Select Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening, Littleton. Welcome to the June 8th select board meeting. We are going to start off tonight's meeting in executive session, approximately 5.45, and we will come into regular session at about 6.30 p.m. For a motion, please.

Move the select board vote to enter into executive session pursuant to Master and Law Chapter 30A, Section 21A2 to conduct contract negotiations with non-union personnel specifically regarding the town administrator's contract with James Duggan.

Second. Okay, moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. Is Mark Ranbacher on? Mark, can you hear us? Yes. We just did the motion to enter executive session. Dr. Coase, aye. Kyle, aye.

Karen Morse, aye.

And Gary Wilson, aye. All right, we will see you at about 6.30 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chairman.

Hey, Littleton, welcome back. We are out of executive session and ready to enter into our normal business. If you would all please stand for me, please. All right, this evening, we'll be discussing town meter, town administrative contract renewal, joint meeting with the finance committee right after that. We will have a public hearing on Tavern in the Square, district exchange, change of license, liquor license. Some public input, member updates, department board updates, historical commission, and fiscal year 2027 board committee appointments. That's really just our board. liaisoning, figuring out who we're going to liaison, who's going to pick up the liaison duties for different boards. And we have an appointment, and we'll have Jim's update, and then some select board discussion on our new moderator, I believe couldn't be here tonight, so we're probably going to skip over that for this evening. We'll do that at another meeting. A little bit of charter committee report discussion, review and vote on select board July, December. It's just basically our schedule and special town meeting schedule. And then we'll discuss the VSW lease agreement. Update regarding the bond financial municipal facilities policy. Annual town meeting post-meeting review. discuss a moratorium on data centers, and discuss inactivation of master plan implementation committee. And we'll have some minutes to approve, and we'll be done. The mail, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the Select Board. We've got a few vacancies that we want to just run through. And those vacancies that are appointed by the Select Board, Affordable Housing Trust, Agricultural Commission, Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, Clean Lakes Committee, Committee for Exploration of Real Estate Tax Relief for Seniors, Community Preservation, Conservation Commission, Council on Aging, Cultural Council, Disability Commission, Economic Development Committee, Historical Commission, Littleton Community Television Advisory Committee, Permanent Municipal Building Committee, Personnel Advisory Committee, Sustainability Committee, Taxation Aid Committee, Zoning Board of Appeals. One position that's appointed by the town administrator is an opportunity with the Affordable Housing Trust. And then there's the appointment by LELWD, Littleton Electric Light and Water Department. There's a member opening for the finance committee. Appointment by the school committee on the school's finance committee.

No, that's our finance committee. The school has an appointment too. The LELWD and the school's appointment.

They do want to point it to our finance committee. They have two members. All right.

Thank you. No, thank you. I appreciate that. Littleton Housing Authority, joint appointment. And that's it for that. And now we have select board office hours coming up. Wednesday, June 24th, 4 to 6, Mr. Rambaca. Friday, June 26th, from 3 to 4, Mr. Bupp. Wednesday, July 1st, from 11 to 12.30, Ms. Morrison. Friday, July 31st, from 3 to 4, Mr. Bupp.

You don't have to go through them all, Jim.

I don't? No. All right. You just got us through the next two months.

We'll have meetings before then, yeah. Okay. We've got the whole year.

It's like, hey, I'm a planner, okay? Okay. All right.

Those are on our website, too, I think. Yes, they are. Please, yes. They are on the website.

All right. Thank you. We have an announcement for the Littleton 4th of July picnic press release to celebrate the 250th anniversary. There will be a Littleton Town picnic at Fay Park on Saturday, July 4th from 1130 to 230, where the rain date will be on Sunday, July 5th. This is sponsored by the Littleton Historical Commission, and they will open up the ringing of town church bells, and there will be a free concert by Molly Flannery, a quartet, as well as children's games, singing of the National Anthem, and other events. Parking with the Castle at the Trees, preceding the picnic are events at Littleton Historical Society on Roger Street, adjacent to Fay Park. which include viewing the historic canyon. The picnic is funded through by a generous grant from the Littleton Rotary. Thank you very much, as always, as well as a grant from the Littleton Cultural Council. Any questions, please contact Andrew Bowers, 978-486-8642. Here we have received a notification as an abutter, determined of applicability. And here we have, it is a chemical control, it is by the National, it's by New England Forestry Foundation who owns Prouty Woods. And that, the proposed work is chemical control of invasive plants in the Prouty Woods community forest. to protect, restore the native plant community to a better functioning and resilient state. And the public meeting we held on, was held, public meeting will be held on 6-2. information regarding the date and time of the public hearing. Okay. I need to get some clarification for that. I read right past that this morning. And that would be it.

Okay. All right. Next up on the agenda, a common instrument contract renewal. So looking for I vote to appoint a select board representative to conduct contract renewal negotiations with the town administrator.

So I move the select board appoint Chuck DeCoste and Karen Morrison to conduct contract renewal negotiations with the town administrator. I second. Any discussion? All those in favor? Second. He's going to call that. I'm new here.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Glad I could make you laugh.

All right, we have a joint meeting with the finance committee. He's a maverick. A few minutes late, but come on up. So it looks like we have a vote to amend the fiscal year 2026 department revolving fund. The alarm box repairs the fire alarm system for the fire department from $6,500 to $16,500. We have a vote to approve the revolving fund policy, a vote to transfer $8,820.83 to the assessor's budget to upgrade the CAMA system software. The Finance Committee action is required there. And a vote to transfer $10,200 to the Elder and Human Services budget. The Finance Committee action is required there as well. So first up is the amend the fiscal year 2026 department revolving fund. Who wants to take the lead on this?

I can. So the vote is, as you know, we had a repair for the fire alarm system here in this building. And there's a $10,000 deductible. And that is going to get charged into this revolving account.

Do you want to talk about the, I know it's leading into the next thing, but do you want to talk about the fund itself?

Say again?

Well, the fund itself, what's useful.

Yeah, so I attached to the back of it because when we did the financial management policy, we were talking about having a full disclosure of what revolving the funds look like so that you know and you're more informed with those. So I put, I don't know if you can put that up. Do you have that?

Do you have copies, Farah?

I didn't, because I thought they were in the packets already.

Yeah, that would be good, whether it's a Lisa thing or just to have whatever supporting documents attached to the packet. Please.

Yes, sir.

What's your budget sitting at?

So right now in that account, there's $46,207. We still have another $3,000 that's probably going to come out of it and the $10,000, so we'd be left with $33,207. They estimate, talking to the chief this morning, that they're probably going to use like $5,000 a year. So we'd still have another six, six and a half years of funds left in that account. There is no more revenue coming into that account.

And the use of the money is for what?

The use that they use it for is for there's still some town buildings that need to be monitored. One of them is King Street. The police station is another one. So 56 King, the high school, and the police department are two of them that are still on the monitoring for that.

Okay. 5,000 a year?

Yeah. He was renegotiating that today with Easton.

And the other buildings, like the senior center and the library?

They're on new systems. They're not part of that anymore. Okay.

And the cost of that comes out of their budget? I'm not 100% sure I would have to look, Steve, at who's paying it.

But I know we now have the budget in the general fund.

These are the same systems that we put out notifications to all the private businesses too that have the alarm system. Correct, yeah.

But there are no more private businesses on it anymore, and that's why there's no more revenue for that fund. So he's got the policy up now here. So what we did at the request of that meeting was, um, gives you the information, the name of the account, the department that's in charge of it and the fund number that that's the fund number in the accounting system. Um, then the department head will give us a detail. This one's pretty long. It gives you the history of the account. Um, and then down below my question here is when we head into budget meetings next year, I'm going to have a solid number for FY 26. will be about halfway through FY27. So do you want FY27 estimates and 28 estimates or just FY27 estimates?

For the budget book?

For the presentation that they come to you for when they present their budgets and you want to see these with it.

This is going to be perpetual now. This will be forever.

Yeah, but they want updates with the meetings, correct? That was what we talked about.

My thing, and Karen, you were kind of the point on the policy for this piece of it. My thinking of this, because there's a lot of revolving points.

Yeah, there are a lot.

To go over each one of these individually with the departments is going to be a while. So my thinking, and correct me if you guys think it's different, but to put them all together, because you're going to do this now, right, and before the budget season. Wasn't that what we talked about?

I thought my understanding was to be presented when they come with their budgets for you in the next round, but... If you want them before, we can do that.

I mean, I can see putting it all together in one spot, and then if we have questions on it, then to ask them. But for them, go through them. We'll be sitting there forever.

Yeah, I think it would be in that packet as more informational, I don't think, but for you to be aware of them.

It won't be a presentation. It'll just be...

It just would be in the frame.

They should be ready, I would think, for questions.

So you think you're saying that we should have them all up front at once, where they don't have to... present them during that that we can ask questions based on what we get.

We get them beforehand.

So you want like a binder?

Not even in the budget book because that's going to be pages and stuff, right? Just kind of separate. They shouldn't change.

Separate revolving fund report? Yeah.

They shouldn't change very often at all, basically. And you still have the page in the budget book with... The spending on maybe increase the number of funds you show there.

Okay. We can do that.

What do you guys think?

Can all funds expenditure budget for each department, including public funds?

I mean, the thing that we talked about at the policy meeting was we weren't getting enough information. Right. And some of the funds were in this big black hole type of thing. And so... We said, you know, town funds and school funds. Yes. Any revolving fund should have a write-up like this.

Okay.

And we should be able to have access to it electronically. I think it would make sense to them. Yeah. Right? I can push it into a PDF.

And then at the budget meetings with the department heads, they just have to be ready in case there's questions on the funds. They should know the stuff anyways. It's their money.

So do you not want any, like, Do you want ending balances on this, or do you just want what they're used for?

No, I think the ending balances is important.

I'm trying to think, too. Yeah, if you make this electronic and a PDF, you won't have to give us books.

Yeah, no.

We can send us all a link, and we can go in.

Yeah, supporting material.

I would think that book that you're going to do, or that revolving fund, pamphlet or whatever you want to call it, should be something that's pretty static year by year. So if you take that top section of the financial piece, save that for the budget book, because it's in there anyways.

