[Speaker 15] (0:51 - 1:21)
.

[Speaker 1] (3:10 - 5:17)
Okay, welcome to the February 5th select board meeting, and this meeting is being recorded. If you could please, oh, but before I start, I just want to say thank you to Nate Byshine, Nathan Kent, and Joe Doulet for taking care of bringing this recording out to everybody. If you could please join us for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance. So this is always an exciting time for us because we get to honor Swamp Scouts, local scouts, and tonight we have the Girl Scouts with us, and these are a special group of Girl Scouts. These are the silver medal awards, and so tonight we want to honor them, and what I'm going to do is just, let's put out your, I'm going to call you all down here if that's okay.

Okay, so we have Summer Pierce, Sophia Armstrong, Ainsley Miller, and Alicia Luperi. If you girls, if you wouldn't mind, if you could just introduce yourselves and then just tell us what your projects were.

[Speaker 9] (5:18 - 6:24)
Okay, I am Summer Pierce, and for our project, me and Alicia, at the Traffic Triangle in Walker and Sheridan, we took out the existing plants and replaced them with native plants because it's better for the animals that are around and the native pollinators. For me and Sophia's project, we passed a bylaw to, with plastic Tupperware for like, when you're like ordering takeout to like alleviate some of it, and also with trash pickup. I'm Alicia, and for me and Summer's project, we took out bad plants to help the animals and community.

For me and Ainsley's project, we have, starting in December, be more trash pickups, especially by the coast where the trash is constantly overflowing and can go into the beach where it can harm the wildlife there.

[Speaker 1] (6:28 - 6:50)
Awesome. Hold on one second, girls. We might have a technical.

You alright? Okay, so does anybody, do we have any questions from the board?

[Speaker 5] (6:51 - 6:54)
No, great work, girls. Really impressive, honestly.

[Speaker 8] (6:54 - 6:55)
Thank you.

[Speaker 5] (6:55 - 7:00)
Thank you. I know all the work that is involved. I used to work for the Girl Scout, so it's incredible what you did.

Congratulations.

[Speaker 1] (7:01 - 7:26)
I just have one question. We are going to be putting up a plaque inside Town Hall that has every scout who has achieved an Eagle Scout award in Swamp Scout and a Gold Award in Swamp Scout. So what does it take to get from silver to gold, and is that something that you'll be working towards?

[Speaker 9] (7:26 - 7:54)
Yes. Silver is the second highest award you can earn in Girl Scouts, and me and Sophia are both going on to earn that. And how long will that take?

In the next couple years, probably like two to three, because we're currently working on a journey, which is something that you have to earn before we can start the process of our Gold Award. Alright, great.

[Speaker 1] (7:55 - 8:02)
Before you leave, can we just borrow those back so we can get Mr. Thompson's autograph on them? Sorry.

[Speaker 4] (8:03 - 8:04)
Come over there. I'm sorry.

[Speaker 1] (8:07 - 8:23)
And then I have one more question. Tonight we read a proclamation for Black History Month, and I was wondering if you girls wanted to read the proclamation? Alright.

[Speaker 9] (8:41 - 13:27)
Black History Month. Whereas February is Black History Month, and we call upon the citizens and public and local officials of the town of Swamp Scout to honor the history and achievements of black Americans to reflect on the centuries of struggle that we have brought us to this historic moment of time to live up to the founding principles of our nation and the town of Swamp Scout, that all the people are created equal and have the right to be treated equally throughout their lives. And whereas this observance affords a special community opportunity to become more knowledgeable about black heritage and to honor black citizens who have contributed to Swamp Scout's economic, cultural, spiritual, and political development. And after the Civil War, exodusers migrated from the South and settled in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

They brought with them the desire for economic opportunities, freedom from oppression and harassment, and freedom to create their own lives. These settlers played an important role in settling the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the town of Swamp Scout, as well as the rest of the United States. In 1915, Dr. Carter Goodwin Woodson, noted black scholar and the former enslaved African Americans, founded the Association of the Study of Negro Life and History, which was later renamed the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. And Dr. Woodson initiated Black History Week, February 12, 1926, for many years. And the second week of February, chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, was celebrated by the black peoples in the United States. And in 1976, as part of the nation's bicentennial, Black History Week was expanded and became established as Black History Month, and it is now celebrated all over North America, Canada, and Europe.

While the observance of Black History Month calls our town's attention and the continued need to battle racism and to build a society that lives to its democratic ideals, this year's celebration and recognition of Black History Month are especially significant as we reflect on the historic challenges facing our community and the nation at this time. We acknowledge that black history is American history. Stories and facts fully interwoven in the political, economic, cultural, scientific, and democratic fabric that make up our great nation.

This year, we are proud to celebrate the key elements of the 2023 George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, banning choke hold, restricting to no walk warrants, and other efforts supported by the Swampscott Police Department that define the best practices with community policing, including the recent hiring of the most diverse group of Swampscott police officers and firefighters in the history of our town. These efforts have helped to advance the public trust and safety as we build a brighter, more inclusive future with our town, our commonwealth, and our nation.

The town of Swampscott is proud to celebrate Black History Month and pledge to our continued commitment to build a welcoming community, one that reflects the full talents and diversity of the American people, and that celebrates Swampscott's third annual Juneteenth celebration, among other efforts by Swampscott and the broader community that is committed to build a future that is inclusive and ready to confront deep racial inequalities and the systematic racism that continue to plague our community and nation.

The town of Swampscott commits to doing everything in our power to demand that we all seek a greater understanding and implement changes to ensure that racism, anti-Semitism, and the unjust treatment of any person is not tolerated in any way, shape, or form within the town of Swampscott. Swampscott Unites, Respects, Embraces, Shares Diversity will host a Black History Month celebration on Tuesday, February 25th, 5.30pm at the Swampscott High School to share important conversations about Swampscott's Black history and to work to build a more inclusive community. And now, therefore, the town of Swampscott hereby establishes February 2025 as Black History Month in the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, and encourage all faith-based and non-profit organizations, residents, businesses, and civic, public, and institutions to acknowledge, honor, value, and celebrate black citizens and celebrate our diverse heritage and culture and continue our efforts to create a world that is more just, peaceful, and prosperous for us all. In witness thereof, we have here unto set our hands and cause to be affixed at the great seal of the town of Swampscott, Massachusetts, the fifth day of February 2025.

[Speaker 1] (13:29 - 14:08)
Well, thank you very much girls. Great job, and we'll see you for the gold award, right? Thank you.

[Speaker 16] (14:08 - 14:09)
Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (14:17 - 14:35)
Okay, so we'll now move to public comment. If there's anyone here for public comment, it's three minutes, and take your time. Please remember that the selection of public comment will be at the end of the presentation.

If the public board doesn't comment on your public comment, if you could just give your name and address.

[Speaker 10] (14:35 - 14:45)
Yes, this is high enough. Deb Newman, 20 Bondstable Street, and I thought there were only two minutes, so I'm happy.

[Speaker 1] (14:46 - 14:50)
Deb, wait one second. Okay. They're going out before you have.

Oh, all right. Oh, thanks.

[Speaker 10] (14:59 - 19:10)
Good? All right. We're good.

So I got some incorrect information from two department heads. One said there were no rodenticides used on public property, and the other said he didn't know what was used. So I decided to go find out for myself, and I checked 12 town properties and found various bait boxes.

Five of them are carbon dioxide pumps. Seven have labels stating that they're, I'm not going to pronounce this correctly, but brodyfaculum, perhaps, which is an anticoagulant rodenticide. Some of those boxes had T-Rex type snap traps in them, too.

It's just like a snap trap, but it's got teeth. Thirteen of them had no labels, but the box themselves are called Protective EVO Express or EVO Express, and eight of those were from Modern Pest Services and had a label stating they were smart boxes, which are bait stations that let the trapper know digitally if someone's been caught. All 13 of those are designed to hold bait bars made from second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide, other poisons, or contrapest, which is a contraceptive for rodents, and T-Rex snap traps.

So we don't know in the unlabeled ones what is there. Six of them with no label or identifying info on different properties, like no label at all, nothing. One had cholecalciferol, which is a high dose of vitamin D.

Unfortunately, it takes about a week to kill a rodent because they get kidney failure or heart failure, so it takes a while. One said that it had contrapest in it, and I was surprised to even see that anywhere. One was called a critter catcher, which is described as a live capture trap with bait to catch small animals like rodents, squirrels, or other nuisance wildlife without harming them, allowing for relocation to a different area.

Yet, that is illegal in Massachusetts to move wildlife from one place to another unless it's on the property where you found it. My complaint is that we shouldn't be using rodenticides, as many people feel. Personally, I would like the method for killing rodents to be a little more humane than CO2.

The best thing is a shock box, maybe coupled with contrapest. I have a whole spiel that I can go through at another time, if you'll allow me to do that. One other thing I just want to mention, I had also asked that the flyer on the town website about rodent control be changed to remove the recommendation of glue traps, because those are incredibly inhumane.

The other thing I asked was to please qualify the recommendation of simply calling an exterminator. For residents, just call an exterminator if you have an infestation. Because they are allowed to dispense rodenticide, anticoagulant rodenticide, to homeowners.

You know, on the property. And they may also not fully disclose that once they remove a rodent, even if they catch it humanely, that rodent will be painfully euthanized in a CO2 chamber at their office. Thank you.

Is there anyone else for a public comment?

[Speaker 1] (19:14 - 19:15)
Mr. Smith.

[Speaker 14] (19:27 - 20:16)
Frank Smith, Six Archer. I just came here tonight to say thank you. I was here at a previous meeting in which I had requested information that was overdue be released to myself as a result of a public records request.

And at the time that I had made that request, it was many days overdue, weeks overdue for that matter. But the very next morning, lo and behold, the information made its way into my inbox. So I just wanted to thank you, Ms. Felcher, for what you've done for us in releasing that information and making that accessible. I believe that there is something to be said for this process. And I just wanted to say thank you. That's all.

[Speaker 6] (20:18 - 20:22)
That was nice.

[Speaker 1] (20:28 - 20:34)
Okay, so not seeing any more hands, we can move on to the Town Administrator's Report.

[Speaker 6] (20:35 - 28:09)
Sure thing. I am pleased to be able to offer the following report on programs and initiatives that are going on currently in the Town of Smallsburg. Town Administrator, I continue to meet daily with Amy on the FY26 preliminary TA budget presentations.

Claims she's not getting sick of me, so I thank her for her patience. Met with Chief Archer and Amy also to continue discussions about the Fire Department OT budget, which continues to be a little bit of a concern, but committed to doing the best we can. Met with the Capital Improvement Committee team, Patrick, Amy, and the School Department on Friday to discuss the school's FY26 capital improvement projects.

Patrick, Amy, and I met with Standard & Poor's to discuss the draft preliminary official statement for the upcoming sale of bonds and notes. That was interesting. Kings Beach.

We opened the bids this past Thursday for Phase 2A of the Kings Beach Sewer Infrastructure Improvement Project. The news is the engineer's estimate was $2.7 million. An apparent low bidder, National Water Main, who has worked for us previously, came in at $1.8 million. Great savings there, so it means we'll be able to do more work, essentially. Public Works. Staff has dealt with three minor storms over the past week and a half.

It looks like we're going to be busy over the next few days as well. We've got a small storm coming tomorrow, which I decided not to call a snow emergency because it's only going to be one to three inches. Typically, when we call a snow emergency, it hurts the businesses because it doesn't allow for parking on the street.

Anybody that's been out on Reddison, Greenwood, Forest Ave, saw that we're dealing with a water break. This one wasn't simple. Usually, when we have a water break, we're able to isolate it with isolation gates.

The gates aren't working. We're chasing it farther and farther down the street. I have to come up with a plan that's going to cost us a few dollars.

I'm going to have to hire a company to come in and put an insurgent gate in there. That way, we can isolate it. Two of the three sides are working.

The third one, they're chasing farther down Devons, Reddison. It's become a little bit of a nightmare. We're obviously not going to be able to work tomorrow.

I'm hoping that Friday we'll be able to get EJP in here to put the insurgent gate for us. Finance. Finance continues to work on the FY26 budget, as I previously alluded to.

She's also working on capital improvement plan development and the annual town meeting warrant. Community development. We held a pre-kickoff meeting with Penn Trails to discuss the design process for Archer Street.

Also reached out to the neighbors to update them on the process. This is all a credit to Mozzie, by the way. A virtual meeting to kick off the trail design and build will be on Tuesday, February 25th.

Information can be found on the town's events calendar. Thanks, Mozzie. Facilities.

Max is working with NAHAT on an energy manager grant. Max is also working with Jonathan, preparing an invitation for bids for the improvements to the library entranceway. Town clerk, Jareth, processed 163 voter registrations in a bit.

Over 1,000 census forms have been returned to the clerk's office, and he had to make amendments to 800 of those. So, I'm assuming most of them were small changes, but changes that were necessary to be made. Police department, Chief Cassata has signed up offices for a free Holocaust training program, which was interesting.

I found that out today. The chief also relayed to me that the Swampscope Police Department will not be assisting either ICE or DHS with any potential deportations. Unless it's a serious crime, they'll get involved.

But if it's just to come in, we're not getting involved with that. Fire department was awarded a $19,000 grant from the Commonwealth Executive Office of Public Safety. This equipment funding will be used for the purchase of fire hose, nozzles, and fittings.

Additionally, two new hires began working for the fire department this week, bringing the department to a full complement of firefighters. I asked Graham this morning if he could set up a date to introduce the two new firefighters. He said that the last three were hired, were not brought in, so he's going to bring in all five of them and introduce them to us.

Assessing department has accepted exemption and abatement applications through the end of last month and now will begin the abatement process. Health department continues to monitor state sites for information on communicable and infectious diseases. Presently, bird flu is pretty prominent.

Health department continues to manage, coordinate, and work on programs and initiatives related to the opioid settlement funds. Health department also continues to manage the health department podcast, which I'm going to miss. I haven't seen one of those yet, but I'm actually looking forward to it, so I'll have to get on schedule to see one of those.

Yeah, they're pretty interesting. Human Resources Center employee handbook to town council for review. And Marion Imazi last week interviewed a candidate for the open senior planner position.

Recreation department, today is week four of the Ski Bradford program. Typically, there are two buses with 90 skiers attending this six-week program, which is in its 18th year. Kudos to Danielle.

Planning is on for a new spring event. I thought this was pretty interesting. The Derby Day event.

We're going to use our new TV screen and projector on Derby Day to have a nice little event. That should be interesting with all the hats and everything that go along with that. I like that.

And Danielle is currently working on scheduling a public safety day for this summer at Phillips Park. Senior Center. This year's Swampscaper All Ages Conference will focus on keys to a successful retirement and will be held on Saturday, March 22nd.

Additional information will be on the town's website and Facebook page. Library. Jonathan is attending a legislative breakfast on Friday to discuss library needs.

Jonathan has concerns that smaller libraries are subsidizing some of the larger libraries in town. I'm not exactly sure what that entails, but I know it was a concern of Jonathan. And because we're smaller, we end up subsidizing more than the large ones.

Makes sense. Jonathan and staff completed building the library's renovation page to help keep patrons updated on the progress and timeline of the front entrance redesign and new children's entrance project. Once approved by the trustees, this will go live and will be updated regularly.

That's it for my TA report. Any questions? Questions.

[Speaker 4] (28:11 - 28:24)
Brief one. I'm not sure you know the answer. We approved resiliency scope of work.

It was bid out and awarded to Kleinfelder. Yes. Any idea when that's starting?

[Speaker 6] (28:24 - 28:33)
I can tell you the contract was signed by both parties, and it was sent over to Kleinfelder. And I'll find out when they're looking to start. Okay.

Thanks. You're welcome.

[Speaker 1] (28:34 - 28:41)
Any other questions? I have two questions. One is on the new projector that we have.

[Speaker 6] (28:42 - 28:42)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (28:44 - 28:49)
Could we get a schedule of more programs that will happen with that projector?

[Speaker 6] (28:50 - 28:51)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (28:56 - 28:59)
And on the Holocaust, the free Holocaust training?

[Speaker 16] (28:59 - 28:59)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (28:59 - 29:08)
So does that mean that there's, how is that, the training is free or is the town, is there overtime involved in this?

[Speaker 6] (29:08 - 29:08)
No.

[Speaker 1] (29:08 - 29:11)
It's just everybody has a chance to take Holocaust training.

[Speaker 6] (29:11 - 29:14)
Exactly. With no impact to the OT budget at all.

[Speaker 1] (29:15 - 29:15)
That's great.

[Speaker 6] (29:16 - 29:16)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (29:16 - 30:12)
That's really great. Okay. All right.

So with no more questions, now we will move to discussion and education on what an executive session is. One thing that has been going on has been several comments towards the select board that we are having so many executive sessions. As a matter of fact, on a recent town platform, there was an email sent out to members of that group citing the numerous amount of executive sessions that we're having.

So Danielle asked at the last meeting if we could have a little bit of a clarification of what is an executive session. So we do have a slide we can show you and help educate really what an executive session is and what does it mean and how does it impact the town. So Marisha, do you have that slide?

[Speaker 4] (30:14 - 30:18)
I'll just point out, Mary Ellen, are we having the public hearing or not?

[Speaker 1] (30:19 - 30:23)
Oh, yeah. Actually, I'm sorry. I jumped one.

I don't want to jump one.

[Speaker 4] (30:23 - 30:25)
You were excited to get to the executive session.

[Speaker 1] (30:26 - 32:35)
I was. So we'll do the executive. The public hearing doesn't have a time on it, so we'll just finish this and then jump to the public session, public hearing.

Do you have a slide that shows how many? So first, there are three. On this slide here, you will see information that was put together by Diane Marchesi.

So we set it out for chair, fiscal year, and election year. And you will see under chairs, if you want to look under Chair Spellios, 19, Chair Tidcombe, 11, Chair Duffy, 30, Chair Grishman, 26, and Chair Fletcher, 26. That's what you have there.

Election cycle, 5-1 to 4-30, 20-21. You have 13, 22-30, 23-25, and 24-26. And fiscal year, you have 21.

Year 21 is 15, 22 is 22, year 23 is 26, 24 is 25, and 25 is 23. This helps give people an idea of how many executive sessions we actually have. And we do have many executive sessions.

It's very important. We're going to go over now why you have an executive session. I'd like everyone to understand that these executive sessions are also a significant amount of time that select boards have to put into it.

So it's not where you just call an executive session and you sit around and have a cup of coffee. There's some serious work that has to go into it. The serious amount of time that we take away from our families and other things that we can be doing.

So I'm hoping that this will give a good idea. So now we can go over the description of what clarifies an executive session. So you could scroll up, Marissa.

You want to take this?

[Speaker 2] (32:35 - 36:46)
Oh, sure. Tell me your readout. Well, this was provided by our council.

And this is a handout which they provided, which basically states Mass General Law, Chapter 30A, Section 21, Subsection A. It gives the reasons for convening executive session. One, to discuss the repudiation, character, physical condition, or mental health rather than professional competence of an individual.

Or discuss the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer, employee, staff member, or individuals. Two, to conduct strategy sessions and preparations for negotiations with non-union personnel or to conduct collective bargaining sessions or contract negotiations with non-unions and personnel. Three, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation if an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or litigation position of the public body and the chair so declares.

Four, to discuss the deployment or strategy regarding security, personnel, or devices, for example, a sting operation. Five, to investigate charges of criminal misconduct or consider the filing of criminal complaints. Six, to consider the purchase, exchange, lease, or value of real estate if the chair declares that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body.

Seven, to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or federal grant and aid requirements. Eight, to consider or interview applicants for employment by a preliminary screening committee if the chair declares that an open meeting will have a detrimental effect in obtaining qualified applicants. This clause shall not apply to any meeting regarding applicants who have passed a prior preliminary screening.

