Planning Board - Regular Meeting

hi everyone and welcome to the june 2026 bedford common show i'm susan schwartz along with don katubas and from the different committees today we have ben thomas from the finance committee angel pettit from the school committee and dan rosdahl from the select board welcome everyone and today is actually the last show of the fiscal year uh so congratulations to everyone for uh wrapping up the fiscal year but before we spend all that unused money that we haven't spent yet right let's go whatever's left over yeah So speaking of wrapping things up, if we could start with the school committee. What's going on with the schools?

Sure. I mean, as you said, we are wrapping up school. Last day of school is June 22. Thank you for snow days this year, which is the Monday after a holiday. That's right. So it'll be an interesting three hours worth of school for our staff, unfortunately. And there's no school the Friday before, right? There's no school the Friday before. Let's go. Somebody may be guilty of flying out that Friday night. I don't know who that might be, but that might be me. Susan. So what else? And I guess it's always nice at the end of the year to just say thank you to all of our departing staff, whether it be retirements or new positions or just new ventures. Similarly, with the fiscal year ending, that's the appointments will end June 30. And July 1 starts the new year. Obviously, the big-ticket item by the time this airs is that graduation will have happened. So, again, at the Sangha Center, you know, we wish well to our 2026 graduates that they go on to bigger, better, and brighter things. You know, May brought with it kind of the end of, obviously, school exams. I think the typical wrap-up of a school year has gone rather hitch. We had the art show in May, which was phenomenal. Every year is... I think they say the largest attended event in the schools.

Oh, that's great.

Maybe outside of graduation. And it is always phenomenal to see the students' talents on display. And it's K through 12. It is a beautiful representation of our students, their talents, their views. I think something that stood out to me big time for this particular show was seeing, there were some students that did some presentations of kind of progressions of the same type of project they might have done in let's say sixth or seventh grade, and then now as a high school senior, like what the evolution of that same kind of project looked like, which was really an interesting kind of choice right to kind of see like oh this is how this the student grew in their artistic ability right between and it's not just art right you know there's kids doing woodworking and ceramics and all kinds of other things and it was interesting to kind of see that on display from a kind of more functional part i will say you know, keep an eye out for at some point, whether it be towards the end of this the school year or over the summer, that there's going to be a survey that goes out talking about kind of optimizing some of our bus routes and people opting into whether or not they would even take the bus or not. There is no cost associated with it. There is no you know obligation if you say you're taking the bus to then if you if you can't for some reason that's that's also fine but it's really just giving really important data points to our administration to both help with the bus company with some of our working groups in understanding data around like can we optimize this both for financial reasons as well as kind of functional reasons if we were to do some of the shifts in school hours we have been talking about whether we do you know find ways to find money, which is something that we continuously try to do within the district. There's also kind of been a big push of doing kind of a pilot on reducing technology use at the middle school, which is kind of a really big hot-button topic. At the moment, you know, there's some updates to policies that need to happen just because they're a little bit outdated, but they're in the process of working through both those policies as well as kind of guidance for students and staff around what does technology use mean and kind of its effects, especially at the middle school. Like, that's a real big... kind of focus on when and where and why we kind of issue devices um and then lastly or i said congratulations to graduation um and again i think this is the time of year where there's just tons of events at the schools and i think the kids really embrace this idea of they understand school's wrapping up and you have all the field days and baseball days and challenge days like all the things that like kind of reward our students for kind of the hard work that they put in for the year and looking forward to like what those next steps are so um I'll end with if you have a student that's in you know second grade moving on to Lane like don't be afraid they'll be fine if you have a kid that's in fifth grade like somebody here that's going to sixth grade and go to the middle school like guess what they'll be fine and same thing if they're leaving the middle school and going to high school they'll be fine right and so we do a good job of trying our best to take care of our students and that's uh what the schools have to say and i would just say you know i i'm glad you mentioned the moving on

Because I love driving around town or walking around town and seeing all the signs congratulating kids for whatever accomplishments, be it sports, moving on, doing something after graduation. There's just so many ways that kids are excelling these days and getting recognized. And as a resident, I just love seeing that.

