Community Preservation Committee - Regular Meeting

order and no minutes right okay so moving on treasurer's report the treasurer's report Ken said is the same as last year last month nothing has changed he's not gonna be here tonight and the message That's an email, I thought it was a text. There's still $1,144,962 available for grants at the October semi-annual town meeting. So we still have $1.1 million for projects in the fall.

And we're getting quite close to being done with one of these bonds. Right.

We have two more years to perform.

And that's hard to believe that it moved along so quickly. It's awesome. So does anybody, not that I can answer them, but does anybody have any questions or comments regarding the Treasurer's Report?

My only comment is everything passed the town meeting so we don't have to pull out any of these articles off here.

And all the article numbers. We just got to add the article numbers.

Motion to accept?

Second. It's a tough one. Wait. jack and who's the second jack and justin just rolls off the time any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye all those opposed declare the motion passed unanimously um kind of stole my thunder town meeting uh review um both one articles passed um exceptionally i think i wrote down the numbers but Usually there's like eight people that, for whatever reason, choose to vote against it. I don't know if they're just checking their clickers or just to say no. But no problems, no questions, no issues. I think the slides were nice. Thank you for helping with that, Colleen. I think people appreciate having those finished. I think it's going to be a quick project. Yeah, that one.

It felt like Courier and I, they were pretty ready to go with that project right away.

Right, and I explained to Skip that he could work with whoever the vendor is to start the work. I just, he cannot officially do anything with the bill until July 1st, because that money is not available until July 1st. I do need to follow up with, I guess, William, because I'm not actually, now that there's a new planner... I've communicated with the new planners, Christian, the something.

Christian, the new planner.

Yeah. But I haven't heard back. He immediately, like, it was the Tuesday after town meeting, like at 7 o'clock, sent me an email and then I responded. But I don't think I heard back. It was more historic district stuff. But I will follow up and ask him, is he going to be the point person? to follow through on this.

You might know. This, the... The feasibility, yes. Okay. Do you know? I do not know. I haven't met him in person yet because I was unable to attend the last meeting.

He came to the Affordable Housing Trust. He seems nice, but he's a lot. He's onboarding right now.

Yeah, but I mean, I was just like shocked because, I mean, he had quite a long email. Yeah. He was obviously reviewing... all kinds of notes and things because he was following up with me on things. So I'm hoping to meet with him on a late, I said on a late Tuesday, one night. So another successful town meeting for CPC. The next item is I'm hoping we can reschedule our June meeting to the third Thursday, which is June 18th. I don't know if people are going to be available for that or not.

Um, so I think that's fine. I will also add that that probably will be if this isn't my last meeting with you guys. Um, I did re-up. My term was up anyway, and I was planning to re-up with the caveat that if anybody wanted my at-large seat, I would immediately withdraw. Um, and I, and I do know if somebody's applied for it, so I'm going to immediately withdraw.

So that's, you know.

Okay. So

I mean, I love you guys. I'd love to stay, but I also want to get more volunteers out here and doing the work.

So we kind of know you've got your hands both hands full.

I don't always make time for you guys. Don't worry about that. But, um, yeah, so she won't see him anymore. Sad.

You can still come to all our meetings.

I was doing that before I got on.

I think there's one or two people at home, maybe three that would like to see your face on maybe Thursday night. Yeah, absolutely. So, That would be a nice little break for them to see mommy. Yeah.

Do we need a motion?

Well, I want to kind of get a sense of, because the other thing is that I want to do our, since we didn't do it last year, the meeting where we actually have a hearing and people typically don't come, but we at least... have that official opportunity for people to come in and comment and then we can we get as a committee as well review the the plan and say this needs to be tweaked this is between yeah so it's anybody else the 18th I have some things kind of floating out there which i so don't yeah i mean i should be able to make it because the other thing is is that we could just say we're not going to be yeah because the problem is is if i get off of the thursday then other stuff because i think maybe wednesday should be okay but then everybody else has other meetings and things and it just kind of yeah tuesdays you can't go but you can and so it's harder yeah

Committee also just moved to meeting on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays, so that adds. Oh, so that's one more.

To compete with.

Then you're not competing just with meeting rooms.

And if the 18th it's available to have a virtual, then I don't know where I'm going to be, I guess, is one of the issues.

I think for the public hearing, it should definitely be virtual. Have a hybrid option just so that more people can come and comment and participate. If I'm in town, I'll show up.

I also like the idea of having the public hearing of it earlier because the people who know about CPC are going to have proposals ready. So this should be more about people who aren't fully aware of what we do.

When you say earlier, do you mean like a week earlier? No, no, no.

Like further from town meeting.

Okay.

So I think instead of doing it in like... August or late July, it's better to do it now so that people who aren't familiar with the process but have an idea or a project can apply now. Because a lot of the groups that have already worked with us or know how to work with us tend to come in that late July, early August time period.

