Select Board - Regular Meeting

to order and we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Chairs of the select board, school committee, and finance committee will host an outreach meeting to help residents better understand the upcoming override vote at Grafton High School. This Saturday, April 25th, at 3 PM, please stop by with any questions you may have. Sustainable Grafton will hold an Earth Day celebration from 11:00 a.m. to 2 PM this Sunday, April 26th at the Common. There will be activities for kids and information available from local environmental groups. The community yard sale will be held on Saturday, May 2nd from 8:30 to 2:00 p.m. Sellers will be set up at the common and a map of participating homes will be available at graftonre.com. The Grafton Gazebo Road race is on Saturday, May 9th. Please, excuse me, please register at tinyurl.com/gftonrace. All our announcements for tonight. Okay. No public hearings. I have one announcement if that's all right.

Know it's a little unorthodox but I just was happen to be talking to um Representative Dave Meridian today and he had just found out that they had secured $50,000 uh to offset some of the uh FY26 special education costs. He was he received 150,000 which will be split between Grafton Northridge and Upton equally. So that'll be uh $50,000 for education special ed circuit breaker. So nice. Certainly utilize that. Thank you, Representative Meridian.

Thank you, Representative Meridian. That's great. Always nice to get some good news. Uh public comment, five Stratton Road. Um there are two parades coming up. I believe Memorial Day and July 4th. Uh, I know you guys usually walk. Um, if you would prefer, we did this for Dave Meridian and um, Senator Moore for the Northridge parade. We have I've got a really really nice car trailer. We'd be happy to decorate it and have you guys ride on it if it makes it easier. Um, so just chat about it. If you'd rather walk, um, I'd be proud to showcase you guys. And I I won't use the best and brightest, but I will I will. So, um, it's available for both parades. you just need to give me some notice and um we'll you know just make it a little interesting and it'll make it easier on you guys if you want me to do it. Thank you.

That's very generous. Very kind of you. Thank you. You might need that with your uh handling back might help you out a little bit, you know. Yeah, I know. I know. I'm getting old. I didn't want to say that but yeah. Okay. Uh no appointments from either the select board or the town administrator tonight. So, right into business. Um, we have a one-day beer and wine and music license for TUS and then two one day all alcohols. I see is on Zoom. Hi, Jessica. Welcome. Thank you. How are you tonight? Doing well. How are you?

Very well, thanks. Um, so yeah, exactly what you said. We have uh a one-day beer and wine with music that is for uh May 1st, Friday night, 5 to 8. Um we're going to be on the jumbo uh the um Phelps Fields lawn and it is the end of the year celebration for the students. They're going to have a small band play um until about 7:30 and the bartender is tip certified and we do have a um police detail. And then the other two for May 15th and June 18th are both um also both have a uh detail requested. Um and we've given the tip certification for the 18th. Trina herertinian and Elms Cafe is serving on the May 15th. Sorry, jumping around.

No, no worries. Um, I mean everything seemed to be all the paperwork seemed to be in order. Uh, anybody have any questions or anything? No. Okay. Take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve a one-day beer and wine license and a one-day music license for Friday, May 1, as well as one day all alcohol license for Friday, May 15th and Thursday, June 18th of 2026 for the coming school of veterary medicine at Tus University. Second. Yeah. Much second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Okay. Thank you for coming in tonight, Jessica. Thank you. Have a good night. You too.

Okay. Uh next up we have uh chapter B first writer uh right of first refusal uh for 26 daffodil court. Uh we you know these come up pretty regularly. um we don't typically choose to exercise that option and and send it back into the um you know affordable lottery. So anybody uh have any questions or input? Not we can take a motion. Mr. Chair. Yep. I move the board vote to wave our right of first refusal and not purchase the affordable home at 26 Daffodil Court. Second. Okay. Motion man seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I

I All right.

Okay. Next up, another first writer refusal. This time, uh 16 196 Brigham Hill Road from chapter 61A. Um I do assume we want to discuss this one a little bit. Thank you all for bringing up the GIS so you can see it there. um in some of the uh you know quick preliminary talks and I had about this uh you can see and it's a parcel outlined in blue there. It's it's uh there's a front and rear uh it's been subdivided. The front contains the house. The rear parcel is the one in question. Directly above and directly below it um are parcels that are owned by the Grafton Land Trust. Um the only I think little bit of concern with this one is is that that little leg that you see that goes out to Brigham Hill Road um also holds the driveway for the house that's in 29B uh of that parcel. So it' probably be a little bit of a an easement process um if we were to go through it.

All right. So, I really it's hard to tell kind of what we're looking at here. Can you isolate them again by color? So, what's what's for sale? What's what's coming out of I said what's coming out of 61A? 29D is the section that's coming out of 69A. Um 61A, excuse me. 29B, that's where the house is. No, 29B is the house. 29D is coming out of the chapter. That's that's the land in question. It's about 9.5 acres. Okay. And it doesn't have frontage. So that blue frontage, right, that goes with the house. Well, where's the frontage for the house?

I would imagine that's it. It's not showing it there. Showing like the house is landlocked. When you say TW Craig 29B, are you asking about the frontage? So like the front of the house is facing the the number 29 andB. The back of the house, you can see like it looks like there's a pool behind it. So when you drive on Brigham Hill Road, it's behind those houses that are on Brigham Hill Road and that's how you get to it. So the front is facing the 29 andB, but it has no it as as the plot is currently laid out, it has no frontage or access to Brigham Hill, but it it it the access is through 29D. Right. Right. So So that's not that has to go with the house, though. Yes.

So the the notice of intent to sell we got reflected the home and the land in the back. Oh, that's what's in the packet. Both processes. Say that again, Will, please. The notice of intent to sell fell that we received uh is a notice to intent to fell the home and the land in the back. The two So, two lots. The two lots and actually three lots and a house. Uh, no, just the two lots. The house and the plot that's outlined in blue. Got it. 29D. 29 B and 29 D isn't David. Sorry. But they're separate. They're two separate. Yeah. when they put them up for sale, it's going to be two separate Boy, that's a lot. Um sales.

Uh that I don't know the answer to. The notice we got with both of them. We haven't had any Our office haven't had any conversations with the land owner. When did they file the paperwork? We got it on the 13th according to what's in the packet. I believe 13th of this month. Okay. All right. And we have what 60 or 90 days. What do we have in speaking to the assessor? Uh there is no clock at the moment until they get an initial offer and then we have 120 days to respond. All right. So, we're going to need some more clarification on because the house I mean we've never done anything with 61A with the houses included in it. It's just usually

agricultural right property that's been put into that classification. So, Well, if you um uh zoom out a little bit, you mentioned that some of the abuing land was owned by the land trust. Um where is that land? That's the green. Uh that is the green to the north and then it's also this partial to the south. Got it. So it's sort of sandwiched in between. Uh and there is frontage there. Okay. So, what is that development across the street over here? Yeah,

I think those are the condos. I was right. It's the condos. Yeah. Okay. So, that's Lord Veil Faniel Lincoln.

Okay. All right. So, that's down close to the pike. No, not that far. It's before the overpass. Yeah. On this side of the overpass. Yep. So, you can't do anything with it though, right? That's So, that was across from the Mr. Mrs. Lame, right? Isn't that where the Dian's lived? I think it's okay. Okay. Yeah. So, I think that's one of the key questions, right? Can it be developed?

Well, if it's landlocked, it's just back land, right? But if it comes with that house and it's got a driveway, I don't know. I don't know if you can Can you sell 61A with a house? I don't know. We might be in the same situation as we're with over by the school where they just haven't really done enough homework to Right. Yeah. Maybe we should the parcel the house is on is also not in 61A. It's just the back parcel that's 61A. Well, and you can't legally landlock. You can't sell landlock property, right? Or you can't create I shouldn't say you can't create landlocked property. Correct. That is that's my understanding. So, they're going to have to keep some access through the frontage that they have.

Yep. Right. Um Mr. Chair isn't the discussion though should we or should we not buy it? So whether we can speculate on all of the different things what we can and what that can and can't be done there but we're here to just say yes we'd like to buy it or no no thank you. I think it's to be continued. Okay.

