(0:19 - 7:41)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. So this is a special meeting for us. Daniel Leonard reminded us of a couple things and we wanted to honor a very, very special volunteer in town that everybody gets to enjoy his hard work.

(7:41 - 8:06)
So tonight we would like to honor John McLaughlin. And many of you know Mr. McLaughlin as the man who's always out there on the monument working hard and making us look like a bunch of slouches when he's just making it look so beautiful out there on the monument. He's been assisting the town for the last 13 years.

(8:06 - 8:21)
He's primarily responsible for all the plantings on the monument as well as several traffic circles throughout town. He's responsible for the decorative lighting at the front of town hall. He's responsible for the redesign of the World War II memorial at the end of the monument.

(8:22 - 8:38)
He's assisted both the Senior Center, Andrews Chapel Committee with plantings and wreath hangings. There's actually a lot more that John does for the town, but we have a long meeting tonight and we know he's getting a little embarrassed listening to this. So John, if you could please come on down.

(8:38 - 9:07)
We'd like to reward you with this beautiful presentation. Thank you very much. Oh geez, hold on John.

(9:08 - 9:11)
You're not just any volunteer. Oh wait, there's more. And there's more.

(9:12 - 9:23)
Behind door number three. Oh my goodness. So John is a VIP volunteer and we have something special for you.

(9:23 - 9:25)
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

(9:27 - 9:31)
And the bag is yours too, John. Oh nice. Thank you.

(9:31 - 9:36)
Got it? All right. Oh that's a nice bag, John. It's a cooler bag, I believe.

(9:36 - 9:39)
It's a cooler bag? Yeah. Great. Thank you, John.

(9:40 - 9:56)
Okay. Okay, next on our agenda is public comment. Please remember public comment is three minutes.

(9:56 - 10:19)
Katie, can you take care of the three minutes? And please just give your name and your address. Hello. Michael Contreras, precinct one, town member, 46 Buena Vista.

(10:19 - 10:33)
I just had questions about the residential parking signs that came up on Burpee Road. Since I live right around the corner of Buena Vista. I know that last meeting it wasn't really voted on.

(10:34 - 10:58)
We were going to get more information around it, so just kind of surprised to see the signs. Since I know a lot of people were kind of confused, like is it active? Do I need to get a pass? Also kind of looking at the agenda today, it looks like it's going to be potentially for 24-hour parking. And the signs say from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. So it kind of seems like we're going to have to replace the signs at some point.

(10:58 - 11:27)
So just kind of wanted to express the concern there since I don't know if it was for the construction people or anything like that. Since that just means that they'll come around on Buena Vista, which already has very sharp blind corners where people almost hit each other constantly on Roy. So just concerned about the traffic and that change that hasn't been really communicated very well.

(11:27 - 11:38)
Thank you, Mr. Contreras. Is there anyone else for resident comment? No hands are raised. Oh, Mr. Doulette.

(11:41 - 12:14)
Hello, Joe Doulette, Precinct 3. I'm just wanting to let people know that the Blue Big Band, which is Swampscott's community jazz orchestra, which is a program of the Senior Center, is having its spring performance on May 8th at 715 at Swampscott High School. It's the same day as the Heritage Festival. So go to the Heritage Festival and then come over to the high school for a beautiful concert of Duke Ellington's work, directed by Timo Schenko, who is, I think, one of Swampscott's hidden treasures.

(12:14 - 12:19)
I invite you all. It's free for youth and seniors and $10 for everyone else. Thanks so much.

(12:20 - 12:34)
Thank you, Mr. Doulette. And not seeing any other hands, we will move to the town administrator's report. Would it be okay if I deferred that to the end? I brought my notes here.

(12:34 - 12:40)
I'll put them down somewhere on this desk, and I can't find them. I brought a package in today. They're up on Facebook.

(12:44 - 12:52)
Hold on a second here. Let's just have a look. What do they look like, Gino? Like this? That's it.

(12:55 - 13:04)
Just leaving all your stuff here? Oh, now they're going to be writing letters about me for stealing. No, the reason I had to do it is they increased the cost. Okay.

(13:05 - 13:09)
Thank you. All right. So we'll make it brief.

(13:10 - 13:28)
You'll always all have a full report in your packets. I'm just going to address some of the, I don't want to say it's the most important stuff, but some of the stuff that I think is important to address tonight. Out-of-town administrator, we held the initial ground rules meetings to begin the negotiation with both the police department and the library this week.

(13:29 - 13:44)
Both meetings went smoothly, basically just to discuss the ground rules. Met with Max to discuss the cell tower leases, something I was always interested in. The cell tower was on the water tower, set to expire next year.

(13:44 - 13:52)
We're looking to sign a one-year extension with them right now. We think it's definitely going to benefit us because rates are going down now. There's so many opportunities.

(13:52 - 14:04)
The one behind the police station has 10 more years. So we're stuck with that for another 10 years. I met with the out-of-town administrator, Tony Balletta, to discuss possible regionalization opportunities.

(14:04 - 14:13)
That meeting went well. I might be able to discuss a little bit more of that a little later. Moving on to the DPW, very busy.

(14:14 - 14:25)
Most of you have seen street sweeping began last week and will be completed by April 24th. The schedule has been posted on the DPW website. The annual paving project began last week.

(14:26 - 14:43)
Roadway milling will continue to the middle of next week. All told, the town will be paving 27 roadways this year. And Great Eastern Suns will be wrapping up the Marshall Street outfall rehabilitation project by the end of the month, which is we're getting very good results with testing some of the manholes there.

(14:44 - 14:51)
So I couldn't be happier. I think somebody else might be happy in the audience there. Because if we're ever able to open up Fisherman's Beach, it's going to be a win for the town.

(14:52 - 15:06)
And I'm very optimistic. And Great Eastern Sun also has a second contract with the town of Swampscott to replace the water main on Palmer Ave and to reline the water main on Atlantic Ave. You see the bypass piping has been laid down on both roadways.

(15:07 - 15:21)
Palmer Ave is going to start tomorrow, the work there. The whole project will probably be completed in two months. And then finally, DPW awarded a landscape contract to Tomatos Landscaping.

(15:21 - 15:34)
It's a three-year contract with Tomatos. The reason I bring this up tonight is my tenure here and probably for the past 25 years, Leahy Landscaping has done the cutting of the grass in Swampscott. It's done a great job.

(15:34 - 15:43)
I'd like to acknowledge Matt, Swampscott resident, over the years. But it was very competitive this year. Most of the years when we put out a three-year contract, he's been the only bidder.

(15:43 - 15:51)
We had seven competitive bids this time around. So I'm looking forward to working with the new contractor. All right.

(15:52 - 15:58)
Community development. Pine Street updates are attached somewhere here. I can talk about those.

(15:59 - 16:12)
We'll be meeting with Earth Day events scheduled for Saturday. The clerk's office is continuing work on the annual report. Ordered more election equipment to complete the capital project.

(16:14 - 16:37)
The fire department is working on a comprehensive set of policies and standard operating procedures. And they were also awarded a $4,427 grant, excuse me, for fire service, high pipe, and safety equipment. Human resources is virtually attended the TA search committee's meeting, where they interviewed two possible consultants.

(16:37 - 16:46)
I believe they might be voting on that tonight. Organized an intended Ready, Set, Community GM session at the library. Attendees were engaged and stayed roughly two hours.

(16:46 - 16:53)
Feedback is positive. Library, this is interesting. We did new discussions and revisions to the library entrance.

(16:53 - 17:02)
And more importantly, the renovation project is now landed on their webpage. We're happy with that. Facilities.

(17:03 - 17:13)
Continuing the town hall roof replacement. I believe they're just about done with that project other than installing the railings. National Grid completed their inspection of the SHS Auditorium lighting project.

(17:14 - 17:29)
And that continues to review the solar project planning. Recreation. Well, I shouldn't say the most important, but the most exciting thing, maybe in my opinion, is the planning of the new Derby Day event on May 3rd, 4 to 7. There will be food trucks and bear events.

(17:29 - 17:41)
And I'm looking forward to a good turnout. And Danielle's also planning a public safety day on June 1st with Officer Reen and Officer Wilson. That's it.

(17:42 - 17:56)
All right. Any questions? I have a question about Pine Street. Since we sort of said it was attached, but I think it's probably important to call out some of the things that were on the attachment, if you don't mind.

(17:56 - 18:06)
Absolutely. So the 40B was received by the town on April 2nd, right? The 2nd, yep. I'm sorry.

(18:06 - 18:12)
Yeah, April 2nd. The comment period ends May 2nd. So I think Margie sent that around to the select board for comments.

(18:14 - 18:46)
And I think you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this process is a friendly 40B, so it's a town-owned parcel. And so it'll follow a similar process as Michonne followed, right? But I think from what this update says, you're in the works with maybe a neighborhood meeting? Yes. So I don't think we did that with Michonne, so that's great that we're sort of taking the reins and doing that.

(18:46 - 19:13)
I know obviously this is a topic that's very much in the public eye right now, so I think a neighborhood meeting is important. And then also I wanted to make sure that we reiterated that town staff is working to answer the letter that we received the 40B, like the comments of the 40B. Right.

(19:13 - 19:17)
Yep. And if we have any comments, we should send them to Margie. Absolutely, yep.

(19:18 - 19:22)
Okay. Great. I'm looking at everybody's.

(19:22 - 19:26)
Does anybody have that miscellaneous pot on the bottom of theirs? Yeah. I just wanted to make sure. I don't.

(19:27 - 19:31)
That's why I looked over at you. I just wanted to make sure everybody else had seen that. Okay.

(19:33 - 20:34)
So just to that effect, so with the project eligibility letter that's received, comment period ending 5-2, is there time for us to have a public meeting to have that discussion publicly about Pine Street? Are we planning to have a meeting, or can we ask for additional time so we can, so this can be included in a public meeting? That's how this process, I believe, has worked previously. I don't know if the process, I don't think this is, I think this is a little bit different process. My understanding is that with this, similar to the Michon, the public, we're not even required to have a public meeting, and they didn't for Michon, but we are, my understanding is Margie is scheduling one for this one, and then put together a letter for the funding.

(20:35 - 20:49)
And then there's, my understanding is that there's another time where we have to have a bigger process around the schematic drawings. That's my understanding. I don't know.

(20:49 - 21:02)
I do believe that when we had, when the Westcott had their, when the Westcott issued their project eligibility letter, that didn't come in front of a select board. Those are two different, yeah, those are two different projects. It was a friendly 40B as well.

(21:04 - 21:08)
It wasn't a town-owned property. Right. It was friendly.

(21:09 - 21:14)
Right. All I know is that she's scheduling a public meeting. Right.

(21:15 - 21:27)
I think what you just said, Mary Ellen, I mean, this says that schematic design plans can be submitted to who on 5-1. It doesn't say. Yeah, before the comment period ends.

(21:27 - 21:39)
Not before the comment period, but one day before the comment period ends. And does the neighborhood meeting need to happen before or after the schematic design? I mean, I think we've got some information. I don't think the schematic design is 5-1.

(21:39 - 21:47)
I don't think the schematic is 5-1. I'm not, this is the first time I'm seeing this. My understanding is the schematic comes much later.

(21:47 - 21:56)
I would think so. But what I would suggest is Margie's not at a meeting right now. She said she would log on as soon as she finishes up at that meeting to answer any of these questions.

(21:56 - 21:59)
We can put this at the end. Perfect. Perfect.

(22:00 - 22:05)
All right. I did have something else, Gino. Sure.

(22:06 - 22:31)
So for the last seven months, I've been trying to address some serious allegations and concerns that I have regarding the inappropriate release of town employee personnel information. I'm speaking about this publicly tonight after trying to address these concerns privately. There are two instances that I know of where confidential employee information was released.

(22:33 - 22:52)
Last fall, it came to my attention that confidential personnel information was inappropriately shared. An internal investigation was subsequently initiated by the town administrator to examine this breach. And despite the investigation being completed, the findings of that investigation have been repressed by Chair Mary Ellen Fletcher.

(22:52 - 23:12)
I've reached out numerous times to Chair Fletcher to request an executive session to discuss the findings of the investigation. And each time, that request has been denied. In addition, prior to the investigation's conclusion, Chair Fletcher wrote an email to town council on October 30th, which stated, we need to shut down the investigation.

(23:13 - 23:47)
Now, the question I must ask is, why is a member of the select board interfering with an internal investigation? In a separate instance last year, confidential employee information was once again released. And Gino, on March 5th of this year, 2025, you confirmed to me by email that this confidential information was, in fact, inappropriately released. In a subsequent conversation on April 11th, last Friday, you indicated that Chair Fletcher directed you to retract that statement that you made in email to the board on March 5th.

(23:49 - 24:16)
It should be of serious concern to everyone that a member of this board, namely Chair Fletcher, is attempting to prevent the truth from being understood and ensuring that whomever is responsible for the breaches is held to account. The town of Swampscott currently has approximately 500 employees that are entitled to their personal information being kept confidential. There's potential for massive liability to the town and ultimately to Swampscott residents.

(24:17 - 24:34)
For example, are Swampscott residents aware that we are paying the former town administrator a $275,000 settlement? You heard me correctly. $275,000 of taxpayer money. Can I ask a point of order? Point of order.

(24:34 - 24:43)
No. Point of order. This is a public settlement, yet the chair has not elected to inform residents during a very difficult budget process.

(24:43 - 24:47)
You are out of line, Mr. Grishman. Nope. He just has one question.

(24:47 - 25:08)
I just have a question. If it relates to the town administrator's report, then it's timely, but if it's not, it should be done during your select board time. As the interim town administrator, you need to make sure that we're protecting our town employees, and tonight I'm calling for you to commence an outside, independent investigation into the multiple occasions where confidential employee personnel... Mr. Grishman, you are so out of line.

(25:09 - 25:16)
You are so out of line. We need to find out what happened, who was responsible, and ensure that this doesn't happen again. We owe that to all of our employees... You are out of line, Mr. Grishman.

(25:16 - 25:28)
...and to all of our taxpayers of Swampskate. You are completely out of line. Mary Ellen, you're not gonna silence me like you attempted to silence the investigation, the internal investigation.

(25:29 - 25:33)
Mr. Grishman, you are out of line. You are out of line. I have all the receipts, Mary Ellen.

(25:33 - 25:36)
That's great. You are so out of line. Ms. Phelan.

(25:37 - 25:42)
Mr... Ms. Phelan, would you like to read this email? Here. Read the email, please. I just feel like this is totally inappropriate.

(25:43 - 25:46)
I'm not reading anything. You are totally inappropriate, Mr. Grishman. Please sit down.

(25:47 - 25:54)
I mean, if you have something you'd like to talk to us about, we can talk about it at select board time. This is... We're talking about the town administrator's report. Yeah.

(25:54 - 26:02)
I'm not saying whatever you're saying doesn't have the validity you're saying it does. I have no idea. You're just presenting it right now for all of us for shock value.

(26:02 - 26:07)
Let's focus on the business we have on the agenda. We'll get to this at select board time. This is... This is the business of the town.

(26:08 - 26:12)
This is absolutely the business of the town. This is political theater. That's all you're doing here, David.

(26:12 - 26:18)
You're trying to humiliate people. You're trying to hurt employees in the town. These are all about employees.

(26:18 - 26:41)
Well, I mean, I guess... Oh, here we go. The one thing that I heard there that seems particularly relevant is, and I couldn't quite hear it with the overtalk, but there was something in there about that Mary Ellen asked Gino to not do something. So that seems like the piece that's particularly relevant to the town administrator's report to me.

(26:42 - 26:58)
So where is it in the... Did I ask you not to do something in this administrative report? No. Thank you. I'm going to pipe in here because I do not want to see another town employee put on the spot, and that's Gino Cresta.

(26:58 - 27:25)
I think this line of questioning to him is inappropriate, and while, again, David, you very well could have some valid points, and this is definitely something we should address and speak to in a professional, appropriate human resources fashion, right? Because this is an HR issue to me. I've got my HR hat on. This is concerning, but I personally don't think it's fair to put Gino on the spot right now.

(27:25 - 27:55)
And if you did say something, you're a witness, and you'll be investigated, but I do think an investigation is in order, for sure, to get this straightened out. I don't want to see any undue pressure put on you, period, from anybody, from any of us, from anybody out there, anybody, right? And there is a lot of lines that we have to make sure that are not blurred, crossed, and whatever else. So while I agree that this is not the forum for it, it definitely is concerning, and it should be investigated, and we will.

(27:56 - 28:09)
I'm telling you right now I will because we need to get this cleared up. Whatever the truth is needs to come out, and it will. But I think that it has to be done professionally, through human resources, or whoever, or outside, whatever.

