Select Board - Regular Meeting

And we will call tonight's uh joint budget workshop with school committee to order. Um, I have one member currently on Zoom hoping for one more. Uh, so we'll start with a roll call. Craig, are you there? I am. Can you hear me? We can. Thank you. Mel, I am here. Jefferson is here. School committee. I'll start with Miss Austin. I'm here. Christy Kazinski here. Rebecca Soko here. Stella is here. Leora Braum here.

All right. Welcome school committee. Thank you for agreeing to meet with us tonight. Um we figured we'd start this off uh I guess two ways. Uh first if any of the board members have any questions for the school committee or the superintendent based on the um budget hearing that you held last week. And then um if the school committee has any current questions for the select board or the town administrator, we can do that. Um and then once that's over, I'd love to get into Evan's budget presentation. Um he's got some updated numbers, some override calculations and projections that we can look at and all sorts of good stuff to go through.

That sounds great from our perspective. Okay. Uh, are there any questions from the select board for the school committee or the superintendent? Give Amory a moment to join. Amory, we we just did a roll call. Uh, whenever you're ready, if you just want to check in so we can confirm your mic and everything, that'd be great. Fully here.

Awesome. Okay. Uh, so we're starting with any questions the select board has for the school committee or the superintendent based on last week's school committee budget hearing. Anything from anyone? Okay. School committee. Any questions for us? Uh, I don't know. I'll ask my colleagues. I do not have any. I don't have any currently. I'm excited for the presentation. Yeah. Y looking forward to diving in. Okay. Okay. So, we're just right to it. Okay.

Um, so we're going to start with a a brief PowerPoint. Just give it a minute to come up. Is there somewhere that's this shared with us? What? Is there somewhere where this is shared with us? Not currently.

Okay. Um so at the last select board meeting I was asked to put together three override options that being small, medium and large. Um and so we've been working for the past two weeks really one week because of vacation week um to try to put that together. So, I built this slide deck uh a little bit for this meeting, but also because this is going to be kind of a primer for residents to review if we get that far down. So, there's some really basic slides in the beginning like how the override affects the levy limit. Um you can scroll down till you get to the first chart screen. So, I'm going to blow past those because I think we've already got that information out to the public, but I wanted again to create a thing. Um, so this is a a graph that denotes our excess levy capacity from 2007 to 2026. Um, and what you'll note is a lot of lean years from 2007 to 2014. 2014 is the override and then 2015 is where that budget shows up because that's how the fiscal year works. Um you'll note that after 2014 uh it takes five years for the town to re go through that excess capacity and it's a pretty good indicator there uh pretty much a a straight uh angle trend line down till we get down to uh you know about $77,000 of capacity. 2020 uh town does a second override. um that's where your 2021 um excess levy capacity shoots up and you can see we've titrated it down over time. Um and 2026 was actually year six of that um override progression. Um

hold on. You'll note that there is it's not a uh as pretty of a titration down. Um, and that is because, um, we've tried not to let ourselves be at like that 12,000, 19,000, 15,000. Um, what it looks like to me, and and I wasn't here at the time, but what it looks like happened is that, um, in each of those years, somewhere along the fiscal year, they had to freeze spending to make it that shallow of a of an actual number at the end. Um, we haven't done that. We've pretty much set our budget and let the revenue fall where the revenue falls. And if we were a little bit better one year, that's great. That gives us extra capacity going into the next year, so on and so forth. Okay, so jump right into it. So the small override, um, the number I started with was an $850,000 per year number, which is $4.25 million total. um which equates to an average single family tax increase of $126 per year. Um before we move off this slide, we'll get questions on why 850. Um so 850 does not fill the gap. Um and so we were looking for um a small override number that you know plugged some of the holes but as you'll see it it doesn't plug much of the holes. So if you go to the next slide, Will, this is a little bit small, I know. Um, but what this table shows you is that, um, if we go to the $850,000 override option, it creates a deficit in year one of about 300,000 and then we're about a million dollars more in deficit

in year two. your three, you can see it grow out to the new deficit number of $6.34 million. I want to pause there and ask Will to go to the forecast spreadsheet. So, uh, back on December 17th, I had shown our forecast, um, and said I'm not going to update it throughout the year. Um, but I we updated it. Um, and we updated it because we've got some really good trends going and they make some very large financial impacts. Can you zoom in on that? Um, the red numbers are where we're going to end up. So, what we've been working on is one trying to balance a little bit more of that total revenue percent change that you see across the top there. So, previously it would drop off to like 2.7 2.6. And that's because the larger the overall budget gets, the diminishing returns we have on uh new growth and everything else makes that percentage smaller. So even though we're bringing in close to the same amount of money, the percentage gets eaten away as costs outpace revenue. We got a little more aggressive on that um to try to really dial this this in

on new growth on on new growth a little bit, but also some other places throughout our revenue stream. Okay. Um, so the second thing that's been happening is, as you know, we went to the GIC uh, insurance. So, GIC has been kind of uh, not kind of, they've been working their way through the process of rate setting and what we thought was going to be an 18% and then a 12% is looking more sub 10. Um, you know, maybe maybe five or six%. Um, so that doesn't get set till Thursday of this week, I think. Mary, is that correct? The rate set today? Um, I believe so. Yes.

So, they did already cut um some of the GLP1 uh you know, that's coming pretty much everywhere. Um, which already showed us a decrease. So if you take that savings of what we were projecting to have in the regular market um and then couple that with GIC, you'll see that once we trend this out, we actually go from what was a $9.7 million deficit in in the final year to 7.1 million. So that's a significant change. And we thought even though we said we're going to leave the forecast as the forecast alone, this it's too big of a too big of a a change to to uh ignore, right? It's not a couple hundred,000 in year five. It's real money. So, if you can go back to the presentation, please. So that is why you see in fiscal 32 the total deficit um on this slide being 6.3 million. That's because you now take your your cumulative $850,000 a year subtract it out of out of that and and and here here's where we get to um as far as how that works. So if you can go to the next slide, Will. So, with that $850,000 override, we still have to find significant amount of decreases in um prospective um positions. So, the projected impact at a $850,000 override is um two positions for the school and zero for the town in year one. Year two is eight additional positions and two and a half you know

schools eight towns two and a half um then another 10 for the schools another six for the town another eight for the schools another five for the towns you can see it go so on so forth so the cumulative staff reductions by the time we get to 2032 are about 73.5 positions um now I have an asterisk there because when we get to fiscal 32 I'm really close to having no more cuts on the town side that aren't either impacted by statute or potential major liability to the town. Um because you're starting to eat into our ability to respond to incidents and and things like that. Um now there's decreases with those those services as we as we um shed staff. You you're going to save money on health insurance and that's probably about a million to 1.2ish twoish depending on what plans they're in. Um you've got some savings on what you're going to put into um your um pensions and everything else. So there's some more math that needs to be calculated there um before we figure out kind of the 2031 2032 um because what that may do is while the insurance numbers drop that would shift some of these numbers kind of over, right? Um, but again, some of that is dependent on who exactly and when and you know, what plan they're on and all the rest of those little kind of nuance things. Uh, next slide, please, will. So, um, I'm going to talk more specifically about town personnel. So, again, year one is zero. Um, fiscal 27, you're looking at two and a half positions. This is the same as what I'm proposing now with no override. really just shifts us a year. Uh in 2028, you've got six positions. So, one out of the clerk's office, one out of treasurer collector's office, one full-time

firefighter, um which is the one that you would have just added this year. Yes. Will those off by one? Yes. 27 start, right?

Yes. Sorry about that. Um so, we're off by a year. We'll fix that in post. Um, okay. So, fiscal uh, so where am I? So, anyways, uh, fiscal 29 would be the six positions, right? Um, clerk's office, treasurer's office, full-time firefighter, the one you just added. Uh, accounting office, cemetery, most likely the laborer, one of laborer positions, which is not a laborer, it's actually a light truck driver, I think is the title. And one DPW uh, position. That one DPW position could in theory be the director of public works. We do have a retirement coming up and the charter does say that it can be either a director of public works or the town administrator. Um so there's some wiggle room there of how that plays out. Next fiscal year is another five positions. Um and that's when we start having to get into police officers. So I estimate you'd be looking at three police officers and two people out of the maintenance department. And in the final year, which is actually 2031, um that's eight positions. So, a police officer, two people from DPW, assessor, uh William, uh select board admin, cemetery department, zoning admin, and uh senior center admin. It's about where we would end up on on our side. Next slide. for service disruptions. I'm not gonna go too far down the rabbit hole with the school department because I don't know that side as well as Dr. Cummings does. Um, but he has talked in previous meetings about higher class sizes, reduction in arts, music, language, so on and so forth. Um, you have a we'd have a decrease in facilities maintenance. Um, slower snow removal because we'd have less people to push snow around. um and do other road

uh maintenance projects, decrease police presence, uh reduce staffing pretty much in every other department, longer lead time, and um decrease project oversight. Okay, any questions on that before I go to the medium? Yes, ma'am. Uh if that is with a small override, one would imagine that without any override at all, you'd have similar or more reductions. So correct. Okay. Yep. So this want to be clear like without Yes. And I I agree the purpose of this presentation was just the small and large. So Yep. Understood. Um but yes, accurate.

Evan, so with the 850,000 that you're speaking of, what percentage of that would go towards the schools versus 6040? 6040. Yep. Okay. Would we have to reduce the uh like the municipal schedule down from five days to days in any of those areas or anything like that? So, just to be clear, this is real high. 35,000 foot. Did it in a week.

You know, Melrose had eight months to to do this. We had a week. So, the short answer is yes, probably. Um, which is, you know, kind of another reason for the asterisk on the other page because there's a lot of things that we can do as we move through these different fiscal years where we're short money uh that are innovative or, you know, we close the town hall or we go to a a you know, a 4 day work week, which is, you know, four eight hour days and everybody's only paid for 32 hours a week. You know, there's a lot of things that we can do. Um, but I I don't know that you can pinpoint all of them today.

Totally. And and a great point that one of us probably should have made earlier. This is not nothing is is written in stone here. Like, you know, this is this is all five-year projections. This is really, you know, setting a base for a discussion. Um, you know, they are they are meant to be rooted in reality. this is the reality of the types of cuts, but that doesn't mean you know that that list is exactly the the people that you would see cut, etc. So, this is more for illustrative purposes because I was asked to give you small, medium, and large. And what do that what does that what do those numbers look like?

Thank you. Um, all right. So, if there's no questions about that, I'll go into the medium override. This one's actually really straightforward. So, medium override is 1, let's call it 1.44 million per uh per year. That's uh 72 million dollars total essentially. Um and that's $212 per average single family tax increase per year. Um what does that do? That maintains level funding as we have it today. So, it doesn't add positions um except for I think as Jay has mentioned um the HR position or the things that were in um your budget presentation, they're all incorporated into what this and that's that's more of a stabilization approach, right? It stabilizes everything, keeps everything status quo. Next slide. Um so, we're going to call this the full override. This is the large override or whatever you want to call it, the venty. Um, so this is 1.8 million per year. That's a $9.1 million total. Um, goes up to about $265 per single family household. And what does that do? So, it reto restores the school department um to it would restore the school department to pre2025 levels. Um, and on the town side, we would add one police officer and add probably two people in the fire department, although the board hasn't voted on that yet, so that that's just speculation on my part. Um, but that's a that's the strengthen option if we're using the Melrose model. Um, and I think that's it.

Evan, yes. On those other two overrides, the medium and the large, are those also 60/40 splits? Because everything's 60/40. Okay. Well, hold on. How much is the school system asking for new money this year? 2.9 maybe in the town. I thought that it wasn't 6040 as far as the split of new money this year. Right. So I I wiped all that out and went straight to flat. Here's the amount that the budget is. Here's the amount of the overrides revenue 6040 and went out from there. Okay. It's not it's not based on our level fund or our level Yeah. our level funded budget or not level funded our current budget at all.

Separated it from that entirely. Okay. Okay. Questions, suggestions? Uh, open open the floor. there is um tool online for people to calculate their actual impact. So, let me get into that real quick. So,

yes, you can go to the DLS website and type in any amount and it will show you the average or what the value of your home is. Um, however, William has been working on a tool. Do you want to show that? Yeah. Oh, I want to see it. Mhm. So, I'm excited. Um, just keep in mind none of the numbers it spits out are going to be accurate because we didn't put any actual override numbers fair in it. We did enough to test it and and that's pretty much it. So, if you type in an address uh so there's the assessed value automatically spits out 766. You calculate the FY26 assessed value. Yep. And then we'll spit out the three. That's awesome.

That's really cool. Oh wow. All three. I love that. Well done. Yeah. That's why I'm in FY2030 cut. They bought me another year. Yeah. It's actually taking me 31 because those numbers were off. There we go. That's per year, right? Yeah. And those numbers are wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Yes. I just want to be very clear. It just shows you that we can do it. Yep. And then once the board moves towards what the actual values are or actual numbers are, then we can make this spit out real numbers. I love that. Thank you. Really cool. Monetize that. That's very, very helpful. Good work. Yeah, it's awesome.

We should have it like at the polls like just check if you want to just in case. Once it's actually ready to go, we'll put it on the homepage and share it far and wide so people can use it. Thank you. Amazing.

