Community Preservation Committee - Regular Meeting

[Music] Um, any comments, corrections? I move that we approve the minutes as drafted with any edits. In discussion, second. I have a motion by a solid motion. I like how you um considered it. for whatever for the August 28th minutes. Have a motion in a second. All those in any discussion, further discussion hearing none. All those in favor? I.

All those opposed? Declare the motion carry unanimously. Let's see. Oh, I'm trying to help. Um, that's hard to pause. Justin made the motion and I got that one. Colleen. Okay. Because some of them she can't hear. So, we're trying real hard to be more clear. And she may I told her to interrupt. Beth is going to interrupt if she can't understand. She if we're talking over each other. Treasures report. Okay. Uh, can I figure out how to share the screen?

So, the way would be HDMI. You need a dongle. I have a Don't ask me to make your copies. I don't know if the I don't know why the TV. I don't know anything about it. I was like, "Do we have anybody in the booth?" I have one too, but I can't show. Yeah, it's in the booth. But how are you remotes in front of buttons? Maybe. Do you know how we turn on the TVs?

I got it right on the press draw. The problem is they're usually it's on when I come in. I can't get them. Can't get them on on though.

There we go. Nice work, everybody.

Okay, so uh I'm just duplicating the display so you can see all the junk on my screen. Okay. So, uh this was a uh there's been several months with no change whatsoever and this month there's big changes and the big changes are because uh the uh fiscal 2025 has been closed and all those estimates we made now are updated to uh match reality. So, we're looking at 2025 right here. And the all the lines in yellow uh are the uh places where the updates are adjusted. So I'm going to go first to these here. Uh I wonder if I can make that a little bigger. Well, maybe not. Well, I hope you can see it. Uh you all had copies of it in the uh package if you want to follow along on there. So the first thing we do is uh we do the uh revenue adjustments and the the orange uh the orange tinted cells are the places where we put the actual numbers into and then it just goes in and and creates the uh uh uh corrections for the from the estimates automatically. So the actual search charge was $715,600 and the estimate by the way was $650,000. So, we went from 650 to 715. That's an increase of $65,000, which shows up right here on line 32. Uh, uh, sale E. It shows $65,000. I'm I'm click kind of clicking on it right here. That's the right there. That's the $65,000, $600 increase because the search charge was bigger. Uh, we had already knew what the actual search uh state match was. It was a little larger

than we had predicted that year. And there's a $8,000 increase that was that's actually been there for 10 months. So that's not new. Uh there was no additional state match. So that's a zero. And then uh the over on the right hand side that's we have the actual interest which was again astounding. Uh we typic we always have been estimating $20,000. This year it was $120,000. Wow.

Or specifically 1119 804. And so that's 90. It's almost $100,000 of uptick based on the actual interest compared with the estimated. So we're at $165,000 ahead already. Then uh there were no pro there were project closeouts but it was only in the reserve accounts. There were there were none in undesated so that's a zero. And then the other was administrative expenses. We always estimate $24,000. And this year the actual expenditures was $7,000. So we have a $16,000 uh uptick for the correction. And so the total uh upticks are like uh from right here are uh oh so that's that. And then the other thing we do is the we have the up on the top we have the budgeted reserve account which is a mechanism that we can use to spend money from the estimated revenue before it comes in. So we we take a guess at what it's going to be. We do some calculations and then we reserve the amount. And uh right up in here you can we took we've taken out uh uh $334,000 we did in the spring and $16,000 from the in the fall from the estimate which was the reserve amount. And so that reduced our reserve amount from the starting $464 down to 114. And at the end of the year on June on the on midnight on June 30th the remainder gets flushed into the undesated fund. So that 14 1147 comes down here and it it it gets subtracted there leaving zero in the account and the 114 comes down here and goes into the undesated fund. And so the undesated fund is 700 is now it ends the

year at $71,000. And just for reference, uh, we've up until this month, we've been carrying $400,000 and now it's $700,000. So it went up almost $300,000 based on uh re, you know, reality uh correcting the estimates budget.

And so that's that's pretty good. uh down here at uh under reserve funds. Uh the only thing we're doing here is that the Baptist church closed. Uh they spent less money than they perhaps they raised more money than they expected in spending the CPC money last. They left 33 $32,700 unspent. And so that rolls rolls back into the historic reserve. So uh then thus we this uh summary of uh 2005 we had a uh a million dollars worth of revenue rolling in. Uh we spent oh and we had a million dollars of new revenue and so and we ended up with $2 million available to begin with. Uh there was bond payments 135 grants a million84 uh7,000 expenses 32,000 in returns and so we ended the year uh with $87,000 on the table in our accounts. So what happens here? Well, the uh ending undesated fund, which is the $71,000, that's going to roll into the starting uh undesated fund for the next fiscal year, which we'll click to that right now. So, I'm going to click tabs. And

what line is 700? Uh it was on uh on the 2025 it was line 20. Okay. No, excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. Line line 39. The reason that there's lines in there is because some are hidden, right? So, it'll be line 39. You can see the 701. You got it circled right there. Okay. That's 42. Okay. 701424. That flips into there. Okay.

That Okay. So, now we're going to switch to 2026. That 701 is now in line 20. That's the the start and that's now uh I think that that's a a good number that's closed. Uh unless someone finds a mistake someplace uh uh in both this model and in the town's budget, the town's accounting bud model u uh that's the number the uh when we we plugged all these things in, it just hit dollar for dollar with what the accounting system has, which was uh uh makes things go a lot faster. So, the $71,000 there. Now, uh we had uh done the budget for for 2026 up in light green. Those numbers were all, you know, from our estimates to be updated at this time next year. And so, we ended up with $565,000 uh in the budgeted reserve and we spent 362. There's 23,000 left. and we did not. So that was the ferry street, the the Fiser Park and the congregational church uh incre increment and that's all we've really done. Oh, that's almost all we've done in the uh non-reserve funds. So in undesated fund, there's our 700,000. We didn't do anything from here in May and uh we have yet to have a grant request for uh October. Uh, but there are $700,000 sitting there un undesated for any Did you use it for anything?