(28:10 - 28:16)
But I just don't want to see anybody put on the spot here. We're not gonna litigate it tonight. No, no.

(28:17 - 28:31)
Right, but. And tonight I'm just asking to call for a commencement of an outside independent investigation into the multiple occasions where confidential employee personnel information was released. So if we can get to the bottom of that sooner rather than later, that would be greatly appreciated.

(28:31 - 28:53)
Do you have anything else on your? Oh, you're finished with yours. Does anybody have any more questions on the town administrator's report? I had questions about stuff that is not nearly as riveting or exciting. This morning I was on a walk, and I happened to see trash being collected, and it was just blowing everywhere.

(28:54 - 29:20)
Recycling was blowing everywhere, down Reddington Street, down Humphrey Street, and I wanted to get a handle on what type of process is happening, because it was a mess. And it was nine o'clock in the morning, so I'm assuming it stayed there all day or blew all around, and I just wanted to get an idea. Does DPW follow up with the trash trucks? How does that work on a day like this? Typically, I would say the Board of Health would send the residents a letter saying you're supposed to cover your trash.

(29:20 - 29:28)
And it was recycling. So it was recycling that was just going everywhere. And I don't know if it was partly because they weren't emptying it completely and it was blowing, I don't know.

(29:28 - 29:30)
I think it was starting to blow. I went down there right after. It just was really messy.

(29:31 - 29:35)
I drove down there after. We'll get that picked. Whatever remains tomorrow morning will be picked up.

(29:35 - 29:42)
Right. But we've got to let the residents know, because obviously we're short-staffed. We can't be following around the trash truck.

(29:43 - 29:48)
Okay, great. My second question is more in line budget-wise for you. Yep.

(29:49 - 30:07)
I know that, I think that was part of your, you and Amy have worked on it, I'm sure. I know you're working on it a lot. Will we see an update tonight about where we're at, what the next steps are, what you're working towards, especially with the schools, all of that? Will we hear that at some point tonight? No, I don't think I'm ready for that.

(30:07 - 30:15)
That was one of the things I wanted to discuss potentially tomorrow, where it impacts employees. Personnel? Sure. Okay, great.

(30:16 - 30:20)
That's all I have. All right, thank you. Okay.

(30:21 - 30:44)
So next we're going to move to the presentation of the 2025 Swarmscot Recreation Beach Sticker. Great, do we have a little slide we could bring up? Okay. So... Sorry.

(30:55 - 31:22)
So we would like to give special thanks to Isabella Kennedy who designed the beach sticker this year. She's a Swarmscot resident, and she focuses on architecture and interior design for the last 20-plus years. Her work has spanned residential, commercial, and institutional projects, and we were very honored to have her develop the beach sticker for us this year.

(31:23 - 32:06)
When Isabella is not working on projects, she can be found on beach walks with her family, paddleboarding, painting, drawing, or tackling her own DIY ideas, which is great. And I have seen her many times walking the beach with her kiddos, and we're very glad and honored to present her design this year, which is a nod to Hadley, which is so apropos as the Hadley comes out of Commission as a School Building this year but remains a very big fixture in all of our lives. And I would like to present the first beach sticker this year to our designer as a special thanks for her contributions to the town.

(32:06 - 32:16)
Thank you. Very nice. It's really nice.

(32:19 - 32:47)
Okay, and then really quickly, beach stickers are now going to be available at Town Hall. They're coming out of the process that they came out of prior years, which were, you know, you signed up for a sticker and it came through the mail. Beach stickers are going to be available starting tomorrow, but the hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Friday, 9 to 12, and you need your license and registration.

(32:48 - 33:09)
You can pay by cash or check. And great news, the beach sticker process this year will be saving the town quite some money. It became a senior work-off program, and I believe Danielle said it was about $16,000 we are going to save this year by putting the beach stickers through this process rather than through the service that we normally use.

(33:09 - 33:20)
So finding all the money everywhere. So does that keep the price the same as it was? The price is the same, yes. So is that $25? $25, yes.

(33:20 - 33:24)
And $10 for seniors. Great. So we're very excited.

(33:25 - 33:33)
Come get your beach sticker tomorrow. And thank you very much for your contribution. Proud daughter over there.

(33:33 - 33:37)
I know. Proud daughter for her mom. All right.

(33:38 - 33:49)
So now we can move on to discussion and possible vote to appoint Richard Baldacci as the building commissioner. We had this on our agenda the last time. Yep.

(33:49 - 34:15)
Madam Chair, is it possible that we push this back to talk about some fees first before we talk about this item? There's some issues, there's some ideas that I've floated, and Amy has some information that might be relevant to this conversation. Directly increasing some revenue in order to help pay for this building commissioner. I don't have a problem with that.

(34:15 - 34:23)
We could talk about it in the same context if you wish, but there's other items on here about fees. You want to jump to fees? You want to jump to fees and then we'll jump back up? If that's okay. So let's go to fees.

(34:29 - 34:48)
Do you want to talk? Do you want to go right to this one or do you want to talk about the other ones first? Let's go to... So what line item is our regular fees? Nine. Yep. So let's just go right to nine to vote on increasing town fees and permits.

(34:49 - 35:09)
Amy. So Mr. Thompson had emailed me asking if I could get some information on other communities' building fees and permits, which I believe you have in your packets. And one of the questions he posed was, you know, it looks like we could potentially go up another dollar per thousand of project cost on the permit.

(35:10 - 35:56)
And looking back at the past 12 months of permit data that we've had, if we did go up that dollar based off that past year, it would bring in $10,832, with the breakdown being $6,488 in commercial, $404 in residential, and $3,940 in electrical. So this, just for the board's understanding, so I, as well as maybe the rest of you, had calls from people lobbying for this position one way or the other. And in the course of one of those conversations, one of the contractors noted to me that our fees actually have some room to go up to still be in line with some of our neighboring communities.

(35:57 - 36:02)
Amy kindly pulled the information out. Do we literally have all that information in here? Yeah, there's the hunt. Okay, great.

(36:02 - 36:11)
I think we do. So, you know, in some ways, we're pretty well in line with others, but I think it's Lynn that's much higher. Much higher.

(36:12 - 36:41)
So it could be $1 per thousand. It could be $2 per thousand. We could do nothing, but since it came out of the contractor community and since this position really would be helping to facilitate that community, it seemed like it was a kind of very connected source of revenue that wouldn't be too terribly taxing on any one developer or even resident, but cumulatively, it would defray some of the costs.

(36:43 - 36:57)
You kind of alluded to regionalization things earlier, so I'm not sure if you want to talk about that in this context, too, but this is just something to put on the table. It seems like this is a source where we could get $10,000 or $20,000, whether it's for the building commissioner or something else. Right.

(36:57 - 37:15)
Hopefully for something else, because I met with Tony Balletta and Rich yesterday over in the Nahant town hall, and Nahant has agreed to pick up $18,000 for salary for him to work four hours a week in Nahant. Awesome. We still gotta iron out a few more details, but I think we got an agreement in place.

(37:16 - 37:32)
He's willing to, Tom Nahant is willing to sign a three-year contract that would be in line with Rich's contract to give us $18,000 one year, $18,500 the second, $19,000 the third. So let's finish these, and then we can jump up to him. We do both? Yeah.

(37:33 - 37:47)
Well, so are we, so can we have, as far as fees, let's just do the- For the recommendation. The whole thing on the recommendation on the fees. Can we have a motion to, do you wanna discuss the rest of these fees? Yeah, we should probably discuss the rest.

(37:47 - 38:25)
Let's just get this whole, get the fees done, okay? Amy, are you gonna speak on the, are there recommendations for how we increase these? Yep, so the other recommendations we had was to increase the block party, which would directly affect Katie and her neighbors, from $25 to $50. And just for reference, in the past year, we had 16 of those. The other recommendations were to the town clerk's office, increasing the vital records, so the birth, death, and marriage certificates.

(38:25 - 38:37)
We do $10. A lot of other communities are 15 and 20, so they didn't have a recommendation one way or another. They were in support of whatever the board wanted to do.

(38:37 - 38:58)
They just felt we were far below what the register of vital records set as it, and our other communities, we had 745 of those in the last year. And then the other one was the late fee on dog licensing. We're very behind on every other community.

(38:58 - 39:20)
Most of them are at 15. That's what the town clerk was recommending for that. They also had asked that we adopt the rest of the RVRS, so if you get your birth, marriage, or death certificate and you need it expedited, you need it mailed, you need it mailed internationally, there's set fees for that.

(39:20 - 39:31)
They wanted those adopted as well. Is there a summary of the proposed changes anywhere in here? Yeah, I don't see it. Yeah, okay.

(39:33 - 39:46)
Overall, Amy, if we increased everything that's recommended, how much additional revenue does that, on an estimate? On an estimate, it was at least $20,000. Okay. And that's without the building permits, because that was a today thing.

(39:48 - 40:04)
Okay. That was also inclusive of going up on the prams and kayaks from $25,000 to $50,000. Everything you're recommending is consistent with other communities.

(40:05 - 40:18)
Yes. So the question is, do we want to just make a recommendation? I'm not having, like, just one sheet of it super detailed. I'm just not sure how comfortable everybody is to make a motion to recommend the changes.

(40:21 - 40:29)
I think good hygiene, we should have one sheet so we're clearly seeing what we're doing. Right. There's no criticality to doing it today.

(40:29 - 40:35)
So let's just put that, Diane, we'll put that on the next agenda. And, Amy, if you just make one summary sheet. Absolutely.

(40:35 - 40:45)
Okay. Just for me, I'm comfortable with the changes to the building permits. I'm comfortable with the town clerk recommendations.

(40:46 - 41:03)
I would keep the block party at $25 or make it free to encourage community engagement and involvement. That's the only change that I would have for what it's worth. I have one question on the... Very consistent party animal.

(41:03 - 41:20)
...on the building. So you're recommending that we're only going up $1 per thousand, and that puts us in line with what communities? That was more in line with Lynn's building permit. Lynn's $18.

(41:23 - 41:35)
We would be between, I think the rest are similar to us right now, but Lynn is higher. So we'd be going from $15 to $16 or $17, and Lynn's at $18. Or $22.

(41:36 - 41:44)
Yes. Okay. So right now we're at $15 per thousand on residential and $20 per thousand on commercial.

(41:49 - 42:10)
So is everybody good with just going up $1? What do you want, $2? And this is for people who actually pulled building permits? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I think if it's in line with the region, then we should do that.

(42:10 - 42:32)
And then we've already talked about keeping a cadence of looking going forward and making sure that we're looking at these. $20,000 is a windfall for us this year because we need every penny. But if we're being consistent about increasing as the region increases, then, you know, well, I guess we won't have this windfall then going forward, but at least we'll be consistently seeing that come in.

(42:32 - 42:42)
Okay. So we'll... To be clear, we're not touching the mooring fees, right? Because we did increase those last year. We are not touching them.

(42:42 - 42:59)
The harbormaster is recommending we revisit them next year. But due to the timing, the bills for this year had to go out and there wasn't enough time to revisit them and get the bills out on time. Isn't there an issue with commercial and mooring fees, Danielle? Not that I know of.

(43:00 - 43:14)
What do you mean? Well, you're the liaison to the harbormonor. I just thought that there was something on the mooring fees for commercial. I'm not aware of anything.

(43:15 - 43:19)
There is an issue. I don't know what it is. They're meeting tonight, you know, incidentally.

(43:19 - 43:25)
I can never get there because they're always meeting on Wednesdays. Of course. I'll find out.

(43:25 - 43:28)
There is something with commercial mooring. Okay. I don't know what the issue is.

(43:28 - 43:32)
Maybe we have to pop that on there, too. Yep. All right.

(43:32 - 43:39)
Okay. So we'll just put that on for the next agenda. So we have one sheet.

(43:40 - 44:03)
We can just approve one sheet. So why don't we jump back up to discussion and possible vote on Richard Baldacci, the building commissioner. I did have a conversation with Gino about this earlier, knowing that he had a conversation and was able to get Nahant on board to pick up the extra amount.

(44:03 - 44:36)
The only thing that I just want to make sure that we start setting a precedent when we're working to regionalize that the benefits are also covered. For example, whatever the percentage is that the other community is going to be picking up, they're also picking up the health insurance benefits. So for an example, with this case, Mr. Baldacci will be about 10%, between 10% and 16% work for Nahant.

(44:37 - 45:04)
So I would like to get a motion to approve this tonight with the understanding that Nahant will pick up that little bit extra on his health insurance. And one thing that's important about that is as we go forward, then we have a precedence on how we start to regionalize and how we start to bring people in. How many hours is he working in Swampscott? How many hours would he be working? Thirty-six.

(45:04 - 45:10)
So he'd be working full-time? Full-time here and then, yeah. And an additional four? Four hours. Okay.

(45:11 - 45:33)
So if he's working full-time here, then why wouldn't we be paying 100%? I don't understand why. Well, if he's also working over there. So if the job itself is X amount of hours, why wouldn't we be splitting the percentage hours that he's working over there? Our employees are 34.

(45:34 - 45:43)
Well, I was going to say, once they hit 20, we have to cover their benefits. So we're obligated to cover his 100% of his hours. Right, so we're obligated, but if we're also 34.

(45:44 - 45:58)
So it's 30 hours plus four in Nahant? No, it's 34 here. 34 here and then four in Nahant. So it's almost like it's not a. . . So, for example, he's a 1.0 here.

(45:58 - 46:04)
He's not a .75 and a .25 there. It's just to get him the additional funds. I see both sides.

(46:04 - 46:09)
Yeah, I see both sides as well. I understand what you're trying to get at, and I think there's value in it. I think there is.

(46:10 - 46:27)
But I think if we get $18,000, then we actually are, I think we're covered. I think we're obligated. I don't think we have to literally have them pay the portion of the health insurance, but you're saying conceptually. 

. . Right, if it was a job share. . . We should be giving up the total cost for the building commissioner, and we should be dividing the total cost, not just salary, but also. . . Right.

(46:27 - 46:37)
So, for example, our facility manager is 40 hours a week. Max is 34. I thought Max was 40 in the contract.

(46:37 - 46:43)
How could he be 40 when everybody else is 34? Well, we know somebody else that's 40. I know it's you. I know.

(46:43 - 46:51)
My understanding is. . . You're the only one I've asked. So correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding, Max is a 40-hour, because Max is different than everyone else.

(46:52 - 46:58)
That's what Sean had told me. I think she would really be calling out individuals. No, it's not an individual.

(46:58 - 47:02)
Let's just say an individual. We shouldn't get any one-offs here. I think we should all be equal.

(47:03 - 47:17)
I think what I would like to do is. . . I hope we're paying him for 40 hours then. I would like to make a motion to approve the appointment of Rich Baldacci as the building commissioner.

(47:18 - 47:35)
As the deal has been negotiated today, have Gino speak to Nahant about if there's wiggle room regarding the health insurance. I still support hiring him if Nahant can't come forward with additional funds. No, that's okay.

(47:36 - 47:52)
What is it amount to? What amount would we even be looking for? In total? $2,600. Additional from Nahant. You're talking $38, so that's 10.52%, and then it's about $26,000 for a family plan, so it's $2,600.

(47:53 - 47:59)
So that's the max it could be, right? Because if he's not taking a family plan, it wouldn't be $2,600. Probably. Okay.

(48:00 - 48:11)
Okay. I'll second that. So we can venture down that road, and I get the point, and I think going forward we should think about this more holistically, but we're talking about four hours, not 20 and 20.

(48:11 - 48:29)
It's not a job share. It's a little different. Yeah, so as we get more, hopefully, more into regionalization and we talk about more job share positions, then we should be taking into account benefits, retirement, all that kind of stuff, the collective cost of that employee, not just salary.

(48:29 - 48:47)
See, that's what I think is important here is to look at. I think we have to really start aggressively looking towards working with Nahant and seeing what we could do as far as sharing, and you have to remember we're going to be picking up health insurance, retirement. But we're obligated to do that for full-time employees.

(48:48 - 48:58)
Any full-time employee that we employ. I hear what you're saying, but we wouldn't even be able to bring him on without having them together, so it's one job together. That's how I'm looking at it.

(48:58 - 49:15)
I mean, you're in a budget looking, and I appreciate it. You're looking for every single dime and every dollar, and I just think that this makes things fairer. I also don't want to shoot myself in the foot and go back to Nahant and have them say, I'll take a walk about giving you an extra $2,600.

(49:15 - 49:18)
No, I wouldn't. I'm not recommending that. I'm not sure.

