Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

is 7 o'clock on Wednesday, April 16th. Um we are meeting this evening for the public hearing for the spring um 25 uh town meeting uh the warrant review by the finance committee. So welcome everyone in the audience that is going to give us an overview of their particular warrant articles goals. Appreciate you all being here. Um for the finance committee this evening we have a quorum small or exact as it may be at the moment. Um so let's do a quick roll call for those of us present. So start with Greg Greg Mah. Victoria Duckworth is here. Kyle Quirk Roger Crier. I like that. I like everybody saying their own names. Don't usually do that. Um, and I believe Dan Kusher might be online later, FYI. Uh, so we'll note when he arrives. Okay. So, I think the very first thing to do here is to open the public hearing. Do I have a motion to do so? Second. All right. Great. All in favor? I. I. I. Any nays? The eyes have it. Great. The public hearing is open. Phenomenal. So, we will follow the agenda as Amber so kindly um read it out for us. So, that starts us with reviewing the warrant articles A would be the board of sewer commissioners. That is reviewing articles 17, 22, and 23. So, Paul, if you'd like to come forward. Just love. I know it's probably the favorite part of your day so far. Not even close. Oh, come on. Humor us. How are you this evening? I'm well. How are you? Excellent. Thank you.

Okay. So, if we're going to start off with article 17, we'll move through our beefy packet. Go to article 17. So, article 17 is the on and m budget that we went over whenever that was. um the finance people in the community changed it to its own article several years ago and since Mary's not here to throw anything at me. So yeah, so that's uh says 2024 article. It does say 2024. Yes. Well, we're starting off strong then. Well, I don't I was looking for a pen. We're on what? 17. 17. You need it. No, I I got this one. Okay. Thank you though. That's why I'm here. Always helpful. I do my dang this. Okay. So, yeah. So, that's the operating budget for the next fiscal year. Beautiful. And we've reviewed that um at great length already. Yep. So, article 22. Article 22. So, there's a sewer pump station at Bethle Drive. that was installed 35 years ago with the intention of it not being there very long. Part of the easements were taken back in 1990 to actually run a gravity sewer line from that location to Elliot Trail and tie into the sewer system on Elliot Trail. Somewhere along the line, there was a dispute with the community and the developer of the Elliot Trail House in Meset neighborhood. So that never happened. So it was built not to the standard even of that day. It was built to be a temporary fix that we've managed

to band-aid together and keep operating for 35 years. And it needs to be replaced now. There's replacement parts are no longer available. The pumps aren't correct for, you know, 1990 there wasn't flushable wipes. So there's constant issues with them because they're not designed for the materials that people put down their toys. So our goal is to fund this with an article that's a fund account that we have from which is really interested the betterments and I wish Mary was here to explain that better but um it's a use of that available funds that we would transfer from that Betterment account to a minus extension account that we already have set up. to hopefully get this done, you know, this calendar year. Makes sense to me. Any questions? Uh, we do have Mary here now. She if there was a better explanation needed for any of that. Well, I understood it perfectly. Okay. Now, Mary wasn't here 35 years ago to see the blunder that we committed at that time. No, it's a Yeah, it's a it's one of the reserve accounts that that are there and on the books and there's funds in it essentially interest over those. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. What how much is I guess maybe I do have a question for Mary. I I changed my mind. How much is in that account in total? 1 point like four million something like that. It's not. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, it's Yeah, we can give you the exact number if you'd like, but it's roughly $1.4 million. Okay. Okie dokie. All good. 23. 23 is kind of a routine account for us. Um, there's a

lot of equipment in the sewer department that we have when it breaks, we have no you have no way of knowing it's going to break. Things are underwater in horrible locations and they eventually do fail. The biggest thing for this one, this is a known there's a disc filter that we use to remove phosphorus and the cloth on that disc filter has a 10-year lifespan and it's been operational since 2016. So that needs to be ordered and replaced this year and it's between $15 and $200,000. The parts unfortunately come from Germany or overseas someplace. So, who knows what they'll cost in the end. So, that's that's where the majority of this funding will go to one filter. Okay. Okay. Seems reasonable to me. Question. I don't have a vote, but I line it reasonable as well. Okay. I think we should have a functional sewer system. Yeah, exactly. As do I. I love me a good phosphorous disc. Yeah. always said it. Can't beat it. Fantastic. Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Paul. All righty. That brings us right to um item B during the public hearing. That's fire department article 24. Chief Matthew, come on down. I got to stay to make sure you don't say anything. So, I'll say something. Yeah, you might have to bail me out. How are you? Excellent. How are you? Good. I'm a little more excited to be here than he was. I extra points for you there. This is a You're setting the bar pretty low on there's a pointsbased system here. You're winning. All right. Congratulations. Please take it away. Sure. So, the uh first article um article 24 is a uh request to

um have our call firefighter time count towards um people's retirement if they move on to full-time departments. Um it's a incentive for people that are currently on the department to seek further training and to get that level. And we've had a few people over the years that have put in considerable amount of time here and then moved on to other places. So it would also help them in their retirement future. So let's be retroactively. So we'll account people's time prior or is it moving forward? Uh prior to uh it would account for uh their prior time served. Great. That's exactly what I was going to ask. Thank you. I I did just want to specify we did talk to PR um and there is no cost to the town for doing this. This is all on the employee to buy in. So that we don't make up our our side of it, right? It's if they move to another department that has I think that's a phenomenal incentive to join in and better themselves. It'll it'll help a little bit, I'm sure. Yeah. No, it's a great initiative and I think it's part of your overall strategy, right, of continuing to improve initiatives that that bring in call firefighters. It's awesome. Move right on. I bet this is delayed by like six seconds, so I already clicked. Oh, okay. Yeah. See, I would have clicked like 10 more times just waiting. Yeah. Um, article 25 is a uh request to um borrow to appropriate um $1.4 million to replace our engine 2, which is a uh 2012 Pierce pumper. Um, basically over the years it was it was purchased to replace a truck that went out of service because of pump

issues. Um, almost an emergency type basis. We had to buy a uh spare truck in order to get us through while this one was built and uh funding was tight at the time. So, it has come to its unfortunate useful life. Um they found out since this product was built that they've become a 10-year truck is what the industry is saying. Um, we're on year 12 and uh the pictures that are up on the board are some of the rot that we found while we were trying to uh kind of update the truck to make it more user friendly. And we found this stuff. And one of the things that we found also was a uh the fuel tank was rotted, which cost us about $18,000 to replace. Um the truck has been out of service on and off over the last couple years with um different pump issues. One of the pictures is the uh the ga the main gauges for the pump where the operator uses to, you know, make sure the right pressures are going in the the lines and all that were stuck in higher numbers than they should have been. So then they're as good at math as I am. So we wanted to be right at starting at zero. Um, so yeah, this is the the hope that we can get this process going because like the other trucks that we've um dealt with in the past, we're up to approximately a 4year um build time from the time of order. Um, and we're at the point now where if we can, you know, we'll give this a little TLC as we go along, but it's um not worth us rehabbing or anything like that just based on what's already going on with it. So that's what I got. So sweet. I think the town will be um very supportive of of ensuring that you've got the equipment that you need. So we're

looking at like FY29 or FY30 before this hits taxpayers, right? Yep. That's an excellent point. Okay. Any questions for the chief? None for me either. All right. Thank you very much. You're free to go. Thank you. Paul thinks we're so mean. Okay, moving right along to item C. Uh it looks like we have one, two, three, four, five, six articles to discuss with the planning board. Um, I see Fiona online and I'll I'll also note that Dan Kosher is online as well. Welcome, Dan. Hi, Fiona. Hello. Hi, Madam Chair. Hi, members of the committee. Um, I'm happy to kind of run through these and explain and then we can go over any questions you may have. Sounds perfect. Okay. So, a lot of the articles that are being proposed for this um Springtown meeting are housekeeping items more than anything. Um, some of them are kind of self-explanatory, but I'll just run through run through them. Um, so the first article is basically to just align um our site plan review um section of our bylaw 1.3 to correctly list all of the components of the site plan. Um, in one of the bullet points it says that there's um there's a only uh a certain number of of requirements D through F, but actually it's D through H. So we've uh just struck that and replaced it with D through H. And also this will align with our waiver requests. Um applicants who