Was there anything in there pre or was it zero? Did it Did it get zeroed out or should it be higher than 701? The the 701 is there and it we didn't use any of it in May and you know we haven't used any of it in October yet. Isn't it? So maybe I misunderstand. Isn't the undesated fund similar to like the historic bucket where it can just grow as well? Yes, it does grow. So was there anything in there be the 701 you just showed came where it came from? So where was it empty and now it only has 71?

No, it wasn't empty. We just had had an estimate in it. We were we had an estimate of $45,000 is and the estimate was corrected or up updated to be $700,000 because $300,000. We didn't spend anything. It's just that the number we were using as an estimate was is now corrected. Yep. I get that. But was the the bucket previously carrying anything from previous years in it? Like the historic bucket would carry things from even more than one year in it? Yes, this bucket carries everything continuously for all time, right? So 701 is the corrected from the estimate of last year.

What about the that So to me that means an empty bucket got the estimate plus the corrected amount to 701. Was there anything in the bucket? So like maybe is it higher I guess is what I'm getting at. No. U it's I agree it's a little confusing but uh this is where all the money goes that's not someplace else. So in the previous year, what was the is I don't know if that's what you're asking. Previous year at the end of fiscal um 24 what was the carryover that carried over

in 2024? I'll just click I just clicked 2024. In 2024 the rema remaining balance was we ended the year we ended 2024 with $640,000. Okay. And then you you know in totally un in unreserved funds. So that got pushed over and that got up to the 701 or that's Yeah. that moved to 2025. Okay. And you know we uh granted from it or didn't grant from it and at the end of 2025 uh the budgeted reserve rolls into it. Okay.

All the revenue unspent revenue rolls into that. And so, uh, we had, so it went from that 640 to, uh, in 2025 it was, uh, 701. Yeah. And in 2026, we don't know yet, right? But the good news is that $700,000 is available for any CPA purpose. Perfect. Which we'll discuss.

And also the budgeted reserve uh, in here we go 20 in 2020. The budgeted reserve adds an additional $200,000 for any purpose. And so if you look on line 40 right here, uh we have $95,000 available for any purpose and it from those two funds. Perfect. And now the reserves are are next. Let me before you move off of that. So the budgeted reserve means we haven't received that money yet,

but we can spend it. So, if let's say we funded $94,469, where does that $23,000 come from to pay those bills? It comes from the budgeted reserve. But it but how do you write it down? We don't want the the money is not there is what I'm saying. That's the magic of the budgeted reserve. It's an it's accounting magic. Well, how do you how do you write to cash that check though? Um, that's uh that's I mean obviously there are other funds within the town budget that Yes. covers that.

Yes, that's true. And it covers it until the money comes in, right? And it typically much more coming money comes in than we put into the fund, right? And like this time it was uh $65,000 more than what we had budgeted. I just it kind of that's the way it works. And uh it was a it was a only in government. It was peculiar to me too when I first learned it. But think of it like a credit card that doesn't give interest unless you're wrong. It's part, you know, this it's kind of written into these uh into this Community Preservation Act that this is the way it's done. Yeah. No, it just it's

it's probably done to incentivize towns from not going. Oh, we don't know if we have the money for that. It's probably put in there to say like, oh, you can go up to this number and we'll cover you until the reserve come in.

Okay. I just would like to cover what we have in reserve. Uh uh the open space uh reserve is uh sitting at 27 say $28,000. uh we paid the PEL farm bond payment out of that. That's one reason why it seems lower than the others. The uh historic reserve is up to $115,000 uh mostly because it received the closeout from the Baptist church to add it to add back into it.

Okay. Uh so the uh we had taken uh the uh one graft in common bond payment uh from that and but we added back in the uh 32,000 from the Baptist church and so that leaves uh uh looks like like u $140,000 of across the the reserves.

So not to jump ahead but to jump ahead. So the 27,000 $28,000. That's an open space reserved. Theoretically, when we get a warrant article for this Providence Road property, will we use that and clear that account out? We could, but we probably won't. And the reason we won't is because there's more than enough money in the undesated fund to do it with just one transfer, one one source. Okay? And it helps it reduces the confusion in the accounting group if you only use one source. Gotcha. Okay. They they you know it won't beg them to make a mistake. Okay. And it's a small amount of money so it's not like a really you're right

in her hand with a whole lot of cash. Okay. Sorry. So uh you know if uh the the if the Providence Road project materializes the undesated fund can cover it. Okay. And that's it. Cover it. Oh it's one more thing I wanted to do. Uh, I wanted to uh show uh this. Oh, the um graph. Yeah, the graph. What happened to that? Oh, there it is. Oh, this graph. Come on.

And then that was I didn't ask that, but I will ask that since you have on here. Um, you did say additional state match. an additional state match. It's that line for when they have a um additional budget. Yes. Where they say, "Okay, we're going to throw you $20 million so that everybody gets an extra." That's right. That's what That's what That's what that line is for. Okay. It's happened a couple of times.

Okay. So, this is the uh all of our uh search search charges, all our uh all our state matches and all our interest. And I guess there's Two things to point out. One is the state match is going down and it's the green it's the height of the green bar which is uh becoming uh less compared to revenue because it's down into the sub20% range. Uh the other remarkable the other notable thing is that the revenues line just seems to be marching up there. The revenue line shown on 2026 is the estimate and so that you know went up $65,000 this year. So it could do similarly next year. And the other thing to note is the uh interest in uh 2024 and 2025 has been really huge. And that's because you know maybe we've got a mill uh we we have a million dollars in ungranted funds and much of the you know we have a number of outstanding grants which haven't been paid out yet. So the cash is still there. So there's a lot of, you know, the principal is high. And the other thing is the I think the interest rates are pretty good for municipal bonds. And so those are the explanations on why the interest is so high. So that's it. Okay. Now I'm done.

Thank you. Move we accept report. Second. Have a motion. Justin and by second Jack I think by Jack. Very good. Okay. Um any discussion hearing? None. That's um great work, a lot of information, and I appreciate I know it's You're welcome. a lot of time and effort. And just also to add that you worked with Justin on some of this as well. Yeah. Justin uh was uh watching carefully when I when we made those updates of the orange cells. Okay.

