Select Board - Regular Meeting

under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The charter review committee will host a public hearing this Thursday at 7 p.m. in conference room F and on Zoom to gather suggestions regarding the town charter. This feedback is vital in ensuring that our town charter reflects the needs and values of Grafton residents. The chairs of the select board, school committee, and finance committee will host two outreach meetings to help residents better understand the upcoming override vote. The first session will be on Thursday, April 16th at 700 p.m. right here in conference room A, and the second will be at Grafton High School on Saturday, April 25th at 3 p.m. Please stop by with any questions you may have. Sustainable Grafton will hold an Earth Day celebration from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 26th at the Common. There will be activities for kids and information available from local environmental groups. The community yard sale day is Saturday, May 2nd. To participate as a seller, be sure to register with the recreation department by April 17th. Have one more announcement from the Fourth of July parade committee. Welcome, Mr. Stone.

Hello. How's everybody today? Good. Doing well. Good. Good.

So, uh, wanted to come out, give an update on how we did last year for the Fourth of July parade, talk a little bit about what we're going to be doing this year for the parade, and of course, invite everybody out. Uh, so I'm going to go on record and say last year's was a a resounding success. It was the first year we've partnered with Farmers Market. Uh, there were estimates of over 1500 people. The fire department was a couple of the fire department personnel were telling us that we probably had about 2,000 people there. And the great thing about it was uh first off, as we were walking around, the committee members were getting positive feedback from everybody. Uh there were people that were just talking to other people about it and people that were seeking us out to let us know how great it was uh how great it ran last year. But also, as I was talking to people, we had a lot of folks come from out of town. The farthest away was uh north of Boston. We had people come out to for our parade. So, we're going to continue to build on that. This year's parade, it's going to be Saturday, the 4th of July. It's going to start uh with the doggy mayor event at 9:45, which we have in the uh band stand. Submissions for the doggy mayor going to we're actually opening them up earlier this year. So, we're going to start around the beginning of May and those submissions are going to run until the middle of June and then voting will run from the middle of June to the uh beginning of July. So, uh, we have realized we had a lot of people last year that wanted to put their dogs in, but they were still trying to find where to go, how to do it, and things like that. So, we want to give them more time this year. Parade itself will be coming in through the common at 10:00. We are going to be partnering with the farmers market again. So, we're looking to continue to build on that uh partnership as we move forward. This year, for the 250th uh birthday, we are going to be putting on a women of history float. So, uh, that's going to be a fun addition this year. And then we're also going to

hold a kids Uncle Sam costume competition. So, we're starting to put the stuff out now. Uh, get the advertisements going for that. As I always still looking for volunteers, love to have more parade participants. We continue to grow with people joining our parade every year. We want to keep that going this year. Um, we have our Facebook page and now an Instagram page. So, uh, if people want more details, they can reach out to us there. Uh, go to the We'll be posting all this stuff on our Facebook page as we move forward and get closer to the event. So, any questions? Thank you. That was great. Thank you. All right. Hope to see you all there again. Thank you very much. Thanks.

Thanks, Justin. Um, is uh Steve on Zoom?

No. Uh, I don't see Mr. Mr. Bel are in the audience, are you? I see you. No. Okay. Um pass over the public hearing for now. Then uh any public comment hearing? None. Uh we have an appointment for the Veterans Advisory Committee. Um uh Mr. Chair. Yep. We think we may have them on them. Yeah.

Okay. Steve, can you hear us? Uh, we need you to come off mute if you can. All right, let's um if you want to try and figure out your Zoom situation, uh we're going to move on to uh the appointment and then we can circle back once uh once we have some audio, I guess. Um so again, uh we have one appointment for the Veterans Advisory Commission, uh committee. Uh Mr. Kenny, you want to uh just come on up and if you would just tell us a little bit about yourself and and uh your interest.

Uh my name is Jeffrey Craig Kenny. I go by Craig. Um I'm a live at Fort Nodingham. We've been in Grafton for nine years. Um what led up to this was I'm a member of the American Legion here post92 and uh we coordinate with a lot of the uh things with the Veterans Advisory Committee what what has meldted into their with the holidays the Veterans Day Memorial Day and the 4th of July and I know Justin and Lucas and those guys and I've gone to a couple of their meetings and I'm want to kind of be a liazison between the two so that we can they're doing things that we used to do and vice versa and just to make sure that the veterans get the bang for the buck from all of us and that's that's basically what uh what I want to do. I was uh in the Navy uh 68 to 75. I was uh worked on nuclear submarines and um GI Bill put me through college and uh basically here I am. So that's about it.

Thank you. Any questions from the board? It's just a comment, Mr. Chair. Sure. Thank you for your service and thanks for volunteering. You're welcome. Yeah, it's a great committee. We're always looking for people to get on there. So, good. Appreciate you stepping forward. All right. Okay. Uh, we can take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to appoint Craig Kenny to the Veterans Advisory Committee. Second. Okay. Motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Okay. Passing. Thank you. All right. Uh you'll receive a letter from the clerk's office um that you'll need to sign and then be sworn in, but other than that, good to go. Very good. Thank you. Great. Thank you.

You are welcome to stay, but under no obligation. Okay. Um circling back, Steve, can you hear us now? Come on, Steve. Yeah. Hi. Sorry. Okay, great. Um, we're going to we can open the public hearing now uh and and get this going. Mr. Chair,

yes. Notice is hereby given under chapter 138 of the general laws as amended that an application has been made by Moving Cow LLC doing business as Uncommon Cow Cafe 21 Grafton Common Grafton Massachusetts 01519 for a restaurant all alcoholic beverage license. The premises to be licensed are located at 21 Grafton Common Grafton Massachusetts 01519. The premise the premises consists of one floor with three rooms front ice cream kitchen and a patio deck with 30 seats outside at 1,200 square I think it's square feet. Upon this application the Grafton Select Board will hold a public hearing now Tuesday, April 7th at 7 p.m. in conference room A of the Grafton Municipal Center at 30 Providence Road. Remote meeting participation will be available using Zoom webinar ID number 826-911 9809. The purpose of this hearing is to provide an opportunity for public comment. Interested citizens are invited to attend this public hearing and offer comments in writing, in person, or via Zoom. Written comments must be received by noon Thursday, April 2, 2026. open uh motion to open a public hearing.

Second. Okay. Motion seconded. Um all those in favor? I I We are now in the public hearing. Um Steve, if you want to, I guess, just walk us through this quickly. I mean, it seemed like all the paperwork in the packet was in order, but uh give you a chance to to talk about it, maybe promote it a little bit. Um I think uh if you want to touch on it, the question a lot of people are dying to know is is when can we look forward to a grand opening?

Yes. Okay. Steve Belpury, 26 South Street. Um and yeah, so we are applying uh before you guys to have a liquor license at the new location which will be moving from our current location which is at one Grafton Common uh across the street to 21 Grafton Common. Um and there's approximately it's about 64 seats total with inside outside. Um, and it's going to be very, you know, it it's a breakfast lunch. So, what we're doing now is we're moving our location. I know there was some uh back and forth on whether we were going to move or not, but we are moving out of the space that we're currently in. Uh, and we will be moving into the new space before May 1st. Um, we've gone through a lot of our approvals and all of our inspections and most of everything is is complete except for the actual moving in part. So, we're setting up right now dishes, silverware, uh, etc. And there will be so everything that we have now uh, at the current location will be available at the new location and on top of that there will be a breakfast and a lunch menu. So, we will be open every day from 8:00 a.m. to 2 pm. That'll be our kitchen hours. So, the full menu from 8:00 a.m. to 2 pm. Then after 2 p.m., we'll continue to do what we do now, and that's grabband go, you know, muffins, whatever is available in the bakery case, cookies, etc., acai bowls. And then, of course, we'll have ice cream. So, we'll be going in the summer, we'll be going from 7 o'clock, which is our closing time now. will be going to 900 pm in the summer. Uh which will have ice cream available from all day from 8 am

to if you want ice cream in the morning, you can get it. Uh to 9:00 pm at night. Great.

Yeah. So, we're excited. Uh it's been a long time coming. Uh the building is has come out. It's I I I believe we it came out really good. The contractor and I um it was a lot of work, but I I feel like it the benefit and the reward is coming. So, um, as far as what we're asking for, so how we're going to do the alcohol is we're asking for a full liquor license. However, there's no bar there. So, it's not it's it's a breakfast lunch, so it's cafe style. Um, we're going to control the alcohol and limit it to Bloody Mary's, mimosas, um, two like a red and a white wine and a couple of beers in cans. So, there won't be any tap beers or anything like that, but we'll have, you know, some good beers and cans. Um, and we'll we're going to keep it very controlled because we do have a lot of young uh employees, so we want to be careful. Obviously, you have to be 18 or older to touch the alcohol to serve the alcohol. Um, so we are preparing ourselves for a lot of older um employees for the summer, which is great because a lot of college kids are coming back. Um, but like I said, the alcohol menu will be very limited. It'll be locked up in, you know, a specific cooler. And the way that we are going to do this, and it could change, don't hold me to this. Um, but it'll be mini bottles. So, we'll bring you the Bloody Mary mix that we make in the glass with ice, and then we'll bring you a little Tito's nip, and you'll pour that into your glass. Uh, the mimosas, we'll bring you a small bottle of champagne, and we'll bring you the orange juice, and you'll pour it in your glass. So, it's going to be alcohol served, but kind of self- served in the same way. Um, and it'll only be at the tables. It will not be to go. Um, and you know, all the rules and we've had our liquor license at the grafting grill for 10 years now. Um, so I believe we've had no violations. Um, you know, it'll be a little different, but I believe we can handle it and we can manage it and, uh, it's going to be

great. Excellent. Uh, any questions from the board, comments? Okay. Hearing none. Uh, any comments or questions from the public?

Cherylyn Reno, 89 Keith Hill Road. I was wondering, you gave three different sets of operating hours. During which of those sets of operating hours are you planning to serve alcohol? Uh, good question. We are I mean right now there's no plan. I mean we are we are getting a liquor license for all operating hours. Uh you cannot I believe the hours are 10:00 a.m. on Sundays as far as serving alcohol. So we will abide by the rules as far as the state law goes. But alcohol can be available throughout the day. But because we're going to limit this, we may not have a alcohol all day long up until 9:00 at night. But we haven't we haven't really figured that out yet. But we are applying for a liquor license for all hours.

Any other questions from the public? Okay. Um motion to close the public hearing. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? All those in favor? I Okay, there's no additional discussion. Uh, we can take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve a restaurant all alcoholic beverages license for Moving Cow LLC DBA Uncommon Cow Cafe and sign the licensing authority certification. Second. Okay. Motion made second. Any discussion?

I'll just say one thing if I can. Sure. Um, I just wanted to say to Steve and Lori, like just thank you for your incredible commitment to the community, to the town of Grafton with both of your current um establishments and now, you know, expanding. Um, this board member in particular appreciates um your hard work and your dedication and what you've done to the to all of the sites. So, I thank you. Okay. Anybody else? I Yeah, I agree. Thank you. Appreciate that. Y and thank you for the farmhouse salad. It's the best in the business. You'll only be able to get the farmhouse at the grafting grove. That's okay. I'm just saying it. I know. Wait, we have uh we have some great new styles coming though. I'm hopefully you'll like.

