Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

on Wednesday, April 29th. Um, welcome to the public hearing for the warrant review and recommendation for Springtown meeting. Um, we have a couple of participants, uh, finance committee members on Zoom. So, we'll start with a roll call before we open the public hearing. On Zoom, we have Heather here, Mark present. In person, we have Deian here, Greg here, Kyle here, Samir here, and Victoria is here as well. Great. Thank you. Um, do I hear a motion to open the public hearing? So moved.

So moved. Second. Great. We have a motion to open the public hearing. Heather, yes. Mark, yes. Dan, here. Oh, yes. Sorry. Greg, hi. Uh, Kyle, I Samir, hi.

Victoria's eye. That motion carries. The public hearing is open. Excellent. Okay. So, we're not going to take this exactly in numerical order. We have a lot of special guests and attendees this evening, which we're super super excited about. We love a subject matter expert. Um so to start us off we are going to begin with article 24 um which is the article to see if the town will vote to repeal the vote taken relative to the central Massachusetts mosquito control project from October 2019. Um this was submitted by the select board, but we did ask um some subject matter experts from the board of health and the health department to come and maybe shed any light on any questions that we we might have. Um so if you guys wouldn't mind coming forward and taking a seat at the the desk or one of you or whatever is comfortable. Thanks so much. We we brought brought a whole crew tonight. Um so we'll introduce ourselves. Please do.

My name is Nick Garcia. I'm the regional health director um for the the shared health department. And I'm Tim Mcllini. I'm the director at Central Mass Mosquito. Hi, nice to meet you. And I'm Andrew Chuca. I am the clerk of the Grafton board of health.

Thank you guys. We really really appreciate you coming in. Um we've had a lot of questions from the finance committee and I think the select board has had questions as well about whether or not um the finance committee should recommend um the article as it is written, which is kind of what we're here to discuss tonight. Um and I don't think that the select board ever had the opportunity prior to the article being printed or the warrant being printed to bring in the board of health. Um, so we thought it would be prudent to have you guys come in. Um, so I guess if T maybe you wouldn't mind just giving a a rundown of what the the program is, what it entails.

You know, I'd love to. I think that's probably pretty important to everybody. When they see mosquito control, they just assume it's unfortunately a truck going on the street spraying. Uh, which uh we're much more than about that. We're a year-round program. Um, everything we do is about eliminating or reducing the risk of mosquito control and mosquito control viruses. Um, one of the most important things we do is a surveillance program. Um, you may not know it, but there's over 54 species of mosquitoes in Massachusetts alone. Um, only certain species are vectors or carings of disease and those are the species we're most interested in. So, we have a very robust uh trapping uh surveillance program in in each of our we're there's 44 cities and towns throughout central Mass in our district. Um throughout Grafton, I think we have 12 surveillance sites that we track on an annual basis um throughout the summer starting in June going into October, believe it or not. Now with uh uh climate change, um so what what we get we get these species of mosquitoes and we bring them back to our lab and we se separate them by species and there's many of the species we're not even interested in because we know why they may bite you or they might bite frogs only. Believe it or not, some mosquitoes only bite reptiles. Um there's species that vector or carry disease or amplify disease. Primarily what we're interested around here is West Nile virus and triple E. So

80s Egypt eye urinophalines.

Right. Right. And then so we we separate those out and we work with the department of public health in Jamaica plane. So we send our species in uh where they're tested for virus in the beginning of the season. Um a lot of times we don't hear anything. Uh but when we do get uh like last year was a very robust West Nile virus season. I think we had one hit even here in Grafton. I think we had like 103 hits throughout our district. Um what happens is the Department of Public Health notifies uh the Grafton Board of Health and only after the Grafton Board of Health is notified um are we notified and then we make we contact with the health consortium through the Grafton Board of Health and um we eventually put in additional surveillance to see how widespread this problem is. um come across a plan. Um so that's where our surveillance strategy that's like one of the most important things we do because it allows us to tell the residents, you know, you really got to prepare protect yourself at this point for mosquitoes. We preach protecting yourselves against mosquitoes year round. That's what we do. But we really try to ramp it up and get, you know, onto public service announcements and such throughout the, you know, summer when things really if things really pick up in the area. Um, so one of one of the ways that we we are about reducing risk is we use bacterial larvides. Uh, we take water samples from wetlands. If there's mosquito larvae in the water, we'll put some bacteria in there. That's pretty much species specific. This bacteria kills uh pretty much just mosquito larae. It's a blackfly larae and some smaller stuff. Uh mosquitoes love to breed in catch basins. We treat the catch basins throughout the same with a very similar

product. Um when there is some um we we do get requests for um uh mosquito uh you know large populations of mosquitoes or if the health department decides they'd like to uh we get virus and they'd like to kind of spray a certain section of the town we do um do some adult spraying and I know um that perks everybody's ears up but if you we there's a very uh robust exclusion program if you don't want your property spread sprayed or anything like that, it can certainly be excluded. All that information goes onto our GS tablets in the maps. Uh applicators are uh notified when they're approaching an area that's to be avoided. And so that's it's all about reducing risk. Um I just want to touch I don't want to I could go on ad nauseium and I don't want to take too much of your time, but another very important thing we do is water management. And this is very important because water man mosquitoes need shallow stagnant water to breed if you don't know it. What happens is ditches get degraded. They fill in with road sand and they either stagnate in the ditch itself or they prevent water from flowing and they flood an area uh creating additional breeding habitat. Um if we can go in, we do a lot of this in the fall and winter and into the spring, but once the mosquitoes are on the loose, we we get kind of busy. But we try to do it year round. We'll go in and we'll clean up a degraded ditch system. We may bring in an excavator and dredge out road sand to keep water flowing uh to prevent flooding. Um and to be honest with you, it can be as simple as maintaining a brook that is perfectly flowing. Um so we don't create more habitat. We keep it in good form. Um I know I'm just trying to think of a pretty big project we did here. I know I don't know if you guys have heard of Miscoco brook but

there was a big problem with flooding up at Miscoco brook um what was where our interest the resident was worried about getting flooded out our interest was this water was spreading out and uh creating like acres of shallow water standing water um so we we we believe it or not we went in and we put a beaver deceiver in which um actually got the water flowing I know there were some other issues with that site further down the road and we ended going to take it out. Uh but the resident was very happy with it. I I don't know exactly. There were some other issues with Miscoco Brook that I don't know, but I'm just trying to kind of give you some insight on some of the stuff that we do year round. Um just to kind of give you an idea of what mosquito control is and how it's practiced here in Grafton. And I'll I'll be quiet there, but I'll take any questions that you may have. So I know there was discussion when we talked about this earlier that there were certain services that would still be offered once there was detection of triple E or West Nile virus in a community that it would be certain things would still happen I guess. Can you just describe like what would be what would we lose by pulling out of this the this project and what would still

in effect? What you would lose is everything that I just told you from our perspective. Mhm. Anything beyond that, you would be Now, we are a state agency, but we're responsible to the towns that um fund us to be blunt about it. And if you're no longer funding us, um we wouldn't be offering those services. But don't get me wrong, if there was E in town and the state said, you know what, you got to get your trucks over there to do something to help these people out, I would be here like a second. Nothing. Nothing. wouldn't be doing the surveillance. Correct.

We wouldn't be doing the surveillance and there's no guarantee that they would send us to do that because it's happened in other situations. I don't want to get into town naming. Uh but where that had always been the way it's been done. Um but then there was some um I don't want to say litigation, but lawyers had questions. If you help this other town, what about the other surrounding towns in that area? can you go in and do all those towns? And I was like, well, I can't and not affect and not impact your project. And that was in 2024 and we had a human death in Actton and some other stuff going on in Littleton. Um, so I my answer was we could help this one town and think about the other towns and they ended up uh not we ended up not helping them because we couldn't uh the town made other arrangements weeks later but or but um I guess the answer is I can't tell you exactly how the state would react if you didn't fund us because it's it's not my decision. I would do everything I could

to help you. Yeah. Whether you funded us or not because I don't want anybody to get sick. Right. Right. know that that description is helpful though to understand where the what is funded by the funding like the surveillance and the um water management

and I think an additional important piece is that mastph will assign risk categories for different communities and and so with those different list risk levels low moderate high severe come different activities that the state will support and recommend for that community. Some of that comes from the positive pool samples that we get from the the surveillance that the mosquito control project does. So in absence of that, our risk level might not be accurately reflected to DPH because we're not having that early surveillance and detection and that could influence the type of um you know later interventions and treatment strategies that DPH would would recommend for the town of Grafton. So, I think that's important to to consider as well that that surveillance piece, that early detection has a lot um to to impact when we're thinking about what types of recommendations we're providing to the town.

Madam Chair, yes. So, uh related to that, you you mentioned uh if there's E in the town, the state might send uh send you out to uh to do something about that. But but if you're not doing the early surveillance then that would basically be when it's detected in like a human or like a or an animal like a horse.

See what we're one of the benefit you asking what you would lose. What you would lose is a robust surveillance program. I know this department of public health will make a priority of try to get a trap into each town during the summer at some point. Uh but you're certainly not going to have um the level of surveillance that we're going to give you. And it's actually a big issue out west because I mean I've um coming to this meeting with short notice. I kind of did some reading on what's going on in town and it's you know the further west you go the less money there is for programs like this. Um I live out in Brimfield and we're on our own out there. I mean we have you know equin horses staggering in fields dying and um uh you know there just isn't the money you know. So, um I understand um certain fiscal problems, but I mean it um so that my point is the state when you get out west, they try to do some trapping in all these towns.