(49:19 - 49:24)
But I don't know the extent of your negotiations. I didn't know you were negotiating. Oh, yeah, it's been going on for a week.

(49:24 - 49:30)
It's a win-win for both. Tony will tell you the same thing. They were paying their part-time guy up until last weekend.

(49:30 - 49:43)
He left $14,000, so that's what he started at. I was able to squeeze the other four out of him. So do you have a salary? I mean, have you negotiated everything? I don't want to let the cat eat you.

(49:44 - 49:58)
All right. You say no? We have a tentative agreement in place for a three-year contract, which would be start the 108 with a 2% increase for the next two years, and Nahant giving us the extra $500 each year. Right.

(49:58 - 50:00)
There's two different things going on here. There's the deal with Nahant. Right.

(50:00 - 50:03)
There's the overall salary. There's what the salary is for the building commission. Correct.

(50:04 - 50:09)
Do we have that? But they're kind of intertwined. Did we ever see that? Yeah. Yeah, we've seen it.

(50:10 - 50:13)
Last meeting. I thought we did, but I wasn't here. Yes.

(50:13 - 50:26)
So, again, the motion on the floor is that we approve this on the condition that Nahant is going to partner with us in that $18,000, and that piece closes. And if it doesn't come back, we'll circle back to them. Right.

(50:27 - 50:29)
Right. So, that's the motion. Second.

(50:29 - 50:32)
All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay.

(50:32 - 50:39)
Thank you. And Mr. Baldacci will start tomorrow morning? Only if we get Nahant on board. Yeah.

(50:41 - 50:53)
Okay. The update on the selection committee. Who's going to read that one? Where is that? Diane, do you have that? It's in our packet.

(50:53 - 51:01)
Okay. I'm going to need a packet then. Do you want me to read it? Yeah, go ahead.

(51:02 - 51:23)
The screening committee has reviewed proposals to hire a search firm to assist in the town administrator hiring process. We interviewed two firms last week, the Collins Center and Grove White Consulting, and are meeting Wednesday, tonight, at 6 o'clock, to vote on which firm to move forward with. Once we have contracted with the selected search firm, within 12 weeks we anticipate bringing candidates forward to the select board for interviews.

(51:24 - 51:42)
The chosen consultant will be well-versed in the position and what TAs do in general, and both the Collins Center and Grove White are very active in Massachusetts' municipal markets. The chosen consultant will be available to meet with select board to discuss the Swampscot's specific needs and requirements. From Heather Roman, the TA screening committee chair.

(51:42 - 51:51)
Okay. Does anybody know how many companies applied? Six. Six companies applied? Yes.

(51:51 - 52:01)
Oh, that's good. And they narrowed it down to two, or did they listen to all six? They narrowed it down to two, and they didn't listen to all six. We haven't settled on the interviews, if you have any questions.

(52:01 - 52:15)
Do we have any idea of why it got narrowed down to just the two? I don't know how they narrowed it down, no. I know, I think one of them was way outside what we could pay. Okay.

(52:17 - 52:41)
All right. This is not a question for you, Mariam, but just in general, I know we had, when we had spoken about, when the select board took on the topic of the town administrator search, we wanted some public engagement. And while I don't see that here, I'm hopeful that the TA search committee will be doing some sort of public engagement for what they feel like they would like to see in a town administrator also.

(52:42 - 53:06)
Well, I think we might want to have the committee chair present at the next meeting to kind of go over maybe some things, you know, some questions like that, because I would like to know how they got from six to two and what their criteria was. And your point is an even better point that we should really direct, I think, to them specifically, right? Right. So I think others should appear here, right, so we can talk to her a little bit about that.

(53:06 - 53:12)
I think the meeting right now, right. Maybe our next meeting, I mean. Right.

(53:12 - 53:42)
So do you feel that we should be sending them information right now as a board as far as what you'd like to see as far as public outreach? I mean, I felt like a survey or some sort of public engagement would be appropriate, but I'm also would like to hear what the consultants say, right? Because that's what we're hiring them for their expertise, and they've likely hired town administrators in Massachusetts recently. And so they've been through this process more recently than we have. So I'm open to what their suggestion is.

(53:42 - 53:52)
But I think we all commented that a public process, this should be a partially public process. Right. So, you know, I want to understand what that looks like.

(53:52 - 54:13)
And 12 weeks is great to bring candidates forward so long as we are meeting those thoughts that we had initially started with, which was that we were going to have a fully robust process. Right. I think it's important to communicate that we want to have a, dare I say the word, transparent public process.

(54:13 - 54:16)
Right. And we want residents to be involved. Right.

(54:16 - 54:19)
Right. I think we have to communicate that directly. We can't just assume it.

(54:19 - 54:29)
Right. Or I think they know that that's our intention. So maybe if we could ask to have Heather here the next meeting, we can go over that stuff with her or ask her some questions.

(54:29 - 54:45)
Maybe with the consultant. Right. Wouldn't that be nice? I want to just, when we voted on this to begin with, there was a kind of, we were hoping, thinking it was going to come out of the finance committee.

(54:46 - 54:50)
Reserve. Reserve. But they still needed to vote or something like that.

(54:50 - 54:52)
They did. They did. Okay.

(54:53 - 54:54)
But they did vote that night. Yeah. Okay.

(54:55 - 55:02)
So the committee is authorized. But they can go ahead based on our votes. They can go ahead and actually contract.

(55:02 - 55:05)
Yeah. With this firm. I believe so.

(55:06 - 55:15)
Well, the town is, they approve the financing. So the town signs the contract with the firm. Okay.

(55:15 - 55:32)
Are we all set with this one? One of the little, it's not just us. Right. In terms of the, you know, they can come back and talk to us, but it's also, this is a school committee, you know, finance committee, different groups are TAs for, not just for the select board.

(55:34 - 55:36)
There's other representatives on that. Yeah. There's five people.

(55:36 - 55:38)
There's one for me. Yeah. Right.

(55:40 - 55:43)
And this came in on budget. Correct. Yes.

(55:43 - 55:58)
I think Collin center was 13 and grew white was 15 or 18, but it was obvious which firm would actually interact with you versus one that will not interact with you. Right. So I hope they choose the one that seemed obvious.

(55:58 - 56:01)
Okay. Thanks. Okay.

(56:02 - 56:22)
Now we'll move to discussion and possible vote to add handicap spots on Doherty circle in the library. Is Kevin, are you covering that or who's covering that? He looks like he will. You asked him to.

(56:25 - 56:44)
I mean, I think to be honest with you, it's pretty basic. Correct me if I'm wrong. It's just a, um, a handicap parking space in front of, um, right in front of Doherty circle.

(56:44 - 56:57)
Yes. So there, so currently there are no marked handicapped spots on borough street in front of Doherty circle. Um, there are a handful, I believe there's three inside Doherty circle itself.

(56:57 - 57:24)
So putting one out front would be obvious for the residents that live, uh, with their front door, uh, on the borough street section. The library does have one single handicap spot, um, directly in front of the crosswalk at the main entrance. Um, I don't think it would be out of the realm to add an additional, um, handicap spot on the other side of the crosswalk.

(57:25 - 57:42)
Yes. And, and actually in, in quite oftentimes it would, um, it opens it up the parking a little bit more, um, and the line of sight for pedestrians crossing as well. So I would, I would recommend that to have one spot added to each location.

(57:42 - 58:14)
Right. So can we have a motion on that? Where did these requests come from? I believe it was brought up at the last meeting when we were here. Um, I may stand corrected, but I do, I think that when we were discussing parking, uh, and the other details regarding the borough street, Doherty circle Pitman area, uh, there was a question that may have been asked about coming back with some information for tonight's meeting, which is this, as well as the other information that I provided regarding the other topic.

(58:15 - 58:27)
And under handicap, the library, the handicap parking for the library actually came up with disability two years ago. And it's still, so it's, it's, that box hasn't been checked yet. So.

(58:28 - 59:25)
So, so officer Reen, are we, are we just, is the recommendation to just add one spot outside of Doherty circle on borough or add multiple spots? Yes. For the, for today's purpose right now, we would start with one. I think that's an obvious place to go because there is parking on the inside of the complex. 

Um, it does squeeze out a majority of other opportunities within the two 33 borough street area. So if we were able to put one handicap at the borough street of Doherty circle location, uh, that would facilitate a need for it right now, it may present itself a few months from now or a few years from now down the road that depending on the occupants of that building that we might need to add more. Okay. 

So we can just, we can reevaluate as, as new information and, and as we, as we see utilization. Exactly. Okay.

(59:25 - 59:35)
That makes sense. Okay. So can we have a motion for the handicap parking? So move. 

Second. Second. All in favor. 

Aye. Aye. Aye.

(59:35 - 1:00:20)
Um, discussion and possible vote to change parking on Elm place, Pittman road, Hillcrest circle, Upland road, Maple street, Columbia road, Burpee terrace, therapy road, Burpee street, Doherty circle to residential parking only 24 hours per day effective immediately. Um, I would like to take borough street out for this conversation only because I think that we have a couple of concerns with commercial. Did we all get an email on that? How about Columbia? Madam chair, if I may, am I, I apologize, but I just, cause I do have information on that and I think I was pretty specific last week's meeting.

(1:00:20 - 1:01:11)
The residential changes to borough street would only take place from Columbia street to Essex street. Okay. And I spoke with some business owners and residents prior to tonight and reassured them and confirmed that at no point in time did we ever suggest that there was going to be any adjustment to the parking from railroad ave east to the ocean. 

All of that parking on borough street from railroad ave through superior, through point and through Lombard, through the paradise road up to rock past the library. All of that is going to remain as is. There's, there's no reason or indication that that needs to be adjusted because those signs are already implemented and in place.

(1:01:11 - 1:01:34)
I did speak with Mr Cresta about working with the town to update those signs. Some of them are not readable and do need to be improved and that's just a matter of, of time on our end to make sure that we get those done in a timely manner. I, I don't see that there needs to be any concern of the business area.

(1:01:34 - 1:01:52)
I just want to make sure you, that point was clear. Are there any residents here that wanted to speak on this? Yes, ma'am. Just your name and your address.

(1:01:53 - 1:02:21)
Hi, my name is Morrow. Can you hear me? American Idol. Morrow. 

I 26 out place. So we have a different situation because we have been inundated with the Berks Academy and I just found out tonight that Elm place is going to become a one way. That's, that's fine.

(1:02:22 - 1:02:54)
But the parking issues, are unbearable down there. Unbearable. My driveway is blocked. 

My front stairs are blocked. You can't, people park on the side of the building and then they park on the fence side and people have to back out and it's a nightmare. And not that we could have private parking, but resident only parking.

(1:02:57 - 1:03:05)
That's what we got here. Elm place? Elm place. Yeah.

(1:03:06 - 1:03:18)
Yep. All right. So, is, does, what is, is this turning into, is Elm place turning into a one way? That was what we discussed and presented at the last meeting.

(1:03:18 - 1:03:22)
Yes, Elm place. Yeah. We did bring that up.

(1:03:22 - 1:03:41)
That was a suggested recommendation of Elm place being a one way, entering from the West cot side of Essex street, traveling towards the Berks, exiting out the cross, the swamp. Okay. So we'll have to, we would have to put that on our next agenda to discuss and vote on.

(1:03:43 - 1:03:50)
I mean the street, they've already narrowed the street. The writing's on the wall. It's already been, okay.

(1:03:50 - 1:03:55)
You know, I'm good with it. I think we're good with it. I just want to do it properly.

(1:03:55 - 1:04:02)
Right now we're living a nightmare. We know. And, that needs to be, to be addressed immediately.

(1:04:05 - 1:04:32)
What else? No, the, the parking situation, the people parking, people leave their cars running, parked the wrong way. You know, and I, I really haven't called the police on this a lot. Now I've been out there taking pictures and making a couple people angry.

(1:04:32 - 1:04:51)
So how about, how about this? Cause this, if this passes here, this will become effective immediately. Then I'm sure the police will be happy to take your phone call. So I don't know if you have to call the emergency number, but no, no, no, you don't want, I don't want to be a Karen.

(1:04:53 - 1:05:06)
I think it's, I think it's, I think it's okay for right now. If we can just clean up that area, everybody, cause what's happening is people are saying, I don't want to call the police. And they're calling select board members after the car has driven away.

(1:05:06 - 1:05:15)
Well, this is what happens when I call the police. Then the, you know, they're off doing more important things and the car is gone. Okay.

(1:05:15 - 1:05:49)
I mean, there's, there's bottlenecks sometimes that are, are 10 minutes. Have we reached out to the businesses and ask them to send some communication out to their membership and parents that they need to be more courteous of the neighborhoods? Yes. I've personally been in there to a number of the businesses and I have no problem going back and reiterating our concerns and expressing how helpful it would be if they could, could work with us a little bit more as we finalize our, our problems with some new solutions.

(1:05:50 - 1:06:10)
Yeah. Maybe once we finalize the parking and the one way we can sort of put together a little memo to them, and then they could just send that right out to, I know there's a list serve I'm on it. So they could send it right out to their parents to say, there've been some changes and like, we need to respect the neighbors and these are what we need to be doing going forward.

(1:06:10 - 1:06:27)
And we can sort of work with them to make sure that the other issue I have is like finding out that it's going to be a one way we were never told. I don't know if you have to tell. That hasn't been finalized.

(1:06:28 - 1:06:29)
Yeah. Okay. Okay.

(1:06:30 - 1:06:38)
Okay. In the fence that that needs to be absolutely no parking on your side. Yeah.

(1:06:38 - 1:06:44)
That's that. I'm not describing it right. The final one, the white vinyl fence.

(1:06:44 - 1:06:53)
The white vinyl fence on my neighbor's side. The parking right there is. We could probably easily put up a sign with no parking, hit a corner.

(1:06:54 - 1:07:00)
It needs to be, it probably needs to be. Yeah. Then people don't care.

(1:07:01 - 1:07:14)
Telling you. Okay. So why don't, can you go over and how about if we can vote on this and then can you follow up with Kevin on that area? Yeah.

(1:07:14 - 1:07:24)
One of the things I just talked about with Kevin is I thought this would probably happen after July 1st just because of the budget. My sign budget has been exhausted. To be playing my next.

(1:07:24 - 1:07:38)
Amy, is there. That was going to be my next question. Is there any money in the budget? Is there any money? Would we, is there any money in the budget that we'll end up doing a shuffle that will cover any signs? I'd say $2,500 to $3,000.

(1:07:39 - 1:07:46)
The sign post design. I just, I'm just concerned about weight waiting. No, no, no.

(1:07:47 - 1:08:08)
I just want to make sure if we're taking this vote that we're putting sign signage up ASAP. And then can we also get more police coverage down there only because I noticed. Cause I, I did, I did receive a couple of phone calls that there was some police coverage.

(1:08:08 - 1:08:18)
I mean, maybe if we could ask the developer to pay for a detail or something like that. I mean, just at least for a few days until people get used to, they can't park. Yep.

(1:08:19 - 1:08:22)
I bet you would do it. You hired a detail officer yesterday. Yeah.

(1:08:23 - 1:08:35)
No, they, I think maybe they'd want to do that for another couple of weeks. I'd love to move along, but I'm, you know, Officer Reed put together this whole memo and there's, there's a logic to the whole thing. Right.

(1:08:35 - 1:08:55)
And I, you know, I want to make sure we have all the public comment, but in the first step here, the first recommendation is not, you know, is, is actually different than changing the parking. And we talked about it last time. I don't know if we all feel like we exhausted that we're giving up on that.

(1:08:55 - 1:09:08)
We don't trust the Westcott. We'll actually monitor and ensure that, you know, but it is a term of their lease that they can only have one car. Uh, are you sure? Yeah.

(1:09:08 - 1:09:15)
That was in the documentation that we've seen. It is a term of their lease. They have to sign a separate addendum to their leasing.

(1:09:15 - 1:09:22)
They can only have one car. Right. But, but I guess, Doug, then when they don't.

(1:09:22 - 1:09:32)
Right. Who enforces that? Who enforces that? So then we have to go to the Westcott and ask them to, Hey, is it your car? And then you have to go to the Westcott and ask them to break the lease with them because they're contract. They've had a breach of contract.

(1:09:33 - 1:09:36)
I don't know that the, so that's the problem. I agree with you. Like, it's great that they did it.

(1:09:36 - 1:09:45)
And I hope that that's really helpful. It's not just symbolic. It's actual, but at the same time, I don't think that they're going to kick a resident out if they have two cars.

(1:09:46 - 1:09:52)
Right. But then, then the next step recommendation, right. Was this language about the large residential.