Mr. Chair, um first of all, um Evan and Jay, thank you for putting this all together. Um it was not unnoted that you mentioned that Melrose had eight months and so it is appreciated. It's a lot of work and I know there's a lot more to go into it. I just had a thought that I had to say that the small override feels like people will be paying more to get less and as if that would really annoy me. as a taxpayer, like you're going to pay more and you're still going to get less and you're still going to see a big uh decrease in services um across the town. Does feel a bit like a slow death.

It's like those new bags, you know, killing you with like you're paying more for less food. Less Doritos. Less Doritos. Mhm. To piggy back on Miss Softton's point, if it's not a good option, why make it an option at all? Because it was asked. Yeah. But I'm just saying like just like as we're speaking here, is it worth even making an option? Yeah. Um it's a it's a good question.

Um this is sort of what we asked Evan to do and part of it was to have the conversation to look at what various levels of investment in the town would look like. Um, I'm not sure I personally would support a small option, but um, other board members may have different opinions about that. So, yeah, really that's what it was about. Well, then we could conceivably change what that small option is, right? I mean, that number is kind of arbitrary. Yes. Okay. To a certain extent,

somewhat. Yeah. I mean, that that's the so level service I think is pretty understandable. Um, I think on the school side, return to 25 staffing levels sort of makes sense as that strengthen option. The what goes between no override at all and the level service override. For me, that's one of the big questions that we would want to ask. But we have to get to some method to get there. And I don't know what that is other than to say that looks like too many cuts. because that's my natural reaction to it is you know 60 plus cuts over five years just not a reasonable thing to do and as we get into years three really that's when it really starts hitting very hard into public safety and and other things and I don't I don't know if the public would support that either. So, but if we're going to have some other option, we need to give some specific direction as far as what that number looks like and how to get there.

Mr. Chair, I do think there's some value in it in this discussion because it showed, wow, even even with an override, we're looking at these cuts. So, what is what happens if we have none? Um, so I I appreciate it for that discussion. Um, but I don't know if we need a an option, a a middle option if it's not valuable to folks, I guess, Mr. Jefferson. Yep.

A quick question. Um, so has this board I'm not looking to add options or change options really. I'm just looking to understand has has the select board agreed that it's a five-year override. Is that what I I see that those are the three options are resulting in what it would be as a five-year. Has that been the decision of the board?

Not specifically. Um I think again speaking to both the small option and and the duration. Um we needed some reasonable starting points for for Evan to work with and and that's what we have. Um it was more rooted in we've had success with five years in the past. Um you know I don't I don't think anybody if I recall was really in favor of uh the one-year kind of micro override approach that we uh had thrown out last year. Um you know so that could leave us discussing a three-year option. Um, you know, in in my opinion, um, I don't mind a three-year option. Uh, but I think I don't know how to word this, you know, correctly. Um, it it doesn't it doesn't add a lot of breathing room, uh, for lack of a better term. you know, we it's not that we should take our eyes off the budget in, you know, those extra two years that a 5year gives us. Um, but we'd really, in my, again, in my opinion, we'd really have to stay on it. And it would it would, you know, it's going to be three more intense years of discussion. Um, that that could be a good thing. You know, maybe we should apply that strategy to the five-year option as well and and really, you know, try to try to hone our focus on it. But um yeah, again, I guess to say none of these were really etched in stone, per se, aside from the the medium option, which we wanted to at least be a level service from FY26. Um, with such ambiguity about not knowing which year, I would like to ask that the select board kind of decide

that as this bouncing off point of how many years we're looking at for an override, whether it won, three, or five, because this is going to make a huge difference. I think that's part of the reason we're here tonight is, you know, we'd like to gauge the school committee's interest in this topic as well. Um, you know, uh, this is really the the first real discussion we've had about these options. So, um, you know, it's going to it's going to be a little loose at this point. Miss F, you have your hand up.

Yeah. to answer Christie. Uh, as far as I'm concerned, no. The select board has not decided or landed on a a year amount or how many years we're looking at, unless that was a discussion for the at the uh board meeting that I was only partially there for. Nope. Uh, could could we try to ga what what do you So, you're thinking five. You're Andy, right? Is that what you're saying? Can we try to gauge what what the select board's thinking? Sure. U Matt, do you have any um

strong My sort of initial thinking is that fiveyear makes sense. Um we've done that successfully a couple of times. Um my concern with the I am not at all in support of anything shorter than three years and I really don't support three years either because it's um taken this board two years to get to where we are right now. Um and if we're yeah on that sort of track um I would worry um we're we haven't been particularly agile. Um and so I would look to give us as much time as possible to prepare. Um so the extra couple of years to me would make a big difference and I think it's it would also um provide um much more stability to the town administrator and the um superintendent in terms of their planning for the coming years. Um, and I think that's important for this board to do.

Um, hey Marie, you guys are stand up too. Yeah, sorry. I think it was still up from last time, but I was going to weigh in just the same. Um, I am what I have been oscillating between is a one-year, which as you all know last year I was not in support of that idea. Um, but I have kind of some reasons where that might be makes sense to me or a three-year. Okay, Craig.

Yeah. Um, thanks Andy. Um, thanks Evan for putting all this together. Um, there's a lot of work went into this and it kind of gives us a clearer picture of what's going on here. I just a few questions. Um, if I may. Um, first of all, um, is the over is the, um, the roads program, I don't know if you've had any conversations with Paul Kenoya or the roads committee as far where we're at with that. Um, you know, it's been going on for 10 or 11 years now. Um, and it's increased, you know, in the last several years. Um, is that a part part of this no presentation?

They're they're coming into the meeting at 7 tonight. Um, so I figured you would have that conversation with them at 7 and then, you know, if there's any changes that I need to go back based on any decisions made there, um, I can incorporate that into the numbers that I have tonight. Okay. Because I think what what are we up to now in this? Is it like 17? What are we up to on on override road override money every year? About 1.6. It's 1.6 and change.

Okay. All right. So if we were to even I know it's for another discussion but if based on the discussion we have with those guys um if we reduce that to a million a year and then you know it started to grow from there kind of reset it at a million I guess we should have that conversation and I don't know if we have to go back to town meeting for that or if that I guess every year we vote on that right? Yeah you vote on the expansion but I I think that I got to look into it. Mary's I was going to answer Mary's Mary's giving me the look like don't don't you dare answer that question. Um so we'll look into a little further. My my gut is that yes, you'd have to go back and have them rescend some of the the vote. Um but we'll we'll make sure that that's the correct answer.

Okay. Um in fact, could you go back to the first slide that we kind of showed the budget projection over the over the next like I don't know seven or eight years, whatever it was. That was that was excess that that chart is excess levy capacity. you um maybe the we'll put one up and tell me if it's the right one and if not we'll go to the yeah just that shows the projection on on not that one projections projections on expenditures and revenue. Let's go hold on for one sec. We'll get that pulled up. It's a different file here. The Excel please. Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this just to kind of walk through this, this has our our revenue going up around 3 million a year, correct? Is that a fair statement? 3 3.2. Uh, if you scroll up a little bit, Will, it'll show you. So, I'm just using that total fun. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think that's a fair generalization. Yeah. Like 915, 947, 98.

Yeah. About 3 about 3 millionish and it skews a little bit towards the end. Okay. Okay. And if you look at the school projection, that's going up about 3 million 2.5 to 3 million a year. Is that fair? Um, yeah. It's sub I think it's sub three million each each year, but it's uh that's about right. It's about right. Yep. Okay. And if and if and I'll ask Jay this if it's based on this year's um request from the school department is 3 million. Y so am I to assume that the percentages are going to be the same? It's going to be a million for operational and 2 million for for salary increases. Correct. Okay.

A little below that but the right idea. Yeah.

Okay. So to to me, you know, this is what's driving this whole conversation and, you know, I this is, I think, what we need to be focused on. And I and I think we're projecting we're basing our whole discussion on an override on this number on on the $3 million and two of that twothirds of that is is salaries for the school. Um, which represents over 30% of our entire town budget, right? So it's it's a big part of of our total expenditure as a community. So why are we so is that like that number obviously isn't cast in stone. There's one year left on the on that contractual you know agreement with the with the with the union. So we will be back to the table next spring. Correct. To renegotiate another another contract however many years that is.

Correct. So, I you know, I think it's hard to to project an override and, you know, based on, you know, we don't know where those negotiations are going to lead. Um, I'm hoping that we're going to come up with some type of an agreement between us um and the school committee on on how we approach that cuz I think right now it's it's a flawed system on how it works because the school committee is negotiating a contract alone with the union which has a 33% impact 33% of our entire town budget. So I'm I'm hoping that we can have that conversation where where uh Jay with uh where Evan and Mary and in our board have plays a bigger role in that at least the strategy before negotiations and then the final uh the final numbers that we sit and we talk about that because of what a significant impact it has on the total town budget. And I know I'm going off a little bit, you know, off off course on the override thing, but I think before we can talk about an override, we need to really talk about that because that's what's driving the whole thing. And we don't seem to to talk about it. So, we have a year left in the contract. This is where I am. Um, we have a contractual obligation that we've committed to. We have to fulfill that obligation. So, I'm um I'm prepared to to do that. We have to do that um in good faith. So, um a one-year override to to to uh to fill that void to be able to pay that and keep everybody um working without so we don't have to have any layoffs. Um you know, I'm open to that. I think we need to do that. But for next year, I think we need to have a better strategy and a better process moving forward um as far as negotiations because of the size of the impact that it has on on the total budget. I know you and I have

discussed this, Craig, and I I know we don't see eye to eye on it, but I I certainly don't think that we can put the cost of our townwide structural deficit on the backs of our teachers. Our teachers in Grafton are not being paid in a locally competitive way, never mind a regionally competitive way. out of when we look at just the districts that that border Grafton those six towns um North Bridge, Milbury, Shrewsbury, Mendineupton, Westboro, and Sutton. So I'm not handpicking or cherrypicking if we look at new teachers. So that first step where out of those seven including us, we're seventh out of seven. The first year teacher in Sutton, not an economic powerhouse, pays $8,210 more per year. Mid-career masters step 10, seventh out of seven again. And the Grafton teacher makes $10,250 per year less than a Westboro teacher. We finally are somewhat competitive for a fourth out of seven. So dead middle by the very top step. So they get to the very end of their career, they're in the middle of these other six communities, and that's still 9,000 less than Westboro and 6,300 less than Shrewsbury. I would argue that we need to pay more, not less.

Craig, you're on mute. Thank you. We've had 10 years of over money. 10 years of going back to that well and asking people to dig deeper. So, and when you look at the numbers that I have, if you look at the average tax property tax bill in Northbridge, it's 5,900. If you look at Milbury, it's 6,500. If you look at Auburn, it's 5600. Shrewsbury's 87. Upton's 61. Sutton 67. And we're over nine. Yeah, that's not teacher's fault. It's not.

I'm not saying it is. Listen, this has got nothing to do with I'm not blaming the teachers for anything. and they negotiated in good faith and they signed an agreement and they're working in the schools. This is this is not about teachers. This is about revenue and this is about cost to the taxpayer. I think we can't keep going back to that same wow. We've done it for the last 10 years and I think we have to look at how what our strategy is moving forward with how we control costs internally. That's all I'm saying. And our taxes are 50% more than Sutton and Milbury. And I would simply as I said to you, I would 100% advocate for if we have to if we don't get an override or if we this have the small

if we have to make an adjustment will have a huge impact on the schools, but we're going to decrease the number of people. We still going forward in perpetuity need to try at least to to pay a competitive rate. That's my argument. Well, my position is that we should pass a one year to fulfill our obligation and then come up with some type of a uh a policy, a written policy on how negotiations move forward um with that. There's 280 plus teachers. It's a it's a big contract and we should be involved in it. It shouldn't be up to the school committee and school department alone to negotiate that deal on behalf of the whole town. So, that that's where I am. is technically

I'm I'm going to push back on that a little bit because I think we have a couple, you know, just deeprooted differences in in philosophy here. Um contractual changes, you know, while they may be prudent in the future, are not going to solve the problem that we have right now. You know, passing passing of one year is is a band-aid and it and we go through this whole exercise again next year where we're looking at the same reductions even if we're able to, you know, work some sort of a sweetheart contract. um with with below standard COLA increases. Um and I think it's unfair to say that it's it's you know we've burdened people with this override for 10 years. We put the choice to people 10 years ago um that this is what the school and and the town require in order to maintain a certain level of service. Do you want to do that for the next 5 years? The town voted yes. We came back in five years and said, "Okay, we are at the end of five years. Do you wish to continue this level of service on both sides?" The town said, "Yes, we are now six years after that. We're we're we're back at the at the well again." Like, this is the checks and balances system. It's not that, you know, nobody loves going back to the voters or, you know, the residents and and increasing taxes. Um, but they're the ones who choose this ultimately, you know, they're the ones who who vote on it and this is this has been their will. So, um I just I don't think it's it's right to to classify it that way. This is this is a choice and a commitment that the town has made. Um and I'm just looking to give them that option again.

No, I understand. Let me ask you a question, Andy. The school's asking for $3 million in additional funds, right, for FY27. What if it was 4 million? What if it was 5 million? Would you still be okay with that? Like, where's the number that you say, "All right, you say uncle." And it's like, all right, we can't do this to the top. Like,

you know, honestly, um, if if we're talking about amounts for me right now, the the large override is is a difficult number for me. You know, it feels like without the HR position, we've done reasonably well over this last year. So, I'd be okay with with the FY26 uh with the excuse me, with the with the medium that keeps us at the FY26 services. That's not going to be everybody's opinion. You know, every everybody's got their own take on this. I can't say what what that number is that's going to make me say uncle because we've we've done the opposite. Jay to me has has done his due diligence and shown me like this is this is where we are. This is what we need, you know, in order to be viable. Um, again going through and not just Jay, I want to include Evid in that discussion, too.