Yeah, I mean, it's always nice to just see how people support our students, both in and outside of school within this town, right? Like, it is a big push and a big focus, you know, again, whether it be sports, whether it be art, whether it be, you know, the various things that our kids do. You know, we had – actually, I will re-mention, too, we had a presentation at the school committee from the – kind of different math club and a math team and just their accomplishments and their presentation was phenomenal for you know young kids the their accomplishments are excellent and you know I think sometimes we forget to also recognize it that is just as important right as when our teams do well or our productions so it was really nice to kind of have them come in and present that to us because that's really what at the end of the day the policy things are there and they're

necessary but i'd really love to hear about like when our students succeed and be able to see that yeah and i just wanted to commend the school committee for having the students present because in i watched that um school committee meeting and having the students present rather than the faculty advisors uh it was just so awe-inspiring and just how they commend each other for sure they're very cool Any questions or anything from anyone just about the schools? There's a lot going on. We'll come back.

Sounds like I did a great job. Moving on.

No, you did. You were talking about the art show, and I saw part of it. But there are a number of art-related things coming up in June. I'm just going to take an opportunity to talk about now. One is Saturday, June 6th. The Cultural Council is having a reception for the recipients who got grants from the Bedford Cultural Council, and that is going to be at 1.30 in the library on the 6th. And then people are probably seeing the signs around town right now. On June 13th is the Music and Arts Experience, sponsored by the Cultural District. And that's going to have artist workshops and demos. It's all family-friendly. where is that going to be that's going to be on the 13th on town common from 10 to 2. so that on the press release and some of the signs are up now so i encourage everyone to take advantage of that and you know it's a great opportunity for kids and adults anyone so speaking of opportunities what's going on with the finance committee

I have a new topic, and all my appearances here, I've never talked about this.

Ooh, the suspense.

Where's the breaking news? The town is a member of the Shawshank Valley Technical High School, which I think is a fabulous education, and it's a great thing for the kids in this town. I believe for the first time ever we've put more kids in than our allocation is. So we had to hold the lottery. That's part A, so they have this really nice thing going on. We've actually taken good advantage of it. It'd be nice if we take more advantage of it. Part B is one of the articles at town meeting was about the design for their new high school. eye popping is the only number i can give you for what the high school will probably cost in the end because you look across the state and eye popping is the number for every other high school that's being remodeled but shaw sheen's looking at it they're talking to all the member towns we voted for 61 000 in design funds they have since found money on their side and the town is going to get that money back It's a tiny amount, but I like the spirit of it. They have the money, they can pay for it themselves. And then the other thing going on is the finance tie-in. We're very interested as to how we represent that. Where does it show up in the capital budget? How much is it? How many years out is it? I mean, our capital budget only looks out five to six years. If it's further out than that for any reason, like having to go through MSBA or something, then it won't show up in our current financial models. But it better because it's a lot of money and it's going to be important. So there, I talked about schools for the first time ever.

But I agree with you, Shawsheen is a gem.

I try and get that in when I'm doing the budget every year at town meeting, because I really believe it. It really is a gem. It's a good thing, and people should be aware of it.

Do we pay proportionally for the remodel? The way we contributed proportionally to the...

i don't have the exact answer for you but there is a there is a formula for how much we pay for capital improvements yeah it's it's good the numbers i've heard are large very large so the fact that we're one of five schools it's not evenly distributed like bill ricka has more kids than anybody else yeah but sorry about that i didn't know you were coming So if we'll pay some proportionate amount, we need to figure out what that is. And Dan probably knows the number, because I don't remember. But they came and presented to the select board, say, a month ago. And there was, what, a 17-step process for them to get from start to school completed? It was some large number of steps.

Every vote has to go through all the member towns. And they all have to agree. All have to agree. And then what happens? And there's an algorithm around how much we're going to contribute. And then, again, maybe there's a half-billion-dollar building at the end of it, which we'll pay some percentage of because of our enrollment historically or what we're currently at. So it's a long way from being done, but it's coming for sure.

i'm not sure about that the current but we voted yes for the design thing some of the other member communities voted no i think one time voted no and then it became yes like the second maybe it was in texas i think that's all that's new it's a complicated scenario and as dan said some of the votes have to be on the same day and all be unanimous yeses yeah so it's it'll be interesting but i hope personal opinion i hope that we can make progress on it because it really is an enormous resource for the kids in this town And you talk to people who've been there that they'll tell you the same thing.

Shashi and folks will always take a, the school people from Bedford will always show you around and say, like, look at what we do. It's incredible. The building is falling apart. And New School does happy builds, and I certainly support that endeavor.

