Select Board - Regular Meeting

going to call tonight's meeting to order. Uh we will start with the pledge of allegiance. Algiance 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.

The Gazebo road race is this Saturday.

Uh, register for the 5K today at tinyurl.com/graftonra. Our annual town meeting will begin at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 11th in the high school auditorium. All registered voters are encouraged to attend. Tonight, uh we'd also like to acknowledge the recent passing of of Gail McGrael. Um she was a a longtime Grafton resident, teacher, and volunteer. Um, she served for nine years on our finance committee, 20 years on our EDC, 25 years as a member of the Graphic Grafton Democratic Town Committee, and was honored with their lifetime achievement award in 1998. She was a co-founder of Grafton's chapter of the League of Women Voters, and she appreciated civic engagement and supported numerous aizations um in Grafton and Wester County. So, um, our thoughts with uh, Gail's family Okay. Um, we will be skipping the public hearing that was scheduled for tonight. Uh, next up we have public comment. Is there anybody who wishes to make public comment?

Christy Kilbazinski Lahi Drive. I just wanted to make a quick public comment to thank the members of the board that I know that this is a last meeting in this room for some of the members. Mr. Alamo, Mr. Oftton, thank you for all that you guys have done throughout the years. Your service is very much appreciated. So, I just want to thank you both. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Uh, back to the business of business, we have some appointments. Um, first up, we have some election workers. Take a motion on that.

Uh, Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to appoint J. Roger Courier, Janice Skinner, Steven Skinner, Justin Stone, Patrick Swanik, and Kristen Nyron as election workers. Second. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I very good. Okay. Um, we have our therapeutic recreation uh program coordinator for uh Grafton Wreck. Hi, welcome.

Thank you. My name is Kimberly Merchant and I am the candidate for the therapeutic recreation program coordinator. So, it's nice to meet you all. Um, this is my first time doing this, so please forgive me. And I'm used to camp, not adults, so it's a little intimidating. Be similar. I don't know if you have met us yet. Just do what I do. I just picture them all as children. It makes it much easier.

Absolutely. Um, I do have some experience on coming in with some administrative background as well as human resources and I've worked with daycarees, church, youth groups. I've been the camp director for the Hail YMCA down in Putnham, Connecticut. Um, I've also done the registar for the Westboro Y and I've worked as the trip coordinator for the um, troop 21 in Connecticut. So my goal coming in would be to help our our participants in our programs obviously feel more included um focus not on their deficits but to focus on their strengths and to help them overcome any deficits that they may have while we're going forward. So that's kind of where I'm coming from.

It's a great intro. Thank you. Thank you. Any comments or questions from the board? There's one. We have an accessibility advisory committee. So, might be good to just connect with them. Okay. Absolutely. I think you did a great job. Thank you. Yeah. Appreciate that. Yeah. This is um you know kind of a a more recent program that that Reus started offering. I think it's deeply important to the community. Glad you know you were you were selected and are going to get to step up and fill this position. Are you coming out from Putinham every day or I would be. Yes. Okay. No judgment. Just ask me. And I have worked with Adam in the past. um I kind of took over the camp when he left town in Putinham. So, excellent.

We have a relationship already that I kind of have an understanding of how he works and and all of that as well. So, great. Looking forward to it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Appreciate you coming in tonight. Mr. Chair. Yep. I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Kimberly Merchant to the position of therapeutic recreation CAM program coordinator. Second. Okay. Motion seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I Next up, uh we have a new maintenance custodian.

Hello. Welcome. Thank you. What brings you to us? Um, I saw this opportunity on Indeed and I thought it would be a good thing to get into a town position to kind of just I don't know. I wasn't expecting to do this to be honest with you. Um, the the interview part or the the position part? No, the position part I expected. I'm very happy to have that. Um, the interview part here. Um, no. Basically, I just saw the position and I knew it was a step up from what I was doing before and I've always wanted a town position because, you know, the pension and everything else that comes with it and that, you know, the sense of community and be to like be somewhere for a long time. So, it's kind of what I'm looking forward to. Awesome. Yeah. I don't want to brag, but you're in a pretty good place.

Nice. Good to know. Yeah. Thank you very much. Any uh questions or comments from the board, Mr. Chair? Yep. Where do you live? Um, in Oxbridge. Oh, okay. Yeah, I was in Holden recently, but I just moved. So, I think my application said Holden. So, great. Yeah, that's basically it. Uh, what did you do before? You said this is a step up. So, we'll It was like in the same vein like maintenance work, but it was for like property management and it was for just like a big company and there was nowhere to move. It was just it was what it was and it was kind of stagnant and yeah, I'm looking forward to something new and something long term.

Very good. Yeah. Anybody else? All right. You take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Timothy Kazerki. Pretty close. Kazerki. Yeah. All right. To the position of maintenance custodian. Awesome. Second. Okay. Motion made a second and any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor? I Thank you. Congratulations. See you around the building. Oh, Mr. Chair, maybe just remind the candidates that after they're appointed, they are welcome to stay, but under no obligation.

I was going to wait until we get out through the director, but I I do appreciate that. You You guys don't have to wait for the uh for the director appointment if you don't want for the uh um planning community development. If you if you want to bounce out now, you can bounce. No, no obligation to stick. But next up, we have uh Christian D'Amelia, our new director of planning and community development. Good evening. Welcome.

My name is Christian Dilia. I'm honored to be the candidate for your next director of planning and econom economic development. Um I have bring 10 years of experience um both public and private sector doing um policy work um at both the local state and federal level. Most recently I come from Northern Middle Texas Council of Governments, the regional planning agency for greater LOL doing regional planning work um for the region. I recently completed my masters from Nor Eastern in uh urban planning and policy. I'm honored to take on this role and to get to know the the the town to meet with you all um the staff and the boards and to support the long-term planning goals of Grafton.

Great. Um yeah, I appreciate your, you know, kind of regional coordination experience. It's we try, you know, to utilize CMRPC as much as we can, uh you know, in their assistance and and working with them. We've had we've had a lot of success, so it's um good to hear that, you know, sounds like you're familiar with that type of system and and working through those things. um you do have some big shoes to fill. Our our previous director was amazing um and and great with grant work, but uh you know, excited to have you aboard and and see where you can take us. Thank you. Any uh questions or comments from the board, Mr. Chair? Y

I appreciate the way you're presenting yourself. Uh it looks like you're taking this seriously. Uh it would be uh it would likely be that you would take and make it a point of personal pride to represent yourself in the town. And I just have one question. So, you only have a master's degree from Nor Eastern. Is that all for coming in? That's a joke. You don't know my sarcasm yet. You also don't have to worry about it because it's his last meeting. That's right. Okay. I am on my best behavior tonight, my friend. Just one one and done. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. We are going to miss you, huh? Um me or so? No, not me.

So, um have you had a a town planner position? Have you been in a role where you're kind of uh responsible for running the planning and economic development office for our community? Not town planner specific. My my experience is with the regional planning agency. Okay. So, when it comes to special permits or subdivisions and all that, you're you're going to be ready to to tackle that those beasts when they come down the down. I I have a lot of uh there's a lot of projects ongoing that I'll need to catch up on. I know work with the assistant planner on that. Um I know there's a lot of work going on. So that's my initial priority. Good. Good. And you have an experience board if you haven't met any of them yet. So very Yeah. Looking forward to meeting them.

So you get up to speed on that. Where do you live? I live in Quinsey. Oh, isn't it ironic? Is that also uh Yeah, I think that's Dorchester. Will used to live in Quinsey. It's all the same thing. I got that mixed up. Sorry about there. So commuting is going to be challenging, I'm sure. Yeah. Um I'm used to commuting. Um so it is. It is far from but it's what I'm used to. Yeah. Yeah. It's about the same distance as my previous commute. So yeah. Good. Well, good luck. Thank you. Great to meet you all. Yeah. Just one more. Um so what uh sounds like you have a fair amount of experience with urban planning. Um why Grafton?

Grafton. Um the opportunity arose. Um, I've got to know administer Brassard and William here. Um, I know there's a great foundation to work off of. Um, there's a lot going on here. I know there's the comprehensive plan. I I've been working my way through that. There's some foundation for what the future looks like. There's some projects going on that I'm very interested in working on. Um, and from from everything that I looked at, it's a great place to work. Got it. um our previous planners have been uh very much kind of forwardlooking with things things like the MBTA zoning and

and other things. So I hope you'll continue in that tradition. We've got a very active affordable housing trust. So um I hope you have an opportunity to partner with them as well. Excited to do so. Okay, Mr. Chair. Yep. I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Christian Dilia to the position of director of planning and community development. Second. Thank you. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Thank you. Welcome aboard.

And as I mentioned, yeah, you you're under no obligations to stay for the rest of the meeting. Um you're welcome to, but wouldn't fault you for ducking out either. Um where Chief Matthew, he's in the back there. He is. He's kind of hiding out. We have um some probationary firefighters. Yes, we have four new firefighters. Um gentlemen, if you want to come up, we can all come at the same time. Safety and numbers.

Um Nick Bell, um Logan Black, John Lamont Tang, and William Murphy have all been appointed as probationary firefighters. Um two of them will be serving at station one and the other two at station two. So this uh continues our recruitment stuff and it's as you can see going well. So Okay. Pretty excited. Yeah. Awesome. All kinds all kinds of different backgrounds too. So uh can we ask some questions? Oh, have at it.

You guys want to you know each take a quick turn and introduce yourself just uh you know kind of little little background and what brought you to the role? Uh my name is Nicholas Bell. Uh I go by Nick. I'm 18 years old. I've been here about seven years. Moved here from Florida. It's been a lifelong dream to be a firefighter. Always wanted to be a firefighter. Used to love hanging around the trucks. Big truck day. That was my thing. Um going into the Marine Corps, so this is preparing me for that. Um yeah, it's a little bit about me. Awesome. Great. Thank you.

Hello. My name's uh Bill Murphy. Um been in Grafton since 2017. Uh been in uh mortgage origination sales for the last 28 years. So I'm uh I you know next chapter for me is to kind of serve the community in this capacity and uh be a 55year-old rookie. 55. Wow. You could run laps around him though. Everybody combined then some. Maybe not me, but

Hi, my name is Logan Black. Um, I'm born and raised here in Grafton. Um, I've lived here. Um, sorry, I go blank when I have people staring at me. Pretend we're the kids, you know. Um, I find the job opportunity as a probationary firefighter here at Grafton as an amazing opportunity. Um, I really hope to work for or work here in the future. Um, I really appreciate everything the town's done for me through preschool, everything else going up. Um, yeah, and I hope to keep serving the town as I really enjoy it and Yeah. Thank you.

Great. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks.

Hi everyone. John Lamontine, probationary firefighter for station two. Um, I guess what brought me to uh to to Grafton being a firefighter. Uh, I'll give you the a bridge version. Um, we moved to Grafton, my wife and I, back in 2018. So, we're going about eight years. Both my children were born and raised here. Um, and we're established. And after being established, I uh like rest of my probationary um friends here uh also wanted to give back to the community. Uh, and this seemed to be the good way to do it. Again, the nonbridge version goes into my whole life and what really drove me into wanting to do this. Um, but I am very lucky and uh honored that uh I was able to meet the chief on uh uh Grafton celebrates the holidays. The frosty stops and he gave me the invite and said, "Hey, you should apply." And here I am.

Excellent. Nice. That's amazing. Well, appreciate you all being here and thank you for stepping up. Uh, does anybody have any any questions or comments that they just Mr. Chair? Yeah, thank you all. It's great. 55. Really? It's amazing. It's great. That's appreciate it. You will be joining an amazing crew of people led by one of the best in the business. Very fortunate. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Chair. Uh, Chief, great job. Thank you. Keep up the good work with the recruitment. It's been very successful and uh yeah, we appreciate it. Thanks. Okay, take a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Logan Black, Nick Bale, William Murphy, and John Lamontaine as probationary firefighters. Second. Okay, motion man seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I welcome aboard 15. I'm out. All right, we'll start with the easy one. You can uh you want to just give us a general update?

Uh general update. First of all, thank you Mr. Alamo and Mr. often for your service and it was been a pleasure working with and for you. So, um good luck with all your future endeavors. Um I'll keep it quick tonight. Uh as you can see, recruitment is going well. Um, we also have another um fire probationary firefighter attending the academy right now and we just sent an acceptance letter to another firefighter um this week. So, we'll be onboarding them uh in the coming weeks. So, things are going excellent. Um we are starting our cadet program for uh 16 and 17 year olds. Applications are available now and our projected start date is June 1st of this summer. So hopefully that takes off. We've got one applicant so far. Um training. I'm sure most of you saw the old highway barn. I'm hoping that they take it down two weeks ago Monday like they said they would so it wouldn't be an eyesore. We did a uh a ton of training over there with uh roof ventilation and stuff and getting all these younger members hands-on experience is invaluable. You It's one thing to stick a chainsaw in a 18-year-old person's hand when you're sitting standing on the ground cutting a tree, but when you're standing on a pitched roof working off a ladder, it's a totally different totally different thing. So over the course of 3 days they said I believe they cut up to 75 holes both with chainsaws and by hand cuz you never know when the saw is going to die. So you got to know how to do both.