You don't have to. You know, that that the two of them have have gone through these exercises of of showing us what these reductions look like, you know, both because they've had to over the last year when we've reduced things and this year in an effort to show us what, you know, that that future looks like. So, uh, hey Marie, uh, sorry, I got to lower my hand and then unmute. Um, just a question to Evan to clarify back to that, um, the projections, right? So, I understand with the medium size,

you're talking about 1.4 million over five years, you indicated 7.191 uh, would be the total. Yes. Okay. Um, so the 1.4 million level funded based on today, but the shortfall after looking at all of your numbers and kind of um, you know, teasing them out more, it's the 1.167 is this year. Yes. So, as compared to the 1554, right, recent, right, before the GIC numbers and some of the adjustments the school had.

Okay. Um and so just a I think it's a good clarification. So if you look at where I say medium override and it's 1.438 321 um that is simply 7191608 divided by five. Yes. Because we we don't really have that entire road map yet. So I just in order for me to show kind of that average increase for the average person I just blocked it out. um you know and I think we can probably hone in on that if that's something that we we want to do moving forward.

So again, so for me it's on that slide the 7191608 which seems to be the also the number you landed on with that medium over 5year override right that started at the 1.167 the new shortfall. Do you know what I mean? like if you pull up that slide again if you don't mind or the it's I know it's on the the other Will's pulling it up now

uh the projection one and just for what it's worth completely agree we need a one-year at the very least override agree with Craig on Okay. So, see how it's Yeah. So, the 7191. Yeah, that's and that's the medium override number that just gets plugged into that other page on the PowerPoint, right? But that's 1.4 million per year. Yes. So,

not 1.1. I know it turns out to be different, right? So, so if that is something that the board is interested in, again, I was trying to give kind of this 35,000 overview, what I would do is I would take each year's projected deficit and then, you know, extrapolate it it it out in a more uh precise way. Yep. Yeah. Because your year one's not 1.4, it's 1, you know, two and then so on and so forth. Yeah. Absolutely.

Okay. Thank you. I'm just I'm gonna throw it out again. Um, just as I think of it, the the the one-year idea troubles me because of how difficult this process is and the outreach process and everything that goes along with it. Um, you know, people have a lot of big feelings about about the topic either way. um you that that may not be the best reason to avoid that. But um you know if we do it this one year then then we're coming back again next year and and you know we've we've also at the same time talked about override fatigue and how many times do we ask people you know I I can see some frustration in people going why didn't you just solve this last time you know and and not make us do it two years in a row m

Mr. chair. Yeah. Uh, when you get to a stopping point, can I jump in for a second? I got a stopping point. Yeah. Well, can you bring up the bar chart? Can I answer that? Um, can I answer Andy? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. No, I listen, I get the I get the override fatigue both for the town and for these two boards. It's not, you know, these aren't these aren't fun conversations to have, so I get it. Um, part of it for me is is um is just a negotiation strategy. And I talked to Jay and Evan about this when we met several weeks ago is, you know, we need to do a better job to me. We we need to work better. We need to work harder at the negotiating table. Um, and so if we walk in there with a threeyear or fiveyear of override money, I think we've lost before we've walked in and and we're just going to, you know, um, hand over that money because they're going to know that we're walking in with it.

I'm not against giving teachers a raise, but I think, you know, if if we're projecting out what Jay's projecting out, we're talking about I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Jay, I didn't get to see the the final school committee budget meeting, but what did the the average teacher or staff salary go up for next year? I don't I know off the top of my head, it's going to be around 5 and a half%. Okay. So, if if we're giving, you know, if we're continuing to giving out five and a half% raises every year,

that that 100% has to happen. We're already dead last. We're like Punch the Monkey and you want to give Punch even less, like take away a squishy toy. We're going to have to decrease sta the number of staff and we still have to pay teachers a competitive rate. We're already dead last locally and we're not like in a economic powerhouse area.

Well, based off based on the the the information you gave me that there that I mean we're close with a lot of the several towns. There's some that are 6, seven grand more than us a year, you know, but there's some of us that are 500 or or a,000 or,500. I mean, that's going to not make that's not going to make somebody move. All right? And I for me, I my philosophy is completely different. I'd rather keep everybody working. I'd rather give everybody a a 2% or 3% raise and keep them working. So, I don't know how the school committee feels about that because ultimately it's your decision. I don't want to lay people off. I want to keep people working. But, you know, Milbury Milbury's contract, I looked it up, they gave a 3% raise, but they froze steps and lanes for a year. They gave three and a half. You know,

three and a half and they're freezing steps and lanes. So, um, still there's things that we can do. Shbury, you know, I was talking to somebody that works in the Shbury uh, school department the other day. Take that down for a minute. The town pays 40% of their health insurance. The employee pays 60, which I was floored. So, I'm not saying we go there. I'm just saying that there there's things that where we can negotiate and and work hard at that then then keep going back to the same well. Okay. You know my position Mr. Yeah. I'll start we'll just go down.

I'm just going to be very quick. I just I want to um respectfully address the idea that this is a negotiation problem or decision. Um I I'm sure there's memories of years ago after the first override that perhaps people like the negotiations. It's not just a bunch of us going in and being like you get a raise and you get a raise. I mean we're we're capable competent people negotiating. But the contract structure here is the same step in lean model used throughout Massachusetts public schools. And the financial challenge that we face reflects broader cost growth. It's healthcare, special education, and transportation combined with the limits of municipal revenue growth under two Proposition 2 and a half. And we're seeing communities across the state navigating the same structural gap. So,

Mr. fair. Um I see what you're saying, Craig, about you want to keep people's jobs. Um but they will not stay if they are not paid competitively. So yes, sure, Strusberry can pay make them pay a higher percentage of their insurance because they're paying them significantly more. I mean, Jay's talked about this um numerous times. We do not live in a bubble. Just because we love Grafton, doesn't mean the teachers are going to say, "Well, I would like to feed my kids more or send my kid to college, but I'm going to stay in Grafton, even though they're not paying nearly as much as somebody else." So, when we're doing these negotiations, we're contending with the fact that these folks, just cuz we want to keep them, doesn't mean they're going to stay and doesn't mean they're going to not walk out and doesn't mean that they're not going to make things difficult. So, I wish everyone would just do what we wanted them to do to make life easy, but we live in the real world where there's outside forces. So, I too want to keep every single teacher and every single person who works in town. But if we don't pay them, they're not going to stay and we won't be able to replace them. And that's what we're dealing with from our perspective when we're in these negotiations. I was just going to say Andy that I feel like we've gotten way off track of what my original question was which was what do the members looking for a one three or fiveyear override my other question which was going to be so when we're looking at this three option type uh structure how does that how does that work I I really I'm just like is this a three type thought for the board to decide which one or for the public to decide which one do we what does this mean

no to be a So, how would that work? It's like rank choice voting, but I we don't have ranked. So, we would have it's not called rank choice, but it's okay. So, what would it be? So, it's it's the highest, as I understand it, it's the highest vote over the 50% mark. The is the winner. So none of them can can be passed without a majority of the votes, but the majority that gets over 50%. So one's now that doesn't make a lot of sense. Give me a second. Okay. I I read it and now I'm vote for multiple options. Wait, so you can vote for multiple options? So one person can vote three yeses.

Yes. So one person gets three yes votes to every one no vote. Uh no, you could vote no on every single one. Like it you just don't vote. You vote yes or no on each. You vote yes and no on each. Yes or no? On each? Yes. Okay. Okay. I just wasn't sure how that worked whether it was these are that you had four basically four slots. So three yeses. So if you're voting um for the smallest override. Yeah.

You're going to vote yes on the small and then no on the two larger ones. If you want the medium one, that's what you support in terms of investment, you're going to um vote yes on the small and the medium and no on the large. If you don't support any override at all, you vote no on all of them. So, everybody gets an equal vote on each of the options and whichever the highest investment level is that gets above 50%. That's the one that would be passed. Okay. All right. I just wasn't sure on the structure of how this worked.

I have a clarification question on that. Um, and I don't know if this was an issue in Melrose, but I feel like um where was my question going with this? My uh concern and obviously this is messaging, but is like I'm supporting that big override. I'm going to vote yes on that and then I'm going to vote no on everything else because I want the big override and I'm that's a concern for me is that people are going to be confused about

I totally get that. Um, what I saw Melro Melrose do was to specifically address that sort of bullet voting type of strategy to let people know that if they were doing that they would be effectively voting against the lower options. Um, and if they were to fail that highest option, they're vote they're voting against themsel if they didn't actually support those lower levels of investment. Okay. I mean, you have a big There is a great there's a great page on how Melro did this. It's yes melrose.org, but there's a slash ballot explainer. Okay.

And we would honestly copy the heck out of this because they've done a really nicest distinct job of explaining how that works. And would that be in the polling places as well? I feel like when people are walking in I don't know if that's a town clerk uh question. Yep. It might be a problem supplement that the sign in. That's all. I just had I do have the explanations with each of the questions. It seems like that could be Yes.

Yeah. Maybe that way. Um just kind of going back to like what Craig brought up. There was, you know, many um t cities and towns in Massachusetts that were doing teacher contracts, you know, just like we did. And the ones that decided to negotiate really hard, they ended up losing and paying their teachers more with teacher strikes of 10 days, 12 days, 11 days that your kids were out of school and like for 15 calendar days. That's parents taking their kids, you know, staying home, maybe losing time on their job because their kids were out of school while we negotiated, you know, a simple contract of 3% cola. So, I think, you know, we did an outstanding job. And, you know, just to kind of to Jay's point, how you can go right over 15 minutes to Westboro and get paid, you know, $8,000 more, $15,000 more. I know teachers who have done it.

They're not driving an hour and a half to Boston to get paid $15,000 more. They're driving 15 minutes to get paid that and better benefits. Oh, yeah. So, to Christ, sorry, Mr. Sure. You got You're down to your last two minutes. Y So, how do we I mean, and you have Amarie with her hand up. Yep. No,

I mean, from a school committee side, we'd love to know if there is even going to be an override on the ballot. Um, and I don't know that we're going to have that answer today, although I feel more confident that something will will be on the ballot. Um, but to Christiey's point, we're at the point where we just have to decide what it is. So, that's what I would say. Okay.

Yeah. So, where are we going from this point? Are we coming back to meet with the select board? Are you guys going to decide on a year and then we decide from that? It's kind of a little bit fruitless for the entire school committee to be here. Well, it it's up to this board to decide the length of time. That's your job. Um, do you want us back after that's done? Yeah. Um, I mean, it's been difficult to project what we're going to get through in each meeting discussion, you know, between

the the the two the two entities. So, um, the chairs have kind of, you know, tried to remain in communication and play by ear. um when when it seemed to line up best for these joint meetings. Um we do have this on our agenda for for later tonight. Um so it's something that the provided, you know, there's still wind in everybody's sales we can come back to and um try and do some zeroing in on. Um we could try and do that at our next meeting as well. We have one scheduled. We have another joint meeting scheduled with the finance committee coming up. Um, and right now, uh, I don't believe we have any joint meetings on the 17th. That will just be our standard meeting. So, um, I don't have a good answer for that, I guess, uh, is is the long and short of it. There is definitely work that this board has to do, uh, in order to try to come to some sort of consensus as to which options we're going to offer.

Um, well, maybe since we're here and we got invited because we thought there were questions, Is there anything else we can provide um to help make the decision um before we get dismissed? And sorry to interrupt Amory. Um I wasn't trying to. I'm just thinking just maximizing all of our time. Like is there something we Because it we feel like we've given a lot and we're at kind of an there's different opinions on Yeah. So if we can help, let us know. If not, we'll get out of your way. Okay. How's that? Yeah. Um, I mean, is is there anything outstanding that you can think of that that you need from the school committee, Mr.?

Uh, they've been at it for many months. They voted their budget. Uh they've been very clear on their position about things like fees and uh whether they want to negotiate the uh contracts with the um idea of sort of uh so no I'm good. Okay. Uh Miss Foley, is there anything any information um that you you know have outstanding that you need from either the school committee or the uh the superintendent? No, I'm all set. Okay, this is DNA. I'm good. All right. Thank you all for coming in tonight.

Thank you for having us discuss and and your input. Thanks for having us. Drive home safely. Yes. Everybody drive home safe. You want to drive? Well, 50% less office. I can stay.

I love that. I delight. All right. So, we will start the 7 o'clock um select board meeting and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the to the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberties and justice for all. Thank you. It's a little toasty.

