and maybe this is all we get, but I think to have that up on the town website and to solicit the best and the brightest so we can make the most informed decision possible would be my recommendation.

[Speaker 1] (1:26:39 - 1:26:41)
What do other people think?

[Speaker 3] (1:26:44 - 1:27:51)
I don't have a problem doing that. Obviously, it is our representative that we're putting forward. So I think in the end, we need to feel like whoever we're bringing forward personifies the ethos of what we would bring forward to that committee, but we also have another bite at the apple.

When the committee's, the charter says, the committee's going to come forward with recommendations and select board gets to get back into the process. So I think it's a benefit that we should open up to the community. I think it would be then unnecessary to talk about some members now.

We should just talk about them collectively. And then I also think that whatever decision we make, we should forward whatever other applicants we don't choose to the moderator because I think he has two positions that he fills on the committee. And maybe he could look to some of these very qualified people who want to be engaged in this process.

And maybe he could look from that pool also.

[Speaker 5] (1:27:51 - 1:28:03)
It does seem to be very consistent with the way we fill other committees. This committee, hopefully, is no less important than the other ones we fill to actually solicit the input. So it makes sense to me.

[Speaker 4] (1:28:03 - 1:29:13)
Daniel? I think the whole process needs a little bit more clarity, to be honest. I don't think we're ready to vote on the couple of resumes.

I know I haven't connected with all of these people. I really think that, I think we said this last time too, that we should consider sending out a survey to residents to see what they're looking for, but we really should also clarify what we're tasking this committee with doing. Are they doing all of the vetting in giving us a list of finalists?

Yes. What is their task? And be very clear and literal about it so that there can be no confusion.

And then we can't have people come back and say later, well, we didn't know what you really wanted us to do. No, let's be clear about it. Let's discuss it.

Let's talk about it. And let's task them appropriately with it. And at the same token, I mean, we could be reaching out to the Mass Association of Select Boards and Town Administrators and seeing what the vetting process looks like in other towns and what the prerequisites are or what the metrics are.

Do we even know what we're looking for? Have we had that bigger conversation?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:13 - 1:29:35)
Well, generally it's the search committee comes and says, what is it we're looking for? So at the same time, you have a search committee, and we're also saying, as a select board, having a discussion here, what are we looking for? What does each one of us actually want to see in a future town administrator?

[Speaker 4] (1:29:35 - 1:30:35)
And no disrespect to any of us, but I think that it's a big ask. It's a big thing we're tasked with, all of us, and not one to David's Point to be taken lightly. So the people that we end up seating on this committee, we've got to be pretty sure that they're up to the task and they're qualified and they're the best possible people for that role.

So I just think that I would like to see a little bit more clarity throughout the whole process. But I would like to see, be it like a checklist or a listing. I know I'll reach out to the Masters Association of Select Boards because I just want to get a metric of some sort that we all can look at and understand characteristics of town administrators or qualities in terms of experience, education, all of the boxes so we're all on the same page for what we're looking for or a general idea of where we're going.

I just feel like we need that clarity.

[Speaker 5] (1:30:36 - 1:30:59)
Totally agree. The person I suggested as a possibility did serve last time, and there were criteria at that point that the Select Board gave to their representative on the committee for what the Select Board was looking for. So that was kind of some clarity about their direction.

[Speaker 1] (1:30:59 - 1:31:28)
Right. So the person that I had recommended also, Naomi Driven had recommended, again, that was a person who was on it before. So how would it look?

So should we advertise it for the next two weeks, starting tonight, and then we bring all those names forward, or do we just advertise for ten days and you all have those names at least a few days beforehand?

[Speaker 3] (1:31:29 - 1:31:38)
Yes. How does that look time-wise? If we're going to have to vote on Wednesday, then we can't have the advertisement open until Tuesday.

Right. We make an educated decision Wednesday, especially if we want to speak for these folks.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:38 - 1:31:40)
Do you want to leave it for one week?

[Speaker 4] (1:31:41 - 1:32:07)
Do you think that's enough time? I mean, quite honestly, when I look at the agenda tonight, I didn't know if we were voting or just talking about it. So to me, the more time that we can give people to get out there and get back to us, the better, because we want to make sure we don't miss anybody.

We inform people that this is an open process. Let's have submissions. I don't think we did any of that outreach here.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:07 - 1:32:26)
We are in a timeline, too, and the Charter gives us a good idea. I'm just trying to think. Are we saying that the first meeting in February isn't enough for the process?

I'm just not really clear on what I'm hearing.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:26 - 1:32:31)
I think it is. I think we just have to, first thing tomorrow, post it, get it out there.

[Speaker 1] (1:32:31 - 1:32:32)
Well, Danielle, post it right now.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:32 - 1:32:44)
Well, you know, taking minutes, too, and get it out there as much as we can. Maybe we're sending an email to all households. I don't know.

[Speaker 14] (1:32:45 - 1:32:57)
We could do a robo-call. We could put it on the website, Facebook, a robo-call, and the newsletter, I think, goes out tomorrow. So if I can catch Joey, I might be able to throw it on the newsletter.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:58 - 1:33:22)
And I, too, know that I noticed some of the same names were some of the same names from 2016. As much as I appreciate the history and the experience, we want to see if we can engage new people, too, because a lot has changed since 2016 in Swampscott. So we want as many people new and old and everybody in between, you know, to be as interested as they want to be.

You know, we want to hear that.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:22 - 1:33:35)
Okay, so how about this? We put it out there for eight days, and then as you're getting the resumes in, Diane, you just, if you could be the one to send them out.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:35 - 1:33:35)
Yep.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:36 - 1:33:36)
Okay?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:36 - 1:33:43)
And at the same time, you could compile a list, like a running, like, one-pager of all the ones, you know, so that we have... Yep, absolutely.

[Speaker 14] (1:33:43 - 1:33:46)
So eight days would bring us the first and the 30th, if he's vaccinated.

[Speaker 4] (1:33:46 - 1:33:49)
Great, okay. Well, 31st, whatever.

[Speaker 14] (1:33:50 - 1:34:01)
No, let's just go with that. Yeah, good on a Friday. Yeah, that makes sense.

Great, perfect. I'm on vacation the first week in February, so I'll get it all out to you soon. Okay, yep.

I'm probably Thursday, because I'm off Thursday through Friday.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:01 - 1:34:17)
When does Penny come in on that day? Diane, we could also make a folder in the select board, and then give them access to the folder, so as they come in, you can live just post them, and they'll just immediately have access to it.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:17 - 1:34:36)
Just to be clear to the folks that, you know, we've reached out to, can we assume that they will just be dropped into that folder, and they don't have to make a submission that way? Okay, so I just want to make sure, if they're listening or, you know, just make sense. They've already obviously reached out in some capacity to show interest.

[Speaker 14] (1:34:37 - 1:34:39)
Why do you want me to advertise this? Because I'm doing it right now.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:40 - 1:34:41)
Well, I told you.

[Speaker 14] (1:34:42 - 1:34:49)
Just that we're looking for applications for anybody interested in representing the select board on the town administration.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:50 - 1:34:51)
We'll be looking for one representative.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:52 - 1:34:57)
Okay, and then ask them to attach their resume in there, if they have a LinkedIn or something.

[Speaker 4] (1:34:58 - 1:34:58)
Or whatever, yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:34:58 - 1:35:01)
Or anything they want to tell us about what qualifies them for that.

[Speaker 1] (1:35:04 - 1:37:11)
All right. Okay. Okay, so moving on to a discussion of citizens petition filed by Katie Arrington on December 3, 2024.

So we have a... Let me see here. We have a copy of the citizens petition.