Um they also worked on some forcable entry stuff with cutting doors and forcing doors in the building as well. So it was excellent. And we also have completed this year um two of our eight scheduled live burns in Auburn. So we've doubled the amount that we're going out there. So for the ones that experienced it, it's, you know, it's unbelievable. So we continue to have great participation and we just uh love that we keep it going. Um, and another highlight is uh we did get awarded a grant from the Department of Fire Services for just over $13,000, which we'll be using to purchase uh new gear because with all these people, we got to cover them up. So take care of them. Mhm.

But so yeah, that's the uh that's the quick version. Otherwise status quo. Great. That's great. Uh any any questions or comments for the chief. I mean maybe just one. You do a great job with recruitment. Just amazing. We're very fortunate for our town to have that. Thank you. I look at every opportunity as a everywhere I am there's an opportunity. You know, they actually give some of the guys a hard time like, "Hey, this is your buddy. How come he's not on the fire department?" And they're like, "I didn't even think of that." See, that's the move, right? That you could be in sales. You're always closing every single minute of the day. Always be closing. And then I find out they live in New York or something like that. But either way,

well, small detail. Yeah. You got to take the swing. That's right.

All right. Well, there's nothing else. We can uh move on to the chief's evaluation. Um yeah, so I've had a chance to read through it yet, but um I it reads, I think, as you would expect it to. Uh you know, glowing remarks. Um I I'll touch on a few things. Uh you know, repeated throughout your review were words like approachable, humble, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and professional. um in in the reviews from your peers again where words like professional uh has managed to continue to elevate the fire department, collaborative, respectful and respected, great situational assessment and great presence in the community. Um so, you know, again, I think I think those really hit upon some of the highlights. Um, even if we were to dig into the, you know, identified weaknesses section, they were they were very minimal. Um, I think the things that you would expect to see, you know, in continuing to grow your career as as the chief, but um, you know, my opinion, I think, uh, ultimately ended up with a a really positive review. Um, does anybody would anybody else like to follow up and provide some additional comment?

Yep, I would, Mr. Chair. Uh back to the recruitment piece. So um you do such a phenomenal job with that as I mentioned earlier, but what I didn't say is that comes down to culture and um that a big part of your recruitment appeal is culture and culture has a lot to do with vision and leadership. And you got the goods with that. There's different kinds of leaders. I've talked about this with you before in public. I may have mentioned it over at the station here or there, but it's the it's the lead by example piece. the town, and I've said this in public before, is so lucky to have you as our chief, not because of what I just said, but also because you are also the first to run into that burning building, and you're the last to leave it. And a little ane little story about that. You talked about that the thing in Auburn, the simulation. Some of us went to Auburn on a Saturday morning a short while back. It's about a year ago and I I wasn't here for the following meeting to to talk about this with you. So, I never mentioned this publicly. But while I may have looked really really cool in that moment,

I doubt it.

I'd be careful. I was scared. So, what you don't know is there's an actual building that they go to in Auburn and they put it on fire and then they take you through it to see what it's like. And for those that have never done it, I don't necessarily recommend it because it's hot and it's a little scary. But you were standing and sitting right next to me. And I'm not going to do the impression of myself of how I was sort of like crouching. And again, I'm sure I look cool, but I was scared because it was like burn like the flames are all over the place. But not for a second, Chief did I feel unsafe because I was standing or crouching, hiding behind you, next to you. We're very fortunate those young men that came up and are are volunteering to be with you has a lot to do with you. I hope you keep doing that because that lead by example thing it's lost in sort of today's world. I'm a little bit older so I know what it's like to be in the 80s 70s and 80s to see people lead by example. Try to do that myself. I'm a big fan of it and I love that you do it. So I could everything that he said I wrote some of those things too but just as a point of reference we're very lucky to have you chief.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Yeah I can hop in. Um I'll keep it brief. I completely agree with everything that Mark said and and the way he um and the way he said it and just recently I had a personal example with a neighbor who um reached out well they ended up staying with me for weeks afterwards but um you know spoke to how that was handled not just the day of the incident but then I believe it was you came back the next day um and so my neighbor you know let me know about that and just how they felt about how how the whole thing was handled. So appreciate you and and in this circumstance how they felt about how you know their home was was dealt with and how they were followed up with I guess. Um and so for me uh just I guess the the highest praise I can say is just I'm very thankful and comfortable having you at the helm of the fire department here in

Grafton.

Uh Chief, thanks so much for uh being really good to work with. you know, this is uh sort of new to the select board uh having the fire chief report to us. Um and I feel like you've been really really good about keeping us up to date. Um making sure that we're informed when there are policy decisions made and all that kind of stuff. Um and uh I really appreciate that. Yeah, I think you've been very accessible uh available when anybody's asked to meet with you or has questions or or whatever. Um that makes a huge difference. Um so it's just been it's been a real pleasure to kind of partner with you as you've uh you know grown into the role and and started to develop the the um department. Um I just wanted to highlight one of the things that said uh in the evaluation too just in terms of that the department feels like it's a very professional department. Um and that says a lot you know um because it hits so many different uh areas. Um, but when you uh see professionalism, there's a lot of little details that go into that. And I really appreciate that you're kind of covering all the different um kind of areas that need to be covered um to have that sense of professionalism. And um yeah, I just I wanted to u articulate too just uh you get the sense that you have a very well-trained, prepared, well equipped department. Um and that's just everything. So thanks so much. really appreciate.

Thank you. Great review. Welld deserved. Um, a lot of people said it, but you you're the perfect person for this for this role in this job in this community. You know, you you're homegrown. Um, you you when you came on board, I know that the senior firefighters who really kept that department going with band-aids and bubble gum sometimes, you know, you could relate to them. They respected you. You respected them, which was so critical for that transition. And I know it's been probably four years since that happened. Um, but Mark mentioned culture. There was a there was a definite strong culture here with those three fire stations

and and that wasn't easy to walk into, but because of who you are um and your experience and and your relationship with those guys, I think it was really um went a long way. And you've you walk the walk and and um and you're a great leader. And don't ever you're very approachable. Everybody says that. And don't ever lose that because that's that's the secret sauce. You know, you can be the boss and you can be the leader and you can make sure that everybody's doing things the way that you need them to do.

Um, but you can do it in a in a kind way and you'll get good responses. I'm sure you're you're seeing. So, the other thing I'll mention is that the the department head that I um was assigned to to help me do your review because it's hard because we don't work together every time and you have a gut feeling about people um and how you think they perform and what you hear. The bad part about about your job is that it's public, you know. Um so, uh tonight it's a good thing because we're all saying good things about you, but you know, it can go both ways. Um that's just part of the territory. Um but the person I spoke with um had we were in lock step on on um on I think in every attribute that you bring to the job and and who you are as a person and as a leader and a department head. So it really confirmed for me what um you know what I was feeling but didn't have all the information because we don't work together every day. So so it was great. So congratulations on the review and um you know appreciate it. Thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Chief. Um, similarly, just one of the bigger events in town when we had that um tanker go off Worcester Street into the front yard there. Um, you know, a lot of lot of feedback as to how that response was handled in general. Um, and just a lot of praise for, you know, everybody's work at scene, both both GFD and GPD. um but to to mitigate what could have been an incredibly difficult and and lengthy situation too. That road closure could have lasted, you know, eight plus hours. Um and you guys managed to wrap it up quickly and you know, it's just kind of the thing you do. The only other feedback uh I hear down at the senior center is people want you to bring back the the uh chicken barbecue. So,

who's going to cover the insurance? Uh, anything else for the chief tonight before we cut him loose? Mr. Chair. Yep. I move the board to vote to approve the fire chief annual evaluation as presented and authorize the chair to sign. Second motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I Thank you all again. Appreciate you being here. Good night. Okay. Uh we're going to go a little bit out of order next and we're going to take the uh public works advisory committee um to discuss uh a couple things.

Come on, Brian. Yeah. The two of you could at least show some solidarity up here, right? Yeah, I said do I'm not I'm not going to push him though. You know, big dude.

Good evening everybody. Um I'd like to first start out by introducing myself. Um I've been on the Well, first of all, my name is Adam Klene. I've been on the public works advisory committee for approximately one year. Um, I think this is the third meeting that I've been to and my first time presenting, so please bear with me. Um, uh, I've lived in Grafton for approximately 5 years. Um, moved in in 2021. Um, I work currently at Mass DOT in district 3 as a civil engineer and my role is an area engineer in the construction section. So to start out with the presentation um tonight the public works advisory committee will be providing an update to the pavement management program. Um and this will be um you know as requested per our last meeting. Uh next slide. Uh sorry I go back to the previous slide. Um, so again, like I said, this presentation is a follow-up from our March 3rd presentation to the select board. Uh, we were asked to analyze how much money we would need from the stabilization fund in unison with our chapter 90 funds to maintain the current PCI level in town. The public works advisory committee met last week to review the current PCI and stabilization investment plan and develop several different scenarios with reduced stabilization funding. It's important to note that there is a substantial amount of funding from our pavement management program already being allocated to the George Hill Road project. Next slide. Uh from this graph, we can see the

results um that the townwide average PCI has improved from 77 to 81 over the last 5-year segment. Um and an overall improvement of five points after our first year of the program in 2016. Next slide. Uh so this slide just shows a snapshot of all the roads that um we addressed through our pavement management program beginning in 2015 bringing us through the end of last year, the end of 2025. Um so again uh yeah, so again it's just a snapshot. You can kind of see the different levels of um grades if you will per each road segment. Next slide. Uh here is a townwide pavement condition index index distribution as of the end of 2025. Um as you can see from this graph, more than 80% of the town roads fall between an average PCI of 71 to 100 with more than 65% of those having a score of 86 or greater which is a very good score. Um you know if we would compare to surrounding municipalities. Uh next slide. Uh here again is just the townwide pavement condition index distribution from the previous slide shown on the town map. Again you can see the different colors with the corresponding PCIs. Red being the worst and blue being the best. Uh next slide. So we ran through four different investment scenarios utilizing different levels of funding. again split up between the chapter 90 funding and stabilization fund. So if we look at the top of the chart um we can see that uh

we have our first scenario of $1.25 million invested over a 10-year period. The next scenario would be $1 million over a 10-year period. Um and then the last two scenarios are broken up into 700K for the first five years followed by a uh increase in payment of 1.3 million for the final five years. Similarly, we have for the last scenario 500k invested for the first 5 years needing to invest 1.8 million for the remaining five years. Um and this is in an effort to um you know keep uh the status quo the uh con you know the condition of the roads. Um so you can see as our investment goes down we initially lose um we lose rating in our PCIs and then we have to invest additional funds per year to kind of make up for that balance. Uh, next slide.

Can I ask you a quick question? Uh, can we hold questions till the end? Sure. Okay.

Um, so to uh so here's uh a graph showing the four investment scenarios from the previous slide. Again, if you look at the purple, that's the 500k over the first five years and then the 1.8 million for the next five years. Uh, next slide. So to kind of just recap, um our overall PCI in 2016 was 76. We increased that to 81 for 2025, but then um it drops to 76 in 5 years based on only utilizing chapter 90 funding. So essentially 5 years of reduced funding will negate 10 years of our investment. Um also, um something that should be considered is inflation and uh construction costs, which would be pretty hard to kind of forecast.

Um as a point of note, if you can, you know, I think 6 months ago, nobody really kind of knew that we were going to be in the situation we are with the Middle East, with the rising gas prices. And so you can see that the cost of uh liquid asphalt in March was $615 a ton and then in April it shot up to $680 a ton. Um also important to note is that the George Hill road commitment already reduces the investment to our other roads by about 315k a year and that's for multiple years ongoing. So, with that, I'd like to open it up to Q&A, and I'd like to call Brian up for any questions you might have.

All right. Thank you. You I have one. Fire away. What's the sweet spot for for the PCI number? I mean, we in regards to 73 and 76 are low. We're at 81 now. Like, what what should we be trying to maintain uh in that? Well, if we look at that uh I don't know what number it is. This slide here. Yep. So, million was

the top blue is basically what we're doing now because so it says 1.25 million per year. However, that is that doesn't the reason why it's low is because I also pay details. Um I got to buy castings. Um preventative maintenance. I don't fact. This is for capital projects. Yep. To improve the roads. I use 1.25. And then the rest is ancillary costs such as what I just mentioned.

Yeah. So that's about 20% of um the 1.25 is what is required for the ancillary costs, right? But what what are we talking I mean just again as a lay person, what what's the difference in a in an in in a roadway that scores an 85 versus a roadway that scores an 81? Just so I have some sort of you know basis for what we're talking about in terms of road condition, I guess. You know, because I

85 would be okay. You might want to uh correct seal. give yourself another three years or so at that number and it gives you the opportunity to then as like as now I don't know if you've seen the um the roads that are coming up on the next between this year and next year we're at the stage now where we can get into the more residential side roads dead ends things such as that like um Stockwell arm that's being done this year and the culde-sacs off of that, you know, I mean, so we're getting into roadways now that are seriously encompassing everybody. Mhm.