come before the um before the planning board can wave um applying for um certain components of site plan review. And I think that and this is just making sure that we're correctly um outlining all of the different sections um and kind of codifying that accordingly. So it's really it's just two sections of of the bylaw there. Um just making sure that the list is is complete and accurate. So um that is the first um article. The second is we um are aligning our requirements uh for the period of validity for site plan um review and special permits. So uh the any special permit application for the town of Grafton requires a site plan review as well. And we had noticed, you know, in one section it's saying that a site plan is um valid for um a period of 2 years um and substantial use or construction proposed or required by the site plan must um be completed within two years. Whereas a special permit was um the validity of a of a special permit was one year and it was not the uh was it was required to be um commenced. So we're just trying to make sure that the site plan requirements and the special permit requirements are talking to each other. So they both have a period of validity now of one year and the applicant is required to commence construction within one year before having to come back before the planning board and renew. So then the third, so this um um modifications to the uh village uh a neighborhood mixeduse district in section 12 um is basically um so this was kind of an interesting issue that um

myself and the building inspector ran into. Um and it really uh we decide, you know, we kind of decided with the support of the planning board to put this forward because there was some confusion about what um is a an attached single family dwelling and the intention of that type of use in this zoning. Some folks were kind of interpreting it as, you know, duplexes or two families, but the the int, you know, the actual definition is um uh a small foot footprint attached single family residential building with at least three dwelling units in a horizontal layout. So, row houses and town houses are in a horizontal layout. Condos are in a vertical layout. So, um, we just wanted to make, uh, make that specification because we've had some inquiries, um, in some of the VMU districts about, oh, I can build I can, you know, build a, um, you know, a two family as a townhouse, and that's really not the intention of of this this zone zoning and and that use category. Um and also we noticed that there was some con conflicts between one se section of the definitions for an attached um single family dwelling um and uh and the actual like category category um table slash diagram. So we're just um creating a cohesive one single clear definition for um that type of use and we're changing um single family attached to attached single family um dwelling because it just just kind of makes more sense. Um so is is this just this is all clarification. This shouldn't have any changes to to what's allowed or anything. Is that that accurate? Yeah, this this is clarification. It it will um it will slightly change um because we are going you know we are

going to be requiring that there's at least three dwelling units which wasn't very clear. Um in this in the table um in the zoning bylaw um it does say um there's a m maximum of eight units can be attached by a common wall. blah blah blah goes on to kind of specify um that uh that which I just I think you know we want to just make it clear like this is not two family duplex style this is three units plus three to you know three plus so they that's when people do come before the planning board for um I think this is site plan approval only in most VMU districts they will have to have a um they they will have to have at least three dwelling units in um in the proposal. And how often have you been approached for uh two family dwelling two units? Um there's been a few times. We actually had a recent a fairly recent in incident which kind of prompted this um you know request a change um at in South Grafton. So it was um a parcel of land and they wanted to build um you know they can build currently under the bylaw. But what they are um they want to do um several um two family detached structures in kind of in a horizontal like I guess layout but it's really they really need to be kind of connected dwelling units separated by a common wall and have at least three because that really was the intention at the time when the zoning was um created and that is the kind of style and um aesthetic that we are trying to to kind of cultivate in these areas. So, um it hasn't been a lot of instances, but there was one fairly recently. And um there's just been kind of some some

general confusion about um you know um townhouse versus condo versus you know in this specific district. So, we just wanted to make it clearer. Okay. Thank you. And are condos not allowed in this district or is there just different bylaws that govern the condos in this district? They they are they are but um we just want we just when you when applying specifically to a townhouse style we just want to um the town town houses have slightly you know slightly different requirements. Um there's they have to be um uh separated horizontally by a common wall and um if you are doing groups of uh townous/rohouses um the buildings have to be separated by a common drive open space or some type of community. space whereas the condos don't have that level of specificity. Okay, great. Thanks. Okay, so that's that one. And then the next article that we're proposing is is just it's it's a housekeeping item um under chapter 40R um decisions by the permitting authority uh which is the planning board in this instance um is by a it's a simple majority like also known as a majority vote and not a super majority. So, we're just bringing that into compliance with the state law. Okay, great. All righty. Then, uh we have a definition for tool shed. So, this was kind of something else that um myself and the building inspector had been she had been experiencing some um issues with folks of what can constitutes a tool shed. If you can believe it or not, it can be. I think folks were trying to store their cars and um wanted you know the building code has specific requirements for the definition of a tool shed. So this

accomplishes um two things one aligning with the building code and two clarifying that tool sheds are not for vehicles. This reminds me of the tractor trailer definition. Yeah, I do have a a a two cents worth of advice for you. Is vehicles defined anywhere? Yeah. Oh, top of mind. Uh I don't know. because the vehicle a vehicle is fairly broadly described if you look at Black's law dictionary and you might have a problem with what your intent here is to say motorized vehicles or vehicles that might be subject to motor vehicle registration or something like that because you could have carriages, wagons or bicycles are defined as vehicles and you could have somebody raising a stink saying they're putting bicycles in the shed and that's not permitted. Mhm. Yeah. We may Yeah. Yeah. I see your point there. Um we don't define from what I can see um from my quick Yeah. If look vehicles specifically um if you mean to say motor vehicles or something like that that Yeah. you'd be happy with. I had a similar thought with like ATVs or riding lawnmowers. I was thinking riding lawnmowers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that that that that is a good point. Um, okay. Yeah. Golfart Fiona is very anti- lawnmower. Clearly, she she hates a she hates a mode lawn. Yeah, she does. Pollinator spreading rumors about me now. Well, May is coming. Yeah. So, um, let me let me talk to I will talk to the the building inspector,

run that by her, and then we'll we'll go from there. That is a that is a good point because um yeah vehicles can be quite quite broadly defined. So yeah, the intent was motor vehicle uh motor vehicles car and cars. So yeah. Okay. Um okay. And I think is it 34 I believe is your last? Yes, 34 is the last one. So this one is in how it is um a little bit more lengthy but um trying to keep it I'll try and keep it brief. So basically we are modifying the wireless bylaw uh um in our zoning bylaw to align better with um federal requirements uh technological updates in this field um and kind of what we've been what the planning board has been seeing um in terms of applications um kind of just trying to streamline this because um be because we there is a lot of instances where um people are kind of coming before the board and the out and because of the changes at the federal level, they're not always um there's just a little bit of confusion there. So, um you know, our goal really with this is to um define add more current definitions um including a definition for colllocating wireless facilities um and also um memorializing in the definitions what an eligible facilities request is. And this is really kind of the core um piece. So eligible facilities request without getting too um into it is just um it's not it's an application to to um modify a existing wireless communications facility but it doesn't substantially um change the actual facility it itself. So um it's it's kind of considered more what we call you know what the planning board typically would refer to as like a

minor modification really. Um, so we're kind of outlining, trying to clarify that because most of the time we're seeing people coming before us who are just updating equipment, not making any major changes to wireless towers or existing facilities that are on stables or on buildings or what have you. It's just um they're just swapping out um antennas or um ground equipment or things like that. So, um, you know, a lot of this is kind of just like, uh, you know, clarifying language. Um, in regards to that, uh, a little, we did have a just full, um, and what I'll add is we did have a wireless consultant, um, isotrope, who, uh, had been peer reviewing all of our wireless, um, communication facility applications, um, with the planning board. they did a review of this and provided um feedback on uh some of the more technical language. Um so so that was and it was vetted a few times and it had come before the board um in in a series of meetings um last year and into early this year. Um so the kind of main change here and um is the addition of a um new section which is at section 5.8.10 10 modifications. So again, outlining, you know, specifications around submitting an eligible facilities request application, what powers the planning board has versus um, you know, how how it falls under. So sometime, you know, sometimes it's a straight EFR, sometimes it's a little bit more complicated and requires a full special permit. So we just want to make it very clear when that applies. So, you know, folks who are trying to um come before the board understand very clearly from the jump, oh, we're not doing we're not meeting the definition of an EFR. We're

going beyond that. We need to apply for a SP full special permit. And also, um we want to clarify that colllocating new carriers on an existing tower um would not uh would would be a special permit. It would continue to be a special permit um with the board. Um and then uh lastly one one other kind of um specification that I'll provide is we tried to some of the requirements um in terms of you know landscaping and things of that nature were very um complicated and a little bit o um kind of overly descriptive. So, we tried to kind of streamline some of that um you know and and and also um in general kind of clarify submission requirements in g as well. So, um, sorry, kind of hopping around all over the place, but, um, but yeah, so it's just it's really tech tech updates, outlining the permitting process, defining what an EFR is, adding the new modification section to further specify the permitting path, and kind of streamlining stream streamlining submission requirements um, and how the board will evaluate, you know, visual impact um, and, um, yeah, pretty much. So happy to answer any questions. I know that was a lot. So any questions? No questions on that one. Okay. Yeah. Some of the more um very very tech uh detailed uh editions. So I might might be a bit over my head. So So I think that that is the last ones. That is the last one. Mhm. Okay. Thanks, Fiona.