Um but you know,

Dan, if I could chime in. So, one of the contexts I'd like to provide is a [clears throat] medical context. I'm a physician. Tripoli has a 30% mortality rate. So by the time you're detecting it, even with surveillance, it's already present and your population is at risk. So you know, this this is a public health necessity. Marlboro, Northro, South Bro, West Bro, Shrewsbury, Worcester are all part of this project. If we pull out, I think we'd be joining Upton as the only town around here without it, without this protection. People above the age of 50 are at particular risk and we have a pretty significant population above the age of 50 in this town. The problem of West Nile virus in Tripoli E is growing. It is not going away with as as time goes on. The prevalence of these diseases is getting worse. So you know from from my perspective as a member of the board of health as a physician this is not really negotiable. This is a necessity, you know, in this day and age in a in a town like this with significant wetlands with significant, you know, not even seniors, again, people above the age of 50, which includes many people, not many people, some people in this room, you know, uh, this is this is not something that should be on the chopping block for multiple [clears throat] reasons. And if I could just pick up on one point to what he's saying and then I promise that things have changed. Uh the climate's changing. Why it's changing. Everybody's got their theory on that, right? But there's no doubt that it's warmer into September and October. But what what that does is gives mosquitoes a longer life cycle. And what happens is birds fly up from Florida and mosquitoes feed

on them. and you get amplifiers that that will spread that virus into the bird population really thickly when it comes up. And then mosquitoes that bite both birds and humans as you get further into the summer will start picking up that virus. So it because the the the the seasons going longer, it's giving the the virus more time to do its thing. Um, when I first started in mosquito control to give you an idea how old I am, I walked by that gym and I'm like, I played in that gym when I came into the school. But anyways, so I've been in over 30 years. And when I first started, the only place you really had triple E was down in southeastern Mass. I mean, we'd get it every now and then in Westboro at the Great Cedar Swamp because um, Culella Melaner is an amplifier. It's the main amplifier of Triple E. and every now and they they breed in the in the in what they're called crypts and it's the root system of white cedar and and and red maples very tough to get laral control in there because of the way they lay in those crypts. So every now and then we'd find some in like Hollist also has we'd find some of these in Hollist but we'd find them later in the summer ne in the last I'll say 15 years um if you told me we'd have you know uh cases in Grafton cases in Northro death in Westboro death in Actton and in human cases in Littleton I mean up in New Hampshire they have cases. So my point isn't to isn't

you're not fear-mongering.

I'm not fear-mongering. I'm just trying to show you that this virus used to be down in southeastern Massachusetts and now it's it's changing and everybody has their patterns is has their ideas on why this is happening. Some people say, well, maybe the um uh you know, the change in climate is changing patterns in bird migration, which is forcing the these uh the bird migrations to go at different times, at different spots, and you know, changing it. um we get, you know, we've had it in so much in in central Mass um in the last 10 years um that it has it just has to be recognized that this virus has changed and you know Westnile virus is is well um is also you know last year it was like a robust year for Westnile virus we had like 106 positives out of our lab last year.

Thank you. Um, also for full context for the finance committee, our uh bill for this year is $86,759. Um, thank you. That was going to be my question. That was going to be my [laughter] Madam Chair. Yes. What risk level has Grafton been at over the past few years? Yeah. So, in I was able to look back for the last four years of data. Um, and we were at a moderate risk for three of the last four years. Um, so 25, 24, and 23. um or moderate risk which means that there um either was a positive sample or there's likely to be a positive sample within the community. Thank you.

I was the director of operations in uh 2019. I wasn't the um the executive director or the director. Um so I wasn't involved in as much of the um uh financial end of it. Um but to just to do some research on what was going on um in 2019 when Tripoli came around um Grafton was critical uh because they had a human case I believe at Grafton. I recall this and then I was I was reading that they were handing out cans of off the Cooperman uh lumber. Yeah, I know there was one year we affected the uh fall sports schedule. Mark has his hand.

Mark, please. I think I'm sorry. [snorts] Okay, Evan, when you balance your budget, I can't remember. Did you keep this in or out? Uh, it is currently out. Um, but I will say that the whichever direction the finance committee leans or how many leans, I'm I'm good. Okay. Thank you. I have enough capacity right now to absorb it if the town meeting decides to stay in. Angelina,

sorry uh sorry for not knowing this, but did the select board hear this same information when they made the decision to No, [snorts] as I understand it, the select board um was going to reach out to us, but uh we have not heard from them. Okay. So, they just decided to do it without any of this information being presented. I I think that's more of a matter of timing. So, they didn't vote on this when they originally discussed it. They took a straw poll. Okay. Uh and then Tuesday uh of last week, they voted to close the warrant and this is carried forward as something they said they wanted to see on the warrant. Okay.

Um so, [clears throat] I don't know. I I just don't want it to seem like that's the uh Yeah, that was that was the approach. I think it's more of a matter of of timing and and I I will say that yeah, I didn't I didn't mean to make it sound like it was on purpose, just that they didn't there aren't benefit of this information when they decided to do this. They did say in that meeting that they would like to discuss further with the board of health, which is part of the reason why they uh we fin invited them here to this evening. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes.

Do we know what percent of uh or if there's hard to track, but do we have an idea of like how many people opt out within Grafton of the the spraying? I don't have those numbers off the top of my head, but I can provide them for you by tomorrow. Yeah, that'd be great. Just follow up. Who should I send them to? Uh, you can send them to Can I send them to Annette and Perfect? Yeah, perfect. That works. [snorts]

I will say um you know I've heard the environmental concerns about spraying [clears throat] for a town with active farms and a golf course. Um, a one-time once a year application um of an insecticide is likely going going to be dwarfed by the other applications of pesticides that seep into our water supply due to industrial and commercial activities in this town. And that's my guess at least

just that um everybody I mean a lot of people who who are um opposed to uh spraying for adults once you're spraying for adults people uh people for some people one mosquitoes too many uh you know things different but the pesticide we spray is a um lowrisk pesticide by the EPA. It's got very little residual value. Uh when we're out spraying, we're not spraying the foliage so it stays there and continues to kill indiscriminately. We're specifically spraying the air column at a very low rate in microns to try to get flying mosquitoes to reduce the impact of actual flying mosquitoes that night. The goal is to not have pesticide laying around on foliants to continue to kill. We only spray after sunset to reduce any impact on bees. Um we're very aware of of of the pollinator issue. We um do what we can to reduce any risk we may present to them. Um and you know the pesticides as I said we that we use for adult deciding um is considered low risk by the EPA and there's very little residual value to them. They break down very rapidly especially in sun.

Thank you. Any additional questions from the finance committee? I just I have a comment because of the history that we have with Central Mass. Um having been a member of the board of health for 12 or 13 years, we interacted with them a great deal. They were very responsive to our request to help [clears throat] out with stagnant water wherever it might appear. Um there was a lot of back and forth over the killing of bees and all kinds of stuff. Um and I think perhaps we the town may have made an unwise decision to get out of the project. Um I think they offer a good service to the town and I think that they have evolved in the way they handle stuff. um from the pesticides or where what you know the the big thing was the bees that kind of drove us out of it um and people were just crazy you know it was like the world was getting covered with DDT every other day or something like that

I mean you make a good point I mean that's changed as has opt out because that really kind of was begrudgingly offered in a in a fashion that turned out to not be acceptable [clears throat] that's changed.

Yeah. I mean, it it is my my personal opinion that um and and I've evolved on this, I guess. Um but but certainly now that I have a full understanding of what the program does, including the early surveillance, testing larvae for positivity, as well as um stagnant water removal. Um, and um, I feel like waiting for someone to pop up sick or god forbid die um, is is something that the town should have on its conscience, right? Um Dan,

uh yeah, I just wanted to say the um there will be some people who uh will raise concerns around uh bees and other pollinators and yeah, the more details you can have about [clears throat] uh the precautions, I think the the better. Sure. Oh, and what

we have public comment. Please step up. Don't forget to state your name and address. Michael Rock at Trinityf. Uh just a quick question about the logistics. So the source control, the monitoring, the prevention if we opt into CMMP, those all sound very valuable. Um for the concerns about the you know aerial spraying as a insecticide if a case of WNB or triple E arrives in Grafton and I am a viologist so I care very deeply about those things. Um, to me it seems like we have missed out on the opportunity for source control. We've missed out on the opportunity to monitor and maintain the horses out of the barn. So, is the reflex action in the event of a positive case or test just aerial spraying?

All right. Um, I don't want to say complicated things, but you're complicated things [laughter] because when we use truck mounted sprayers on the back of pickup trucks, that's not considered aerial spray. That's kind of a um

uh you know, it it reduces the mosquito population as far as we can get down roads and uh you know, help some residents out. I mean there's areas town where you know it's great graphic because there's some areas where you know residents register their property they don't want it to be sprayed and you know we just don't even have to worry about mapping that area town because we we're not going to go down there right but when you're talking about aerial spraying what happen and you wouldn't see it in the case of westnile virus that I can imagine you would see it when we get triple E and that's um when you have multiple towns generally and it's generally when it starts showing up in early August because they know that that virus has not just August to go through but September and you know

still warm in October at some point and you're still going to have live mosquitoes in October. So that virus could grow in in August if we get it like in end of July and in early August. Everybody kind of gets a little concerned because where's this virus going to go and how is you know if everything dries out and the melanoma population slows down and you're not amplified. [snorts] That said, um once you start getting cases, the state is going to start talking about doing aerial spraying. And when it comes to aerial spraying the mosquitoes, uh planes of the air, they'll look to me for like some you know you know what do you think? But I'm a really small player when it comes to putting airplanes in the sky because um yeah, I mean they've got a mosquito advisory group that's made up of like uh Dr. Sam Telford from Tus University here in town is member of it. uh Rich Pollock from Harvard Universities and um so they would be the ones working with the governor's office and and the department of public health deciding on whether or not they would make a recommendation and then

um you know honestly I don't know who makes the final recommendation but it certainly isn't us. Okay. Um Sam's a great guy. Um yeah, so from a you know for the perspective of people who think that CMMP is just spraying insecticides from my lens you know the prevention and the monitoring the the source reduction can actually hopefully prevent some of the uh likelihood of an outbreak of triple E or WNB right making the likelihood of you know broadscale insecticidal need to treat this lower.

Um [clears throat] that's why we I mean I think a lot of the stuff we do is proactive. When you talk about Westnile virus, you know, there's a very specific mosquito that um that [snorts] u you know amplifies u Westnile virus. It's and it they breed in catch basins. That's why we're so happy with our bacterial catch basin program where we try to get as many of the catch basins in town as we possibly can. We try to cover the whole town during the course of the summer to try to break the cycle, right? And uh because we know that that's where these mosquitoes are coming from. The problem when you get into triple E is that habitat that I was talking about and it's tough to get a laride into these crypts um to treat the main amplifier of triple E which is the melanin mosquito.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Um Mark, your hand is up. Are we moving? I was going to move the question. Yeah. Yeah, we need to move on. Thank you. Thank you all very very much for coming. Um I really appreciate it and we will take all of this into consideration when we vote on our recommendations towards the end of the evening. Thanks to Annette for inviting me. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you guys very much.

Okay. So, next on our list, um, is article 21 um, and whom do we have? Uh, I think we have Leah. Yeah, there she is. She just popped up. Hi, Leah. How are you? Good. How about yourselves?

Thank you so much. Okay, so article 21 is to see if the town will vote to accept the grant of open space consisting of parcel a 3.26 26 acres of undeveloped land, parcel B.08 acres of undeveloped land and parcel C.12 acres of undeveloped land for 3.46 acres within the Woodland Hill subdivision. Can you go ahead and tell us about this article, please? Sure. Um, so this is the open space associated with Woodland Hill. Um, it's the subdivision off of Institute Road. Um, the two tinier parcels are basically trail access over to 71 and 81 Rear East Street, which eventually links up with North Grafton Elementary School. Um, and the larger parcel um, parcel A is, um, houses the vernal pool that folks had a a successful big night helping the, um, amphibians cross the road this this spring. Um, I did just check in with the assessor's office just to see uh the amount of tax revenue that these parcels generate. It's a total of $42 a year. Um, they're so small and not buildable.