Um reducing the funding would kind of make things such as like the real bad roads wouldn't get touched at all because they're already too far gone to put all the money into just fixing one road. Mhm. So there there's the effect of reducing the uh the budget. How's that road um in North Grafton holding up? Um the one where you did the uh the road stabilization. Um trying to think of No, here we go. Back to cement. I'm just asking about let it go. He won't let it go. It'sable.

Well, you wouldn't have to do this if you did concrete pavement. We all know this. And the price of cement isn't going up like the price of asphalt that's going up. And it's going to continue to go up because you're not going to have crude oil anymore. So the refineries aren't going to they grab the fuel for for planes and automobiles and they don't care about liquid asphalt. So that market is going to go away. Oh,

that was uh that was Glen Street. Not not to give you guys a sad story, but um but no, we did we did why I'm not bringing it up because it's cement, but we did that job and it was a creative way um of instead of doing total reconstruction, which what you're talking about, we don't have the money to do total reconstruction, right? Because it'll take all the money from that year, right? So, we don't want to put that into one road. But I'm curious how that held up because we did the stabilization. Then you put like one inch of asphalt on that. That was that was actually a full depth reclaim.

No, it runs between Route 30 and old Westbrook Road. Um kind of across from um Adams Road. What's the name of that road? Uh yes. Okay. Stone Glen Glenn Street. Yeah. It's on a left. the next left after uh Wesson. So Glenn, I think is Glenn. Yeah. Yeah. And that was a full depth reclaim using uh with cement. Correct.

So we had to go out, we hired uh soils, the geotech to run the civ analysis of the soil to then identify how much percentage of cement it would need. And they run this train where they reclaim the cement's added to the mixture and then it's spread back down at whatever depth they figure it and water's added.

Right. Yeah. They rebelize the road and the subbase. They basically rotatil it. They put a layer of cement on it and then they wet it and then they reroatil it and then they compact it. and it it makes for, you know, an incredibly solid, you know, 100% compaction base. So, instead of ripping all that material out and rebuilding the whole roadway, it's just a way to do it at a lot cheaper number. So, I was just wondering how it's held up. It's probably been in there like it's got to be six years, seven years, maybe nine years. Um, wait a minute. That was Yeah, maybe. That was probably 15 years ago. The road's in really good shape

and drive that road a lot. I believe there I think that was a three inch map that I put down. I did one I thought you said you did one inch. I did one one inch the first year. They didn't have any money back then. This is before we had the stabilization funds. Yeah.

So this was all chapter 90. And the difference with that though is that I don't do full depth reconstruction. I do full depth reclaim. So, we don't actually go in and pull material out and then bring good material in. It's basically just by grinding it up like that, you're adding the asphalt in to the crappy base. And by having that aggregate in there, it reduces the fines percentage-wise and holds up better. I will excavate out excess material to maintain driveways and things like that or minimize the amount of work I have to do on them. I'm just saying we haven't done that another one I don't think since then and you know it's just a creative way of coming up with a cost-effective kind of long-term solution versus just a conventional way of doing an overlay or or well the reclaim on that funny because uh someone just called me about that uh maybe two or three weeks ago. So I looked it up and costwise it turned out to be just about three times more expensive than just doing straight up reclaim by adding a cement. It was three times the cost of just reclaim. So say it was a bucket cost $3 per square yard as a comparison. I think it was like we we're pretty consistent with that cost. It's usually somewhere between it's around three bucks per square yard. So then it would it would probably kick it up to close to nine,

but you're getting life out of it, right? That's the goal to get better life cycle cost. Correct. So looking at the um chart here, it looks like if we're at a million dollars a year, um we're sort of stable through 2035 approximately, right? It sort of goes up and down, but but at that level of investment, things are staying basically where they are now. They're not improving at all, um but they're it's stabilized and the condition isn't getting worse. Am I reading that right? It's a bit misleading though. Okay, that's why I'm asking you

because as you see, so you get the 1.25 million and we go up 1 million. It stays the same. Yep. But now, so the 1.25 is based off of the 1 whatever it is now. I think did we start adding that 2% on that six? Yeah, sure. 1.6 right now. Okay. you know, so that's money that uh is there but it's not reflected here. Okay, this is just capital and you know how do you maintain what we have? So at the 1 million a year to stay level, you're really only reducing 250 grand. Mhm.

From the stabilization side of it. Got it. But a big drop in the overall result. you're not making any improvement to the roadways. They're just going to stay flat the way they are. And chances you probably have to use more. Didn't run a scenarios out that far to see how what treatments would be utilized. My guess is you would be doing a lot of preventative to hold on to what you have. Yeah.

Right. Like something that we had discussed in our meeting last week was what if you get a crazy winter like we had this past season. Um you know intuitionally you're thinking that you're probably going to be putting more money into the maintenance of keeping the roads up. So it's kind of like an unknown thing. All right. Got it.

Like after every winter I go check out roads. I have the highway guys tell me if something, you know, if something went south terribly where now the yearly schedule, the plan has to be modified to reflect what just took place. Well, can we go back to the earlier slide? Uh, yeah, that one. So I'm wondering the about the feasibility of the 750 to 1.3 and 500 to 1.8 would that have us significantly reducing um the road stabilization and then significantly increasing it? Correct.

Yeah. I don't know if we could do that. I think once once you've reduced that um that kind of override you can't go back to where it was before. You can only go up two and a half% I think is how that works. Unless you had a set a second vote unless you had another override and you have to remember that that first five years you're downward tra trajectory and you have to invest that additional capital to get that back up

right I'm just saying you know with road stabilization you know with the way it's currently structured I don't I don't think those two approaches are are feasible so I think what I'm hearing is it wouldn't be a very big tax break to go down to the 1 million approximately to sort to stabilize things and it would potentially have a pretty big impact in terms of the quality of the roads over time. Does that sound right? Yeah, I'd say so.

I have a question. Um, so the 1.25 that's based on what we originally said we were starting this out with, right, in 2016 and then we've slowly gotten up to the 1.6. Where did we start with this? We start the first year of the plan was 2015. Yeah. Um and what was it like 75 four years ago that the two and a half% started coming in Evan? Yep. So what did we start with back then? Do you remember? Like what was the number that we started in 2015? The 75 for a PCI. No no millions of dollars. The stabilization 1.5 million.

Yeah. Sorry. 1.5. Yeah. Okay. And now we've gone up to 1.6 just based on that 2% for the last 5 years or four years or thereabouts. Four years. Okay. Brian. Yep. So this scenario uh would bring us lower than by $250,000 right than what we started with back then. So it is a reduction so to speak. Um so even at the 1.25 25. The road scenario is quite a bit better than the other three options and we are still pulling back currently whatever $350,000 and still 250 from where we started. Is that what I'm

extrapolating? Yeah. Yeah. So, if I can just jump in for a second that you've got about it's 1.6 million in change that you collect every year. um you've already allocated 317,000 of that towards the George Hill Road project every year. So let's call that 300. That leaves you with 1.3 million left for everything else. So, if you were to shoot for that million dollar mark, you would be reducing the ask by about $300,000, which is $46 a year per household annually,

right? And so, I guess where I'm going is um is, you know, trying to sort out where we are right now, what the savings would be with these scenarios. I think that the final the last two scenarios don't really make that much sense to me. You know, the 750 starting in the 500, but kind of looking between the 1.25 and the 1 million. Um, but now you have George Hill coming on, right? So that's taken out with that plus the ancillary, it's kind of half of the million. Well, the so far the uh that extra 2% uh isn't I can't even really apply that to a plan at all because with the inflation with not not even inflation with the new contracts with the police detail rates.

Mhm. That's just keeping up with the Joneses on that. So there's not much left over from the additional two whatever percent it is that gets rolled into being able useful for roads. It's just praying for details and for the most part. My final question is um the 315 for George Hill it's showing here just four times but do you know how many years that will be for or do we know far out that goes? Yes. So that was a I think the original projection is a 20 year.

Gotcha. Okay. I mean, I will say the program has has worked, I think, very well. I mean, um I'm glad that we took the initiative to do that because I think we got some of the best roads um in Worcester County. Just go right over the line to Worester.

Yeah. Well, they a road and then they dig it up the next week. I mean, that's what they do there. Um, but no, seriously, we I mean I I think we should be proud of the work that's been done here and the residents and taxpayers commitment to this program because, you know, you go into these towns and the roads are in uh, you know, really rough shape and we're fortunate. I think at the 81 number right now, I think, you know, um, we can always improve, but, you know, I think that's a good place for us. Um certainly room for improvement, but whatever we decide to do, I think, you know, we certainly don't want to go backwards. You know, are you starting to put money into roads that we did in the first couple of years of this program?

Um we doing any crack seal or any maintenance on those roads? Oh yeah, we are. So roads that we did 10 years ago, we're starting to spend money on them. Yeah, crack seals. What is that maybe seven bucks? a gallon. I I'd have to do some research, but I'm just wonder, you know, it's kind of a tax question. You know, we're spending money on these roads and how are they performing, I guess. You know what I mean? How it depends on the treatment that took place, too, though. If it was a milling overlay, that's an expected 10ear lifespan. Correct. At the most. So if

six, seven, eight years go by and there's cracks that reflected through, you just want to seal them up, make sure the moisture is not getting in there and forcing it open more. Yep. Great. Um, Mr. Chair, before we move on, George Hill's 15 years. Sorry, I misspoke. I said 20, but it's it's 15 year n

which we haven't borrowed yet, so that clock hasn't started. Yeah. Oh, if I know if I could uh go back to slide four, I think it was. Yeah, that one. So, I mean, but this slide shows perfectly that, you know, it affects every everybody in town, you know what I mean? It hits all the roads. It's not just concentrated in one area taking care of this person or that person, you know? It's uh we've gone out and done a good job spreading it around so everybody sees where there's money's going.

I I kind of have a question, but I feel Yeah. I'm trying to figure out how to like phrase one. No, can't hold anything back now. Mark, I mean, I'm tired. I'm so tired right now. Leave it leave it all on the field. Can I ask a quick question that I think some people might be interested in knowing? Particularly me. Can I stop you? Yes. Does that mean No, that's fair. I mean, what does it matter, right? It's a half an hour and maybe 45 minutes tops. Here we go. The uh pavement condition index. Mhm.

Can you describe quickly, as quick as you can, what that means and how that is determined? I mean, I know what it means. I think I know what it means, but for anyone that's that doesn't know what that means because you're basing all of this on the condition of all these roads and that's and there's an index and how is that how's that determined?

So, it's based on several factors uh such as rideability, surface distress, um what else? subsurface um you know you like if you see ringut in the road so basically um and again I've been only on this committee for a short period of time um my I believe that it's boots on the road they go out and they take measurements of every road in the town um they measure the they get out physically measure the cracks in the road

and that's how they kind of there's a scale that you go by You tally everything up at the end of your, you know, from one end to the other with your distresses, your cracks, and you rate the road based off of and you give it a score. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Okay. And the higher the score, the better. Correct. Correct. Okay. Sorry to please continue. I know there's more. I'm sure you want to talk about more concrete. Again, making sure I'm understanding this properly. um do it once,

you know, while while the 1.2 continues us up, if we went to like that that $1 million plan, the roads that would be impacted the hardest are the roads that are currently in the worst condition. They would see they would see zero improvement. It would that more or less refocuses maintenance on roads that have been improved within the last 10 years or so, right? Because you're not going to want to kind of sort of. Yeah. Um like the new roads that the town has been taken on, you former private roads, those just they wouldn't even be considered, right? Um you know, so things like that would fall off

to to that point. We have we have accepted some of those new problematic roads um you know that are that are going to require major overhauls. Is that factored into um you know like the current planning or or would those continue to be just kind of delayed indefinitely until until such time? You know like um well the more money you have so the the the way the system works is there's a there's a benefit value. So if you got say a fault in the road a dead end.

Yeah. Uh, so it doesn't get any traffic other than the people who live there. The benefit factor of that would make it really tough to get on the list. I've already added it in to the system to for consideration. Won't know until next fall when I run a new three-year plan based on where it falls. But the um, you know, that's all dependent on the budget because you plug the budget in that you have to work with. And that spits out the roads to do for the next three years.

Yeah. Which I I think is an important consideration as we've we've taken on what at least three roads like that. Um you know, thinking of of Faulner um Waterville Circle. Yeah. Waterville and Jonas. Yeah. Those were the three in particular. Harding Street. Yep.