And re-look the actuals up easily and put them in the Word doc. It's not really going to be a lot of work. Right.

I would think that stays pretty static until something... changes significantly changes instead of having to go in each year and update that one it's gonna be in the budget book anyways yeah the numbers will always be in the budget right is that okay with everyone good so I'll leave the 26 numbers in there and not put the projections out yeah you can even take that out all right okay you don't want them in there that's good easy for me All right, so the Finance Committee, we have a motion to increase the spending limit to what on the? $16,500. Correct.

$16,500 spending limit?

From $6,500. Correct.

I move that the Finance Committee vote to increase the alarm box repair revolving fund by $10,000 to $16,500. Second.

Moved by Rick, seconded by Sam. All in favor? Aye.

We're good. Move the Select Board vote to amend the fiscal year 2026 Department Evolving Fund Alarm Box Repairs Fire Alarm System from 6500 to 1605.

Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. All in favor?

Aye.

So moved.

So we have, none of the members here tonight were involved in the 26 budget.

I think this came up in 26. Correct.

Well, and 27. It was through the 27 process.

So the assessors are going through a conversion for their CAMA system, the Patriot system that they use. They're upgrading the software. There's some upfront costs. We wanted to get that. They had it in their 27 budget. Correct. We said put it into the 26 so we can get it going, and we would fund it out of the revolving fund for them. So that's the number for... The upfront costs. It's not the ongoing costs. Correct. That's still in the assessor's budget, right? Mm-hmm. So we, I think everybody was here when we said that. Maybe, maybe. So we're looking for a motion to transfer that amount from our revolving funds. Okay? Is everybody good? Any questions? I need a motion.

Which revolving fund is this coming from?

Our revolving fund.

It's not revolving. It's your general fund. Our reserve fund. Okay, I was going to say.

Your revolving fund on the mind.

He thought he had more money somewhere. I have a question.

Now these are the upfront cost of staff conversion So the ongoing maintenance costs are in there So this is the extra to do the conversion itself But to keep the budget down said we'll do it early and we'll cover it out of it

All right second by Sanjay all the favor So this one was definitely when you guys weren't here this was in the FY 26 budget presentation from the HS when Liz was in front of the two boards and

She did not have, we hadn't opened the new building yet, and she did not put a new admin person into her budget for 26, but in her discussion with the boards, she mentioned that she may need somebody. There was some discussion by both the Select Board and the Finance Committee to change the 26 budget to put it in. But what we decided to do in the end was open the building, see if we actually needed an admin person, manage the building for a while, see what the foot traffic was going to be. She came back. Probably in November, December or so. And said she really needed a person. And she was deciding which type of person she needed with that money. In the meantime, we had a retirement from one of the staff members over there. So she was really deciding which way she was gonna go. She decided on another admin person, is that correct?

Full-time.

Full-time admin person. So because of the salary differential between the person leaving, new person coming in, we decided to hold off until we could get a better understanding of what that number is going to be. This is your best guess after the last payroll goes through? Correct. Okay. So we're looking for a transfer for $10,000, too. And again, we promised we would cover this for Liz. I know you guys weren't here.

That's what we did. This is a reserve fund transfer.

This is a reserve fund transfer. No other questions? I need a motion.

I move that we vote to transfer $10,200 to the Health and Human Services budget from the Finance Committee Reserve Fund.

I have a second. Moved by Ricks. Second by Sanjay. All in favor? Aye.

We're good.

Are we voting on the revolving fund policy?

I don't think it's really a vote. It's just the format of which we put together. So we are meeting on... The 9th of July, Finance Committee, to vote the transfers, year-end transfers. I don't believe the select board's going to be with us. If you want to make that meeting, you're more than welcome. We have to meet on the 9th because of the quorum. Let's see. on the 9th. So if you'd like to make it a joint meeting, that's up to you.

So we have a public hearing on application for the change of manager for wine and malt. Liquor license under Master of the Law, Chapter 138, Section 15 for a tavern in the square of Littleton, Massachusetts. So this appears to be a change in management. Correct. Happens more often than it probably should, but let's expect with those type of businesses. I want to read the legal notice. What did you want to read? I want to read the legal notice. I've got it right here.

I've got it. Littleton Select Board will conduct a public hearing on Monday, June 8, 2026 at 7 p.m. in Littleton Town Offices, Room 103, 37 Shattuck Street, Littleton, Mass., to act on the request for approval of a change of manager under Master and Law Chapter 138, Section 15, submitted by Tavern in the Square, Littleton, LLC, 810 Constitution Ave., Littleton, Mass., days and hours of operation Monday through Wednesday, 1130 a.m. to 12 a.m., Thursday and Friday, 1130 a.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 a.m., Sunday 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. A copy of the application may be seen in the Select Board Town Administrator's Office from 306 at 37 Shattuck Street, Littleton, Mass. Comments thereon may be submitted in writing to selectboard at littletonma.org or the Select Board Town Administrator's Office, 37 Shattuck Street, Littleton, Mass, 01460 by noon on Wednesday, June 3rd, or in person at the hearing. Littleton Select Board, Gary Wilson, Chair.

Do we have anyone from... So I guess name and representing? Yes, Tavern and Esser.

I'm Melissa Serber. I'm the general manager. Been in place, just took over that location.

Okay. Any questions of the board? This is a fairly common process. Everything's good?

Everything's in order, right?

Yeah, everything looks like everything's in order for what we got.

Everyone has no problems. All right.

Thank you. Okay.

We're going to make the motion and move this for you.

Do we have any public comment on this before I close the public hearing? Sure, you can come up.

I know I'm in the back row, and I see that you have microphones in front of you. Is that working? I can't hear you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

That was easy. Any public comments? That's good. Okay. Motion to close the public hearing.

Second. Second.

Motion to close public hearing. Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. This is a roll call vote.

Chuck?

Aye.

Kyle? Aye.

Karen Morrison, aye.

Gary Wilson's an aye. All right, the public hearing is closed. Could I have a motion to change management?

Move the Select Board vote to approve the application for a change of management for all alcoholic beverages on premise license under Master and Law Chapter 138, Section 15, for Tavern on the Square, 810 Constitution Ave., for the hours of Monday through Wednesday, 1130 a.m. to 12 a.m., Thursday and Friday, 1130 a.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday, 10 a.m. to 1 a.m., and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 12 a.m. Issuance of a license is subject to ABCC approval. Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. This is a roll call vote as well. Chuck. Chuck's aye. Kyle. Kyle's aye. Karen. Karen Morrison aye. And Gary Wilson's an aye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the business.

Tony.

He just comes up to the office. Melissa. We'll meet you out tomorrow. Okay. Have a good night.

All right. Next up on the agenda is... member updates so let's start with our new guy Kyle

The only update I have is that on Friday I'm going to, in Devons, MMA is putting on a training for new select board members such as myself. So I thought it would be pertinent for me to go. It's worthwhile. Based on what we just saw here earlier. Great. Karen?

I just wanted to wish all the... high school graduates in Littleton all the best congratulations to all of you and all the schools that you know Littleton encompasses so and other than that I just wanted to apologize for missing my office hours I was quite ill and I think everybody will be glad that I didn't go

I'll yield the floor to the chair same thing Brett to the congratulations to the graduates just a reminder on what Jim had mentioned earlier the 4th of July party at Fay Park or party picnic picnic I guess if you will it should be a fun event for the community so if you're around please attend it'll be parking congregational church and Castle. Castle in the 311 room. So please come out. And that's really it for that. All right. That's it for member updates. Do we have any public comments today? Come on up.

Come on up.

Hi, Carolyn Mueller at East Roxbury Drive. I just wanted to do another celebration event. We're going to have the Historical Societies teaming up with Dirigible Brewing Company. We're brewing a local beer.

Oh, I saw this.

I should have mentioned this. Yeah, so it's going to be only on tap. It's going to be at the brewery. And the opening night is June 18th. It's a Thursday evening at 7. We're going to have a trivia night. So Revolutionary War Facts, local legends and prizes. We've got t-shirts that we've made up with the Pay Today Trust Tomorrow. It's the Lawrence Tavern sign that we have at the collection. So we, best dressed in your colonial outfit, we'll win a t-shirt and we'll have prizes. So hopefully we will come up with that.

Awesome. Thank you. Great event. Okay, next.

And I'm here to let you all know that we really need the thrift shop in a better place than it is right now. Sandra Casale and friends of the CLA are behind this endeavor and many other people who either don't know about it. I had hoped to be on the agenda, but I wasn't. People who hope to know about it aren't here. Some people are here. It seems to me that we had the thrift shop at the townhouse for a long time, town hall. And many people went. Now it's at the Baptist Church, which will close soon. That is, the thrift shop is going to get thrown out. And people ask. whether it's a consignment shop. No, it isn't. It's a renew, replace, refurbish shop. And it really should be in the center. It should be where older people can get there, where people without cars can get there. We have room in this building. There's probably room at the COA building. Even the library might have some room. I think that we really need to have it here at the center where there's parking and people come all the time and they don't have to go specially to somewhere else. So I'm hoping that given that we all wear thrift store clothing, I'm wearing thrift store clothing right now, very, very expensive to get clothes and there are lots of clothes that are in fine shape Sandra Casale, who runs the store, has beautiful clothes there. We've never known that they were thrift store clothes. It's not the kind of place that has, what, holes or moth holes or whatever. It's a wonderful place. And I would very much like to see the Slutton help. Thank you.

I just had one question. When is the year move-out date at the PEP? Do you know yet? It hasn't been determined? It is happening. Thank you. Okay, any other questions?