Good job, Leah. [laughter] Thanks. [snorts] Okay. $42 a year, non-developable. Any questions from the finance committee over this article? So, these are uh you said these are like contiguous with other uh conservation land. Um it's town of Grafton land, but yes, it's open woods between this and uh North Grafton Elementary. Thanks.

Okay, I think we have no additional questions over that article. Bring map to Tom meeting. [gasps] Yeah, we we'll have a map on hand. Perfect. We'll have that. Okay. And um next is article 22 to see if the town will authorize um the select board to negotiate for acquisition, gift purchase, imminent domain um easements around Marryiam Road for the replacement of that culvert. I can take that one again, too. Yeah. Um

great. Thank you. So, we're working on the project to replace the culvert on Marryiam Road. Um, we have the culvert replacement grant in hand. Uh, we're working through the design of that replacement, but we will need um temporary and permanent easements for the construction and then eventual future maintenance. [snorts] Any questions about this article? Yes. Do we have an estimate of cost on this or is that too early for It's too early. Uh we're we're just looking through different designs with the consultant now. So we have to land on one first.

Okay. How much land are we talking like 20 square feet or 25,000 acres? Like how wide would the easement be? Well, yeah. No, it's very it it's uh it's typical of most covert projects that we do, which is very small sections of land. Most of them are temporary. Um there probably will be a couple of permanent, but they're they're pretty minor in scope. And then residents that you know, if the residents are compensated for that that land purchase.

Yeah, that's that was kind of the amount I was asking about, not the actual cost. But if we don't know that yet, that's fine. Yeah, we won't until we have a final design, but it I've never been a part of this where we take like an acre of somebody's land. It's always like 20 square feet uh or you know some some other small sliver. Okay, perfect. Um so on to article 23 which is very similar. This is for easements around um the replacement of the Shrewsbury Street Railroad Bridge. Yeah, I think that's it for Leah because this one's DPW. Okie dokie. Thank you. Thank you, Leah.

Thanks, Leah. Appreciate your time tonight. Um, I can I can take that. I don't think anybody's here from DPW. Paul's on on Zoom. Yeah. Oh, my god. [laughter] There'll be no camera. Look at this.

Just my just my lovely voice. Um, so for a bit that doesn't know, the bridge on Shbury Street, which is Route 140 North, right by the barber shop, Bradish areas, um, is in dire need of replacement. There's giant holes in the sidewalk that you can see the railroad tracks below. It's going to be a fairly extensive project as far as time goes, just because the railroad tracks cause a real headache for them. And it's the same thing, ter permanent and temporary easements. Most of the easements there are just temporary because they got to do one lane of road. We got to install going to be traffic lights set up for alternating over that bridge during the construction from one side to the other. Um so it's the should be the same you know same as what Leah just spoke about.

Who's doing the work the bridge replacement? It's a mass dot project. Okay. So, it's not it's not scheduled for it'll be like late 27 or 28. It's still a ways away. Um, we did a 25% design public hearing or public meeting, I don't know, few months ago. [clears throat] So, we're waiting till 27 or 28 and there's holes in the sidewalk. Oh, they've been there for a while. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. You just you just get up a good head of steam and jump right over. Take it. Yeah. small but big enough sheet of track.

Also, just to note, it's it's a mass dot project. So, we we do the we do the local easements and partner with them, but it's their project. That explains the delay.

So, that that's really it. Okay. Thank you, Paul. All right. Have a great night. You guys, too. Bye. Bye. Bye. Okay. So, article 28 um this is for the um roof replacement for the middle school and we are lucky enough to have Jay with us tonight. Hi Jay, how's it going? Hi, thanks for having me. Of course, thank you for coming. I wasn't sure how you wanted to do this. Want me to give a quick update? That would be great.

Okay. Uh so we're as stated talking about the Grafton Middle School roof. It's a former high school. It's a 63y old building. um just about 80,000 square foot roof in total [snorts] uh through a grant that Evan and William secured in early spring of last year. Uh comprehensive roof roof assessment for all of our schools was completed. That report was finalized and submitted to us on May 22nd. Um the most significant issue in that report focused on about half of the roof at Grafton Middle School. The report said the entire roof there needs to be replaced. But um the I'll read you the quotes. They talked that report stated roughly half of this roof is in dire need of replacement. And the reports stated quote, "Please know that catastrophic failure and other health dangers are dangerously evident on that roof if replacement is put off any longer." That obviously got my attention and the attention of Evan and Williams. uh met with them, came up with a plan to move as quickly as we could. Uh the next town meeting was obviously in October. We put forth an article for roof design services that was generously approved by the town and we worked as quickly as we could with the goal of having something to put before the town at Springtown meeting. Uh the company that we've been working with has been fantastic. Um the all the snow over the winter certainly didn't help with testing and all that stuff, but they they [clears throat] got it done. Um and that's where we stand today in a nutshell and I can answer probably any question you ask.

So which you presented three different options uh when you first presented this. Do you have would you have a preference for any of those particular options at this point? just preference in general, not taking into account what's already

what I initially presented when when I gave an update to the select board was at the very least to do section you can think of the the roof they're really eight sections but if you can really boil it down to four um three main sections and one connecting center section the worst two sections by far are H which is over the classroom so if you've been there. It's just a square with a courtyard in the middle, two stories. That is 100% saturated. Um that that's my biggest concern. Right with that is that center section. Those are all areas that are over classrooms and main hallways. That if nothing else gets done, that's my number one priority.

[snorts] Um, the other two sections are over the cafeteria and over the auditorium and gymnasium. They're a lot better than the center section and H, but they need to be replaced as well. So, my main priority is to not go into the next school year with H in the center in the Well, this Thank you, William. You can see uh any red is bad. So, you can clearly see that H section um in the center piece has the the red spots throughout. Um you don't want a roof that has any of that red.

So, I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. Of course, I'd like the whole roof to be replaced, but if nothing else, H in the center. Do you have any idea of what kind of savings we'd get if we did the entire roof now versus those two sections now and then the other two sections later and how that would compare to what we might get from the state grant?

Yeah, that's it's a good question. I I'll try to answer it concisely if [snorts] we can talk about MSBA funding that possibility. That aside, they quoted the phased in approach is about 5 to 600,000 more than just getting everything on site and doing it all at once. Um, so that's without MSBA funding. If we [snorts] were if I was told that we have enough funding to do the centerpiece and over the the classrooms and had to wait on the cafeteria and the auditorium and gymnasium sections, what I would assume we would do is apply for MSBA funding in the ne they now do it every other year. The next window is January 27. Um, I contacted MSBA. If it was successful, whatever our project was, based on our community, we'd get 50 to 53% uh reimbursement. The downside, if you will, to MSBA funding is how long it takes. Uh, it's a very slow process. Only onethird of the projects that have been approved in 2020 are completed right now, and it's obviously 2026. Um, so if you can be really forward thinking, I'm thinking like a decade, two decades ahead to get in that pipeline and make that investment into the design services for the different schools or buildings. That makes tons of sense. Um, I'd like to think that we could wait the if we get accepted, it's a good four years before you start doing the work.

And that's even with the design already complete. Yeah, I think it would be sped up, but [snorts] um it's very slow. Their timeline has you don't even you apply in January. They don't tell you for 10 months if you're even accepted. And then they really take ownership of the process. They would use our designs. So that's not wasted money. But it's really their show as opposed to what it used to be. It wasn't like a blank check, but it was more you were compensated for work that the town did. [snorts]

Okay. If we were to fund either the phased approach or the full approach at town meeting and then if needed on the [snorts] uh the ballot, do you have an idea how long it would take before construction could start in process and all that? number one goal and it will be hardressed to pull it off but I think we would be able to do the center and h it it would have to be done before school started those are the two sections that can't be done when schools in session we could theoretically do something calfwise and make it work but you can't be right over the the heart of the school replacing roof

so it would have to be a really short bid process and we're ready to go with just about any scenario that you can throw at me. Okay. But bottom line is still miday and uh it's going to be tight. Kyle, if we did fund this roof and didn't use the MSBA funding to fund this roof, are there I'm assuming there are other roofs within the school district that we could apply or use for the 100%. Yeah,

I I think what when we look townwide in terms of capital and long-term planning, if we can get really forward thinking, that's exactly what we should do. You have to it's not like signing up for like Girl Scout cookies. Yeah. You have to the town has to approve say 400,000 something in that ballpark for the design services. So, the town's got to commit to doing it um with the chance that it doesn't get accepted or that MSBA funding disappears in two years after we commit. But anyway, you look at it, we are going to in the relatively near future, this is pressing. Like, I wasn't shocked. If you if you went to this school in the past 20 years, oh yeah, yeah, it leaked. It leaked as a high school, too. So, that part wasn't a shocker. The degree of the red, if you will, sure was. Um, North Street Elementary School would be next South Grafton Elementary School. Our oldest building um is North Grafton Elementary, but maybe five, six years ago, we replaced the uh the roof over the gymnasium that was leaking like a sie. So, we've kind of got that in pretty good shape.

Uh, so this school and three others are right up there. There's 250,000 in the capital. That is not the 1.5 million for JMS roof repair. What's that? Which school is that? It's chasing everything I just talked to Kyle about. Um, we spent this year alone and hoping we don't have a really wet spring of chasing problems that come from not replacing 63y old roofs and just patching. Okay. And it was 250. Yeah. that. Yeah. 250. We've spent I think 230 this year. I heard said 280. Oh, okay. Good. She's Yeah, good. She said 280. Okay. I heard 280,

which is I missed kind of mix it up with the 2.8. So, was you said it was 2.8 million would be the minimum to do the things that we actually absolutely have to do this summer. Yep. So, that's center section and area H. So, I hope that's clear. The latest estimate in this was midappril is 2,69,000 at the low end up to 2.6 million. And just to be clear, so we we had had a conversation about funding [snorts] it at 2.8 million, right?

Because on a on a great day it comes in at 2 million and everybody's happy. But you got to have a little bit of buffer for what they say on the high end because as we've seen with other bids, you know, it wouldn't be unheard of to come in a little high and we want to have a little padding. Um because if we don't need it, we don't spend it. So, it's better to have the appropriation now, right? So, we're we're talking about $4 million to replace the cafeteria, the school, the place that used to be breezeways in between and home and the gym. Yeah. the whole thing based on the 4 million 4.2 on the low end to 5.2 on the high end.