All right. Okay. Um any additional discussion? Just uh just your earlier question. Is there a is there a kind of a soft opening date, Steve?

Um so that's another question that's good. I mean, it's been so long and we've been kind of dragging this thing out that we're uh pretty much going to try to do this in like one day, one night. Um because a lot of the stuff that we have in the current location, we won't be bringing over. Like we have new tables and chairs. So, we'll be moving out of our old space, but we're planning on kind of just bringing over the a few of the things that we need to get open and then just kind of opening. But, um that could change. But so to answer your question, no, there isn't going to be like a soft open. Um, but we have been testing a lot of our salads and a lot of the food at the Grafting Grill. So, we've been doing some specials over the last couple weeks. Um, like the fish sandwich, for instance, is going to be one of them. You know, there was a couple salads that we did. We had a Chipotle um, bowl that we're doing this weekend, past weekend that sold very well. So, those types of things will be on the menu. So, we're preparing ourselves for that in in a different way than we used to. Um, but it's hard to kind of do a soft open when we're kind of already open. So, I was I was trying to figure that out, too. But most likely we're just going to just open and do it.

Okay. Well, good luck. All right. Thanks. Any additional discussion? Okay. Uh, hearing none. All those in favor? I I pass unanimously. Congratulations. Thank you again. Appreciate you coming in tonight.

All right. Appreciate Thank you guys. All right. Uh, we have no appointments for the chief or the TA, so we can move into new business. Um, so our representative from Rashford and Suns, Mr. Goodman, uh, is unable to make it tonight. Um, they are hoping to host their third annual beer fest over at the Willard House and Clock Museum again this year. Uh they are applying for a one-day beer and wine license for themselves as well as the music license. Um we've granted this the last two years. Uh to the best of my knowledge, everything has gone incredibly smoothly. No disruptions. Everybody's been a happy camper. Um as the additional vendors come in for this event, they will submit their tips, certifications, and insurance for our purposes. Um, right now this is just for Rushford and and the overall event. Um, does anybody have a problem with uh accepting the application tonight without having the opportunity to talk to Mr. Goodman or can we go into a motion?

I can go into a motion. He's been here. I agree. Yeah. They've they've been a a great responsible partner. So, Yep. Yep. enthusiastic very much. I would miss that part of it, but let's just do it anyway. All right, go for it. Uh, Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve a one-day beer and l uh beer light a one-day beer license and a one-day music license for Rushford and Suns Brew House on Saturday, May 16th, 2026. Second. Okay, motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I

Okay, pass unanimously. We'll let them know about that. Um, next up we have an alcoholic beverage license for the Grafton Farmers Market for Bliss Point Mery. Um, and we have uh Jeff in here for that. See you on Zoom there. Can you hear us? Okay. Yep. Yep. Can you hear me? Yep, we can. Thank you. Hi everyone. This is uh Jeff Venude. the owner of Bliss Point Metery and we are going to be a vendor again at the uh Grafton Farmers Market. This is our second year. Um we had a pretty good reception last year uh and we're looking forward to building on that this year.

Great. I enjoyed sampling your products last year, so I'm excited you'll be back up there again this year. Excellent. Yeah, glad you got a chance to to go by. Um so it's it's me. It's alcohol made from honey. Um it's uh Instead of fermenting the sugar and grapes to make wine, we ferment the sugar and honey to make me. For anybody that doesn't know what it is, that's what we'll have on our table. Any questions or comments from the board? No. Okay, Mr. Chair, take a motion. Yeah. I move the board vote to approve a license for Bliss Point Metery to sell at the Grafton's Farmers Market in 2026. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Hi.

Hi. Congratulations. Thank you for participating again this year. Looking forward to seeing you up there. All right. Thank you everyone. Have a good night. Good night. Okay. Now, uh we have our recctor uh Adam Le Point on Zoom with a road closure request around the com. Can you guys hear me? Okay, we can. Welcome, Adam.

Perfect. Okay. Um so good evening everybody. Uh just doing our annual request uh for the road closure um around the common uh for the road race that happens. It's our 35th year of doing it. Uh last year we had 285 people run. So we're hoping to uh continue that number. Um happy to answer any particular questions you may have about the closure itself. Uh but we're just looking to do that again. Yeah, pretty straightforward. Do it every year. Anybody have any questions? Anybody gonna run? Uh maybe I wouldn't call it run. What I do isn't running couple maybe I would call you on hobble. I'm gonna be slow and I would do that on we we'll take hobble. We'll take hobble. I might hobble with you Adam. Mr. Chair, Mr. Elmo.

I move the board vote to approve the road closure at at the common on Saturday May 9th at 2026 as requested. Second. Motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Hi. Hi. Okay, great. Um, and next up, we're going to get a general update from the rec commission.

Welcome. All right. So, I am Jesse Bremlar from the Recreation Commission. Um, following Adam. He's still on if I need any backup.

Yep. Um, but the good news is you guys have a incredibly strong recreation in town. The amount of progress there's been because when I was growing up here, I was in the recreation like Betty Wright, was the first person that ever hired me. So, like I've been around for a little bit. Um, to see how this program has grown is incredible. Uh, I'll give you a couple of highlights because I know you have really long agenda as I was looking through. Um, but summer days increased by 100% this year. it it expanded by 100% because there's such a demand for things for kids to do during the summer. Not only things to do, but like child care to be honest. Um, and it filled up right away. Uh, we offered if there's any remaining spaces, they can still be filled by people from out of town at a slightly elevated cost.

So, we can fill all those places. Uh, let's see what the craft fair brought in 2,000 people. If you made it to the craft fair, you know, there were some really quality vendors. And as I was walking around to people that had been there for the first time, but they've been to many other craft fairs as vendors. They said Grafton completely stood out for communication. It was very smooth process unloading, getting everything done. So that was fantastic. There's some new groups um that started up like there's a walking group. There was a trip to New York City. You could hop on the bus and go spend the day there, do some shopping. Um adaptive and inclusive programs have really expanded. uh we hired a therapeutic recreation specialist and if I remember correctly, we're one of two or very low number of towns in Massachusetts that even have one. So that really sets us apart. Um that was Bridget Derward and she really set the groundwork for expanding inclusive programming and doing it regionalized too. So if we didn't have enough interest within Grafton to run the program, we'd pull in the other um town to be able to run those types of programs, which was really well attended for both the younger side of things. Like these programs go as young as six months, like parent and me kind of stuff, um all the way to the teens. So that was fantastic to see. um the Betty Wright Memorial Scholarship Fund. There was 34 financial assistance awards that went out to folks in town so everybody can participate in Grafton Rack. Uh it was $3,397 that went out. Um and that splashdown that just happened that was raising money for that same fund. So it's continuing to grow. I was happy to see that. Um my kids once needed that to be able to participate. So that means a lot to me. Uh, let's see what else. Oh, we have 95 North Street coming up. That's really cool. Um, so there's a passive park, um,

Angvall Memorial. I got the right name in here somewhere. It's yinsworth Angall Memorial Park. Um, so that's going to be more of a passive. You can walk through park that's opening really soon when it's warm enough and not snowing like this morning. um to set the concrete pad. They have to still do that and finish up the path. Uh but there's there's just so much going on. There's stuff for families. We have the chalk art day, that community yard sale that's coming up. There was fantasy football this year. Uh if you want vacation stuff for your kids, they can do equestrian. They can do fin. They can learn to ice fish. There's paddling nights. Um, the summer days even has a field trip week this year where it's field trips every single day for your kid. Like they're gonna come home nice and tired. Um, there's taught music, there's fast athletics, you want to learn golf, you want to be a junior lifeguard, and even the adult group exercise, pickle ball, um, the summer concert series this past year went to different locations, not just on the common, so people could see different parts of town. um and expand a little bit because sometimes the co the comments getting a little bit congested with how many people are coming. I think it was yeah attendance increased at special events by 15%. So people are coming out just like for the parade we're seeing more attendance which is fantastic. Um but yeah there's a lot going on. Several projects have been well supported by CPC so I wanted to highlight that and thank them. the Norcross playground replacement, the Ferry Street replacement, and also the passive recreation park that's opening up soon. Um, yeah, so that's pretty much what's happened. And then vision going forward is a hope for more fields, more

facilities, um, the grand opening like I mentioned, um, and seeing Silver Lake utilized. I did want to correct some misinformation that's out there. I saw it on the town website. Um, it said regarding the override, if it doesn't pass, the beach will close in June. It will not close in June. Um, we will be able to get through this summer, which I think is important, not only for just like putting out correct information, but also like for the the beach staff that's been hired, they kind of should not be confused if they're going to be let go in June. So, I'm hoping that that can be corrected. Um, but in um transparency, there is not going to be funding beyond that. um if the override doesn't pass. So this summer, yes, going forward, uh it would it would be a real real problem for Silver Lake and that's a key element of our town. It's where I took swimming lessons. It's where I get my kids out of the house in the summer. So something to consider there.

Okay, thank you. Um yeah uh I myself was um thrilled to see I know a lot of people were the the increase in sensory friendly um you know activities and whatnot. It's something that has been discussed frequently over the years and and we were finally able to you know get some programming to kind of adjust that and um you know it's been a huge benefit to the community. The collectible fair is my favorite of all the fairs but um yeah uh great great things coming from Rick. Um, comments, questions from the board.

Just quickly, uh, yeah, I just wanted to comment on the, um, forget what the official name was, but the Silver Lake Plunge. Uh, I was, I think I got caught up in Andy's excitement about it somehow because I was standing there looking at the water. It was like 30° and I was definitely questioning my life choices. Um, but it was amazing and it was uh very well attended I think for it being a first uh event. Um, and I hope people come out for it uh in future years. Um, we're talking we're going to have to probably do it in waves. Yes. Um, but it was awesome. It was a great experience and I would totally do it again. So, I'm looking forward to that next year.

I believe Adam said we had just over 40 people that did signed up for that and participated. So, yeah, it brought in about $600, too. That's great. And they said next year they're thinking of doing a challenge kind of like the ice bucket challenge like I challenge you select board and I challenge you police department to bring more people in and make it a little more fun. Yeah. And probably need waves because the parking lot only fits so many people. But or at least if you don't want to participate by yourself out with the other, right? Yeah. Anybody else? Great job. It's a group effort. That's for sure. Y thank you for it. Adam, wherever you are. Thank you.

If I might, Mr. Chair, um just want to say thank you Jesse and the commission um Adam and his staff for all the work that all of you are doing. And I also just wanted to highlight I know again for both of my kids, their first jobs were through recreation, Robert at Finn and Feathers and Kaylee at the Days program. Um so just another um plug for recreation in terms of employing our 14, 16, 18 year olds um before they head off to school or to college if they if that's where they choose to go. Um so just a great opportunity for the younger kids in our town to um to get some work experience and leadership experience quite frankly. They both gained that through their time there too. So

thanks Jesse. That was great. Thanks for the update. Thank you for coming in, Adam. You, too. Thank you for coming in, sticking around. Thank you all. Have a good night. Good night.