Hello, welcome to Upcoming. As you know, I'm Sandra Casale. If you don't know, I'm Sandra Casale. I run the thrift shop currently. It's a fundraiser, it's used as a fundraiser for the Friends. It was used as a fundraiser for the Friends for 30 years and it was managed by Barbara McCray. But that wasn't how it was originated. It was in the building and it was a thrift shop started for someone who works in the town. Now I'm trying to clarify what department it was and who that person was. I know that person is not with us any longer. But it was either Park and Rec or the COA that housed the thrift shop. So it was a town entity. I know we all like that town entity phrase. But anyways, the person that started the thrift shop no longer wanted to run the thrift shop. So Barbara McCray was president of the Friends, and she took it as an opportunity to use it as a fundraiser for the COA. So that's how it came about to be under the Friends. If you want to call it under the Friends, it's a fundraiser. She ran it, there were like eight volunteers. She was the manager, she set it up. But it was really run by the volunteers. She had eight volunteers. They worked two and a half hour shifts, and there were substitute volunteers. And part of the incentive was that they got senior tax write-offs. Well, that's not the case anymore. But anyways, when it was in this building, 80% of the business was foot traffic. So it was the town employees, it was the people in the COA, but most importantly, it was the library also, but most importantly, it was the people that came in and out of the COA. And a lot of them didn't drive. So that was like a community for them. They'd know when certain people were working, what day of the week they were working, and they'd go see them on a particular day. really was a community and then it was taken away in 2020 with the pandemic and i don't know if people realize what that meant to a lot of people to a lot of seniors because it was community and they counted on it like before and after their visits um and it was a commodity commodity thank you very much yes it was friends and community um And that's what was taken away, was the community. That's more important than getting clothing at a discount. So we were closed because Amy, who was the outreach coordinator, had an office the size of a closet. So she couldn't do social distancing. And so they looked at rooms and they decided the thrift shop was perfect. So that's when we closed. And we were shown other rooms after the fact and said we would get another room. And that didn't happen. And time went on and whatever. The First Baptist Church needed to rent space because they needed the money because their membership was down. So we took that opportunity, and we've been renting now for two and a half years. And it really hurts us. I mean, we're raising a lot less money. When we were in this building, they used to bring in like $1,200 a month, which is a good fundraiser. But over the course of a year, it ended up being like $12,000. I know that doesn't add up, but it's an average. But when it closed down, Nancy Levine was president at the time, and she asked the treasurer, it was Andy, I believe, at the time, what we had made in the previous five years for the threshold. It was $65,000. That's a lot of money. We're not making that now. We're climbing up, but we have to discount the money because most months it's like 50-50. 50 for rent and insurance and 50 for profit. So it's a lot more work to try to climb up. But we're doing a great job, and it's not just Littleton that's supporting us, it's a lot of surrounding towns. that love the push-up. It's not a goodwill type of push-up. It's really an upscale. I don't know if I'm giving you an opinion, but it's an upscale push-up. It has really nice clothing. And we only sell it in perfect shape. So it's worth the visit. It has a men's shop, too.

And we have a really nice men's shop.

Yeah, clothes like you wear. Yeah, we have that. But it really has become a new community now. We have a lot of supporters from the past, a lot of which are men. And sometimes they don't always buy. They donate, they buy, or they visit. Because over time, we've become like friends. So it really is community. And now the church is selling the building, and the new church, which I believe is the Concord Presbyterian Church, it's a large congregation, they want to use the whole building. They don't want renters. So we have to look for a place to go. So that's why Vera insisted to get us on this agenda for the board meeting. Do you have any questions about the Thrift Shop?

What's the current square footage that you're renting? The current square footage of the Thrift Shop?

Are you an engineer?

No, I'm just curious how large it is.

No, it's a good question. Well, it must be, I think it's 450 square feet.

OK, thanks.

You're welcome. I had to calculate that according to the rent. Anybody else? Have any questions? No? Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you. You should stop by. Thank you.

Thanks. Thank you. All right, anyone else? Public comment. Hello.

I'd like to speak.

My name is Peggy Lawson. I'm on the board of the Friends of the COA, and I also work at the Thrift. I have had residents come in and ask why we are not in the town hall or the senior center. And I don't have an answer for them. So I'm asking the sewing people or the town administrator, what is the answer for them? Can you give that to me?

I don't have an answer for you right now, but I'll let the town minister speak to it somewhat.

Well, there's a couple factors, if I may, through the chair. There's a couple outstanding items that would have to be absolutely discussed. Number one, the insurance. Okay, we would have to, the insurance would have to be maintained by you moving forward if that was something for us to do. The second thing is we would have to put out a, it's called a request for proposals. So we would not be able to just enter into something with you unilaterally without notifying everybody that here we've got a space in the town hall building and it's this much square footage. Here is everything. We would have to give everybody the opportunity to bid on that. So, and I know that the desire, the ultimate desire would be to have that, for that to be rent free. And, but we also, but what's even, even before we get to that point, we have another issue that we are having an evaluation assessment being done of the property. There's a lot of challenges here in the property, whether it's handicap accessibility, There are mechanical issues, there's utility issues such as water, sewer, that's in different parts of the building. The reason why we're staying in the middle part is because predominantly that has the least amount of problems. On the outskirts, on the shoulder sides of both of those, that's where the real challenges come in. We are having an architect come in And this process is probably going to take a few months, at least, for that team to go through the entire building and identify those challenges and identify costs associated with those challenges. Then we have a bigger decision, too, that the select board would have to make of which direction do we go in. So that is really what we're faced with in a nutshell. Yes. Jim, please.

It was when we closed in the office space that they said we needed insurance. And Nancy Levine looked into it and we were more than willing to pay insurance. We pay insurance now for being in the church. So that's really not an issue. Okay. Thank you. And it's about handicap accessibility. When we were off at different rooms. One was in the Cooper room and one was in the room when you first come in to where the COA was. So they were both on the first floor.

Okay. Okay. But then again, as I've explained, we do have challenges in those areas of the building.

Thank you. Okay. Handicap facilities.

Understood. Understood. And we just had that our town clerk really took the initiative and received a grant to have an evaluation done on the handicap accessibility of the building. With all town buildings, quite honestly. It was all town buildings. And it's also in town properties and maybe some public properties out there that of land that we own to make them more accessible. So that is still in the process for, and that is called a ADA access self-evaluation. That's what we're having done. So we are trying to make the entire building as compliant as possible and also take a really hard look at what are our options going forward.

Thank you.

I know you don't know me, but I have been in the town 41 years. So I'm probably, well, certainly probably for you, maybe. That kind of thing. So my name is Pamela Lavalley. And my husband was chair of the Historical Commission when we first came to this organization, or I should say town. And he was also the Littleton School, let's see, Littleton School representative to Neshoba Valley before Charlie was there. And I was on the HR, what we called then at the time, personnel board. And I'm a compensation and benefits expert. And so my job was looking at what the benefits were at that point in time and the kinds of things we put in place. So that just gives you a sense of who I am. I think it's helpful to sort of have that set. Excuse me. My purpose really is to share the concept of thrifting and understand the financial decisions around that. And the reason I bring that to you is because I think that sitting here, all of us sitting here, think of a thrift shop, the place you might meander into, see a few things, buy something or not. And you kind of like think of it sort of as goodwill or a whole series of things in everybody's head. And what I want to kind of have people understand is you're making these decisions or even looking at how we become a charitable purpose as well as be one of the people that when you have an opportunity to open a space that we would be considered for that space. So I think I'd like to sort of reset everybody's head to think of this as both a financial opportunity situation, a community situation, and helping senior citizens, and have a charitable contribution component to it, which most thrift shops don't do. They're profitable organizations. So thrifting is now a mainstream choice. I don't know if all of you know that. If you have young people in your family, all ages are doing that. So I wanted to say it's basically a $61.5 billion business in the United States. I don't know if you could even understand that. And that's the market in 2025, and they expect to have it grow 8%. Charitable thrift stores in general generate $14.5 billion in revenue. And that's across the United States, but I wanted to give you that perspective. 85% of shoppers view thrifting good for the environment. Now, Littleton has a really purpose on taking care of the environment. The swap shop, I'm part of a Facebook page that shares things all the time, all kinds... I'm gifting someone some shoes today. It's because you pointed to that. Half consumers would consider shopping for gifts at thrift shops. So let's give you a perspective. So 81% of baby boomers participate in the secondary market to buy clothes. So we've talked about the senior citizens, but I'd like you to think about this as being an investment for the future. Because if it's a billion dollar business, certainly we're not going to do that. But you can think about it when you're looking at space. It's not just for today. It's for what it will be for the future and how we can take care of our full community. Just have a couple more statistics. So 64% of young shoppers shop at thrift shops. I have two that are 27 and 30. They would never go to a store without going to a thrift shop first. It's a whole different way of shopping. Those of us who didn't necessarily think that was a good idea, now have to understand that your children and others go there first. And the benefits are significant for the future. So respectfully, I'd like you to consider the data I've said. If you want me to get more data or whatever, we can certainly do that. And everybody knows that since I'm a compensation professional, I know how you can take data and use lots of ways to do that. But I want you to understand that it's an investment in the future for the full scope of the organization. And in the beginning, certainly helping out senior citizens, which is a real critical because it's a community. And they're used to that community and there's not many. Certainly, I go to the COA because I just retired. It's lovely and I appreciate it. But I also go to renew and I find that environment and I always meet someone new. Sandra knows everybody and I always meet someone new. So the viability, I suggest kind of like looking for space. And I know you said it has to be a charitable purpose. But the point, I think you said, no, you have to put it up to bid.

Correct. Request for a proposal for any entity.

But do you need to put it for a request for a proposal, charitable or non-charitable?

Doesn't matter.

And you measure them the same when you look at both of them? Correct. Is it the financial? It's how much they're going to return back to the organization?

It's fair market value for the space.

fair market value for the space that will be, and it's so we could think about it today as well as what we think it might be for tomorrow.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. Okay. Well, that gives a different perspective, actually, to say it needs to be every kind of organization. So any questions for me? I can give my notes if you want. So thank you for the opportunity to kind of share my thoughts. Thank you. Because I really would like us to look at it broader, and that's the thing that I bring to the table is a broader perspective versus just the the narrow look of what we can do today. Okay? Thank you. Thank you. Thanks.