Okay. Uh the Shamrock Splashdown Polar Plunge will be held on Saturday, March 28th from 10 to noon. Join Grafton Wreck at Silver Lake Beach for their first ever Polar Plunge. The registration fee is $25. Um, the town is now accepting nominations for the outstanding citizen award. Please visit grafton-mma.gov to submit your nomination by March 31st. Okay, we do have a public hearing tonight. It is not until 7:30. Um, is there any public comment that we wish to start with? David Glisten, five Stratton Road. Um, I've I've been to almost all of these school committee um, select board meetings and the I've been in business for 37 years and I think one of the things that's gotten glazed over is that when you have an issue that kind of divides factions, you really need to get to the root cause of the problem. And as I see it, um, the school committee in concert with the school department goes out and negotiates these contracts, um, and basically puts the town in a difficult financial position and then very unfairly comes to the select board and says, "Solve this." In the old days when my father was the fire chief, um the way it used to work is the school department came in concert with the select board and their budget was vetted by the finance committee and then everyone was aligned. I I don't think there's anyone that doesn't agree that we want good schools. I don't think there's anyone that given the present situation

recognizes that we do need an override, but I think I I see this continually happening. The select board is looked upon by the town's people as the as the brightest and the most valuable board that we have. And I I think it's grossly unfair that that the school department doesn't use the resources of Evan and your board and getting together with you before they do these contracts. I I can't understand why that wouldn't happen because if you guys understand it from the beginning and there's good intelligent discussion as to what's really available for funds and perhaps the select board has some input as to how the how the contract negotiation should be handled. At the end of the day, it's simple. You you guys have already signed on to it. It's I just think I don't see it as as at all fair to the select board. I I have a lot of respect for your for the present board that we have. I I think there's a lot of care and I think there's a lot of intelligence on the board and I think the school department doesn't use your board and Evan the way that it should be. And and I agree with Mr. Dphony when he said that there should be a mechanism in place before they go to contract negotiations that they get with the select board and Evan and they understand exactly what's available and you work out a plan together before it's just dumped in your lap. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Um, next, uh, we have no appointments, uh, from either the select board, the town administrator, or the fire chief tonight. So, we're going to welcome the DPW advisory committee up.

Paul, there's a chair over here if you Okay. Yeah. We're not on the committee. Andy, with short sleeves and having a vest here, I'm like going to try and stay cool. It's always warm in here. I did just turn the AC on. So, thank you. By the time you leave, it'll be nice and cool. Sounds power. Thank you, Evan. Appreciate it. Uh, so, uh, I'm John Bashad. I'm the chair. Hang on one second. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I just I can't let that comment pass about the select board being the best and the brightest. Um, do we do we So, we have a tight timeline with this and that is on our agenda for I just want to say one thing while it's fresh.

Okay. Um, we have an extremely capable, competent school committee. Um, and it's really not fair to sort of hold the select board up above other boards and committees. They're excellent at their job and I have a lot of um, trust and faith in the work that they do. So, I'll stop and we can address it more later, but while we're we've just had the comment, I think it's uh, needed to say that. Yep. I get it. Sorry. Fine. We have a tight time frame. I'm going to try and get through what I have. Yes. Uh you guys do like a hard stop around 7:25. So So thanks for coming.

Thanks for having us. Um uh I'm John Bashad. I'm the chair of the public works advisory committee. Uh with me two other committee members, Adam Klene, Patrick Okonnell. Um we're here to talk um about the pavement management program in the town. Uh we can go to the next slide, please. which is basically an an agenda. Uh we we came in last year around the same time. I think it was February last year. Uh and did um uh a little bit on the background of the pavement management program. Obviously uh we have a road stabilization account. uh but it was developed and presented at town meeting and approved prior to this particular board and then you guys get to reap the benefits or take all the pain and suffering. So we did that kind of background last year. Uh we're going to talk briefly about our current conditions and then our next steps. Next slide please. So, since implementation uh of the uh you know, we it's all kinds of different names, but since the implementation of the road bond investment, we've we've spent approximately $17 million on town roads. We've improved 52.3 miles of town roads. Uh and that does not include crack sealing and just minor maintenance that that DPW does on the existing roads. Um but this is the, you know, through the road stabilization, the long-term vision. Next slide. So, not great graphic uh but what this shows is a snapshot of all the roads that have been addressed through the entire town in the last 10 plus years since uh since that road uh road stabilization account was put together. One of the items I like to put point out when we look at something like this is that you could see that it's been an investment townwide. There's not one area that's been focused. Um and uh you know so pavement management in general

is an assessment of the condition index of all the roads and then we put together a uh a plan to address those that are you know in the fair to good category so we can get them into do nothing condition. Uh and then those that are below fair, uh we try to find other programs to be able to fund those because if if we invested too much into the some of the roads that are in the worst condition, then we would chew up too much of the budget and then those in the good condition would start to deteriorate that much quicker. So that's the that's kind of the the the b the the background on pavement management in general. Next slide. So since 2015 uh our program we started at that time uh you know we were at 75 uh in 2012 it had dipped to to 73 and that's when we went to town meeting and we were starting to plan for um you know putting together a uh you know a budget for a road uh road manager uh program and then since that time we're now up to 81. Next slide. Um with that 81, this table shows uh you know obviously a prepoundonderance of uh of town roads. You know the bars are by uh miles and then the categories over to the farthest to the right are you know 90 plus to 100 uh is the pavement condition index and then you can see that we have a high percentage of roadways in the really good to excellent condition. Next slide. So this is the condition index. Basically that previous slide which was in a table form shows you again every roadway uh in town that's been uh in what the condition is uh based on our last assessment. Next slide. And then taking that information from that graphic and putting it into these five treatment bands. Do nothing uh routine maintenance uh preventative

maintenance structural improvement and then base re rehabilitation. We come up with a budget under each of those categories and we have 96.9 miles uh of roadway in town and we have a budget of about we have a backlog of about $9.3 million at the present time. Next slide. So we had a draft plan. We we generally have a three-year rolling capital plan. The last one that we completed was for 25, 26, and 27. This shows us the uh roads that were um uh attacked in uh the 25 plan which was completed. What's on for 26 and 27? It's hard for me to see in that bottom band, but I think the the gold color is 2027. The lighter blue or cyan is 2026 and the darker blue is 2025. What was completed? Next slide. Next slide should really show these are the roads that we did in 2025. Next slide, please. This is our draft plan for 2026, the roads that we'll be uh attacking. Next one should be 2027 if you could. And then lastly, so here's our, you know, we would continue to conduct our road condition assessment. Uh there's two approaches. Generally, um you could we do a full assessment every four years. So the data uh when we rerun the report is never more than four years old. uh in the past other communities I've worked with in my consulting days, we would do a portion 25% of the town every year. So that again at the end of four years, you still have data that's no greater than four years old, but your investment could be spread out over four years. So you weren't trying to do the entire town in one year. That's all. Um it's just a different approach some and it's once you do it, we did our last completed in 2025. Uh and then our next steps on that is as I stated at the beginning was to

prepare and maintain a three-year rolling capital plan uh based on that information. Uh lastly, if um roadways, you know, we would assess state programs and grants to tackle other projects. We did Main Street in South Grafton through the TIP program uh several years ago. Uh chapter 90 uh bond bill from 2025 was increased by 50%. So there's a little bit more money there. the that last 100 million of the uh program is um uh is uh is based on rural in nature. So some of the larger urban areas weren't getting as much and they use the rural definition so that graph will be getting approximately 50% more than they were getting but there's some back and forth in how that's being done and how it's being tracked. Uh lastly, municipal paving program uh is something that's administered by the state. And then the complete streets program uh which was done on Milbury Street. We had Milbury Street on our long range plan. And then when the town had sought out uh safe roots to school money, we postponed Milbury Street a couple years so that project could get designed and implemented. And then we were doing we paid the paving under that contract through the state to get that done. So we it was still on our plan, but we used other sources to at least get us more than just the pavement piece because we didn't want to go and pave it and then state go in and do drainage and sidewalk cut the pavement and now we you know we didn't have something and that's it. How was that for time? Next slide is questions and discussion and got a few minutes for questions.

Anything? I got a few questions. Um so the increase of um said approximately 50% of chapter 90 what what's the dollar amount for that just uh I think Mr. Mr. Zurko would have that number or he should he should be able to get that number. It was just typ 253 263. Okay. Cuz we usually get about we've been getting around 500,000 in chapter 90

and that was when the bond bill was 200 million. Last year it was increased to 300 million but the last 100 million was based on the rurality what's called the rural rural rurality definition excuse me. Um so that the rural communities throughout the state had a higher had a had a higher percentage of getting that money uh than uh and I'll be clear city of Boston, city of Worester urban but stronger urban areas. Is that 263 persistent? So will that go forward? Yeah.

That's just where the where the last bond was. So that takes us to a certain point. I know from uh the governor's office that, you know, they're trying to push forward with the legislature a four-year uh bond bill where they've only been able to do two years and and h and fund chapter 90 for four years. That that's still in that that's still in discussion point. It hasn't gone through. So, let's say we get 750 this year approximately. Yep. Approximately whatever you know. Um, is it likely that that level of 750 will continue ahead or is there it's it's only a two-year it's only a two-year bond. So we we got the So it could drop back down to 500. It could go back to the 500. Right. I see. Okay. Just wondering how

or it could or in their infinite wisdom the legislature could do something different. Sure. It's been about the last 10 years it's been about 500. It's been about a $200 million bond and Graph's got approximately 500. So, because we're contemplating um the possibility of reducing the rid road stabilization. So, I was wondering how reliable that money would be, but it sounds like we can't rely on that being uh going forward. So, that's that answers my question. Um well, depending on the legislature, so I can't I can't see the future, which means it's unreliable. Um so, uh complete streets that was I thought um around 300 grand a year. Is that

it's it's about that. the town has has in the past applied and probably has something pending right now um that they've gone through the you know there there's several state programs uh through Masdot and I just retired from there two weeks ago so I can't help you any further but I can tell you I can find what's there and where we are in the pipeline. Okay. Um, and uh, I'm just wondering how that feeds into um, essentially starting to add all the revenue sources for for roads and sidewalks. Um, is that something that um, we have been applying for consistently and um, I'd defer to the town to the town manager.

Again, just like is that reasonably reliable in terms of a funding source or is that really depending on the how the state's doing? It depends on the the project we're applying for. It depends on how the state's doing. There's a lot of factors that go into it. Whether or not we got it last year, you know that then you kind of go back to the bottom of the queue. Even if you have a good project, those type of things, but it's not something you get every year. It's not something every year. The program is every year, but it's going to be spread out through 351 cities in town. Right. And we've been fairly successful. I can't remember the We just did We got about a $300,000 award. Yeah. Like the Milford Road Sidewalk. Milford Road sidewalk. Right. Correct. Yeah. Thank you.

The more things you get, the less likely you are to get things in the future. Okay. I see Craig got his hand up so she time. Craig. Yeah. Thanks, Andy. Um, just a couple of questions. So, um, between, um, the road override stabilization fund. How's that name, John? Is that good? Is that I I don't care. I've heard it. I've heard it several times. I remember the wording when I had to present at a town meeting.

I know. I know. It's a long time ago. Um, so between that and and um our chapter 90 money, we get about $2 million a year ballpark, right? So how much of that if Paul's in the room, I can't see him, but if how much of that um is spent on roads? Are we buying equipment? Are we plan on buying equipment um in the next couple of years? Um or is it used for other, you know, um allowable uses? um or is it all going towards the roads?

I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna answer on behalf of Paul, but he's given me the look, so we'll see if he has to get up and correct me. But we don't generally use that for equipment. It's been pretty much all paving. We did use some of the complete streets money to buy um machine called the Ventra that we use for maintaining and plowing the sidewalks. But other than that, that we haven't bought any equipment out of that money. That's been all capital capital plan money. All right. So, that question kind of leads to this question. So, um, we've been having some budget discussions in case you guys haven't heard. Really?

Yeah. Just a little bit. Um, so what if if if we, you know, one of the things that we talked about at our last board meeting was if we cut that 15 or I guess it's 16 now and change. If if we um if we took brought that to a million, we're just throwing a number out. Um, what would that do to our our broads program moving forward? Other than the obvious, it's going to take longer to to to do the work because we'll have a little bit less money. But, um, I'm just trying to think of ways that we can pull back if if we got to, you know, spend more here. Maybe we can pull back some. You've had 10 years, 11 years of this program. So, just wanted to get your, you know, the committee's thoughts. We could certainly I don't have that right off the top of my head, but we could certainly run some scenarios modifying the budget to see what the PCI would look like if we invested less than the the5. Um, generally when we looked at this 10 years ago, um the the 500,000 which was chapter 90 that we were that we were essentially applying to our roads, we were losing ground. The the road conditions were deteriorating. We looked at scenarios for like a million, a million5 and 2 million. So we settled with a million road stabilization and then the 500,000 uh from the chapter 90 and that would maintain and improve and we've increased from 73 to 81. So we've we've clearly run that scenario and it's worked to our advantage. We could look at uh what the condition you know uh with uh the computer input and what our latest assessment is um what would be scenarios you know what would happen if we only went spent a million instead of a million5 and what that would do how long it would take and what's the theoretical PCI what's that going to be

right okay so just correct me so I thought the override was 1.5 and then we added the chapter 90 on top of that it was a million it was a million override And then we added the half million. We've been spending 1.5 the other way. Is that right, Evan? I thought it was 150. Brian Brian's correcting me. We We did the5 and then the additional 500. I'm sorry.

Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So, if we went to a million and then the chapter 90, I'm just Yeah, if you guys could run a little some whatifs and obviously the I'm only one member of the board. I don't know if they have the appetite for this, but it's if we're in decent shape and we can stay there and even, you know, make that number better over a longer period of time, I think we're still a town that has this program and there's probably very few that do. And John, you'd probably know that. Um, if other towns are doing this like we are.