We we can yeah long and short is is that yes but if we're if we're going to consider buying it we should you know figure out what we're going to use it for and whatnot. Um we did or we have talked about making sure to include the affordable housing trust in discussions like this uh as well as the trails committee um you know we start doing parcel acquisitions because they're looking at the open space master plan and and trying to figure out you know parcel prioritization there. So, um, you know, we can I would I would recommend that we reach out to at least those two entities and get their, uh, input on this as well as as to whether it's something that either of them would be interested in. And then, um, that gives Will an opportunity to get some answers to how the parcel would actually be divided. um for see if we can get some answers on that if if they've done that degree of leg work yet and just circle back.

Yeah. Or can you even will can you do anything on that? Well, but land trust land so would make sense to continue that but probably you know that means then land preservation. I guess the question is though if nothing can be done with it Why would you buy it? Why would you buy it? Why would anybody buy it? Yep. Right. So, I don't know. Yeah. I mean, they they have frontage on the on the lot below it and it'd be a massive connection for them for the land trust. For the land trust. That's what I mean. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Right. But to Matt's point, if it's But they can't landlock it. See, legally, they can't. So, I don't My my concern is it's 9 acres, so I don't know what the value would be, but could be considerable. If you can get it for that back lot price where it's not developable, five grand an acre or something. You get it for 50 grand, right? Fine, then great. But if it's right, yeah. So, all right. But I think we got to find some more. So, we'll pause on this one then. We will.

Okay. Okay. Um, next up we have our uh driver verification system employment policy. Uh, will you want to walk us through this one? Sure. Thank you.

Uh, so this is a policy that came from our payroll and benefits department. Um the idea behind it is that when we get new hires in who are going to drive town vehicles, they sign off onto us being able to use the Mass Registry of Motor Vehicles uh driver verification system. So if they lose their license or if we need to verify that they have the proper license, we're able to look in the system. Um a question I got was are we having an issue or is this a best practice? This is a best practice. We haven't had an issue with things like this that I'm aware of. Uh it's also a recommendation through Maya, who's our insurance company. So it would help with our Maya rewards which go towards grants and things like that. In its current state, it would be applicable to all new and current non-UN hires who drive municipal vehicles. Uh we're still working out how it would be deployed for union employees. something they can impact bargain.

Great. Anybody have any questions? Uh I have one question and that is uh for existing staff. If we have somebody who's in good standing um and we run the verification and find something that I don't know doesn't meet our standards or whatever. Um Is there a potential that that person could be at risk? It would that would be determined by the severity of the issue. So, if it's somebody who needs a commercial driver's license who we find out does not have a commercial driver's license. Yes. Sure.

Uh if it's an easily rectifiable problem, we would give the employee the opportunity to rectify it while simultaneously not having them drive down vehicles during that time.

Yeah. No, it makes sense to me. Um, I was more more concerned, I think, about something that might be a little bit more of a gray area. Let's say somebody had reckless driving from seven years ago or I don't know, like is there a is there a defined standard for uh qualifying for a job? I just I would hate to see somebody put in jeopardy. Um, but I guess on the other hand, if there was something concerning, do we really want them driving for the town? It's a great point. Uh I think the in in speaking to payroll and benefits, the impetus of the policy is a little bit more black and white. It's do you have it or do you not? Okay. So, if you're driving a town vehicle, we need to be able to verify Yeah.

you have a license or you have the applicable license. Yeah. That's right. And this is kind of a long document. Does it does it speak to if they do get a speeding ticket or a moving violation that they have to report? And if they are, you know, I'm gonna even in their own vehicle, do they have to report that to the town? They would not have to report that to the town. This gives us the ability to check. Okay. So that they don't have the responsibility for reporting it. We would have to go out. Correct.

We always made the guys, you know, our drivers, I mean, that was obviously these were CDL guys. if they had a a moving violation, you know, reckless driving, even speeding, they had a, you know, their responsibility was to report that back to the company, which in this case would be the town. So, we were aware of it. So, um I don't know how the board feels about that, but you know, other than having us having to check, I mean, how are you going to you can't go check and everybody's, you know, driving record on a daily basis if they get in a an accident over the weekend and they're cited and we don't know about it and we never check. You know,

the intention would be to do it yearly, but at the same time, if the board wants to add a clause that they need to report things, we can always work that in and bring it back. Yeah, I think that's important if they're going to be driving a a you know a town owned vehicle that if they do have not talking about parking tickets, you know, I'm talking about moving violations that they just report that to the town so we have a record of it. I mean, once a year isn't really going to help. So, well, um I think I understood the intent was to verify whether somebody had a CDL that needed a CDL, for example. Um it does mention though that uh there's monitoring for suspensions, revocations, violations. Um I would feel a little bit more comfortable um having some clarity around when those things would be used.

Okay. um just so that it's crystal clear. Um and the town has good um like good criteria to in case there was an issue and the town did want to take action based on you know somebody's been suspended twice or whatever. Um that we yeah have uh have a leg to stand on um if it gets challenged. Um, and I think it's fair to existing staff too to just have a clearly articulated criteria. Yep, we can definitely add those in.

One more thing too is if as their CDL drivers as their licenses get renewed, this should go for hoisting license as well that we get a copy of the new license. And that's from experience. We had a a hoist a loader operator who had a hoisting license and he never renewed it. um and it expired and he was still running a machine um with an invalid license. So, we should definitely get, you know, just have them come up, make a copy of it, throw it in the file. What is our current process for checking back on things like that?

Honestly, I don't believe there is one. I believe that this seeks to solve that problem. When we hire them, we get all obviously sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%. But if it gets suspended, you know, their license gets suspended, how would we know? Yep. Right. So, okay. We can make those changes and bring it back. We don't have them that already. Should have do Do you want me to make a motion to include those changes or you want to come back the next time? Will uh I think there are enough substantial changes. What if reworked qualifying and we'll bring back the clean copy? It's a late night for me tonight.

Uh the only other question I had on that when we get into you gave a sample of uh the consent form. Um nothing on there, you know, it says the town, nothing specifically mentions the town of Grafton. I don't know how big of an issue that is or if it's something that would even be printed on the letterhead, you know, but usually in in most of our legal documents, we say, you know, the town of Grafton here in the town, uh, if we're going to do something like that. So, I didn't I didn't know if it was just necessary to be a little more direct on that part of it, but defer to you and and council on that or whatever.

Yeah, I don't believe it's necessary. We do most of this digitally now during people's onboarding, but that is a light lift to add it to the first line. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Bring that one back. The marquee item of the night. Um funding the replacement of the Grafton Middle School roof. So, uh Will sent out some documents. Evan sent out uh a couple documents about this. We received a letter from Jay as well as his presentation from last week. Um both of the the letters uh as I read them um seem to recommend from Jay and Evan, let me clarify, seem to recommend uh doing this doing the roof in two parts. um the the worst half now uh using funding through um precache and uh the capital plan um and then applying for the MSBA grant for the other half of the roof as well as not that it's related to this discussion but the the North Street Elementary roof at the same time in that 2027 grant cycle um and estimated if we don't um do the full 5 a.5 million uh as a bond, we could potentially save between 1.5 and 4 million in interest. Um and again, the big benefit being it's not a concurrent ask with our current uh override request. So, opening that up for some discussion and for replacing the whole thing. I said that a couple weeks ago. That hasn't changed. I think there's too much liability, too much of a problem. Anything can happen. It's been going on for a really long time. I don't know how long it's been going on, but certainly long enough. I don't know. You You start doing it partial here, partial there, half here, half there. You can run into all kinds of problems from different a higher

cost, inflated cost from from now to a year or two from now. um different uh contractors. It could be a challenge with that. Or maybe you have the same one, but still things change in a short period of time. I just think they need to get a a complete uh fix. Just it seems most mostly pragmatic to me, too. What if something falls falls on somebody kind of mold is happening over there kind of leaks or whatever? That's where I stand. How we get there open to that discussion but to get there is where I stand.