Yeah. I was gonna mention that as well and thank Ken for for showing it to me live while we he updated it. And I took a recording too so that if something happens I that I can't that I can't get a hold of Canon and if I'm doing this in the future I can look at the recording and see how it was done. Right. And the next the next step will be uh I think after the after the October meeting when we have no more grants to make we can project 2026 and that's uh another thing that we can walk through

other tests for you you know pop quiz hearing no further discussion all those in favor I those opposed declare the motion carried unanimously. publicity update since there is no committee. Oh, that's just me. Did everybody get a handout? Yeah.

Um, so this is based off the feedback I was given and uh that Jack so kindly emailed to me. I use that to kind of just create this where it kind of lets people know what we're working on, where their money's going. Nice little visuals of things that, you know, they might not ordinarily get to see. That the gravestone was hard. I tried my best to get the faces in there, but um I think you got the you got the you got that good feeling of it. Yeah, you got the feeling.

And then going to the town clerk's office and getting those records was pretty cool. And you know, touch and feel all that. And the lift, I got to ride in the lift. That was fun. Um, and then the back is the common which has a ton of CPC projects all in it without having to, you know, you can see the Koopa, you can see all the churches, you can see everything. So, um, and then the the chart of, you know, do you have a project in mind? That's directly from the coalition's website. Even the quote in the middle, that's from the coalition website. So, it's all very um easily digestible, but hopefully gets people excited and interested in maybe thinking about projects for CPA money. And then it's also pretty easy to swap out these pictures as projects change throughout the years. And I can easily change the current projects each time. And um the pie chart I made just by looking at the database on the coalition's website. I typed in all 136 projects we've ever done. Did you really

swear there isn't We have a spreadsheet that shows that. Well, now I do too. So, um mine is a little more rudimentary. It doesn't really account for turnbacks. That's why it's labeled as what town meeting um approved funding. It's not necessarily we actually spent exactly those. You know, as we just saw, the Baptist church returned $32,000. Um so, it's it's close enough for government work, I would say. Um but yeah, this is good. Thank you. Yes. Very good. So, if you guys like it, I can go get more copies made and folded up to bring to town meeting. I just didn't want to do too many in case you guys had uh suggestions. But if there's no suggestions, that works for me. Yeah,

I think it's perfect. I I will move that you do that. I'll second it. Second. have a motion by Jess and a second by I just want to say I think this is extremely good and I think that you did a good enough job displaying not only just in list form what current project we're working on but having photos of a lot of the stuff that we've done recently that the idea of the greatest hits list

it's not that it's necessary when you see right away like this is what we're doing right now it makes it you don't need to anyone anything to like prove that we've done stuff it's all it's you can see it Right. And now that I have this as like a playground comes online, I can swap out the gravestone and put on a playground, you know, and just each each town meeting, make it a new kind of version, hopefully get people excited cuz once Ferry Street is done, that'll be a perfect because you'll you'll see all the stuff. Yep. Yep. I do have one note that is extremely How was the lift, by the way?

It was pretty cool. So you you walk in one door, but then you go up the lift and the doors then like on the other side and it's kind of just neat being in a lift that it's like open and you can um but yeah. No, and John and I went to the dedication and if you look and that was they were real pleased and I was happy. If you look at the doorway to the left, you just see a little bit of a doorway. That's an original doorway. It goes into the meeting hall.

That's cool. And then he the arch the he was like a preservation carpenter who did all this work and he made it look so if that door is shut other than it being a modern door the framing and everything matches because a lot of times people will just put in a shorter door it just they just plug something in and they they did a really good job of of trying to match it and make it look like it had always been long. Yeah. Is that the same guy that's doing the doors? Mhm. Yeah, they're redoing their doors out front apparently. Okay. So, John, I do have one very, very picky thing to change on this.

Okay. Is it a spelling mistake? Cuz almost. Awesome. Almost. Above the gravestone. Ongoing is one word, not two. Oh, does it have to be? Yeah, I can I can change it. Like I said, it's extremely picky. Just 10. Just 10. Colleen, I have I have a comment too. Uh at the end of the current projects, you have the land purchase baseline report. It might be more dramatic if you mentioned the if you instead of that the land purchases, the three uh Silver Lake conservation properties on that we bought from the Robinsons. We bought all three of them. That's pretty significant. But they're not current right now. Uh,

well, one of them like, so you know how I got that list? I just looked at an agenda and I Well, they're pretty they're pretty current. No, that's fair. If you want me to do that, say, yeah, Silver Lake land purchases. Yeah. Okay. Silver Lake land. Oh, yeah. That's good because people know. It's more dramatic. They don't know what a baseline report is. Yeah. But Silver Lake land purchases is dramatic, but we want them to know so they fund it in the future because we'll have more baseline reports. We'll remind you the language we use and language we say. I'm so happy you capitalize town common. People don't always That was one of her.

That was one of the suggestions that I I I forget who said it. I think it might have been Colleen was like, "Oh, well, Evan's got a drone." And I was like, "Get one of those drone photos." Just So that is an Evan drone photo. Yep. Evan bought a drone for the town. Um, so I think he had his own drone and I think the town does have a drone and I don't know which drone took this picture, but I brought the camera. It's pretty cool. Looks like it's up pretty high. Evan's been going all over. It's pretty neat to be able to like look out and just see the town beyond the common. And was no wind and I crashed it about 10 ft off the ground. I'm like, wait, I'm not playing with the drone.

Okay, so I can do ongoing. I'm going to change uh baseline post and anybody else speaking how forever hold you peace cuz I can change things. It's fine. That looks good. You can put made by Colleen on it if you really want to get oh the one thing that we did talk about like on the back say RIV 9 or 10. Oh, all right. Just so you know what a version number something like that. You know, even simply a date would work. October 2025 or something. I'm going to do October 6 cuz that's my birthday. I'll get you a little early. Happy birthday.