Okay. Uh, next up, uh, we have an amendment to the Open Space and Recreation Commission charge, uh, which will include adding a trails committee representative. Um, I believe Mr. Robbins wanted to come up and and speak to this. Yes. So, David Robbins, 92 Georgia Road, Grafton, chair of the Open Space and Rec Committee. And I don't need to say a whole lot. I mean, the the uh the proposal before you is pretty straightforward, but just a little bit of background that when we created the OSRC, there was no trails committee. And in fact, the trails committee was created as in response to one of the action items in the open space and recreation plan. So recently the open space and rec or the trails committee reached out to me with a suggestion that it might be good to have a trails committee rep on the OSRC brought it to the last OSRC meeting. The OSRC was was unanimously in favor. We forwarded the request to the select board and here we are. If you have any other questions, I'll answer them. But if not, that's just that's where it came from.

Yeah, seemed pretty straightforward. We'll we'll be changing uh the two at large member seats to one at large member and then uh one appointment for a trails committee member and and the trails committee will choose their their representative. Right. Any questions or comments from the board? Um, I'll just add that, you know, and then I asked for it to kind of go on the fast track because one of my good friends moved out of town months ago and so was resigning. So, it was kind of a perfect opportunity to take that at large seat and create and put it right over the trails seat versus opening it up, having someone else apply and then kind of having to back out of it. So,

yeah, that's the neat thing. We don't have to kick we don't have to kick anybody off the committee to make room for the trails rep. Yep. Any additional discussion? Okay, take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve and sign the amended Open Space and Recreation Commission charge. Second motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I.

Okay. Uh next up, uh really just a housekeeping item. Uh letters requesting letters from uh for election workers from local party chairs. This is something we do every year um in an effort to try and keep our election worker pool balanced. Does anybody have any questions or comments they'd like to make? Mr. Chair, Mr. Alma, I move the board vote to send letters requesting lists of individuals to be considered for appointment as election workers to both the Democratic and Republican town committees and authorize the chair to sign. Second motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I.

Okay, that taken care of. Um, next up we uh have a letter opposing S 2874, an act to increase opportunity by ending debt based driving restrictions. I'm going to kick over to Evan.

Okay. Wonderful. So uh as you as you can see before the uh as an act moving through the legislature there is a proposal to uh remove desk debt based driving restrictions. So what this is is what's called the um the marking system and what happens is if you don't pay your excise tax in your local municipality you can't renew your registration or your license. So there is a provision to get to do away with that. Um, so the um, what is it? The MAA, it's the MCTA.

MCTA, thank you. There's a whole bunch of these groups, but MCTA is the Mass uh, Collector Treasures Association. They're working to to get municipalities to send a letter opposing this. And the reason that they oppose this is that prior to the implementation of this process, the collection rate for excise tax in the state of Massachusetts is about 60%. Um now with the marking system we are at about 98%. So uh you know there's about a 30% to 40% swing in the amount of money that you're able to collect. And so um you know we that are running a municipal budget value the um consistency that comes from the process that's already in place. Right? You know we can benchmark. We know what to expect. we know where we're going to be. Whereas without this process in place or a substitute process that works similarly, your revenue is going to vary wildly from year to year. So that's really the underlying request from the MCTA is to uh write a letter from the board of the select boarding graft to support keeping the marking system status quo. any questions or comments? And just reading through it, it seems like um in general a better system for um motor vehicle operators. uh because you know at the end they they say that um without having those markers in place and allowing you to renew your license with outstanding you know parking tickets or whatever um the only other mechanism is the tow and hold routine which means that you know the police order your car towed which then gets hold held at a lot you're paying lot fees you know it really compounds the

issue at that point um so uh yeah beyond messing with our revenue stream it, you know, it uh does seem to provide kind of an equity issue. So, and just before we move on, so there is a downside to the marking process too, right? Obviously,

um because folks that are struggling financially that can't make their excise tax then can lose their license and their registration and not be able to get to work, right? It's a uh sorry uh it's the it's a f uh u continually it's not a great process uh if you're struggling financially. So I I mean I think that's the intent of trying to repeal it or change it. Um I think that again absent some other mechanism it's problematic to just get rid of the marking system at the current time. Any other questions or feedback?

Okay, I can take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve and send a letter opposing S2874, an act to increase opportunity by ending debt based driving restrictions as presented and authorize the chair to sign. Second. Okay, man. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Hi. Okay. Uh back to you for the sale of uh bond anticipation notes.

So this is for one of the firet trucks that we had purchased. So annually we have to issue a new ban as we paid down a note. We decided to stay with bans rather than to bond. Uh ban is a short-term borrowing mechanism which stands for bond anticipation note. Um, and so rather than go out to the bond market with the note that we have currently, which is $400,000, um, your rate for a bond at that level would be not great. Um, we can get a more effective and lower interest rate if we stay in the anticipation note market. And so that's what we're trying to to do here. So this is just reissuing that debt as we pay it down. Any questions from the board?

Okay. Godspeed, Mr. Elmo.

There we go. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve the sale of a $400,000 3.25% 25% general obligation bond anticipation note otherwise known as the note of the town dated April 22, 2026 and payable April 22, 2027 to bank hometown at par and acred interest if any. I move the board vote that in connection with the marketing and sale of the note, the preparation and distribution of a sale of not of a notice of a of sale and preliminary official statement dated March 24, 2026 and final official statement dated March 31, 2026, each in such form as may be approved by the town treasurer be and hereby are ratified, confirmed, approved, and adopted. I move the board vote that we authorize the direct and direct the town treasurer to establish postisssuance federal tax compliance procedures in such form as the town treasurer and bond council deem sufficient or if such procedures are currently in place to review and update said procedures in order to monitor and maintain the taxexempt status of the note. I move the board vote that any certificates or documents relating to the notes collectively the documents may be executed in several counterparts each of which shall be regarded as an original and all of which shall constitute one and the same document. delivery of an executed counterpart of a signature page to a document by electronic mail in a PDF file or by other electronic transmission shall be as effective as delivery of a

manually executed counterpart signature page to such document. and electronic signatures on any of the documents shall be deemed original signatures for the purposes of the documents and all matters relating there to having the same legal effect as original signatures. I move the board vote that each member of the select board, the town clerk, and the town treasurer be and hereby are authorized to take any and all such actions and execute and deliver such certificates, receipts, and other documents as may be determined by the town or by them or any of them to be necessary or convenient to carry into effect the provisions of the foregoing votes. Come on. Well done.

Thank you. Okay. Motion made and seconded. Long motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I

Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, next up, um, town administrator annual evaluation. So, we have a copy of this in the packet. Um, I need to trust everybody had a chance to go through it. uh you'll see an average tally score at the end of each individual question. Some of them have uh you know comments and feedback throughout that that were attached. Um at the end uh we have a a total evaluation score of 74.2 uh which earns you a a G for great performance I believe. Oh.

Uh meets and occasionally exceeds established standards. Um and then at the end we have general comments from board members identified strengths, weaknesses, department headed feedback. Um is there anything in particular that anybody would like to start with highlighting on this?

I'd like to go just quickly if it's all right. Um I just for the most part um Evan it looks like you've gotten like to the top end of satisfactory towards great which I think is um is really good and it reflects in the in the overall score. just there was a couple of things that stuck out to me as kind of outliers and they were the first two actually um which is still satisfactory um but I think uh it may be a little bit of discussion on the board to uh make our expectations clear might be useful for you um so the first was just to set specific objectives and directions and mobilize resources um the second was effective delegation and then there was another go a little bit further down assigning tasks and duties to others um to utilize their strengths most effectively. So um I guess I just wanted to open a little bit of discussion up with the board to um just talk about you know what what would great look like because he's pretty solid on on everything but these stuck out just a little bit on the low side. So to um to clarify what our expectations are, I guess I just wanted to open discussion on that on those particular items. Seems mostly delegation um and assigning tasks and duties sort of leveraging the skill sets are available within staff. I mean, I can comment. I don't remember exactly where I fell in this, though I have a pretty good idea. But, um, I remember there was a question the first year I was on the board, I believe, um, relative to scores and how people came up with those. And, um, again, I'm not speaking to my own score on these, just FYI, number one and two.

Um but I can just say that the you know the tool is is somewhat limiting as are most performance appraisals that we do in the even in the private sector these days. Um and so there is a obviously a subjectiveness um to what each person looks at in each category. Um and I guess I would just bring that up again. And I know I I brought that up the first time that I did this um because there was actually call for striking low and high or something which seemed ridiculous. Uh so I think you know if there were scores for me personally in my interaction and my experience with Evan that were below an S then I guess I would question that more so. Um versus you know the the G to the S. It's it's a little bit um it's it's subjective in my opinion. And additionally, and doing this again this year and looking at the the evaluation that we do for the chief and how extensive it is and and how more general this is,

um you know, again, when you look at the bottom tally, it's it's just curious how it comes out, I guess, in my opinion. Um because there are so many fewer sections, right? So, it's a tool that we might want to look at. I don't know how this compares to, you know, when you're in Mson and what that about looks like. Um, but I'd be I haven't looked into, you know, what other towns look like, I guess, but perhaps there's some something that we can do to make this a val better. Not sure if that entirely answers your question, but just

I just wanted to open up some discussion because I think collectively the group sort of um these just seemed like a little bit of outliers to me. Um the only thing that kind of I was reflecting on a little bit is um I've heard a couple of years in a row just um and I I put this into my sort of comments um the ability to delegate and um assign tasks and duties and whatnot to create a little bit more of a especially um with your own sort of job tasks um to be able to actually page out um and take time off to really recharge and just be offline offline. Um, I know that's probably the most difficult thing that a TA can do. Um, but I don't want to see you burning out. Um, because I know how difficult and how um, much you like the volume and variety of things that you have to deal with. Um so that sort of delegation and um having a good solid second in command um which we have but just um yeah just being very um deliberate I guess about about that um in service of um that being able to know that um and you know if you needed to be away for any extended time and you know the town um needed to sort of backfill your duties and whatnot. um having some succession in mind and all that kind of stuff is is just good um in general. Um so that was kind of my only thought on those general topics.

Anything else? I guess just an FYI for people listening. I know for me like we I we don't see the other scores. I just submit mine. So how it comes to this number is yeah I just know what I sent in.