Okay. Mhm. So, um, so this 4 million is on top of, uh, I'm blanking on the number. There's the the amount that's coming out of 1.5 was put into the capital okay capital plan if you will and uh you had proposed uh I think what was being referred to as the alternative capital plan that would have put I think 2 how much was it 28 2.8 and the select word reduced to 1.5. Uh yeah. So just to be clear, I wasn't so much proposing that as offering an alternative. Yes. Yes. Um because I

for their consideration. Correct. Yeah. I I think that you know neither Jay nor I in our conversations about capital want to put anything off that's in our capital plan. But looking at the amount of interest that the town would pay uh in those debt schedules that I had sent out, um we thought it worth offering an alternative to say there's some pretty hefty savings over 20 years here or 15 years. Um and maybe it's something that that the town would want to consider.

And and I think given what we what we've heard here that this absolutely needs to be done this summer. I I think pursuing that is something that would make sense. Well, the the 2.8 would cover the parts that absolutely need to get done. That's correct. So, if the debt exclusion doesn't pass, then we don't have enough money to do the parts that absolutely need to get done and then they won't get done.

Right. I'd have to if area H only like I'm going I think it's what you guys pay me to do as a taxpayer when I see that quote about a section of two sections of roof I want to replace those two sections not one and see what happens with the other but uh if we had that 1.5 million uh we would most likely pursue that area h over the classrooms that alone range the range in terms of the estimate was 1.3 to 1.7 647. So we we'd still be but I don't see how we can't. I mean at some point I've got to sleep.

We'd have the extra 200 the extra 150 or 250,000 basically puts 1.75 million in the capital plan. So it could be done take out the 250 for us to deal with roof issues. But it leaves us exposed for anything. The library at North Street's leaking pervasively. I can't just say, well, let's wait till the summer. So, the article 16, I think, is the one for the capital plan. Uh, and it it says uh as generally illustrated in appendix C. Yep. Which is not

you have appendix C in that. Okay. So, can that be adjusted? Like if if the select board decides to reconsider this, they can ask you to Okay. Yep. We can we can play with appendix C up until the time we post this to the public and after that post. Yeah. And what date is that? Whenever we actually do it. Oh, I see. Or no, it's just me. Well, this has all been officially posted. Yeah. With the numbers in it. Yes. Mhm. With the appendix C. Yeah. Yes, it should be. Yeah, this this goes out. This can get changed, but the this is part of the warrant. Yes. Okay. We talked about this.

Okay. It's apparent. H I said that's apparent. Yeah. So I I did notice that the section the article 16 was written in such a way that it could theoretically be increased and still be within the the bounds of the warrant because it says or any other amount. So it can't be increased. Why not? It can only be decreased. Why? Because that's what town council has advised us. Even though it says or any other amount. Yes. Correct. or any other amount lower than the 484. That's it. Yeah, that we we are we we researched this prior to this.

I it nice try, but I could see them saying, "Oh, no, you can't you you can reduce it, but you can't go over." I I thought that in general, but I thought the or any other amount would allow some flexibility there. Unfortunately, no. So, we'd have to pull that extra 350,000 from somewhere else in that plan or right or um remove any of the existing things that are in appendix C. Yeah. To that amount. Yeah.

Yeah. I It feels to me like the the 1.5 million just seems like a number pulled out of thin air. Um, I don't really see how that is a a good number uh to to use here. Um, especially when if it were just a little bit higher, it would cover area H. Uh but even then, area H isn't the only part that is that critically needs to be done this summer. Um so I if the select board could update this before town meeting, I would I I would like the fin to encourage that. But if it can't Oh,

and and Mark Mark, your your hand is raised as well. Oh, yes. If if I can jump in for a quick second. Um Evan, if I can make a a strong suggestion, I've been saying it for the nine years I've been on the finance committee.

The worst thing to do is put a number in a warrant article. I know it's always been Grafton's tradition and nobody wants to listen to me, but when you put numbers in the article, you can never change it except if you change it down. So, I would suggest in the future we leave the the the article written to say to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate sum of sums of money. Yep. and and don't put the money in there until you do the motion at town meeting. That said, I agree with what Dan said earlier. The decision of the select board a couple of weeks ago was extremely arbitrary. They pulled they pulled numbers out of the air with without any foresight of thought on how this is going to affect things. So, if I could make a recommendation here, we can't change the numbers. We have to go to town meeting with what you have. But if the override, if the debt exclusion fails, I would urge the select board to consider calling a special town meeting immediately in June or July to appropriate money out of free cash of the stabilization fund to fix that section of the roof to supplement the 1.5 million up to the 2.8 million that you need to do that section.

We got to we got to Evan, don't go on vacation anymore. [laughter] That's my That's my advice. They just told you to go on vacation. This is like the first time I've been out of state in five years. And that don't do it. You see what happens when you're not around, Evan. So anyway, I would I would I would urge somebody to to to plan for a special town meeting if that debt exclusion fails because that section of the roof and Jay, correct me if I'm wrong, it's it's almost catastrophic right now. Correct. Yeah. That that's what was stated by the engineers that did the report. Yeah.

Yeah. So, so I would I would urge somebody to start planning for for a special town meeting in June. If the debt exclusion fails and we can't fix that roof, we'd have to come up with what, another $1.3 million to to do that section or $800,000 or something to do that section of the roof.

It depends on what whether you continue the push some of the capital plan items out. We can always we can always as as part of any special town meeting um we can always adjust the capital plan moving forward to to to fix that roof if we don't get the override. To me, there's no more pressing matter in town than fixing that roof. I haven't seen anything more important to the town. So, that's just my two cents. It seems to me to be exceedingly shortsighted to have what was done done instead of looking at the very least of taking care of what's in the green. Whether we whether we take that out of stabilization or free cash or a combination of both, that's what it's there for at the very least over the school. Um it it's silly.

So I um with the Mark's idea of uh calling it special town meeting if the uh dead exclusion fails. I'm I just be a little worried that that might not happen. Um I think uh so what we can't change this before town meeting but we could amend uh appendix C. You can't you put the n the numbers are in the warrant article. You can't change the number. Could you change like the total amount can't can't change. Oh you mean adjust adjust how the money gets expended? Yeah. So like

like move money from one of these other items into the roof. Is that an amendment we could make? Yeah, it would seem as though you could because of the way it's set up. So I I would think that would be a safer way to ensure that it gets funded at least for the critical parts. And then

I would agree with you Dan. If the debt exclusion passes, uh I guess it can be kind of up to the select board whether they want to keep the uh the capital the non-debt excluded uh funds and only raise less than the uh the maximum uh for the debt exclusion or if they want to use the maximum for the debt exclusion and then reappropriate those other capital funds in October. Uh but I think if we if we could amend this at town meeting uh that would be I guess my preference just to be really sure that it gets um or at least be sure that town meeting gets the chance to consider that um as uh as their choice to make.

And by amend this you are referring to article 16. Yes. which is you would amend the appendix to remove some of the capital expenditures to ensure that we could have a full 2.8 go to Yes. Yeah. So if if you go to the plan that was presented to the select board last week that uh those cut those changes would leave us $349,000 short of the 2.8 million. So, we'd have to cut out another couple things like the lease payments in the MS4 add up nicely, but I don't think I don't think those are things we can push off. So, it would have to be other there's and there's not a whole lot left.

There's not a whole lot left because those are not neither of those are I mean it be the turf field, right? But that I I know I know it's critical, too. I think we would we would look to push the loader rather than the turf field. The loader is already out of that plan, right? Oh, you're looking at the Oh, you're trying to Oh, I wouldn't recommend doing that either. I was I was I was I would recommend doing the what we put together over six months. E one of the two. Just pick one or the two. Oh, well, you're Stop trying to mess around with every single thing. Let's just pick either the alternate plan or the other plan. The alternate plan. a lot of care and effort into I'm just saying that we

we we carefully picked the amounts that are coming from each account in order to stay within our fiscal management policy. Yeah. And the problem is is that we're willing to I I'm willing to push our financial management policy to the extreme or exceed it to not go into more debt to save the taxpayer money. But if you're going to do the 1.5 and then still borrow four million or borrow two million or do whatever you're going to do immediately after it. We're literally going to break our financial management policy and bond in the exact same year. The loader was your plan to take it out. Yeah. No, I know that. Okay. What I'm saying is I don't think we can there's nothing.

You got to both of the plans either the the 2.8 eight plan or the other plan and and just you kind of got to you got to pick one or the other in in in my opinion. Yeah. And since we can't increase the value, I don't think we could we can't really get to your proposal. So, yeah, Angelina, you had your hand up. You put it down, but I don't know if you still had a comment or question.

I put it up. I put it down. I put it up. I put it down. I'm trying to follow this. I'm having a hard time. Um, uh, so do we do we not have any flexibility in how much we actually end up bonding? Like if they approve the 4 million, do we have to bond for the 4 million or can we And I'm I apologize. Just tell me to stop talking if I'm like throwing something else out there. Has that always been an option? [laughter] Nothing. Nothing in there. Fresh off vacation. [laughter] Spicy. Yeah. No.

Um I I think Angelina that you we can bond less. It's it's essentially most of our bonding article is written as not to exceed amount. Yeah. You can you can use any of the funding ne mechanisms that are in that article.

Okay. Okay. I guess I I just didn't understand like after watching the meeting how how it shifted the way that it did, you know, to go from borrowing 2 what was it 2.5 to borrowing 4 million which is just so much more in interest and everything. Um [clears throat] I don't know. I I wasn't in favor of that. So, I I don't I didn't know if we had any options or this is just all set and now we're just saying either we agree or we don't. Is that what's happening?

Can I ask a question? You may. Hey, William or Evan, can you take what's on the screen down and put up the capital plan? Sure. The the appendix C or whatever that is. You just have it. Yeah. Yeah. Bringing it up now, Mark. So, Evan, what the select board should have done, I'm going to ask you to do right now. Can you walk us through how you would forget the 4 million, forget the money that's in there, if you had to fund the the uh 2.3 or $2.8 million right now, looking at all of these items sitting here, what would you adjust to get us to that number? So, you have 1.5 million for the hoof.

Yeah. How would you What would you do? Um, I have a plan for that. So, let me let us pull that up real quick. That's what I want to see because we're all throwing out numbers here and we should hear from you, the expert, on how you would do this. That's correct. All right. Um, this is the alternative plan, correct?