Nine, to meet with a mediator regarding any litigation or decision provided that one, any decision to participate in mediation shall be made in open session. And that the parties disclosed, I'm sorry, and the parties disclosed. And two, no action shall be taken with respect to the issues involved without deliberation and approval of the action at an open session.

Reason 10, to discuss trade secrets or confidential or proprietary information regarding activities by a governmental body as energy supplier, municipal aggregator, or energy cooperative, or if an open session will adversely affect conducting business relative to other entities making, selling, or distributing energy. And then on the back side, it gives the procedure for convening an executive session, which is the process by which each chair must take once it's met one of the options on the front. The meeting must be convened, must convene in an open posted session with executive session listed on the agenda when reasonably anticipated by the chair.

A majority votes in a roll call, a recorded roll call to go into executive session and the vote is recorded. The chair must state the purpose of the executive session, including all subjects that may be revealed without compromising the purpose of the executive session. And the chair must announce whether the meeting will reconvene in open session after executive session.

And then accurate minutes and other records of the executive session must be maintained with all votes recorded by roll call. And then there's a subsection here which lists out the rights of individuals as it relates to executive session. When a governmental body wishes to discuss the repudiation, character, or physical or mental health of an individual, or the discipline or dismissal of or complaints or charges brought against a public officer, employee, staff member, or individual, it must notify that person in writing at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting, not including Saturdays, Sundays, or holidays.

The written notice may be waived by the individual. The individual may choose to instead have the meeting held in open session. If an executive session is held, the individual has the right to be present for deliberations, to speak, and to have counsel or representative of choice present for the purpose of giving advice, but not for active participation.

The individual may have an independent record of the executive session created by audio, recording, or transcript at the individual's expense.

[Speaker 1] (36:50 - 37:04)
We will also post that on the town website for people's education. Danielle, did you have any questions or anything? No, I really wanted to make sure we brought this up.

Yeah, no, thank you for that.

[Speaker 5] (37:04 - 37:13)
I hope that clears it up for anyone who didn't understand it or is under the misconception that there have been more under your term than anybody else.

[Speaker 4] (37:14 - 37:19)
Thank you. Well, I mean, it's not a full term yet.

[Speaker 1] (37:20 - 39:04)
There will be more, and actually I'm very happy to have more. We will not be discussing anything that has to do with the purchase of land or negotiating. We will not be discussing personnel issues out in public.

We will not be discussing contract negotiations in public. We will continue to practice sound meetings. And, you know, it's always a vote to go into executive session.

A chair does not put a board into an executive session. A chair calls for a vote. So that's how you end up in executive session.

You start in an open meeting, you take a vote to move into executive session, and then that's how the process goes. One question you do want to ask, if you look at certain years and you look at what was going on during those years and you're not seeing executive sessions, you might want to ask, how are these decisions being made? And are your elected officials really sitting there and representing you adequately?

And I can tell you, since I have been the chair, I have made sure that I've called more executive sessions so that every member of this board has input. And that was actually a request by members of this board. So, you know, an executive session is not something nefarious.

It's an actual necessity. So I hope that helps. And please, feel free to reach out to any member of this board, the town administrator, to find out any more information.

[Speaker 8] (39:06 - 39:27)
Just a quick question, because I didn't see it noticed in the KP law primer. But if we are to bring someone else outside of town staff into an executive session, how does that typically work? Because there was a...

[Speaker 16] (39:27 - 39:27)
The rules?

[Speaker 8] (39:28 - 39:30)
Yeah, what are the rules?

[Speaker 1] (39:30 - 39:49)
I don't think there are any written rules, but we'd have to double check on that. We have done it twice this year for information. And to my knowledge, there aren't specific rules on bringing someone into an executive session for information.

But I will look into that for you.

[Speaker 8] (39:49 - 40:13)
No, I mean, I thought that per... I can't cite it, but I thought that there had to be a vote of the board to allow an individual who is not a town staff member into those executive session meetings. Since what we are talking about would potentially be...

Well, is privileged under one of these various exemptions.

[Speaker 1] (40:13 - 40:37)
I think at both of those sessions, we did not have discussion in those sessions when those two individuals had appeared. Two individuals. That's two separate times that we received information from them, and then they were asked to leave.

But we can look into that. But there was no discussion while those two individuals were there at those two separate times.

[Speaker 4] (40:39 - 40:40)
I'm not sure that's quite true.

[Speaker 1] (40:40 - 41:09)
That's my recollection. Does anyone have any other comments or questions? Okay, seeing none, we will move on to our public hearing.

For parties interested in application for an alteration of premises at Vinn and Square Liquors, 371 Paradise Road, Swampscott, Mass. Can I have a motion to move into a public?

[Speaker 8] (41:10 - 41:10)
So moved.

[Speaker 1] (41:10 - 41:12)
Second? Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 8] (41:13 - 41:13)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (41:14 - 41:34)
I do have a question. Why are we getting this now when... Isn't this work already started?

I'm sorry? We're moving. We have an application for alteration on a premises, and every time I drive by there, I see a lot of construction going on.

Am I wrong that this is already going on?

[Speaker 13] (41:36 - 41:37)
Correct, but... Good morning.

[Speaker 9] (41:38 - 41:38)
I'm sorry.

[Speaker 13] (41:38 - 41:39)
Good morning. Good evening.

[Speaker 9] (41:39 - 41:43)
My name's Elizabeth Pisano. I am... I'm not going to say anything.

[Speaker 13] (41:45 - 41:50)
With me today is Angela and... Joe.

[Speaker 12] (41:52 - 42:35)
Elizabeth, sorry. Just give me one second. I'm just going to respond to Mary Ellen.

Oh, okay. One is not... And because the business is already existing as a liquor store, this is just a simple amendment to alter their premises because they are building that addition.

And they're actually not increasing the sale space at all. This is just to allow for more storage and inventory. And they're also building some additional office space as well.

So, what you're saying is they don't need...

[Speaker 1] (42:35 - 42:38)
They didn't need this application to be doing that work?

[Speaker 12] (42:39 - 42:45)
Okay, great. Yep. So, can I hand it over to Elizabeth?

Yes, please. Okay. Elizabeth, take the wheel.

[Speaker 13] (42:45 - 43:44)
Thank you. Thank you very much for that explanation. This application is to expand the premises for their liquor license to store, you know, additional alcohol on the first and second floor.

This group has been... This group has been in Songstar for many, many years. They're a great business in the town.

And being able to expand their premises will just allow their business to grow further. The new construction is going to be approximately 2,764 square feet on the first floor and 2,299 square feet of storage space on the second floor. And that's really it, Elizabeth.

If you have any questions or concerns, I'm happy to answer any questions that you have.

[Speaker 2] (43:46 - 43:58)
Does anybody have any questions? I just have... I know Marissa had stated that the sort of like the store itself was not changing the way it's laid out or it's just not expanding its square footage.

[Speaker 12] (43:58 - 44:11)
That's my understanding. The store itself is not expanding. It's staying as it is.

The additional... The addition itself is to accommodate more inventory space and office space. But I'll let Elizabeth confirm that.

[Speaker 13] (44:11 - 44:12)
Correct. Yes, that's correct.

[Speaker 12] (44:12 - 44:15)
So the only square footage you're adding will be storage?

[Speaker 2] (44:16 - 44:16)
Storage and office.

[Speaker 13] (44:17 - 44:17)
And office. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (44:18 - 44:19)
But as it relates to the liquor...

[Speaker 12] (44:30 - 44:45)
As it relates to the actual servicing of liquor, it's just the storage space, that is. We don't have a diagram. That's okay.

I can pull it up. Do you want me to try and pull it up or no?

[Speaker 1] (44:46 - 44:47)
No.

[Speaker 12] (44:53 - 44:54)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (44:54 - 45:04)
So if there's no questions, then can we have a motion to approve? Motion. Second?

Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 16] (45:04 - 45:04)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (45:04 - 45:10)
Aye. Thank you. Good luck.

You too. Good luck, Elizabeth.

[Speaker 8] (45:13 - 45:15)
We don't need to adjourn that, do we?

[Speaker 1] (45:15 - 45:18)
Yes. Thank you. Any motion to adjourn in the public?

[Speaker 8] (45:18 - 45:19)
So moved. Second.

[Speaker 1] (45:19 - 45:20)
All in favor?

[Speaker 8] (45:20 - 45:20)
Aye.

[Speaker 1] (45:21 - 45:38)
So moved. Okay. Town Administrator's Preliminary Budget Presentation.

This actually says, this says not including school, but I actually had told Diane that we would have questions about school in a year or so.

[Speaker 8] (45:38 - 45:40)
So does it include the school?

[Speaker 3] (45:41 - 45:48)
So because the school committee hasn't voted on their recommended budget yet, that's why at this stage it doesn't officially include the school.

[Speaker 1] (45:49 - 45:52)
Well, if we want to make comments about the school, we can make comments about the school.

[Speaker 8] (45:52 - 45:52)
Yes. Yes.

[Speaker 3] (45:52 - 45:54)
This presentation does not include the school.

[Speaker 4] (45:54 - 45:55)
Right.

[Speaker 8] (45:55 - 45:55)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (45:56 - 45:56)
But.

[Speaker 8] (45:58 - 45:58)
So there.

[Speaker 2] (45:58 - 46:05)
What does that mean? Well, wait. If the line item on the agenda says it does not include the school, how can we comment on the school?

Exactly.

[Speaker 3] (46:06 - 46:11)
The presentation references school. You will be able to. Because there's a line item.

On one of the slides.

[Speaker 2] (46:11 - 46:34)
So there's a line item in the budget that references the school, but your comment is if this agenda clearly says it does not include the school. Right. Like if somebody were in the public reading this agenda and they were thinking, oh, well, they're not going to talk about the school budget tonight, so I'm not going to show up to this meeting and hear what they have to say, then I would think that that is what you would read from this.

And so if we are going to talk about the school, that might not be the case.

[Speaker 4] (46:35 - 47:00)
I think it would be helpful to have the whole context, whether or not we talked about individual line items in the school budget. I think it's useful to view this in the context of what we all know. We had a public meeting about it, about what the school budget is.

So we're thinking about everything together. I don't think anyone can preclude us from putting those pieces together.

[Speaker 8] (47:01 - 47:09)
And Amy, is this just a timing issue? Is the school committee meeting tomorrow and talking about this?

[Speaker 3] (47:09 - 47:16)
They're doing a public session tomorrow, but per charter, the school committee has until February 15th to vote their recommended budget to the town.

[Speaker 8] (47:17 - 47:18)
Yep. Yeah. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (47:19 - 47:25)
So right now, you're staying within our timing of discussing the preliminary budget?

[Speaker 3] (47:25 - 49:58)
Yes. Okay. So on behalf of the town administrator, I will begin tonight's presentation.

I just hope there's a line item for heat in the budget. So this is just an overview of our annual budget cycle. Right now, we're in the budget preparation stage, which is November through end of February.

We are presenting the draft budget today to present the town administrator's recommended budget by March 1st. You'll have the budget book in advance of that. Finance committee will work on their budget development in March and April, leading up to the town meeting voted budget on May 19th.

And then throughout the year, it's just implementing that budget until we continue the cycle again. For revenue, this is just a highlight of the Swamp Stretch financial policy. I'm not going to read this slide.

This is the exact same wording that I had on the December presentation with the preliminary revenue production. Just an overview of our financial policy with the 2% new growth, I mean 2% of the property tax levy plus $425,000 of new growth, our estimates for local receipts and outside revenue sources. Here is a breakdown of how the revenues line up in Swamp Stretch.

82% of our revenues come from our tax levy. We have about 10% coming from state aid, 7% coming from our local receipts, and 1% coming from indirect costs through the enterprise funds. I just thought that this was helpful as we go through and talk about where local receipts might be down, state aid might be up.

Those are in fact the proper directions. To know how much of the overall revenue that's encompassing. The tax levy limit for FY26 is $63 million.

That's based off Prop 2.5, not Swamp Stretch policy. The maximum allowable levy, which is the levy limit plus the excluded debt, is $67,900,000. The tax levy per Swamp Stretch 2% plus 425 policy is $61 million.

[Speaker 4] (49:59 - 50:00)
Without the debt.

[Speaker 3] (50:01 - 53:05)
Yep, because our policy does not factor in excluded debt. Based off the Governor's proposal for state aid, we currently have an increase of 5.88%, which is $430,000. That still has to go through a few more cycles, but at this stage we use what we have.

Local receipt estimates have decreased 18.85%, or almost $1.2 million. As I stated at the previous meeting, this is primarily just due to the decrease in investment income and in building permits. So we no longer have all that borrowed money for the new school sitting in the bank collecting interest.

And then the indirect costs from the enterprise funds are just over $1 million. So for anyone who may not be familiar, those are costs contained within the enterprise fund, but are used to support the enterprise funds. So health insurance for those employees gets paid through the general fund, and essentially the enterprise fund pays that back through these indirect costs.

Does anyone have any questions before I move on the slide? So overall, our preliminary estimate for FY26 is $74.9 million. For reference, this is about 1.28% above FY25. Going into expenditures, the majority of the departments are complete at this stage. This is just a list of them. Going through, I broke them up by their cost centers to at least make it a little easier to read.

Biggest items, debt and pension, are already set for the year. Items that are still being developed are property, casualty, and workers' comp insurance. We are waiting on the premiums.

We're meeting with the risk assessment team next week from some of the insurance companies to go through before they quote our new policies. The salary reserve is still being developed. As you're aware, we have three bargaining units, as well as a few individual vacancies that are contributing to that salary reserve that is still being fine-tuned.

Obviously, we are still working on the Swanscot Public Schools number. We have not yet received the assessment from Essex Regional Vote Tech. Employee health insurance, we will not be receiving those rates from the GIC until about a week before open enrollments.

We're anticipating those the end of March. As of right now, we're still going off the 10.5% rate increase that the GIC had in their original presentation. State assessments, much like the state aid, will continue to evolve as it goes through the House and Senate.

And then enterprise funds, we're just waiting on updated numbers from Windwater Sewer, MWRA, and our solid waste and recycling contract.

[Speaker 4] (53:06 - 53:12)
So, Amy, with the 74.9, you're assuming the 2% policy? Yes. Plus?

[Speaker 3] (53:13 - 53:15)
Plus 425,000 of new growth.

[Speaker 4] (53:17 - 53:19)
And the debt exclusion, that's separate?

[Speaker 3] (53:21 - 54:44)
Which bubble are you looking at? The 74.9. That is inclusive of your third bubble. So 2% of the prior tax levy plus 425,000 of new growth, no factoring in of debt exclusion.

Okay. This is just an overview of the departments as a whole. I obviously shrunk down the line item to get them to fit on this slide.

So some of our budgets are flat. Some, you'll notice, are down. For any vacancies that we have, we have them budgeted at the low end of the range and then have the higher end of the range in salary reserve.

So likewise, you will notice a decrease in the town administrator's budget, and that is just due to the vacancy itself. Human resources, you'll notice a decrease. That is the elimination of the DEI coordinator at the recommendation of the DEI consultant, as well as the hiring and recruitment costs for police and fire in working with our new HR manager.

She requested that those funds be removed from the HR budget and moved into the police and fire budgets, respectively.

[Speaker 1] (54:55 - 55:09)
Under veteran services, on the breakdown, what is the breakdown of the actual employee or agent? The actual agent. There's two separate things.

There's agent.

[Speaker 3] (55:09 - 55:51)
The service agent is $30,000 a year. What was that? $30,000 a year.

$30,000 a year? Mm-hmm. And do we have a contract with one?

We do. How long is that contract? I will double check it.

We might be going into the last year of it. And this is just the back half of our budget. As you will notice, we have a slight decrease in our debt service for the upcoming year, and that is because we have the additional monies coming in for the school.

So when we reban that, the principal is being banned lower, so the interest is less.

[Speaker 1] (55:53 - 56:11)
And have you factored in a projection? We have money coming in to relieve the debt service, but have you looked under capital as far as refilling some of that debt service with solar options as far as the canopies, things that will give you money?

[Speaker 3] (56:11 - 56:24)
We have been factoring the debt savings from the additional reimbursements for the school and seeing where that can be reallocated for the solar canopy. So that is in the upcoming debt forecast.

[Speaker 4] (56:26 - 56:38)
Did you say the other day that we don't really accept those monies from the school to significant a debt reduction to impact FY26?

[Speaker 3] (56:39 - 57:40)
It won't impact FY26, it will impact the future borrowing years. The earliest we'd see it is FY27. And then to get a little off topic, the town administrator is going through capital on Monday to review, to recommend projects to CIC, so that process will keep moving as well.

As you'll notice, employee benefits is a very big increase, and that's based off that 10.5% on the rates for GIC. When we do our health insurance projection, we use the January enrollment numbers, and as of right now, we're assuming every single plan is going up 10.5%. And based off that, plus the contingency of the vacancies, we're looking at a little over a million dollars increase in that line. Obviously the hope is that the rates do not in fact come in that steep, to give us some relief.

[Speaker 1] (57:42 - 57:43)
How long do we have on that contract?

[Speaker 3] (57:44 - 57:55)
We are under contract until the end of FY26, and that's dependent on our renewal of the PEC agreement, otherwise it will auto-renew for another two years.

[Speaker 1] (57:55 - 57:58)
When do we have to notify them that we are possibly leaving?

[Speaker 3] (57:59 - 58:26)
By December of the year it's expiring. So it means this coming December. And we have that on the calendar?

We do. So obviously some challenges. Our revenue is only increasing 1.28% over FY25, which is $950,000. And as I stated, our health insurance alone is going up more than that.

[Speaker 1] (58:30 - 58:35)
So our revenue is coming in at $945,000, and our health insurance is going up as well.

[Speaker 3] (58:36 - 1:00:40)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a good thing. Good thing I dyed my hair, because these grays.

The department head requests came in at a 6.83% increase, or $4.8 million over the FY25 budget. And as I stated ad nauseum, the GIC health insurance. We also have the salary reserve.

So we have police, fire, and library collective bargaining agreements that are expiring June 30th of 25. We have the vacancies for town administrator, building inspector, and town planner. And then we also have five individual employment contracts that are coming up for June 30th, 2025.

I do have an asterisk here, just because they all have a one-year auto-continuation in it. So they expire, but it's not hard to expire. So where are we going?

So the town administrator and my team will continue to work to balance this budget over the next couple weeks. Obviously, some difficult decisions to ensure that we are providing the town services, and we're funding those at an appropriate level, while also focusing on our fiscal discipline and our financial policies. We'll be publishing the town administrator's recommended budget book by the 20th of this month.

And then we'll be back to present to the select board on March 5th with a balanced town administrator recommended budget. After that, it goes to the finance committee review, who will be recommending to annual town meeting on May 19th. Wait, when does it go to the finance committee?

So at that meeting on March 5th, which I believe last year it was done as a joint meeting. I don't know if that's something you want to do again. But it will go to the finance committee right after that.

So it will begin working on the finance committee's recommended budget.

[Speaker 4] (1:00:43 - 1:00:50)
So Amy, when you say department requests were at 6.83%, that's just the town side?

[Speaker 3] (1:00:50 - 1:00:51)
Yes.

[Speaker 4] (1:00:54 - 1:01:07)
And unless I'm missing it, the column that we're looking at here for 2026 budget team adjustments, you don't have a total here, do you?

[Speaker 3] (1:01:07 - 1:01:13)
No, I omitted the total and omitted the school from this presentation.

[Speaker 4] (1:01:13 - 1:01:14)
That's convenient.

[Speaker 3] (1:01:14 - 1:01:18)
To comply with what was in the timeline.

