Select Board - Regular Meeting

Thank you. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Silver Lake Beach is now open for the season. The beach will operate, weather permitting, on Saturdays through Thursdays from 11 to 6. Friday hours are 1 to 6. Please check Grafton Recreation's Facebook page for any last-minute weather updates. Grafton Farmers Market's 2026 season starts tomorrow. Stop by the Common from 2 to 6 every Wednesday for locally grown, sourced, and handmade goods. More on that later. Town offices as well as Grafton Public Library will be closed this Friday in observation of Juneteenth. The 4th of July parade begins at 10 a.m. on July 4th. Please come to the Common to celebrate Independence Day. We have two public hearings tonight. We'll start with the full petition for Millbury Street. Michael. Michael, I see you on Zoom there. Hello, how's it going? Excuse me. Yes, please.

I move the board vote to open the public hearing.

Second. Okay, motion made second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Would you like me to? Please.

The select board will hold a public hearing on the request of National Grid and Verizon New England Inc. for permission to locate poles, wires, and fixtures, including the necessary sustaining and protecting fixtures, along and across the following public way. Millberry Street, National Grid to install 1JO pole on Millberry Street, beginning at a point approximately 73 feet northeast of the center line of the intersection of Shaw and Michael Way. Install J-O poll number 89 between poll number 90 and poll number 88. The public hearing will be held on June 16th, 2026 in conference room A of the Grafton Memorial Municipal Center located at 30 Providence Road starting at 7 p.m. Remote participation will be available using Zoom webinar ID as well as interested citizens are invited to attend this public hearing and offer comments in writing, in person, or via Zoom. Written comments must be received by noon on Thursday, June 11th, 2026. Thank you, sir.

Okay. Michael.

Hello, how's it going?

Good evening. Thanks for coming in.

No problem.

Do you just want to tell us a little bit more about the placement of the Millbury Street Poll to start?

Sure. Yeah. So this is part of a large reconducting project. So they're putting up Hendrick spacer cable. They're trying to make this area a lot more robust. It's very strong and it should help mitigate a lot of the outages if there are any. So it looks like for that pole that they're dead ending the spacer there. So there's a lot of tension with that configuration. So it looks like they're adding it so that they can properly guide that where it ends.

I understood next to none of that, but I appreciate it. Anybody have any questions, comments?

That was my question, just why the span is just too great to do what you need to do up there moving forward?

Sorry, what was the question?

No, I just said I was looking at it on the map, and it looks like it's a pretty good span there. Is that why you're adding this additional pull, because other things you're going to do to that line to –

Um, there could be some constraints. I'm not sure exactly what's around poll 88. But it seems like they needed it to just dead end, I think that span of cable, because I think beyond there just goes back to regular open wire configuration, like T on a cross arm. So maybe there was a driveway there. I don't actually recall, but I think that probably is the reason. It is also a little bit of a long span, 92, 92, like 184. Normally try to keep it at 150. So that could be a two.

Okay.

Mr. Mr. Shaw. You have your hand raised.

Are you able to hear me?

Yes. Sorry about that. Can you hear us?

I can hear you. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you now. Thank you.

Okay. I'm sorry. My name is Neil. Um, I'm one of the designer who did the design work and I can, I just want to chime in. And the reason for the mid span pole is, uh, the, span distance between Pole 90 and Pole 88 is too large for us to dead-end the Hendrix, as Michael said. So we're proposing the new pole and anchor to make sure that we can guide the transition from the spacer cable to the cross arm.

Good.

All right. Any questions from the public or comments? motion of closed public hearing second I move the board vote to approve and sign the poll petition by National Grid for Millberry Street as presented second I move the board vote to open the public hearing for the Westboro Road petition Second. Seconded. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor?

Aye. The Select Board will hold a public hearing on the request of National Grid and Verizon New England Inc. for permission to locate poles, wires, and fixtures, including the necessary sustaining and protecting fixtures. along and across the following public way. Westboro Road, national grade to install one J.O. pole on Westboro Road, beginning at a point approximately 520 feet northeast of the center line of the intersection of Pine Street. National grade to install one new 45-foot class 2 pole, numbered P75, on Westboro Road. Underground conduit will be installed from P75 to MH22, approximately 35 feet, from MH26 to MH1-2, approximately 30 feet. This work will take place in order to provide service to the new learning center at Tufts University and to create a tie point for two existing distribution circuits. Public hearing will be held on June 16th, 2026 in conference room A of the Grafton Memorial Municipal Center located at 30 Providence Road starting at 7 p.m. Road participation will be available using Zoom. Interested citizens are invited to attend this public hearing and offer comments in writing in person or via Zoom. Written comments must be received by noon on Thursday, June 11th, 2026.

Do either of you want to walk us through the updates to the poll on Westboro Road?

Sure. Yeah, so this is basically, I mean, pretty straightforward. It's just necessary for us to get this service hooked up at Tufts University. We're also using it to create a tie point for two existing distribution circuits so stuff can be switched around in the future. But this is going to allow us to intercept the existing manhole, which is in the ground, and put a new primary riser on there.

Any questions or comments from the board? Any questions or comments from the public? All right. If none, we can close the hearing. Motion to close the public hearing. Second. Okay, motion made. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye.

I move the board vote to approve and sign the poll petition by National Grid for Westboro Road as presented. Second.

Okay, motion made. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. Thank you both for coming in tonight. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Take care. Have a good one. You too.

Thank you. Okay. Is there any general public comment? Well. Nope.

You have no hands on Zoom.

Thank you. Okay. We can move into appointments. First up tonight, we have the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. There are two seats and four applicants. Mr. Lankin. Your name is first on the list, so we will start with you. Please. Hello, everybody.

My name is John Lincoln. I'm at 23 Patricia Drive, and I'm excited to try and get more involved with the town. It's been a very exciting time lately with everything that's been going on. And this is my first time doing a committee, so I'm not sure if you want to know my background or what it is you typically like to know. I've been an entrepreneur for many years. I've run a few different businesses. My most current company was a software company for the insurance agency management space for insurance agencies. And I think I'd be a great addition to the CIPC. Great.

Any questions from the board? Comments?

The only question I have is what's your availability to meet typically?

Generally available. I can meet on nights or even some days if that's required. Okay.

Cool. Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in today. Okay. We also have Kevin Granger.

Thank you. My name is Kevin Granger. I'm at 11 Blanchard Road. We moved into Grafton about four years ago, and I have two young kids, a 12-year-old and a 10-year-old. And similar to the prior comment, things have gotten interesting around here. So I felt like I should take a part in Grafton, considering we want to be here for a while and we have kids. So I thought I'd throw my name out here. I'm a CPA, licensed in the state of California. I've worked corporate finance jobs for the last 15, 20 years and, you know, really want to take an interest in Grafton and hopefully use some of my accounting and finance skill set to help make the town a little better. Here I am.

Just one question. Did you, I'm sorry, what's your first name? Kevin, did you submit your name for FinCom as well?

I did, but I live in the wrong zip code.

Oh, okay. So you couldn't because the CPA thing would be, I'm sure.

Yeah, so I kind of wanted to get involved in finance, but I figured this is a good step in.

Sure. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody else? Next up, we have Sean Tatum.

Hello. My name is Sean Tatum. I live at 7 Suzanne Terrace. Moved to Grafton about four years ago. Purchased a home here two years ago. My husband grew up in Grafton. My in-laws live here. My mother just moved here a couple months ago. I've worked for Price Chopper for 20 years. I'm a store manager for them. We just did a $4 million renovation on our Park Ave store, which is the one I oversee. Just really looking to get involved with the town. I turn 40 next year, and I thought that this might be a good time to get involved.

Great.

Questions?

Comments?

Yeah, you told us how much time you have a week, so that's a lot.

And the renovation that you oversaw at the Price Chopper, were you able to make any decisions about any of the capital that was moved into the facility?

Definitely, yep.

Awesome. Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks. Okay, and finally we have John Paganelli.

Good evening, everyone. John Paganelli. I'm over at 83 Keith Hill Road. I've been in Grafton for about three years now, going on four. I moonlight as a supply chain operations manager for a startup in Natick. I oversee about $10 million worth of spend, 10 to 15. I've done a lot of just sourcing, procurement. That's been my path for the last 10 years. I have a master's in business administration, and I'm really interested in the service aspect of getting more involved with the municipality. So I appreciate any questions you guys have.

You also sound very qualified. Any questions or comments from the board?