The citizens petition that I actually have... There's a copy in her packet. Yes.

I have one filed from Daniel Arrington, and then Daniel Arrington and Katie Arrington. So we're going to have a discussion on this. This is a petition that's been filed.

The petition is called a 0114 petition. It is a town meeting citizens petition, and it's an article to submit. What it says here, an article to revoke the authority granted to convey certain town-owned properties pursuant to Article 2 of the Town of Swampscott 2023 Annual Town Meeting.

This is what I'm reading. Brief summary. I'm actually reading the actual petition.

This warrant article seeks to revoke the authority previously granted to the Swampscott Select Board to sell or lease a property located at 10 New Ocean Street, site of VFW post 1240 and 1224 Pine Street. The passage of this warrant article will provide opportunity for the Select Board to share with Swampscott Town Meeting their current intentions regarding the future of the VFW 1240 post and these important properties to receive feedback from town meeting members. So this is, this was, that's the petition.

[Speaker 5] (1:37:12 - 1:38:47)
So I imagine this conversation could be charged. So in order to kind of streamline it, to get it rolling, I would propose a motion that we proceed on the kind of intention of this hearing, having heard the various viewpoints from our public speakers, public comment people today, that we do have a special town meeting. I am understanding from actually having kind of thought about the timing, that it sounds like, you know, being very practical, the auditorium is actually not available in any near-term capacity to even have this.

Maybe there's a different place we could have it, but until something like March 24th. So I would propose a motion that we open a special town meeting warrant to have this discussion on Monday, March 24th.

[Speaker 1] (1:38:59 - 1:39:05)
Joe, when is the auditorium open? When's the auditorium shut down, sir?

[Speaker 11] (1:39:05 - 1:39:07)
March 3rd through March 24th.

[Speaker 5] (1:39:10 - 1:39:20)
I think just in terms of where we sit already and having to announce it and all of that kind of process, and then there's school vacation week.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:21 - 1:39:22)
What is the day that you're saying?

[Speaker 5] (1:39:24 - 1:39:48)
March 24th. Not because I don't want it sooner to kind of keep with the intent of this, but it seems as though that's the first practical date, because I understand it. So March 24th, do we have a time?

Well, I think we normally do these at whatever, 7 o'clock or whatever, so, okay. I'll second that.

[Speaker 1] (1:39:49 - 1:39:59)
So a motion to call a special town meeting on March 24th to talk about, to address this petition.

[Speaker 17] (1:40:00 - 1:40:00)
Correct.

[Speaker 1] (1:40:02 - 1:41:07)
Do we have any discussion? Well, I will bring it up. The concern that I have is, there's nowhere in this petition does it call for a special town meeting.

So that means that if you look at this petition, and I look at the first name, I would say, does this individual know that they were signing a petition to call for a special town meeting? If it said here, this petition is to call for a special town meeting, then I think that that would have had to happen immediately. But because it doesn't, it says to put an article on the next, put an article on the warrant, that means the article will go onto a warrant, onto the next warrant.

That's just my comment.

[Speaker 3] (1:41:07 - 1:41:35)
I mean, I guess I would sort of like to understand the special town, I mean, annual town meeting is May, and we're already waiting till the end of March. So what benefit, in your opinion, is given by putting this on a special town meeting all by itself versus adding it to annual town meeting?

[Speaker 5] (1:41:36 - 1:42:40)
I guess one is just purely the charter. It says if you have 200 signatures, that you would have it, and we would kind of should have had it under those contexts, like back in Jankville, by now. So I don't want to kind of punish the petitioners and the signers for the timing we're taking this up, and the practicalities of what happens in February and March.

And, you know, we have no idea what town meeting will say, but I think the sooner that we get that direction, and the neighborhood gets that direction, the better for everybody. Like I said, if there was some way to do it sooner, I'd be all for it. But I'm just kind of going with what I understand to be the first possible reasonable time.

[Speaker 7] (1:42:42 - 1:45:08)
I mean, Mass General Law, it's clear. Chapter 39, Section 10, Selectmen shall, Select Board shall call a special town meeting upon request of 200 registered voters or 20% of the total number of registered voters of the town, whichever number is lesser. Such meeting to be held not less than 45 days after the receipt of such request.

So I just want to be in compliance with Mass General Law. I think there is... You know, I went back and watched day one, the end of day one of our May 2023 meeting.

I made the presentation on behalf of the Select Board, and it was very clear. It was units, affordable housing, and a rebuild of the post to provide the highest level of care to veterans. And this was supported by the VFW leadership, which certainly shows the intent of the article.

It was unanimously supported. In conjunction with providing a new ADA-accessible VFW post. This was an and.

This wasn't an or. And Article 11 allowed the issuance of an RFP, which was unanimously supported by the Select Board, 50 by FinCom, the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and it allows us to select a respondent as well as construct a new canteen on site. I mean, that was the presentation.

So... I just want to be... I want to make sure that, you know, there's disagreement now amongst us, but I really want to have that clarity from town meeting to resolve any potential issue.

And let's bring clarity to our veterans, to our residents, and to B'nai B'rith. I think everybody is owed that. There's 200 residents who signed this petition.

And to Doug's point, I would have it tomorrow if we could. But I do believe that March 24th is a day. I did call the moderator before this meeting.

The moderator is available on March 24th.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:10 - 1:45:31)
So has this ever been done before, that you guys have had a citizen's petition and a special town meeting? Is there any precedent? Has this ever happened before?

Not that I know of. So do we... So it's this form, right?

This is the form, the only form that you could possibly use for this. That I don't know. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (1:45:31 - 1:45:43)
I don't know. I mean, the only thing I know is there's nowhere on this form calls for a special town meeting. And you heard two people stand here tonight saying that I signed this form but did not sign a form for a special town meeting.

[Speaker 4] (1:45:43 - 1:48:45)
I'm totally aware of that. And I've had more people call me and say the same thing. So I'm not even going there.

I'm just trying to find out, was this the intent? The intent, so we're being told the intent of this was to call for a special town meeting even though it doesn't say here anywhere, but that's what it's asking for. And we have had people come here and say, that is not what I signed for.

But we're going to forge ahead and suggest that that's what we do regardless of what we've been advised by legal counsel or whoever else, with no precedent, this never having happened here before. We're kind of making our own, all of us are making our own opinions, judgments, whatever. So it just, the whole thing is muddy to me.

It could pretty much go any which way. I think to David's point, he's going back to the 2023 town meeting. So we've heard from the planning board, we've heard from various people who all have a different interpretation of what was said, what was voted, what was decided.

So that's kind of like, I can't go back to that because everybody has a different idea about this thing, a different opinion, a different idea of how it should go. I'm looking at this petition itself and it doesn't request a special town meeting. It requests what I'm putting on a warrant.

So it's just, I don't know. I don't have a problem, really. The biggest thing that gives me pause is the fact that people came down here today and said that they signed this and they weren't told what their signature meant.

I have had people tell me that they have signed this because they were told, sign this to save the post, when in no way, shape, or form was this body ever intending to not have a post. Sure, maybe in a different location, but at no point were we ever determining or making a decision to get rid of the post. So I'm concerned.

I'm concerned about, listen, if you want to have a citizen's petition and you want to tell people in plain language what they're signing for and what this is going to do, and you get 200 signatures, then you do. Let's give them what they need. But, I don't know, I don't feel good about it having heard Mr. Green, Mrs. DiPietro, people that have called me, saying the same stuff. Are we supposed to just ignore that? I'm sure there can be 200 people that will sign with the correct parameters or the correct language as intended to be, but this is not it. So what do we do with that?