I guess I'll go. So by reading that report, we obviously have a lot of roofs to fix. So I think, you know, as a sidebar, I think we need to come up with kind of a strategic plan on how we're going to we're going to do this over the next decade, right? and hopefully we can take advantage of that of the state grant to to repair these roofs moving forward. Um, but for this roof, I guess I'm going to agree with Mark. I think, you know, the there's that, you know, there's some severe damage there on all of the roofs. Some are worse than other areas, but I think there's there's some value in doing it all at once. um as the amount of square feet of the roof increases, I think there's some efficiency there, which we saw in those projected um cost estimates. So, I think there's a value to having one contractor doing it all, taking advantage of that that volume discount, for lack of a better term. Um and then and not waiting for potentially four or five years to do the other part. And I'm sure we would have to build in probably some six figure maintenance. um money to repair those roofs over the next four to five years so that they, you know, patching or whatever um to get it to the point where we're going to do the whole repair, which to me is a waste of money, right? We're going to spend good money after bad, right? Because we know we're going to tear it up anyways. So, I want to see us do this entire project in one. It definitely needs it. Um and I looked at both kind of the both warrant articles, you know, with the different one was um you know, no, you know, no loan basically using using reserves for half and then the other one was going out for 100% of the borrowing for um the whole roof. Mhm.

So, I would like to I was just thinking about it a lot today and wanted to come up with kind of a hybrid alternative. What if we did the whole roof? Um, we took uh a million from certified free cash and a half a million from stabilization. So, we used a million and a half of reserves. So, we lower that cost down. Um, you know, kind of like buying a house or buying a car, you put 20% down and then you take a loan out for the rest of it. Um, I don't know if that's feasible, but to me, you know, that shows the town we are using some reserves, some savings. Um, we're not going through all of those savings. We're making sure that we have rainy day money. Um, but and so we're using some and then we're going out to borrow some of that money, but the impact on the taxpayers won't be as great as going out to bond for the whole thing. So, that would be my my idea that I'll put out to the board for discussion. Um, I think that there's that's sensible. Um, uh, yeah, just trying to weigh. It's a it's an interesting one. Um, I think there's a lot of value to doing it all at once for sure. you know, it was pretty clearly articulated um why we've had a lot of difficulties with replacing it in sections and having things at different ages and all that kind of stuff. Um on the other hand, I would hate to give up uh the state match. So, that would be my concern on that one. Um I don't really know how to reconcile that, but um that's my main concern uh with uh with that. But um

if it was if it was five years earlier, I would agree. But we know that that you know the roof is in a position now where it's kind of in in the red zone for lack of a better word. And I don't want to start spending good money after bad to keep that the other half of that roof system alive for for five potentially five years. Right. I get the grant money. Hopefully, we'll save some money on the efficiency of the volume, you know, and make some of their money back. I I'm concerned about the safety, too. Just the safety of the students. I don't, you know, I don't know the reality of

it looks bad from you look at pictures and it's red all over the place and that's just an alarm caller um from for a failed roof. um you know and uh the commentary has been that this you know that we have that school in particular is leaking like a civ um so it's not it's leaking on stuff right so who knows what else is being compromised you know it's getting inside the building envelope and I don't know what else is being uh damaged um and I guess the other thing is

these projects never get cheaper right so there's wisdom to just, you know, it's not like we we're ever going to have reverse inflation. So, right. Um, and and I think also when, you know, we get through town meeting and and maybe over the summer, early fall, we can talk about what we're going to do long term with some of these other roofs. And you know um maybe it means you know at fall town meeting putting some money aside to do some further um design or engineering or specification work on you know and then get that to the state and get you know start that clock ticking for some of this other stuff you know.

Yeah. And also Matt, like not only what it might be uh dripping on or flooding, the structural integrity of the actual roof is probably could not that can't be great. If there's if there's leak through a roof, what's inside that part of the roof that is going to get weaker by the minute. So, uh just to me agree on state funds and it'd be great if we could do that. Safety first. It's just got to be and it's also logical to just do it once, do it all at once. Sure. And I think what we talked about in our last meeting was that

we would move forward with um seeking uh grant money from the state for other groups, right, as a part of that strategic plan. So, I think, you know, I don't know what their process looks like, but it seems like it's a multi-year process. Three to four years is what he said. So, if we can get some other roofs in the pipeline, y we may very well get the same amount of match anyways because there's obviously a limited amount uh of money from the state. So, there's no guarantee that we're going to get that uh or get the 50% that they might be expecting. So, yeah. Well, the funds will still be available or the funds will still be available. Right. Right. We've seen that happen before, too. Yeah. Um,

well, I'll I'll make a motion, I guess, um, to uh, and I don't know what that motion's going to be, but it's going to be to C Can I just ask with the proposed numbers you throw out, and I can put it up on the screen, how does the board envision a plan like that interacting with the alternate capital plan that Evan circulated? Would the plan be to reduce the amount for the roof in that plan and then keep it as is and bond the rest or that would be my motion. Yeah. Okay. Um so you're taking another um 1.5 on top of the existing capital plan.

Is that right? So an Evans proposal for doing half the roof. Yeah. Right. So I basically looked at that Warren article once I had kind of conceptually come up with the idea about you know structuring it differently. Um so in that plan there was 1.7 and 800 right for ballpark one almost right uh 1.5 from free cash and 1.3 from stabilization. I thought it was 800 from stabilization

on article 16 that says uh 1,75,000 from free cash and um 89,000 from capital stabilization right which version of the warrant are you looking at Andy 16 the one that you the print out that you put on our um original capital/debt exclusion right so it's a total of 2.584. We need to be looking at the alternative. Okay. So, the the original capital plan doesn't carry any work for the roof in it.

You're right. So this plan right here, the alternate plan that Evan sent around, my question is, is the intention now to reduce the free cash number to a million and the stabilization number to 500,000, keep the rest of the plan the way it is. Correct. So he would have to make some reductions in that plan. Or which so Right. So it would come out of the current it would come out of the capital money. Right. So Yes. The the alternate capital plan.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah. And I and I picked five. I mean, we could go one in bond for five 4.5 if there's stuff that Evan wants to see funded in that capital plan if we do the whole roof this year. But, you know, in this one, we were go we were, you know, we were borrowing 2.5. So, that was probably basically the entire capital plan, right? Pretty much 2.8. troop.

If if he took if he took, you know, 800 out of stabilization and 1.775 out of free cash, that was probably most of the capital plan money for this year. Is that a fair statement? In the original capital plan, correct? Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

So, if we do this, Evan's going to have to rep prioritize some of his capital plan for this year. Okay. So if we did that, why why why reduce from the current capital revision by by so much? Why not keep some of those numbers higher? So keep the 25

so that we we're still bonding less. If he's you are right, you know, in and uh him and I talked about it briefly that it it's basically slashing all the capital projects that were slated for this year, right? um save for I think the roof and the field maybe one other project it would be this list that's on the screen right now this is if we put half of the roof replacement in the capital plan these projects are what would be done with the remaining capital money so if we added a million dollars in

you're talking about putting down a smaller no down payment. Craig, as your analogy is, if you look at your analogy, instead of doing 2, I think it's 2.8 million, not 2.5 as it's showing here, right, Will? Yes, it's 2.8 for the roof in this 1.5 million from free cash. Yep. 1.3 million from municipal stabilization. So, it's 2.8 total. So instead of that, you're thinking more like 1.5 to keep some cash or some money in this budget to do capital projects to do capital projects. Well, at the same time, instead of borrowing all of the money, we're putting a down payment on it. Correct. That's what your suggestion. Yeah.

Okay. We'd be putting like 27, you know, we we'd be using 20 27% of it would come from reserves and then the other 63% would come from, you know, borrowing the money. Yep. From a which now wouldn't be an interest between 1.5 and 4 million. It'd be less because you're not borrowing 5.5 million. Correct. Yeah. All right. So say what this is again. Will this is if we borrow.