Okay, so I'll send out another email that is specifically to find out if people can come on the 18th. seven and that we would also do the Hearing and if we don't have enough on that day, then we won't because we Probably three weeks notice to get in the paper Which means That day works for me Yeah, I can hear can we add putting it in the community advocate in addition to the Grafton news?

the Grafton news just says Nothing against it, but a lot of things are behind a paywall. So I don't know if everybody gets as much access, but community advocate is open to everybody. So for a public hearing, I'd want as many eyes to see it as possible.

I actually get that mailed to me. They stopped mailing it years ago.

Do you know if that counts as the...

I would say do it in addition to so that we're safe.

As someone on the Charter Review Committee, the local newspapers definition, I don't know if there's one in the bylaw as well, but it's very loose.

Because I think it might have been at one point Ted that crafted it.

Right. I don't think we should not not do the graph news. I think we should still do it because a lot of people still will look there. But I think I want to expand beyond just not be limited to is what I'm thinking.

Hopefully soon they'll change.

My understanding from the rule in charge of the posting, it also falls back on some definitions of the state law, which get a little bit more specific on how that is defined. And yeah, I think... Not a lawyer. The community advocate would count. But, again, just doing it both covers that basis.

Yeah, both doesn't hurt.

I'm sure there is a bylaws more specific, but the words local newspaper shall mean a newspaper of general circulation in the town of Grafton. So that could be Blackstone Express.

It's unfortunate. When we do public hearing now, we end up doing the major papers. Yeah. Because you can't find them. Telegram. Telegram, Boston Globe.

Yeah.

Which is, it's just there until they change. Yeah, well, true, but it's there until they change the law, which they have many bills, but they all seem to stall.

Yeah.

So. So just to back up a little bit, Paul said yes, I can come on the 18th. Are you a? I can come on the 18th.

Okay. And I should be able to participate. I just don't know if I'll be in person or not.

Well, that's fine because that was the other thing is that it will make it a Zoom.

My term won't officially be up.

Until June 30th?

Right. So I'm available that day.

If you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you said you may. You didn't know for sure?

No, no, no, the 18th I can, yeah. Okay. But I'd also want to make room for whoever gets appointed to, I want them to feel welcome. Like, hey, this is a great first meeting for you. I know your term doesn't officially start yet, but you should consider coming.

And Jack, are you available? Okay, so that's... I would suggest hybrid rather than zoom only just because Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

I would prefer saying that hybrid is much preferable if I can be Yeah, alive. Okay. All right. Good. Thank you. Um, The next thing is the signage for Silver Lake Conservation Area. They have started fabrication. Ken went out, I went out, and we're concerned the signage is going to be at about across from 208. upton street which is a driveway and there's not a whole lot of room and he was concerned if it's parallel to the road people couldn't really see it so i reached out and met with brianna on tuesday to um see if it's too late to do a double-sided sign. And she said, sure, it's not too late, but is there enough room? It needs about five to six feet in width. And I said, we don't want it too close because I don't want to have to have it replaced when cars fly by there and mow it down.

Are you looking at where those stumps are?

Yes. I think the stumps, I don't know if the stumps are literally stumps or if they're just sitting there. Oh, like movable?

Because remember we were having, there was something that they put there to block it intentionally at one point.

Because somebody had gone in there. Yeah. Because Ken even said we can move the stumps or have the stumps move.

Oh, perfect. Yeah, that's a good. To get rid of the stumps is not cheap.

No, but I think these stumps aren't really... They're basically parts of logs. They're logs. However, they were put there as...

So to stop people from... Because they cut down... I don't know if they made a trail. That was not legal, for lack of a better word. So that's going to add... no more than a thousand dollars to the price of the sign if we have to go that route and i was hoping to have that resolved and um brie who's working on the sign had a death in her family so i said don't worry about it we'll deal with it when you have time so but as long as the sign as long as we can because all they're going to do is just piggyback another piece onto it so it's not critical she said the big part of the sign is getting to grant it yeah so was this on our

budget or is this just on our budget um our budget do we need a a motion to i think we already did at the last meeting to authorize the extra for the double side i'm saying well up to a thousand yeah if you want to so move second wait just making sure we're crossing our teeth letting our eyes i'm hopeful i mean i don't know if we're gonna have to do it um just in case

okay so Justin up to additional thousand dollars for the sign and I moved he's like whoops any discussion here none all those in favor aye let's oppose motion carried unanimously you can't see unanimous everybody here I know.

I don't know. Someone told me that one time. It's stuck in my head.

If you qualify that it's of those in attendance. You can rule that it is a unanimous vote if everyone in attendance votes aye and skip nay.

Right. But all I know is some attorney told me one time. I don't know. I don't always believe that stuff, but...

I still to this day want to know what's a quorum. I mean, I know it's more than half, but is that the seated members? It depends. The slotted members? You know, if we have nine, that means five. But what if we only have eight people?