So, we've been on this uh steady slow improvement uh track. Um I would be interested in if we can identify what's the approximate uh level of investment we would need from that stabilization to maintain at the 81. So I I wouldn't be in favor of losing ground from where we are currently, but I don't know necessarily if we have to continue improving from where we're at. Um I'm hearing residents pretty consistently say that our roads are much better than the surrounding towns. So, as far as I'm, you know, uh, what I would support, I would be interested in can we dial that back a little bit but not lose ground in terms of the condition. We can certainly, uh, run a couple of those scenarios.

And the other thing that I would suggest is um, in any case that the board consider not increasing by the 2 and a half% that we have in the past few years. That would be another sort of mechanism to even out the investment in roads. Mr. Mr. Chair, um just two points of uh edification. So, just a reminder to the board, we did obligate 317 I don't know, 0% chance I'm going to get that. Brian, what is that? 315

315 $315,000 annually out of that fund to cover the bond for George Hill Road. Um, and secondly, I just wanted to just because I have that up on the screen right now. Um, a reduction by half a million dollars um is a uh average increase or average savings of the to the taxpayer of $70 a year. So, just just two two points to make sure we we have in our forefront of our minds. And the 315 is not currently being spent. Not for we haven't bonded anything yet so it's it's not coming out. Okay.

And so that just so everybody knows the joy road is out the bid right now. It's opening at the end of the day 26. Um so we're cost of that job and based you know where that factor comes in that I can't hear him. Good. Yeah it's it's probably better that way generally speaking. Um Paul, why don't you come up and and say that into the microphone? And Mr. Chair, you have four minutes. Yeah. Okay.

Very quick. So the George Hill Road job is out to bid right now. Bids are opening March 26th. Um so a lot of you know, we don't know what that number is. Obviously, it's been several years and delay after delay after delay in getting it out to bid. So hopefully it's, you know, a favorable bid given the environment we have right now. But so yeah, we're going to need all of that 315 to pay that bond. And yeah, so anyway, okay, just so people know that the project's out the bid who people are interested in that in the general public anyway. So thank you, Paul. Y

Okay, so at this point, I mean, it seems like we've given a couple scenarios that that we can have you run through. If there's anything else that we come up with that that we want to reach out for more information, um we'll we'll do that. Um probably plan on on having the committee back um sometime soon to you know go through that. Um I mean we can correspond over email or whatever and figure out what's a reasonable line. We can work with engineering and DPW to to get those numbers and then go back through the town administrator and if we need to come back we can come back. But that'd be great. Okay. All right. Thank you for coming in tonight presenting. Sorry, I don't mean to, you know, rush you out. I didn't want to stay any longer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming. Thank you all.

Um, so Paul and Brian, uh, it's up to you. I mean, if you want to stay, we can we can get into the, uh, road stabilization discussion and driveways after the public hearing. If you don't, we can continue it for a future meeting and and bring you back then. Well, we're going to have to come back. We're going to come back anyway. So, let's just Yeah. pass over tonight. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Good. Thank you. Appreciate it. Sorry for for joining us. Mr. Chairman, I duck out for one. Yep. Okay. Um we are going to take a two-minute recess. We will come back at 7:30 and start the um dog hearing.

back. I'm here. Yep, I'm here. Okay, then I will return us to order in open session. Um, sorry. Give me one second here. apologize. Uh, ask for everybody's patience with this. We we um it's been a while since we've had a a hearing of this sort. So, um Okay. So, we start with a motion to open public hearing.

Um Yeah. Open the hearing. Yep. And make your announcement under Yep. Yep. Okay. Can take a motion. Motion to open the public hearing. Second. Second. Okay. By roll call. Mr. Dolphin. Doffany. I. Miss Foley. Fully I. Mr. Offen. Aton. I.

Jefferson. I. Okay. This is a hearing of the select board held pursuant to general laws chapter 140 section 157 for the purpose of determining whether the dog owned by Johnny Gonzaga of three North Street in Grafton is a dangerous dog, a nuisance dog, excuse me, or a nuisance dog and in either case to determine the appropriate remedial action to be taken. In terms of the order of presentation, the select board will first hear from Lisa Austerland, then our animal control officer, Melinda Mckendendrick. Uh the select board will then hear from the dog's owner if they wish wish to speak or present evidence. And after that, we can take comment or evidence from anyone in else in attendance who wishes to speak. Um at this point, I would ask uh Miss Austerlin to come up. You can you can

do I stand here or you can I was just going to say you can you can you can place to the podium or or uh be seated. All right. I don't know exactly how this works. I've never done this before. Yep. Neither have I. So, we're going to get through it together. So, hang on. Hang on one second. All right. In accordance with chapter 140 section 157, the complaintant Lisa Austerland must be examined under oath as part of this hearing. Therefore, Miss Austerland, please stand and raise your right hand. It's Oscelyn. Osceland, excuse me. No problem. Yeah, I just sent the notes. I might as well do it, right? Yep, you should. Very, very well. Thank you. Okay. I state my name. I, Lisa Osen. Okay. Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give

Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Okay. Thank you. So, help me God. Okay. So, um you can proceed with um

Okay. Um me and my family have lived out here for almost a year, so we're kind of new to Grafton. Actually, out of all the places we live, this is my favorite so far. Um I think we have finally found a place that we decided to settle on. So, here we are. Um, our new neighbors had moved in uh December 1st, I believe, of last year. On December 18th of 2025, I heard a noise outside my house door, but it's still in the hallway. Um, it was a whining dog. So, I opened up the door to see why the dog was crying. It was the male neighbor with the dogs. And I had asked if the dog was okay. He said yes. I asked if the dogs were friendly. He said yes. And I had patted one of the little ones that was there because they have three. And he had the big one, but the big one didn't seem quite as happy. I asked if he was friendly. He said yes. I put my hand out for the dog to smell me because I know that especially since he's a larger dog, you want him to smell you first. Soon as he smelt me, there is something with my smell that dog does not like. He smelt and he lunged. I didn't even get the words, "Oh shit." while I was backing up. I'll be 100% honest. Um, he got the edge of my nose. I never in my life had a scar here. I have plenty of pictures to show before, after, during, um, along with police reports, um, doctor reports of the dog bites. I also have plastic surgeons about the dog bite because I still have no feeling um on the inside of my nose right here from it. Um I proceeded to ask the lady who's actually the owner, Jessica, she doesn't walk the dogs, but she's the actual

owner of the dog if it was okay if they just put a muzzle on the dog because obviously the dog doesn't like me. I had gone through enough. If I have five stitches outside, two stitches inside, 9 hours in the hospital. It was horrible. Okay, it was absolute horrible. I actually have to buy K9 spray. We actually have to go out with that. When I'm waiting for my doctors, I have K9 spray in my pocket in case this dog comes up the sidewalk because I already know he doesn't like my smell and he'll attack me and I'm disabled. So, since he's half pit, he's going to win. So, I mean, this is what my nose looked like after his bite from the first day. I mean, and that is from me pulling away. If I had been a child or someone that didn't see him lunging, I wouldn't have a nose. I would not have a nose. That's how vicious. And out of nowhere, this dog lunged. Okay. He smelled. And there's something with my smell. He just flew up, lunged. Okay. It was very quick, very unexpected. He didn't even have time to try to hold the dog back. So, it surprised him. It surprised me. I will admit that. But I asked just for a muzzle and basically I was told the words to go myself. So, I had to talk to my landlord, hound my landlord about it. And then basically when I let her know how unsafe we were because the dog has also tried to go after my son who goes to Grafton High School and I told the landlord about it and how it was unsafe because my son waits for the school bus in front of our house. He's a door to door cuz he's special ed. So the special ed bus comes and picks him up right in front. So he has to wait

outside or right inside and the dog has come at my son. So, I've told the landlord that. So, she now has the dog where he has to be muzzled on the property where most the time he does listen to that, but not all the time. Okay? But as soon as he goes through the gate, it's off. So, if my son's there, he's getting bit. Plain and simple. He has no regard for that. And even when the police came, his thing was the dog headbutted her. She didn't know what she was doing. That was his thing. And even when I said before, I'm kind of afraid. I don't know what I'm doing. I even told the cops when they came that I had the K9 spray. And I showed him because he was upset that I had spray because he thought it would hurt his dog. So, I wanted to show cuz he called the police on me about it. So, I showed the police officers when he called 911 about it that it was K9 spray. So, he even said in front of the police on 128 Oh, no. No, no, no. Not 12:18. Hold on. I'm sorry. On January 21st, 2026 that if you hurt my dog, I will hurt you. I have a gun and a license to carry. That is what this Johnny Gun whatever said. And he's ex Air Force. And that was his answer over this dog bite incident. This has gotten way out of control. I try to be a nice neighbor and say, "Hey, I'm not going to sue you. I'm not going to do this craziness. I'm not going to try to put your dog down or make you guys get rid of it. Just muzzle it, please. And everywhere because my kid walks to the common, we walk to uncommon cow. We always cuz we're so close. Can you please just muzzle it everywhere when you're just and they don't want to. So, here I am. I just feel for the amount of rent we pay. My son gets picked up right

in front of the house cuz he's special needs. I have about I would say about 10 different doctors and I get picked up by PT1s uh because I'm disabled and I they pick me up also right in front of the house on the sidewalk. So the risk of me getting bit on this sidewalk is extremely high because the dog's not muzzled. So, since I'm so fearful and didn't know what to do, my landlord is the one that suggested that I come here and do this to ask the town just to at least enforce a muzzle on the dog when it's out. Not just for our safety, but basically everybody's safety. Cuz if someone else has my smell, we all know the reaction. And I mean, this is from an adult who's seen it coming. And that's my face. He didn't even my hand was the first thing down by this dog. He went past my hand and went at my face. Okay, so that's actually how aggressive he is. Um, I only have one copy, so I didn't know how this thing works with you guys. I have the police report where the officer says um cuz he tried to tell the officer that this half pitbull is a service animal. That's what he told him on 1218. So the C officer says that he has previously taken a course on ADA guidelines, service animals essay, emotional support animals, ESAs, and how to identify the differences. And it's not common for service animals to bite or show aggression. And that's Daniel Similar from the Grafton Police Department because he how how aggressive he is. I mean, it's not a service dog cuz she obvious she had more than one. She used to have two and they were boys. But I

don't know if I should be showing I have like a bunch of proof like between the medical reports, the police reports, the pictures. There's like a hundred things here. I don't know if you guys want to look at them because this is all what I've went through in the last 3 months with these people and it hasn't been nice. I mean, they've literally called 911 a few times just to report silly things like, uh, when the day she told me to go myself, my husband got mad and said, "I want to kill your dog." So, she called 911. Um, he got mad, called 911, he yelled about a gun, making a gun threat for me, which is on 911 recording, and he's the one with a gun. That's on the Grafton Police Department, too. because the Grafton Police Department said the reason we rushed here is someone had said something about a gun and I said the only one with a gun is him. So this has become a very dangerous situation just over a simple muzzle. I mean I I just don't know what I'm supposed to do.

Can I ask a question to council? So she's brought in a bunch of uh documentation a lot. Yes. We have folks uh three of our board members uh on Zoom. Um what's your recommendation in terms of how to incorporate this as evidence? Yeah, I mean I mean if you guys want a photo copy or just Oh, sorry. Ask me questions. Can I So I think um if the board wants to consider that I mean I think it's got to be made available, you know, to the members that are online. So we would perhaps continue. You'd probably have to continue the hearing. Okay, fine. So, I guess we as a board should talk about how much what we want to do with that, I guess. At some point,

do you want the board to consider the the papers that you brought with you? Oh, yeah. Well, they're very important. I mean, unless I mean, this shows all my proof. I mean, because he's going to say his dog headbutted me and did no harm. So, I mean, it's the total opposite of what I'm telling you. So, I mean, obviously, you're going to want to look at the proof. I mean, that does mean we won't be able to come to a finding tonight. We will you'll have to come back again so this information can be distributed to the full board. I just want to make sure you that's Oh, really? Correct. Was that okay? You want to get the proof? Okay. Okay, that's fine.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. We want to respect your um your right to bring evidence in and have it be considered, but it has to be considered by the whole board. Oh yes, of course. That has to be Yes, of definitely. That's that's why I said about photocopying, but I didn't realize I didn't know how this worked. I've never done this before. I didn't know some would be virtual. I didn't even know how many of you there would be. Sure. So, I mean, maybe for now, if you could um just talk about each of the documents and sort of if it's possible, just kind of summarize what's in it. Okay. Well, I could try to Yeah, I have literally Okay, let's let go of this for a minute. Let's see. Let's see if you'll stay there. All right. So, I don't know if the ones can they see me from here. The ones that are down or no, they won't be able to see.

Oh, they won't be able to see. That's why we're going to have to do Okay. Well, this is to show sec. I just I just want to Yes, sir.

If I do it like this through this exercise now, if we're going to have to continue this anyways, we can get the documents and have questions. If if you're asking my personal opinion, um what I would do is hear all of the testimony, take all the documents and and if uh the the the other gentleman has documents that he may want to leave to, we can get them all distributed equally and you come back for your finding at your next meeting. But I would do kind of as much of the testimony in one shot. Okay. Um, the other thing you might want to consider is um whether or not any of the police interaction is relevant to the dog hearing or not. And I don't know that we've crossed any kind of threshold there, but that's something else to consider if you're going to come back again. You you may want to have a representative from from GPD as well.