So this is the ultimate capital plan that Evans sent around last week. This does half of the roof, okay, without any borrowing. Okay. And then it includes a couple of other capital items that are either necessary because they're yearly fees that we have to pay the federal requirements or there for safety and operations. Right. So, if I understand you correctly, Craig, the plan would be to take this plan, reduce the free cash for the roof to a million, reduce the municipal stabilization to 500,000, and then take that capacity and apply it to other capital projects. Correct. And then bond the rest.

Yeah.

Okay. So, I'll make that motion unless you want to open it up to if anybody has anything to to say, Andy. No, I really don't, you know, I I was I I was on the fence with uh you know, direction because I I was with you guys last week. Um I definitely see the you know we talked about the um you know market of scale or whatever that is doing it all at once. Um just being done and over with. But then the option coming up to um you know not have to bond it and and put another debt exclusion on the ballot was enticing. You know, I'm not going to lie because uh theoretically we're replacing the two worst parts. So any to your point about, you know, throwing good money at bad any that should really minimize any additional funding that we need to spend over the next four years or so um for repair of the remaining sections which are in halfway decent shape. Um

well, we don't know that. Mhm. Well, we I get what you're saying, but based based on the color coding, right? You're you're right. You know, it's um Yeah. Four years is a long time. Yeah. And that's, you know, that's the minimum. Jay did say he's talked to other districts where it's taken longer. So, yeah. Um I I just think we really need to do it. I mean, I I hated that, you know, Evan had his capital plan and we know that they were working on it. it, you know, unfortunate that it came up at the final hour, you know, in the timing of this and now, you know, we're kind of rewriting the script here, but you know, it happens, right?

You want me to restate? Yep. So, do we have to make this decision tonight? We do because we have to close the warrant. That's what I

The warrant has to posted by Friday. So, I'll reiterate. I'll make my motion to uh for funding of the the middle school roof project. Um 1 million out of um certified free cash, 1 half million, 500,000 out of stabilization. Um the remainder uh which is 4 million through debt exclusion to fund the roof project and the rest goes to the uh the capital list.

I'd like to second that, but I also want to add some language to that. How do we do that? Second it. And then second. All right. Motion made. Second. Discussion. Uh Mr. Chair, I'd also like to add that um when u Mr. Adop refers to the roof project should probably say uh replacing the entire roof instead of just like you know part because there's been a lot of discussion about we'll do this or that just the entire roof right complete removal and replace of the middle school roof at Proidence Road. Really should have left it to me. I'm getting so good at this.

I know. I know. I'm out of practice. You do them all. I mean, I should me turn, but I didn't any additional discussion.

I just I need to talk through it a little bit. Just such a uh substantial difference in what we're talking about here. I just uh I really wish we could talk to both Evan and Jay to talk about, you know, if I think Jay is comfortable with the sounds like he's comfortable with only repairing the uh the critical components of the roof uh at least for the next three or four years uh while we do that grant and whatnot. Um he does he he in his letter um GMS roof recommendation memo doc. Uh he does state given the financial realities of the town in concert with the need for an operational override I recommend the town work to secure funding to replace the two sections of the roof that are in dire need as possible and then recommend we apply for the MSBA accelerated repair program in January of 27 to uh seek assistance in funding the remainder of the replacement.

Right. I just um I'm wondering if we're going to gain enough efficiency by the scale of doing the whole roof. It's getting the um the grant funding. Um my suspicion is that we wouldn't, but you know,

yeah, commercial development really isn't my thing, so it's really hard to say. Um and I guess I would like understand a little bit like if we're going to be um adding more to the capital plan, right? So that's one of the benefits to Craig's motion is that we would be adding more to this year's cap. So what would that be? Um because so for example um the turf field is 750 grand. Um I know there's been some discussion about that one about you know that is also a safety issue. because we got kids playing sports on a very very old um expired field basically. Yeah.

Um and it's gone a number of years with uh discussions about how it's basically it's well past its useful life. Um it'd be just about enough to do that, right? So that is still being carried in the current alternate capital plan. So that was never Oh, it is. Yeah. Okay. I can tell you what was cut out from this. If you can that would be helpful.

Yes. So the items that were cut out were for the uh cons from the conservation commission treatment of terrestrial invasives invasives for 27,000. Uh treatment of aquatic invasives for 74,000 from the highway department. Replacement of a one- ton dump truck for 150,000. Replacing a loader for 395,000. uh from the schools um roof repair and maintenance for 250,000 and for the fire department station two and station three uh redoing the epoxy floor in the apparatus bay for $50,000.

Can you talk a little bit about the roof repair 250 grant? Is that for all of the other schools? And

that is my understanding. Yes, it it's money to do uh repair and replacement as needed. Hey, you'll find I just can't help but it we worked so hard to try to get to the right number and reduce the override number in service of keep keeping people's tax bills down. Um,

well, I would say this. I mean, listen, you know, the override discussion is an important one for the town to have, but this is this is an asset that we need to protect. And to your point, it's only going to get worse. The costs are only going to go up. And, you know, we have kids to think about. We have, you know, the integrity of that structure to think about, too. So it's been like I said this was five years earlier we were having this discussion it I think we might be having a different conversation but for now I think you know this is the position that we're in right and that's I think that's why moving forward we need a plan right so we don't we don't we're not going through this because this is you know

yeah I mean that analysis didn't unfortunately didn't indicate like what the consequences would be for different timelines It sort of was like almost like you just need to replace everything all at once right now. Right. I mean, this is, you know, we when you have a project this big, you know, you got to borrow some money, right? I mean, this is what this is, you know, it's like buying a car and then it's finished, then you move on to the next one, for grant funding ahead of time and get that plan going.

What would this be, Bond? I mean, if we were going to do if so, let's just say we weren't going to take some some of our reserves at 5 a.5 million, what was what was Evan and you thinking about air thinking about the extent of that note that the loan like was it going to be a 5year, 10 year, 15 year? Do you know what to pay that back? Oh, off top of mind, I think Rue for 20 years. Okay. Well, he he it wasn't definitive, but yeah, when we talked about it last time, everything floated in 20 years.

So, if we've cut it back by almost 30% from the original, if we're going to do say the whole thing in a year and and go out and borrow all the money, we've taken almost 30% off of that, you know, between 25 and 30. And at 20 years, I mean, that's got to be a pretty small number. 40 46 annually was the rough estimate. Greg's got an answer. Mr. Mayor,

Gregar, 36 Ferry Street on the finance committee, which I'm not speaking for that, but because on that, uh, I got info from Evan on debt service. He had a 5.5 million general obligation bond for 30 years. Uh so the estimated tax rate on that was 7 cents per thousand. 30 years for declining declining debt service started out at 9 cents per thou and then decreased to 4 cents per thousand. For 25 years it was 8 cents per thousand uh or the the declining started at 10 per thousand decreased to five. A 20-year debt service was 9 cents per thousand and a declining went from 11 to 6 cents per thousand. Those were all uh 5.5 million bonds. So that's assuming the full amount was bonded as opposed to using the 1.3 million from municipal stabilization and the uh is it 1 1.5

1.5 from free cash. So that leaves 2 million. So presumably those would be significantly uh smaller at that point if you went with the full capital project which is 1.9 million more than the capital pro the original capital project uh proposal before they put the roof in. So he put 2.8 uh in for the roof and took out uh 900,000. So basically at four four and a half million oh I'm sorry four million if you use the seven cents and you back off 27% it's like $32 a year on a $600,000 average household maybe the average is a little bit more than 600

640 but all right so I use yeah multip divided by 600 so say 35 bucks All right. Thanks. Thanks, Greg.

Mr. Chair, can I throw one other thing out there? Sure. Uh, just to your point, Craig, about capital capacity, uh, I think that is well made. Evan was comfortable with this plan when he left. He knows it's a reduction. Um, but it does meet the imminent needs of the town. So, if you're considering some sort of a breakdown like that, there is the option to pursue this plan and then only bond out the 2.7 million. Just something to consider. Yeah.

If you're considering a split like that, right? Having having had that conversation, we he did talk about the reductions. He when when we talked, he was clear that those would only be pushed off by a year. They just move into next year's capital plan and we'd fund them then. It's it's really just the one-year impact. Um I'm I'm not opposed to the plan. I I would like to see us bump up maybe that free cash amount uh and and offset it even more if if you know we're not going to dip into like the stabilization.