Appreciate your time this evening. No problem at all. Thank you all very much. Always your great explanations. Okay. Um our next topic D is to discuss uh the several articles for the CPC. Hello, gentlemen. Good evening. How are you this evening? Good. How are you? Good. Good to see you. Okay, so it looks like we're starting with article 12. Please take it away. Go ahead. Well, this is the time of the year when the CPC does what it's called what's put together what's known as the CPC budget. And it's uh developed by uh estimating the revenue that's going to come in from the uh searchcharge and the state and and interest based on a essentially a formula that the do recommends. And we do that every year. And so the results of that are is that we come up with a revenue and uh well a total revenue expectation and then we take two uh 10% reserves out of that for the three uh three purposes and we take out the a a a an amount for the administration use. Uh $24,000 is what we pretty much always do. It's well under what is allowed, but it's also well over what the committee actually spends. So at the end of the year, the unspent amount rolls back in. So rolls back to the general fund. It rolls back into the Yeah. into the what we call the undesated fund. The the uh

unencumbered funds. Okay. So it can be for any purpose, right? So, uh, these the the revenue turned out to be, uh, uh, $842,200. And so, that's you see the three 10% reserves. So, uh, subtracting those reserves and the $24,000 from that estimated amount, uh, leaves 565544 and that goes into, uh, a an account called the, uh, the fiscal year budgeted reserve and allows it to be granted throughout the year. And so that is article 12. Beautiful. Question. Well, one thing of note is that the uh the department of revenues estimate for the state match is uh as as low as it's ever been at 15.9% of uh the pri last year's revenue. So, it is what it is. It is what it is. Yeah. Okay. Article 13 is um for the 17th of 20 payments for the Dell farm. Um so we're almost finished uh paying for that and that includes interest um and principal for that. Article 14 is for either we have two bonded projects um PEL farm and then the townhouse and this is um 73,000 for the 11th out of 20 so we're halfway a little more than halfway through u paying for that and that was 1.1 million. Um the pill farm was a little bit more. It was 1.2 million and these are annual. Yep. Okay.

So, is there much a much better interest rate on the PEL farm? That's why the uh one with the lower bond is more expensive. Not exactly. Uh the interest rates on both of them are very attractive, although I couldn't tell you what they are off the top of my head, but the uh it's probably the treasurer that negotiates these bonds. And uh it turns out that they're not level uh level bonds, level payment bonds like we're most cons uh you can do we're most familiar with level principal, right? Level principle, but the interest is all over the map. The interest payment rate is all over the map. And with this one at the end, it got fairly low. Okay? And that's why you see that it's small. But uh typically the the amount we pay each year goes down each year. Okay. Sure. Okay. Same as last year. So article 35 I believe is your next article. That's for um very street. That's pretty much a complete reconstruction and handing cap accessibility for that project. And um we're paying about 300,000. I believe the town is about 100,000. So um there's there two sources of funding. And then they're going to use a lot of I think town employee um work to help keep the costs down on that project. Okay. Any questions? I got a quick question. Thinking way ahead that I'll volunteer to write the blurps for these. This stuff is on there on the website to kind of just peruse a little bit. Say

like the total cost is going to be this and this is this and this like I kind of did with um the project up at the Indian place. I missed the first part. The answer is yes. Yeah, it's Skip's asking if the material for this project's online and all the all the projects um are under a tab somewhere online. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah, they are. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure the granny right here. I'll send it to you tonight. She knows all about No, that's that's fine. I got No, I I done it last time for that. I'm just figuring, okay, if I do this, I'll just take and change the numbers. You know, the people who are doing the project should be patient. I was also that was that was my moment of of quiet was also yes the blurbs the blurbs and um how specific and prescriptive we want to be about you know where and when the money that the CPC has and its you know budget reserves can be spent and why it's being spent on this particular project right there are a lot of questions about well why are we building a playground versus doing x y and z right well that's because legally that's where these funds can go and and that's the next project up. Um, so I we should just be thoughtful about how we want to be very descriptive to the town and the boards about that. Maybe I don't know. We can argue we can argue about that. Um, great. But I have no questions specifically about this particular guy if you don't. Um, team. So on to 36. Um, it's $70,000 which is an additional grant to the congregational church. Um the original grant was approved at town meeting last spring, last May, and the bid that they received did not include work on the steeple. And it turns out there's there are a lot of issues in the

steeple, and that's what this additional funding is for. Okay, fair. The town approved the first piece. The second piece seems pretty natural, right? and they've they've held up moving forward even though they have contracts and have worked with um the contractors because they don't want to get into it and then have to have to stop short. Sure. So, they want to make sure that this is a fully funded project before they start spending money. Yeah, makes sense. Okay. Have they done like additional site research or have they brought people to make sure there's nothing else that needs they um got a lift and I guess that was quite expensive to to do this additional um survey work to make sure that that the work was needed and to to get up there where they because you can't really do scaffolding um to do the um um estimate but they um feel confident that this is a good number, okay, for the additional work that they need to do. And I guess my point was more so about there's nothing else that needs to be done in addition to this that they this also includes there was some the granite in the front that has started to shift, but that's part of the original project. Okay. Okay. But it's it's the same the it's nothing has changed about the project. It's just this is one piece that was not included in the original bid. Okay. Great. And article 37 and that is um an annual um transfer. We transfer the money rather than holding it in our account so that the money is available to the affordable housing trust immediately so that if they have a

project or something that needs the funding, it's available to them um whenever the bill comes due rather than having a special town meeting or waiting six months for another town meeting to approve the funding. And we always have we've done this for almost the lifetime of CPC that we realized that it was certainly the lifetime of the trust. Yeah. To well for for the trust to to get give them access to the funds because it it does them no good for the funds to be in our account if they're the ones that need the the access to the funds. Makes perfect sense. Okay. Any additional questions? Thanks guys. Appreciate it as always. You're good. Okay. And next up are citizens petitions. It's article 38 and 39. And joining us is Miss Colleen Roy. Hello. How are you this evening? Lovely. I'm Article 39. I have no idea what article 38 is. Wow. I'm going to speak to 38. No, don't you Well, would you kindly move over to that chair so we can take you in numerical order? I can if I can leave when I'm done. Yeah, like everybody else. Yeah, I'm just going to get locked up. Take your little placard and leave. Just leave. All right, let me get this set up for Colleen here. All right, so this citizens petition is going to bring a property tax exemption for seniors who qualify. And when I was on the board previously, the select board previously, that was one of the things I heard the most from seniors is how can they get property tax relief? And that's really stuck with me. And this past fall, I attended a town meeting in Hopington and they offer this exemption. They've been offering it for a number of years now. And the way it's written is that each year the select board will select the rate of the

exemption and then every three years it comes back to town meetings. So that's what Hopkin was doing. It was reauthorizing it after providing it for the last three years. um which I really like that feature honestly that there's a lot of um nuance to it that if there's years that we know that there aren't that many people we can maybe offer a higher amount or you know however we we choose to do it and then every three years town meeting can weigh in and say oh I've seen the data now I know I definitely want to keep supporting this or however they feel um this is something that the state has tried to bring forward as well um they haven't quite successfully been able to do that so this guarantees that grafton residents will start seeing the benefits sooner if we can um pass it at town meeting. It then has to get approved at the state level, so it won't be immediately available, but it'll put us on the track to making it available. Things to highlight about the petition. Um I like I already covered, the select board sets the rate annually. Um town meeting will weigh in every 3 years. It's based off a criteria that's currently set by the uh senior circuit breaker income tax credit. So basically, if you qualify for that, you're going to qualify for this. So in Grafton, 348 individuals qualified for the senior circuit breaker in 2022. That's the most recent data from the do and it averaged about a $1,000 credit for the individuals who qualified. So, if you kind of spread that out over the percentages that the select board might be able to apply annually, those are the credits that some of the seniors could that qualify could be looking at receiving. Um, based off the current abatements that are being utilized within Grafton, it's reasonable to assume that there's about 125 households that could probably qualify for this in Grafton. If all 125 households qualified, applied, and it went into full utilization the first year, those are the dollar amounts we'd be looking at offsetting in the in the tax levy. And what would that mean for each

individual? For the average homeowner, which is about 625,000 in Grafton, based off the exemptions, the rate change would be between 1 and6. So the dollar amount would be anywhere between, you know, $6 and $37 depending on the percentage that the select board set. So if let's just say 100% it'd be about $18 a year. The rest of us would have to pay so that 125 senior households receive an exemption. So that's that's pretty incredible to think about it that way. It's more likely than not it'll be a far lower number. I don't really for No, it's okay. I really don't foresee 125 households applying in the first year and receiving the credit, but it's good to know that number anyway. Uh, for example, in Hopkin, the first year they did it, it was 19 households, the second year was 16 households, and the the most recent year was 24 households. Just to put it in perspective, we're talking about 125 households when we're looking at these numbers. Um, and that's all I have. Any idea how many households Hopkin has that might have been eligible? I do not know that number. No. And what's the credit that they could get their full multitask? If we go back a couple slides, yeah, I I was looking at this one. Right. So, the potential exemption and these are based off the 2022 do numbers. This has the ability to change. Okay. But based off the 2022 numbers, that was the exemption that they would have received had we been doing this. So, is it the same for everybody or is that like an average circuit breaker? The $1,000 is an average of the circuit breaker people received in 2022. And then we use that number to build these numbers out to give people a sense, right, of what what we're looking at here. Are you planning on presenting this at town meeting as part of Okay. Absolutely. Yep.

