Planning Board - Regular Meeting

[Music] Okay, it is 6:04. We're going to call to order the planning board meeting. Uh, let the record reflect all members present. We also have our alternate member James on um Zoom. So, we're going to first start off with uh continued from 10725 in progress. Oh, before I stop, we are recording. Um, who else is also recording?

Yeah. Anybody else recording? Either video, audio. No. All right. So, we're going to start with the first agenda item, which is continued from 10725 uh definitive subdivision 32 Mor Road, 0 Claremont Way. applicant James Simmons, Simmons Development Incorporated, owners Edmund, Richard Amen, and Robert uh Clema, Representative Jason Youngquest, Outback Engineering. The scope of work is a seven law subdivision. Is there anyone here to speak on this matter? All right. So, we did receive an email from the applicant requesting a continuence due to litigation negotiations with and a butter. We have discussion on that.

They want to uh Oh, god. Yeah. No, we have an extension which we're going to open next. We have one written up. He wants to extend it to Absolutely. The the applicant has asked for an extension. Um I've written up an extension agreement to be continued into December 2nd. It just needs to be signed by you, the chairman, and voted on. Correct. Perfect.

All right. So, extension agreement. Uh This was submitted uh originally submitted on September 9th, 2024. Property located at 32 Middbor Road, Z Claremont, East Freetown Map 245, lots 29 and 30. And he's requesting an extension until December 2nd, 2025. And I will entertain a motion. I'll make that motion. Second. All in favor? Hi. Uh, let's do a roll call vote on that because we have James on. So, we'll do G. We can't vote on this though. Oh, we can't vote on that anyways. That's true.

Yeah. Okay. I So, passes. Let me sign that. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. I'm sure that's what everyone was here for, right? Consent. All right, we'll go to item number two. Continued from 107 2025 special permit uh commercial composting 89 Chase Road. Uh special permit applicant is John Melo. Owner is John Melo. Representative is attorney Richard E. Burke Jr. Scope of work. The applicant uh request a special permit for composting on a 9.9 acre portion of the Beach Bluff Beach Bluff Farm on Assessor's map 241, lot 41. The applicant plans to use this property for commercial composting. All right. And we are going to entertain a motion to reopen the hearing or continue the hearing or continue the public hearing.

So moved. Second. All in favor? And this we'll do a roll call on Gary. I Steve. Dave. Hi. James. I. So the public hearing, Mr. Chairman, we were just going to say we thought um I'm Richard Burke. I'm uh with John uh tonight with it. It might make sense to do the uh special permit for the recycling in the building first rather, you know, just to switch the order. But of course, it's up up to you whatever you prefer. Think we already opened that, right?

Either is fine. And it just we thought maybe that would be more efficient but whatever you prefer since we open that we should just go with that right. Are you doing them separately? We are doing them separately. So we did composting and then we did the commercial recycling. I mean it's really up to you the chair. So I'm going to say we opened it. I'm going to go with what we opened.

That's fine. Of course. Just one second before we start uh in the I'm just looking for my sheet here. What order water we're going in before we start. First I got to make some conflict of interest um disclosures. First is our vice chair Christopher Melo is the son of the applicant. he has fully uh recused himself um to even come into the meeting. Uh and then I have submitted a disclosure for parents of a conflict of interest. Um spoke to the Massachusetts um ethics board attorney of the day, Michael uh McDonald. He told me to fill out this form. And what I'm disclosing disclosing is um we have to say that John is has applied for two special permits. Uh I am the chairman of the board and I'm one vote out of five of the Grant and authority for a special permit. My family and I are um friendly acquaintances with John Melo's family and himself. uh also approximately 8 to 10 years ago we rented a small commercial space from him for two years. Um with that being said there is no financial or personal interest in either the approval or the denial of any special permit. So we will begin. Oh, before I does anyone else have anything to disclose any relationship either for or against it?

James.

No. All right. So, first I opened it. We are going to uh let the applicant put on a presentation about the commercial uh composting. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Um, so again, my name is Richard Burke. I'm an attorney with Boragard Burke in Franco and New Bedford. I'm representing uh John Melo. Um, the petition for the composting permit is um is for a 9.9 uh acre section of assessor's map uh 241, lot 41. Um lot 41 itself has um 105 acres. So the area that we're asking to do composting on is um less than 10% of the total size of the parcel involved. Uh at the present time uh Mr. Melo uh operates a cattle farm with a a large herd of cattle um on the combined properties that we're talking about tonight, which is lots 39 and lot 41. Um has been doing composting on lot 41 off of Chase Road for over 20 years. Um and he's been doing it even longer than that on other land that he owns in Freetown. He's very experienced at it uh as I mentioned for many years doing it. He's even taken courses on it um to study and and learn um the best practices. Um our belief is that the composting that um Mr. Melo is is doing is an agricultural use um which he can do as a matter of right. But uh he has spoken with the building commissioner and we agreed that we would apply for a special permit following those discussions. Um I think it's important to note that the DP, the Department of Environmental

Protection, the state agency has issued a composting permit um for this location in um 2022. That was following the the state D coming down to the site with uh four people head of different parts of of the D sub agencies inspecting the property looking at the composting operation and and ultimately approving it at that time. My understanding is that um representatives of town boards including the planning board and the conservation commission were made aware of the D. Um uh and and they were at the meeting at the site meeting um and um at following that in in 2022, Mr. Melo in reliance on that permit has made substantial investments in machinery and and other things to do the composting. Um Mr. Chairman,

the D, if I may, Mr. Chair, K Bazaro, building commissioner. Um so he did mention building commission. I'd like to re respond to that by reading into the record my investigative report on that inspection. We we'll just we'll let them finish and we'll we'll read your report and go um

the um so it D continues to monitor the composting. Um it's it and they they regularly monitor it to make sure compliance and that best practices are being followed. Um at the present time all of the compost that's been generated is used on Mr. Melo's farm. Um however he would like to be able to uh sell some of the compost in the future as part of his farm operations as an agricultural product. Um these would be bulk deliveries of compost. So it's not a situation where there will be people coming to the property customers to buy on site. Um at the present time he has not been doing that. As I said it's just the compost is used on the farm. Um the uh the town's bylaws uh uh bylaw section 300-5.1 authorize a the board the planning board to grant a special permit uh for commercial composting and that's what we're asking for the board to grant tonight. The composting location is approximately one mile into lot 41 from Chase Road. Um it involves all organic material um leaves, brush, wood chips. uh they are mixed with nutrients to create uh the compost including um yard material that from the town of Freetown that they bring to the site um at no charge to the town. Um uh previously um

uh in addition to the organic material that I talked about uh from grass um and and leaves and and materials uh they have uh been mixing grass, fruits, vegetables um as part of the nutrients for the compost for a time. They they were also using John was also using um a clam byproduct material from a company called SeaWatch in New Bedford. Um on September 22nd of this year, he stopped that. He has terminated that. He's no as of that date, he stopped taking any um SeaWatch product, the clam byproducts. And that's because there were complaints from uh Butters about the odor from the clam products. Um and you know we we feel we've addressed that concern by stopping that and there's no no intention of of renewing that where that's that won't occur anymore. Um we the the other uh organic material, the leaves, the the brush, that sort of thing mixed with uh the nutrients from uh fruits, vegetables, that does not have any kind of odor, especially when um it's done a mile, you know, back away from the road. Um and and there there really is no odor when it's brought in on the on the containers, trucks that are bringing in the leaves and that sort of thing as well. The um however, we acknowledge that the the seaatch materials that were coming in with the clams that that was a legitimate complaint that neighbors had

and we we have addressed that. Um, regarding Chase Road, um, there was a traffic study done in 2023 which, uh, we've provided the board with with a copy of. It was done by Mass Highway Department, uh, to measure the the amount of traffic in both directions on Chase Road um, nearby this site actually on Chase Road. and they found that um the average daily volume of traffic on Chase Road was 3,790 vehicles per day. Um Chase Road is classified by the state as a minor arterial road which is means that it among other things is capable of handling truck traffic. um truck trips to the site for um composting materials are are variable. Um uh some days there are none. It probably on average is about 12 truck uh trips per day. Um on the busiest season uh there may be 40 uh truck trips per day. Um, however, even at 40 truck trips, that's approximately 1% or less than 1% of the total traffic on Chase Road as measured by um, Mass Highway. Um, with regard to the um, the property itself at um, 89 Chase Road where the entrance is, um, originally the entrance to the site um, was more to the west. Uh that's a narrow laneway there. Um some years back, Mr. Melo moved that uh entrance uh to the um to the east. So as you enter the

property now, there is a paved very wide angled in uh pavement area. It's 89 ft wide uh where it um intersects with Chase Road um and 89 uh Chase Road. Um so there is there is a a substantial on the site turning radius uh for trucks that are entering or leaving the property and trucks have been coming and going on a regular basis for years entering the property. Um trucks uh that are turning to the right as they leave the property have more than enough room and this has been demonstrated they don't have to um they can turn on Mr. Melo's property on that long turning radius. They don't have to cross the center line to go right um as they're leaving the property. Um so there's a safe um a safe uh radius for entrance and exit. With regard to the line of sight for trucks um exiting the property, um if you look as you're as you're exiting, if you look to the left, it's about a a/4 mile of sight line that you have. If you look to the right, it's about 350 ft approximately by our measurements. We're not aware of any accident that has happened with any vehicle, truck or otherwise going into or out of the property. Um we believe that issuance of the special permit in this case uh does serve the the public interest and the town's interest uh among other things that will allow the continued use of this uh 130 plus acre combined parcel for agricultural uses um rather than u more house lots um which there of course could be a lot of here.

Um Mr. Melo would rather keep his cattle and continue to use it um as a farm. Um we also think that composting serves the public interest. um not only by taking the uh brush and and that sort of thing, leaves from the town, but uh just generally speaking, composting is um reusing material, whether they're they're leaves and brush that would go into the landfills or uh other nutrients like the uh the fruit and vegetables that are being recycled and moved into the nutrients. So, it serves the public interest by uh minimizing uh uh more going into the landfill that can instead be reused and uh benefit the environment. Um for all those reasons, um we respectfully ask that the board approve the special permit that's been applied for. U we'd be happy to answer any questions that the board may have. Kyle on um your your letter is in the record um if you want to talk discuss

Mr. Chair I think it's important based so it's the culmination of the investigation if the if you get an understanding what we have so we applied for something on agricultural use that was denied and we said no it's not an agricultural based on my my investigation you said it wasn't agricultural based on what my investigation correct say it is and so I don't speak

to to Mr. Melo's credit. I mean, he gave me access to any place I wanted to look and that's a great thing. He also said, "Fine cow. I'll apply for a special permit and here we are today." Very important uh topic today obviously by the people in this room could have an effect on the town, good or bad. The question is we're getting numbers for now. What does this look like in five or 10 years from now? How many trucks? How much product is coming in? How much is going out? These are all open questions we have. I think in my investigation uh based on what I've seen uh in my research I I would u at least be hesitant in uh in u issuing any kind of agricultural by right use for this. Thank you. Um

so having said that would would the board allow me to read into the record my report? Yes. Go ahead sir.

August 20th 2025 Mr. John Melo. Uh, regarding 89 Chase Road, parcel ID 241-39. Dear Mr. Melo, my office has completed a special investigation as a result of a complaint in an inquiry relative to the certain certain recent developments with respect to the above referenced property located in the town of Freetown. Myself and other members of Border Health have met with you and representatives from D solid waste division as recent as June 17, 2025. At tai time I expressed my concerns about the proposed agricultural use if allowed and without conditions would forever change what that part of free town. However during our last inspection myself and other members of the were encouraged by your comments relative to agreeing to a special permit process whereas the town of freetown and beach bluff can coexist and make decisions that benefit the community and your business endeavor. I totally support the process and look forward to working with you in the near future. For clarity, I've added the following timeline of events and notes from my file. On October 4th, 2023, you applied for a building permit to erect a 50x 100 agricultural building on a property for agricultural use, permit number 2316. At that time, you also submitted a letter that stated as follows. Our new agricultural building at 89 Chase Road would allow us to continue the depackaged animal uh food supply while bringing our employees out of the elements. Unwanted foods which may be suitable for humans will be depackaged prepared for feed for the cattle. Any food not suitable for the cattle diet would be comp compost composted on site at beachcluff farm state permitted compost facility. Moreover, on September 3rd of 2024, you applied for a building permit to a redic hut type building for unsup unspecified use. Permit number 24-3. Permit 23-16

issued on six uh October 1623 and permit number 24-2 issued on September 19th. On May 9th of 2025, I performed an inspection of the property and with two structures subject to those building permits in particular with your permission. I observed the so-called agricultural building that is a subject of the permit number 2316 as being used to store dozens or so of pallets holding large boxes or cases of prepackaged foods including Panera bread microwavable bowl meals bags of potato chips boxes of coffee pots. That structure also contained equipment that appears to be used for some sort of processing of these materials. As I as I observed the bags of potato chips moving up the conveyor type machine, I also observed one or more workers in a so-called agricultural building. Copies of the photographs I took during the inspection depicted these conditions and are attached to this letter. The properties located in the town's general use zone district in which both uh commercial uh composting commercial recycling are uses that require a special permit from the planning board. seat town bylaw section such and such. Based on your October 4th, 23 letter, it appears that composting is occurring on the property. Additionally, based on your July 22nd application to the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection for general permit for recycling, composting or digestation operation, it appears that certain recycling including glass recycling is also occurring on the property. Please note that to the extent of you undertaking any recycling or composting that is not being used on the site for agricultural purposes but is being sold or used offsite, you must obtain a special permit for that use. The procedures for submitting an application for such special permit are set and by the town's bylaw section 300-2.1. Additionally, as of this date of this letter, no certificates of occupancies have been issued for the structures

under permit number 2316 and 242. You may not occupy otherwise operate non constructional activities in either structure until such time as strict occupancies have been issued to the extent that you anyone acting on your behalf or occupying the structures otherwise operating non-constructive activities therein you are hereby ordered to cease doing so until you have received certificates of occupancy. Additionally, please be aware that certificates of occupy will be expressed notice only limited to on-site farming, agriculture use only with no commercial recycling or commercial composting absent from the special permit as discussed above. Sincerely, Kyle Bazaro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

So, as the uh zoning enforcement officer, um he needs a special permit to compost and then remove it from site. Is that your He needs a special permit from this board for composting and recycling in general even if it stays on site. He needs a special permit. Yeah, because it's in general use and under table uses and central use needs a special permit. So, and this is what the process allows. Ne legitimately asking. Good.