Oh, I can tell you that because we had seven on CONCOM. Yeah. And we had two down. And so that means we had to have four to get a quorum because our official. So you go with the official. Right. So we actually reduce it from seven to five. And we had to go through a process for that.

But when it was seven and you were down two, was the quorum four or was it still five?

It was still four. Excuse me. It's four instead of five, which is three. So if we had five.

It would be three as a simple quorum. We had town council come in for charter review to look at all the, like, what's a quorum, what's not. And they said pretty much, like, it's whatever the max capacity of the board is, half plus one. Right. And so we had the same thing. What happens? And he was like, that's what happens.

Right. Yeah. And so we, this was, like, years ago. And it was, we had such, now we have a stable commission, which is fabulous. Yeah. People show up and everything.

Love that.

And, but there was a while there, it was a revolving door and we couldn't get seven.

In the master plan, the charter, I think it was a slight difference from what we're generally here to because that was a, whatever number we want to put on it is on it.

That was a working group.

That was a working group, but it still had to have quorum.

I know.

Oh, yeah, because they started with like 50 people.

We have, I have asked, because I'm on MACC Board of Directors and we have a bunch of attorneys, keep asking if We have three people. We have a quorum. And tough comes in, and I have to always recuse myself because we do work with them. Now, at the beginning of the meeting, there's a quorum. There is still a quorum. I am just not voting. And no one can give me a frigging answer on that. I guess if you're abstaining, then technically that is on the voting record. Correct. That's my interpretation.

And an abstention, which we also talked to town council about, an abstention is essentially a no vote. So for all intents and purposes.

But you're accusing. You're not even abstaining. You're not even participating. So now that's different.

But, like, I would open the meeting because I can do that, and then I state my relationship, and then I say I'm accusing myself.

So how can they vote without the quorum because you're not part of it anymore?

But I was present, and there was a quorum to start. But I haven't got a straight answer on that. Okay.

Well, you know what? It's not on the agenda tonight, so we don't have to figure out.

I wanted to keep going, but we are spiraling. Someday, hopefully, I'll get an answer. It's just like you're just trying to do what you're trying to do.

Okay, so let me ask a clarification. It sounds like you've talked to the town council quite a bit. So we have nine members. Let's say we have nine present. And the vote is four in favor, one abstention, and two abstentions. Four in favor, two abstentions, and three no's. So you have four in favor.

You have more in favor. You have a majority in favor. But you said that abstentions is essentially abstentions.

Essentially it's not the same, though.

But here's where it gets different. A majority, there's four, two, and three. So let's use a recent example. The select board had a vote that was two in favor, three abstentions. The three abstentions are the majority, and abstentions are ostensibly no's. So the no's have it.

But it was also not three.

Yeah, I don't know. It needed to be a majority. Yeah. Okay, sorry. Abstention is not voting.

It's not, right.

So to me it's like if it's four. And I had the same response. I was like, a no is a no. Abstention is not a no. Abstention is, yeah, because you're also stepping away.

I actually step away.

But then with the amount of people, because it would be like two, zero, three, it fails because there just wasn't enough to get it passed.

A majority. A majority based on, yeah.

Right.

I don't know.

It's not that it's a no, it's just that it didn't get the majority.

I don't know. Someday I will find out the answer. There used to be Robert's Rule people on every committee. I think it's case law.

I think we don't officially follow it.

You know what I mean, in terms of knowing how to do stuff. I have Jim Gallagher's first edition paperback of Robert's Rules, and I read it and I'm like, we don't do any of this stuff. No one does that.

Yeah, I mean, it's good practice type of thing, but it's really what the state law is, but it's also what case law is. Yeah.

And then that changes a lot. I used to think being a lawyer was all about cut and dry, this is the answer, and it is the exact opposite. How about some gray?

Oh, yeah. And it changes from decade to decade based on case law.

Exactly. Judges and courts.

You know what is cut and dry? This agenda.

Really? I know.

Right on back here. This is right up your alley.

I'll let you be the bad guy. Thank you.

This is right up your alley.

Okay. Project updates.

Archive reports. Any update on the archives so I know that I had reached out in April to Amy, Amy, thank you. I'm just gonna say candy. I know that's not right. I know that's not right. And she's waiting for the final bill. And so have they finished it? Well, not the final bill, but the actual product. Yes. Okay. So we're just waiting. She doesn't have them back. Okay. She said as soon as she did, she'd reach out and come to a meeting. Okay, great. Good.

Okay. Deacon Abnerstow. Gravestone. I don't know. I did give you that book. Yeah. Okay. That's one thing. I don't know. I was talking to somebody else about it. i actually talked to rita martin's daughter at the election she's like an election worker and rita is the one that did the book oh but she also was in charge of the first cleaning yes um but you know talk to her about that and you know just that that was really really important to her yeah these gravestones but at any rate um still in process it's got to go through a mass historical and then but once I get everything back from them saying yes then we can green light the actual replication because I don't want to have replicated stone and then don't have the mass historical paperwork.