Okay. Um as it pertains to the dog bite, not the other stuff. Right. Gotcha. So, is it reasonable to ask that we just stay to the dog's actions? Um, because we did sort of stray into threats and other things. Yeah. I mean, it's it's not strictly an evidentary hearing. So, you know, it's it's not necessarily like everything has to be relevant. I mean, but you can keep it, you know, you can you can reasonably limit the scope and, you know, whatever you get, you can give the documents the weight you want to give them. uh if you don't think they're relevant to the complaint, you don't have to consider those. Got it.

One one of the things that I've seen over the years that I think works best is you gather you gather all your testimony and everything in one shot. You can have another bite at the apple next time, but get as much kind of so that you have everything in front of you when you do review the documents. Now you've got both sides of that coin. All the context. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And I would suggest, you know, there be some additional time for you to ask questions of both parties when everybody has the documents, you know, by the next hearing, right? Okay. Okay. So, what did you guys I didn't catch on which one you guys finally decided. We're we're going to take the your documents and we're going to scan them in so we have them all. Will, could you do that when I see you?

Um, and then, um, if your testimony is done, then Oh, if you guys wanted to see that, there was more than one. There are there any questions that the board has for the Thank you. Okay. So, I know you wanted you discussed speaking through those. Is there is there anything in particular that you want to topline from those at at this point?

Well, I mean, it's it's literally ongoing. I mean, the only thing that would honestly fix everything is if I keep going for plastic surgery and plastic surgery and plastic surgery. But I mean, it's your nose and then after a while you have to worry about piece. I'm not I'm not saying I'm I'm not that vain. I'm I don't know. I'm just leaving it. Uh the only thing I might have to worry about is the feeling issue. Um all that's in there. But what's also in there that's very important is like from the plastic surgeon where they cleaned my nose. Like that picture I showed you, it says in there how it's a canine bite and how they had to scrub it because I had inside stitches and outside stitches because of the teeth. I mean, if it was a headbutt, there would be no teeth involved. So, I mean, that's very important, too, because I mean, this is coming from somebody that just doesn't even clean up after his dog. So, I mean,

I I just don't know. So, did I hear it correctly that um your suggestion in terms of a remedy is uh the town requesting or enforcing uh musling everywhere? Yes. Okay. Cuz if anybody smells like me or I don't know if it's a smell or a look or what it was. I think it's a smell, but if anyone else has that, that dog's going after without even a second thought to the point where he didn't even have time to stop him. Sure. Um I guess I don't want to make any assumptions and so I want to hear from the dog owner about Oh, yeah.

possible explanations and what might have been going on at the time, but uh I just wanted to Yeah. Jessica's the dog owner and her boyfriend walks the dog. Okay. But I just wanted to be clear on what your proposed remedy would be.

Yeah. I mean, only at least in that area. We only literally go from like North Street to the common area, even if it's somehow just that area. I know that sounds stupid, but I'm disabled and that's pretty much as far as we go. So, I don't know if that's somehow possible. I know that sounds silly, but even in front of like my sidewalk, that worries me because I want my son to be able to stand outside and if the dog comes around, he's muzzled. So we don't have to worry. So even if he comes at you, he's muzzled, so it doesn't matter. You know, we have no fear. I want my son to be able to stand outside and not have to worry about it. He shouldn't have to worry about being bitten by a dog while he's standing outside for a school bus to go to school.

Sure. So, um, you talked about, um, the dog, uh, lunging at your son. Yep. Um, you've got lots of evidence in terms of how it interacted with you. Yes. And that was my first interaction ever with that dog. Do you have evidence to um the dog lunging or um going after your son at all? No. Okay. Um is that has it happened more than once? Like what were the circumstances when that happened?

My son was standing in the hallway waiting for the school bus and he was coming down walking the dog or coming in. I would have to have asked my son, but my son was waiting for the school bus. He waits in the hallway on some of the days when it's too chilly because we have the glass so you can see outside. So as soon as the bus pulls up, you go right out. It's what, 20 ft to the sidewalk, you know, so he stays warm because, you know, stopping kids, he won't wear a silly coat. So he's always in his sweater. You know, these high school kids, you can't get him to wear a coat. He's determined. It'll be 10° and it's hot out. So, but whatever. But I just want us to be safe. I like it out here. I actually honestly think Grafton's a town we want to stay in and forever like a permanent place. We've lived in Worcester and Boston and Holden and Shersbury. We've lived a lot of different places, but this is some this is a town I actually really like. I like the community of it. I like the quietness of it and the calmness of it usually. The only worry is the just the dog. Other than that, the town's perfect. Um, I'm going take a question from Miss Foley.

Hi, thank you. Um, just this is most likely in those documents and I do appreciate you bringing that all in and I do appreciate the opportunity to to review them. Um, but the stitches you indicated you had seven stitches total. Did that occur on the 18th? Like did you go right there?

Yes. The incident at the hospital. Okay. And I have pictures of uh my bloody pajamas, the bloody towel that I had cuz they got ruined. I went literally bloody to the hospital in an ambulance. Like the police were trying to talk to me while I was getting put in the ambulance. So he had to finish the conversation actually with my husband who's here. So he's the one that had to clean up the mess, deal with the Grafton police and the aftermath of everything. I'm the one that had to deal with the bite and the hospital part, but yes, I went straight to the hospital and I have all that proof with it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome,

Mr. Alamo. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, muzzling the dog would help avoid potentially whatever supposed or alleged bites might happen, but it wouldn't stop a dog from lunging. Is the dog ever on a leash? Is Is it Is it secured in any way or is the dog just walking around North Street? No, he's on a leash, but he's very He's very strong. He's very big. I have uh Hold on. Hold on. I I guess I don't understand how that how that's possible. Like if you're leaving your house or walking on your sidewalk.

Oh, no. He was in the hallway of our building. He literally bit me in front of my house door, but he's very muscular. He's the dog on the right right there. Sorry, I can't see that. Oh, sorry. No, it's okay, m Mr. Chair. Just another question then. So, so you're in your house in a hallway with same dog.

I came Yes. I came outside my house. I just in the hallway of our building. So, like, you know, cuz we have an inside hallway before you go outside and cuz the dog, there was a dog literally right outside my door crying, crying like it had been hurt. I guess one of the little ones has something wrong with its paw and it hurt itself right outside my door and was crying. I didn't know. I had never met this gentleman or any of his dogs till this day because they had only been there about 2 weeks before this incident happened. So, this was my first introduction and it obviously it didn't go that well. Yeah, I was just and I'm sorry to hear all that. I'm just trying to determine whether or not this dog is secured or

Oh, yeah. He had it on the leash, but I mean, he always has it on a leash. I will say that. He never has the big dog off the leash. The only one he ever has off the leash are the two little ones. Yes.

Thank you. Are there any other question, excuse me, questions from the board? For Miss Osland. Okay. Thank you for coming in tonight. Um we will we're going to move through the other testimonies. Um and and Will has made copies of everything you provided that will be distributed to the board. Um, and we will work with all of you to figure out a date to continue this too. Okay. Miss McHenry, would you like to come up, please? Mr. Brown, uh, do I have to swear in her in the

Okay. Could you please raise your right hand and repeat after me? I, insert your name. I, Melinda Mckendendrick. Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give Do solemnly swear that the testimony I am about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Thank you.

Okay. So, I'm the animal control officer and one of two animal inspectors in Grafton. Uh I received a call actually from the landlord of this this building on the 18th of December regarding she was concerned about landlord liability which I suggested she she consult her own attorney. Um she wanted to know about making orders muzzling and things like that. I also suggested she discuss that with her attorney as the building landlord. Uh on the 19th I spoke with Miss Odeland. Uh, she informed me that the neighbor's dog had had bit her, which automatically as animal inspector triggers a quarantine, a 10-day quarantine. Any bite or scratch, anything that breaks the skin, dog, cat, or ferret, is a 10-day automatic. Um, she she also said that she had gotten some stitches and she wanted to know about making an order to muzzle a dog and I said, "Generally speaking, we can't make those orders without a select wood hearing." Uh, but I would make the suggestion to the dog owner. And I spoke with Mr. Gonzaga on Monday the 22nd. It took a little bit of time to get in touch with him. Um, and also informed him that the dog was in quarantine. The later on the 22nd, I spoke again with Miss Gonzaga. She was asking about a dangerous dog hearing. I provided her information on talking with the select board regarding a hearing. I spoke on January 5th with Mr. Gonzaga trying to arrange a time to uh release the dog from quarantine. I understand that there was a family emergency and this is around the holiday time as well. So there's a little bit of a longer time frame to release the dog from quarantine. So I followed up again on February 2nd with Mr. Gonzaga uh to release the quarantine. He said that he had heard from the landlord. the landlord had suggested muzzling the dog that he had been muzzling the dog uh in the common areas which is from when they leave their door all the way out of the building to the edge of the property which is where that fence line is and

then after that there's there's no order in place. Um I followed up I saw the dog on the second let's see I followed up with Mr. Gonzaga and on the second he when I went to see the dog cuz I have to physically see the animal to release it from quarantine. He said it's a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix which also has a similar body size and and type of like a lab or a pit mix that can have a very boxy head. The dog seemed acted appropriate to me as far as meeting a stranger. It didn't show me any aggression particularly. It didn't back away particularly. um he just kind of looked at me what would be I would consider normal and appropriate. I was able to give him a couple of treats. He was relatively gentle with it. Um but again, I handle dogs on a regular basis. So um Mr. Gonzaga did inform me that um the neighbor Lisa and her husband had been yelling out the window threatening to shoot the dog. That another neighbor had actually contacted the police on a couple of occasions. I've got a couple of uh IMC numbers from their system if you're interested in the numbers. Um he didn't want any kind of select board hearing orders because he's concerned that that will negatively affect the dog. In addition, because I understand these people only moved in the beginning of December, uh they came from Whitensville. I've made a number of attempts to contact the Whitensville Animal Control Animal Inspector. That is actually it's North Bridge. I have not heard back from him. In the messages, I did state that that I was had a dangerous dog hearing and I need to know if there's any information. I have not heard anything back from like three phone calls. So beyond that, um I just followed up with a landlord who confirmed that she had spoken with her attorney and requested the dog be muzzled in the building and in common

areas and on the property. That's that's it. Oh, I did suggest that they had the dog temperament tested by a professional trainer.

Okay. Are there any questions from the board for our acco

just um so just to confirm the end part there. So the dog owners previously lived in the North Bridge Whitensville area. Is that what you're saying? Whitensville is part of North Bridge. Yep. Yep. Okay. Um that was the most recent before they came here. Right. So there's no history over there that I'm aware of and I did try to confirm. Right. And so would your assumption be no news is indicate in indicating that there wasn't trouble or just that person hasn't gotten back to you for whatever reason after three attempts to get in touch with them. My assumption would be no news is there's nothing to report. Right. Okay. Thank you.

Uh Mr. Definitely. Yeah. Thanks, Andy. Um, just a couple questions. So, when was the last time that you had interaction with the um the complaintant, the owner, and the dog? M I have to look at my notes. I'm sorry. I think the last time I spoke with Miss Oelind was probably in December. I know she spoke with Amber Monk regarding as well. Uh, and then in early February when I spoke with them when I was releasing the dog from quarantine.

Okay. So, there's been no issue since since then that you've had to respond to. The only real issue that I was responding to was the supposed bite on the 18th. Okay. All right. Of December.

And you and you said that you recommended that the dog stay muzzled well on the premises inside and out. I don't know enough about the whole situation to recommend one way or another. The landlord had asked me what I thought about it. I suggested she speak with her attorney. Um, it's not something that I could enforce anyways because it's private property as I understand it. Um, if you had chosen to muzzle off of the property, that would be something that I would be able to enforce. Um, yeah, but I just have no information to really establish. the landlord had requested that the dog be muzzled inside the property in the common areas and on the property. Uh but that would be something that would be up to the landlord.

Okay. So I guess to answer my question, you you this hasn't been cuz cuz some of these things um can can have several visits with several either, you know, complaints or non-compliance. But that's not the case. You you responded to one, right? I issued I issued the quarantine one event. Yeah. And then again I went back at the end of that and that's standard procedure for 10day quarantine or any quarantine with the animal inspector. We need to physically see the animal at the end of the quarantine to confirm that it's disease-free. That's the main thrux behind the quarantine types. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Mark, you all set? Okay. Okay. Now we can hear from Mr. Gonzaga if you want to come up. Same thing. You can be seated. Yep. Uh if you could um raise your right hand and repeat after me, please. I And insert your name. I. Johnny Gonzaga. Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. So help me God. Thank you.