Charles Howell, 564 Newtown Road. How are you? I got a couple different things. I came in with one. I got like three things I got on my mind. We met with the VSO agent this past week, and it was brought up with the 250th anniversary of the country, we were wondering if it would be possible to have the U.S. flags put around the common, like they usually have for the holidays, and maybe left up through Veterans Day, since it is the 250th year. I don't know if that's done by the Highway Department, We wanted to show who actually handles that.

It's funny you bring it up, brought it up today, so I'll let the Administrator answer the question.

As the Chairman had expressed the same thing to me this morning, and you will see the flags are going to go back up. They're going to stay there at this point through the 4th of July.

Is it possible to have it further than that, just continuing through the whole, to like Veterans Day?

In November?

Yeah, it'd be tough. You know, I think, but we're going to, I want it, for this now, I think it makes a lot of sense, the 250th, obviously. Right. But I was surprised to see that we really didn't have a policy. I know. previously that discussed what's our typical you know a lot of towns keep have always kept them up from Memorial Day through the 4th of July and some through the end of summer so we're probably going to have to craft a policy so that future boards obviously just just becomes common knowledge we're gonna have it up at least from Memorial Day or just before Memorial Day through the 4th of July but anything after that that's that would be quite a long haul to have the flags up so I'd have to get a lot more the board would have to do a lot more work on figuring out what what that means for other things that might be going on the commons being used for other things etc etc that and just the use of the flags and the wear and tear of those devices and everything else The expense with it, but thank you. So that is being addressed this year and we will see them up very soon.

Okay. I have a concern. Because I heard the autonomy shaping up that this problem with the switch in this building. Which has me concerned since where this building is supposed to be on the. sewage system that we put in that we spent millions of dollars for. So I would think it'd be a matter of hitching the pipe up from this to the new sewage system, from the old sewage system. So why is there an issue with the sewage in this building? That's kind of concerning.

It's an internal pipe that's... Tree roots and... That's right, that is buried deep into it, that has a visible crack in it. And it's a matter of the amount of money that we're anticipating that would be. Because the direction of the building is still in flux, we need to do all of the data that we're going to get from the architect to make the determination what are next steps for the building. And that's an open issue. It has nothing to do with the connection to the street or anything like that. It's strictly an internal thing from internal. There are some bathrooms that are shut down as a result of it.

This building is tied into the SOAR that we spent a lot of money on.

Yeah.

And just on to the CEO thing with the friends of the CEO. If, I don't know if this changes the RFP or should, say the Council of Aging or Elder's has the control over the shop and they have the friends run it, does that bypass the RFP?

I don't want to answer that off the top of my head without doing some research.

But just throwing that out there anyways as a possibility around the RFP. Fair enough. Because then it's a town office, it's a town entity that has it and they just have somebody else run it, volunteer for them.

That's a good thought. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, Ann Lee Ellis, 16 Elizabeth Street. I just want to go back to the COA and the Friends, the thrift shop. I'm also a member of the First Baptist Church, where it is locally housed right now. One little clarity that I'd like to clean up is we weren't throwing them out. It's up for on sale. And we have a letter of intent. But we don't have a purchase and sale as of yet. But hopefully that's being worked on now. So there is no real date. Probably September or October is when everything will go through. But something could happen. We don't know. We only had the church on the market for 10 days before we got a purchase letter of intent. So the people are very happy with who we're looking at.

It's great to hear.

Yeah. My concern is that the programming at COA, we pay for many, many, many programs at COA. So there would be lots of things that aren't available to the folks and to the seniors if we can't have the thrift store. They're the biggest fundraiser for the COA. Right now, it's half of what it used to be, about $5,000 a year. Yeah, about $5,000 a year where it used to be $12,000. they're paying rent to the church. If they didn't have to pay rent to the church, they'd be making $10,000, $11,000, which will pay for a lot of programming for the seniors. Or the seniors put in more money, ask for more money out of the town's budget. So to me, it's a win-win thing. The friends pay for it, or the towns pay for it, one way or another. So I just hope that there's some place that can be found that can benefit everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else today?

John Hanson Mitchell, who lives here and is an author, came to speak because he uses the thrift shop a lot and he had to leave. He said, beware of enterprises that require new clothes. And I think that's very true. But it's also true that We are a community. We are a small town. I think to treat the thrift shop like all the other people who are going to say, please, we'd like to use this building, just isn't right. And I'd like you all to consider that. It is a community. The older people are part of the community. They were probably the selectmen and others earlier. So please, don't treat them just like everybody else. They're not.

Vera, I will help you understand that it's the law. We have to follow the law.

Well, I'm sure there are ways around laws. I know there are. And I'm sure you're smart enough to find some.

Thank you. Thanks for all that showed up for that discussion as well. I appreciate it. Sure.

Can you hear us? Hi.

I'm Beverly Sear from Hartwell Avenue. And I used to work at the old thrift shop. And that was such a community where people dropped in, friends meeting friends, and it was a wonderful atmosphere. I would also like to compliment Sandra Casale and her team for bringing a very quality, professional shop that would rival any other top notch thrift shop. She has done a marvelous job. She puts in so many hours and she's devoted to this mission. I also am secretary of the Friends and I take a lot of minutes and I've got it all down as to what we do.

Thank you. Thank you all for coming. All right. Is that it for public comment?

That's it.

All right. We appreciate you guys. And I look forward to a further discussion on that topic especially. All right. Where are we at?

Department updates.

Department updates and board updates and requests. So we have the Historical Commission. Glasses. Let's see. Disclosure of Christopher Dalen. Okay. So this is a financial disclosure. Okay. Looks like we need to have a motion here. Any discussion on this particular topic? Everybody get a chance to read the

read it I just don't quite understand what we're voting on that it's yes through the chair the gentleman he's though he's a commission member but he also designs manufactures installs the signage in which is is goes before the Commission for approval so because of he has a financial interest in a particular Area that is going to be under review for the Historical Commission this this notice of Disclosure has to be has to be filed and But here it says he's requesting a determination of how he should proceed are we recommending that he be that he vote on his own signs or are we recommending that he abstain or The conflict. It would be an abstention. Okay.

Do you want that stated in the motion, Karen?

Yeah, I've got it. Thank you.

Do we need to see it? I saw it, yeah.

Not so substantial as to be. Okay. Yep, I'm good. Thank you.

All right, any discussion? Good?

I'll second. Good? Move the select board vote to acknowledge a disclosure by a non-elected municipal employee of financial interest and approve the exemption of Christopher Dalen as a municipal employee in accordance with Master and Law Chapter 268A, Section 19.

Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. All those in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Thank you.

You signed? Yeah, just one. We're good. Thank you.

All right, moving right along here. That was the only department board update. All right, appointments. Fiscal year 2027 town board committee appointments. Diane, did you have anything you want to add to this?

Hi, Diane Croyer, Tom Clark. So basically what this is all about is tonight we're not looking to make any appointments. I think some people were thinking that there was going to be some appointments being made. Jim did make reference to all of the openings that there are and vacancies that there are. It's just a reminder to all persons that are on boards and committees that you have to reapply if your term is your term is expiring June 30th so the I sent out an email to all of the chairman to let them know who on their board their term was coming up so any chairman got that email they were told who they were and they were asked to forward that to each of their members so they all know it they all acknowledged it and so they were going to forward that to their members so just a reminder that if In two weeks, this board will be making the appointments. Lisa and I have been receiving applications. She'll be putting that in a packet. So you'll be receiving that to be able to make all those appointments. Right now there are a couple of boards that have received more applications than there are availability. So we are going to forward to the different boards and committees as well all the applications so that they can take a look at it. and make the determination as to their suggestion. Recommendations. Recommendations to you, yeah, as to recommendations as to who they would like to see. Sometimes they look to the people that are already on board. Sometimes they look to have somebody new, but we like to give them that option as well. And somebody once, they also asked me, does it first come from first serve? Not my decision. So it's up to this board as well as the board that they are going for. And there are people that are applying for several different boards as well, so you'll get those under each of the different boards that you're seeing. So there is a board member that is on here. The person isn't on here, but their position is on here from last year. They were appointed last year, never came in and took the oath, so their position is on here. People have to understand that when they're appointed, they still have to command and take the oath. Okay. Okay.

Thank you. That's where we're at with that. All right. Thanks. Thank you. For Kyle, we do this every year. All right.

Can I ask one clarification? Sure. Go to the mic. Thank you.

Yes, on this topic?

No, it was a topic before. Should I wait?

Go ahead.

I didn't understand the protocol. I just wanted to ask you a question. Is it possible for us, several of us, to meet with you? If you could just. It's possible for us to meet with this gentleman over here to talk about different strategies on how we could have preferential treatment for being able to get the space. I understand we have to follow law, but I also understand that there's lots of ways to follow and to be creative and I have some ideas but some of them may be legal and some may not but I would like to have an opportunity for a couple of us to meet with you or whomever to kind of have that so because right now it sort of feels when we're leaving here is that we're kind of how about very kind of negative taste in our mind, just sort of says, this is never going to happen, we might as well close shop right away. And I'd like not to leave with that thought process. So if I could propose that and how it sees fit. And it's not a discussion, it's really a knowledge discussion.

I have a discussion between a potential bidder and the, way in here, but to have a discussion between a potential bidder and the town about how to devise ways around the RFP to favor a potential bidder is a problem. So I would think the town administrator would be happy to meet with you to discuss your aims and your needs and your advice what you think would be needed, for example, for a thrift shop, if it were to be held here. But we cannot meet with you to talk about why it should go to you. The intent was a little differently stated at first.

I apologize. When I heard that, I'm thinking, hmm. When I get that, I have to be upfront and say, I'd like to explore that a little bit and understand it. I'd be more than happy to meet whomever.

Thank you. And I think a couple things are going to happen. I know we've reached back a little bit here. We've got to figure out where our space is in this building. So I just want to let you know that that's one of the big things. We don't know. Even if we opened up a room to somebody and then all of a sudden in four months we're saying we're going to demolish that. So we've got to get this sorted out for us with the architect and figure things out.

We have rumors about demolishing things like that.

Right. So once we get that ironed out, we'll have a better idea, and then probably that would be the more appropriate time to.