And just so the committee knows, John and I did a field trip out there.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah, we met somebody from Hoppieden who restores stones and took a look at it and agreed it needs to go inside, which is not what I wanted to hear, but, you know, I tried.

That's Space Fort right down the hall. There's a nice little yard. I think it should rotate between the select board's houses.

Oh, is that what you think?

That's a great idea.

So I call last.

Okay. 95 North Street. I did see, and I don't know where, maybe it was at the Fleckman meeting, that they discussed it and it's not. We just got another and final bill. Not a final bill, but they're withholding a little bit of money for the project. But they just have planted some more grass, and they're waiting for all this grass to mature a little bit before it's publicly open.

Yeah, so they just bought some snow fence to protect it so that it doesn't get trampled on and stuff. And part of that is I keep asking, how much are we holding back because a final punch list hasn't been done? And that's where it's at.

Do they plan on having a ribbon cutting or anything?

Yes. I think Krista knows that we expect that. And we expect to be invited.

At the Memorial Day parade, I walked by for the first time. And it's very nice. It looks nice. All done is very nice. It's just there's still the chain.

And I'm not real sure where the grass has been planted. It's the meadow. And they're really afraid people are going to walk on it?

You know, the meadow, you just protect it. It's not so much that. It's also animals and so forth. You just want to protect it so that it establishes. Once it's established, then you're fine.

Okay. So they actually planted in the meadow? The meadow wasn't already there?

No, they had to, yeah, they had to. Create it. Yeah, to make it more.

Because there was lots of trees and sprouts.

But again, you're talking about creating a meadow that's a pollinator that has, you know, habitat value. So it's a little bit different than just.

Yeah, I didn't know they were doing that. They were just putting in the paths.

Oh, they're doing the paths, but there was a lot of others.

And you missed, did you miss the last meeting? Yeah. You missed the last meeting, and I didn't tell you this, that both trails are going to be open. They are. The second trail, they're just waiting to cut the little, volunteers whatever you want to call them they're coming up and then that it's there it's just that they need to get that and then they can do whatever yeah it's the larger one will just be a very more of your state park or federal park type of thing as opposed to the because i think you made the comment you were you were the one that really wanted to answer that question and you weren't um Okay, there's some pictures. I don't know if you saw them in the packet from Cisco Homestead.

Beth emailed them out to the committee and also put them online.

You skipped rental assistance.

Whoops. I wasn't supposed to say anything.

I was going to wait until the end.

You're going to miss me, John. You're going to miss me big time.

My camera turned off, so I didn't bother. He was on a roll.

So now he's going to say, I don't have an update. Actually, I've got a huge update.

so last month alone we helped four tenants right with their first months we just got the last of those checks today total of three thousand three hundred thirty eight dollars this is essentially eliminated our first months like refusals people who finally hit the top of the list and then they they can't swing it this isn't eliminated that burden for us and that's great we looking over our total spending from the 10 000 pilot and the 20 000 we got we're just at about 15 000 spent so we're about halfway through so i'd say earliest if it gets maybe like an uptick in uh usage earliest we'd come back for new funds would be next year next next uh probably next october at the earliest six months October this October no earliest would be next October so you're in that 2027 October yes um and the other thing is we've been looking at other CPAs and talking with eohlc because of this program's success about other ways that we could collaborate with the CPC. Our other biggest burden that prevents people from getting into housing is we have units that have been lived in for decades and decades and decades and EOHLC mandates that we turn them over to a certain level. And so there's the general maintenance of changing all the appliances, all of the flooring, all of the walls, everything. And then there's the neglect of living in a place for a super long time. We don't have the staff to do it. They won't give us the staff to do it. But we just partnered with Worcester. They now... provide those services they have their own electricians they have their own plumbers they have their own carpenters um but it doesn't cost nothing so we're working with eohlc and i'm looking over the cpa to see if we can make a proposal that will help us is is that within the city government or is that within the worcester housing authority they're now outsourcing is the wrong way. They're not like contracting their employees to go do this stuff because it essentially lowers their burden because that's fewer people who are trying to get into Worcester housing because they can get in in Grafton and Upton and Northbridge and these other places because the turnover is much shorter. We also get dinged, which isn't this board's prerogative, but if we don't have a vacancy like flipped in 30 days, we get a penalty on our operating budget for the following year. So if there's mold or a fruit fly infestation, we have to go through waiver processes. And if they decide no, then we just get the ding. If we have all of a sudden two tenants pass, two move out, we have four units to turn over, we have two maintenance staff.

Yeah, and I'm just asking the questions to make it a little bit cleaner if it's in-house versus...

Worcester, are they regionalizing? Could they partner with people?