[Speaker 3] (1:48:47 - 1:48:55)
So, David, would you mind reading the, because you have the Mass General Law in front of you. I think you read it when you started, what you were saying.

[Speaker 7] (1:48:56 - 1:49:18)
Yeah, I just have an outline. It just says, Mass General Law, Chapter 39, Section 10, Selectmen shall call a special town meeting upon request in writing of 200 registered voters or of 20% of the total number of registered voters of the town, whichever number is lesser. Such meeting to be held not later than 45 days after the receipt of such request.

[Speaker 3] (1:49:19 - 1:52:28)
Okay, so I guess, like, to go a little bit into, like, just my background, when you read something, when you read a general law, right, for what it's meant to be, we are, it is a shall, we shall have to do this, but the conditions to the shall are the, if it's made in writing, right? So I don't, I think the, so I don't want to, I understand the intentions, Ms. Arrington has said her intentions, that that was the intention to have a special town meeting, but I think what's unfortunate is that without it in writing, are we doing a favor of adding language to something that isn't there? Like, are we setting a precedent that, well, if somebody comes forward next time and said, well, my intention was to say this, like, are we opening a door of precedent to say that intentions matter instead of what's written on this paper matters?

And I do caution going that route because then it becomes very difficult to follow process and procedure when you also are intertwining intentions into process and procedure. Now, that being said, I believe it is a special town meeting or an annual town meeting, or it can go on the warrant for an annual town meeting. So I think the compromise here is that there would not be a special town meeting for this, but we could discuss it at annual town meeting since special town meeting was not requested on the petition, understanding that a large amount of people, whether they today believe in their signature or not, signed this.

We, you don't get to take these backseats. You should have understood what you were signing when you signed it. And so I understand that people maybe feel a certain way about how it went down.

But when you sign something, it's important you understand what you're signing. And they did sign it. But it doesn't say in the petition that they're requesting a special town meeting.

So I don't know if the compromise here is to put it on the warrant for the annual town meeting and have the conversation so that folks are still heard. And I don't know, and I can sit and think about it a little longer, like what exactly those six or whatever, five and a half weeks are going to, how much of a difference it's going to make in the long run to delay it. But to accelerate it, I feel like puts a precedent in place that I'm not comfortable doing.

But I don't want to deny the petitioner and the petition, the signatures what they went about doing. So is there a way we can still get there without setting that precedent?

[Speaker 1] (1:52:30 - 1:52:34)
This has to go on to the next meeting no matter what. Annual town meeting.

[Speaker 7] (1:52:36 - 1:52:58)
So there's a differentiation between the number of signatures certified to be placed on the annual town meeting which is, I believe, the threshold is 10. So anyone who puts together a citizen's petition with 10 signatures would go on the annual town meeting.

[Speaker 1] (1:52:59 - 1:53:01)
At 200 I think by a certain date.

[Speaker 7] (1:53:01 - 1:55:04)
At 200 you shall. And just to be specific from reading the citizen's petition article submission form, it's literally on the top article. The brief summary states this warrant article seeks to revoke the authority previously granted to the Swampscott Select Board to sell or lease property located at 10 New Ocean Street, site of VFW Post 1240 and 12 to 24 Pine Street.

And the passage of this warrant article will provide the opportunity for the Select Board to share with Swampscott Town Meeting their current intentions regarding the future of VFW Post 1240 and these important properties and to receive feedback from town meeting members. National law is very clear. The brief summary mentions warrant article twice.

I think it's to me, it's clear we should have this special town meeting as soon as possible. We are still in the due diligence period with the developer B'nai B'rith. We need to give them clarity.

And in addition to this, we've also received a letter from VFW Council which threatens litigation against the town. So we need to solve all of these issues. We need to bring clarity to this.

We need to do this as soon as possible. I don't want to wait until our May annual town meeting. We're going to spend an entire night talking about this one article potentially.

Why not do this as soon as possible? And if that date is March 24th, great. And if it's earlier than that, even better.

But right now, the developers in their due diligence phase they're still working through things Let's figure that out. Let's give them clarity. Let's give the veterans clarity and let's determine.

[Speaker 1] (1:55:05 - 1:55:42)
I think we have figured everything out as far as we did have. We had a vote three to two on where we were going. So we figured it out on December 18th.

And I hear what you're saying as far as what this says. That is your opinion. And I have a different opinion.

This does not call. This is when someone signed this they did not sign for a special town meeting. If this had said to call for a special town meeting, then I think we are under mass general law required to call a special town meeting.

[Speaker 5] (1:55:43 - 1:56:59)
It seems to me that we're kind of being two things. One, we have to remember when this was submitted. This was submitted before we voted.

The whole point was to engage town meeting. So we have kind of not taken this up this whole time which now makes it seem as though it's kind of less relevant. But when it was filed, it was much more relevant and it's still not irrelevant.

Secondly, the kind of persnickety-ness about misreading the text that David read doesn't say anywhere that you have to say in big bold letters that it was special town meeting. That's kind of like a distraction. All it says is that you have to have 200 certified signatures.

Once you have 200 certified signatures, you must have a special town meeting. Period. It's in writing.

Yes, it's in writing. This whole thing is in writing. You're filing it in writing.

Otherwise, once you have 200, we don't have a choice. That's what our charter says. That's what state law says.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:00 - 1:57:10)
Can you tell me, Mariela, what legal counsel is advising us and why they would advise us of things that are not legal? It doesn't make any sense to me.

[Speaker 2] (1:57:11 - 1:57:16)
Katie, would it be helpful if I brought you the MGL? Sure. In its entirety.

[Speaker 4] (1:57:16 - 1:57:44)
The what? The Mass General Law. We're talking about Kopelman and Page, a municipal law firm, giving us a legal opinion that we're utilizing to make a decision that some of us are saying is completely not true and not accurate.

I would like to know the legality. I mean, I just... Yeah, I don't know.

[Speaker 3] (1:57:48 - 1:57:50)
Okay, so this is...

[Speaker 1] (1:57:57 - 1:57:59)
I'm not taking any questions.

[Speaker 3] (1:58:06 - 1:58:07)
Sorry, I'm just...

[Speaker 5] (1:58:09 - 1:58:14)
I think the bigger picture is... Really, what's the harm?

[Speaker 3] (1:58:16 - 1:58:22)
Well, that's the same argument I'm making. What's the harm in waiting six weeks? What's the harm in doing it?

[Speaker 5] (1:58:24 - 1:58:41)
That's just your... It's convenient for you to make the opposite argument. No, it's not.

I'm following what Mass law is, and there's 200 signatures here. So, like, why... Why not?

[Speaker 4] (1:58:42 - 1:58:58)
Because the interpretation of everybody else is that that's not what Mass law says, I think. I'm going by the actual legal people we asked. And if that's wrong, and they might be, I'd like to know that, because that's what I'm going by, because that certainly is not my wheelhouse.

I never would proclaim it is, but...

[Speaker 5] (1:58:58 - 1:59:34)
Okay, but again, then you're... Let's even assume for the moment that that's a technical possibility, just for the moment. Even if that was a technical possibility, why would you choose to not get this resolved as soon as possible?

That's my question. There's an open question in this community. Let's get it resolved for everybody's sake as soon as possible.

Why is that so problematic to do that?

[Speaker 4] (1:59:35 - 1:59:41)
It's not to me. I voted the way I voted. I don't have any problem with that.

So here's legal...

[Speaker 1] (1:59:41 - 2:03:28)
Danielle, here's legal counsel. The select board is not required to schedule a special town meeting as the petition did not specifically petition the board to do so. The petition was submitted on a form entitled Citizens Petition Article Submission Form 0114.