And it's better for us to be educated versus leave with that kind of tone in our mind. our hearts at this point. And yes, and follow the law. I'm not breaking it. Thank you. No, I understand.

I have to close public. We've already closed it, so I can't.

I appreciate that.

I can't continue the public discussion on it.

Just let me say, my name is Mary Smith. I live on Lincoln Drive. I'm confused just listening. Like, there was a thrift shop in here. You know, COVID happened, the drift shop was closed. It was illegal. And so, and then they were, so why is it impossible for the drift shop to come back here? Why is this, I don't understand the process.

Yeah, I don't want to get a bit into the back and forth in the public. We typically don't do this. We listen, and then we do our research and investigate. But I will tell you that. Some legal issues were discovered during that period in time where, to be honest with you, it was being operated illegally in this building.

Thirty years?

Yes. I will say, I don't know how many years. I'm just telling you that there were... There's no such thing.

There's no such thing. This conversation is over. The chair has said it's over. We ended public input. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude, but we have to continue our business meeting.

Correct. I don't want you to leave with a bad taste. I know it sounds like we're just shutting up. We're not. But there's a lot more that has to happen for us to consider this. to move forward in a public space as a nonprofit coming into a municipal building to operate a not-for-profit no matter what it is. There's a lot of little legal requirements now that we're very aware of and that I can't speak to previous boards and previous administrations that we're on notice. We know what we have to do. So it's much more sensitive than just saying, yeah, come on in. But thank you. Okay. Apologize. Thank you for that. All right. It's moving on. I have a, moving on to 8B, vote to appoint Jennifer Davis as Interim Parks Recreation and Community Education Director at Grade 16, Step 10 on Compensation Plan Schedule A, subject to the approval of Park and Recreation Commission.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Select Board. There is a typo here that should be 9, not 10. And that will...

Step 9?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you. And what we are doing because of the recent vacancy and with the coming into the height of the Parks and Recreation program, season we thought or the parks and rec Commission thought it would be in the best interest to bring in an experienced seasoned professional Jennifer Davis was as you can see from her her resume she was the director of parks and rec for the city of Peabody for approximately 28 years. The Parks and Rec Commission, two of the members, the chair, Chairwoman Jacobson and Commissioner Marini, met along with myself and the HR director, had the discussion with this person to do as an interim basis. And because of Everything is starting to unfold and ready for the beach to open in the very very near future This is training that's going to be going on this weekend and is the desire of parks and rec board that This individual would be able to start on Wednesday because with the anticipated approval from the select board on the funding mechanism here and then secondly uh... the parks commission will be able to vote for the uh... because they are the appointing authority of that they will be able to vote tomorrow night at their meeting with uh... the addition of this individual the funding source uh... what we have will for the rest of this fiscal year to june thirtieth it is within the account because of the lag money that's there from the change in the assistant director from one uh... Tim had left to pursue another opportunity to when we actually hired Maureen. There is enough money. There's approximately $16,000 that would be defined as lag money. We can use that through the rest of the year. What we would have to go do in going forward, have a conversation of whether the Parks Commission would need to put in some of the program funding, which is an eligible expense for this, until such time as it becomes cost neutral with any payouts that's required to be done or anything like that. So it is a request for the board to take any questions.

Okay, I'll take questions if anybody has any.

Sure. So this is an interim position. Did you, did you say how long we expect it to be an interim position?

Well, the Congress, no, I did not. Thank you for that. Um, uh, the, the conversation centered around, uh, a timeline and, uh, the way my understanding from the parks commission of the individuals that were, uh, uh, we met with, uh, it was looked at through August and make that and reassess, uh, going forward from there.

Thanks.

There's no expectation of this rolling into being a permanent position. There was no conversation about that. Let's do one step at a time because of the sense of need regarding this crunch time.

I haven't had a chance to actually talk to anybody on the Parks and Rec Commission about this. Is the reason that the select board is voting on this before Parks and Rec is voting on it just because of timing?

Correct. It's just because Parks was tomorrow night. Okay, the select board was coincidental, and that's strictly all.

And they are in favor of this?

Absolutely.

Okay.

And Jennifer is aware that this could be a very short term?

Completely. Okay. 100%.

And if a future position opened up permanently, would she consider applying or not? Do you know that much about it?

I haven't had that. I don't want to set those expectations right now. I haven't even gone down that road.

I mean, it's obviously the Park and Rec Commission's appointment, hiring decision. Yes, sir.

So we're voting essentially just to approve that.

So this is just for funding? Funding source.

Yes, sir.

As the funding source of the Park and Rec?

Yes, sir.

All right. That's our only rule here. Yes, sir.

Just question the wording of the motion, though. To authorize funding for instead of appoint? Because we're not appointing. Yep.

Right? Right.

Correct.

Yes, sir. Thank you for that catch. And it's also step nine.

Yeah, I got that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Please come up to the mic. I believe the town administrator said, so we're not expending the money that they currently have for a position that somebody left to pay for it. So really all you're doing is moving it from one person's salary to this person's salary. There's no extra expenditure or something like that.

No. It's the money that was through the chair that was identified. Because what we do every single year is we encumber the funds for every position to take us for the entire 12 months. But because when someone leaves prior to the 12th month, that extra money just sits there. That sits in that account. We're using that money. Okay.

Because the way it sounded, like you were expending...

if something like that happens where money we hit a point where the money is no longer available for that then we have to come back into a meeting and discuss what a funding source that we can use because it no longer is viable thank you and because and because it's PRCE the funding source would be their own revenue sources beyond July 1st All right. I think we're ready for a motion.

Move the select board vote to authorize the funding source. I'm going to leave it at that. For Jennifer Davis as interim parks, recreation, and community education director at grade 16, step 9 on compensation plan schedule A. This is subject to approval of the Parks and Recreation Community Education Commission.

Second. Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. All those in favor? Aye.

Thank you very much, and I will be attending tomorrow night's parks and rec meeting, and I'll report back to the select board. Okay? Thank you.

All right. TA update.

Okay, thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the Select Board. We have just last week two community compact grants were submitted for funding for 550 King Street and one of the grants is focused on the internal structures, internal roadway improvements, sidewalks, things of that nature on the property of 550 King Street. Then the second, and that was for approximately $5 million. And then the second $5 million was a request on the outside of the property, which would incorporate into the town common pedestrian access, parking, roadway improvements, sidewalks, a number of different traffic enforcement safety things that would be implemented. And those were submitted successfully. I believe it was on Wednesday that it was the deadline. I would also want to bring the select board up on a number of different training that has gone on and is currently going on through the hard work of our town clerk. We had town hall training for ADA compliance and access and things of that nature. That training will continue. for anybody that has access for the website to make sure that that is accessible and the individuals will be trained to do that. We're also going to make the ADA training as part of the onboarding as people new employees come on they're not properly trained we would like to incorporate that as as we move move forward we also have recently last week was town a number of different departments library ehs town hall things that were our cpr cpr and aed certified and trained so that Tony and I are ready to go. And then we have the other, the last training that's been going on is something that we touched upon many weeks ago that has been going through different departments and I believe the library is going to be trained tomorrow or the day after, for active shooter training. And that is something that, unfortunately, we all have to be ready for that. God willing, that never happens here. Also would like to let everybody at the Select Board know that Liz Tridiak from our EHS She has been nominated CARE Soulless Hero for 2026. That is looking at really just the care and the programs and the outstanding job that she has done over the course of, I would say her career, but they were really just now they're really identifying. It was great and we had a great department head meeting this morning that dealt with A couple celebrations and one sad goodbye. The other celebration to that this morning was we have our HR director, Michelle Vibert, has been nominated and appointed to the MMA HR Board of Directors. which is very, very impressive, and we're very proud of her and Liz. And also today was our health director's last department head meeting. And he's done a great job, and we are working closely with the Board of Health on making sure that the transition is seamless as we go to fill his position. Also would like to highlight some of the project manager that Nancy is doing. Some of the things that she's doing, she's enhancing our social media accounts. She is meeting with appropriate town personnel for planning a video. It will be about Littleton video. And she's also going to look at creating, these are just a few of the things, creating an employee profile to highlight employees. We have, last two things, we have chapter 90 funds contract with DOT is set to expire next year in 2027 that contract has runs for 10 years and but they're starting the process a year ahead of time and so the next time it will be once we that is signed it will go until 2037. with DOT, and that's for the Chapter 90 funds. As we know, the Chapter 90 funds is to help sidewalks, road improvements, and all that kind of stuff. And lastly, Tony and I, tomorrow we will be going over to Dover Saddlery. We all received notification of the potential closing of that facility, so we're going over, see if anything has changed, how can we help, what is the plan in place. So there was still, when we were originally all notified, there was still a lot of moving parts on potential, whether they were able to secure additional funding, what the issue was. So we're gonna try and see if we can offer the assistance with the select board and how we can help them, if there's anything we can do by being a liaison with the state. bringing the state here. This is what we're trying to do. And that's it. Any questions?

Comment of the day.

Yeah, I have mine with more. Just real quick on, you brought up the ADA stuff.

I didn't mention in my lap that I probably should have since I'm looking at my hand here.

The Disability Commission met with LaPolle Properties, the architect team, the design team for their plan, their ADA plan for their phase one of their site. The board did unanimously vote to, I guess, recommend or approve the design as sufficient for many forms of, you know, disabilities, but a lot of work went into that. You could tell they've created a lot of different, a lot of questions, tough questions were asked. They've created a lot of interesting ways to navigate that busy area for individuals that may be impaired in different ways and they also talked about the future designs if they start to build out some of the other things where they're you know get into public restrooms and things like that so they answered a lot of tough questions the parking questions but just mostly the mobility questions to get around that potentially very busy center so very very impressive in the board I just want to mention that the board did vote unanimously to recommend or approve the design.

If I may, I just want to – one other thing, and I apologize. Just what you were just talking about made me remember it. One of the things that our town clerk informed as part of her update at the department head meeting is to pursue a grant opportunity that will make it handicap accessible at the – Veterans Corps. Veterans Corps. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, yeah. So thank you, Diane, for your –

How'd it work? Just you mentioned the video that Nancy's going to be working on. Mark Rory put something together in 2017 that was an excellent video. Is it a jumping off point? That's who she's meeting with.