He also told us his availability, so...

Pretty free, yeah. OK. Thanks all. Thank you.

So did I understand correctly that it's all for individuals very first time applying for anything?

Yes.

That's very exciting. That's awesome. Thank you guys for all putting yourselves out there and getting involved. That's really, really cool. Not making it easy for great candidates.

No. And I will also say, because it's new to you, You know, we unfortunately can only pick two of you tonight, so we would definitely encourage you to apply for other openings as they become available. Keep an eye out for other things that may interest you. We're constantly looking for volunteers on all our boards and committees. Appreciate you coming out tonight. Thank you. Okay. Do we wish to discuss? Does somebody have strong feelings and they'd like to make a motion?

I would make a motion just on one of the candidates, if we can do them separately. Sure. I move that we appoint John Paganelli to the Capital Improvement Planning Committee.

Second.

Okay, motion made. Seconded. Any discussion?

And that's a good motion. I really like your experience in supply chain and having view already over $10 to $15 million of spend and sourcing of that material. Is super key because things will come up like all right. We absolutely do need to purchase a new dump a truck or whatever for the Brush truck for the fire department, but how do we source that? What's the best vendor? What are the sorts of things we need to look at? I think your experience would probably be very helpful in having those getting those conversations Any additional discussion

Okay, hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Welcome aboard, John. Okay. And for our second seat.

This is tough. You know, this is the good part and the bad part. It's like it's great to have volunteers, but as Andy said, we can only pick one. But there are other committees. Obviously, if you have another passion.

I mean, they're all good.

I'll make a motion to appoint Jonathan Lincoln. Second.

Okay, motion being seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. Okay, so welcome aboard, Jonathan, as well. The town clerk's office will send you a letter, and you will have to be sworn in. Thank you all for coming out and for volunteering. Like we said, please keep your eye out for other opportunities and other openings, and You are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but under no obligation.

Thanks, everyone, for coming in. Yeah, thank you guys so much.

Thank you, guys.

And just for the new members on CIPC, we did meet recently, and that video is on demand. But we probably won't meet again until the fall. So if you're feeling like, what's going on, that's when we're going to meet again, okay?

Okay. Were we passing over the planning board associates? Uh, and moving into the town administrators appointments. First, we have the full time public safety dispatcher Raymond McDermott.

You can sit with Stan. That's fine. Yeah. Good evening. Uh, thanks for setting some time aside for us. So just quickly introduce to you, uh, Raymond McDermott. Raymond is currently a resident of the town of Holden. He holds a BA in economics and American history from Salve Regina, graduated in 2025. He did one semester abroad in Prague in fall of 23. He did an internship with the Massachusetts State Police in Dartmouth from January to May of 25. And so this week he started a familiarization and observation period in our dispatch center. And for the two days, I've heard nothing but positive feedback from him, so. With the appointment next week, he'll start his five-day State 911 training, which is a telecommunications certification and training course. And he's going to be filling the position that left vacant by Molly Callahan. who was she dispatched with us for just about two years and we just started her in the police academy so she's in the second ROC of MPTC Marlborough so we anticipate she graduate in late October and she'll be filling a position of one of two retirements we have pending in early July And if you remember, we also have Tanner Crew, who was a dispatcher with us for about two and a half to three years. We anticipate he's doing very well in the Springfield Academy. And we anticipate he'll be coming out in late July and joining the ranks.

Great.

Awesome.

Good evening, folks. It's all great to meet you. For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted to go into law enforcement and public safety, and I'm really excited to begin my career doing that here in the town of Grafton. Even just from the two days that I've had so far just observing at dispatch, I've already learned so much more about the role, and I feel like the town of Grafton and the Grafton Dispatch is going to be a great place to learn about just this different world that not a lot of people get into. is a pretty great department. It is, yes. I've heard nothing but good things from everyone throughout the past two days. Good.

I'm glad to hear it. Any questions, comments from the board?

Step one, given your degree in, is it history and economics? Yes. So what made you transition into a role in public safety?

So this is always something I've wanted to do. My uncle has been an FBI agent for 20 years. So he's been my inspiration, and he told me, go to school for what you want to. Don't go to school for criminal justice or any other related field unless you genuinely want to. He said, you're going to get taught what you need to know if you are hired at one of these positions.

Okay.

And what is your career path? This is the start of it. One day I would like to become a law enforcement officer. Okay, great.

We've got a pretty good track record of running our dispatchers up into that position. That's worked out pretty well for us. So it's kind of a proving ground when we get to know them. It's important that they fit, right? So then we get to know pretty quick whether they fit within the organization and the community. And that's worked out pretty well so far. So we're hopeful. Anybody else?

Okay, great. We can take a motion.

I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Raymond McDermott to the position of full-time public safety dispatcher. Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Congratulations. Congratulations. Thank you, folks.

Congratulations. Have a great night.

Thank you. Have a good evening.

Okay, next up we have our Children's Library Associate, Brendan Rogers.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone.

I am a new employee as a children's library associate at the Grafton Public Library, but I am not a new employee to the town as I currently work as a paraprofessional at North Street Elementary School, which I started four years ago. But I was looking to do something. I worked there part-time, so I was looking to do something else part-time so I could continue some work over the summer and then hopefully continue doing that as well with my with the school job in the fall um so you know working with kids at the elementary school and working with kids at the library was was a good fit for me and they felt so too so i'm excited to be a part of it and um i have two young kids one of whom is at north street elementary right now going into fifth grade and another one will be in first grade at North Grafton Elementary next year. So we spend a lot of time at the children's section at the library. It's a great place for kids to just go and play and learn and I've always loved being a part of the educational system so it's an extension of that and I'm excited. Great.

Yeah, you sound like a good person for the job. Really. personally excited that we have the opportunity to have Mr. Rogers in our children's sections. We'll continue the legacy. Any questions or comments from the board?

OK. I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Brendan Rogers to the position of Children's Library Associate. Second.

OK. Motion seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Welcome aboard. Thank you so much.

Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Mr. Rogers is pretty funny.

Andy's been workshopping that for a few days. You can see it on his face. He's waiting for the opportunity.

I didn't want to spill it on the prep call. Yeah, I was. Okay, so we have a batch of reappointments for the town administrator. They're all in one motion, and they are all reappointments. These are not new appointments. We have Tammy Kalinowski to the Board of Assessors, Robert Egan to the Board of Sewer Commissioners, Chief Minardi as the Keeper of the Lockup, Adam Klein to our Public Works Advisory Committee, Kristen Belanger and Kayla Cushman to the Recreation Commission, and then our Traffic Safety Committee in full, it looks like.

anybody have any questions or comments about this we don't none of them are in because they are reappointments so we don't we don't generally require that I move the board vote to affirm the reappointment of Tammy Kalinowski to the Board of Assessors Bob Egan to the Board of Sewer Commissioners chief minority is keeper of the lockup Adam Klein to the Public Works Advisory Committee Kristen Belanger and Kayla Cushman to the Recreation Commission and John Bouchard Paul Knoyer chief minority Dan Pogorzelski, John Riehl, Scott Rossiter, and Brian Zizurko to the Traffic Safety Committee. Second.

Okay, motion being seconded, any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, we get all those, we get to check off all of them. Okay, new business. We have a one-day beer and wine license from Rushford and Sons for 6 Prentiss Street. It'll be the Grafton Pride Festival this year.

Crystal? Hi. Welcome. Thank you.

Do you want to tell us just a little bit more about the event?

So basically, it's a family event that's going to happen in September for Pride Awareness. And we'll be serving or we're planning to serve, be pouring our beer there. And then we're going to be giving some of the proceeds back to them.

Great. Any questions or comments from the board? I think this is one of the more proactive licenses we've granted. This is several months away at this point. I'm trying. Okay. I can take a motion.

I move the board vote to approve a one-day beer and wine license for Rushford and Sons Brewhouse on Saturday, September 19th, and on the event's rain date of Sunday, September 28th. Second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. All right, and we need you for the second one. We are doing the final round of alcoholic beverage licenses for the Grafton Farmers Market on the Common. That's another one that you have applied for?

Yes. Okay.

Do you want to promote your site up there?

Yeah, it actually starts tomorrow. And we usually will be giving out small samples. And then we're also offering four packs to sell. Nice.

Yeah. Any questions or comments from the board? Hearing none, I can take a motion.

Do you want to do all of them?

Oh, excuse me. Sorry.