Yeah. So, and Mr. Melo did everything he had to. I mean, he complied and he followed the rules. I'm not saying he didn't. He absolutely did. So, to that to his credit. Okay. Just to clarify one point if I could, Mr. Chairman, sir. Uh there was the building commissioner mentioned glass recycling. There's no glass recycling involved on this site at all. Just and that's clear. That's at another location in Freetown. Point of information, Mr. Chairman. So that is on not on that location, but I think we have to take a bird's eye view of what's going on there and look down upon it. So you will see that on there if you did that. I understand it's not part of this application, but it's important into the discussion of the property. That's zoned heavy industrial where the glasses

I I didn't make any I I didn't make any remarks to what the use I'm saying it is there whatever it's permitted or whatever it's there not not on Chase Road okay that's unpre we'll have some order here just to clarify the property that you have applied for applications is there any glass recycling on either of those parcels okay so pertaining to this meeting that's the poss we're going to uh talk And just so we all got to clarify, you're saying he needs it period for compost and depackaging. Uh

from my determination is that it's not an agricultural use. He could have appealed that to the zoning board of appeals. If he felt I misinterpreted, but to his credit, he chose to do the right thing and have the neighbors involved in his decision, which I think is a great thing. And that's why we're here tonight. Yeah. Thank you. It can work if it's done right. But again, we're thinking what's going to look like in five or 10 years. We have Excel on the other side of town which snuck in the back door. We don't want this to happen. We want that. We want to own this as a community. Right.

All right. So, we're going to open it up to the board to ask questions. Uh public will be next. I'm sure you guys uh also for the record, we did do a a site review. uh site visit on September 30th. Yep. September 30th. Uh just be advised during that because all the members were present or four members. Was that four? Right. Four members were pres we weren't allowed to ask any questions so we only got a little look around the the property. Uh if the board has questions about just on the

No, no, no, no. Just on the composting right now. Yes. What are your plans on um going forward with selling product? Do you have anything in the works? Well, you hope to make a superior product that you can uh the green houses can use and things like that, but uh as far as volume uh like Kyle was asking, I don't expect any difference in the what we've done for the last three years under the permit already issued to us by the state. There there's we're at our volume. That's what we're doing. That's it's again uh Richard and I feel it's 100% allowed under agricultural use anyway. But I chose CH KL just asked would you be willing to go for a special permit. I don't have a problem addressing the people. I want to be the best neighbor possible. So we're here today and uh we're not an XL. That's a a large company, different locations. This is a farm. D came and inspected the building. Uh the day Carl looked at the building. I I believe you were there with the D there. And D looked at it and they this is part of a agriculture. We want nothing to do with it. It's agriculture. That's where we're at.

If I will. So, but I don't want to do that. I'm here to get if it's a special permit, I'm here to apply. Otherwise, we can do it under agriculture. But I opinion opinion. You're saying if you lose here, you're going to go back to agricultural. Are we going to have No. No. Thank you. Thank you for that clarific clarification. No, I didn't say what I'm doing. Okay. We're here for a special permit and we're going to go from there. If not, then we'll cross that bridge.

We're going to get to the public in one minute. The board's got to ask some questions and then we'll involve every everyone so everyone's aware everyone will get an opportunity to speak. Doesn't matter how long it takes. I would you know just try not to be repetitive but everyone will have an opportunity to speak. Um you said you're at max or uh you're at volume right now as far as this thing. So what what we seen and what um I believe this what did we do with the drone footage? I'm not going to be able to show it because it's being it's being taped to be a YouTube video, but we can certainly set it up. Did the rest of the board see that or did you just send it?

No, it came in today. So, none of the board members have seen it as well as a um a letter that came in for J. We've gotten new information today, too. But um Okay. The the I So, what we seen when we were there? Do you plan on how much bigger do you plan on get if approved?

That's my permit with the state. That's the max. Mr. Chairman, point of information. So, and Mr. Mel's referred to the state. The state's looking for a place to dump this stuff. So, if we say, "Hey, dump it here. They'll bring it here. They'll give you a permit and give you money." That's not the case. So, this the permit comes from the town. And when towns people at this meeting, the fact there's a permit with the state really doesn't include it in into this local decision. Well, they did have a 30-day window to appeal or say anything. And that 30 day window went by years ago.

So what I'm saying, Mr. Miller, that permit is good. It's good, but that doesn't get you into the town. This meeting does and this board does, and that's why we're here. Agreed. Okay. How long is that permit good for for the from the um they you have to send your report in yearly, but it's an ongoing permit. There's no no dependence. No, you have to stay within D's guidelines in order to stay alive. It does say on the the permit that we um well indicates that in February of 2026 there's a expiration date, but as John said, it has to be repeatedly reapplied for

by February 26. You have to submit your yearly papers and D will continue from their point of view to monitor it as well. Is there a volume number like how how do they how what does D say as far as like the volume is a certain amount of yards that you can

as as far as Yes. As far as uh cattle feed or anything like that, there's nothing. As far as uh leaf waste, your carbons, things like that, trees, uh there's nothing. Um but as far as absolute food waste, per se, yes, there's so many tons a year that you can bring in. It is regulated. Okay. Which is that's the permit and we stay well within those means. Okay. And then you mentioned today and also during our site visit that you have recently uh stopped taking in the clam fish stuff. Yes.

Um and I know obviously a smell is a big part of um people's complaints. Right. Rightfully so. Right. Um, and a lot I I I believe I some people were saying about the trucks I guess that bring it in where

it was brought to be honest with you, it was brought to my attention by a person here and I re I respected it and they said they were cutting a tree and they were working on Chase Road and the truck went by and more than anything that was brought to my attention and I couldn't let it happen. After that, I discontinued with the company and I just there's no smell now other than I mean you got a cow smell, but there's no smell now. So, how long ago did you said uh September some? So, re within the last four

September 22nd, I believe, is when John indicated he stopped. So, there there shouldn't be any after September 22nd of this year. September 22nd. And that's a permanent thing. and he's not going to go back on it. How many trucks did you say average a day go there?

Well, uh what John reports to me is that some days there's none. The average most days is about 12 trips in and um on on the busiest days like I suppose the time of year when you know that your the town and everybody is collecting their leaves in that season there can be as much as 40 truck trips and that would be the max. What's coming on those trucks? Do you want to leaves um uh yard uh brush um essentially right John? Yes. So when you were doing the seafood stuff, how many of those trucks were coming in?

It could be anywhere. If if there's an offshore storm, you'd get none. Otherwise, sometimes you'd get three a day. Sometimes you get us the most you'd usually see is three, but there could be maybe there was four once, but uh it's all about the weather uh out at sea. Set three to four of the clam trucks. All right. Does anyone else before we open up to the public have anything about the compost and itself?

I have questions for councel. Go ahead, sir. Do it. So, first question is if a special permit I think you answered this or we got an email, but I want to put on the record anyway. If a special permit is issued for this property, is it transferable? So, if you don't limit it in the in the special permit, then yes, it's transferable. If you you can make a special permit specific to an applicant, but you need to say that in the decision. Okay. And a second question is what about the D permit? So that that's really beyond the scope of this. I mean the D controls that permit. There's nothing we can do or say about that permit. Okay. So I haven't actually seen the EP permit, but that isn't anything that we could do anything about. Okay.

Could you repeat the question, please? I didn't really hear what you asked. I was wondering if the special permit and the D permits are transferable. And the answer was So the the on the special permit, you may put a condition on a special permit that makes it specific to an applicant, but you have to put that condition on. If you don't, then it then it isn't conditioned on the applicant. The D permit, which I haven't seen, is outside the scope of anything this board could do. So they wouldn't this board wouldn't have a say in the D permit. Does the D be able to rule overrule the towns permit? That's out of our scope, too. Correct.

So, they're two totally different permits. They're regulating different things. So, you would be issuing a special permit that relates to is this even a use that's allowed to happen under your zoning on this property, you know, in this town. And D is regulating for environmental and and other factors. They just they're not they're just ships passing. Okay. Also, we can put uh uh what would you call it? um limits or um restrictions restrictions. I'm just saying and we're going to ask a bunch of questions. Nobody here has an opinion of which way we're going right now. It's just questions. Um you can have

if we if we were to put a restriction on there saying you cannot do um seafood waste. Sure. We can do that. Correct.

I'm sorry folks. Um just sorry I should have introduced myself. My name is Robinstein. I'm with KP Law, your town council. Um, yes, you can put reasonable restrictions on um the permit. It sounds like that something that the applicant's not planning to do, so I'd hope it wouldn't be an issue, but you can certainly put reasonable restrictions on. And I do believe that one of the factors in um section 3002-5 of the zoning bylaw when you look at the special permit criteria um one of the conditions that has to be met for the issuance of a permit is that there not be um you know noxious harmful hazardous that the use is not harmful or noxious. So I think you certainly can take odor into consideration with that and have a condition that accounts for that.

We we to clarify Mr. Chairman, we we would agree to that as a condition. We don't intend to go back to that. Thank you. Point of information, Mr. Chairman. So, in relative to taxation, um agricultural use would pay less in taxes. Mr. Melo's proposal for special permit would pay full taxes to my understanding for that part. So, that's correct. So, so we would give away agricultural use. You also lose a tax base if there's a use for the property. You're aware of that. So in this case, you would be paying taxes not agricultural but whatever the commercial rate is for that. Yeah.

Thank you. Uh before I open up to the public, anyone else have any? How about does James have any questions on there? Good. Thank you. He said no. Thank you. Okay. All right. So we are going to open it up to the public now. Uh I would like to start with uh anyone that's actually in a butter first that got the card and I will need you to just go to that podium with the microphone and just first come first sir. I would like to start with a butters if we can if we have any Well, I'm up.

You're up. Sure. Right up. I just need you to you're have to state your full name and just your address for the for the record. My name is Michael Gross, 99 Chase Road. The concerns I have is the smell. You you if if it's calm, you can smell it. You can't leave the windows open. The other thing is is the groundwater. All of this going into the ground. I got a well. There's other stuff being brought in there. There's a lot of house waste that's not been brought up in this with the clam bellies. You mean clam bell?

Well, we don't want I want We know, you know what I mean? Because it's processed down there and he's it's been dumped into the the bog ditches, you know what I mean? That's not been addressed. But that's the biggest issues is the smell. What about my groundwater? You know, you sir, that it's a big thing. All right. So, why I have you up there? Um, do we have uh a report from the health inspector at all? I do not. We do not sorry we did not receive any

chairman point of information. So health and and building and zoning it was in under the ospices of inspectional services. Yes sir. So we do work on these things collaboratively. Um so they are involved uh in in in the process of investigation and gathering information. Do we have anything in uh I'm not sure. I don't have it. I can only say there's been a cooperation between both departments. I mean this this there's bogs down here and it's being dumped in the ditches too. So, okay. Agrees here from board of health. Oh, she is there. Uh, how about a board of health member?

Can you hear from the board of health? I was going to let everybody speak and kind of wrap it up at the end on what our problem is. Do you want to wait on that then or do you want to address the his concern now? I'd kind of like to hear what everybody has to say and then All right. So, from there I got it here. Um, all right. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other people that are closer first would be great. You speaking first, sir? Sure. Sure. Uh, Jim Marsh, for the record, I represent Frank and Elizabeth Bersron. They're at uh 90 Chase Road, but to 89 uh 89 Chase Road property. Yep. I submitted a letter. I don't know if you We got it this afternoon.

Great.

Um, we're here. We're requesting the board deny these permits that have been applied for. Um we we don't think they should be issued and shouldn't be allowed to continue this operation of processing composable raw materials at the project site and immediately should cease operations. Um the Berserons, they live across the street. Um they they moved in around 2004. um they noticed an odor from the applicant's farm when they moved in. Uh what it's not pleasant, but it's not completely overwhelming and really was just intermittent. But this odor changed uh significantly in mid to late 2000 or 2023. Um they described it to me as entirely different and egregiously offensive. Um they became nauseous. They um it made them uh essentially stay in the house. he couldn't work in the yard. Um, they smelled it throughout the property, often in the house. Um, and they mentioned this the offensive foul uh odor coming from the the um clamps as well um that were unloaded and decomposing at the site. Um beginning in 23 they they observed numerous large trucks uh unloading stop and shop trucks um easy disposal garbage trucks traveling to and from the project site as late as I understand at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Um causing excessive levels of noise uh and the smell from the truck's waste was the same noxious smell that uh that garbage smell that was in the air that they had smelled before. Um they complained to the town uh And I understand the health department um they notified of their concerns um and the potential health effects from these odors and and increased noise too in the

neighborhood. If continued this this operation is undoubtedly going to cause uh unsatisfactory noise and odors uh to their property and adjoining properties. I'm sure you're going to hear that tonight. Um these operations are generally not compatible with the adjacent properties and other properties in this zoning district given that the site is located directly across from uh the street from a residential property and other residential properties along Chase Road. Um it's it's not in harmony with the general purposes of the intent of the zoning bylaw. Um I don't think it's in the public interest. This is a private operation. It's for his own personal gain. Come on. Um, and it's it's causing a diminish in value to my client's property. They purchased his property. They built the home there. At some point, they're going to move on. They're not going to get the value that they expected. Um, the application that was submitted was scant information uh concerning this operation. We've we've learned a lot more tonight from from council and the applicant. Um but still I I don't think there's enough information in here to address um I think several important questions and I listed those in in the in the letter. Does the proposed operation have a plan to mitigate noise disturbances? Does it have a plan to mitigate odor disturbances? How often will inspections at the site occur to ensure continued compliance with all local and state laws concerning noise and odors? Does the proposed operation have a toxic control plan in place, odor control plan, vector control plan, contingency plan? These are things that are required under their D general permit. Why weren't they provided to the board? I get it. As council said, there's sort of two ships passing in the

night, but we got to know about the environmental impacts to this neighborhood, to the people who live close by. We need this information. It's never been provided to us. For that alone, I mean, you can't as a board make a decision without complete information about the operation. For this reason alone, you should summarily deny this this request for special permits. The application also fails to propose any adequate measures to address the odor and noise issues or plan to ensure that the operations do not result in adverse impacts to the neighborhood. Again, this for this reason alone, you should again deny the request. But um at minimum, they should have included um you know the following there. There's got to be a permanent cap on the total amount of organic material whether received or in process or final product to no more than the current cubic yards per acre. We don't want an expansion. We don't want the permits to be issued, but if there were issues, we don't want expansion of this operation. Again, good point by the chair. We don't want this to be transferable. This permit is issued to the applicant and not allowed to be passed to another entity or property. We want dense landscaping buffers without noise reducing plants with noise reducing plants like evergreen trees and shrubs planted and maintained on the project site and around the deox facility on the parcel. We want mature vegetation cut back make the make this as a buffer to uh decrease noise. These compost recycling oper operation should be limited in hours too. We want, you know, 9 to4 maybe on business days only. We don't we don't want Saturday or Sundays when my clients are home, you know, trying to use and enjoy their property.