She's going to be with Tony and with Mark and the three, the brain trust will, you know, I'm sure will produce something pretty impressive stuff.

Yes, good work. Just don't trust him with a green screen. Yeah. you'll be flying through space or something that's great just kidding all right a good update so we we did have next in the introduction of our our new town moderator cammy bean but she could not be here this evening so we're going to just push it to another agenda when she can be she's actually attending her town moderator training oh thank you that would make sense all right so Charter Committee report discussion It's a big report. I know I don't expect a whole lot of discussion tonight, but I guess we discussed some of how we want to break this up. Do we want to commit certain off meetings to really jump into this? Do we want to create a subcommittee to jump into this? How do we want to approach really looking at this and breaking it down and how we... strategies, I guess, moving to move forward or things we might not agree with as a board that we want removed or added to.

Might this be a subject that we want to address at the retreat?

It's a great idea.

I mean, but...

I think, I mean, in general, I think a subgroup is a good idea. This is a huge task, and we're going to need to, we're going to need folks that are focused on it all the time to map, create a map for what we want to do. And then, you know, have us all, you know, obviously we all need to agree on it, but, yeah.

Yeah, so let's definitely have it at our retreat, our discussion about it, and then from there. I think in a few, yeah, that's kind of how we'll jump off and then we'll, from there we'll talk about creative, yeah, moving forward. But any comments right now on what you've seen?

You said it's a lot. A lot of work.

Kyle, I mean, I know you put a lot of work into this and the team. Much appreciated. We've got a lot of advice from different committee members and you especially just on maybe ways to move forward and not look at the charter as this big block that's going to hit the town over the head. But... bring it to town meetings and pieces, things that make sense for the times, and maybe things that don't make sense now, but make sense in the future sometime perhaps, but just try to approach it that way. So I think that's what we're going to do. Thank you.

I think yeah I mean I can I can give you kind of the some of the overarching themes as we went through our work was really around having things documented having processes and procedures documented codified things like that as well as having well understood reporting structures like those were the two big themes and then you know there are other things here and there that we found but those are the two big themes and you'll read that in the executive summary

No, and a lot, you know, looking at a lot, there's a lot of good that's going on in the town, a lot of processes that work, you know, and I think it's our community and some of the things we do are very effective, and it's probably why we're, you know, in fairly financial, you know, talk about financial standing and a relatively safe community. We have a few break-ins lately, but we're, trust our force to address that as quickly as possible, but just in general, I think, it's a lot of a lot of good things that are going on a little tin so I think any improvements to that are greatly appreciated but a lot of work and I think maybe we recognize I'd like to recognize the Charter community maybe we could talk a little more to that at a at a town meeting just to have maybe certificates or something come up and recognize the work that they did because it gave up 18 months of their their life's yeah yeah thank you all right next up we have review and vote on proposed select board July to December schedule in October 27 special town meeting schedule so they have I guess it's hard to say conflicts I mean I will say that I'm gone. It's not as bad as I thought. It's really just conflicts, but I think that's why we have a five-member board. I'm out of country in August for most of the month, but it appears we only have one meeting that it really is going to affect. Anything that sticks out that says we can't do this or it's not going to work?

One thing that I noticed this year was that having town meeting and elections in the same seven day period was a lot too much in my opinion. So I was curious how for the annual, but even still, we've got, we're going to have elections coming up in November. So what's the, how much time do we have between October 27 and just a week?

So it's November 3rd, October 27th. So it's exactly a week.

same as what we went through this year in May. Do we have any flexibility?

Talk to the Secretary of State.

Not on elections, obviously, but do we have any flexibility on a town meeting date?

We do, to some extent. I know you can just look at other towns. West Fred, I think, has a town meeting in March. How we start to migrate that a little differently would take a lot of...

But they also have their election within seven days of that.

That's true. So I don't know if that is a requirement, perhaps.

No, that's just the way we do our election.

Yeah, with the town meeting.

That's just the way we do it. That's in our code.

Yeah.

That's the way we've decided. I mean, it used to be we used to have our election Saturday, and then our town meeting followed our election.

Yeah, I like, I mean, I guess the good part of it is, People know it's all coming at once, so it's kind of like the focus is in on this one period, this one week of time we've got all this going on. Yeah, please come up. This is kind of your wheelhouse.

The reason we go so late in October is because we try to do it before November, obviously, because we're getting ready to set the rate. So you don't want to go too soon because you're not going to have enough time for the assessors to be able to get all of their information together and have everything done. So it's that timeline that's in there as to why we have the special town meeting. towards the end of October. So we try to give the assessors as much time as possible to get all that information together because we're getting ready to get those numbers together. So we try to give them as much time as possible. So that's why we do it towards the end of October. what about for may as far as may is concerned we have to the the law um says we have to have it before um the end of june okay but we could push out our may um election if we wanted you're better off having your town meeting you know but you have that 35, you want to have it within 35 days of your town meeting or it falls into a different type of category. So you really want to have it. And because you're also looking at, if you're going further out, you're also looking at people going on vacation.

There's always a reason not to show up.

There's always a reason, yeah. But, you know, I personally prefer to have it. In that week, you know, this was kind of different because we ended up having a recount, so it was like bang, bang, bang. But it's a little bit easier because we have kind of the, we can get the gym set up, take it down, and then set up again by that Thursday. We usually do it Thursday because Highway and electric light don't work on Fridays, so we do it Thursday. It kind of gives us a day that Friday to kind of like breathe and figure everything out for Friday. So we kind of have that day off in between the setting up and going to the election. So I don't mind it. I mean, I know it's a lot, but I actually prefer to kind of stay within that week.

I mean, it's something we can do a little research.

I really think we should look into it.

I'm just curious what other towns are doing.

Talk about it, at least. I mean, you could go the following week, but then again, you're going to kind of work with the schools as well as to... that's yeah I was wondering about the middle school does it you know is it better for them to have back to back or is it better for them to have well they kind of they prefer it that way only because now they know exactly when it's going to happen and they're you know they expect it for that week and they've got all their stuff scheduled and they can keep it scheduled that way I understand that we've got a cadence but yeah in our annual calendar yeah but if we were to make a change it would definitely be we just we need to talk to them oh yeah do it a year out and they could prepare for that right but I'm not sure how they schedule their plays and that type of thing so yeah that's the other thing yeah we need to talk to the schools for sure okay thank you

Any other discussion, though, on this?

I haven't stated this in the past, but the fact that July 27th says optional, I think during the summer, we can get everything done in one meeting a month, in my opinion. But sometimes you do have to have that extra meeting. So I'd rather see both July and August have an optional meeting in it.

September's pretty hot, too, you know.

I'm kidding. Just about attendance or anything.

You're saying to Adam...

It's not going to change in this calendar.

But you're saying to Adam, just to have it in there as an if needed, you write it in?

Yeah, I mean, I think we can get... get done whatever we need to get done, whatever's urgent, in one meeting in July and one meeting in August.

Oh, I see. You're saying take away a meeting, potentially. I thought you meant adding.

We could put one in there as optional if needed, but I think that we can most of the subject matter during the summer, I think, is less urgent. Yeah. I mean, stuff does come up, and you need to do transfers and different types of business, but... I know other communities have done it. I mean, some communities don't have meetings over the summer.

Right.

I mean, we're adding meetings. Well, I mean, sure.

There are towns that don't have meetings during the summer. July and August is no meetings.

No, but we've added meetings. We have a retreat. We do. We have both a little unique. We have police chief stuff, interviews and things. Okay. All right, so let's just talk.

It might affect the stipend, though. We prorate it.

This is stuff I think, obviously we're approving this, but we're recommending, or actually we're approving this tonight, but we can talk about that in the retreats that you brought up. Just the feasibility of that and then what Chuck said, let's just see what happens this summer with this schedule. Yes, sir. And see if one of these meetings is just a pre-agenda item or something that could have been pushed forward.

Understood.

But I will say I would be comfortable with it just saying if needed, have it in here, but just if needed because things come up, licenses and everything. Any other discussion on the calendar? This is kind of an off-topic, the Thanksgiving Day holiday.

I just wrote that down as something we need to talk about. Yeah.

I just think we've talked about every single year since I've been on the select board and also, well, FinCon or whatever, but you on the select board, have you ever not given the Friday after Thanksgiving off to the employee? Yeah. There has been situations that you haven't?

I don't think we ever gave it when Keith was down administrator.

Okay. All right. Because just since I've been on, it seems like so. So it actually turns into de facto holiday.

I mean, I think he empowered, towards the end, he empowered the department heads to make sure you have coverage.

Yeah, the skeleton crew, make sure. All right, that's just for the discussion. I know we had talked about it before. All right, enough discussion on that. Do we have a motion for this?

No, it's just consensus.

Okay. Is everybody comfortable with this for this upcoming second half of the year? Mm-hmm. Okay. All right. Moving on. Let's see. Review, discuss, and assign select board liaisons to town boards, committees. I know Mark's not here.

Special town meeting schedule? Is that part of 10C?

What was it?

Yeah, town meeting.

Oh, I'm sorry. Town meeting schedule. Yeah. I skipped. Let's go back. Not town meeting schedule. Oh, the whole timeline. Okay. For the special. The warrant opens August 10th. The warrant closes September 11th. 45 days. We insert the articles on the 14th of September. This is pretty standard for what we do over here. Is it working? Does it work? Did you see any hiccups in your tenure year that we had, you know, maybe we should move something? Nope. Diane, do you have any input on this?

Tony and I were talking about it, yeah, it looks good. Okay.

All right, if we don't have any discussion, if this looks good, we'll continue on what we're doing. Okay.

Okay.

All right, now we can move forward with the discussion on potential.

Do you want a motion on that?

Do we?

Move the select board vote to approve the October 27, 2026 special town meeting schedule as reflected and updated in the attached schedule.

Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. All those in favor? Aye. All right, it is approved. All right, this is kind of a tough one to do without Mark, but I guess we can just, we have the, it's also something that we've been asked to. Yeah, we have done, we can do this.