They are partnering. It's a work, it's like a contract partnership where they say, if you have... Is there a contract, though? Yes, there is a contract, there is a policy, there is a contract, and it's essentially you're paying them instead of going through procurement and finding the lowest bidder and getting the letters of recommendation, which takes longer than the 30 days, and And we can just pay employees that have already been vetted, are already in the system. We know who they work for. We know the work that they do. They've already done it for other towns. We're not like the first round of the guinea pig. We were the guinea pig for Taunton, and that did not work out because they weren't big enough to do it.

And again, to me, that sounds like the way to go. It's just like what are the risks, and the risks are getting sued that they didn't put it out for procurement. Is there a limit on the amount? All that kind of stuff.

Worcester worked it out with the OHLC so that they could begin providing this to other places.

Roughly, a unit comes available. You contact them. What does that roughly cost?

Per unit. Per unit, I just got these numbers today, it's anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000. Oh, so having... And for our guys to do it, it would be $10,000 to $15,000, but it would take much longer because they are not specialized, and they also have to worry about everything else.

Right, but those numbers have gone up.

Does that include the new appliances and stuff? Everything. Yes. Which we usually have our appliances ready to go. We have some extra storage so that we can just go throw them right in. But that's what happens when we get hit with a big influx. Then we have to order the supplies. Then we have to wait on it.

Would it be helpful to structure it similar like the rental assistance where you come in and we do $100,000 and have it in a bucket ready to pull for just that purpose?

That was exactly what I was going to propose. Once we get EOHLC to say, if you were to get awarded this money, you can spend it for this purpose. Because obviously I want to make sure it's right on the CPA and we can spend the money that we're asking for or we can get the money we're asking for. And I also want to make sure EOHLC doesn't say, that's cooperating. You can't do that. I know it's not capital, but we have to make sure UHLC is okay with using it as operating. That was the method I was thinking. And I also got numbers roughly, we have 170 units and we've done a lot of aggressive turnover work in the last five years post COVID. And so we think that there's only like 50 units left that need turnovers, period. Everything else should be up to date with hardwood floors, new appliances, like smoke detectors, range hoods, all that stuff. So if we can give ourselves a little bit of a cushion where EOHLC or whatever they're called, we'll cover some that are like the really bad ones where we need assistance and special maintenance staff, we'll cover some. And then we have this one for like the ones that pop up out of nowhere or they're added on after we already started some. We could get them all done within the next couple of years.

Wait, do you still do them if people are living in them? No. So you don't know that those 50 will become available in the next couple of years?

But a thing like this would allow if it's late in the year, our budget's already been expended.

No, that all makes sense. But we can't really say that we'll get them done in the next couple of years because we don't know when they're going to become available, right?

Yeah. It's more just planning for the future and having a schedule. You can't. have the dates, but you can say, this is the number. And then, oh, by the way, when you get through 50, there's 20 more that has come.

The reason I say that we can get them done in the next couple of years is because the only reasons we don't turn them over is because someone's lived in them for a very long time. And we have 170, 150 plus are over 65. You see where I'm going. They've lived in them for a very long time. So those are the ones that come up right away. Like we're not turning over ones that are just moved into. But you have all the data.

And you can do – you can't exactly say what's going to happen, but you can forecast. Yes. Like with anything else. Yep.

Yeah. So we think this would be a good way to – that could help us and continue creating housing opportunities in Grafton.

Do most of your units come available because they're seniors and they've either had to go to a nursing home or have died or – I –

I've had this conversation with prospective board members, and they think, like, oh, I'm a realtor. I can help them move. And I say they either move to an assisted living, they move to a different housing authority, they move in with a relative, or they pass away. That is usually it. The family units are completely different, but we only have, like, 20 family units. So it's almost exclusively people moving into an assisted living nursing home or passing away.

And the ones that are family units, do those people typically then – get permanent housing? Or not necessarily?

It's a mixed bag. It depends. It depends on a ton of factors. But the thing that also comes up is those family units cost a lot more to turn over. So that's where it goes from Worcester saying, we had an agreement and we can do all these senior housing. Oh, they're like two, three bedrooms. So they say, like, we just did three one-bedroom senior housing turnovers, but this family one's going to cost you more and going to take us more time And then all of a sudden we get two more vacancies pop up. Our guys are stretched too thin. That's where we could go into this bucket to have the funds available to get more from one.

And it would be a separate.

Completely separate from Jim Gallagher.

We would have the Jim Gallagher, which is strictly to help people. Jim Gallagher is strictly for rental assistance. The other is more to get the unit ready to get that person.

Cause I, I do want to, I've looked at some other CPCs and I, I know we wouldn't go for this, even I wouldn't go for this. Some of them will pay for like siding, roof replacements, like storm door replacements, things that I would consider to be maintenance or things that are generally like pushing on capital project side of things. Now, I don't know if those housing authorities are owned by those CPCs, but I would assume not. There are even CPCs that have enough money to build extra units of low income. I'm just looking for ways that our CPC can work with our housing authority.