So that's the thing I'm concerned about like who was that free cash position and is that comfortable with with that? I mean, we didn't talk about this aspect, you know, kind of the the the mixed bag, but he he was comfortable with, as Will said, that that capital plan right there, you know, and and putting really hard to hear. Sorry. Thank you.

Well, I just know we have a lot of other roofs to fix, too. But I know we want to use the state system, but you know, we do have a lot a lot of roofs to fix. you know, um is it better to take more out of stabilization or I mean out of uh free cash than it is out of stabilization like that balance of a million and 500 or are we better off like evening that out or I just noticed in his article he had more coming out of free cash than he did out of stabilization. At least in the Warren article that I'm looking at, I know you're looking at I think a different one, but

in both of them it's the same more. There's more coming out of free cash and stabilization. How much does it have in stabilization though? I mean it get that gets funded 800 a year. So we may not have a lot more than 13. I don't know how much is in that account. I can tell you

that would be great. Uh so in municipal stabilization we have uh $5.4 million Free cash is currently sitting at uh 5.663. Okay. Right. But that's not municipal stabilization is not capital stabiliz. Okay. All right. Got my head on straight now. Capital stabilization is at 950,000. That would use all the capital stabilization money.

Okay. Um, well, I don't mean to be difficult, but I think I I like Evans plan um as much as I like the idea of um doing the whole roof at the same time. Um for me I think you know that this plan doesn't go to to bond at all now at least. Um it gets the critical uh capital projects done um and and gives us the opportunity for that state matching grants. So I understand the logic behind it, but I I just prefer Evan's suggestion myself. Rick Padet, 23 North Street. If I understand what has been going on here, it sounds like we could do all the roofs. And I think Craig, you said it was $35 a year, $50 a year increase. I mean, I did the little calculation, it came out to $50 a year, but um it seems to me that we're we're making decisions here because we're worried about passing an override for the school. So, we don't want to put another override on $50 to do the whole roof a year. It's a 30-year

bond. I mean, how how much cheaper do you want to get it over 30 years to do a whole roof? I I agree with the these two. Um just the liability of doing separate roofs over time. You're never going to get if there's a leak, we own that, right? We're never going to get that fixed by the by the uh the contractor. Um so, I understand. And I mean, there is there is a a problem here because we're now asking for two overrides, but I have to say the second one's for an asset. It's $50 over a year. It's four bucks a month for people. I think they can stomach that to fix a roof. Now, the school thing and all that, that's a whole another thing. And I I get why you don't want to put them on because we got two of them on now. And it's people are going to look at that um and think we're, you know, we're spending $10 million in a year. But that's where you got to stand up and make your argument. You got to make you got to talk at town meeting. You have to explain to them how one's an asset. It's costing you four bucks and the other one's an operational cost. It's going to be for the betterment of the school. I mean, that's I think you got to do the right thing and not think of it so politically like how are we going to get something passed and how is this going to hurt? You know, I that's my feeling. I have the feeling you're not looking at the bigger picture on the roof because you're worried about its effect on the school override and they're two separate things. I think people can figure that out and you just have to explain it and even the even the override on the school it's 165 bucks or something like that. I can't remember what it was exactly. Um, but that's where you got to go to town meeting and people I think for me anyway in the past the last few town meetings we haven't had enough presentations about what overrides do and how much it actually costs people and what the actual effect because if you can look you know down to the month it's not substantial, right?

What's 165 bucks a month? Um, what I just don't want you to do is is make a plan of of something that's a 30-year bond. When you said 30-year bond, it's like, you know, if it was 10, if it was five, it's a no-brainer at 30 years. It's nothing to fix those roofs and get them done and get them off our roll. Um, and don't worry about the override. You know, make your argument and get the override done, too. Or I just don't see, you know, don't stop doing one because of the other. That's all. It's a fair point.

Yeah, Mr. Chair, one thing real quick. Just same logic applies. We were asked to provide the opportunity, the voters an opportunity, the residents to vote on it. I think the same logic applies to this as well. You know, it's and this is a different one in the sense that it comes off the books, albeit many years later. It's a short amount of money and just coming back to safety first. It's too it's too tenuous to look at leaky roofs that are soaked with water over a peri long period of time. That's not safe. So, I can represent that for whatever it is a month. I can represent the safety aspect of it very comfortably. And we can do two things at once and I think it's a fair point. Let's just explain it to the voters and put it into the residents. Put it in their hands. I do agree with that too. You know,

it's it's tough though, right? You know, we're trying Yep. we're all just trying to to watch out for that line and and not burden them too much. But but to your point, yeah, I I agree. It is it is their decision and we can we can make it work either way. But Yep. And we're using some of their money to put down on it. You know what I mean? So, we're not borrowing all of it. So, yeah, I think it's a fair it's a good compromise. Yeah. the fact that if we can bring down the five and a half and I know it it's not a huge amount annually but it it's at least something you know something. Okay, great.

Just a couple quick clarifications. The reason he got a different number is the 35 was the reduced by about million and a half. I'm in there. That's so the 35 that you came up with versus the 50 that he came up with. That's why there are two different numbers. Uh the other thing is that the debt exclusion is already on the ballot. Ballots are already being printed. So that is going to be voted on one way or another. So if you decide not to use it, you will have to explain to the town why it's why it's there and we're not using it. So just either way, there needs to be some indication at town meetings say, "Yeah, if you if we say we're just going to do it in the capital plan now, we're going to do half now and half later and we're not going to use that thing that you're voting on next week or you might have already voted on through early mailin voting.

Thanks. Good point.

So I just wanted to clarify one thing. You know, this the operational override is for all departments. It's It's not really a school thing. It's to fund the operational part of the budget which includes all departments. Um yeah, uh Brooke, I hear what you're saying. Um it's I just for me it's not it's not being afraid of putting two on the ballot. It's just uh you know this the sort of approach that this board has taken is to try to find every $50,000 to try to reduce the override as much as possible. And to me this is a plan that um although it's for an asset and not operational costs. Um it seems inconsistent to me to have so much heavy focus on the operational piece of it and then uh not that same level of scrutiny and u aggressive pursuit um of you know keeping tax dollars as low as pos. so many it's it's just an inconsistency to me. Um because at the end of the day, yes, it's an asset, but to deliver education, it's the asset and the people that work in the building. It's all kind of in my mind, it's all together. Um, so I'm not fighting this too hard, but I just it doesn't make sense to me that the direction that the board's been going in and uh where we land tonight. But you know if you guys want to go another direction um any additional discussion on the on the motion?

Do we want to consider increasing the free cash amount at all or just leave it at at 1 million and then 500k of the stabilization? I like that balance. So that's kind of the thought process that I went through in doing it. So um I'd like to leave it, but I'm only one one person. Can I just make one other point?

Not to try to interject too much. Um, but with the current breakdown of a million and 500,000 and then bonding the rest, uh, I would just remind the board that if for whatever reason the capital article doesn't get go through and the debt exclusion doesn't go through or either or, you then don't have enough money to do either. Yeah. We'd have to bring it back, right? Just Yeah. Throwing it up. It's a fair point. Yeah. Yep. Be up to the voters, right?

Anybody any other concerns with that or? Nope. Pretty well. All right. Um, not hearing any discussion. Uh, all those in favor I I opposed. Nay. Okay.

Okay. Such a quiet room. Um, I the lowest attendance we've had in quite some time. Very handy. You know, nobody wants to come and watch us. Um, okay. So now that we're going to have to do when we close the meeting, we'll have to uh close the warrant. It'll have to be as amended. Correct. Um Okay. Well, that brings us to uh closing the Springtown meeting.

Do you want me to speak that speak to that at all, Mr. share or Sure.

