Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Win of Town Council meeting for Tuesday, March 10th, 2026. It's 6:30. We're in the Harvey hearing room. Call the meeting to order. Roll call, please. Councilor Costan, here. Councelor Tassinary, here. Councelor Mal, here. Councelor Rearden, here. Councelor Dimes, present. Councelor Romano, present. Vice President Swope president President Lati here. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. God bless America. Minutes from the February 17th meeting have been circulated. Do you have a motion to approve? Motion by Swope, second by Councelor Romano. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I. No. The eyes have it.

General information recommendation. We're going to have two presentations. One is an update on firehouse and how that's going. and the other is an update on the the storm and um talk about that. Uh we'll start with Dan Plat from P3 is here. Thank you, Dan. Yep, that would be great. We had a firehouse building committee the other day and this presentation was given to the committee. We thought it would be a great idea to share it with the public uh as to the progress, give people a little sneak uh peak to come and I'll turn it over to Dan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, you can hear me? Okay. Yeah.

Uh, just want to give an update. Uh, we're we're from a construction standpoint, we are targeting uh to start the bidding process in late June and completing the bidding process in early August with construction starting on or around Labor Day of the of the structure. Um we have uh we're we're nearly complete with the removal of the auditorium section of the old uh junior high edition and we have removed the junior high from the site. We're just cleaning up the site right now. We'll reservey it, get our bearings back and we've got some some things we want to look at to make sure that we're building on stable ground. We'll be working on that over the next couple of weeks. And on the design front, uh the building committee has uh has really settled in on what the building is going to look like. At this point, the building committee and the uh design and management team are working on the actual documentation of putting the bidding documents together. Around April 1st, we'll begin the process of pre-qualifying the contract as required under chapter 149. uh that pre-qualification process will take about five weeks. Uh not anyone can just bid on this project. They have to be pre-qualified to bid on this project. So that we can uh review their uh not only review their past performance, but we can review their financials to make sure they're worthy of building a fire station. So that being said, I think that's it was right. That being said, you have any questions on anything I said while they're doing that?

You shut up. Don't be an [ __ ] Hey, excuse me. There is no vulgarity, no calling out, no interrupting tonight. This is We're not 5 years old, so please just sit down. We have an officer here. Anybody would be escorted out who's not uh being proper. So, it as we are fixing a few glitches, maybe Dan could talk about a uh a neighborhood meeting or not a neighborhood meeting, but a town meeting that we will. We have had a few neighborhood meetings, not just one. We had a couple of neighborhood meetings. Uh and we uh

we have uh we had one complaint during the demolition, which I thought was pretty good. Uh and the complaint was, you know, concerns about vibration. uh we had we had already installed vibration monitors around the perimeter of the site and the vibration did not exceed uh allowances. So, but it was good that we got a call and it was good that the resident uh and the resident was I'm not trying to be problematic. I just wanted to know how much vibration we're going to have. So, uh, other than that, uh, you know, things have gone have gone really well on our end

and we will be having other meetings with the public to keep them informed, um, as the project goes on and as the construction starts, there's, you know, if if we encourage residents, if we see something like we saw today, there was there's an opening in the fence again across from CVS and we want to make sure that that's taken care of right away. Already on it. Yeah. That's just, you know, we don't want kids getting in there by pets or whatever.

So, we had a we had a couple of fences and it's it's it hasn't been the kindest winter. I don't think anyone uh I think everyone can understand that, but we uh we have responded. As soon as we as soon as we find out, we we get right on it. And there's an emergency call list that we go through that the police have to also to uh notify the responsible parties whenever they issue test scorings now of damage now.

We we we uh we we did the tests when the building was there. We actually did test kits uh an additional uh 12 test kits over the past week uh and uh we did not find anything uh too concerning where the old school was. Um so we have a little bit of water over by uh the gymnasium section of the uh of the site and we're trying to determine where that water's coming from. Doesn't appear to be ground water, but it might be. So, we're doing a little exploration there. Um, I know you have on your 10-year capital plan to replace a storm drain in that area that currently runs underneath the junior high school. I've asked the designers to uh work with the city to see if it's possible we could run that underneath uh between the two the new building and the old building and get it out of the way. even though we're not going to connect it to anything so that when you guys do go to connect it, you don't have to dig anything up uh in the future.

Okay. I thought that might be advantage of something going

CBD project tied into it. And uh it's active. And as far as removing the debris and stuff, it all went well. Uh so far, uh no issues. Um, sorry for the trucks. Um, we probably got another few days of debris removal. It's the last of the wall uh foundations came out in the last couple of days. They're just crunching them up so that they can be recycled. They're doing their best to recycle as much as the project as possible.

You're on. Okay, enough of the chitchat. Here we go. So, uh, this is, uh, pretty similar to what you voted on a year or so ago for the, uh, for the project with the exception that it's 100% flipped. Um we uh in the process of designing the station and with the location of the transform and location of water sewer uh it made a lot of sense for us to to to move the building over and put the uh living quarters uh closer to Windmar

WAR. That was close. All right. Well, demar and uh and lower the you know the apparatus bay which is a lower structure would you know not create a a a canyon between the existing building and the and the new building. So the building committee decided to do a complete 180. The building's relatively the same. The exterior design's a little bit different. So there'll be a there'll be a pedestrian connection between Pauline Street and the back uh between the two buildings and there'll be parking on the uh on the left side uh near WMAR uh for transactions with the uh fire department for permitting and inspections and things of that nature. Uh that's they have uh want to go to get the blades from Can you go to the first floor?

So, the first floor of the building, as you can see, uh is pretty much the apparatus bay, uh and the entrance lobby to the building. Um, it's really important for a fire station to have complete separation from hazardous materials that they bring back with their equipment. So we have a decontamination area, a laundry area, showers, uh so that they go from the hot spot which is the apparatus bay to the to warm spot where they get uh cleaned up and then when they when they leave that and and head up stair B1 or or take the elevator up to the living quarters, they have been completely cleansed of any hazardous material. um fire uh fire employees in general have about a 17% higher cancer rate and this concept of doing complete decon's been around for a few decades and uh it will be employed in the new in the new station right uh the second floor uh the second floor is the upper portion of the apparatus because the uh equipment is tall uh that you see in this plan, but really the only level the workable space is uh where the dormitories are. You can see on the left hand side in the tan color uh the bunk rooms, firefighters. Um you don't currently have that many firefighters on shift, but you do have a lot on shift when you have an event. And we just want to make sure that we have things covered for the for the city when that happens. Uh there's a kitchen and a day room and um bathrooms and uh for for for uh those that are living on that floor.

Uh training uh the training and the emergency operations center is on the third floor uh along with uh the administrative office for the fire department. So basically all of the functions of the fire department the equipment of the with the exception of the apparatus equipment are on the left side of the building and the apparatus equipment is on the right side of the building. The tower you see the little square in the back is a training tower for them to to to be able to do training and and and you know spread out their hoses and do things like that within their own confines. and the training room which will be used by the EOC. Uh the fire fire departments do an awful lot of classroom training uh in this day and age. So uh they'll be able to train together as a team. So it's going to look like you had it. You had it. So, this is what it's going to look like when you're uh looking at the front of the building. On the far right of it, you could see the uh the uh gymnasium section that's left. A little bit of a space between the two apparatus bays uh that are are for small vehicles and uh things boats I think the boat goes in there and small vehicles on the two on the right. The four that you apparatus space that you see accessing from Pauline Street are complete drive-thru. They can go all the way through and out the back uh towards the park. Uh the driveway access driver in the park on the left hand side is that three-story building we just walked through. Um the architect has done a break up of materials so that it's not all monotone like uh the

original school building was but more to have different uh lighter materials towards the top of the building to to to be more pleasurable to the eye. And we pulled the actual building a little bit towards uh away from uh Windmar. Everybody, how many how many how many meetings have I done that? How many? Every everyone

everyone. So, um the the school was really really close in that corner. You you probably already don't remember how close that school was in the corner. I mean, it was right on top of that street which is right on top of that those houses. The building committee made a conscious decision to pull that back, put some green space on that corner and open it up. And you're going to really, really have a completely different feel on the corner of Farming and Wald.

This is the other angle. This is a sunny day. It looks a little different. Um, this is primarily what it's going to look like by the time we get finished with it. There might be some duads that have changed and some lettering that has changed, but primarily this is what the building's going to look like. And we do have a little bit of a a video to show you, which is uh fly through of of it. And we hope you enjoy it. If you can play that Guys are shiny. Brad is [ __ ] upstairs.

Watch. This is that POC classroom I'm talking about. That is it.

Hope you like it.

Any questions from the council? Great. You're free to go. Thank you very much. Thank you. Enjoy your meeting.

Thank you. COME BACK and just give a snow the water and all else reasons behind what we did and how we did it. Good evening everybody. Manager is asking give a an overview of the recent blision challenges and we face everything happened during the blizzard and how we start from the beginning. Uh

yeah. So, pocket band was put in effect Sunday evening at 8:00 p.m. At that time, um we were in comm also we were in communication with DCR over the length of closing the storm gate which was uh we had received a call u that afternoon indicating that they intended to close the storm gate at short beach from 8:00 p.m. Sunday to 8:00 p.m. Monday evening which I know the town manager and and uh several others including myself were uh you know a little concerned about the duration of that. Um but again it was you know I I kind of understood it. It was uh it's a it's a the gate is is closed and opened by uh re DPW with some assistance from DCR. they were going to have all personnel deployed for the storm. So their reasoning was that you know that's when they would be able to felt like they would be able to reopen the gate.

If I could Steve just jump in there. Um so between rep turo and myself we had many calls with DCR that night. Um the problem with you know why we were complaining about it was is that they were only calling for like one of the ties was 9 and a half the other one was 10 ft. Um, you know, their protocol is is they don't shut the gate till we be a 12 foot. The logic behind that was they were said there was a 4 foot storm uh storm surge. Unfortunately, we were only saying one or two foot storm surge and you know the chief uh Glender was here. You can verify that but you know so that that those numbers didn't jive but they were using the 4oot to get to 12 and then you know using that as justification to close it for that length of time. Um you know this isn't over. We requested more than just a call to the DPW maybe a call to the town manager's office or put us in the loop and maybe involve us in the meetings before they decide to close it. those kind of things. So, we have at least a voice at the table. Um, you know, you know, we expressed our frustrations over that. You know, more to follow on that, but I didn't want to think that, you know, there was quite a bit going on that night. You know, leading up to the storm with regard to the closing the floodgates. So, sorry, Steve.

No, that's okay. um DPW personnel, it was an all call event, so DPW personnel were um scheduled to uh be in and and ready to storm at 8:00 p.m. at the same time of the parking van. Um you know, at that time they're doing safety checks, fluid checks on their vehicles, checking fuel. Contractors uh taking contractor attendance. We're doing route assignments, coordinating with storm detail officers. Obviously, it was a parking van, so we were communicating and and and you know, police were starting their their toll operations. Uh we did have much better compliance in this storm than we did in in the prior storm, but there was still vehicles that were still legally hot. They were dealt it. Next slide. Monday morning. So this is uh Monday morning. Uh blizzard is well underway. We're at this time in full plow of operation seeing uh two to three inches per hour snowfall rates, extremely high winds, white out conditions. EPW staff is is working to keep the roadways passable while dealing with a multitude of of of things. started with down trees, down power lines, uh even down telephone poles. One actually landed on top of one of our loaders. We were able to get the loader out and National Grid was uh was called in. That was actually on Veterans Road. Um and that pole was down for the majority of that storm. 4:10 a.m. DPW, uh, I got a power outage

alarm from the the PR. Um, this is the first notification to me that there was a power outage in town. PRV switched from PLC control to manual presets under battery backup at that time. Uh, the system was checked. System is operating normal and appears to be maintaining system pressure. Um, we resumed plow operations at that point. We're continuing to monitor. We still had remote access at that time. Um, continuing to monitor uh the pressure and all is well at at 4:10 a.m. At 6:00 a.m. things change quickly. 6:02 a.m. uh notified of a high tank alarm, which is the uh fawn bar tank. system pressure spikes to 90 PSI for approximately one minute. That is is uh the beginning of the chain of events that that quickly followed. Um 6:25 a.m. I received the first call for water main break. This is at Veterans Road uh in the area of Locust Street. It's on a 12 inch feeder main which is one of our main feeders to the tank also to you know to to pressurize the town. Um both myself and my office manager um come off of our plow routs. We go to assess the break and start isolating start isolating trying to shut down. Of course you know valves aren't easily accessible. They're now under inches of snow, but also inches of hard pack ice underneath the snow. So, locating these valves is is extremely difficult. Um, I had to call my water tech off of his route uh with a metal detector so that we could try to locate valve boxes.