We don't want it when they're sleeping. A gate's got to be installed at the entrance way and locked during these off hours. There's there should be a cap on the number of loads at a time to control the cumulative noise levels. Uh the applicant must be required to use acoustic fencing sound absorbing mats around the entrance way again to reduce noise. There must be ongoing noise monitoring at the facilities operate at the facility's expense. This should include enforceable noise thresholds. Um there must be proper operational practices in place to manage odors from the composting operation. I've listed a few in there. There must be ongoing odor monitoring at the applicant's expense. There must be no excessively adifferous food waste, the seashells, the the clams, and the outdoor composting recycle operations must be located further away from Chase Road, the Berseron's property, and their neighbors. A longer distance obviously will naturally reduce noise and odor impacts. I listed those, but those are only in the event a special permit is to be issued to the applicant here. We think that under 5.1 of your sorry under 2.5 of the zoning bylaw, they don't meet the standard for the issuance of this permit or permits. Frank Burggeron at 90 Chase Road. So I just want to further, you know, reiterate some of what he said. To me, this is a case of asking for forgiveness instead of for permission first. I mean, why weren't we notified of a special permit when D started? And everybody saw all the stop and shop trucks and all the trucks coming and going. Nobody had a

concern of like, hey, maybe there's something else going on down here. The problem is is there's a pattern of not following through or just untruthfulness, however you want to say it. But I I wouldn't have known about any of this until I I wouldn't have known that nothing was there was no guardrails until there was a a a butters meeting for a special poll that was going up. When I talked to I think the town administrator about I mentioned what about this giant sea shell? I don't see a problem with that. What does that have to do with anything on a farm? Cows don't eat it. They don't mulch it. They don't lay on it. But yet there's giant pile of that coming and going constantly. Um the clam bellies that stopped four weeks ago, but that's kind of convenient because we've talked about a fence, a buffer, a gate, the cars, like so I can provide whatever you want to see of cars in and out late at night, trucks, dirt bikes. Is this a business or is this just a free-for-all? Because there's no guard rails on any of it. Even when asked, well, this is about the amount that we're going to do. we're not going to do. Who gives a vague answer like that? There's no numbers on anything. At some point, you can only take goodwill so far because we've all lived it. And you're choosing to devalue this whole community's property for one person without taking people's opinions when you've had this last three or four year period of this. Things could have changed much sooner, but they didn't. So now we're here like, please, please. Well, once we get on the other side of this, is that an agreement? Did you ever think like we're going to build this up and then it is going to be transferable to a real big company and then the truckload is going to come by the 40, 50 every day in and out non-stop because they're going to care completely about making money.

There's more trucks coming in and out than they Yeah. So, there's definitely more trucks than a few here and there. I mean, let's again, we had I asked for a report from the inspector, and I'm not going to I'm not making it personal, but yet if you're going to take this job, then you should be looking out for the residents because when I asked for the report, they said, "Oh, I couldn't smell anything 50 ft away from this giant pile of shells." But yet, I'm sorry, what what department was that? That was the health.

Mr. Chairman, point of information again, uh, health department is part of inspectional services and Mr. Burgers, we do communicate, we do coordinate, we do put a plan together. It's not nobody's being left out of this. Really mean the town's doing everything we can to make sure this is a fair and open transparent meeting. You That's what I mean. I'm not trying to be personal, but what I'm saying is I saw the report. It's public record. And he said in the report at 50 ft there was a faint smell. At 100 ft there was no smell. I mean, look at the look at the laughter here. And you're one mile you're one mile away. We're good. Everybody here is laughing. Yeah. Cuz they all smell it. You don't live there.

All right. Order. Or order. Or order. One at a time. I just I'm like, how can this be that this whole community is saying like this was disgusting? But yeah. Um, no. No, that's not true. The other thing I like to say is this keeps saying, "Oh, a mile back." The Quanza building that you just put up right behind My uncle's house, Alfred Westgate, is 10 feet off of his backyard. It's a huge building sitting right there. It's not a mile back where the fruit is unpacked. We can see it. That's not a mile back. It's there today. It's there today. It's always there. It's always there.

And when you're in the middle of the summer, that fruit and every the permit said the bulk of the material composted came from the farm feed. The easy disposal trucks coming and going. That's not the bulk of the the bulk of the material is not coming from the farm. So there's too much untruthfulness in here and there's too much vagory for everybody to just feel comfortable with like, oh, sure, full steam. Go right ahead. Well, I could say this is the first meeting that we're actually doing with the planning board. I understand you might have Can I say something? Hold on. I'm

You drive by that every day. You don't ever take a look over. If I was putting a building up on my place, you don't think someone would pull in and be like, "Hey, you got a permit for that?" Yeah. Well, we don't. Planable doesn't deal with building. You don't look at it. You don't look to the side and say, "Hey, bill inspector, when I get to you better take a look over there." Nobody ever does that. What's No, like if you went to town and you saw Carl, you say, "Hey Carl, do you know that?" So, we're talking about this meeting right now. Okay. Well, I'm just talking and I am telling you experience.

I am telling you, this is the first hearing to the planning board. You made some comments that were not listening to you. I'm going to listen to everybody in this room. I just listened. I got a five-page letter from the attorney behind you. I take very serious. I think we're taking it very serious. But this is our first time. We get our information from the zoning. Uh well, I guess when you just had from the health inspect when you just had your meeting with D. I didn't have a meeting. I thought you said you went and you couldn't ask questions. That was our site plan review. Okay. So after I'm site visit was that for that was us just us. But what were you doing a site review for? So we can see it. But did site inspection?

Okay. But I'm I'm trying to clarify like if you went there after you left there you said hey is there a permit for this or what's this about? We were he was already in the process of Okay. That's what I'm asking. That's why we went there because he had an active because there's a lot of blinders and I'm like why those people I like I said I'm not pointing this to Kyle for sure he's been very helpful. Yeah. And I'm everybody's going to tell you about their smell stories and everything else. So I'll let them do it. I don't want to take my time. I just want to say you got a room full of people that are upset about something and there's one person that wants it. Why can't you You got to do better than just rubber stamp this and say, "Oh, that's fine."

I don't think any member here plans on rubber stamping anything. Um like again, we're the planned board. You can you can look up our record, this board itself. I can't speak for board on this precedent. Can I have a permit to do it? Can I have a permit? Apply for one. So I could I'm applying right now then. I'll sit right beside him. And can't apply right now. You have to be put on the agenda. But if you set a precedent, if you set a precedent right now, we hand them out. Like if you hand it out to him, why can't I have one? You can, sir. You can apply for one. I'll apply after if he gets it. I'll be applying. Sure. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'll help you build one in the yard. All right. Yeah, cuz you can smell it. Okay. Anybody else? I'm not in a butter, though. But for next,

it's fine. We'll open up to everybody now. Are you in a butter, ma'am? No, I'm not. Okay. Okay. So, we'll open it up to anybody. Just you could just Yeah. Go right to that podium there. I'll let everybody

Good evening. Good evening.

Uh my name is Nina Laferty. I live at Fort Parker Drive in East Freetown. We've resided in Freetown for 47 years. My husband Mark is here with me. I realize that in Freetown we're relatively relative newcomers because so many people have lived here much longer than we have. Um I have a petition here that I went around my neighborhood. I have uh 34 signatures not counting mine and my husband's opposing the granting of this permit. Um we fail to see what the benefit is to our town. We have trucks coming along Chase Road. Not a big deal. We have very smelly trucks coming by our neighborhood. It's impacting our lives and our ability to enjoy our properties. We are not impacted as much as others who live on the other side of Chase Road on the same t side of this project in the Nick Drive, Cody Drive area where they have seagulls and seagull excrement covering their properties. Um, you really need to think long and hard because the gentleman, I agree, wants to make money. Everybody wants to make money and have their property and do whatever they want to do with it. But you have to look at the big picture. Free town is free town. We have very few regulations, limitations. Um once he starts up with this, what's to stop him? He's saying, "Okay, uh I had complaints about the seagulls and the seaatch uh shells and the odors

and everything." And I agreed that I wasn't going to take their waste anymore. He gets this permit. What's to prevent him from saying, "Yeah, come on in." Nothing. Nothing.

Um let me just stop you there. I'm just going to tell everyone at once how pretty much um the final vote could go. We could either straight up deny it. We could straight up approve it or we could approve it with a million conditions on it. U which would be he can't have anything. Just say for instance, everyone's talking about clams. uh if it was approved and he's we put something that you can't have the um clam shells or the fish stuff come and he doesn't the permit gets yanked right away. Well, it most likely be your department. Correct. Yes. Was the question?

It would be what? It it would be the building commissioner. Yes, it would be the building commissioner. Just I was just telling everyone that we could the process is we can either just deny it. It could be approved with with nothing which would be a little wild but or approved with conditions. But the problem with the issuing a special permit with conditions that you have to list all the conditions you can't have. If you only list this that means everything else you can't have. You be very careful about that. Y exactly. Oh she was asking so I'm trying to clarify.

Right. And I get I get what you're saying and I respect and I appreciate your input, but I think we're all here because part of Freetown is that we really don't have the infrastructure to police this. You're all doing a great job within the within the limitations of your time and your experience and your paychecks, but honestly, we're a small town and you bring in some kind of big business and you're expected to monitor it and take care of it and police it and you don't have the ability to do that effectively. I mean, I just feel like I I can't see the benefit. I see one person benefiting from this. Not the rest of us, not our community, not our environment, not our groundwater. And so anyway, this is the first time in 47 years that I've come to a meeting um to speak my peace. and um I hope you consider rejecting this um application for a special permit. Thank you very much.

Thank you for speaking. [Applause] Oh, thank you. Pass it. Yeah, you guys want to look at this? Should we Should we make a copy? Yeah. N just we're going to enter the we can just enter the stuff right into the record. Yeah, Nancy can take. Yeah. You guys want to see it? We'll enter the petition into the record. You got to make a motion receive and place on file. No, you don't. No. Thank you. They can just things that are submitted at the meeting, you can just take it. Yeah. All right. Go ahead, ma'am.

Good evening. I am here to express my concerns about the business of 89. Your name and your address. Sorry. Uh, Laticia Roseman, Chase Parker Estates. Thank you.

Um, I'm here to express my concerns about the business on 89 Chase Road. I cannot emphasize enough how worried I am about this. One of my biggest concerns is how the quality of air becomes compromised. We all have the right to enjoy time outside without worrying about we are what we are breathing. Our property value is also of high concern. We have all worked really hard to invest in our properties. We live in a nice town where all the departments and town hall have been nothing but supportive. I don't ever remember a time when I needed assistance from them that I haven't received it. Today I'm asking for your assistance. I'm sorry. Today I'm asking for your support with this matter. I understand everybody has the right to start business, but it doesn't mean that it should be at others expense, especially when talking about health risks. I would like to ask if um Dewin Stone mentions about using vegetables, grass, brush, and nutrients. Do they all make that smell? To my knowledge, I don't think they do. Um, we please ask you I please ask you to deny the special permits as I believe I have the right to continue to enjoy our home and feel safe and comfortable. I am concerned about the value of our property as I said it before and I understand somebody wants to run a business but doing so and what to dismisses so many residents quality of life simply is not acceptable. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, Mr. Burke or Mr. Melo, um, just want to ask you again, what what do you think the odor they're talking about?

I think it was from the the clam base. Um, the shells that there is no we've all been out there um the state, everyone. There's no smell from that. That's not even part of this. But, uh, I think part of the clam bodies and things like that, that was the smell. Uh, we've gotten rid of it. Uh, we've ended it. Um, mainly because that one person came to me and I I listened about the neighborhood. Are the council there?

Uh, hold on, sir. Uh, also someone mentioned um trucks late at night. Okay. And said stop and shop trucks. The stop and shop trucks only come during the day. Uh, and that is feed. It's not to do with the compost. That's feed. The other part of this, the other part of the public hearing is so that we can put this inside with your approval because Kyle, you know, Kyle's looking for the special permit. Now, if it not, we'll continue doing it in the front as we are rightfully so. Not to that's nothing to do with composting. That's feeding the cattle.

Stop and shop trucks for the feed for the cattle. That's correct. Hold on. someone in the morning. Hold on. Excuse me. Order, please. So, what again? Even though I'm going to ask her a question. What trucks have come at 2 in the morning or later? I don't know. I'm going to have to look into it. No one should be there. The gentleman spoke about a gate. There is a gate that's closed. I cannot listen. We got to remaintain order. One person speaks at a time and they speak through the chair. Go ahead, sir.

So, what I can't control the neighborhood kids or the neighborhood adults, right, ma'am? So, if you keep interrupting. Yeah. I think the person speaking, those are the PE they actually bought part of the farm at a discounted rate. And now they don't want the farm there. That's a problem. That's a real problem. All right. Um, but you don't So, you don't do you scheduled deliveries at night? Is do they have free range to deliver stuff? You do not.

Okay. Uh, someone also mentioned I believe actual garbage trucks. Anything to do with compost can only be brought in. We bring it in between from 7 to 4. Otherwise, there's no operator there. We can't receive it. John, we have a video of semi trucks midnight hours, 2 in the morning going down there. I'd like to see them. I'll show it. I got tons. We'll get them so I can identify what maybe someone's stealing from me. Maybe. But what I would like to see is order. Come on.

Go ahead. So this is the part you can't just say that I don't have control. It's Frank Berson. You can't just say you just got a new neighbor that you help me. Yeah. So I I'm saying please you know you can't say well I can't control I can't control this or I can't I never said I can't control I don't know about that. It's your property John if people are coming and going. Excuse me. Are you talking for both of us? I've just again

I'm I'm talking to say to you, John, it's your property. So, if trucks are coming and going and you don't know about it, that's a problem. That that gate, whatever you're talking about, doesn't stop. Like, if there's a gate at the end, nobody could go down there. That is correct. There's a gate, not at the beginning of the entrance. So, trucks are coming and going. I don't own both sides of that beginning where his Chase's property is. The black top. The black top. I driveway. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. There's no gate there. You want a gate out at the street? It stops the traffic from going in. That's why How are these trucks going in at night? That I I don't Can you say where the gate is, John? Where is the gate located?

The gate is as you saw when you all met at the barn, the first barn. The gate is right at the end of that rail so that no one can get beyond that point and it's posted. No trespassing. All right. Uh my question was um someone mentioned actual garbage trucks and I we were uh sometimes a town will bring in and I I was in shock myself when I saw it, but they do curbside leaf pickup and that's what's in those trucks. That's uh it might be once a month uh that they offer that. No.