So that's that piece. The other town meeting piece is we had a little surprise with budget making from the floor of town meeting, which is a risky endeavor. For instance, three hundred thousand dollars was given to the schools and I I told Angel I was going to put him on the spot so don't worry about this question but was that the highest priority item that the schools needed you don't have to answer that it's just that's that's the risk when you start doing numbers from the floor you haven't budgets are incredibly complicated with lots of moving parts and a lot of people spend a lot of time making sure the parts align correctly I don't know that that was the right use of it I mean it's what town meeting wanted so we're going to do it but sometimes you look at it and say, boy, I hope we made the right decision there. So that'll be an ongoing topic.

I mean, I'll just quickly say, and it's something I stressed at one of our meetings about this is, that while this amount of money can be applicable to what its intended use was like why they presented it this year that does not guarantee the next year we don't follow and need to follow the same path in order to balance the budget right so there has to be an understanding for folks that this is a one-year allotment of money that might be able to cover this but it does not necessarily mean automatically that there should be an expectation that this

will not come up again next year or the year after and so forth so right yeah i mean we have to face the fact that our reserves are going down if this were five years ago and we had much more money we'd say wow that's a lot of money but sure tom meeting wants it we can do that now i'm looking at scary numbers for one two three years out where oh the word overrides coming up up more and more so we have to be careful with how we spend our money is my message

no and you've made that clear at town meeting and I think like through this forum as well and I think it's something that before our next town meeting like people will continue to look into right well I hope I'm treading the line carefully between a reasonable warning and chicken little

think you are personally i think you are treading that line perfectly well so we have a new member which is a great thing now we're up to full staff which is a very nice thing he'll start going to meetings we have another meeting coming up very soon he'll start going there and then rolling back one spot to the money being allocated from the florida town meeting we want to write up an article a paper we're not committed to it yet we're exploring the idea just to explain to people because i've got more questions how does that work there's lots of little details when you allocate money do you have the money is it raising allocate or is it just allocate i mean there's lots of little legal things we got to do and when you get hit with that on the town floor it's like ah i don't know the answers right away so we're going to work on a paper i'm not committing us to get it finished because i don't know which way it's going to go it may be too complicated but that's something else we're working on And then we're going to be doing reserve fund transfers and budget transfers to straighten out the budget, end-of-year budget financial. Reserve fund transfers, that's what I was looking for.

No, and that makes sense. And I think anything that educates the community as to how money is used, allocated, and generated is good.

Yeah, we like doing that without putting people to sleep.

i was trying to figure out how to use putting people to sleep as a transition but i don't think one more thing that i don't know if people are aware of i know most of you are aware of this we have a new finance director he's been there three months

He's doing a spectacular job. He's really digging in. He's really excited to be here, which I think is great. And the second thing I think is great about new finance directors is anybody who's new from another community, I love having new people show up because they have fresh ideas, fresh eyes. I'm not saying we should clone ourselves to be like community X or Y, but just examine the possibilities. They did this. It worked out. It didn't work out. It worked out if we made these little tweaks. So I'm really happy about that. I think he's doing a great job. His name is Al Rigo.

good welcome al i'm done thank you and todd welcome yes uh from uh the planning board yes what's going on yeah a few things going on anybody who saw last month's episode it's going to be a bit of a repeat but we've got a few initiatives going on um two of which are the dark sky initiative and the tree initiative so um still work in progress still you know wordsmithing figuring out what makes sense for our town looking at other towns seeing what they're doing what we think makes sense for bedford have a public hearing and then hopefully present something in november town meeting is a plan could get delayed either one could get delayed further but that's the plan right now and then i have initiative through the planning board but also a disabilities commission i'm thinking about keeping sidewalks and bus stops safe safer especially in the winter so still ongoing discussions i'm going to be presenting to the dispose commission in july as a plan right now but also working through tech as well with that so we'll see see what comes of it which way hopefully things will things will improve um other things uh though comprehensive plan obviously that's still going on as well lots of meetings been happening in the background and uh nothing's been produced yet but you know still ongoing so i was hoping you wouldn't neglect that one definitely it's important it's important it's definitely important we only do it every what 10 years 10 years or so yeah yeah yeah um and then what else is going on Yeah, with TAC we're still looking at target speeds around town, so ongoing initiative with that. And I think the final thing I wanted to make, oh yeah, so it's kind of an aside, but with the Disabilities Commission, they've been trying to encourage slash push slash figure out ways to have more meetings be hybrid. um and so it's also on my list bucket list of things to do as well I pushed the zba to be that way hadn't happened yet but I'm still still ongoing so I'm still hoping to get them more hybrid so more people can attend the meetings yeah and it's something we've discussed here as well because it's about access yeah and the technology is here now we have more rooms and we have more um owls available for people to use so the technology-wise it's there so yeah