There are motions for all three.

There are motions for all three.

All right. I'll send spicy water to Sawyer.

Okay. Yeah, we'll just do, sorry. We'll do the rest of them. Okay. Spicy water. Mr. Bacon, good to have you back. You're on mute.

There we go. Sorry about that. Thank you. It's great to be back in Grafton for the farmer's market this year. Currently, sorry, I'm not in person, but I'm doing another event at Eastwater Mansion in Millbury that's wrapping up. But in the meantime, what we're bringing to Grafton this year is we have our selection of spirits that I make right here in Millbury, bourbon, whiskey, limoncello, gin, vodka, right now blueberry lemon vodka. And we also have ready to drink cocktails for people to take home. um obviously uh bottled and nothing for consumption on site uh everyone that um i'll usually be there most of the time but everyone else is party participating uh um and spots for me like my bartender or my wife um they are tip certified as well and uh we're looking forward to being back so thank you again for having me thank you for thank you for applying the pleasure is ours

Does anybody have any questions or comments for Mr. Bacon at Spicy Water Distillery? Okay. Moving on, we have Steve from Ragged Hill.

Good evening.

Welcome back.

Why, thank you. This would be our third year at the Grafton Farmer's Market. My daughter and I have been uh, Apple farmers and making, uh, making hard cider since 2016. And, uh, our, uh, our product is truly, uh, a local agricultural product. Everything that's in our cider was actually grown, uh, at our farm in Westbrook field. Um, so, uh, we rely on, on farmer's markets for, uh, a lot of our sales. We sell in bottles. Our, Our ciders are very wine-like. We sell it in 750-milliliter wine-type bottles, and at farmer's markets, we pour one-ounce samples for people, and it's been very popular in Grafton, and we're glad to be invited back.

Well, we're glad to have you back. Thank you. Does anybody have any questions for Mr. Garwood? Okay. Now I can take a motion.

I move the board vote to approve licenses for Rushford Incense Brewhouse, Spicy Water Distillery, and Ragged Hill Cider to sell at the Grafton Farmer's Market in 2026. Second. Okay.

Motion made. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you all for coming in tonight. Thank you all for coming back to the Farmer's Market again this year. It's our pleasure to have you and looking forward to seeing you starting tomorrow.

Thank you. Come to see us.

Have a good night. Okay, next up, we have our joint meeting with the Finance Committee to discuss our end of fiscal year 26 Interfund Transfers.

Hello. Hello, Mr. Chair. Hello. I apologize for not being there in person today. I had something come up last minute. But I'm going to call the meeting of the Finance Committee to order at 734. Since we have split participation between in person and on Zoom, I'll do a roll call to open. So we'll start in person. We'll start with Dan. Samir.

Skip.

Greg. And Heather. I believe it's everyone in person. Can someone confirm for me?

Yes.

Great. And Kyle is here. Great. All right. So it's Interfund Transfers.

Hi, everyone. You should have the FY26 fiscal year end transfer request. So this year, I added another column for explanation of why the money was needed. So some of the transfers... I had some capital accounts. They were closed. The purchases were made, finalized. So I was able to utilize those funds for other capital expenditures. I also had some savings in a few salary accounts as we had a few department heads. They've left the town. We since hired and there were some savings there. there was a small budgeting error in the ACO professional and technical line. So I was able to utilize that for the sanitation, professional and technical. As you know, the large, the trash bags are increasing July 1st. So I had to make additional, you know, Supply orders for our large and small trash bags. But those are the transfers. If anybody had any specific questions, I could certainly answer those.

Any questions from the Select Board?

Thank you for telling us all that.

Yeah, I found the descriptions very helpful.

Agreed. The explanation column is awesome.

I'll keep that going forward.

Thank you.

Any questions from Finance Committee?

Just a question on the budgeting error. Were those over budgets on the outgoing side or under on the other side?

Outgoing.

Okay.

I have a question. Just the Westboro Rex stipend, what is that?

related to so we utilized amber to be the admin assistant for the rec that we're doing in Westboro all of those funds are reimbursed to the town of Grafton from the rec okay so this is just outgoing and it's gonna come back in yep correct

Sanitation is still like kind of misspelled. So it's a saint. It has.

Yes, those are abbreviations. So all my when I converted from soft right to Vader, all the names were like professional and technical. And so it's really hard to find to distinguish different departments. So as you'll see, like, you know, for example, PB, that's That's for the planning board, CON for conservation. So I have abbreviated all the departments.

Yeah, Mary, I think what we're talking about here is the abbreviation for sanitation still wouldn't be SAINT.

I think you got autocorrected from SAINT to SAINT.

I can fix that. We'll fix it. I got you.

Another question. So Mary, if you might, on the high school, the budget error, can you just give more specifics as to what that was?

Yes, there was, the treasurer utilized a new Excel sheet, and there was an error in the carry forward on the formulas. And I apologize for that.

Looks like snow and ice wasn't too bad this year. Or is there? Is that $1,400? Was that the entire?

No, we made up for the brunt of it at the annual town meeting.

Okay. That seemed kind of low for that store. Yeah.

Yes, there was a small delayed purchase, and so I took care of that deficit.

Then, Mary, just same on the budgeting error relative to DPW, building the two line items. Any more specifics on what that is? It's on the third page.

That's the same general mistake by the same general employee in the same general spreadsheet. that's all right that's no longer with us not related to that but just we parted ways and fixed our spreadsheet okay that's the important part yeah spreadsheet what was the total transfer number last year just curious i don't remember but it was in the threes okay i want to say 350. quick question um

The top of the second page, seasonal perm, reclassification, was that cut off? There's no dollar value there, but is it from the line above, 5521?

I have that as the ER wages, it's paid, min, personnel, 5521. That's all one line on my...

I mean, the Station 3 renovations line? That's from...

That's just from Yeah, that's what I was talking about. Yeah, different page break on mine. And yeah, yeah.

It's a table and I was unable to Yeah, yeah.

It's just don't make too many Excel mistakes. The problem is this is a word mistake now. To a different level.

Yeah, word tables. Yeah.

Anybody that uses them understands.

Keep it all in Excel.

That's all I have.

Anybody else on the select board?

Okay. Anybody else in FinCom? No. Great. All right.

I think we can take a motion.

move the board vote to approve the inter-fund transfers for fiscal year 2026 as presented and authorize the chair to sign second okay second in any discussion hearing none all those in favor hi hi you can't remember do we vote separately or is it one it's one board okay if it's one board you need to do it by roll call because you have one number that's on here yeah

Okay, we'll back that vote out and by roll call. Mr. Cusher. Aye. Now I'm blanking on Samir's last name and I feel bad. Robin. Sorry, Mr. Robin. Aye. Skip. Aye. We're going to go first. Colleen. Aye. Craig. Aye. Victoria. Aye.

Holly, aye.

Craig.

Heather. Aye.

And Kyle. Aye. Jefferson, aye as well. Okay, motion passes. Okay. Are you guys sticking around, or do you want to adjourn?

I think we can stay around for one more, the next item on the agenda, and then we can adjourn after that, if that's okay for the chair.

Sounds good to me. Okay, so next up, we have a proclamation to recognize the services of McHugh. From the Grafton Select Board, be it hereby known to all that the Grafton Select Board offers its sincerest respect and gratitude to Heather McHugh, in recognition of her 18 years of service as a member of the Grafton Finance Committee. Thank you very much.

And if I might, I'll just say thank you so much, Heather, for all of your years of service. I think that the Finance Committee and the town in general, we will be lacking in terms of some institutional knowledge. But I really appreciate that all the time and effort. And I know, back in the day, the time commitment was even, in my opinion, much greater. Skip knows as well. So yeah. So thank you for all those years. You're welcome.

Thank you very much. 18 years is nothing to sneeze at. That's a lot of time.

It actually went by very fast.

Yes, thank you, Heather. It's nice you're here tonight. Made a live appearance. I know, I know. But we do have a list of committee vacancies. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm sure that we list those for you before you take off.

EDC is looking for someone, right?

What are you going to do with all your free time?

I don't know. We'll see.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you so much. I know the committee's going to miss you a ton. I know I had a blast working with you. I know. It was a tough decision, but I think 18 years is good.

Yeah. Someone else needs to come in. For sure. You guys will miss her. You did your time. I did.

That is a wild amount of time for a town committee. I know I can't.

I honestly can't believe it's been 18 years.