Okay. All right. We can do that. 21. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Finally buy alcohol. It's great. Okay. Um, thank you for that. No problem. That's awesome. the CP3 report. We should probably vote on it. I did. We thought we did. There's a motion on the motion. We motion. So, we had discussion. So, we got We have any further discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I.

All those opposed with motion carried. Um, that's the one line I didn't put on there. Vote. I can't think of it all. Um, uh, I got the CP3 report done on September 15th. Nice. 7 am in the morning. Oh jeez. It's due that day.

Um, it wasn't that difficult. And I think look, I I want to everything look backwards how to make the paperwork easier. Just like the application, you know, that to have the application have the information because there's so much stuff that they want that needs to be plugged in that may or may not be on the application in certain places. And sometimes it lets you skip over it. Sometimes it does not. So that way it's all right there. So you don't have to go to three different places. It's all in the application. Perfect. So and all the applications are in the minutes. So thank you. made life real easy in those packet. You you did the packet. You were the one that said, "Do packets." Packets are nice.

So, it's it's all there. I don't have to go chase them before I file. Um on number six, on November 6th, the affordable housing trust was interested in meeting with us. um that so it's not necessarily going to be like a meeting like traditionally like a joint meeting, but they're going to be hosting an event that they're inviting CBC to. They're going to be inviting I think like planning board everybody's getting invited to come attend the event. I have the agenda up here too I can send out to you guys. But they're going to have um

there's going to be introductions. Um MHP is going to be there. They're going to do a summary of affordable housing, what it is, why it's needed, and break down the stigmas, how to get how we got into the housing crisis, and an overview of affordable housing trust, uh what they can do, and things like that. Then there's going to be somebody from Chapa coming out to speak and how to engage locally, get support for affordable housing, um creative housing solutions, and an overview of the lottery process. And then there'll be some Q&A and that'll be it. So, just like a nice informational. Is it intended to be a full hour and a half or 2 hour meeting or do you know

it's intended to start I think we were going to start it at We went back and forth on start time so don't quote me. I think we were going to maybe start it at 6:30 um for like a little bit of mingling and then the speakers start at maybe 7 and but we want to be done by like 8 8 8 to 8:20 like build in a little Q&A but we're out of there by 8:30 kind of a thing.

Okay. because this the it came up. I knew um Amber had asked and then almost at the exact same time Beth said they're getting room A. I said, "Oh, not because I think it's we're going to meet together." So that would be our meeting. It's a different date, but it's like to roll our meeting or into this. Do we want to have a separate I think really long way of saying do we would still meet in November in addition to this. So this is going to be at the community barn. Okay.

As like a like an event, not like a meeting like this. So I would say that one I would love everybody to attend as a tenant of the CPC. It's a good thing to know, but also it's not going to be like a a meeting setting where we can update on projects or, you know, things like that. So, because that's and I'm phoneless. I forgot my phone. Um, what day of the week is this? That is a Thursday. So, that is Thursday. So, that is our regular meeting date. We meet the 4th, but that's Thanksgiving. November, December, December. And so, that was Yeah, we always move for November

as otherwise posted. So, I mean that catches it because that wherever our meeting is except for November and December, which is fair. It's the first Thursday. So, that was kind of that's why I put this in here. Gives us plenty of lead time. Do we want to meet again? Because I was going to say we could meet early, but if that's starting at 6:30, I don't think people are going to want to meet at 6:00 to do minutes or whatever. I don't know that this is going to be following town meeting. If there's going to be a lot of stuff, we're going to have to meet again, which we're going to talk about in a week or so before town meeting. So, personally, I would be okay with having this event count as our November meeting because it is our meeting night. So, is that

I agree with that unless something really big comes up, which typically does not happen in November. Yeah. We'll have December, which can catch. Yeah. And I definitely think we should be posted for it just in case everybody shows up, you know. Right. Well, that's why I mean to me it's like just to treat it like it's treat it like it's meeting a joint meeting even though Yep. we're it's more you're invited to attend that we're helping run the meeting or No, no, no. Right. Right. Yeah. No, I think it's good. Not to throw a wrench in the spokes, but are we meeting in October? Because that's town meeting. So, we usually don't meet in October. So, we're not going to meet really for two months. Go because of the land purchase. We probably will meet before town meeting. We'll get to the So, we'll get November. I jumped ahead on the next. We kind of get November off instead.

Yeah, kind of. So, October would be two meetings, right? This town meeting, this meeting. Yeah. But when would this meeting be the secret meeting that we haven't talked about yet because we're not on the agenda and I don't want to steal that. It's it's um number eight. Number eight. Okay. We'll get there. And that's why it's on there so that we can discuss when do people want to meet because that's not our regular meeting time. Okay. And we do need we we must have an a quorum. Yeah. Because we we have assuming if we meet we will need a quorum because we will need to vote on an application for funding for the providence property. So

perfect. Um, and December is what do you guys usually for December? The first the first Thursday of the month. Perfect. Good. Which actually I have it on my little sheet cheat sheet. It's 12:4. Love that. You guys get the third Thursday of November be the day before my birthday. We need to get a birthday chain going for all of our meetings. So if it's your birthday, you have to provide the food and drink. I'm fine with that. Bring cupcakes. I'll bring you. I was here on my birthday first meeting. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. And you went out and I remember Yeah. Yeah.

The last meeting was mine. It was. And I missed it. I'm sorry. Yeah. Birthday. Yeah. Next year's the big one. The big one. It's next year. 30 plus times two and a half or whatever it is. I don't know. I don't think that's right. I'm going to go with that's probably not right. 2 + 5. How's that? I think 64. There you go. Okay. Um the policy have you I did not draft a policy on that. And that's not a big wow

urgent thing, but just that the the at the last meeting, Colleen brought up

um that she'd be willing to work on a draft because we had talked about we in terms of spending our funds, our available funds that we know we spend no more than 50% of our available local search charge for bonds for bonded programs. so that we always would try to have a conservative um approach to funding projects and we want to have at least 50% of our guaranteed money because we can't guarantee the state money but we can guarantee our match money. Um so that way we have at least half of that available for ongoing projects and then the bonded fund projects would be no more than 50%. And so Colleen said that would probably be a good idea to get that into a formal formal language and yeah adopted a policy to go with that. So no rush on that.