Yep. So, this is the plan uh stripped of of essentially everything that would be deemed non-critical. I mean, they're they're all we're not spending any we're not our original capital plan didn't project to spend anything that we don't need, but you know, if push came to shove, we could get by by pushing things off for another year. So the non-negotiables essentially uh we would pull out of capital stabilization um the engine [clears throat] one lease payment uh which this is the final year of that um payment and then we would replace the turf field at uh Grafton High. Uh Jay and I have met several times about this and uh feel that it is uh very important to do now. It's it's well overdue. Um, we would then move 1.5 million in free cash to the U roof replacement that we've been discussing. We would do 50,000 at Flet Street. Well, um, the select board and fire chief added a fire prevention position this year. That fire prevention officer needs a vehicle. That's a $95,000 expense. Uh station two electrical service upgrade at 25,000. Station three remodel second floor uh 25,000 roof on station three 140. Uh roof replacement this is just the asphalt section of station one uh about 50 grand. Taser replacement that's a ongoing project at 21,000. Uh and MS4 uh 150. And then lastly two cruisers at 127. Um, so we would be spending a total of 2.183 uh out of free cash and then taking the

rest to fund the roof out of municipal stabilization at 1.3 million. Um, now we're spending more free cash than we should at the 30% threshold for us or 33% threshold is south of 1.2 million. However, I was I was it was my approach that, you know, if we were to do this and then pursue MSBA funding and the whole process for the rest of the other two portions of the roof, we wouldn't be bonding for probably four years to 5 years. Um, we don't have anything else that we're going to go out to bond for at least two to three years given when the fire trucks come due and all the rest of it. Um, so I think that would give us enough distance when we got on our bond rating call uh to say, you know, we had this extreme case and we had to use more uh than we normally would, but every other year has been congruent. So that was my that was my reason for pitching this the way that I did.

All right. So Evan, does article 16 as it's currently drafted with the funding listed in there, forget appendix C, Yep. Does that article have the money in there to allow you to do this plan? No. Uh, not quite. I'd have to make some I I could I could I could do it. It's $349,000 short, right? I would So, okay. So, out of this three out of these issues, where would we get the 349? Um, it's an excellent question mark. Um, well, they said the the part of the roof that you could do is 2 to 2.6, right?

Would that give you enough to start if we cut? Yeah, that that was my that was my thought is we would Okay, so that's the municipal stabilization request to match the number on the warrant. So, what what what can the finance committee do on the floor of town meeting to amend article 16? Let the article 20, whatever the article is with a $4 million debt exclusion that goes forward regardless, right? Because you already have it on the warrant, you already have it on the ballot. So, but just to have a backup plan and we can adjust should the debt exclusion pass, we can always adjust the capital funding in the fall. You just hold off on spending money for six months, right? Or four months or whatever it is,

right? So, what can what can the finance committee do at town meeting to get up to amend article 16 to provide the the fallback plan for the if the debt exclusion fails because that's that I would recommend to the to the finance committee that we make that our motion or we get up to amend the motion on the floor town meeting to allow this plan to go forward. Does that make sense to everybody? That that was my plan coming in. offer us. Great minds, Greg. Great minds. Okay, but just to go back to Evan's point here, are you concerned about us pulling this much out of free cash and bonding the rest of that 2.7 in the same year? Yeah, I don't there's no way around it.

Sure. So, I don't have a my the Yeah, there's no way around it. Okay. So, if we were to take this beyond just bonding the whole thing. Yeah. Right. Okay. If we were to take this take 349,000 out of municipal stabilization and present this as our amendment that would fit. No, we'd have to stay we have to stay within whatever the the numbers are. Yes. That's why taking out the 349,000. That does it. Yeah. Give you like

then I think that's what we I think that's what the finance committee should do on the floor town meeting because you have to present the article. The main motion has to be what was presented in the in the article. So then we can get up and and offer an amendment to do this plan. And I think that's what we should do. So that would be an amended appendix C. Yeah, we would we would have to present an an amended appendix C as our motion to amend the main motion. Yep. Okay. That's what I think we should do. So can I make a motion right now that we do that? Second. No, [laughter] we have

Did somebody could somebody please for the love of God mute Skip's microphone? [laughter] Well, we have a motion uh to amend um article 16 the appendix of the capital expenditure plan and a second. Do we have any discussion on that motion? I think the motion would be to present on town meeting floor and amended articles. That's my motion. Yes. So Evan, since this is your thing, would would you be okay with us presenting something like that or would would you have issues that it would cause?

I So my board has voted a plan. So you folks can do what you want to do. I will execute either one to the best of my ability. Okay. I was I was more like do you do you see that there would be problems in that plan that would cause you headaches later that we should deal with but that's I think that's good good enough. Okay. Thank you. Um Angelina's got her sorry Angelina go ahead. So if we did that, do we then have the option to not bond for the rest of for the rest of the roof and to handle it differently?

Like you wouldn't bond or whatever. You you the the authorization of the $4 million, the select board doesn't have to borrow all of that money. They have the authorization up to that amount of money. They could put out a bond issue for 2.3 million even if they have a $4 million authorization. So, but there's an issue with bonding after taking this much out of free cash. So, will we be able to just use this money to fix the worst part of the roof and then deal with the rest of it after or do you know what I mean? It seems like the appetite from most people is to do the whole thing at once. Yeah.

So, I think that regardless of at this point we're going to take a hit to our bond rating. Um, so I think that, you know, we Evan, the financial advisors told you that if you bond money and you exclude it from Proposition 2 and a half, it's going to affect your bond rating. That makes absolutely no sense because you're able to raise that money. No, that what I'm saying is we're we're using more than onethird of the free cash we have on hand. Yeah. Oh, I got you. And so in doing that, again, if we if we weren't going to bond for four or five years, by the time we get to the bond rating call, you know, that's that's all very far in the rear view.

But going from the bond, we're literally going to do this at town meeting and then bond the following year, you know, that's pretty much right on top of each other, uh, is what I was what I was what I'm saying. Gotcha. So I was kind of viewing this as a fall back in case the debt exclusion is not approved. We would still have the option if the if everything is approved to bond more of that and not take as much free cash. Yep. You could certainly do that. You would have to take that out of order at the town meeting then.

Right. No, I'm just saying if every if everything gets approved, then we can choose to use less free cash and bond more as long as we're within the the limit of the article, but we will be amending the capital plan specifically, right? So I don't know if we will have the opportunity to move capital plan around like we will have specifically said yeah you you've already said if you pass article 16 that this is the way it's going to go. I still think I think there's still some freedom in there but that's for the professionals to figure out what is most appropriate there.

It trying to do this peace meal is going to cost a lot of money too over and above Yeah, I mean I my my original thought and it's been a lot of conversation since my original thought um was that you spend the $2.8 million for the center section. You do the MSBA route, you get awarded the money, if if costs go up by half a million dollars between now and then, the 53% that we get from MSBA more than covers that. Exactly.

That was my my original thought pro process before I made uh any other any other changes. Seemed like a great idea at the time. [laughter] Still is. Still is. So, I'm concerned about the bond reading hit. I was gonna ask about that. Is there is there a way to do the whole roof now that doesn't uh cause a hit to our bond rate?

You no because we would have to we'd have to borrow the full amount. Like that's the that's the way to do it is to exclude the full amount or or bond the full amount if we had capacity in our in our regular operating budget. um and keep the free cash usage that we had in the original capital plan to that one. It's like 1.17 I think is what I what I had calculated to come out of free cash. That that would be the way to absolutely preserve everything that we that we have currently. Um that that said, I mean we we can't not do this. Yeah.

Right. I think we're all in agreeance that that this this has got to be done. So, um, you know, it's antithetical as a town administrator. I mean, I work real hard to get the bond rating to where it is. Um, but if that's the sacrifice that gets made to get this roof done over the summer with the time that we have, maybe that's that's okay, too. Okay. So, if we left everything the way that it currently is in appendix C and do and the debt exclusion passes, will that also uh be a hit to our bond rating? Mhm.

Okay. So, all right. the decision we're making the only plan that that I've proposed or that I've seen

even that I I haven't proposed it that doesn't that protects our bond rating unequivocally is the original capital plan that I have that that's in here uh or that is in here minus the roof money right so it's 26 capital requests for $2.584 million that we we very carefully calculated how much money is coming out of each account to be congruent with us trying to get to that next AAA bond rating. Um, if we're not going to do that or some stripped down version of that that keeps us below spending 33% of our available free cash, then I don't think that it matters a whole heck of a lot. Gotcha. As far as to the impact

that we're going to see. How long is that going to affect the bond rating? Would you think five years to to seven probably? I don't know, Mark, if you have a different take on that. I It depends on It depends on how often you go out to uh that's a that's a good point, right? Um is that, you know, if we go out to bond one time six years from now, then they're going to look at that because they've got nothing else. If we four more times in the next six years, ancient history, we're on the more often you go out, the better chance you have of repairing anything you do now. So, let's come up with some ideas to spend more money. [laughter] That was a joke. I was making a joke.

Yeah, exactly. It's coming. [snorts] Not a problem. I I don't Was the issue with the bond rating discussed with the select board at all? I I mean, I I watched the meeting. I wasn't in attendance, but I didn't see that. Come on. No, there was No. So, Oh, yeah. We got to fix the roof, Dan. We got to fix the roof. We don't have a choice. The bond rating is is something we should be worried about, but we need to fix the roof. So, let's come up with a plan that allows us to fix the worst portion of the roof if the debt exclusion fails.

Yeah. So, kind of amend appendix C. Kind of amend appendix C. Yeah. Which is the only active motion right now. Yeah. And how does that interact with whether the debt exclusion passes or not? The question on the ballot does not have a dollar amount associated with it. Um well I mean as as far as us presenting an amended appendix C, it doesn't change the amount. It just changes what we are spending what we are recommending that they spend it on. But it it will commit us to spending

if the debt exclusion passes. Say we we our amendment passes. But then the debt exclusion passes as well. Evan's not going to spend the extra money that we just set aside in the capital plan on the things that we set it aside for. He would wait until the fall and then adjust the capital budget if the debt exclusion passes. If the debt exclusion fails, then Jay and Evan are going to be able to fix the worst portion of that roof with this plan. And that's what we need to do. Yeah. Right. And that's what the select board should have done when they discussed it three weeks ago instead of just arbitrarily coming up with $1.5 million. Move the question.

Yep. All right. Second. Okay. Um, so let us We are voting on moving the question. No, just go right to the right to the [laughter] draw. Withdraw the motion. Okay.