know again it would help with town meeting the more access that people have to the different meetings and the committees and boards that they have questions and concerns about you know like they can learn before town meeting and start to influence a little bit more what's going on so i appreciate that

I'm glad you're working on the snow, the safe sidewalks and bus stops. Because it would be easy for out of sight, out of mind in June to not worry about that anymore. But that was rough this winter.

It was rough. We have a couple of different thoughts in terms of the best way to go or not. We don't necessarily need a bylaw that forces people or gives them fines. I'm not saying that is the right way to go. But I think enforcement could be better. We've been talking about that. Especially with businesses, the enforcement could be a lot better.

um give the dpw slash whoever makes sense more power to enforce it better um plus plus other ideas as well so still it was a snowy winter i think we spent 400 000 on snow and ice removal oops yeah and the dpw kept up as best they could residents they need to know it's their responsibility and businesses as well so it goes both ways yeah and the businesses should know

Well, I think we would like to so I don't know if I came here for mention before Somerville has a program where they sign up their website and people can volunteer to do the work and people can Say hey, I need help doing my sidewalk and there's a payment arranged and so it's like it could be for kids to Make some money or anybody actually to make some money and it's a way that you know to bring that together So I think we're also very interested in trying to see if we can get that sort of program going as well.

Yeah, interesting. Great I'd be looking for someone to help.

So sign me up.

Thank you for that update. And Dan, nothing going on with the Selective, right?

We've only had one meeting in May, but I have some things to talk about. I really enjoyed our last meeting. We had a town meeting discussion with a moderator. And it's fair to say that we processed town meeting right afterwards, and Dave was not there. And we gave some feedback, which I think you kind of got defensive about, which I would have too. And he came in, and he gave us some feedback. I think we gave him some feedback. It was kind of spicy, which isn't always the case for our meetings. In case you haven't watched it, it's on Denver TV, but I'll summarize sort of what he said to us, and I think it's all actually true. He said, you know, you can make the warrant shorter, which is sometimes possible, sometimes not possible. One way that this year could have happened is sort of take out charter and by-law changes and that'd be separate to how we need to talk about those specifically. I think that's actually a really good idea. Dave suggests that we huddle up less to get answers. Okay. And maybe we said maybe town council could have been closer to us or to you so we could have flagged some issues like is that funding ad actually legal, which is an interesting question. I always talk about, you know, can we have clickers to speed up voting? And I also talk about, you know, let's just make the debate rules make speeches five minutes, not ten. you know but really like this is all on the margins and i think what we all saw was you know time meeting people ask a lot of questions and um a more aggressive enforcement of like you get one question on a topic not like one question then four or five follow-ups is one thing and i'm not trying to curtail participation like everyone spoke like over 100 people spoke some people spoke 40 times but those 40 times might end up being 120 different comments and answers and that's just time and time and time so no answers were provided no solutions were come to but it was a good vigorous debate and i do like a good vigorous debate and i think we all kind of defended our turf in a very productive way so i enjoyed that so anytime meeting suggestions reach out to me i'm around um what else has happened more excitedly we approved some new stop signs in one of the most notorious cut through neighborhoods in town which is the oregon avenue now i'm sorry sunset oregon like up over there people kind of try to make that right before coming on to the urge from old from old um brooksby whatever that one is so stop signs and slow traffic down there is really really important um we also agreed to appoint a new police chief who will be sworn in next monday andrew amandola coming down the road from carlisle sorry carlisle um and in a select board adjacent move has been referenced we did appoint a new finance committee member a name that many of us know, Ben Crosner, the other week before our meeting. We also had a very meaningful Memorial Day ceremony on Monday. I think Mike was there, and so many people were there. That was really great. The highlight, if you haven't watched it, was the speech from Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Stockdale from Hanscom, who was a perfect blend of both funny but serious, coming from his perspective as an officer. And if you haven't watched that, please do. Coming up, we have a couple things on the agenda for next week. We're going to renew, we think, our three-year contract with Effort Television. Hope so, because we have a show to do in July. Or August, or I don't even know when the next show is. We also have some committee reappointments. Here's a topic that will get some excitement going. There's still some curiosity about leaf blowers. So you want to stir the pot in any town, talk about leaf blowers. That might be coming back around. And buckle up. So we'll see what might happen there. so and uh yeah like that's gonna be funny and then we're gonna shoot and we're gonna talk about our new town council we keep our current town council there's some other folks that want to come in we're gonna interview some folks next time so stay tuned so that's what's happening but of course dawn we have trivia three questions from from current times to old times are we ready okay all right so we must drive around town todd's on tack if you head north on route four Into Bill, into Billerica with Renzo's on your right and you go straight. What is the last road in Bedford? What is the last road in Bedford on Route 4 heading out of Bedford into Billerica? On the right. On the right. Isabella. Wow. Ben Thomas for the win. That is your neighborhood. That's your neighborhood. Nobody else can answer. All right. Isabella Road, the last road in Bedford. Number two. Bedford was formed in 1729, carved out from two towns. What two towns was Bedford carved out from?