The form instructs the petitioner to submit the document to the board of Selectman Town Administrator's Office or the town clerk and indicates that for annual town meeting, 10 certified signatures are required and 100 certified signatures are required for a special town meeting. However, the petition does not specifically request that the select board convene a special town meeting, although in a separate email dated December 3, 2024, the lead petitioner, Ms. Arrington, indicated that the board is required to schedule a special town meeting within 45 days. General Law, Chapter 39, Section 10 provides that Selectman shall insert in the warrant for annual meeting all subjects the insertion of which shall be requested of them in writing by 10 or more registered voters or of the town and in the warrant for every special meeting all subjects insertion of which shall be requested of them in writing by 100 registered voters or by 10% of the total number of registered voters, whichever number is less. The Selectman shall call a special town meeting upon request in writing of 200 registered voters or 20% of total number of registered voters of the town, whichever number is less than.

Such meeting to be held not later than 45 days after the receipt of such request and shall insert in the warrant therefore all subjects the insertion of which shall be requested by said petitioner. In my opinion, the board has two options as it is my understanding that the Assistant Town Clerk certified 201 signatures. The petition first since has 200 signatures, the board could elect to treat the petition as a request to convene a special town meeting on the intent of the petitioner as expressed in her email and convene a special town meeting within 45 days.

Alternatively, since the petitioner does not specifically include a request to convene a special town meeting, the board could treat the petition as it would any other petition and simply include article on the next special town meeting warrant or if no special town meeting is scheduled on the annual town meeting warrant. In my further opinion, the town will need to inform the petitioner once the board decides how it would make to proceed. Any discussion should be held at a properly posted board meeting as set forth above.

In my opinion, the board should decide how it wants to treat this petition 1 as a request to convene a special town meeting decide on a date for a special town meeting with 45 days of the request or as soon as possible. Therefore, or 2, whether it wishes to treat the request as it would any other citizen petition and simply include the article on the next special town meeting warrant or if no special town meeting is scheduled on the annual town meeting warrant in May. Once the board decides, I recommend that the board or Gino send out a letter to advise of the board's decision.

Tom. It brings us back to what is when somebody signed this, what was their understanding?

[Speaker 5] (2:03:36 - 2:04:02)
To Katie's point, they did sign it. I don't think there's any clarity about that. I think the only thing that one could say is that they might have felt this way then, but they didn't feel strongly enough about it that they wanted it to be a special town meeting that they assumed it was an annual town meeting and therefore they wouldn't have signed it if they knew that differential.

[Speaker 1] (2:04:03 - 2:04:34)
I think it's a serious differential because a special town meeting, as a taxpayer, that's using up your finances, too. A special town meeting calls people out. I do think that when you're presenting a petition and you're leaving that out, you question, why are you leaving that out?

Why wouldn't you say that right in the beginning? I think that's concerning. That's not being transparent.

[Speaker 7] (2:04:35 - 2:04:52)
Not following mass general law is concerning to me. There are differentiation and escalation of levels. If you're talking about 10 annual town meetings, if you're talking about 100 special town meetings...

[Speaker 3] (2:04:52 - 2:05:09)
If you obtain 200 signatures, you automatically get a special town meeting. It doesn't say that. The law says that you must request it in writing.

Where is it requested here in writing that she is requesting a special town meeting? Where does it say special town meeting on this document at all?

[Speaker 5] (2:05:09 - 2:05:12)
No one says it. That's what has to be said in writing.

[Speaker 3] (2:05:13 - 2:05:16)
To request the special town meeting in writing.

[Speaker 5] (2:05:16 - 2:05:19)
Tom can't even get there. Even though he's trying to get there, he can't even get there.

[Speaker 3] (2:05:20 - 2:06:24)
I disagree because he says that if you want to take her request from her email, which requests specifically a special town meeting, if you want to take that as the request that you can use towards the petition, then that would be your request in writing. If you don't want to do that, which you have ability to do under the law, then you would say this can go on annual town meeting because enough signatures were had. I think that's the point Tom is trying to make.

It's do you give the deference to the email and allow the email language to become the request in writing which meets the condition alongside the 200 signatures to get you to utilize the law or do you then not because the signatories did not have the benefit of the email when they were signing it and do you put it on annual town meeting and then it becomes what all these people whether they knew it or not when they were signing it, that it would still be a topic at town meeting. She says warrant multiple times in here which doesn't mean special town meeting warrant. It just means town meeting warrant.

[Speaker 7] (2:06:24 - 2:06:37)
I mean We're disenfranchising 201 certified signatures and voters within the town of Swampskate.

[Speaker 4] (2:06:38 - 2:07:21)
I haven't heard from anybody saying that. I haven't heard from any of these 201 people saying what are you guys doing? I've heard from Katie Arrington and you two.

I haven't heard from 201 people saying to me where the hell are you with scheduling a special town meeting? I have only heard from people saying I didn't sign that with that thought in mind. So what, how do I ignore that?

Well sure but if they're as charged up as I would be led to believe by listening to you and David say it has to be immediate why aren't they banging down our door?

[Speaker 3] (2:07:23 - 2:07:24)
Or just emailing.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:24 - 2:07:28)
Or just saying hey guys what are you doing? I asked for a special town meeting. Where are you?

[Speaker 5] (2:07:28 - 2:07:30)
If you want that, that could happen.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:30 - 2:07:39)
I'd love it. I have also not been contacted once by this petitioner about this issue. I'm sorry?

[Speaker 1] (2:07:39 - 2:07:43)
No, stop. Please stop. That's not required.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:43 - 2:08:07)
I'm saying, I'm only hearing this from you two to be quite honest. I've not heard from these 201 people if they are that dug in about having a special town meeting. Not one has contacted me personally.

I have only been contacted by people saying I didn't sign that with that intent. I signed that because I thought I was going to save the post. That's what I was told.

So that is what I have to go by.

[Speaker 3] (2:08:09 - 2:09:00)
I'm still unclear how having this conversation at annual town meeting disenfranchises these signatories. I don't know. I don't know.

What is gained by having it at special town meeting? I would think a special town meeting called for this purpose versus a town meeting that has an annual town meeting. I hope all town meeting members take their commitment seriously.

But I would think that you're going to have a larger population to talk to and hear from at an annual town meeting than you are at a special town meeting. Because it's on the agenda with other things that are affecting us like the budget and things like that, it would actually get a bigger spotlight to have this conversation at annual town meeting. If it takes a whole day, it takes a whole day.

That is what it is.

[Speaker 5] (2:09:04 - 2:09:05)
I think we could keep going round and round.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:07 - 2:09:10)
We have a motion on the table. All in favor?

[Speaker 17] (2:09:11 - 2:09:11)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:12 - 2:09:17)
All against? Aye. Motion does not carry.

[Speaker 7] (2:09:18 - 2:09:21)
Go get your signatures again, Ms. Arrington.

[Speaker 3] (2:09:23 - 2:09:28)
Should we move to add this to an annual town meeting? It has to be.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:29 - 2:09:31)
No, you don't make a vote.

[Speaker 1] (2:09:32 - 2:09:46)
It automatically goes on to any meeting that we have next. If there's another petition that comes in calling for a special town meeting, it happens in 45 days.

[Speaker 16] (2:09:48 - 2:09:50)
If or when?

[Speaker 1] (2:09:51 - 2:10:34)
Let's go to discussion and possible vote to establish the new Hawthorne reuse advisory committee. I think what we have to do here is we have to take a vote and we just threw out what we were looking for last time. I think the last time we said two FinCom, two planning, one open space.