Uh but it'll run. You haven't seen it for a while probably because it'll start. What's in the easy disposal trucks? Yes, the easy disposal. Yes, that's there more than once a day, once a week or month or whatever you said. That's a ongoing when order. I'll let you respond. Let me just finish getting my answer. Okay. We're We're the ones that are going to vote on this. So, we're the ones that need answers. I will let you follow up. Okay. Okay. All right. Garbage trucks coming in. Uh you said curbside leaves are coming in it. Is that what you're telling me? All right. Hold on. Uh, and just while we're on it, would you Is it a roll off or something? An easy easy disposal. It's like a rear load.

A real Oh, it looks like a garbage truck. I I was in truck. I I Cuz I'm What are they doing coming in here? Those garbage trucks are bringing leaves. Leafs. Mr. Chairs. City of Fall River. City of Fall River uses those type of trucks. City of Fall River. Yeah. And what was it? What was the name of that company? Easy Easy Disposal, which is subcontracted, I think, to Fall River. City of Fall River.

Um, you have you've told us that uh leaves, vegetables, um, fruits and other things. I just trying to clarify things and and just get your response. People have I believe someone said you were bringing in trash. Is that No, not at all.

All right. Does that before I let you speak? You keep having your hand up. You want to talk about the smell that you have. They keep saying clamshells. It's clam clam bellies, clamshells, but there's also waste from slaughter houses going in. That's part of the smell, too. You know what I mean? It's like rotten meat. Oh, no. You can smell it. Yes. It's rotten meat. Is there we We had brought a load or two in way back when, but have not trucks that go in there when it's there. I That was animal feed, I assume. Right. Was that what? I think so.

Mr. Chairman, there is a farm there. So th those cattle are being fed and largely the food that they're being fed is uh vegetable fruit by you know uh but in in that instance uh they may have been fed some meat and that may be what uh but that isn't a regular thing I don't believe you don't feed it's being brought in and it's being dumped down best with the No you're right it's mixed then clan if you went down It is meat, clamshells. Not since the 22nd. There's no smell. There's nothing.

What time is that back gate locked? It's you. It should be locked at 4:00. the gate. It's an electric gate, a remote, and uh someone broke through, but we manually uh normally close it at 4:00. Did we see all the composting area? Did we see all the composting area that that you have?

Yes, that's what's permitted. That's what Kyle said about the 9 acres, whatever it is. Okay. So, before I let the next next person speak, anyone have any questions on what we've heard so far? Not yet. Not yet. Okay. Go ahead, sir. Right. It's nice to be with you here tonight. My name is Noah Roseman. I'm in Chase Parker Estates. Um, I'd like to begin. Excuse me. Could Can you clarify what Chase Park or Estates are? I'd let you could say a street name. Yeah, it's goes for anybody. Just so I Nick drive. Nick drive. Okay.

It's Yeah. I I didn't know it. It's a little more than that. It's uh Riley Nick drive. Cody drive. I know exactly guys. Yep. Um do you have a number a number of Nick drive? A house. Yeah. Well, we'll if if if we don't have to, I guess we'd rather not. They have to. Um,

I just like to begin by saying that when we purchased our home, um, like everybody here, you know, we love the property. We love our home. I love to look outside and see just what we have. And what you know, we see the turkeys going by. We love just the way it looks. There's a lot to it. It's really an emotional thing being being a home owner. Um, having been raised in Rochester, Massachusetts myself, if if you saw me at one of the the other town town meetings, I always say that it's God's country, you know, Rochester, Massachusetts. That's what I what I was always told as a a kid. And I intentionally moved here because I just wanted to be around where where I was raised. Um about 8 years ago, my father had the opportunity to come to my house. And I'm very glad that he got to do that because we lost him eight years ago. He was 91 years old. He was 53 when I was born. So getting him to see my house was a big deal. And he said something and I'm leading up to something here. He said, "Noah, boy." And he was already 91. He said, "Boy, Noah, I I love the way the slope is here." He He was 91, a

carpenter all his life, and he focused on that one thing. So, anybody who does any work at my house, I tell them you're in charge of keeping the integrity of it because Bernie Roseman saw what he saw. Um, I worry about what he thinks right now. And I think either he's saying, "Noah, get the heck out of there." Or, "Noah, stay and come to the podium and fight for it." And that's why I decided to come here to speak for our neighbors, for myself, but for anybody that is impacted by this. I came here to speak here tonight. The smell is unbearable. It reeks of animal death. I know one of my neighbors use that term and I said, "That's it. That's exactly what it is." And my wife spoke about that too. I couldn't label it. What is it? It's animal death. I have no reason to believe that if we cease the clams, if we cease the seafood, if we cease No, no, it's going to come back. It's there now. All you need is a westerly wind and it's in your face. I miss the days of having lunch on my rear deck or dinner on my rear deck. I can't. It's nauseating. I can't eat a meal outside anymore. I'm stuck inside the house with closed windows. In God's country, we're seeing wildlife that we've never seen before. There's coyotes coming very close to the house. And on the Facebook page, we're forced to post to each other, "Be

careful about your pets. The coyotes are out." And we do that because we take care of each other. We see all kinds of wildlife now. We big big birds are hovering around constantly. And it's no wonder why the seagulls. I'm sure my neighbors will talk about the seagulls. I, you know, I teach multiplication to to kids. So, what I did is I looked at the roofs and I saw, okay, we're going to do 20 * 20 * 20 * 20. I came up with 160 and I stopped. I'm like, I'm not going to keep counting the seagulls. I counted at least 160. It was a gross sight. And I have no reason to believe that that would stop now just because we're saying that we're not doing certain things like the plans. Oh, there'll be more. There'll be other things. I worry about health. I was an asthmatic as a kid. I worry about what I'm left with, what my lungs are left with from that experience. And what'll happen now as I've already inhaled the bio aerosols. I've researched this a little bit. It doesn't take much to find that composting releases what are called bioerosols. And I dug a little bit to find out what that is. It's fungi, mold, all all these things that are that are in the air that I want to know who would be responsible for. Who would be responsible for the medical bills that I would incur? Who knows when 20 years down the road?

What are the complications that my neighbors will have, their kids will have, I'll have, my family will have, and who's responsible for those medical bills as it becomes a reality from living next to commercial composting or any kind of this depackage recycling. I don't know all the terms, but I worry about the kids. I teach little kids. I worry about kids. That's what I do. I know it's not right up against it, but Freetown Elementary School is kind of like near it. And when kids are out at recess, there's an impact. I know it's not right near it, but there's probably an impact. As the kids are playing outside, they're inhaling the bioerosols. As my neighbors kids are playing outside, their kids are inhaling the bioerosols. It's fungi and mold. Like I said, it's dangerous and causes complications. The property values will decrease. Nobody's going to want to live in the stinky neighborhood. As a matter of fact, my guests that I invite over I've heard their kids say, "Mom, Dad, don't bring me to the stinky neighborhood. They don't want to come." And our guests don't want to go outside. They've even told me, "Noah, you got to do something about this." Well, that's why I'm here tonight because I'm fighting for our property, my neighbors property, and everybody's right to enjoy the property that we purchased with our hard work.

Um, I I heard mention about leaves and I keep hearing leaves, leaves, and we'll take the town leaves. Seems pretty enticing. Seems really enticing to take the town leaves. Almost like you do this for us, we'll take your leaves. There's a lot more than leaves here. Organic matter. I have no idea what it is and I'm not going to pretend that I know all the terminology, but it's more than leaves. It will be more than leaves and I hope the town isn't enticed by will take your leaves. So, right before I leave the podium, just to maintain the integrity of my father coming to the property and seeing what he saw and he's looking down on me right now. And boy, I'll tell you, he's proud of my wife and myself because he saw the slope that he saw. He commented on the slope. He loved the slope. He was 91. That's that's what he came out with. But he's telling me and I can hear him. He says, "Noah, the decision that the planning board makes, just make your next move very carefully because boy, I'll tell you, I want to stay. I love my house. I love my house. I love the land. But I'm worried about our health. I'm worried about everybody's health, the kids' health. I one one last thing in Rochester, Massachusetts, I rode my bike around the block and I never had to smell any of that stuff ever. I lived a peaceful peaceful experience. I want your kids to experience the same. I want them to be able to be out on on

their bikes, whatever they have, whatever they do, and not be raised in the stinky neighborhood. All right, that's all I got. Thank you. [Applause] All right, Bruno Almeida for Riley Circle. Uh, quick question. Do any of you live within like a mile of this place? Just being curious. You don't have to say it, but No. Currently, no. So, okay. Where's Riley Circle? You do? No. I I'm curious where Riley Circle is. Right behind it.

Right across the train tracks. Right in the backyard. So, we get that big wind that just comes and smacks. You're on the uh east side of the railroad tracks. Yep. by Nick Drive and all that. Yep. Okay. Okay. So, how close do you live? Uh, well, my office is at the railroad tracks. Right. How often are you outside hanging around? Never. Right. Very. So, you're not outside drinking a beer with your friends and having that hit you in the face, right? I don't drink. Okay. Or socialize, talk. Yep. sometimes.

Okay, I served my country. I usually let people do what they want. He has every right to make what he wants, money. But this is going over the line. I can't go outside with my friends. A lot of my friends are here. We can't hang outside and have a beer. We cannot. It's You want to vomit? It's so bad. If any of you's lived anywhere close to that, this probably wouldn't even be up for discussion. I'm sorry. I'm just being frank. You guys would have shot this down in a heartbeat. It's that bad. And it's really not fair to anybody here that we work our asses off and have to deal with this. It's not right. He says the EPA's limit them to a certain amount. Right. You're at max capacity right now. We well it's governed by a certain thing.

So you're at max. So if the state came in and said you can triple or quadruple, you would do it in a heartbeat. But I'm at the mercy of this. But if they gave you the permit and let you do what you do and the state came in and said you can go 10 times bigger, you would. You're a businessman. You cannot You can't tell me to my face that you wouldn't. I appreciate you speaking for me, but you would just be honest. All right.

So, anybody in here with a right mind that would work, you would know if somebody gave you that sweetheart deal that you can go 10 times as big. Why wouldn't you? Of course you would. There's no reason he wouldn't. So I just say please think of everybody here. We cannot live there. It's my roof has got shingles missing from the seagulls. I got she shells in my backyard. It's unbearable. And he can say it's just from whatever fish or oysters, whatever. But there's no stopping them if you guys approve this.

There is no stopping them. That's right. This is only the beginning. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Melo, thank you for being going through all of this. Um, my name is Christopher Collins. I live on uh Bayberry Lane um off Parker Drive next to the Laferdes. Uh, I've been a resident of this town for almost 38 years now. Um, my family founded this town, the Cudworths. Um, so I have some experience with what this community has been and is turning into. Um, I respectfully request that we deny this special permit. uh due to the nuisance of what has transpired at uh at this location, the odor is intolerable. Uh it is impossible, as most people have stated, to sit in their yards. Um similar to Mr. Roseman, my grandkids come over the house and say, "Grandpy, why does it smell here?" and I live just about a mile away and it's through the woods and there are trees so the efforts of containing the odor is much greater than planting some trees in the area. Um it was it was publicly stated that this is in the best public's interest. So I'm curious as to how it helps our community. I understand the industry. I work in the industry. But I also know that there are rigid rigid permits that are required to operate waste industry uh facilities. And I'm not speaking on behalf of my comp my company, but I'm speaking on behalf of my community. There seems to be some loopholes that have been stepped through. We've

operated. I think Mr. Berseron said, "We've we're we're asking for forgiveness before permission." So, I I just respectfully request that this is denied. I also ask that the max daily volumes, what is that going to be? What is the permitted volume that the DP is permitting Mr. Melo to operate under at the present time? So, do we have Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, do we have the daily volume?

There on animal feed there is no restrictions. Um on uh food waste uh like six tons a day. It's minuscule. The cows are eating the food waste, aren't they? No. It's different product. So that six tons of the food waste is used for the composting. Yes. back on this meeting

then I think it was mentioned earlier not to be redundant but who's going to be monitoring the daily activity if there's a gate and it seems to be ineffective what measures are going to be taken to ensure that trucks are not coming at off hours again I understand that there are permitted hours for operations but to the Berseron statement there are trucks entering and leaving at all hours of the night. That's a public nuisance. So, Mr. Millow, again, thank you for for listening to us and thank you to the board, [Applause]

Mr. Chairman, point of information. So, ours does not have a nuisance bylaw, so that's not on the table for me to enforce. Okay. Just out of curiosity, if we were to put that as a restrict, just say it was to go in favor, could we put that as a restriction and make it enforceable? But what uh uh hours of operation? Yes, you can have hours of certain. That's a that's a very regular

I'm sorry, I didn't want to speak out of line, but there is no um noise ordinance for different times of the day. So there is by by state regulation but not local. So you talk I think you stood about nuisance where we have no some towns have a nuisance, right? A nuisance ordinance. This town does not. That's not okay. But a noise ordinance is different than a nuisance. Yes. So it is there's a lot of testing we got to do and so something we can look at. Go ahead. I apologize. Is your name Kevin? Are you Kevin? I'm not. You're first? No. No. No. Okay. All right. So,

just a a little history. Uh, my name is Joe Bossy. I live on Costa Drive. You probably know where I live. I know. I was the first person to complain back in 20189 when you had a skyscraper of clamshells about 300 ft from my property. You remember what the finding was back then? Yeah. You moved it.

No. Someone ended up The DP came, inspected it, found nothing on my property. But come to find out, south of you, someone had dumped a load of human waste months before. And that's where that ended up, that smell came from cuz they were trying to figure out, was it coming from my property on Braley Road or was it coming from Crapo Hill? And come to find out, someone had dumped a load of human waste back then. Okay. Nothing to do with my property. Okay. So, is the board aware that this has been going on since 2018?