My kids were in kindergarten. It's just a foundational member, you know, you feel like of the FinCon. Skip and I know that a lot of the history.

So you tell these guys, this is what happens. You're a volunteer.

18 years.

And 20 years from now, you'll be saying, what happened?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but it was great. I learned a lot about town politics and finance, and I loved it. I really did like it a lot. So I enjoyed it.

Did you ever count up how many people you served with over the years? I didn't know.

I think it was like, I think as far as town administrators, I think it was three.

Did you go back with Doris, right? Yeah.

Yes. Doris. Yep. Sue. Yeah. Sue. Yeah.

Hopefully.

Yes.

Caroline Prout. No.

No.

Fred. Churchill.

Fred.

Churchill. Fred. Mr. Davidson. Fred ran a tough, he ran a tight ship, boy. Dave, obviously Dave, from George Hill.

Yes. Libby. Dave Libby, yeah. Yes. All right, we have to go through everybody.

Well, they asked to name a few, so we're just naming some of the old timers. Yeah.

Three of the members on the slide board.

Don Davison. He was there forever, too.

He was there, left, came back. Yes, he just couldn't stand it. He had to come back.

It's an option for anyone.

I saw the people who want to be appointed. They're going to do great.

They don't know they're signing on for 18 years. I know.

You should probably tell them that. Yeah. But thank you. I appreciate this. It's very nice. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yes. Thank you so much, Heather. And with that, we will take a motion to adjourn the past meeting tonight.

Yeah, probably not.

All right. We'll do a roll call vote. Dan.

Aye.

Samir. Aye.

Skip.

Aye. Greg.

Aye.

Heather. Aye. And Kyle. Aye. Thank you all.

Thank you for coming in tonight, Fincom. Pleasure as always.

Good night. Have a great evening, ladies and gentlemen. Bye, Skip. Have a nice night, Chris.

Skip's going back to mow the lawn. Doesn't sound like a bad idea.

Samir, would you like the rest of your attire? Maybe.

Okay, so next up we are going to discuss establishing a committee for aid to the Elderly and Disabled Taxation Fund. Mary, are you going to take the lead on this one?

Yeah, that would be great.

sure um so as you know um we have previously accepted mgl chapter 60 section 3d back in the fall of 2024 um and since then um i have worked with the um assessor, the principal assessor, the treasurer, and the council on aging director. And we have met a few times and we have discussed how to form the committee, how to raise additional funds for the committee. And as you know, there was some, you know, changes. And so I now have a new treasurer and we now have a new council on aging director. So I took the opportunity to get us all back in a room together and discuss the the aid to the elderly and disabled taxation fund. So we discussed some of the issues that we're having. One issue is that we only have $600 in the fund. And so we really don't have enough money to do anything with the fund. So in thinking, we wanted to move forward in creating this committee. And so if we get three residents, they could maybe help brainstorm some ideas. We have thought about creating some postcards and possibly leaving those at some businesses if other residents wanted to donate that way. We've discussed about adding a flyer into one of the billings, but that's additional money. So Stephanie, she is going to reach out to the Fogies and see if they would contribute some money. We were going to ask if they would match a donation. The Council on Aging, they have a donation line. So, you know, we were discussing maybe doing that. But again, we wanted to form the official committee so we could get them to vote on some of these action items to bring forward.

Makes sense. Mr. Chair, just for clarity, for people that might not know, FOGI is Friends of Grafton Elders. It's a 501c3 fundraising endeavor and not Mary calling people a slang term. That's a good clarification. My ears perked up there. I was like, oh, we should probably spell that out for folks.

Thanks, Evan.

Okay.

Just one question, Andy. So the money for this fund, I mean, it can come from anywhere, right? There's no limitations? Yeah.

So on our tax bills, there is a section, you know, a checkoff box. People are able to donate that way. But the majority, what happens is the majority are, you know, mortgage holders. And so a lot of people, they just, you know, shred that bill because the mortgage company is paying those the tax bills. So not everyone is seeing those. the donations or they don't know that they're able to donate.

So I think, if I may, I think to Craig's point, they can donate in other ways, though, too. We can accept a donation from a business, charity, resident outside of the tax bill. Right, right.

So if we did an event or some organization did an event in town and the proceeds from that event, they decided to contribute to the fund. Correct.

Yes.

I think it's a great idea, Mary. I think, you know, getting a committee together and just getting some ideas. There's probably a lot of folks out there that don't realize yet that this is an option. And like you said, even me, I get my tax bill, but I'm not really. I'm just paying the check and bringing it in. So, you know, other ways to disseminate this information, having a committee would probably help in that respect.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the outreach perspective to start with will be, beneficial, making sure people are aware, more people, I should say, are aware of this, for sure. So next steps on this. Assuming we're all we're all on board. The Also, thank you, Mary, for the email explanation. I mean, it's pretty thorough. It was easy to get through and understand. It does dictate the makeup of the board, five members, chair of the board of assessors, the treasurer, and three residents appointed by the select board.

Can it be more than that, though? Or it must include those members. Would you want it more than that, or is that enough?

I think we should at least see if we can get three to start.

So do we need Amber just to send out a notice of some sort?

If the board is on board, we can advertise for the board.

Everybody OK with the formation of this committee?

Yeah, absolutely.

Great. We can get that posted.

Stop getting applicants. Mr. Chair, I just want to clarify one thing. So it has to be the makeup that is in Mary's email. It's Mass General Law Chapter 60, Section 3D dictates the makeup of the committee.

Yeah, sorry. When I read the email, it says the kid must include, but I didn't know if it was just limited to that as well.

I understand.

Sorry. Yeah.

this committee's scope limited to fundraising for in this particular venue ie could we also charge this committee with looking at additional means or mechanisms of lowering the tax burden on you know our senior population outside of just fundraising like researching additional mechanisms within Massachusetts state law that we might not have found yet. You know what I mean?

Yes, I do know what you mean. I would recommend against doing that. I think that that's a different group. I think that because we've accepted 603D, we need to have the committee that is tied to 603D. That doesn't mean you couldn't. cross-pollinate these members onto a different committee and a larger scope, but I think that you need to appoint it as the MGL recommends.

Very specific.

Yes.

Fair enough. Trying to two birds, one stone it, but the law says no.

Yes. Any other comments or questions?

Okay.

We can get that one posted at getting some applicants and do some appointments in the future. Anything else you need from us tonight, Mary?

Thank you.

Okay. Have a great night.

She gets to go around for the budget calendar too. If you want, Mary, you don't, don't feel obligated.

Okay. I'm going to stick around. Thank you.

The next two have implications for you and I budget wise. All right.

So next item is discussion of creating a budget calendar. And I believe Colleen's going to lead this one.

Yes. So as you guys saw in the packet, I gave an example of a budget calendar that is in another local town. I've seen them in towns as well and I just really love how detailed and laid out it is and how early in the process it is and it really will help to avoid you know some of the things we've run into here where school committees meeting on the same night as a select board or just hiccups where you know we don't have that information yet or this that and the other thing due to just scheduling and by having a calendar this detailed this laid out early on in the fall will hopefully just bring more efficiency to the process is what I was hoping. And the budget message that kind of goes along with it, which I really like because that comes out in October where that kind of level of detail usually comes out January, February, maybe December if we're trying to shoot earlier, but really help to set expectations and let residents know as soon as possible where we're going and what to expect when May gets here rather than a lot of times people feel like, well, I didn't know, I didn't hear about it, and then you can direct them back, well, you know, plan for October 9th if you want to see, you know, the deadline for the CPC applications or whatever, whatever we make our calendar look like. So if the board has an appetite for this, I'd like to go forward working with Evan and Mary and all the stakeholders to try to create this for Grafton. I know the charter review committee is looking to put some language like this in. So if we could kind of start it early and then maybe even have the charter fit to how we, you know, deem it or would like to see it work rather than back in from whatever the charter says.

Makes sense. Thanks for looking into this. Anybody want to start the discussion?

yeah i think this is a great idea um i think that having sort of a line by line date lined up yearly would help eliminate a lot of confusion um because you know even being on sort of the other side of it in finance committee we sort of just run up to the dates um and i feel like this would give us a lot more time to think and prepare I guess my question would be a logistical one. This particular budget calendar is obviously specific to the FY27 budget, so you couldn't enshrine a particular fiscal year with particular dates in the charter. So would we envision creating a budget that was more like number of weeks running up to town meeting versus specific dates? Like how would we ensure that it was consistent year over year?