(1:09:53 - 3:43:47)
Complexes and not giving resident. parking stickers right? Correct. Yes. 

Just trying to follow the order of your logic here. I appreciate that thank you and yes and that is you know one of the other things that came up the last meeting was for us to research and look at other facilities in town yeah that would be in violation of this and we did and we look at places like Eagle Rock, Vantage Terrace, Crown Point, the landing they all have sufficient parking for the residents as well as a in a abundance of extra parking for other vehicles within their property and one of the things with that we collaborated about with this language was knowing that they would be okay and trying to focus on protecting the the area because of the density and where we are right now with this project. Because this is a generalized rule if you have this scenario right where you don't have enough parking or you're really you're maxed out from the get-go that's this could be another development and this is for anything that we may we're trying to not look through the crystal ball but if if there's another project that we know that might be coming up and we're also very aware of the fact of government housing and we specifically were protective of that knowing that Daugherty Circles provided government as well as other areas in town like Duncan Terrace so we're just trying to come up with some solutions we know we're the enforcers of this so we're just trying to present as much of a to use your word a logical approach to help mitigate anything going forward is to benefit the people here that support us the most. 

Because we want the lease to be there we want this to be there too the whole point is this is supposed to be transit oriented housing right we shouldn't need a whole point of the people they're supposed to be engaging there and people that use transit and only have one car right so if we actually try this first we may then I'm following logic there's a lot of these other things maybe that we don't have to do right away and right away we could also we could do them later for their little problem but it I I think it's everything is kind of flows with each other and in the sense one of the things that specific is if we open if we were to focus on establishing our residential criteria much like I think you have a copy of that map I tried to color code it for you to get a better understanding being able to implement that as well as increasing the fine amount and making sure that we can hone in on a greater fine I think that is the is the grid place to start because it establishes an immediate foundation and baseline in yes are things able to be adjusted and amended as we move forward absolutely with something of this scale I think it's only important to incorporate the people in the town especially the people that live there and being most impacted as well as utilizing our government body to bring it forth I don't think it's a it's a Lego effect where one works one doesn't I think if you put all the pieces together it creates a much more solid foundation which justifies the total means and where we're trying to get to and in one one mean action I guess and even if we did this language with other things the language still has some path to travel in terms of I mean that this is this yes this is this is by no means law it's not stone right so it's what we came up with and proposed to you all yeah and I think that it's I think it's solid language that should be considered at its value if it needs to be adjusted because council thinks that it would protect us in a different manner obviously we would follow that but do we know if this has to go town meeting did you actually run the language I did not know I ran the authority but not the language yeah okay so Doug are you working are you recommending what is it you're recommending because I'm still recommending we run this language by town council I do think that we should try to limit especially in areas like this you know adherence to the lease and to transit oriented design for sure so I would like that language reviewed by town council to see whether or not we could support it if everyone else agrees that's worthwhile doing but according to officer Reed mean then we need to do these other things as well and we can do those tonight all right so my number one my number one issue here tonight is I want to make sure that we have resident we have resident parking in place right away I don't know how other people feel I just said we do other people besides Doug well I mean I want I want to make sure that I'm looking at captain cables recommendation from April the first it's in it's in red just the neighbors are concerned that we'll make an uncontrolled free-for-all pushing parking onto the streets there was a request to have the select board direct them Wescott to number and assign spaces to alleviate this it's not in the current agreement you know I would like to I would like to make him you know to make a recommendation to have the town administrator write a letter to you know to the Wescott if we haven't already done so to have them number their spaces so that way we can better control this since this is a recommendation of the swamp scuppers we can do that for some reason it's my understanding that they were considering that was that the summary that we received after the meeting I think bars he had a communication with them after so I think we should just we should just make that letter anyway what Jenna Arsenal okay Jenny's a resident there she sent an email Jenna can you unmute her she Jenna you can unmute Jenna can you unmute yourself all right I thought you guys had to control that I'm sorry Jenna Arsenal 148 Essex Street which is right at the corner of Hillcrest in Essex and I just wanted to say thank you to everybody for addressing this first of all because it's been such a nightmare even before the Wescott was going up we've had a problem over here with commuters parking so it isn't just about the Wescott that has just added so much more of a headache and a nuisance I mean the construction workers are rude they park out there there's trash everywhere and it's I've sent countless photos to officer reen he has so much patience and I appreciate that and you know I think waiting to do this to July 1st just makes things so much worse for us because the residents will start moving in and just because the Wescott people say they're going to do something people already don't obey like resident only parking in other parts of town I don't think that delaying this is going to do any favors for anybody over here and it's been a nightmare it really has I have three young children you know we have child care that comes to the house there's no place to park my husband will get out of work he's a laborer he knows what what it's like he's had to work walk two miles to a job site you know he comes home nowhere to park and it's been every single day for a year and a half since that project and even prior it was commuters parking there for a whole weekend parking there every day to go to work you know set six o'clock in the morning to seven o'clock at night it's it's an absolute nightmare and I just think that it should happen now we've waited so long and we've been complaining and trying you know to be patient and wait for a resolution that building's almost finished you know somebody there was another construction worker parked out there today I've approached them nicely and said hey you're not really supposed to park here there was an agreement with the Westcott I've gotten yelled at I've gotten called you know some profanity along this process you know and I have I have three little kids and and I'm a hard-working person a taxpayer I really don't think that the vote should wait I think that there's been plenty of information gathered everybody knows this is a problem and there's resident parking on other parts of the town why why should we have to wait that's all I need to say thank you thank you okay so I feel like we have been a little bit scattered in this meeting because I we took things out of order which is fine but when we did take things out of order did we increase the permit did we increase the fine last time did we increase that you know we have to increase it this time the $75 fine left okay so we're gonna do that is that on here yes how confusing is I wasn't sure if it was part of the fees or great no I think here because I want to because that's part of this whole process as Doug said like it's not just one thing that's gonna fix this it's got to be a rainfall effect and what waterfall effect and so I think after I mean I feel like I'm an agreement I don't know how other people feel some pieces of this are not on the agenda so we cannot approve them tonight like creating a one-way on also I think there was another one on place one way burpee road one way in the direction of Foster Road becoming two ways at the intersection of Buena Vista we can't do any of the one way we can't do any of one ways tonight but we can certainly do the resident parking yes so we could just stick to the agenda and do the resident parking we there was in line with this conversation some additional and the last point on officer Reen's report is the potential for paid off-street parking for the MBTA a lot at the high school so can we talk it all about like paid street parking and all under your fee and permit schedule so it is on your agenda and it's in the it's in the package so I mean obviously we'd have to negotiate between the town and the school and the MBTA to do that but in order to alleviate some of the MBTA parking could be parking at the school at least in the summertime in the summertime yeah I mean we've we've had MBTA parking at the high school for I think the last two years there's been as the because of the construction because of the construction building you know rail station I don't I don't have numbers maybe maybe Gino can help us out the number of commuters that did use the high school parking lot over the summer and I know we had signage I just don't recall there being heavy utilization I don't know the exact number but there weren't a lot but I do know that we are going to have many more residents in Swampskate where this year this summer and in future summers than we did in the last two so I'd be I'd be I'd certainly be open to the idea of the paid of the paid off-street parking maybe we can get some more information about that I know Eric Schneider from also sent us an email regarding the potential for a revenue driver for paid parking should be something we're thinking about especially considering the budget school would just have to make sure they are out by 730 a.m. well his email was about different around the trains but that is something we should be thinking about not that we can implement that in today's conversation but we should maybe figure out if we could do some analysis to figure out that's helpful to us I think I sent an email on that as well with some other communities and I had spoken with Officer Reen about it we even talked about potentially color-coding the resident parking to neighborhoods that way if you live in a green neighborhood you have a green sticker and you can't be parking in the red neighborhood that way you're ensuring that your resident parking is exclusive to some parameter around your house okay so okay then we have a motion a motion to approve the item on the agenda line item 5 line item 5 changing parking on place Hillcrest Circle Upland Road Maple Street Columbia Road Burpee Terrace Burpee Road Marion do you want to take out Burrell Street no let's clarify you know what can we just clarify Burrell's duration of Burrell Street it would be Burrell Street from Columbia Street mm-hmm West towards Essex Street okay like he said Burrell Street towards Essex Essex and already circle residential parking only 24 hours per day effective immediately can we know what's already circle I'm sorry can we enforce it already circle absolutely yes it's a public way okay second all in favor aye motion carries okay but then there's a couple takeaways just to make sure we're right we have the Eric Schneider recommendations we need to bring back right we have this language about large residential buildings to confirm that and then there's the other recommendations that officer Reen's recommendation the one way that we didn't cover the one ways parking here to corner and whatever else we didn't cover I so I I would think that the parking here to corner pieces can be proved in the motion we just made right if they're changed because they're changed to parking so those should be fine there are those are side there's specific and I I just have it because I I've been out there for so much lately these no here to corner specifically on Burrell Street by Essex those are signs that are already in place it's more or less just me have putting them documented on paper because I wanted to be as thorough as possible with what is in place at the moment and what they need or should be upon this approval so but these are the ones on Pine Street oh I'm sorry I did not hear you I apologize for that sir that's the one that's in here that those were those were the recommendations of from residents regarding our community meeting on the 26th right that had come I'm just saying we didn't get to those because they weren't on the agenda so we didn't get to those next so we can include those in right in the follow-up if we need to vote on something like that Katie's point is so do we even need to vote on something like that on specifically the restricted parking get a corner on Pine Street that's what you're referring yeah right you can check it out yeah yeah we need to go to regulation you can't pocket X amount of fee permanent section anyways right that is correct so it's in specifically that area is rather difficult in the way that there's some curbing that's posted next to the parking lot of the MBTA lot right at the end of railroad Ave as pine turns in there's a section of curbing that already has restricted parking on a telephone pole there the then there's also the park at 15-minute parking in front of the businesses on the opposite side so it would be just that direct corner it's kind of just a random piece of curbing that is utilized as as parking so to be able to take with the validity of what the residents were saying about that line of sight in there there's the safety issues I do agree with it which is why we wanted to carry it forward so if it's something that you and I can discuss and even go out there on foot and have a visualization of it I'd like that I think that might carry some water with it okay sorry one last little thing public comment there are signs up already right yeah is there any issue there did we get ahead of ourselves or we're being proactive very proactive and it worked we kept the construction vehicle it was put up to keep the construction vehicles up there so these signs we basically just approved you've already done well no those ones will come up with the real ones these are 24-hour these ones were just they were just to keep the construction workers from they like temporary yeah we put them in it so I didn't dig into the brand-new asphalt there we put them in the tree plots it's just gonna come out really gotcha okay okay so on the next line item discussion and possible vote to remove recreation parking on Columbia Street by Beach Ave and extending residential parking of Burroughs Street to Beach Ave on the residential side the one that I was thinking about if we I think we shouldn't address this tonight only because I think the recreation parking is a little bit more complicated and also I did speak to a number of the residents on Columbia that are affected there and they said that they didn't have an issue with the recreation parking so I'm not sure how you want to how you folks want to deal with this I'm happy to table table it does this come from the police as well though just another piece from you this is no yes that was also part of our proposal it was a manner in which we had used that to remove the recreation on the residential side to stay with consistency we were going to be putting all right all residential parking in restricted we wanted to make it available for the residents of Columbia Street there's a very very small section as explained in on the wording there of where the recreation parking starts on Columbia there was no elimination of the recreation on the train station side as well as no elimination of recreation parking on Beach Ave it was a manner of thinking like I said just to maintain consistency with the residential as it stayed on the the home side of Columbia Street so it's it has no bearing on so there's recreation on the home side there's a very small section where there are two spots for recreation parking okay on the the residential property side of Columbia Street okay I'd be good with taking that off it's on the other side the opposite side which is business-oriented right and the train station side right there's a recreation section that begins right at the you guess and miss Phelan does have a packet that explains it's very easy to see if you pull up the right map which has Columbia Street the red is the residential parking and then there are a couple of green slivers of wreck parking and then there's a little sliver of black no parking around the corner of Essex Ave it's rare so these pieces here we're talking about the reason why we're requesting the no parking on that corner is because it is it is a very difficult street to turn out of with traffic flowing in both directions no matter what time of day you're coming from and especially with the tree that's right there when it's in full bloom you're pulling out blind so if we can prevent a vehicle from blocking any line of sight I just think it makes it safer for everybody even if you know kids are crossing and it's it's a volatile area yeah well we could vote on that because it's we could vote on that and Kevin is the line as a Swampscot line go beyond Beach Ave or is Beach Ave the Beach Ave is the last street in Swampscot so it actually the Swampscot line continues further about maybe if I'm if I had to guess 25 feet okay so virtually that's and there is and there is there is continued posting down there as well so it's it's all it would all be symmetrical on that side of the street thank you okay so then would it be fair to say have a motion to remove the recreational parking on Columbia by Beach what should we say residential side what's the wording as depicted on I mean I think it speaks for itself it's the only recreational parking on that street it's confusing in it and I blacked it out on purpose yep all right so Katie you want to make a motion to remove recreational parking on Columbia Street by Beach Ave and extending residential parking on Burl Street to Beach Ave on the residential side okay do we have a second second all in favor aye so moved all right I just want to say thank you to Officer Reen for all the hard work my pleasure I made more work by asking for visuals and they were very helpful to me and understanding you've been out there so you probably have memorized what's a recreational residential or no parking spot but appreciate all this work you're welcome thank you I'm happy to help I'm glad I'm glad to be able to help thank you very much okay so next on our agenda is discussion of possible to increase the parking fines $75 across the town we have a motion second second all in favor aye moving along now we have the Solid Waste Advisory Committee updates Wayne do you want to just have a microphone and sit down or do you want to stand up there what's that Thank You Diane evening everyone Wayne Spritz chair Solid Waste Advisory Committee with me I have Alex Smolin and Kathy Mick who are also on the committee and the reason we come to you tonight is you haven't come in actually quite a while and you know I only have 10 minutes so there's a reason for that yes that first year you used up your time I understand so you're just back to your quota I understand so I do have we do have be careful you appreciate you Wayne thank you okay the the core reason we're here tonight is to discuss the fact that we have a new contract coming up for FY 27 and we really want to get ahead of this early we have some unique opportunities to be able to take advantage of and I know just because it was over four years ago at this point that there's been transition clearly between people on the on the select board we kind of wanted to go over just the very very very high level of how the contract works and the different cost and revenues associated with with waste solid waste disposal disposition in the town of Swampscott so just to quickly first discuss the trends as you can see here this covers us from 2007 to the projected for 2025 just looking at up to 2024 because the last bar is really just two months worth projected out so it's it's not accurate really but the blue lines are the municipal solid waste otherwise known as trash the orange lines are recycling and the green bars are a combination of black earth compost mattresses simple recycling trying to think what else we've missed that's everything else that we know that we have in terms of disposition within the town that we can capture with data and if you look at the gray line at the top you can see that is the total which you can see going down as well which is an interesting kind of behavior analysis of that we are in fact we have less we were bringing less just material into the town and thus having to dispose of less you can see that it and I think we discussed this before that we have a goal of 30% reduction starting at the 2018 numbers and we just heard a very interesting thing from mass DEP that the average state reduction from 2018 to 23 to 2023 is only 4% swamps gets at 17% so so what was that yeah well that what it really does is it it helps us moving forward because what we're discovering and the other reason why we're here tonight is that to to acknowledge the fact that rates are going up and the reason that rates are going up and you can awesome thank you one back there we go we'll discuss kind of why that is in a moment but we have a significant amount of landfills it'll be closing this year alone let alone going into by 2023 we were only scheduled to have one landfill left in the Commonwealth so that means more and more and more upwards of 40% of trash is actually being shipped out of the state at the moment let's talk about how the Republic services contract is arranged and there's three three main components of it right the first component is the hauling and transportation aspect of it it's a fixed fee roughly just over a million dollars at the moment the other two parts are the tipping fees that's effectively it's an old term you know as you tip the truck back that's weighed and that's what the you pay by cost right or excuse me we pay the cost by weight and so currently it's in the report and by the way the report that was sent all of you all of you I assume is going out in the notes in the minutes for the town this is for general information so we're currently paying a hundred and eight dollars for trash and eighty five dollars a ton for recycling at the moment so other costs that we incur are from Black Earth we have public composting at the dog park right across in the parking lot of the police station and at the senior center as well and the schools also have in each of the three schools have composting as well if it's run with max we have mattress dispositions we have middles and styrofoam once at the end of every month we have the blue overage bags and we have simple recycling all of these have revenues and cost expenditures that all report back to the solid waste enterprise fund so before the enterprise fund we really didn't have a way to track it it went general revenue but now we can actually see line by line where the money comes and goes next slide so what are the cost drivers major closer of landfills back to work sporting trash means that it costs more it goes by rail it goes by truck it's an environmental burden as well the recycling markets are also changing so depending upon from one year to the next what the cost of cardboard and plastic is means the difference of how we might foresee the cost of recycling itself per time so as you can see you know one of the main drivers is also with diversion and that's really what the numbers that we've showed in the bar charts really is about is diversion what are the incentives in the contract what we'd be looking for is what is most if not nearly all that we're aware of not I'm saying more most other communities in the