Again, very very challenging in those in those event situations and and physical hazards. Uh it was quickly determined though that it wasn't just one break on Veterans Road. We had three independent brakes along this roadway. Um so continuing to try to isolate and locate valves within that five five to 10 minutes of that initial call for the main break. Um the calls continued to come in uh for additional water main breaks that other areas in town. There was a total of seven main breaks. all in. Uh by the time uh you know that pressure spike caused basically seven simultaneous pressure breaks uh main brakes at that time headed to the PRV station to try to get an idea of what's going on. Clearly something's not right. Um we get to the PRV station and it's uh PRV station is at the rever end of town near Short Beach. So, we're dealing with u windb blown snow at that station from the parking lot in. We kind of had basically dig ourselves into the PRV station to get in. Um once we got into the station, uh you know, we quickly see we're in a high system flow, which is, you know, due to this the seven simultaneous breaks. They're just essentially open hydrants, right? Uh and we see erratic pressure and a dangerously high water level in the formb tank only feet away from overflow conditions which is a very serious situation as well. At that point the PRVs were manually throttled to lower the system pressure

and to try to slow the rising tank level. Uh, and a call was was put out to MWR control. Actually, got on the phone with uh both Lisa Beina and uh Valerie Moran, who's the head of operations over there, and uh initiated a back feed, made a request, told them that, you know, the PRV is compromised. We're um unable to regulate pressure and we're we're unable to stop uh the tank level and we were able to slow it by manually throttling it, but it was inevitable that we were going to need to shut the station down and initiate a back feed from uh from the deer island site. While MWR coordinated a valve team to initiate the back feed, both myself and Aaron, my ops manager, returned to the field to continue trying to isolate the seven active breaks. You know, trying to clear valves at every location. And we also had to clear the the valve chamber at Taps, which is um the the vault that MWR needs to be able to access to initiate the uh the back feed. Kind of like the short this short beach side of town. It's uh it's in the vault is on the causeway between the last house on Tapsav and um and in the island. So, it's, you know, it's an unprotected area. The uh the weather was was it was just the the snow rates, the wind. Um, you know, soaking wet. It was like having 2x4s strapped to your to your legs with duct tape. You know, you couldn't even bend your bend your legs because your pants are frozen. We thought through it. We got the valves uh

uncovered and prepped for MWR. uh still waiting on an ETA for the ballot team to arrive. We could uh continue to try to isolate the the fet of uh mains uh on Veterans Road. Again, we had three breaks there. Um and we had a a break on uh we knew of a break at this point. We knew of all seven breaks. We had breaks at three on Veterans Road. We had um a break on Marshall, a break on Beal, a break at Corora at Bela. Um, we had a a a break on a valve at uh Washington at Winthre. I think I think I touched on all of them. So, the reason we're we're trying to isolate the feed domains first is we're trying to maintain, you know, we had to throttle the PV. We're trying to maintain um trying to stabilize pressure. trying to maintain adequate pressures throughout the town. Um adequate pressures being you know at least above 30 PSI 20 25 to 30 PSI is required for basic fire protection. So to achieve achieve this uh we needed to keep keep the compromised uh PIV feed open enough to maintain the town pressure at or above this range for as long as possible in order to minimize loss of flight attachment. Obviously that's you know a situation where we're not having fire protection in town. Uh with with the power outage, it's critical. Um you know, people are using, you know, now using generators. They're on uh they got space heaters. A lot of people are trying to now use, you know, fireplaces, wood burning fireplaces. So the risk of fire is is real. Uh so trying to

maintain fire protection. At 7:30 a.m. uh MWR reports an ETA of 8:30 a.m. for the arrival of their valve team and again asks if their uh valve chamber is uh is accessible which we had previously uncovered but within 30 minutes of uh trying to isolate water manes with the rain of snow that quickly got covered again. So, at 7:30 a.m. uh I'm sorry, at uh at 7:30 a.m. we we got MWR finally committing to a arrival time of 8:30 a.m. So, in in preparation for the for the back feed from the Deer Island side, uh we shut the PRV completely down at 8:20 a.m. uh killing water pressure to the town. That's when everybody noticed their loss of water. Some may have noticed it before that if they were closer to one of the seven brakes, they would have lost water pressure due to the main break. But once we shut the PIV down, it killed the pressure to the town and with uh main break isolation ethics temporarily or interrupted at that time while we uh go back down to the taps chamber to uh initiate the back feed with MWR, help them reclaar the bells that we had initially cleared and u and initiate the back feed. Um MW did respond. Uh they did get there a little after 8:30. Um took them approximately 45 minutes to uh to initiate the back feed from the from the deer island side. Again, getting these valve boxes uh open uh with inches of ice on top of them. is we're using propane torches, hammers, chisels, just trying to trying

to get through the ice, trying to get to the the box covers, which are uh also frozen at that frozen at that point. So, it's it's an effort to try to get these valve covers open under these conditions, but 9:15 a.m. uh the Dare Island uh back feed is initiated, which then restored controlled water pressure through all throughout the towns. But we're now being fed from the MW side. Uh they obviously are feeding us uh at a at a controlled at a controlled pressure as opposed to our open PRVs that are unable to be really be regulated previously. Again, I already uh touched upon uh well the new supply from the deer island side obviously uh re uh refeeds all the all the open breaks which we still have seven open breaks. We haven't been able to isolate we isolated one uh one main break on Veterans Road previous to to pulling away to help MW. So, we still had six active water main breaks when our back feed came from MWR. And again, I said it, I'll say it again. The isolation effort is incredibly challenging and dangerous due to the weather conditions, the physical hazards of down power lines, falling trees, ice, sink holes, which I'm sure everybody saw the truck and sinkhole on the news. It's all real. It's all happening. and you know, we're dealing with all that stuff and and and trying to get get our work done. The final main break is isolated at 12:00 p.m. So, I'm going to stop there for a second because that's a pretty big feat for uh you know, myself, operations manager, and uh you know, we had our our water tech for a little while, but we isolated seven main breaks uh in um approximately

five hours. So less than less than an hour per break. And each location had the same challenges with trying to locate valves um and just trying to stay safe while doing it. At the time uh that the last uh main break is isolated. DPW coordinates with MWR uh for the pump team uh to for Glestone. MWR gives an initial ETA of 1:30 PM you know at that time we had actually previous uh to this when I initiated the back feed with Valerie Moran uh we also talked about a pump team uh being needed and um so she she had started working on it at that time but we didn't get the final confirmation until 12:00 p.m. which was an ETA of 1:30 by the time they were able to put together a pump team to to come out and help out. Uh approximately the same time, a little after 12:30 p.m., fire department began to uh pump out basements in the area of Gleston. Next slide. So after the water manes uh were isolated by DPW and the MWR pumping crew confirmed that they are being dispatched. You know the phone calls I I was I was able to uh return my office manager to his plow route which had somewhat fallen behind and uh we got um my water tech back on his route which had somewhat fallen behind. We did have coverage on these routes uh during uh their absence. I had to get back on my route. I also, you know, work a route during during the

storm. But while I'm working my route, I we're making phone calls to contractors and supply houses. This is still a middle of the storm. You know, there still weather conditions are still terrible. So trying to get people to commit to responding was was little difficult, but we did we were able to uh got a couple of contractors that agreed to uh dig out their equipment and come down and um I was able to secure uh Malden Waterworks. They actually brought somebody in special to uh to get us uh the you know parts needed to to you know repair. I mean, we we stock parts, but we're not stocked to to repair seven different size mains um all at the same time. So, we needed we needed materials, we needed supplies. We're able to secure them uh and get commitments and um again had to pull somebody off a route to to go pick up pick up some of these uh some of these um pots. The person I I used was the person that his truck was in a sinkhole on Marshall. So, he wasn't able to to plow with the truck. So, he took one of our small pickup trucks and and ran out to Middleton to try to to to pick up the parts that we needed. Middleton and Malden, we have two different two different locations that we had to pick up. Uh at this time we're also following up with National Grid uh or town manager uh assisted with following up with National Grid to confirm uh when they were uh when they could commit to coming to town. You know uh obviously the National Grid won't respond uh with if wind

conditions are over a certain mile per hour which clearly this this event had. So their response was uh was delayed. MWR arrived at 3 PM to Gernstone to uh even though we had an initial ETA of 1:30 p.m. to uh to initiate the pump down. Girdlestone was fully pumped down by 4 p.m. Five of the seven main breaks were able to be isolated and a man that didn't interrupt the water service. However, the residents on Marshall Street and Bale Street were not so lucky that shut down, you know, did uh did affect water service. So, the priority of main repairs begin on Marshall Street and Bale Street to restore water to those affected areas. At this time, we had commitments from from our contractors. So, they were in route. I believe the first contract MWR also put together a um a water main uh repair team. Uh MWR and the contractor both uh both mobilized around the same time. Approximately 5:00 p.m. is when the uh the water main repairs began. Maybe a little bit earlier than that. 4:30ish to 5:00 p.m. on Marshall in in Bale Street. Next uh slide. So Monday afternoon slashe evening uh again the MWA crews along with the private crews were on site uh or in route but they were on site around 4:30 5:00 to fix to begin uh fixing Marshall Street with MWR mobilized on Marshall um and our private contractor mobilized on be and they started those water main repairs the water at both locations was

resto restored by 9:30 p.m. for Monday evening. I'll stop there. I think that's for a moment. I think that's worthy of of talking about again. Um there was a lot going on in the storm. Um but we had all water restored to all affected people by 9:30 p.m. Pretty big feat for for for our department. Um, and obviously with the help of of contractors and MWR, National Grid, a a a an organization with almost endless resources, didn't restore power to the town, to everybody until over a day later. So, I I thought that response, you know, being able to isolate and and and get get everything restored, you know, by 9:30 that evening was was a success. National grid crews arrived for power restoration efforts later that evening. I'm not exactly sure what time they they mobilized in town. The fire chief would probably have that information and where they began their their work. Bernstone and Tyston obviously pumped out approximately 400 p.m. is when that was uh that street was vacated of water. still debris and ice on the street that needed to be cleaned up, but the the water was vacated at that time. Pretty sure the neighborhood was the last large chunk of residential power to be destroyed at approximately 4:30 a.m. However, there was still remaining services that that didn't get restored until the end of the day on Tuesday. So, our next slide is next steps, but we probably should have included a slide. I'm going to touch upon what

happened um at the PRV. There was several issues that that contributed to um the event um or the events the manual presets on the PIVs were improperly set to a range that was above the operating parameters of the system. What this means is that when the power was lost at the PIV and the system changed from PLC control over to manual operation, the system pressure was not controlled within the proper range for either pressure or tank elevations. Um that was a a oversight by the um the engineer and and their vendors. Um, you know, we had a town paid for construction administration on this project. We had a team of specialists. We even had MWA's eyes on it. um why the the manual PRV set points were not did not correspond to the the operating parameters of the PLC is clearly an oversight and uh and we're we're we're uh we've informed both our engineer uh and the contractors of you know of this and we we will be pursuing uh their insuranceances. The second major issue which caused the pressure spike or or didn't protect us against the pressure spike was the failure of a uh pressure relief valve to open which allowed the the system to to pressurize above 90 PSI. Systems normal operating PSI for the system is is 75 PSI. Uh, and the surge relief valve is supposed to open at 83 PSI. So, if

there's a pressure spike, that valve should open and equalize pressure and not allow system pressure to exceed 83 PSI. So that uh again we're looking at the valve manufacturer and um this valve was uh was tested during during commissioning of the station before it was put online. So, we're trying to understand why um it didn't it didn't open at at the proper pressure uh even though it was told to us that it was it was properly set and and and properly specked for the 83 PSI dump. Next steps, uh we need to ensure that the settings on the PIV manual backup control are set to correctly correlate with the PLC operating parameters. Um, we need to retest or replace the surge valve to ensure that it releases at the proper pressure, 83 PSI, and then we need to bring the PIVs back online. Apparently, we're still being backfed from MWR. And they've been uh, you know, they've been great neighbors. They've been very, very helpful, uh, very patient. their eyes will also be on uh the recommissioning of of the PRV uh you know once all these corrections and both programming and and retesting of the of the valves is completed we need to make sure that the battery backup computer system at the PIV is adequate uh moving forward uh we also need to consider a backup system a backup generator system for added redundancy even though again the system has battery backup and if those parameters on the

PRV were properly set we wouldn't be in this situation but we are uh but obviously the PLC control is a lot more finely tuned uh and can regulate pressures once you're in manual control your fluctuations of pressure is a little bit greater and a little bit slower uh the PLC is able to keep that that pressure you within a you know a p PS psi as opposed to a range of probably 5 psi on on manual control. We need to make sure that anyone who needs to make insurance claims has the proper contact information for our carrier, but the town will also make sure that our carrier files a claim against both the PIV vendor and the uh engineering group if need be to ensure that they pay for the water man repairs along with any damage cost to the home and tiles to the ground. Next slide. So, uh, Tony, this is slide that you wanted to, uh, include. You want to

Yeah, I just wanted, I mean, a lot of people have, you know, had concerns about why, you know, where we're at with the storm water system down there. Um, so I wanted to make sure we put the slide in. You know, obviously the council in the past has allocated the funds, all the necessary funds that we need to do the rest of the engineering work, um, design work for Tilestone Gosome and Pico Swarm water systems. Um we still need the additional funding to do the seaw wall extension and permitting um over at Pico area. You know that cost is approximately $24,000. We still need to find the funding source for that. But the tilestone glestone and pico storm water systems is just about done. What we're waiting on now is the um and we have the money for it um to final for the design and engineering to finalize the easement plan for the Pleasant Park Yard Club. Do we have to cross over there with a pipe? Um so do we need an easement from them? Um survey work has been completed so we're just waiting for that plan. Once that easement's in place then we can finalize that and then we'll be ready to you know have documents to be put out to bid um as it says on the next point. Um but well then at that point we'll need to identify a funding source. Obviously Steve we've talked four, five, maybe $6 million for this project. Who knows where it's going to come in at you know once we start getting estimates but um you know we obviously that money is not available. So, more than likely some sort of, you know, funding source, whether it's through a storm water fee that we talked about. I know Director K has brought that up in the past. We talked about a storm water fee and or a debt exclusion uh to fund this project. But that'll be up to the council. And, you know, we'll have to talk about funding sources at that point um so we can get it done. But I want to be clear, the council has already, you know, paid for and is this project's designed and ready to go and now we just need to figure out how to pay for it so we can get the upgrades done. But, you know, I mean, we saw it in River the other night and other places too. I mean, even if we had a properly, I mean, the amount of water that was coming down the street, certainly it would have been less had we had a proper storm water system. But, you know, with that flow of water, there may have still been some damage to home, water basement. I mean, there was that much water coming down the street. Um, so, you know, I want to be clear about that. I mean, but regardless, I mean,

this this work needs to be done and we've been working on it since I got here, you know, back in 2022 when it was brought to our attention and, you know, we're working on it and we want to make sure we finish the project. But that's where we're at. that I don't want to think it's just sitting there. We're not working on it. We are working on it. Steve and I have already had meetings with the Pleasanton Park Yard Club. We're trying to finalize the easement. Once that's in place, we'll be able to move forward. So, um some other things we're doing, areas of focus, obviously water manes, Steve and I are working on that for this year's capital plan. Um you know, we with the ARPA money, we were able to replace, I think, 12 miles of Maine somewhere around there. Uh we've got 45 miles of Maine in town. So, we still have a lot more work to do. uh where we're focusing on our most vulnerable water manes around town, the ones that we see the most breaks right now. Uh looking for funding sources other than our water and sewer capital plan to ease the burden on the rate payers and then obviously ensure that we do ongoing maintenance, you know, with regard to flushing and any sort of other work we need to do with the PRV valve stations and the sewer pump stations to make sure everything stays in good working order. With regard to flooding concerns, uh we have applied for funding. Um, Congresswoman Clark's office reached out for some budget earmarks for FY27. Obviously, no guarantee we're going to get anything, but this is federal money that's not tied to any sort of restrictions that some of the state money might have on it. Um, so we did put in for um the Morton and Banks area. Um, obviously there's title influence there, but we want to minimum do the uh engineering installation of the new outflow outfall vaults and the flapper valves along Morton and Banks because we know we get a lot of title water that comes in and comes up through the storm drains there. So, we want to try to get that done. Um, so I think we requested 1.2 million for that. Um, about two 250 on engineering and then we figure there 800,000 or so or close to a million will be enough to do the work down there. And then obviously we look to always looking to, you know, apply for grants to address flooding concerns for winter.

Just that's a multi-phase project. I mean there's there's several things that are contributing to the issues over there but this will be phase one of uh that multi-phase solution to the flooding situation in that area. Uh just summary obviously under the challenging and extreme conditions um DPW public safety they performed amazing job we've been everybody safe obviously we regret the flooding on tilestone tile and girdlestone and the damage that caused certainly stress to the families there flooding basements you know loss of heating systems etc etc um but rest assured you know we did everything we could to minimize those impacts and that was our goal throughout the entire storm once we realized the problems we were having and then obviously we continue to learn from these and like Steve said we've got work to do on the PRV valves One other thing I did want to mention, um, you know, during the power restoration and everything, we had concerns about some of the larger, you know, at the time, you know, the large chunks of Fort Heath and Seal Harbor that were down for power, you know, areas like that. We weren't sure what time they were going to come back. So, we did mobilize and we had a shelter ready to go at the coming school. Um, you know, Jane from our clear team, Sean Driscoll from Parks and Recre, one of our firefighters were there. They had set up CS there. Um, you know, we were ready to go. We had food ready. Um, picked us open. We only had one guest attend. Um but you know luckily we're able to get power back relatively short order so but we were ready to go if we needed to and move people over there and take care of that. We're working on that as well. Um so with that certainly open to questions from the council but thank you for mostly

thanks. I really appreciate your time Steve Antonio on this. Um I just want to a couple things Denise this report will be on the website tomorrow. Okay. And I know most people understand but if you could just uh explain when you talk about backf.

Yeah. So under normal operations we we take water through meter 41 which is on the short beach side enters our PV station at 110 PSI. We reduce it to an operating pressure of uh 75 PSI. And of course that you know fluctuates 74 uh 75 to 78 psi as our normal operate pressure and then it goes on to the town you know pressurize the town when we shut down that feed the the back feed uh we're also connected to MWR on the task side so they have the ability we have the ability to feed them in an emergency and they have the ability to feed us you know by closing one one side and opening the other just changes direction of flow can add some know different hydraulic situations but it's it's controlled pressurized flow at that point

and so we have one here one MW now there's another feed is there not going into each Boston that we're trying there is there's a uh when they built the bridge we yeah we had them uh

put a um an 8 inch water man you you know, across the bottom of the bridge connecting Boston to Win. It's obviously it's it's not buried. So, it's um wintertime, you know, utilizing that during the winter it has it it's its limitations, but for most of the year, it's it's it's a viable, you know, back feed. So, we could help Boston, they could help us. Unfortunately, the the first year that the bridge was put in service, um Boston didn't close their their side, their valve on their side and and they left the the pipe charged with water, stagnant water that first winter. Boston acknowledged it what they did. Uh but they never they never made the repairs not made. It's a it's a expensive repair because you got to work off a badge. You know, you can't you can't really get to it easily. But it's, you know, we, you know, it's definitely worth repairing. Um, but we have NWA back to using anytime we need, you know, situations.

And we have been talking to try to get that resolved with their help, too. They seem to be willing to help us out there. Council President, if I could add to that, too. I mean, obviously there were some questions and concerns. I mean, that's obviously why during the power outage we had that Saturday, a beautiful sunny Saturday, the whole town was no power. That's why we didn't have any of these water main break issues because we were still being back fit from Deer Island at the time. We obviously wouldn't put the system back online without knowing. We at that point, we didn't know what was going on with BRB. We hadn't got the report yet. So, we left the back feed in place and it's still in place until we get this rectified. I'll start at the right end of the table. Uh, Council Kin if you have any questions.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh a lot to take in. Thank you for that report as well. Um and again, I uh feel for the people who were impacted by this as well. Um, as far as the past two years I've been on the council, uh, you know, we have, uh, discussed many issues as it relates to the town readiness, uh, the town action plans, the redundancy, if any, in this town or the, um, the auditing of of the town prior to, uh, you know, any possible emergency situation. And I think there might be a little disconnect there. uh with all emergency operations, uh communications is key. Um I'm just going to make comment on on what I believe should be done as we go forward. And I'm not going to point any fingers. I'm not going to, you know, blame anybody in this room at all. I just think we should have a comprehensive plan to look at the town from a standpoint, worst case scenario, and excuse me, chief, if this already exists, which I believe there is one, uh but I I would like to see that as well. uh the local emergency action plan that was uh was in place many many years ago and probably still is in place. But I know that uh I had a couple of calls from people who uh we're talking about that what happened to the LEAP program. Uh the uh the website uh is somewhat outdated when you access that site. I would like that updated as well. I think a comprehensive uh audit of the town as it relates to worst case scenario and possibility uh of a uh a fall like we just had right now. Thank god we didn't have a fire and again I'm not here to blame anybody but we were very very lucky and uh yes in a timely manner things were put back to to order. Uh I know myself on Belchure Street uh very confused as it relates to uh the information. Uh, I think I would like to

also see the network of communications a reverse 911 to inform the town. Maybe that was initiated. I'm unaware of that. I did not receive a phone call. Uh, there's a lot more we can do to assure the people in the residents of this town that we are ready. We are ready. A lot of criticisms. I get a lot of phone calls which I didn't have answers to. Again, uh I I would like to plan on changing that as I go forward. Uh, and as far as the LEAP program, local emergency action plan, I would like to review that and get that up and running. I would recommend that our safety, health, and DPW committee, uh, get get on that right away if possible, who's ever chairing that. Um, so again, those are my recommendations. I'm not going to blame anybody here. But, uh, this is these are things we've touched on in the past uh, months I've been on the council. So, uh, again, thank you, town manager and town president. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Test. Uh, first and foremost, thank you, Director Kella. you uh you and your whole team did amazing work during that blizzard. But not not only that, but you you you guys were out working almost 247 the whole month of February. Once that first snowstorm hit, you spent the whole time clearing streets and then you had to go back and do it all again with that second storm and then deal with seven water main breaks in the middle of a blizzard, white out conditions and freezing rain and and and in and water I'm sure is almost almost the deep. Um thank you. Amazing work. Someday someone will make a movie about it.

It'll be a good one, too. It probably win awards. Um, thank you, Chief. You know, your guys are out there the whole time, too. They they worked several overtime shifts as far as I've heard from um a bunch of the guys during the whole month of February as well. And uh thanks to Chief Goodwin and and his folks over at the police department as well. They're all working overtime shifts and um and we know that everyone's got to do the overtime because we're all short-handed and uh that's just the way it is. That's just the reality of the budget right now and for the foreseeable future. Um I don't know what you could have done better. I think the the way you handled it was was pretty amazing. um no one's going to be happy about it because everybody was inconvenienced and some some people lost a lot of monetary value in their own homes because of all that water and uh and I'm really happy to hear manager Marino that we're going after the the insurance carriers of of the folks who installed our system uh what sounds like improperly. Uh so thank you for that as well in terms of a funding source. Um, you're probably sick of me sick of me saying it. Man Marino chapter uh 209 the act of 2018 the environmental bond bill. It reads, I I'll read you the section provided further that 15 million shall be expended for the hydraulic modeling analysis and evaluation of flooding vulnerabilities in the design peritting destruction of upgrades to the coastal infrastructure to mitigate town to mitigate coastal flooding in the town of in the town of Winthre including but not limited to seaw wall construction repair upgrades and improvements to flood drainage infrastructure and increased flood storage. 15 million it's been available for eight years. needs to be funded in the capital plan

and approved by the governor. It needs to be funded in the capital plan and approved by the governor. Yeah. And that would require the town to be um

not combative with the Commonwealth. We'd have to be partnering with the Commonwealth, not fighting them for every quarter inch of space. Um, it would behoove us to go after that money in partnership with the Commonwealth so that we're not out asking folks to dig deeper in their own pocket to raise their own taxes again. We just did that. Um, I I mean that's I'll keep repeating myself until we actually get some of that money. But I think the major point of my whole speech there was a big thank you to uh the director, the chief, the and the chief across the street and to you to uh manager Marino. We really appreciate the work that you did to keep us safe in a time that was not safe for all of you. Thank you, Mr. Council.

Uh, I'd just like to say thank you again to it. I think it goes unnoticed sometimes how much the BW does dig in and and helps this town out so many certain circumstances and fire department and police department also. Um, it's pretty amazing the work that gets done. Um, I'm going to kind of change the conversation not to keep following along with everybody else. I'm throwing on my uh my maintenance planning hat. Um, first off, I don't know if everybody understands what a PLC is. Is this a programmable logic controller? So, basically the brains uh basically the computer. Um, uh, PLC's need maintenance regularly. Uh, more of an inspection and testing of them. Um, and not only that, when you have physical valves that have to open and close, um, it's nice to see that some maintenance is looked at. Um, but in in my head putting this on is that when that was built, there should have been a plan already in place by the engineer to say this is the interval that has to be tested and given to us. Um, that's when any machine that's built or any car that's built, there's a maintenance plane with it. Um, so I think my concern is this hit us hard having this issue. Um it just for knowledge is there any kind of alert if this just how does that alert go out if this uh the locations fail? How does that alert go out to notify people in town that it failed? Better watch out. The alarm parameters are remote call outs. We do get call outs,

high pressure alarm, power failure. Um, and we we got those alarms when we respond to the station. What we thought as far as the the maintenance of the PLC and the and the maintenance of the PRVs themselves that programable logic, the programming is on a monthly schedule. The valves are exercised and they're and they're swapped. So, You know, there's there's two large 16inch PIVs and there's a 6 inch PV. 6-inch PV works in in conjunction with one of the larger uh PIVs at all times. So, by swapping monthly, they're exercised, which is what you know, valve maintenance needs, exercise, you know, exercised and and they go through the pressure cycle. Um, what failed what the failure was and even in the in the izing part of it and and there is maintenance there is a maintenance uh plan. Um it was it was a change over to the to to the PA. So the the high point um the high point set points on the manual control those were tested were told were were told to have been tested during the uh commissioning of the station. Um, but the the actual maintenance is only with the PLC. When the power got lost, the PLC is now out of the picture and everything's on manual control, which is working off regular pressure pilots on on the valve itself. So, we got to incorporate a a power failure uh test, a regular test, right? Um, and that's going to um, you know, that would probably indicate taking things offline, checking elevation in the tank, making sure that the elevation in the tank is

proper because we we were nearing overflow, which could have been another big bench. You know, you start, you know, emptying that water tower off the back of of Bonbar Hill, you rode things pretty rapidly, right? So, we we avoided that, but we come close to it. we came within 2 ft of overflow. So it was it was close. So you're right those you know the power failure uh piece of this has to be checked and you know but the actual exercising does happen. The valves function they're just not being told how to function properly.

So yeah usually with PLC's it goes into like a PLC mode. So that was it. So their fail safes on the manual side were out of range. So we were running with no fail safes, right? Like driving a car down a hill without brakes. So my other question kind of tying into this with this being identified, is there any other systems in town that might need to be looked at or addressed? So on the water side of things, no, the PIV is is I mean that's your brains of of your distribution system. Uh I can't speak to other systems u you know but I'm sure there's building systems that probably could could use you know a more frequent maintenance.

So I'm thinking also on like this is water coming in. What about super going out any systems there that the sewer systems you know is is gravity fed but we do have we do have automated pump stations which I didn't even speak to that but of course with power outage you know we have backup generators on three of our five um so that was you know another thing we avoided any SSOs which is sewer system sanitary sewer overflows so you know we were able to avoid a lot, but we we came close.

I appreciate all the work everybody did during the storm and I feel for everybody's house that was affected by this and it's good to hear that initial steps to to help residents has been done too. I just want to ask one followup question for what council model if you don't mind just in terms of so we covered the the water the PRV system the we spoke about the the sewage system the SSO there was no overflow uh is there any are there any pump systems automated pump systems for the storm water systems

right at the moment it probably will be as part of the engineering design for but as of now no it's completely thank you thank you

council um you know you guys did a great job given the circumstances But obviously it sounds like this PBS are point failure and we're probably going to need to bring them back online before we have power solution for that building. So before it comes back online, is there any thought to put the process where another power get somebody out there has eyes on it while the power is out just to limit this from happening again? Because it sounds like the GPS only lasted about two hours. We lost power at the building. Um so yeah we lost our interface but again those those PIVs don't require power to operate the the fail stage the manual fail stage the manual set points were not um set to the proper range. So um once those set points are properly calibrated the the power outage shouldn't have affected we we shouldn't had an issue with the power outage because we had no fail safes fail safes within the proper range to you know to protect us in the power from the power outage. So, but I absolutely think that we still should have, you know, get the battery back up on the PLC, but you're right. It's it's it's it's it's a limited backup, right? Um, you know, the generator, we do have a generator on the on the pump station, the adjacent pump station. So, you know, I think we should look at at least getting some circuitry from that into the PIV station to at least give us, you know, backup generator power for lights and and PLC and things of that nature. And it wouldn't be shouldn't be a big expense. I mean, at least I don't see a big expense. I don't think you need a separate generator for that station. They're within 30 ft of each other. Thank you, Vice President Schw.

Well, this has been a moment, right? Um, thanks for your work and um, appreciate it. Appreciate our chief, police chief, Tony, you total cost to the town. What would you what would you estimate the cost of this situation? to total total cost of just the water the water piece of it or

anything that is damaged or needs to be repaired. What is the total cost to the town to first of all um estimate the damage and see what we can do to repair the damage as well as repair what we need to do on the town. I don't I don't know the the private property damage. I I would I'm not privy to that. You know, I couldn't even attempt to put a value to that. I'm sure the homeowners have that information. As far as the water repairs, they were all repaired uh for approximately $100,000 just under.

Um I I don't know what other damage. And well, you suggest it shouldn't be an expense for the PIV. uh the the valve again, we're going to be we're going to be requesting that they either sign off this, you know, that it functions properly or or they're going to replace that valve. That's not going to be a town expense. Nothing in the PIV is going to be a town expense. So, the repairs that you would recommend for the town or the changes that you would recommend are not the town expenses. They are from the contractors that failed.

Yeah. Everything that caused this is is in that PRV station which is all brand new components. We just the system is is brand new. So the valves are not an issue. The valves function properly. It's the control piece of those valves that wasn't set the proper. So once that's dialed in, which again it's just that's that's that's just, you know, adjusting set points and and testing it to make sure that it's functioning at the proper pressures that you want to. There's no there's no damage in that station per say expense or just we just made those expenses. We built the system And final question, I do have a question about private property only because as I you know when you have an automobile accident for example and you report it then your next year's insurance rates skyrocket because you reported an accident.

Yeah. So wondering um for those who have had experienced damage to their property, how is the town working with them so that they don't necessarily have to go to their private insurance companies if indeed we can demonstrate that it's a town problem and that the town should be repairing their properties. My understanding, and I'll let Tony speak to it, is that the claims are going to go to our the town's insurance company. Okay. Yeah, we've sent the information out. In fact, I sent some forms out today to people. Anybody who else has claims, please call my office so we can get you the information. I was told two weeks ago that I have to go through my own insurance.

Yeah, absolutely. It's just like car insurance. You have to start. But what council's not realizing is even on a car insurance claim, if you get rear ended and you put a claim in your insurance, you don't, you know, your rates don't go up because it's not your fault, right? They they end up, it's called subregation. and they end up segregating to the other policy. Same happens with homeowners insurance. You know, their policy holder won't claim out. They'll subregate to our policy and our policy will end up segregating to the vendor's policy, but they will be able to make whole, but there's a process in place. They'll start there, but it's going to end up being a Maya claim. You know, I think that's really helpful, Tony, and I'm so glad you said that because I can't imagine that anybody here who's experienced that problem doesn't appreciate the fact that the town will cover it,

right? And that's what we you know that was explained. It's but it's and like anything there's a process. You get in a car accident you don't just say okay I'm not going to call my insurance company you know you have to start somewhere and you start with your homeowners and and that's how it happens. So unless there are home owners that were to take the full brunt of it of course then maybe your rates go up and you get cancelceled that would happen but they're going to subregate to Mia Maya's going to end up you know so it'll it'll end up getting covered in their insurance company unless they have additional coverages that they above and beyond what the norm is then they may choose to activate those but the standard coverage and replacing the components that's all going to get end up picked up by Maya. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, thank you, President Lati. Um, thank you, town manager Marino and DPW Director Kella for the debriefing of of the storm. I really appreciate all the information. Um, I'm grateful for the hours and hard work uh that the DPW crews and all the other crews put in the harshest conditions. The commitment to the community uh reflects the very best of public service and I really appreciate that. My heart does go out to the victims. um in precinct 2 that suffered flooding. Uh I do want to let anyone know that if you have any additional questions, please reach out to me um through my town council email and I would be more than happy to help you through anything I can help you through. Um I extend my really my sincere appreciation to the entire uh DPW team for their resilience during this winter and the teamwork and unwavering dedication to the residents of Winter is something to be proud of. I do have just a couple questions about uh the just the valve boxes. Um Steve, do we have the valve box locations on a GPS or GIS that are tied into our where we can actually go out with with a rod and with a

Yeah, we we we do. Um Okay. Difficult conditions at that time. Yeah. I mean, you know, we were going off um you know, ties, right? Right. Um, you know, one thing if it's a sunny day and everything's exposed, it's, you know, but when, you know, when it's under snow and then under it was that three inches of ice at the at the at the bottom of all that snow, it was made very, very difficult.

Okay. Thank you. And then another thing, just hindsight, maybe we put the the PRV station and the valve box at Deer Island into our our our routes though we're maintaining them during storms so that they're not afterthoughts and we have to and in a state of emergency that we don't have to dig ourselves out that they are part of the route on on a storm basis that it's just stop. It's hand work. It's not a pl it's not a plow. Well, maybe we get a shovel brigade going and Joseph and I had talked about that and maybe that's something that we we need to do as residents to help out. Thank you

uh yes, thank you. So, um I know a lot already said I would also like to thank uh DPW director and his whole crew, our fire chief and his crew, our police chief, the whole police department, town manager Marino, President Lat's leadership during this time. Um, most of the questions I had prepared have actually already been answered. But, um, the one the one main thing I wanted to ask specifically about our town's own water pumps. My understanding is that the town has them for flooding emergencies. They've been used in the past. But, um, why were they ready going into this storm?

They were ready. The pro the pro, you know, they're in our garage and and they are ready to go. The problem is, like I said, we, you know, this was an a 15 plus inch storm with with extreme snowfall rates basically in in in the bulk of this. Pulling people off their plow roots is you just didn't have that option. You would have you would have lost the plow roots quickly. What I mean by losing the plow rout is once once you fall behind on a plow route with with ice conditions under underneath in that much heavy snowfall, you don't recover until after the after the snow stops. It doesn't matter how good your four-wheel drive is. It doesn't matter like when a you know even with a front end loadout. It's like trying to move heavy snow on on an ice rink. Your tires just spin. Once once you if you don't keep up with it, you will lose it quickly. And again, once you lose a street, you lose it for the duration of the storm. So this this conversation about property loss, which is terrible, could be life lost, right? If we lose a street, you don't have access by ambulance, police, they can't access those roads. So heart attacks, god forbid, a child choking, those treatable events, right? If an ambulance would get there quickly become potential fatalities. So, so

I didn't have the luxury or or the ability to pull resources off the plow rooms. Okay. So, what I'm hearing is we have the equipment, but we're short on people. Would would additional um workers or something to that effect would they have been able to help in this?

Additional workers always would would be helpful. Yeah. Um you know, if I had, you know, people to scan during that storm, yeah, we we would have deployed that pump, you know, but again, I couldn't deploy that pump until the water man was was isolated. And you know, we had we had uh a commitment from MWR once we we finished our last isolation at 12 PM. We had a commitment from MWR that they would be on site by 1:30. And they and they tried. There was roadways you couldn't travel. You know, they assembling a team getting their equipment and and getting to Winthrop took an hour and a half longer than they they had hoped. So, and and just me getting, you know, by if I pulled people off the flower rooms and I had to go to the garage and and hook up to the pump, it takes four people to to I mean, you know, um know Mark Sanche, he's seen he's seen the operation many times.

I thank them every storm, you know. So, you know what what's entailed with the pump down there. I do. But you know what? You also have people like me that would contribute to that. I have no problem lending a hand ever, you know. and and I'm sorry I'm gonna speak it's the resource

and I would also uh like to reate councelor Costan's point about um having a emergency relief plan that's more I not necessarily well known I don't know if that's the phrase for it but I feel like there was a lot of confusion from residents themselves what they're supposed to do um once the storm hit I know that we had I believe it was at the coming school we had a center set up late but um if that was the plan we should had an announcement I would like before the storm took place just in case because I I think we all expected there was high potential for stuff like power outages and especially for my precinct precinct 3 a large section of us lost power for almost 24 hours and um very dangerous someone like their phones there they have no way to get communication I think the town reverse 911 called should have put out information to them sooner so they would have the time to prepare and u make their own plan in case need be so they're not scrambling it's my suggestion but I can't thank you enough for all the you and your whole department does, everyone in town. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you once again. Thanks to public safety, DPW is town our manager. Um, you know, we had we we had I'm going to go full circle here, but we did have a storm like two or three weeks before this with more snow, different type snow, wetter snow, and then obviously the wild. Um, we got through the first job pretty well and issues that, you know, we talk about the council all it does doesn't do dayto-day operations, although we might want to and and sometimes get more involved than we should. And we talk about precinct counselors or counselors at large and the bottom line is it's It's, you know, 19,000 people, but it's a small town and people know, everybody knows everybody. So, it could be a water break or or a flooding situation in an area where, you know, oh, it's precinct 1 2 3 4 5 6. Oh, that's second. But it's not. It's everybody knows these people. Everybody cares about these people. Um, you know, even even when we disagree, we still care about our neighbors, right? And and it and it it hurts more, you know, when it's people, you know. I mean it's just unfortunately but it does and it's a it's the size town we have and the closeknitness that we have is very special and you know people yell and scream and everything else and sometimes deser deservedly but in the end you know if somebody's in need everybody's there to usually help him pick up pieces and it's good to see that hopefully sometimes the means to the end are uncomfortable and and not fun and always more time than we wish. Um, but God willing that, you know, people that were affected are made as

whole as possible through through the town or whatever source we take. And you know, our engineer has done a lot of good work for us over the years, but you know, there's also accountability. We will make sure that that's done uh as well as their vendors. Um, you know, it this obviously gets back to the original situation that kind of brings more attention to this and this is the work on tiles. So, the time it's taken and acknowledged, you know, it's been four years since Tonyy's been there and it's been before that. Um, and we've made a commitment and we intend to pursue that commitment. We talk about uh finding funding sources and such and I've talked to the town manager about different situations and different opportunities. I know councelor Taser talks about the bond bill a lot and the fact of the matter is that that's great and we we hope we get as much money as we can. There were billions over billion dollars in the bond fund and we have probably $30 million or or more in projects that were a lot set up by Speaker Deo. We were fortunate to have them there. Um but there it's almost like it's almost like me writing you a million dollar check. it's only as good as what's there and uh and it is totally controlled by the governor um in a situation where the the state the commonwealth is not in in great financial shape right now but um but we will use all means possible we are one town we need to watch out and look out for each other um you know I'm saying this later but I'm holding office hours this Thursday and and subsequent next week also just to you hear more about this subject than whatever people need. But we do care. We're trying to do the best we can. I know Steve did the best he can. I know

sometimes the best you can isn't good enough for a lot of people and and believe me, we understand that. But uh thank you for your patience and and the public will have a chance to speak in in a minute comment. But um I do want to thank Steve again. Chief is here and uh Chief Goodman is not here. Thank you to our public safety police respond and thank you. So I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.

Public comment. We'll ask you to keep it three minutes for too much but uh not precinct. I think I'll use today. Jack, this is a good idea.

First of all, Steve, I understand you're up against it. I really do. Um, but the pump not being on Girdle Stone is really sticking with me. It would have helped. It would have kept the water, as I've always said for years, you keep the water in the street, you don't have problems. Okay. Um, you know, that's a piece of safety equipment and it should be able to be deployed at any time. Um, I'm going to touch on four points. So, that's that's all I'm going to say about the pump. I just felt it should have been there, maybe even prepositioned like they do for a lot of storms. Uh second item is it's about choices, good choices and bad choices. Three plow drivers made a really, really, really bad choice to take their largest truck and two small trucks and plow Girdlestone Road with 2 ft of water in the street, creating a tsunami, which inundated the properties at that point. That's when it really got bad for us. Really got bad for us. I have three pumps going with the capability of more than 10,000 gallons an hour. I want you to think about that. 10,000 gallons an hour I was pumping. Okay, he wasn't as fortunate. He had 3 and 1/2 ft of water in his basement. Okay, and they made that choice. It was mostly in the streets just starting to get to the sidewalks when those plows came through and opened the floodgates because the slush and everything else was holding it back and they made a bad choice. The next bad choice they made was when they turned the corner, made a right hand turn on Marshall where the water

main break was. And as we've all seen on the Weather Channel, never drive through water that you don't know what's underneath it. Flowing water, you should never drive through it. You see it on the weather channel all the time when these flood events happen. Don't drive it. You may lose your life. Well, that driver made a bad choice to drive through the water main break, which subsequently they had to go to a secondary shut off which they had to find. So now the delay is even more. All the while I'm in my basement trying to save my house. Okay, I want you to think about that. A 66 year old guy trying to keep back 18 inches of water surrounding his house. Um, three, I already spoke to that. Um, moving forward, my hope is that we can have some training for our drivers when they see situations occur that they make better choices. Period. Inservice training is wonderful. Just talk about making better choices. That was those were two incredibly bad choices that caused a lot of damage to us and exacerbated what was already really bad for us. Okay. J Murphy on the other side of me had more than a foot and a half in his basement. Um like I said, I think I saw the picture was up to up to here. Okay. And he had just replaced all of that equipment. Brand new equipment. Brand new equipment when he when he redid the house. I feel bad for him. I do. I truly do. Um, you know, I want to know what plan B is going to be when we can't have our pump, which happened one time during the summer when it was just Eddie out there. He couldn't get anybody to come in for him with them to operate the pump. What do we do on plan B? I have some ideas on it. I hope

people reach out to me because I I know I know we can get through it pure and simple. It this is just unconscionable that we had to wait till 3:00 in the afternoon for MWR to show up. I was grateful they showed up and again I went make make sure they all knew that we appreciated what they did for us. Um and to Pat Costan, the only counselor that reached out to me. Okay. reach out to me. To Jim, thank you for putting up with my venting because I gave him a lot. Um, and Kim, you reached out to a lot of people, but the epicenter was Girdlestone Road. You have my cell phone number. Thanks for nothing.

Huh? One. Um, I think many of you know I'm on the climate commission. We did send um an official email to town council. We'll share it with the public. Um, and uh, you know, I'm going to talk about my own comments. U, first and foremost, I want to say I'm so sorry to the people that were impacted. It's the same people who knew that would be impacted. Um, and you know, one of the solutions or one of the action points that the climate commission has put forward is to hopefully have a summit with the climate commission, town council, and hopefully residents this year. you know, mark some of your ideas and Marcy some of your ideas to try to save some of these off of the past. Um, so essentially, um, I touched that we already have the letter. Um, I want to thank Director Kala and Chief and Town Council and your crews. I know it was a herculean effort. It was literally a perfect storm and um, you know, there was just hits kept coming every storm. I know myself at home, I had a little um, sump pump failure after the storm and it was a a mechanical and human error. We got maybe a quarter of an inch of water in the basement and my life flashed before my eyes. I can't imagine what everybody else is going through. Um, you know, that being said, while so many of the impacts could not have been foreseen, many of them could have been and many of them were called out, particularly Tilestone, Gurstone were highlighted as a hot spot by the climate commission for over a year and a half and we shared it, we made it available. Um there are lots of these hot points that were highlighted um by the climate commission and really we just did the consolidation the distilling of this information. This information has been out there and it's been put together by experts in the field and you know we gleaned from that best practices and would really like to get back to to the dialogue on that. Okay. Um and and essentially we really need to seriously look at pulling in resources. Politics aside, you know, I don't think that many of, you know, my fellow residents have the appetite for another debt exclusion.

Um, you know, we we need to look at the capital set aside and and really plan annually to put a serious chunk of money aside for looking at these infrastructure concerns. I think a bright shining spot. I was talking with somebody yesterday at the dentist and they live on Morton Street and they pointed out that this time around that they were not impacted them and a number of their neighbors. So the work that has been done to clean out the drainage and that sort of thing, they commented that that seemed to have been effective and that's you know one of the things that we definitely pointed out as the client. Um, you know, no,

just bottom line is we have an incredibly skilled team clearly on the front lines and we owe it to them. We owe it to our residents to seriously set about doing this work, getting the resources, stop tying our hands, stop preluding ourselves from, you know, these grants. I know um Tom manager Marino mentioned grants. I don't know which grants that we're eligible for. And that's one of the things even though we've still been a little bit dormant as a climate commission, we've been reaching out for opportunities that we're not banned from um because we're not in compliance. And I'm always going to continue to hit, you know, hit the drum beat that let's just submit the piece of paper already. Let's we have more important clearly business to do.

Thank you. I appreciate 19 girdle stone road. Lived there my whole entire life. People are talking about numbers. He's been here for four years and everyone's working on it. Does anyone up there realize how long this is going on? It's not four, five, six, seven. It's been 30 years.

30 years. A quick example I'll give to you. So, two years ago when my mom was still alive, God rest her soul. When you get a call from a home health aid saying, "I cannot visit your mother today. I can't get down the street." a woman dying of cancer in her home. They can't Does it Does anyone here find that acceptable in any way?

In any way. It's obscene. I've never complained to this town once ever. Never been to a meeting. But guess what? Here I am. Enough is enough. Hospice care. Pharmaceutical deliveries to the house. I don't think anyone realize how often this happens. It's completely unacceptable. I just remodeled that house two years ago. Put a ton of money into it because I left the town. I'm My daughter's going to live there. Wonderful. Wiped out. Wiped out. And this could have been fixed years ago. But we're dillydallying with money and this and that. I know it takes time, but how much time really how much time

does any will someone answer me? Is that acceptable for my mother's condition? That's the one thing I wanted to point out. Yeah, we're talking about lives lost and all this other stuff. Guess what? That's serious when someone can't get medical care down the street. I mean, that's as much as I have to say, but something has to be done sooner than later. And it's always we we're moved to it. Here we go. We're going to do this. And it just keeps going by and it goes in circles and circles. It's wrong. Someone needs to do something about it. Like sooner than later. Enough is enough. Marcy Hamilton, precinct 2. Uh, my home and property were damaged by the most recent drainage issues caused by the water main break on Marshall Street. For three plus years now, I've worked tirelessly with this government to ensure that this flooding would not happen again. It took years to investigate and relay the issue to to you, let alone to identify the solution and further develop a workaround to stabilize the problem in the absence of funding. a pump to be put on Gleston Road that served the purpose. The Girdlestone pump was not activated Sunday night, Monday morning, during this extreme weather event, which I did not know all of this was going on. And I so appreciate the work of the DPW right from the get-go and the fire department and the police. As a result, water came coming towards me and I was on the phone with people that I know in this town saying, "Activate the plan. Activate the plan." It was too late. We were in chaos. We were ringing our hands. Men, few men were doing the work of maybe 12, 20 men. And that's unacceptable. My basement, shed, garage, and all my property again were destroyed. This was preventable by the town. After all my

efforts, I feel betrayed by the this neglect and lack of proactivity. This is not new news. This is a drainage issue that you've known about. I've known about since 2017 when a DPW went down into that hole and saw the duck flap and the cracked pipe. And that and one that I've continuously brought to your attention for years. Here I stand yet again to remind you of this problem's history and request the allocation of funds to resolve it. Woods Hole recommended infrastructure repair in 2017. In 2024, the climate commission had a phased plan implemented a plan. In 2025, Woods Hole again told us that this was needed to fix this issue and you committed to the permitting. We have since dismissed the climate commission recommendations due to lack of financial commitment. I demand a vote to be put on the future agenda that will allocate the $4.5 million to in May to fix this issue and end this misery to this neighborhood. As for my property damage, I'll be in touch with the town manager when the total damage can be assessed. I am most concerned with what's happening underneath my home with our foundations and neighborhood as a whole. Our properties have had constant water flow and destruction. This must be evaluated and addressed. You'll never know the stress that overcomes you as water is pouring toward you in your home. Not one person on this board has personally experienced these events, but it should have it shouldn't have to happen for you too as a council to care about this. Thoughts and prayers do nothing to ease the constant worry about my property. It is as it's being damaged every time and time again. And not due to climate, but due to lack of attention on broken drainage infrastructure. That was good.

Excuse me. I'm having problems. I'm actually precinct. I believe

first of all I want to congratulate Steve on his efforts that stop her. I've worked in construction business my whole life. never under those circumstances. I also want to congratulate him on the presentation tonight as well. Thank you s this this is this comment is directed at the criminal you stated on a couple of occasions that you would like to do your own type of presentation for the exemption case amongst others but particularly yourself is a great anticipation that people are waiting for this from of having the state exempt us from the 3A act. So I hope we're going to put that on the agenda before the case is he written and I think it's the Supreme Court. I'm not far. So we're we're waiting with that for that report. I hope you have capable people working as far as uh appointments to committees. Excuse me. We have a very capable new uh precinct three person and is there I believe there's about three vacancies on committees. He's graduating in four years with a masters also very very capable president wants to be involved in town politics but he's getting no uh direction from the president of the council hasn't hasn't put him on a committee yet. masters in four years kind of like unprecedented in my point of view.

I hope and we need somebody a young person to understand what happens at a finance committee for for the future of the town. I believe Kim Dimes is on the finance committee and uh she has her own special kind of finance knowledge which may or may not be any other comments without disparaging anybody. Well, if I did well I can see so if you have other comments thank you that's it sir. Yes,

I appreciate you keeping the comments not directed at specific counselors as as it's been previously noted. That was that was great. Um I think that it's it's confusing and and kind of concerning that we keep saying that our bond rating is going up when there's not the liabilities of these outstanding maintenance issues taken into consideration. um in that that document, that financial report, it feels like something that would be of note when they're assessing what our capacity is to take on more debt when we might have an emergency situation that could set off multiple water main breaks or some other long-standing um issue needing to be addressed in a very short order. So, I hope that you will consider that when you're making the budget for these coming years. We need to be thinking forward for the future. These obviously have gone on for a very long time if folks have been living their whole life here and it's been a known issue since they were born. Um that's that's not the way that we should be planning for the community's future, especially for these neighborhoods that consistently see flooding like this. It's it's really harrowing the stories people have said. So I hope that you're taking that seriously. correspondence Denise.

Um I did receive several emails uh from presidents about the concerning the water man breaks during the flood. All those will be put in the record in the minutes and Rob DeMarco wants to send a big shout out to the DPW. Thank you for all your hard work and everything that you did. school department report uh school department we met last last night. Um the majority of the conversation discussed the uh contract negotiations with the WTA um the school committee has added a website. If you go to win k12.mma us um go up to the top right corner, click down the bar, go to about us, and go to school committee. There's a a web page the the school committee has put up that it's trying to keep um residents informed of the negotiations. The uh the WTA and the school committee has agreed to negotiate in public, so to speak. And if you go to that website tab, you will see um the ask from the WTA the response and and uh from the school committee and uh it will be able to keep you guys informed of what's going on instead of hearing it at a coffee shop or whatever or not hearing it. Um so that was it policy committee. The next board of appeals meeting is March 19th and the next planning board meeting is April 13th. Town manager report has been circulated, but I'll ask the town manager if you'd like to add anything to it or any discussions or debrief the town.

Yeah, pretty uh standard stuff on there. One of the big things I did want to point out is the DBW started today on the work on on the coastal dune on your beach. We said we're going to do it during the winter months. We got a little bit later start obviously given the We're hoping it get out there, you know, mid till late February. Um, but we are starting, we're going to probably get a push done, see how far we can go. I think 200, yeah, about 200 feet of it. Um, and then get it planted, see how long that takes, and then we'll keep going. The big thing is make sure it gets planted. Uh, because otherwise we'll just have sand sitting there without plantings and if the plantings will help hold it during the storms. Um, so that's uh going on. We have been in touch obviously reached out to council Romano let him know since this is precinct and there's a few other key people along that shoreline that have been asked to keep in the loop which I reached out to them as well. One of the big concerns they have is the stairways. Um this first 200 feet is only going to impact one stairway which we're going to leave in place for now and then we'll discuss the uh five or six entry points that we'll have and where they want those. You know this let the neighbors decide is best you know fit what works best for the neighborhood there neighborhood. So um they're you know they're doing a great job. Um is slow work. Obviously, we're starting at the furthest point out and working our way back. So, as we get closer, it'll be a little quicker. But, um, that work is starting. We have to be off by April 1st. Um, you know, for the piping clovers. So, once we get off there and then we'll go back on, um, uh, we'll get back after Labor Day, you know, maybe do a little bit September and then we'll do a little more planting and then hit it again next year. So, we're under a fiveyear plan to get it done. So, we have a little bit of time. So, we're going to do as slow as we can to make sure to stabilize it and it it holds. Don't waste that money.

All right. pass around. So just so the residents know I I think is it April 1st or June 1st? April 1st. April 1st. April 1st. No, I wish I thought June. April we have to have it fenced off and ready to go.

So you're talking about 200 feet. Now this is 1300 foot project. So yeah. So, and this was supposed to start obviously in February, but with the weather, it hasn't. So, potentially the good thing about this is if we see instead of doing 1300 ft and seeing it all wash away, if we do 200 feet or 300 feet or whatever, we get done and do the plantings and the plantings have time to take root and hold and it washes away. Are we on the hook to do it again? Well, we'll go back if that happens, we'll go back to D and we'll try to come up with an alternate plan, but you know,

and so we haven't decided on the five locations for the stairs where they're going to ballpark, but yeah, we want to work with the neighbors. So, make sure we will have it there will be a neighborhood. Yeah, we promise we'd be out on site and isolate the area so they can, you know, I know there's a few people that, you know, it's some access, you know, accessibility concerns and we want to make sure we're close by to them, things like that. So, yeah, we're going to work with the neighbors on that. Um, any questions? Council classia. That's the contest.

I do have a question. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, Andrew Marino, would in light of all the capital expenditures that we're looking at down the road, are we going to have time to do a do be available ready to do an update to the five-year capital plan, including some of the list of things that that that aren't currently funded? We have a lot of parties on that aren't currently funded. I mean, we can add to that list, and I'm certainly looking forward to working with that committee. Okay. And how about how long would would you need to prepare something? It's almost done now. So, I mean, whenever you want to meet, we're ready. Great. Thank you.

Uh, just a note on the meeting with the EO HLC. I know Augustus is stepping down and Secretary Matias is starting April 1st. Um, are you going to try and schedule another meeting? That's the plan. We want to at least get answers to the questions that we had and then once we depending upon what those answers are then we'll look to set up another meeting with the news with the news because I know it was kind of already action but stepping down. We weren't anticipating secretary that sort of caught everybody by surprise. Vice President,

I'm glad that you've decided to have an Excel spreadsheet where we can see what the issues have been presented, what we did about them and where we are on the that schedule. So, um for example, what happened to the trees? I want to be clear on that. That was Yeah, the council president and the um council clerk are working on that. they've taken on that project. Fantastic. I want to thank and I know you'll help

because I know you have some of the things. So, I think that will be helpful because I know um Mr. Morgan has presented some issues that he had sort of said and and just some sometimes it's just questions like who actually is responsible for taking the snow away from the bus stops during so that they're cleared so that people could get to and it just it's sometimes simple that we could answer and it would be clear about whose responsibility it is. So, I appreciate that. And I do see I do think um to follow up on um what um councelor just said, I would like to know where we do stand on the EOLC. So, what what happens to us? And also I did have some um issues that I I sent over to I don't know if you're willing to think about those in terms of what is going on there, but um I'm hoping that you'll at least present some of those issues to them and see what Thank you.

Um thank you town council president. I just wanted to know if you're looking for volunteers for the plantings on the BMS and if so um I would love to volunteer. Thank you. Uh, yes. So, um, I would like to tell anyone in precinct six who has any questions about the BM to either reach out to Roino or myself at J Romano at I think it's what is it ma.gov I believe is the email address. And um, and I I'm just I've learned a lot about this project. I'm still picking up on it. I had a wonderful conversation with you at town, you know, this morning. I appreciate him reaching out to me. I just want to ask as well um you mentioned that with the planners we have 200 we're going to try and get 200 feet done by April 1st. Yes.

So how much will be left? I understand like not not just necessarily footage but like how much time do you think it'll take to do the rest of the project? We'll know after we do the 200 ft you know and that like I said that time frame will get shorter as we get closer because you know less r you know obviously the the front end loader's got to drive all the way to the other end and then come back and get the sand. So the first pile will take the longest. So as we get closer to the end and get closer to the pile of sand it will take less time. But yeah, we we'll know more after we do this January. So they have to be off April 1st. When can we start the project up again? Uh we'll do it right after Labor Day. As soon as the uh club is fledged. Yeah. And then what's your best estimate after from that that point on? Would it take another year or so or just an estimate? Yeah. I would I just want to give you one. Nothing wrong with I just wanted to see.

Yep. Thank you very much. Well, we will keep reporting on this and I appreciate I appreciate the open communication everything that's been wonderful. Thank you.

Thank you. Um business and just again another update on precinct 6 council seat. Um we have had we have four official candidates right now who have put in a letter of interest. One is Martin Finn, another Danny Floyd, another Michael Gillespian, another Kevin Morales. Um, this process has been ongoing. Um, I'm going to ask that I I've heard not officially. So, I've heard that one or two might be withdrawing. Um, so I'm going to give another until the next council meeting to officially vote. Um, but I would encourage anybody who who had a question. I mean there there's a candidate or two that hasn't had any contact and we want to give every candidate the ability to really take a good look at them and and to understand and and have conversations with them. So I'm asking the four candidates if if if they're still going forward that's great and we encourage that and and please let us know if there's a withdrawal letter coming from any of them please let us know that. And also I have had some questions from counselors on a resume in the past when we've done this. For the most part it's always been a a a group of a couple of people that have come in and made presentations and and either have been known to or have a better um understanding from the counselors as to who they are. We we don't know as much about the candidates. So we I have had um counelors asking for resumes to go along and the in the beginning all we asked for was a letter of interest to show your interest in the position. Uh now we would love it if you if you choose to have take a minute to just email to Denise or the council and it will be distributed to the council a

resume for each of you. Um and is it the 10th? So, we will 100% have this on the agenda to be voted on under new business uh on March 24th. I would like to make a motion to take the vote now. Um I would like to appeal the chair's decision. Okay. So, would you do that? Yes. So, I believe that we No, no, no, no. You have to How are you going to Okay. That this is in order. It was on the agenda under old business. It was sent to us when we got out on agenda this week. It said that we're going to take the vote this meeting. Did not say where does it say that? It was sent from an email by our town clerk. She did write to us. We're taking on the agenda.

Did we put that? Is that on the agenda? Old business precinct 6 council seat. That was supposed new business would be if if I was putting it on the agenda, it would be new business voting on precinct 6. I believe as a town council, I have the right to make a motion on anything related that on the agenda. Precinct 6 is on the agenda. I'd like to make a motion related to that to let us take the vote right now. Okay. There's a You're making a motion to appeal the decision of the chair. Okay. There's a motion made. Yes. Second that motion. Second that motion. Discussion on the motion.

I just laid out my reasons why I think we should do this today. If a council doesn't want to do this, they have the right to use the council privilege. But we were told last meeting that we were going to be taking this vote today. It is unfair that precinct 6 has not had representation since November. And I'm not going to keep pushing it off indefinitely. I keep hearing 100% we're going to take this vote and I'm not going to keep waiting any longer. So if council use the council privilege fine that means it has to be on next meeting but I am going to finally take action and I know precinct six is my precinct but as you said today we're all one small town and these people deserve representation. These people deserve representation as did precinct 2 when nobody chose to vote. And precinct six like precinct 2 and all the other precincts have representation from all of us especially from two at large and a council president. Now if you don't think it's fair to let all the candidates be here

told that we're going to have the meeting that happened today last meeting that we're told. You don't think it's fair to have candidates speak their mind and give a presentation to the council. You want to choose to make your own decision based on how many of the four have you spoken to? I've spoken to all four. You've spoken to all four? Yes, I've spoken all four. You have? Yes, I have. Um, again, I don't think it's fair to have a vote when you're talking when you don't have the candidates here. when you don't have it. We have always over the past 20 years had the opportunity for people to give um to give their viewpoints and their speeches before the council. Now you're they were told they were told to last meeting to have it prepared for this meeting.

Yes. They're looking at an agenda like a good counselor should and understand that it would say new business because this is not taking a vote would be new business. Discussion is old business. If this was taken a vote, it would be under new business. I'm appealing your decision. It's been seconded. Let's take a vote. Any other discussion? All right. You need a super majority to pass. No, you do not accord. I can pull it up. Yep. Thank you. Any other discussion? Clarify the vote, please.

Uh would that be for the council clerk? Motion to appeal the decision of the council president. Second by council cost. It is majority vote. Okay. Question to not question to clarify. Will we be able to Oh, sorry. No. No. What's your question? To clarify the motion. To clarify the motion. This motion is just to is to immediately hold the precinct 6 vote right after. Yes. as we were scheduled to today. Allowing our candidates to speak or can we amend? I would like to let the candidates speak. We can Well, the candidates aren't all here. The candidates are told to show up today. No, the candidates understand.

They were told last meeting to show up today. That is a fact. I don't care what you say. Three times that we were going to vote. If you chose to make chose to understand the rules, I understand the rules. Is it new? Have we ever had the the motion to vote on a town precinct 6 council that have asked you're not answering my question? I'm asking you a question. Have we had on the agenda on precinct 6? Yes. We have Can you show me the agenda that we had voting on precinct 6? Just show me that agenda on precinct 6. Can you see where it says vote on precinct 6? Has that been passed? This is the way it's always been done and it's new business. It has to be on the

Oh, it is on the agenda. The old business. I want to make a motion to We have your motion. Okay. Let's vote on I would ask to amend the motion to allow the candidates who are in the room tonight to at least speak on their own behalf. I would second that. Is that acceptable? Yeah. President. All right. There's a motion made and should we vote on the amendment first and then on the Y. Any discussion on the amendments? I think the amendments a great idea. Thank you, councelor Cassenberry. Any discussion on the amendments? Seeing none, roll call vote on the amendment. Counc. Yes. Council Taser. Yes. Council Mal. Yes. Councelor Rearen.

Yes. Councelor Dimes. Yes. Councelor Romano. Yes. Vice President Squ. Yes. President Lati. Yes. Now on the motion as amended, low cost. Council cost. Yes. Council Tesserary. Yes. There you go. Council Malow. Yes. Councilor Rearen. Yes. Council D. Yes. Council Romano. Yes. Vice President Swope. Yes. President Lati. No. So the motion is on the table now. So council uh Romano.

Uh yes. So um I believe the way we previously done this the candidates that are present speed code well how do we uh do we have to nominate the candidates first I believe right after you would definitely have to so I would like to uh the chair would ask for nominations okay I'd like to ask for nominations for precinct six council I would like to nominate Martin Finn nominates Marty Finn is there a second second by councel any other nomin nominations. I'd like to nominate Mr. Gillespie. Second. Any uh any discussion on that? All those in favor? I

Okay, so there were two candidates. Any other nominations? Okay, just and again you could break it at any time but in the past we have always usually nominated every candidate out of respect for them taking the time to put in a letter of interest but it seems to be true in this situation. All right, nominations are closed. Uh we are both we have two candidates that are nominated here. Uh Mr. Finn, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Uh, Martin Finn, precinct 6. Uh, read a little letter I wrote. Try to memorize it, but hopefully you don't mind me reading from the paper. Um, good evening, Council President, President Lati, and members of the town council. Thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight. I stand before you not just as a candidate, but as a lifelong resident of Winthrop. My family has called this peninsula home for generations. And I grew up walking the same streets, attending our schools, and learning the values of this community from those who came before me. My roots aren't just deep. They are the foundations of everything I do. Now I am raising the next generation of that legacy. I have an 11-year-old son, Luke, in the fifth grade. Was going to bring him tonight, but I don't know. He wanted to come. uh he's in our school system. Uh when I look at this decisions this council makes, I don't just see policies. I see the future of my town and the future that my son and his peers will inherit. Um I want to make sure that Winthrop we leave them is even stronger and more resilient than the one we have today. For the past six years, I've had the privilege of serving as head coach for Winthre Youth Soccer and Winthre Little League as well. some of the best years of my life. Uh my office hours are often held on the ball fields. In those six years, I've had thousands of conversations with parents and neighbors. I've heard their concerns firsthand, and I understand the pulse of this town because I am in the thick of it with them every single week. I am not coming to this council with a personal agenda. I am coming with the collective voice of the families I've stood beside on the sidelines. you know, something we talked about

today. One of the most pressing concerns I hear uh in and one I share deeply is the recent flooding that has devastated so many of our friends, neighbors, loved ones. We've seen the damage to homes and the toll it takes on our residents peace of mind and finances, especially following the storms we just faced last month. As a coastal community, we cannot afford to wait. We need to be proactive about our infrastructure and coastal resiliency to protect our people and their properties. I want to work with this council to ensure that Winthre strong also means win prepared. An appointment to this council requires a partner who can step into the work midstream. I'm ready to do that. I followed our recent sessions as you guys know closely and I understand the weight of the budget and the infrastructure challenges you face. Coaching has taught me how to manage different personalities and focus on a common goal. I offer you a commitment to transparency, accessibility, and common sense solutions. In closing, I have the energy of a coach, the perspective of a parent, the history of a lifelong resident, and a deepseated love for one throat. It's from the heart right there. Um, I would be honored to earn your vote and your trust to serve our community alongside you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you.

Council President, council, town manager, chief DPW, Steve, thank you for all your service so far in residents. I feel you. I live on Winth short drive, so definitely have a soft spot for you guys. I really just want to have three phases. I want you to get to know me. Um why I'm running some of my concerns and what I'll be addressing and then last steps just to kind of uh value and kind of uh put more prominence on my experience. So quick uh background about me and I can provide references in formal CV of promrest college educated uh UMass. I have a dual degree in finance and economics BSBA. I also have a master's degree in finance from the University of Southern New Hampshire. I started my professional career in accounting and tax having both undergraduate and graduate degrees in finance working through multiple disciplines of finance and analy roles. I've since transition into the world of real estate and own and operate an independent property management company called Simply Living Property Management and primarily focus on HOA management, accounting and uh project manager for a wealthy few people. Um, one of the things I really wanted to really stand by and uh really literate is why I want to be councilman of prein 6. As one of Winthrup's newest residents, every day my passion and excitement for living here only grows. Uh, specifically for its beauty, our amazing restaurants, and the friendliness of our residents. One of my main reasons for reaching out um and how I wanted to get involved with the community was uh some of the concerns and stress among our peers in the winter nice group and it's called nice and I want to help those people who are struggling and to provide them a vote of confidence that we're addressing their needs every day whether it's a storm or not a storm. Uh voice for the younger generation which I think is under underrepresentative uh under represented in our local government. Uh thank you Joe for bringing that up as well. um someone who

could be really uh someone who could really analyze the numbers in budget and advocate for our community understanding the numbers that go beyond personal will. Um I want to be the front face of DCR. I live on Winthre Shore Drive to ensure they're holding up their civic duty and continuing to serve our beaches and boardwalks at the highest standard and we'll argue for those updates we need in win. So keeping with beautiful. So quick summary. I am committed, approachable, and eager to listen and collaborate with residents of all ages. I would welcome the opportunity to bring energy, fresh ideas, and strong sense of responsibility to city council. And I want to work alongside all my fellow members in service of precinct 6 with a broader win community. Um, thank you all.

Thank you both for the excellent comments. Appreciate them. Open the floor up for discussion. Yeah. Council test.

Thank you, Council President. I appreciate your interest. Both of you. I appreciate the interest of the other two uh folks who who did apply. I would have hoped to have seen them in the audience tonight so they could give their own presentation. I'm sure if they were here tonight, they would have been nominated. Um and and uh it it was it was on the agenda. I would would have expected those folks if they were interested to be in the room. Uh I really appreciate Mr. Gillespie, Mr. Finn, you laying it out there like that and um really giving us something to think about here on the council. I know I've had the opportunity to speak to both of you briefly and um I just hope that whichever way it goes, you still stay involved and um and and there's definitely a room for both of you within town government to because we really need all the help we can get to move the needles forward here. As you've heard you've heard from from the public comment tonight and in previous public comments that we've been in the room Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice President Council.

Thank you, Mr. President. Uh I I do just want to commend both of you for stepping up. Uh Mr. Gillespie, uh Mr. Finn. Um and I know you are new to town, Mr. Gillespie, and I appreciate you, you know, jumping in very early in this in this race here, and you came prepared tonight as well, so obviously you'll be on this council in no time. Uh Mr. defend uh as far as uh your child in the school system. I think it's very very important. It gives a different perspective to this town as it relates to uh uh what is needed in this town for the youth mind you. I know when my daughters were went through the school system here in town. I was very much involved uh at that point. Uh and it's very important that uh you have some skin in the game is my my opinion to this. So I appreciate you stepping up as well. Thank you very much. Again, comments or questions to either candidate?

Vice President, thank you all both. I mean, it's it's interesting because we um often we only have one candidate that comes forward. So, it's wonderful to have more than one in in a precinct. and you all have different strengths and you all bring a different perspective to the community. So I I would love to to ask each of you um how do you see where do you see winre in about 10 years? What do you what how do you envision what's going to happen here and what would you like to see?

I could answer that. just being um a first-time homeowner, I think we should strive to make that really important to welcome younger people to this town, which I think there's a lack of. And I think secondly, um as you mentioned, I I do think that we do have an infrastructure issue that needs to be addressed. So, I really focus on focus on in infrastructure and then keeping the restaurants going um which will bring in younger people like myself to the town.

Thank you. uh myself uh you know big driving force for me as I've told a you know quite a few of you is you know having my son and my stepdaughter went through the school systems and that uh the youth is important and I stated that up there. Um I'd like to see you know more extracurricular activities for the kids. Um I'd like to see our school systems get better. I mean that means a lot to me as a parent and you know it means a lot to everyone in this room and I'm sure of that. Um, you know, I grew up here. Um, it's I still love it just as much, but um, you know, sometimes I get the feeling that it's not the Winthrop of the old that I grew up in. And I'd kind of like to see it in a modern era become similar to what it was when I was a child. My mother was a child, my father was a child, my brothers were children, you know. So, um, and, uh, I'm all in for that. So that answers your question.

Council, we just uh like to thank you both for putting your names in. It can be hard and it's it takes a little bit of a backbone to accept everybody's view of you sitting in the seat. Um, and I guess maybe what has been the most a hard position you've been in where you've been given feedback and be able to express yourself. What has there been a point where it has that you have been in a situation where you've had to keep your composure and ensure uh you can move forward?

Yeah, I could answer that. Um great question and I think everyone around here has experience a lot of difficulties that recent and I think some of those difficulties are the uncontrollable, right? So, when a snowstorm comes or your windows break or you can't get out of your driveway, it's a really unfortunate situation and it happens to a lot of us. Um, over the last few weeks, I've dealt with these issues personally with some of the buildings that I manage. People have driveways that are frozen or can't get out of their house and we have to do the best we can to help those residents in need. Um, and you're always going to receive criticism just because it is the uncontrollable. So you have to put that put yourself in their situation, right? Well, how would you feel if you were in that situation and you have to show compassion and willingness to kind of resolve that issue the best you can and putting you before myself is always the best way to approach that and I think gives you the best outcome for that.

Um, you know what came to my mind? Um, because I had mentioned coaching sports in town for the youth, right? Um, you get a lot of feedback from the parents. Uh, you're never going to make them all happy, right? When there's school age children, uh, you know, why isn't my kid playing? Why isn't my kid playing? So, as of recent, in the past couple years, I've been dealing that dealing with that. You know, they scrutinize you if if they feel like their kid isn't playing enough, even if their kid is, you know, they just think their kid should be playing the entire time. Um, so that's just an analogy I quickly thought of, but you know, at the end of the day, you know, sometimes you can't make everyone happy, but that's that's what it is. You know, that's what you sign up for, and I don't get paid for it. So, um, so that's just what I thought of off the cuff.

One side note on this, too, is that no matter what the outcome is, hopefully there's committees to join. Um, it it's stepping stones to learn more about our government. And hopefully no matter what the outcome is, you join on committee or apply for it.

Uh yes, I would like to thank both candidates for their um for coming today. I really appreciate that and I'm glad that they had uh stuff prepared to say as they as all candidates should have in my opinion. Um I had a great conversation with Mr. Gillespie today. I would really like to thank him for that. It was very enlightening and I've also had great conversations with Mr. Finn in the past. I'd like to thank you both. um going through this process and I hope whatever candidate doesn't prevail, you'll continue to help out our community like council said, join some committees and just stay involved because I know neither of you have haven't been on a council like this before. So, this is I think this is a great stepping stone. Um you guys both have different great ideas, maybe in slightly different directions some places. So, I hope both uh sets of ideas still continue to be incorporated, both still continue to come to these meetings, continue to pitch some really great ideas. So, I'd really like to thank you both today.

Thank you, John. Thank you, Tom Council President. I want to thank all all precinct six candidates present and not present. And I want to just second what everyone else has said tonight that whatever candidate doesn't end up in the seat, please please consider joining a committee and and keep in moving forward with us and and we appreciate your time and effort. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, again, thank you both for being here and for looking at letters of interest in guess I'll ask two questions of each year, a question of each year anyway to start just to see uh where we are. Mr. Gillespie, obviously you knew it or went through, right? November, sorry, October. Novemberish. Okay. So, um as the old senior person here. I guess I would say u can do you think I'm sorry I senior I'm just kidding. Yes or sir.

Um do you do you find that as a hintterance? Do you think that that would be harder for you to come on as a newer person in town or do you do you think that that's a challenge or do you think that's an opportunity for you?

I think not having the experience hands-on in the town is actually an advantage. Um, I lived in the north end for six years. I lived in South Boston for two years. I lived in Quinsey for two years. Um, both of those Quinsey and South Boston were right on the beach. So, I have I'm a beach person. I love the community. And me coming here, getting involved with the community as fast as I did, seeing the disc uh discussion group pages, seeing some of the disconnect and concerns that the people have. Um, I think that came as more of uh an opportun opportunistic advantage for that just because I haven't experienced some of what I've been hearing in other talents that I've been involved with. And I think just my approach on handling things um and my motivation of getting things done is really going to play a strong role in this community.

And and Marty, I'll go back again, but you open my wife's favorite students way back when. She's my favorite teacher of all time. But anyway, um so a couple of questions for you. One is you obviously have a passion for education, your children. Um had you ever had any thoughts of, you know, you can hear your whole life of school committ?

Uh I to be honest, not specifically the school committee. up. I haven't quite thought about pursuing that, but it's not something I wouldn't pursue in the future at this point. And um obviously in your you work the MWR that would make three members of the Y council work for the MWR. Do you how do you address that? Do you think there's any concerns for Not fair?

I I don't think so, honestly, because uh I'm not mistaken. uh did you just do a negotiation or contract with them for 10 years and that was recent? So I don't see many issues coming up that I would have to possibly reduce my vote on. Um you know so I I personally don't think it's a big deal but I mean just my opinion. Uh but any other questions from anybody?

All right. So what we'll do is we'll do a roll call vote. It takes five votes to gather that seat. I guess if if it was whatever it was, if somebody had if both candidates had less than five votes, it would we would redisuss, take another vote, see where we went from there. And you know, at that point, if nobody had five votes, we would probably table. But um no other discussion, roll call, please. And just signify by speak in the cand. Council cost Mont Finn. Council Tassinary Martin Finn. There you go.

Council Mala Gillespie. Council Rear Martin Finn. Council Dimes Gillespie. Council Romano Martin Finn. Council Swope Martin Finn President Lati Michael Gillespie. All right. Congratulations, Mr. Finn. You'll be sworn in before the next meeting.

We have one appointment. The town council approved the appointment of Chris Zuma as a conible for the town of Winto for tournament to expire June 30th, 2029. And this is not a policym board. Chris has been reappointed. Uh that will take place 30 days from today. and public comments once again. Well, it's only 9:00. I have a comment. I just

What I like to do before I come to meetings, I'm going to talk about something is do a lot of research. I I don't come in on I like to write stuff down sometimes. Sometimes, but I did talk to couple of people very grateful and uh I got a little consensus only two people I got a little consensus concerning the uh the negotiations with mass boards suggested by one person that the town should be looking for a shortterm contract to pass for five years. It's a never changing uh financial situation. Don't know what's going to happen tomorrow or next month or next year. So, if we ask for a five-year contract with them for double the amount that we have right now, it would be prudent. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes. I just had a question. Just a quick name and precinct for the record. Oh, uh precinct one, Jennifer Jones. They I I didn't know they're creating a burm somewhere in the town. Yeah, Euro Beach. Euro Beach. Are they going to be doing a burm down near Morton? They can't respond. They're not supposed to answer. You can ask the question. Just public comment, but we will take anything you say under adisement and get back to each other.

When are we going to be talking about a burm? I mean, because from what I've gathered, the burm was destroyed or not destroyed, but shaved down and that's created some problems now. So, I'm I'm wondering like isn't that a priority considering I don't know. So, you're not going to answer me. So, I'm just going to say, can we make that a priority? There you go. Okay.

Hello, Cassie Woodhouse. Precinct 5. Um, one thing I didn't mention earlier, there is still an opening for representation from the town of Winthre on the North Suburban Consortium. Um, I spoke with one of the members on an unrelated matter and I asked him if anyone in Winthre had been able to take advantage of the down payment assistance that is available because we are part of that consortium and he said someone was. Um, however, they tried to call our town hall repeatedly because there is a number for our planning department listed on the website for those down payment assistance funds that are available through the North Suburban Consortium and um they were never responded to. So, they ended up actually calling the city of Malden directly and they were the one that processed their application for them um because our town staff did not. So, they're almost out of those dollars. It's a it's a program that had funding allocated to it and I want to make sure we can try to get folks to be able to use that. You can get $7,500 in down payment assistance. So, it's it's you know, it adds up. It helps. Um and and we need to have someone representing us on that committee to help expedite that. So, just putting it out there again precinct 3. Uh, from what we've heard earlier, uh, our DPW is doing a great job. However, uh, our DPW could use more staff, uh, more people. So, find some money for Steve to hire, uh, all the staff that he needs.

YEAH. COMMENTS. GREAT. UM, I'm gonna give the floor for a sec for a minute or two to uh, Vice President Swope for public relations discussion on women's history month.

Women's History Month. I just couldn't let it go. It's funny because I spent my childhood, we had a lot of politics in their home. We um, we got two newspapers. Cleveland plane dealer in the Cleveland Press and only my father could insist that Elanor Roosevelt's picture be cut out of the Cleveland Press when I would take it.

However, I would like to celebrate her today. She is a remarkable woman. She was a trailblazer as a first lady, a diplomat, an activist, revered as the first lady of the world. and her it's her dedication to human rights, civil rights, and women's rights. She was the UN Commission or headed the UN Commission on Human Rights and wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for NATO and it still stands today and it it included everyone and it made such a difference. It was voted um it was not unanimous but of the 58 people of the 58 countries represented originally 48 voted for it 10 did 10 abstained and and two weren't there so I mean I got the math wrong but essentially most people that were there voted for it and interestingly enough she was unwavering in her in her in her passion for civil rights particularly women's rights and everyone's rights. So that created the basis of NATO and it still stands today as one of the best written documents in the history of the world. So congratulations Elanor even though my dad didn't like you.

Thank you. Um, I will be holding uh office hours this Thursday the 12th and next Tuesday the 17th from 4 to 6 in the council chambers. Uh, the commission on disabilities along with the center of independent living will be holding a presentation for staying in your home um at the senior center. This will be that will be on Wednesday March 25th at 1:00. Um, happy belated birthday and 21st birthday.

I could be wrong. I thought I saw on trying to stay off of social media. I thought I saw was it Tom's birthday the other day. Happy birthday. Motion to motion. Second, second by councilman. All say I I