Sure. Um so just to give sort of the quick 30,000 view um both versions of the warrant were in the packet that's online so people playing along at home. Uh it contains two consent it's 28 articles as it stands right now contains two consent agendas. Consent agenda one is three articles for current fiscal year transfers and appropriations. Uh consent agenda 2 is 10 articles that contains the usual things such as reading of reports, the WRTA authorization. Uh and like last year, we included CPC's regular annual articles, so things that have already been approved. No new projects and no new money is approved in the consent agenda. Um just one thing to address it is the document that you're going to sign is very bare bones. That's because once it's signed, we're not supposed to change it without an amendment process, which is difficult. So, after it is closed and signed, we will then expand upon it with all the appendices, all the explanations like we normally do. We'll add the glossery of terms and all the explanations that we have in the front. Uh, and will become the more robust warrant that we normally have. This is the just the facts version to let people know what's going to be discussed at town meeting. Okay. So would you need to amend this before we sign it because it's difficult to change?

So the in speaking with Evan before he left for a situation like this, I think the cleanest way to do it would be u Mr. Alamo the first motion uh to close and sign the version of the town meeting warrant which includes article 28 as amended. Okay. Uh you'll sign it. We'll make the amend uh we'll make the changes. We'll put the signature page on there and go from there. If they um have any questions or anything they wish to discuss about the town meeting board? I do.

Okay. Where is the uh is article 15 the override? the uh article 15 is the appropriation of override funds for the next fiscal year. So the warrant won't contain an article that says $5 million. It will only appropriate what is needed for the next fiscal year and then everything else that's approved at the ballot will be added to capacity. All right. Uh so why does it say 1.37 million instead of one? What am I? probably got something wrong.

Uh, no. So, like Evan presented uh in his TA update on at the meeting on the 7th, the full contingent budget is $1.37 million. So, that's what needs to be voted and appropriated. That would only use 1.114 million dollars of override capacity as have been discussed. The rest of it would be from capacity that has generated is the wrong word, but been generated since we've set the contingent budget set the contingent budget and wrote the warrant articles.

So, should this get changed to 1.1? No, because if the the items in the contingent budget, if that article doesn't pass and the override doesn't pass, all of those cuts will still be made, the 1.37 worth of cuts. And then the leftover capacity, which hold on, I've got it written down. the leftover capacity, which is uh $255,000 at the moment, would then be used to offset the anticipated Blackstone Valley shortfall for FY28.

Right. Okay. So Mark to that point when we write the explanation there will be a long detailed explanation under that article about the funding sources and why it's being done this way but the contingent budget is 1.37 because what we voted on was 1 million a year for five years isn't that wasn't that the motion that when we when this board approved putting it on the warrant Yes. And it's also in a letter.

Yep. And again, it would only use 1.1 of that capacity.

Why not one? Again, just one. So, like the calculator that we've had on the website has made the assumption that we were going to draw a little bit more in year one because we're not asking them to make cuts to a budget that they've sort of already put together for level service. and they're just going to have to find the money in years two through five. So, it's not an even draw, like exactly a million a year. Next year, if we get, you know, new growth money that comes in a lot higher than expected, which seems to be a bit of a trend for us, um, you know, then we would potentially draw less than a million. Who knows?

Yeah, just we don't know from year to year. Uh, but I think what will just said is we're at the 1.1 that we've been talking about pretty consistently and that that calculator online is is built on.

I understand I guess now why this is written this way, but when I perceived or my perception of what I was going to see here was what we voted on an override for a $5 mill million override um for five years. So, but that's not part of the warrant article. So, I'm I just don't want to see people not understand. So, I'm I'm I think we got to do a good job at explaining what that 137 is. It's for next year, but what you're actually voting for and it to me it should mirror the the ballot question and it's going to be very different than the ballot question,

right? Because we're not appropriating the full 5 million in fiscal year 27. We're not raising all of that in taxes. Correct. I I just want to make sure that when town meeting they understand when they're voting for this the bigger picture what if they vote yes on this then what comes next and you know so that they because people won't we do this you know we're here so a lot of people won't understand that oh I thought it was a $5 million override it's only 1.37 right so

so we we need to clarify that for them because I think that it should state that in the article doesn't and I I get that it's for next year but I should say that as well

because people aren't going to understand that you know. Yeah. So that becomes part of Evan's presentation, right? Yep. And yeah, it's a a point well made and well taken. And again, we're going to add the explanation underneath that includes the breakdown of what's going on, why, how this happened,

the tax impact, and all that stuff. Okay. anything from you? Um the only question I had for the board and you know it's I think too late for us to take action on at this point but um article 24 is the one to uh get us out of the central mass mosquito control project and you know we had we had discussed this and and you know kind of it seemed like an easy thing. Um but I somebody mentioned uh you know we we didn't talk to the board of health about this um to get their input on whether we should be doing this or not. Um so I wanted to ask the board if that's something that we want to consider inviting them to one of our meetings between now and town meeting um to try and and figure that out. Um, you know, we can't remove it from the warrant at this point, but if pass over

if yeah, if if the board of health came in and made a good case that we all agreed with, we we could just pass over at a town meeting and not worry about it that way. So, sounds um is that something we'd like to discuss with them between now and then? Sure. I thought we had talked to them about it. Did we? I thought we came in. And I thought we it wasn't why they came in, but I thought we did talk about it when they were in, but Okay. I could be wrong. I I don't mind them coming in. You can ask them, I guess, if they they want to have a maybe ask them if they want to have a discussion. Yeah. Okay. We can follow up with them on that. Yeah. I just have one more thing, Andy, if you could.

So, I'm not a big consent agenda. Um, I don't really believe in that and I understand the conceptually why we do it sometimes. You know, consent agenda one is three articles and consent agenda two is 10. So, I just like to go through this quickly. You said a lot of these consent agendas, it's money that's already been appropriated. So, we're just paying paying those notes or or we're just, you know, paying our annual requirement or responsibility towards those. Is that what you're saying for CPC? Yes. For CPC,

but like article 8 like there's a lot of um expenditure they call them you authorize a total expenditure limit for the following revolving funds. So I mean there's a lot of departments and a lot of money kind of moving around here. Yep. So those are the revolving funds. Uh those numbers have not changed from last year. those maximum expenditures which is why it remained in the consent agenda but it's something that has to be reauthorized on a yearly basis. Yeah, it's just 10 articles is a lot I think to we read all the articles, right? I we go through they have the opportunity to hold too.

Yep. The moderator will go through article 7, article 8, and if people want to hold it and pull it out for additional discussion, they have the ability to.

So, you don't see anything in here that is not like routine? Like there's nothing in here that we think would create some kind of a discussion or um I know they still have that opportunity. I understand that but just bundling 10 articles I just you guys comfortable with all this just so many of them. I do understand your concern, you know, and and I I don't think we ever want it to feel like we're trying to force anything through. Um you know, I just Factually, I think we're trying to use everybody's time efficiently. And like Will said, the first three deal with um you like FY26 transfers that need to that need to happen. They're they're boilerplate. Um the rest of them, you know, yeah, uh article 8 does have a lot of um you know, lines to it, but they're recurring annual things that that that we do. and then dishing out um the usual CPA amounts. So um I mean

like I personally don't have an issue with it, but I'm I'm with you in that Yeah. people the people at home may not understand it.

Could we pull article 8 out? I mean would would that be a problem to do that just because there's so much information there and you know and take that out of the consent agenda? I mean yeah I get I don't want to be there till 11:00 either, but I I definitely want people to, you know, if if we're bundling 10 articles, are they going to be able to have a chance to look at all 10 articles when they go to town meeting and then be able to put a hold on something at at a, you know, with not a lot of window of time to be able to make that decision. You know what I mean? So, I like going through all of them. I know it takes a little bit more time, but I think that's why we're there, right, to vote on these.

I personally would have to go back to transend agenda. You know, if we were going to pull uh article 8 is s it's like an administrative tick box. We're just saying that we're going to keep the um maximum um amount that can be put into stabilization the same. So there's no change actually, although there's like lots of line items there. It's exactly the same article that we did last year. So it should be really not controversial at all. Um

I'm not saying it's controversial, but there might be people that weren't there last year that, you know, may want an explanation. And again, I understand they can do that, but to talk to to rattle off 10 articles and then having them to be a to have to hold on something without hearing the article read, I think is that's a high bar for people that don't do this all the time. And people probably aren't going to read all these before they go to town meeting. So they're gonna there's no way they can read all 10 and make a decision if they have a question if we're not even reading the articles. It's routine stuff though, Craig. That's the only thing. Would it make a difference for us? It is.