Yeah, that's a great question. That's something that, you know, I didn't want to go too far down the rabbit hole on without, you know, the board's buy-in, right? If the board's interested, then that's definitely the stuff we should be talking about.

Yeah, well, I'm all in, so jumping right into the nitty-gritty. I think it's a great idea. I think anything that allays the confusion of the budget process is going to be really helpful for all of the stakeholders and for the public as well.

And that gives us something to do this summer. It's a slower time anyway, and we can chip away at it and hopefully start working on it, you know, by September and have it roll out. Because everybody loves doing stuff in the summer, right?

Can't wait. Yeah.

Yeah.

Beach, golf, you know.

Budget calendars. It's ready.

Budget calendars. That's right. That was the next one he was going to say. It's all the same. That's right. Should have prioritized it. I guess I have a few questions. So, obviously, you know, I look at first, when I saw this first thing, I thought it was Evan, and it's his budget, right? So, I'd like to get his kind of perspective, because this is obviously moving things up, you know, some line items here significantly. So, and based on, I guess, where we are now, like how we do it now, and looking at this model with these dates, like I'm interested to know what you think about this.

Well, I think we would have to, you know, I think this is a example. Right. Definitely not the final product that I would go with. Right. I think some of it is too finite and granular for what we do here. It doesn't allow any wiggle room. But I think overall it would be, it, would be a good idea to put together a budget calendar that we lay out exactly what marks we're going to try to hit. And I think the only thing we have to do is, not only thing, one of the things we have to do is just make sure it aligns with the language of our charter as it sits currently. And then if the charter committee makes a different recommendation, we change it then. So I think that some of those things would survive and some of them would probably not be how we're going to do it in grafton because okay you know like we can the budget message as aligned up in the charter is really the what's called the transmittal letter right it's i'm giving you the budget here's all the numbers which will change wildly from when we give you that letter so um i think we can envision a uh we might use different language than what hopkins is using because we have a charter that says

what it is we do uh as i guess so i think we just have to work through those logistics but i think as an overall premise i like the premise yeah yeah so to colleen's earlier point we'd have to get buy-in from obviously ultimately from the town but from the charter review to implement some of this stuff if we were to come up with if it was you know with that obviously it and a version of this like i'm not against having you know the um having a budget calendar i think it's a good idea i know we have kind of one now right with with wiggle room right um and if we're going to go through this and set like realistic dates i guess a couple of concerns not concerns but things that came to mind was obviously evan and his staff trying to pull this stuff together we know that there's going to be if we start earlier it's fine but we know there's going to be a lot of changes because some information we don't have some things are going to change even on the capital plan The capital plan window here was only a month, and it was early. It was like November, middle of November to middle of December, which I think is a really challenging timetable and time of year for them. Right. You know what I mean? Around the holidays to try and get them.

I think that's kind of our bylaw, though. If I remember correctly, I think it's like December already where we're.

When I was on it, we did it in, I think we did it in January.

But we did a bylaw.

Right. Yeah. Right. So I think I think the overarching theme is good. We'll have to tie it into what we already have.

Yeah.

And then identify anything that the board would like to change. And then you'd have to do that through the. either the bylaw process for CIPC or charter process or anything else.

Definitely graphenize it. Like this is what they do. This is super detailed, yeah. And, you know, I'm sure it didn't start this way for them.

No, when I first saw the Hoppington one, I was like, oh, that's a lot. That's very stressful. Right, yeah. That's a lot of data. I had the opposite.

I was like, this is so awesome.

I was like, I don't even know where I'll be in half these, what we'll be doing, you know? So I think the general idea of it is beneficial.

Yep.

And it would be good for residents to be able to see, too, that this is a This is how we're going to lay things out for you. Yep.

Mary?

I love the idea. I think it satisfies our timeline with budgeting. It will help department heads and staff just know when things are due and when to expect things to happen.

So this is to keep Evan in line is what you're saying, right?

Well, help.

I knew that as soon as you said, Mary, what do you think? I was like, oh, she's going to love this. Yep. Yep.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

So again, just using Hopkinton as the example, is this something that the select board works with the town administrator to create annually or?

yeah yeah so it is it's really detailed in their charter too and I think it's just the timing on it's really nice for us because we are going through a charter review so we can identify things and then send a recommendation over to the Charter Committee to be like hey this is what we're envisioning what do you guys think before things get voted on at town meeting and we can't now we have to do a whole new vote again so I just like the timing on that for us and yeah just We have one, like we have a rough skeleton now. Let's put it down on paper and then expand where we can and just make a graphed inversion of this. And, you know, from year to year, maybe sprinkling some stuff if we realize, oh, that's something we can do or if that's something we didn't like or, yeah.

For sure. It seems like the first year would probably be the most difficult, you know, as we get into the rhythm and all that. But we can definitely, you know, course correct for future years and make it more efficient.

Just one more thing. We spend a lot of time on the budget, as does Evan. In the off months, and I'm not saying this would happen, I just wouldn't want to lose sight of the other things that this board does, like having committees come in. You know, if we're starting in October, I just don't want the budget to dominate the entire year. I want us to do other work, you know. Because during those months where we're not talking about the budget, that's when we get to do that stuff, and it's important work.

Good point.

Yep.

I do like the budget message as well. You know, similarly, just getting that out kind of in advance, knowing that, you know, there's a...

good degree of variance that can happen and I think we can explain that to residents but painting the picture beforehand as opposed to you know kind of bringing them along through the discussion and I think over the last two years there's been a lot of attention paid and I think a lot of people have learned that the numbers do change throughout the process so the more we do this you know the more expectations people have and understanding that things in municipal budgeting change like it's just the nature of the beast but the more transparent we can be as early as we can be I think will save us you know hopefully some headaches down the line emails now thanks Colleen so next steps on this would be do you guys just want me to work with Evan and try to bring something more CONCRETE BACK FOR US TO KEEP DISCUSSING OR WHAT DOES THE BOARD LIKE TO SEE ON THIS? THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN TO ME.

I'D LIKE TO SEE EVAN TAKE A CRACK AT IT.

WE'LL GET IT DONE LIKE FISCAL 29.

THAT WOULD BE GREAT. MAYBE PUT A CALL INTO HOPPINGTON AND SEE HOW THE ADMINISTRATOR FEELS ABOUT IT.

THEY'VE GONE THROUGH LIKE TWO SINCE I GOT HERE SO PROBABLY NOT GOOD.

Norm was there for a long time.

Yeah, he was.

Sounds good. Perfect. Do some reconnaissance. Yeah. Yeah. You know, whatever you have for feedback, we can bring this back at a future meeting for sure.

Avoid their pitfalls for sure. Let's just make this awesome.

Right, the happy medium must exist, right? And I think the key is probably making the language vague enough in the charter that it allows you flexibility to learn, but also doesn't make it an optional, you know, throwaway check box activity either. Yeah. And I think your discussion we can sort of figure out.

you know how to make the most of it yeah it's I like Craig you know was a little concerned because some of the timing in there is tight you know but again knowing that we'd be you know we're gonna work through that we're gonna customize this to make it to make sure it works for grafted and you know balancing setting those hard deadlines and setting ourselves up for success, you know, versus not removing the teeth from it too much, you know, because we, we still do want people targeting these dates for when, um, when the deadlines are and, you know, sometimes that may be a quick turn. So, um, great.

So that'll be ready for the next meeting.

Yeah. Evan, are you comfortable with that?

Spring of 2029. I already said it. I'm fine. Is that when your contract ends?

That's when the next person's brown will be. No, I think we can put together what we have in fairly short order. It's going to be figuring out what we want. That's going to take the more time.

Okay. So we can move on to discuss inviting our financial auditors to future meetings.

So I asked to have this put on here because pre-COVID, Scanlon Associates, they do our audits. And they used to come in and kind of give the select board a rundown on it. And then COVID happened, and we kind of got away from that practice. And I heard that a lot for the last few budget cycles, people asking about the audit. So I think I wanted to get the board's temperature on that if we wanted to reinstitute that, having Scanlon come in, give us a little rundown of the audit. just so it's another thing to point to for residents and say, hey, here you go. And if you just want a brief recap instead of reading the whole audit or however you want to digest the information.

Yep, they did. They used to always come in for years. They've been doing it forever. I have to leave. Were they Sunderland? I don't know.

Yeah, something like that. They're North Country up there.