Yeah I you know to that point I wonder if it's just uh kind of a lack of insight on our part. You know it's not something that we experience with him on a daily basis. Um we're aware that it happens. Um I you know again just I guess being honest after we've kind of tried to uh what am I trying to say? Uh I get equalize the the scoring. You know we had a conversation a few years ago. Um so we tried to kind of level set where everybody was and that um you know the yes for satisfactory is you know is fine. That's a that's a that's a totally acceptable place to be. That's where we want some PE. That's where we want people. We don't want them below that. Um, you know, great is is obviously the next level up. Outstanding. Um, you know, should be kind of hard to achieve, uh, if I'm I'm recalling correctly. So, um, you know, for my scoring, I, you know, I think, uh, it might have been a little detrimental having having known you for, uh, as as long as you've been here because, um, you know, like satisfactory is the level that you've set previously, you know, are you, which I think is high to begin with. I think you you set a high threshold and you continue to maintain that. So, scoring Evan against Evan, the work that he did this year, you know, was was great. And um you know I I don't I don't consider I again personally speaking for myself I don't consider the satisfactory to be a knock but I can see where um you know some of those numbers uh you know may may be a little deceptive in there Mr. Chair.

Yep.

Um this is ironic. I just did a whole talent assessment today of a dozen people and I kind of go by the rule of whatever that particular category is. It's the good, better, best. The I sort of see the three and the S as that's the job. You set clear objectives, direction, mobilize PE people. That's what you do. That's what the job is supposed to be. Um and that is to say good did your job. And I'm not saying that about you because I think if you looked at what I reviewed, you'd probably see there's a couple of G's in there. And um because and it's based on I think so part of that scoring if you're asking me how I do it. If that's what your job is to do and you did your job. Now if you did it really well then I'm going to do go with the G. I probably don't do O. It's just how I've been trained. Um, but you're probably taking in consideration your experience with Evan versus Evan versus Evan and also taking to experience your interactions and experiences with his staff and that comes into play. And so, uh, Matt, to answer your question, uh, that that's probably how it's done, how we do it. So, I can't speak for anybody else, but I, you know, I I can say in terms of delegating, I think you do a really good job of that. So, I'll it's it's going to come out anyway. So, I went with a G on that

because I thought that was better than doing your job because I talked to people about how you do it. And it's actually it's it's a good point to get into. People want to be empowered. People that do their job, they don't want someone hanging over their shoulder, breathing down their neck, micromanaging them every single part of the day. And I don't just mean in the town. I just mean probably all of us. And it's the distinct impression I get is that's not what happens. You treat people like adults. You tell them what the what the goal is. You delegate their that that the work to them to achieve that goal and you hope to get the best results. That's it. So your job is to delegate it. But honestly in that particular case with that one with that c one category, I think you do a really good job with that. And there's other things that we can get into. But that Matt that's I think how I how I do it is job is the job. If it's not worse or better then then it gets a good solid three. But if it's better, like in the in the case of what I'm talking about, then we go into a little higher. So,

Yep. No, it makes sense to me. Um, I just those struck me as outliers from the other scores. So, I just wanted the board to have an opportunity to sort of talk through that a little bit. Um, but it sounds like there's no real missed expectations or anything like that. Um, which is fine. So, but I thought since those were a little were a little bit outlier that that the board should have some discussion about them. So yeah, that's awesome. Um Andy. Yeah, and I'll just say um it's a really tough job,

you know, seen several people do it and it's uh it's not an easy job and you never know what the day is going to bring. So I look at this like and I agree with an tool isn't the best, you know. Um when you see Eric's for the chief, it's much more detailed and gives I think more flexibility to to paint a picture um than this one. But um that being said um you know um some of it's perception on our part cuz we're not here every day working with you. So we sit with staff and we we you know we hear we ask questions and we hear back from them. But I think it's a tool. It's a tool. You know overall you scored very well. You do a lot of things well and I think you know what Matt brought up and you know maybe everybody doesn't agree on this point as far as the score goes but you know there's we all have strengths and weaknesses. I don't care I don't care what job you have. We all have things that we excel at. Probably the things we like to do the most. And then the other stuff um you know we got to continue to work on and we all we all need to do that in our professions and and personally as well, right? So, um I look at it as a I think a good a good review for you and um you know, again, the job isn't easy and you earn a lot of hats like we talked about today in our conversation about what's going on and um you know, lean on this guy as much as you can, you know, the the talent right there, you know, and uh have him help as much as possible. So

um yeah, just uh to piggy back on what something that Mark was saying, you know, consistently when I meet with department heads for this review in addition to I've done a number of the exit interviews and I also try to just meet with folks up here and outside of here all the time just the same. Um that I would agree that what I consistently hear is that you create a positive work environment. um you give department heads autonomy um the ability to manage their department that you're there for them when you they need you to be there for them and you advocate for them but that generally you let them do their thing and that everyone that I have met appreciates that so I just wanted to you know highlight that and then for me I do appreciate your knowledge um as I've said previously on this aal um relative to budgetary information um planning a budget, creating it, etc. Mass general law, our charter, our bylaws, all of that. Um that even when I speak with you sometimes and you're like, "Yeah, no, it says this." Um so I do appreciate that you came in and learned about the town of Grafton and, you know, how our charter works. Um so I see those certainly as strengths.

Yeah, agreed. Um I I hear nothing but consistently positive feedback whether it's people in this building, residents, you know, every interaction. Um just that, you know, you are you are approachable and engaged, you know, um funny, transparent, fair, uh truthful, which is, you know, a big important one. Um I don't you know to one of your points earlier Matt I don't know if it's something I've paid more attention to this year because I've you know been chair um but I feel like you have been better over the last year about taking time off um and identifying areas you know a Friday for example that you know uh you crush it first half of the week it's going to be a slow day and there's an opportunity for you to you know spend some time outside of the office. So, um, you know, I, yeah, I don't think that the delegation or, um, you know, communication are necessarily bad things. I think they're, you know, probably things that you'll continue to see, um, just because they it's something that can always improve. But, um, yeah, I I think we continue to watch you make a lot of great progress, and I am deeply appreciative that you're here.

Thank you. Uh, any additional feedback or anything anybody wish to discuss? I mean, I think it's a great score um and reflects your really strong performance, Evan. So, yeah, keep doing. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Um we had a little communication um miscommunication issue, excuse me, with uh with the fire chief. So, we're going to pass over his Mr. Chair. Should we do a motion to accept? Do we have motion? Town administrator, please. Thank you. Terribly, sorry to interrupt, but I got that right. I finally got after three years. I finally figured this stuff out.

Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve the town administrator's annual evaluation as presented. Second. Okay. I made it seconded. Any discussion? Thank you for catching that, Mr. Mr. Uh hearing none. All those in favor? I. Okay. So, now, as I was saying, uh we had a a little miscommunication with the chief. Um, we are inviting him in next at our next meeting on the 21st uh to do his annual evaluation. Just a question. Did he get this? Did you guys send it to him already? Yes. Can we Yes. No, he's aware of it. It was just a matter of That's fine. I just what day we were going to actually talk about So,

we're pass over that tonight and we can open the Springtown ward. Mr. Chair. Yep. I move the board vote to open the Springtown meeting warrant. Second. Okay. Mush made seconded. Any discussion? Hearing? None. All those in favor? I.

Now that the warrant's open, um, we have to place the question of an override on the local election ballot. Um, this was something when we voted on the override option, Evan told us would eventually be coming back because we'd have to we we needed council input uh and you know sign off on the final language which uh we have before us tonight. So, um any any questions, comments? I have one question. Is this supposed to be 2026? Um I just question that because there's a question mark after it. Oh, someone's painting. Should be 27. No,

the fiscal year begins on on July 1st of this year. So, right, that's accurate. July 1st, 2026 is when fiscal 27 starts. Why is there a question there, though? Oh, okay. So, all right. So, it's Sorry. Okay. All right. So, it's Yeah, for I read this I read it as a question. When you start with the word shall, I thought it was one big run-on sentence. That's why I didn't see why it was a question. I just got worried for a second that your delegation was coming back to bite you. I thought the same thing. I'm like, I'm never delegating a thing again. That answers that question. It's like Ron. No, that was my fault. I just 26 had the 27 fiscal year in my head, you know. Yep, that makes sense.

Anything. All right, let's take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to place the following question on the next local election ballot. And that question is, shall the town of Grafton be allowed to assess an additional $5 million in real estate and property taxes for the purposes of funding the school and municipal operating budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2026. Second. Okay. Much made seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Hi. Hi.

Okay. Um, do we want to do budget updates and hold on? Yeah, I did send um Dr. Cummings a text and let him know that we're at that part of the agenda. Okay. Um, you may want to walk up. Yeah, I can go grab Well, I'll delegate that to Will and he'll head up to F. Hey, Dave. I can do I can't do my Thanks. I already regret it.

I do already regret. This is a disaster. All right. All right. Sorry about that. All right. So, for the budget portion of the update, um we've been working to build the contingent budget so that we'll be able to get that out um and and review that as part of um our information sessions for for residents. Um so, no real surprises here. Um, we would look to, uh, should the override pass, we would reinstate, um, planning and conservation admin, uh, building uh, part-time inspector, the uh, assistant engineer, um, 104,000 to the wreck budget, 75,000 to the library, and 1,4,000 to the school department. um and what that equates to because we we have had some changes uh as I noted before in our um

projection, excuse me. Um so if we were to pass the contingent budget and the override as I just presented, um we would use 1,114,000 uh in the initial year. Um and then subsequent years would be some variation of what's left, right? That's going to vary as we work our way through the process. Um but that's the year one number. So we've upgraded or we are in the process of updating the the calculator because it was 1.167. It's not a real big difference for folks. Um but we're uh about $50,000 less than we projected before.

So should we be doing that? should be like should should we be under a million for this coming year like where it's five years 5 million do we want to spend more it's going to leave us short right at at potentially at the end

so this is the way I I'm I'm looking at it um you know we're going to be we're going to be if the forecast holds true we'd be short anyways we're going to be right we were looking at a forecast of uh 5.7 million we're doing an override for 5 million So, we've got to shoehorn it into that. Anyways, um where we are in fiscal 27, it seems to me that um you know, if we're using $100,000 more in capacity than we would if we were doing a million a million, a million million, um I think that that's okay in the first year um to stabilize everything and then work our way forward from there. And if every subsequent year after that is $9, you know, $75,000, then that that is what it is.

Okay. Um and just to be clear, if revenue, which it generally does because we are generally fairly conservative with revenue, if revenue comes in higher than we have in the forecast, then you're going to use less than that 1.1 anyways. You'll be at a million or sub 1 million. Yeah. No, that's that's what we've been been working on. Does that make sense? Yeah, that part makes sense. And I left my glasses in the car, so I can't see anything that's on there. I'm going to just preface it with that. Um, so the 1.4 million back to the school on the first slide. Yes. If this is if the override passes, is that what you said? I'm sorry. Yes.

So, this is going back to the school. Where are we getting that? That's the shortfall that Jay put into his budget proposal. So, it's technically not 1.4 either. It's 1 million4,000. Oh, I thought you said 1.4. Never mind. I I may have that was a number 1.4. 1.4 was the first deficit we started with before. Sure. No, you said Yeah. Okay. Never mind. One. Yeah. So, it's call. So, over there it does not say 1.4. One zero. Okay. No, there's a couple zeros. Okay. That's all. Okay. That's it for budget update. were uh what did you find when you were upstairs?