[Speaker 4] (1:01:27 - 1:01:44)
So can I ask you this? For the town side to stay compliant with the fiscal policy, what is the gap between where you're at now compared to that policy?

[Speaker 3] (1:01:46 - 1:02:00)
$1.7 million. Is that our 2%? So we've gotten the 4.8% down to a 1.7%. Did we really comply last year with 2.0?

[Speaker 1] (1:02:01 - 1:02:07)
Because when I was looking at that grid, there was a time when we did dip into the levy, didn't we?

[Speaker 3] (1:02:07 - 1:02:36)
Yeah. So when you use one-time monies like stabilization or free cash to reduce the tax rate, it gets added back into the levy in the next year. So the year where we used free cash, general stabilization and capital stabilization, obviously the stabilization funds don't flush through the levy the same way.

So that year it shows a dip into our excess. I believe that was FY23.

[Speaker 1] (1:02:39 - 1:02:58)
So what is the impact? I'm not sure if you'd have the answer to this, but what is the impact on the average tax bill when we go from 2.0% to 2.5% including the 425 in New York? What does that actually mean?

[Speaker 3] (1:03:05 - 1:03:11)
I believe it's about $40 on the average, but let me double check that.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:50 - 1:03:51)
If you don't have it, we can...

[Speaker 3] (1:03:51 - 1:03:59)
No, my thing keeps losing connection as I go through. I will continue to find it if you guys have more questions.

[Speaker 1] (1:03:59 - 1:04:03)
Okay. That's a question I'd like to know.

[Speaker 4] (1:04:03 - 1:04:03)
That's a good question.

[Speaker 16] (1:04:05 - 1:04:06)
Pretty relevant.

[Speaker 1] (1:04:08 - 1:04:30)
You know, at some point we do have to start talking about... We have to start talking about the unused levy. We have to start talking about this publicly because we do have other committees in town that are talking about the unused levy as if it's a lottery that we could start jumping into.

[Speaker 4] (1:04:31 - 1:04:33)
Are you wanting to tap the unused levy right now?

[Speaker 1] (1:04:34 - 1:05:05)
No, I'm not wanting to tap the unused levy. I'm just wanting to talk about, you know, do we have a need to tap the unused levy? Is the unused levy a liability to the taxpayer?

What are the benefits for the firms? Because right now we do have... What do we have, a $7.5 million unused tax levy?

And at any point we could be tapping right into that without a town-wide referendum.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:08 - 1:05:35)
I think there's a step before that, right? I mean, which is to say, you know, this $1.7 million over the 2% policy, I think another correlated question is what does that equate to on our share of the town budget? Where does that put us?

If you and Gino said, pencils down, that's it, can't cut anything else. $1.7 million, what does that equate to in terms of a percentage for our side?

[Speaker 3] (1:05:37 - 1:05:42)
I will give you that. $44 was the average single-family impact for the additional...

[Speaker 1] (1:05:42 - 1:05:44)
Oh, from the 2.025. For the additional half a percent.

[Speaker 3] (1:05:44 - 1:05:49)
I'm talking about above 2.5. I know, but, well, you could extrapolate.

[Speaker 4] (1:05:49 - 1:05:52)
Is it not another $44 if you go from 2.5 to 3?

[Speaker 3] (1:05:53 - 1:06:00)
Yeah, so if you assume every 300, every additional 300,000 for rounding purposes is going to be an additional $44.

[Speaker 1] (1:06:00 - 1:06:03)
And the average, for the average home, what is the average home, 750?

[Speaker 3] (1:06:04 - 1:06:09)
Our average home was just shy of 770.

[Speaker 4] (1:06:18 - 1:06:34)
So then, what does the $1.7 million equate to in terms of percentage? Are we at 2.5 or 3 or 4? I'm not saying we're, you know, that you guys are done, but I just...

[Speaker 3] (1:06:36 - 1:06:41)
I mean, if you want us to be done, that's the purpose of tonight for the board to give that guidance.

[Speaker 6] (1:06:41 - 1:06:44)
No, thanks. What?

[Speaker 2] (1:06:47 - 1:06:55)
No, no, she's saying $44 half percent for the average tax bill.

[Speaker 6] (1:06:55 - 1:06:57)
That would totally gain us 300,000.

[Speaker 2] (1:06:57 - 1:06:59)
Oh, no, it doesn't gain us 300,000 to the budget, right?

[Speaker 3] (1:07:01 - 1:07:27)
Too many questions. Got it. So, the extra half a percent going from 2% to 2.5 would give us almost $300,000 added to the revenue, I think was what Gina was saying, which is the $44 impact. So, if Doug is asking if we add... 1.7. An additional 1.7 to that.

[Speaker 6] (1:07:27 - 1:07:30)
And you're at like 5% or something, exactly.

[Speaker 2] (1:07:31 - 1:07:33)
Okay. But there's still more.

[Speaker 6] (1:07:33 - 1:07:35)
That's good perspective to have that there.

[Speaker 5] (1:07:37 - 1:08:05)
So, as part of your discussion with your department heads and looking at the budget, has anyone undergone an actual analysis of the FTEs in town hall? Where you've actually gone line by line, position by position, to see where there might be overlap, where there might be... Considering the predicament we're in, where you're actually looking at the value of each position as it relates to the budget.

Has that happened?

[Speaker 6] (1:08:05 - 1:08:26)
Yeah, the short answer is yes. You know, we're sat down, and I don't want to get into the weeds because it could affect people, and I'm trying our best to... I don't want to try not to undermine the position, but we have had some discussions, and there are a couple, but I want to try to do everything in my best interest to avoid doing that, but we have discussed it.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:26 - 1:08:54)
I appreciate that, but I also appreciate... You know, when we're prepared to look at other departmental budgets in this town, police, fire, schools, I think it's upon us to actually make sure we're doing the same due diligence with town hall. I think that's the only way we can ever sit here and say, you know, this budget should be smaller, this position could go.

I think it has to start at home first, at least in my view, right?

[Speaker 6] (1:08:55 - 1:08:55)
I agree.

[Speaker 5] (1:08:55 - 1:09:00)
As hard as that is and as painful as that is, I mean, I think that's a necessary conversation.

[Speaker 6] (1:09:00 - 1:09:12)
But what I've learned in the past, too, you never get the full savings of that position because of the unemployment, too. I think there's a little bit of an offset with that that we always have to factor in. Offset is usually short.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:12 - 1:09:13)
The offset is generally short-term.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:16 - 1:09:26)
The other piece, too, is the GIC. I mean, have we ever considered coming out of the GIC? Yes.

But have we done the... Has anyone actually seen the analysis of what the difference is?

[Speaker 4] (1:09:27 - 1:09:27)
Last year.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:28 - 1:09:28)
Yeah, we did.

[Speaker 4] (1:09:29 - 1:09:36)
Yes, we tried to. Mary Ellen and I met with Sean, and we had brokers come in, but then we realized the contract wasn't up until this year.

[Speaker 1] (1:09:36 - 1:09:45)
We didn't notify... We missed the date to notify GIC that we were contemplating leaving. So that forced us into this year.

[Speaker 5] (1:09:46 - 1:10:17)
I mean, I have seen a lot of other towns offer incentives to employees to not take health insurance, right? So literally, you'll give them X if they can provide the documentation that they've got health insurance from a spouse or somewhere else. Like, you literally will incentivize them to not take...

Because you look at some people, and they're on a family plan, and maybe it's costing $2,000 a month through the GIC every month. You have to think about the percentage of what we're paying. I mean, it's done in some other towns.

So I just wondered if we had explored that here.

[Speaker 1] (1:10:17 - 1:10:19)
We could do that now, though, couldn't we?

[Speaker 3] (1:10:20 - 1:10:31)
It would have to be negotiated into the PEC agreement. This was looked at a few years ago, and we spoke with a number of other communities, and they did not see the savings that they thought they were going to. And we discussed all the fail-safes of...

[Speaker 5] (1:10:31 - 1:10:34)
What communities did you contact? Danvers, Melrose, either of those?

[Speaker 3] (1:10:34 - 1:11:07)
I can go back and double-check, because it was a couple years ago. But they had fail-safes in place where you had to have been on our insurance for a certain amount of time to get the incentive to come off. You have to stay off for a certain amount of time, or you have to pay it back.

You can't have the spouse hopping if both spouses work in town. And they were still saying they didn't see the savings. Obviously, that was only a year or so out of COVID, so everything could have changed since.

[Speaker 16] (1:11:15 - 1:11:15)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (1:11:15 - 1:11:17)
Do you want to talk about any specific lines?

[Speaker 16] (1:11:18 - 1:11:18)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:11:20 - 1:11:36)
So do you want to say a little bit about the assessor line and the DEI coordinator? Because we haven't really heard any report out of that consultant. So this is just kind of like popping out for me about them recommending not to have this position.

[Speaker 3] (1:11:37 - 1:11:47)
So the assessor includes changing the part-time assessor to a full-time assessor and funding that. So you'll see an increase in that budget to reflect that change.

[Speaker 4] (1:11:49 - 1:11:55)
With that amount, I mean, why are we recommending more than what the department head is requesting?

[Speaker 3] (1:11:57 - 1:12:07)
Not all of the department heads participated in the budget process. So if they didn't turn anything back, their request was input at their same as their FY25.

[Speaker 4] (1:12:09 - 1:12:36)
Well, that's not the case here, right? Because they're very part-time and it's at $50,000, and now I suppose the department had requested $145,000, and then the budget team is at $177,000. If that's just an errant number, that's fine.

But that doesn't look like a town-level salary, even if it were full-time.

[Speaker 3] (1:12:37 - 1:12:54)
So like I said, for any of the vacancies, it is budgeted at the low end of the range, and then any higher amounts are in the salary reserve. So this is funded at an $80,000 department head position, which is in line with a number of our department heads.

[Speaker 5] (1:12:58 - 1:13:05)
So you're saying that the assessor's office with a part-time position is now going to a full-time position at $80,000?

[Speaker 3] (1:13:06 - 1:13:09)
Mm-hmm, plus something else, right?

[Speaker 2] (1:13:09 - 1:13:09)
Right.

[Speaker 5] (1:13:09 - 1:13:10)
What else is comprised of that?

[Speaker 3] (1:13:10 - 1:13:23)
It still has an admin in there, and then it has an admin stipend that is going to another employee who is helping with that admin function when the part-time admin is not in the office.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:25 - 1:13:30)
Okay, so that amounts to, like, more than the full-time assessor's salary.

[Speaker 5] (1:13:31 - 1:13:33)
Right, that doesn't make sense.

[Speaker 4] (1:13:33 - 1:13:42)
Anyway, just maybe we don't need to explain that or scrutinize that a little bit, it seems like. Yep. Yeah, and then DEI?

[Speaker 3] (1:13:44 - 1:13:59)
When I met with the HR manager and went through her budget, she indicated that the consultant said that we are not at a point to move forward with that position and recommended not funding it. So that was based off the department head recommendation.

[Speaker 1] (1:14:00 - 1:14:07)
Is there a line for are they saying or what are they saying we should be doing?

[Speaker 4] (1:14:07 - 1:14:08)
I heard not yet.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:09 - 1:14:47)
Not yet, right, and the purpose, I mean, this was a placeholder in last year's budget. Was it last year or the year before? Last year, knowing that and then the time frame for which we hired the consultant took longer and then that's why the 50 became sort of unused.

But just because we can't make a recommendation today doesn't mean we can't keep the 50 in there in the hopes that we will be utilizing it for something related to a position there. But the consultant is saying there's no position that will be recommended and they're making that claim. I have not heard that claim.

[Speaker 3] (1:14:47 - 1:14:56)
I haven't either. It was also based off, you know, if we're looking at cutting physicians, cutting currently existing physicians.

[Speaker 2] (1:14:57 - 1:15:00)
Sure, I mean, that makes more sense than the consultant saying.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:00 - 1:15:02)
Are the two of you working with them?

[Speaker 2] (1:15:02 - 1:15:04)
We are. The consultant, yeah.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:05 - 1:15:09)
Is there a time when we're going to see anything about that?

[Speaker 5] (1:15:10 - 1:15:44)
Yeah, honestly, to be honest, Doug, with all the other exciting stuff going on in town, it's kind of been on the back burner and that's mostly my fault and, you know, not to say it's Katie's fault. You know, it hasn't been the forefront. We have done a little work.

They have done they sent out a survey. They've put some stuff on social media and they have gotten some feedback, but we kind of have a timeline for the spring in terms of rolling it out and having a couple of events. So we're in the initial stages, but we haven't quite done as much as I would have hoped by this point.

[Speaker 4] (1:15:44 - 1:15:51)
Yeah, that's fine. Just be whatever they would back up to this recommendation would be nice to see.

[Speaker 2] (1:15:52 - 1:15:54)
You heard it here first, Doug, just like the rest of us.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:08 - 1:16:14)
And Amy, you said the salary reserve line is incorporating kind of the catch all for contracts, et cetera.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:14 - 1:16:33)
So it's five individual employment contracts that are coming due, three completely vacant, plus the transition of the assessor from part time to full time and then the three collective bargaining units. Oh, yes.

[Speaker 4] (1:16:33 - 1:16:36)
That all made sense to me except now the assessor's in here, too.

[Speaker 3] (1:16:37 - 1:16:51)
So the low end of the salary is in the line and then any additional. So if you post a job from 60 to 70, the line will be budgeted at 60 with 10 potentially in salary reserve.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:03 - 1:17:10)
Amy, what is comprised of the IT line? Is that solely the high Q or whatever it is that.

[Speaker 3] (1:17:10 - 1:17:47)
That is one line of it. So that is library computer maintenance, equipment maintenance for all non-school municipal buildings. That is the high Q outside.

That is our financial system of Munis for the town and school. It's our phones. It's all the software at the police department, fire department, wireless phones, building software, DPW software, all of our software and staff subscriptions.

And then any a very small amount for any hardware and equipment replacement.

[Speaker 5] (1:17:48 - 1:17:51)
How long of a contract is high Q and when does that renew?

[Speaker 3] (1:17:52 - 1:17:57)
I can double check. I believe we have a few years left on it.

[Speaker 1] (1:18:02 - 1:18:09)
I didn't think we had a contract with them. I thought that they just rolled over last year. Do they have the contract?

[Speaker 2] (1:18:25 - 1:18:34)
Okay. Does anybody have any other questions? Where is the animal control officer in this?

In the police department. In the police department.

[Speaker 3] (1:18:36 - 1:19:04)
That was moved a few years ago. And the parking enforcement line item is really what? That is if you are going to see the parking enforcement officer, which currently is Max Casper, to fight your ticket.

He is the hearings officer, so he will meet with you, dispute it, and give his ruling. So that's a stipend, I assume? Yes.

What is recreation?

[Speaker 5] (1:19:04 - 1:19:06)
Is that salaries? What is that? What is GF?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:06 - 1:19:20)
The recreation for general fund that you're seeing is the lifeguards. So it's the auxiliary staff. And then it is the lifeguard supplies, each sticker, expenses, and the deposit for the 4th of July fireworks.

[Speaker 5] (1:19:21 - 1:19:24)
So where does the recreation staff come out of?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:25 - 1:19:26)
That comes out of the revolving fund.

[Speaker 6] (1:19:30 - 1:19:34)
I know I asked this before. And why don't the lifeguards come out of the revolving? Right.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:34 - 1:19:43)
The revolving fund can only be for programming. So because people are not paying to go to the beach, we cannot charge the lifeguards to it.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:44 - 1:19:46)
So everybody gets to use the lifeguards?

[Speaker 3] (1:19:46 - 1:19:49)
Yes. It's a public service.

[Speaker 1] (1:19:50 - 1:19:59)
So you wouldn't want to have people that are doing programs subsidizing the lifeguards. That wouldn't be fair. So that's why the lifeguards come out as a tip.

It also wouldn't be legal.

[Speaker 3] (1:19:59 - 1:20:00)
So we can't do that.

[Speaker 4] (1:20:01 - 1:20:05)
Or you could charge people that go to the beach to actually have the lifeguard watch or not.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:14 - 1:20:24)
So is now the time you want to have a philosophical conversation about the budget? Yes. I do.

[Speaker 1] (1:20:26 - 1:20:31)
So you're saying if we stay within our policy, if you stay within our policy, we're short.

[Speaker 2] (1:20:31 - 1:20:34)
We're short before we started.

[Speaker 4] (1:20:34 - 1:20:53)
1.7 million. And that's on top of the schools, which is similarly over.

[Speaker 5] (1:20:58 - 1:21:03)
So at what point do we look at the policy? Do we ever?

[Speaker 4] (1:21:04 - 1:21:08)
There have been calls, right? 700,000, right?

[Speaker 3] (1:21:09 - 1:21:54)
We're doing a financial policy overhaul this summer. And we'll be making recommendations to the finance board on any changes recommended to that. But as it doesn't really help us now.

As summer doesn't help us as slide three says in the presentation. It is it is a guideline. So.

It says in the event, the town administrator determines the aforementioned constraint is insufficient to meet the budgetary needs of the town in any given fiscal year. The town administrator may request the select for vote to authorize a budget that exceeds the above constraints provided the tax levies computed within the expected prop two and a half. I just limitations.

[Speaker 2] (1:21:57 - 1:22:45)
I think at this point, it would be helpful for Amy and Gino to understand sort of where we're positioned on if we're interested in a strict reading of the, you know, staying in the financial guidelines and or if we are open to budgets that do not understanding the financial impact this has on the taxpayer, but also, you know, as Amy said, we're supposed to be coming upon a sort of re review of our financial guidelines in the summer, but that is not going to help us right now. We have our budget.

We have, I mean, it's all our budget, but we have this budget and then we have the school budget and we have multiple collective bargaining agreements coming up.

[Speaker 1] (1:22:45 - 1:22:47)
We have that in the reserve too.

[Speaker 2] (1:22:47 - 1:22:53)
Understood. But I mean, it's impact it's an impact and it's an issue that we have to think about, I think.

[Speaker 4] (1:22:56 - 1:23:31)
And I just want to clarify something. I think I just said something inaccurate. Just in case anyone was actually paying attention to what I said, which is that 700,000 is over and above what the town suggested, recommended to the schools, what their budget should be.

They're not just over by 700,000 compared to a 2% policy. There are 700,000 over by starting with a much higher number, right? So they're probably over by a couple million dollars as well compared to a 2% policy.

[Speaker 5] (1:23:33 - 1:23:57)
So where did the $700,000 number come from? Because we're, did I hear that it wasn't that with the presentation last week or a couple weeks ago from the school department? I thought it was like four, something or five, 4.79%. That's the percent. No, right. I think it didn't. When we listened to Cheryl's presentation, I don't remember it being 700,000, but that could be me.

I don't know.

[Speaker 3] (1:23:58 - 1:24:09)
Their requested increase was 1.5. What was that? Their requested increase was 1.55. No percent.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:10 - 1:24:11)
I'm talking actual dollars.

[Speaker 4] (1:24:11 - 1:24:11)
Yeah.

[Speaker 3] (1:24:12 - 1:24:12)
1 million.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:12 - 1:24:13)
1 million.

[Speaker 4] (1:24:13 - 1:24:14)
Right.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:15 - 1:24:26)
But over last year, which is not the same as right, but I thought the deficit that they were working with wasn't seven. I thought it was closer to 500,000. Is that, thank you.

Did I hear that correctly or no?

[Speaker 6] (1:24:27 - 1:24:37)
It's not what I heard. I think where the $700,000 gap comes from is with a 3.25% increase over last year's budget, please increase the $700,000. Correct.

[Speaker 5] (1:24:37 - 1:24:41)
Correct. I just thought it was a smaller gap. I didn't realize it was seven.