No. Since 1993. Since No, no, the clamshells. Yeah. 1993. Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. You moved them behind the property behind preferred concrete. Yes. about roughly of that year six years around. I don't

really remember either way the smell became unbearable. I called the health inspector. I had a drone at the time that I was just flying leisurely and I discovered where the smell was coming from because for months I couldn't go in my yard. You'd gag. I mean, going into a dumpster in July when food is rotting is an unbearable godly smell. Has anyone driven behind a dump truck of of decaying food and garbage? You know the juices that smell at the back? Picture that oozing into your backyard. Okay, that's what my whole house smelt like. I had flies like I was breathing them in my house for months. I called the health inspector and it was useless. If this is a smart TV, I'd love to show you a video of his inspection because I have it on video. I called the state. I called him. I called channel 12 because there was a gentleman that poured a clamshell road in Rhode Island and he was fined about a grand a day for about a month until he removed it. And it was just a clamshell road because the neighbors put up such a stink that the smell was unbearable. This isn't tons of clamshells. This was just a road that the gentleman put in to access a farm. Okay. So, lo and behold, I get in touch with the health inspector. It takes months for this guy. I don't remember his name, but I do have a video. I don't recall his name, but anyhow, I had to get in touch with Tony Costa, which is Eurob Butter. Well, at the time, he was Eurob butter. He would not access his land through my land because I'm not an immediate butter. There's maybe 100 ft between us. I had to get Tony Costa, which was an elderly guy, and he was stuck in his ways. You know, him to sign just something stating that the health inspector could walk across his property to access your property. He had concerns, took a long time, but the

health inspector made me, you know, run circles, but he had no intentions to do the inspection, and I have a video to prove it. So, finally, he gets his permission slip to walk across the property on video. He walks down my driveway. He knew what was going on. He wasn't dumb. It's a small town. Everybody knows everybody. He walks down, got a video of him walking across my backyard, never stepped foot off of my property. So, the permission slip wasn't needed cuz he knew he was there and he didn't want to see it. He turned around and walked up the driveway. He was there for about 2 minutes. Okay. Now, you recall the time period because I called the health inspector and I told him, I says, "So, I seen your inspection. What's your conclusion?" And he said, "Ah, I don't know." I said, "So the video that I sent you, the pictures that I sent you of the skyscraper of clamshells 200 feet from my property line." I said, "You didn't find any clams?" "Oh, no. I didn't see anything." I said, "Really?" He says, "You're going to have a lot of answers then because Channel 12 is on the way to your office right now cuz I've got all the video footage of your inspection." I says, "I have a 5gallon bucket of clams that I took from your property that have clam meat on them." Now, you can get away with calling it agricultural as long as there's no meat on the clamshells. When there's meat, you got a problem because it's hazardous waste. There was meat, which is why we have seagulls and crows like we're on the ocean. I got a video of that. If you go to smart TV, I'll show you. Thousands of seagulls defecating all over your property, ruining the paint on your cars, ripping the roofs off your house. I need a roof. You want to pay for my roof? Cuz I can gladly show you what you all seagulls and crows have done to my house just in the last 5 years. Not to mention, I can't use my property. Had a nice hot tub, could enjoy a nice fire. Can't do that.

How How many years ago was this? This was 2019. That's when it started. So, this is not new to me. This is been going on for six years. Six years. I'll I'll give you your permit. You put your house on that property. You put it there. You live there. You live it. You can do it. That's That's my stipulation. If we got to smell it, if he's making a few bucks, I'm talking I'm talking. If we've got to smell it, you should have to live there because it's real nice when you're in someone else's backyard. Yep. Real nice. Order. I don't have that luxury, sir. That's what happened with this.

Um, I would love to show the committee the videos and stuff that I have because I did submit them, but I know how it works. They probably got lost. No one's seen it. I I thought you were Kevin. I'd love to show them live to everybody so you can see there's more seagulls in my backyard than McDonald's. If you're giving out fries. Okay. I've got I've got roof damage. I got crows eating clams on my roof. Have you submitted them to the planning board? I sent them through mail. Through the planning board, I believe so. Yeah. I I'd have to go through my email, but I don't I don't know. I've talked to so many years ago. This was 6 months ago. And I I want to do bring up this though.

I think it's really really convenient that four weeks ago you stopped bringing in the clamps. Are you me? You can't be that dumb. Uh order. Order. I didn't say anything wrong. Public order. I'm not allowed to talk. I'm speaking now. Um Oh, I'm sorry. You just interrupted me. I was in the I'm the chairman. I control the room. Okay. Okay. I'm trying to give you the email so you can send us the video and you're arguing with me. I'm trying to give you so we can get it right now. I can play it on if it's a smart TV. I can play it right here. Are you playing it now or are you playing it behind closed doors? Put the video on. We don't do all of our meetings are public. Order. Order.

Order. Next person that speaks leaves. Okay. What's our email? So we this guy can get our Or you could bring a thumb drive. I I can show you the video. I got about four of them. I have back in 2019 the inspector walking down my driveway going in the backyard turn around coming out. Hold on a minute. This is a different property. I have a thumb drive right here full of videos and pictures like perfect. We don't even think this is the property we're talking no. Listen water.

You will everyone will have their chance to talk. We're not going to yell over each other and argue in here. It's not going to happen. Okay. And then for the record, we by law when someone does an application have to give them a hearing. No one said, you know, I don't think anyone here has their mind made up yet. We have to go through a whole hearing. If anyone here had their mind made up before we started, that that would be probably illegal. That's why we're letting you all speak. And you guys, half of you yelling at us. We didn't. We're listening to all of you. We're right. I got three pages, four pages of notes here from everyone talking. If we don't give him a permit, if he would have walked in this room and I opened up this hearing and said, "Yeah, okay. You're denied." We did that in town before. I think it cost us 200 grand a year for 20 years. What is the planet board email?

So, it's planning. Do you want me to write it? Or you can bring us a thumb drive. He has it on his phone. It's on my phone. And I wouldn't even know how to put it on a thumb drive. I mean, if you can mail it to Can I show you right now? I mean, you could you guys can huddle together. I can show you. You can get on the screen, but you said you sent it. I did. I did. Did you send it to the cloud? No, I sent it. I I tried to send it to Kevin. Who's Kevin? The building inspector. Kevin is our uh health inspector. Okay. So, he's the health agent. Okay. I'm sorry. All right. So, you must have received it then from the board of health.

All right. So if you're from the board of health then I would have emailed it to you cuz he asked me he asked me to email it to his office and he gave me the email address and I emailed it but it was difficult to send it because it's a rather large file. So like I said it got lost but I have it. I have no problem streaming it to a smart TV. being advised by our attorney. If you can get it on the TV, we can what? I can let other people talk and I can try to get it on the TV while other people talk. We can't get it on the TV. I can't. It's too creative later. So, anybody can watch this meeting. Okay, I got you.

So, so I send it to planning free. It's not going to It's not going to send miss. I It's too large of a file. I I had to send it to my private home email and then I had to get creative and you got to shrink the file down with something. If you want to stop by the office in the town hall, I will help you obtain obtain it so that we can take it into the record. Okay, I'm happy to help you. Okay, I just I'm I'm a little frustrated because I already had sent it. Somebody has it. I completely understand. If I can get it from Kevin um Devaris, I will. But I'm also offering you if you want to stop by the town hall, I will be happy to help you put it on to a format that we can show it at the next meeting.

Okay. So, is there going to be a decision made tonight or I I'm just I'm making an assumption that the meeting would probably be continued and then we will have it set up for the next meeting so it can be showed to everyone so we all see it. Okay. Well, just also if anyone is submit wants to submit videos, spring, papers, anything like that, like we got the petition in today. Um, I'm uh Frank's attorney sent us something today. That's all stuff that uh we can't just distribute today because it's within so many hours we have it.

I got you. But um if it is continued this hearing, we can display it on our we will display it on our website and we'll be readily available for next meeting. So if it's continued and you send that to us, we can play it for the meeting. Now we can I believe we'll be able to watch that individually. Yes. You know, it has to be in by Friday or Thursday. Thursday at 10 a.m., right? Thursday. Yes. Before the meeting. So, we have a deadline of Thursday at 10:00 a.m. to take in any new information so that the planning board has a chance to review it be prior to a public hearing so that that's the that's how it's best set up. Okay, fair enough.

Yeah. So, I'm sorry. I got and how it works too is we're we're the planning board, right? We're elected officials. We do two meetings a month. We're unpaid elected officials. So when you talk to the health department or the zone enforcement officer, building department, those are your your people that are there full-time that they can we're not their boss, but we work we do work with them. So if they're doing dayto-day, we might not see something like that. Okay.

Uh if you need the planning board, we need to get a hold of Nancy Dery. She's the one. She's full-time there and she gets us all her information. I tell you, she's good. you send it in, she gets it to us so we can review it for our future meeting. Okay. Um, in closing, I just I want to reiterate what that gentleman had said. There's no guardrails. Okay? And history shows nothing personal. You tend to ask for forgiveness after you've on everybody in town. You're you're going to do what you want with your property. And I'm a firm believer in you should be able to do what you want. I I

Thank you. I like business. I love business. I'm all for it. But, you know, when it goes to the point, you can't tell me you didn't smell what you were doing for years. I mean, it was ridiculous. There I was being told that there was no meat. The the the caveat to you having the clamshells was that you assured the town and the town assured me that there was no meat on the clam because if there's meat on it, that's a serious problem. I don't know if you want to, you know, discuss that a little further, but if there's meat on a shell, you got a problem because that's considered hazardous waste. And you had meat on the clams because that's what attracted the birds. The birds don't eat shells. They eat meat. And they were carrying the shells with the meat and dropping them on my property, his property, his propert. And then they were defecating after eating their buffet of meat. They're all over my house and they're tearing up my roof. I got a video of crows on my roof eating shells on my roof ripping up my roof. Now I need a $20,000 roof. It's normal to the roof, but not when it was because birds tore it up. They have sharp claws. They carry the clams. They drop the clams on your car. I got dents. Look like a golf ball hit my car. It's it's just it's absurd. And you can say you're not going to do it. You did it without permission. Once they give you this permit, no one's gonna stop you. You're gonna do whatever you want. You've done it in the past.

You can you can say all you want. You won't. You do. You did it. History is good. History shows what you're capable of and what you're willing to do. That's it. You spent 30 minutes. We spent 30 minutes discussing another parcel of land in another part of town. Yeah, that's correct. Sir, I I don't remember his name. Joe, I'm sorry. I'm I'm sorry. I just have a question for you. I'm sorry. I won't All right. So, that video is that video of is behind your house by Coaster Drive. The videos that I have um they're all they're all from my property. Yes. All of them. Okay.

There's like five. All right. So, just and we'll still accept any video you send us. Just want to know about the the potholes that are on Chase Road. Is is that affecting your property? Also, the smell. Yeah, absolutely. The the smell. When I get a wind coming out of the west coming in my direction or if we get a morning, everybody knows this. If you get rain the night before

and you get those stagnant air nights that it rained, you know what I'm talking about? And you get a little bit of fog in the morning. You look out and you see that fog on the ground and there's no movement of air. You go outside, you can't breathe. I mean, the air is just so stagnant and smells like death. And I did I didn't know until this meeting that you had brought in animal parts that were decaying. I thought it was just clams. And I'm like, God, it's when I say horrible, it's unbearable. I'm telling the only way you can describe it is picture trying to your worst dumpster experience or the worst garbage truck you've ever been behind when the juices are flowing out in the summer. Picture that covering your yard. I mean, just awful. Embarrassing. You can't have people over. You can't go in your yard. You can't open your windows. It's a beautiful night. You know, you want to be able to hear the animals, the the frogs, you know, on a fall night or whatever. You can't. It's impossible. So, you're running your AC. You can't enjoy your yard. You can't enjoy the fresh air. There is no fresh air. Your car's getting destroyed. Everything's getting pooped on. I mean, it's just it it's not a little nuisance. It's It's all out. I would invite all of you guys to come and put the cleans back and you stop by. We can have the next meeting in my yacht and you guys can all smell it before you make your mind up.

Sure. Um I'm all for it all. You can bring back exactly what you had. I got pictures of it from a drone so we can replicate exactly what you've had in the past. Or um is it How about the birds? When's just When's the last time the birds have been on your property on Costa Drive? Honestly, I haven't seen him in probably I'm gonna guess probably a couple months. Yeah, it's it's probably been two, three months, but I mean I can show you videos. Like I said, I I'll submit my You're far from the site. That's why I'm asking your specific location. I'm on if you if you look on a map, Google Earth from his property. I don't know maybe 1,000 ft, 1,200 ft, 1500 ft. I'm not from from this.

Oh. Oh, yeah. No, no. He's talking about Brley, bro. We're on a whole different page. No, it's the it's the clamshells. I I smell clams. I I've been smelling them for 5 years. I know where they're coming from. All right. You You just recently stopped it because you want to get approval. You didn't stop it to be nice. You did it because you had to stop it. I'm not going to discuss it. So, um Okay. Thank you. It appreciate it. You're welcome. Go ahead, ma'am.

Um I'll be very quick actually. Um my name is Wendy Moral. I actually reside in New Bedford now, have for six years, but prior to that I was in Freetown for 16 years. Um I' I've was part of a group that has fought a couple of projects in our area um successfully that would have had detrimental impact environmental and on everybody's properties and quality of life. Um we just stopped the parallel products trash transfer station that was proposed for the north end of New Bedford in the business park. So that would have impacted all of your lives too if you take 140. So, just for that alone, but um I what I what I want to say is I don't have any skin in the game personally because I don't live this that close right now, but I do have experience and knowledge of what it is to deal with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and I'm here to tell you that they don't monitor or inspect anything. Um they rubber stamp their permits and then they leave it up to the cities and towns to deal with the fallout of what they approved. So, I say that to say to you, the complaints that you're hearing here tonight are going to become solely your problem, the town's problem. And for people to get up and I understand what respectfully, I understand what you're saying. You haven't made a decision yet. You're hearing all the information. I respect that process. That's part of the process. But you're also talking about a town that dealt with um Excel sneaking in, Stop and Shop sneaking in, and and it was all for, you know, for the benefit of the town and big business and tax revenue. But um and and I as somebody who advocates for the environment, I'm I'm all for programs that reduce waste and um benefit the environment and and help the taxpayers, but not at the cost of their quality of life and their property values and their health and their safety. So there's a responsible way to conduct a business like this. I'm in favor of composting, but not in somebody's backyard. That's

that's not acceptable. So, um, I just want to make sure that you're aware and I'm sure you are. You're an agency, the the health department as well. Um, the mass D, they do the rubber stamping and they're doing it based on regulations that are ridiculously outdated, 30, 40 years old. They don't apply anymore. They don't they're not applying things that we now have learned about like PAS and and things like that, toxins that we didn't know about even 20 years ago. So, they just rubber stamp and then it becomes your problem. So I tell you, I just went through this with the board of health in the city of New Bedford. For six years, we fought this project. Board of Health did the right thing in New Bedford. Two out of three voted against that project because they realized that they have a stronger authority to rule what happens in their city and town because it's their city and town. So they know the demographics, they know the history, they know the challenges, they know the the makeup of of the land. And so they respect it. They want to maintain it. They want to preserve it and protect it. So they did the right thing. And so I'm asking you to do the right thing as well by your citizens. Thank you. [Applause]

Okay. My name is Samantha DS. I live on Nick Drive, which is Chase Parker Estates. I have a couple things for you. First of all, I have a thumb drive with videos and pictures. Nancy, thank you. And I also received a written statement from one of my neighbors who wasn't able to come tonight. Would you like me to read it or would you like me to just give it to you? Um, you can you can read it. You can read it and if you have a copy, we'll we'll take it as well. Okay.