I think we adjusted that because Katie wanted people with architect landscape architect.

[Speaker 11] (2:10:35 - 2:10:39)
Is it in the minutes that are attached to this meeting? Where is it?

[Speaker 1] (2:10:46 - 2:10:57)
That's what you have in your minutes there? It was a total of 11.

[Speaker 3] (2:11:00 - 2:11:02)
When was this conversation?

[Speaker 1] (2:11:03 - 2:11:05)
Was that the 18th?

[Speaker 14] (2:11:07 - 2:11:08)
December 18th.

[Speaker 19] (2:11:10 - 2:11:13)
That's why we're all having a little trouble remembering what happened. It was a tough meeting.

[Speaker 5] (2:11:29 - 2:11:34)
Can you repeat the Noah's Ark that you had there? Two by two.

[Speaker 1] (2:11:35 - 2:12:07)
We had two FinCom, two finance committee, two planning board. I originally had said open space and recreation. Then Katie had wanted to bump that to one.

Maybe it was you. Just to add open more for open citizens. That was one open space.

Then the rest was open citizens with a focus on architect construction, landscape design.

[Speaker 3] (2:12:13 - 2:12:42)
I just want to be clear. When we had the conversation, we had thrown out some ideas of folks who we would love to apply. Folks that we want to see.

That shouldn't preclude anybody who doesn't have that background from applying. All perspectives need to be considered here. Just a normal citizen who's got a stake in it is important too.

I know we're looking for a skill set to help us move the ideas forward.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:42 - 2:12:43)
Was there nine people?

[Speaker 3] (2:12:44 - 2:12:45)
I thought we were 11.

[Speaker 4] (2:12:46 - 2:12:47)
I have seven here.

[Speaker 3] (2:12:48 - 2:13:09)
It's two FinCom, two planning, one open space. That's five. Six open to the public.

With a view of hoping architecturally inclined construction, landscape architects. A total of how many?

[Speaker 1] (2:13:12 - 2:13:30)
Here's the question. If we have the five solids that we definitely need to have, the next question is do we add another four or do we add another six? We have to have an odd number if people are voting or something like that.

[Speaker 4] (2:13:32 - 2:13:51)
I'm going to say this. I don't care. I want it seated.

I just want to move. I'm going to be honest and say I'm a little frustrated that there's not even a one sheet here so that we can actually get this thing moving. I don't care if it's nine, seven or 11.

[Speaker 3] (2:13:51 - 2:14:15)
Do you care? I do care. I want more community members.

You want the opportunity? I think when we had that meeting and hundreds of people showed up in this room that there were a lot of community members who had great ideas who are willing to give their time and energy to this committee so we should make space for as many of them as possible.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:16 - 2:14:24)
We're at 11. Can we have a motion to approve 11 members?

[Speaker 4] (2:14:24 - 2:14:26)
Motion to approve 11 members.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:26 - 2:14:39)
Let me finish the motion. A motion to approve two from the Finance Committee, two from the Planning Board, one from Open Space and the rest will be open with an emphasis on...

[Speaker 4] (2:14:39 - 2:14:39)
No.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:39 - 2:14:50)
Open. I don't care. When we do look at this, we have to remember that it's important that we have people that have specific skills.

[Speaker 4] (2:14:51 - 2:14:57)
I disagree. I'm going to say it. I just want people in this town who are interested to be there.

We just want people.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:57 - 2:15:11)
We are going to be having multiple open meetings but it is imperative that people understand we need to have skill sets such as what Mr. Watson addressed here and at the past meeting that we had. We are going to need multiple drawings and things like that.

[Speaker 4] (2:15:11 - 2:15:16)
Let's get people to apply. Can I have a motion?

[Speaker 5] (2:15:17 - 2:15:31)
Second. Is it really imperative that there are two from Finance and two from Planning Board? I agree with that.

I don't understand why we have to have two. Maybe there will be two.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:31 - 2:15:44)
I think with the Planning Board only because they are the Planning Board they are going to carry the mix and it puts a little bit of push on them. I think we could go with one each to be honest.

[Speaker 4] (2:15:44 - 2:15:46)
And more citizens.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:46 - 2:15:46)
Exactly.

[Speaker 7] (2:15:48 - 2:15:49)
Friendly amendment?

[Speaker 1] (2:15:51 - 2:16:10)
You want to go one, one, one, and then open? So that was friendly amendment. Can I have a motion for the friendly amendment?

Second. Now can we go back to the first motion for the 11? All in favor?

Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:16:11 - 2:16:48)
I do think when this posts for the open seats you should have a little bit of an idea of the timing because I think a lot of times people hesitate because they don't understand the time commitment or they do put their name in the ring and then they don't realize how big the time commitment is. So I think if we just maybe try to get a little timeline together are we hoping that this committee comes back to us in six months, in 12 months, in 18 months? We need to be clear on what we are tasking them with.

[Speaker 4] (2:16:49 - 2:17:00)
This is kind of like deja vu where we need to be clear in what we are tasking and asking people to do and move forward.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:00 - 2:17:18)
Can I make a suggestion? This is up on the website and it has been on the website for two weeks now I think and why don't we get information from the planning board on what their recommendations are for a timeline?

[Speaker 4] (2:17:20 - 2:17:25)
Have we had any submissions? No. Do people know they can apply?

[Speaker 1] (2:17:25 - 2:17:28)
Yes, you do have submissions. I talked to Margie today.

[Speaker 14] (2:17:30 - 2:17:32)
I think they are going to her.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:38 - 2:17:46)
I think it says to go to her. Really? No, I can't take anyone.

[Speaker 8] (2:17:47 - 2:17:50)
I just have a comment online. It's a helpful comment.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:51 - 2:17:59)
Can you submit it to us in writing? Email it to me. I didn't have open comment through the night.

I have to be consistent.

[Speaker 5] (2:18:01 - 2:18:15)
You said the word deja vu. This does feel a little bit like deja vu. Did we not ask for some type of timeline?

I don't know where that landed. We asked it maybe through you or Margie.

[Speaker 4] (2:18:15 - 2:18:18)
I think we asked Margie. Was she here?

[Speaker 3] (2:18:19 - 2:18:22)
Maybe we can just get Margie. Are you here?

[Speaker 5] (2:18:26 - 2:18:44)
Can you help us make sure by the beginning of next week the timeline and how frequently. We should give guidance. Is it four months or six months?

It could always be extended.

[Speaker 3] (2:18:48 - 2:19:09)
We should have some experience. We did a similar it's not going to be the same. There is a parallel.

What did that timing look like? We have something to draw from to get some of that. Potentially perspective data.

There might be overlays on top of that.

[Speaker 1] (2:19:10 - 2:19:13)
There is nobody left here. Do you want to give us your quick timeline?

[Speaker 8] (2:19:15 - 2:20:50)
One of the nicest things is that it's not a contract. We hire a contractor. Every meeting is OK.

You get so many meetings. You have to settle on this plan by four meetings. The beauty of this is that the timeline really should be open ended in the sense that I would like to be on the committee.

If I'm on the committee, I would work hard and along with everyone else, we will get done when we get done. The idea is to finish as soon as we can. We don't want to establish we don't want to say you have four months you have six months, you have eight.

I don't know how long it will take. You want to have the freedom to have it take as long as it takes. I promise you after two or three meetings the town would feel good about that progress would be occurring because they would see a variety of plans.

They would come into a meeting and you can have as many public meetings as you want because you are not paying anybody. You have seven drawings and you start to talk about all the drawings and you bring people along and you might even do the same exact meeting a week later because not everyone is going to get to every meeting and you don't want people to feel like I missed a meeting so now they moved on. The process will be in a sense slow but not slow like we are going to drag it out but slow like deliberate.