All right. So I want to start by stating that I never called the cops ever. Not once have I called the cops on them or threatened them with any type of violence. I do have here um and so on the 18th there was a call uh let's see here from a neighbor not me from a neighbor because there was a harassment situation going on and it ended up being the incident that had happened. All right. And also I have it here on sorry I'm just looking at my notes on 121 there was another call um requesting a different officer about making threats. It seems like that was done by Christopher. I don't understand cuz I was making no threats. And then there was another call on the 21st again. And then there was another call on the 21st, but this was from someone else. Caller reports he was woken up by his neighbor shouting that he was going to shoot another neighbor's dog. My dog. I say it again. His neighbor shouting that he was going to shoot another neighbor's dog. Caller reports. Not me. A different caller called in because of what he heard. So that was not me. So, I want to put that to rest. And then there's another incident where it just happened this week. Um, this week it was the last snowstorm where I was outside my house and I stopped the car because the snow went in front of my windshield and I was cleaning it off and then I was

yelled at. I was called a bunch of different names and I was told, "I will end your life. Watch when I see you in an alley." Which is random. and I requested them to back off and leave me alone. I just wanted to start with that. I have here, and you guys probably got this because I emailed um the select board hearing a assessment from a professional dog trainer, Massachusetts training, behavioral assessment. I have a copy right here if you guys don't have it, but I did send the copy to you guys. receive a copy of that and two videos

and two videos with the trainer stating that the dog is not a vicious animal. And I also here have the paperwork that says that he is in fact a service animal. So what happened? I have a little I wrote this. It's a formal statement. On the date in question, which is December 18th, the individual, which is her, voluntarily initiated contact with my dog. So, I was walking down the hall. She opened up the door and she's like, "Is the dog friendly?" So, she initiated. She started petting him, which was friendly, and then verbally engaging with him in a friendly manner, which was okay. and then she leaned down to say hi or something and the dog moved forward and then ended up hitting her in the nose. I'm saying there was an incident. It was not in a malicious way. It was not an attack. It was not a lunge. It was not in any way malicious. All right. So that's so during this simultaneous movement of her going down and him going to lick her or to say hi because he was friendly, contact was made. So there was an incident and at no time did my dog bite, growl, lunge, snap, bear teeth, or otherwise exhibit any aggressive behavior or threatening behavior. There was no attack. The conduct was not consistent with an aggressive dog bite. And there was other neighbors there that will attest to the fact that there was no growling. There was there was nothing happening that indicated there was a bite. I had the dog on the leash. I was walking down. The leash was far away from me because the dog was walking. She wanted to say hi. So, I was about here. The dog was about here and I had the leash. I was just holding it as she was

petting the dog. He went up and I looked at her because she got up, gasped, and she went like this. I'm like, "Oh, did he hurt you?" And then she started screaming, "He attacked me. He attacked me. He attacked me." And I was confused. The dog was confused. I went upstairs. I tried to come down to say, "Hey, are you guys okay? Is there anything I could do? I started getting threatened. I'm going to kill you. Take your dog away from me. I have bipolar disorder. You don't want to be around me." And and then at first I was like, "Okay, it just happened. Something happened. There was an incident. I'm going to leave them alone. I'll try to talk to them later." I waited a couple hours. I went to the door. Their son answered the door. I was like, "Can I please talk to your dad?" And he's like, "He doesn't want to talk to you. That's fine." And then from then on, every time I like walk out or walk in or almost every time there just seems to be shouting outside their door or outside the window or I'm going to kill that dog, I'm going to shoot that dog. This and that. And it just kind of kept going. and I left it alone up until the neighbor called the cops because this has happened so many times. The cops went there and they spoke to me. They spoke to the officer and I said, "I just want them to leave me alone. I am not afraid of them. I can defend myself and I will defend myself if I have to because that is my right." And that's when I had stated like I have a license to carry. I know how to defend myself. He keeps telling me that he's going to he's threatening us with gun violence. He's saying that he's going to shoot me. He's going to shoot my dog. Like I just want them away from me and that's it. So other thing, it happened on the 18th. We moved in on the 15th. So we were there for a whole 3 days before this incident happens. I don't know them.

I I could say I didn't know them at all. And at first I thought that it was friendly. he was going to be friendly, you know, all. And then the incident happened and it just went downhill. Now I walk in and out of my apartment in complete utter like fear of something happening, them opening up the door, coming out, lunging at me. I am not comfortable being where I am. I have sent my landl multiple messages stating, "Hey, he keeps yelling. He keeps doing this. I don't know what to do. What she says is, "I can't do nothing about that. Just let things blow over. Things will come down eventually." And it's to the point where I want to say this again. I didn't even call the cops. Not once. I never called the cops. The neighbors called the cops. And they keep saying that I called the cops. They keep saying that my girl Jessica called the cops. She has never called the cops. They went there and she said and I say I'm sorry for my language that b word called the cops. I know it was her which she never did. But what I did do was the last time when he threatened to kill me for more than one occasion. The last time he threatened to kill me saying he's going to find me in an alley. He's going to end my life. I did go to the police and I did place a a report with the police station because it's been months and all I want to do is live my life. I do have the dog right now muzzled on the common areas which was a request done by the landlord which I comply with the request not because I think the dog is unsafe or I'm scared of the dog lunging at anybody. The dog has never lunged at their kid. Ever. Ever.

That has never happened. Never did that happen. So, I'm over here because there's all these false accusations and I have video proof by a professional that the dog is no way dangerous. On his assessment, I can even read it here. It says that the dog, let me see here real quick. It says, "Produce zero adverse reactions, sustain obedience to command, substaining the conclusion that Zeus is suitable for home, children, multi-dog environments, and may qualify for service work with additional training, meaning being a service dog, which the trainer doesn't even know he is already a service dog. So, as you can see, the trainer has no idea who had no idea who the dog was prior to interacting with him for that first time. And you guys have video proof and you have the assessment from a guy that's been in business for over 15 years, if I'm not wrong, that the dog is not a dangerous animal. So, I'm over here just because I want to save my dog because they're trying to portray a happy dog as a dangerous animal just because of what he looks like. Because, as she said, pit. He's not a pit. She thinks pitbull dangerous. He's a ridgeback.

So, you guys have any questions? Does uh the board have any questions for Mr. Gonzaga? I guess I do, Mr. Chair, but it's probably it calls for speculation. Why do you think that accusations then that you're that you're referring to are being made? What accusations? That your dog is dangerous.

To be honest, I don't know. I don't know because I have heard repeatedly, I am going to do everything in my power to put your dog down by Chris, which was her husband. I am going to do everything in my power to put your dog down. I am going to kill that dog. I am going to shoot that dog. So, as far as I'm concerned, they're trying to get me to put the dog down. and and I'm worried about my family and I'm worried about my dog. I can defend myself, but if I'm not around, I don't know what's going on. Uh, Miss Foley,

uh, just two questions. Um, so thank you um for your testimony there. But so currently Zeus the dog is muzzled in the common areas at all times. Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay. And then when you step out of your apartment, you take the muzzle off cuz you're Yeah. When I when I when I get to the fence, I take the muzzle off.

He walks around and then when I walk in when I'm walking into the fence, I put the muzzle back on and I go back up. And he has never lunged that her son. I have actually walked up the stairs with her cleaning the hallway and I asked her, I was like, "Since you're afraid of the dog, can you go inside the apartment while I walk up?" And she said, "No, he has a muzzle on. We're fine." And he walked by her, did not lunge at her. And I walked up the up up to my apartment. So since the 18th or since you he was released from quarantine um you've been abiding by the muzzling within the apartment within the common areas to

as requested as a request from the land lady not because it's in force she just asked could you do that and I said I will do it in order to keep the peace with the neighbors not because he's dangerous I am doing this voluntarily not because I feel like I have to because I honestly don't feel like I have too, but I will do it on the common areas because I want to keep the peace. I understand. And then just one other question. Um, on the day of the incident or the alleged incident, um, did you observe, you know, the the woman indicated, you know, blood from her nose and on her pajamas and whatnot? Just curious, you observed that.

Okay. So, when it happened, she leaned down and then I don't know what happened. He like headbutted her. I was like, did he headbutt you? Did he hurt you? She went like this and I didn't see any blood. But she started screaming. He attacked me. He attacked me. And then she walked in. So on that mid mid midterm, I would say like on that in between her claiming she got attacked, which was an incident. It wasn't an attack. And her going into the house that it might have bled after. I did not see any blood. I did see after the fact that she came out of the house and she was talking to the officer. He the officer officer Smiley, if I'm not mistaken,

Simley similar

similar officer Similar was the one that said she has a cut on her nose. And I was in shock. I'm like, she what? She has a cut on her nose. And I was like, "Oh my god, I did I I don't even know how that happened." And then I tried to speak to Chris. I tried to speak to them to like see what was going on to see if they needed anything. And I was met with nothing but just the most awful type of interaction. And at first I thought it was like, okay, things just happened. Everyone's angry. But then it just kept going. It kept going and kept going. And the mere fact that we are here, I see as part of the harassment because they keep harassing. I see this what's going on here as part of the harassment because they keep saying I'm gonna do everything in my power to put your dog down. I'm going to kill that dog. I'm going to shoot that dog. So, what's the next step to get you guys to believe that a perfectly docel friendly animal is a dangerous to the community which I have proven with video proof and a professional assessment by a trainer that he is not. Just for a little bit of clarification. So when you say common areas, the the yard is is fenced or gated.

The yard is fenced. Yes. Um is the dog muzzled when it's inside that yard area? Yes. So So basically, if you were to take it for a walk, are you muzzling it once you leave the yard? I mean, are you taking removing the muzzle once you leave? Once I leave the yard, remling before you enter the fence area? Yes. As I enter the fence, I'm muzzleing. Um, Mr. Duffany, you're on mute. All right. Sorry about that. Thanks, Andy. Just a question, a couple questions actually, just because you brought it up. So, did just for clarification. So, you said that several times they threatened to kill your dog and did they threaten you as well?

Yes. All right. So, I'm just bringing this up even though it, you know, the threatening of you um doesn't have anything to do with, you know, the issue with the dog hearing, which is what we're here for. But, and you called the you you talked to the police about that. Did you file a report? Is there is there public record of that? Yes, there is. Okay. I just want to make sure that because now that you brought it up during the hearing and I just don't now the the calls that were made by the neighbors. I would just like the neighbors names to be out of this because I don't want any retaliation against the neighbors as well because I'm afraid for them.

Well, I am too and that's why I'm bringing it up because this is a public hearing and it was brought up at this hearing and I just want to address that as well. We have counsel here and if there's any action that needs to be taken, it sounds like you you did call the police and they've I don't know what they did to address the issue, but it is I did not call the police. It is part of public record, right? Yes, I did not call the police like I stated before. I never called the police. I I went to the police station. Oh, okay. No, I never called. I went to the police station. But the police have addressed the threatening issues because of the neighbor phone. Officer Simley similar officer Similar was the one that took the the report.

I also have so your your position is that the original altercation um was kind of was kind of a just a circumstance or a mishap where the woman crouched down, the dog jumped up, there was contact. It was a complete accident. Yes. the dog isn't isn't aggressive. And since then, um there hasn't been any there hasn't been a second altercation. And you are sounds like you're continuing to uh be all right with muzzling the dog and on the property um when he's not in your your private apartment. Correct? Yes.

Okay. Because I said earlier a lot of these we have these is like there's several incidences where we keep having to go the dog officer keeps having to go back to enforce something that um you know that people are not complying to. So, this was one incident, one event, and in your mind, it was it was it was just a a mistake, you know, wasn't wasn't a an aggressive act. And um and you're still willing to to muzzle the dog on on on in the public areas, on property, and inside?

Yes. But I would also ask for the privacy of walking in and out of my house without being watched and taking pictures off through the window because that's it doesn't feel good. No, I'm sure it doesn't. But that I think that's something for police department. I don't we can't do that on but yeah. Yeah. So, all right. I'm I'm good. Thank you. Okay, Mr.

Um Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for coming in. Um, just a couple of questions. I want to, um, understand the history of the dog just a little bit. So, um, you know, who did you get the dog from? How long have you owned Zeus? And, um, kind of how long has he been a service dog? All right. Jessica Robu owns the dog. And me and her, we started dating last year in March of last year. So, I have I made first contact with the dog in March of last year. She's had him his whole life. He's never been aggressive with me or anybody that I know. He's been to my work. He's met all of my my employees because I am a manager. So, he's met all of my employees. He's met. How old is the dog? Seven years old.

Seven. Okay. Yes. So, I've I all I know from him is that he's he's a good dog. Do you know if Jessica got him as a service dog? Like, no, she did not get him as she he got certified. I believe I have the paperwork here. uh which you guys should have this as well. If you don't then uh we will send it to you because he's actually registered with the town as a service animal. Okay. We we can look at that when we uh when we get the documents. Um October 27th of 2025.

Okay. Got it. So very recently. Um um last questions for me is um had to your knowledge has there ever been any other complaints with this dog and has the dog ever had any issues with other dogs or people? No. Okay. Thanks. Uh Mr. Alamo, did you still have a question you wish to ask? It

was more of a comment, Mr. chair just watching the video of this uh this trainer just sort of testing Zeus in this environment. And it I'm sure everybody's watched the video, but I've been around skittish dogs. Uh dogs that are a little bit um well much more difficult, but this one's like he's pulling on the dog's collar. He's throwing things at him. He's smacking the table. And the dog is just kind of like friendly ignoring it. So, I'm having a little trouble picturing this dog as an aggressive threat personally just based on these videos that I'm looking at.

To that to that point, I I will echo your sentiment that I honestly found one of the videos difficult to watch because of the the point to which the trainer pushed Zeus. Um, you know, but to to that point, there was there was no visible or physical reaction, it seemed. Um, so yeah, I'll echo that as well. Um, and and to your comment, too. He was pretty hard on the dog, pulling his tail, pulling his hind legs, you know, um, being pretty aggressive with the dog and the dog was just wagging his tail. So,

okay. Um any any additional questions or or comments from the board for uh Mr. Gonzaga specifically? Okay. Thanks. Thank you. One point of order, Mr. Chair. Yes. Are there any other documents that you want the board to have other than the two videos? Everything that I have here I would like you guys to have and I already took copies so you can actually have these. All right. I guess if you want to Yeah. Will William will take those from you and make sure they get distributed. You can have them. Sorry. All right. You can have one.