Um, so it says to the members of the Freetown Mass Planning Board Board of Health Permit Review Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to express my concerns over the permit application for 89 Chase Road. My name is Maryanne Badgerina and I reside at 9 Nick Drive, which is just a street away from the property at 89 Chase Road. I'm writing to express strong concerns regarding the proposed clamp composting operation at the above address and to request that the board thoroughly review its potential impacts. My primary concerns are as follows: odor nuisance. During activity, there is a very strong and offensive smell emanating from the site. It is disruptive to our daily lives. For example, my family is unable to comfortably use our outdoor space because the smell is so intense. Allowing this operation will severely degrade our enjoyment and use of our property. Attraction of gulls and wildlife. The nature of clam waste, shells, and soft tissue appears to be attracting gulls and potentially other wildlife to the property and then onto our property that brings noise, droppings, and can lead to further nuisance conditions or health concerns. We are concerned about increased wildlife presence and how that may affect safety, sanitation, and peaceful enjoyment of our home, neighborhood character, and property values. A composting operation of this kind in such close proximity to residences risks changing the character of the neighborhood from quiet residential to industrial type that may affect quality of life and property values. It seems appropriate for the board to ask whether the location is suitable and whether neighbors have been adequately notified. In summary, we support we support sustainable practices in reducing waste, but not at the expense of the rights of residents to enjoy their homes, yards, and neighborhood in peace. The current smell and bird presence demonstrate that this operation as proposed or as currently existing is already causing a significant adverse impact. I

respectfully ask the board to deny the permit to protect our ecosystem and the surrounding residences. Thank you for your time and for considering the perspectives of nearby residents. I would be happy to answer any questions or discuss further. Sincerely, Maryanne Baderina, October 21st, 2025. Thank you. Y

and I just had a whole bunch of general comments. Um after speaking to multiple neighbors, not everybody could be here tonight. Um I had one neighbor tell me who they had to replace their roof for $18,000 because of the damage from these seagulls. I have another neighbor who told me that he thought his septic system was failing and he paid $400 to have his system inspected because he thought that's where the smell was coming from. It's not where it was coming from. We are in we are downwind from prevailing winds. If you've ever been into Chase Parker Estates on any given day, it is always windy down there. Every day it's wind. So you can smell it every day. There's a source of water supply in the back of that property. Are there any Has anybody checked to see the placement of this massive pile of shells in relation to the bodies of water that are back there? Are the wetland and conservation rules being followed? Are they beyond the setbacks of the buffer zones for the wet lands? Has there been any type of actual site plan submitted? An actual civil site plan?

Just a question.

Yeah. Um, I mean, I'm a matter of principle type of person and just the simple fact that these activities have been going on unpermitted properly leads me to believe that the proper rules may not be followed even if the proper permits are granted. Um, that's pretty much I guess I'll say on that. So, thank you. Mr. Chairman, point Mr. Chairman, point of information, please. Mr. Chairman, point of information. So, uh, mass so 310 CMR 310 commit regulation subsection 16.01 general requires only read two of them. General requirements. The purpose the purpose of general description. The purpose of 310 CMR 16.00 00 to protect public safety, health, and the environment by comprehensive regulating a the sighting of solid waste facilities and b operations which recycle, compost or convert recyclable organic materials.

Thank you. Thank you.

Mark Prosovski, 115 Chase Roadies, Freetown. A little background on me. I was in the specialized trucking business uh for 19 years. I consolidated and transported all of Dogfish, Skatewing, and Monkfish Gurry out of the port of New Bedford and Fair Haven. Uh it's a material that's considered a putriable as would claimed bellies be considered a putriable. Um I've interviewed with SeaWash International. I declined to do business with them because of the difficulty in getting rid of the material. Um, I'd like to first go to a couple of statements that the uh applicant's attorney made. He stated that the facil the composting site is a mile from the road. I'd like to know how it's a mile from the road when it's only 3,000 ft from my house and my house is situated 80 ft from Chase Road. So there's a little bit maybe he meant to say a kilometer. Um maybe that's a mistake. Grassroots and vegetables or grass and leaves leaf um compost produces a lousy product. It's it's what's called a leaf mold compost. It's not a very marketable product. It's sometimes used in landfill cover. It's what you would get when you go to your local landfill and you get compost for free. You put it in your garden. It really doesn't do much. It's it's it is porous. It does help retain water, moisture, but there's very little nutrient value in it. The nutrients come in compost come from the nitrogenous material. Um, just a little additional background. I did a lot of business with a company called EarthCare Farm in Rhode Island. He's been in business for I had a

conversation with him this weekend for 48 years. It's actually EarthCare Farm was taking the clam bellies from Seawatch International and he reached out to me. I've been in contact with him over the years just I retired 16 years ago. I shut my trucking down. So, I don't have any skin in this game. I'm not looking to go in the trucking business. I'm not in the excavating business. I'm happily retired. The he reached out to me because he inquired what was going on. Why wasn't he getting you know you know the material was had slowed down. At one point there he had ejected the hauler from his site because he lives in a his his house is literally on the farm. He lives on the farm and he limits how much material he takes in very conscientious. It's a certified organic product that he produces. So he is the guru as far as composting goes. Um I realize John says he's been doing it for 20 odd years. I don't know all his properties. I'm take his word for that. Um the when it comes to the initial complaints that I started noticing was um well I'll read a brief brief statement. I lived at this listed address since December 1990. When purchasing the property, it was pointed out to me that there were active farm farms neighboring my land. Living amongst the farms and being familiar with the odors that can accompany them, I did not experience issues with them. And I believe some of the farmers that neighbor me are here and they may attest that I never complained about them spreading manure on the field. I was aware of that. I those are farm smells and I moved in and purchased knowing knowing that. Uh fast forward to 2019 when tractor trailer loads of sea clamps

shells were being stockpiled at the rear of 89 Chase Road. These are generated by SeaWatch International located in New Bedford and trucked to the Chase Road site by M&W Livestock based in Tivetan, Rhode Island. Now, let me stop there. MNW Livestock was chased out of was had a big problem in Tivetan, Rhode Island. They were on main road. They had the contract to haul those shells and what happened was they were making roads out of those shells six feet deep. They were land they were basically landfilling their farm 6 ft at a time and saying well it's roads. Okay. Eventually they get chased out. So that was in 20 uh that was in 2014 or 2016 I believe. Okay. Then they went to Fair Haven. You could see it right off of 195. They were dispatched from Fair Haven and I imagine that's when they found the applicant site. Um, okay. Shortly after the shell started accumulating, put started to permeate the neighborhood, sometimes throughout the day and night. I also sometimes awoke in the morning to dozens if not hundreds of seagulls on the roofs of my structures. During the period of 2020 to 2021, there seemed to be an increase in activity in the form of composting taking place on the property. The activity only led to increased frequency of odor events. The unpredictability of odor and bird events has led me to limit the use of my property for personal and family events. No one wants to come for a family or a social get together and suff and have to suffer the foul loaders and I would not subject friends and family to that. I have to keep my windows and doors closed to minimize the

issue in my home. I also run an air conditioner when I would otherwise prefer to have windows open and fresh air. Additionally, my property value has been diminished as if I were to sell, I would have to disclose this known issue to any prospective buyer. I have reached out to the board of health and building departments and while they're gracious in taking complaints, there seems to be little these departments can do to force Mr. Melo to cease this disruptive activity. Mr. Melo has demonstrated over the past years that he is not operating the facility with the best managers managed practices and granting a permit would be to the detriment of not only myself but the entire area surrounding and surrounding neighborhoods. I implore the planning board to deny the application for the commercial composting special permit. So, additionally, I have a question for the chair if he would ask the applicant um what they have for an odor plan.

We'll ask that question. Do do you guys have a odor plan or one maybe plan? we've eliminated any of the clams and the shells are not they're not part of this permit. Nothing to do with this permit. So, all right. So, when

the the shells are not causing an odor and they're they're not used in the composting. They're they come to the site cleaned and sanitized. They're not they're not part of the composting. The the smell we think we've eliminated with regard to not taking the SeaWatch product anymore. And uh we don't believe there's any smell uh at the present time that's any problem from the composting. And the composting is as the board knows from seeing it set I'll say it's a mile I believe it's a mile from Chase Road back into the property where the compost piles are located. They're not on top of any I mean they're as far away as you could you could reasonably expect them to be. So why and while we were there um obviously he took us to the first building which is the next special permit but then we drove out to the compost and area and there was uh prior to that there was a huge pile and I think that's what we're talk uh separate we're talking about a huge pile of clamshells

those are sanitized disinfect before they get to your site before they can come in and then there was a sep separate fish or clam thing coming in that was being used for the compost. Yes. And then you stop that. That is correct. All right. Go ahead, sir. I want to follow up on his response if I may, sir. Um, how is the material being sanitized? How Yeah. Well, we we can ask that question. How how does that stop? I'm not a chemist. All I know is D and everybody else has approved it. It's a sanitized product. That's all I can tell you.

And is is that something that um I know he had that separate pile of of clams that he says does not pertain to what we're doing here. Do you know if that's something that is regulated by town? Is that something that There is no regulation through D or anything else because it's sanitized. When the other gentleman was speaking,

if there were uh meat particles in it, then it's a whole now it becomes solid waste. What he was talking about a road this and that. Look, it there was a lot of nitrogen in the clam stuff that you need. That's why his friend in Charles Town, Rhode Island, was looking for that stuff back. But because of the smell, it it's it's just not going to work. It's just I we've eliminated any smell.

So he can't and I understand he can't answer how it's sanitized. It's just they're stating that they're sanitized. Um my understanding was that there cook they're cooking them. The process that um SeaWatch International just for the record is the largest sea clam producer in the United States in the continental United States. They have four facilities. I'll provide you with information, contact information for them. Um, and so back to his just one sec. Are we are we talking about the big pile of the clam shells? Okay. Go ahead. Okay. So, see what when they process the clams, what they do is they steam them open.

They don't break them when they're raw. They steam them open. When you steam the cohog, they're cohogs. They're not little clams. They're cohogs. and they steam them up and they open up. What happens is is that if if everybody's familiar with a scolop, a scolop is an adductor muscle. Clam, sea clams have smaller reductor muscles. Those adductor muscles stay stick to the shell. They don't come out of the shell. The bellies are full of sand and you know, they're delicious. You eat them fresh and hot, but you know, once they're cold, they're garbage. They're and they turn they're black. They basically it's a black mush. So the clam bellies are a totally separate product from the clam shells and they're transported in a different manner. They have to come in a sealed container. Um you know and the reason why in Rhode Island he had shunned them for a while is because the broker that handles the shipment of this product which I'll also provide you the information with is One Earth or uh Organics located in Mashp Massachusetts. Um, so there's an intermediary between Mona's hog farms and it's it's convoluted. I understand it's a lot of information to take in, but it's important because, you know, as as the information goes down the line, what happens is the game of like telephone when you were children, you know, as you tell that story, it gets convoluted and and he may not be getting the correct information and I can give him the benefit of the doubt on that. But the So, back to the odor control plan. You have a plan.

Yeah, we eliminated the odor. It's in writing. No, it's a fact. Okay. If I can I approach? Yes. Okay. So, this is a guide to agricultural composting. This has the regulations and what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to have a written plan. Now, if he's been agriculturally composting, he's been doing it in violation to the rules. I I think you'll have to leap through this three pages. Okay. In violation to the regulations. I'll step back.

Can I say that's a very good question because I I did not do I went for a D permit and had to explain what I was going to do. Yep. So that that was a very good question. It's not agricultural. I do did a D permit and I had to explain the water runoff. I had to explain uh what we were going to do for odor control. Okay. So he's right. It's very good. You have Can we have a coffee? That you can have that one. [Music] Um so uh

so so again um we are talking about that big pile of clam shells. Well that is on the acreage that he is referring to. Okay, that is that is on the property. Um, I also have a map here which shows that he's actually utilizing probably more than double the 9 some odd acres that he's requesting to have a permit for. And this map indicates that and you could see it and I could show I could point to you if depending on where you viewed. I don't think he took you on to that site. You can show it to us. Yeah.

Yeah. There's only one spot of compost in we received uh I think was it you that sent us the the drone of the whole No, that's actually that's the chief of police who took that. Okay. We I know we seen Did you guys see that yet? You guys came in today? I also have I have a thumb drive. You already have one? Did you have Do you have his? I'm doing good. How are you doing? Yeah, I know. It came from the Is that the same police department through the building commissioner? I don't know. You have the one for the police? No, I have the same one. Okay. Um, is it I have seen it. Is it R8225? I don't It just came to me this way. Can't open it.

I can't open it. I can't open it here today, but it will be available at the next meeting. We did just get this today. It was to it was past the deadline to submit the stuff which was Thursday at 10:00 a.m. So, we're going to obviously it's most like most likely going to be continued. So, I did I did see it today. Oh, just so So, this is the entrance where they come in off of the off of the roadway. He said 80 some odd feet. They come in, they go by. Here's the clamshell pile. Okay. Here's the wind rose you all saw. And then you go to a big green machine that's out there about right here. Right.

No, I thought No, I thought we went past the green machine. This is a separate parcel. This is cuz we were we seen the bog. Yeah. No, there's another bog out here. There's another bog out here. That's the problem. So, my contention is he is Mr. Chair, we can't see it. Can we do it in some way in front of the applicant? Can we do that? Can I show them that? Yeah. What he suggested? I mean, I I can like hold it up. All right. So, you can Yeah, just come over here. We can hold it up. Uh, it Well, you have the big map, right? You have the big map. It might be easier on the big map. So, if I

Hold on. Hold on, Max. Please. You have You have a big audio or something? There's a bigger one so the room can see.

You can hold it up. So to me it looked like you can mark you talking they can't hear me not on the zoom and my I I don't want to mark your map. Okay. So if if you look at this is this is the subject area for the permit. Correct? No, it's between the two bogs or what used to be bogs. They're drying now. This is this is not the subject area. That's part of it.

That says 9. How many acres does that say? Yeah. No, I think that's the area that we're saying. That's the subject area that you're composting. If you look at this shaded blue area, okay, that also has wind rows. and stockpiles. That is correct. That's what's permitted with the state. So which but because the building inspector zoning officer was saying that the shelves that's really not agriculture so we included that to be part of the commercial property but this he's more accurate. This is accurate. So the facility is actually twice the size of Yes. It's this is 9.9 acres. And if you look at

I'll say no all day long and you can say yes all day long but the shells isn't part of the compost facility. Well, I'll get to the shells and the 61 chapter 61 and 61A in known as the fish gurry king, right? Aka fish head. Hang on. This we want you I mean that's why you have so much knowledge on it. Oh, thank you. Thank you. your guys, right?