Would it make a difference if we if we split it from 10 into three consents that were five each? That might help. They don't then they don't have to be Yeah. head in the book. Yeah. Right. Just it gives them a little more bite size. Yeah. They're fast, but they're not as fast. Right. Right. Right. And we're not going to read these, right? These are just like we're voting on articles 3 through 3 through 12. Is that something we can amend in the motion as well?

Uh oh. So, just to answer that question real quick, if I could, um, you couldn't do three of five. So art uh consent agenda one because all of those h affect the current fiscal year. They have to be their own consent agenda. That's fine. Three, but we could split the second agenda, the second consent into two. I honestly don't know the answer to that question. That's a new one. I don't know if you can create multiple consent agendas just to keep them smaller. Um, yeah, that's that's a new one for me.

I know nobody's asking me my opinion, but from day one on these consent agendas, I told Evan, I don't like any of them. It's one meeting a year. People are coming there. Tell them what to vote on. Let them vote. When I've been in, I don't know how many meetings when they do a consent agenda. People don't even know what they all voted. They had no idea what the 10, five, three, whatever the items are. Now, they could be routine, whatever. Mr. Bull got his money every single year, but every year you vote on it because maybe somebody has a question. I just think it's a bad We're asking people to come to the meeting and then we're saying, you know, we're lumping stuff together, vote one time. I get I get the whole efficiency and all. It's one meeting. And believe me, I I know when you count how many people are there who don't have to be there, it's getting less and less and less and less. But if we ask them to do less and less and less and less, then what's the point of coming? So I I know you're probably going to keep consent aging, but I think they're I think they're a bad idea for the whole, you know, it doesn't make me feel like I'm participating when we're voting on 10 things in at at one shot, routine or not. Um I think we got to wait. We don't read the the whole budget anymore, right? Didn't we used to read the budget? You could put a line. You could put a hold on any budget item. Now, we just say put a hold on the budget if you don't know what you're doing. I mean, I I again, I'm going to sit down, but I was in a meeting when we were out on the uh we were out on the um the field the field when it was COVID and we passed stuff and people were asking me when we were going to get to it. I said we just, you know, we passed we passed by it already. So, you know, for transparency and again, it's only one meeting. It's only one day. It's not like I use a consent agenda in in work, but that's everyone sitting around the table. It's the same 10 people sitting around the table here. We got new people anyway. I I know you're probably going to keep it, but I don't like it.

It's a fair point, though. So, I'm concerned about changing too much. Yeah. Given that this is going to be sort of written in stone once we sign it and send it along to the state. So, I'm gonna just recommend that we I understand your concern, Craig. It's just a lot, you know. 10 is a lot. And sure, and I don't like them kind of, you know, old school. I guess I don't like them anyways, but to three is one thing, you know, but to go to 10 is is a huge bunch. And I feel comfortable with that, but I understand people's concern. We can we can add it to the explanations, too, that we we just have to make sure we do a good job of explaining like the following articles are coming up. This is this is what you're voting on. Yeah. Yeah, we could do a presentation on them

and we could read I mean we could read the articles, right? I guess which is you know we can do it that what I'm saying for this war. Right. Right. Right. So, you know, let's talk to Evan maybe about Yeah. reading them at town meeting, you know, whatever. I know whatever makes the board feel comfortable. Right. Yeah. Okay. And then people can ask questions, you know, sort of as we're reading the articles if you guys want, you know, and then we can do one vote. I mean, but Yeah, we we do also have the full page explanation of the consent agenda that will be in there. Yep. That we have in there every year. Okay.

And maybe maybe that is a solution. Maybe instead of as you know the moderator as I remember it, you know, we'll usually go through and and just you know, article one and waits for a hold article two and if they're not maybe maybe instead of just saying the article number, we we read we she reads the article when they're doing it. very clear and it and it gives that additional you know minute for somebody to for the thought to click and somebody to put the hold on. Okay. All right. Thank you.

All right. Uh anything else we should discuss on the the warrant before we close it? Okay. Hearing nothing. Um, Mr. Alamo, we need the first motion, right? And as amended. Mr. Chair, I move that the board vote to close and sign the version of the town meeting warrant which includes article 28 as amended as we have discussed. Second. Motion made seconded. You're okay with that?

Yep. Order. You're also amending uh 16. That's true. Um so yeah, we'll include article 16 in in the uh amendments as well, Mr. Chair. And further to include article 16 as amended. Second. Uh motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I.

All right. Uh last one on the list, we have the letter of commitment regarding spending. This was something that um Mr. Offen had suggested as we were going through um our budget discussion and uh he was kind enough to do a little research, draft the draft the version up and I'll kick it over to you. Yeah. Um, this was just part of your motion, Mark. Uh, we had talked about putting together this letter of commitment. I just went through the meeting and basically anything that was mentioned as things that we would want to, uh, assure the voters of and in the way of sort of fiscal responsibility and whatnot, I put into this. So, um, the one thing that we don't need, um, is in the program evaluation piece, it mentions mosquito control. So, obviously that's already on the warrant. We don't need to do that. Um yeah, so this is a like a public recognition that this is not a permanent fix the override. Um it uh covers um we had all talked about the independent financial review committee, whatever you want to call that.

Um we had talked about collaborating with the the school committee. So the way that I sort of put that was we would work with the town administrator to create a strategic relationship with the soup and school committee and that would include um collaboration on uh bargaining bargaining unit contract negotiations. Um I put CPA in there. Uh we had talked about we never got to sort of finish off the road stabilization discussion. You know do we want to back that number down a little bit? Um, uh, yeah, state advocacy is something that we talked about as well. And then just, um, you know, a statement in there about looking for ways to, um, expand our commercial tax base. So, it's pretty simple, um, and I think captures all the stuff that we had talked about in our meeting. Um, so that's what it is.

All right. Uh, Mr. Chair. Yeah. I don't have um, uh, thank you, Matt. Sorry. The second packet, second revision of the packet, I think that that went out. Okay. Kiss. Sorry. Yeah, just came out like a couple hours ago. Yeah, I I did. I think I was working from home. did send it in yesterday morning. Oh, all right. Oh, but whoa. All right. Well, sent it in yesterday morning. We didn't get it to today. Well, actually, I lied. Happened to the email, but not the attachment. I think is There we go.

Uh, thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. And um I had a couple of thoughts, but I think one is not going to work, which includes it says in here $5 million and one a million million dollar in additional levy capacity each year for five years. Um I had it written down as a note to to offer as a suggestion not to exceed $1 million per year, but that ship is sailed, right? Is that fair or is that language we could use? I would recommend against that because then we're really kind of hamstringing. Yep. No, we can't do $1 million a year because we're already the first year we're not doing that.

Well, even in the following years, we might take 800 next year and then need 1.2 the following. We just don't know what's going to be needed for levy capacity. Yep. I think what I'm I guess what I'm getting at is that at the end of five years, not more than $5 million is spent. So, I know that I know that we're going to have to make some. So, that was a suggestion. Um, and I understand that if the board feels like that's a little bit too granular, fair call, then I can stand down from that. The other suggestion was you you make a good point here about financial review committee. We've talked about this a few times. One other bullet point for consideration. Would we ever want to do an independent audit? Anything like that? Did we ever have we ever done anything like that? We do.