Great. Thank you. Sorry to skip you off. Because I didn't have on my glasses. Okay, back to Cisco.

So, yeah, we have the pictures. It seems like it's going well. I think she said in there that it's basically on the verge of wrapping up.

And she did offer to do a tour, and I said, you know, and I think she said it's almost at a point where it's safe, before it wasn't really safe, to have people come on site. So I said, you know, I just sent it back this afternoon. You know, please let us know, and we'll try to schedule, we'll certainly.

We could do double duty. We could do the Providence Road tour, and then the.

Well, that one, Kim was saying, how about Sunday? So we'll see. Oh, all right.

Relax, Kim.

Yeah. So. But hopefully that will happen soon as well over the summer, be able to go in and look. And then the museum will open. They have all the things that they have at South Grafton Community House. I think they have a lot of their things stored there. It's supposed to rain Sunday.

Is it? Then let's just not.

I thought it was rain Saturday.

I thought it was Saturday. I just looked and it said my phone said rain. I don't know.

two weekends battle could be wrong but it says rain I have to know my yard sometimes nice earlier in the week anyway occasional rain the best time to go to a site is when it's raining well no bugs but you get to see what's actually happening you get to observe a lot more From my perspective. From your perspective, for sure.

Congo Church. I sent another note to Andy. I had heard from him last month. I know we corresponded on it. They were trying to coordinate meeting with the contractor. I know you had talked to, was it Bob?

Rob. Rob. And then I did see, I've seen Andy twice. So I'm at Tom's meeting. it sounds like it's just now just a matter of getting the two contractors that schedule why not show people he said he thinks they just go to Florida for the winter so that there's they're just totally MIA until winter it's done and then they come back it's done but to get those two to

coordinate, and then they'll be moving. So if you talk to him at town meeting, that's more recently than I did. I did follow up with him. I just haven't heard back yet, so okay.

Pass the message at Woods, no update. Then what I want to do is ask for volunteers For Hassell-Messet-Woods Bridge Project, Courier Knives Project, Blackstone Greenway Project.

I'd like to do Courier Knives. There's a problem with that. Okay.

I'm going to do the Bridge Project.

That one's almost done because it's just that one bridge. So hopefully that's going to be done and we can get the information to you. What was the other one? The Blackstone Greenway, so guess who's not here? Jan? Jan is not here, so she gets to do Blackstone Greenway.

I can't really do that one because our company... Jan, if I was staying, I would take it.

I said, Jan, if I was staying, I would take it.

The company I work for went after a proposal on that one, so I want to stay away from it. I like that. Smart.

Okay, that's good. That goes out.

And then Providence Road property, Ken, he's officially now the one on that project even though it's paid for we still he's working on the baseline report the next item is name suggestions and two names that he and or I came up with he was using floodplain floodway and I said that doesn't appeal to me I said, how about the Blackstone Greenway Conservation Area, the Blackstone River Overlook Preserve?

Can we reference the loch? Isn't there a loch in there? Can we call it, like, Loch Ness Monster? I mean, there's got to be.

I'm trying to get anybody to come up with an interesting name that, A, might stimulate some interest, but also to be creative, clever, relate to the site, the history.

I think, well, not to the history as much. Blackstone Loch?

Yeah, I want to keep locks in there.

I was going to say, I mean, the historical component of it would be attractive to a group of folks.

Correct, yeah.

But people will also say, what's that?

Exactly.

See, my name conventions, I like naming things after volunteers. I was going to suggest something for Rich Whitney, or I know he'd been on this board for a very long time, but that's just kind of my, as you can tell with the Gallagher rental, I like naming things after people.

Yeah, no, I'm more for historical stuff, and then you don't have to have

Man, if it had been his baby, I mean, that's like, that's how we named that for Jim, because that was his baby. If Rich had a baby, then I'd say, yeah, that's, you know.

Well, he had to be a marriage. Oh, you know what I mean. I like the, I like going down the lock idea, but what is that referencing? Lock. Where the, they had to make locks.

For the cows. The water had to, to get the boat. Is that actually on the property, there's a lock on it?

Yeah, Ken said he could see, and he got all excited. That's part of the tour I'm most excited about, is going to go see the lock. So having that in the name.

The other cool thing about that is if they tend to have really good historical records on that, what a great plaque or something with the original design of the lock or something.

Blackstone Valley Lock Preserve. Blackstone Canal Lock Preserve.

Yeah, you'd have to just, yeah. I think sometimes when you just do a little research on the history, you find a name.

I think going historical with a piece of land like this is smart because it's so much land, and it's clearly such an integral part of the river.

Right, but not just here. It has impacts for a long ways.

And it's like, that's the other thing. I think the locks were numbered. I could be 100% wrong. Probably. Because they went from Worcester to Providence. And I think they were numbered. And we could call it the Blackstone River lock number one.