Okay. All right. Um so let us vote on uh the motion which is to uh on the floor of the town meeting on May 11th. The finance committee will move to a amend the appendix C which is associated with article 16 the capital plan um to remove $349,000 um from the original amended capital plan to meet this 4.084 084 um in order to fully fund half of the roof. That's technically correct. Um okay, Mark, yes. Heather,

yes. Angelina, I Dan, I Greg, I Samir, hi. Skip, hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria is I. That motion passes unanimously. Okay. So, um, we will, Evan, perhaps ask for your help in drawing up a fresh spreadsheet, which is essentially the old spreadsheet you sent us, uh, in that email and I will make that motion on the floor when we reach article 16. Sure. Yeah. So, can we have um, Victoria, can we ask Evan to have town council draft the exact motion we should be making so that we get it so that we get it right? Is that reason a reasonable ask? Uh, yeah. Thank you, Evan. Yep.

Thank you everybody. Thank you Jay. Thanks Jay. Really [clears throat] appreciate you. I'm looking forward to after town meeting when Jay and I can go back to talking once a month. [laughter] Not that I don't love you. You love each other and I know it. Okay. Our next full list of articles is from the CPC. Good evening, gentlemen. How are we? Welcome. Thank you for your patience. Yeah, thanks for thanks for hanging in there. We'll be quick. Thank you.

I feel like after this everything is going to just go flying by. Um, okay. So, article 10, our CPC um appropriation um consent agenda article, these are standard warn articles that we do every year. We have administrative expense and then the 10 the three 10% set aides for historic um resources, affordable housing, open space, and then we do a budgeted reserve as well. Uh, and these numbers are all essentially the same as previous years or the major changes. The 10% are based on they're calculated in the same way every year. Perfect. Great.

Okay. Article 11, um, which is just your 18th of 20 um, principal payments on the PEL farm bond. That's the same. Yeah, same guy. It's going down a little bit each year. We love that. Article 12 again, it's um a bond payment and this one is on the restoration of the Grafton Townhouse. Excellent. Uh 13. Um this is also in consent agenda number two. This is for the affordable housing trust.

Yes. It it basically empties the reserve into the trust which gives them access to the money immediately if if it's a project that they need. They don't have to wait for the next town meeting. No questions on that guy. Perfect. Um okay. So article 25 um this is for the restoration of those eight original prints.

Yes, they're curry prints that have been discovered and um Skip can speak to it probably a lot better than I can but uh that's kind of a I have all this discussions going on. You can work to use yourself. Um, where are those located? Yeah, right now they're in a vault in Maynard. In what? Maynard. Okay. Um, they have been hanging at the fire station for well, since 1873. Okay. As far as we can tell, they uh they have certainly been there since I got on the department in 77. um through

1877. [laughter] So they

1777. So I I went back and found a the purchase of what did I say? Purchase of pictures to hang in the station in 1873 in one of our predecessor um associations. And through the research that we've had done, that matches what those would have been available for commercially along with some others. Um, and examinations of the paper in the docu in these things outside of their frames. Um, they're authentic and originals. The first one is from 1854 and it goes up to like 1868 that they were printed and they're from um two different series.

But um you know having seen them hanging on the walls at the fire station, an absolute minimum amount of light has damaged them, but not like you would normally see. They're [clears throat] a little bit yellowed. So stuff that was blue is a little greenish hue and stuff like that. But once you see them outside the the old frames because it's the old glass with the waves in it and the little bullseye thingies and stuff like that, they're amazing. Um, so

we would like to have them restored that there's some acid damage to them from the um like cardboard or whatever they were matted in um and have the frames restored a little bit. I was kind of thinking I was going to be able to do frames myself, but as soon as they looked at the frames and started talking about what the finishes were, I don't know how to apply a beeswax finish to wood or anything like that, it's okay. Yeah, I guess they didn't have polyurethane back in 1870s. So, that was out the window. So the the frames and um pictures need to be preserved and restored and um a new like glass put in them for Loi or that kind of stuff. So this was in the center fire station.

No, that was in North Graphin. Okay. Will they be going back there afterwards or?

Yeah. Okay. They they might travel about in other places in town. And um we have five of six of the original there like two series of them. Life of a fireman and American fireman or something like that. Um there are several museums that tend to display these things. Um, and when it kind of gets out that there's five of six of the set that are available, we might get approached to loan them to a museum or something to display them there for a while. So, it's kind of neat. And we have have a couple of

um Miss Roy was very nice and helped us out and uh put together a little slideshow or presentation for the town meeting, but there's a couple of pictures of them that were taken. Oh, I can't wait to see it. Yes, Dan.

Uh who owns the prince of the town? Um well possessions nine ten of the law [laughter] and see as seeen as our associate our one of our predecessor associations in particular the emperor hose company number two of grafton bought them to the best of anyone's recordkeeping. Um I guess we would you know I I don't know who else. It's it's not the town really because I don't think the that association the looking back through some other stuff that I have done the it wasn't a name for the branches of the fire department. They were associations much like the one that we have now. We have a nonprofit that we have that we run the you know golf tournaments and fundraising and um pay for scholarships and that kind of stuff out of. So um

so maybe you mean like the the firefighter association? Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I mean it's there was that whatever the name was I gave you. Then they dissolved and became the Henry Krippen Fire Association and of course blah blah blah blah blah. Sorry. Well, you know, we'll go back. Heather, your hand is raised. I just have a question. If they're not technically ours, can we be spending money on them? Yes. Okay.

The historical commission uh discussed this and sent a letter recommendation to purchase them. based on the historical significance to the town and to the fire department. And that's all that's required for CPA to fund a non townowned project. We've done this with the historical society. We've done this with the Nipmunks. We don't own those assets. We've done it with other uh the couple of the churches on the church column restoration and all that good stuff. It's an accepted practice.

Cool. Okay. Any other questions on the prints? Okay, so we'll move on to article 26. This is for the bikeway feasibility planning. The hope is that we won't have to spend this full amount. They came in asking for, I think, $5,000 and they were going to get a grant from the state. And again, kind of like with the roof, you don't want to find out that you don't get the grant. And then what do you do with $5,000? nothing, the project dies. So I said, "What if we allow up to the full amount and then if you get the grant, we only spend the five." So either way, the project goes forward

because CPC funds are always last. Right. Right. That's our policy. It's not a state. Right. And that's very very self motivated. We we want to keep as much of our money for um who is sponsoring this um the planning it's it's now my office. We don't have a town planner right now. Okay. Um well we do but he hasn't started yet. Yeah. So um yeah. So it'll be a combination of us on at town meeting to explain the project should we need to. Yeah. So it it is a town thing not an outside.

No, it's a town thing. We're we're well it's a town thing. We're working with the Blackstone Valley. It's not a coalition. There's like five different Blackstone Valley groups that are very similarly named, but it's it's it's uh we've had meetings with them uh looked at different routes, looked at different um approaches and um so that's that's what this helps fund. goal is that the Blackstone Valley Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Quarter has is trying to piece together land all the way from Worcester to Providence. Rhode Island's done. Mass has been since I've lived here for 30 years has been trying to cobble together these pieces and there's um almost to Sutton I think it it goes to Milbury and then this is it going to give us a little more uh [snorts] extension through Grafton. So the more that the towns can do the faster this project and ask will get finished because there's no money or not significant money from the state to do it. Even though it's a great project, it's it's just going to take a long time and this is a really good um chunk and right in the middle of the valley to to to further the project.

Nice. Okay. And we bought the land with CPC money at the last meeting. And so this kind of was that 43. It was for for two of us that this turned out to be uh helpful for this grant project. Right. Okay. Any additional questions on this feasibility study piece? Great. I think we're all set with CPC. Thank you guys. Really appreciate you coming in and and your patience as we

tackle a fun one. Okay. So that means we are at article 20 which is Blackstone Valley. Oops. This is their mo their most recent Yeah. I can amount from Yep. So this is that they came and spoke to you folks. This is that exact dollar amount. You'll notice that there is no debt excluded debt in this particular warrant article. This article is what their council or their they submitted to us. Are we at it reviewed by council? It's congruent with how we always always do it. Y great.

Perfect. Seeing no questions on that is we did have a good conversation with those folks earlier. On to article five. Um this is to see if the town will appoint um a new member Bridget Bridget Weber to the trustees of Nelson. believe that is a renewal. Yep. Correct. She's already been serving for the previous more than one term, but I don't remember how many off top my head. Great. Um, article one. Okay. So, now just into sort of the the wroteish consent agendas. Um, does anybody have any discussion on moving $10,000 to fire retirement?

Something Grafton's been doing for decades. Article two. This is moving um our usual 300 some odd into OPED trust. Any questions there? So this is the one that you just start. Was it last year that first? Yep. This is the second year of our oped funding plan. Which is genius. Thank you. It's all Mary. Mary, you're a genius. Uh, article three, this is just moving free cash for FY26 adjustments. Any questions there? Do we So, so there it's in the explanation period. U, it's a total of 858,000.

Um, which is more than we would generally be moving. Yeah.

Um, part of that is the tremendous amount of snow that we got this year. So, that's a we were over our snow and ice budget by $290,000. Um, second piece is sanitation. So, as you I'm sure remember, we're switching to an enterprise fund. Um, we in the municipal solid waste committee had robust discussions about how to fund this uh this uh enterprise fund. One of the things that we knew would happen is that people would buy bags now as opposed to later, which is going to make the first year of the pro the program difficult. Um, and this covers the increase of bag sales that we saw because we're running out of uh well, we're not running out of bags. We've covered the bags, but we need to backfill the the funds. [clears throat] Uh and then lastly, uh and this was a big a big hit, uh and it may not be done. Um health insurance moving $448,000 to cover our deficit. Um so our deficit is somewhere between 448,000 and 1.1 million.

Oh. Uh we have a lot of work left to do accounting wise with runout claims and all the rest of it. Um, and so this funds uh a portion of that. So I assume there'll be probably another article in the fall or maybe end of year transfers. Yeah, we're uh yeah, we're working our way through that. We're we're being cautious because we want to make sure that the accounting is correct obviously. Yeah.

But also um you know runout claims can take up to we've seen two to three years on runout claims. So, uh, you know, I don't think this is something that will be going away necessarily, uh, rapidly. Um, but hopefully with our new involvement with GIC and the prospect of not having any deficit possibility, that'll that'll be better. Okay. Article four to hear the reports of several town officers. Mhm. Um, is this where we would do the state of the town? I think that's how we did it last last year was as part of this. That's right.

Okay. Um, article six, uh, that's just accepting the chapter 90 money. Yep. And and appropriating it for for use. Okay. Article seven, um, selling surplus. Yep. standard. Do we have anything? Huh? Gonna sell anything? Well, we don't have to put it in the warrant. You just authorize us to do it later. Oh. Oh, okay. Like the old police. Oh, yeah. All kinds of We put it We put stuff up on municipid with some regularity. Let us know so we can start buying stuff from you.