Uh Dr. Cummings is presenting to the school committee at the moment. Okay. He'll come down when he's done. Uh Laura often offered to have Matt tell dad jokes until he's ready. No, I'm good. As much as that might be great, maybe after. Okay. Um well, we can move on and do select board reports anyways and some of the other housekeeping stuff. Uh, anybody have um anything that they attended? I'm sure I attended a lot, but nothing to report here per se relative to the committees I'm on.

Okay. Um, TA report Okay, here we go. Um, the big news out of the wreck is we have agreed as a governance board to move forward with bonding. Um, and so what we are going to be proposing to each of the towns individually and uh it will be a select board vote that that seals this deal. um is to bond for the entire projection of the project. So what is happening that is uh problematic for us is that every thing that we do in the wreck is funded by the 911 grant. But the 911 grant is an annual grant process. And so what happens is they'll give us uh enough money that they think we won't catch up to the grant amount for year one. and then you'll go into year two and they'll give you a little more money and then more money in in year three. Um, but what's happening is that it doesn't give us a lot of wiggle room to actually do the construction on the project or do things concurrently instead of uh linearly. So, what I mean by that is uh if we need a new tower in Grafton uh and the 911 grant isn't going to provide for the radio system component of that until fiscal 28, then we're going to build the wreck in fiscal 27 and not have the radio infrastructure till fiscal 28, which for Grafton is a big deal because we want the radio infrastructure. That's predominantly one that's one of the drivers to go regional is to upgrade this system. Um, and so what we're looking to do is just bond out that that entirety of the construction process. Um, and then pay the bond back with the proceeds from the 911 grant. So this is

fairly common in Rex uh throughout the state. We did it when I was at Westcom. Um, SEMR did has done this process the same way. We we have been meeting with other wrecks to see how they've gone through this bonding process. Um the other component that winds up being uh quite interesting is that there are nonallowable uses um from the 911 department. So for example, uh council uh insuranceances, there's there's a whole bunch of these little categories. They don't wind up being a ton of money and they're what would be covered by our assessment moving forward. So, when we get to year five and we're paying, you know, $250,000 a year into the wreck or whatever that number winds up working itself out to be, um, that would be covered. You know, you would cover your council expenses out of there and all the other things, but until you get to that point, there's no way to fund those things. So, if we were to bond the entirety of the project, we could then start to fund things like the financial adviser that you would need to actually do the bonding. you would need uh town well it won't be town council it'll be

the Rex council all those other things so right now what's happening is we're piece mailing it together in the different municipalities uh you know we're using South Burough's council we have uh Amber doing some admin work so there's all these costs that can be repaid to the community uh once we bond for the entirety of the project um so we're working on that we're going to um we're going to have a vote next week Uh, and then we'll be bringing that back to each select board with kind of the detail of of where we're at. But I just wanted to put you put it on your radar that there that's going to be a discussion we're going to have moving forward. Um, yes question. Um, so the grant monies,

yes, you know that that's going to cover the entirety. You already know that because you've done estimates, etc. Correct. And so therefore, you're confident then that the bond amount, you know, there's no shot of Oh, three years out that that grant money changed or it's right. So, that is the big concern, right? That's always our concern is and that's why we've dragged our feet to this point of not bonding is that uh interestingly enough, the 911 department will not guarantee the grant funds to cover the bond. They will tell you that they've never not covered the bond. Yeah. But they won't put it

in writing. Sure. Um, this was the when we were building Westcom, this is the same exact thing we we ran into there because it makes everybody uneasy. Makes us as town administrators uneasy. We don't we don't bond for things that we don't have a revenue stream guaranteed locked up. Um, but that's the system that the state of Massachusetts has. Um so what we've asked them to do um and we believe they did this when they did the SEMR project is they've provided a letter of support that goes up to guaranteeing it but not guaranteeing it. Okay.

To give us a little bit more comfort. Um and so we will we will walk through that entire process as we go. But that that's a big concern that we've had up until it's still a concern. still the number one talking point at all of our meetings is 911 will guarantee the funds,

but they also aren't tax funds, right? They're they're a separate revenue stream. They're generated by the 911 um uh revenue process. So, um we'll we'll go into it more in detail. I just wanted to put it on everybody's radar, but that's a that's exactly the point that we've uh identified as our stress point uh up until this point. And so when you guys do come up with the bond amount if and when you do um you'll have specific numbers relative to the costs all the costs associated broke it out and then showing that okay this is part of the 911 grant should be okay

right yeah so we have uh and our OPM's already doing this to a large extent is we already have the these are the allowable uses these are the ineligible uses this is when the ineligible uses would need to be paid this is what the bond would be each year. This is what we can expect from 911. 911 likes you to bond because then they don't have to shell out big chunks of money. They can spread it out, which is is again why it's uh frustrating that they won't just say we'll pay we we're going to give guarantee you this amount of money a year. Um but I also to be fair don't it's not my job so I don't know there's probably other things going on that I don't know about.

Well, at least the precedent has been set to your point that there's other Yes. places that you've seen it works. Money comes back. Yeah. When when we did it for Westcom, we were actually one of the first and um just could go back to those days. The whole project was $1.25 million and uh was doing the city of Chape and I mean there it was a big it's a big wreck and you know now this this project is about $1 million without the radio infrastructure. So, just shows you how much costs have gone up over. Unbelievable. All right. Anyways,

um George Hill Road, uh we have done a we'll call it a a soft bid award because they don't have the actual letter yet, and I'll explain why. Um so when you do a project that is this big even though we have a successful bidder the architect um or the engineering firm or whoever you're using then goes through and ensures that they have met all of the different key components of the procurement law so that you then can't get a bid challenge later. Right? So, what happens with these big jobs is let's say we award it to um the successful bid bidder at 5.9 million and the company that had a $6 million bid then protests that bid and tries to get the other bid thrown out. So, we're just doing our due diligence there. Then we will do a full grant uh we will do a full bid award um and then we can do the initial um construction meetings and and so on and so forth. So, just so everyone's clear, we had originally uh thought the project would be about 7 million just for George Hill. Um we got very strong bids and we were able to get the price down to 5.9 million and that includes the addition of Bay Mountain Road. Um so that's that's pretty good stuff. We'll see what happens as we start digging the ground up, but I'm cautiously optimistic right now. And that puts us about uh 1.1 million under the projected budget.

Nice. Yeah. Some good news. If I might, so I was happy when I saw this, but then someone reached out and just had I think I thought I emailed you to maybe include this, but I'm not. Maybe I didn't. Okay. Um just to highlight why that number might be 1 million under. Are we concerned about that at all? Um um so so I agree celebrated came in under but then just like anything right it's like oh why is it $10,000 less or million case um so just to so to to be clear so the winning bid is 5.9 million we had other bids over 10 million like 112 112

and so that's not uncommon in the public bidding process we will get kind of all over the map bids and so what it becomes our our focal point and this is why we're doing our dill diligence is to if we're going to award to the lowest bidder, our firm, which in this case is VHB, an engineering firm, they're going to go through all the procurement law. And then the other component to that is they're going to make sure that all of the things that we called out in our specification are met and answered in the RFP. That's part of what they're okay. What they're going to do. Um so I think particularly this came in lower than we anticipated. um probably because of um some slowdowns in in work elsewhere, right? A company's looking for work now, so they'll bid it lower so they get the work. Um, but also the and I I won't talk about who it is yet because we haven't gone all the way through it, but the the low bidder is a company we work with very consistently. Um, has a great track record in Grafton. Um, and has um really a great, I think, a a forward look on bidding jobs in Grafton so that they get the work and continually stay here and mobilize their things that they already have on site somewhere else. Well, if they get the paving to that point, if they get the paving, they'll already be here. They'll be mobilized. And you did have at least one other bid that was close to that within like 3% or something of of that bid.

A majority of them were right around that $7 million mark, right? But it was something close to in the low sixes. Yeah. So, there was a cluster around seven. There was somebody there was one other one that was 6 65 65. Okay. I appreciate that for the people out that we're Can I tag one thing on just to answer brief question? Sure. So for a project delegate that to you. Thank you very much. For a project like this, not everybody not anybody can bid on it. They have to be pre-qualified through Mass DOT to do jobs like this at this dollar amount. So the plan holder list that they it got sent to was a set list of bidders who can do this work to a certain level of quality. So, I think that just sort of

also speaks to not being concerned about that price point. Yep. All right. So, doesn't mean you don't watch them though. We got to keep an eye on whoever gets it. That's the That's the plan. So, how does this impact the chapter 90 money? Um, this won't impact chapter 90 money at all. So, this is um funded in two ways. One is the debt exclusion and one is um the stabilization account. Okay. So, chapter 90 is a separate uh revenue stream from the state of Massachusetts and that will stay. I thought we had uh planned on using that for some of this project.

I don't believe there's any chapter 90 in this. I believe the proposal was straight debt exclusion and paying that debt exclusion back via some of the stabilization money. Stabilization. Got it. That's stabilization. Yep. Got it. Okay. So, will there be less road stabilization needed since No. Um, we'll have less road stabilization to spend. So, if we've get a million five every year, we're going to we're going to earmark, right? But since this project is a million less uh Sorry, I'm being thick, but since this project Oh, I see what you're saying. Less in

we will have less to pay back with stabilization. So, do we we'll have Yes, I I know where you're going with that. So, instead of it being more stabilization to actually pave out the roads instead of right instead of taking 300,000 out of state or 317 out of road stabilization, we'll be taking three or 275 or whatever that number. That's what I was trying to

Yes, that that is correct. That's that's the way that will work. Um, and the other, you know, component of that is that, you know, with this being a little less money and the way that the we're going to ban most of this debt until the project is done, right? So, you'll ban it in chunks, a million here, 1.5 million there. We're going to build that up and then you wrap it all up and send it to the bond market. And so when we get to go to the bond market, depending on what's happening in that sector, you may choose a different length of time. You may choose a different uh either principal first, interest first. There's a whole bunch of options that will come out that will then ultimately influence the amount of money that we're going to earmark out of stabilization.

Makes sense. Okay. Thank you. Can I just add one other thing? This isn't a question per se, um, but a couple people reached out to me also about the number of trees that have been tagged up there. And so I did kind of get to the bottom of it and basically I mean just to throw it out there and it might be valuable to even put on the website for folks that aren't listening to this that you know uh the the way this was done was they went before is it conservation planning department planning department planning board excuse me

planning board and uh just went with all the trees so they don't have to go back for individual trees. So even though there's a I was told 400 or more trees that have um been tagged up there, that's not necessarily what will happen. They just decided to do them all so that they don't have request that the potential for all of them um before planning and then they won't all be taken and they don't have to go back every single time for each tree. Correct. And that's one of the things that slows down projects like these because of our scenic bylaws and street trees and all the rest of it. So, um, you know, it is our goal and and I know this is the goal of of um Paul and Brian. We don't have to do it. We don't we won't do it.