We do an audit, a financial audit for every year. Every year we do. Wow. They're all posted to the website. Then the last suggestion that I'd make, and I think this is very small again, but it says the last paragraph, $5 million plan provides a predictable path for the next five years, allowing us to protect our community uh standards. I might offer maintain our community standards. But that again, that is me just being super uh picky and granular and uh I'm not normally like that, but it did. It was the first thing I thought. So, I think I thought I'd just offer it to the team and that's it. But I think it's great, Matt, and thanks for doing it. Yeah, I'm fine with maintain

and I think that the town, the residents will appreciate the additional step that we're taking here. Yeah, it's, you know, uh I I think it helps put some continued focus on long-term uh fiscal stability and some um you know, putting some things specific things on the table that we've talked about. Yep. No, it holds us to it. Yeah. So,

yeah, I'm in the same camp. Um, I thought I thought you did a a really nice job writing it because it it really does I think get across our intent. Um but also to your to your point just now um I want to say it doesn't handcuff us but it doesn't it doesn't I guess put undue burden on uh the you know the the way we're looking at this it it does allow for a little bit of flexibility here and there. Um, you know, when uh when you had floated this, I was curious how some of the some of the wording was going to come out, like specifically the road stabilization one. Um, you know, because I don't think that's one that we can commit to without that discussion, but you went and included that as as part of the as part of the letter. So,

same thing with CPA, right? Yeah, exactly. we sort of decided that we didn't want to do anything, but then there were still some options sort of on the table. You know, maybe uh giving the voters the choice to back down from the 1 and a half% church search charge to 1%. I I think that's the only thing that sort of emerged as something that could be feasible. I don't know if that's something that the board will even want to pursue, but um it it was like the road stabilization one that I didn't feel like we because of everything that's was going on, we got to kind of a final decision on. Um so yeah.

Yep. Uh yeah. And same thing, you know, the financial review, we we talked about is there value in, you know, having that be a committee where where we appoint people or something that we look for um an independent agency that does that type of work. But, you know, you left it open enough that I think we can discuss that and and figure out which path we want to take when that time comes. So, um yeah, I thought it was a really good draft. Well, do you So, Craig, you haven't had a chance to look at this at all. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't. No, it's fine. Just looking at I was going to make a motion, but if you haven't read it at all, I think the same thing. Sorry. We you were looking at it.

Yeah. Yeah, I was just looking at it now. Um, so the the only I guess just quickly looking at it, this is the CPA. You know, we did talk about that. We didn't act on it. the stabil stabilization. I think that's a lever we might want to pull in the future. Yep. Um we're trying to get um but CPA I think you know

I think if we had an outcry of people saying let's get rid of that. I would be more apt to consider putting it on town meeting. But there's been so many fantastic projects that never would have happened as we all know because of adopting that 20 years ago, 25 years ago, whatever it was. So if we don't get an outcry, because we know town meeting can be volatile and it's who shows up on a given night that's voting to, you know, on behalf of the whole town. So, yep.

So, I would I would um hate to risk that unless there was a real concern with that program, which has worked really well for many, many years. I mean, I always haven't been in favor of every project that's gotten funded. Um, but I think they have their criteria of what qualifies and they go through that process and they put it on the warrant if it does. So, sure.

Um, I I just want to be clear. So that what the board discussed I think and came to a very clear decision on was that we wanted to keep CPA that that the program uh in place. Um so for me that what I was contemplating with this is um we could offer the voters the opportunity to go from a one and a half% search charge on their taxes to 1%. So everything would stay in place just the investment would be a little bit less and that would be that would be in service of just reducing uh the overall tax bill it's because of the search charge would go down. So that's what I was thinking. Didn't we look into that and we found out we couldn't do that? We can't go down to half percent.

Oh okay. We can't go down to half percent and we also can't change the exemption. Right. Yeah. Right. So so other than that so I'm really not for for like I I wouldn't want to you know, it looks great from reading it quickly here, Matt. And so, thanks for again for doing this, but um so I would that would be my only concern with it that I can see off the top of my head because I wouldn't put it out if we have an outcry then yeah, maybe we look at it. Okay. But I haven't seen that. So,

someone else did some research and that 1% minimum is only for a very specific method of funding the CPC and doesn't apply to us, which is why Westboro was able to do a half percent. Can you elaborate on that? There there are two methods in the CPC uh the way you can set up the CPC or the CPA funding. one of which is some money contributed from free cash and some from the uh tax bill search charge. And if you do that, you have a 1% minimum. If you only do the tax bill search charge, there is no minimum, which is why Westboro was just able to join two years ago at half a percent.

Okay. Um All right. Thanks for that. Um so we can discuss it. I think, you know, it should be something that Emory reads and votes on because it's a letter from the board, right? Um but so I think what I'm hearing uh so far is maybe just pull that whole piece out, the program evaluation if if the board doesn't want to do anything with CPA. If you do, we can leave that in and take out the mosquito control. Um Mark's language changes. Um, and I think that was those were the major changes.

Uh, just an FYI, we're trying to get um PPW back in in May to discuss the road stabilization, just so everybody's aware.

Okay. Any additional notes or discussion? Uh, we're gonna we're gonna wait for Anmarie. So, and I'll have a chance to read read through this. Yeah. I don't want to if you hadn't you haven't read it. So, right. Yeah. No, I'm just seeing it now. Yep. Yeah. I didn't mean for a vote just in terms of if we want to if we're ready to move on or not. Yeah. If I see anything else, I'll shoot you an email. Okay. Yeah. We'll bring that back.

Okay. Uh, select board reports. Um, I had a couple things I could share. Uh, charter review committee held their uh, public hearing. Um, April 9th, we uh, we did get some feedback from the general public and discussed um, breaking the review work into subcommittees at at our next meeting. So everybody will kind of take an article uh and go from there um and then report back. Um we also had the first override outreach session last Thursday. I think there were about 25 people in the room and the same amount on Zoom. Um there were a lot of good questions, good clarifying questions asked. Um we did uh we did get some suggestions from the audience and and one of those things was uh you know uh like a a letter of commitment as it were um which Mr. Offen uh had already discussed and was drafting up. So that was was nice to be able to say there's something something of that in progress already. That's all I got. Nothing here. Okay. All right. ATA report. Sure. Oh. All right. So, just a quick update on George Hill Road. Uh, two weeks ago, we mentioned that bids came in, $1.1 million under budget. The engineer has finished their review of the bids, and we've sent our notice of award. Uh, so we can announce that JH Lynch Lynch and Suns was the winning bidder for that. Uh contract documents are currently being prepared and are expected to be done and sent off this week. Just some other procurement and project updates. 95 North Street, uh the sort of final ancillary work has been completed.

We're doing final walkthroughs and working on setting up a grand opening date for that wonderful project. Nice.

We have a lot of stuff going on down at Fischerville Mill. all grant-f funded uh partnership with um Gene Bernett down there. So, we just finished a procurement for a land use feasibility study that's been awarded to a company called Tetrate Tech who's going to be the boots on the ground for that. That is grant funded. Uh we are also working on finalizing an RFP for the final dam permitting process, which is also grant funded. Um, even though she's not here, a big thank you to Fiona Coughlin for her tireless work getting grants for things like that. The town was also awarded a mass ADA grant uh this year and that's being used to repair the concrete uh accessibility ramp out front of the Council on Aging. That's going back out to bid this week. Uh we circulated it about a month ago. Uh we're unsuccessful. Did not get any bids back on that. So, we're putting that back out there, hoping that we can get that work done before the June 30th deadline. And then finally, just a hiring update. Uh, the planning and conservation admin position remains open due to its space in the contingent budget. Uh, we concluded interviews last week for the new director of planning and a custodian. Offers have been extended for both of those positions, which is promising. uh waiting to hear back from both candidates, but both seem interested. So, we're hoping to have those buttoned up shortly and potentially have one or both of them at the May 5th meeting.

Great. Great. That's it. Awesome. Thank you, Will.

Uh any correspondents anybody wish to discuss? Um I I had one. I just I wanted to um acknowledge the resignation of Annette McCarthy from the Council on Aging. Um you know, she's she served on there for a while. Uh and she's as as I've gotten to know her, been a great advocate for the seniors and the the program uh excuse me, programming down at the senior center. Um, you know, she's she cares deeply about the experience that we have down there and uh I just want to thank her for her time and and wish her well in her next voluntary role. Okay. Uh we have no meeting minutes tonight. So

motion to adjurnn. Second. Okay. Motion seconded. Uh all those in favor I I journed.