So they've done a tremendous amount of research for the bike path. Only because I know that because someone came and asked me about stuff like that. And I said, of course we're grafted. I don't want to see this. But again, there's a lot of, obviously, there's a ton of information that you could probably find without having to look too far. Right.

Yeah. But I think the corridor would be a good place to start.

Yep, absolutely.

Blackstone Lock Preserve, BLP.

I think it's got to have canal in there.

Canal. Blackstone Lock Preserve Canal.

Blackstone Canal Lock Preserve. Blackstone Canal Lock Preserve I understand the canal part of it but we're not making a sign anytime soon but it's like so let it gel think about it You can say it's a preserved site. And if jacked. There's all different ways.

With canal, so we like lock, we like canal.

Was it called the Blackstone Canal? I know the river's the Blackstone River, right?

Yes, because, well, there are two things. There's a river and there's a canal.

But what was the actual name of the canal? The Blackstone Canal. Was it? Was it Blackstone River and Blackstone Canal?

To be honest, I'd have to look it up.

Because the canal was dug as there's a, A towpath, because you had to have animals pull the boats back up to Worcester, because it was all uphill. So there's a towpath that's, if you go to Whitensville, it's their state park, like the Erie Canal.

Yeah, I mean, they're really, they're common. They're all over the place. You'd still know that they are.

They come up with so much information on this.

She's so excited to do it. I know. If you call it the Canal Blackstone, it could be CBLT, crunchy bacon, lettuce, tomato. Sorry. I was working on a joke for too long. People want to know where the food shack is.

That's a good way to get people to some of our sites.

Heritage State Park. Blackstone Canal.

then the final item under that is to reschedule the site walk we kind of got rained out it looks like maybe this Sunday is another rainy day what about next weekend which is Saturday June 6th or Sunday June 7th either of those things so I'm tickly typically busy until about 10 o'clock on Saturday but other than that it doesn't look like it would be like we thought like after lunch no that's fine then dumps closed Okay.

The 13th I definitely can't do, but the 14th I can.

No, the 6th or the 7th.

The 6th or the 7th.

6th, 7th.

You got it. 6th, 7th. What am I? I got it? He starts doing it. Yeah, I think they're both fine. I have to.

I can't risk falling, so I can't do it. Saturday's a no, sure for me.

I hate being needy.

The seventh's a no, the sixth is a yes.

I'm the opposite. Okay. But I'm also not, I wouldn't call myself highly likely to go on the 7th anyway, so.

So, but you're saying the 6th is more likely for you?

Yeah, the 7th, I have away games for the kids all over the place.

I can do 6th. 6th? That's kind of the secret for me. Yeah. Okay, so we will take pictures so I can try. Hold on, time out.

Can we just put it off a couple weeks so he can come?

Oh, yeah. I can't. It's going to take a while before I can do stuff like that. Like months? Yeah. I know he's got six to 12 weeks. Yeah, I don't even start physical therapy until six weeks out from the surgery, and then I've got like three months of physical therapy, so we'll see how it goes.

We'll AI you in there for the group photo.

Yeah, if I could just see pictures of it, I'd like to see the lock.

I'm wicked excited to see the lock. Oh, yeah.

You can get one of those robot dog things, and you can just sit on the dog.

We'll get Evan's whirlybird. Drone. Drone.

Drone. We have several drones, and we do it for our clients sometimes. It has nothing to do other than really cool 3D kind of fly-throughs and stuff, and people love it.

Oh, yeah.

You just need to have a good camera.

I think it's Evans. I don't know if the town really has one.

The police station has one, but I would assume they're not too keen on letting people just use it.

Andy has one, so if we get him to come on the hike with us. If he's available and wants to come to the hike.

Just check on the camera he's got. I have no idea if they would even let me. let someone but we have to have someone who's trained to do it and it's a it's a camera that that you can use for surveying like actually doing surveys and stuff ah so but it's but again I think this should be more for like funsies yeah yeah Marshall he came on to the affordable housing trust when we were doing high point and took some shots for us because we needed to see it yeah does it and did they have a camera is it built in to the drone yeah yeah typically typically they do yeah it's just a level of what what it is that's

You have to crank the camera every single time.

And again, you just want to check the legality of it because we have to have someone trained. It has to be licensed to actually operate it. And we have a protocol on getting permission to do it on sites.

I think there is a general height.

There's a very big difference between a company and a private citizen. Big time difference.

But as a private citizen, he should probably be fine coming out on the...

I would think so, yeah. As long as he's not taking pictures of anyone other than people with permission. It's weird. And everyone has drone policies now. Like campuses and stuff. Almost like A.I.

But they are creepy. Like, if you, like, I've had them in my backyard. I'm like, who's flying this thing? And my backyard is small. Like, why are you here?

Oh, God. I was at the office once. You probably lost. Yeah.

I think his neighbor is messing around. Like, yeah, I don't know where I am.

I was at the office once, and we were up on the seventh, sixth floor. And it went by, which was no big deal, but the FBI office was right next to us. Yeah.