Um, you know, that that is part of the appeal of George Hill Road is that beautiful canopy and all that, but there are trees that are going to have to come down to make this road 22 feet wide with a Cape Cod BM and handle the water. So, um, you know, when whenever avoidable, we we'll leave the trees intact. That's all I've got. Okay. Oh, it's still me.

Um, hiring. Uh, we continue to have the same openings we had last time. We are making some progress. We have three planning candidates. We're going to start interviewing um for the director position. Um, we are again not going to post planning conservation admin um for a for a full-time position until we get through um the override conversation and we are starting to interview for a new custodian next week. Next week.

Yeah. So, that will be fun. Um 95 North Street, as Jesse mentioned, uh we're working towards completing that. Um, we did finalize u benches, bike rack, and the signage. Um, we do have to have them make a couple minor tweaks to signage, but they do look very nice. Um, we did a walk through with the uh our accessibility uh coordinator, which is our our building inspector, Trac or building commissioner, Tracy. Um, and so reviewed some things and made sure that we're all in in compliance and ready to go. Um the next step is uh the pad as uh Jesse mentioned and then there will be a um not a pergola, what's it called? You know what I'm talking about.

Pavilion.

Pavilion put on top of that. Um and so we already have that um in the procurement process. They're just waiting for the pad to be poured. And then uh there is the perimeter trail already and it's already blazed. Um, however, uh, we need to go through and just do a final blow off of all the leaves and then recut some of the small stump tripping hazards down to to grade. Um, but then we should be in good shape. So, the pollinator meadow has been planted, was planted in the fall and then replanted in the spring. I was out there last week, there was about 25 turkeys eating the the pollinator meadow. Um, but that's fine. and they'll eat it and poop it out somewhere else and we'll have pollinator meadow all over the place. Um, but that's that's going pretty well. So, we're excited about it. It's coming out uh beautiful. We're we're very excited. So, um yeah, I think that's all I have on 95 North.

Yep. And then you're back to the budget. We're back to the budget. Okay, great. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Positive update, Dr. Cummings. Oh, sorry. It would have gone faster. I was I was stalling for time. Catch my breath. Hi everybody. Thanks for having me. Thank you.

You like me just uh go through it and then take questions? Okay. And feel free to interrupt me. Um typically I'd have Frank Rothell with me. He's the um our director of operations. He's done the the great majority of the work on on all of our roofs, but especially GMS. Uh he's out with the flu. So, I've taken up roofs over the last week. I'm going to just briefly go over the timeline and talk about the need, the big picture. You know, the need, but go into a little more depth. Uh if you don't have it already, try to get a basic understanding of the roof, which will help when we're looking at potential options. Uh then we'll look at or we'll talk speak to cost estimates related to the options touch on MSBA funding and then make a recommendation. Sounds like a lot but it's it's eight or nine slides. So with the timeline we've been working uh very hard since the fall town meeting with the hope to get something at least have if nothing else this type of discussion um prior to spring town meeting. and I'll explain why, but thanks to your work and that of uh Evan and William, in spring of 2025, Garland came out and did a roof study for all the roofs. Um, and I know that was shared. Um, all of our roofs are in fairly lousy condition, but GMS, the old high school, is in the worst condition um of all the schools by far, and certain portions of that are particularly bad. Uh thanks to the generosity of the town at Falltown meeting, they approved funding for design services. We went out to bid. We went through that process, contracted with GRLA. Uh they've they're fantastic. They're the same group that did uh the North Grafton Gymnasium a few years back. They were very quick in providing

the the ballpark big picture number for the entire project. That matched up with more or less with what Garland had put forward. that I don't think was a shocker based on age of the building, number of square feet, etc. What we've been pushing for and and waiting for um is a more detailed analysis of all the different sections of the roof, unlike say Milbury Street that's one type of roof. This is a 63y old roof with eight different like almost eight different roofs comprising one roof. Um it's a just a big mess. Um and that's a result of decades and decades of patching and just adding on to things as opposed to and I get it. Um taking it off and replacing it. Uh the big piece that we're still waiting for from GRLA is that core sampling. They did a few and so did Garland way back, but they need to take core samples from each of the eight sections to find out what's actually in the roof. They think they know based on records what how many layers etc. Um but to for them to do that core sampling that roof needs to have uh have have the right conditions basically it needs to be dry and as you all know we had almost 3 feet of snow on there forever on a nice hot day even like a hot month um in a drought that roof is still uh moisture laden uh pieces of it. So, um, it right now it's scheduled that is scheduled for Saturday, this coming Saturday. They're coming out to if we don't get any rain, they're going to be able to do it. Um, obviously knowing we were going to have this conversation, I pushed on them this very morning and asked I knew they didn't have the samples, said, "Feel free to if you have to stretch your your

range a little, um, I need I need a cost estimate range so we can have discussions about it." Uh, that was at 10 o'clock and right after that I put together a memo and I I hope you all received it. Uh just bringing you back. This is right from what was presented at town meeting the Garland assessment. Well, much of it was concerning. The most concerning was definitely portions about half of the GMS roof. Uh they stated they're in dire need of a replacement and talked about catastrophic failure and other health dangers are dangerously evident. I know that got your attention. It 100% got mine. uh and it match matched up with what we experience in that school on a regular basis, especially on rainy days. I know some of you went to that school even as a high school and I'll talk to people that attended 20, 30 years ago and it was still leaking then. All right, just to make sure everybody's kind of on the same page, this is obvious obviously an aerial view of the footprint. Uh if you're not sure where you are, the yellow dot is the main entrance to the school where you walk in and there's the office and that's all the classrooms are in that area. That's uh roof area H. The green dot is the main entrance to the gymnasium. Um it's 63 years old. Open opened back in 1963. A little over 76,000 square feet. Uh you can tell just by looking at the aerial. I mean, if I had to ask you, you know, take a guess which roof section isn't doing that great. Uh, sure enough, it's in the bottom right. That's where all our classrooms are. Um, it looks terrible and it performs terribly. Up next, this is that same footprint.

Obviously, not a photo. And this ties to it was a almost exactly what Garland did. Uh it's a moist moisture survey of all of the schools. Uh you don't want even a little red. That means that the insulation within the roof is saturated with moisture. Um that range is from 0% up to 100%. In the bottom right where that is area H where we have all of our classrooms, um it has 100% moisture saturation. that is in that when Garland talked about the fear of health concerns and catastrophic failure. It's about that section of the roof. Um in you can see it in light green definitely area H is the number one priority that what I'll call the center section like at one point it was before my day but the schools were actually not connected. you had to walk outside and then over the years it was covered. And that's the section that is made up of five different sections. There's one section over the elevator shaft, another over the library, another over the front of the library, and two in the back near the high school. Um those range in saturation from 10% to 63%. The other two sections that are large are the cafeteria in the top right and the big section with the lines on it. That's the solar array that's over the uh gymnasium in the auditorium. While none of the roof is in good condition, those are comparatively in very good condition next to area H.

So, we had that full roof replacement. Again, it mirrored essentially what Garland had put of if we were to just do the entire GMS roof, we're looking at a cost of 4.3 to 5 around 5.3 million. This morning, what I pushed them on is was doing the partial replacement. So if we did that center section that I talked about and area H. So if you can go back one just so we make sure we're on the same page. The bottom right that's all red. That's a in my mind we have to pursue that be it this year or in the very near future. So that option B would be the bottom right replacement and that kind of messy center piece not the calf and not the library for now. And then option C was partial replacement of area H only. Let me go back to B. B was 2.2 to 2 point roughly 8 million uh for that middle section. And then uh if you do just H only it would be 1.5 to 1.8 million is the estimate. MSBA. Um, this is you you may recall for up through 2012 they had the green repair pro program and then it became the green program. Um, in 2013 that was changed to the accelerated repair program. It was an annual program. You could apply. It wasn't it it was certainly a lot looser than it is now. I'm not saying it was loose, but you could get a project going, apply, and you might get reimbursement. Um, it's a lot more in-depth now. They changed everything in 2025, and instead of every year, it's

every other year. So, the last time that they opened for applications was January of 2025. Um, if so, they open it every two years. If a project is accepted, I ran the graph. I talked to MSBA, talked about Grafton, I believe we'd be uh looking at 50 to 53% expected reimbursement. The biggest difference from what the old repair program is the timing. Uh they require three years of assessment and preparation for a project and then begin construction in year four. Um, wow. I think that would be wise to start thinking about that big picture for us and other roofing projects that we have. Obviously, I about to get into recommendations. I don't think we I know we can't wait four years um for that H section and I'm not sure we could wait for the middle section. Uh, I'm not even sure we can wait on the cafeteria and the gymnasium, but we definitely have a far better shot than we do for the the two that are most dire. So, my recommendation at the very least in terms of at least discussion is attempt to fund that replacement of area H as soon as possible. Like that's I I think that's critical for us. Um, I would also recommend that if that's the road taken, if we don't decide to spend more on that B option or the A option, that we look to we we have to keep in mind that center section. It's not something we can just that 63% of of that um

insulation moisture problem. that that's certainly nothing's good about that, but it's not quite as as dire as section H. So, at the very least, do that. Then, we'd have to I would recommend we would talk about funding for that center section um and apply for inclusion in January of 27 for the gymnasium and the um gymnasium, auditorium, and the cafeteria. I would also recommend that we try to start getting ahead of things like this and North Street is the the school that we have that's in the the next level of need for us followed by South Grafton at least get get our hat in the ring and just start moving forward. Um sorry, can you see if I have anything else? That might be it. Yeah, you can go back.

Keep moving my um so a quick overview. I know I threw a lot at you. I'm happy to take any questions and do my best. Andy? Yeah. Um I just want I want to kick one off quickly, please. Um so when we talk about the partial replacement versus the full replacement um that the that partial cost uh the delta between partial and full is that what we could expect if we held off on doing the gymnasium and the what was the other one? Cafeteria. Cafeteria.

So the cost of those two projects together. So if you know full full replacement it on the on the high estimate is 5.378. Yep. And then partial replacement for everything except those those other two roofs again the high estimate being 2.78. Um is is the the difference between those what we would expect to pay for the other two roofs in the future? Yeah. Yeah. About 2.2. Um and there's no way to petition the state to expedite the the grant process from that three years or anything? is

no, they they've I I have we've called a number of superintendents that have done this type of project or uh operations directors. We haven't found anybody that's done it in less than four years. Unfortunately, quite a few have gone on six years. Um it's definitely a slow process. We've certainly been moving in terms of the the the design piece. I would like to think that that would help um push push us forward, but I I simply in terms of area that area H sounds I should come up with a different name for it, but the classroom section uh there is just no way in my mind that we could we could wait even three years. I was admittedly taking a couple notes, but on that last slide where, you know, we're we're future facing. Um, can we we'd have no problem applying for multiple roof projects at

most districts do. Um, correct. Great. And it does I should just add it doesn't have to be full. North would probably be a full. Um, but you you're not prohibited from putting you know half of a roof forward whatever that project is. questions. Y Jay, could you go back to the the aerial shot of the of where the red is? So that um the addition that you said was that was put on cuz that was when I went there was just like a walk. No kidding. Huh? I didn't know that. It's so it's it's not that old but

I've heard it's pretty old. Um what is in that area? Like what is it? Is that where the library is now or like so between the gym and the cafeteria and and the classrooms that that area? Yeah, we have bathrooms because of all that red. We don't have any classrooms in that area. Okay. Between the like the auditorium and the cafeteria that red area the correct there's a hallway that goes through bathrooms. Um yeah, we don't have any class. There's no classrooms. And then the gymnasium building, the top right corner. Yep.