I love the idea, getting back to that, because even just thinking back to this past budget season and the amount of comments on social media, and you might have heard in passing about residents wanting an audit of our budget, not understanding that that happens annually, and those reports are posted publicly for public consumption. So the more we can do to get this out in front of people, I think would be great. I'm trying to think of who it was that came in that came up with the Grafton presentation, that more streamlined infographic.

Oh, that was our OPEB actuary.

I could see something like that being beneficial here, where it's a little more stripped down, digestible. hitting the key points.

I think, Andy, I think when people were talking about requesting an audit, I don't think it was that. At least that's, I didn't interpret it that way. Like Scanlon does our annual audit to make sure that our books are, everything's where it should be right. I think the audit, more of like having a company come in and look and see how we spend all our money, if we're budgeting properly, if we're spending money properly, you know, in comparison. Like we have with the fire department. We had a company come in and they did a whole analysis of our fire department between our equipment and our personnel and our operational plans and procedures and all that kind of stuff. I think it was different. I think it was different.

That makes sense, too.

I think getting back to how we used to do this, I've had people ask me where it is and try to send it out to them. So there's no reason not to do this, in my opinion.

Well, and Evan gets to take a victory lap, you know, as long as, you know.

You know, audits don't usually have a lot of victory laps.

It's usually just a list of stuff. It's usually a good message, though.

Yeah, no, I don't have any problem with it transparency-wise. I think that's not something Mary and I are familiar with. And so if it happened to fall off the radar pre-COVID, we didn't, you know, it's not a lack of transparency. It's just not something we've ever, we're not familiar with. So I don't have a problem with it.

Put it on the budget calendar.

Yeah, they did it every year. Yeah, they always came in. Sure. It was the same guy every year, too. Yeah.

Yeah. So you're good with that, Mary? You don't really have a choice at this point.

No, I'm fully on board with this. I'll get to finally meet Tom Scanlon, right? Yeah, we only know the associates. Right. Well, he sends his associates, he sends his staff, but I have not met Tom Scanlon.

Well, now you will. Is it the board's intention or maybe nobody's put any thought on this? When are we starting this? Are we starting it with the audit that we just completed?

I would like to do that, yeah. No reason to wait. 26. It used to come in, like, the springtime, and that's a really busy time anyway. So if we did start just probably for, like, July 1 or, like, early July, here's the audit, and it takes that out of the crazier budget cycling time, or unless people want it during that time, but that's just –

that's just a heavy time what is the board prefer as far as timing goes we can do it I'm not on the board but I think spring after early after town meeting generally speaking works okay when does he do the audit at the end at the end of the fiscal year yeah well you know go ahead Mary

So the audit is always completed by March 31st. So they're always on schedule to come to Grafton. They come the first or second week in January. We wrap things up in February and we sign off in March.

For the prior year?

Correct. Yeah. Okay.

So he's got the 2025 done. Yes. It's in our packet. Right. It's in our packet. Yeah.

Okay. So, Mary, when you're available, can you reach out to Scanlon and see if they have availability to come in maybe in July to get it started off, and then we'll figure out the best time of year moving forward.

Yeah, he would just come in and do a summary, basically, probably a 20-minute summary, and then people could ask questions. Yeah, I think that's all we need. It was pretty short. Okay.

Okay, I'll reach out. Thanks, Mary. You're welcome.

We are pretty light, I think, for the 21st, July 21st meeting, if you want to offer that as an option or whenever they're available.

We'll get Amber in that loop, too, and we can work out the best spot to be.

Okay, great. We'll pass over the collective bargaining agreement and move into extend inter-municipal agreement with the Animal Control and Animal Inspector Services. You want to talk through this briefly?

Sure. I was just going to tell Mary she doesn't need to stay with the finance stuff.

We're through the finance gauntlet, Mary, if you want to sign off for the night. Thank you for coming.

Thank you. Bye, everyone. Bye, Mary. Bye, Mary.

My mistakes won't impact Mary going forward. They just impact me, so it's okay. So this is the same version of the IMA, just updated with the different costs and dates. It's the same one we've been signing for quite a while. Any questions?

Okay.

Take a motion.

I move the board vote to extend the inter-municipal agreement for animal control slash animal inspector services among the towns of Westboro, Grafton, and Trewsbury for a one-year period ending June 30th, 2027. Second.

Okay, Jermaine seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. She passes. Finally, we are due for another Ask Me Anything, so tonight I'd like to choose two members to host, and then they can work with Amber to decide Um, a date and location. So, um, I was part of the last batch. I will not have no interest. It's not that I have no interest. I'll take myself out from this one. Um, and whoever else would like an opportunity. I enjoy them. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. You know? Yeah.

Um, don't mind doing it and then I wanted to suggest we we had a department head come in to her one and that was really well attended should we try to maybe loop that in again just so people have a like department specific question and and now they'll be more apt to come because attendance does seem to be sparse at some of these and I'd love to drive more attendance and I think having a representative if they are interested in coming

I don't see any harm in asking. I mean, how does everybody else feel about that? For a department head?

Yeah.

I mean, you know, at the time, I think it was...

The building inspector.

Yeah, there was some contentious things happening. It was a good time.

Yeah.

So, you know, yeah. Depends if you were hosting the AMA or not.

Oh, that's right. Oh, no.

And I was just sad. That was the best attended.

Yeah. Yeah.

Just as another... something that threw out for the board to consider is put my edc hat on for a second you know we might want to have it at a local business right um you know we our edc stuff we we try and do it at a local business to kind of support them and um you know kind of get out into the community rather than doing it in a municipal building So I don't know if you guys are open to that, but I'm just throwing it out there as an idea. That way the establishment people might go in, they might have dinner there, they might have a drink or whatever. It just kind of helps drive business that supports the community.

I'm not sure that for this particular ask that that would. work out in my, just in my opinion. Um, I mean, I guess unless you found like a really dead day for the business, cause I don't know how much business I appreciate, you know, and I'm always out there supporting all the businesses for sure. Anything that I do on the side, but yeah, I don't, I don't know if, well, whatever. Yes.

It would be hard to target all the businesses too, right? Like we're not going to have one at a tattoo shop though. We could, um, it would really be focusing on more of the restaurant ones, which kind of isn't as equitable as we could be.

Right, yeah, you just have to move it around. That's what we do with EDC.

And that's the right place for EDC. EDC should be doing stuff like that.

Well, maybe whoever is doing it can decide. That's another idea to throw it out to see if you want to do it at one of the businesses as well.

It probably wouldn't hurt to try, right, to Colleen's point, attendance is sometimes a little sad at these, and perhaps having it at a local establishment that would allow us to sit in a back room for an hour, we could gauge if that brings in that many more people, then it's worth the struggle.

Just a thought.

That's not a bad one. I like it.

Okay, well, we still need one more person to answer some stuff, so, all right. And YouTube. And we'll work with you to figure out a date. And you can discuss locations. And if you want to, you know, pilot this somewhere and see if we can partner with a local business. Thank you both for stepping up. Okay, select board reports.

Open Space and Rec were supposed to meet this week, I think it was, but we're postponing it and just we had nothing really on the agenda until next month. That's all I have for my committees.

ADC has a meeting tomorrow night. We're working on a fall event, fall community event, you know. Yeah, those are good. Yeah. We're trying to find a location actually right now, so.

If you have any hot leads, you let Colleen in, I know.

I will. Well, they don't want you usurping their venue.

Going there with our parrot hats on. CIPC met and reorganized, and we're getting right on to it and meeting again in the fall. We just got the two new members tonight. I attended an MMA webinar cultivating transparency after a yes vote for an override, and they had... A lot of it was talking about the lead up to an override, but there was one thing that kind of stuck out to me afterwards was, well, two things really. But a lot of the towns, they put their five-year forecast in the town meeting warrant so that people can really see the levy capacity. And I kind of like that idea or some version, some polished version for the warrant. And one community puts out thank you signs for things that the override funded. This was funded through override funds. Thank you. And I kind of liked that. It's not going to be perfect. You can't slap that on someone's back, but it just seemed like a really nice idea when and if possible to just remind residents this is thanks to you and your vote and just being very thankful for the community coming together and really showcasing what those funds are going towards. I don't know how to implement that, if anybody wants to implement that, but Those are some of my takeaways of attending that.