That's not cool.

We called them. hey you know i was here on saturday doing work and really scary little drone was looking at me don't worry about that i don't know i have no idea what happened we notified them that we saw it yep they said thank you very much and we said okay see you like it was us relax yeah no well i don't think yeah but anyways yeah that would have been pretty scary yeah yeah but it was just, it was weird. It was probably just some person looking at stuff, you know?

Yeah.

Okay.

Affordable Housing Trust update.

So we're working on an RFP for 25 Worcester Street. We're having mass housing... Partners, MHP, maybe it's Partners, they're drafting it for us. The last meeting, they had taken a bunch more information from us, and the draft copy just got released, but we haven't met to... Say the name of the group that's doing that. MHP.

Mass Housing Partnership. Okay.

And so the big thing that came out of that last meeting was they found maps from the early turn of the century, and there was a little black box that would indicate an oil tank. But given the time period, there's no way there was an oil tank there. So we did some digging. Skip Currier actually found some decent records, and there was an oil tank in there.

I was going to say, the high school could have had multiple oils.

Well, at least one for sure. And then when it was taken down in the 70s, was it disposed of properly? So Skip found minutes and records of it where it was drained and then it removed.

So they did remove it.

Oh, yeah. And I think it got moved to the old highway barn, which might be what's causing the environmentals for 2017, whatever. So...

Typically, when you got into the 80s and there was a big push in the 80s and 90s to move all the tanks, everyone was doing it by law, generally, following the law.

And that's what... So the guy who we're meeting with for that project, Andy Howarth... No, they're not... MHP, I'm sorry, I'm combining my projects. MHP is doing High Point. Andy Howarth is working for 25 Worcester Street, I apologize. And Andy was all excited because he could tell by the years it was taking down what kind of standards they were running so but skip came up huge he found some old records at the town clerk's office and then we reached out to the grafton historical society so i don't know if you guys saw that post on facebook they're like what do you guys tell us about this a bunch of people commented on it and that got us a bunch of details so that was kind of a fun like um history dive for us and then for mhp which that's for high point they're coming up with the rfp for that project

So Andy Howard is doing the RFP for 25 Western?

Yeah, it's not an RFP. It was just an update for that project. It's just doing a site. Yeah, the RFP is for High Point.

I was going to say, the one question that I have, and I know it's probably still very premature, is I know the neighbors are all very rattled by anything going in there. So I'm sure there's going to be a huge gap. public outreach whenever they come up with some even tentative preliminary oh those are available already they're renderings of what they think you're going to go in there but in terms of meeting with the neighbors okay so that public buy-in from the neighborhood yep yep so yeah i'll get that on the radar to make sure so that because i know that was a big concern always for every project it's always yeah

What is High Point? I'm sorry. So High Point Drive was a project that was a 40B project, but the developer somehow throughout the process got their market rate units done and didn't do their affordable responsibility, which is when you're going through that process, you're supposed to be checking in, and somehow the ball got dropped. And then there was a resident involved in there that had drainage issues because of the construction that happened around their house. So there was a big settlement that got reached where the Affordable Housing Trust was gifted three of the remaining lots with the intention of getting affordable units built there. And so now it's our responsibility to get those units created.

Is that on Adams Road?

It's off of Adams Road.

That's Nancy Paylor.

Thank you. CPC project signs. I've met with, her name is Bree at Sunshine Sign, and we decided to hold off on the little, this is a CPC project, until we get the big sign for Upton Street and then Providence Road. I mean, we can choose them and walk at the same time better.

Just I want to get something done before I get her split three different ways, so.

And then the last one, Lake Wildwood land purchase. No movement on that. And then looking for a volunteer to follow that.

I don't know. Lake Wildwood. Didn't Ken say at one of our past meetings that he wanted to be the one following that? Yeah, I remember that. Did he? I thought it was.

Well, I can check. I don't remember.

Well, he's not here, and that's the rule. Two people have said so. Jan got pegged, and now Ken's getting pegged. Okay.

Well, I already... got him on the other one too, so. Ken typically likes following the land purchases anyway. I mean, he knows.

I do vaguely remember something. I don't know if he knew one of them.

But it's because it crosses into Grafton, and I think that he, I don't know if you were the one that knew about it, because the planning that, you know, there are a lot of people that have been kind of, it's been on their radar.

It was on my radar, but I wasn't really involved.

But I think it's, you know, it's stalled so long, and it's like, I don't want something bad to happen to It's not on the front burner, especially if it's something that we need to make sure that we provide. Next meeting, Ken can always tell me no. All right. Move to adjourn? Second. I have a motion to adjourn. My gosh. Only two people attended this meeting, Jack and Justin. All those in favor? Aye. All those opposed? Motion carried. Everyone, Jack Chester. Jack Chester.

Jack Chester. I like that rhythm. That's what we're doing at Con Con.