That was always always a town road. Come to find out by Skip's uh nose to the grind. Um, but you know, we've we've made we've accepted those as as public roadways over the last few town meetings and and and in my opinion that that is a commitment from the town to um, you know, bring them up to a serviceable standard. I totally understand where you're coming from. I'm not, you know, it's not directed at you in any way. I'm just I think for the you know the clarity of everybody here or you know who may be watching um you know I I I think it's important to continue to consider those how we fold those roadways into your plan rather than just saying sure we're going to take those we're going to fix them for you uh TBD you know and and and that we don't have the funding. So

Oh now you want to come up. I'm I'm just supporting all of those roads. He has you have to come up. Yeah. Come on, Kevin. And y sorry, it's Kevin's birthday. All of those roads uh get looked at uh after by us. Like Harding Street, for example, like we took down the old street lights, the old concrete street lights that had dangling wires. We've cutting trees, filling potholes just for safety concerns. So, they're not getting ignored. But we're also like if we got to get a fire truck up there or an ambulance or something, they're going to be safe for that. Yes.

But it's just as far as going after it after the fact, doing new drainage, new crowns, like everything. It's it's it's not going to be as important as a main drag that sees triple the amount of traffic. Exactly. Yes. That's that's what I was getting. So the ask of us this evening is a good question. I think I think it was just like anformational Okay. Yeah. From our end. Yeah. I um Yeah, you guys asked us to come present the data for

you. We yeah we had asked if there was a way that that including you know factoring in George Hill uh if we could reduce the the overall um amount in the stabilization that that we withdraw each year. Um you know I I I believe we we did pass it for the year. Um so this is this is more a course correction type option. Um I don't think it's anything that we need to take any direct action on tonight. I definitely appreciate you guys coming in. um you know but I I think it's a situation where if everybody wants to sit with it and and consider it um or develop any you know questions um we could certainly invite the the committee back and and further this discussion um unless anybody has any particularly strong feelings right now um and and wishes to make a case.

I have just one more question. Sure. So, just to circle back quickly, so you still have some roads that we need to do more more than just mill and filler overlays to. You have some roads that if you were going to tackle a roadway, you'd want to do more reconstruction to. Is that what for the full depth? Yes. Full depth. Do you have some of those roads? Because if we're just talking about Not this year. No, no, not just in the big picture.

Yes. Like if if we're just going to mill and fill roads, right, that money is obviously going to go further because, you know, you're going to spend less per road. But if we have roads that you say it would be a waste of money to mill and fill because it's got there, you know, structural issues with the subbase and, you know, we would only get 10 years out of a mill and fill and we don't want to spend that kind of money for for a 10-year road. Mhm.

Um, do you have others? Cuz I think that's important when we make a decision whether we want to do anything with this funding, if we're in a place where we're we're going to be doing overlays, that's different than if we have a bunch of roads that we need to do, you know, major structural work to because we know that eats up a lot of a lot of the funds. So in this year and next year's plan, the only full depths are the George Hill Fay Mountain Soapill. Um Oh, and Leland Street. Y I did some Wheeler Road. Leland.

Oh, Leland. That whole cluster because I mean that's basically the season, right? You you just focus the the entire Well, Leland Street's not included in the contract. But I did some I just uh overlaid the worst part of that last year because I had a little bit of money left over just to button them up a little bit because that was that was horrible. Yeah. And I also did some on Estbrook as well. Um don't that road I don't even know what to do with it. Um, but that's in the 27 plan to do Leland at a full depth and then everything else is milling over. Can we get a current copy of that

of the, you know, the plan moving forward? It's in the It's in the packet. So, we can send it to you separately. It's in this packet. Y the plan moving for streets. The actual streets of this year and next year. I don't think it's in. It's not. No, it wasn't included in this. That's on our It's on our website, but it's not in here. We We'll We'll send it out to the board. Okay. Okay. None of that is set in stone either. It's none of that is set in stone. No, no, I get it. We never know what's going to happen.

Yep. Okay. Um any any additional questions, feedback or we in a place where we want to take some action or do we just want to continue to mull and um I mean we could have we could put on a future agenda so that we have a discussion amongst ourselves without having to bring the the committee back and and weigh it out. What's what's everybody feeling? So, I'm not going to be here, but I would uh re recommend the board think about talking about this before you make a decision to um raise, you know, the 1.6 or whatever it is. um at that point just have a discussion before that and consider either reducing the amount a little bit so that we don't lose any grounds on the you know current uh PCI um or u andor I guess uh not raising the additional two and a half% at at a minimum everybody all right with uh with sitting with it?

Yep. Yep. Yeah. Okay, great. We'll bring it back. this was incredibly helpful. Um, you know, thank you for putting the presentation together and and running through those number scenarios. Um, makes the discussion easier and and you know, you guys explain it in such a way that it's easy for us all to comprehend and and wrap our heads around. So, and Adam, thanks for being on the committee. I know your experience and knowledge is important. Did John force you to join this committee? I'm sure. No, I actually I actually initiated it cuz I saw a vacancy and I was interested and I live in town and you know I want to help out if I can. Yeah. No, we appreciate the help. Thank you. You know, where is John tonight? He was supposed to be here but golfing.

You did a great job. 19th hole. What problem? My guess when you tee off at 4:30. Yeah. Okay. Uh Brian, you have uh uh proposed roadway uh driveway regulations that you wanted to Yes. discuss. Yes. Tracy making me do this. She's not here, is she? No. No. Okay, good. You're safe. Till tomorrow anyway.

Uh basically this is just uh basic simple standard general engineering practice for driveways. um just to codify something so that we have something to hang our hat on when someone wants uh their entire front lawn or front lawn area to be one driveway. Say I'm going way out of Mhm. It's never going to happen. But you know something so that we can say uh no and here's why. Mhm.

Or yes, you can do that. look, you know, like eliminate maybe some of the um tedious phone calls trying to explain to homeowners why you can and can't do certain things and whatnot and also like I said have uh something to hang our hat on. Were these kind of our standard unwritten practices before or have we followed state guidelines here? Like just you know a little bit of background how we came up with the doc be honest with you. No,

I I can jump in before we get honest. Um, so a lot of these are are things that we are already doing that we've already enforced, but there's no real one cotification of all these different things that we're doing. Um, some of these are new things or things that were never addressed elsewhere in local government that we've needed to codify and tighten up. Um, and it gives us a standard to work off of for what the residents can expect when they're going for a driveway permit or or working on their driveway. And it helps us to equally apply everything to every every driveway in the community. So, it's really just a cotification of some of the things that we're we've been doing, some of the things that aren't codified anywhere in Grafton. probably should have been, you know, a decade ago.

It sounds like most of this is really focused around where the pavement the the road pavement and the driveway meet so that we're kind of protecting our investment, right? If they're going to repave a driveway or if it's a new home and, you know, they're going to bring that driveway out to the curb to to meet the the road the roadway that they do it in a proper way, right? And consistent. Is that fair? Yeah. Yep. Correct. Right. To some type of specification, right? Yeah. One thing we're checking too with that too is a lot of paving companies love to hide drainage from the housing

and daylight it right out into the road. And so it's off their property, but yet when the winter comes around now, we have glare ice. And oh, they won't know. They won't know. But in the permit process of going back and checking, hey, that PVC pipe wasn't there before. Where's that? Yeah, that helps that too.

This policy addresses the moratorium. So, if we just pave a road, you can't go digging it up right away. Um, if you're outside of the mortorium, it gives uh expectations of what the road is going to be brought back to. It deals with um our street trees that are town owned and the need to protect those. So, it gives a lot of latitude to make sure that people aren't just, you know, the wild wild west out there. And when the taxpayers put money into the road and the road's edge that we're make making sure that we maintain that.

Yeah. And I think we also put some language in there to make sure that they're adhering to ADA and PROAG um guidelines for people that might have disabilities or you know, to protect us y from any lawsuit or anything like that that is in here somewhere to those points and and because uh Tracy was mentioned um is this something that we need to you know float by other departments uh you know should does does trace should we recommend that Tracy have a review of this before we take any action you know oh she already has yeah we're I sent it out we've done all of that background ground stuff. Okay, great.

Yeah, planning got a copy to take a look at um because it's going to apply because right they have driveway standards for subdivisions. So now this can be Yep. Here's what we expect of it. Okay. Any questions, comments? The horseshoe driveway, is that a circular driveway? Is that what that means? The language uh you come in this side, you says horseshoe driveway. Keep driving straight and you go around again. You have two ax two. It's a circular driveway. Two e-graces. Semicircle. Yeah, circle. That's what I call it. But okay. If you go down Milbury Street from the center on the left hand side, right before the lights, the two family there. Yep. Yep. They have a little

an arch right there. So, they are permitted. I thought I read somewhere along the way, not in this, not in this um agenda or packet, but that circular or horseshoe driveways were limited in terms of what we're allowed to do them in in in certain amount. We're not actually allowed to do them. So, this says generally speaking, no. Did I read something wrong when I was looking at You're only allowed one like through zoning, you're only allowed one driveway, one entrance from the street. Correct. Correct. So that's here and then you go there. You can't have the second. So it's against zoning. Why can't you have the second one? Just out of curiosity

because it's in zoning. Really? I think that the general idea is that you can't have multiple access points with multiple people coming out because of sight lines and and a whole host of other reasons probably.

Okay. Now in in as well I also permitted I permitted one on Worcester Street maybe a year or two ago same side as uh Bush Peek just a little further down the road on the right there. Very busy street fastm moving cars your nose in the driveway backing out safety concerns things like that. That was the same thing for Milbury Street. I will permit him if there's an issue with Yeah. If you're backing out into the street, you know, there's a good chance you're going to get tailboned. Pretty well defined safety issue. Yes.

Yeah. And again, for anybody who currently owns a driveway and may be concerned, you know, this is a this is a moving forward thing. Existing driveways are are grandfathered in. Um, you know, we wouldn't be expecting residents to bring things up to code uh on their current driveways. Previous driveways that are in place. Yeah. Your grandfather. Yeah. I don't have that problem. Okay. Need a motion? Uh, if everybody's okay and nobody has any additional questions or feedback or wants to see anything change, sure.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. I I think we can I hate regulations, but I I guess I see the protecting our our roadway. But and I think just one more thing to add, this is kind of just like a living policy that can be updated in the future if you know situations dictate such. So can always make changes to it. Just one question. Did we There was a recent um correspondence from a gentleman I believe relative to driveway and I don't know if it had anything to do with this. It wasn't it was when I say recent like within the last couple of months Lydia.

Well, no that was I know that there was that. Um but I thought that there was someone else. Uh hold on one sec. Yeah. And what what did Lydia have to say? I know I feel like she reached out to me as well. I think she she has the horseshoe. She has a horseshoe. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Wanted to make sure she it didn't have to change. You think she actually would what she Okay. Yeah. I found Lydia's. Okay. I'm not coming across another one. Okay.

Not to say that it doesn't exist. I'm just not seeing it here. and I don't have it readily available, so it's fine. I found all right. I just the the dimen the dimensions that are noted, you know, and like point number one, I feel like that was part of this email. Again, it was a while ago. Yeah, it goes back to March. I'm just shooting for it right here. I'm forwarding it to you right now. Okay, that'll be easier.

Thanks. Oh, just as a point too. Anything that's on private property. So once it gets beyond the rightway, there's this does not apply if someone wants to fan it out and make three more spots as long as not in the water protection overlay district. Right. Knock yourself out, right?

Yep. or actually check that there's also another zoning thing about not being within 10 ft of the property line. Um, so the crux of it was that he the the gentleman who wrote in doesn't believe that the town should have any say except for where it meets the road, which is what we're focusing That's all this is. Okay. I just I I just remember an email relative to just boiling it down because it

Yep. Luckily, it has a my point is sentence at the bottom. Okay. Um so I think that covers I think we're okay. I think we're going with that. Great. So the motion is to move to um accept the the proposed driveway regulations as presented this evening. Second. Okay. Motion made and second it. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Great work. Thanks. Thank you all for coming in. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you.

You don't have to stay for the rest of the meeting if you don't want. I know Kevin was looking forward to it. Okay. Um, so now I think I think Annette's going to come up and get comfortable with us for a little while. I think you're you're next up uh in in the next few topics. Thank you for your your patience and yeah

letting us deal with the roadways first. Um first up we have a discussion around our participation in the central mass m mo mosquito control project. You guys had a pretty robust conversation with the finance committee. Um you know you just uh I guess want to kind of share some of that information. I think it was discussed in or you know touched on there that um it was you know we we really thought about it as a a cost-saving measure. we had a limited window in which we could we could get it on you know the warrant um but did want to circle back and and you know um get at least the board of health's opinion on these things and and allow them to make a case for whether we should or shouldn't stay in it. So just kind of setting the playing field for everybody and it's all yours.

