Select Board - Regular Meeting

Right. Good evening everyone. It's Monday, February 23 at 6:35 p.m. Thanks to everyone who um was able to meet online today due to the snow. Um I appreciate the effort. uh um got a pretty busy um undefe um agenda tonight, but there's a few things that we just didn't want to sit. So, um we'll get right to it. Um we can start with um we'll start with reading mail, move on to department board updates and requests, the non public input, members updates, discussion.

Excuse me, Karen. Yeah, your microphone is a little uh distorted. Is that coming in from everybody or just me? Yeah, it's very distorted. Wonder why. Maybe you can unplug it, plug it back in or just use the one that's built in. Yeah, it's like you're underwater. H I can't.

Matthew, you want to continue and I'll see if I can work this out. Sure. Um, can we start? Do Do we have mail, Jim?

Um, yes. So, sorry. I will. Um, okay. Current vacancies. Uh um Madame Chairwoman, members of the uh the select board, current vacancies uh for the town boards appointed by uh the select board. We've got uh opportunities with the agricultural commission, committee for the exploration of real estate tax relief for seniors, economic development committee, master plan implementation committee, permanent municipal building committee, personnel advisory committee, sustainability committee, zoning board of appeals. appointments by the town administrator. There is one um opportunity for the affordable housing trust and an appointment um by uh by the select board and planning board. It's a joint appointment. There is one opportunity with the uh with the select board and an appointment by Littleton Electric Water and Light uh department and there um there's one opportunity in the finance committee. Sign up to receive public notifications for the town of Littleton. Scan the QR code to register or go to www.ittletonmma ma.orgward/subscribe. Community impacts, transportation issues, public safety activity, town meeting changes, town events, public health concerns. Stay informed. DPW is seeking snowplow contractors for the 2526 winter season. Packets available at the DPW office at 39 air road on deep on the DPW website or call 978-5402670 for information. Rates begin at $100 an hour up to $153 an hour depending on

equipment. Incentive signup bonus of $1,000. And here we've got need ice melt and sand mix. Get a bucket delivered free sand for seniors. Uh it was the brainchild of the Littleton Elder and Human Services. If you need a free bucket of sand that will be delivered to your home for the seniors at 978 5402470. Uh what kind of government do do you want for Littleton? Uh open house uh Saturday, February 28th from 10:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. Light refreshments provided at Littleton Town Hall room 103. Learn what the what a town charter does and prepare for review at the fall town meeting. Progress to date, research observations, and emerging themes. Share your ideas, suggestions, concerns, or questions. Community input is essential to the process hosted by the town of Littleton, Littleton Charter Committee. Select board office hours. Um, and it is continues to Mr. Rambaka, Wednesday, February 25th, 4 to 6. Wednesday, March 25th, 4-6. Wednesday, April 22nd, 4-6. Wednesday, May 27th, 4 to 6. Wednesday, June 24th, 4-6. Littleton Robotics. Um the let me see. Uh here we have here we have um the um 228. Okay. Littleton Robotics First Robotics Competition Team 6328 Mechanical Advantage is hosting an open house on Saturday um February 28th from 3:00 to 5:00 at 20 Harvard Road building D on the Patriot Beverage Campus in Littleton. The

students have been working hard since kickoff on January 10th to complete this year's robot by March 7th for their first competition. They would love to show you what they've been working on. Please feel free to forward the invitation to others as appropriate. Here we have the open house February 28th uh in the flyer. Uh and that would be uh that would be it. Madam Chairwoman, I think Karen also has office hours coming up on March 5th, correct? Yep. March 5th, 9 to 11. Is this any better? Yep. Great. Perfect.

Great. Um, let's go ahead and start with public input. Oh, don't we have to do the Are we going to do the Elder and Human Services introduction or did we skip that? Oh, no. You're right. Is anybody from Elder and Human Services here? Um, not that I I believe Liz is on the call as a as a in the audience. Okay, I see you, Liz. There we go. Hi.

Thanks, Liz. Take it away.

Thank you very much. Um, thanks for having me. Um, I just wanted to come on here tonight and well, this is kind of twofold. I wanted to let you know that we have, um, hired our first full-time office coordinator. Today was her first day. Uh her name is Shelby Morris and she is Elder and Human Services first full-time office coordinator. She's got over 15 years experience. Um she has certifications and tax preparation and she's also worked in assisted living. So she has a wealth of knowledge and information across all of the skill sets I was looking for and she just seems like the total package. But the second part of why I'm coming on here tonight is I wanted to also thank you and uh the finance committee and the personnel advisory committee as well for helping me through this process. I know that a midyear hire is not the norm and this has been a long process. So, I just wanted to thank you for your commitment to my department and um recognizing that increasing our capacity will not only help us staff but also the community and broaden our reach. So, thank you all.