North Shore are doing cost price excuse me commodity price sharing which means that the base cost of the materials that we own as residents that we put on our curbside it has value right right now we pay someone to take that to sort it and those all those machines and then they sell it they bail it and they sell it out to the open market the way that this has been kind of changing in the marketplace is that if the market price of recyclables goes above a certain threshold the towns are able to share in that revenue so it helps offset on the good times it helps offset some of the costs just this is one of the things we're going to be exploring food waste food waste is still twenty to twenty-five percent of all landfill waste is important but it's expensive to compost composting the cost just for just so you're kind of have a ballpark and we talked about the trash is $108 a ton right now with estimates with the public composting we are around two hundred and thirteen ish dollars per ton and individual composting at the current rate at about 11 pounds per pickup per resident if you do the quick math right it's it's about $115 per year it's about $400 a ton so that makes it really tricky to incentivize from a cost standpoint just from it just from a financial standpoint this has been a question hey can we offer free composting I'm not saying that we can't but it has to be integrated into the hauling contract in my opinion right because the efficiencies come with the person that goes around and picks it up and puts it right that's where two-thirds of our current cost isn't just the Republic contract right so just to keep that in the back of your mind what the real number of challenges are when it comes to that the other piece of any type of recycling issues is glass we've talked about this briefly before what's really great up until a couple of well so a couple of months ago we had glass went to landfill oh there was no secondary market for it we just learned last month in the mass recycles conference that we went to talk we talked with Republic directly talked with the director of the recycling at Greenworks he said that they are starting to actually get offload the glass where it's not costing them any money to dump it where it was they're actually getting even if it's like a couple of bucks a ton they're able to offload it out of the system for free it still cost them to sort it right it still cost them probably between 80 and 100 bucks to sort it but any way that we can get it out of the curbside saves us more money so we're looking into that so and I talked about the fact that we're far ahead of the state average and go to next slide one of the things that we know are changing we're right now we have manual pickup almost all carriers are demanding going to automated pickup and the reason is for safety one of the most dangerous jobs in pretty one of the most dangerous jobs laboring jobs is trash pickup high incident of injuries accidents and so on so you can go from two to three men or people in a in a route to one person in particular just the driver the forks go in and they pick up and tip it back now unfortunately well then that will drive some additional changes and one of those changes that be the fact that we need to have a standardized recycling cart and one of the suggestions is that we want to go to the largest cart possible so that we don't have to have multiple carts but also consider maybe going back to every other week if we provide a larger 96 gallon cart just something to consider something that might be able to save us money at the townside on the long run again because we can reduce the hauling and transportation costs collect more at the same time and be able to to offload those and then there was the investigate leasing additional 35 gallon containers I know that's been feedback for a number of years now it also becomes a consideration that if we do go all automated not we're not exactly sure how other communities are taking the extra or bridge bags and able to keep them outside and have them if we're not doing manual anymore if it's all automated there's some serious considerations that we're gonna have to be looking at and then lastly right now trash and recycling are covered completely under the tax base we would like to explore and have conversations about what it could potentially look like and and there's a lot of feedback that needs to come here is whether or not to drop that isn't to a line item like any other utility that the town provides and whether or not that would allow a la carte pricing to individuals or residents that want more or less not saying it has to be that way I'm just throwing that out there we have some opportunities while we're reevaluating this contract there are things to have conversation about right next slide so one of the some of the feedback that we've received over the last year from folks in apartments and condos is that they do not have access to recycling there is no general law in the Commonwealth that mandates commercial entities or housing entities multifamily housing has to have recycling towns have adopted like our neighbor in the north and Salem actually has adopted a bylaw or a city would be equivalent of a bylaw an ordinance thank you to to mandate recycling for multifamily that's something that we don't feel like we have enough evidence to to to recommend at this point but we are trying to gather information actively between different locations as to what who has access and who doesn't have access however in a contract there might be an opportunity we'd like to explore which is aggregating a commercial services contract such that because the commercial places the commercial not just businesses but the condos and apartments we don't offer them the town doesn't offer them those municipal services they pay that separately I'm not suggesting that we pay for them independently but what I am suggesting is that we might be able to bring them into a contract that gives them favorable pricing because we've aggregated all of it together right so instead of having each of these individual commercial entities negotiating their own contracts it may be possible that we bid out a master contract that individual commercial entities could could bid could could buy into if they want or opt into if they so chose so that would be taking efficient you know taking advantages of efficiencies other other investigative options to build into more services would be shredding days combined composting options still trying to find a home for rigid plastics improve household waste hazardous waste options we have very limited options at the moment trying to collect cardboard for independent revenue as opposed to giving it and having to pay for it to be sorted out to collect it separately and then pre negotiate residential bulk waste costs like the Baxter in with the new contracts so that people if they have like mass cleanouts right they can actually have that option to do and so this is the last slide the we've been invited to be a member of what's called the best practices contracting working group the DEP organizes it they don't specifically sponsor it because it would be unfair necessarily but what they do is they provide data for municipalities to talk with one another so that we would be entered almost into a closed room if you will virtually closed room to talk with other municipalities and learn about best practices for contracts learn what they're doing find out what other towns are paying for how much they're paying for and and really be able to take advantage of group think and collective information group things not a great word but the collective information to be able to make good solid choices that is going to be once per month there will be different levels of opportunities for participation we would need probably different folks at different times but initially definitely you know the town administrator to the financial director I assume you know facilities director liaisons from the Board of Health and the board of and the select board and various people including you know folks from SWAC in the end what we are looking for is that for any service changes that may come we are looking to go to the public directly for feedback hold public hearings if it's felt that's necessary if there's anything significant both to you know educate as well as to get feedback to turn to determine whether or not we don't want a situation again where where where things are so unpopular that people don't understand why there's a reason for them I think that's really the driving key and so we just we just wanted to let you know this is the things that we're looking to work on and hope that we can gain your support in doing so as we move forward in the next year and hope to keep the prices level because I know budgets are stress we're aware of that so thank you does anybody have any questions yeah quick just timing when would we have to have you done a timeline working backwards you know when we get to put out an RFP or right probably it's not too long from now that's why we're approaching it now and that's why we're work entering to the working group to develop an RFP this summer so we'll we'll find more and I will be back here to give updates as we go do we we have any idea when contracts are due with other communities like when is the contract output in the hot good question I did for other like nearby regionals yeah I don't know exactly for those communities if I can find out I have a master spreadsheet for that that I can look at and as far as the time that we signed our contract which was I think what three years ago it was 2021 and so it was a five-year contract and then we read okay um from the time that we did that contract to now what's the percentage increase you know top your head so it's been for the first two years it was the same base so from starting in 23 to now it's been a two and a half percent increase year over year for the base hauling cost and it's gone up roughly five percent five dollars on a hundred so roughly five percent on each of the the trash as well as the recycling give any idea what the anticipated increase will be only from what I've heard from neighboring towns and it frightens me it truly does I've heard I've seen prices about anywhere from 115 to 135 dollars for recycling alone and I have I'm still looking at various different numbers for trash and the only reason I say that is that it depends how long they've been into a contract a lot of people are coming off contract so we don't have a lot of really good solid numbers as to what's being offered out there so and of course every town was a little bit different everything from the distance to wherever they have to drop it off for the exchange site right or to the land for to the incinerator so all these things are we come into play when a contractor or a vendor comes up with their final price so Wayne if we're gonna if we're gonna level if we're gonna keep our expenses essentially level with this with this new contract we're essentially we'd essentially have to pull all of our glass out of our recycling stream to basically keep to keep the to keep the expenses at current levels I can't speak exactly to that but a way I can give you as a major impact is in the cost-sharing revenue aspect of it I have seen other contracts where for every ton of glass there's a charge back of anywhere between like 16 85 dollars a ton that's how expensive it is to to to handle unscramble the egg as Johnny likes to say right because it it creates such a poor when it gets mixed with all the other things the paper in the class it actually reduces the value of that as well everyone would love to get class out unfortunately it's not as easy however I will tell you that I have contacted the sustainability director of wholesome which is the aggregate industries quarry right but they also have other installations around Massachusetts there have been other programs where glass has been sent to be crushed and turned into sand for concrete there have been other places around the country where they've used it to you know use it for peaches or for backfill you can also be used for for the DPW to use backfill as well if it's mixed in the right percentage there's a Department of Transportation option that allows you to do that so there are other uses for it the less we have to move it around the better so we're working on it I'm not saying we have a solution but we're actively striving to do better so if we know that glass is a pressure point and we don't have I mean I'm trying to think of like if there's a like a temp solution right like just sorting it out of our just sorting it here on the curb like for example I remember as a kid you had one bin for you to paper and one in for glass and you sorted it on the curb so is it just that then it just gets mixed when it gets picked up or yeah so one I've been asking if we could go what we currently have is what's called single stream recycling I'd love to go back to the old system I really would unfortunately all of the transportation the trucks have all been modified back to single stream yeah now I have asked about can we mix composting with trash there has been some experimentation done with that and one was one town and there's challenges that with all of this right because it's all about the industrial logistics right they have a green bag for compost and a blue bag for trash you get to mix it all gets mixed in together into the same trash truck right and then they sort it out later if you have a place to sort it out and you're in the right place in the right time in the right district great but if you don't have that then in other words what this comes to is you have to have regional solutions thankfully we are working and we have contacts with our neighbors and working actively in fact the deep our municipal our Mac municipal area coordinator thank you just hosted a regional meeting Jeff Vaughn was there with us as well so we had like 25 people from the North Shore coming talking just about all these different logistical issues so the plan is to meet every couple of months now so what is the prospect you were talking a little bit more about the cardboard is when I look around on recycling day the amount of cardboard I see is astonishing so if we could is the thought then that we would keep it here and then bring it have a place to deposit it here and then it would get picked up by somebody who only handles cardboard and that that that so that you you wouldn't see benefit necessarily at the individual residential level unless the resident wanted to drop it off at a single central point where it could be collected I was thinking more in the lines of the schools and the municipalities okay right where they're already collecting cardboard as it is but to be able to bail it separately this is something we've kind of on and off talked about for the last couple of years but between the transitions between the schools now that we're really kind of set and located as a conversation we'd like to continue to have and talk with max or directly would there be an option to work with Salem to try to utilize their facility don't they have a facility where you can go and drop cardboard and things of that nature is there any consideration I thought so you're talking about grief grief yeah it's on you know that it's right near the police station yeah that closed it did yeah in fact I used to have free shredding yeah yeah I closed about a year and a half ago two years ago we do I don't have off thought my head but we do we know what those rates are I have the master spreadsheet to look at interestingly no they're actually higher slightly higher in certain in certain aspects they have the automated trucks and they have the and I don't remember what year a contract that they're in and that really has yeah so so there are communities like in the South Shore that have done regionalization projects where they've created a regional trash district that would really come down to cooperating it it's seriously something that we do it in water yeah something to look at and Wayne just just real quick you know with the with the bigger 96 gallon barrels with tops mm-hmm which would which which is a huge piece because you know as you've you know as you've said over the years and as your committee has stated over the years you know it's really you know on on days where it rains yes enough trash and we're picking up recycling with water laws or those are added those are added costs any idea any idea how much how much added cost I don't I don't know I figured if there there is somebody to ask it would be it's an it is an excellent question there was a time I wish I brought that with me I had actually looked up it's like how much water will cardboard absorb and it is quite substantial I think it was on somewhere between like 30 something 40% by weight alone don't quote me on that I have to look that back up I might be wrong but it was substantial and so depending how wet and water sogged it is you're paying for that extra weight to transport it so there could be potential savings by having larger could be if the assumption that every Tuesday on Farragut Road that it's raining that yeah I mean yeah absolutely but to speak to Danielle to your point that you had about the blowing the blowing recyclables I was just walking on Humphrey today and picked up a ton of plastic straws and stuff that just I don't know where they were blowing from it was really kind of nasty and it's one of the things that we have definitely brought up to our director of public health and asked him to go out and talk to if you can't talk to message out that we would like closed containers for recycling right not the open buckets right this is not this is not okay particularly down in sensitive environmental areas like the beach yeah or by the wooded areas where it just blows I guess the best solution maybe not best but probably most proactive solution is just to say this is now your recycling barrel and if we go to an either an automated recycling system or even if we don't go to an automated recycling system we might think about if it is more cost-effective for us to say this is now the barrel that we're accepting and it's now every other week and that you have to use that rather than those open blue bins that have been around for decades and and then if we do do that if there can be some sort of pickup for those blue bins because then you have to find something to do with yes yes that's our challenge with rigid plastics which is we're trying to find people that are companies actually want them so let me ask you when is your next meeting only because now that we are a little over the 10-minute little line we probably won't be seeing you for another three or four years when is your next meeting I don't think we had one schedules usually the third Tuesday of every month okay except for when it is we've had a lot of changes so if there are any questions any questions that we've left here people can join the meeting make a call but I just I have to once again thank you and Kathy and Alex and everybody on that committee you guys just do incredible work and it's much appreciated thank you you all do thank you okay now we will move to our very very patient town assessor I hope you've enjoyed the meeting so far that's what I was thinking do you have a microphone all right do you want to go over yeah so the board of assessors is recommending a few changes article 8 would adjust the exemption amounts up to 100% the board recommends adjusting that to 100% which would actually double the exemption amounts for example like the veterans exemptions at 400 all's can you just give us only because we're we're on TV and everybody in Swamp Scouts watching right now just to give an update on like what that means just some type of a yes so article 8 would allow us to increase the exemption amounts the statutory exemption amounts or the exemption amounts that we've had through Cola up to 100% the board of assessors is recommending increasing those to 100% so in the case of a veterans exemption which is currently the clause 22 the minimum one is that $400 that would increase that exemption amount to $800 and along with the the seniors the blind so it's it's an exemption of what I just we've got to get it a little right so the exemption amount yeah the exemption amount is what's what we allow to exempt the taxpayer depending what they qualify for okay in the case of a person who's applying for the blind exemption it's $500 because $500 we do you would increase that to $1,000 the veteran at $400 would increase to $800 so all of these statutory exemptions that we have would be increased up to 100% but the Board of Assessors is recommending increasing those all the way up to the maximum of 100% do we have any idea what the revenue impact of that is well it'll come out of the overlay and so right now I think that the overlay amount would be sufficient enough to cover it we might need to consider some increase in the overlay account probably down the road so there's no way of knowing how many more people are going to qualify or what the actual impact is going to be but like some of these are designed the clause 41c in the clause 17d a design for those taxpayers that are really at the most need and certainly by doubling those exemption amounts it would be more beneficial to them absolutely no doubt about it love that part so Doug for rough numbers for the past few years the Board of Assessors has voted the overlay at $200,000 very rough estimate we're estimating this could increase that overlay to $225,000 where does the overlay come from it does come from taxes right so it is a reserve for abatements and exemptions often as the overlay we don't see this impact being more than $250,000 so maximum $50,000 impact if we raise the overlay and it ends up getting raised too much the next year we can set it lower or the Board of Assessors could vote to turn that overlay back to the general fund so it's not enormous the individual it's a big positive benefit in total it's not enormous but in a budget that's very tight this is another 25 or $50,000 yeah and it was a lot of the Board of Assessors and our assessor really wanted to yeah as we're looking at this tax increase make sure that our exemptions were as much as they could be so everyone who does qualify is getting the highest exemption that is allowable I think the town has lagged behind for a long time yeah the last time we had an article at town meeting on this it looks like was 2006 and this is the earliest that we can jump in so the HERO Act was just passed recently right and then the HERO Act okay what we are recommending is clause 22 I which would allow us to put a COLA on that amount 22 J was to basically increase that up to 100% but we're already doing that in article not in article 8 so article 9 would allow us to just attach a COLA to that amount on an annual basis okay there's no different group covered really under HERO that the vets there the same vets right so we weren't increasing the others then the HERO Act would probably make sense to do clause 22 J but if we're going to do the other we're already doubling those and then so 22 I would allow us to put the COLA on that on an annual basis and the intention with the wording and this was so that it would just automatically increase itself with a COLA instead of having to have someone remember to come back to town meeting each time those numbers change and and Paul is this this is fully supported by you and fully supported by the Board of Assessors the Board of Assessors yeah so unanimous unanimous thank you and has Jeffrey Blonder from the DAV did he have any input on this or like how will this this language covers what he had sent to us okay all right okay article 10 is the tax deferral that to the Board of Assessors are looking to make some improvements to that part of that is to increase the income qualifying income to that could you just describe what a tax deferral means the tax deferral program allows the taxpayer to defer all or a basis once they get into the program there is a lien that's put on the property and at some future date when the property is sold or they set the estate is settled then the town would kind of capture back there the taxes that are that are due on that property so right now the qualifying income is significantly low I think and believe it's at $40,000 and that's pretty tough as a matter of course the tax deferral is a tough program to talk people into it's a really good program but because there's a lien on the property a lot of people feel oh you know we don't want to do that but in in article 9 what we want to do is increase the income