Awesome. Well, thank you for having me tonight. Um I'm happy to provide, you know, a more boiled down version um of our participation with the central mask mosquito control project and then answer any questions. Um, so when we talk about mosquito-born diseases here in Massachusetts, we're really worried about Westnile virus and eastern eichcoin and sephilitis or triple E. Um, triple E is definitely the big one. Um, 30% of cases are fatal and it affects older adults more because of their weakened immune system and then those that don't die from the disease often have lifelong disability. So, it's definitely, you know, very severe disease if you are to get it. Um, and those are the two that we're really looking at. One of the biggest benefits of being part of the central mass mosquito control project is some of the really early intervention prevention and monitoring activities that take place. Um so early in the spring they're starting these activities now they'll start to do catch basin treatment. So they'll provide larvides to our catch basins throughout town and this is a really targeted um larvaide that reacts to the pH in the gut of the mosquitoes that we're concerned about. So it has very little carryover. I think blackfly larvae is one of the only other um organisms that are affected by this early intervention larvae side and they live in different um habitats. So so there's not a whole lot of crossover. This really helps reduce our adult mosquito populations later in the season and the we're concerned about the adult mosquito populations because they're the ones that can transmit the disease from animals to humans. Um so that catch basin treatment is really important. They'll also go go out and do targeted spraying in wetlands. So they'll survey they'll survey wetland areas throughout town to look to see if there is even that mosquito larvae in that habitat and if they do find it they'll do the similar larva treatment at that point to again reduce the the adult populations. Um they'll do monitoring throughout the

season. So they I believe in Grafton they said they have about 12 different monitoring stations where they'll actually collect adult mosquitoes and analyze them for the presence of disease. So that that's increased monitoring throughout the town that they can um really identify if there are any disease carrying mosquitoes um that may affect Grafton residents. And so when they do find that um they can do some targeted education. So alongside the health department and the mass department of public health will do increased communications to those areas of town if they need to take additional precautions. They'll also do um some adult aside. And so the way they do that is they have a a truck mounted fogging machine that will go out and use a very lowrisk um pesticide to address any adult mosquito populations again to really bring down that risk of any disease carrying populations in the area. This is something that is unique to the central mass mosquito control project community. So as a member you have the benefit of that. Um the state does some analysis. They I think they have one station here in Grafton that they look at um to look for presence of disease. Um and you know they have very limited spraying. So if they're going to do any spraying activities um in Grafton, it's usually after a case has already been identified at in town. So at that point you really lose that early prevention activities to reduce the mosquito populations later in the season. Um, you know, some of the the things that we're seeing in terms of trends in mosquito-born diseases, our seasons are getting a lot longer. Um, so mosquitoes will die off after the first frost of the year, which seems to be getting later and later. Um, so as you get through the mosquito season, your your um possibility of disease carrying mosquitoes increases because it's circulating throughout the mosquito population. So if your seasons are longer and you haven't done some really great prevention activities in the early spring and early summer months, then you

have the possibility of having more disease burden that can cause carryover into human populations. Um they also do a little lot of really great education. So they'll partner with senior centers, libraries, schools to do some education talks early in the season about some personal protective factors or factors that you can um you know take in your own home to reduce any risk that you might have in terms of populations breeding on your property. Um so that's you know I think we we have a great partnership with them. We work very closely um support some of these activities. They also do some water management. I know here in Grafton they've done some trench repair. So they'll work with trenches in town that may have increased sediment from the roadways um that creates standing water conditions that mosquitoes love to breed in. So they'll come out and help communities part of their collaborative um clear out those trends to help improve the the water um maintenance so that it runs and reduces those breeding populations. Um they'll also do some beaver work. So if there are beaver dams creating still um waters in town that can be good breeding grounds for mosquito um they may come in and do some beaver mitigation. Um so I think that's a a pretty general overview but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you. Questions Mr. Chair. So you you didn't read anything so like you really you know all about this. This is like this is your jam, right? This is my jam. I had some brief notes. Um but but this is public health at its core. I think it's really talking about that prevention and um you know we don't want to get to the point where we have a human case. We want to take care of it beforehand. So the risk of uh not doing anything is that mosquitoes or whatever can cause harm particularly to those with immune concerns, older people, whatever. Is there a risk with the treatment?

Um so the and I will read on this because I'm not I'm not an expert. So, um, like I said, the larvae, which is that early spring treatment, is incredibly targeted, um, towards the pH of the gut of the mosquitoes that we're concerned about. Um, so there's, you know, it doesn't have any harm to, um, non-target organisms. So, that would be humans, animals, but including like things we're concerned about like honeybees, um, or other really critical species to our environment. Um, the adult lar the adulticide application. So, when we're talking about the fogging for later in the season, um they use an ultra low volume application. So, this is really really fine particles um that go out and and fog the area and will kill mosquitoes on contact.

But we would breed that though, right? So, you could um if you were outside,

if you were outside. So, they do target these treatments um in the evening if a neighborhood is being fogged. will give notification to that community that the treatment's coming along. Um, individuals can opt out their property. If you don't want your property sprayed, you can opt out and they'll turn the machine off as they pass your property. Um, and then it it's a really classified by the EPA as a low risk. Um, so the acute toxicity is lower than things like caffeine and nicotine um, for the particular product that they use. One of the things that they had discussed at the finance committee meeting was that the um adulticide that they use in the foggy machines, they're targeting um flying mosquitoes. So that when that um adulticide lands on a surface, it breaks down very quickly. The idea from that is that you're trying to capture a mosquito population out at night doing their thing while they're flying and that the halflife of it disappears before all of your other pollinators wake up in the morning and don't have uh the same impact. It's why they don't do it during the middle of the day,

which I didn't I didn't know until that I bring it up because I didn't know that until I had the same note. Yeah. And uh I think something else noteworthy that was discussed in that meeting is that Grafton has reached the moderate risk um in three of the last four years. Yep. I think it was just last year that that we didn't reach that threshold.

So um it's actually the most recent three years that you were at the moderate um level here in Grafton. And that means that either um you're at very high risk of disease being present or there has been a positive mosquito sample here in town. So once you hit that moderate risk level, that means that mosquitoes in the area already are carrying these diseases and have the possibility um of either infecting animals or humans in the area. Um and a lot of that that risk categor categorization is um determined by these mosquito mosquito samples. So where central mass mosquito control project has 12 monitoring stations that's 12 points of data that you can really understand um you know what the disease burden is in the mosquito populations whereas if we rely on the state you only have maybe one um monitoring location or you're relying on a monitoring location in a neighboring community. So, you're not really getting that, you know, communitywide picture of um the the disease burden in the mosquitoes.

Um how much, if at all, um does Grafton's proactive management of uh these diseases through managing the mosquito population um benefit or impact surrounding towns? Um so, you know, they're very targeted treatment. So the participation in in the early larvaide and even the the adult side later in the season is targeted to a very specific area. So Grafton is benefiting um you know the the mosquitoes don't have a super um far reach in terms of how far they're flying. So you're not really going to expect something from the south side of Grafton to to reach Drewberry for example. Got it. Um so it really is pretty targeted.

Gotcha. That's what I was wondering. Thank you. Um couple couple just follow-up questions. Um at the finance committee meeting you, uh you mentioned opt- out numbers. Were there something you were able to track down? Yeah, so um in 2025, I believe the number was 37 households had opted out. So far this season, there have been three in Grafton. Um they did note that the opt- out numbers from last year were less than previous years.

Okay. Um and uh Evan, did you or maybe it's a question for both of you. Did we get any clarification as to whether the state would require us to provide our own mosquito management plan if we withdrew from the project or do our own testing? So you you me I yeah you take it.

So it continues to be a little murky. So the state says that in order to opt out you need to have a plan in place. Um there there doesn't appear to be a lot of teeth in that. So, um I I can't find and no one that I've talked to so far has been able to tell me what the actual repercussion is for withdrawing from mosquito control project and not having a a a plan of how you're going to tackle the mosquito problem. Um so that's as far as I've I've uh been able to get. Okay. I have a question. What communities does the C are is included in the Central Mass mosquito control project or how many?

I I don't have that number off the top of my head. Even just like I I I do. Let me I will answer that for you in just one second. I guess maybe another question would be how many are not involved or you know like are around us. Is that a I think it's one. I think it's just Sutton that isn't involved.

Okay. So for me, while I have a public health degree as well, um I am one of the numbers that opt out all the time as a beekeeper, chicken, dogs, you know, kids and all that kind of stuff. Um so that's kind of just my where I am on on this as an issue. So, I appreciate that folks have concerns about about this and and the spraying and continuing it and whatnot. Um, Will tells me in case this is incorrect. Uh

I mean I'm just looking for it doesn't I'm not number so the the CMM it's on their website for incorrect blame them. I'm just making sure this isn't like Iowa. The CMMCP uh currently consists of 44 cities and towns in central Mass from Worcester and Middle Sex County equaling about 810 square miles top of mind.

I'm on that same page. I guess, you know, in terms of where we're at, we would probably try to still need to um look at what would we have to do even to to extricate ourselves from this, right? In terms of a plan. So, yeah, we can I mean, we can vote at town meeting to withdraw. That's the that is the process.

Um I do have some of the uh you know, I've gone through the the things that this uh why can't I think of what the word is? um the checklist that the state gives out as far as things that you're supposed to be managing in the plan that you're supposed to submit. Um we don't currently have anyone on staff that we can do catch basin work with. I mean the the um beaver work we we can do the trench work we can do. Um we don't have anyone to do the larvaide. Um and the the part that kind of stuck with me after listening to the FinCom presentation was um you know we can rely on the state the state does the helicopter spraying if there's a positive case and everything but that is when the case has already occurred

right so you know just the the sampling alone going from 12 sampling stations to one um is concerning because we've definitely seen um in the in over the last 5 years I've seen it that certain traps pick up a diseased mosquito and we won't see it in the other 11 traps. You know, they can be very localized um which then can lead to some pretty um pretty uh specific spraying and prevention issues. The other thing they do that I don't think people know about is they'll come take tires from you, right? Um yeah that I noticed that it was on

Yeah. It never never really So the and the rationale for that is people will just throw the tires outside and they collect money uh money water mosquitoes and mosquitoes um and and they will breed mosquitoes Mr. Chair I um I have a question for another member of the board and also Mr. Administrator first name town. Can I ask two questions? Sure. And Marie, why are you not for this? Is it what I was sort of sort of asserting the treatment is a little more riskier than the than not treating it.

Just personally, this is what I choose to do on my property. And by no means would that be an expectation for anyone else. Um, and you know, then I have, you know, reasons for doing so. Uh, but I I think at this point Um, you know, we were looking at this. It was a cost-saving measure of what 80 to $90,000 there. Um,

so I think that a I would like to get some more feedback from the community for sure and b uh knowing more details in terms of what this would entail on on on the town's end, right? If we have to have somebody that's going out there doing this and we have to pay them $25,000, you know, you start to kind of chip away at it. So, um, no, I guess I was just throwing it out there just here's where I am personally, so I'm not going to kind of get into a whole back and forth, you know, relative to it, but I completely appreciate that folks feel strongly about this. And again, I think it's an important thing for us to get from our community as much, you know, totally get it. I was just curious because I trust your judgment on this stuff. So,

uh, do you, Mr. administrator, do you feel like there's any risk associated with the fogging and all of that? Even though it's done at night, what if you were outside and you were just kind of hanging out in the front lawn for whatever reason, you're breathing it in. Does that help? Yeah. I'm not going to run out and breathe it in while you know, I mean, you could be outside. Yeah. I mean, from what I've read, this is not this is my degrees in public administration. not just curious adult not even um

but from what I've read and from what the mosquito control project has told us it is a very lowrisk very finite product that they use um designed again to specifically target mosquitoes. Um so while not great for you to breathe in, right? You don't want to be like hanging out behind the truck. Mhm. Um it does have a very uh I think the impacts are low on humans. And you say that having a smoke and a coffee is worse. Uh in terms of like the acute toxicity.

Um yes, nicotine and tobacco are are rated higher and I'm happy to share. It's on the their website. They have kind of that that graph of the toxicity of the product.

I'm good. Thank you. Thank you all. Just one question. Sorry, just if I can address to Mark, um my my decision relative to this is very longstanding. Back when it was done differently, the targeting of it was differently. And so, you know, a decision was made, oh, I remember we were somewhere where they were doing this fogging. We're in Newport. Um my kids were young, so it's probably like 20 years old. Uh so but you know once you have done some looking into it even back then you know I kind of and given what I have had in my backyard in terms of animals um that's kind of where I'm landing. I'm not

disputing that it's changed it's better it's more targeted less toxic certainly than back when I made the decision on this. Understood. And I know they they could speak more to it, but they did a little bit at the finance committee too on kind of how they've changed their approach and they're not using the same product that they were using even 10 years ago. Um because they do keep up on research and making sure to use those lowest impact products.

Just one question. You mentioned honey bees earlier and that was one of my major concerns is so but I thought that was for kind of the initial prevention stuff if we do get into um situation you know where we have some we've seen some positive tests with mosquitoes the fogging piece is that

harmful to honeybees. So there there can be some carryover to that non-target organism of the honeybees and that's really why they look at the spraying times. Um so honeybees are most active during the day. They tend to return to their hive in the evening. So they do those evening time spraying to one limit any exposure to those non-target organisms. Um but then also mosquitoes are most active during the evening. So um they do really take that into account to how to limit any unintended consequences. What will they do if what will be the impact to a honeybee if it's exposed to this? It it would also be affected by the pesticide, I believe. Okay.