You go on there. There's some really cool stuff. I'm always on. It's like you're not driving to Texas to get an articulated loader. It's not going to happen. No, no, no. I'm like, and then you drive it back. It's a steal. Yeah, you got to drive. No, you fly to Texas and you drive it back. That's right. Where's Fair Sense of whimsy? Um, article seven, just letting everybody Oh, no, that's eight. Article seven. Oh, right. Surplus. I put my note on the wrong thing. Um, okay. Article eight is just letting everyone utilize their revolver. No major changes to that. the 53 and a e and a half

there was a big discussion on whether there should be consent agenda and whether it requires big discussion I think it's exact exactly this is exactly the same as last year mayor we didn't did we change any anything on there no no numbers have changed okay uh nine is just um funding um the WRTA for elder transport. Correct. [snorts] Should be relatively non-controversial. Please stop jinxing us. Yeah, you're right. My bad. It's still on the consent agenda and hopefully we'll stay there.

Hopefully. Okay. Article 14. This is the balanced level spending budget. Do you want me to go through it again? Nothing. No. Okay. Uh, and then article 15 is the contingent budget. Yeah. Any the contingent budget is also the same as the last time I presented it. Great. So, no new surprises or anything that's worth there. going with um

so the contingent budget remains just the admin and planning conservation part-time building inspector engineering assistant engineer wreck uh Silver Lake Beach library 75,000 and 1 million4,000 back into the school that's been yeah um just back to the previous one for a second we haven't done anything with uh expected revenue from chapter 70 because of the House budget proposal. Uh yeah. So we we I mean we're tracking it. We have a budget that reflects it. It's not it's not this budget. Okay. So because it it because it can change.

Yep. It it can change. So again, we could always do something in the fall. Um or there's a myriad of other options that we may have. The only The only thing I will note that I think is confusing for the general public is that um if we pass the override, we'd use 1,114,000 of the override, but the contingent budget is 1.3 million,

right? Those numbers are different, obviously. Um the reason we would do that is that if we didn't secure the override, we would just leave the budget as it is. Um but we do have some capacity in the budget knowing that BVT and everything else fiscal 28 2930 and so on. So we're leaving ourselves a little bit of cushion having that news and not you know chasing the dollars all the way back down. Um but if we get the levy capacity raised then we just close that that gap. And so that's the 1.1. So, okay. And that could that 1.1 could come down if the 160 per student goes through. Correct.

Yeah. Because we only spend what we've what we've um the revenue side can change all at once. The expenditure side stays the way it is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. One thing I I see a lot is people say we're voting on two different budgets and we're voting on a budget and a conditional appropriation. So, right, that's something to point out. It's like, yeah, that's why it's only 1.3 million. It's only the things that we will put back in if the override passes, right? And you're going to have a presentation. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Article 16, the capital. Um, we think we've already talked through this guy.

Yeah. The enthusiasm. I love it. It's only 8:45, you guys. Article 17. Um, this is for sewer enterprise fund. Regular regular. Yep. No, no, uh, major changes or surprises there. Article 18 is the waste management enterprise. Yep. Same as we've been discussing. So, the budget for that is 1.285 million. We think our revenue is going to be a little soft on that, hence the the transfer. Could I have purple bags? We we talked about it and we decided that,

you know, people are going through a lot and so we'll we'll uh we'll stick with what we got. It's fair. So this this will be entirely funded other than the 120,000 from earlier. Entirely funded by bag fees. At least that's the expectation once. Yes. And so I I'll go back to what I had said when we were doing the original presentation to the select board which is year one especially be very hard to budget. Yes. So um you know we have to we have to understand that there we may be moving some free cash around or doing something else to try to get this to to stabilize sake up. Yeah. Yeah. Um I mean we we did our best estimate but

Yep. see what happens. People were given trash bags for Easter and stuff. So, I think we're in think we might be in a little bit of trouble. Okay. I have one question on this. So, sorry. Please. How much does it cost to run a transfer station? Um, well, first you go back to 1950 and open it and then [laughter] you go Now, I don't I don't know, Skip. I've never run one. Um, it seems like most of the towns that have them have had them for a very long time. Yeah. Um, it it's it's not inexpensive. I don't know that uh if you were going to start one today, I don't think that you would see any real savings from curbside.

Yeah.

The only the only benefit to it is that um you know, people Well, the the only benefit to it is is that people have a little more freedom to choose which times they're going to get rid of their ref use and stuff. I know uh I I did do a little bit of research into this a not in this community in a previous community because it comes up a lot. People are like, "Let's just go back to a transfer station." I remember having a transfer station and it was was awesome. But you know between the equipment and the staff and the hours and the insurance and now you can't you also can't create a facility now that like before you would just put some concrete blockout and collect stuff into dumpsters and now you have to have impervious surface storm water management plant right it's a whole different

same I was only being I was only being somewhat physicious about going back to 1950 because in 1950 you could have built a transfer station that would still be probably uh economically feasible today. Yeah. But but building one from scratch, I I'm gonna tell you I I I think is is not going to touch what we what we have for curbside. Do you mean the quarry is not still open? No. No.

I know Westboroough recently, I think last year went to you must drive your stuff to Harvey. So I wonder if that's something that could be an option in a future contract. is if people wanted to save some money by driving their own if they could do that, but I don't I don't know what the logistics of that would be.

Yeah, I think I think that's also a a a kind of a side agreement that they have with with Westboro and talking to the because I had I did have conversations during the the the trash club uh days. Um, you know, I talked to to Christy over in in Westboro quite a bit about their their model because some people had just said, you know, let's just do away with curbside. [clears throat] People can either bring it to Westboro or get their own hauler and then you don't have to worry about it at all. Um, but there are obviously inherent problems with that model as well. So, I was lots of people that don't have vehicles that can transport. Yeah. And then you get more, you know, uh, refugees on the side of the road and public dumping. And

I mean, that's always a tactic that you hear a lot when people don't want to make changes to trash is that you're going to see this huge spike. And in my experience, I've never seen it actually be a huge spike. But I think if you were going to delete curbside altogether, you probably would. That would that seems like a scenario to me that would drive public dumping. And the bags are really not that expensive. When you do the math, it's comparable. Think about the price of the bag versus the price of the roll. Yeah. Like the price of the roll feels big because the people are thinking about one bag, but when you really do the math, it's not that expensive. Like compared compared to contracting every every household doing their own yep,

you know, separate contract, this is definitely saving money. Yep. And and and just not to go down that rabbit hole too far, but there's no mandate in Grafton that you have to use Harvey as a hauler. You could get your own contract tomorrow and have a different hauler come [snorts] and and do your curb sign. There are some people that do. Yep, there are because they come by my street. Yep. Yep. There are some people for where it will make sense because they generate enough trash, right? So, Yep. Correct. Okay. Excellent. Sorry. No, you're fine. Trash club is very exciting. I get it. I had a great time. Article 19, cable. Yeah. No,

standard. Literally, it's absolutely standard. I think we changed the salary alliance. And article 27, um abandoned funds also standard, correct? Uh no, this is this is new. Mary, do you want to talk about it or you want me to talk about it?

I can talk about it. Um so um this warrant article would allow the municipality to accept the local option provisions of the Massachusetts general law chapter 200A section 9A regarding unclaimed funds. Under the current law, unclaimed funds held by the municipality are typically reported and remitted to the state treasurer after the required holding period. However, if we accept chapter 200A section 9A and comply with the notice and reporting requirements outlined in chapter 60 and chapter 200A section 9A, the municipality may retain those unclaimed funds locally instead of remitting them to the Commonwealth. So this will help us if um if we foreclose on a property and no one has claimed that property um we would hold those um until such time and then we could just claim them under the the town.

Sounds like a creative way to get some revenue. I genuinely thought we already did this. So th this is unclaimed funds as opposed to now foreclosing on property. Yeah, this is not tax title. Correct, Mary? This is Yes, it it would be tax title prop. It could be tax title properties. It could be um you know checks. We have vendor checks. That's unclaimed property as well. Um so we wouldn't have to turn over those funds to the state either. How much are we thinking per year that this could potentially bring in?

Um, so we do tailings once a year and that's about anywhere from like, you know, 20 to 50,000 of unclaimed checks. So rather than send that to the state of the mass Massachusetts, we're able to recover that into the general fund, which then becomes free cash, right? We do post it on our website like if if the value is more than $100, we have to post it for a full year. Oh yeah. Where is that? Yeah. So there's rules that and laws that we comply with. Yeah. I don't know anymore. [snorts] Do we post that? We post that on the website. Yes. Where do we post it on the website?

Treasurer Collector's Office. Yeah. Their web their department page. So this this isn't the money that kind of goes to the find mass money because that seems to like hang out there forever in a day whereas this sounds like after a year you can just take it. Yes. Which is kind of weird that the state doesn't just take that other money either. Right. Yeah. I don't know the legislation. They always talk about, you know, like there's $4 billion worth of unclaimed funds and fine mass money.

I literally just heard the commercial in my head. [laughter] It just Yep. Oh. Well, yeah, that's that's uh that's that. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. Uh okay, Mark. Yes. Heather, sorry. Yep. Here. Couldn't get the the mute. Dan, yes. Greg, hi. Yes, Samir. Yes. Skip. Yes. Kyle, hi.

Victoria says, "I I believe Angelina has lost us. We have lost our motion passes. The public hearing is closed." Thank you guys very much. Okay, so now on to the I'm staring at Evan. Sorry. He's like, "Don't look at me." on to the very quick and never tedious recommendation piece for the 27 articles. We need a vote on articles first. Yeah, we can recommend I move that we uh yes support the passage of all of the articles on the two consent agendas. Second. Do I hear there's a motion to approve to recommend all of the uh two consent agenda articles. Do I hear any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mark, yes. Heather,

yes. Dan, hi. Greg, hi. Samir, yes. Skip, hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Um, let me get back to my notes here so I can just follow along with myself. Okay. Uh, so that's articles one through 13. 13. Article 14. Do we hear a motion? Move we support as written. Second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mark, yes. Heather,

yes. Dan, I. Greg, I. Samir, yes. Skip, hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria is I. That motion passes unanimously. Article 15. Do I have a motion to So move. Second. Excellent. As written to recommend the article as written. Any discussion on the motion hearing? None. Mark. Yes. Heather. Yeah. Dan. Hi. Greg. Hi. Samir. Yes. Skip. I. Kyle. Hi. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Article 16. We have already indicate we've already made a a vote

a vote to amend it. Do we want to just say that we intend to I think I think our motion to amend is our recommendation. So I think we should just say finance committee plans on amending article 16. Okay with that. I'm good with that. Me too. Move to approve article 17 as written. Second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mark I. Heather. Hi. Dan. Hi. Greg. I. Samir. Yes. Skip. I. Kyle. Hi. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Move to approve article 18 as presented.