qualifying income which we based off of the circuit breaker income for a single non head of household income which I believe in 2025 was around $72,000 and that's just qualifying on income only okay so you're recommending 72,000 yeah well it's based off the circuit breaker income which changes annually okay based on the Department of Revenue okay the second part to that is currently the interest rate is at 8% the Board of Assessors is recommending to drop that to 4% the town can drop that rate anywhere that they choose even up to including 0% but right now is that now the Board of Assessors is recommending the 4% so so with the so Paul just to that just to the interest rate aspect that interest rate would be frozen at 4 or would it or would it yes based upon so if town meeting voted to go to 4% it can change at a later date through town meeting action got it okay but as but as contemplated it's fixed it it's fixed at 4% starting in fiscal year 26 and it can only be changed right might it make sense just as interest rates fluctuate to have something you know tying to the five-year the five-year rate or the ten-year rate or yeah I mean I think this would be depending on probably Board of Assessors select board town meeting is there what they want to do moving forward I mean that could be revisit revisited every year if you really honestly if you really wanted to but I think for me personally the idea is to to preserve people's ability to stay in their homes and you know that interest rate can't be a big difference when I work for the town of Westford I recommend to my board 4% my board overrode me and we went to town meeting was 0% well and then that's what they have done since then okay did that have any noticeable impact on people taking this up I mean how do people do this now here or in general you said if people don't tend to actually use it well because it's lean on the property yeah so that sometimes people are kind of leery about that yeah we don't have a lot we currently only have three or four right now really well I don't think we advertise this a whole lot and we don't only push it well and also that the interest rate was until you came the information we had on the interest rate was 14% the statutory amount is 8% yeah so when you get into tax if you're leaving the taxes or you then you get the 14 to 16 percent but the statutory amount for the tax deferral is 8% my goal moving forward is is to have an easy easier pamphlet put together that I've already talked to some of the set my staff all of you know with the staff in the office to moving forward something we've done in Westford it's kind of like a really handy at this point to page of all the exemptions that we that are available what the qualifying factors are and something that probably we can work with Council on aging as well that you know that there's information out there that to be readily available to taxpayers in the short time I've been here and some of the people I've talked to they're not even aware of a lot of the programs that are available so a lot of the time hope to change programs that are available okay okay so you're going to be seventy two thousand and four percent yeah and so the income would be based on whatever Department of Revenue determines through the circuit breaker right for a single non head of household income apart I just like to thank you very much for bringing these to the floor I inquired actually with prior members of the Board of Assessors about some of these things not that I could have explained them as well as you did but I knew there are more options for us so I'm really glad yeah and like for a number of reasons I think the board has been really anxious to do some of these things so I'm glad that bring these forward article 11 is relation to personal property it allows the town to increase the minimum assessment to ten thousand dollars what that would in turn would do would reduce the number of actually taxable accounts from like 300 something down to 88 those 300 accounts that are less than $10,000 only represents about $20,000 in revenue which is actually absorbed into the higher accounts so it's not like we're losing any money is that the higher value personal property accounts are just going to make up the difference so I was kind of surprised to see how many accounts were there and you know what it really generated so what happens for you from the tax collective standpoint mean we're chasing down very small accounts and sometimes if they don't pay we're spending a lot of money you know trying to get them to pay so this one is actually very proactive for the small business in town especially the smaller accounts you know that they still have to file a form of this annually but at least that you know there's a little bit of benefit for them and in ARPA 12 is something that I was involved with in the town of Westford when I was working it's a home loan petition it allows for an exemption for those under the age of 70 who are disabled and to reach disability qualifying factor is is if you're considered disabled through the Social Security and it's also based off the income and asset requirements that are similar to clause 41c so the intent here is is to reach those folks that have a much lower income and assets and to help them kind of move forward so the exemption amount would be the same as part 41c so if we're doubling those amounts to town meeting action that would follow here so we did that in Westford it did pass but going through the legislative process could be a year to two so it wouldn't take effect probably for another you know one or two fiscal years and would this sit under the overlay as well yes okay so the aggregate total yeah how many people would we would qualify we really don't know it's kind of tough to say sure but I think if these things are there and available it may help some okay does anybody have any questions on that this is great thank you for staying Paul Paul I'm just wondering and I'll also call the chair of the Board of Assessors if you could have a public meeting for town meeting members and for the general public prior to town meeting just to get people a little bit more familiar or up-to-date yeah we could arrange that okay well we can even if we could even ask mr. Goulet if he could do a question and answer on on a video that we couldn't put together yeah originally I had hoped to have something but you know with 15 hours a week kind of really kind of slipped by and it's like oh god it's like town meetings like only a few weeks away so it's kind of caught me by surprise as well so with the time constraints it's not exactly you haven't quite worked out the way I had originally planned it mm-hmm but yeah we can certainly figure that we can get something together yeah all right thanks likely happy to do that thank you for coming thank you okay next we will move to the FY 25 third quarter financial update I think I think the big question is does anybody have any this is pretty simple I don't know if anybody has any questions or you could go right to questions I don't know if Amy needs to go through every line item I mean I don't I don't personally need you to go through every line item but I tried to put everything that I thought would be helpful on the presentation and I can post the presentation online if you want the public to have it also you know does it did anybody did anybody have any questions I just had questions on the receipts not on track Amy yes you're talking about fees currently two hundred thousand dollars below estimates not projected to hit and building permits currently six hundred and forty three thousand dollars below estimates not projected to realize are those a result of us not having a building commissioner and not being able to collect those those fees in a timely manner I believe a lot of those are I also think that we have just had less activity so my assumption would have been if we had a full-time building inspector we probably would have been able to realize more than half of what we are not realizing but I think some of it is also just drop off in the building right now sure so but bringing but bringing in a building commissioner will will assist this and help to narrow that you know narrow that they close that gap yeah so to speak okay that was it that's the only question okay now we can go to the warrant so we'll end up closing the warrant on Monday it'll give that give our KP law enough time to figure out any type of so the version you have I got at 530 after KP reviewed it so this is the most recent draft that we have okay so we start from the beginning article 1 go from there prove built article to approve bills prior fiscal year look at that look how much lower they are are these all of our bills from prior fiscal years we did clean that up in December right we yeah we always we hit it December and then we always hit it in at the annual just they were over the last couple years they've been high so this is so can we recommend favorable action we generally don't do anything we don't vote until Finance Committee does and the Finance Committee's meeting tomorrow night and I will email the board with how they voted so you can have that prepared for Monday however we could there's nothing preventing you from recommending yeah so I would say well take a motion for yeah motion or motion to recommend favorable action or article second second all in favor all right hey so going to article three amended appropriate this is a year 2025 operating budget that one we've got a weight on with them that's pretty big so just so you're aware those are the individual employment contracts that were voted earlier in the year as well as the stipend increase for the interim town administrator that's all that I have in that article for three all right so I don't think we really have to wait on them for this then well this says that we already recommended because we recommended it prior I think when KP was pulling it in you did not in fact on us okay so can we have a motion on this it is a net zero article but we so it's just transferring out of salary reserve well we have to make we do yet comment on it so can we have a motion to second second all in favor okay so article 4 appropriation from physical 2026 operating budget article 4 will be reporting at town meeting because as everyone's aware the budget typically evolves up until sometime the night of town meeting right before okay article 5 prove and transfer free cash for utility is okay so this is this is this one is a little bit confusing for me so my understanding was when we approved this last year we approved it for the elementary school and for we had a section in there to cover the Hadley so we we did 250,000 last year so it was 200,000 to the school for the elementary school and 50,000 to the town for the Hadley and the reason why we this is what's really confusing me on this one the reason why we did this was because in it because we didn't have the solar on top so so what would happen is the school had a line item in the budget and then in the event that that wasn't enough they were gonna tap in to the remaining amount yes we weren't gonna have them structurally build in something that wasn't going to continue okay which was the same thought with the Hadley with Hadley was only gonna be on the town's books for a short period before I got turned over and we didn't want to build a pull from other departments to be able to pay the utilities there we know how much is left in the 200 yeah well it's like how much is left for our side the 50 and then how much is left on the schools there is over 20,000 left for the townside I know our facilities director did speak with the developer and they turned off the utilities at one point at the Hadley because the costs were just exponential and the developer said they were going to be gutting the HVAC anyway and the electrical so they had no issues with it and then the school it appears that they have about 70,000 left at this time as we're talking about these Warren articles is it possible that we can put the the article of the warrant on the screen so the members of the public can can follow along with us please so is it I'm trying okay I don't want to ask you a question if you're trying to do that same time I can do two things at a time so is it that we are just so does that mean we've gone through 130,000 and I looked back at the schools presentation from last year and they had estimated that they might need 190,000 overage for it so so the presentation last year was how much how much was in their line item last year it's like 180 170 they had in their line in a budget last year 175,000 right so it was 175 and then because of the solar they were going to tap into they're tapping into that and now we're waiting on National Grid and I know the schools had a problem getting National Grid on board and I went and got Brendan Crichton involved and Brendan went and pushed National Grid and my understanding is that Max is satisfied with National Grid that they're on board and they're working but do we know do we have any idea if we're gonna be able to have that hooked up okay okay so they've gone through their 175 in their budget and now they're tapping into the 200 and they're at about 130 in that out of that 200 when I looked today it looked like they had spent 130 it doesn't look like they had the original 175 in there okay and we've used 30 of ours okay so it looks like they're gonna need unless the solar really comes online and full-fledged but we're probably gonna need to put up the 200 hopefully we would not use it all yeah but and they in the agreement with the schools they hold it in a separate line so any of it that's not used gets turned back to the town to follow the free cash right our agreement was they would go through their utility and then tap into that when they so their utility line is 100% depleted or it's in line by quarter it looks like they budgeted zero so I didn't get a chance to talk to Charlotte the school yeah the next budget yeah I'm talking about current they've already depleted what they it looks like they budgeted zero for FY 25 so I and like I said I haven't had a chance to talk to Charlotte hasn't this come up with the schools they've been asking about this have they not so have we had any conversations about it with them we have told them that it was in the draft warrant and that they have asked its initials and ongoing yeah just said so they sound like they had in their budget for FY 25 a minute ago in the budget presentation last year so they had it in their budget presentation but you're saying they didn't actually fund it for FY 25 and we haven't asked them what the discrepancy is I just noticed it today that that doesn't really make sense to me considering they've been asking us repeatedly the past couple of months when discussing their budget about this very issue why would we not have the conversation and say what what is the what's going on right I mean am I the only one that thinks that's odd that doesn't know right very odd if the school said they were gonna do something if we don't right they've done it but they're asking for us to do it next year that we've come to the bottom of that before we decide we're gonna do it right but we wait till right now to ask right that seems strange okay well maybe we should get you know let's have a conversation and ask the question and figure out you know I mean as we're opening I just think we're opening we're looking at the warrant for town meeting and this is just all of a sudden the relevation relevation that's coming up there should have been a conversation we had if there was a discrepancy we had ample time to ask questions and we're just now looking at this bottom line is that either they're using this is their primary source sounds like maybe this happening maybe or or if it's the overage one way or another it is still going yeah it is still being used for the electric utilities at the elementary school yeah but if there's a big difference between if they were supposed to spend 175 out of their own pocket and then tap into this and they they had zero out of their own pocket and they just tapped into this so the usage of this is far greater because they didn't utilize their own funds yet so we would be funding this less if they use less from it for an upcoming year if they had utilized what their presentation said so let's just get to the bottom of it and figure it out I'm sure so I'm a little worried about only having this be 200,000 because the other worry I have is shutting off any utilities at the Hadley you know we are we have not signed a final ground lease and I don't like to jump ahead of anything at any point and I just want to make sure that that building is safe so our facilities director has confirmed that it is safe yep okay and this was checked with the fire department as well okay it's 200 at 50 for us yeah but this only says 200 this is just for Swampscott public schools right this is not for the town okay so well it says here freak it's no this is says for utility right this is for utilities last year last year was 250 for for both yeah so last year what happened was we had this as a separate article and then right before town meeting finance committee decided to recommend it as part of the omnibus budget so we ended up indefinitely postponing the article itself but as part of the budget they just in the motion increased 200,000 to you know school line 68 don't quote me on that and the facility's expense line of whatever by 50,000 via free cash so that is still a possibility and that's something that might be finance committee's recommendation last tomorrow night yeah so this one number five we should move along I'm recommending number six we move along which is special education reserve fund I would think they would they're gonna say yes so that would be easy for us but I don't want to say anything until the finance committee gives their only because how big it is the approval of the what what have they utilized this year all of it none of it they they were when they reported last I think that they were they weren't sure if they were gonna have to utilize a little bit more right they were yeah there was I think there was something there was a possibility that they might need something okay so long make sense the proof we crash cash for the transitional audit oh so this is I asked to add this back in here just to talk about we had talked about a transition a transitional audit transitional audit as we bring in a new town administrator and I think that we should look into it we should but however I think we should look at what kind of categories we don't need to do a full audit sometimes those run at six figures but there are just some pockets and I just wanted to speak to a representative at DOR or even a representative in town Jerry Perry a past DOR we did we have to we need to approve the funding we didn't have the funding we didn't touch the funding so this would be to use free cash to pay for this and do we are we gonna have sufficient free cash to pay for this and everything else you will be below your threshold can we double-check the minutes on that how did we vote for funding to do it I thought that we voted to support going forward to it in theory to come on to come on the warrant no I don't know I think we I think we'd have to go through the minute I think we had we voted to support doing it but I think we also needed to look into seeing what the costs were going to be and what levels we do it at so we'd have to just double-check that my memories a little tired okay so we can get some more information we'll double-check on this yeah all right authorize the increase for retiree okay I guess who came this point we're gonna be below a threshold but we don't really even know the two above what we actually will be funding so no maybe there's a chance yeah I don't know how close we are but maybe there's a chance we're not okay to authorize increased retirees cost of living base the Cola the the retirement board needs to come in and do a presentation they're actually doing a presentation on the 21st they're doing a presentation Monday evening with the Finance Committee mm-hmm so then I believe they are scheduled to come to your May 7th meeting so yeah we're not we're putting it on yeah not voting on it so they the delay in this was their actuary didn't come in until last week so that was about that was a pretty extensive delay and that's why they delayed we have the last time the Cola was increased was what year was it it was May 2021 okay and at that time we had put in parameters that we would readdress it once we double-check the parameters again so pretty much checking the boxes so we have checked those boxes and now they need to come back and do another presentation and explain what they're looking for and whether or not it's it's good to go or so we don't know what they're looking for I'm gonna put this to 18 because that's the statutory maximum and the when we increased it the last time we increased it from what 13 to 14 yes 13 to 14 and during the conversations with the retirement they were all they were discussing going from 14 to 16 and at the last meeting they they talked about going all the way up to 18 so it's in motion yeah you know and I think that we just have to have some we're really great education on what the impact is going to be and where the impact is going to be because it doesn't mean that it's going to affect the budget in in this year next year and the whole thing could be put at the at the back of it so it's a very complicated article in no way impacts FY 26 right for terms of the assessment okay so we are planting that article 8 so these are the ones the assessor just okay so I'm not do people feel that we need to wait on the Finance Committee to support these or do you know what's your opinion on this one so the funding it's all gonna just flow back down to the tax rate well it starts out of overlay the overlay what is the overlay at right now it's pretty high it's not actually that high do you are give us a warning last year to make sure that we're keeping an eye on it because they said we were like online yeah we were like getting a little too narrow what's the dollar amount on it I just remember I wanted some of that so I think what we have to do there is we really have to see the long-term impact on that and how that's gonna hold and but especially with the fact that we haven't increased these exemptions we have people that are really struggling you know I can only speak for myself that I'm super supportive of it especially the fact that the state has put the hero act in I don't know so how do you folks feel want to wait on the Finance Committee or do you want to just wait on more information how confident are you talking with Paul or whatever that this is we're really talking about 25 $50,000 total with all these things we're reasonably confident so but like Paul said you know when we change when we increase the exemption and you know reset the limits for where people become available kind of you know it could bring more people to the table than we anticipated so how I do not see a scenario which it doubles our overlay so do you want to so Doug it sounds like I want to do it a little bit let's get to about it right let's just get a little bit more information on it okay so the information that we want is can we have a forecast if we do double our numbers what impact will that have on the overlay I can forecast it with what we have now and then kind of come up with a fudge factor for assuming more and then also how how will the overlay replenish itself like what just some type of a you know a forecast a five-year span on what will happen with that account okay and then just just back to article seven Amy if the actuarial study is in is that something that could be shared with the board as well please it seems to me if they're coming they know they're coming May 7th they know what the amount is going to be and it would be nice to know or but for number seven did you know I don't I don't think they did they vote on what they did not they didn't vote on what they were asked what they were going to ask right did you we did not take a vote right so there they don't as a as a today they don't know they haven't said what they're asking for that the actuary report was done for a 16,000 18,000 base okay so going to article 10 tax deferral I don't really see how that has a huge impact if we're I mean it'll have an impact on cash flow I'm gonna guess pretty minimal we can wait for the Finance Committee on this or I'm personally good with this yeah wait okay I think yeah I think we wait all right personal property wait for FinCon I mean this makes sense to me I don't know that we need to wait on this one but this is the personal property it's pretty minimal and then it just combines things I'm sorry I thought we're just waiting on all the assessors all right we could do that let's do this okay so I will say with the Finance Committee as they went through the budget they were not in support of zeroing out the community program lines from the general fund they felt that it was leaving it too much to if there aren't any donations then in a year where the taxes are going up we could potentially not have community programs and the consensus was that it was short money they did take a vote of the Finance Committee and they did not vote to reduce those lines you know it just seems like it's that's on a 13 revolving funds yeah I'm surprised because it just seems like that recreation it goes on two pages which is right yeah so this article was because there was discussion of zeroing out the community programming line in the general fund which was about $22,000 to put community programming into the revolving fund via donations not through program fees so this is the article that would be needed to do that how many dollars how many how many dollars but how many dollars do we bring into the recreation account on non programs we don't we don't we don't bring any any dollars when we have events I actually sent sorry I actually sent Mary Ellen you had asked for that a while ago all the community events yeah and what money we brought in I don't know if that was shared with anybody and anybody else on the board but if you would like that information I can give that to you because I listed each community event and where the money comes from to actually I have copies and where the money comes from four copies great so I'm so confused on the context here so this is about the $300,000 in the recreation line of this so community event budget is 7,500 and then the 4th of July is 10,000 and then I think lumped into that was money that was in the select board community event right so these are line items that were in the operating budget that technically fall under recreation that we suggested moving into the revolving fund to reduce from the operating to this is in an effort to bridge the gap of what we were looking out for cuts on the townside so we do get so there's 23,000 in operating budget money that's allocated to recreation right now so the premise was so we pulled out potentially correct in the revolving account the recreation revolving account which has a limit of 300,000 so the recreation revolving account is for programs not community events so there is monies that go into that particularly the summer concerts I get sponsors for the summer concerts so they if we put that into the general fund we wouldn't be able to take it out so it goes into the rec revolving account to pay for the concerts the same thing with it's actually a separate account with the golf tournament we get sponsors at the golf tournament to in the golf tournament is used to help pay for 4th of July if we if we don't have money in the community event budget from the town that involves pride Juneteenth which I don't get sponsors for it also is the holiday festival that would affect that also and movie nights potentially that's all in that spreadsheet that I gave you but you could potentially you might not have in the past got donations or sponsors but that's not to say so so what I need to say about that is you can only go to the horse only go to the horse go to the well so many times and I do I have lists of people who give every single year to summer concerts and another list of people who give for the 4th of July we've tried selling t-shirts we've tried asking people for donations from the public and we don't get the amount that we need specifically 4th of July 4th of July costs us $40,000 the town contributes $10,000 the rest of it I try to cobble together with the with the golf tournament the golf tournament Tedesco gives it gives it to us for free every other year on the years that they give it to us for free we probably make 22,000 on that with sponsors whole sponsors and Eastern Bank is our dinner sponsor on the years that we don't get it for free which is this year we make about $10,000 on the golf tournament so the town has in its budget $10,000 then I get $10,000 from Tedesco now we've got to come up with $20,000 I've been taking these swamp Toberfest money that I get which was $5,000 this year and throwing it into 4th of July recently with Bentwater Bentwater gives us $5,000 we're gonna throw that into the 4th of July so that gives us another $10,000 now we're still short $10,000 this year we were able to use other funds to try to bridge that gap or else we don't have worth of July this year right so I think I think the question so this is this is where we come to a crossroads because when I we sat down when I sat down with Amy and Gino and Cheryl and we were actively going line by line to see what we could find we're talking about bridging a gap with the school department right and there this is the hard conversation this is this is where it gets difficult right and you know we're talking about $40,000 on fireworks or a teacher or you know borrowing or using the revolving funds or trying to have you know some of this stuff come out from pride Juneteenth or you know an ESP at the middle school so these are these are the types of questions and we could make the case that that none of these line items should be touched right you could every department head in Danielle's completely valid because she's trying to protect her department but at some point someone has to be the adult in the room and say we're gonna try to focus on finding money wherever we can to try to bridge this gap these are the hard conversations so this is part of that that's that's where this came from that's kind of like and hoping that somehow you'll do some magic that through event sponsorships fees whatever right we can throw that into involving fun and you'll in the thought process to I mean and not to mention this was vetted by Amy and Cheryl with Gino and Pam now I don't think you're gonna get four more cognizant people looking at this budget looking to see where we could find any possible spot any possible line item any possibility so I mean we're we're we're doing the due diligence to see where we can find it it's not easy conversation can I respond to that yeah I think it's really important when we make these cuts to any department that we have the conversation with the department head to see how that affects your department I work really hard to get the $10,000 that I do for summer concerts now now I got to go out and try to find $20,000 for a fourth it's almost impossible for for me to do that and I try I know and no one told me I had to go try to get sponsors for the summer concerts but I did and and I do what I need to do but it's not easy and we live in a small town and there's not that many places I can go to ask for money and I'm constantly asking for money so it's it's it's not an easy thing to do and I understand we're talking about saving a teacher or or somebody I get that but we're about to ask this community just to pay more taxes right we're doing that anyway I know regardless of okay so we're about to do that so the one thing that we can give our community is community and I'm not suggesting suggesting that we don't I'm actually then suggesting that your department works even harder unfortunately that's what I'm suggesting and I know that's not easy to hear but really that's or maybe it's looking at this the way that you go about this differently and your funding sources differently to see where you can maximize revenue and do things maybe a little differently that would generate some type of revenue that we can so my answer to that is that program fees would go up and they might have to like everything else is we're looking at everything else going I don't I don't look I don't think we're you know we're looking at fees going up everywhere right I think the conversation with the board last time was that program fees were not going to supplement the community programs it's not fair to have program fees supplement community programs it's not fair you know you have you have people who have children and you're putting them to a paddleboard program or whatever program and the whole community is going to you know benefit from increasing those fees where I think that's a burden on a small group of people and I do think that there's a way to get it out of the operating budget and get it over into here but I definitely don't think it should be on the back of programs because it's just so then what do you suggest Mariela well I don't want to see you I don't want to see parents or whoever's taking a program paying more money to supplement full community fees it belongs to me it belongs in the community budget so would I would I look at this and say how many dollars do I need I have to go out and get $20,000 to help offset this and right off the cuff I would think you know trying to go out and get sponsors for some of the different events I don't understand why why is it we only get one year at Tedesco's have we had more conversations I know Tedesco was very upset with us in our communication with them and you know I think there is enough money in the budget in the revolving account to cover this for one two years I think Amy you'll agree with me and then I think we could revisit it at that time but well then you would be changing it that you would be using programming fees to pay for that but what you have in what what you have in that budget right now you don't think you have enough in that budget in that revolving account right now that you could cover 30 to 40 thousand dollars of fees I was saying the conversations the board has was that you did not want programming fees to supplement the community programs because the bill only money they're saying the balance is in there well no not necessarily the balance that's in there could be from the revenue of what's brought in from these different separate lines separate lines I mentioned this before but if there were an option like if I was signing fill up for paddle board and it was 160 dollars a week and there was an option to stay round up to 170 for community events that you would find a group of people who are able to do it and who would be glad to do that I'm not saying on the backs of every single person but I think that we have members of our community who would be able to do such a thing and would be able to help to ensure that we're having movie nights and things like that like I don't want to see those things go away and I would be if I'm in a financial position I would be happy to do that I agree with Mary Ellen not everybody's in that financial position so to put it on them as an increased fee but to ask for it can I say something I have we we tried doing that Jackie and I came up with that last year and the year before that we even offered people if you if you donate to the 4th of July donate $50 we'll give you a free t-shirt if you donate to the summer concert series we'll give you a free blanket we got maybe 10 people and and it's just not enough yeah I mean I you know I I've been doing this for 20 years I know how how much we've grown and how much we've needed to go out and get sponsorships especially for concerts because there's no money in the budget for concerts so we were able to do that and get concert we're having a concert every single week of this summer which is great we're going to have a movie night every Thursday night of this summer which is also great those are I can't say it enough those are really really important things for our community when I was hired I was asked to create community and I'm just asking for a little bit from the town to help me do that and I'm happy to go out I mean Swamptoberfest I started that a few years ago with David and now it's like $5,000 we get I could have just thrown that in the rec revolving account but my thought process was this this needs it and this is money coming in from a an event we had so let's put it towards this event and the same thing for Bentwater if I found something else if Derby Day becomes something big and we can charge people to go to it which I doubt but if we found something like that that would go into that bucket too but we just haven't seemed to find that and I don't know I just think that that we need this it's not a lot of money okay what about the funds from the community programming funds that doesn't exist well okay the community impact fee okay so the community impact fee but I mean they do pay us money for parking for what for parking right that gets one of the VFW well I understand what we do today today it goes to the VFW I understand that but it would just be general fund revenue you wouldn't be able to dedicate that to a different course one of them terpene shoot so we just took over the garden off art walk that was another thing we took on because the community really wanted it but it's gonna cost us money to do it terpene journey did donate to that to help us with those those costs so so basically as you do more mm-hmm you need more mm-hmm yeah I mean not every not every event is this from Oktoberfest or is it that water day each which make money right switch a profit right yeah we tried using the third of July as a you know people pay to get in and boy were they mad not want to pay to get into that event they felt like it should have been a free event and so now it's a free event and you know we have people come in for the third of July for that event and we essentially try to break even for that for that oh yeah yeah the details alone for the third of July are over $10,000 just the details okay the do charge you're supposed to bring candy exactly oh you know do charge what about the 20,000 if we're not going to spend it out of the utility fund for the that's this year's budget this would be for next year's budget that would fall to free cash or get shuffled into Geno sign so the challenge the challenge the challenge that we have here is the Finance Committee has you're saying the Finance Committee already voted no on this yes so we would turn around they didn't vote no on this article they voted no on zeroing out those budget lines right they would most likely not in support of this part of it in our budget hmm is we have a we do have a we have a line we have a line item they don't want to they don't want us to you know that's what they wouldn't take out they didn't well there it's a collective it's a collection of like it's four different lines it's zero any of them right and they said no I'd love to hear what they suggest then and where they think if they if they want to vote no on that shouldn't come out I'd love to hear their suggestions on how we're gonna get there I really would so the second part of this article which I believe would stay is the public library revolving fund this is for printing services at the library due to the cost of the ink and the machines they are asking for an increase in the spending limit what is that the 5,000 yeah it was 3,500 they're looking to go to 5,000 so I wouldn't think that the finance communities I think we could make a motion on that well oh wait but it's all connected oh Jesus all right so how are you gonna separate this out well we can it's a select one point so we'll have to just make an amendment to the article yeah I can either separate it into two articles or you can wait for tomorrow night to see what finance me wants to do with the top or you can just write now decide to eliminate the top half and just keep the bottom half why don't we just amend does anybody what what other opinions do people have there let's just amend like I just if you could just amend it and then add it into the into the warrant before they get it you know and just delete out the top half well I don't I personally don't see I don't see any way getting around it but I don't you know I think if Danielle if you feel like we should be going back and putting more pressure on them no I don't have a solid I'd love to hear their recommendations I would love to hear how they suggest and propose we fully fund the schools I would love to hear it so no I don't think we need to push back they want to go ahead and X nay it then I would love to hear I would love to hear what they suggest and what they reckon so on this article on this article right here do you have any recommendation on how you want to see this article addressed I do not know okay so why don't we just eliminate the top either the bottom and then we can so we can make it so do we want to make a motion to accept the increase in the three to five thousand on the revolving front second all in favor carries okay appropriation for chapter 90 roadways improvements this is a routine article that's here every year this is so routine do we need to wait for them on motion to motion to recommend favorable action okay all in favor amended and authorized appropriation of capital projects so this is what I where is Patrick well this is the one that I had sent in the email with regards to the VFW after my discussion with our facilities director so this is reauthorizing two projects that were already previously authorized for borrowing for the purpose of even I'm borrow street design and construction and that way if there is funds left over after design it's already there it's a segue for construction okay this sounds good can we have a motion for this so second is this why would we not wait for fans to me on this we're reaffirming we're only reaffirming a vote we already wrote an allocation where you took right mm-hmm you're just reauthorizing we're authorizing the bonding we can if you can wait would you like to wait it feels like that's the theme that we've been using but you know well I think we're using that on things that we have to this seems like it's a no-brainer but if you want to wait on that okay do you want to wait Doug sure okay appropriations or physical 2026 recommended capital projects the Finance Committee hasn't voted capital yet they'll be doing that tomorrow um I do have something to say on this on the the concern that I have is waiting on the windows where is the solar on here right so I you know the the windows at the middle school on that back wall right there they are so bad well then so the so the windows are on here but we didn't recommend it is zero right right it's so something that after the huh this was not something the town administrator didn't recommend it was max had it later in a future year and then when the can when the kids can freeze another year he he pulled yeah he pulled some of it forward is fair I thought I had to do with the fact that if we were doing a greater renovation at the middle school right we would be jeopardizing funding related to that renovation to do this great of a project so close to that funding yeah so all on this is this is all I'm asking you know I'll call max tomorrow whoever just the back the back the wall that's facing the bowl the wall that's facing the bowl which is in the worst condition possible if there's any chance we could even just replace that wall to take some funding to do that wall and to skim it out of the solar panels is there any way I just want to revisit the conversation that's all we did I think max asked for $190,000 to do the design for everything right right so that's a design for everything and then we have to then we're gonna have to wait even longer I'm just the design would get be able to give him the ability to come back at our December town meeting with that recommendation come back to December town meeting that means we're gonna have to refigure some of these numbers here because when we come to December we're not gonna have any money on for debt the 190 is not it 190 is right here it's on 40 it's on line 46 yeah 46 so after the town administrator had made his recommendation it goes to capital improvement and that was when max then pulled it forward but again max had this the capital improvement plan for years to come and not this particular year and CIC moved it closer in time so then Kate would you feel comfortable that there was not some negative ramification of doing this piece then I think that max said there will be right yes there will be a negative implication to pulling it closer in time okay so we need we need more I want you to know that I was ramification is what the 190 you know it's really really disconcerting is that we talk about things and we constantly say we need more information why the heck don't we have the people here that we need the information from in advance of this meeting it is a waste of time we and we do need this information and we have a whole bunch of question marks all night about different things and you know it's just not an efficient use of time and it's frustrating I agree with you it really is if we know we need we have questions about capital and about the schools why don't we request max to be here why aren't we doing that why aren't we being proactive so we can get these answers right capital just finalized their vote this afternoon on 11 o'clock yes so then we should know the answer to that if they just finalized at 11 o'clock someone should be able to tell me conclusively what will happen if we fund the middle school window replacement what will happen what's the trigger effect for a long-term middle school project like we're just spinning our wheels here right like it just doesn't make sense to me and I interject I'm sorry this is Patrick I am on the call so I'm hearing your questions about the middle school windows I think I have some of the answers so I will speak up and hopefully provide them so the middle school window project if we pull that out of the larger middle school renovation and bring it out into FY 26 and FY 27 what we give up is MSBA support for that project so if those windows are two million dollars all in with design and we had that lumped in with our middle school renovation project we would get 40% of that funded by the state given the condition of the windows it's the recommendation of the facilities director and the school department that they can't wait and that it needs to be taken care of sooner even though we have the major renovation project scheduled for I think 2030 on the schedule and when the MSBA looks at repair repair projects such as a standalone windows project if you apply for support from MSBA for a repair project and you have a major repair on the 10-year horizon for the same building you jeopardize your funding for the larger project they won't fund both so to do the windows in 26 and 27 with design funded for FY 26 and construction in FY 27 we would have to support that cost locally through most likely a debt issue but it's the opinion of the facilities director that it has to happen so that's his recommendation the Capital Improvement Committee agreed and I think the recommendation of the Capital Improvement Committee is to fund $190,000 of design so that we can do construction in summer of 26 and that aligns with what Max originally proposed which was a two million dollar project scheduled at FY 26 but really he was just looking for the authorization because the project will take two years you have to do design and then construction the following summer when the buildings not can occupy excuse me so I think what we have here is accomplishes the same thing that the school originally asked for it addresses the immediate issue that I think has been talked about a lot with the condition of the school and but to answer your question the the loss is that you don't get state support for this project in particular but we could get it still for the later much larger project. So on the much larger here's here's a little bit of we're hearing I who is we need to have a lot more clarity on the on the much larger project because I really need to understand is who is thinking that we're gonna do this much larger project in 2030 and how is that really gonna sit how is that gonna sit with our finances 2030 is just in a few years. Right so it's been on the plan it's in the debt forecasts that Finance Committee has all of that but we do have to have a lot more conversations about that I think as a community as that gets closer because you're looking at debt service for a project like that even with the state support that could will rival what we just took on for the elementary school or exceed so right that's that's a much larger conversation you'd be looking for a debt exclusion from the town at a so yes that has to be talked about more but that's the windows are you know recommended to be pulled forward for this warrant. 