Thank you. It looked like a uh it looked like a great hire, Liz. Um so, welcome to Shelby and we're uh looking forward to uh meeting her. Thank you. Thank you for your commitment to the town. Oh, an heck of a heck of a first day. True. No, welcome. Thank you. We'll make sure we come by and visit. Yep. Great. Thank you. Good to go. Mark or Matthew? All set. All set. Thank you, Liz. All set.

All right. So, now public input. Um, for anybody in who's in attendee mode, please raise your hand and I'll promote you if you um panelist if you had something to say. All right, seeing none, we can move on to members updates. Matthew, I'll pick on you first. Uh, I do not have any updates this week. All right. Gary.

Uh, no. Just we just let you know we um the I don't even want to call it a subcommittee. It's not really a subcommittee. A group of us met uh regarding conversations around the compensation um grid and a compensation plan to review the Colin Center's um recommendations uh for that comp study. So, we met uh actually earlier today uh virtually and we're going to meet again uh later this week. So, we're making progress with a goal of you know having something to the select board um over the next few weeks that we're going to at least be able to get on the obviously the Mtown meeting and then there'll be more follow on things probably to come throughout the year. But as far as having a compensation grid and plan set, we we we'll be good to go. I think the board will will like what we come up with hopefully. But that's about it for me. Thank you,

Mac. Um I have very little. I uh attended the Clean Lakes meeting last week. Um they're very thankful for the select board and the water commissioners for their support that we've shown over the past year. Um and um looking forward to um see the season where they can start uh getting the herbicides and things applied. So um that's all I have.

Great. Uh let's see. I attended the sustainability committee meeting on uh the 12th. Um the high school environmental club presented on sustainable seafood which was very interesting um and much appreciated. Um, I heard from a couple different folks about um a need for additional coordination between the town/DPW, the conservation department/conom um the select board, the conservation and the conservation trust. Um, and so I think probably what we'll be trying to um, get started is having somebody a designate from each of those different organizations getting together to try to coordinate a little better on things like mowing schedules um, and invasive um, removal plans and that kind of thing. So, um I guess more to come there, but uh we'll be look I'll be uh I'll probably be bringing forward a request for uh for someone or to uh volunteer um for that.

I'll step up for that. If no one else wants it, who's going to fight Mark for it? I'm not going to fight him for it. That would be great if you're uh if you're if you're willing, Mark, that would be great. I understand I understand a lot of the issues from where LCT and conscom and everyone the intersection. So

yeah, that'd be really helpful. Thank you. Uh and that's about all I had. So well just a couple minutes behind schedule. Um let's uh let's go ahead and move on to select board discussion. Um, Matthew, you wanted the um sale of the orchard house on the agenda.

Yep. Um, couple items. One is we we have discussed it as a board and I believe that we were in agreement that we were okay with selling it, but I want to make sure that that is still the case. And the other one is I want to get permission for me or Jim or whoever to um discuss an RFP for the for the house with town council because my understanding is that we do need to go to a town meeting in order to get it declared as surplus.

So I guess let's address the first one. My my sense was we all were in agreement that it was it would be wise to sell it. Um but but maybe I'm wrong. I think it makes sense.

Yeah. I mean, my my opinion was um you know, whatever ends up being best for the town and I obviously having the property as a whole to me future-wise um made sense, but I also understand the rigors that come with um that house specifically. Um, so I'd be interested to see what parameters we can put on it. Um, and what, you know, what that can become and if it can somehow remain part of, you know, the farming community to some degree, that would be fantastic, you know, agriculturally. But, um, so I am curious to see a little bit more before I'm just jump in with both feet, I guess, on a sale. Well, and I know, you know, I got beat down pretty hard on the uh the orchard itself that we don't make good landlords, but you know, here we are. I think we've crafted a wonderful um lease for a long time to come uh for that property, but I do recognize houses can be quite different. So, I'm I am definitely open to it.

Okay. Yeah. So, Mark,

um I'm also open to the sale. I think we need to pursue it. I think at some point uh we determined that if the town were to try and fix it up, it would be well over a million dollars that we would have to put um spend to make it inhabitable um at prevailing wage. We'd be better off just selling the house. If we can put restrictions on it like on, you know, on the footprint on the exterior, you know, historical wanted to put restrictions on it. um if we wanted to put other restrictions on it to keep it in the farming community or prevent it from being expanded or torn down, you know, things like that, I think those are all valid things that we should feed into the RFP. But, um I I do think we need to do something with the house. At this point, it's just costing us money and getting in and deteriorating. So,

so I guess I would be interested in hearing from everyone what kind of conditions you would like to see put on it. I think that Mark just um iterated I mean just listed some very sensible ones. I think the this the footprint of it not changing. Obviously, it's going to be restricted by zoning to certain things like we're not going to, you know, it is a multif family, so I I assume that that means it could be turned into a condo situation, but that would be a planning board or a ZBA uh board of appeals decision perhaps. Um there was talk of a historical historical preservation restriction, and I know that the historical commission did a fair amount of research on that. Um and that's a possibility. So, um I I think none of us particularly wants to see that house bulldozed and a new house built, for example. I I would be I would not be in favor of that. So, that at at the very minimum, we would need to put that kind of restriction on it. But are there other things that any of you would like to bring up now that I can talk to town council about?