Second. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mark. Yes. Heather. I. Dan. Hi. Craig. I Samir yes skip I Kyle I Victoria says I that motion passes unanimously move to approve article 19 as presented second any discussion on the motion hearing none mark yes Heather I Dan hi Greg I Samir yes skip I Kyle hi Victoria is I motion passes unanimously move to approve article 20 as presented second um any discussion on the motion Hearing none. Mark, yes. Heather, hi. Dan, hi. Greg, hi.

Samir, yes. Skip, hi. Kyle, hi. Victoria, I that motion passes unanimously. Move to approve article 21 as presented. Any discussion on the motion? Hearing none. Mark, yes. Heather, I Greg, I. Samir, yes. Skip. I Kyle, I. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Move to approve article 22 as presented. U motion and seconded. Do I hear any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. Mark yes. Heather I. Dan I. Greg I. Samir. Yes. Skip I. Kyle. Hi. Victoria I. The motion passes unanimously. Move to approve article 23 is presented. Second. Any discussion on the motion hearing? None. Mark.

Yes. Heather. I. Dian. Hi. Greg. I. Samir. Yes. Skip. Hi. Kyle. Hi. Victoria's I I'm not going to make the next motion because I'm g I'm in favor of that article and I I'm gonna have a feeling that most of you aren't. So, um somebody else wants to make a motion on that one. I'll step aside for a second. Do we want to discuss before motion or do we

I I I I you know I they raised a very good point. Worry about mosquitoes in the town of Grten. We had a big problem nine years ago. I brought it to town meeting and I asked to be removed because we had a budgetary problem and we removed it. We haven't had a problem since if there was a triple E problem or or uh the other one there problem. Thank you. The state the state came in and and and sprayed the town. So I it's a tight budget year. I I just I I know Evan said he can handle it and I I applaud him, but $89,000 is a teacher. So I I think that's more important. So I I changed my mind. I'm going to make the motion. And I move we we recommend article 24 is presented.

Second, Madam Chair. Yes, Dan. Uh yeah, I I think the um the early detection that they do um and the preventative work that they do uh I think is worth the money. Um the I mean Tripoli uh has a as we were told has a 30% mortality rate and the other 70% don't do too well. Um so yeah, I'm uh not in favor of this uh article or the uh the motion on the floor.

So what I I'm in favor of presenting it to the voters. Personally, I do not recommend it. I agree. I'm not upset that it's on the warrant, but I don't I I don't recommend it. Um, a human life, $89,000. It's that's real. The triple kills folks. Why? That discussion almost killed me. So, [laughter] [snorts] Mark is pro mosquito. So, and pro mosquito. We we we rarely get to get bug and virus nerds into if and come. Oh, I know. It was it was the the the greatest 32 minutes of my life. I will have to tell you. [laughter] And how many seconds?

Uh 36. I again I I appreciate the the presentation. I I think they make a lot of good points. I think I think I share Mark's point of view where it's a tough budget year and in things that we're looking to trim and cut and trying to be the most responsible. I think that is we don't even know if You know, there's Yeah, I'll just leave it there as a matter of fact. So, I I I think it's going to be put in front of the voters as an option there. In front of the voters, but I don't agree with not my not my choice alone to make,

but it is the finance committee's choice to say whether or not we we recommend it. So if there's no further discussion, so then this motion would be to recommend it. If it my motion. Yep. If it doesn't pass, we would have another motion for a different No. If it if the motion to pass, the motion to recommend doesn't pass, that means we're not recommending it. We don't need to do a second motion. Well, the wording that we've used on the recommendations has been uh finance committee opposes passage. Sorry. I I think we would want a motion.

Oh, I got you. You're right. You're right. I'm sorry, Greg. Greg and Dan, you're right. I apologize. Let's get to this uh six to2 vote. [laughter] I think we're good on discussion. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Perfect. The motion on the floor is that the finance committee recommends as written. Mark, yes. Heather, yes. Dan, nay. Greg, nay. Samir, no. Skip. No. Kyle I and Victoria is no. That motion fails five to three.

I move the finance committee uh recommends uh that fin I move the finance committee opposes passage of this article and we'll elaborate in that in the explanation. Second motion and second to oppose the article as written. Any further discussion? No Mark. No Heather. No Dian. I Greg. I Samir. Yes. Skip. I Kyle. Nay. And Victoria's eye. That motion passes 5 to three. Motion to approve article 25 as presented. Chair to write that. Thank you.

Second. Um motion to approve article 25 as written. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none. Mark. Yes. Heather, yes. Dan, I Greg, I Samir, yes. Skip, I will abstain on potential for anyone to have some whackadoo idea that it somehow violates some conflict of interest law by having them redone. Actually, it'll save me money because part of our money is me driving around taking the pictures and frames places. Abstension noted. [laughter] vote. I won't whackadoo in the meeting minutes, but uh I

only skip only Skip would have a 30 minute abstension discussion. [laughter] It's only to keep you off, Mark. Victoria, I like it. Skip. That motion passes with one abstension. Uh move to approve article 26 as presented. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, Mark? Yes. Heather, I. Dan, hi. Greg, hi. Samir, yes. Skip. Hi. Kyle I. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Move to approve article 27 as presented. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, Mark. Yes. Heather, yes. Stan, hi. Greg, I. Samir, yes. Skip, hi. Kyle, I

Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. Before we talk about whether or not we're going to support article 28, how does this article conflict with our vote under article 16 to amend? So, we put in a higher number there. So, if if we decide to go forward with the higher number and we leave it that way, then this number would we borrow less. But if we decide that we want to re if this passes and we want to go back to article 16 in the fall and put the money back where Evan originally had it, how do we how do we rectify that on this vote? Do we vote to recommend this article as presented? I would

because we want the 4 million. I would like I would like to recommend that as presented to give Evan the flexibility of financing it in the most appropriate way given the outcome of the three votes that are affecting it. I will second that motion. Yeah. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none. Mark yes. Heather I. Dan I. Greg I sme I. Kyle I. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously, I think. Can I make a Can I make another motion in his uh [snorts] motion? I I have no problem doing that one, too. What was that, Mark? I didn't

Oh, I was going to say I was going to make a motion to approve that brilliantly written state of the town message. That's the the smallest I've seen in nine years. So, great job whoever did that. Second. That's just removing you. Still, are we all on board with me removing the optional financial piece at the bottom? Yes. Okay, I think so. I'll remove that part. Good. We don't have to make any notes about it. I want Mark's motion in the minutes to specifically include the beautiful uh description. [laughter] We did. We haven't finished dart uh item two yet. So, yeah, we haven't talked about who's writing what. Yay. Oh, I'm sorry. I jumped ahead. I apologize.

Well, you were just very excited about my my brilliantly written. Who can blame them? I really appreciate that. Um, which we only have a couple that aren't sort of pre-written if I recall correctly. And Greg volunteered to do those. [snorts] So, I I would be happy to do 16 as well. So for we have highlight here 14 and 15. So the ones in blue I took a stab at, but they're not ones that you see every year, right? Um I think you did a great job on them.

You get the operating budget every year by the same. Yeah. Um but the explanation we have in here this came from a little blow talks about the recommendations I'm sorry the um listening to you it talks about the reduction that's listed in B I'm fine with what you wrote there. Yeah me too. But Greg is going to rewrite 16. Yeah, 15 is exactly um the language from the last

that used and Greg wants to do 16. Um 18 is fine. Is that the one you took a stab at, Amber? Yes, two. That's great. Yeah, I think that's I think that's fine, too. [cough] [clears throat] And Greg, you're going to take 28. Anyone on? Yeah. 16. Yeah. 16, 24, and 28.

I can do 21 and 22. So that leaves us 23 25 26 27. I'll do the the eminent domain ones. Okay. So that's I would just put something about in 23 clarifying that this is a mass stop project. Yeah. Oh yeah. We the town is not funding the project. We're just handling the easements. Yeah. We have to we have to take those.

Yeah. or um see if you want 21 and 22 as well or if you want 22 as well that's fine. I can try 21 since you wanted. Yeah. Yeah. Well, no, I just thought that the when he mentioned that I picked up 23 and thought that 23 and the other two that he mentioned were uh the eminent domain ones, but they aren't necessarily. Yeah. So, Kyle will do 21 and 22. Skip will do 23. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Do even though he abstained, do we? No. No. No. I'm doing 23. I I'm saying even though you abstain, would you be the best person to write

to write 25? Yeah, I Yeah, I can do a short sweeping for that. Great. Uh, so that leaves 26 and 27. [snorts] I'll do those two. I don't care. Thank you, Skip. Writer extraordinaire. Oh, 27's already done. Thanks, Skip. By who? By who? I don't know what's in my It's Well, there's Yeah, that's

You got to say the finance committee supports blah blah blah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And everyone's comfortable with the fact that these are tomorrow at 7. Yeah. Okay. And are we sorry just using we're using the language supports the passage of this article for the ones we support passaging not recommends. Yes. Okay. Cool. I remember there was a little bit of we wrote it both ways last time. So Oh, those are these are recommends. So recommends. Okay. So is a supporter recommends I guess is my question. Are all the existing ones recommends? Yep. Okay. With recommends. Okay. Recommends passage of Yeah. totally fine. Not asked. Yeah.

No need to rein. So, back to my motion to support the state of the town messages presented. Second. With the removal of the historic with the removal of the historic piece. Yeah. [cough and clears throat] Now, Victoria. Yes, sir. I just going to warn you about something. A few years ago, finance committee chair was up for I was running for select board and a huge issue, Heather, you'll remember this. I remember and Skip would remember it too. There's a huge issue that the chair of the of the finance committee who's running for select board giving the state of the town message gives them an unfair advantage. I don't believe that for a second.

Yeah, I do. I Yeah, I remember that which I think is ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But so I have no problem with Victoria reading that message. But so I think we should I think we should say that now just in case somebody brings that up. I have no problem with it. I agree. Yeah, I agree. That's all that's all I wanted to say. Their voter based on who reads the phrase wackadoo applies. [laughter] Okay. So we have a motion on the floor to approve the state of the town message as written minus the optional piece and a second. Any further discussion on the motion? Seeing none, Mark I. Heather, I. Dan, hi. Greg, I Samir, yes. Skip, hi. Kyle,

I Victoria is I. That motion passes unanimously and thank you for the warning. I will um I'm going to read. Just wanted to make you aware. I I appreciate you, Mark. Move to adjourn. Second. [laughter] No, I want to stay here and talk more. I can mute you. Um, Mark, yes. Heather, I Dan, hi. Greg, hi. Samir, yes. Skip. Go naturally. Kyle, hi. Victoria's eye. That motion passes unanimously. We are journed. Thank you all. Good night, everyone. Appreciate it. Good night, everyone.