That that red square block that's not included in that addition area. That's is that in the back right corner of the auditorium? No. Um it's over it's basically over storage like band storage in that area. Okay. All right. So, back of the stage like

and one thought not to make this even more complex, but I think your point's a really good one. Um, in that middle section, like there's one square there that's like perfectly white. It's like the one functional roof area. We have um years ago before me, so it was at least 15 over 15 years. Well, that's an elevator shaft that they haven't they had to, you know, re-roof it. Um, I'm hoping that on Saturday they can do the the sampling. I'm wondering if if we did if the decision was made to in some form do that center section. Obviously, the ideal would be just to redo the whole center section. But, um, maybe what's over the library. That's it's hard to

Where's the library? The library. See that? You can obviously see the red square. Just to the left of that is this roofing awning. This becoming like it's um if you were above the library, it's it's almost coming off off of the building if you will, but that's the library. So library is not an H anymore. They No, library is not an H. Okay. All right.

Nope. And library is kind of okay. I mean any red's not great but in comparison to the classroom section um it's okay. So and all right so please go to the slide that shows the different scenarios like the different um yeah all right so H only so that's the entire H. Yep. So if you go back that red square right right that's yeah that's where all the classes are. Okay so go back to that. So, so we can do H plus that

connecting center the centering that that was added on whatever 20 years ago. We can do all of that. It goes it jumps from from from B to A. It like doubles. And that's because of the gymnasium auditorium roof. I mean, it's just such a massive and the calf. Those two, if you go back one, you can see I don't know if it does. The calf doesn't look too bad, but just space-wise. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying. But they're just big groups. So would if we didn't do everything, would you put the cafeteria and the gym auditorium? Would you submit that? Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Okay. That and North Street. Yeah, you can have more than No, no, you're right. North Street.

And my only caution and that's what if if we can't do it all, which I fully understand, um we're obviously just going to have to continue monitoring it. you know, if it's a fiveyear, can we wait the five years? Uh, right. As of right, I mean, it's made at 63. Um, but that that's exactly my All right. So, did the consultant say they think we would get better prices if we did everything? I mean, it seems like it does like Yep. jump a lot. But to your point, like the size of those roofs, it's probably a pretty efficient estimate A versus B, even though B you're taking care of all the the major issues.

Y um but to add everything else, it doubles the cost, but you're getting it's probably a lot more square footage as far as roof 100%. Okay. All right. Thank you. Plus, the other thing to just think about when we're talking about roofs is that you're kind of in this situation because of the mismatched roofs added over time and done over time. So, getting them all done at once is going to bring them to the same material, right?

The same level of insulation, the same all of that is now going to be consistent across your entire roof section. So money not being an option or an object the doing the whole thing is is definitely I mean we could get it for I mean if you look at you know best case scenario if the high end of B is 2.8 and the low end of A is 43. I mean you're getting it for those other two massive RS for like a million five you know. Well that's if you do it all at the same time right like say for example you did B and then a little while later you did it. That period of time though would be too long. Like how if you did see Mr. Chair, may I ask a question?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. If you did see now, then when do you do the rest of it? A year from now, two years from now. If we do that, I would recommend I'm very worried obviously about C. I'm sorry about the H, but followed closely with that center section. So, I would think that next year we're going to have to have a discussion about forget MSBA in waiting four years. I don't see us being able to wait four years for that middle section. So, I'd come back for that the same year next January, apply for MSBA um reimbursement for the cafeteria and the auditorium and gymnasium.

And at which point is probably going to the the cost would probably go up. Oh, yeah. In a year. Mhm. Yeah. Nothing's going down. So, it'd be more expensive. Do we have any idea how long I'm assuming we'd bond this? Like what the what the term length would be?

I can speak to that just a little bit. So, we're working with bond council to try to get more finite, but um generally speaking, you can bond a roof for 20 years. Um, so depending on rates and uh escalation and all the rest of those things, let's say that our debt service went up on 5.5 million because that's what I would recommend. I wouldn't go with 5378 because you got to have a little wiggle room when the bid process comes in. But let's say you did 5.5 million over 20 years and let's say that comes out to around $300,000 annually for the debt reser. The average singlepayer tax or single average single family home tax impact is about $46 a year. This this that building is only the whole the whole facility is only 76,000 square feet.

Yeah. Garland said 78. Our guys now street's like 100 thousand, right? I don't know if the top I thought it was when we built it. I just I was surprised. I figured it would be a lot bigger because that hole in the middle. I'll find out. It's cuz H has that hole in the middle. Got a hole in the middle. Yeah, that's true. I wasn't talking about the roof. There's an actual quad in the middle. Right. Right. Yeah. God, I hate that school. It was such a terrible design. You know what I mean? That's why I hate it. It's just like it didn't belong here. That roof was

that was like a that school was a problem the day they opened it. I think you know from a just a structural component because of the climate here. I just think it was tough. According to this uh report from Garland, the Middle Street Milbury Street School is 65,000 square feet. How much? 65. Okay. All right. Some reason I thought I was on it. So it's small. So, I have a couple of questions. Yep. Um, I'm trying to go through this Garland report super quickly. It' be helpful if we could just get like the highlights a like the each facility the summary. Oh, that wasn't my Okay, that was we we commissioned a full study for

the entire No problem. I just scrolled through it, but whatever. Um, so I guess based on me trying to look at this quickly. Um, Milbury Street is okay and Is that correct? They didn't recommend anything. Um, and then the high school. Our biggest the next two biggest needs without a doubt are um North Street and South Grafton Elementary. Okay. So, that's that's what I'm trying to get to is like the priorities. So, those are the two North Street then South and then North Grafton.

Okay. in th those two um significantly above all all others that Southampton design I'm sure it was great in the day but it's a very pro leak where do we go from here

okay so I I think you have a couple of options in front of you and the reason it's on uh for tonight is because one of them is more timesensitive than the other. So, if you were going to put this onto the warrant as excluded debt, we have to write a a ballot um question, which we've already done. Um and then that would need to be sent to the town clerk. Um since you just did the override one, this is the natural time to do that. The drop dead date to get that to the town clerk is the 14th of April.

Yeah. Um, more time is obviously better for we're we're only seven days away from that. The other option you could consider, um, if you were going to go with a portion of the roof replacement, let's say you were just looking at H, you could look to your stabilization account, you have about five, you have a 5.2 million in that, 5.1 depending on the market. Um, yeah.

And then, you know, we do have healthy free cash, but what I would recommend is if if the board is uh not going to do this as excluded debt, then we would cut back what we're going to spend on capital this year to free up some some space to to do more roof. Um, that those are I think those are your options. I think what's in front of the board tonight is if we're going to go for the whole thing, then we need to go with excluded debt. You can write the ballot question now. You could always, you know, use less of that. We move money around in the background. Um, or some combination of all of those things.

Well, I mean, for me, you know, we were talking about it today a little bit. You know, it's an asset. We have to take care of it. I mean, it's, you know, it's an important building. Um, you know, houses a lot of kids. I mean, we have to, you know, we're not going to build a new school, right? That's 100 million, right? We, you know, we got to fix what we have and and keep it in shape. Jay, other than the roof there, um, and I know for years we've, we've done work on that because of the design. We've had to sink some money to it. Like, what is there anything else like glaring about that? Like if we're going to dump, say we go for everything and we dump five and a half million dollars into into that, like it's 63 years old, like are we going to keep it for another 20 years?

I sure would hope so. Yeah, we just redid HVAC. Um so all that's got to come up that's on the roof, right? So yeah, they and that that has been factored into Yeah, I don't think it's I don't think it's coming off. Um, I think the the way they put them and they put them on plinths, so I think that the membrane roof just comes up to it and then it's flashed in. We were Yeah, they were very cognizant of the fact that we needed a new roof. Yeah, that was part of the conversation. Yeah. Um, so yeah, new H track and a new roof were in fantastic shape for that building.

And to to wait for the program for another say four years for the cafeteria and the gym and auditorium is is a crapshoot. It's Yeah, it's a crapshoot. And obviously the timing even when you apply in January, they don't announce who was selected for 10 months for January. And then you wait in October and then the club, right? So So we don't even know if we'd even get picked. I mean, I I we we have to fix it. It's unsafe for kids. It's it's definitely a safety issue. Yeah, 100%.

Another question. Um, I don't know what page this is or what document it is, but um, there's a a page here that has repair program, district, schools, total budget, maximum. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes. Yep. That's right off the MSBA website. Okay. So is this showing indicating you know how many districts have applied for this program how many have gone through and then if so yes the number of projects final audit approved seems to be you know decreased significantly since 2019. Yeah. So what that like to zero the last three years.

Yep. So that's that's part of what Jay was speaking to with the you know now it's three years of assessment. So now you you're just not seeing completed projects because they're still all in the queue. So even though they've been awarded the money and they're in some some state of of re of of completion. Y there's only there's 21 that got awarded money in 2020 and only seven of those are complete as of 2026. Okay. So this is just showing me then so they have been approved though. Yes. And they just haven't been completed because of this delay. Right. Okay. And but it doesn't show us how many applied necessarily like that's 21. No, I don't think I saw that data on that.

No, I I did look into that. The last last year the state I I don't know the backstory, but they put a lot more money into school the school roof project. I mean, this isn't uh unique to Grafton. Every town I think is struggling with roofs. Um and it was I think 90% where it went to 360 million I believe in 90. So they had a high so rate of acceptance improved. Okay. Yeah. That's kind of what higher than past from this but yeah one thing I I've done one MSBA roof program uh project in the past 10 years ago now or eight years ago. So

so it should be about complete took it with a Well, I did it in a year. Uh but that's also before all the things changed. So we'll just leave it as I did it in a year. Um no, but uh one of the things that it seemed like you had to do so much due diligence upfront that by the time you got the grant award, you were pretty assured you were going to get the money. You know what I mean? It was such a process to get to that point that um most of the communities that wouldn't have gotten it anyways didn't make it to the the final threshold. Could you go back to the to the picture? There's a there's a table in the top right is that give the square footage of each section of the school. It might um

so I'm just I just don't to the earlier point if if we're getting a better bang for our buck by doing the whole thing because the gym and the cafeteria roofs are big, right? And it's the upsell to that isn't that bad. Like it would be nice to know the square footage and like it sounds like it's per square foot. We're going to pay a lot less if we do everything. Cor that's my understanding. I I can get that doc. You definitely have information. I can't I can't I blow it up, but I can't read it. I I did a screenshot. It's square footage, wet areas, wet percentage, and uh you know, wet areas in general. But yeah, the first column is square foot, but it's it's almost impossible to read. That'd be just a nice, you know, I definitely have it. Yeah.