If I can make a suggestion that maybe we do this at a different meeting. Retreat? Yeah, retreat maybe, and we have a list so everybody can review who's assigned what right now ahead of time.

That's a good idea.

Okay, so let's push this to a future meeting with a list of who's currently liaisoning. And then we can talk about people that maybe want to try dropping into something else or dropping out of something and someone else can move in. It's good to have different views on some of these committees.

And Mr. Chair, Mark had asked us to also consider some of the other tasks that have developed, like the newsletter and the podcast, to be added to those. That was his suggestion, is add those two things to the honey-do list. Yep, that's a good idea.

Right, if you have me write the newsletter, it's going to be in Koran. No. Okay. So we'll push that. Discuss the lease agreement. I saw the legal... legal opined on this, so are they saying that communities do a five-year as opposed to a three? What were they?

I was trying to see what the... Other than updates to the dates and the names, the council said they believe they actually reviewed this three years ago as well, so they didn't see any major changes to it. And it's consistent with the statute that allows for this type of arrangement.

Yeah. I think some of the discussion was, Senator, we need to do a better job somehow, whether it's through the newsletter too. Yeah. Just did you know the VFW is open for- As a meeting space. As a meeting space for public use for community. the town's retirement celebration. I mean, I know we got this beautiful senior center over here, but you can get over there and have a beer, you know, or something. But I'm just saying it's a space that I don't think a lot of the town knows that they can utilize.

Can we move all select board meetings over there? That wouldn't end up well. Roadhouse.

The lights are flashing. That's the last agenda. Because that's the main, that's the one thing I know Mark had brought up, too. The use of it. Let's get, let's pick up the use of that. So get it used. I mean, it's a space that can fit up, you get 90 people, you know, that's what the occupancy is on that side. So it's a good space to use. And that includes scout troops. That includes all kinds of different...

That I was just about to ask. There's no restrictions on age because of the alcohol license. Anybody can use it?

Correct.

Completely separate room.

And it's locked. It can be locked. So that's a separate room. Or it can be opened if it's an event that you want alcohol. It can be open for people.

The only thing is there's no.

Right, it's a reheat.

You have to bring in your food.

Yeah, and that happens a lot. Pelforno's delivers their pizza. They deliver and they set up.

Scouts used to use it on Wednesdays.

Yep, they did. I know even during COVID, they were there too. And winter, when they had other issues, they had to use that. But please, we'll continue to get the word out in some other forms, just so that maybe even on LCTV, a did you know type of thing. Any questions on the specifics of it, though? No. I'm going to pass this around, though.

Is that the actual? Yeah.

I've got it. Is this your signature?

Oh, okay. Oh, I see my name there.

We're signing it, so... Yeah, it's discussed and then it's signature on the lease agreement. Update regarding the bond finance municipal facilities policy. Mark did have a few comments on this. I think it was the same discussion you had before. He doesn't think there should be a difference. I don't know if you saw the

I did, I did, and I did send him, I conferred with Robin this morning, afternoon, and I did send a communication out to a select board member, Ron Bakker. I don't believe he, I don't know if he had an opportunity to read, but I'm happy to share the points, and pardon to summarize, but He was looking for clarification, so stated that both the library and the senior center had naming rights sold slash donated as a fundraising tool. Both of these were used to lower the debt of the facility. Are those allowed or not allowed under this policy? Based on our review, the library and senior center naming rights don't appear to conflict with this policy. In both cases, the donations were deposited in dedicated donation accounts used for the purchase of furniture, fixtures, and other amenities. So they were not part of the financing or debt issuance for either facility. So that was the follow-up.

It was the extras that the commissioners wanted. Maybe they wanted different chairs and things within the building itself.

That is how I understood it to be.

Yeah, I think that was right. I think that's right.

And at the end of the day, again, it wasn't part of the financing for those two projects. Do have to follow up with respect to the schools. So he was seeking clarification, as I understand, regarding the advertisement sold at the alumni field and whether those are allowed in the policy and who determines them. We reached out to, I had a meeting with Steve Mark at the board's direction last week. and we touched on many topics related to the policy and certainly expressed Steve expressed interest to to share and adapt as as Seemed to be fit and appropriate But we wanted to just further pinpoint this piece haven't heard back from from Steve Mark just yet but we found that no revenue being deposited to either a school donation account or alumni field use account and But we have a call in to Steve to better understand the sponsorships and advertising. At the end of the day, the schools, they do have a policy that they operate under. And with respect, general policy, I should say, as I understand it to be. However the board sees fit, remember we have the draft policy and also the general guidance policy. we would certainly share any information with them for their benefit and use. Okay.

I believe LABA, the boosters. LABA. The Athletic Boosters Association was managing the revenues that were coming in from advertising and whatnot at alumni.

And I did hear that, although I didn't want to state it because I couldn't confirm that, so I was cautious about saying it.

We should. I mean, there's more opportunities for us to rent space. No, there is.

That's what we're discussing, I guess.

So that's the update that I have. And did meet with Sam over at the library. I may have mentioned this last time. I don't recall. And also had a good conversation with Liz over at EHS as well. And... Again, we talked about the policy, but we also talked about the general guidance. And certainly some of the bullets you might recall in the guidance to incorporate in their standard applications and review process. At the end of the day, having a policy in place is what is strongly recommended by bond counsel. And what is that policy to create that framework of review internally? Okay.

And the ramifications of us not having a policy are that groups are being turned away from these spaces right now. I mean, this is a time-sensitive thing, right?

I'm sorry, through the chair. No, the use of, you know, I was just thinking about other things. I didn't get too deep into some of the discussion on an evening where somebody wanted to use some of the facilities. It's a whole nother element this custodial services also, right, right so All right, so I Guess we're trying to get to a point here where we adopt this vote on it and sign it correct that the yes Yes, so would we be safe? I mean do we feel like one more meeting and we're there I mean what how What's your comfort level? I mean, it sounds like I know.

I am comfortable either way.

We don't have a board schedule for tonight, but I know.

However the board sees fit. With respect to Member Rombacher, those were the responses that he had and did provide to him. He did make note at the end that I do not believe we should have a different policy for debt versus non-debt projects. Why should one facility have a different policy than another? That may lead to another policy discussion for different types of bonded and for non-bonded to have a uniform policy. At the end of the day, with respect to the IRS, kind of need to carve out how we handle those. Holistically bigger picture, having a policy for all types of buildings, right? And it may be helpful. Certainly may be helpful. But I don't want to lose sight of this particular component. Why? Because, again, it was alerted to us by Bunkhouse. It's important to have, again, that review process in place. Solidified in writing somewhere. So... And we are to follow and monitor that as it stays in the policy.

All right, so to add on to what Mark said, I think this is probably ready for us to come in front of this next meeting for a vote and an approval. But I would like to pursue what he said in regards. It may be the exact same policy, but it may also be... Maybe it's too stringent. Maybe we don't want to have to do certain things. And if we don't have to, then let's get rid of that on some of these other buildings. It's kind of like having collision when you finance a car. You have to have collision on them.

As soon as you're done paying on it, I can get rid of collision. I just have comprehensive.

You know what I mean? So if there's stuff in there, we have to weigh the risk-reward and make it easier on the public to use certain facilities because, hey, your tax dollar paid this we're done we're good all right we can have that discussion after but I don't want it to hold up this one this is he said time sensitive Karen mentioned so all right well thank you good work thank you thank you all right annual town meeting post meeting review um Yeah, I know Mark had a couple comments we'll add, but also I just want to hear what people thought of what went well. As far as the mechanics of Tom meeting, I think we have made improvements.

If you want to go back 10 years to now, I think a lot of changes.

I think we're technology-wise with clickers and iPads at the check-ins and obviously the care for the children. things like that so those are all great improvements but where do we think we need another survey to go out?

my opinion yeah I think it'd be helpful this meeting was so different from the last meeting I think it we need to get feedback on sort of the the low-interest meetings and the high-interest meetings both to try to understand what we need to do in the future based on what we expect in terms of turnout I mean we kind of know which which meetings are going to generate a lot of interest and it would be helpful I think to have data points that but also for the low interest so that we can you know plan for the childcare now we know you know there was just many you know this many kids were available or were brought in and people don't care as much about you know this or that for particular meetings but and it's also helpful because I think Tony right there were questions about why you didn't attend and that would be especially helpful I think for our low interest meetings that's true

yeah that's mr chairman what we had we had a uh because as as you know we we come together as a team and we talk about the logistics of many different areas leading up to town and one of the things that we started uh also this year was having what can be defined as a whitewash that after the meeting while everything is fresh and everyone's memories then we come back together as a team again to identify where are the strengths, where are the weaknesses, what do we need to do different, and some of the Some of the comments such as Chairwoman Morrison had expressed, you know, we can keep, you know, the fields open until 6, 630 because we had turned around and said nothing, no field usage whatsoever for the afternoon or the evening of June. of town meeting, but to your point, open until 6, 6.30.

Also, you're saying it was a little excessive.

Correct. I mean, if you give them the flexibility. Right. It was, there was the potential because of all the stuff that, you know, up front, maybe do we start it? There was a question, a rhetorical question, do we start it a half hour earlier? that there were different areas to the point you were just making that it was a meeting that was not as well attended. So we knew this going into it that we're going to identify the same services in terms of having the spillover room, having the second moderator and things of that nature, not understanding that we probably won't get many individuals. And that became reality. There were some no-shows in regards to the sign-ups because it was done online. The schools did it online beforehand. There was a reservation for transportation that was canceled. Closed caption worked real well. And that was something that another suggestion was keep the, you know, just go with the closed caption and maybe no longer do the transcriptionist. Because I believe the timing of the transcription as compared to the action of the closed caption was significantly a difference in timing.

I'd like to get Mark's take on that. Is that feasible?

Yeah.

He was there. Yeah. Yeah, he's part of the team. Oh, okay. Yeah. No, absolutely. No. So, yeah. All good. And, yep.

Elbow room.

I'm sorry?

Elbow room, right? That was also a point of discussion.

The front table. Correct. Thank you. There was, because it was pretty cramped there.

Yeah, it always is, too.

And there was increased, there was more equipment needed, what, for the closed caption?

Right.

Right? And so that took up some space that otherwise could have been used for...

Right. So the finance section was pretty cramped.

So I don't know how we can fix the... It does get congested there. You can't really spill them into the lobby because you've got the clickers now. Normally we could if we didn't have those, but now it... be hard to manage that, correct? Yeah.

They spitballed a few options, right?

Maybe a different way of setting it up.

Well, I mean, so I think one of the things that they discussed, we discussed was, so instead of having all the finance on one side, maybe putting Robin and Kim on the other side. Because if in all reality, we stop and think about it, Steve, you know, in talking before I came into the meeting, there's three people that applied for finance. Wow. board so now we have full seven there's no way seven board members plus robin and kim plus meridia plus myself can all fit up on that one side so you know the the problem is now so if we have all of them on that right hand side and then you at the end of it we typically have the camera there There's not enough room on that side. So it's just a, I don't know if it's a matter of, we can't really shift the tables because we typically have the podium in the center. It's centered in the gym. Nobody realizes it, but that's what we do. We have it centered. I mean, I do put a cloth in the back so you can't tell. But that's what we're doing. We could shift it that way, but people wouldn't realize that that's what we've done. But we could shift to the left a little bit.

If we put one row of tables up, we could put another row in front.

We talked about that as well. You'd have to get a podium. Right. A stage.

A stage, yeah. Right, one step up. type of a scenario exactly stadium style seating that's where the select board would sit right

Yeah, my preference would be that we keep sending surveys out and see. Every meeting's a little different, but I think we'll start learning what we need if we keep asking, keep trying different things.

What's the cost of this survey?

We used existing, and I'll work with Nancy this time, too.

All right. Thanks for the whitewash. Maybe we just make that part of our regular update, too. Did you plan that? I mean, to have that?

Oh, okay. Yeah, we did. What's that? It's the call from the hospital. Murder board.

Yes. Murder board? Yeah, the murder board.

When something bad happens in the office, they all get together in a room and talk about what happened. No, it was flawless. It was flawless.

So last meeting we had a public input regarding data centers, and I know it's been a discussion nationally to some degree, but you had requested this as well to be put on. You've done some research. You shared it with the rest of the board, so I'll let you kind of talk about some of your... I did see the comprehensive response that LELD gave to their handling of previous status with IBM and digital, but nothing to the scale that potentially we could be talking about.

Right. And so I guess starting with what prompted this, which we were talking about Mansfield voting in bylaws at their last town meeting to essentially restrict all of these, what they call Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3. You can only get a Tier 1 data center, and that's through approval of the planning board. Anything larger than, I think, 5 megawatts is banned outright. The size of the modern data center is somewhere around 50 megawatts and larger. So I did some research, like you mentioned, I shared with the board. The thing that I'm concerned about, one, typically to entice data centers to come into town, tax breaks are given. Through the research I've done, the tax breaks don't benefit the town in the long run. The town only loses money. It generally only creates around 50 jobs, and that's Microsoft's own estimate, and they're specialized jobs. Utility rates increase. Massive amount of water is used. I think Google's water use, just in one Google data center in Oregon, water use grew 316%, while the town's population only grew 10%. And of course, environmental impacts, utility rate increases. I know we all appreciate how low our electric utility rates are. We're seeing increases of 40% in some areas. In Virginia, the largest data center market has risen 267% over five years. So for all of these reasons, I thought it would be pertinent to at least discuss what are we going to do about it. Are we going to potentially pursue what Mansfeld did and enact a bylaw? Are we going to put a moratorium on data centers until we can figure out what we're going to do?

Now tell me the good. I mean, why does a town entice a data center? I want a data center. What's that argument? That's...

I, unless you're a developer or someone who invests in AI data centers, I can't find a good. That's, at least for a citizen, a resident, a citizen of the town, I can't find a positive.

And how big are these places? I know it's the consumed, but visually, I guess. What are you looking at? I can't picture what a data center would look like, because I've only seen the smaller versions in Littleton that we've had.

Yeah. I was actually, we were talking about Ohio earlier. There's a data center going in, and I won't say what my hometown is in Ohio, but in my hometown, and it's multiple football fields long.

Okay, so that's kind of what my brain thought it might be, and I was like, yeah, it can't be that, like that.

Yeah.

So I guess how... Is Littleton even considered a target for this? Well... Maybe because of our location.

Yeah, I think... Right, exactly. I think that would be one reason, would be our low-cost utility rates. And I think that... I mean, just based on the research that I did, it seems like the taxpayer would subsidize that rate, or the electric consumer, the citizen of the town would subsidize that rate.

I was listening to a story about these on NPR, and they said that land costs are a huge factor. So, you know, when you're buying five football fields worth, you know, every penny counts per square.

If we have five football fields, I want ball fields there. We've got that kind of room.

And then they said the utilities infrastructure is also really important.

So I guess if we're talking about a bylaw, I mean, it wouldn't be hard to steal Vance Fields and shape it to Littleton. It's already created. But I guess the process to get there would be, some public sessions just to discuss it. I don't imagine there'd be a whole lot of pro. Let's say, yeah, I want it, bring it. So I don't know how much we really need it. If the board's already, the vibe from the board is already I think it makes sense to create a...

I think we could put a draft together for the special town meeting and put it out there.

Yeah, and have public input just to see what the community's thoughts are on it. And I know Chase, I see you, I know, reached out to me directly on this topic and I said we would have a future public, but if you want to, if you're here for this and you had a comment... Tonight? We're good? I'm good.

Thank you for the opportunity.

All right. So we will have that opportunity. So I think we just agree to do that.

Yeah. Yeah.

So let's see how difficult and complex this bylaw has to be. I can't imagine it having to be all that complex. Just plagiarize. For the limited to whatever we've... I mean, LELD does have a play in this. Sure. I did see what they felt they could manage.

Mm-hmm.

Obviously, he'd say we could manage anything. I got that feel for it. But I think we know from historically what they thought that they could manage, and that's probably what Littleton's comfort zone is of what we've already had here. For impact-wise, I don't think we've felt a negative impact from IBM or Digital in the past, which had their data centers here to some extent. But I don't know. I'm guessing because I lived here, right? I don't know what the negative impact of those even were.

And I think those are orders of magnitude smaller for energy consumption than their modern data centers. Would this be working with the planning board, or what would be the appropriate?

No, we really don't have to on this one if this is a select board sponsored bylaw.

Because I think Mansfield did a zoning bylaw change. Oh.

So you zoned it right out?

Correct.

Okay, so we could have that part of it. Yeah, so maybe it is a joint meeting with the zoning.

We can propose a zoning by law change.

That's true, too. We can propose a zoning by law change. We don't even need to. I would, like, obviously have zoning's opinion on it, which I can't imagine.

It would be good for them. It's better to be all in collaboration, absolutely.

Okay. So that would be one of the first, just discussion with them, let them know what we're planning. Thanks for praying on the agenda. If I may, the direction of the board is you want to get Mance Fields

well yeah just so you don't trade from the little to plagiarize yeah yeah I mean it's a permission to put a dress run it by town counts like it was yes good throw it at the chat GPT and say make this little here's our population here's our square month but um yeah what's next then we'll let the people and reach out to see people decide

Okay.

All right. We are on to discuss inactivation of master plan implementation committee, which I don't know how much discussion we need to have. If it's ready to go, it's ready to go. I think that we have some others. I did know somebody else sent in an email. We'll get rid of this. So there's probably a couple others I think we'll see in future meetings, but... I don't know if there's anyone in the audience that has an argument against keeping this, but I think it's... It's dawned, if you will. Sunset. Sunsetted, yeah.

Remember Yates did the last update, right, a couple years ago at town meeting?

Yeah, fantastic work. And it's carried us into where we are today.

They haven't met since 2023. All right, enough said. And there's been no updates. And one of the biggest issues is people keep... There are people that ask about it. They haven't applied for it. But it's like, if they're not meeting, it makes no sense in taking applications for a board. Because there are the boards and committees that that's happening with. And the thing is, is that we got a report in 2017, which is, I think, 63 items. I would say 70% of them have been already completed. They weren't going back and looking at them to continue on them. There are some that are in there that have like Shake Lane School. That was one of their plans. So that should come off. So there are things that are on there that probably aren't even reached and fulfilled. But it's just a matter of somebody taking a look at it, and just checking off the things. But as far as the committee is concerned, you know, inactivate them. If for some reason in the future we think it needs to be brought back, it's fine. We're not deleting them. We can do that with any. We can create any committee. Right, right. And, you know, I reached out to Myron as well. She said my opinion is the same as it was two years ago. They don't work with the planning board anymore, and the planning board doesn't have time to work with them anymore, so.

All right, I'd like to really see, if there's boards that haven't met since 2023, I mean, I know we get hit with an audit, discuss some of this. Why have Littleton had so many boards and committees? How many of these? So I think this is some, if we have other boards that are like that, let's really do a hard look and say, we can always reactivate.

Yeah, we'll discuss this at a retreat.

Thank you. All right. So that, we need a motion, right? All right. Inactivated. Inactivated. So that just means you pull it down from the website so people stop applying.

Yeah, and it'll say right on it that it's inactivated, that we won't accept them off of the application as well, so people won't see it on there anymore.

All right, great. Move the select board vote to inactivate the Master Plan Implementation Committee effective June 8, 2026. Second.

Move by Chuck. Second by Karen. All those in favor?

Aye.

All right. Turn off the lights. All right. We have minutes.

Thank you. I worked really hard.

Approve the minutes of May 11, 2026 and May 26, 2026.

Will the Select Board vote to approve the meeting minutes from the Select Board meetings on May 11, 2026 and May 26, 2026? Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Kyle. All those in favor? Aye. And we look for one more motion tonight. If all business has been adjourned.

Motion adjourned.

Second.

Moved by Chuck, seconded by Karen. All those in favor? Aye. Thank you, Littleton. We'll see you in a couple weeks.