I thought it was closer to five.

[Speaker 8] (1:24:42 - 1:25:21)
I just think it's really difficult for us to make a recommendation without seeing everything. So I would, I would, I'm sure we're going to have this on another, on our next, on our next agendas and probably on every agenda moving forward. So we can, so once the school committee votes, their budget, we can actually see, I'm sure Gino and Amy and the finance team are going to continue to work on the town side to see if there are any savings that we'll be able to pick up.

And then I would feel comfortable looking at everything together. Once we have the school, which is 60 plus percent of our, of our budget, inclusive of everything.

[Speaker 1] (1:25:21 - 1:25:22)
68.

[Speaker 8] (1:25:22 - 1:25:32)
68. Okay. Yeah.

I just think it's really tough for us to say, this is what we're going to do with 32% of our budget when we don't have the other 68% to talk about tonight.

[Speaker 4] (1:25:32 - 1:26:16)
But I think it is important, you know, or whatever, whoever's might be listening on the school committee or whatever, like the budget as it's proposed now, now that I've got these numbers in front of me is effectively suggesting something. Well, it's clearly 4.79% more than last year. It's also like four and a half percent compared to that 2% policy.

It's actually like at a four, four and a half percent. So when you got four and four and a half percent and it's two thirds of the budget, Either the town side is going to have to be like a 0% increase or you're not going to have 2% overall.

[Speaker 16] (1:26:16 - 1:26:17)
Right.

[Speaker 1] (1:26:18 - 1:28:05)
Well, I would think if there was ever a time that we need to address a correction, you know, because we have all the bargaining going on and we have a decrease, a forecast, a decrease in revenue, you know, I think addressing it, going up to the 2.5, that's allotted would be a, a good point. If there's the time to do it, it's, it's, it's now. And then if we needed to go back to an original policy, that would be something in the future.

But I think that, you know, you're making, you're making a recommendation to the school to be, what was your recommend, what was your guidance that you gave them? We gave them 3.25%. Right. So even at the 3.25% in the preliminary numbers that we're receiving, we have a $700,000 deficit. We also have to remember in what is also involved in that budget is there's a request for $515,000 in capital. And there's also an additional 200,000 that we should look to, to put in for the utility stabilization because national grid has not been able to put on the solar yet. So that's still iffy, which I definitely recommend we, we do that just because we don't know what's going to happen.

Senator Crichton is now involved in that to try to escalate getting national grid going. And then we have the additional money that we're going to add into the, that, that we're looking to add into the special education. So we're talking about a lot of money here.

[Speaker 2] (1:28:08 - 1:28:56)
Sure. We're not recreating the wheel here to ask you to model multiple sort of, I don't want to even admit to you how many tabs are on the spreadsheet. Yeah, because I mean, at this point, I think it's, it's difficult to see how we could fit into our current financial guidelines.

Not to say we shouldn't strive to be the best versions of ourselves and try to do that, but you know, obviously we need to understand reality also. And so modeling multiple budget recommendations, I think is where probably the expectation lies, at least for me going forward here, because as David said, I would like to see it all together, but I also don't want to just see it.

[Speaker 3] (1:28:56 - 1:29:20)
One of the options. So the, do you want me to delay printing the budget book? Because the budget book was going to be printed on the 20th, which would have the town minister's final recommended budget.

Do you want to instead on your next meeting, have another review of the overall budget? Cause the school will have, and then we'll produce the budget book after that for the March meeting.

[Speaker 2] (1:29:20 - 1:29:34)
I mean, I think that makes more sense. Yeah, that's still, it's going to be a moving target. I think a little bit longer than we anticipated.

Okay. Okay. Are we all good with this?

[Speaker 5] (1:29:35 - 1:29:39)
What's the state of the tri-chair meetings with the schools and finance committee?

[Speaker 1] (1:29:40 - 1:29:48)
We haven't had, so I've sent you all updates, minutes, I brought Diane in to send you minutes on tri-chair. There was no update. We haven't had a meeting.

[Speaker 5] (1:29:49 - 1:29:59)
Are there any on the books or what is the plan? Or is there not one or is that like kind of off the table at this point? I don't know.

[Speaker 1] (1:29:59 - 1:30:38)
I think it's off that. Well, I can tell you that we requested one, Eric and I requested one, but the, the school Glenn had reservations about it and I was on board and I just asked Glenn and Eric to have a conversation. I don't, I don't see, I don't know where Glenn's position is on this.

I think Glenn's position is that they're going to be voting on their school budget and their budget is to the bone and that there's no, nothing they can do. So that's actually, if that's what, okay.

[Speaker 5] (1:30:38 - 1:30:45)
Okay. Well, so then we shouldn't expect to see anything different than they're voting it. They have to vote it by the 15th, don't they?

[Speaker 1] (1:30:45 - 1:31:08)
You know, that's one person. I don't know, you know, they have several people working, so I don't want to speak for, you know, the superintendent or the business manager. Oh, Eric Hartman from the finance committee, the chair of the finance committee.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:09 - 1:31:11)
Should be able to unmute now, Eric.

[Speaker 12] (1:31:12 - 1:31:13)
Eric, you should mute.

[Speaker 7] (1:31:15 - 1:31:16)
Okay, I guess hearing.

[Speaker 2] (1:31:16 - 1:31:17)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (1:31:18 - 1:31:30)
I just want to share hearing on to your comment about the executive plan. I had a call with them about 45 minutes today, shared some of the concerns we talked about just generally from the finance committee as far as understanding the school's budget.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:31 - 1:31:44)
So my understanding is they are intending to vote tomorrow, Thursday night, but we're talking about looking at early next week to have a tri-chair just to regroup on some of the things that I shared with them today.

[Speaker 7] (1:31:44 - 1:31:46)
So there is another tri-chair in the works.

[Speaker 1] (1:31:46 - 1:31:50)
Great. There you go. Okay.

That's good to know.

[Speaker 4] (1:31:52 - 1:32:57)
I guess two comments. One is, well, I'm sympathetic certainly to the situation for the schools. I'm also sympathetic to the situation for the town.

It feels, you know, quote, easy to say, oh, well, we're going to go to 2.5 this year. But then you're creating that base. So just wanted to make that point.

The other is that, you know, we had the school committee kind of invited us to have a joint session in the finance committee. Should we do the same at our next select board meeting where we all kind of sit together and kind of confront the reality? Now the trouble is once the school committee votes for it, it's a little bit hard for them to.

. . Unvote it?

Unvote it or, yeah.

[Speaker 16] (1:32:58 - 1:32:58)
They can.

[Speaker 4] (1:32:59 - 1:33:13)
They can. You know, just human nature, though. But nonetheless, I think it would be good for us all to not just invite them to come but have a joint meeting and, you know, grapple with this together.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:15 - 1:33:20)
Eric, are you still there? Did he leave? No, he's on.

He's still here.

[Speaker 8] (1:33:20 - 1:33:21)
He just muted. Yeah, I'm here.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:22 - 1:33:24)
What do you think about that?

[Speaker 4] (1:33:26 - 1:33:53)
I think it's a good idea. I also have a recommendation from another FinCon member today that at some point perhaps there should be a direct pop-up just finance committee and school committee just so we can, you know, just sit around the table, you know, literally around the table and talk some issues through without having to, you know, have all three groups here. So I'm sure we can do both.

But that was just a recommendation.

[Speaker 7] (1:33:54 - 1:33:56)
I thought it was a good idea just to kind of get down to the brass tacks on some of the details.

[Speaker 1] (1:33:57 - 1:34:13)
I think the issue is it's the select board's budget before it gets passed over to you. So before it gets passed over to the finance committee. So I'm open to anyone's recommendation on that.

[Speaker 2] (1:34:14 - 1:34:39)
But if the recommendation of FinCon is that that will alleviate some issues, then I have no qualms about it. However, it sounds like it's going to happen post the school committee voting. So I guess it's a little cart before the horse or horse after the cart.

But if we think about it.

[Speaker 1] (1:34:39 - 1:34:55)
The meetings are all public. So I kind of feel like, I don't know, I don't see any reason why the select board wouldn't be at a meeting at the same time. I don't really see the big benefit of just the finance committee and the school committee.

[Speaker 5] (1:34:56 - 1:35:07)
Is the school committee required to vote by a certain date? By the 15th of February. So their meeting is tomorrow, which is what, the 6th?

That would be there.

[Speaker 11] (1:35:08 - 1:35:08)
Okay. Yep.

[Speaker 5] (1:35:11 - 1:36:18)
Now, I think it's, to Doug's point, I mean, he's probably asked for this five times over the past six months. Financial summit and when are we all meeting and when are we going to start this? Which we, you know, first thought about this last summer, really, right?

After town meeting and how we were going to avoid another situation like last town meeting. So now here we are in February when, you know, it's time to vote their budget for them. It's, you know, it's a little late.

I just wish we had started this sooner and had really more opportunity to speak together and really try to work it through. And we only did have that one presentation, you know, which was very informative and seemed so positive from Cheryl, Stella. And, yeah, I just, I wish we had more opportunity to sit down all together and really work through it.

I think we owe them that. I think we owe the, you know, town meeting members that. I think we owe everybody that to really give it its due diligence as a group.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:21 - 1:36:30)
So we will have a group meeting again. Doug, do you have anything else to say?

[Speaker 4] (1:36:30 - 1:36:31)
I think I've said enough.

[Speaker 1] (1:36:31 - 1:37:24)
David? All right. So, Eric, I'll catch up with you.

I think I can leave my mornings free to book a meeting. So I can be pretty flexible on that. I can take care of that.

Thank you. All right. So, moving along, we will now move to the discussion and possible vote on the UV pilot program.

I wasn't planning on taking a vote tonight because we've had no information sent to us previously. This is pretty much just getting to know stuff now. But we can discuss that.

[Speaker 7] (1:37:25 - 1:43:00)
Hi, Mark. Good evening. I'm here tonight to discuss the UV pilot program.

And I've been attending the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee meetings. I'm not a voting member of the committee, but I attended the meeting on Monday night and can brief everybody on what was discussed and what was voted on on Monday. So the UV pilot program, as you all know, Kings Beach has high contamination levels.

I think this keeps cutting in and out, Amy. Sorry. This should be better.

So as you all know, Kings Beach has contamination issues. And Marissa's got some slides up right now to show those two culverts there. Basically, the main cause of the contamination at Kings Beach is contaminated stormwater that's being collected through two main culverts.

One comes from the city of Lynn and one from the town of Swampscott. The stormwater that is tributary to Stacy's Brook collects contamination in many ways. It's sediment.

It's pet waste. It's contaminated connections. It's leaking sewers.

It's many, many factors that contribute to the stormwater that's being discharged down through those two culverts, raising the bacteria levels at the beach. As you all know, unfortunately, the beach has been closed many days the last few years because the levels have been above the maximum thresholds. So eliminating the sources of the contamination is the best approach, right, to stop the problem at the root.

But unfortunately, we're not there yet. We've made great progress. We have multiple projects going on in town that are either lining or replacing leaking sewers.

Some of these pipes are 70 or over 100 years old. And the contractors are working right through the winter installing new pipes around town. So as we continue to eliminate initial sources of the contamination, we've also looked at a program that would treat stormwater at the end of the discharge, right before it gets out into the ocean.

So that leads us to the UV pilot program. On this project, Kleinfelder is contracted directly with the city of Wynn, but we've been heavily involved because there's two culverts and we're part of the problem just like Wynn's culvert is. So this program is basically going to use UV light to kill the bacteria in the water prior to it being discharged out into the ocean.

Down at Humphrey Street, where it intersects with Eastern Ave, this project would propose to put two large tanks there on the street. We cannot put them on the DCR property on the grass, so we would utilize the street for this. And there are two hatches.

There's one hatch to access the Swabscot culvert, and there's one manhole in the median on Eastern Ave to access the Lynn culvert. So basically what would happen is in the culvert, a small weir wall would be built. It wouldn't block the entire culvert.

It would be a couple feet high inside of it. And during dry weather flows, the water will hit the weir wall and a pump will suck it out of there, put it through the tanks, treat it with UV light, and then put it back in the culvert to go out to the ocean. So this program, which would run from June to August, would test that technology, see if it's effective.

It would get us familiar with it and see if there's a long-term solution using UV treatment of stormwater. As you can see on the plan, you got the tanks on the street, the pumps down in the culvert, and that would be the rough setup of what it would look like down there. You're going 24-7, pumping the water.

The reason the weir wall is not the whole way is because if we get large rain events, we still have to be able to get the stormwater out. We already know that we have flooding issues down there sometimes with the tide coming in and the culvert carrying large flows. It tends to pop the manholes off down there.

So we do need to allow enough water to bypass the weir walls so that it can drain during large storms. Next slide. So what's it going to cost?

That's probably what everybody's curious. Our latest... Marissa, is this the...

[Speaker 5] (1:43:01 - 1:43:02)
That's not what we have.

[Speaker 7] (1:43:02 - 1:43:03)
Yeah, it should be $800,000.

[Speaker 5] (1:43:04 - 1:43:05)
$799,000. What?

[Speaker 7] (1:43:05 - 1:43:40)
It's the one I sent you at the end of the day there. So the latest estimate is $800,000. It's $150,000 for the engineering, and it's over $500,000 for the construction.

And contingencies and everything built in comes right around $800,000. I think the current proposal is a split cost between Swampscot and Lynn since we're both contributing to the issue, and we're both working on the solution.

[Speaker 2] (1:43:41 - 1:43:42)
You mean split 50-50?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:45 - 1:43:45)
Yes.

[Speaker 7] (1:43:46 - 1:43:47)
Right now it's 50-50.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:47 - 1:43:56)
I thought it was $700,000. Well, first I thought it was $500,000 last month. It was $500,000.

I thought it was $700,000 last week, and within a couple days it's $800,000?

[Speaker 4] (1:43:56 - 1:43:58)
We've got to hurry up and approve it.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:59 - 1:44:03)
What did the last discussion be?

[Speaker 7] (1:44:03 - 1:44:06)
I had $730,000, and then this morning I got an updated cost estimate that was $800,000.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:07 - 1:44:11)
What changed? The general contract.

[Speaker 7] (1:44:12 - 1:44:33)
Probably actual construction costs. The construction costs, the equipment itself is expensive, then you've got the bypass pumping system, and also just getting down in there and building these weir walls in the culvert is also a challenge.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:34 - 1:44:38)
Why would it go from $730,000 to $800,000 in not even a month?

[Speaker 6] (1:44:38 - 1:44:39)
A month. Try a couple days.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:40 - 1:44:40)
A couple weeks.

[Speaker 6] (1:44:42 - 1:44:57)
It actually went from $730,000 to $800,000 because Lynn hired a general contract to file all the weir walls, fencing around it, containment, sound attenuation, and that number came in higher than anticipated, a lot higher.

[Speaker 5] (1:44:58 - 1:45:16)
So they're hiring people, or hiring people, and we're just going to... Proposed. So they're going ahead and making all the decisions on hiring and cost, and we're just supposed to kick in whatever it is they decide their number is.

Okay. Okay. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Mark.

[Speaker 7] (1:45:18 - 1:46:48)
So the goals of this program... There we go. That's the one, Marissa.

Thanks. So I could go to the next slide, please. Project goals.

So what are we trying to achieve? We're trying to familiarize ourselves with the technology. We're trying to hopefully get the beach open.

If the program works well enough, the contamination would come down to a reasonable level where we could open the beach this summer. We would get an idea of how effective the treatment is so that if we wanted to scale it up to the wet weather flows, we'd have a rough idea of what that would entail. Those are the main goals of this project.

So the Water Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee put it to a vote on Monday night. Our client Felder was there. They answered a lot of the questions that everyone had, and it was a 5-to-3 vote in favor of the program.

Like I said, source elimination is the best option, but we're in a tough situation here. The beach has been closed a lot, and it's going to take time to get all these pipes replaced, find all these contamination sources.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:49 - 1:46:50)
So you were on that call the other night?

[Speaker 7] (1:46:51 - 1:46:51)
Yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:46:52 - 1:46:58)
Okay, because I watched it for the full two hours and three minutes, I think it was, and I didn't know that that was you.

[Speaker 7] (1:46:59 - 1:47:02)
Yeah, I was on there, but I'm also not a voting member of the committee.

[Speaker 5] (1:47:03 - 1:47:46)
Right. Do you happen to know, or maybe Liz would know, what the roll call vote was on that? Who voted what?

Because I'd like to know that. I couldn't quite discern it from the minutes. From my perspective of watching that meeting, it seemed like there was a lot of hesitancy for those that even voted yes.

So that's where my concern is coming in. I didn't feel, I think it was Dr. Vockley, Mr. Patsios, they had some real serious questions that I don't think they felt they were getting quite full answers on. Dr. Vockley brought up a lot of things that were really concerning to me. But I just would like to see the, I would like to know who voted what.

[Speaker 7] (1:47:46 - 1:47:54)
Yep, there was three no votes. It was Vockley, Patsios, and I think Lauren Fisher was the third one.

[Speaker 5] (1:47:56 - 1:48:19)
And it was odd because is, I don't, Mr. Dansdell? That's you, yeah, thank you. So you're a voting member?

Yes, well, I'm an alternate. You were an alternate. So at the beginning of the meeting, I don't think you were recognized as becoming a voting member, but you did end up voting.

I got confused, so I didn't know. So Mr. Dansdell is a voting member, Liz?

[Speaker 11] (1:48:26 - 1:48:31)
Each meeting I pick alternates to fill any open positions.

[Speaker 16] (1:48:32 - 1:48:32)
Okay.

[Speaker 11] (1:48:32 - 1:48:41)
So we had two openings, so Terry and Brian both got promoted to voting member. They were at every meeting, so they're essentially full members.

[Speaker 5] (1:48:41 - 1:48:48)
Because I couldn't figure it out. I know that he voted at the end, but I couldn't figure out if he was an actual alternate or not. It wasn't very clear.

[Speaker 11] (1:48:48 - 1:48:53)
I voted him before the vote. I'm sorry? I appointed him a voting member before the vote.

[Speaker 5] (1:48:53 - 1:49:01)
Right before the vote, yeah, that's what I thought. The other alternate. Brian Drummond, yes, I remember hearing.

He was one of the no votes. He had a lot of concerns as well.

[Speaker 6] (1:49:02 - 1:49:03)
Brian voted yes.

[Speaker 5] (1:49:03 - 1:49:19)
He voted yes, okay, thank you. I think he was the one that was questioning the scale and whether or not it would be six times or whether it would be just dry conditions or heavy rainfall. I think his questions were about the scale, basically.

[Speaker 7] (1:49:20 - 1:49:31)
Yep, there was definitely a lot of great questions raised on the Monday night meeting, and people have some legitimate concerns about the technology because it's new, right, and it's a lot of flow coming through there.

[Speaker 5] (1:49:32 - 1:49:48)
Well, I think Dr. Buckley said it, that he was pretty sold on the technology itself, on UV light and whether or not it would work, but it was more a question on conditions, whether or not it would work, or it was being tested on wet conditions or just solely on dry conditions, so I think that was.

[Speaker 7] (1:49:49 - 1:50:11)
Yeah, I mean, we're only expecting it to really, or I shouldn't say expecting it. Okay. It's more for dry conditions, right, because we know that during the wet conditions, it's going to go right over the weir wall anyway, so it's really just this program is about honing in on the dry condition evaluation of the system.

[Speaker 5] (1:50:11 - 1:50:28)
And can you speak to the pollution aspect of it from the diesel fuel, the generators? There was a lot of discussion about that, how that would be managed or if it would be managed for the people that will be seeing this thing on 24-7 in their neighborhood potentially, what the negative aspects of that might be.