Health must be dropping off pretty soon. What's it got? Less than five years left. Um a couple years. I'd have to look at the war. It's in the every we put them in the war. I know. I've seen it but not recently. It might be two more years. Yeah. Maybe five for the townhouse. Yeah. We just we're just paying 17 out of 20 on PEL on the PEL farm. 17 out of 20 and we're like 12 for and the uh 11 12 the other one was 11 out of 20 on the on the on the comment. So a little more than half.

Okay. So to answer your question that you asked earlier, we will schedule a meeting. I've talked to Evan um that they are working on getting an appraisal. appraisal is due um I believe October 10th

October the 10th which is a Friday and so the week of October the 13th we have that full week to meet to vote to receive the application and to vote and the selectmen will vote have their they don't need to schedule another meeting they will just do it prior to town meeting at town meeting unless something happens really this could get pushed up quicker than that because he said if the appraisal gets in quicker then he will have the information to us quicker but just you know to kind of go on that schedule that it would be the week of um October 13th that we would need to schedule another meeting.

So it's my understanding that the town will offer the amount of the appraisal. Right. But that's by the way that's no guarantee that the buyer will accept it. Right. Yes, because the buyer has named a hugely ridiculous price and I think that's in minutes that we correct that we can't we can't do more than that pay any more than the appraise that that's the state law I guess

and so the uh though the so Evan will be able to go to the buyer and say the town you know can would like to buy it for this much money and no more and they have to decide whether they want it or not. So, can I suggest that we meet on October 16th? That way, if the appraisal comes in all the way at the 10th, that gives town administrator time to to go back and forth to see will you accept the appraisal number. Um, that's the Thursday because the Mondays is uh indigenous people day. So, so that's kind of that's holiday week,

right? So, so that gives at least at least two or three days as buffer to find out are they going to accept it? Do we even need to meet? Maybe they won't accept it and we don't need to vote and it's all done. You know what I mean? That's what I was going to say. If we do it at the end, then if the next day they say, "Nope, we want more." Then we can just say, "Okay, fix this. We don't need So just to give them more time to figure out their uh situation." So I think the 16th would be nice. Does that how does that look with schedules? Do people know for when? October 16. October Thursday, October 16th, which is the is it the second? It's the third Thursday. And the only other thing I just want to double check board meeting that night. Yeah, I was just going to say you inform me.

Yeah, this could be like an all Zoom at like What time is your meeting? 7. We could do it at like 7:30. We could do it at 6. You said at 7:30. Yeah. Ours could be like 6:30 or 6:45. It's going to be quick, right? I mean this is not going to be I mean we can talk about it as much as we want to tonight theoretically to say if we get this uh you know to get a sense of are people in favor of it so that we don't have to have a whole lot of conversation other than to have a formal vote. So John is this the time in the meeting to talk about that? Yes. This is the time. Yes. Okay. So you want to do that on Zoom? I think that would be easier because then everybody can just zip off to their respective meetings because the only item on that agenda item the official vote. Yep. And then

right we don't have to GCTV come on 6:30 6:30 I mean because to me it's it can't be more than 15 minutes to go vote and be done. I mean way to drink folks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good plan. You could zoom at my house. Okay. Perfect. Only question. Are we too late for a town meeting warrant on it? No. No. The warrant they can open and I don't know if it's closed the warrant. They did close the warrant and they worked with council to word it in such a way that they can raise and appropriate the CPA money after a town meeting. Okay. So, it's they've been working very closely with a municipal attorney that

it's not the preferred way to do it. This is not how we're accustomed to doing it. where we typically like to have the dollar amount and where it's coming from and all of that. Um, I was at finance committee last night that kind of came up where some of the members were a little hesitant not knowing which bucket it was going to come from and potentially restrictions that came with that bucket. Um, so because this is just so out of the ordinary, we don't typically do this because of the the time crunch to try to accommodate the sale. Uh, we're doing it slightly different but all allowable. Would we know the amount by that by the 16th? If we were to move by the 16th, we should know the amount. We will definitely know the amount to the of the appraisal, which is the only

the amount of our offer is what I'm No. So So the So this is what happened. The the seller asked for 450 and we we went into a deal with that. But the town legally can't pay more than the appraised value. So whatever it comes back at, they can either take it or leave it. And if they take it, that's the number we vote on. If they leave it, we don't have to even meet. And it seems like they they've already they've done a warrant article for this, correct? Yes, there is a article. It's in the warrant article five. Article five. Yes, there's a large article five discussion last night

and they did ask me to speak and I said, you know, I I didn't feel comfortable representing CBC without an application and Evan was okay with that. I just I I said I'm very confident that the committee was supportive at the last meeting. Didn't we vote? We vote we voted to state our approval and I did a very quick letter of support the morning of the meeting for the selectment. Yeah, this is nobody's preferred way of doing it for sure, but at least you know when there are time constraints, it shows that there are at least we're willing to work to accommodate things. Okay. Uh, I have a comment or so.

Sure. Um, early this spring, the the land trust was taking a look at this property with the idea of purchasing it from themselves. And uh, Land Trust doesn't have a whole lot of money, but they could swing some they could swing something. And so we to we did an investigation of the property and found out it was a very attractive property for public protection.

Mhm. And but it's all it's all wet. The whole thing is wet. It's in the whole thing is in a flood plane except for a some a 40 degree slope from the guardrails on Providence Road down to the flat wetlands. And there's no way to build on that. That's ridiculous. But the buyer had bought it in 2005 thinking he could develop it. Uh uh imagining he could develop it. and he for 2005 which was just before the peak of the the real estate bubble he b he paid too much for it in 2005 and he's held it ever since and he you know is still dreaming that he can uh you know make a profit on it. So, uh, in any case, the land trust also, uh, got a, you know, commission and appraisal by, you know, a professional appraisal company that's good at doing, you know, tough open space properties like that. And the the appraisal came in at $127,000 or $126,000, not the $450 he was asking. And the appraisal looked very good. It was strong. It's supported by, you know, three comparables and it was a very professionally done appraisal and the uh, you know, the land trust took it to the buyer to Unistar and they said no, they they rejected it and so uh, the discussions ceased and then the town came across the idea and picked it up and uh, you know, and we are where we are and so the I would expect that the appraisal is going to come in in that ballpark. Let's hope that two similar appraisals are more persuasive.