So in reality 2030 is not a realistic expectation for a major renovation at that middle school if you're lucky 2035 or 2040 is really what you're talking about so that just that just further necessitates the need for these windows yeah you've needed for years right so you know it's a no-brainer but this 190 is solely just the planning of it so these the design of it they're not gonna see new windows for two years is what we're set what we're talking about next summer so not they're gonna start next summer so you know you're still talking about you know by allocating this 190 now means they're still you know gonna wait to almost two years for windows is that fair to say Patrick yes and in my conversations with Max you know if we funded the whole two million dollars in this warrant it still wouldn't be done for two years because you have to do design and then the work can't be done when the buildings occupied right so well I'm glad it's gonna at least I started so I just think it not to say that the work doesn't have to get done it's just when we make these decisions we should be clear that like the sacrifice of the decision is $800,000 that we could have received in funding from MSBA to offset you know the 60-40 split potentially on this project and if we really don't think we're gonna do the middle school project although it's on the horizon to be done if we're not going to be doing it for 10 years because it's not likely to pass in town for 10 years which is unfortunate but probably realistic mm-hmm then why wouldn't we go to MSBA for funding for this project because it's not likely that we'll be touching these windows for 10 years right okay so thank you Patrick you're welcome thank you Patrick all right so moving on to article 17 Community Preservation Act Doug you you sent out the recommendations I did but it's not in here it's going to be added to appendix a I think KP got it and started reviewing it but it wasn't complete to add into the appendix yet okay so we can just I think was there anybody that wasn't in agreement with what Doug had sent out well the only thing is that I think you then sent something around a summary or whatever and it still had the two appointees from the select board in our conversation seemed like there was a desire to have one of those be from CIC right and then just one left so I don't know I can make that okay if that set the consensus of the group yep so just for the record can you just go over what you had sent to us out loud right now yes well required are what's in here Conservation Commission Planning Board Historical Commission Housing Authority and Board of Park Commissioners with their open space and rec committee and then there would be one from Finance Committee one from affordable housing trust and then there were going to be then there'll be one appointee from the select board and there will be CIC okay so and to your terms yep max five terms and you wanted staggered terms no no okay not okay mean if council feels extremely strongly about that that's I suppose that's fine all right so even though we don't have that here but you did say it can we do people feel comfortable voting on it I do okay so we have a motion so moved second okay with that right all in favor I article 18 Earth Removal Advisory Committee this was just to change the language to remove one member all right so can I have a motion and this is supported by the plane where they're going supported by everybody so motion to have favorable action on the article a second second all in favor all right article 19 Daniel just left so this is one that I think you had forwarded from a resident John Picarillo okay and in my discussions with KP law they just said they weren't sure what the purpose was and they wanted to make sure we're careful with the language because they said one there's no penalty right for the enforcement they said do we just want the enforcement measure but they said we also might want to look at the language to make sure that we're being careful because you know how are we delineating a group is there you know six kids after school playing on the field and are they going to be removed and how is that being determined so so my understanding is to is to limit the amount of leagues leagues like group playing like group we have two teams playing full teams playing and using the field and not contributing back to the field whereas you can take a permit out you can pull a permit your permit it's your time and your field and I think the purpose on now I think the purpose of this is to when the police come out to say where's your permit the police are now they have the authority to say you you can't be here without a permit or there's somebody here with a permit they have to go on the permit right now the police don't have that authority the way the language is now KP is saying if there are four kids after school playing on this field they would also be removed in the same way as those two leagues so that would be the discretion of the police all right I feel like we should really flush this out a little more because I I feel like this could turn into discriminatory yeah I feel like there's an open space element that we're totally missing here the right to be able to be outdoors and use spaces I understand that these are our spaces that we pay to maintain them and but like are you saying like residents are gonna be self-reporting by the looks of people on the field that they can't be there like I don't want to get go down that road and I just think we need to have more conversations about okay so we'll report back on this we'll get we'll get John yeah we can have him show up I just I just know that from using upper Jackson and the track there had been you know there there were large groups teams that were coming in they were parking illegally on Carson Terrace they were leaving trash they were you know causing damage to the field and we just want to make sure that and to encourage them to pull a permit so that it's not to keep people from using fields but to I think if you have a we just have to make sure that this reflects that that yeah right now anybody nobody should be able to and if there's no he related to the permit like you could just go get a permit for $0 it's held by the school yeah okay AD does it right yeah okay it's different there are leagues that come and play at Phillips Park yeah okay all right I just we should probably just want to make sure that all fields too right if we're talking about cover the like if we're here to prevent damage and make sure the fields are in good condition for the taxpayers to utilize and we should make sure that the fees then that the athletic director is charging right actually covers those right how did the issue is I get a call from John every single Sunday afternoon is my only issue it's with close the field to Swansburg groups because of the rain right and there's others up there they don't have well there are no guidelines so I mean can there not be some signage posted at the field to say the field they're close to the inclement weather but at least if it says if it says the fields I don't know I think we need to understand the process too because I don't have any idea you know what how the AD reserves what her guidelines are she's got written rules if she's telling people what the rules are trash this that the other I mean does anybody know does anybody I mean we probably should know all that before we try to implement something yeah but whether it speaks to like different you know rates again take out the trash where you are okay yeah that should give the police the necessary enforcement right there right I want to hear from the chief right I want to understand where the disconnect is for the same reason you said he doesn't want to be discriminatory yeah yeah right I get it now we're doing yeah yeah pretty bad yeah number one overuse and use when you shouldn't be on the field but are we gonna lose revenue if we restrict it to just small Scott too well we should we shouldn't restrict it to we don't so they don't get revenue from outside leagues right no we get revenue from outside we've got right that's what I'm saying if we restrict what we do get Schwab's got leaks because you're charging while we use it be any sport and then once in a while we up rent out the turf field but never for a grass field okay all right all town meeting we have a motion for that some of second all in favor aye motion carries town meeting minimum member vote so last meeting there was a discussion on whether this should be five or ten I don't even think we should have this article in here and my opinion is if if people don't want to be on town meeting if their names come up they're not going to show up it's gonna be an empty seat so you know I do know that my neighbors who are now on a couple serious committees they had a right in and I don't even think they had four names and they got on so and they carried on but I don't know I think that'll just flush out itself I don't I don't even want to see this you want to strike this that's just my opinion I would like to keep it I think I think there is some value in having a minimum vote requirement I don't know if that number is 10 maybe that number is 5 but I think there is some I think there's some value and merit to have in the conversation I think I think 10 is too high I think 5 seems more reasonable and at the same time you know if it's not on there it's not I mean I do think it makes sense because you do have people getting in with three you two that didn't even want to be in so it's like what are you bothering for you know what I mean there should be some minimum then are they even are they even going I know they're not it right then if they are going yeah that's why but a lot of times somebody just writes their neighbor yeah that's what happened to my husband right but nobody's but getting back to it it's not that they're not they're not losing they're not losing it nobody's losing out right that's why I think that that's why I think this is but yeah I think probably for every person who doesn't show there's a person who is like okay well this is a good person to be on town meeting and I wrote their name and then now they show up and now they're engaged and yeah yeah I don't I don't believe the number and then we yeah and the town park was supportive of five ten was just standard across other all right the question is we go to five or nothing all right five okay so then motion motion to support the article as amended to five all in favor oh did we have a second second okay I just charged sanitary sewers so this one and the following one are from the water sewer infrastructure Advisory Committee can I just know it I have to say if those last two we voted to support they have this note saying that they're in rough draft and so yeah you related legal issues yeah so maybe can we amend our votes just conditioned upon you will be able to review the whole thing and your votes are pretty close okay okay all right pro we've been a discharge of sanitary sewers all right so what is it to come in here we receive additional information this afternoon this is town council saying that yeah all right so we can't even comment on this until we would think I'm 22 and 23 is the same thing one day additional can we do we know what that information is great great question I don't right I just forwarded to today okay all right so Monday I just want to say Monday's meeting is at 830 in the morning and I stated that I have a hard out at 930 no I have to go to my day job I wish I was running the marathon no I am NOT I am a full-time mom and attorney and then I do this on the side so just to say it okay there's a lot of things being deferred okay what are we looking at here for preservation of historically significant buildings this was the one that we put I think let's put this one out what so can we remove this and just put this into the fall so when you go to close the warrant any article that is not complete or ready to go will have to be deleted off so you don't have to do it okay okay all right accessory dwelling please confirm the attendance number yep that was already confirmed so that's one with the same okay so do we have a motion is this just to make it in concert with state law yeah yes okay thank you this was Ted Dooley was here on this and the board already voted on oh he never left all right and I am that one the governor's bill okay thank you okay floodplain wetland protection coastal overlay district zoning article 26 mr. Dooley ditch you spoke on this at the last one approval second all in favor I article 22nd site plan special permit zoning bylaw mr. Dooley spoke on this we did there's one minor change when I last spoke to you the final version approved by the board Monday night eliminated special permit requirements or instituted special permit requirements for any new build in Swampscott reduced the special permit requirement from 800 to an addition of 500 square feet and also instituted a special permit requirement for any new build or construction in the flood area overlay district so those were the last part the new permit requirement in the flood area overlay district is an update from when I last spoke to you what's the rationale for all that that's all seems like tighter control so for the new build and the additions yes it's to have to it's to require any of the buildings that would need to any of the applicants to come before the planning board for site plan review for any new construction in Swampscott or any addition of 500 gross square gross square footage or larger just to go through the standard site plan special permit criteria the idea for the floodplain overlay district was to ensure that any of the construction in that zone would not only meet the additional building code requirements would have to do by law through the building commissioner but also had additional scrutiny from the planning board to ensure it met the site plan review criteria as well given that area of town has additional scrutiny requirements that we have enacted through the first bylaw that we just discussed the firm map updates article 26 we don't have to vote on this tonight if you want to take more time it just has to just has to be in the in the more written pretty written the way we want it written and just to clarify the the planning board did vote unanimously to support all three of those articles do you feel like you could vote or do you want to take some time don't be peer pressure don't be peer pressure I mean I trust the planning board but it's just since there was a change I feel like I should make sure I really digest that but I'm sure it's okay motion to have favorable action second second all in favor hi hey and the citizen citizens petition we don't I know we don't take favorable action or anything on that but is there some data we can have about if we if we get with the town clerk to put together how many public records requests we get how many of them are you know simple requests that get answered in a short time frame which ones required leave a full review and all that okay great yeah I really want to see the dollar amounts that were spent on and I can give you legal if I can give you how much we paid with legal so far but well I know on one of them just a portion of one of them that was around the Board of Assessors was close to 20 hours of KP law it was legal but it's also time from the clerk and also supplies if like they're making copies or doing anything like that I think everything goes electronically mostly nowadays but okay review and discussion on the FY 26 proposed budget you know not to sound yeah I was gonna put that off I hope we could add that to an executive session we have to find out I'm not sure I'm not really sure we'd have to find out okay you'll have to call you'll have to call KP and just give them whatever your question is as to whether or not that falls in line with an executive session okay all right so votes of the board approval of consent all right so I I didn't get a chance to go over the minutes so I just want to move the minutes put them for next time I don't think there was anything else in there other than the minutes right yeah it's here okay all right so I just want to like to put this on the next agenda so that's the only thing that's in the consent is the is the two sets of minutes all right so select board time my agenda stop did we post like what time on the agenda so I just want to make sure we have one page being very thrifty I'm on the website and it is on there okay thank you so select board time Danielle it's been so long I am curious to hear the budget update from Gino Cresta when we get there be it an executive session or publicly I would prefer it publicly because I really am interested to see where we're at and how exactly we are going to move forward this board gave a very clear vote for for nothing to support to fully fund the school budget and I want to know how we're going to get there and I'd like an update on that not now you don't have to do right now but I think that we have to be cognizant of where we are in the process and we're we're behind and we need to I don't know what more support you can get than the support that was given by this for members of this board so yeah that's that's that's my prime concern that's my the budget is my prime concern we have a lot of things going on but there is nothing more pressing in my mind than that so and there are a lot of moving pieces certainly but we really need to we need to come to a conclusion and wrap up this process it's been a very long process and I think it's been a very I think it's been good it's been it's a process we've never engaged in before we have involved the Finance Committee the Select Board and the school committee we've asked the school committee many questions many people have they've given honest answers and now it's up to us now it is up to us to make it happen and I don't know what else we need to do or what other votes we need to take to get this moving in the direction it should be and it's not going to be easy and again I've done a lot of the work I've done a lot of research I've dug in as much as I can and I need everybody else to come up to step up to the plate and do the same right and that goes for us that goes for the Finance Committee who are experts in their fields if they're gonna tell me that no we can't do this this and this I certainly hope they're gonna tell me what they can do because I'm real tired of hearing what people don't want to do and how easily they can say no in this town to certain things it is about time we said yes to some things right and again I want to thank the school committee and the school department for their transparency in this process because I really do feel they have gone above and beyond they have been asked questions over and over and over and they have stated those answers honestly so I respect that I respect them for doing that I'm trying to show them the courtesy they are showing they've been showing us for the past three months since the beginning of this process really and it's time for for someone to step up and lead this thing because I really feel like we're you know we're like a ship without a harbor here right we're wavering and we're not we're finding a lot of really easy ways to say no but nobody is really coming to the table with what we can do other than and I want to thank Amy and Cheryl and again Gino and Pam for that for sitting down and really trying to get to the heart of it and I understand department heads like Danielle who's working her tail off to do what she needs to do for recreation you know and again there are gonna be hard conversations but we resoundingly made a decision last time we met and we're you know so now we need to follow through that's my take Doug? I'm all set. David? Danielle said a lot of what I was was going to say so that's it for me. Katie? One thing I will say that we didn't get to say when John McLaughlin was still here is how great he is about acknowledging the summer health at the DPW and when he posts on Facebook or you know post the beautiful pictures around town he's always posting it with the folks who helped him do it and I he's not here but hopefully he'll watch this and I just want to acknowledge him for that.

(3:43:47 - 3:43:53)
He's definitely asleep right now. Good for him. He's a good man.

(3:43:54 - 3:44:03)
He's great. He's a really good man. You walk into the DPW office and he's got a picture of him with all the summer health doing certain jobs over the years with the dates that you're working with.

(3:44:04 - 3:44:07)
He buys him lunch. He's done so much. So much.

(3:44:08 - 3:44:12)
He's so deserving of that award. Really. He's humble too.

(3:44:12 - 3:44:23)
Want to show up tonight? No. Okay and I'm good too. Motion to adjourn? Second? All in favor? Aye.

(3:44:33 - 3:44:33)
Thank you.