Um couple specifics on the size of the lot that we're talking about with the house. What was the um I believe it's around three acres. I could look on GIS and see. Yeah, that sounds right if I recall from previous. It's not that big. I thought it was more like an acre and a half, but I don't It could be. Yeah, I'm

It's not a very big footprint because most of the land is part of the APR. Um I do have a question on the process we want to do on this because if we have to go to town meeting then we have to put um a propo um put a warrant article out there. Do we want to have an RFP ready to go for town meeting? Do we want to have input sessions for the public to what they would like to see in the RFP before we before or after town meeting? But I just trying to figure out what our timeline is for all the moving pieces. Um if to get acceptance or wider approval for what we want to do.

Sure. So I would love to get this into the uh upcoming uh Springtown meeting. It may not be possible. If I if I start working with town council immediately, um it's possible that we could get a warrant article drafted at least to declare it surplus. And um I don't know. I will have to talk to town council or maybe Jim, you know, whether the RFP has to follow that surplus um declaration or can it be at the same time? Do you know? One article can follow the other, I guess. Well, the RFP isn't an article, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah, right. Um, it could it could be at the same it could be either.

Okay. So, we could issue an RFP prior to town meeting, for example. And I don't think we No, no, I'm sorry. No, you can't do it beforehand. You have to declare it surplus first, but we'll have the RFP drafted from the conversations that the select board wants to uh with all the conditions put on it. We can do that. Okay. I'm sorry. Right. So, we have a little bit of time.

Not much, but yeah. So, I guess in a perfect world, we would work on the RFP, which would help define the article at town meeting, and then after the town meeting article passes with a huge majority, we would then issue the RFP. Um, and I know we already have interested parties um who who have been, you know, have been talking asking me about when it's going to become available. So I suspect that we will be we will get respondents to that to that RFP immediately and then we can discuss uh next steps after that. I feel like we probably need to have some public input sessions prior to going to town meeting though.

Yeah, I think you know I think we had there's probably a lot of information we were able to gather when we were doing the property itself. I think there was a lot of public input in regards to the house. I know is attached to some of those discussions. So, I don't know how much more if you think there's more value to come. I mean, I no one's going to say they want a high-rise building there or anything. So I I mean we kind of know the parameters that the public's looking for and it a lot of it's the same we're discussing but um I yeah if you think we have time to put it out there again I mean people at town meeting will also have a voice but um

the uh I think um for some I think it's reasonable to think that folks might have a different take now that we have um somebody installed in the orchard. Um yeah, that sort of changes the you know, the whole situation really. Yeah. Um so that's true. If we could get some input, I think that would be best. Okay.

I I think that it would probably be smart to do some public sessions and I'm happy to coordinate those. Um, I think we should probably do it fairly fairly close to town meeting as that's when there will be interest about it. Like if we could even have one after the warrant is delivered like within two weeks of the of the meeting. I think that would be when people would be more will more likely to show up because they would be aware of they they would be aware of the article. But I would also be happy doing a couple like one you know a month six weeks ahead of town meeting. Mhm. Okay.

In terms of the footprint, I would be okay with the footprint changing to some extent. Um, off the road is there. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, if somebody wants to add on another kitchen or something like that for, you know, we should uh I don't think that should preclude somebody from moving forward. Personally, I I I'm all for restrictions. I just want to be be careful of of too many restrictions. Um, just for reference, the size of the lot, the the the portion of that lot which is nonAPR restricted with the house on it is 1.17 acres.

Okay. There are the whole that whole corner of the of the farm is 9.2. Um, and then there's another three that's not in the APR. I think it's the wetlands at the bottom of the hill. Mhm. Is there any parking there? Um there's a driveway and yeah, there's there's some parking like you can park to the lake of the house and then in the back of the house below it there's a big flat grassy spot where the goats used to be. Okay. The donkey.

Okay. So, I guess next steps is I will contact town council and um discuss with them um the method for generating an RFP and the um the the process for defining what's in the warrant article. And I guess we'll I'll try to see if I can have something for the next meeting and I may or may not depending on town council's availability. Um, if if I may through the chair. Um, uh, Matthew, you may want to uh coordinate with uh have Tony part of that conversation. Okay.

Uh, with uh being an MCPPO and he can coordinate with Kim in terms of do, you know, having having us draft it inhouse. Okay. The boiler plate stuff and just to make it just to make it easier and you you just to keep it keep it going. Sure. Yeah, that's fine. I'll start with I'll start there then. That's great. Okay. Great. Thank you. I think that's it. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Okay. We'll move on to removal of snow on the side on sidewalks discussion. Um Steve Young, I see you're here. I'm going to um give you the mic as well, but um I just wanted to preface this by saying that I had requested this um to be added to the agenda. Um I think that this winter has shown um that as the town is growing and as sidewalks are becoming you know more and more common um I think we need to start maybe rethinking um our approach to sidewalk snow removal in particular. I think Steve had earlier mentioned that um we might we should also consider um our approach to uh private ways. Um and so as as sort of part of that overall discussion, I wanted to sort of just open up um a discussion on sidewalks and the snow removal there. Um, so I had asked um through Jim uh for Steve to uh provide some input on um you know what what we might um reasonably consider is is the cost of sidewalk snow removal um and where it's seen as you know uh vitally important. for example, you know, um I think everyone would agree that we need snow removal on the sidewalks around the schools so that kids can walk safely. Um but um you know, there's several areas that um don't necess aren't necessarily connected to anything else but themselves, so to speak. And so, um, to me, that's that's a prime place to start, uh, to start questioning, you know, whether this is some something we want to continue,

Steve. Okay. Did you um could you sort of expand a little bit? I don't know if can't hear you, Steve. Yeah.

Probably a fake background. He's probably in a snow plow right now. You're probably right.

You hear me now? Yeah. For some reason, my AirPods wouldn't work earlier either. technology, right?

All right. Can you all hear me now? Yes. All right. There we go. Sorry about that.

Come in last minute here moving some snow around. Um, so I don't know if you've uh seen the uh list of sidewalks that I put together uh forwarded it to Jim uh few days ago or whatever a week ago that sort of listed what I thought uh for primaries and then some secondary sidewalks that I thought we should do because they have uh significant connectivity uh to business areas or or other main sidewalk. walks and then truly a list of uh as Karen just said the the outliers, you know, the the neighborhood or the culdeac that has no connectivity to anything else. Uh tried to boil a plate, put a cost to it. It's it's tough cuz you know, as the board knows, everybody knows every storm is different. you know, you get a heavy storm, it's going to take a little longer. You get light fluffy snow, it go a little quicker. If it's, you know, 4 in of light fluffy snow, we can do it with plows. If it's heavy wet snow, we got to do it with snow blowers, you know. So, there's a lot of variables to it. But, uh, truly, I think we need, you know, it's something that should be considered cutting back. Uh because I'm driving the equipment, you know, to a culde-sac up at the end of Wickham A that has to do a sidewalk just because it has a sidewalk. And I don't think that's necessarily the way we should be going. The, you know, the community I came from, we did not do that. We had, you know, primaries and secondaries that we did, but we weren't traveling, you know, to outlying neighborhood culde-sacs to um do removal on sidewalks. It just wasn't

a thing. So, I mean, I can I can speak to the uh roads that I think are primaries. Obviously, King Street, Great Road, uh New Estate, Goldmith, Russell Street, uh and then, you know, around the Common Stevens Meeting House. Um sure, you know, Taylor Street, uh King Street extension, which is just the short, um piece of King Street between the what used to be the car wash and the depot. Uh eventually we will do the uh new uh path on Foster Street. It's still under construction. I know there's been a lot of habaloo on the Facebooks and stuff that we don't do it, but it's still under construction. We will, you know, no transitions are done. So, we plan on doing that next year once um the construction is complete. Um and then some of the the secondaries, I'm sure I missed a street in there. I'm doing this off the top of my head. Uh some of the secondaries are around like the Baldwin Hill neighborhood where you can get up in there and get through Lockley or George which connects over to Goldsmith. Um but then you know some of the outliers you know the White Tail, Coburn, Bluebird, Edwards you know some of those are like Coburn for instance goes from Hartwell to Great Road. It's rel the street's relatively wide. There's no sidewalks on Great Road. There's no sidewalks on Hartwell. Why am I driving all the way over there in a machine that's not exactly easy to traverse down the street to do a sidewalk that doesn't go anywhere? um you know so there's a handful of that and and plus with the uh the other thing to consider is you know these are

what I would call like a planning board subdivision they have a slope curb be it asphalt or granite twoft grass strip uh 4ft sidewalk my equipment is 52 in wide at the smallest so I'm wider than the sidewalk is so inherently I'm doing damage. Um, which then I get the call to come, you know, fix lawn, you know, we blew out some irrigation heads, that type of thing. You know, if it's soft, if we have frost, I'm not going to do terrible amount of damage. But there still, again, my equipment is wider than the sidewalks. So, you know, like I said before, the community I came from has almost 60 miles of sidewalk. Um, we did 26 of that and it took 3 to 4 days depending on the storm. And if you continue to get repetitive storms, you know, it's you rinse and repeat. You start all over again. So, the goal is to prioritize business areas, school areas where people are actually going to walk.

Makes sense to me. Um I think we talked about it's roughly what 10 miles of primary. Yep. Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then not nearly as much. Um it was like almost half of that was um sidewalks that you didn't think you know we should be doing. Yeah. when you totaled it out, it was uh I think a little under 18 miles total. Okay.

Um so then between the the primaries and kind of that other area that I think we probably should do because of the connectivity, uh we got to almost 11. Um, so is there something to be said for, you know, possibly doing a small stretch in some of those neighborhoods? Like once we do the Foster Street piece, do we turn and just go up Balsome and stop and not do the rest of the neighborhood? Uh, like Great Road, we come up to Koopa Farm. Do we just get down into Koopa Farm, whatever it is, a few hundred feet, uh, just so people can get up to the main road?

Mhm. Yeah. But the fact to be going around in through full neighborhoods is just I think it's a little much. Yeah. I I think we should have had a policy on this a long time ago. Well, well before us. But um I we're only going to grow. This is only going to get it's not going the other way ever. So um this can be a living document. I I you know I the question is can this rest in a select board policy

where we determine uh this is our sidewalk district our p our primary sidewalk district um which can grow. we, you know, if we get new businesses or whatever, we obviously um can add a street here, add a length there,

um and take away communities that, you know, don't make sense anymore. I don't I don't know that I I like the idea. I I think it's um it's not a sustainable thing. Just do continue to do what you're doing. doesn't and it's t it takes away from other work that you need to be doing for an area that might only you know affect a few homes and then you know you've got other areas that aren't being tended to appropriately and this winter really highlights it and I know you get beat up on Facebook about you know you probably I could probably go on Facebook now there's people complaining you don't have a sidewalk though but uh um no I'm all I'm all for some type of a policy. You know, more discussion to be had on the primaries. I think this board um I'd like to hear the police or fire chime in on maybe they have some sensitivity areas where they might say, you know, we'd really appreciate it if this area could be done because of um you know, assisted living type things, but we you pretty much already have that um covered. But yeah, I'm I'm all for creating a a policy that we can all vote on and something that we can I would say vote on every year as this body can vote on it every year on whether we're going to keep it the way it is or people can petition certain areas or or maybe Steve, you come to us and say we I it might be time to take this one off. It just doesn't make any sense anymore. Maybe, you know, so that's my two cents, I guess. So, I wouldn't want to vote on them every year because then I think it gets to be much more political. But I think there has to be a a a pol a way of people petitioning for theirs to be added or for hearings for them to be removed type things. Um, I I did have some other questions for Steve though, like in in your other community,

were there requirements on homeowners clearing sidewalks in front of their house or if it was cuz I know like in Cambridge and places the residents are responsible and you get fined potentially if you don't clear them. So, we're going to I'm just wondering if we need something further than just if we're not doing it, then someone has to do it or we're just hoping they do it. Yeah. So, um again in in Chswood there was no uh we did the the three strikes in your out rule. We did what we did uh and it was tried um multiple times to get the other like neighborhood sidewalks that I speak of to give the whatever 24 or 48 hour requirement to do them. Uh and it was defeated soundly every time. So, we just did what we did and those neighborhood sidewalks just sat untouched.

Okay. Um, so I I I think if we're going I think we have to be very careful then what we declare a primary and a secondary, right? Um because I think even just picking on Foster Street, it's kind of hard to say why it's a primary for, you know, a sidewalk versus if there was a sidewalk on Harwood where you might not consider it a I mean, it's going to be much trickier to have more sidewalks and fewer sidewalks.

Well, when you Mark, when you look at the breakdown, like Harwood, I would consider a primary, right? It's a main road. Foster Street, obviously the new, you know, we do the the lower section by the firehouse takes you up to the intersection at the Hatalon. And then when the new section is completed over the summer up at the other end, uh you have the all the businesses in the train station, you know, and then we have sidewalk newly installed a year or two ago down Taylor Street that gets you to the Amazon warehouse. And a lot of people do walk that. Uh so eventually you start filling in the gaps and those would be main roads. When I'm talking about neighborhood sidewalks, I'm talking like I said earlier at Coburn,

Bluebird, Edwards, you know, why am I going to do a culde-sac? Yeah. Okay. Then we just have to have a really good definition of what we're calling a main road on these. Um um I would also expand a little bit beyond potentially what you're just defining. I know you're probably going to say the Goldsmith is the main road, but I would also say anywhere that there's a crosswalk, we probably have to make sure we clear. Um, you might not have to clear the sidewalk, but this crosswalk should be cleared, right? Yep. So,

yeah. And and to that um on the breakdown I did that had um all those crosswalk areas, you know, it had Lley George where the the roads that come out to the to the crosswalks. So, we would be doing those and then obviously I know the sidewalk on Goldsmith kind of jumps side to side a little bit. So, make sure all that's clear as well. And then there's the other sidewalks to nowhere like down by Bruce Street that no one will ever clear if we don't clear them. We have to really kind of decide um y what we're doing with those. And those are also in a completely isolated area now, too.

Right. And of course, we decide to do them and then the gas station closes. Yeah. So, can can I ask um how many how many miles do you do now versus the what would how many miles of primary would it be? 18 now and a 10 10 or 11 now. 10 or 11 primary. Yep.

Okay. So, you're talking about roughly cutting it in half, but I assume that it would actually be more time savings for you because it wouldn't be driving out to the to the far-flung reaches of whatever and and plowing those sidewalks. Okay. I mean, can you give us any kind of ballpark figure on what it costs to sidewalk plow a mile? Yeah, that was in that email as well. Oh, I'm sorry. I must have missed that. Okay, I'll check it out. I It says uh let's see. And again, I was trying to like boil a plate because, you know, not every storm's the same. I know.

Yeah. Yeah. It's two operators, $60 per hour straight time. Two machines with snowblowers. Um on with no break, $60 per hour. um 18 hours to complete all um 18 hours at 120 an hour. So there's the math. Okay. Um well, plus wear and tear on the machines. They're not cheap. I know. We just they've seen them on the capital.

I mean, this isn't entirely about cost to me. I mean, I it definitely is a is a number that's just going to keep getting harder to chase, but it's more about what makes sense. Um, and that's that's kind of where I was going with uh look at if it's not once a year, we're looking at we're at least having a this reviewed, you know, as needed for certain. Um, if if if I may to to Steve's point, I mean, it's a standard industry of you identify your your commerce, your with your downtowns, you clear that snow out. Typically, that's uh that's usually done off hours and then you look, you know, making sure that you have uh sidewalks going to um uh to the schools. So that is a standard practice and in municipalities that I've been in um absolutely one of which were there were fines associated with it if uh if the sidewalk wasn't wasn't cleared out in front of people's homes and there were there were number of different challenges that that that was brought that that were everyone was faced with seniors elderly um people are away snowbirds and you know, so there's all those type of things, but um but if you don't want to go into the plus you have the who's going to be responsible for the fines, who's going to who's going to hand hand those out? Um so if you just want to just identify just the areas you're going to you're going to um that DPW will clear, I think that that would that makes complete sense and that's standard operating procedure now in communities. I

think we can come up with a list of criteria um and then Steve can present okay these are the roads that meet those criteria that you've already set forth and we can you know if anybody has any questions they can present them but I agree we don't need to um we probably don't need to approve it every year you know road by road but we should come to some sort of consensus about what criter criteria we're applying so that it's everyone can understand what the expectations are. Yeah, I agree. A business district, downtown district. Yeah, things like that. School district. Um,

is it So, this is something that we could probably have for next year if we that would be the plan, Steve. That's what you're thinking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously I'm right, wrong, or indifferent for this year, right? Yeah. Do it tonight then. can I can skip some. Um but yeah, we're committed for this year. So, you know, we we do what we do and then uh my hope is, you know, continue to the discussion for, you know, into next year. I think um I don't think we need to do anything with town meeting unless we wanted to go in the direction of some sort of enforcement mechanism and some sort of deadline,

right? It's just a policy. Otherwise, it's just policy and we can take as long as we need to make sure we get it as right as we can. But I I do think there's a legitimate statement which is like if you know if the town isn't going to plow my sidewalk, you know, why are you punishing me for not plowing my sidewalk? Like if we're talking about enforcement on Yeah. I don't believe in that. I Okay. I'm not for it. I'm curious what what enforcement we're talking Well, I don't know. Like look at the communities that we're talking about that typically have that. You're you're talking very dense house by house by house communities where right

it's mixed with industry and business and home home. We're not remotely designed as a town like that and probably won't be anywhere in the near future. So but like so what are we talking about for enforcement? Like what are we enforcing? That's what I don't understand. Oh, in theory, some some communities have, you know, you you're responsible for clearing your snow within 6 hours of the end of snowfall for all adjacent properties that you own. Right. And and I'm saying that seems to be that's a non-starter for me. If if

if we're not going to commit to plowing the sidewalk, I am not going to hold anyone responsible for shoveling their sidewalk, right? I mean if if it's a secondary or a not not even on the list like why are we concerned about it? Yeah. Okay. That's all in that and in that case we don't need to I think we can just make a policy have some public input on it and you know make it a select board policy and then all the people that are on the sidewalk streets that won't be plowed will run for select board. That's all as it should be. It's a good way to stimulate you know people.

I mean I think Derky Farm is on the top of the list of Yeah. I mean, I think we all know we're going to hear some we're going to hear about this certainly because no matter where no matter where we draw the line, the the the first person who doesn't get their sidewalk plowed is going to be up understandably upset, especially if it's already been happening. Yeah, change is hard and you know, but I think um I think it's just we need to level set expectations to something that, you know, is reasonable for where we are and where we're planning to go. Yeah.

Anybody else? I'm I'm good on the sidewalk discussion, but while we have Steve here, I was going to ask when you presented the list of private ways, you mentioned taking them off in the future, and I didn't know if that's something that we were planning to do for I believe that's got to be go through town meeting.

And I didn't know if we were trying to do that for May or we wanted to do that in November. So to that I started preparing a a similar type of breakdown um towards the end of last week um in regards to those the private streets. Um it is a board policy but I know there was some there was a town meeting vote at some point thrown in the mix. Yeah.

With it. So uh I voted no a town meeting just for for the record. Um, but I guess maybe we need some clarification from council on how to proceed uh with that. But I will, you know, over the next couple days have a a similar breakdown um that shows the miles that we do uh and again kind of a boilerplate cost just so everybody can kind of get a general idea of what we're doing.

Okay. So I I I'm pretty sure that has to go to town meeting. So we just have to pick whether we're we probably want to do that in the May town meeting rather than October, November when you're getting ready to have to do this all over again for next year, right? Yeah. We need to give those time to plan. I I think the sidewalk one initially we the sidewalk one the sidewalk one we can do over the summer on our own. That's a policy. But the

the private ways is a is a town meeting thing. So, we just need to start figuring that one out. And um we mentioned before whether or not um it would be possible um if we are going to um if we're not going to plow them by default, if we could do them and you know basically as a on a per fee basis, right? So, we might want to consider whether we can do that or not too at the same time. I don't know if and then or not. That's probably up to what Steve's manpower and things are, but um it might be a transition plan for people too.

Yeah. So again, that might be a question for council cuz I know we can we can do work on private ways if reimbursed for the cost of the work or something. And I I you know we in my career we didn't do anything cuz you were spending public funds on private property which is generally a no no. Um so again might uh be worth reaching out to council to um make sure we're going in the right direction. Okay. So Jim, are you going to drive this one or

love to? Thank you. If you want help with the Jimmo, I'll be the the liaison if you want. Happy to work on it as well. Right. More than Marriott. I will not work on it. Yeah. Matthew Matthew and I are on private roads. So Oh, that way. Yeah. I recuse myself from work. Yeah. Okay. Very convenient. Yeah, I just want to make sure we edit it as a placeholder if we're thinking about doing it. So, that's a good call. Yeah, for sure.

All right. So, I I think May is better if we can get it done. I agree. Let's try to uh They have a month. What can't town council do in a month? Yeah. All right. Thank you, Steve. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Stay safe out there. Yeah. Have a good night. Thanks to all the team,

Mr. Mr. Town Administrator, do you have an update for us? Currently, you're on mute. Right. I think you muted everybody. Did I?

Sorry. I All right. In any event, okay, uh, real quick, I just wanted to, speaking of, uh, DPW, they have done an outstanding job. um around town today. And thank you to uh Chief McGertie and the uh and the team there. They hosted uh the drivers to drop by for for pizza uh at their convenience uh to take a rest and uh uh to uh catch up on uh catch up on uh just you know just talking with fellow employees. So that was fantastic. Also want to thank everybody for uh when I say everybody, I'm talking Dr. Clint Sheen, we're talking Alicia, uh Sam at the library, and Liz for EHS for hosting. Um offering to host individuals when town hall was not open to the public because of the fire plan panel. And uh so there were some team members that uh took uh took the opportunity to um uh work out of uh some other town buildings while the uh the remainder worked remotely and uh worked out very very well and very appreciative uh tremendously uh and it was great to see everyone just jumping in and lending support for everybody. Just a fantastic fantastic team. Uh just wanted to update uh update uh the select board uh with uh we are coordinating the internal team is coordinating to meet with DOP DOT and um Leole's uh Le's group in regards to the on street parking at um uh on on 550 King Street and to continue that discussion and any any meetings going

forward with DOT with anything like that. Uh the town will also be be a part of that and uh Marin is going to be the uh the point of contact with DOT to make sure that we are involved with any of those meetings. Uh the fire panel is up and it has been installed with at town hall. That is just the first step of multiple areas that need to be improved. uh the panel has been has a new panel is in place. So what we are going to be doing going forward is really looking at all of the um um the strobes that are in the ceiling for uh for fire and for um uh to for those sensors. Those will have to be replaced also over the course of time. There's no urgency that has to be done within the next month, but it will be something that will be a plan of attack uh on a in a steady on a steady way going forward with facilities manager. Uh and last uh but not least uh we will be meeting with it internal team with Dr. Clenchy, Alicia, and myself will be closing the loop on identifying uh people as the select board wanted to continue to offer um a family room um and some oversight for for some children activities uh during town meetings. We are going to continue that. We've identified a funding source to be able to pay individuals uh to do that and uh uh we are working internally to streamline the um the town meeting and between uh Diane Corey with the town clerk, town council, a number of different uh team members uh are involved in that that we started at the for the last town meeting which

worked really really well uh for streamline streamline things and and have uh one point of contact for certain things. So, it was good. And that's it. When do we when can we hear about the results of the survey? Oh. Oh, that's that's two other things. The survey, Tony, and also uh please share with the select board what starts Wednesday night.

Yes, thank you. So, survey was actually working out this morning um compiling the um all the data together. So probably another day or two um just to get all the individual comments tabulated and and um again putting all that together. So um should have it out very soon uh to share with you all. Great.

And um Wednesday is the um the civic leadership academy. So um this is the the kickoff um Wednesday at um at 6. And um if anyone is still interested, they're also welcome to apply. I will um I will double check that that list uh tomorrow morning as well. Um so looking forward to that um very much. So very excited for that. A lot of Go ahead, Karen. Oh, how many folks do we have enrolled, Tony? So we have three right now. Okay,

that's great. Thank you. um for the the survey um could we have some sort of um and nothing extensive but some sort of written summary sort of Yes. that so that um and we can post it to the website so that folks who want to see you know what came of this they can they can see what the results were. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's um it's about trying to make sense of all of it. Right. Right. And so um yeah I will I will have certainly something like that put together for you guys. Great. Thank you,

Jim. On the 550, we had at one point we were talking about whether to um make King Street and Great Road town roads rather than state roads. Have we abandoned that for the time being or um

No. No. Um the the DOT is uh they're open to it. They're open to having the discussion if this is something the town wants to pursue. Their their position was very clear at the at the most recent meeting with them. Um they consider they're not fix they're not uh they're not adaptable to there's no parking on a state highway and whether it's 495 or 110 or 119 they're all considered state highways. they have a blanket issue of there is no um there's no parking like that especially during inclement weather. Uh so their biggest their tough part of that is going to be all right if it remains a state road and there's on street parking there then we have to coordinate with the town on who's responsible to so there's no overnight parking there. There's there's there's a whether it be a parking van or something like that. There's no on street parking. Um but they're open to uh to the conversations of maintaining it as a state road but allowing the on street parking or going the other way of identifying a certain certain parts of the road to uh allow the town for care custody and control.

There's on street parking on the state road on the other side of the traffic light. So, um I'm just so I just was wondering which way we were I know we were talking about putting the parking there. I didn't know if we were doing that in ex instead of taking over the road or in addition to taking over the road. I don't think we're we're not necessarily putting parking in though, right? That's just a point of discussion, right? Assessing, right? And I know that the planning board that the planning board is is they're pretty strong about about uh having that on street parking um in front of Sorry. They want they want it. Yes, sir.

Okay. Um so hence that's why we're we're having the we're having the discussion. It was really an avenue that hey let's have on street parking because they think that and we heard that in West Act and this is what the portion of the of of the road was abandoned by DOT and they were able to do that on street parking there. Yeah, it works well there. So I will say

but um but that will continue we'll continue to uh so we're looking to have that meeting this week later on this week with DOT again and Napoleon and continue to have the conversations. Okay. And and on replacing the strobes, do we know approximately how much that's going to cost? No, not yet. Oh, we're keeping a running tab. Running tally ADA purposes, right? Correct. Yep. That's it.

Thank you. Was there something else you had? Nope. That's good. Okay.

All right. Let's look at the minutes. Think I saw one or two little things. I need to see which uh if it's the first set or the second set.

Okay. So, if we have February 7th and February 9th, is that right? Yep. All right. Any concerns about February 7th? No, I didn't have anything from the 7th.

Um, okay. Okay. So, February 9th, um we have um under section three. Karen thanked all the employees, blah blah blah. Um and then the last line, policy on ice and has reviewed other town policies. Um, we just that needs to be capitalized since we're dealing with all sorts of ICE policies now. So, um, as I recall, it was the, uh, it was the capital I, capital C, capital E ICE in this case.