Need honey bees. Certainly. Yeah. And and I know, you know, it's always, you know, weighing that risk and how how do we protect human health? How do we protect environmental health? you know, it all goes together in that one health approach, right? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So, I'm now an expert. Um, Zenovac E4 is what they use for the truck mounted fogging. Zen ZenvX E4 has very low toxicity in humans. Uh, almost to the extent where you don't even need to avoid it, but you probably should is essentially what the cut sheet says. Um, however, it is considered to have low toxicity to honeybees when applied correctly, i.e. be applied at night when bees are not active because once it dries on the foliage, ground, etc., it is no longer toxic to bees. Unless the honey bees eat though. No, I think I think it it it breaks down

rapidly with upon exposure to sunlight and microorganisms. Okay. Just have to make sure your bees are all home by the evening. Curfew. And you're absolutely right. as a beekeeper. They they're in the hives early here. Okay. Um I mean, so this wasn't really anything that we needed to take action on tonight. It was something that we wanted some additional information, I think, heading into town meeting. Um I think is everybody comfortable with the information we received and yes, just move on to the next part. Very thorough. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you. That again that was it was it was great. It was thorough um intermunicipal agreement with the town of Shbury public health services.

Yeah, definitely. So, um we're here tonight uh to ask for this select board's approval of the intermunicipal agreement. Um this is the uh last year we entered into this one-year agreement um with the town of Shrewsbury to provide public health services. Um so we're here for a renewal of the agreement. Um mostly everything has changed the same. We did ask for a 2 and a half% increase of Grafton's contribution to keep up with the 2 and a half% um increase in in staff costs um and overview. Um we decided to keep it at a one-year contract because we're also partially funded by the public health excellence grant um which we're contracted through fiscal year 27. So we're hoping to get those two agreements to match up on a schedule um so that we can have some good sustainability planning in terms of um our ability to continue to fund this initiative. So, I'm happy to answer questions about the department or the agreement specifically.

Anybody have any questions? Uh, I guess just so after 27, what would the term be if we do align with the the other funding? That's a great question. I wish I knew. Um, we don't know the future of the public health excellence grant. Um, so, you know, we we're kind of still waiting for some guidance from the state on what that looks like. Um, previously the last cycle was a three-year um, contract through the public health excellence grant. So, I think it kind of depends on what the state funding looks like and how they plan to move forward with that. Yes.

Um, anybody else? My only question had been on the the increases just because the the struck lines were a little bit difficult to read, but you already covered that, you know, with the with the two and a half percent. So, I think we're okay there. Um, and to be clear, two and a half is what we had talked about with the town of Shrewberry a year ago, two years ago when we started the transition. So, it's not an unknown. We knew that there'd have to be some escalation. So, this is along the the plan that we had since the beginning. Okay. Anybody else uh questions, concerns? Nope. Take a motion.

Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve and sign the intermiss intermunicipal agreement with the town of Shbury for public health services as presented. Second. Okay. Motion seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I. Okay. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Um, next we have the renewal of the biomedical consultation service contract. That me as well, right? Yeah. Unless you want

Oh, yeah. I'm happy to. So, the the board of health um reviewed this contract and and met with Colleen Driscoll um and found that she has uh really good experience in doing this. I know she's been doing it for the town of Grafton for a number of years um and has produced really great results. So, they did vote to recommend um the contract. Great. Any questions, concerns from the board? Okay. Take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve and sign the contract for biomedical consultation services as presented. Second. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I Okay. Oh, you're like a keynote speaker tonight.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Annette's a rock star for us. She does a lot. Yes. For the town of Grafton, I would say rockstar fits. Yep. Okay. Um the last last of our uh related things, renew the medical reserve core contract.

So, um this is a very similar contract to the one that we've had for a long time in Grafton. Um, I've always signed this contract as did the previous town administrator. For some reason, Worcester's legal department uh now no longer believes that we're capable of signing. And the amount of time it was going to take to prove that we have that authority under the charter was longer than it was to just have you folks vote to do it and then move on. Okay. So, that's pretty much why we're here. Any questions for the board? No.

All right. Uh, Mr. Chair, Mr. Okay. Yep. I move the board vote to approve the MRC contract as presented and authorize the town administrator to sign. Second. Okay. Motion been seconded. Any discussion? You sure you can handle it? I'll tell you, I appreciate it because I have to cut your pay now because your responsibilities increase. I know. I'm I'm keeping track. You're up to it. Okay. Uh all those in favor I I Great. Thank you.

Okay. Uh next up, we will go back to Mr. Offen uh with the letter regarding municipal spending.

Yeah. Um I tried to provide it a little bit earlier this time so people would have a chance to review. I made a couple of updates um including Mark's recommendation for some language changes as well as just pulling out the uh you know Craig said basically unless we have a a call uh to pull out a C CPA um that uh so I just pulled that out of it and that's all I did basically. So other than that it's as it was uh the last time we looked at it um and Amry weren't here so I thought since it was from the board to the town, uh, we should all be here.

Everybody have a chance to review any any questions, comments, concerns?

Yeah. Oh, sorry. I was going to say I I just read it today. I just got back on Sunday, but um, you know, I agree with many of the points made in here and how they're made. I guess I it's curious, you know, it's it's um so happens that the board's going to change, right, in two weeks. So, the timing is kind of awkward in some ways. Um and additionally, we don't know what's going to happen with the override. So, I guess, you know, without having been here at the last meeting, um I would just kind of kick this out um into a month's time. And again, not saying that I disagree with some of of what's in here for sure. Um but just to kind of come circle back to it and use this as, you know, kind of a basis.

Uh sure. I mean, I'm fine if you guys want to wait uh for new board members. Um my thinking was that this board uh agreed just to a letter of a commitment as a part of the motion uh for putting the override on the ballot. So um I put this together on the basis that this board would do it but um if you guys want to wait then it's totally up to you.

Um we we debated that a little bit too. Um you know does it make sense to do it now before there is a two member transition? Um or or should we be doing it now? Uh so we get that promise more or less out to the public in advance of the vote so that we give them some sort of you know blanket as it were um to to help assuage some of the some of the concern as we go into this.

Yeah. Yeah, and I agree wholeheartedly with what we discussed during that Friday meeting um when we voted on this in that we were going to commit that you know either way we're going to commit to some of these things including the financial review committee um the negotiations etc. So I'm not backtracking on that whatsoever and I would certainly advocate for that at any time you know in the future. Um, I guess it's just like it said, it's just kind of an an awkward time with not only the board going to be changing, but then additionally the vote hasn't been cast yet. And I I suppose either way, whether it it it moves forward or not, I still would be committed to these tenants. Um, but I guess I I would just kick it out for, you know, those couple of reasons. I think it provides a little accountability and um for whoever sits in this uh these chairs. I we did make that commitment and we could put uh some language in the motion that says if the override passes then we would stick we would ask for future board members to uh hold themselves accountable to this commitment that we agreed to on that Friday. It's a long ride home.

So, you know, maybe if we're looking at this tonight, cut out a chunk of the beginning relative to, you know, how the vote's going to happen and just purely it's not unrelated to the override because obviously this be came from our discussion relative to an override. Um, however, I guess I would just pull out some of that verbiage and just simply say this is what the select board is making the commitment to one way or the other, right? Yeah, makes sense. Um, and I think, you know, if you wanted to, you could take the override components out of it. Um, and the last paragraph, too. Yeah. And just leave leave everything else in.

Yeah. Because it's, you know, the bullet points I agree with. It's just let's just go for that. That's fair. Period. Okay, I can leave with that. Makes sense. Um so would the board be happy with just a Yeah. Uh a motion to approve um with with with the discussed amendment. Yeah.

Yeah. So perhaps I would make a motion Oh, sorry. Doesn't was someone over there discuss I guess you can discuss after the motion. I would make a motion to strike perhaps the first two paragraphs and just start with the select board is making the following formal commitments to proactive and creative creative fiscal management. Start there, include the bullets and then delete the last paragraph. So my motion would be for those changes. I could second that. Yeah. Are you seconding that? I think I am seconding that. Yes, I am. How about that? Let's do it. Hi. um motion to say the discussion.

I'll just say one thing. Um so Matt, thanks for putting this together. I did I did get a chance to to read it. I didn't, you know, I just saw it that day. So, and I had um some similar concerns about the, you know, the override, but I I

the efficiency piece uh the efficiency and independent oversight and the creative tax relief and and growth revenue subjects I think are something that um is the responsibility of this board to get into um and you know try and you know work hard at at those items that you laid out in in this document. So, um I am supportive of all those and we know we got to we got to try try hard to to work work towards um hopefully you know a positive end with some of these um items here. So, thank you for laying laying that out. So, if the vote is for that uh for those items and I'm supportive of it. Okay. Any additional discussion? Okay. hearing none. All those in favor?

I

opposed. Again, thank you, Matt, for bringing that to us. Um, okay. Uh, Evan, uh, you want to go over bond financing for the wreck? Yes. So, as you may be aware, we've been working towards, uh, regionalizing our dispatch center with the towns of Westboro and Southboro. Um, as we move through that project, we have been awarded um about 11 million in uh grants from the state of Massachusetts. It is um projected that we will receive grants for the entirety of the eligible components of that. Things that aren't eligible are like um council and other administrative tasks, but that's what your assessment pays for five years from now and down the road, which we discussed at the time. Um, what we're trying to do now is bond the entire project. What we have remaining that we haven't received the grant for yet. Um, we are supported by the state of Massachusetts Department of 911. Um, they will not give you a letter that guarantees the grant, but they're going to they give you a letter of support for the project. It's the same thing I went through when we were doing Westcom. Um, so into the why of why we're asking um or why the finance committee of the wreck is looking to borrow the $12.5 million now instead of doing this out over subsequent grant processes. Um, one of those reasons is Grafton specific and that is one of our major reasons for for joining the wreck is to uh improve our radio system. We we discussed this at the time. It's about a five Well, three years ago it was a $5 million project to upgrade our radios. So, it's probably more than that now. Um,

we don't we meaning the chiefs and I don't want to wait three years from now to get the grant money to upgrade the radio towers because the first thing you have to do is build the rec center, right? So, that's where all the dollars we have today are going. But rather than wait for grant cycle number two, grant cycle number three and four and subsequently so on, we want to issue uh debt, bond the entire project and hit all of it at the same time. Um the wreck is then responsible for the repayment of this debt. Um the debt is an allowable use under the grant. So the the debt and the interest can be paid by the grant. Um, so that insulates the taxpayers in all three towns from from that process. Um, and it's really just it's really just us trying to do this as efficiently and effectively as possible and not kick the can down the road. Um, and really get the best in my opinion the best value we can for the residents of Grafton. We definitely have the worst radio system out of the three communities um, by leaps and bounds. Um, so, um, that's been our push. Both, uh, Chief Matthew, u, Chief Manardi and myself, that's been the thing we've been harping on the most because the rest of it's going to come together just fine. The part that's grafted specific is making sure that when we push the when they push the button, somebody can hear them from wherever they are in grafting.

So, Evan, I get the the plan. Um what are but we are putting ourselves at risk potentially, right? How comfortable are you that we're gonna this grant money is just gonna very comfortable. The state's not going to do away with that that No. So this is actually non- tax revenue. So 911 is funded by 911 fees that are assessed for every cell phone bill, landline, everything else. So I'm sure it has to be allocated towards this program. Correct. and and I went through this when you know this is wow it's time flying but about eight years ago when we were standing up the wreck um in it's called Westcom we were borrowing money to rehab a building

which at the time was $1.2 million which I would love to have a $1.2 $2 million project in 2026. But anyways, um the state would not give us a 100% guarantee that they will fund the project. Um however, since that time, Westcom's been awarded the grants. They've covered all the bills. Uh we had the director of 911, Frank Pausniac, on a call with us the other day talking about how we have uh you know concerns bringing this to our boards and saying, "Oh, the state promises that they're going to do it." Um

but he was reassuring us that that that is the case and that as long as we're doing allowable work, we can use the support and incentive grant towards this project. So, okay. It's about as reasonably confident as I can I can be, right? Okay. So, question is this that amount the 125 divided by the three is each town looking for that or is that the total amount? No, that's the total amount that we're looking for as a as a regional dispatch.

Okay. And then you mentioned um the on this that can be recouped as well, correct? Does it matter how long you know this goes out if it's three years versus five years? Um, no it doesn't appear to. Okay. So, um, we were just told that it's it's all allowable. So, okay. Um, I don't think we will issue debt without getting the sign off of 911 on the length of terms and what we're trying to do. Okay. um

adjacent, but you mentioned uh you know like radio tower replacement and stuff like that and rather than waiting three years until we hit that stage of the grant process, how long do you have an idea how long that replacement process will take?

Um not entirely. So, and the reason I say that is because we're still specking locations for towers. So, South Grafton right now is a black hole as far as radios are concerned. topography is horrible. Um, and there's a lot of things in that area that will absorb your your communication. So, we're um currently looking to get u a site down there. We have municipal property. We're just figuring out where it's got to be and all that. Um, we're currently doing fiber uh working on the fiber runs that have to go between all the existing stations. Um, so all of that is to say, uh, no, but we're we're honing in on it pretty rapidly at this point.