Yeah. Which there's no no dispute. His is actually what's given to the state with a state permit. So if we were to scale that map and say and and you know without an engineered an engine map from an engineer civil engineer showing laying everything out. submitted an engineered plan. Showing that that additional acreage is being used for composting. Yes. I did not see that in the submissions. You probably weren't on the board. It's it's the board posts has to post them, don't they? I've posted everything that was provided to us.

Yeah, I'll have to I'll have to review it. Um, but it's going back to the large pile of clamshells. Uh the stockpiling of clamshells is is not a farm activity. Correct. That's correct. Okay. That property is filed under 1A recreation um I'm sorry, not recreational but agricultural or farm tax exemption. I guess you have to direct your questions.

I'm I am directing it to them. [Applause] Go ahead, sir. So the where the clamshells are stockpiled, he's just publicly stated that that's that's a commercial activity um that is taking place on a piece of property that is currently sitting in chapter under 60 chapter 61 or 61A.

Are you directing that to me? Are you asking direct questions to the chair? And that's that is outside the scope of the board. Um, well, I think it I think it goes to what an individual will do in in the pursuit of uh monetary digits. I'd like to I'd like to address that then. I want to help. I will give you address, but we're here for the special and my attorney is telling me that's outside my scope even though it's on the physical property that he's applying for. That's this is why I'm I can address that. Okay. Go ahead, sir.

So, the assessors met with me and uh the assessor's office. So, what we did to play it safe because I I admire his concern about the 10 acres. So, I took 100 acres out of 61A. 100 acres. So, uh the property is no longer in 61. No, the parcel's 260 acres. I took out 100 acres. I'll have to confirm that with us at the assessment. Well, yeah, I appreciate your interest.

Okay. So, all right. We discussed that. All right. Um, make sure

what do we have on that property for um leech aid control as far as retention ponds, filter ponds, and uh andor test wells to ensure that the surrounding waterways because there are there are standing waterways and there are also moving waterways that are run through that property. How is that how is that being addressed? And what what does what has been submitted to the board to ensure that the water is going to be protected that the nitrates the high nitrate levels aren't going to end up in in there um in the water?

I I appreciate the question. Uh you guys aren't DR or conservation, but uh I submitted a plan that was accepted by D for this with swailes at the back of the property. The the two that what were farmer bogs the state would like me to just do some test holes. They're going to eliminate. They're not bogs. I stopped picking them because they were too dry. We couldn't get any water there. Margaret from the concom um

yeah I wonder if she wants to address that from uh from con I mean you're asking me am I asking you

so well so not every groundwater issue is a conservation issue right and one of the standards in your zoning bylaw is that the proposal provides suitable methods of disposal for sewage refuge. Sure. I was just clarifying. Oh, wait. Sorry, I turned I thought I just turned it on. I turned it off. I apologizing that not every um issue that relates to groundwater is necessarily a conservation commission issue because they deal with wetlands and jurisdictional wetlands and such things. and that um I do think under the standards in your bylaw under 300 2.5 it would be appropriate to ask the applicant to provide information and not just say well I gave it to D. I think it is a fair

we would we will certainly provide a copy of the D plan. Yep. So just so the board can see what the proposal for example in 302.5 there's references to um suitable methods for disposal of sewage refues and other waste and um on-site drainage systems that protects adjoining properties wetlands water cars water bodies. Those are issues for zoning even if separately they're D is so um I think it's a fair question and you guys will submit that. Yes, we will. we'll give you whatever we have we that we submitted to the DB.

So he has uh presently in the past month 6 weeks probably been taking material in putting it up not turning it. Um and those piles that are all there have gone anorobic basically without air. And when he goes to turn them you your your personal phone's going to ring off the hook. I mean, you know, you're going to have to shut the phones off because it's just going to be mind-boggling. Um, when you you turn those piles, um, I'd like to ask him what ratio does he use when he's turn when he's incorporating putricles in with the um with the carbon if you want to answer that.

I I don't think I want to address anything with a guy that's been a competitor for so many years in the fish gurry business. How many years were you in the official? I was in it for 19 years. I've been retired for 16. August 31st was 16 years that I You've turned me into the registry of motor vehicles, the board of health, every department that you can turn me into. The ratio is 6 to1. So if you want to get the ratio is 6:1. Okay. Thank you, sir. By that would be by by volume, not by weight. And actually the appropriate ratio would be 7 to1, but I'm not going to argue one bucket

opinion. No, that's from people who've been doing it for close to 50 years, who are the premier composters in the industry. So, one of the a couple of the gases that are released when you turn a compost pile are putrizine, which is a tribonded um molecule, and proerine. So, some research should be done by the board on that. And that's that's what's wasting over people's properties. Um my my last concern um because I don't want to beat it to death because I'm sure other people want to speak the is that over the in the past um Mr. Melo is very polite, very cordial and very promising of delivering um results, you know, and remedies, but he's demonstrated where he doesn't deliver. He doesn't deliver in a timely fashion. And you know, granting this permit would subject the town's people to having to go to the the regulating authorities, file a complaint, hope that somebody comes out and smells it, documents it, and then I'll ask the town attorney, what is the what is the penalty for a violation? I mean, you want me to

through you? I mean, I just, you know, um, is it is is it so a penalty limited statutoily? I'm I'm happy to just through you. I don't normally just, you know,

um, so just just answer ask the question again. So what is the penalty for an o if so if if if the permit were granted and he was m the operator was found to be in violation of an o an o release or you know a complaint. What are the what are the penalties? I mean, I'm assuming there's a civil fine that would be that's imparted by the town. And is that civil fine limited by statute or can the licensing board uh develop a schedule of of regulatory fines? In other words, so so they not if but when there is an issue and there will be okay that there there are severe penalties and not just $100 a day. There's a lot of money involved in this tipping fees for clam bellies are $65 a ton. That's an hour and 20 minutes away from here. Okay. The fact that it's closer probably means he might be getting more. He might be getting less. I don't know. But I know that's what the rate is in Charleston, Rhode Island. So the question is is if if it's 11 or $1,200 a load for a load of clam bellies and you take two or three a day and you get a $100 fine, who cares? You pay the fine. It's that's that's what business is about. So there has to be rigid the town has to develop rigid rigid standards that before they can even consider granting a permit that we don't have any regulator regulatory authority over

do you know if there is um so we have two attorneys here and I respectfully stay within my lane on this but according what we have is $50 fine the first time $100 fine and the second 150 the third I do have an option to go to the courts and do a TTRO temporary restraining order. We we know how to do that in town. We will do that. That's also an option. And and what would be the punishment for uh violating a u temporary restraining order? That'd be up to the court. Yeah. Yes. You have anything to add on that or

No, I mean generally zoning is focused more on enforcement and compliance than fines. there are, you know, 21 defines available and those are the the amounts that Carl's talking about. But our focus is usually just if we have to on bringing compliance about because that's the ultimate goal of zoning. Okay? And I'm going to give you some records that I want uh information I want you to put in the record that uh will demonstrate the um you'll have to read through it. It's minutes of meetings that will demonstrate the less than cooperative nature of the applicant when it comes to resolving problems. And I won't state the nature of that here tonight if that's okay.

Um, can we accept that? I mean, you can take it anything that's given object to I have no idea. I mean, if it's some kind of a character assassination that he's trying to absolutely not. It is. So, I mean, I don't think you can refuse to take something in, but it does become a public record and anybody can come. This is this is someone that sits on another board that has sent out to all the boards, including yours, asking that no permits be given to me on a project on a water board that he's on. I I can't This is This is He's attacking.

I'm sorry. And the board will give the things the weight they deserve, but they can't refuse to take material. It becomes a public record. What this will demonst What this will demonstrate is a request and a lack of response. Another request, a lack of response. Another request, a lack of response. A letter, a lack of response. He's using the waterboard. No, I'm not. I'm using minutes from of the public record. These were downloaded from the town website. Anybody here can I get a chance to talk right and No sir, it's my time. Okay, go ahead. When he addresses you, you can't

the anybody here can go on to the town website, go to minutes and agenda and you can pull up the meeting minutes from anything. It's all public record, anything that's said. And I was not the individual who made that motion. I will I will you will see in the minutes in the in the second or last meeting. So I'm going to submit that and show it's not it's it's it's it's demonstrative. His best friend was it's demonstrative of his response to authority.

Did I comply? I had to hire an engineer. as soon as the engineer they wanted an as built for the water line that was done 15 or 20 years ago. So I had to get an engineer that could go there. We did it. It was 10 years old. As soon as we could do it, we got it done. And do you have it? What's that? The as built. We do have the asbuilt. Thank you. And we didn't get the as built until a motion was made and a motion was carried to hold all permits. kind of want to call to order about what we're actually doing here at 39. We can submit it to um to us.

Okay, that's keep the meeting minutes. Okay, here's my statement contact for I just have to Okay. Um I'll ask you back up there. See what's international information, contact information. one organic.

That's the broker that handles it. Um, and I thought I had Moon's Hot. It was stated in the record, so you can find it. MNW livestock pivot in Rhode Island. Would you want me to get their Yeah, they are the people who are hauling the shells. Not that the shells are an issue, but the shelves, you know, forget mind just emailing that to me so I can then I think I think I can find that for you. Okay, I'm going to put that up for you to email it to me. Thank you. Thank you for your if you want her to take anything, you have to give everything. I submitted everything. Okay.

Oh, you all set other than Yeah, for now. Unless you want me to go back. Thank you. All right. I think we should take a take a bathroom break real quick. All right. Before you start, we're going to I'm going to look for a motion to take a 5m minute recess so everyone can use the bathroom and do what they got to do. You did that. Yeah, I got so bad. I'll make that motion. Second. Sorry. All right. 5 minutes, guys. We'll be back at um 8:45. Yeah. 8:45.

All right, it is 8:52. I'm going to call the meeting back to order. I Oh, I can hear myself echoing. Uh, while we're on break, I did receive three um statements from residents and they will be on file. Uh, what do you we put all this up? Yeah, we have just bring them up now if you want. Unless you I mean if you plan on reading them, do that. But it's okay. [Music]

That way the board members can see everything that came in also. Yeah, I'll send them to them. Yeah. Oh, perfect. Okay. So they have them as soon as the meeting is over. Battery backup. Okay. Wow. Statements from several. Okay. What? You got more for me in there or No, this is other things. All right. I'm sorry. See that? [Music] I am not sure I can count this. Hi guys. They all witnessed that, right? Nancy is going to um post them so everyone can read them. If you want to let them know, I'll post them. If they don't see this to please contact me and make sure it gets

Okay. All right. Order. If you guys uh Nancy is going to post all of those statements you everyone gave me. If you go to look for me and you do not see yours, make sure you contact us immediately. so we can get it up on our uh website. Okay. We want again we want everyone's statement to be up there. Um and we have uh resumed the meeting. So go ahead, ma'am.

All right. Um Margaret French, board of health chair. Um I just want to kind of wrap up what everybody said and what's been going through the board of health. Um Mr. Melo has allowed me and my health agent to come on the property a couple of times, just kind of look around. Um, I know the shells are a an a thing that's not going to be around anymore. It was the smell was bad. Um, and I know a couple of people have said that they've talked to the health agent. He's like, "Oh, 100t away I don't smell anything." The poor man's had CO twice and his sense of smell is pretty well shot. So I keep telling him, "Bring me." Because my sense of smell is super sharp. Um the shells were bad.

It's You're talking about the clams. Yes. Right. The clam that huge pile of shells that was bad.

But then we went to the back. We drove back to the windross and that smell was also very offensive, but it was a different smell than the shells. Um, so to say that they only came from the clams or it only came from the shells, that is not true. It was coming from back there. Um, at the time they were not turning the windowross, so it wasn't I don't know what exactly was was causing that smell. Uh, Mr. Melo, I know you did state that, um, the organic wastes, the food, um, fruits, vegetables, if it wasn't good enough to give to the cows, you would add it into that compost. So maybe that is what's adding to the smell. The what's interesting is everybody around town that smells it is giving it the same explanation, the same description. A dead animal mixed with low tide with that kind of a thing. We are getting reports from not only uh Riley Circle, Nick Way or Parker, but we're also getting it from proprietors acres. So it there's a circle there's a circle around 89 that's getting this smell and all of these people are giving the same description. So um I just want to share that. Um, as far as the trucks coming in, there was one of the days my agent and I were there, we were standing at the end

of the driveway at at Chase Road and within maybe 45 minutes to an hour, five big trucks came through. Every single one of them had a very offensive smell. So, I don't I I can't believe it was all grass and and clippings, but we did see that. Um, seagulls. I personally have not seen the seagulls. I've seen the videos. I've seen lots of videos of seagulls, but I truly believe the seagulls were because of the shells and the clams. If that is no longer uh an issue, the seagulls should not be coming back. Um a a question Mr. Melo is there when when we went back with the D to those windowross is there another section of windowross behind that that there's just that one section.

Okay. Thank you. Um, so we as a board of health, we've gotten so many complaints emailed, phone called in that we've actually developed a complaint form and a response form. Um, and and we're keeping them in the file. Where is it? What is it? Um, who's going out to investigate it and what we see. Um, I personally have been out to Riley Circle a few times, Ethan Circle a few times. Um, how long ago? Um, that couple of weeks ago

because we've changed our process. Thanks for the question. Um, hold on guys the let the uh board of health speak.

So um, so that's just our report. what as a board we would like to request that we be involved or included in your deliberations. Um I I caution you about making a vote tonight. I don't think it's there's enough deliberation to make a vote one way or the other. The board of health would like to be part of any discussions, any any input we can give or we can share. And if it ends up looking at that special permit with restrictions, we would like to be part of developing those restrictions. Okay. Thank you.

Sure. any deliberation we do will be in front of everybody. So, uh you're more than welcome to join us and uh have any suggestions in any which way the board chooses to go. Yeah. Okay. So, we might actually post a meeting when you have your meeting. So, we can Are we still having Zoom's good now, right? We're sure

Zoom is good now. I'm sure. uh why we took more than five minutes. We had a little issue with with Zoom. We're actually going to run out of time, but we were able to add more time to uh to Zoom to keep it going because if we ran out of time, we would have to uh um adjourn the meeting because it's been posted that we're on Zoom as well. All right. All right. Thank you. Uh did you want us did you want to submit anything like the um the complaints or if you would like something we can review? complaint forms. Um, we can send them.

All right. And what do you think? Um, you said you is that the board of health's uh opinion that if the clam shells were removed, it would at least remove the seagulls. That's my personal opinion. Personal opinion. My personal opinion. I did not realize that was that it was going to be removed.