Uh do we have any idea? It's probably too early at this point because we're again just starting the bond conversation, but when we would anticipate the, you know, getting the bond and and payments coming due, you would you would ban it throughout the construction process and then bond it the following year. Okay? So, let's say that this is done over the summer of this summer, you're probably not going to see that impact the tax rate until fiscal 28. Are you ready to go out to bid with this? If if we you have all the bid documents, you have all the design. We're awfully close. If not, yeah, they've been

It was part of the scope of the design to create the the correct box. Y have another question. So, I I had it. We were just hoping we could pull it up quick. Sorry. Not getting there. I should have brought it. So separate from this um I agree with Craig that we have to do this and if there are some economies of scale with doing it all at once that makes sense to me. Um but then just separate issue though let's say so January 27 are you going to um are you prepared to kind of look at these other schools in terms of getting them in the queue for the state you know?

Yeah. Yeah we would be ready for that. Yeah. Or like I guess the question is are is that what you're planning to do? Um based in part on feedback either tonight or going forward. Okay. If that's I'd obviously I'd love to get in the mode of thinking if we could five six years ahead. And that typically just doesn't it's not just us. It doesn't happen with roofs. You don't really see them or notice them or ever brag about your roof. It's when it starts really leaking and negatively impacting that you get moving. But that's I'd love to get ahead of that.

It's too bad they don't do it like you know when we built Milby Street the town had to front the money and we were on the list and we had to carry the note until we got reimbured. It's too bad we couldn't do this. Be awesome. It couldn't we could pay up front and then you know if it took us three or four years to get the money in but then it's on us like that pace that planning right. But they don't they won't do it that way. They make you wait. Yep. There you go. There you go. Okay. Nice. Evan delegated that very quickly. Wow. Yeah, I'm really So, just sorry back to my question. Um, so relative to the accelerated repair program is what I'm talking about that you would be looking potentially

January 27 to apply apply right on some of these other schools or at least correct. And if if you're accepted, I'm sure you can't just be just stay in the program for 20 years, but you can wait. You can be in the program for three years. A A is a cafeteria. F is the gymnasium. F is the E must E. Yeah, because F is only 5,000. You want to look at E. That's E. Yeah. I want to see the gym in the cafeteria. Okay. So like the chart that's the cafeteria top right. Yeah.

No, I know we're getting the roof. That's what roof D. So the gym was A. The cafeteria was D. Uh roof H is actually roof E in this chart. Oh, okay. This is the garlands. So all right. So A and A and D. So you got like uh 6% wet like 43,000 square feet between those two roofs. But look at the So, and E is 24. 100% wet. Yeah. ENG 100%. Jeez, it's terrible.

Yeah. Okay. I don't know what any of that means, but it's wet. It is. Sounds wet to me. 100% seems pretty wet to me. The red is bad. Oh, bad. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And the other stuff that isn't 100% wet, that that could get worse.

Oh, it Yeah. Well, if when you look at the Garland uh report, I mean, the amount of penetrations and tears in that even the good sections of the roof are pretty uh pretty uh exorbitant. But one of the things that we are doing is we have 275,000 or 250,000 in this year's capital plan to just continue with roof repairs to address some of the things in the garment report. Obviously not on the ones we're going to we're replacing, but when we are finding these little tears and holes and cracks, we're we're allocating money to proactively go after some of that stuff. Do you know if they're going to put like an inverted roof like they have on on Milby Street?

I don't. Yeah. They do talk about they talk about pitching, but I don't know if they pitch it to the center of their pitching off the edge. What they what they did on the last roof I did is they actually brought insulated foam, but it was real thick foam and they actually angled it with the foam and then put the membrane over it. They did that at the back section of North Street, too. Um, I only know that because Frank forced me to go walk on that roof with them. Doesn't seem safe. Yeah, I'm allergic to bees and I don't like heist. It was covered in bees and high off the ground. Thanks, Frank. Anyways, probably not structurally sound. It seemed It seemed okay. Seemed okay. All right.

So, that middle um taking care of those middle options that doesn't take care of the um that there's that wet area in the corner of I think it's the auditorium. Yeah. That is there any way sort of that that's a great question. Um wondering even if if it's if we end up peacemealing it, maybe we don't do a piece, you know, one of the five roof pieces, we don't do that elevator shaft uh covering and instead do that corner. I'm going to have to Well, hopefully I'll make Frank do it, but um

if he doesn't come back, I'm going to have to talk with GRLA and I don't think it would shock them that that's a big concern. Okay, that looks pretty in that area which is really bad and I hate to see that just expand if we're not going to do the whole thing. One of the things to keep in mind and it does say this in the Garland report or another report that we have is that once the insulation is saturated, it's saturated. So if you come and put a new membrane section over that corner, there's no way to dry that out. Right. Right. No no no effective way to dry that out. You really need to be pulling that whole roof up. Well, it be like a patch. Right. And that's what happens that they take care of the whole thing off and put on a whole brand new current coded system.

Yeah. You can't piece meal this. This is like you have to do with rising construction costs with uh compliance codes changing and this is just going to get worse and worse. If you're asking what you should do, it should be the whole thing. Oh, I have a another question. Um, in terms of the motion for for consideration, when we're talking about the amounts, is it a range? You know, just going with the higher amount. You would go with the higher amount and then we can always spend less. So, the ballot question is always for Yeah. Oh, this particular way it's written, we don't specify. Sorry,

you don't. I mean, it says the amounts required to pay for the bond. 7. So this is copied from when we uh excluded debt for the fire truck at the last annual town meeting. So the article will specify the amount. The ballot question specifies the funding mechanism for that amount. Okay. Yeah, you're right. Right. So we don't have to decide that right now. That's your question. No, I nodded. Okay. I was like we don't have to say right now. We made eye contaction here tonight. This delegation problem. Keep them straight over there. Mr. Chair, get more.

I move the board vote to place the following question on the next local election ballot. Shall the town of Grafton be allowed to exempt from provisions of Proposition 2 and a half, two, and 1/2, so-called the amounts required to pay for the bonds to be issued in order to replace the roof at the Grafton Middle School. Second. Okay. Motion made and seconded. um discussion. When you say that that's the entire the entire roof, the whole thing. Option A, you you're you're we're just putting it on the ballot, right? And town meeting will vote the amount.

We put it on town the warrant, right? Well, we'll put on the warrant as well, but the warrant will will drill in the the amount and um but this has to just be on the ballot because you're going to exempt it from right from the some of it, right? So, what we're saying is we're not going to be able to pay for all of this without doing some exempted debt, but we can we can still talk about like maybe borrowing some capital from this in next year and you could some other things. You you'll have you'll have the opportunity to kind of work drop that into how you want to. Yeah.

All right. Cuz I I need some more thinking about the at le, you know, we're talking about an override this year if we're going to be, you know, going on top of that with with additional excluded debt. I just want to be really careful about how much we're asking uh to to borrow. Um um but if yeah, this is just to put the question on the ballot and then we'll discuss and and figure out the amount later on and how much we want to do. Um I think it makes makes sense to me.

So just so um just for clarification, I'm sorry. Just so but this are we making the decision to do the whole roof tonight? Um or we're not? No. No, no, you can come back and change that. What you're what you're doing is moving to place this on the ballot, but it has no dollar amount attached to it. Because like Will said, when we did the fire truck, we agreed to put it we we did the language to put it on the ballot and then the the the qualifier underneath the ballot question gave the specifics of what the truck wanted. This is on the town election ballot, correct? So, not not on the warrant. It'll be on They'll be both. It'll be on both, but tonight all you're dealing with is the ballot. Okay. The 21st you'll deal with the warrant.

Okay. I think what we are saying though is that we wouldn't do the smallest H only option because that at like a million whatever we probably wouldn't bond would be my guess. Yeah. Right. So it's probably option B or C. This commits us to either the full replacement or partial replacement, right? Yeah. And that we have to decide by the 21st because you're going to because it'll be on the town meeting in theory warrant, right?

No. Uh there's a lot of caveats. So, in in in theory, no. You can close the warrant. You could write the warrant article with a sum of money and then put that into your motion. It's not necessarily the best practice for something this large. Um, but you could we could do it that way. Okay. It gives you some wiggle room. Yeah. Okay. So, we're comfortable with at least making the commitment to the ballot without necessarily having the exact option chosen tonight. Everybody's okay with that? Yeah. Okay.

And actually just further discussion, maybe my ask would be if Evan between your office and Mary could maybe start to look at how you know what that might look like. Can we take something from capital? Yeah. Something from free cash and where does that number we can ask for the budget bring down a few options for the 21st so that you'll great know what that looks like. I mean, I think it would help me if um we had at least a sketch of a plan for we've got a lot of roofs that are in pretty dire need. So, how would we phase this to be able to start to get ahead of it? Sure. So, just so that we put this decision in context. Sounds good.

All right. So, uh any additional discussion hearing? None. All those in favor? Any opposed? Okay. Motion. Motion pass. Thank you everybody. Jay, thank you for taking the time to come down and walk us through it. Okay. On to the We're in the home stretch here. Uh any correspondents anybody wish to discuss? No.

Um there was one I just wanted to highlight. Uh there was a request for us to send a letter um mimicking the town of Reading asking the legislature to follow through with the state audit. Um is that something that the board would be interested in having prepared for review and and send or do we want to just uh set this one up? Is this reviewing to the uh ballot question that was passed and then sort of not followed through? Yes. But there's you have to do a deeper dive in into it. So, you know, for me per it's up to the board. I'm on I don't know. I'm still researching.

Okay. Yeah. I don't I don't know much about it, but I wanted to clarify that that was the issue. It um but I don't it it is a deeper issue and I think you should research it before you make a decision on whether or not you should. So, it was the question whether we have like No. So the on the ballot uh last year was to do a it was a state audit question. Right. Right. Right. Um however, when you I won't go super far into it, but when you start looking at it, there's there's areas that you won't want to audit because they have NDAs and there's other political now rationes for different sections. It's not just an audit of the money. There seems to be other areas that it's extending to that

some people argue we shouldn't be doing and some say so they asking for a a letter of support for that to get the audit completed. We had a resident reach out and ask for a letter of support for that. Yes. Oh okay. I mean the way that that I look at this like you know we have some issues like PAS which you start to see widespread support all over the state. This is not that. Um, and I hate to just jump on the bandwagon for Yeah, you know, let's do a I don't think that's gonna matter anyways. So, I mean, there is wide statewide Yeah, it passed statewide support um because it passed on the ballot. Um, but I think then if folks should individually do a deeper dive and you can,

you know, individuals can send support letters in as well, just as effective, I think, as as from the board. Okay. Great. Um, we have no meeting minutes to approve. So, we can go uh motion to adjurnn. So, moved. Second. Motion made second. All those in favor? I make one motion.