We just I I feel like we have a decent idea as to how long, uh, you know, building construction takes. I've never put up a tower, though. So, I've put up a tower before and it it takes a while. It's not an overnight process, right? So, there's a lot of permitting. There's a lot of other considerations that go into it. Um, we've done almost all of the study work that kind of drags these things on. Now it's it would just be locate, design, build. So it should be pretty quick. Um,

but I mean just by way of example, when I started the entire fire radio system was is on a telephone pole on Pigeon Hill with one like whip antenna running on a 30 watt system that had come out of a decommissioned fire truck. I was floored that this is what we're doing. Um, and so that was again that's a major draw of why we wanted to get into this wreck is to, you know, we'll move up to a digital system. We'll have fail over. We'll have repeaters. We'll have fiber and and this will be this will be good for our folks that are out there putting themselves at risk being able to get somebody on the other end.

Yeah. Any other questions? All right. Take a motion. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve the $ 122.5 million debt authorized by the Metro West Regional Emergency Communication Center on April 30th, 2026 to pay costs of constructing and maintaining a regional 911 emergency communication center. Second. Okay. Much seconded. Any discussion? Uh why is this dated uh April 30th? That's when we voted at at the as the rack. You voted to do that on correct.

Great. Any additional discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I I Thank you. Oh, sorry. One last point to let you know. If any of the other two towns do not approve it, it doesn't go through. Yeah. Just FYI. Okay. um collective bargaining agreement with the Grafted Municipal Employees Association.

Yeah. So, I'll just give a very high level overview. Um we did just review this in executive session. Um we were able to reach an agreement with GMEA, Grafton Municipal Employees Association. Um they have subsequently met and ratified. So, the next uh step in this process is for the select board to uh vote to accept the agreement. Um the major uh talking points I think are compensation. We agreed to a cost of living adjustment of 2% in u 2026, 2 and a.5% in 2027 and 2% in 2028. We also voted on some changes to longevity. Um we increased the 10year, 12 year, and 15year amount by $500 um per year. Um most everything else is pretty small. Um you know as far as impacts to the community, some some posting requirements for vacancies. um some probationary period extension um and maintenance workers getting um uh double time if they're working on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter, which is a very rare occurrence. Um and that if there is an event, it's not going to be a town sponsored event generally speaking. Um, and so if there was an event that our custodians were working, um, the person putting the the group putting on the event is the one that pays that that bill. So, um, other than that, small changes, food allowances, and such. So, unless anybody has anything else that they think is important to note, um, this will obviously be up on the website once it's, uh, codified.

Any any questions, concerns since we discussed this uh two and a half hours ago? Okay. Um take a motion then. Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve and sign the collective bargain agree agreement for the uh GMEA as presented. Second. Okay. Much second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? I Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Last in our new business, uh bringing back the 61A at 196 Brigham Hill Road. Um we had had some like a couple general questions on this the last time at our at our last meeting when it was presented. Um we had also discussed uh you know kind of our policy to get other boards and committees involved in and in in that first right of refusal process. We have received a letter from conservation indicating that um you know they would not be in favor of of exercising that option. So um I don't Evan anything else you did receive a letter from I'm sorry did you just talk about the conservation commission?

I did. I'm sorry. Um you can elaborate if you want. Well, they they just said that they felt it was adequately adequately protected by a conservation restriction that's already in place as well as um a large majority of the parcel being wetland. So, um they did not have uh great concerns that it could be developed in any way and getting rid of a conservation restriction is very difficult.

And you said you heard from the land trust. This abuts land trust property. the land trust did respond um just more uh more factbased of of uh you know that the parcel is already protected. Um didn't really go into whether or not they would want the town to pursue it, but it did the general gist of it is that it's already pretty well protected. Yeah. Um so, you know, even though public access on that parcel would be limited because it's private property, right? It it's not going to be developed. Yeah. And we don't have uh there's no formal agreement that we received.

We don't have a bon bonafide offer that we received from the person marketing the property. So in order for the town to pursue purchase of that, we would have to um go through the appraisal process or wait for them to have a bonafide offer. So for now, should we just table it um or not not commit to one way or the other? Yeah. I mean, I think that the only the only um I think that the reason that the seller was looking for us to take an action is because then they can negotiate with us,

right? Well, or they can also um have it settled for the p prospective buyer, right? You're trying to market the house. So, this is a this is a a loose end, so to speak. So, you don't have to make the decision tonight. We have 120 days regardless. But, um I think that was the intent. So, it could get sold with the house. Yeah, I think that's the intent is that it's being sold as with the it's it's all being marketed as one, but in our in GIS land and in and in uh you know, deed land, uh it's a separate parcel, right? Right. Which is under 61A. And knowing the family, they probably would, you know, they're conservationists, you know, that's who they are. They've been in town for

Well, this the CR restrict the CR alone on the property protects it. Yeah. Pretty well. Once the CR is there, it's it's there. Yep. They want to gift it, they can do that. They might do it. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Yep. They said they've, you know, they, this family has served the town for generations and they, you know, they've done a lot of work with conservation and preservation and that kind of stuff. So, yep. It's worth that worth the ask. Okay. So, do we want to kick the can a little bit on that? Um,

yeah. And for me, like based on the emails from Rob, um, between the conservation restriction and the how wet it is that I don't think the land trust, it doesn't doesn't seem like they're the gist I got was they're not interested. They probably wouldn't be interested, right? And and additionally, that it pretty much is protected. Yeah. Between the witness and the restriction. So,

yeah, I would say I'll just leave it. I mean, I'm I'm fine with that, but it seems like we've already kind of come to the conclusion that we're we're not really interested in it for those reasons where we feel like it's adequately protected. So, if there is an instance, like Evan mentioned, where we can just check this box for the buyer so they can or for the seller, I mean, so they can move on with the process, that's the only reason I'd really considered, I guess, taking action tonight. Um, I don't know again how everybody feels about that. Yeah, I'm not against that, but I think we should I would like to check the box and have a conversation with them if you can and just say that

nobody has a real interest, but if there was a way for us to keep, you know, because it does the butt land trust land, if we could, they're willing to gift um the property or come up with some other arrangement where it's, you know, doesn't cost the town any money, then we consider doing that. and and you know they don't which they probably will then we can take take that vote. Yeah, sure. Yeah, we can certainly reach out. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we'll bring that one back. Okay, select board reports.

Nothing.

I'll go. Um yeah, we held the second override outreach session um Saturday the 25th. Uh, I would have wished for better attendance, but we did have some great conversations with the residents who did come. Um, and I would like to thank everybody who did show up as well as uh, the Grafton News who was there uh, and covered that that Saturday session and and um, put out an article in their their most recent edition. Um, and the the weather held out uh, for the Grafton Little League parade Saturday at at Street Field. Um, though you know overcast skies are never going to come between kids and pizza. Um there were uh you know a lot of families there. Looked like a lot of fun fun inflatables. Everybody was you know having a good time dressed up for their pictures. Um and I want to thank Julie Kosiello and the Grafton Little League for inviting us to be a part of their day. Nobody has anything else. We can move on to the TA report. Fantastic. Um all right. Uh, it's actually a little bit longer than normal given that it's so late. Of course,

well, it's Mark's last meeting. Matt doesn't like I want to cram as much stuff in as possible. You don't short changes, right? So, we got we'll we'll we'll move it. So, um

this is the only non capital plan related slide, so we'll we'll jump off here. I just wanted to mention so our our discount rain barrel program um we just uh closed our third year of that. Yeah. And uh this is our best year to date. We sold 64 rain barrels. Um if maximized, each rain barrel can collect several thousand gallons per year if used regularly. But even if we were only collecting a thousand gallons per year per barrel, that's 64,000 gallons outside of the public water supply, right? That's that's fantastic.

Um so uh that's all just a little plug for the program. Um, I think it's a great program and and I'm happy to see people taking part in it. Um, yeah, that's it. And we're putting one up at the Triangle um, Yep. garden across from Dunkin Donuts. We're going to have, I think, one or two there. I for two at the Triangle. There'll be one over by our um, exercise court, although I haven't figured out how to get water into that yet because we don't have any gutters. Um, so that's a separate it's a separate problem. Uh we're we're gonna figure out Sounds like a you problem, buddy. Well, especially especially for you. Yeah. You're like, "Yeah."

Um no. And then um we also we bought another one to leave in our lobby with a little bit of um information on it. So maybe we'll drive a little bit of uh people to the program that way.

Okay. Um All right. So I just want to go over what the board the action the board took. um two weeks ago mainly to make sure that everyone's on the same page as we move into town meeting. Um so the original capital plan that I presented was uh 2 we'll call it $2.5 million. Um that was $89,000 from capital stabilization and 1.775 from free cash. The 1.775 number was specifically chosen because it is less than 33% of our available total of free cash. That matters because if you use more than 33% on any one fiscal year's capital plan, um it can impact the bond rating that the that the community has. Next slide, please. Will. Um so why do we care? You all know this, but I will for those folks that don't. Um, our bond rating directly impacts our ability to borrow if it's low enough. We're not really in that situation. Um, but it does directly impact the rates that we get on debt. Um, the board has maintained a policy since I started of trying to move towards a AAA bond rating. Um, and we've done that via strengthening reserves and financial practices. Um, so we've improved uh at one step in the last five years. Um, and we've done that where we've set ourselves up for success uh maybe moving towards that AAA bond rating with our OPED uh policy and our other financial management policies that we have adopted. Okay. So, I did then push out an alternative plan so that the board could kind of get a taste for what uh else they could do as we started to talk

about the GMS roof um and try to figure out um you know what to do in the best interest of the taxpayers. Um so I funded some critical infrastructure changes, some some critical vehicle purchases as well as 2.8 8 million in roof repairs in that alternative plan. Um the 2.8 million was chosen because that is the worst sections of the roof, that center section that Jay shows us on the slide with the green circle around it. Um now that plan does use more than than 33% of the free cash, the alternative plan. However, I felt that was a strategic trade-off because it's a short-term rating risk, but the community would get long-term savings on interest because we would not be borrowing. Um the rationale there is we're going to delay any borrowing that the town may have for two to three years. Um which allows time for us to restore the financial metrics. So when we do a bond rating call we can say yeah we had to do take this extreme action over here but we've been back on track for the last two to three years. Okay. Um this is the plan that the board voted. Um, the original capital plan was maintained at 2.5 million. We did an additional 1 million in free cash, 500,000 in stabilization, and we would borrow the remaining $4 million in excluded debt. All right. So, here are the concerns with with um just the concerns in general. um the alternative plan that we had shown uh at your last meeting used the 33% instead of borrowing. So the idea was that we would use more free cash than we probably should. Um but we wouldn't be borrowing until the town or

the schools went through the MSBA program for the rest of the roof, right? So um we were using more free cash than we should in lie of borrowing. Um the current approach that we're using is using free cash in excess of 33% and borrowing. Um so again this is redundant um but it increases pressure on your financial indicators as we discussed and it's uh inconsistent with the select board's policy um your financial management policy to be specific. Um so this is now where we are using our free cash. So, we're using 1.178 on current fiscal year items. So, that's um things like the OPED plan, um the the deficit that we're running with health insurance, as well as um a shortfall with bag costs, which we knew we were going to see um a little bit of bag related fees as people try to buy bags before the increase. All told, that means we're spending $3.9 million, which is 70% of our available free cash. So that means that we're going to be heading into the next free cash cycle carrying over 1.7 million um out of the original 5.6 million that we had on hand. Next slide. Um so these are all things we already talked about. It's it's uh not in line with our policy. Um, and it also is a negative signal to our rating agencies. Um, go on to the next one. Um, so we've set our plan heading into town meeting. The financial impacts are unavoidable. Um, I wanted to make you aware of them, not um, well, just to make sure everybody's on the same page. Um, the

key takeaways are that it's important to understand that there are trade-offs uh, with any of these policy decisions that are made. um and that it's critical to align our future decisions with our policy. Go ahead. Last slide, Will. Um so, moving forward. And then there's another option I'm going to get to in a second. Um future considerations, we need to probably uh you know, dial back our our capital purchases in the next couple of fiscal years to make sure we rebuild that free cash reserve. um we really need to stay on track with our onetime funding. That's pretty much tied to the first one. Um and in my opinion, continue to progress towards the AAA rating. Um, so all that to be said, the other option that the board has that would mitigate some of the impact uh that we may see to the bond rating would be to um change your motion at town meeting to instead of using a million dollars in free cash and 500,000 in stabilization, change that number to 1.5 million out of stabilization and not take any more from free cash. Um, as this is not an agenda item, you would be taking this uh under advisement and then you would vote prior at your meeting prior to town meeting because it just relates to the motion, not the warrant or anything else. And I'm just going to throw out there if I might that um you know this board was I forget what the last slide said something. What was the Can you just go back to the last slide the the heading there? Um you know for future it's okay.