Bill Ricka and Conk. No, I don't think so.

I don't remember.

Don Kachubis. Bill Ricka and Carlisle.

Okay. Angel? That would have been my guess as well. Ben? I don't have the other one after Bill Ricka. Okay. I'll say Lexington.

I was thinking Tewksbury, actually.

Someone said it, but no one could know if it's Conk or Bill Ricka.

Conk or Bill Ricka.

But the real question is...

Which town gave us more? Someone gave 60% of Bedford, and someone gave 40. So in our DNA, are we more conquered? This is a big question for Bedford. Are we more conquered or more Billrica? I'm going Rick. Raise your hand if it's Billrica.

I refuse to participate. I can't participate. Raise your hand if it's conquered.

The answer is Bill. We are 60% Billrica. So let's go. I'm solely thinking about the train line. Maybe that explains me. All right, last question. A little bit more fun than that. OK. The DPW budget for this year is $17.2 million. $17.2 million for fiscal year 27. What was the budget for roads and bridges in 1894? In 1894, what was the budget for roads and bridges? This year it's $17.2 million for the DPW.

I'm getting flashbacks of town meeting where I'm getting grilled about numbers.

Oh, well, this one you better know. Oh, 1894, what was the roads and bridges budget? $150.17. $150.17. Angel? I'm going $614.33. $614.33. Todd? I'm going to go $300. $300. $500. $500. Price is right. $874. The answer is $2,000. Even those days, we took great care of our roads. Great road funding is a source of pride for Bedford. We're more Bill Rickett than Concord, and then you knew Isabella Lane, the last road in Bedford on the right.

what was the pavement index for that i did not get a pci rating for the defense director in 1894. i'll look it up again in the archives next time and i listened to the select board meeting uh the one where you went through town meeting and then the one that david was at and if someone wants numbers listen to the recording because what david did as town moderators he listened to every second of town meeting and did stats i know i'm so glad he didn't count mine he mentioned that he was thinking like it was fascinating to hear how much time we spent on different things and how many people ask questions and how many unique people ask questions it was it was fascinating it was great he had really commanded those numbers and again the debate was really interesting and important i really enjoyed it so the conversation will go on and again nothing's going to be solved i think bye

special special special special extra special who knows super special our next meeting is monday um maybe after this airs or before so it'll be before this airs all right it's gonna be great so i hope you watched yes i hope you i hope you were there because it will be out on bedford tv anything else from anyone

at all uh i also uh wanted to note june 14th is pride day in bedford and that will be on the call no it's june 7th

She has notes right here.

But I just ordered some pens. Check the calendar. Coming up soon, Friday. It's coming up. Except all dates and all people.

We accept all dates and all people. I love it.

And thank you to you all.

June 14th. June 14th we have from the cameraman.

Yes, June 14th. There we go. Next time.

Next time, Fancy.

Two to four on the comments.

It's pen changing, I think.

And thank you to Bedford TV, to Ralph Hammond, and to all of you. Enjoy the summer, everyone.

Take care.