That sounded like a good course. I had flagged that and hope to take it as well. Maybe I'll watch the recording. Charter review has divided into subcommittees now to go through the individual sections of the charter. I think I can confidently say that They will appreciate us being proactive in that budget calendar discussion and coming to them with a recommendation rather than vice versa. So that's a good thing. Colleen, Victoria, and I were able to do the Tufts Biolab tour at the beginning of the month, which was fascinating. You're probably the best suited to speak to some of the fun stuff that we learned that day.

yeah yeah happy to uh so it's a phenomenal facility it's a biosafety level three laboratory which is the second highest level of biocontainment um essentially in the world uh so it's a phenomenal facility they were super super nice um they were very welcoming and very excited to have us and they kind of even mentioned like you know grafton could drop on by even more often if they really wanted to so they We're really happy to have the three of us come in and at the time The labs were actually down almost none of them were hot because they were Having a the place inspected and so all the studies were down so we were able to actually go into the BSL 3 labs without gowns on. We didn't have to put on the full bunny suits, et cetera. So that was nice, because that's pretty uncomfortable. The things that were really interesting to me were the ways that they tied in their safety precautions, both with their own on-campus police force, but then also how they have such proactive measures inside the containment rooms and outside the containment rooms for when they might have to have the Grafton Fire Department come in or if they would have to have the Grafton Police Department come in for whatever reason. They're constantly doing drills. They're constantly looking at ways that they can improve their safety. They have a team of folks. That's their number one job, dedicated to the management of the facility. And I felt super confident walking out that those guys were competent professionals, both in terms of the research that they're doing and the safety and the health precautions that they take at the facility. So I feel like they're... From a scientific perspective as well, they're doing some really, really cool stuff with some really interesting selected agents that make a real impact on human health, particularly things like tuberculosis. They're going to start looking at Rickettsia rickettsiae very soon, which is a tick-borne illness, and we know how bad ticks are this year, particularly here in Grafton, so that's something that impacts us.

And they were collecting local samples, I remember that much.

That's right. Like literally just out the front door, just kind of shuffling through the grass. Like we started wandering out of the grass and they were like, that's maybe the least safe thing you're going to do today. So yeah, it was really nice that they invited us and we learned a lot and I felt really good about them as safety neighbors. They're not the scary haunted house on the hill as they sometimes feel that they are. So we also helped allay their fears on that one too.

Yeah, I also thought it was interesting, right now they are a part of the Cummings Veterinary School, and it sounds like Tufts is going to kind of pull them back from Cummings specifically and make them a larger part of the Tufts group. So, you know, it seemed like there was some promise there for... additional future funding and perhaps some expansion. So that could be beneficial for the town as well. The other thing, Colleen and I were able to attend the Grafton PD Canine Fundraiser Sunday at Mill Villages. It was a fun event. They had a lot of great dog-oriented vendors there, great live band. And this was just a fundraiser put on by pro-canine groups that help fundraise for canine officers in towns across the Commonwealth. So it's an effort to restore our canine position, which went away a few years ago. And again, just another increased safety measure for the town. They are looking to organize at least one additional one in the near future. So hopefully they'll keep us posted. TA update.

All right. So update on 95 North Street. Still waiting for our concrete pad. We're doing some ancillary work to that. But we've removed all the erosion control. Everything grew in. And we verified that all the grades are done to accessible trails standards. So we had to get an as-built done where they shoot the different heights and then calculate the slope. It's a different standard than, say, your handicapped restroom or coming in here because it's a trail. But it does meet all those federal guidelines for an accessible trail. So that's pretty cool. So Leah and I are meeting next week to start to put together the timeline so that we can do a grand opening and, and get that park open and accessible to people. So that'd be pretty cool. Just a, I don't know. I think this is fun. So we're planting trees here at the municipal center. You'll see them when you pull in. We've been working with Shannon Phelan, who is on the Grafton, sustainability group, and I'm not saying the word incorrectly, but everybody knows what I mean. And so she's been helping us source native species. So we've done, we planted a tulip tree, a white oak, two sycamores, two choke cherries, and two service berries. We have another four trees coming, so they're between the field out front and then kind of around the building at different locations. So they're all native species that will also attract different varieties of birds or animals or what have you. So that's been a little fun side venture for us. Yeah, just something to point out. It's pretty cool. Paving update. We've completed Essex, Saunders, Sunnyside Terrace, and Stockwell Farm. When I say completed, I mean like the top coat is down. That doesn't mean that we don't have little side things to still touch up. But by and large, they're done. Starting tomorrow, we'll be doing Laura, Danielle, Alana, Blanchard, and Patricia. So those are all in the works. Those were already ground two weeks ago. And so they're being topped starting tomorrow. I did send out alerts to both of those groups to alert them when paving started or did start or is going to start. I did not update them when we were going to start grinding. So that is a problem that we're working through here in Grafton as far as communication goes. So we're going to try to make that better for folks. George Hill Road, we had our pre-construction. We are scheduled. You might see some action up there, but really they had told us that they'll start in earnest after the 18th when there's no bus traffic, and so we've utilized Code Red to target that area for residents, and we are in the process of keeping the website and ClearGov updated. I did have a couple residents that aren't in Code Red come stop in and get added, so that's a good sign that people are getting our messages and talking about it. So we're excited to see that get underway.

Question, where can residents find the information on their roads? This is not even relative to George Hill, but even just the other ones.

Yeah, so it's buried on the DPW page currently. So that's part of our problematic messaging for paving.

So we're working on that? Because I know we've talked about this for years.

Yeah, I agree. And I found out after we were done grinding that we were starting grinding. So I am currently working on that issue.

And I know that the folks from the DPW, you know, indicated that things are subject to change and, you know, it's understandable, right? Like to put out a list, which we used to have up here, you know, a list and... You know, and that could be delineated within the list, right? Here's what we think, and it's subject to weeks maybe of, you know, might occur now, might occur then, but just, I guess, something.

Yep. There should be a list of what we anticipate doing for the season.

Yep.

And then there should be a notice that's prior to them starting to grind it. Mm-hmm. Like the one I sent today said that we're going to start paving on Wednesday and it should be done by the end of the week, but it's subject to weather and blah, blah, blah. And that's all people want to know.

That's fine. Yeah.

Agreed.

Yeah. Similar to George Hill where, you know, again, just, you know, I know you did update it just before our last meeting, but, you know, just another update there, even if it's no new information or here's what we've got. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I wanted to circle back to, you know, as we transition, obviously, to the new fees, there's been a lot of information or discussion. Ann Marie and I have had a meeting about changing the website design, so we're working on that. I've had a conversation with Colleen about the same thing. So I just wanted to go over a couple things, and I actually did create, although they're not public yet, a seven step guide to how to reduce the amount of waste that you produce, uh, while utilizing what Grafton already has for services available. Um, so obviously the easiest way to do that is to reduce, to pay less for your trash is to reduce the amount of trash you produce. Um, a lot of that typically between 20 and 25% of all waste generated in a household is, uh, Compostable food scraps. So if you were to take part in either the black earth composting program, which we offer, or the backyard composting, you could save up to 25% of the money that you're going to spend in any given year. Black Earth has a cost to it, so the numbers are a little bit different. But if you were to do backyard, you could reduce your trash by about 25%. We also offer, we obviously have curbside recycling. Proper use of recycling, understanding what can be recycled and what can't be recycled, can divert a lot from our current waste stream. We have the recycling center up at DPW. And I don't think there's a ton of people utilizing their regular trash for yard waste, but there's probably a few. But you can get a dump sticker from the town of Graff, and I think it's only like 25 bucks, and you can go up there and hang out with the retired guys that are running the gate, and they're always happy to see folks. We do have a textile pickup that you can do, and we have the hazardous waste program, which... Again, this started, Anne-Marie and I talked about this months ago. We worked with Paul Knoyer, and so the limit at our NEDT facility is up to $75 per Grafton resident. So you just go to NEDT, you give them your address, show them your ID, and they'll give you $75 towards whatever it is you're trying to dispose of that's hazardous. We have had mixed results. It was 50 for a number of years. I've heard differing uh reports from residents both that it was up to 75 and that it was 50 so if you get a different result please let us know and we will recontact the folks at nedt my understanding says it's all set yeah it's up to 75 good um and then lastly um well not lastly just a reminder we do have backyard composters if you bought them on amazon or at a store they're about 125 but from us they're about 25 bucks so um definitely take advantage of that um what else do i got well yep and then i just want to touch briefly on the wrta potential rate uh route changes So WRTA did come to me a couple of months ago and say that they were going to be heading in a direction to eliminate Route A and B, but at that time they were not through their board process. So they are through their board process, at least the initial component of that. Now they're having public outreach. They were here today in Grafton actually doing outreach. so what they're what they're proposing is to eliminate route a and b um those routes are between northbridge walmart and 122 122a intersection um you can go into details i've given you their presentation which is much more granular than this um route a which is lynwood apartments and tri-county medical center mostly in northbridge and the blackstone shops in milbury They are seeing ridership of about 12 people per day. And Route B is Grafton Village District down to sometimes the Grafton MBTA, not on every trip. That has about 22 riders per day. Both of those are money. They're not profitable routes. They're the two lowest ridership routes that they're running currently. And so they're looking to get public feedback and then potentially either eliminate them altogether or create a WRTA shuttle that primarily services Northbridge. We're meeting as an organization next week to discuss a shift to what's called the mobility management model, which would be that a lot of these runs would then get picked up through either MBTA themselves as these kind of one-off routes, but also through our ability to schedule with our WRTA van here. There's pros and cons to mobility management. I'm not gonna talk about it in detail because I don't know them all yet. Part of why I'm sitting down with the COA next week is to get educated, but also get their thoughts on mobility management and You know, what I do know is that the con of it is that folks are now booking their trips through WRTA's central dispatch and not through our Council on Aging. The reason that we dislike that is that people booking rides is one of the ways that we make contact with folks and keep tabs on folks. So if we lose that, that's one of our bigger concerns is that we lose that opportunity contact point with folks. But beyond that, again, I don't understand all of mobility management. So we will get deeper into that and I'll keep the board apprised moving forward on where WRTA winds up in their process. You don't have to go back. One other thing that just had come up, and I haven't done, again, all of the legwork on it, but there is, you know, one of the WRTA's responses is that if we want to keep the service, we can pay for the service, but that's like $278,000 a year, so I don't know that there's a ton of appetite for that. But, so anyways, I guess long story short, We're working with WRTA, working with the Senior Center. We'll come back with what that impact winds up being.