Yes, they may persuade. Yeah, he may decide that uh he uh you know that's all he's going to get for it. He can either keep it for another 30 years and not, you know, and nothing or else get the money and make some use of that. Not going to be any less wet. Yeah. Well, there was a very No, it's not. There was a very good quote. the uh comm community advocate did a did a piece on this and there was a good quote from Andy Jefferson and when we were thinking like not pie in the sky but like years down the road if we got this what could be enhanced there and thinking like maybe fields but he he said he went there and he's like no it gets wet it stays wet like

I took Andy and Matt on a tour of that property uh when they first right after their first meeting and I showed showed him the whole thing. Yeah, I would I just like and I think we talked about this last month and we talked about why we'd want to get this. I just like the idea of the open space that the town wants to preserve being in our hands so that if someone were to want to put stuff there and we all know like this is a bad idea, it doesn't go through the trouble of getting all torn up and having stuff brought down there and then they realize, oh wait, we can't actually build anything here. And they believe and now it's all croppy.

They can build recreational structures. Yeah. on, you know, with on stilt stilts and using pole foundations and it's a beautiful beautiful spot right on the river. It's on the canal and so it's it's good for the town to buy that. I think hanging both sides of the river in the Yeah. A lot of space. Okay. The other uh thing that the other part of another part of the conversation Wednesday night at fin was uh you know would it would it what you know what would it be for if it if the CPC is going to pay for it? It has to be for one of the CPC purposes and it's uh you know they can not people who haven't seen it can imagine that it could be used for affordable housing but no way.

True. I don't think I'm saying well I say people who haven't seen it imagine that. Can you legally build on wetlands like that? No. But they could they could put it on stilts on the side of the hill like it's in the Malg Hills of California which would add considerable or not. But anyway, so the uh the town was talking about uh mentioning the concept of restrictions because it has to have a restriction if the CPC purchases it. And it can be restriction can be open space, agriculture, it can be uh affordable housing or historic. And so it's going to have to be one of those. Could it be recreation? Uh, I don't think there's a recreation restriction, but that would come under open space probably

because just because I wouldn't I wouldn't want it to become like just conservation in case they did want to put like a small little field someday for some small sport that doesn't exist yet. The the conservation restriction can be written to provide for that. Okay, cool. And so it would do that and that's the way it would it would cover restrict recreation properties. Okay. Because for the Robinson properties, didn't we say passive recreation? Yes. Uh and so that's that's fine. So the we have always specified the purpose uh to you know so we should probably it should probably specify well the warrant won't specify it. But uh perhaps our vote could

but that's when we um so that's important that you're here then. Yeah. Our vote might be we might be able to specify it in this committee's vote because it needs to have we need to know what kind of restriction it needs to have on it and someone's got to carry the restriction. Someone's got to do a baseline report and so those same things will happen too. baseline report would it say this is what the restriction should be or the they follow what the baseline report says you know it describes the property as it exists and doesn't doesn't have any say anything else so if anyone changes it you have something to go back to

so if if it's going to have a conservation restriction uh and you know it would be nice to pay the organization that has to do that because we the CRS cost money too but those typically haven't been paid for. So I don't know how it's we don't article five doesn't specify that at all so that may be need to be done in the spring to do another baseline you mean? Yeah, it'll need a baseline report and it'll need the conservation restriction to be written up which is quite a document. That's a very good point.

Would the land trust have an idea of what the cost would be to do a cons conservation restriction. I think that it's in the $2,000 range. Yeah. Last baseline on top of the baseline. Yeah. Which is about the same. So maybe that could be backfilled in the spring. just like $5,000 just to be

and also just if there were people who were concerned with just the conservation restriction being on which I'm sure is not many having those open waterways like that be protected is very important for like environmental reasons ecosystem reasons wildlife reasons so if there were was push back like well don't we want to use this for something it's like it's going to be used for something it's just more passive and the restriction would include the future ability to put in a hike bike trail that would be part of the Boston or the Providence conservation restrictions almost all everyone that I've ever been heard of includes all kinds of passive recreation. Okay.

Um but what if we want active recreation? Active in what sense? Like a soccer field? Uh ATVs. Stop giving. No, you know what I mean? So, like I because this is an unconventional way of doing it and we do have town council who has weighed in on this. I think before we try to craft a motion where we're going to create the restriction, I'd like town council to weigh in on this. So, we don't um so we need to know what we're we need to know specifically what we should be voting on. And that's what you're saying.

It would be helpful because we already know it's coming from the undesated fund. So, we don't need to worry about the the the bucket necessarily creating the restriction, but like you're saying, it's something that's a requirement of the project that we should have it like tagged. The act says we got to do it, right? But let's say like, you know, the Ferry Street, you know, park, that's a recreation park. What restrictions on that?

It wasn't a purchase. It wasn't a land purchase. That's the operative. So the so because it's a land so when we buy act like I guess I don't want to limit ourselves I want to keep it as open as possible with the intent of it being um used for either hiking or atving or you know soccer fields and not to say that those things will ever happen. It's been very clearly explained that it might not. I just don't want to completely eliminate it either by accidentally taking a vote where we've eliminated it. Um, so I guess that's I just want that motion to be crafted in a way to achieve what you're going for, but also keeping it as open as possible.

Right. So if what I don't quite understand about this whole process uh is that uh you warrant the warrant article is there and it mentions a number of funding sources with CPA being one of them and but that's it. That's that's as far as it goes. And then we're going to come and make a uh we're going to make to uh approve a grant. Well, that can substitute a motion on the floor. We're going to approve a grant and the but our grants need to be approved by warrants or articles in the town meeting then but article five is that for us this time that's what that's what they've been working with council to do. That's why it's very untraditional and it's and it was explained that this

so that will cover the CPC our grant. Correct. Correct. All right. Um, again, not necessarily the way we want to make a habit of doing it. This is a but that is why they've been working with council, which is why I mentioned maybe we take our motion to just approve the grant if we're going to throw a restriction in. When we make a grant, we usually specify what that grant is in the article. And so, are we going to write a faux article that specific article? No. So when we approve something, we're not approving a a an article. We're approving an application. Correct.

The article, we're doing it backwards. So the article's written, we're just approving the application that created the warrant article. But the Warren article doesn't really say anything except that the CPA might fund it among other among other sources. Yeah. And based on this discussion, it sounds like And so I guess my question is what are we what is the what are the words we're going to vote on exactly because you need to kind of specify a little bit like what it's going to what we're hoping it would be used for.

We'll say 47 more soccer fields whatever. So when I guess I would just go back and look at an old application for a land purchase like when the Robinson property when we voted on that we I would just go look at that motion and things like that and then tweak it to be specific for this one. We never got into all of the highlevel details about rememberction. So we're going to need that or else that meeting will lot be a lot more than 15 minutes. Well, I was

based on this discussion, I was seeing this as two separate warrants as one for this one for this town meeting for just the purchase or accepting the application for them to go purchase it and then another next spring to do the baseline and that stuff.

That's what I call that is correct. purchase just us saying we will take the money to purchase that based on this application because we're going backwards would be this fall and then for the spring once we actually have time to meet together to get with the town and actually talk then we would apply restrictions then we would talk about what the land would be used for but because we're in such a unique odd situation it's like all right can we put restrictions on it at that point does it do the restrictions seem to be clear and that's where checking with town council I think can it be important I'll check tomorrow just to make sure we're doing it the waiting

to make sure that that's included in all their discussions because the the concern is is that we do have to have a restriction that we want to make it I'll say we're we would like to see not necessarily that we voted that it could be used for playing fields that we wanted passive recreation We'd like open space that correct? Yeah. Yeah. We want to we want if we had to if we have to place any sort of and I'll use air quotes restriction on it at this point, we want to work with town council to make it as broad as a restriction can be

because our ideal situation with this unique warrant is you do the two separate ones so that we can actually have the time to talk and decide. But if town council comes back and says no guidelines, laws say you have to apply a restriction, then we'd work on how do we make it as open as we possibly can. I think that if we just specify it uh for use for open space and recreation use in general. Yes. Uh open space and recreation purposes then we we have done I think what we need to do. So but but yeah the the issue the problem I have with this

when we make we write warrants and the warrant is supersedes anything else the words in the warrant if we make a a silly mistake in the warrant that's that's just too bad that's what it is stuck with it and so it's the the actual words in the warrant that are operative not anything we've discussed or said when we when we voted for it

so the warrant has maybe the answer right here it says um to authorize the select board to enter into all agreements necessary to officiate uh said acquisition convey a preservation restriction that meets all the requirements of letters and numbers um and to raise an appropriate borrow transfer the available funds from the community preservation or otherwise provide the sum of money. So it does say to convey a preservation restriction. So I think that's the wording we should use is a preservation restriction. I think that we can stay as close to that as we can. Yeah, that's broad enough without the lawyers lawyered and we don't need to waste lawyers money or time.

My only other question on that basing the articles language that might be a town council thing is that says for the select board to raise I only read part of it. I didn't read the whole article. Okay, just pull up article five and read article five. I Yeah, I'll just say my thought anyway. I'll read it later after this meeting. The says a select board can raise, but it doesn't make any from what I just heard doesn't make any mention of us being able to make an approval on our end. But yeah, I'll read the whole article and if that's solved, I'll that's fine. Is that

so this specific article 5 has been worked over that it is going to meet all of our requirements necessary for us to give the money that is determined if the sale goes forward. Okay, that is all I know for positive is that um Oh, this is this this is the current article five. This is current article five. So, this is what's going to go. So, if there's a couple a lot of ifs, if the appraisal comes back for either 450 or less and the buyer accepts it and we vote to agree to all if all of these conditions are met, then this will go before town meeting and it'll be golden. So this has deleted the need to ask town council. They

we do not need. Yeah. It's has a preservation restriction and that is the language we will use to match the language that they are using and nice and broad. Yes. Good. Okay. Any further discussion on article five? Okay. project updates, town records. So, I haven't heard any more from her. The last I heard from her was in um was it July? So, she's she's working on it. She said she would get back to us after she's um heard back from Green.

I saw her yesterday and she couldn't have been nicer. So, she's left me. She's been very busy with tracking down minutes stuff now, too. She's like, I don't want you to feel pressured. this has been, you know, all of a sudden thrown at you. So,

yeah. No, she has all the information she needs. She said she'd get back with me. So, if I haven't heard from her, you know, by sometime towards the end of next month before our meeting, I'll reach out just to find out where she's at. Okay. Historic gravestones. Um I have uh I reached out to the historical and they have come back and I don't know if they have to have their the committee the historical society decide. Um I did call and leave a message with um somebody at the front desk. They said they pass it to the right person to find out if there are restrictions from Mass Historical on replicating the stone and then bringing the stone inside. But I did talk to Evan and Evan said yes if we you know if there is not a better place for it he can we can find a place in the municipal center for the double portrait stone

stone in the municipal center. I don't love that. But like it's so cool. It's great for the trick-or-treating event. But so because I was working on this and my husband doesn't usually pay a lot of attention to grafting stuff. He's like the average grafting resident, which is a lot of fun for me cuz then I bounce ideas off him. But he looked at that headstone and he goes, "What is that?" And I had to tell him all about it and he found this place in Bellingham. Have you talked to them? So it's called Gravestone Guardians and it's a nonprofit organization that's dedicated to cleaning, repairing, and restoring headstones. And so I figured that would be a pretty cool idea to maybe keep it out of the municipal center. I'm with you.

If uh if you want I can text you the um the website and I just in Bellingham's not that far. At least you're not going all the way to Haritch or wherever you were going. No, that's that's the Cape is done. That's but that's also I've talked to Yeah. Right. Sunshine. So that brought it closer. But so anyway, he he found that based off looking at this. So these are already, you know, killing it. That's awesome. But um yeah, so if you wanted to maybe add that to your gravestone list of things and good job, Justin. Justin B. That's my husband's name. Her husband is Justin.