[Speaker 5] (2:20:53 - 2:22:04)
I have to object to several things said here. I disagree. I definitely think we need a timeline.

Six months I am going to put forward Margie can further guide us if she thinks it is way too much or way too little but we need a timeline. I think we also need from Margie with all due respect I think it would be very hard for any person out there to be the facilitator of this process. If Margie can feel like she can do that that is one thing.

I get the consultant thing maybe it is a big bad word in this context but you could have just purely a facilitator not necessarily a landscape architect or planner or this or that but I think to facilitate a public process it takes real work and real thinking and real structure. Brian I love you but having a meeting here and having another one the next week because some people couldn't make it.

[Speaker 8] (2:22:06 - 2:22:57)
I am speaking as quickly as I can because I feel like I have two minutes and you are going to cut me off. It is a lot more thoughtful and deliberate and I participated in these processes. It wouldn't be chaos.

It would be an orderly process. You are going to have 11 people trust the 11 people to be the facilitator. It isn't that hard but you are right it takes planning and homework and so forth.

If I am on the committee I will certainly bring order to it with the other people on the committee. I think a committee can do that. You will know very quickly if we can.

If you come to the first two meetings and it is chaos and you don't like it then speak up but I don't think you will be disappointed.

[Speaker 3] (2:23:00 - 2:23:08)
I think the point is it is likely somewhere in between giving carte blanche and saying it has to be done.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:09 - 2:23:34)
There is an estimated structure. There is a skeleton. Margie is going to get everything together and get back to us in a week.

We are good on the 11. Now moving to the discussion of possible vote on the UU lease. We talked about that earlier in your meeting.

I just need a vote.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:36 - 2:23:37)
45.

[Speaker 18] (2:23:41 - 2:23:46)
Are we signatories to this license agreement? It looks like the school committee is.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:49 - 2:24:28)
I have to sign the insurance coverage agreement but I don't want to sign it. As a chair I sign the insurance agreement but I don't want to do that without a vote. Can I have a motion to approve the insurance coverage agreement that covers the lease that the school is doing with the UU church?

I just want to note that Katie Phelan did an enormous amount of work going over this insurance coverage agreement when it first came out. Even I picked up the language in there that needed to be removed. Katie went over it and she has looked at it again so we are good with it.

[Speaker 5] (2:24:29 - 2:24:29)
Just this one page?

[Speaker 1] (2:24:30 - 2:24:55)
Just this one page. Can I have a motion to accept this? All in favor?

The motion carries. Discussion of possible votes to merge the climate action and resiliency committees into one committee. Can you give us a breakdown of what that will look like?

[Speaker 5] (2:24:55 - 2:25:34)
The two committees have mutually agreed that overlapping jurisdictions continue and therefore be much more efficient. We have one committee that is executing on our overall climate action plan in various respects. I shared with the board right before this meeting the recommendations of the committee.

The nine people total I can read out their names and their specialized focus areas that would be beneficial to the board.

[Speaker 3] (2:25:34 - 2:25:35)
We don't have this anyway, right?

[Speaker 5] (2:25:36 - 2:26:57)
I just sent an email. Martha Schmidt is the chair of both committees. She will continue to be the chair.

Lily Wordley focuses on coastal resilience, decarbonization, outreach, Suzanne Hale, natural resources, resilience, and vulnerability. These are different pieces of the plan. Hazel Hitchcock, resilience and vulnerability, also a student.

Geraldine Falco, coastal resilience and vulnerability, natural resources. Diana Eddowes, buildings and energy, natural resources, resilience and vulnerability. George Allen, solar power, EV charging infrastructure, transportation, heat pumps, community power outreach, David Zelnowski, building electrification, heat pumps, Rich Frankel, solar, decarbonization, electrification, natural resources, treatment.

There will be additional people on the committee including pulling a select board member off the committee just being a liaison like other committees. And then other working group members, people that have been very involved but don't have to be on the committee but they will attend and help out. Neil Duffy, Sierra Munoz, Joe Roman, and Jonathan Davis.

Anyone else could be in that category as well, but really the nine members are the first people.

[Speaker 7] (2:26:58 - 2:27:01)
So those last few members are not alternates?

[Speaker 5] (2:27:01 - 2:27:09)
They're not technically alternates. We could make them alternates, but I think there was some debate about whether or not that was the way we do things or whatever, but it's not necessary.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:10 - 2:27:14)
Who made the decision on those people that aren't the voting members?

[Speaker 5] (2:27:15 - 2:27:17)
Everybody collectively is okay with this.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:17 - 2:27:25)
Neil Duffy is okay with not being on? Okay, so everybody collectively is fine? I say kudos to Doug for doing this.

[Speaker 4] (2:27:26 - 2:27:34)
Well, it's to the committee. It's a smart move and I'm glad you did it. So motion to consolidate?

Second.

[Speaker 3] (2:27:34 - 2:27:35)
All in favor?

[Speaker 4] (2:27:35 - 2:27:35)
Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:27:35 - 2:27:44)
Do we also have to make a motion to appoint Doug as liaison or because he was a voting member? He was a voting member anyway.

[Speaker 1] (2:27:44 - 2:28:25)
Okay, so it's okay. So now we're out to our favorite subject again. Just so everybody knows, we did get an open meeting law complaint and because we didn't have the addresses of the restaurants, we had to just re-ratify this.

So we need to ratify, validate, and confirm the actions taken on December 18th, meaning to improve and renew the liquor license, convict license, entertainment license, and class 2 licenses. Katie, you want to read the liquor licenses? Sure.

[Speaker 3] (2:28:26 - 2:29:33)
Liquor license. Cafe Avellino, 242 Humphrey Street. Chai Asian Cuisine, 435 Paradise Road.

Dockside Pub, 286 Humphrey Street. Gourmet Garden, 430 Paradise Road. Hawthorne by the Sea, 153 Humphrey Street.

Mexicali Cantina, 443 Paradise Road. Mission on the Bay, 141 Humphrey Street. New York Haven, 408 Humphrey Street.

Paradiso, 15 Railroad Avenue. Tyrific, 146 Humphrey Street. Pomona 3, 128 Humphrey Street.

BFW Post, 1240, 10 New Ocean Street. St. John's, 430 Paradise Road. Swampscot Club, 362 Humphrey Street.

Swampscot Yacht Club, 443 Paradise Road. Burl Street Liquors, 205 Burl Street. And in Square Liquors, 371 Paradise Road.

Aries Express, 408 Humphrey Street. And Richdale, 444 Humphrey Street. David, do you want to read the common vicars?

Wait, don't we have to motion and ratify those and then do the next one? We have to do them individually.

[Speaker 1] (2:29:34 - 2:29:35)
Okay.

[Speaker 3] (2:29:35 - 2:29:44)
So let's do them individually. All right. So I motion to ratify, validate, and confirm the liquor license as I just read.

Danielle's a second. All in favor?

[Speaker 17] (2:29:44 - 2:29:45)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (2:29:45 - 2:29:47)
Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Common vicars license?

[Speaker 17] (2:29:47 - 2:29:48)
Is the secretary here?

[Speaker 1] (2:29:49 - 2:29:49)
David?

[Speaker 17] (2:29:50 - 2:29:50)
Oh.

[Speaker 3] (2:29:52 - 2:30:03)
I'll read it if you want to. Yeah, sure. Common vituals license.

Anna's Taqueria, 646 Humphrey Street. Bootsy Berry, 160 Humphrey Street. Cafe Avellino.