Maybe just because it's in here, I can highlight that the in-person public meetings are over, but the virtual one still remains on Monday the 22nd from 6 to 7 p.m. And I'm not sure where folks can find the Zoom.

I think it's on the W. We will make a news alert to push that QR code out.

So just the last one is next Monday from 6 to 7. And there's a QR, whatever. There's a way to go on virtually. Yep. Correct.

Do you know of a deadline for feedback?

The 10th of June.

10th of July.

It says June.

I don't think that's correct.

sorry July you're right okay it's by email comments at the RTA comm or go to their website or phone yeah we'll make a little update box on our website it's been on our social media already but we can

Before we move on, just going back to the town bags quick. I think just reminding people that we have subsidized rates for seniors and people who qualify for the Grafton Food Bank, if they're looking to offset some of that cost, if you're eligible. Correspondence, anything anybody wish to discuss? There was one in there from the rec department. We are doing, or they are, I should say, hosting Grafton Day on Friday, August 21st, and asked if boards and committees would be interested in hosting tables up there. The one stipulation is we'd have to figure out some sort of either giveaway or activity, but it's an opportunity for outreach so that residents can better understand what it is we all do. Is there interest from the select board in having a table and participating in that?

Victoria, you want to do the AMA at Grafton Day? It's brilliant.

What an activity.

That's it. I mean, talking to us, right?

Family fun.

Yeah, we could figure out an activity.

Yeah, I think.

List all the places you can find the warrant.

An Easter icon on the website.

We're going to have the most fun. Our table is going to be the best.

We should absolutely have a table activity to be decided.

Yeah, and it gets us out of a municipal building. Checkmark for Craig. Like, hey, crushing it. Oh, good. Can we do that? Is that allowed? Can we kind of glob on? I couldn't care less what you do. All right. Same.

I mean, is everybody okay with the idea of the AMA being there and Ms. Roy and Ms. Duckworth representing us? Sure. all right then question for you to the deadline to get back to Adam I think it's Friday do you want to handle that yes all right go for it said one

Just to go back just for a second, I apologize, to Selectman Reports. Just to talk about just one idea, I guess, for George Hill, because this is such a big project with a large scope. And I don't know how much, when you said the code red thing, like how much detail is in that? Like, is it just a...

I can do as much or as little as...

I was just thinking, because this project is going to go for quite a while, and we probably have a six-month construction season here, right, if we start the middle of June through the middle of December. If we could give them just kind of a timeline on a scope of work for those six months, I'm sure Lynch has provided that to us, just so that they know they're going to be working on drainage for four months, and then they're going to start building whatever it is. You know what I mean? I think it would be nice for them because they're going to be wondering when is this going to end.

When I put out the last code red to the group, I did include a note in there that we'll be coming back with – schedule from lynch because we do not have it yet um oh they don't have they haven't they don't have supposed to be end of last week but i don't all right so as soon as we get it that's the that's the idea is to push it out and might save a lot of phone calls too yep and then you know there's going to be putting sign boards up that we can alter right so people coming and going hopefully you'll get that um as well um and then we were we did talk i don't know logistically how this would work out but they're going to be separating different sections of george hill right so they'll do soap hill to leland or they'll be on one side or the other for patches of time they probably aren't going to be on both sides um so being able to notify folks because we have to do it anyways for pd for fire for when we get back in the school season the bus company right so just keeping that all yeah together

my understanding is they're gonna be staging up on soap correct yeah okay so is that up in the the parking area for

Yeah, so the conservation land that's up there. So we did get approval from conservation to utilize that field for staging, provided that we put it back to the condition and we don't disturb anything else around it.

All right. I would just make sure there's going to be, with those, you know, the heavy equipment, there's going to be erosion and there's going to be water and there's going to be runoff in their homes, I know, right? below that yes that parking area so they should put up some hay bales or or contain you know yeah they're going to be tearing that was that was part of the pre-construction meeting okay great um we'll keep we'll keep an eye on it too yeah were there minutes for that meeting no okay

it's just pre-construction meeting is it's not like this kind of meeting it's us sitting around a table saying right what's your schedule what are we missing yeah they probably have an agenda but there's nobody probably taken no no it's not maybe maybe it's not my kind of formal thing notes of any kind oh i have notes i guess i have notes we have any distillation it would be interesting i guess Yeah. You're not going to get those.

We could give Brian a notepad and a pen and ask him to take notes for us.

No, not Brian. All we have is what Will and I wrote down. So we learned lessons at that meeting as well. So we're going to do those a little differently moving forward. But the Lynch folks seem... very on top of things, and they definitely know what they're doing. So that was a good outcome to see. And very willing to do what we asked them to do to make things better for the residents. So they didn't balk at anything we asked them to do. We had a representative fire there to talk about being able to put messaging out for first responders, for police, fire, ambulance every single day to know where where they're going to be so that we can go the other way to get there faster. So the end of the meeting was good. We had a good outcome. But there's no formal delineation of what occurred there.

Fair enough.

I'll survive. I'm happy to talk to you about what happened. I could write a summary, I guess. Go ahead, Colleen.

Just about George Hill specifically, when you're pushing out the Code Reds, is there a way that the board can get on that group? Just because if people miss it or they aren't on that group, a lot of people reach out to us. And I don't want to be on every Code Red you send out, but the George Hill specific ones, so we have the latest, I think that would be helpful. I don't know how to do that. Or if you can just shoot us an email when you send it.

I don't know. I think I can do it through Code Red. I think I can.

That's sort of the provenance of my question essentially about the readout because yeah like calling people just reach out to us directly sure Anything to say that's relevant.

Yes Yep, I will I got I took the training on it like two months ago I gotta remember because they we've got a reformatted Code red, but anyways, I think I can like think and do that. Okay. Thank you Emory. Did you have something?

Yeah, just the correspondence from Norman Hill relative to the common may have a lot of thoughts on that but I just did separate from my thoughts just to kind of go back to the paving at the the old fire station that we talked about a couple of years ago mm-hmm I'm not paving sorry lining of spaces can we get any closer to that sure I will reach out to the school department great yeah if we're talking about that I don't think the signage is up either we had talked about

bay door signs and you know a public parking sign out front that type of stuff great to get that back separately i can't believe colleen doesn't want all the code red alerts baby steps okay um meeting minutes i move the board vote to approve the meeting minutes for december 16th 2025 and january 6th 2026 as written second okay second in any discussion Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, motion to adjourn?

Second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye.