Select Board - Regular Meeting

Let's start with the Pledge of Allegiance. The town is looking for volunteers to serve as community liaisons and help shape Grafton's future. The Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness 2.0 core team will help identify and address climate impacts in Grafton to make our community more resilient. Visit tinyurl.com slash GraftonMVP to apply. The state primary election is Tuesday, September 1st. In-person early voting continues in the Municipal Center Gym tomorrow and Thursday from 8.30 to 5 p.m. and Friday from 8.30 to 1 p.m. On Election Day, voters must go to their designated polling locations at Grafton Middle School or Millbury Street Elementary between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. Grafton Recreation will host their Collectibles Fair on Saturday, September 12, from 10 to 3 at Grafton Middle School. It'll be coins, comics, toys, records, training cards, and sports memorabilia vendors. That is one of my favorite events of the year. I'm just gonna put a plug in for that one. Lots of great goodies to get a bunch of my holiday shopping done.

Lucky Jen.

I more meant the kids. Oh, okay. Okay, so we do have a public hearing tonight. We're gonna start with the roadway layout for the Woodland Hill subdivision, Audrina Lane, Brook Street, and Dillon Way.

Okay, I'm going to do it in the right order this time. I'll read the legal notice first. In accordance with the provision of Chapter 82, Section 22 of Mass General Law, the Select Board intends to decree, lay out, and make public the roadways in the Woodland Hill subdivision, Grafton, Massachusetts, known as Audrina Lane, Brooks Street, and Dillon Way. The Select Board intends to lay out the above-referenced roadways at their meeting on Tuesday, August 25, 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. THOSE INTERESTED ARE INVITED TO ATTEND THIS PUBLIC HEARING AND OFFER COMMENTS IN PERSON OR VIA ZOOM. I MOVE THE BOARD VOTE TO OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING.

SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? HEARING NONE, ALL THOSE IN FAVOR? AYE. OKAY. PUBLIC HEARING IS OPEN. anybody really need any any preface for this we touched on it at our last meeting when we sent it to the planning board um for their recommendation they uh we get the email today that they approved this to go for acceptance and as far as they're concerned is ready to go before town meeting so um is there anything the board wishes to discuss i'm good is there anything the public would like to add

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Select Board. Roger Trahan for Old Upton Road. And so as not to stray, I have a prepared statement. And I wanted to add my input to Evan's August 11, 2026 executive statement.

We're not looking for public comment. Oh, I'm sorry. This is part of... In the hearing, on the road acceptance. All right. I'm sorry.

All right, you know what? Now that I'm up here, all right, I'm going to wing it because I do have a comment, and I didn't plan on it. I've been to that neighborhood. In spite of people lamenting the clear-cutting, people got to live somewhere. I think it's an amazing neighborhood, especially... the fact that the four-story apartment buildings, based on the building code, are accessible, at least insofar as they're required to have elevators. So I'm going to sing their praises just for that. Although, again, people are lamenting, including myself, clear-cutting. Again, people have to live somewhere.

welcoming all those people to town and maybe they'll help in filling vacancies on all the boards and committees so I guess more is better it's a good plug thank you Roger anybody else have any any public comment for the road acceptance okay hearing none I think we can close the public hearing I move the board vote to close the public hearing second okay seconded any discussion hearing none all those in favor aye okay

In accordance with Chapter 82 of the Massachusetts General Laws, I move the board vote to lay out the roadways in the Woodland Hill subdivision known as Audrina Lane, Brook Street, and Dillon Way as public townways and submit to town meeting the Woodland Hill subdivision road layout as presented this evening. In the event that the road acceptance is passed at town meeting, I move the board vote to sign and submit all associated documents, including the MILRs.

Second. Okay, motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, motion passes. Next up, public comment. Welcome back, Roger.

All right, I'm back. Again, Roger Trahan for Old Upton Road. and with a prepared statement so i want to add my input to evan's august 11 2026 executive summary of our may 11th spring annual town meeting that summary is contained in tonight's meeting packet under agenda item 8 correspondence we had texted that it was my understanding you weren't going to necessarily discuss that in detail so i'm putting this at the front of the meeting instead of waiting From the perspective of a voter slash attendee and former town moderator, I appreciate the efforts of everyone who orchestrated that meeting and for Evans detailed summary, which not only summarizes what occurred, but also recognizes areas of opportunity for future town meetings. It's important to note that the Massachusetts Municipal Modernization Act of 2016 recognized some beneficial updates regarding town meeting that now add the select board, town administrator, and others to some decisions which were previously vested solely in the moderator. While some have provided feedback regarding the length of the so-called pageantry before we addressed any of the articles, and the time checking back into the meeting, people should also be reminded of efficiencies and improvements we've realized in recent years. Among these are first, voters from any of the five precincts can check into town meeting with any of the election workers who have a laptop. Not so long ago, each precinct had its own line and voter list in the form of a paper binder. So we've really come a long way. Second, combining all reauthorization of revolving accounts into a single warrant article. Those used to be separate articles, numbering perhaps as many as 20 separate articles. Third, in recent years, we now combine other historically routine warrant articles into consent agendas. And fourth, electronic voting has allowed us to vote our conscience without feeling pressured by attendees, including friends and family, to vote in a certain way. Regarding how many may attend a meeting is a neat trick, which is constrained by parking spaces. In the absence of a shuttle system from other public or private lots, and whether people hedge, that things will go their way at town meeting and choose to limit their voice to a related town election, as we saw with this maze override and school roof project. Again, I gather that some people avoided attending town meeting anticipating a nightmare parking scenario or showed up and actually couldn't find a spot and drove back home while possibly dropping family members off but not attending the meeting themselves. Lastly, the discrepancy of 1,100 on the town clerk's voter roll versus 1,234 votes cast at our February 6, 2010 special town meeting is easily explained. That meeting which I presided over was held at the then high school, now middle school, regarding the current high school building project. 1,100 was the initial check-in of those who attended part or all of the debate prior to the vote. Subsequently, since the meeting had earlier decided on a secret ballot, everyone in the three venues, auditorium, gymnasium, and cafeteria, checked in once more on the auditorium stage to then cast their secret ballots. There were many people who sensed that the debate was concluding while watching from home or received a call by friends or family who were in attendance and headed down just a vote, resulting in the increased number of 1,234. So that explains that portion of your summary. So that's basically something I wish to add. And basically, thanks to all who pulled this off. It's not an easy gig. It's easy to be in attendance. without really appreciating how much goes into it. I know firsthand. So those are my comments. And while I have everyone's attention, we still have three vacancies on Accessibility Advisory Commission. I sound like a broken record. And people who may not want to jump in for a three-year commitment don't have to. One vacancy... is for a term unexpired term ending next June of 27, June 30. And the other two vacancies are for unexpired terms ending June 30, June 30 of 28. So again, thanks for everything.

Thank you, Roger. Roger. Okay, first up, the select board has one appointment for two positions. I'm sorry. Do we have anybody on Zoom?

You do not.

Okay. Jack Montana, come on down.

Good evening.

So you applied for both the Trustees of Soldiers of Sailors Memorials and Veterans Advisory Committee.

Correct.

Awesome. You want to tell us a little bit about yourself? I mean, we got your citizen action form, but if you want to introduce yourself to the town.

Sure. First of all, good evening. Thank you for allowing me to be here. Jack Montana, resident of Grafton. I was fortunate and very proud to have grown up in Grafton, went through all public schools, graduated from the high school in 2017, and then went on to Massachusetts Maritime Academy, where I graduated in 2021 with a bachelor's degree in emergency management, home and security. After About two years of working in the corporate world at National Grid in emergency management, I decided I wanted to do something more. I wanted something more to give back. And I joined, I actually was served a commission in the United States Coast Guard as a reserve officer. I've been doing that for the past two years down at Joint Base Cape Cod. And I love every minute of it. And it allows me to do both reserves and still work at National Grid. And I've since moved back to Grafton after living in Dorchester for three years. So I want to take this opportunity to give back to the town that did so much to me. My family still live here on Carroll Road. I live on North Street now with two friends. But I just wanted to give back to the town that has done so much for me and represent veterans that I've seen get out of the Coast Guard and get out of military services and not be well represented. So I've seen what negative effects that can have on people that are getting out. And I want to be able to be able to help them out in any way possible through this committee to help them out as they transition out of the military and into their new lives. So thank you again for having me here. That was amazing.

Yeah, I mean, you hit every nail on the head. You are absolutely getting into this for all the right reasons. And, you know, the community is deeply appreciative that you stepped forward to do this. But, you know, I think that's something that we generally hear about is a lot of concern for both our seniors and our veterans and what sort of support systems we have in place for them. You know, we have a great veterans agent, but, you know, The more people we have in there helping out, obviously, the better.

Absolutely.

And there's also been a lot of concern over the last few years that a lot of our veterans are aging out, you know, and they can't. participate the way that they used to and help out. So, you know, it's critical that we get younger vets involved and really just thank you for stepping forward.

Of course, yeah, that was one of my main kind of priorities to do this was to help out and then understand that a lot of veterans are of a greater age and I can represent a much younger age in this committee and future veterans.

Any comments or questions from the board?

No, just thank you for stepping up.

Yeah, I'd like to echo that. Thank you, and you're going to be a great addition to these boards, so welcome.

Thank you very much. Okay, take a motion.

All right, I move the board vote to appoint Jack Montana to the Trustees of Soldiers and Sailors Memorials and the Veterans Advisory Committee.

Second. Okay, motion made. Seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you so much. The town clerk will send you a letter about, you know, both committees. You'll have to be sworn in. You can make an appointment once you receive that. You are welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting, but under no obligation. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Next up, we have some town administrator appointments. We'll start with the activities coordinator at the Council on Aging, Allison.

Hi, I'm Allison Brissett. I am a resident of Grafton. I've been living here for about 16 years or so. And so, yes, I applied for the activities coordinator position for the Grafton Senior Center. When I saw the position posted, I was immediately attracted to it because I thought, okay, this is great. It combines my interest in the community and being part of the community with my professional experience so um wanted to take on this role in this job so um i have my professional background i worked at harvard university for 15 years doing event planning for their community relations department and their alumni relations department. So organizing and managing several community events for all ages. And so again, this just seemed like a great fit to combine my professional experience with my commitment to the town. So let me know if you have any questions.

I just have a comment we've had the opportunity to work together briefly and I'll just say that your attention to detail your creativity and your work ethic have always blown me away and I think the town is very very lucky to have you as one of its newest employees thank you and I'll just add thank you thank you for stepping up it's it's it's

great thanks yeah i'm very excited i think um it will be a lot of fun i'm really like looking forward to working with the senior community and stephanie and the council of an aging team and just to be able to continue the great work that is already happening and hopefully to expand upon it and bring some more visibility to not just the senior community but to the whole grafting community about all the great work happening at the senior center

I love that because our seniors are just amazing. They are some of my favorite people. It is just a delight to spend time down there and answer questions, catch up on things, listen to how Grafton used to be. They are a very active group. We do have a lot of great services and things that happen down there, activities. So it'd be great for more people to be aware of those things. Grafton aside, my mom is now in her 70s and does not consider herself to be a senior, but I've encouraged her to visit the Rutland Senior Center because I'm like, you'd be surprised what goes on at the Grafton one. It's really an awesome place. I'm looking forward to spending time there in a few years. You know, just give it a shot. But yeah, it's a great group. Stephanie's wonderful. You're going to do great.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Allison Brissette to the position of activities coordinator at the Council on Aging.

Second. Okay, motion being seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor? Aye. Okay, welcome aboard. Next up, we have a data collector for the assessor's office. We'll call Daniel up.

Welcome. My name is Dan Colella. I'll be your new data collector for the assessor's office. My background is building construction and real estate, and most recently I'm a software engineer for Dell Technologies, and I'm coming back to the public sector. So I hope to be able to help you out as much as I can here.

Awesome. Anything in particular that drew you back to the public sector?

I worked for the town of Dudley. I was a firefighter there and also superintendent of public water supplies. Oh, wow. So I'm vested in the retirement system. So I want to come back and put some more time into the system.

Yep, great.

Any questions, comments from the board? No, just thank you.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome. Great qualifications.

Yep.

Again, another great department to work for. Big fan of Tammy.

Awesome. Thank you.

Take a motion.

I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Daniel Colella to the position of data collector in the assessor's office.

Second. Take a motion to be seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Passing unanimously. Our last appointment for tonight, we have the planning and conservation department assistant and Catherine.

And Catherine is with us on Zoom.

Hi, good evening. Are you able to hear me okay?

We can.

Perfect. Thank you very much for your time. My name is Catherine DeSealy, and yes, I will be taking over the Planning and Conservation Department Assistant Physician. I met with Christian, Leah, and William, and I'm very excited. My background as far as I currently work for the town of Northrow as the board secretary for their conservation and planning departments. I also work for Passion Dental in Marlborough during their building And I also have a third job actually with Lowe's as a head cashier. So stay busy, work hard, lifelong New Englander. I grew up here in Boylston, currently live in West Boylston, went to school in Plymouth up in New Hampshire. And overall, I'm very excited to be working for a municipality and see the great work that's being done.

Awesome. I didn't expect the North Road Planning and Conservation Agent part. I mean, that's great. You should fit right in. And I know Ms. Roy is incredibly happy that you have dental experience. Very excited.

Oh, really?

Good. Any questions, comments from the board?

I think that covers all the bases. Work ethic is incredible. Very, very excited to have you on board.

Yeah. Take a motion. Thank you.

I move the board vote to affirm the appointment of Catherine DeSealy to the position of Department Assistant in the Planning and Conservation Offices.

I second. Okay, much made second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Most passing, Anderson. Great, thank you for coming in tonight.

Thank you. Thank you for meeting with me. Yeah, welcome aboard.

Okay, we're going to shift over to new business and start with a general update from the Nelson Memorial Park Trustees.

What would you like to know?

It's less of an update, more of a conversation.

Would you like us to come and sit up?

We would, please. So that everybody can hear you. But you're free to sit wherever. Just pick a comfortable spot. I didn't have to worry about Skip. I knew he would.

Not shy.

Nor should you be. You've done all this. So welcome in. You know, Skip and I talked about this casually, just kind of kicking things off. You know, we have the town, well, when I say we, the town and the park have kind of, you know, started helping each other out as of late with, you know, things like maintenance and lawn care. We also, we had the trees that came down in that middle, you know, kind of parking area, the dead trees that were brought down earlier. And it kind of kicked off a discussion of what do we want to do? What is everybody's grand vision for how we can make Nelson Park... more of a draw for, for lack of a better phrase, um, you know, get it, get it more utilized. It's well utilized right now, but is there anything that we can be doing to, you know, bring more people down there or utilize the building? Um, you know, cause even when I, you know, I mentioned the trees coming down, um, Evan and I were talking, like, well, you know, we can always, we could plant some. But then where do we plant them? Do we want to plant them around the perimeter? Do we want to, you know, replace some of the ones in the interior so that it's more like a park layout and, you know, a green space, a place for people to sit? Do we want to bring in more stone and kind of expand that parking area some? And I know I'm saying we, it's, you know, it's your park. But just, it felt like a good time for us to all kind of sit down and have a discussion about possibilities for the future and kind of like what both teams would like to get out of this.

I think one thing we've been talking about recently is trying to get something into the building so that it wouldn't sit there stagnant. It would be nice to get some other town department in there or whatever. We're not really looking to go out and do a retail rental, right? That's what we discussed. We don't want to do that. We'd like to get something related to the town in there. As far as you, so I've got to tell you, I live right there, and it's constantly used. And I'll tell you one thing I personally enjoy, and I know a lot of the other neighbors really enjoy, are the concerts in the park when they have the one there to draw some people in at nighttime, you know, when they're on games going on. That's one thing that some of the days they said to me, why can't we do more of that there? And I said, I don't know. You know, they do a lot on the common. Once in a while they'll throw one down here, but people enjoy that. I know the hot dog stand is a great business that way. They do that. But the biggest thing is they're getting something into The building is number one, I think, for stuff like that. I think the park over the years, I've been fortunate to be on it for quite a while. I was on the board when we brought the field house into the park at no cost to the town through the softball league that came to us and graciously wanted to donate that to us, which was nice. We just got the new dugouts in place, which were very good. And I was on the board when we were able to get the third field in there, which brought you know, more play in there for the league. So over the years, we've done quite a bit of improvements. Again, I grew up there. I've been here 74 years in the same house right next to the park. And I think it's come a long way, and it's a very well-maintained and good-looking park. I don't know what else we could put in there other than, you know, if we can entice more league play or something like that.

I don't think you can understate how well that park is used by the community that surrounds it. It's a small park, so to even get, I think primarily the concern is filling the building right now so that we don't lose that. But I think that the park itself is very well enjoyed by all of the neighborhoods that surround it. So I agree.

It's people up there constantly.

Yeah, I don't think we're looking to fill the park. I think right now the concern should be the structure, the building.

Yeah, a number of people have brought a number of different ideas over time for the Pine Grove. anywhere between putting in a solar field or building residence for the elderly or cutting all the trees down and putting an apple orchard back there like it used to be 100 years ago and people not understanding there's an awful lot of work that goes to getting apples taken care of so that you can give them away to people. That was all done. The trees were done when they replaced the orchard that used to be there before like 140 went through the middle of it. I don't know what you'd really do with that. It's a great overflow parking area. Whenever there's a more organized use for that place, the parking space that we have there, which we try and keep down the hill and not going too far down because of the constraints of the property is filled up. We had the stone put in there. That was donated, but it was more for, believe it or not, it tends to be wet over there where the stone is. Sort of keep people from having trouble, but none of the rest of it really ever gets wet other than when it For half the spring and you don't want anybody driving on it anyways, right? There is the other parcel land that we walked on but I would kind of say Hindsight be in 2020. I wouldn't bother trying to do anything with that The park itself all clear and you can walk on all of it anyways there's people over there walking all the time and there's plenty of parking I think you know that piece of land is if we're gonna do something with it we would have already you know that the trustees have gotten rid of a lot of land that was up there That's just not practical. I mean, we had talked to Roger Hammond a long time ago. He wanted to include it in a study of town on land. And I said, Roger, have you been up there? Much like when we went over there. And when I kind of dragged him out there, he goes, yeah, I guess this would be kind of a waste. You can tell that it's just not practical to do anything with it. It'd cost you a fortune to do anything with it. There's a bunch of other little pieces of land that are pretty much useless, too, but

Do you mind pulling up the GIS so we can see what exactly little parcels or the extra parcel he's talking about? Is that all right?

Yeah.

It's going to pop up down there just right now.

Yeah. Are you going to show me where to go?

Yeah.

I'll tell you where to get off. Don't hit me.

Sorry, Will.

I'm just kidding. I'd love to have you skip this close to me.

I'm sure you do.

You want to be at Nelson Park?

You don't have a mouse. Yeah.

Yep.

I'll guide you. This is an honor. Right, so that's the park proper that he's talking about. The number nine there is the Pine Grove that's across the street. The west. And then down here, number 35, it's pretty much a landlocked piece of land. with the exception of lot 45, which I think was some Worcester outfit.

Worcester Land Trust.

Yeah. But you can't get to the land from there. There's a guardrail that goes all along Creeper Hill Road, or it goes from the last house there down to the bridge. And that grade right off the road just plummets. So you couldn't, there's not really a way to get there. Elm Street extension is really kind of narrow and tiny to do any real access to that piece of land. And it's all granite and everything. If you go with this away, I just got to back down to, okay. Everybody do it over the railroad tracks already? Yeah. Back up. Yep. All right. Right out. Here this 50 I think Yeah, just click on that it should highlight the parcel So that is that's actually two lots of land that are ours and then you can continue to Sally out this away Number 90 Is ours periodically flooded by the furry little friends that plug up the culverts over there. And then you can go over, go a little farther down, I think. Yeah, I think that's it. Try 15A, click on that. Yeah, go down, just go down. Go down a little farther. It's just so I can, yeah, that is referenced to the will right there. So yeah, that's the other piece of land that we currently own or is the part of the residual estate that we could get rid of as opposed to the home estate where the library is that stays.

Thank you.

Yeah, I didn't appreciate that there were so many disparate.

Yeah, at one time, like over where Manning Lane and all that stuff is, that all used to be part of the trust in Bratch's Hot Dog Stand. The land out by Wendell Machine Shop, Wendell Lab, and all that stuff was all part of it at one time. It has been sold off.

So I also just want to say I didn't mean to imply that the park, the main parcel, is not currently well utilized or well taken care of. When Skip and I had talked, as he mentioned, we were also kind of trying to figure out a way to access that parcel that abuts Creeper Hill that the Worcester Land Trust purchased the other parcel. wondering if that's something that, you know, we could help out, look into like CPA funds to do some surveying, see if, if, you know, we could put in a viable trailhead there. Um, you know, cause it doesn't seem like any of the other spots have any viability, you know, near, near the roadsides and whatnot, but we, you know, it was a decent walking area back there and there are some clearly defined trails if we want to try and get people access to them.

We're just yeah, it would be good but that the idea of going out there and walk around you can see they're just It's not practical and it would cost money Whereas over the park proper doesn't cost anything because all kinds of parking there and there's just as big an area to walk there if not bigger Than that smaller parcel. It's across the street.

I

I think that going behind you, I know you just recently walked out of it, and there he is, but from Elm Street around, I think you, be lucky to get a quarter of a mile path through there. And you'd probably have to either fill it in or blast the stone that's in there to make it level so people weren't stumbling all over because it's just so unstable inside there from what I remember. And you guys were just recently in there. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I'm not mistaken, it's like a lot of granite and stuff like that inside there.

There was, but the trails all seemed to go Well, the couple that we were on seemed to go around it. It seemed like it was a short loop. I figured it was probably like a half mile if you did the whole kind of perimeter.

And then the parking, like you said, Elm Street is nowhere on there. And you go up on Creekville, you're going to have to make some kind of a ramp going down to the bottom there because it just goes.

Yeah, that's into a swamp.

Yeah, it's all a wetland right there. If the amount would get utilized, it would be worth the investment, I guess, for the town, you know, with that. Because I think you get a lot of play from the new apartment complex up there. Because I know a lot of them are using the property now where the pine trees are to walk their dogs and stuff. It's nice to see it. I personally, I love to see the park used with as many people as possible. I love to see other kids down there in the summer playing ball. Because I did that when I was a kid because I lived there, you know. It's just nice to see the park come alive in the spring, you know.

yeah that's that's what everybody wants and um we've definitely appreciated that rec has tried to host those you know concerts in different places because they also identified you know the the logistical issues that that occur around the common and again you know nelson's a nice wide open space it's it's got pretty ample parking it's easy to get in and out of bathrooms yeah he's got everything there for the concerts not trying to take away from rec on the climate but

I think the park is a lot more to offer for stuff like that.

Yep. That's why they moved their fall festival there last year, too. You know, give them the opportunity to spread out. It was a great spot. You know, great day for that.

I think, to tell you the truth, I think that's why Jen was really in favor of moving up there. Because it was close to all the stuff that they would use for summer programs and all that kind of stuff. We didn't have to go cart and everything all around for it or anything like that. But that Didn't happen, so we're kind of back to square one as far as finding something to do with the building.

Well, we have the Facility Assessments Committee coming in later on tonight, and one of the things that, one of the ideas that they floated in their report was possibly trying to relocate the Historical Society from its current location, which is pretty dire, over to... That's going to be discussed at their next meeting.

Yeah, so... Again, we, Dave Terrian had come up before they moved to the library down in South Grafton, and at that time, the library was still being, not the library side, but the meeting room side was being used to the extent that we didn't want to give that up so they could use half of the building, and it wasn't really quite what they wanted. It wasn't big enough for them, but now it's, We can't justify keeping it for a little bit of meeting space for meetings that might happen there from time to time as opposed to having the whole building get to good use. It's too much of a resource to waste.

And in their report, it rated pretty well. The maintenance that's needed seemed to be pretty minimal. So, again, it's totally, you know, the ball will be in your court and back and forth with historical. But, you know, it could be a good idea and something that gets that building utilized more.

I think we all know, too, the longer a building stays vacant, the more people forget about it. And, well, we don't have to do anything here. Nobody's here. We don't have to do that. Next thing you know, it becomes a real disarray, you know.

Yep, very much so. So I'd like to do something with it before it kind of hits that point in our return.

Yeah, it's nice now. It's still in great shape. Yeah.

Anybody else have anything they want to add?

Just to circle back to the trees bit, I mean, would you guys be interested in planting more trees if that was something you partnered with the town on or have a thought of where you might want it if that happened?

I think... I was around when it happened, but you guys are all too newbies to have appreciated it. Grafton became a tree town somewhere along the line, and they planted a whole bunch of the non-pine trees that are around up there. When the state came out and looked at all of that stuff, they said that the trees that are along 140 are all too close to the road and the salt's going to kill them, and it's been killing them. for 40 years. Those, I don't really know where the state's right away stops as far as us cutting them down. But the point of putting more trees up there, somebody snuck one in up there. We thought, well, I thought that it grew while I was gone for a while. I'm saying, boy, the boys didn't cut that sapling down that grew up there. And I went over and you could see somebody had cut the ground and put it in overnight. So I said, well, maybe somebody snuck in and planted it as a memorial to somebody. But I found out it was a couple of kids had to grow it for school and they thought it would be nice to just put it up there. So I watered it and grew it, but it's not the right kind. Well, it's not one of the right kinds. It's not one of the trees that are listed as approved for planting on town property. I get you. But. you know, putting some back up there. I mean, the rest of those, the trees in the center will live and prosper as long as you don't change what's being done with them. The ones that the rest of the pine trees up there are shot. There's nothing you can do with them. They will all eventually come down. Um, and then just trying to find something that will thrive up there without having to have all water all the time or whatever. just to kind of keep it nice and parky-like. And I don't know where we buy trees from.

Nurseries.

Oh, thanks. I feel like I'm talking to myself. If the town buys trees from anybody and has some kind of agreement, and we find some decent trees and can kind of peck away at buying a couple a year, you know, try to somewhat replace what's up there without creating 400 cubic yards more of leaves up there, it would be very nice. I don't really think that we need to go building anything else up there.

That area is getting a lot more brickery. I actually see people picnicking there from the apartment complex across the way. I mean, that The police is getting some play instead of going down the park. They're sitting up in there, and it's a nice place. I like the little elevation they can look down. And they're out there with their dogs all the time. So even that area is getting some play with it now from that, you know, whatever it is, the 40 or 48 apartments they put in there.

Sometimes it's a drag when you're mowing. You have to cut the people up in little pieces.

Probably try not to do that. But the state wouldn't have anything to do with that.

Well, no, the trees that are right along 140.

Yeah, but they still don't have any, I don't believe, because there's two types of state highways in Massachusetts.

Yeah, see, and I don't know where the edge of the highway even stops.

But that's town maintained. It's town road with a state-designated number. The only state highways are ones that are maintained by the state.

Well, and all the ones that are half-blocked have been hit by cars and stuff like that.

It would just be town approval for anything like that. I believe not. Nothing to abstain.

Okay.

Just picking up trees off the road.

Yeah, you know, appreciate the update, and we'll just keep doing what we're doing. You know, in the interest of, again, being kind of good partners and neighbors, if there's anything that we can be doing to help out or... you know, better promote events over there, whatever the case may be, don't hesitate to reach out.

Yeah, I think our main concern is just to get somebody in there, get something in there to make sure the building is used. Yeah, we'd like to see that too. It's just too nice to let it just sit.

Yeah, it's nice having somebody over there, so we don't have to go running over there every couple of weeks to make sure nothing's gone wrong inside.

Alright, thank you so much for coming in today. Thanks. Okay, so next up, we're going to pass over the general update from the Charter Review Committee and save that for a time when all of our membership can be here. And we'll move into 1727 Upton Street Local Action Unit application. Christian, come on down. Good evening, Slack Board.

This application is prepared by MCO Housing. There's no one here from MCO Housing, is that right, Will?

We do have a couple of people on Zoom. I don't know where.

I don't think that's them.

Sarah, maybe?

Sarah here?

Yep. Says her email address is at MCO Housing Services. She's not. They're not on the call.

Okay. No problem. I was here just in case. It was prepared by MCO Housing on behalf of the developer. I went through town review by myself. There's a number of revisions back and forth leading up to this version. Once it's signed, it'll go to the state for review to be approved. And this is all part of the process to regulate the affordable units in the 1727 building. So I can answer any questions. MCO may be a little bit more of an expert on this than me, but happy to answer any questions you might have.

I have no questions.

I reviewed the material in the packet, and as far as my knowledge of the process goes, it looked comprehensive and it all made perfect sense.

Yeah, could you just tell us a little bit more about applying for local action units?

I don't...

could be wrong it's been it's been a few minutes since one of these is like come online but I don't remember us having to go through that this part of the process in the past or maybe it's not something that we had to be connected with there like is MCO more akin to like a Chapa who is gonna run the lottery for these or yeah MCO is a lottery agent so they take care of this part they're making sure the the paperwork is

is complete and the regular piece of this is approved by the state and then they will run the lottery and then it will get passed over to the developer's property manager once that piece is done. For comprehensive permit developments, a lot of the time this is done before the permit

approved but for this type of development um what's not comprehensive permit it happens at this point in the process so that makes sense yeah and and we have had to do the some of the other stuff for chapa it's just not with this particular organization so i think that's what what threw me off but thank you okay if nobody else has any questions you can take a motion

Sure. I move the board vote to approve the local action unit application for 17 and 27 Upton Street as presented and authorize the chair to sign.

Second. Okay. Much made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Much passed unanimously. Thank you. Thanks, Christian. Okay. Next up, we have our host community agreement for cannabis retail at 130 Worcester Street.

Yep, so I can take that. So we've been negotiating this back and forth. This is for a new cannabis retailer who's going to occupy the 130 Worcester Street, formerly the discerned property. There's really nothing to update in the host agreement. The host agreements have gotten very boilerplate. It's not like it was... five or six years ago where every community had all these different, you know, kind of wild provisions in there. This is based off of the most recent iteration of what the Cannabis Control Commission has authorized through their process. So it was reviewed by the Businesses Council as well as our council. And there were really, really minor revisions made, nothing spectacular. Um, carries all the provisions, uh, including the, uh, community impact fee or CIF, uh, which is up to 3%. Um, should the municipality be able to, uh, basically itemize and bill for impacts that happen in the community. Those haven't really, um, evolved a ton since our, our last, um, business came online, which is, uh, he's cannabis, but one 30, I think it's one 35 Westboro road. Um, So it's a pretty straightforward agreement at this point. Also, this is the same version that we used for the previous one you did with Hays Cannabis.

Great. I do see that we have Mr. Romano and Mr. Patel on Zoom. Welcome. Is there anything else you'd like to add on to that or, I guess, give you an opportunity to say hi and discuss your plans for the site?

Sure. My name is Valerio Romano. I'm the attorney for Grafton Cannabis LLC. I'm here. I'm joined by Bupin, who's the manager of Grafton Cannabis LLC. I mean, I think that was a pretty good explanation as to what we're doing. We want to revitalize the spot that has now been empty for at least a year, if not more, by discerned cannabis companies. This is a great group. They will not have sort of the same problems that had discerned that discerned ran into, which a lot of groups in the Commonwealth are now sort of the markets are shaking itself out. And, you know, the ones that are able to operate efficiently and really satisfy customers are the ones that are able to remain in the market. And these guys are that. Really just sort of looking forward to working with the town of Grafton. I remember years and years ago when we first passed medical, I was in and out of there trying to do cultivation and whatnot. Happy to be back years later. If the select board, I know you have experience with this, but if you have any questions, I was co-author of the ballot initiative. I was also on conservation in my old hometown of Cohasset. I've cited over 100, 150 marijuana establishments throughout Mass. So I'm happy to answer any questions about this or the general questions about the way cannabis works. I'm happy to answer those. But we're really looking forward to being part of Grafton and giving back.

Awesome. Great. Does anybody have any questions, comments?

Is this a one to one with discerned essentially like the exact same sort of business with the same authorized operations are going into the same spot into the same space?

Yes. So yeah, please go ahead. No. So it is it's it's, we're not expanding. We're not doing anything because I don't want to play in it. But the the host agreement does not expand the use of the site. It's still a dispensary as their primary use.

My only question would be now that the building's already built from time of issuing the HCA to open for business, what does that timeframe look like these days?

So given the fact that there's very little construction time, there's really not many changes that we're gonna be making at all, we can ask the commission to come in and do inspections right away. So we could probably be open between, and these guys are experts at this, getting wholesale products and staffing up, You know, we could be open in less than half a year, which would be great, given the fact that if you had to do all the construction and all the various levels of inspections. But I think we're really we're ready to go for that. you know, just sort of the next inspection and get them out there. And then you have to get on the agenda for them. They need once a month to take these votes. So, you know, that's probably a couple months away before we get the vote. And then you got to do another inspection at the end. So, yeah, I mean, I'd say within half a year is a realistic time frame.

How many other retail establishments in the state does this group own and operate?

Well, this particular group and Bupin, this is his first one, but it's sort of a family and they work together and they have advisors who operate three others. But Bupin, it's his first one.

I believe you can only operate three under one umbrella. Right. Is that what the cannabis recently changed?

The governor signed an order allowing non-social equity or economic empowerment folks to operate five and then eventually six. There's a carve out and for a six that gives a little some preference and some runway for not for not for social equity and economic empowerment folks. The governor signed that order. The CCC has yet to actually implement it, but in the next few months, it will be up to five and six. We don't have any sort of regulatory issue with this. These guys are smart and excited to get in the business as well.

Nice. Thank you.

Great.

I have one question.

Did you source an image of our town common just for tonight?

I did.

Appreciate that. Thank you. That's a nice little touch.

It's a beautiful town. And I was sitting in my bedroom and I don't know if you guys wanted to see my dogs crawl all around or not.

You know, we're a very dog-friendly crowd too, so either way, you win-win. Okay, if nobody has any further questions, comments, input, we can take a motion.

I move the board vote to approve the House Community Agreement with Grafton Cannabis LLC and authorize the chair to sign.

Second. Okay, much made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. Much passed unanimously. Thank you both for coming in tonight. Appreciate it and hopefully see you soon.

Thank you very much for your time. Have a great evening. You too.

All right. Facilities Assessment Committee final report.

Just in time. Yeah.

I thought the town meeting voted five members.

No, I'm sorry. I had to throw that. Will, you get the stuff? Yep.

Did you get a hole in one tonight?

Oh, no, but I swung the club more than I should have. It's an awful game. It's awful. But I, you know, I play once a week. Hang on, I've got to get this warmed up. Okay, so the Facility Assessments Committee has completed our review of all of the buildings that we were supposed to review, everything except for the school department. Dan Helms, myself, Bob Egan, Chris Meade, we inspected the buildings, we came up with the reports, and some of them are very, very good, and others are not so good. But... You know, we'll go from there. So go to the next slide. Well, that's not it. Is it? Go to the next one. There we go. So Grafton Fire Headquarters, that was actually the first one that we inspected. And most of the items that we came up with, We're on the capital budget. So because, you know, time has passed, it's being repaired and fixed right now. Nothing major in this building. Go to the next one, Will. Station 2 has been renovated over the last two years. It has new handicapped bathrooms, has new lighting, new overhead doors, new kitchen. And currently, it's up for a new electric service, which I have the bids in right now for that and some other items. Otherwise, the building, the roof needs some addressing, but we'll get to that after. Go to the next one, Will. Station 3. Station 3 is, and I'm sure that the board's heard about Station 3. Started out as a renovation project like Station 2, but morphed into a little bit more difficult job. But at the end of this year, that station will be 100%. So new lighting, new overhead doors. You can see the picture at night, which looks absolutely gorgeous with the trucks inside. And that's getting work done on the roof. It's got all new overhead doors, all new lighting, all new air conditioning. Station 2 has air conditioning also and heating. And that's what Station 3's got. And this one had a... had a bathroom that was just for men small locker room on one side and now we have a men's room and a women's room and a shower so I mean you know you're gonna go outside to change your mind but it's but you know it fits go to the next one will police headquarters was in really good condition there were items that we found on our on our list That we had on our list that were actually fixed within a month of of our inspection And that's that's actually in pretty good shape next one Grafton community television Did we write anything down on that? No, that's that's been renovated. So it's it's in great condition. No problems at all next I Grafton Historical Society. I will get into that when we get into the assessments. Go to the next one. So that's a picture in that same building, in the Grafton Historical Society downstairs. The lights are being powered by residential electric extension cords. The building is not in good condition at all. Can you go to the next one, Will? That's the bathroom. That's the bathroom. Can you go to the next one?

A municipal grade bucket under the sink?

That is catching leaks. The community house. Um, that's in, uh, that's a fairly large building and actually, you know what we're going to, well, they'll start doing, looking at these things right now. So, uh, community center, and I know the board got these in advance, um, The inspected areas, so this is to clean the moss off the roof. You can see the moss that's on the roof from the trees that are there, and that needs to be chemically treated. That's really not a big item. It's a maintenance item. The wood decks are not structurally sound at all. They need to be replaced. And I know Cindy had talked to me about the decks a couple of weeks ago, and I said that was in our row.

Yep.

In our report, broken concrete on the back of the building. Now, this was a school. And the downstairs, there's a downstairs to this area that has the original toilets and bathrooms in it.

It's terrifying.

It's...

It's real scary down there.

There you go.

I only went in there once, and I was like, I can't do it. There you go. I got to get out of here.

And Bob Egan's here. He had a later tea time than I did.

How'd you hit him, Bob? A lot, but we won.

So there's damaged wood trim. Some of it's been fixed. Some of it needs attention. The building needs to be power washed and painted. There's no insulation in this building at all. You'll see it, if you can go to another picture. That's the moss on the roof. Go to the next one. This is a handicap ramp that's in the front of the building. It's the only handicap entrance to the building, and it doesn't meet current code, you know, for railings, for grade, for anything. So that needs to be taken care of. Well, next one. That's the deck. You can go to the next one. You can see the plants growing through it. This is the downstairs. A lot of people would look at that trench right there and say it's a cow trough for cows, but it's not. It's a trench drain. If you can go to the next one, Will. This is where it gets scary. Excuse me. So, The main structural portion of this building is being held up by logs, which is not a bad thing because the logs have been there since 1922 or something like that. And they're not moving. They're not going anywhere. But they're not legal structural systems. This area down here, there's no insulation underneath the entire building, so there's a crawl space of about five to six feet, and there's no insulation down there at all. There's water infiltration in numerous areas. And what we're suggesting on that is we'll obviously insulate it and put in a basement ceiling system. I mean, basement, yes, ceiling, not ceiling, to control the moisture. Water enters through every window well. And that's kind of the trick. the bad part about this building. So, you know, air blows in there and it just goes under the floors and the building is about as efficient as an open door. Can you go to the next one, Will? This is inside the building. That stove right there is in the VFW side. That was just put in. There's no hood, there's no extinguishers, there's no... nothing. And then the other side over there, the picture on the other side is some of the fire load that's in the building. There's a tremendous fire load. And what I mean by that is it's stuff stacked up, you know, no sprinklers. There's no fire alarm on the BFW side of the building. That left-hand picture is on the – that was the Hassan Amisco, right? The Indians on that side. So you can go to the next one. So let me just, so cut trees and vegetation, install a fire alarm system, replace windows, handicap ramp and railings, the dirt floor in the basement, the storage areas, and that total was $779,500 for that building. And then now the fire museum. Where'd it go? Okay, here we go. Fire museum was built in 1900. In The late 70s and early 80s, the sills were replaced in this building. You can see the picture of the building, the older section of the building, the older picture of the building. You can see the plastic that's draped on the side down near the bottom, and that's because the sills were rotted. Well, the sills were repaired, but the water infiltration to the building was never repaired. So it's actually back in that. same situation as it was. The problem with this building is the way to fix it is to put a structural system inside the building and actually lift up the floor and lift up the building and repair all of that. And we had questions whether there were foundations there. We can't tell if there are foundations there. There's stone there, but there's no foundations. The brick veneer needs to be cleaned and repointed. The siding needs to be replaced. It needs to have gutters installed. Paint the building, repair the door and exterior trim, and replace the sills. Now, this is a 695 square foot building, and the total price is $587,000 to repair it. And that's because most of that is the jacking up the building and doing the sills properly. And that's unfortunate that it's that much money.

Is it worth preserving the building?

So I'm going to get into that at the end. I'm not going to try to be here forever.

But that cost does not include...

changing the grade around the around the structure so that so the building itself if you look at the side of the building that's the property line so everything to the outside left right only in the front and that's mostly state property in the back it's all that's the property that the town owns so this you know there's nothing there There's no other property there. There's no parking.

We'd be in the same situation, that if we repaired it, we're still not doing anything to remediate what's causing the damage, and we're just going to wind up in this.

Well, no, you can fix the problem by putting gutters on the building and tracking water away from the building. That you can do. And we'll get into whether it's worth it or not. So you want to go to the next one, Moe? Grafton Public Library. This is a building that was, and I don't have the age. Do you remember the age, Dan, of the original building? Yeah. I know. It's how many years old, the addition? Five? Is it five years?

Yeah, roughly.

So this building has, and if you read the report, which I'm sure you have, Overall, the new construction and renovation was not completed with good construction practices, and the quality of the workmanship was not good. That is throughout the building. That is not just designated in one area or one space. It's inside and it's outside the building. It was just, well, I won't say what we'd say in the construction business, but that's, you know. So the, you go to the next one, Will. So I think you've seen these before, maybe Victoria, maybe you haven't, and Colleen, you haven't seen these because this was in my first original report of the flashing on the roof. This flashing was just, it's installed, but it's not doing anything. It totally was installed properly. You can go to the next one, Will. So that picture that's in the middle, that's a drainage basin that goes into the retention area. It needs to be cleaned out. The retention area needs to be cleaned out. South Street, and I know Evan and Paul have done a lot of work on South Street, and the water seems to be controlled now. But we're suggesting that a catch basin be placed right at the end of that curb to catch the water coming down South Street so that in heavy rain it doesn't roll over and go into the building. We're also saying that trench drains, you can go to the next one, Will. I'm sorry, on that left-hand picture you can see the, can you go back? On that left-hand picture you can see the sandbags. So that leads to a doorway. And what we're suggesting is that trench drains be installed and connected to the existing yard drains that are there. They're only like 10 to 15 feet away. And that will stop the water as it creeps up to the doors, goes into the trench drain, and goes into the yard drains and into the retention area. Exterior doors, most doors had water infiltration and sandbags. Sidewalks don't slope away from the building in some cases. The brick veneer, and I don't have a picture of that. We've got thousands of pictures. The brick veneer on the Upton Street side of the building wasn't installed properly. It's supposed to be nice and straight and everything, and it looks like a, you know, I don't know, if you look at it, your eyes start to buzz out. Okay. The bollards at the entrance, and I noticed recently that those have been painted, but we were suggesting bollard covers because the top of the bollards were extremely sharp, and they may have been ground down by now, but I don't know. There were roof leaks in the building. The sprinkler room was used as storage. The exterior doors have large gaps in them, not only in the new building, but in the old building. The old building wasn't addressed. There's exposed electrical on the Upton Street side of the building where there was an old light, and it's just hanging by a wire. The glass panels in the stairway, they look really great, but the glass panels, the tops and the corners are very, very sharp. So if you don't put your hand on the handrail and you run it down the glass, you're probably going to get cut. That can be very easily fixed by just grinding the glass down and polishing it. So we didn't put a number on the drainage basins or water retention areas or the brick veneer because it can't be fixed. So that can be done by the highway department, but that had a value of $263,200. And the biggest number was $125,000 for just the roof flashing. We don't have to go through all of these. Colleen, you look like you're starting to nod off.

No, I'm holding in all my questions because you already shut me down, so I'm waiting. I did? Yes.

I didn't know that. I'm sorry. I'm not like that.

So can I circle back to the library for a moment? Yeah, go ahead. Is any of this under warranty still? No.

No. So there's a one-year warranty, you know, on any construction projects. But for, I don't know how to say this, but for items that were grossly negligent, You can go back six years. But that requires you to go to court and get that ruling and all of that. So it's a long process, but it's 12 months. Grafton DPW. Grafton DPW is a new building, fairly new building. We don't have a big budget on this, only $37,000. The roof, which is a standing seam roof. and it has a cap on top of it. The standing seams come up like this and then a cap. Oh yeah, there you go. So that's Bob's foot. And he's, yeah, it is. Your foot comes up in a few pictures. So you can see the space between the panels right there. So, and that's brand new roof. So what happened was the top cap was not put on properly. And this problem is gonna continue throughout the life of this building. The picture on the left are panel seams up against flashing for an HVAC unit. And you can see that that, and that building's five years old, right?

Five years?

Yeah, it was 2019, I think. 2019. So you can see the spaces in that that are created. And that's gonna continue to, as the building moves, And because the roof wasn't installed properly in all areas, it's going to continue to move and it's going to continue to leak. So it's going to be a yearly process. If you can go to the next one, that's another one that is leaking. Now, metal building people, or not all metal building people, but a lot of them think that caulking is the greatest thing since the flush toilet. But it doesn't last forever. And that's what we have in this situation. I'll go to the next one, Will. So these are coolant lines to HVAC systems, to split systems. So what they did was they took regular foam insulation and they painted it white. And now it's all rotting apart. So this really needs to be replaced with some plastic, you know, proper insulation and plastic covers and put on properly. And then it won't do this because this is going to expose the lines. But that's pretty much it. If you guys have anything, just jump in. I'm going to go to the next one, Will. That is a hole in a vertical panel on the wall at the bottom. How that happened? No idea. You took that picture. Because I don't think I saw it. And that can be very easily fixed. You know, that's pretty simple to fix. Other than that, the building is very nice. The floor slabs are junk. They're out of level. They're all over the place. You know, things like that. But again, that building was not built with a high quality. Nelson Library.

before we move on just to be clear so those slabs being out of level and miss poured that was part of a lawsuit that we won subsequent to that okay just just to be clear Nelson library was built in 1975 it served as a library up to 2020 building hasn't been used in

Six, seven years, maybe?

Predates me by quite a bit.

Yeah, by quite a bit. This is in the building right here. Can you go back to that, Will? That's a gas stove in a closet. Not good. It was a great idea when they put it in, but it's one of those combination sink gas stoves. But this building is in amazing condition it really is you could you could put books in there tomorrow and do nothing and just let people go in and we believe this building has better use and and it's really I mean it's it's shown as is in the in the cost of repair at two hundred and twenty one thousand five hundred dollars but the maintenance building at a hundred thousand dollars really needs to be replaced It's mostly painting, replacing some sliding glass doors, if you can go to the next one, Will. Those sliding glass doors need to be replaced and remove the stove in the closet. It really surprised us how good that building was. And that's the storage building.

As good as that one is, this one is not.

Yeah, that's just a knockdown and build a new one. So we can go to the next one, Will. Grafton Townhouse. I think we all agree that we expected to go into this building and really, it was really gonna be bad. And it wasn't. It wasn't bad at all. There are items in this building, very expensive items that need to be fixed and repaired. But the building in total was actually in pretty good condition.

Surprisingly good shape for the age.

Yeah, yeah. Window replacement. Window replacement is – oh, let's go to this one. So repoint the brick veneer. Now, you can see on the picture on the right, the brick veneer in this building has an eighth-inch – That could be solid brick wall, but it has it has an eighth inch brick mortar Which makes it very expensive to repoint and clean and everything And in the this portion is falling down part of it And go to the next one wall And you can see that piece of granite and that's actually dropped down. That's got to be fixed. But we can go to the next one because it's the other side of the building. The vines on the building are, you know, I suppose they look nice in the summer, but they've actually crawled into the brick mortar. All that has to be taken off and cleaned and repointed. And it's very, very tedious work because the thickness of the mortar and being the lime mortar is very, very difficult to do. So there's wood trim that needs to be replaced, that needs to be painted. Can you go to the next one, Will? That's an old boiler that's in the building. And we don't test for asbestos. But that could possibly be asbestos. There's also in the windows, when the windows are done, now the windows are very expensive. The windows were $518,000. And that's today. Six months from now, that's going to be $750,000.

Do they have to be historically accurate or anything like that?

Yeah, this is bringing them back to what they originally looked like. So in these old buildings, there's usually asbestos caulking around the windows, and there's always lead paint. So each window has to be remediated before you take it out and then put the new one in. So that's the huge expense on the windows. And there's 61 windows.

And they have to be wood windows.

Yeah, they have to be wooden. So they're all custom made. Asbestos remediation, lead paint remediation. We suggested that insulation be added to the great hall, up above the great hall. There is insulation up there, but it wouldn't hurt to have a little bit more. That is $1,343,500. Okay. Go to the next one, Will. Oh, this is a picture. I'm sorry. I didn't realize these pictures were in. That's what they put over the windows to try to stop the cold in the winter. The other one was a plug that had six plugs in it, an outlet that had six plugs in it. There it is. That's very easily fixed. It doesn't cost anything. Just pull them out. So that, see that ripple in that paint and the crack in that paint? Usually indicates lead paint. And that's in all of the windows. Here's some of the windows that have insulation over them and have been blocked in with wood. You can keep going, Will. Dan, you took that picture and I don't know what it is.

Going up the stairs.

Oh, okay.

The door should be weather-stripped.

Oh, okay. Okay. Municipal center. Overall, if you've never been down underneath this building, you should go. Because it's pretty neat. They did a great job.

So that's the floor that should be put in the South Grafton Community Center. Yeah, that's the same thing. Yeah.

Yeah. So this building was in excellent condition, really no problems at all. You can go to the next picture, Will. So this had two cracks in the masonry, one at the back of the stage and one on the front corner of the gym. The crack in the back of the stage goes floor to ceiling, but it doesn't go through the veneer. So, which gives you the indication that it was either cracked prior to the veneer going on or there's a big space in there that's not insulated and, you know, some water get in there or something. Water, that's called efflorescence. That's the white stuff that's on the walls. That can be cleaned very easily and painted. Go to the next one. That is a rotted floor in the back of the stage, which had water leaks, roof leaks on that for many, many years. And that just needs to be repaired. The total of all of that is $81,000. Oh, this is, yeah, we found this. There's two of these. These are emergency boiler shutoffs in public corridors.

Yeah, someone can just reach up and...

shut, shut the heat off. So we're just suggesting to put a cage over them or, or relocate them someplace else. Just out of out of the hallway. There's one in the back hallway coming in down there. And then there's one right outside the janitor's office. So what's next? Well, nothing, nothing. Okay. So did we do everything?

did so do you have any questions sort of okay so you you answer my question about the the warranty but to go back to the the fire museum is it is it worth preserving it so it's a good that's a good question there's there's a couple of facilities

that we feel are in that same boat. And what I'd like to see the board do is appoint a committee to go through all of these reports and to come up with a plan of what to do with some of these buildings. In my opinion, is the historical fire museum worth putting that much money into? No. That's my opinion. I think you guys agree with that. Yeah.

Nelson, a lot... It has no handicap access. No. It's a fire waiting to happen.

Plus, the artifacts are in a historical society. They're priceless.

So the... We'll go to the... And I call it the South Crafton Library, but it's the historical building. Have you ever been in there? Yeah. I never got to go in. I never went in there at all until we inspected it. I got to tell you something. There are some beautiful artifacts in that building. It's unbelievable. But the building is not good. It has moisture problems. It has heating problems. It has window problems. You cannot put handicapped... You couldn't even bring it up to handicap code. You saw that bathroom that took, you know, I mean, and that's a real problem. But Nelson Library, an unused building, would be fantastic for the historical. You could put both. So the fire museum is only the downstairs. That's it. The upstairs is just furniture. I mean, it's antique furniture and stuff like that. It has nothing to do with fires. You know, fire building or history or anything like that. So like I said, I'd like to see that the board put together a committee that would go through these and say and answer that question, Colleen. You know, come back to the board and say, you know what? It's not worth it, or it is worth it, or this is how we're going to pay for it, and this is how we're going to do it.

In your opinion, is there any urgent need? When I heard the South Grafton Meeting House doesn't even have a fire alarm, my thought goes to insurance. If something happens, should we go get a fire alarm up there just to... While you guys are figuring out everything else?

Well, let's put it this way. You know, it's not going to hurt to put a fire alarm in there. The problem is that integrating it with the fire alarm that's on the left-hand side of the building and trying to do that, that's a pretty old system. So, you know, you'd have to put in a whole brand-new system.

There is an alarm in a portion of the building. Yeah, in a portion. It just doesn't go throughout the whole thing.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and the fire museum doesn't have alarms. The historical, they don't have alarms.

The fire museum doesn't have a smoke detector at all?

Probably not, nothing.

Nope. Interesting.

They don't even have a lock on the door.

No, the lock, we walked right in.

I've never been in there, so I can just go.

Just go down there.

There's no parking.

There's no parking.

Very ironic.

There's no parking. There's no parking at the historical site either.

Right.

Other than the lot that's in the back, which is the towns, which the people in the village use that to park their cars and campers and other stuff. But there's no parking down there either. Nelson Library is a gem and should be used.

Nelson Library is built like a bombshell.

It is.

And you could add on to it fairly easily, you know, if need be. And like the committee before, the trustees, you know, it's used a lot. So now you'd have the museum that would be accessible to not just Grafton people, but all the softball tournaments, everything else. You get a lot more traffic than it does now, which it needs. Like Ray said, I mean, the historical... Wealth in there is really impressive. And they did a ton of work.

They did. They did a ton of work.

And we can understand why they don't want to move again. But it's really a great resource. It should be protected and utilized as a nice resource that we already have.

And the downstairs, the basement has water infiltration and they have dehumidifiers down there. There are newspapers down there. There are documents down there. There are clothes down there. And it's just not a good thing at all.

No, none of those conditions are conducive to storing anything like that.

No, but I can see, Dave was there when we were looking at it, and it's an enormous amount of work to pick up everything in that building and move it. And it can't be done with volunteers. It has to be done professionally. And if you had it done professionally, hire somebody to move to Nelson Library, then it would be You know, it would be easy for them. They're just not, they don't want to, they don't want to move.

Because they moved from South Grafton County, is that right?

No, they moved from the town hall, the old town hall. Yeah.

And not too, too long ago either. Yeah, we understand the pain, but at the same time, if all of the historic artifacts are in active risk right now, that's. And they are.

There's some real priceless artifacts.

Yeah. I couldn't believe it.

Yeah.

And Nelson, they're looking to get something in there. You know, this really does seem like it would be a good fit. We did, I mean, Dan was here for the earlier part of the meeting they were in, and we did float that idea, and they said, I think Historical's going to be meeting soon to discuss the idea and talk through it again. But, you know, hopefully. Yeah, perfect spot. To me, yeah, it seems like just such a win-win for both parties.

I mean, there's a parking lot, you know, you've got the fields and all of that.

And like Dan said, you know, you... As a parent of somebody who's played sports and whatnot, you might get a little bored while the game's going on. You wander around. The foot traffic there would be so much better. Yeah.

I wonder if you could use CPA funds, too, to move from South Grafton over to Nelson because you're preserving everything.

That's always an option, Colleen. You know, that's... know because you could like you said you couldn't use volunteers you have to have it done professionally yes because of these restrictions would it qualify for CPA I don't know yeah so the total for all the buildings was four million two hundred and nineteen thousand two hundred dollars and that number goes up every single day so you know like I said the committee to implement this report and and come up with solutions and how to do this and how to do that and you know there are there are items on here that do they need to be done tomorrow no they don't need to be done tomorrow but they need to be done so you know fortunately all the heating and plumbing systems we're in we're in really good condition you know and and that's where your big money is you know uh but every 10 years any any building that has a full HVAC system should have, you know, a run-through of the thing and, you know, things replaced.

So did you do GCTV or no? Yeah, we did. Okay. We didn't write anything down, and I don't think we took any pictures. No, that's a great building. That's a great building. But just to keep it in the report so when they go to redo this report and... Yeah, it's in there. Yeah, it's in there. All right. I didn't see it.

I think the other question is, besides... is how now if we do move the historical site, what do we do with that property? How do we utilize that for the needs of the town? We need affordable housing. We need senior housing. That's a property you could probably put something in there that's useful for the town. As part of Ray's suggestion for the committees, South Grafton Community Center, I mean, They got land behind there, right? So you got a lot behind there. Can you utilize that building and make it, you know, mixed use in terms of senior housing, other affordable housing behind it, that type of thing. So how do we, based on the fact we just went through an override, how do we show the town we're thinking outside the box to utilize land that right now it's costing us money you know it's not bringing any revenue back into the money it's minimal usage you know effectively so how do we do the you know so i think to ray's point those are the questions need to be looked at as well as to how do we you know do the best for the town and the resources we have and make the resources we have you know um So I think it's, we've got some great buildings, as Ray said. Almost all the buildings were in good shape, you know, except for ones that we've identified. And, you know, and it's just, it needs a little bit more, you know, tender, loving care, you know, to think about, you know.

Yeah. You know, even like the fire stations, you know, the $100,000 a year in, put into updating a fire station has gone very well. It's gone very well.

How many times did you do the floor in the station number two?

Yeah. How many times did I do the floor? That wasn't in the $100,000, but that program works fantastic, and you can chip away at some of this stuff, but some of the other stuff, you know, you've got to come up with some money.

Thank you guys for doing this. It's a ton of work that you undertook, and it shows, and it's very helpful. So you're asking to have either a new committee created or an expansion of this current group?

Well, I don't know. That's up to you guys. You know, what I'd like to get on, you know, get people, and we're all construction, you know, all four of us are construction people. And I'd like to get people to look at some of this stuff and look at some of these buildings and and different people that come up with an idea. They know, hey, should we do something with the fire museum? I mean, should we do something with the old South Grafton Library?

In my mind, there's sort of two outcomes from this report, which, again, was an incredible amount of work. One is the obvious now sort of laundry list of items that can be placed on the capital plan as to be prioritized with with everything else and Then there's the more strategic larger questions about the properties or Bits and bobs that aren't necessarily obvious capital projects to repair flashing on the library, right? That's one thing but you know, the larger overarching question, what do we do with the historic city building? What do we do with the fire museum? What do we do with what graphic common? I think that has to be on the table too, because $1.3 million is a very, very big number.

Do you keep it? Do you sell it?

Do you, you know, what's, what's amazing to me is the South town has done a great job tapping into the green communities funding. you know, over the years. And then the energy performance contract, which did this building, you know, the South Grafton Community Center has never been looked at. It's never, there's no information on it. You know, I know we did, I worked on a performance contract, we did data collection for that, but it really not a true reflection of the cost of operating a building because it wasn't being... wasn't used you know so everything was that low but that's one step maybe to get a better handle on the costs of insulation and then we can tap into green communities probably and get some funding for that maybe if that's the way we go or at least that gives us a little bit more idea of how to make it a little bit more livable if we want to expand it and utilize it. I mean, you got a great, because it was a school, you got that big cafeteria area, you know, so.

I think that's clever. There's a huge lot behind there.

There is.

Yeah. This is an excellent point. It's a great area, too.

Okay. So to your question, Colleen, I mean, I would like to be on the implementation committee. I don't know about Dan and Bob, and probably would, but to make it more people. So we started off with six and two left after the first meeting. And I didn't offend anybody.

I doubt you did. So you, it would probably just be easiest to then create a whole new committee. I would think so. And you like a larger size committee. Yeah. And then probably have some public outreach as part of your charge so that you can get some feedback for some of these ideas. And that's where you guys are going.

Okay. But not take a lot of time. to do it. No, we'll get it on the next agenda. We've got the reports, we've got the buildings, you know. No, no, no, I'm not talking about you guys. Oh. Not give the committee, you know, two years to, you know, to get it done. Because 4.2 million in two years is going to be six and a half.

Right. I mean, these numbers could be changing, you know, daily. I love the idea of creating a new very specific committee to create actionable plans for this but again knowing that some of these things likely don't require going through committee they require being prioritized on capital I wonder if that's something that we we do is we sort of as we create the charges is we're a little prescriptive and ensure that you know the capital improvement planning committee takes the the obvious pieces and runs with those

Yeah, I agree. And, and, you know, Ray and I spoke a little bit about this earlier. But I, you know, I think to like CIPC's benefit, if this part of the charges, part of what the, you know, implementation and feasibility committee does is go through and Like we said, it kind of identifies some of the lower hanging fruit, things that we can knock off fairly easily overall, you know, and not necessarily for each specific building, but just, you know, these are the things, but also pairing up. If you're going to do, you know, X upgrade, you should consider doing Y at the same time so that we're, you know, doing whatever this planning is as efficiently as possible. Yeah, that's a fair point. You know, so if we could kind of get them to dial that in, and then I think that helps benefit CIPC in figuring out where it folds into the overall capital plan and how they move it forward, whatever the case may be.

Alright, I buy that. That makes total sense. There are efficiency gains to be made if it's one governing body. That's fair.

So... Yeah, this, uh... It was a bit of a rollercoaster going through here, because there were some good things, or some surprises, I felt like, that things were in much better shape than I anticipated, and other things that are, you know, definitely in worse shape than I anticipated, but... It was very thorough, and truthfully, I enjoyed reading through it. I appreciated the level of detail, you know, pricing everything out. And you guys came in under timeline, too. I want to call that out.

I don't remember what the timeline was. I don't know. You could have done it faster.

Well, you know, even a blind squirrel finds a nut. But you did it. Anyways, you came in under the radar. So thank you. I appreciate you all coming in tonight.

Thanks. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. There is a possibility that we ask you to come back in the future and talk about this again, but, you know.

Just don't make it on a golf night.

We'll do our best to avoid that.

Well, especially when we have a tee time at 530.

Thank you. I think you guys need to book your tee times better.

Right. This is not a select board problem.

Can we have this report put somewhere on the website so people can find it easily? Yep. Thank you.

That's a great idea. This is phenomenal. And the way they put the report together is so data rich and easy to follow. This is really top notch work. This is great.

Yeah, I agree. I was really impressed with the end result. Good to go through. Okay, so again, we are going to skip the earmark survey results so that we can discuss that closer to full capacity. And we will end our new business with the road closure request for the Apple Pie Social on September 27th. That's an annual thing. We did not require them to come in for this because we do it for them every year. So barring any comments, questions, or pushback from the board, I think we can just go right to a motion.

I move the board vote to approve the closure of Grafton Common on September 27th, 2026, as requested.

Second. Okay, motion to be seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor?

Aye.

Okay. Select board reports.

I just wanted to call out Grafton Rec for an amazing Grafton night. Is that what we're calling it?

Grafton Day.

Grafton Day. Held at night. It was amazing. A lot of work. And it really showed. And it was awesome seeing the community come out and enjoy all of the... things they had to offer all of the crafting fairs and just getting, I, my favorite part was getting to see the kids all reunite like right before school starts. They, they got to hang out for the night. They got to do the bounce houses. Um, you know, ask me anything, the most amount of people ever to walk by the, ask me anything without a question. Um, not a lot of stopping, but you know, we tried.

I think my takeaway was, other than the fact that it was an incredible event, and the hard work and volunteerism that went into making that happen was obvious and apparent, was that folks were not in the mood to have serious discussions. And I think that is perfectly fine. It's a lesson learned. It was not a great venue for the official Ask Me Anything, but I'm glad that we were still there, you know, just represent the the board um but we we in in all fairness should probably do a makeup ask me anything that's a little more official it sounds fair yeah that was a lesson learned yeah i think uh it is probably fair you know uh with the community engagement i think if you want to talk with amber about getting something set up that

Maybe at Nelson Library. I've never been inside.

I've never been inside either. What a phenomenal idea.

Sounds like they're looking for something to do down there.

Yeah. Hosting us.

Yeah. I would reach out to Skip beforehand and make sure it's in a condition where it can host people. It was pretty minimal on the furniture the last time I was in there. Oh, fair enough. But a lovely idea if actionable. Okay. Yeah, the... Dovetailing on that, the Grafton Day was amazing. Are you going to talk about it at all?

Grafton Day? Yeah. I'm going to talk about it from a thanking staff standpoint.

Okay. Well, I didn't want to step on any toes because I get to be behind the scenes a little bit. And I heard from the fire chief talking about the emergency management. Are you going to? Yeah. Okay. I'll stay off.

Why stop now?

No, just they had the opportunity to set up down at the bottom of the hill. Some of us got, I think, a little overly comfortable and just kind of walked through the lines, guilty. We're like, hey, guys, how's it going? But it was actually their emergency management scene, and they were flying two drones out of there. was just you know the chief praised it as as really good practice an exercise that they don't get to do all that often you know the the actual um like software and paperwork side of it uh so it was it was really good practice for them doing that part of it as well um heard so many good things just kind of walking through the crowd and listening to people's levels of excitement for the vendors for the bounce houses you know and it was pretty spread out across the municipal campus as we called it with everything, you know, the beer garden down at GCTV and then food trucks on one side, bounce houses in the back and the, you know, the tents on the other side. So, um, to have all those people moving around that area successfully, I think was, was a big win. Um, and, and to your point, yeah, rec put so much effort into it. Um, so many happy residents. I, I hope, you know, we're able, it's something we're able to do again next year. Uh, we also got to attend the India independence day, last weekend as well which again has been an annual event that that the board has been proud to participate in and attend it's just you know it's a it's a it's a nice rich cultural heritage event there are so many great people to talk to we always have a good time the weather was amazing that day it was you know we had been in one of those warm spells that it was just kind of cool and dry and yeah big fans you gonna mention Tufts Oh, no, go ahead.

Okay. So there was a beam signing ceremony at Tufts and there was two parts. I missed the first part because I had kids. So you attended that part, which is why I kicked it over to you. But I did sign the beam and I got to bring my kids down and that was really fun. And they actually got to sign it too, which was pretty cool.

Yes, it's part of the construction of the new Veterinary Learning Center. They had a beam out that's nicely finished and open to students and staff to sign and put well wishes. Um, so we were able to, you know, it's a midday thing. Um, so it was, it was kind of difficult for everybody to attend, but we were able to get over there, sign that, uh, schmooze a little with, uh, Senator Moore and Representative Meridian, um, Dean Cribb, you know, learn a little bit about a little bit more about the project. It's about a 25 to 30 million dollar project. Gives them the potential to add up to, I think, 150 students more each additional year. It'll consolidate some of the student services on that side of the road so they don't have to cross the street. Some of the temporary buildings and other parking areas will come down to make a nicer green quad for the student base. Seems like a really cool project. It was neat to be able to put our mark on that for all time.

um no real changes to route 122 i'm just going to keep this slide in here so that as we do have things happen we will update the board keep going well um not a lot changed from our last meeting as far as paving goes with the exception of we continue to work on george hill um we have gone on the right hand side if you're starting on leland all the way up pretty much to the intersection of Soap Hill and now we're coming back the other direction as far as widening. They will then come back and do, once that's done, they'll start removing stumps and we're gonna have to wait for National Grid to move the poles, because now we've got poles that are three and four feet into the road, so they've gotta be reset. So all of that is in process and they're making a good dent in it, so. It's nice to see.

I just want to call it the Faulkner and Waterville on there, too. You know, those were fairly recent road takings. This is the first paving that we've given them, and they are smooth. Huge upgrades for those two areas.

Yeah, they came out really nice. Yeah. Other updates, the senior center ramp is almost complete. We have to let it cure, and then we will come through and put the railings back on. and then she'll be ready to go. So really happy with the way that that project's going out. Will's been spearheading that, so we're pretty close. We did have a senior stop by to ask us if we could add railings to it. That's a good idea. I thought so too.

Full directive, the railings will go back up the first half of next week.

The first half of next week. There you go.

Great.

All right. Um, and the pavilion that we're putting out near the, uh, on the other pad near the exercise court will be installed on the 3rd of September. So looking forward to that. Is that a one day thing? I don't know how long it is. I'll be honest with you. I think it is, but could be two. Um, So property acquisitions, we continue to do working on North Street, trying to drum up a purchase and sale for that so we can start really negotiating that. 27 Stowe, we continue to work on the title search. I think I mentioned last time that the owner of the property had passed. That is going to have to go through probate, so that's going to probably slow that down a bit. So we'll just leave that as something we're working on and then Um, we can do the, the title in lieu and, um, or the deed in lieu, excuse me, and then bring it to whatever town meeting is most, uh, adjacent to that. Um, the rec, uh, I thought I'd have more of an update, but our meeting today got canceled and moved to Thursday. So, um, don't really have anything since the last time I ever met with that group since you have met. Um, In case you hadn't heard, FLOC is fairly controversial these days in the state of Massachusetts and elsewhere. All of our FLOC cameras went offline on Friday the 21st at 11.52 p.m. We are waiting an estimate for removal and working through contract cancellation. We've been working on that pretty much since today. A little gap between when we pulled the plug on Friday and today, but we're going to keep working on that. The Municipals podcast, I just wanted to update all of our rabid fans. Our latest guest was Leah Cameron. I believe that's up now. She's our conservation agent. I think that was a nice little podcast. Um, and then I just wanted to touch on, uh, people have probably seen it in the news. Amazon drone delivery will be, be coming to Grafton. Um, the advisory we got, um, says that it's six miles from the Westboro location. The map that we saw recently in the press, uh, seem or at, at the Westboro, I think it was actually their planning board. Um, the first place that that came up, it's looks like it's farther than that, but, um, I don't understand how all of it works yet, so we'll have to kind of see. I did reach out to some of our sister communities that are also outside of Westboro, but are also getting deliveries, and Amazon has not come to any of them, and it doesn't look like they're going to come before any of them. There is no local authority for, that uh deals with drone delivery it's all faa and faa has already approved this project so um i am in contact with like i said our sister communities that are also going to be receiving drone delivery and we're going to kind of talk through seeing if we can get some more information uh But just for folks edification, they're five foot drones, five foot square essentially. I think they're actually five rotor as well, five sets of blades. They are going to be moving at about 65 to 70 miles an hour. They will come out of the factory or the delivery center. They're gonna go straight up to about 125 feet and then they'll climb to between 200 and 250 feet as they go to their delivery spot. They will then descend to roughly 13 feet, deliver their package, I believe via like a grapple looking thing, cable thing, and then they will ascend back up to between 350 and 400 feet and head back to the facility. Every one drone operator on site will operate 10 drones. And I find it interesting. They don't have cameras. They use LiDAR as far as how they navigate the environment, which is essentially what, if you have a consumer drone, they use for collision avoidance. So it should be pretty interesting. And the advisory that we saw didn't come from Amazon. The advisory we saw came from... the state's drone unit to our drone unit because there's no collision avoidance like there is on an airplane with an ADS-E or any kind of transmitter. They're transmitting, but our drone won't see their drone. So when we're doing public safety operations, we have to worry about their traffic. So we've got to figure out how to navigate that. Okay.

It's wild to me that they're letting them operate in kind of that general...

Same place as consumer drones? Yeah. Should be interesting. Okay.

I had more to say on it, but it's a real technical one.

Nobody's going to care. Grafton Day, I just wanted to call out some of our departments, so Recreation, specifically Adam... I know he put a ton of work into this idea, bringing it to fruition, which was awesome. Our highway department did a ton of work over the week preceding it and also the day of with barricades and cones and moving things and doing all kinds of stuff. Uh, Grafton police did a ton of work planning and then also obviously on site they were operating their drone to get compliance to even set off fireworks and using the thermal imaging to, to check out the woods around the, the, uh, where it's actually going to launch from instead of having to do boots on the ground. It was pretty neat. Um, Grafton fire, uh, was part of a command post. So they, they had people, uh, deployed on the ground, but they also had a boat out on Lake Ripple, and they had a fire watch that has to be established from when the fireworks show up in Grafton until they're launched. There has to be a firefighter on site. So they did that the whole cycle, which is pretty impressive. They also set up a command post along with our friends at Grafton Emergency Management and Massachusetts Emergency Management and staffed that up. They had at least one lost child reunification. So all of that worked as they had planned, which shows why you do those type of things. That's really cool. And then Parks and Cemetery also pitched in, helped out quite a bit. So I had gotten this list from Adam and Rec. He had emailed me over the weekend just saying, You know, these are all the things that we had help with that we wouldn't have been able to do with a, you know, essentially four-person rec department, right? So really great. A lot of departments, our town departments came together and I think made a really, really good event. So very proud of our staff and thankful for the state resources that also helped us with that. So really cool. All right, motion to adjourn.

Any correspondence anybody wish to discuss? Take a motion on meeting minutes.

I move the board vote to approve the meeting minutes for January 13th and February 3rd of 2026. Second.

Okay, motion made and seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? Aye. And, Evan's favorite part.

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second. Thank you. Okay, motion made and seconded. All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned.

Thank you.