How does this dovetail with the kind of work off your tax? Yes. So, I did have a a conversation with the assessor based on that. You would still be able to get those other exemptions. It wouldn't disqualify you. This is really just based on your eligibility for the senior circuit breaker tax credit. So, um yeah, I mean just want to make sure somebody doesn't kind of shoot themselves in the foot. Nope. This won't going for one and losing the other one, right? This doesn't like impact your assets or your your you know your your eligibility for any of the other programs. Um one question at the end of CH uh section three it says the amount should be allocated proportionally within the tax levy on residential taxpayers and the end of section five it's a burden shift within the residential tax levy. Does that mean it only applies to residential and not commercial? Yes. And it it's done on a form called the LA5. Um so when we're doing our reporting to do and we're setting our tax rate, you essentially take the number of exemption that would be given under this, you put it on the uh distribute the burden line of the L5 and it calculates it out. So um yes, that's the answer. Okay. So is that is it a requirement that it be residential or was that a choice? Um I believe it's a choice. Okay. And I chose to do it that way because that's exactly how Hoppington used their language and it passed at the state and I wanted to make sure that it passed here in Grafton as well. Okay. Did they did they use general laws or did they put Massachusetts general laws? This is the exact language that they they did. Okay. Minus I swapped out Grafton for I I don't see there being a whole lot of difference since we're 928 anyway. So correct. Yep. the impact is not uh as negligible and it's really great when we're talking about overrides in the future. We can know that we're creating

another opportunity to provide relief for some of our vulnerable seniors. So Oh, does that mean we would now have a split tax rate? No. Okay. No, I don't I don't think we No, because you'd be you'd be it's just the same as you're working off part of it. Well, because because it gets reallocated to it's it would apply to residential and not commercial. So there would be a slight, right? But then so I'm thinking about it from the way that you fill out the forms for do for setting the tax rate and it comes after. So okay, everything before that impacts your split. Everything after does not. Okay, that's so the tax rate is the same, but the this would be like additional stuff like the CPC goes on afterwards because it right and it those other impacts like so so abatements they hit the overlay account, right, which we have to kind of juggle juggle. This does not. This is just taking the the portion of the residential burden and shifting it within that that uh document. Right. Okay. It's the same pie. The pieces are just changing. Yeah. Very very slightly for all of us but significantly for those who are receiving it who are the most impacted potentially. This is a great idea. Thank you. Can you talk about I guess why a 150% or 200% exemption would be necessary or like what that would do. I guess I could get it up to 100% but then of the circuit breaker amount, right? Not of their tax of their circuit breaker. Okay. You can't legally we we we could in theory let's say the select board said we want to do 200%. 200% of the 107 or one thousand dollar is two 2,000

bucks, right? Let's say the senior did all these other exemptions and they only owed 1,500 bucks. You can't go negative on we don't owe we don't cut you a check. We don't owe you money, right? Um but it's not so it's not over your property tax bill. You could in theory get 100% off your property tax bill by doing a myriad of other exemptions. Mhm. Um but given the average tax bill in Grafton is $8,700, it's unlikely that even with all of those things and 200% that you would ever get to zero. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. I I did run some our Yeah, our due diligence in the background. Um and I do have um some other documentation if anybody wants to see it just to explain it. I I did have the same reaction looking at this slide and say the exemption being 200%. So I wonder if updating this to to pull it point out that is explicitly of the circuit breaker 200% of circuit breaker and not 200% of taxes. We make that a little bit clearer. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, you got it. Okay, are we good? I think so. All right, we'll have a lovely night. You as well. The the first person who's not going to immediately leave. Thanks, Colleen. All right. So, we will go back a number and look at 38. I think we're going to be passing over 38. We are passing over 38. Yep. Just kidding. Did you say that? Did I not hear that? No. No. I just said it right now for the first time. Okay. I believe it was said in the article. Not tonight. Yeah. And I will explain that when we do the select board section. Article 27

27 and 28. Excellent. So next is ah that's the Nelson Park and Memorial Trustees article five. They're not coming. It's all This is only putting somebody who wishes to serve as a trustee on the warrant to be elected or not elected to the position. It must the town vote to appoint trustees? Yes. Yes. This particular one always. Yes. This is an oddity, but you are elected at a town meeting. Fascinating. Yeah. All right. Good for Mr. William. All right. I have no questions. Yeah. How do you like that? I believe we elected someone at this table that way last year. Wow. With my memory of a goldfish. Apologies. Uhoh. No disrespect to those present. All right, moving on. G. Board of Assessors 10 and 11. Uh, looks like I will speak to the board of assessors. Hey, thanks. So these are clause that clauses that you need to clause quasi clause uh that need to be accepted every two years. Uh one is a um tax exemption that is for people in the Massachusetts National Guard who um are reser or serving on active duty in the United States. We've done this a number of times. Um, and then we've got uh one that is geared towards um certain blind persons, veteran, surviving spouses, and seniors. Um, and this is another one that we've done every uh two years for quite a long time. I would like to point

out that uh master law 59 section five, which is article 10, was amended under the Heroes Act that was passed last year. So, this will be the last time we have to reauthorize it. They got rid of the two-year reauthorization, which is fantastic. Um, but we do have to reauthorize it just one last time for article 11. I notice it does not say effective for two fiscal years. Is that something that needs to be there? No, it's the same language we've used for Okay. A decade. I just noticed the difference because 10 said it and 11 didn't. Right. Right. Do so participation wise, do we have any idea how what's Yes, it's on my desk. Oh, okay. It's a printed document. I did ask for it. Oh. Um not for this though, ironically. It was to try to figure out the citizens petition full amount uh of exemptions that we give. So, um I can certainly give you that information. It is it is low. Yeah. I just I had no idea, you know, not a striking number. I remember talking about this in the past and saying, "Geez, I wonder how many people actually Yeah. this helps or whatever you want to call it." Yeah. Or affects or maybe when we get to finance director, if Mary speaks to that, I will run to my office and get it for you. Crickets. Okay. Yeah. I'm not Mary's already fallen asleep. It's concerning. Um Okay. Okay, I think that's all for the board of assessment. Uh, that is correct. No additional questions. Same as last two years. Um, H cable oversight committee. That's article 18. I have This is a lot of you. Yes, I know. A little too much. You might say, oh, I would never say that. Um, cable over It's actually cable advisory committee that uh did not make

it through the typo. That's right. List this year. Um, it was an oversight. It was an oversight. Well done. Well done. Um, so Cable, that is just the budget that we've already presented and discussed. The $44,500. Yep. Great. Y Why is that is this Maybe I'm going to ask a dumb question. Why is that not part of a consent agenda? Um, well, we're always a little touchy on funding and and mechanisms. It seems like it's like CPC the we already have a bond. You can't really say no to the bond. That seems like a consent agenda. And this one seems like someone might want to talk about it. I don't know. Just kind of a transparency thing. Okay. Yeah. This is this is the first time we've gotten the the two bond payments in the consent agenda. So they've been pretty much been much uh lower ones. Fair enough. Okay. And then that leads us leads us to 19 and 20 the um Blackstone Valley School articles. Um we had Dr. Fitzpatrick join us our last meeting and we had the opportunity to ask questions about these two. Then does anybody have any questions about Blackstone Valley Tech articles? No. So with 20 they just want to create a stabilization account for us to contribute to on an annual basis. Believe that is what they described. Yes. But this is so this is creating the stabilization account but this is not in this warrant asking us to contribute

anything. So this is like step one open the account. Yeah because we approved funding last year through for a debt exclusion for the roof work but they haven't started that yet. I believe they were saying that the money for that would go into this stabilization account. I'm not right. No, that was that was the gist I got as well. Um, which and I'm not advocating for it, but it does make sense. I mean, that's why we have a stabilization account. Yeah. Can shift money over there. It still requires a vote to pull money out of the stabilization account. So, it's not like it's a revolving account or anything like that. We had talked when they came up with whatever we just finished paying the $106,000 Yeah. job for of creating a stabilization account and putting money into it to pay for that work. Y and I think we got slapped and told we couldn't do it. My understanding of it, and I could be off base on this, Skip. My understanding is that uh a bunch of other communities didn't support it. There was a there was a fact stabilization when they tried to do this in the in the past. What? So it it wasn't so much them. It was it was more us just to level out what we were doing because we could have said, "Okay, we're going to do $70,000 from now until whenever and then we would always have the money to pay whatever they assessed and we wouldn't have this going on which is right kind of happened at the beginning." So it's like it's a stabilization account kind of like for the same thing. Yeah. Yeah, there there's BVT has a no, not gonna say it that way. There are towns that are very tough to for BBT to operate in and get things through boards that I've

noticed. I I'm part of a TA group that deals with and some towns are very anti-BVT. Um, we don't really have that here. um not to the degree that some of these other towns have, but um so I don't even know if that's going to pass through all the the towns that it's need to have it to be Were you Were you talking about a stabilization for the operating expenses that vary from year to year? No, it was for the it was for the debt exclusion or something that we had. It was and I thought that was a fairly that was either 10 or 20 years ago whatever whenever that came up because they had gone out and hadn't even bonded the project and we started paying some money. I said all right fine why don't we just take and put it the money into a stabilization account and pay them yearly so that we know what it's going to be now we could have it until they finished their work. And for some reason, this was from a long time ago, they said, "No, you can't have a stabilization account for Blackstone Valley." So, we didn't do it. I think what Skip was saying about the varying amounts is that as a bond rolls off, then you get another bond. And whereas if we were in a down year and you said we were paying 70 grand a year, you could still put 70 in there and then that would help even out the rest. Yeah, I was just think I thought the uh the uh debt exclusion exemp the assessment was fairly constant year to year, but it also depends on what bond they wind up going with whether they go for level principal or like the CPC. So there there's a there's a scenario where it's not. Okay. But um yeah, and that that's what happened at the beginning of that. It was kind of unfavorable to us and kind of up in the air. We kind of wanted to do that but didn't.

Okay. Um, if we think of any additional questions, I'm sure Dr. Fitzpatrick would be happy to address them via email as well. Um, so let's move on. Uh, the select board. Yes. So, I'm going to run through here. 21 21 is where they start. Yep. Yes, sir. Thank you so much. And then 26. Thank you so much again. Um so 21 is to set a or establish a waste municipal solid waste enterprise fund which we discussed at length at the hearing. Happy to go into more detail if anybody needs it. This is just establishing no funding or anything because that won't take effect until next year. Correct. Once we've worked out the nuances of the plan and all of the rest. Okay. Um, article 26 is to um petition the general court to create a home rule petition to um ban the use of ascars which are second sec second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides. Um so these are rodenticides as I understand it that are predominantly or only used by licensed uh pest management companies. These are not like your small bait traps that you may buy um in in the coupeman's or whatever. Um so what this does is allows us to ban it for that commercial user. Um we have just switched to all non-escars for the town. Um because we did this as a town policy first um so it didn't impact residential users. um fairly non-invasive process and only marginally more expensive. So, select board decided to uh support it. My main question is why this is a

petition to the general court repres. Yep. Um so we reached out to town council who said that it has to be done this way because the state has um regulations in place and this goes beyond where their regulation stops uh essentially. And so uh we need to petition the court to be able to do more than the general law allows. And so that's not something that would be covered in a attorney general review after a bylaw. It is not. Okay. No, that was one of our first questions as well. Okay. Article 27. This is to uh accept the road utilities and easements as at High Point and Pepper Bush Court. Um so this has gone through the planning board. It's gone through the select board. They've approved uh it being on this. This is the replacement for article 38. So article 38 was written in such a way that it would be non-actionable by town meeting. And as it is a citizen's petition, we have a couple of options. But we chose to take the option where we didn't send it back to the um petitioner and say you need to now go out and do this all over again. Since the board was in favor of us taking it under the subdivision rules and regulation process anyways, we'll just write the warrant article as it should be and put it on there. So that's what we did. That's very nice. Um, do we know the state of those roads? Yes. So, they've all been accepted. They've been peer reviewed, uh, accepted through the planning board process. They're up to standards. They've got the proper storm water, so on and so forth. Okay. Yep. That's part of the that actually the you petition the select board. The select board then sends it to planning board. Planning board reviews it, sends it back to select board. Select board then puts its on the

warrant. Um so you know a partridge and a pear tree, right? Yeah. Not not complicated at all. Um article 28 is to take the open space associated with that development uh for the purposes of conservation. Um this may or may not survive town meeting. There is a structure on the property was uh what I believe was a uh blacksmith's shop way back. Um it sits over uh a brook that is right there and it has since collapsed into the brook. Um at the select board meeting where we decided to put these on to the warrant, the uh applicant said that they did not do it because of the conservation uh hurdles that they'd have to go through and the cost associated with that. Um I've met with conservation uh and it's really just what's called an RDA process. Um, so, uh, we are working with the applicant to try to reach some kind of an agreement either, uh, by way of funds or by way of um, removal of that structure. So, as we get closer to town meeting, we will let you know um, where we stand. We're currently working on that issue, but I I would not recommend the town meeting uh as a town administrator to take the property with that uh unless we have some kind of a mechanism in place to remove it. So the town can't accept can't say I will accept it conditional upon anything like that. Perhaps. But I it has to be a really I would be I would be uh it would be hard to convince me to do that unless we had some kind of an escrow account, okay, set up uh in case it does not get removed because it seems like it's been

a real long time that it hasn't been removed, right? And um while conservation can be a tough process, it's not like a 20-year tough process. So what is the effect of us not accepting this grant at this point? Well, there's a couple of theories on that. So one is that they would have to go through the work and then bring it back to town meeting. The other, and I think this is the where the risk lies, um, is that they could just stop paying the taxes on it and not come back. Um, we do have a few times that, so I don't want to pretend like that's that's not an option. Um it does seem as the municipality there's there's uh uh you know very little uh chance that we don't have some kind of stake in in this whether they walk away from it, stop paying it. Um so we're we are trying to work out something. I think best case scenario in my opinion is that we get some kind of funding in in escrow that we can then use and do this our ourselves. So, was this grant in exchange for something else as part of the project or are they just granting the land? This is this is what the subdivisions do on a fairly regular basis, which is all the land that they can't use to put a house on, they then gift to the town as as open space. Um, which, you know, in some cases works out to be very nice. There is a big chunk here in the middle of the property that is open space that the residents can use and there is some very walkable lands around the edges. Um but there's also a blacksmith mill sunk into a river in the middle of it. Yeah. Right at the entrance. Actually, if you go up there from Adams to High Point, it's right on the far side there. So the plus side if we accept this is we get more open space. The downside is it's off the tax rules. Yep. If if yes, so

not to be a cynic, but if you believed that a developer, and I'm not talking about this developer specifically, but a developer would be inclined to pay taxes on unusable land for ever. I don't think that that's a likely scenario either. I think they'll find some way to to offload that property or yeah, just not pay taxes on it. And I do want to be clear saying nothing about this particular developer. are just saying that in towns throughout the Commonwealth that has happened. I'm just looking what what are the benefits to us of not of accepting it? What are the the benefits of not of accepting it? Of not accepting it, right? Postponing it to another town meeting. Yeah. That kind of Yep. So, I'm hopeful that we reach resolution before we get to this town meeting and can advise town meeting one way or the other either to pass over it um vote no or vote yes because we have this other deal in place. So, I imagine this is one on which we would not want to take a position at this point. You are correct. Yes. Okay. Okay. And so if we have no other questions on item J, that brings us to item K for the finance director articles one, two, and three. And Mary, you are online. Hi everyone. Hello Mary. How are you? Good. How are you? So good. Sorry about the video. I can't My computer won't let me put the video on unless I start restart the whole computer. So no worries. We can picture your beautiful face. Oh, thank you. Okay, so this is just real quick. Um, article one that is to replenish the the capital account for the fire department. Um, this is to pay our on call firefighters when they retire. Um, our

balance in the account right now is 6,800. Um, article two, the the 300,000 um will fund our new OPED funding policy um that we discussed back in early January, February. And article three, I'm I'm planning on using um some free cash uh for our snow and ice. Uh, and our current deficit is $237,500. Will you say that number one more time, please? 2375. Yes. And what is our uh free cash before we get to this point or estimated anyways? Oh, I have that. Let me It might be in that email you sent me. Yes, it's all in the state of the message. Um yes, so free cash um it was certified at $4,965,846. Um, we utilized 550,000 for the school roof repairs and um and then we'll utilize, you know, what I've just gone over um the snow, the OPED, the fire capital, and then we will transfer Oh, I forgot about the 600,000 um yeah to plug in for the budget and then the um remainder of the capital um plan is about 1.6 million. Yeah. So, we're we're dipping into free cash this year.

So, it looks like about 3 million probably. Yeah. Is that that's what you you sent me? That's what's in the state of the town message, I think. I don't know where that went. I had that. Okay, there's it's actually the part that I have highlighted because I wanted to make sure that all of those numbers were right. We I mean, we can talk about it in the next, but yeah. Well, I'm also stalling because Evan's not back yet. Well, fair. All right. So, the number that what was the number that you said at the top of that, Mary? It was the 4,965,846. Yes. Okay. So, and we're using 20 2,562 this evening plus we used 550,000 school for the school roof. So, yeah. We we'll be around 2 million afterwards. So you said three was just snow and ice at this point. Yes. I will have our annual um joint meeting with finance and select board um to do some interfund transfers. Um there's a lot of um capital accounts um that I'm going to transfer for the school um for their PA system. um we put in the capital plan um some PA systems and uh they realized a few of them weren't needed. So, we're going to just reallocate that money. Um and there's a few other capital deficits

that um you know, we'll do some transfers for. Um and that's really all I anticipate. Maybe some other small transfers. You know, I'm monitoring my salary accounts and expense accounts right now. So, okay. Okay. Really straightforward. Any other questions for Mary? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. Well, thank you. Back in the nick of time, Evan, I know we didn't have to stall at all. I was in the hallway listening. I'm not going to go back in there any earlier than I have to. Everyone thinks we're so mean. He's mumbling. He's going to need a ride home tonight. Yeah, exactly. Would you Okay, please. Let me Let me talk to you about some exemptions here. So, I'd love to hear the exemptions. The 17D exe clause 17D of the Mass General laws, that's surviving spouses, minors, or persons over 70 years of of age. There's 19 of them. Total dollars, 10,000. The veterans exemptions, uh, those are veterans and surviving spouses. That's called 22C. have one of those 22D surviving spouses and 22E veterans and surviving spouses. There's a difference between the two and I don't know exactly what it is off the top of my head. Um that is 33. Um we also have uh 41 C exemptions which is just the elderly uh exemption that we had talked about. That's 12

persons. There's also a category and this is the assessor's category that is um sorry check. So all of your veterans exemptions all told is 67 of every various category that we have. We have a total abated dollar amount in fiscal 25 of $177,94. Does that include the 10,000 from 17D? Yes. Okay. I can I can get you a a copy. No, I'm just thinking of just you know just whatever we write in the thing to so if it's a total and it's 67 people under the various assorted and the sunundry programs. Yeah. Yeah. So all told, if you took every exemption that we have on the books and we give, it's 138 people or households, excuse me. Sorry, not people, households. But not all of those exemptions are cross-co compatible with the senior credit. Just to be clear, because we gave the Colleen had given the 125 number before. So 138 households for a total of 177904. Correct. Okay. So that's the under articles 10 and 11. That's the combined total. Yeah. Okay. As found on the MDM-1. I'm hearing you uh volunteering for so many blurs. Well, no, it Thank you so much. It's easy. I love that. I'm just trying to be think, you know, proactive. No, I very much so appreciate

it. Okay. So, um then Evan, back to you. Yeah. For the rest of the word articles for happy to be here. Happy to do it. Thank you. Yes. Uh so to hear reports of several town officers, boards, and committees, that's a standard standing item that is on every town meeting. Um, we have as part of our consent agenda to accept the chapter 90 money. That's article six. You should always say yes to accepting the money. Article seven um is to sell surplus authoriz to sell surplus items. Uh just stop me if you've got any anything at any point. We do this every year. Yep. It's in the consent agenda. It's all pretty pretty standard fair. Um article if we have questions we'll just yell hold. That's right. Um article 8 is um our revolving accounts that we have established. I do not believe we have any changes as far as the number of accounts that we have on that list. There is one coming up later. There was a question whether it would make it into that article or not. It that has been removed. Okay. um that there was one for the fire department. There is a there is a hitch in whether or not it is a fee or a reimbursement and whether or not it's eligible. So, we have Mary uh very astutely created a one-year kind of workaround as we work through the rest of it or a forever workaround, I guess, if it had to be. Um the idea is to recoup or charge the state for our service on the Mass Pike. So the chief um Chief Matthews uh much to to I think he should get very good credit for this determined that

there are towns in the Commonwealth that have been receiving money to respond to the mass pike pretty much since its inception. Grafton was not one of them. What? Um, yeah, there's we used to get money. We we haven't gotten it for decades. Well, that's I remember going out. So, I think that it changed when the turnpike authority ceased to exist and we went to Masdot. I believe that's when the that sounds right the thing happened. So, there's a whole bunch of communities along the pike that respond to the bike that were not receiving um funds for that work. Um and so um we are now going to be one of the communities that does as as is a whole bunch of communities. The chiefs all got together and determined uh that it was unfair. Um including chiefs that do receive it. We're like you don't have this agreement. Yeah. That I think that's what happened is the word got around is oh we still got that money from the state. So chief did a a really good job on that. Yeah. And so what we were trying to do is create a revolving account where that money could go right from their response on the pike to their account that they could use to fund safety or equipment or anything else they need to do that work on the pike. Seems like a fair way to to look at that. Um but we're having a little uh legal hiccup with the uh how to how to create that. So, we are still going to make sure that they're they're getting those funds, but we're going to uh probably take another bite at the apple later. What's the rate look like? It's not a lot, be honest with you. We do think we we're out there and I wish the chief was here because I I can't give justice to the call volume. They're out there a lot. Oh, yeah. And um so the chief I and Mary correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the chief said that maybe on their highest volume years they might see close to $30,000.

Yeah. Which yes, that's what the chief told me. Okay. which sounds like a lot of money, but if you ever go and stand on the side of the turnpike, that's not even close to enough money to get me to stand out there and try to get people to go around an accident that you're working. And the amount of That's where our highest rate of fatalss is, I believe, as well. Yeah. So, you know, it's a pretty big impact. Not a pretty big It's a big impact for the for the men and women that are doing that work. Um, so we Mary and I and and the chief obviously would like to just see that go to to them. Um, sure. You know, for whatever purpose they determine that, you know, uh, it's necessary for for that work. Anyways, not to digress too far. Um, article nine is our standard fair re uh requesting funding of transportation services from WRTA. Um, article I think we're over to 15 now. This is the omnibus. Nothing has changed since I was last here and we discussed correct Mary. We didn't do we I just want to Yeah. I'm sorry. What was that? We didn't change the omnibus since I last was before. No. Okay. Um Okay. So, article 16, I'm going to have to amend. We had a lot of confusion that cropped up in the last couple of days about the leases for the firet trucks. Um, the documentation that I had on the original town meetings that I did when I got here um stated that the last payment of the last truck we bought would be fiscal 25. Um, after a lot of digging and a lot of review, um, and and talking to the leasing companies, that was not correct

information. So, I added, um, both of the firetruck leases that we had on the books to the warrant. Um, and I should have only done that for engine three and not engine five. So, in the warrant, it shows engine three and engine five. Um on the excuse me on the um sheet that I've just handed out engine five has been removed. That's the only difference um between the two. That's the the $98,000. Correct. Yes, sir. Um so yeah, that's that's uh I unfortunate a lot of confusion there for Well, that's coming out of free cash. Nothing. Yep. It's just coming out of free cash and that is the final year of that truck. Um, and that is the last payment will be made on March 15, 2026. So, any questions on that? Hate to see it. Very frustrated this morning. Sorry. Um, okay. Moving right along here. I think that's it. That's it. Okay, good. I think we're good. Any additional questions from the public? No. If not, I believe we can close the public hearing. So moved. Second. Um, okay. Because Dan is online, we will take a roll call vote. Greg, I says I. Kyle, I. Nick, hi. Skip. Hi. Dan I that motion carries six to zero. The public hearing has been

closed. Okay. So let's go through and um determine our recommendations for each of the articles. Can we do a single vote to recommend all but that one article that we don't want to take a position on? I hear a motion to approve all of those articles except that one that we except for article 28. Article 28 and oh and 38 which is being passed. I move that we vote to recommend passage of all articles except for 28 and 38 as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve all articles except for articles 28 and 38 as 39 too, right? Because you don't take a position on citizen. Me too. We do. Yep. I don't. We do. Oh, we we we recommend we have to take a position on every article. That's our job to recommend to the town meeting. I think believe not my job. I believe there was one previously where we did not take a position on and reserve the right not to take a position on. Yeah, I believe it was a choice. Yes, a strategic choice we did not take a position on that position. Any further discussion on the motion? I do have an item of discussion. I would say that we should not be um supporting article 33 as written, which is the one with fixing the vehicle. M because okay accepting that I would be steadfastly against that. I would accept a friendly amendment to remove article 33 from that motion. So moved. Excellent. Second and seconded. All

right. So the amitted motion is to approve all articles as written except for articles 28 33 and 38. Any additional discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Greg I. Victoria says I. Kyle. I. Nick. Hi. Skip. I. Dan. Hi. And that motion passes six to nothing. Thank you. So I recommend that uh finance committee recommend passing over article 38. Second. Uh okay. Just one question there. when we just we aren't passing it over. Are we recommending that town meeting pass over or we not supporting it because we think that it's going to be passed over at the town meeting? Our recommendation is that the town pass over? I again I'm not on the committee, but I do believe that's consistent with what you've done in years past. Okay. Okay. We have a motion to recommend that the town pass over article 38. Do we hear a second? Yeah. Second. Okay, great. Any further discussion? Seeing none, a roll call vote. Um, Greg I. Victoria says I. Kyle, I. Nick, I. Skip I. Dan, I. That motion passes six to zero. Um, do I hear a motion on our uh recommendation for article 33, shall we say, to be Uh, do we need to make that right now or we just need Fiona to come back to us with it? Well, we can start. So, we could say no now subject to changing that. Yeah, that makes sense. And we could either do that at the preparation meeting or at the town meeting before the, you know, if they finally developed their wording that seems something that we could support at

the town meeting. I I just to for ed education of the committee, I did already receive an email. Of course, she did from Fiona regarding that. So, what did it say? Uh, can I change that? Uh, to which I reply, no, but I would anticipate an amendment to that at the town meeting. At the town meeting. Yeah. So, which we could potentially provide to the committee ahead of time what we will be amending as I just did with that that sheet there. Um, but it won't won't be tonight. Yeah. So, it's just just not supported as written, but we expect to support this with a change about the definition of vehicles or something of that nature. I could we further make a motion then we can discuss. So I move the finance committee recommend not passing article 33 as written and expecting a amendment to the article later and we reserve our right to change our recommendation once that amendment has been received. Second. That's awfully long. That's awfully long. Um we do have discussion on the motion. Dan. Uh yeah, I think in we've had similar situations in the past where we anticipated a really important and substantial or substantive uh amendment um like this. And I think what we did is we we opposed passage and then in the explanation uh we just were very clear that we um expected that there would be a uh small but important amendment and you know actually explain the amendment um and that we expect that we would support it. American

dusty agreement on the verbiage of the blurb. Yeah, I I think that is compatible with the a a recommendation like that would be compatible with the motion. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. I agree. And one one other detail. Um I think Greg's exact words were that we recommend not passing. I think the the phrasing we typically use is we oppose passing. Yeah, we oppose passage of the article as written. I I would accept that amendment. Well, just tiny detail. I I I know what he was talking about. Uh oppose passage oppose passage of article 38 as written. 33 33 as I've read up one line. Are you writing the blur part as we speak? No, I'm just writing notes on the motions. Amendment. The motion is to oppose passage of article 3 as written with the rest of them. Okay. Uh and so on and so forth. And that was seconded. Yeah. With the amendment. Um okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Greg. Hi. Victoria says I. Kyle. Hi. Nick. Hi. Skip. Hi, Dan. Hi. All right, that motion passes six to zero. Um, and then that leaves us 28. That's 28, right? Do I think we can just not Yeah, just take a position on this one at this point. I think that's right. Because we don't know what what the what what the status is going to be when when we get there. What was the issue with it again? We That's the one with the uh shed that's collapsed into the river. Economic development. Not trying to not

try to buy an old shed. Can't put a motor vehicle in there at the very least. A bicycle once it's rebuilt. You can't. But you can still put a blacksmith shop over the river. But we could say we we have chosen not to take a position on this article at this time. Is that a motion? I don't know if it needs to be a motion. I I think I mean if we're are we expecting to get uh the information we need before town meeting Evan is hopeful. So I I think vote right now is to we don't support the passage of this with current information but we expect to receive more. So true too. So that's kind kind of it's like well we opposed passage of 33 as written but we're not opposing passage of 28 as written. We just don't know that we are in a pos the position to recommend accept yeah we can't recommend that we we accept this parcel based on the information at hand. There may be more if you know again we're kind of blurring the line between a a motion and the blur but the idea is that we may receive more information at the town meeting that we might change our mind about. Yeah, I think or before town meeting. I think that's good to say. So our town meeting is the 12th. We need to have this published by the 5th. We may or may not have Oh, we need to have a meeting by the then. What do we We didn't get back from Amber when we're going to have the meeting with the selectman, right? That's it was either the uh the 1st or the ETH. The ETH would be too late. Yeah. Well,

it's But we put the we write it and say we're not going to support passage of it. And if more information comes, as always, we can change our mind at the town meeting and make our recommendation known at that time. That it's in essence what we're doing with all the other stuff. So, how about this? I I move that the finance committee oppose passage of article 28 due to uh current conditions of the property. Second the motion. Okay, we have a motion to oppose passage of article 28 as written due to the condition of the property that is seconded. Any discussion? Didn't actually say as written, but it's okay. My bad. Yeah, I mean, but I guess we still might approve it with the condition the propertyy's in if there is a escrow account set up. Yes. So I feel like I feel like it's incorrect to say we don't oppose it because of the condition of the property whenever we may full well approve it later on with the condition of the property the same exact how it is. No it's not physically the property may be but the conditions may not be the conditions may be that we have an escrow account in place to take care of the issue that exists that makes us not want to do it today. So that's a different situation than what we have right now. I feel like that's splitting hairs. But that's what All right. That's what you got to do. You You can't We can't support it now. You don't want to I'm not saying we do. I I I recommend that we don't issue a support or oppose. I think we just recommend, you know, finance committee does not currently make a recommendation on this article due to lack of information or something like that. I don't think we do as

opposition by the time by the time that we publish our document on May the 5th. We have to have taken a position on it. Then I would rather say opposed due to lack of information than condition of the property. That would also be incorrect because we don't lack information about it. We're not accepting it based on the information we have right now. I think that's then that's fine. I think we say that then. And that's what the motion was. Property was the motion. It was. Okay. Okay. Dan, please. Your your piece and then we'll we'll close this up. Uh yeah, I think I think either way, um whether it's because we don't like the current information or we don't have enough information. Um either way, I think if if it were to reach town meeting in uh with nothing changing, uh we would oppose passage because we wouldn't uh we would not approve of it. So, I think that's that's how we should uh I mean, we each get our own vote and we should decide, but I think that's how that's how we should vote because we um if it entered town meeting exactly like this, we would not uh be supporting passage. So, I I think it makes sense to say that we don't support uh that we we oppose passage uh right now. And in the explanation, we can include the details of uh you know what what it is that we don't like about the situation and the the information they're waiting on and then reconsider it if the the details change. That makes sense. Remind me what is the exact verbiage that uh that weo that finance committee opposes passage of the article of article 28 due to current conditions