Oh, sorry. Bootsberry. I said Bootsy.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:04 - 2:30:05)
Bootsberry.

[Speaker 3] (2:30:05 - 2:31:38)
Bootsberry. Bootsy. Bootsy Berry.

Cafe Avellino, 242 Humphrey Street. Captain Pizza, 3 Railroad Avenue. Chai Asian Cuisine, 435 Paradise Road.

Chipotle Mexican Grill, 450 Humphrey Street. Cindy's Suprette, 653 Humphrey Street. Cookie Monsta, 505 Paradise Road.

Dockside Pub and Grill, 286 Humphrey Street. Domino's Pizza, 430 Paradise Road. Dunkin', 980 Paradise Road.

Five Guys, 980 Paradise Road. Flip the Bird, 450 Paradise Road. G Bar and Kitchen, 256 Humphrey Street.

Gourmet Garden, 430 Paradise Road. Hawthorne by the Sea, 153 Humphrey Street. Jersey Mike's Sub, 425 Paradise Road.

Lincoln's Landing, 156 Humphrey Street. Little G, 250 Humphrey Street. Mexicali Cantina Grill, 443 Paradise Road.

New York Haven, 408 Humphrey Street. Panera Bread, 433 Paradise Road. Paradiso Restaurante, 15 Railroad Ave. Pomona Cafe, I think it's Pomona 3. 128 Humphrey Street. Popo's Hot Dog slash Kells Cream, 168 Humphrey Street. Qdoba Mexican Eats, 1016 Paradise Road.

Renzo's Pizza, 197 Essex Street. Starbucks, 450 Paradise Road. Tyrific by the Sea, 146 Humphrey Street.

Tony Lina's Sandwich Shop, 88 Cherry Street. Tropical Smoothie Cafe, 450 Paradise Road. Volo Craft Pizza, 152 Humphrey Street.

[Speaker 1] (2:31:38 - 2:31:39)
I'll move the motion.

[Speaker 3] (2:31:39 - 2:32:29)
I'll move the motion. Second, Danielle. All in favor?

Okay, entertainment. Cafe Avellino, 242 Humphrey Street. Chai Asian Cuisine, 435 Paradise Road.

Dockside Pub & Grill, 286 Humphrey Street. G Restaurant, 256 Humphrey Street. Little G, 256 Humphrey Street.

Gourmet Garden, 430 Paradise Road. Mexicali Cantina & Grill, 443 Paradise Road. Mission on the Bay, 141 Humphrey Street.

New York Haven, 408 Humphrey Street. Paradiso Restaurante, 15 Railroad Ave. St. John the Baptist Club, 40 Burpee Terrace. Swampscot Club, 362 Humphrey Street.

The Swampscot Yacht Club, 425 Humphrey Street. The VFW Post, 1240, 8 Pine Street. I'll make the motion.

Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 17] (2:32:29 - 2:32:29)
Aye. Aye.

[Speaker 3] (2:32:30 - 2:32:41)
Aye. And then our class. Class two.

Four Seasons Motor Group, LLC, which is 460 Humphrey Street. And Paradise Auto Sales, Inc., at 219 Paradise Road. I'll make the motion to ratify.

Second.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:42 - 2:32:52)
All in favor? Aye. Aye.

Aye. Okay. So vote to the board approval and consent agenda.

Can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[Speaker 5] (2:32:52 - 2:32:53)
So moved.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:53 - 2:32:54)
Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 5] (2:32:54 - 2:32:54)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:54 - 2:32:56)
Aye. Select board time.

[Speaker 4] (2:32:57 - 2:33:21)
Danielle? I have one thing that I want to mention, just with the consent agenda and the minutes. To Frank Smith's point, when do we release minutes?

And why don't we? I think that needs to be clarified. Because we approve minutes, but to his point, we haven't released minutes in I don't know how long.

What is our procedure for releasing minutes?

[Speaker 1] (2:33:22 - 2:33:34)
So you're asking what is our procedure for releasing minutes in executive session? Any minutes. Well, we release our minutes.

For example, you just approved minutes. They get released tonight, tomorrow morning.

[Speaker 4] (2:33:34 - 2:33:50)
So we have approved executive session minutes that have not been released. I think we had a valid question. Someone came in and actually asked that tonight, Frank Smith.

I think we should somehow respond to what, you know, why we don't release executive session minutes.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:51 - 2:34:03)
We do release executive session minutes, and there are other minutes in executive session that we don't release. And the actual legal terminology on that, do you know what the legal terminology is for when we're not releasing?

[Speaker 3] (2:34:04 - 2:34:23)
Well, there's certain criteria that we use to determine whether or not minutes can be released. We're bound by open meeting law for the criteria that we can use to not release minutes. We can't just decide we're not releasing it.

It has to fit into certain criteria. I don't have it in front of me. It would be better if we just brought it to the next meeting.

[Speaker 4] (2:34:23 - 2:36:29)
Yeah, why don't we bring it to the next meeting? My point is we have very specific parameters and reasons why we do not release executive session minutes. And there has been an increasing amount of scrutiny on this board, in certain members of this board, that we are engaging in less than transparent behavior, right?

Or that we're, you know, in collusion and, you know, keeping things quiet. And I really think, you know, at some point, we really should just put it out there and be honest about it and, you know, explain the process to people that don't understand, right? So people can't come down here and make accusations and claims that are not factual, right?

I think it's time we communicate what our parameters are and what the reasoning is, right? So that we can eliminate this lingering, ongoing back-and-forth with people that want to make this a political thing or whatever they're trying to do, right? I think it's high time we put it out there and explain exactly why we do what we do.

Good idea. And clear the air because I think it's time to move on. There are bigger things that we're working on that we're tasked with and we're wasting a lot of time on this type of stuff.

And it just frustrates me personally because, you know, there's no reason for it. I really just want to see us move on and be clear. That's it.

The only other thing I have is kudos to you and Gino and the DPW with the ice rink. I know to a lot of people, it seems like a really small, insignificant thing, but a lot of people in this town enjoy that ice rink. They've been asking for it for a long time and a long time went by that no one could make it happen.

So I applaud you for making it happen. Again, it's a small thing, but it goes a long way. And it clearly goes a long way because it's all I've been contacted about for the past two weeks.

So thank you for doing that and kudos to you, Gino. That's it. Doug?

[Speaker 5] (2:36:34 - 2:36:39)
No, nothing for now. Katie?

[Speaker 3] (2:36:42 - 2:38:29)
Well, as everybody has said, I think the... Very excited about Big Blue Bargains going into the Clark Portable. Very excited to see that space utilized, number one.

Also extremely excited to see them giving back to this community. They've been a great asset. And if you have donations, they are constantly posting.

Follow them on Facebook. They post their donation hours on Facebook so you could drop in. Also, they're very responsive to their Facebook messenger and if you message them, we'll try to accommodate you.

So if you're doing a big purge and you want to not buy the extra bags to throw things out in the trash or you just want to be better about, thoughtful about the environment, please reach out to Big Blue Bargains and make donations. And donate your time because those four women, plus I believe one more, make up the board. They said they have 13 children among them and they're still doing this.

So to say that you, anybody, doesn't have time to do something in this town, that's crazy because these women found a need. They took it on against some significant pushback and they figured it out. Sure, with the help of a lot of people and they're grateful and I'm grateful for a lot of people helping but they're juggling it all and they're doing it gracefully.

So I just want to acknowledge that. As far as the ice skating rink, I think the reason folks are talking about it so much is because it brings a nostalgia back for folks who have been in this town a long time who, as Ms. DiPietro said, her kids and, you know.