Looking ahead was the title. Looking ahead um we already know that there are issues with the other roofs. Mhm. We knew that there was an or there was an issue with this roof and and the timeline of it coming to this board and us having to vote on this, get it on a warrant. Um I guess I would just give credit to the board that we did the best we could with right with the time that we were allotted.

Yep. And I I did I mentioned this to Craig and Andy when we were on a call earlier, but I'll say this publicly. nothing. I really worked on this presentation to make sure it's not the tone is not chastising or we shouldn't have been. We're doing the best we can with what we got, the information that we have at hand. Um, and I think that um this is definitely one of those situations where there's really no great path forward. Um, we're really just trying to navigate this the best we can um and then, you know, move forward. Yeah. I just wanted to, you know, Yep. I think that's a great point. Clear um that the way for me the timing of this was super unfortunate.

Agreed. And so, you know, and and a lot of folks concerned with with all that's coming up in the next, you know, week. Um we are we tried to look at this the best we could with the the two weeks that we had with it. Yep. Agreed. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, we just have to basically ponder. Yes. Okay.

So, yeah. And we don't have to rehash the whole thing. I mean, you know, using 1.5 wherever that's it comes from, you know, puts about 27% of a down payment on it versus the 2.8 which puts around half the money down. I I'm really for me it's really important that we do the whole roof. what whatever, you know, I mean, I'm not really, you know, I wouldn't say no if we had to, but I I really don't want to do half the roof. I just think there's a huge upside to doing it all at once. Um and so whatever we ask um at town meeting, you know, for for people to fund, I think to me, we got to fix it

once and correctly and get somebody in there and and benefit by that volume of of roof system and and you know, there'll be efficiency with that. And we know we have another what $27 million worth of roofs to fix that we got to figure out moving forward. So, um, we should add that to to Matt's list of, you know, the capital stuff. I don't know if forget it was in there or not, but, you know, to me it's it's important whether we, you know, we put 27% down or 50% down. I didn't want to see because it was at the 11th hour and all the discussions that we had had, it never came up right. We knew that they were working on a plan, but um to to throw away the whole capital plan at that point didn't seem right. to say that.

So can you talk about the benefit of using 1.5 from stabilization versus the split stabilization and free cash?

Um so stabilization and free cash are look looked upon differently when you're dealing with a bond rating agency. So stabilization is the rainy day fund that's there for financial emergencies as well as you know situations where you may want to offset some costs for the taxpayer to save money over time. So, it's an easier thing um for the bond rating company to whether it's S&P or Moody's um to uh digest and accept especially if you know the subsequent fiscal years we have we're rebuilding that stabilization over time like we've been doing for for five years now. Um as opposed to free cash which has some pretty specific indicators that they look for.

Okay. And um when we did that with the um trash uh program, we had a plan to say we're going to correct basically we're borrowing this from stabilization. We're going to make that up with bag fees or contract renegotiation, whatever. So what would the story be with this? Um the the story with this would be well we wouldn't be trying to like uh make up the free cash amount we we used. um we would you know indicate that we have a plan and I don't know what the plan is yet. I haven't developed it but a plan to repay replenish the stabilization over time. Okay. Um

and again you know the the thing that that I don't know that we we go to another bond rating agency and hit that AAA uh after doing all of this uh moving money around and looking at uh overrides and all the rest of it. I I think that's little pie in the sky at this point. Um what I would be happy is to be able to create a narrative for the bond rating agencies that says um you know, yep, we we had to use a little bit of our rainy day fund. This is how we're going to replenish it. Um and our goal would be to remain, you know, double A plus where we're at now. Yep. So we might

because we're we're exceeding the state's minimum bond rating. We can go to the state and ride their coattails, but we're exceeding that now. So we don't really want to be back below what the state is. Absolutely. Um because we're we're getting good borrowing rates. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Makes sense. That would be sounds sensible. An amendment to the well article. Um I don't think we need to do an amendment. We would just change the motion language. Okay. You would move it to be inclusive of that. Yeah. Bless you. Okay. Yeah. So, do we have to keep pondering or can we just change it? Can we make a motion to change it now? So, we need to vote on it right before town meeting, right?

Yeah. I didn't This isn't on the war. Uh my god, the uh whatever we're doing right now, the agenda. Yeah. Um it's not So, I wouldn't vote now. I would vote um you have a meeting before town meeting. Vote at town meeting. We'll we will have um motions for either outcome. And if the board reaches the outcome of taking it all out of stabilization, we'll have a motion for that. And if you decide to keep the status quo, we'll have a motion for that. And if you pick a third option, I'll probably run out of the building. No. Um we can we can do it on the fly. All kidding aside, we can basically on the stage. Correct. Yep. Like we like we do. We usually meet 30 minutes ahead of time. I think it makes sense, Evan. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for the option.

Yep. You got that's all that's all I had. All right. Okay. All right. Uh correspondence. Anything anybody wish to discuss? I do have something I want to say and I think it does fall in the category of correspondence except that it is a the um the weekly report. Uh Tom Federico Tracy sent a note out about Tom who was hired basically 20 years ago. Mhm. Today or tomorrow? Uh, yesterday. Yesterday. No, yesterday. Sorry. Yep. No, it's 53. It was May 3rd. So, two days ago then. So, two days ago. Either way, not today or tomorrow. Right. We have

I was wrong in all breakfast. Yes, they had a breakfast for him yesterday. So, that's all they did yesterday. So, just wanted to publicly acknowledge him and wish him congratulations. Um, they're actually doing a really good job over there, too. He's a great guy. And I also want to just say that I think uh Tracy is doing a fantastic job in that department. You hear it. Um and you experienced it. So just happy about that. But congratulations to Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for acknowledging that. Yeah. He's a he's a good dude. He is. He is a good dude. We gave him his 20-year pin. Yeah. Did it hurt? Yeah. Oh yeah. And I just go right to the chest. Yeah. He's a gem. Yeah.

I um had two things. one. This is Russ Connor, our former town administrator, right? That sent in that correspondence. Yeah, I served on the recreation commission when he was our town administrator for a long time. Anyways, I just wanted to bring up, you know, his again commendation of um Kristen relative to the GIC enrollment process and whatnot and that um he just really highlighted how great she was. So, that's wonderful and particularly coming from our former TA. Um, and then the other thing I wanted to ask or just highlight is the gentleman who sent in the email relative to the permitting and is that something that we would want Tracy's department to Yeah, we can get them to weigh in on that. Consider Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, we can do that. Just make a note of that. West Con before you move on. I just had one other thing just because you you mentioned Kristen. Um, that department's doing a wonderful job trying to get everybody moved over and it's a huge undertaking. But I wanted to highlight uh we so we have an employee, Matt Buckley, who's up there, really sweet guy doing a great job. Um, but he actually drove to Norfolk the other day to help a retiree that couldn't navigate the computer system. Um, and when we talked to him about how, you know, above and beyond that is, never even crossed his mind that that isn't something that you would just every employee wouldn't just do.

Um, so I did want to highlight that. Um, thank I'm glad you pulled that out because it joged my memory um with all the other stuff we have going on. But that was that's a pretty pretty amazing uh customer service story. Yeah, both of us. Yep. Super appreciative.

He also refused to take a town vehicle. Yeah, I similarly had had wanted to um raise that email about Kristen, you know, because that's the exact kind of feedback that we love to hear and and we are fortunate to have so many people, you know, working for the municipality that that embody that approach. Um, the only other one I wanted to acknowledge, uh, Ray's resignation from the ambulance committee and and thank him for 40 years, uh, in that role and and everything they've they've brought to our town in terms of emergency services. Excellent. Yeah. Uh, meeting minutes. Uh, Mr. Chair. Sure.

I think this is my final motion of my of my entire life. No, you had Tom coming. I have more doll. Yeah, I do. I don't How many do I have? Those two adjourned. We arranged it so you have the longest. Of course you did. All right. Well, all right. Uh, Mr. Chair, I move the board vote to approve meeting minutes for August 12th and August 26th of 2025 as written. Second. Okay. Motion made second. Any discussion? I am going to be the pain in the butt. Um, on the August 12th minutes, if we could update the spelling of Amy Barry's last name. It's Barry instead of Barry. uh in lines 48 and 50. That'd be great. Good catch. Thank you.

We'll take care of that for you, sir. Thank you. Uh any additional discussion hearing? None. All those in favor? I Okay. Um and finally, we get to to add this to the agenda. It is not of it is yeah it's it's not often that we have the opportunity um to thank people at their last meeting. You know it's it's been a few years since since something like this has happened. So um you know thank you to both of our members who are stepping off. Um you know Mark uh I've I've really appreciated the enthusiasm that you've brought to the role and and the work that you've put into it. Um, I've always found you to be open-minded and easy to work with, focused on what's best for the town and and really have appreciated getting to know you these last three years. So,

thank you. Thank you for your for your service. Um, and Matt, um, similarly, thank you for more than a decade of of service to to Grafton. Um, if people aren't aware, Matt served on the planning board and the finance committee prior to doing two terms on the select board. You are part of the reason that I got into town politics. um you've always inspired me to do more. I admire your calm and metered approach to the discussions and the problem solving that we try to do here and uh your willingness to help any of the other board members. Um I'm I'm proud to call you one of my friends and I hope you enjoy some of your reclaimed personal time that you have definitely earned.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure working with you for sure and the rest of the board. If anybody else has anything they any well-w wishes they wish to share. What are you looking at? What's up? I mean I can feel it. The heat. No, no, no. Did all that. Thank you both for um years of service to the community. So, um you guys have definitely done your share. Hard work. A lot of nights away from home and a lot of phone calls, I'm sure, and a lot of to go with it probably at times. enjoy your time off with your family. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Um yeah, for my part, I'd just like to really um thank the voters of Grafton to to give me the opportunity to serve the town in this capacity. It really um I've learned so much from being on the board and um for anybody who's thinking about getting involved uh in whatever capacity you're comfortable with as far as town service, um it's it's really made me I think a better man. Um and it it has really brought a sense of much deeper sense of community um within the town. So, um it yeah, there's something special about no matter what board or committee you're on, um having that sense of teamwork, um and um yeah, just instinct to toward to to serve the town, um in whatever capacity. There's so many opportunities out there um and it's totally worth it. So, I wouldn't trade a minute the time that I've spent here. And um yeah, I just really wanted to thank the voters um and also Evan, you've been really instrumental in kind of um yeah, bringing the the town over the past few years to where it is sort of just culturally and um the the vibe um it's really strong, you know, the municipal center and otherwise. And you know, um so yeah, I just wanted to thank you so much and and having yourself as well. Um you know, you guys are a good team. So, thanks.

Yeah. Thank you. It's been a pleasure working with both of you. Thank you. You've got two more meetings to get through. Don't I think it was one Oh, you got the logistics meeting on It's a mini meeting. Oh, that's right. That's What is wrong with me? I can't remember anything tonight. Senioritis. If uh if I may, uh Matt, I actually wasn't going to say anything uh because I wanted to like swoop in and swoop out, but uh because that would be cool, you know, with the jean jacket and then he's gone.

Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, but you know, somebody told me that you would be, it's not easy, but you would be better for it in the long run. You'd be more enriched if you did it. Uh, and I think that's true. And so to this team and the one before it, it was an honor to serve with all of you. For someone who had never done anything like this before, some of you welcomed me in. Pretty much everybody w sort of welcomed me. Well, kind of didn't really welcome. No, I'm kidding. welcomed him with open arms and um wasn't easy but honored to serve with everybody here and also Rey um honored to work with you Mr. administrator, first name town.

Will also honor to work with you. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate Amber and Cindy.

How much I appreciate the people who supported me and voted for me. Equally, if not more, the people who didn't. Uh there were a lot of phone calls and some inerson conversations that people yelled at me and they were furious with me, but took the time to walk through some of my my process. And although I think they're still yelling at me, I'm still I am better for it and it's cool. Like it's just for whatever reason, it didn't bother me as much as I thought it would. Um and I have to say that uh just two more quick things again for someone who's going to say anything, right? So um but for someone who would never did this before and lived in a neighborhood for nearly 30 years and to see all of those neighbors like none of us saw it coming. the neighbors, me, the family, none of us saw it coming. And to see my name on a sign, most of their yards, like that's a pretty humbling experience. And those those people know it because I see them all the time.

I will be eternally grateful to them because that's very humbling. And I'm very proud of that. Very, very proud of that. And also um my wife and daughter are my total biggest supporters. They were the best. My family is the best. And uh just really appreciate them. So, thank you very much. Good luck to three of you. got something to do here. I wish you well. So, thank you all. Appreciate it. I miss my wife. I miss you. I got I gotta add that one. I miss sleeping on Tuesday nights and then it drains into Wednesday and Thursday and then Thank you to the wife and family. That's right.

Yep. No, for years and years they put up with me and all of my meetings and other stuff. So, yeah. Thanks to them. Well, uh, as as people like Craig and and, um, Ray have shown us, it's it's not goodbye. It doesn't goodbye. It can be until next time. So long for now. Um, hope you both aren't strangers. And we'll take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. No better way to to motion and second that one. All those in favor? I I Okay.