of the property I believe. Hey yeah condition of the property was the exact word be used it was condition of the property. I mean that doesn't need to be the exact words in the recommendation. I I feel like we don't really need the that bit in the motion, you know, since we we don't include the recommendation in the in our in this motion of whether to support or oppose it. We don't always I mean we don't include the the full recommendation. We then typically we vote later on we we get the recommendations prepared, the text of them, and then we vote to accept them or approve them. uh later. Right. So, as I kind of said before, we're kind of mixing the motions in with the verbiage, but the idea still is that we not support it in Greg with his continuation of that has laid the groundwork for the verbiage. We say we pass or we don't pass. We don't put down blah blah blah blah blah, we pass. So we say we don't pass and this is why. So it regardless of what you put in the motion, it it's we recommend that it doesn't get passed. We give an explanation of why and that's up to whoever writes the blurb and for us to say okay. I think I agree with Skip, which I feel odd about, but um just kided. I think I agree with Skip out loud. I agree with Skip as well. I I think you should just put you opposed passage of the article. I agree. You You have another bite at the apple later. Yeah. And if you decided you needed more explanation, you just put that in your your rationale. I'm fine with that. All right. And that's what Greg said in the apple. Hey, I'm one of the few people that made

a motion at a town meeting and voted against my motion. I This is why I felt weird agreeing with Skip. I don't understand that. Okay. So, can we even Skip feels weird agreeing with Skip sometimes? No, he's Yes. It's immaterial whether you redo it because he's already said we don't support passages written. As written. As written. Sure. Yeah. And that's perfect. Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Greg. Hi, Victoria says I. Kyle, hi. Nick, abstain. Uh, Skip I. And Dan, hi. That's passes. That motion passes with five eyes and one abstension. Um, okay. I think that covered 28 33 38 and everybody else. That is everything. Excellent. Um, shall we go through the blurbs? Amber, you ready? You're going to be taking down the numbers. You're taking the blurbs that we've written for in the past. Yes. We will kindly ask Amber to essentially I mean the blurbs that have already been written in the past. It's just updating numbers andor dates, right? Yeah. So that's like article one, two, three. It's one through 19 that are the canned ones and then a handful of others in the in the 20s but number 20 the BBT stabilization account that's the first one that we have not done before. Yeah. Okay. What sucker want I mean person wants to write that. Who would like to write the blur for article 20? That's not I can Thank you, Kyle. I'll be the sucker.

Um 21, the um Enterprise Fund for Waste Management. I can do that one. Do you want to take 21 and 22? Since they're kind of together. What? Oh, no. No, no, no. They're not. They're not. Sorry. 22 and 23. Yep. Are together. Yep. Yeah. 20 20 23 we've done before. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of. I You want me to do 22? Sure. It's a little different because of the nature of the thing. Yeah. What I'll probably do is run it by Paul just to make sure I haven't uh misqued. Okay. 24 24 and 20. No, never mind. I'll do 24. We've done 25. I'll do 24. 24. Okay. And Amber, I'll cover 24. Um 26. The rodentic side. I can. Thank you. Um you may want to just hit up Amber because we do have the applicants um information uh that they submitted to the select board to have it reviewed. So, it might be easy to lift the your blurb straight out of there. Okay. No complaints for me. Amber, I'll be me. Oh, boy. You can't get full credit for writing that blurb. Then that's fine. I don't need full credit as long as it's done. Uh 27. We We've done Yeah. Yeah. That's a general rule. Yep. I can do 28. You're good. Um 29 through 34 are all the planning ones. Yes, ma'am.

Mark some. Yeah. Get those done on time. Yeah. You want me to do the 33 one? I think the blurb on they're going to change. They're going to further define vehicles. I think what we were saying was essence 31 and 34 should all be done by the same have be done by the same person. Yeah. Well, 30 33 is one of the ones we're looking to uh to to amend. So yeah, I can I can do that with with the uh with that one if I want. What did you just say you were doing all the planning board ones? No, Amber's doing through 32. I'm going to do 33. I don't think I said that, but I thought Sorry that I misunderstood what you said. I'll I'll do 31 and 32. Which ones did you did you say? I think she was just um telling us the grouping. Okay. She was being helpful. I al back through 29. We have not spoken about 29 or 30. I I can do 29 through 32. That's fine. They're all fairly. Sorry, I misunderstood that one. All good. No worries. Yeah. So, Greg, not that you totally misunderstood because she did say something that led me to believe that she had something on file that we had done in the past that she was kind of saying, but whatever. I was picking it up. Okay. Third and 34. So, we Scyle's doing up through 32. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You said you're doing 33. Yep. the 34, but also I have not signed myself up for any additional ones and I think 34 is particularly confusing and will require a conversation with Fiona and I enjoy spending time with Fiona. So, I will take 34.

Um, yeah, that's called we we support passage of this because it's modernizing our bylaw. That's the end of that one. Well, yeah. I I am famous for my verbosity, Skip. Yeah. And it's But in the end, that's kind of what it is. It is what it is. Yeah. Um 35. Uh is this Oh, this is the very strange. I'll do that one. You were talking about doing all the uh CPC ones. Yeah. Well, this so the Oh, yeah. 35 36. Really happy with yourself. 37 we should have. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I just wanted to look and see. Yeah. 37. 37's an annual one. Yeah. Yeah. 30. So, that Amber should have. Thank you, Amber. 38. We just expect them to We expect the town to pass over. Yeah. Passover. Skip is doing 36 as well. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I kind of got my own mini boiler plate from the past of looking through their stuff and sweet. Um 39 the um citizens petition. Well, we don't want that to pass anyway. So, I I can do that one, too. Thank you, Greg. Oh, they're still here. Oh, I heard our our vote earlier says otherwise. That's right. Didn't put up too much of a fuss. Yeah. All right. So, okay. Shall we um send these to a person so that the person can distribute the drafts for anyone to bring to the meeting before the soon? Soon, Amber. Yeah. Not that we're deliberating, but if

anybody wants to make editorial changes to what we have done, I think those editorial changes would be considered deliberation under open meeting law. I think we in the past we've given the our draft recommendations to uh Amber and then uh brought them to or I don't know to to somebody Amber or you know chair whatever and uh brought them back to a meeting and then approved them in advance of town meeting but like posting our recommendation having a meeting before we have to Greg So will we be so one of the possibilities for the logistics meeting is the first and we could do that the same same night if not then I can't advocating having another so what I'm saying so like sometimes somebody will say I want a comma there and it just further I think we said non substantive changes typographical changes that's kind of what it means. Yeah. Yeah, but we still need to vote to approve to approve the recommendations by the 5th. So they can be published on the 5th. So basically May May 1st is the if we don't want to meet on Friday finance committee says we've got to meet May 1st for the Yeah, that's fine. Everyone that I've heard back said that May first would work. Therefore, that's when the meeting will be. Yep. I think we're looking at 6:30. Yeah. Really? So, so that we don't have to post another meeting to do the blurbs. That's fine. Perfect. Yeah, the first will give us time to to post then.

Well, that sort of uh hits item number four. Then the upcoming finance committee meeting will be on the 1st. Um, back to three is reviewing the state of the town message. Um, does anybody have any comments, corrections, ideas? Um, just one thing on the do we want to meet before the logistics meeting or after the logistics meeting? Logistics. Did do you want to do 6:30 or six for the six for ours and 6:30 for logistics or we just want to flow into ours after logistics? That'd be just as easy. The logistics meeting only takes 10 to 15 minutes max. I think we should flow in just in case ours goes over. Sounds good. Yeah, that's how we've done it before when we've had to blurbs at the logistics meeting. This is economizing the nights of meetings. Yep. wise. Can I This might be going back in the order of the articles. Um I'm just realizing something. We approved or we voted to approve the one with the the year that was incorrect in the sewer enterprise. It's a scrivener's error. We will correct it. Okay. Just making sure we didn't need to like older. Great. Now we got it. Very good point though. Yeah. Don't know what think of that right now, but we'll analyze that later. Okay. Um I will go back through the um state of the town message and ensure that all of the numbers particularly those pertaining to state aid for uh last fiscal year and this fiscal year are correct including uh also chapter 70 funds are correct. I'll work with Mary on that um and update my description of the fire department. Um but any other any other

points on this data? Yeah, they they got more guys than just eight, didn't they? Uh no, that was that number came directly from the chief. I I canvased, I believe, 14 different department heads for blurbs and got responses from four of them. So those four get to be in the letter. Mine. Excellent. I know. Or forever hold your peace. That's right. um in your highlighted section. Yes. I think Mary said 2375. You have 250. Oh, for the uh snow and ice. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I will update that. 237. I can put the final draft on the May 1st agenda. Do you want to approve that that night? Perfect. That's looking great. Okay. Yeah, I will the highlight specifically for reasons of insecurity. Um, so I will confirm all of those numbers. Okay, great. I think that uh that does it and we'll meet again May 1st at 6 PM to review blurbs of the town message and town meeting logistics. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you all.