[Speaker 4] (2:38:30 - 2:38:31)
There's value in that.

[Speaker 3] (2:38:31 - 2:38:45)
There is value. And so as we move forward onto different things, bigger things, we also respect the history of where we came from and some of that needs to be reminded every now and then.

[Speaker 1] (2:38:48 - 2:39:50)
Okay, and so for my tri-chair, I was just wondering, Amy or Gino, can you look up on ERAC? If ERAC wants to make a change on their committee, do we have to do that? How do we go about making a change?

They want to drop the member of the planning board off of ERAC and I'm not sure if we have to do that through a bylaw. I'll double check on that. If you could double check that.

We've had three meetings with tri-chair. One week we had two meetings. One week we had one meeting, Diane took minutes.

She's going to forward out all the minutes. It is a challenge. We do have a gap between what the town is allocating as far as funding for the schools and what the schools need.

So tomorrow night we'll be listening to the schools and we're still in the process and we'll find a way to get there. You still had something?

[Speaker 3] (2:39:50 - 2:40:05)
I just remembered. I'm sorry, I wrote something down. For when Amy did her presentation about the annual town meeting warrant, I believe the tree committee and Andrews Chapel both have items.

Okay, I'll reach out to them. Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:05 - 2:40:09)
Can I ask you a question? I can wait until you're done.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:10 - 2:40:10)
Go ahead.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:13 - 2:40:23)
You're saying there's a gap. To me it's like there's a gap. Oh, we've proposed something.

I didn't even know that we're proposing something.

[Speaker 1] (2:40:24 - 2:40:25)
We didn't propose anything.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:25 - 2:40:30)
Well, if there's a gap between what we're saying the budget would be and what the school committee is saying, then...

[Speaker 1] (2:40:30 - 2:40:45)
The finance director gives a recommendation on the dollar amount and the school committee is putting together their budget. So this is the process.

[Speaker 5] (2:40:45 - 2:40:57)
I'm just saying we're going to have a meeting with them tomorrow night and I'm feeling, after all this time, I'm feeling clueless about where we're at and what that conversation is going to be. Is there something I missed that we have in that regard?

[Speaker 2] (2:40:58 - 2:41:14)
For the purpose of tomorrow, it's so that you can watch the superintendent's budget presentation, ask questions in the moment if you have them, and it's mostly to save the superintendent and Cheryl from having to give the same presentation in triplicate to each of the different committees.

[Speaker 4] (2:41:15 - 2:41:16)
To Doug's point, how will we know what the gap is?

[Speaker 6] (2:41:18 - 2:41:28)
We really don't. I think what everyone is referring to is they came in with a budget. Right now, the problem maybe is it is 5.7% over last year.

[Speaker 4] (2:41:30 - 2:41:33)
So that's the number they're requesting, right?

[Speaker 3] (2:41:33 - 2:41:34)
It's the increase.

[Speaker 4] (2:41:35 - 2:41:45)
Right. And Mary Ellen's speaking to the gap, right, from what Amy's proposing. So I think Doug's just saying, how do we see those numbers to know what we're looking at or what we're even listening for tomorrow?

[Speaker 3] (2:41:45 - 2:41:47)
Is that part of what was given to us today?

[Speaker 4] (2:41:47 - 2:41:50)
Is that what you were saying were in the minutes? Is that what the minutes are about?

[Speaker 1] (2:41:50 - 2:42:07)
Well, what the minutes are going to show you is anything that happened in those conversations. I wanted to make sure that the board had a good idea of what was being said in those two-and-a-half meetings. I think that's what Doug is probably asking to see.

[Speaker 4] (2:42:08 - 2:42:14)
I would like the same. So we know what we're looking at.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:16 - 2:42:32)
So tomorrow you'll have the finance committee, members of the finance committee, the select board, and the school committee. And this is pretty much in the norm. Is it that we have joint meetings like this?

[Speaker 4] (2:42:33 - 2:42:36)
Yes. We've never had a select board, school committee, joint meeting.

[Speaker 2] (2:42:36 - 2:42:38)
This is the first year that we...

[Speaker 1] (2:42:38 - 2:42:55)
Oh, you know what? The finance committee, we always had joint meetings with the school committee to go over the numbers. I spent a lot of time on the finance committee select board.

I'm like, yeah, we have it every year. But this is the process.

[Speaker 4] (2:42:55 - 2:42:57)
This is the first of its kind, from what I understand.

[Speaker 1] (2:42:57 - 2:43:17)
Yes. So the reason why, because we didn't have the larger... When we went to the school committee and said we'd like to have a larger discussion, the school committee said we would prefer not to have a larger discussion, but we would prefer that we have the larger discussion when we present our budget at that time.

[Speaker 4] (2:43:17 - 2:43:36)
Okay, so then I have a follow-up question. What is the forum for that? So we're going to just be sitting here asking questions?

Yes. In any type of format? Or am I just interrupting line by line?

Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. Yes, so format-wise...

Has that been worked out ahead of time?

[Speaker 2] (2:43:37 - 2:43:47)
Format-wise, you will all be in a meeting. So, yes, same as you can ask questions now. I'm sure Cheryl is doing the presentation.

[Speaker 4] (2:43:47 - 2:44:07)
I'm just trying to figure out how we get the most out of this thing, because the whole purpose of this is to get for the schools in town to collaborate and be on the same page and to avoid what happened at last town meeting, right? So I'm trying to understand the process so we can go about it with the right mindset.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:08 - 2:44:27)
So tomorrow when Cheryl is presenting the budget, I'm sure Cheryl is going to say how she wants to take questions. Okay, great. And we'll be able to ask questions and get a better understanding and go from there.

[Speaker 3] (2:44:28 - 2:44:36)
So as I cannot attend due to a scheduling conflict, should I just watch it and address my questions to Cheryl, CCU, and the Chair of the Finance Committee? Yeah, you can do that too. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:44:40 - 2:46:23)
Okay, any other...? All right, so... Oh, I'm sorry. I was in the middle of my thing.

Sorry. Okay, so that's the Tri-Chair. The Board of Assessors, they are beginning...

They'll be closing up the abatement application process, then they'll be going into looking at their abatements. Our assessor did meet with the DOR this week to get a better understanding of what the staffing levels are going to be. We definitely have to increase our staffing levels, and we're just on top of that.

The Council on Aging is dealing with a van issue, and it looks like we're going to have to possibly remove one van out of the inventory because we don't really have a CDL driver, and we don't really use that third van, so they're looking at that. And then last but not least, you have your Solid Waste Advisory Committee, which will be preparing the numbers and giving us a better forecast of what it's going to look like in the next 12 to 24 months because so many landfills are closing. There will only be one landfill left, and we've got to really make sure that we're cognizant because the cost of removing our trash is going to be going up.

So our trash right now is shipped. Some of it is taken care of here in the state, but quite a bit of it is actually shipped out. So it's a really amazing committee.

They work really hard. They do a lot of work, and they will be coming in and doing a quicker presentation. So that's it for my minutes.

So can I have a motion to adjourn? Can you say one more thing? Oh, no.

[Speaker 3] (2:46:25 - 2:46:39)
Could someone please, and I'm happy to just communicate to the moderator, that we did not vote on the liaison and that the plan is that we will be having this conversation so that the moderator isn't blindsided by it?

[Speaker 1] (2:46:39 - 2:46:47)
Yes, I will send an email from the car. Perfect. Thank you.

So can I have a motion to adjourn? Motion to adjourn. Second?

Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 3] (2:46:48 - 2:46:48)
Aye.

[Speaker 17] (2:46:49 - 2:46:50)
Good night. Good night.