Um Okay. Uh you're you're free to free to sit down. Uh are there any other um witnesses or members of the public which would who wish to make a statement tonight? Can you raise your right hand for me, please? Uh, I insert your name. Christopher Simpson. Okay. Do solemnly swear that the testimony I'm about to give. So, we swear I have a speech problem. Just going to give I swear. Uh, is is the the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but

the truth and nothing but the whole truth. Okay. Help me God. On December 18th, hun.

Yes. On December 18th, I was sleeping. I got woken up to I heard a yuz cuz where my bedroom is the hallways we live in our old house. So the they made the house into a five bedroomedroom, five apartments. So for him to come by, he has to go by it's a tight squeeze by my door to his for him to go by to go up. He has to go by two of my doors. So his stairs are right in there. It's a one-bedroom apartment. My son has the bedroom. We sleep in the poll. So I was in the poll sleeping. I heard her scream my name. I jumped up. I went run into the kitchen and she's like this and blood's going down her shirt. I moved her hands and it split wide open. I ran grabbed her towel. I yelled at this guy, "What the going on with your dog? What the hell?" Yes. I threatened to kill his dog. Yeah. Well, my wife just got bit. I just got woken up out of a sound sleep. So, I'm already, you know, he kept coming to the door trying to talk to me. I told him I didn't want to talk to him. I'm diagnosis mental mental tardation and major bipolar. I said my bipolar is up off the hook right now. Please just leave me alone because my bipolar is acting up. Reasonable. Just leave me alone. Just go away. I'm in the house and he's out in the hallway telling the cop, "Oh, she don't know how to deal with dogs." Blah blah blah. I opened the door and I said, "Listen, dude. My wife has trained German shepherds since she was a kid. She's bred and raised all German shepherds her whole life. you're down telling the copy my wife doesn't know what the hell she's talking about. So the cop, you know, said, "Chris, I'm going to take care of this. Go back in the house." I went back in the house. I hopped, you know, my wife left an ambulance. I took pictures. I took pictures of the clothes. I hop in the shower. Like he said, he knocked on my door. My son answered the door. I was in the shower. I got out of the shower. I started I packed all her medication because I knew she was going to the hospital. I was going to walk from our house three north all the way to UMass Memorial and all the way in Worcester and I was already hiking it. I got a ride from the club. He's the one that brought me and dropped me off at the

police at the hospital. And he even said to me and even says in the report that a service dog does not attack a person. It does not do that. All I want to say is just she was bleeding. It was bad. Since then, I me and my son a couple weeks ago when we had one of the snowstorms, we were outside shoveling. I don't know the exact day cuz we have so much snow already. He wasn't home. She was walking the dog and me and my son were outside on the sidewalk shoveling cuz I I shovel for the landlord. And she was coming up the driveway with her dog and her dog automatically looked over and already gave a little to me like where I am to you is the dog. And he already looks over and gives me a growl out of nowhere.

This is the same dog.

That's the same dog. And that was her. And she had to She walked the dog. It growled and then it came back and growled and gave us me another dirty look and growl. That's all it did. It didn't try to lunge at me, but it gave the growl like it looked over like out of nowhere cuz I don't know, maybe because it see me with a shovel. But that's the instance we've had. Uh I said I bought dog spray. If the dog attacks, I'm going to use the dog spray on the dog. I bought it the right way. It's I'm allowed to. It's a K9 spray for K9's if they attack you. His words was, "You hurt my dog, I'll hurt you. I have a gun and I have a license to carry." He is a you United States Air Force is sworn to take care protect Americans like I am. And he's threatening me. You swore you swore in the military to take care of us.

Did no harm. And then you threatened that you have a gun. So I'm sorry, sir. But he threatens that say he has a gun to my wife. I called the police station. I talked to the sergeant.

It's the sergeant said that he was going to make a report. The reason why they can't make a couldn't do a real record on it is because he didn't say I'm going to shoot you. The sergeant says the new laws is he if he says I'm going to shoot you with the gun. He says then we can make a report. The sergeant said that the grafting police that he was going to put in a little, you know, little message what happened at the house. Well, we're sad. He's going to please put that there. him saying that he's got he's he's gone to the police station. No one's reached me reach got a hold of me at a police station saying any reports on me at all. So I don't know where what reports he's been or what but no Mobs have come and talked to me at all. I just wanted to let know people what's happened and that's all I got to say sir. Thank you. Um questions.

Yep. We'll see just in case anybody has any questions. Does the board have any questions that they wish to ask? I think so. Thank you.

Okay. Um, so if we're going to continue this, are we required to pick a date to continue tonight or are we just allowed to continue it to a future date um and and coordinate with all the parties? I think you can coordinate the date with the parties. Okay. Just that the the the hearing is still open. Do we need a motion to um so to continue? Make a motion that we continue the uh hearing at a future meeting um on a date that's agreed with um the complainant and uh the defendant. Second.

Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion hearing? None. By roll call, Miss Foley. Fully. I Mr. Dane. Um, just point of order. Could you just I'm sorry. Could you repeat the motion? I was having a hard time hearing it. Sure. The motion is to continue to um future meeting at a date agreed by the interested parties. Okay. Thank you. Um Dolphin A. Mr. Alamo. Alamo. I Mr. Offton I

Jefferson I. Okay. We will continue the hearing. Um that's all our action for this right now. We are good to move on and Okay. So again to confirm we will um have our administrative assistant Amber again get in contact with you um to schedule a future date to continue this meeting. We typically meet on Tuesdays. So um just giving you a heads up. No problem. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you all for coming tonight. Thank you, Mr. Brown, for coming in tonight and assisting with this.

Okay.

Okay. So, at this point, um, we do have a couple things left on the agenda. If we want if we want to circle back to the budget discussion and try to iron anything out. Is that or I know we've been going at this in six at this point. Um, is this something that the board wishes to circle back to now or discuss um at one of our upcoming meetings? Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. I just want to wait. It does. Nobody seems enthusiastic to continue uh the budget discussion at this point. So,

sorry it's late. I know. I'm trying to look at the I'm looking at the agenda to try to sort out where we're at. Yep. Those are the last two things. So, I think it's reasonable that we continue the discussion next week. Okay. Um and go ahead. So, uh will you push the road stabilization fund the under new business be to next week as well? Um I would say the road stabilization fund and proposed driveway regulations will probably move to the 17th. Um okay

we are tenatively scheduled for a joint meeting with the finance committee next Tuesday on the 10th. Um so I think we can we could do additional budget discussion then. Um but I would I would hold off on the other two. Okay, everybody all right with that? All right. Uh, we can move on to select board reports then. Pass. So much fun. Pass. You You can say it.

Okay. Um, so Matt and I hosted our uh Ask Me Anything last week. Um I I think it was pretty pretty average. Attendance uh you know some of the feedback we had uh was that the town website can be difficult at times to find things on. Um concern over how we can protect or assist people on fixed incomes as we discuss overrides. Um how we get some crosswalks installed in the 122A area. um and potentially seeking uh digital signage sponsorship from some of our larger businesses and organizations like UPS and TUS um who may have, you know, a slightly bigger wallet to help with some of those things. Um I also attended the Grafton Water District Commissioners meeting last week. Um the only real news I'd share is that they authorized funding for the engineering of the Trinity Flet treatment facility. Um, so to just tag on to that a little bit, one of the things that was brought up uh in the AMA was um the kind of uh expansion of the fire department um and what that looks like a little bit longer term. So um if we're going to consider a longer term override, I think we need to probably hear from the chief what his plan would be for the next five years so that we could make sure that's baked into the projections. That would be my recommendation.

We had That's That's a good reminder. Um because the last time that him and uh the chief and the deputy chief were in, we asked them to consider what the next five years look like when they were giving us their quarterly update. So, exactly. We should we should circle back on that. Make a note. Okay. Uh TA report. Um I don't have a formal PowerPoint. We went through everything that I had already put together and you did hear from uh DPW Director Canoyer a little earlier. We are out to bid on George Hill. That bid closes on the 26th. 26th.

Um and so we'll have more to report as soon as that that bid uh is closed on that day. Um but otherwise just day-to-day life at the municipal center and trying to work on the budget. It's pretty much it. I'll budget all the time. Okay. Uh, any correspondence? Anybody wish to discuss? Just uh could I ask one question? Uh, Mandy? Sure. Um, how we doing on our snow budget? Yeah.

Uh, so I I'll give you It's actually funny. Mayor and I were talking about it earlier. I'll I'll give you an accounting of that as we move into the the next meeting. Um, but what I would say is bad. Um, it's definitely uh we've had a lot of hours and a lot of a lot of pushing snow and a lot of salt. So, yeah. Um, well, yeah, like it's been mentioned on online several times and they're they're doing a fantastic job, though. I know they're they are they're probably tired and and uh don't want to go out anytime soon, but yeah, they're they're really doing a great job. So,

thanks. I'll make sure that they that they hear that. And then also I mean they're out right now so um I was getting texts while we were in here about salting and and everything else. So um yeah they do a great job here. They really do. Miss Foley. Yeah. Thank you. Um I believe that there was something in our correspondence relative to bag fees.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Yes. Because I've also received a lot of personal correspondence relative to bag fees. through my email, my town email account. Um, so I just wondered if perhaps we might want to put something on an upcoming agenda where now for maybe, you know, people have learned about this and that we could just have another discussion of like how we got here. uh almost reiterating I know what we've done already but um rather than me individually calling people who are reaching out to me um just to kind of address it once more that you know we voted on this previously you know so on and so forth how the committee came to to where we came um it doesn't have to be a whole long song and dance but I think it might be beneficial just to put it out there once more

just a recommendation for an agenda item yep Mr. Mr. Chair, can I piggy back on that a little bit? Uh, so Andy did ask me that we had one more person that had reached out free of the select board account. Um, and I had already kind of crafted a response. So, what I'm thinking is that we're going to I I I agree put it on another agenda, but in the meantime, I'm going to take that kind of initial email response. We're going to we're going to uh make that into kind of a one-pager um that we can supply people with um but also use those as talking points for our push to kind of get that that message out and do some infographics and and things around that as well. Okay.

That gives kind of the timeline of like how we got here and and you know reiterates that you're paying for the service, not necessarily the the bag. That that kind of idea. Um, and I mean, you know, I've got a lot of people reaching out to me personally, just, you know, kind of Amry Foley, but then I, like I said, I've gotten some emails to my town account that are pretty long-winded and whatnot in addition to the correspondence. So, just felt that maybe there was an opportunity, but then I appreciate a graphic or a one pager to be able to direct folks to as well. Certainly. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it' be great to get something out. We can we can work on that. we have the we have the framework and so we just got to just kind of tighten it up

for clarity and just I I don't believe that correspondence made this packet. I think it'll be in the next packet but it was received within the last couple days.

Okay. Um yeah, I I just wanted to talk a little bit about um we've received some correspondence about the CPA uh piece and we had some um I think a pretty good discussion about that um in one of our meetings, but I don't know necessarily that we provided um total clarity uh in terms of what the board wanted to do if anything on that. We had asked for some information which Evan provided to the board via email. Um I I don't think we had sort of a follow-up conversation on that. So, I just wanted to address that just a little bit. Um um I was interested personally in the potential for increasing the um exemption. So, it's currently at 100,000. Um I was interested in increasing that. Um that was explored and it was determined um that we can't do that. So, that's not an option for us. Um, and I uh I don't want to speak on behalf of the board, but I'm going to say what I think we sort of ca the agreement we came to in the meeting was that we had discussed um the possibility of um uh presenting the voters with an opportunity to um move out of CPA and and after discussion and um and deliberation, the board decided I I think that we wanted to leave the CPA infrastructure in place and that uh the sort of consensus was that we didn't support um removing CPA alto together. Um there was one last option which I'm was a little bit unclear on which is um did we at any point want to um present the voters with an option to go from uh one and a half% s search odds to 1%. Um I think that was an option.

Um, and so, uh, I wanted to just suggest to the board that in the same way that we're looking at the road stabilization, that that's something that this board should discuss. Um, and, uh, I personally would recommend that we save that discussion until after the budget season. Um, so that the sort of override discussions and um, and other things um, is a little bit more of a cleaner discussion. And when people go to the ballot, they've got less options um and less things to think about weighing out a tax override with CPA to sir taxes and other things. Um so I personally am interested in continuing to explore that. Um but I'd recommend that we sort of take that up uh after the budget's done. So that's what I recommend. Okay. Anything else? Okay. Uh, we have one set of meeting minutes to approve.

I move the board vote to approve the meeting minutes for March 18th, 2025 as written. Second. Okay. Uh, motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. Uh, by roll call. Miss Foley. Foley. I. Mr. Doin. Dolphin. A. I. Mr. Alamo. Alamo. I. Mr. Offen I Jefferson I. Okay. Uh I can take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. Okay. Uh by roll call. Miss Foley. Foley. I Mr. Dolphin. Dolphin. A I. Mr. Alamo. Alamo. I Mr. Offen. Off. I Jefferson I. We are ajourned.