[Speaker 7] (1:50:29 - 1:51:10)
Yeah, I mean, people have raised concerns about it being loud with the generators. It could be a hindrance to the aesthetics of that downtown area. In terms of the diesel fuel, I don't know what type of odor or how much consumption it would be.

I can't really speak to that. But, you know, it's something new and different, but it's trying to, it's kind of a last resort. That's a bad way of phrasing it.

It's not a last resort. It's just trying to get it right before it discharges.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:10 - 1:51:28)
Okay. And Mr. Patsios' questions about the location, I think he had a different opinion as to maybe an alternative location being the Pine Street area. Can you speak to that at all?

Or if there is potential in that? I don't think there was. It didn't sound like by the call.

[Speaker 7] (1:51:28 - 1:51:32)
If it was discussed, I think it was probably before I was here. Maybe Gino could chime in.

[Speaker 16] (1:51:32 - 1:51:32)
Yeah.

[Speaker 6] (1:51:33 - 1:51:53)
So Charlie, as the idea, if we put it on Pine Street, both Winds Culvert comes down Eastern Ave. And there is an offshoot that comes over to us. It's been blocked. It's in a state of disrepair right now.

But you could potentially set up the UV pilot program. I think he's thinking about the VFW site, whether it's 1214 Pine Street or if it is the VFW site.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:54 - 1:51:58)
So I think he's thinking alternate locations, right? He was the only person really thinking that.

[Speaker 6] (1:51:58 - 1:52:27)
Yeah, because Charlie was saying that would also be the potential permanent location. So he says, why wouldn't we use that? I think it's an expensive location.

If he's referring to Pine Street, we paid $1.8 million for the piece of property. Wouldn't be willing to pick up some other issues with that because we have a lot of manholes and connections downstream. It wouldn't be treated from Pine Street down to the ocean.

That's a suggestion. I don't know. It's not totally on it.

Right.

[Speaker 8] (1:52:27 - 1:53:09)
But wouldn't there also be savings associated with it? And certainly noise mitigation. Since you do have that heavy power on site right there at Pine, that would eliminate the need to have to rent generators and fuel.

So there could be some cost savings for the town. I mean, for me, I think we certainly want to learn by doing. We're not going to learn by not doing.

So we're going to learn by running this test. But if there are ways to save the town of Swampskate money, I certainly would want to explore those potential opportunities.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:09 - 1:53:12)
Or save the headache of the butters and residents, right?

[Speaker 8] (1:53:12 - 1:53:14)
So that is definitely an option.

[Speaker 6] (1:53:14 - 1:53:18)
But I don't think it would be an option to have this pilot program working by June of this year.

[Speaker 5] (1:53:19 - 1:53:28)
Okay. That's the other piece. Is the rush to this to just get it for the summer?

Is that why we're trying to get this, push this through for May or whatever it is, right? Yes.

[Speaker 7] (1:53:28 - 1:53:29)
That's correct.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:31 - 1:56:27)
So I sat and listened to the meeting. I was able to find it this morning on the website. I didn't know information was sent to us, but I found it on the website.

And a couple questions. I was surprised at an entire committee, how many questions there were going on and how there wasn't more unity. And how the vice chair, Dr. Vockley, was vehemently opposed to this. I walked in there thinking, oh, this is probably going to be a slam dunk. And I walked out with a totally different view on it. It seemed like there was an enormous amount of questions that weren't asked.

What about the wet weather and how many days would a beach be open? But the most important questions that I found are the questions that I have been asking forever. Let's say this works.

It's great. Where are we going to put it? What are the costs?

What are the long-term operating costs? And how long would this process really work for? Now, what I've heard is that it looks like it would be the UV system would last approximately 20 years.

The operating expenses for it are still up in the air. And who would pay for that? And then there's the cost to ramp it up.

And the fact that Dr. Vockley kept pointing out that why can't we have some type of an estimate of what this would actually cost? Is this a $20 million, $50 million? What is the cost and what is the size and where would we put it long-term?

So that's my first comment. I was very concerned with how many questions were being put forth by committee members and that there were no answers. Constant.

We don't know. We have to look. We don't know.

No answer. The other comment that stood out was I think it was one of the engineers from Kleinfelder said that at a recent conference he was at, that the DEP and the EPA both said that they were in favor of an outfall versus the UV. That the UV was not a permanent solution and their focus was more on the outfall.

And then the last thing is, where are we with additional testing? Have we really identified, is there a possibility we can be doing chlorination and dechlorination? Could we be, what is the timeline on actually relining all these pipes?

Because I think in the presentation that we had in the fall of 22, the relining of all the pipes, wasn't that a three to four year project at $12 million? I'm going off of memory on here.

[Speaker 6] (1:56:27 - 1:56:34)
I think $12 million would complete phase two and then be one other phase, which would be phase three with roughly another $10 million.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:34 - 1:56:37)
And would that be for the full lining of all these pipes?

[Speaker 6] (1:56:39 - 1:56:42)
With the $10 million we've already committed, yes.

[Speaker 1] (1:56:43 - 1:57:15)
Okay, so my concerns are that, A, I listened to a committee of scientists, engineers, and some business people. And they had a lot of different views, a lot of different questions. Nobody can answer questions.

Even though I heard, I think, two or three people vote yes, but all the questions they had prior to the yes were all the reasons why they shouldn't have it and why they didn't have the information. So this is a real tough call.

[Speaker 6] (1:57:16 - 1:57:18)
That was one of them.

[Speaker 1] (1:57:19 - 1:57:58)
Yeah. And as much as, I guess I don't really see, I don't see why there's a rush if we don't have the answers. It seems like, it just seems like this hasn't been thought out enough.

My biggest question is options. What other options do we have? And what have we really vetted, super vetted, like chlorination, dechlorination, the pipes, the outfall?

How much are we doing there to really find out what can be done? That's all I have to say.

[Speaker 6] (1:57:59 - 1:58:03)
I know both EPA and DEP fully endorse source elimination.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:04 - 1:58:05)
As opposed to UV.

[Speaker 6] (1:58:06 - 1:58:07)
UV, the outfall.

[Speaker 5] (1:58:11 - 1:58:27)
So I remember, I mean, I used to, Sean would often say the outfall extension pipe was his, if I'm remembering right, that was his first gut reaction to what would be the best approach. But how, have we explored that?

[Speaker 6] (1:58:28 - 1:58:40)
No, we pumped the brakes on that a little bit because we know we don't have the support of a state delegation there against it. So our representatives? Are against it.

It's going to impact.

[Speaker 8] (1:58:43 - 2:01:50)
So yes, so to that effect, we do have our state delegation that is requesting that we look into this UV pilot and we test this. And we test out this technology. And again, just to set the record straight, we did receive an email from Liz Smith immediately after the water sewer infrastructure advisory committee, which did notify us of the 5-3 vote.

I watched the two-hour meeting. I thought there were definitely some good questions that were asked. There were definitely some answers that remained, certainly.

But I think just given the fact that this has been such a long and drawn out problem that we've been dealing with in town and that the focus has been on addressing this and moving forward and looking to solve the problem, this is an incremental step. This is an important step so we can figure out how we can learn about this technology. If this technology, which is a technology mainly used for wastewater, can be implemented for stormwater, yes.

Honestly, I think I don't know if it's going to work for stormwater. I don't know, which is why we want to do this test. And it only makes sense for us to vote today so we can have this in place for the summer beach season.

If we're going to wait and have this in place for October, it doesn't help us get that information that we so desperately need and to take that step that we so desperately want to do. We want to be part of the solution here. We want to make sure that we're addressing this.

And if it costs us $400,000 to figure out that UV is not ultimately the final solution, and we're moving on to the pipe at that point, we will then have the support, in my view, the support of our state delegation from Senator Creighton and from Representative Armini and from the DEP and EPA to move full steam ahead with the outfall. But without taking that incremental step, we're never going to get there. If this proves to be a total solution, then we have other issues that we need to tackle, such as siting, etc.

But we need to take this step, and I think I'm certainly recommending that. I'm not excited about having to spend $400,000. But again, I'm excited about taking that incremental step that is absolutely necessary to fix a 100-year-plus problem in the town of Swampscott and in the city of Lynn and for the region and on the North Shore.

We need to do this. We can't wait.

[Speaker 4] (2:01:53 - 2:02:18)
I have a couple of questions. So there was like a mini-mini-pilot done already, right? There was some extremely small-scale testing done.

Yes. And that showed – I don't know if I've ever actually seen the results of that. I assume they were relatively positive, and that's why we're talking about this.

[Speaker 11] (2:02:19 - 2:02:28)
They show that UV works. We know UV works. And it showed that it works on water from the culverts, so at that level of turbidity.

[Speaker 4] (2:02:29 - 2:02:41)
So that was the question, though, about that, because it was small-scale, but also it was like pretty – it was non-turbid water, right? So that was the question, really, right?

[Speaker 11] (2:02:42 - 2:02:51)
So I guess – We know it doesn't work in turbid water. That's why there's a holding tank so that it can settle, and then it goes into the UV tank.

[Speaker 4] (2:02:54 - 2:03:27)
And so I guess why do we have to go to this scale? Like this is the first jump we need to make from something we did for two days or whatever it was, and we have to go to this scale right away for three months? I mean, I know we want to keep the beach open, and that would be like a home run, right?

If this actually worked, except for like super rainy days, and if Dr. Brockley thinks that at least the technology – Well, any rainy day plus 72 hours, right?

[Speaker 5] (2:03:27 - 2:03:27)
What's that?

[Speaker 2] (2:03:27 - 2:03:30)
I think it's any rain. It's not just super rainy days.

[Speaker 1] (2:03:30 - 2:03:35)
Yeah. Any rain at all for two hours. We don't know.

Well, this test won't tell us about rainy days.

[Speaker 6] (2:03:35 - 2:03:41)
We're thinking less than a quarter of an inch of rain without doing anybody else's testing. We think so.

[Speaker 11] (2:03:41 - 2:03:43)
But we have to test that. We don't know.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:44 - 2:03:45)
It depends on how long.

[Speaker 4] (2:03:45 - 2:03:53)
But all the non-rainy days, we think this could potentially have the beach open where it wasn't last year.

[Speaker 2] (2:03:53 - 2:03:56)
Unless they're post-rainy days. Right, because it's closed for 72 hours.

[Speaker 4] (2:03:57 - 2:03:58)
The 24, 48 hours.

[Speaker 11] (2:03:58 - 2:04:03)
It doesn't necessarily have to be closed that long. It'll depend on what the testing tells us.

[Speaker 2] (2:04:03 - 2:04:08)
But that's our policy, isn't it? Well, we want to have test results for at least 24 hours. Right.

[Speaker 11] (2:04:08 - 2:04:13)
But it may be fine, and we won't have to wait 72 hours.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:13 - 2:04:15)
But isn't that what our signs say, that we make people wait?

[Speaker 11] (2:04:16 - 2:04:21)
Well, we don't make people wait. That's the recommendation. We recommend it.

72 hours. Because we're not treating the water.

[Speaker 5] (2:04:22 - 2:04:26)
So you're saying those signs would potentially change with this pilot?

[Speaker 11] (2:04:26 - 2:04:29)
They could, but probably not until we've gone through a whole summer. I don't know.

[Speaker 4] (2:04:30 - 2:04:48)
And so why do we have to do the whole three months? That's not necessary to show whether or not it works, right? I assume you would know within a month.

As long as there's a couple different conditions of rain or whatever during that month, you would know. But the whole three months is really just assuming that it works.

[Speaker 7] (2:04:48 - 2:05:06)
I think by the time you get the equipment out there and set up and build the weir wall and everything, you're going to want to get a longer data collection period. If you're going to do all that, it makes sense to go for a few months, in my opinion, rather than do it just for one month. Because there's a lot of upstart costs there.

[Speaker 5] (2:05:07 - 2:05:11)
So would the cost be reduced if it was just for one month, to Doug's point?

[Speaker 7] (2:05:12 - 2:05:14)
Not by two-thirds. Not by two, yeah.

[Speaker 5] (2:05:14 - 2:05:14)
No.

[Speaker 6] (2:05:14 - 2:05:17)
The generator and some fuel. Renting the equipment and the weir walls.

[Speaker 2] (2:05:17 - 2:05:20)
And the renting of the equipment. Because you've got to still build the wall and stuff.

[Speaker 6] (2:05:21 - 2:05:25)
Right. Do you have a question?

[Speaker 4] (2:05:25 - 2:05:33)
Yeah. Was that explored at all? Or was it just kind of from the beginning, it was like we're going to do this for three months because we hope that the beach will be open for the summer?

[Speaker 7] (2:05:33 - 2:05:37)
Yeah, it was just we kind of went right to evaluating just let's do the beach season.

[Speaker 4] (2:05:39 - 2:06:05)
So then the last question, so I'm all for trying it, even though I definitely think that we should be putting every last dollar we have into fixing the pipes because I think that's the real solution. I think all these other things are relative panic moves. But I understand, you know, if it helps in the short term, that would be great.

So where is this money going to come from?

[Speaker 1] (2:06:07 - 2:06:14)
Maybe the state, our state legislatures, they're in support of it. Do they have any money that they're putting towards it?

[Speaker 5] (2:06:15 - 2:06:16)
That's a good question.

[Speaker 8] (2:06:16 - 2:06:17)
It is a good question.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:17 - 2:06:18)
Does anybody know that answer?

[Speaker 8] (2:06:18 - 2:06:19)
We'll approve it.

[Speaker 11] (2:06:19 - 2:06:21)
Oh, Lynn is using their ARPA money.

[Speaker 5] (2:06:22 - 2:06:23)
Liz is trying to talk.

[Speaker 11] (2:06:24 - 2:06:34)
I'm trying to talk. Got it. Lynn is using their ARPA money, their Kings Beach ARPA money, and I think the legislators would say you guys had two and a half million too.

[Speaker 4] (2:06:35 - 2:06:41)
Right. But how do we, like, didn't we have to commit how we were spending that money?

[Speaker 1] (2:06:41 - 2:06:58)
It's different. That ARPA money is different because it came from the state. And so our commitment was to working on cleaning the situation.

So we're cleaning the pipes, cleaning, getting to a better spot.

[Speaker 4] (2:06:58 - 2:06:59)
There's obligation rules and everything.

[Speaker 3] (2:06:59 - 2:07:29)
So, first of all, with the earmark, as long as it stays within the general scope of dealing with that. Somebody has a question.

[Speaker 2] (2:07:31 - 2:07:32)
I have a couple of questions.

[Speaker 5] (2:07:33 - 2:07:33)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:07:35 - 2:07:42)
Have we, because this isn't a flood area, have we checked with conservation or anybody that we can even put this here?

[Speaker 6] (2:07:43 - 2:07:57)
We did. Actually, it's outside the area because it's more than 100 feet from the water. We didn't look into the flood zone, but as far as conservation approval, we don't need it.

We checked with Tony because it's 100 feet away from the resource area.

[Speaker 16] (2:07:58 - 2:07:58)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (2:07:58 - 2:08:04)
And the people know, to just piggyback on that, people know that it floods there, right? I mean, this equipment is going to be flooded, probably.

[Speaker 6] (2:08:04 - 2:08:06)
Yeah. Right. Right.

[Speaker 9] (2:08:06 - 2:08:07)
Right.

[Speaker 6] (2:08:08 - 2:08:17)
It floods, I'm not sure. It definitely floods there then because it's a combination of the tide coming in and coming over. Right.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:19 - 2:08:22)
I think we moved equipment if we knew that was going to happen.

[Speaker 6] (2:08:22 - 2:08:22)
It doesn't.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:23 - 2:08:29)
The equipment's a big, I mean, these are large tanks that are going to be on the roadway. I mean, I don't think they're going to be.

[Speaker 9] (2:08:29 - 2:08:29)
Right.

[Speaker 7] (2:08:29 - 2:08:34)
I don't think the water that comes up would reach the top of them.

[Speaker 4] (2:08:35 - 2:08:37)
Okay. Generators, pipes, seal, whatever.

[Speaker 2] (2:08:38 - 2:09:10)
Right. Water getting into generators and then coming back into the water that we're cleaning to put back out on the beach seems counterproductive. So we've talked a lot about the wet weather issue and the idea is like the pilot, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the pilot is meant to give us some data that then we could apply towards wet weather situations, which then we could determine whether this is truly a long-term solution.

Yes.

[Speaker 7] (2:09:12 - 2:09:15)
Yeah, with costs, hopefully with costs put to it.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:17 - 2:09:19)
You mean costs put to the long-term solution?

[Speaker 7] (2:09:20 - 2:09:27)
I would hope, yeah, I would hope that our engineers could help us. You know, once we get, you know, if, yeah, an updated estimate, would you?

[Speaker 11] (2:09:28 - 2:09:28)
Yes.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:29 - 2:09:30)
Yes. The answer is yes.

[Speaker 7] (2:09:30 - 2:09:30)
Yes.

[Speaker 16] (2:09:31 - 2:09:31)
Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:09:33 - 2:09:38)
And these are no longer estimated costs. This is the true final version of the cost. No.

[Speaker 11] (2:09:39 - 2:09:41)
This is the true final.

[Speaker 6] (2:09:41 - 2:09:44)
Yeah. Quotes. These are quotes.

[Speaker 11] (2:09:44 - 2:09:54)
These are quotes. So before it was estimates. Now we have quotes from electrical and construction.

So it doesn't mean that nothing will change.

[Speaker 6] (2:09:54 - 2:09:59)
Right. We do have a contingency, which they reduced to keep another 100,000. Right, there was a contingency.

[Speaker 7] (2:10:01 - 2:10:05)
It's got a 6% contingency at this point. What did it start with?

[Speaker 6] (2:10:05 - 2:10:05)
Ten.

[Speaker 7] (2:10:05 - 2:10:06)
Ten. Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (2:10:07 - 2:11:18)
And there's no data that we can understand what the costs are long-term for this project, because this is what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid that we know UV works. We're going to have positive efficacy from this testing.

We're going to go to implement it, and it's going to cost the same exact amount as an outfall. And then we're sort of stuck in this position where we invested in this process, which has an upkeep to it. Not that an outfall doesn't have upkeep.

I think we learned our lessons. Pipes have upkeep. But the fact of the matter is, I think we're talking about a 20-year span and sort of a lot of maintenance to UV lights and systems and finding a place to house it and all of that.

I just don't understand. I'm not that I'm not in support of a pilot. I just am in support of it.

I want it to be more of an educated guess and less of a guess, I guess I want to say. And so if we have a little bit more data about what it might cost long-term, then we might be able to say, like, okay, we are getting in a car to test drive it. We know we can afford to buy it.

[Speaker 11] (2:11:19 - 2:11:54)
So when they did their original report three years ago, I believe the quote for UV was $25 million, and I believe the quote for the outflow pipe extension was like really high, a lot higher. I'm sure $25 is low just because costs have risen over those three years, and we don't know the specs of a permanent solution. That's part of what we're trying to figure out.

But once we have that information, I think we can estimate, and it will be less than an outflow pipe extension.

[Speaker 2] (2:11:54 - 2:12:09)
But even if we just took the pilot as projected and then estimated it for water flow on great conditions in the outfall for both towns, couldn't we come up with a dollar amount?

[Speaker 6] (2:12:10 - 2:12:12)
I think we need to do the pilot.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:12 - 2:12:22)
We could, but not the pilot. We have a dollar amount estimated for the pilot, so why couldn't we just take that same sort of data structure and put it to a bigger...

[Speaker 1] (2:12:22 - 2:12:22)
You absolutely can.

[Speaker 6] (2:12:23 - 2:12:33)
You can do assumptions on this. You can do assumptions, but you're doing the pilot to see how much rainfall will it work at, and then you can extrapolate that to how big a system...

[Speaker 13] (2:12:33 - 2:12:34)
I totally understand that.

[Speaker 2] (2:12:35 - 2:13:06)
I understand whatever dollar amount we would get today would be the lowest dollar amount this would cost, basically, because we're basically saying in perfect weather with a very low flow, if we took the pilot and grand-scaled it to work in that current perfect condition, it's going to cost X10 million dollars. So I understand that would be a lowest dollar amount, but at least that would be a dollar amount that we could say, okay, we went in making an investment into something that we at least knew we could get into the ballpark.

[Speaker 11] (2:13:06 - 2:13:13)
I think that would be the $25 million just revised for current conditions, so we could ask them to do that.

[Speaker 1] (2:13:13 - 2:13:22)
How many times during the summer did we test there all the time during the summer, or was it just once a week?

[Speaker 11] (2:13:23 - 2:13:24)
Once a week.

[Speaker 1] (2:13:24 - 2:13:29)
Once a week. So in that once a week, how many times did we fail?

[Speaker 4] (2:13:32 - 2:13:33)
The Swampscott side?

[Speaker 1] (2:13:33 - 2:13:38)
Yeah. The Swampscott side. We were...

[Speaker 7] (2:13:38 - 2:13:40)
That was before I was here.

[Speaker 1] (2:13:41 - 2:13:55)
I don't know this past summer. I only know the summer before. I know the summer before we did weekly tests, and over the course of the summer on our weekly tests, we failed twice.

[Speaker 5] (2:13:57 - 2:14:03)
Wait, what? We only failed twice? Which is when we only test...

That was two summers ago.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:03 - 2:14:06)
Two summers ago when we test once a week.

[Speaker 6] (2:14:06 - 2:14:09)
In the Swampscott part of James Beach. Yes.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:09 - 2:14:10)
From our fall.

[Speaker 6] (2:14:10 - 2:14:16)
It's actually one little spot. Well, it's where they were testing. When the Board of Health tests it, they go three feet out into the water.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:17 - 2:14:17)
Yes. Right.

[Speaker 6] (2:14:18 - 2:14:22)
Where we're testing, we're testing it right at the mouth of the outfall. Which is... Actually, if you go three feet into the water.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:23 - 2:14:27)
No, I'm asking for the Board of Health in the water, the Board of Health test.

[Speaker 6] (2:14:28 - 2:14:28)
Exactly.

[Speaker 1] (2:14:28 - 2:15:06)
Right. Whereas at Fisherman's Beach, the testing was done in the water, and we were failing constantly at Fisherman's, and then we were able to really see what happens. We have a failure, then the bacteria seems to last, especially on hot days, for a little bit longer, and we were able to see how it really moves.

But over at King's, the only information we have is the weekly test, and I don't know the results from this past summer, but I do know the summer before, according to Jeff Vaughn, we failed on two occasions.

[Speaker 6] (2:15:08 - 2:15:11)
So you wouldn't want our test because, as I said...

[Speaker 1] (2:15:11 - 2:15:14)
I don't want your test. I want where people swim, not in the...

[Speaker 6] (2:15:14 - 2:15:17)
Right. The purpose is to get the beach open. You don't want to compare.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:17 - 2:15:20)
I want Jeff Vaughn's, you know, the Board of Health test.

[Speaker 7] (2:15:21 - 2:15:34)
In the Kleinfelder report, just along the discussion, in fiscal year 2023, King's Beach was open for swimming nine days out of the summer season. In fiscal year 2024, King's Beach was open for 30% of the swimming days.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:35 - 2:15:38)
That's information from Lynn and stuff. I'm only referring to...

[Speaker 14] (2:15:38 - 2:15:40)
This is the Kleinfelder report.

[Speaker 1] (2:15:40 - 2:15:47)
I'm referring to our town Board of Health reports, the information. Katie?

[Speaker 2] (2:15:47 - 2:17:04)
I think the last thing that I would like to discuss is the noise, the issue of pollution coming off of the mechanics, the obstruction of view. I think there's going to be some lighting involved here, so the lighting to the neighbors. I would like to see what this is going to look like.

I know we've not put this out to the neighbors. This is probably the first time they may be hearing about it, unless they watched your committee meeting. But I think, for me, that's going to be really helpful to understand.

I understand there's a greater benefit to the city of Lynn and to the town of Swampstate. But we've already told those folks, you can't go on the beach that you're staring at every day. And now you can't stare at it either, because we're going to put a big anchor in front of your view, potentially.

And you can't maybe sit out on your porch, because you're going to hear the noise. We banned leaf blowers for exactly that reason during the summer months, but we're putting this in front of their houses. So I just think, for me to make my decision, I need to understand that part a little bit better, because it's the most beautiful time in town.

And we're asking them to make a really big sacrifice during that time. So I need some more information for that.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:05 - 2:17:14)
And why are we looking to split this? Do we have the exact same amount of flow as Lynn? Okay, so that needs to come off the table, right?

[Speaker 2] (2:17:15 - 2:17:18)
And we don't have to build a hatch, right? They took that out.

[Speaker 6] (2:17:19 - 2:17:20)
Oh, they did? Okay, great.

[Speaker 2] (2:17:21 - 2:17:24)
They took it out, and it still went up. And they what? And it still went up.

[Speaker 8] (2:17:25 - 2:17:49)
We took out IDEC's equipment, too, and it still went up. No, so we have, just so the public is clear, police detail, labor, fill, maintenance, those are going to be split 50-50, maybe? Maybe.

Okay, the police, since this is going to sit in Swampskate, we would use Swampskate police officers for details?

[Speaker 6] (2:17:49 - 2:17:54)
Yeah, we're only anticipating using the police for the setup and the breakdown. Okay, and then?

[Speaker 5] (2:17:54 - 2:17:56)
Is that factored in here?

[Speaker 6] (2:17:56 - 2:17:56)
Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (2:17:56 - 2:17:57)
To the cost?

[Speaker 6] (2:17:57 - 2:17:59)
Right, yeah. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:17:59 - 2:18:02)
But, David, why would we split 50?

[Speaker 5] (2:18:02 - 2:18:02)
No, he's asking.

[Speaker 1] (2:18:03 - 2:18:04)
I'm asking the question.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:04 - 2:18:04)
Okay.

[Speaker 8] (2:18:04 - 2:18:09)
And then are there any environmental permits that are needed here?

[Speaker 6] (2:18:10 - 2:18:13)
Oh, that's a good point. I think so.

[Speaker 7] (2:18:14 - 2:18:15)
Not to my knowledge.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:17 - 2:18:18)
Environmental permits?

[Speaker 2] (2:18:18 - 2:18:20)
You have to pull permits?

[Speaker 6] (2:18:20 - 2:18:20)
No.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:21 - 2:18:25)
Isn't that crazy? Yeah. That we're literally doing some things here.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:27 - 2:18:32)
I know they talked about noise attenuation, but they're going to put up that eight-foot fence around it.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:32 - 2:18:35)
Oh, beautiful. Oh, good Lord. Oh, no.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:37 - 2:18:39)
I'm not hiding anything. I know, I know.

[Speaker 2] (2:18:40 - 2:18:42)
I did not know that, though.

[Speaker 8] (2:18:43 - 2:18:57)
And then how much, you know, are there generators that are whisper-quiet that would comply with any noise ordinance or anything? They're going to install electric pumps instead of diesel pumps, but then they said we wouldn't get benefit out of the electric pumps.

[Speaker 6] (2:18:57 - 2:19:02)
Actually, it was because we couldn't get the electricity down there, right, for the electric pumps.

[Speaker 11] (2:19:03 - 2:19:04)
No, they're going to.

[Speaker 2] (2:19:04 - 2:19:05)
I think they're using electric pumps.

[Speaker 6] (2:19:06 - 2:19:06)
Pardon me?

[Speaker 2] (2:19:06 - 2:19:07)
The pumps are electric.

[Speaker 6] (2:19:08 - 2:19:09)
So the pumps are electric.

[Speaker 2] (2:19:10 - 2:19:19)
But the generators are diesel, so the generators are not electric. They can't get the power to that location. Because we'd have to rely on National Grid.

[Speaker 11] (2:19:19 - 2:19:24)
No, because there's not 480-volt service.

[Speaker 8] (2:19:27 - 2:19:28)
It's both. They could bring that in.

[Speaker 2] (2:19:29 - 2:19:31)
Right, they could bring it in. They said they could have. Oh, okay.

[Speaker 8] (2:19:31 - 2:19:39)
But it's both. And that service does exist at Pine Street? I'm going to say according to Charlie, yes.

[Speaker 6] (2:19:40 - 2:19:45)
He was the former owner of the property. That's the only reason I'm giving him credibility.

[Speaker 4] (2:19:49 - 2:19:51)
So we have to make a decision tonight?

[Speaker 1] (2:19:51 - 2:19:51)
No.

[Speaker 4] (2:19:53 - 2:19:57)
I won't. Okay. So when do we have to make a decision by?

[Speaker 2] (2:19:58 - 2:20:49)
I think that's another good point. So I think the reason that if I correct me if I'm wrong, the reason that there's a pressure to make a decision is because the sooner we make a decision, the sooner we can order everything, the sooner we can get started, the sooner it's likely that June will start the pilot, and then that there might be June, July, August, swim days open on Kings Beach that we would not have open right now if we did not have a pilot.

But to say it, if we need more information and we're not comfortable making a decision, and it goes July, August, September pilot, I mean, how much swimming are you doing in June? It's still a little chilly, but I mean, if it's going to be. What's the rush is what you're saying.

Yeah, I just feel like I'd rather make an educated, well thought out decision and still June, July, be able to have beach days open.

[Speaker 4] (2:20:50 - 2:21:03)
I mean, is that sound right? I mean, is that really realistic? Do we really have another month and does that push it back a month?

And is that the way it works or is that not really that logical?

[Speaker 11] (2:21:04 - 2:21:14)
I think work will proceed regardless. What's that? Over the next two weeks.

I think if you take two more weeks, the work is going to proceed. Whatever is being done is going to continue.

[Speaker 2] (2:21:15 - 2:21:17)
Because right now it's all staging and planning.

[Speaker 11] (2:21:19 - 2:21:42)
The only actual work that's going to take place soon is the hatch for Lent, and they're paying for that because they get the full-time benefit of it. So I think there would still be pressure to hit that June 1st date, even if you delay until you have a chance to think about it or answer questions that you want answered. But I wouldn't delay it a month.

I would try to do it.

[Speaker 1] (2:21:43 - 2:21:50)
And why is it we are not looking at chlorination and dechlorination, things that have a bigger problem?

[Speaker 7] (2:21:50 - 2:21:51)
I believe that it used to be chlorinated, right?

[Speaker 1] (2:21:52 - 2:21:55)
It cannot be done. The EPA said it cannot be done.

[Speaker 11] (2:21:56 - 2:21:57)
It was rejected.

[Speaker 8] (2:21:58 - 2:22:04)
Isn't that a violation of the Clean Water Act? I mean, that is what we were doing previously. Chlorinating, yes.

[Speaker 2] (2:22:04 - 2:22:07)
Chlorinating, but not dechlorinating. No, you don't allow dechlorination either.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:09 - 2:22:13)
They recently rejected it again. Is that correct?

[Speaker 6] (2:22:13 - 2:22:18)
Yes. I know that was on the table at the beginning, and they know what's on the table pretty quickly.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:19 - 2:22:25)
So did we look into a dechlorination? You're saying a dechlorination station is against the EPA?

[Speaker 4] (2:22:26 - 2:22:37)
Yes. Now, whether or not they could be pushed, I don't know, but it was one of the options, and it did come off. And it was because EPA or EPA?

[Speaker 1] (2:22:38 - 2:22:40)
They dechlorinated Deer Island.

[Speaker 4] (2:22:41 - 2:22:43)
Wastewater. So I don't know. It's different.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:44 - 2:22:51)
If they're dechlorinating and dechlorinating wastewater, would there be any reason why?

[Speaker 6] (2:22:51 - 2:22:53)
Send it a mile out into the ocean.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:53 - 2:22:55)
And then they send it out.

[Speaker 6] (2:22:55 - 2:22:55)
A mile out.

[Speaker 1] (2:22:56 - 2:22:56)
Right.

[Speaker 6] (2:22:56 - 2:22:57)
A mile, yeah.

[Speaker 4] (2:23:01 - 2:23:11)
Okay, so do we need to kind of aggregate our very specific questions out of all this? Or are we ready to vote?

[Speaker 1] (2:23:14 - 2:23:16)
Well, I'm not ready to vote.

[Speaker 2] (2:23:16 - 2:23:18)
I mean, I have questions that I feel.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:19 - 2:23:35)
We meet every Friday, the mayor and the city. I told them they probably wouldn't get voted on this meeting because they used to select what likes to have two readings. And I said they'll probably come up two weeks from now that we would have an answer on the 19th.

[Speaker 1] (2:23:36 - 2:23:45)
So I would think we need an answer to a number of questions. One is, though, I'd like to have an answer to what Dr. Vockley was asking for in those meetings.

[Speaker 6] (2:23:46 - 2:23:50)
I don't think you'll have that answer in two weeks. At least not to what my fellow said. Why?

[Speaker 4] (2:23:51 - 2:23:53)
Which? What are you referring to, Mary Ellen?

[Speaker 1] (2:23:54 - 2:23:58)
He was asking a number of questions on. The what condition? On the what conditions.

[Speaker 7] (2:23:59 - 2:24:44)
I think Dr. Vockley was really interested in someone putting together a stormwater model that really mimics what a two-year, well, you know, maybe it's a two-year storm, 10-year storm, whatever it's put through the model, being accurate, you know, an accurate stormwater model that could really give us an indication of the flow and the amount of water that we're going to see down there under a real storm condition.

That would be the catchment area for the Stacey's Brook watershed, sub-catchments within that, and basically how the rainwater is conveyed all the way to the culvert, and using that model to help analyze the situation down there.

[Speaker 4] (2:24:44 - 2:25:01)
That's in terms of, like, analyzing it for it being successful under all conditions eventually. That's what he's really asking about. Like, not just in these mostly dry conditions for the pilot, but, like, would it really work under all conditions?

Is it possible?

[Speaker 7] (2:25:02 - 2:25:08)
I think that was one of his messages on Monday's meeting was that he wanted to see it. What would it be like if it was scaled up to the real thing?

[Speaker 16] (2:25:08 - 2:25:09)
Would it be effective?

[Speaker 7] (2:25:12 - 2:25:16)
I don't need to speak for him, but I'm just trying to remember what he said on Monday.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:16 - 2:25:33)
So the other big question for me is, what are the costs, the estimated costs, that we're looking at in the future? Just say this thing works, this thing works, what is it going to cost? The other question I have is, what is the impact to the neighbors?

What are the noise levels?

[Speaker 2] (2:25:34 - 2:25:35)
Lighting, obstruction of view.

[Speaker 1] (2:25:36 - 2:25:55)
What really counts? There were no answers to those questions on Monday night. So those are things that will be held.

I just will say, you know, asking us to go 50-50, that makes no sense at all. That's probably a separate conversation.

[Speaker 6] (2:25:56 - 2:26:02)
Do we have any idea what the relative flow is? It's at least two and a half times what ours is.

[Speaker 1] (2:26:02 - 2:26:04)
Two and a half times.

[Speaker 5] (2:26:04 - 2:26:15)
So in logic, it should be a 70-30 split, right? Or maybe a 80-20. If you went by two and a half times, you know what I mean?

[Speaker 6] (2:26:16 - 2:26:24)
Swampert's taken most of the headaches because they're putting the pilot in Swampert. That's kind of a separate conversation.

[Speaker 2] (2:26:25 - 2:27:35)
Plus we've paid for other things out of pocket that we haven't split 50-50. So if we're living by the beat of our own drum, if it was our idea prior, we paid for it up front. And so we spent Swampert's got money to the benefit of Lynn, and we were glad to do that in order to push things forward.

It seems to me like that might not be the case in reciprocity. I just have the zoning by-law that I just wanted to read real quick about the flood zones just to make sure that we're in. So this is 4.2.6.5. All public utility systems, including power, communications, gas, shall be designated in accordance with the Mass State Building Code 780CMR and shall take into consideration the long-term effects of sea level rise and storm surge. Critical elements of public utility systems that are sensitive to water exposure shall not be permitted below the base flood elevation and shall take into consideration long-term effects of sea level rise and storm surge. So just to make sure we're in compliance with that law with this pilot. So let's just make sure we are.

Please. Okay.

[Speaker 11] (2:27:36 - 2:27:44)
We did talk about noise. There's noise ordinances in both towns, and they would be complied with. There would be noise attenuation.

[Speaker 6] (2:27:44 - 2:27:58)
Whatever the decibels were, yeah, they're aware of that. We did a building code where the decibels couldn't exceed and they did the same thing. They're going to get underneath that, because whether they like it or not, the way they want to get on it.

[Speaker 2] (2:27:59 - 2:28:13)
They're going to build a fence. They're going to stifle the noise. But I think outside of the decibel, the noise, just the consistency of the noise, is it a low hum that's happening 24 hours, 7 days a week, all day long?

[Speaker 6] (2:28:14 - 2:28:16)
It's going to be more than a low hum.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:16 - 2:28:20)
It's going to be more than a low hum? So I'd like to understand what that is.

[Speaker 6] (2:28:20 - 2:28:23)
The nighttime it's going to sound like. Because it's quiet.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:24 - 2:28:29)
And so people sleep with their windows open to have the beach breeze, and they're going to hear this the whole time.

[Speaker 5] (2:28:29 - 2:28:34)
And at some point, there has to be community outreach. There just has to. We have to engage the community.

[Speaker 6] (2:28:36 - 2:28:40)
I think the city of Lynn was waiting to see if they had our support and they were going to have a top line.

[Speaker 5] (2:28:40 - 2:28:45)
The city of Lynn is waiting to see if they have our support for us to talk to our residents?

[Speaker 6] (2:28:45 - 2:28:47)
No, to have a town hall with residents.

[Speaker 5] (2:28:47 - 2:28:52)
I'm talking about just ours, though, really. Just our residents that are going to be affected by. In Swampstown.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:53 - 2:28:53)
Right.

[Speaker 5] (2:28:53 - 2:28:54)
So that's, you know.

[Speaker 2] (2:28:54 - 2:28:56)
So they don't need, I mean, they can have a town hall, great.

[Speaker 6] (2:28:56 - 2:29:00)
Right, but we need to hear from our people. We should have a town hall. Yeah, exactly.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:00 - 2:29:00)
Exactly.

[Speaker 6] (2:29:01 - 2:29:01)
Agreed.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:01 - 2:29:02)
Because the only way this is.

[Speaker 6] (2:29:03 - 2:29:06)
I was floated that they could have a town hall at the restaurant, at the hall time.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:08 - 2:29:08)
I mean, I just.

[Speaker 5] (2:29:08 - 2:29:31)
I appreciate their intent, but they're going to look out for Lynn. No offense to Lynn or anybody else. It's our responsibility to be primarily concerned with the people of Swampscott.

And it's really the committee's, part of your objective should be that. Right, and worrying about the people that are going to be affected by this. So that's a big piece for us, but for that committee as well.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:32 - 2:29:42)
Yeah, and I think the last thing, I know this was brought up briefly, but to better understand how you will determine if the pilot is a success. So what are the markers of success for the pilot?

[Speaker 1] (2:29:42 - 2:29:44)
They didn't have that.

[Speaker 2] (2:29:44 - 2:30:19)
So that we can understand when the data comes in, that somebody just isn't saying, oh, this data's great. And then we move on to the next point. But so that we can say, before we had the data, we set the parameters for what was success.

And then the data drove the success, not the success drove the data. So I just want to be careful that that is what happens here, so we can live by it. Because if we're going to ask that neighborhood to take on a building that's going to house something way bigger than this going forward, it should be backed by the science of it.

[Speaker 7] (2:30:23 - 2:30:36)
I think that metric is days open for the beach. And some sort of, you know, maybe the scent of contamination would remove from the quality that it has.

[Speaker 5] (2:30:37 - 2:30:37)
That makes sense.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:38 - 2:30:46)
I think the latter probably makes more sense, because days open for the beach. Could be affected by other things, right? Rain, right?

[Speaker 11] (2:30:46 - 2:30:48)
Rain, right? Automatically closes it.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:48 - 2:30:53)
Rain is a big thing, is that it could be affected by it. So maybe there's some sort of, I'm not a scientist, so I don't know.

[Speaker 11] (2:30:53 - 2:30:57)
We've talked about it a lot, but we haven't come up with the criteria.

[Speaker 2] (2:30:57 - 2:31:26)
Just thinking, like, if you got 30% clean days, 30% rain-free days, and of those 30% we got to be open 100% of the time, that would be a data point that would be great to see. Versus we had 70 days the beach was closed out of 200 and whatever days of the summer. 100 days of summer.

We're going to have Indian summer next year.

[Speaker 6] (2:31:28 - 2:31:32)
I don't know. Okay, so. That's a risk you run, too.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:32 - 2:31:38)
Yeah, oh, that's another great point, you know. If it rains all summer, the pilot runs longer?

[Speaker 6] (2:31:39 - 2:31:42)
It would cost more because we're only renting this equipment for three months.

[Speaker 2] (2:31:43 - 2:32:06)
But if you don't get data that is usable, that's a great point, you know. We should find out what's the contingency, because 6% of the contingency budget would get us how many extra days if we wanted to go extra days. It might not even get us extra days.

We might actually spend it before we start. So if we have a rainy year, what does the farmer's almanac say? We should check.

That's a great question.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:06 - 2:32:07)
I have no idea.

[Speaker 2] (2:32:07 - 2:32:08)
Okay, so I think we're.

[Speaker 4] (2:32:09 - 2:32:21)
I think it would be interesting, Gino, for you to come back to us with how much of this Lynn is willing to pay for. If we contribute the land and the public nuisance, then they contribute the money.

[Speaker 5] (2:32:21 - 2:32:23)
What's the value of that to them?

[Speaker 8] (2:32:23 - 2:32:31)
Period. And if we don't do anything, can Lynn just drop a testing site in Swampskate?

[Speaker 5] (2:32:31 - 2:32:31)
In Swampskate, right.

[Speaker 6] (2:32:34 - 2:32:35)
No, they're going to be out in Michigan.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:35 - 2:32:37)
Drop a testing site? You don't know. Who knows?

[Speaker 6] (2:32:37 - 2:32:41)
Yeah, she's dropping that $400,000. You know, there's going to be a balance there.

[Speaker 16] (2:32:41 - 2:32:42)
Right, right.

[Speaker 6] (2:32:42 - 2:32:49)
But that's what I thought you guys would do. What? This is what we're going to offer you.

Instead of me going back and saying, what's the discount?

[Speaker 16] (2:32:50 - 2:32:51)
Sure, send Mary Ellen in there.

[Speaker 1] (2:32:51 - 2:33:13)
We'll see what. Right now, it doesn't look like. I mean, their flow is so much higher than ours.

We've spent. You know, my understanding is we spent $187,000 on a study, and I've been told that we were going to be getting 50% of that study back, and I'm hearing that maybe we're not.

[Speaker 2] (2:33:13 - 2:33:15)
I think maybe that.

[Speaker 6] (2:33:15 - 2:33:22)
You could use that to your advantage, but the agreement was that Swampsville was going to pay the whole $187,000. Okay.

[Speaker 2] (2:33:22 - 2:33:55)
There's goodwill there, right? Like, we did that. That's what I said.

Yes, there's goodwill there. We did that, and we didn't expect anybody to pull out their pocketbook. We paid for it, and it's not that we're not interested in the UV pilot.

I think that's clear. It seems like we're all very interested. We're asking a lot of questions.

We just are not interested in splitting it 50-50 and not interested in some of the data points we're missing. So once we have some of that information back, we can talk about it further.

[Speaker 1] (2:33:55 - 2:35:06)
Just for myself, just to be really clear, spending money on something that we don't know. I mean, I personally feel that there's enough science out there that says UV works on dry weather. I mean, they do it down in Rhode Island.

The issue is, is that really worth an investment? Is this pilot program even worth an investment when you already know that it would definitely work? It would work on dry.

This program is not testing wet. It's not going to give us a good idea on wet, and we don't know what it's going to be long-term. So it's like, yeah, let's spend all this money and take away money that we would be using to line our pipes and then turn around and say, okay, well, it's going to cost $25 million to $50 million to build a UV station.

We don't know where we're going to build it, and we don't know how we're going to finance it. Oh, and then don't forget, we also have to pay for the operations, and it's only going to last like 20 years. So it's just, you know, and those are points that came up at the water sewer.

[Speaker 11] (2:35:06 - 2:35:34)
We know that it treats bacteria. We don't know for sure that it works in dry weather under these conditions. They haven't tested it under these types of flow conditions.

That's the unknown. We're trying to stop water, cool it, pump it, let it sit for a while, treat it, and then send it back out. Those are the things we're testing, not whether it works to kill bacteria.

[Speaker 1] (2:35:34 - 2:35:38)
You can actually chlorinate it, let it sit 24 hours. It's a gas.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:40 - 2:35:47)
The rainfall piece, you think it's half an inch of rainfall, then we have to stop utilizing the pipe?

[Speaker 9] (2:35:47 - 2:35:48)
I think it's half.

[Speaker 11] (2:35:48 - 2:35:49)
It might be a quarter.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:49 - 2:35:51)
It's going to be a quarter or less. A quarter inch.

[Speaker 11] (2:35:51 - 2:35:57)
You didn't really go to pool. That's chlorinated. In an hour or the whole day.

This is not a pool. It shouldn't keep up.

[Speaker 2] (2:35:57 - 2:35:59)
Okay, understood.

[Speaker 11] (2:36:00 - 2:36:04)
So here's the other piece we don't know. You can't model all those different possibilities.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:04 - 2:36:12)
Sure. No. Okay.

So we are moving on now. Everybody has their information.

[Speaker 8] (2:36:13 - 2:36:20)
So how quickly can we get answers to some of these questions? If you guys want to compile a list of questions, I'll get them right over to Clarence.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:21 - 2:36:21)
Yes.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:21 - 2:36:22)
I think we did.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:22 - 2:36:28)
I think we did. And I think we should probably ask Chris Vockley what we're missing.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:28 - 2:36:42)
I would like to know what Dr. Vockley also. I really would like. I'd feel a lot better getting answers to the questions.

You know, he's the vice chair of that committee, and to hear him at that meeting was very discerning to me.

[Speaker 5] (2:36:44 - 2:36:55)
I would have felt better if it was unanimous. Right. That would have made it easy.

It would have made it easy. This makes it very hard.

[Speaker 1] (2:36:56 - 2:37:00)
Okay. So now we will move on to.

[Speaker 6] (2:37:01 - 2:37:02)
Thank you.

[Speaker 7] (2:37:02 - 2:37:03)
Thank you, Mark.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:03 - 2:37:05)
Thank you, Mark. Nice to see you. How's your ankle?

[Speaker 7] (2:37:06 - 2:37:07)
Much better. Thank you.

[Speaker 1] (2:37:08 - 2:38:03)
You just leave it. Okay. Now we're on discussion and possible vote.

Let's select board representative for the town administrator search committee. I had emailed everybody and asked to also bring your recommendations on what you want to see in a town administrator. And then if we could also choose who we would like to recommend.

I'm not really sure exactly the process we should go about this, but we can all. It is a little bit awkward, but we can get through it. So first, can we just go around the table and talk about what you want to see in the next town administrator?

Danielle.

[Speaker 5] (2:38:05 - 2:39:18)
That's a great question. Why do I have to go first? I think the top of anybody's list would be experience, right?

I'd love to see an experienced town administrator. I'd love to see somebody with a financial background, a municipal background. But I guess before all of that, right, you want to make sure you have the right person of integrity, honesty, commitment to the town.

Ideally, I would like to see someone that's familiar with a small town because I think that the scale of a municipality makes a difference, right? Anybody coming in is going to be, you know, you have to anticipate a learning curve if they're not familiar with Swampscot just to understand its population and how this position relates to that population. But really, I would love to see someone with experience.

I would love to see somebody with municipal experience. I think that's a deal breaker, right? That would be one of my prime considerations.

[Speaker 13] (2:39:21 - 2:39:22)
Doug?

[Speaker 4] (2:39:22 - 2:40:18)
I think those are all great points. You know, we're going to kind of build a relatively obvious job description here. But, you know, someone that's, you know, I completely agree with all those things, integrity, experience, great manager.

You know, this is a team sport. And someone who has the capability to communicate with people in town effectively, not just their own kind of, you know, voice, but in order to ensure the workings of the town are adequately communicated. And, you know, that's a priority for them.

Yeah, that's a good one.

[Speaker 8] (2:40:24 - 2:41:34)
Just building upon our conversation from earlier this evening about our budget, I think someone with a strong municipal finance background is going to be imperative in just being able to juggle, you know, we are a small town of 15,000, but we probably operate at the same pace as a small or medium-sized city with all of our various projects happening. So I think somebody who's able to multitask, communications is certainly something that we've been talking about for a number of years. I think, you know, to Doug's point, I think that's important.

And really somebody who's engaged and active, you know, in the community and really seeing a lot of these things that we've built over the last five or six years continuing to build as we build upon that muscle memory and really make the town of Swampskate, you know, a great place to live, work, and play. That's my vision.

[Speaker 2] (2:41:36 - 2:41:57)
Katie? Yeah, so when I was thinking about this, I thought, like, who could be the perfect fit for this position? And I was, like, maybe, like, a project manager when I think about it, because...

[Speaker 4] (2:41:57 - 2:41:58)
I thought you were going to name somebody.

[Speaker 2] (2:41:58 - 2:43:40)
I thought you were going to say Doug. Doug. It's Doug Thompson.

I'm thinking, like, a project manager. Somebody who's used to obviously handling multiple things happening at once, but still able to keep all the plates spinning. Somebody who's able to communicate effectively.

Somebody who's able to delegate so that things are never stopping, because I think that, to David's point, we're rapid-paced here, right? And sometimes we get a hold of an idea, and we want to just execute. And so being able to say, okay, this is what I have to focus on immediately, and this is what I can delegate so that things aren't stopping.

I think that there has been a lot of hard work in town about our municipal finances, and we're coming into a season that is going to be sort of like a pressure point for us. So having somebody have that experience is great. If they had a ton of other wonderful characteristics, though, could we get somebody there?

Sure. So I don't want to just say, like, they have to wear all the hats. All the hats are the best, right?

But to say they have to wear one hat over another, I'm not quite there yet. I think if you found somebody who was able to wear most of the hats but lacked some, even hats that we find important, then are there ways to get them up to speed on those things? So I don't want to pigeonhole and say, like, oh, they have to have a background in finance or municipal finance.

I don't know that that's necessarily the case, but then I would be looking for strong suits in other areas to sort of overcompensate for what they might lack. So that's how I thought about it.

[Speaker 1] (2:43:40 - 2:45:47)
So for me, you know, pretty much I'm in agreement with a well-rounded executive that can manage everything, to be a real manager. Someone who really understands the role, what their relationship is with the select board. Someone who does have a financial background but not necessarily has to be the end-all.

But someone who is committed to strong finances. Someone who can command respect and deal with union negotiations and be honest and straightforward with what's going on and not, you know, try to not give us the real updates on what things should be, just really put the facts out there. Someone that can hold people accountable and keep a standard in town.

Someone who can work well with the public, work with the community, and understand the community and what all our needs are. I mean, we are a very unique community. We're very involved.

We're very emotional. And I just think it's a well-rounded executive. And I did speak with one of the candidates tonight who actually also recommended that we consider a candidate who does come from a town that has coastal experience.

So I wanted to throw that out there too. So I think we've gone over everything, Marissa, on what we're looking for in a town administrator. And now we just need to choose somebody that we want to represent us.

And then we can send that over to the town moderator. The town moderator will make his two decisions. And then we will set the committee in motion.

[Speaker 4] (2:45:48 - 2:45:53)
So do we know who the people are recommended by the school committee?

[Speaker 1] (2:45:54 - 2:46:02)
Yeah. John, what is John? John Giantis is the school, and Eric Hartman is finance.

[Speaker 4] (2:46:02 - 2:46:04)
Oh, they're actually picking people from that committee.

[Speaker 1] (2:46:04 - 2:46:23)
So we could pick someone from our committee if we want, or we could pick someone from outside. We do have the ultimate decision at the end. I mean, it depends on what the committee wants.

Do you want to pick within our own, or do you want to go outside?

[Speaker 2] (2:46:26 - 2:46:29)
Well, I thought we sort of already decided that.

[Speaker 1] (2:46:29 - 2:47:11)
We invited all the people to apply. I just want to make sure. Because one of ourselves are going to look like jerks.

I don't know. I would call them back and say we're only kidding. Okay.

So we are very, very lucky. We have a pool of a number of people here. We have Tavon Amore, Gargi Cooper, Aaron DeRoche, Kristen Dora, Thomas Driscoll, Jr., Ryan Hale, James Cossack, Robert Powell, Matt Strauss, and Tom Younger. And I will tell you, out of this, I don't have Howard on my list. Yeah, it's true.

[Speaker 4] (2:47:11 - 2:47:13)
It's not on this list, is it?

[Speaker 1] (2:47:13 - 2:47:23)
It's on this list. Okay. So my list came in on a due date.

Okay. Okay. He was a late add, I think.

I remember seeing an e-mail from Diane about that.

[Speaker 16] (2:47:23 - 2:47:23)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (2:47:24 - 2:48:20)
So out of this list, we have a county clerk and magistrate. We have past town administrators. We have past select board members.

We have entrepreneurs, HR specialists, and multiple committee chairs. This is an amazing list. And these people are really kind to raise their hand and to do this.

This is hard work, and I really appreciate it. So if we have a recommendation, if you want to make a recommendation on how to go forward, I mean, I can only say for me, you know, I have a number of people here that I think would fit really well. I don't know if you want to just recommend a number of people and see who gets the most amount of votes.

Do we want to just put one name out? So I'm open to any recommendations here. This is hard because I could pick four people.

Yes. This whole group would easily do it, and I wish we could just have everybody here.

[Speaker 4] (2:48:27 - 2:48:30)
It's very awkward.

[Speaker 2] (2:48:32 - 2:51:19)
For me, okay, I would like to throw Siobhan's name out as a choice. I asked him if he might be interested in putting forth his name. His background is in consumer psychology, and he is an entrepreneur, as Mary Ellen said.

He leads integrations of companies of hundreds of people. He has hired hundreds of people at a time when companies buy companies and they need to expand. He obviously understands the need to be quick in the market, and so obviously this process is not infinite, right?

We're hoping to have it done in a relatively quick fashion. But what drew me to sort of ask him to become more involved is that we've spoken a lot about how to get leads, how to understand who's out there, how to make sure that the search is prosperous in such a way that we have multiple choices in the end, and that we're able to choose the greatest of a great group of people rather than maybe the best of a smaller group of people. So he was really very passionate about using technology to have a data-driven approach, and I think as we are talking about being more transparent and being more— I mean, Danielle had brought up, which I thought was a wonderful idea, about getting a survey going so that people could feel involved in this process and that it wasn't just something that we put on the community.

All of that takes time, but also all of it takes an understanding of how to create the data points, like how to create the surveys and how to process that, how to bring the data in, how to read the data, and then how to spit the data back out so that we can understand the data as a community. He really seemed—that's very much his wheelhouse and is a little bit different from some of the other folks who were put forward who have either already served on this type of committee who seem to be more in traditional type HR roles or executive search function roles. So I just felt like he was a little bit something different.

Because a lot of these folks had, as we said, we could choose any of them and they would do a wonderful job. Should we say a one vote or move on? Do you want to say anybody else on here?

Who's my vote? You're not asking for multiple votes right now.

[Speaker 1] (2:51:20 - 2:52:55)
I'm just saying that when I looked at my list, I looked and I thought, okay, well, if I were going to recommend a couple people, I would be looking—I was looking more for people that had experience in this process, that could lead the process through. So that's why my first look was to Erin DeRoche, because Erin is an HR person. And originally when I spoke with Naomi Driven, who was on the selection— when she was on the select board, Naomi had pointed out how Erin did a great job with organizing everything, keeping everything targeted, and she had her HR background.

And then I also know that Tom Driscoll has enormous amount of experience in municipalities and a lot of experience hiring in the court systems. And then I had a really interesting conversation with Tom Younger today. Tom Younger has been on several committees, several, several committees of searching for town administrators and school superintendents.

And he's been doing this for a long time, and he's also worked with search committees. So he has a lot of background in all that. So those are—that's how I was looking at it, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say.

[Speaker 5] (2:53:00 - 2:55:54)
So, I mean, when I look at it, when I look at this list, it's like the all-star team. Because, you know, Erin DeRoche, I mean, I can't think of a more competent HR professional in our town. She really does—I mean, if you look at her resume, you can see the same.

She does have experience leading the process, as she did last time, which is beneficial. In the same token, you know, Tom Younger has done the role. He has been a town administrator.

I think that there is value in that. I mean, you can speak firsthand to what it takes to do the job, and he did it here, and he did it, you know, for a number of years. But then I, you know, I go back to one of the hallmarks of what we're trying to do, or what I think we're trying to do as a board, is engage newer people with maybe a fresh set of ideas and approaches that we haven't utilized in the past.

You know, and I look, and I notice, and I read the resume and the cover letter of Kristen Doerr, who, by her resume, if you look at it, she's a team builder. She's committed to communicating and problem-solving and, you know, building a team of people around her. So, you know, I think there's value in that.

Honestly, in Tevon. Tevon, I mean, he went to, you know, University of Pennsylvania in Phillips Exeter. You know, this is probably the most difficult decision I've seen in a long time.

He's got CEO experience. He hires people left and right. You know, he checks a lot of the boxes.

So while I do think experience is helpful, I also want to see somebody with a fresh perspective, someone that we don't necessarily see on every single committee in town, somebody that's got an independent mind that is not necessarily going to be lock stock with, you know, a certain segment of the population in Swampscot, right, someone that's going to think outside of the box, which is, you know, I think as we chart a new course for leadership in this town, it's important that we get innovative thinkers and people that are thinking outside of the box. And I think if we continue to go with the same people that, you know, while I appreciate that they're on many committees in town, it's, you know, we're not changing with the times, right? We're not thinking with a fresh perspective.

So I think that if I look in that respect, then I have to consider people like Tavon, Kristen, you know, but then I feel badly because, you know, Aaron DeRoche and Tom Younger are, you know, would normally rise to the top of any pile that I would have.

[Speaker 1] (2:55:54 - 2:55:56)
So those are kind of my thoughts.

[Speaker 5] (2:55:56 - 2:55:56)
All right.

[Speaker 1] (2:55:56 - 2:55:58)
Well, let's just talk through this. Doug?

[Speaker 4] (2:56:00 - 2:57:12)
Well, just to continue the pattern of diversifying the options, to me, I agree. Tons of great people here with, you know, lots of experience in, you know, Swampscot. And, you know, I think you mentioned it last time, Danielle, about like, you know, some of these people are great, but they were involved last time.

So, you know, even though I, you know, Bob Powell is super involved, great guy, done a lot of hiring, you know, innovative, you know, all these other things we've said. I mean, he did it last time. You know, Aaron did it last time.

So to me, that kind of, you know, make room for someone new. And really different perspective. And so I don't even know this Howard Seidel guy.

But in some ways, that's what he does. That's all he does, actually, is hire people, senior leaders, for 25 years. Intriguing.

[Speaker 16] (2:57:12 - 2:57:13)
Yeah, I agree.

[Speaker 4] (2:57:13 - 2:57:55)
You know, he went to Harvard. Yeah. Psychology.

So I agree, there's like, there's a lot of good options here. But I suppose, like, I'm intrigued, even though I have, you know, people I'm very friendly with that are on this list. And I'm not, you know, that I'm sure would be great.

But to me, that's interesting, especially in the context of the people that finance committee is recommending and school committee is recommending. We've got people that are immersed in town government already. You know, we could rely on the moderator to do that balancing.

But for me, that's, I recommend a person I don't even know.

[Speaker 1] (2:57:55 - 2:57:57)
This packet will go to the moderator right away tonight, too.

[Speaker 8] (2:57:58 - 2:57:58)
What's that?

[Speaker 1] (2:57:58 - 2:58:02)
The packet is going to the moderator, too. Okay.

[Speaker 8] (2:58:03 - 2:58:51)
Yeah, to me, Howard Seidel really stood out as being someone who was not involved, but for this particular situation could be, it just stood out to me as the best individual of the 11. Again, to echo, I don't think we could go wrong with any of these 11. But Howard Seidel's name and experience just really stood out to me as being a cut above, especially if we're looking to diversify and get people who have not yet been involved, but whose experience would allow them to really contribute in a big way to this committee.

So that would be my recommendation, would be Howard Seidel.

[Speaker 1] (2:58:52 - 2:59:29)
All right. So we have Howard Seidel has two recommendations. Kristen has one recommendation.

Mr. O'Moore has two recommendations. So I think if I had to make a decision, I would go with Mr. O'Moore based on his experience as a CEO and the things that he has accomplished. So that's where I would go with that because my folks didn't get it.

[Speaker 16] (2:59:32 - 2:59:33)
You can get a second.

[Speaker 2] (2:59:33 - 2:59:39)
I would motion to then approve. Approved.

[Speaker 1] (2:59:39 - 3:00:10)
Mr. O'Moore. Mr. O'Moore. As our selection.

As our selection for the Accounting Administrator Search Committee. Okay. Do we have a second?

Second. Do we need any more discussion than what we've already had? Hopefully not.

Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Aye. Okay. Motion carries.

I didn't vote. You didn't vote? No.

Oh, my God. I'm sorry. I'm getting tired.

It's okay. Can we have a vote? All in favor?

Aye. Aye. Aye.

Opposed?

[Speaker 4] (3:00:11 - 3:00:12)
Opposed. Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (3:00:12 - 3:00:13)
Okay.

[Speaker 4] (3:00:13 - 3:00:13)
Yeah.

[Speaker 2] (3:00:17 - 3:00:40)
All right. So I guess just as a follow-up, I know we've already said we're sending this packet over to the moderator. I would say if the moderator would consider Howard as a choice, that it was clear that the board viewed him as a very well-perceived selection.

I know he's got his own choices, but I just want to say that. All right.

[Speaker 1] (3:00:45 - 3:00:49)
So, Marcy, you will make sure that the moderator has all of that, right?

[Speaker 12] (3:00:50 - 3:00:55)
I already sent him the packet right before the meeting, but I'm happy to follow up and give him a quick summary of the discussion.

[Speaker 8] (3:00:55 - 3:00:59)
Did you send them the two four? Because there were two sets of.

[Speaker 12] (3:01:00 - 3:01:12)
Yeah. So the one that I sent him is the one that's been included in your packet, which has Howard Seidel's resume and letter of interest. It's the one with the blacked out box that redacted the email address and phone numbers.

So he has the most updated version.

[Speaker 8] (3:01:12 - 3:01:12)
Got it.

[Speaker 12] (3:01:12 - 3:01:14)
That was included in the packet.

[Speaker 8] (3:01:14 - 3:01:14)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (3:01:15 - 3:02:03)
Now we move to the update on the citizen's petition. That's a. We have a certified citizen's petition.

So we will be calling for a special town meeting within the next 45 days. I already started the process of getting a. Getting a location.

I'm going to email the moderator in the morning to find out what his schedule is looking like. Trying to find out if we. If we have this a little bit later.

In that within that 45 days, if there's. Any possibility of getting that bylaw updated for the community. For the community preservation act.

And we have to find out from the lawyers what the possibilities on that.

[Speaker 3] (3:02:04 - 3:02:09)
Yeah. So you have until. You have to hold the special town meeting on or before March 20th.

[Speaker 1] (3:02:09 - 3:02:09)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (3:02:09 - 3:02:10)
45th day.

[Speaker 1] (3:02:10 - 3:02:10)
Right.

[Speaker 3] (3:02:12 - 3:02:48)
And. Depending on how your. Agenda item eight goes tonight.

In discussing that bylaw. I have two different. Warrants drafted already.

So the motion link. The warrant language is already in there. Referencing.

An appendix where the bylaw would go. So if you are able to. As a board come together with.

What that bylaw would look like. Then. I can get that plugged in and.

I've already spoke with town council. About 24 hour turnaround on them. Reviewing and approving the warrant.

[Speaker 1] (3:02:48 - 3:03:01)
Okay. So could we just, could we end up just having the community? We just have a conversation about that.

Tonight briefly and then come two weeks later and make. A decision and could you work behind the scenes and just. Find out what's in our best.

[Speaker 4] (3:03:02 - 3:03:18)
I would love to. In fact, I'm surprised it's even on here. Cause I had a conversation.

Saying that. I'd love to consult with all the people that were. Working on this.

And she said, great. So. Anyway.

Okay. Get it started.

[Speaker 1] (3:03:19 - 3:03:29)
Okay. So. So let's then let's move to the community preservation.

But so where are we though with that?

[Speaker 3] (3:03:31 - 3:03:38)
I believe town council has sent. Numerous. Other.

Bylaw examples.

[Speaker 1] (3:03:39 - 3:03:39)
Right.

[Speaker 4] (3:03:41 - 3:03:52)
Is that what you mean? Yeah. Okay.

I mean, as a reminder, right? Like, so. We've got past.

And the next step here is that we have to form a committee. And so that's really what this.

[Speaker 1] (3:03:52 - 3:03:57)
I think the next step is we have to pass the bylaw and then form the committee. That's what I've been told.

[Speaker 3] (3:03:57 - 3:04:05)
The bylaw. It will go through the 90 day review. And then once that bylaws.

Enacted you'll appoint the committee. Right. That's that's my understanding.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:05 - 3:04:11)
But the bylaw. Identifies who will be on the committee. Not the individual's names.

[Speaker 16] (3:04:11 - 3:04:11)
Yeah.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:11 - 3:04:19)
But where, which committees they come from. That's. What we have to, we have to form the community preservation.

Committee structure. That's what this.

[Speaker 1] (3:04:19 - 3:04:20)
Yeah. Gotcha.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:21 - 3:04:21)
Yeah.

[Speaker 1] (3:04:21 - 3:04:21)
Right.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:22 - 3:04:27)
And specifically, which roles or which committees. You want. People to come from.

[Speaker 1] (3:04:27 - 3:04:30)
All right. So let's, let's talk about that a little bit tonight.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:32 - 3:04:34)
So there are five of them that are required.

[Speaker 16] (3:04:35 - 3:04:35)
Yeah. Right.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:36 - 3:04:46)
The first five that are listed here. One from the planning board. One from the conservation commission.

One from the historical commission. One from parks and rec. And.

[Speaker 5] (3:04:46 - 3:04:47)
It looks like a typo there.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:47 - 3:04:49)
Yeah. I see. Yeah.

[Speaker 5] (3:04:49 - 3:04:49)
Right.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:49 - 3:04:56)
It's like what. And one from. I don't actually know whether or not it's required.

That it's from the housing authority.

[Speaker 3] (3:04:56 - 3:04:56)
It is.

[Speaker 4] (3:04:58 - 3:06:11)
Authority. Okay. I thought it had to be a housing.

Group. I didn't know if it could be the. Affordable housing trust, but okay.

So then the others are optional. And you can go up to nine. The five are required.

You can stop at five. Or you can add one, two, three. Or four more.

And you can do that. In various ways. Including.

You know. Someone appointed by additionally. Appointed by the select board.

Someone appointed by, you know, you can do it. However you want. You could have someone elected.

There can be at large elections for rules on the CPA as well. And all the rest of this in terms of the duties. That's in front of us is.

Like right out of the regulations. So there's not really much. Discussion there.

As far as I'm aware. Amy, correct me if you know otherwise. It's really about.

Members of the community preservation committee.

[Speaker 3] (3:06:11 - 3:06:39)
Yeah. So the bylaw just has to state that. What the makeup of the committee is going to be.

You know, you're five up to nine. If they're going to be appointed or elected. Who's going to be the appointing authority.

What their purpose is. And how you're going to do the terms. Are they going to be three-year terms?

Are you going to stagger the terms? And after. You know, I.

Some of these bylaws are only a page. So.

[Speaker 5] (3:06:42 - 3:06:44)
So parks and rec. I assume that's the recreation commission.

[Speaker 4] (3:06:46 - 3:06:48)
Not the TV show.

[Speaker 1] (3:06:49 - 3:06:50)
If only.

[Speaker 3] (3:06:53 - 3:07:08)
We can choose to whether or not to have these. The additional people as elected. Officials.

You can do elected appointed by moderator. I don't know. If they're appointed by a select board.

There may be another option that I haven't seen.

[Speaker 1] (3:07:09 - 3:07:10)
Do you have a recommendation?

[Speaker 4] (3:07:11 - 3:07:11)
I do not.

[Speaker 1] (3:07:12 - 3:07:14)
What communities do elected? Do we know?

[Speaker 4] (3:07:16 - 3:07:28)
I can look it up, but I don't know. I don't. I don't think many people do that.

Some do. And it's usually one as far as I'm aware, but I can. Confirm that next time.

[Speaker 2] (3:07:33 - 3:07:39)
And the average size of the committee. We have. We don't have the data.

[Speaker 4] (3:07:39 - 3:07:40)
Yeah. I don't have it.

[Speaker 3] (3:07:41 - 3:07:47)
So. We've gone for what? Okay.

[Speaker 4] (3:07:49 - 3:07:51)
Because this could be. This could be a fair amount of work.

[Speaker 16] (3:07:51 - 3:07:52)
Imagine.

[Speaker 4] (3:07:52 - 3:08:32)
Right. This is going to be something like a million dollars a year. That's going to be raised by this.

And there's going to be a lot of projects that are going to be recommended. To this group that they're going to have to. You know, prepare.

Right. The first thing they have to do is prepare a study. Of all the needs and possibilities and resources, et cetera, et cetera.

That, you know. The town is interested. In receiving proposals for.

That's in the town. Ultimately the committee. And then they have to set up.

You know, process of taking in the proposals. And they have to evaluate the proposals. And they got to recommend them.

Then to town meeting. So it's not a. It's not a light lift.

No.

[Speaker 2] (3:08:32 - 3:09:29)
Okay. I think. More is probably better in that regard, right?

We can. Enhance with light work. Also, I don't think the work will ever be light.

Committee and hopefully we'll have a lot of ways to spend a lot of. Money for them. So I think it makes sense to stay on the larger side.

I also think. If we do elect, it would make sense not to elect all four of the additional folks who come on here. That it would be.

Like three appointed, maybe one elected. If that's the way. People are passionate about having an elected person on.

But we all know getting. Elected is a lot of work and energy and money. And so.

People are inclined to. Then maybe we could. Appoint some and.

Allow the moderator to point one. Something like that. So it's not just centralized in one body.

[Speaker 8] (3:09:31 - 3:10:17)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my.

I thought would be. Keep your. Keep a committee.

Have a committee of nine to appointed. From the select board to appointed by the moderator. If we could potentially get this to a page.

That would be ideal. You know. I don't see the need to.

Have an elected position. If I had to. It would be one.

But I think. I think the appointees from the select board and the moderator would be. Would be sufficient for this.

For this committee. And whoever's going to come into this. This is.

This is going to be. A whole heck of a lot of work as. As Doug explained.

So. You know. So for that reason.

I'd want to be at nine.

[Speaker 2] (3:10:19 - 3:10:29)
I agree. Yeah. I think we're all in agreement.

And I think it's really important to stagger terms. Because. The last thing you want to do is.

Committee and then have a brand new committee.

[Speaker 8] (3:10:30 - 3:10:30)
Yep.

[Speaker 10] (3:10:30 - 3:10:30)
Agree.

[Speaker 5] (3:10:31 - 3:10:37)
I think the way it's written here is really. Nine. And all of them appointed.

With the staggered terms. Makes sense.

[Speaker 3] (3:10:39 - 3:10:40)
I don't see why we would do anything different.

[Speaker 8] (3:10:41 - 3:10:44)
Yeah. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

[Speaker 3] (3:10:44 - 3:11:06)
No. I think. I think.

Dighton has good language where they have. They have the nine. Yep.

And then it has. Two members. Appointed for an initial term of.

Two years. There are three. One member appointed.

With initial. One year thereafter. Three.

One member appointed. Right. A term of three.

And that way. It auto staggers for you.

[Speaker 5] (3:11:07 - 3:11:08)
Yep. I agree with that. That's good.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:15 - 3:11:27)
All right. So why don't we. Think about it.

And to come back. To our next meeting. Pull the trigger on that.

All right. Okay.

[Speaker 5] (3:11:33 - 3:11:43)
I don't have a discussion. I have questions on this agenda.

[Speaker 1] (3:11:43 - 3:11:54)
I don't. I don't know what that was. I don't know that what that was.

I think that was an accident. What about code of conduct and handbook? We don't have.

We have to take out the code of conduct. Because we don't have.

[Speaker 2] (3:11:54 - 3:12:31)
We don't have the update. I had originally asked. I had originally asked Diane if we could have this discussion because we got comments back from Town Council.

I then looked at the comments back from Town Council and I can send them all out, but some of them are just like, yes, we agree with that language, so we can just accept those. And then there's very few left, so I wanted to sort of clean it up and then redistribute it out to you guys so that we were concentrating efficiently on just the ones that needed commentary. So I did not do that yet, and I didn't meet with Danielle to go over them, so we didn't do that yet.

And then she just added it on to the next agenda.

[Speaker 1] (3:12:31 - 3:12:34)
But you didn't do the Code of Conduct, you did the handbook.

[Speaker 2] (3:12:34 - 3:12:36)
No, we did the handbook.

[Speaker 1] (3:12:37 - 3:12:42)
But we wanted it vetted by Council. Right, the handbook. We did the handbook.

[Speaker 4] (3:12:43 - 3:12:47)
But didn't we already have that done by Council when we finally voted on it?

[Speaker 2] (3:12:47 - 3:13:13)
No, we didn't. We changed some language, and so, for example, the language about public comment, we changed the language about public comment, so that especially had to go back to Town Council to make sure that we were still within our legal rights for public comment and how we're trying to manage it.

[Speaker 4] (3:13:14 - 3:13:15)
And we're still waiting?

[Speaker 2] (3:13:15 - 3:13:30)
No, no, we have it back. We have the comments back, and I'm just going to go through and sort of accept the comments that they accepted, and then put forward to you all what's left, because there were one or two comments where we still need to flush some things out, or we just can't do it, so.

[Speaker 1] (3:13:30 - 3:13:37)
But I thought we also were working on, oh, we're going to have a separate attachment for social media, and...

[Speaker 2] (3:13:37 - 3:13:38)
We did that. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (3:13:39 - 3:13:40)
That we have to vote on.

[Speaker 2] (3:13:40 - 3:13:48)
We did not vote on anything yet. Okay. And then it got vetted.

So now I'm just bringing you back the comments.

[Speaker 16] (3:13:48 - 3:13:49)
Code of conduct.

[Speaker 2] (3:13:49 - 3:13:52)
The code of conduct we did not vote on. Social media policy we did not vote on. Okay.

[Speaker 16] (3:13:53 - 3:13:54)
All right.

[Speaker 5] (3:13:54 - 3:13:55)
So we're not doing that.

[Speaker 1] (3:13:55 - 3:14:01)
Okay, so that will come back. So that's the reason why it's out there. So now we can move the consent agenda.

[Speaker 8] (3:14:04 - 3:14:11)
I just had a question to Gino. Yes. What is a JO poll?

Joint poll.

[Speaker 16] (3:14:15 - 3:14:15)
That's a good question.

[Speaker 6] (3:14:21 - 3:14:45)
Joint poll. Joint poll. Basically what's happening here is Elm Place is 26 feet wide when it was laid out.

This is 8 feet into the right-of-way. We've got to get it moved. 8 feet in?

Yep. It's right on the property line between 14 and 16 Elm Place and 145 Essex Street. Okay.

We've already approved part of this petition. They just added on the moving of the poll. It's the second part.

Okay.

[Speaker 8] (3:14:52 - 3:15:09)
And then while we're on the topic of polls, on Burpee, there's that poll that's the double poll that's kind of leaning over Burpee. Is that going to be fixed in 25? I hope so.

I'm going to give a mock on that.

[Speaker 6] (3:15:09 - 3:15:18)
What happens is we may be responsible for that right now because we have to move the right-of-way from the bottom up. I think it might be fire alarm on that that has to be removed for us.

[Speaker 8] (3:15:19 - 3:15:27)
I'll get on it. Okay. You drive by it every day.

Yeah. I'll move the consent agenda.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:27 - 3:15:31)
Do I have a second? All in favor? Aye.

Okay. Select board time. Danielle?

[Speaker 16] (3:15:31 - 3:15:32)
I have nothing.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:32 - 3:15:33)
David?

[Speaker 8] (3:15:33 - 3:15:33)
Nothing.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:33 - 3:15:34)
Doug?

[Speaker 4] (3:15:34 - 3:15:34)
No.

[Speaker 1] (3:15:35 - 3:16:26)
Katie? I'm good. Thank you.

Mary Ellen? I just have one comment. The retirement board, I want to make sure that I let everybody know that they will be coming to talk to us about COLA increase.

So I have sent out the video of their clinic that they did last year. If you need that again, I'll send it out again. Get yourself educated on that.

The other thing is they are changing, they're making a change in their portfolio because they don't like the return on one of their sleeves. They're a little too heavy on real estate and that takes a long time to change. So making an adjustment with their, they have a new advisory group which they're very happy with.

The advisory group is recommending to make this change. They're going to make the change and that's what they wanted me to report that.

[Speaker 6] (3:16:28 - 3:16:31)
Joint owned. I left out the old part.

[Speaker 8] (3:16:31 - 3:16:32)
Joint owned. Okay.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:32 - 3:16:34)
Can I have a motion to adjourn?

[Speaker 8] (3:16:34 - 3:16:39)
I just hope all the kids in Swampscott who are still watching at 10 o'clock at night enjoy their snow day tomorrow.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:40 - 3:16:45)
I heard that snow day was canceled. No. It's back to school.

It's a big news. It's a pleasure.

[Speaker 16] (3:16:46 - 3:16:46)
Okay.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:47 - 3:16:49)
So who had the over under on the 10th?

[Speaker 6] (3:16:50 - 3:16:54)
You said over. At 1030 we said the over under was three hours.

[Speaker 8] (3:16:55 - 3:16:56)
Motion to adjourn.

[Speaker 1] (3:16:56 - 3:16:57)
Second. All in favor?

[Speaker 8] (3:16:57 - 3:16:59)
Aye. Thanks everybody.