Yeah. Yep. Um 95 North Street. I don't know. did didn't get any more. But as Justin and I were talking that just driving up and down North Street recently in the last month, you can see that there's been a lot of activity. It really looks like it's getting landscaped and you're got starting to see what looks like a park. Mhm. They put in all sorts of posts. It looks almost like a bridge that they kind of it's over that they have going in. So yeah, they won't let you in to actually see the property, but from the end, they've been doing a lot there. It's moved. I'm excited for it. It's going to be my new walk. I was going to say Paul is the perfect scout for this because it's right near the walk our walk.

Perfect. It'll be a two-mile route for me. Perfect. Good.

Housing authority. We uh the only update I have in terms of amount requests uh we plan on making a request for one of our 667 properties which is uh reserved for elderly individuals. So we plan on making a request from that. Uh we don't we don't have the exact amount right now or at least when I convene with my executive director she didn't have it in front of her. Uh we are our attorneys are currently reviewing the policies we have on the books now for the Jim Gallagher rental assistance program so that we have all of our ducks are in a row when we go to the CPA and say this is what we have. How can we broaden this? So instead of us sending it to them, them saying, "Hey, it's not legal. Here's what we have to change." Giving it back to us, us changing it. Hey, is this okay? We're going to make sure that this is more than just our in-house policy now so that when we go to the CPA with it, it's already all set for them to take it and run. Um, we are at our end of year, we did our annual plan, so we're all just going forward. So going well, we're still we're still running down the exact numbers. Just like I said at last meeting, we have that the figure that's over $12,000, but we don't know if that includes the original 10,000 for the pilot program or if that's all from this 20,000. We kind of doing backwards math to see what number we're at. So, we have it right now in our policy that once it gets down to 5,000, we will I will submit an application to bring it back up to 20,000. So,

thank you. Um Justin, any update from Cisco. Nothing since the last meeting that I'm guessing you gave when I wasn't here. Okay. So, I think and for us until they use mass historical money, it really is not going to be a an issue for us, right? So, and that will take them a while to go through those funds. Um, Congo, I have heard nothing more from them either. They they told us last time we heard from them that they were, you know, not going to be starting again until the spring. Um the only question I have is whether they found somebody to do to do the work. So

I did see Andy at the lift dedication and talked to him briefly about what he Well, and it's still not So I don't have it finalized. I figured once they had it finalized, I would have heard from them. So I'm not surprised. Um, so for the lift, the lift they just about done. I don't know if that last uh I wrote in the thing. It's not done. No, I mean as far as the invoice is being processed and I'll get to pay for it. Okay. Okay. Um, but I don't know if that last invoice I sent was was paid. I haven't heard back. When was that? A week and a half, two weeks ago.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they they takes some away week to pay the invoice, but it got submitted. I just I I think I saw your approval, but usually we see something from him, too, right? Once he's paying them out because No, no. That just All right. It would be nice to know like when the check is going to go out so you can tell. Typically, it's like if it's they're due Thursday, I don't know if it's three or whatever time, Thursday. That's the cut off. And then the checks are cut the next Thursday. So, if you don't make it by Thursday, then it's going to be two weeks. If I probably don't have it by Tuesday, it'll be a whole another week. Okay. For me to get it back for that.

So, it's probably been paid by now or will be this week at least. Fair Street Playground. I don't know any. So, they I've seen pictures of it from people who live nearby. It looks like it's coming along nicely. Um I don't think it's officially opened yet. Wreck is really active online. So, when that I'm sure they'll post um that it's done or that you can go on it. I don't think that that's the case yet, but they are actively installing it. We have two projects going on with 95 North, too. Yeah. Busy busy. And the baseline report

uh it's done. Uh Concom has accepted it. Uh I don't know whether the invoice has been put in or not. It's done. Okay. and she's usually really good about sending bills from Cong. So I'm sure when did they did you guys submit that? Has that bill submit been submitted? Yes, that's I don't know whether whether the land trust has done a submission or not yet. Okay. Okay. But it'll be shortly

so that almost that can come off. Um, affordable housing trust. I'm going to say what we talked about earlier is the update because that's our last meeting was all just geared towards that event getting ready for it. Good. Is it going to be a public thing or just going to public anybody and everybody? It's everybody's invited to come the public. But we really wanted to target people to come. We're going to reach out to other affordable housing trusts in the area too to try to get it. You know, we really want attendance at this um because the having the speakers come out. We don't want them to talk to just me. You said it's at the community burn. That's Yeah. Yeah.

I don't want to get anybody's hopes up. We were looking into beer wine. I don't think it's going to work out, but that's being looked into. CPA project size. Um, I did have a nice conversation actually today with Bri. Um, and this is a new person from Sunshine Sign. Okay. And I talked to her about the signs that we're looking for. One to replace the sign at uh South Captain Elementary that disappeared. The sign for really the on the chain link fence there. Go. Where would that somebody stole it? How would they steal it? It's all it is. It were little clips that were slipped on. Weird thing to steal.

So weird. Yeah. You didn't Did you check with the office to make sure they didn't take it down or that the clips break and it's inside? No. I mean, because I also noticed there's a a pole that says this is for ages. Da da da da da that comes with the playground equipment. And I noticed on the ground that looks like this black round half round thing. Somebody had been beating, you know, vandalizing it and broke off. It was an edging, a black edging off of that sign. No way.

Half of it. So to me, that's, you know, there's not any security lighting. There's no cameras. People are there all the time. They go and they're um baseball, softball fields, and people are there constantly. So you never know who's coming and going. So maybe they ought to put some cameras out there. Yep. So, but I'm gonna meet with her next Thursday. The first time she could meet 4:30 freak out with the camera facing children playing and Lake Wildwood have not heard anything more. So, just getting cars coming out of the parking lot to narrow it down to

motion. I have a motion to adjurnn. I can and a second. I got it. Second. Okay. All those in favor. All those opposed? Good job. Motion carried. Thank you.