But there hasn't No, it's not going to be removed. it it's been we haven't had a seagull situation in maybe 8 months, less than a year. And uh well, we did find them. I called Kevin Desaris because I didn't know they were all over the bank. Uh one day we've had trouble on Beach Bluff Road, but if there's a a a storm at sea, they come in, Lynn, and then they go back out. No,

but uh as far as the shelves, every time you've come in, there's nothing on the shelves. They they don't go there. It's was the clam product that was attracting them, if anything. But then again, what was attracting them at the bank? What was attracting them on Long Pond? The fish. Uh so you're going to continue with the pile of clamshells? Yes. That's what had the m the offensive smell. We'd have to go smell it again, I think. Okay. D uh came down, inspected it because of a complaint. And uh look, they they've ruled that it's not that.

Okay. All right. I will have Kevin get in touch with you and maybe he and I can come back down again. Sure. I would appreciate that. Thank you. Uh before you go, Margaret, is there any has there any minutes on on this issue on the board of health? Uh we just talked real quick about that we had these complaints. So when when a complaint comes into the office, it gets forwarded out to the board. Um

but you guys haven't discussed it in a public meeting. We did talk last meeting about the the reports. It it just kind of came to a head lately and I think because of the special permit, it really came to a head. So, we had, you know, we were just sending Kevin out and now we're all kind of going out to look so that there's different eyes. Okay. All right. Thanks. Thank you. You're welcome. Anyone else?

Uh my name's Ed Celeste Gay live on Mark's Lane. Um I'm probably sounds like if the uh if the property in question here is a mile back, then I'm about mile and 3/4 from from where this is all going on. Um so I I'll probably be like 60 seconds. I just wanted to give my personal experiences. Um I've lived in Freetown for 25 years. spent the first part of my life, first half of my life living in Boston and I came to live out here for all the reasons that everyone does. Uh my my yard is kind of like right near the Demerandvilles. I love seeing the cows driving and out every day. That's why I'm here. Um farm smell, you know, it's it's I but that's fine. This is not that. It's something completely different. Um and awful. Um, I had an experience over the summer where we had friends I I in the last couple years did some work and created a fire pit in the backyard and everything with hopes of having people come over. Um, invited some friends out of town to come um for dinner uh over the summer. And then when they we got outside, it was just kind of like let's go to a restaurant. Um, the smell was so bad they actually brought it up and and then we started talking about it, how it's been going on and everything. So, not a good feeling. A little embarrassing. Um, my son graduated from high school this year, so my wife and I had a real hard time going back and forth because we had for years talked about having a huge party in the yard, maybe hiring a band and the whole thing. Um, and then we got to the point where we were just sort of like maybe we should get a hall. Um, it's it's completely unpredictable. can be terrible three days in a row and then go a week and you don't smell it um as bad. Um I we did end up having the party and luckily the wind was blowing the right way on that day or there was not wind. Um I will say I do think the smell has

gotten better after the last meeting and people were going on and on about it on Facebook. I don't know if there's a connection there. Um but um it has gotten somewhat better. It's not gone. Uh I I drive my daughter to school every morning. I see the trucks in front of me coming in and it's usually like a day or two after the trucks drop their stuff off that it smells really bad. Um and it's still there. It's not gone. Um I I worry about things in the future like I I don't know if it could be completely off the table, but is there a casino coming to Taunt? Are we going to be getting all the food scraps from all the restaurants there? And what what's Do you s sort through that to pick out the the shelves of the shrimp and the whatever? or are you going to get some seafood in there, too? Um, so I just want to ask the board to reject um the proposal. And Mr. Melo, when I go to bed at night, I do a lot of thinking and I and I I would just ask you tonight when you lay your head down to sleep to consider withdrawing your your submitt [Applause] drive again. I would just ask you guys to at least take some time. Don't vote on this tonight. Review all of the information in the files that you've all been handed. Read all of the impact statements that you've received and come visit us someday and see what it's like. Thanks. [Applause] Hi, Wendy Moral. Again, just real quick. Um, I'm assuming right now that the operations at the facility are outside since everybody's complaining so much about odor. So, I'm just giving kind of like a warning. Um, they could potentially as a as a mitigation to that be proposed to be moved indoors. Um, but then everybody should be aware of what happens when a facility like that is

operating indoors, which is what we were dealing with with the the trash transfer station. And that is they would then introduce um odor scrubbers which would be inside. Um and then there would be exhaust fans in the ceiling to take that the chemicals out because workers can't work inside with with all of that inside. And then that would then be dispersed into the community. So when you're smelling citrus odor scrubbers, you're actually breathing chemicals. So, anytime you go somewhere where something is being masked by something fruity or citrusy, you're breathing chemicals in addition to what it's trying to mask. So, um if anybody's ever sprayed an air freshener in the bathroom, you know what I'm talking about. Um and then also just back to the mass D when you're trying to you keep referring to them as like they're the ones that made this decision, so it should be good. Um, I I submitted an environmental violations complaint to the Mass DP December of last year regarding the existing conditions at the site where they were proposing the trash transfer station and it was unacceptable. rubber tires, uh PVC piping, uh astroturf, um a camper, uh a dumpster, a mattress that was not covered, which then exposed to the elements within feet of uh a stream, a water a water source that um with no silt fence, no retaining fence, nothing like that. Um no erosion controls whatsoever. So with the mattress not covered, it became hazardous waste and it's within feet of a water source. um abuing the aushnet uh cedar swamp um where endangered species are and everything else um that still hasn't been cleaned up. That was December of last year. Just saying. So you can count on mass D. I've I've renamed them the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Pollution, just so you know. So, just one more thing that I had thought about. Um, we're hearing everybody talk. When you say that the clamshells have been gone for a period of time, 8 months or whatever, did

Kevin, the health inspector, call you over the summer and remind you that you had your air blast on all night. Had what? Your air blast, you know, the shotgun? We did get a call. So, what was the air blast for? Was that to mitigate the birds? uh if there was any backup. Okay. And that was over the summer. We haven't used it all summer. But you left it on one night. Correct. All night. That is true. Do you know what a 12 gauge sounds like? Would you would you compare the air blast to a 12 gauge? How would you like a 12 gauge going off every 30 seconds to a minute all night? Maybe 300t from your bedroom door. Sound sound pleasant as a neighbor?

300 ft. the the air blast I could hear I could hear the air blast like it was 200 feet 100 feet it's a shotgun all night every minute right what' you have it set to yours was it about every minute I I don't know you don't you don't know but would you like to describe to the board what an air blast is and what the purposes and how loud it is I think you've done quite well okay right but when you say that you mitigated it a while ago why was you why were you using an air blast just 4 months ago. Yes, the board of health asked me to. Okay. So, you just had it going for the hell of it when there was no birds. We made that suggestion actually.

Okay. All right. So, just I just want to throw it out there to what degree we will go to mitigate a problem over a year ago. I'd like to have Kevin at the next meeting because I have phone records and text messages to prove that this happened four months ago. Four months ago. That was when the air blast was. That was when the complaint was sent in text and voicemail. I don't know. I'm sure it's something I don't know if you want to ask anyone on Zoom.

Oh, yes. Do we have uh is anyone on Zoom want to speak? I guess they could just unmute themsel. Can they unmute themselves? Um, they could if they want, but raise your hand too if you want. See a raised hand or no raised hands. Put the raised hand thing. Okay. All right. Anyone else here? in the chat messages there is

there have been messages in the chat but they're mostly comments about things that no real um testimony I would say but I'm certainly um they told me about the Zoom will continue it won't end I do it all the time um there was a comment that was made during the meeting I want to see I'm not exactly sure what comment that might have in um there was a yes. Um I'm again to to what I'm not certain because I I can't watch the chat while I'm paying attention to what's happening in the room. Um well said. Yes. No rubber stamping. Um the story is so familiar. I'm in the north end of New Bedford. Mass DP messes with us too. Butters feel the consequences first, but effects impact all. Um, that's it.

Okay. Is anyone else wanting to go up there? All right. Mr. Melo, do you Mr. Chairman, I do have one item. We're going to need a continued extension agreement, a formal one, in order to continue the meeting because we have an extension to today, but I'd like to consider it considered extending it to December 16th. And that would mean the applicant would need to sign and the chairman would need to sign. I have them for both for both. Before we do that, um do you guys want to comment on anything? I'm sorry. uh before we for special I don't think so unless you want to

I mean we we believe that this the odor problem obviously people have you know had complaints and you know I'm sure the board has heard the complaints but we believe that that has been addressed by stopping the seaatch product. Um, the seagulls, I know that's come up, but apparently John is saying they haven't been seen around our property in quite some time. So, I don't really know what the connection is to that at all. But the smell problem, the odor problem that people have spoken about, um, we believe that's been addressed. and maybe because it's been not quite a month since that has stopped. Um, but we think it's made a significant difference.

Okay. Also, so I'm assuming that there's still there's still product there that is has the shells incorporated currently. Uh, well, there's pro, but we've been hauling it out. Okay. We've been hauling it, putting it on the field. Not off the property, but on the field. Okay. All right. Uh, go ahead, ma'am.

Hi, U. Rebecca Pacho, 53 Chase Road. I have concerns regarding the statement about the um odor being addressed. I left my home this afternoon to come here and there was an odor coming from that area and I am right on the other side of the railroad tracks coming from that westly wind. So I I very concerned about the statement saying that there is the order is being addressed. Well I it could be cattle. You mean the cattle

I know the difference between the the cow smell like I've been a resident of Freetown for 20 years. I've lived at 53 Chase Road since January of 2016. I frequent Chase Farm Estates often. I have many friends that live in that neighborhood. My residence butts and is the corner of Chase and Cody. So, I am very familiar with that area and with that neighborhood and just today on my way here exited my home to that smell. I don't I wouldn't know. [Applause]

You guys have any questions for them right now or? No, not on this topic.

Not on this. Okay. Um, all right. So, what we're going to do, we we received a lot of information, a lot of statements from everybody. Obviously, we cannot read them right now. Um, I am going to um request that we continue this hearing and that we uh approve an extension to December 16th, which will give us that give us a couple meetings to get it done if we need to. um which would uh if Melo uh signs that would obviously we wouldn't have to worry about the 65day um time frame we have to to either approve or deny special permit

okay 65 days to open open it yes so these so once it's open once it's open for a special permit you have 90 days from the close of the public hearing to make and file your decision okay so I think the concern originally was it might not get opened in the 65 days. Okay. Well, I guess maybe I So, I mean, it certainly isn't going to hurt to sign another. It certainly won't hurt to do an extension request, but um that that's the difference. It's 65 days to open the public hearing and then for special permits, which are different than variances and appeals. Um it's 90 days from the close of the public hearing, they have to file the decision. Yes. With with the board. Um

we will sign any certainly won't hurt to do it, but that's the that I think that issue originally was the 65. So, pretty much we'll we'll we can do that and then I'll just make a motion to continue it to the next meeting. Okay. And it's both the recycling and the composting for the extension. You just um I'm sure you guys want to open up the second one that I do. Start going through that. Don't you have to? Well, we're going to open it to continue it. I'm just saying about it. So, what do you want? You look for a motion to have a have an extension until December 16th, 2025. We don't need that though, right? Is that what it's saying? No, but if it if that's been your practice.

Yeah, that's been our practice. So, I'm looking for a motion to um have an extension to December 16th um 2025. Sure. I'll I'll make that motion. And that's to just get your decision in and filed. Yes. That's what the extension is for. All right. Uh, let's do a roll call. Right. So, um, we'll do Gary. I favor. Steve. I. Uh, James. I I Okay. So, let's before I make the motion to continue it, we'll sign this now. And that's just for the composting one that

that's just for the composting one. Yep. No. Let me just make sure I'm doing the right one. I can't. Commercial recycling. That one says commercial. Oh. Oh, you know what? It's two copies, isn't it? All right. That's what I'll do. There you go. Uh, one is for the combo.

Okay, perfect. I'll bring it over to him. [Music] Hold on. We're going to This is just an extension to make a decision. I'm going to do the continue of the hearing in one minute. Thank you. You're welcome.

You want to sign it, sir? Just tell me where to sign. Applicant signature. Yeah. Awesome. And one is your copy. I'll take this. One's your coffee. I'm sorry. Uh I see them. They come through our yard and eat every day. All right. One killed them in North Main a couple weeks ago. So

now again, as far as the uh commercial composting, we did receive a lot of information today uh earlier today. and as far as all those statements you guys uh gave us today. So I will entertain a motion to continue the public hearing um to November 4th at 6 p.m. here at the police station. Yeah, I'll make that motion. It's a good idea. Second. All right. All in favor? Gary? I. Steve I. Dave. I. James I I All right.

Mr. Chairman, I just like to mention that no, we we did clarify with the town clerk there is no local election. So there will not be an issue with us hosting the meeting on that night. We also are seeking uh the elementary school. So uh we will post that when the agenda is posted as to where the actual location is because we want to make sure we're accommodating all of you. um in a larger space. Um so, but we don't know that we actually have that facility yet. So, can I I do recommend that you you set a specific location. So, if if if the plan is I have no idea. I'd have to be here then. Well, I think we're good here. Good here. Yeah. Okay. So,

okay. Then that would be here because I can't guarantee that we have the school. Okay. Yeah. We'll just make it here and make it easy. All right. So, to avoid confusion, we're just doing it here. We're not going to even look for the school. So, November 4th, 6 PM here will be uh the continued meeting on the commercial composting. We'll have a Zoom option as well. There also will be the Zoom option like we had today. We already voted on that. All right. Did you vote it? We did vote that, right? Yes, we did. Yeah.

Yes. Okay. All right. So, item three on the agenda. Item three on the agenda is continued from 107205. Uh, special permit commercial recycling 89 Chase Road. Uh, special permit applicant John Melo, owner John Melo, representative attorney Richard Burke Jr. Scope of the work. The applicant request a special permit for commercial recycling on a 2 um 34 acre parcel identified as parcel C. On assessor's map 241, lot 39. The applicant intends to operate a depackaging recycling facility. Um, you guys want to continue this or you want them to open?

We have to open the meeting anyway, right? We're Yeah, we're opening it. So you may want to if it helpful, it's up to you guys, but you may want to at least get the applicant's presentation and that way if the board members because even if it's going to continue that way if the board members have questions, the applicant can get that material in in the meantime. Perfect. All right. So I will entertain a motion to open the public hearing. I'll make that motion. I'll second it. All right. We're going to do roll call vote. So we'll go with uh Gary. I Steve Dave. I James. I

I All right. So that public hearing on uh the special permit commercial recycling is now open. Uh we'll start off with the applicant if you want to. Floor is yours, sir.

Sure. Thank you. Um, so, um, as I mentioned before, uh, John Melo operates a cattle farm on map, uh, assessor's map 241, lots 39 and 41. Uh, together, the two lots comprise over 132 acres. Um, we're asking for a special permit under the zoning bylaw section 300-5.1, which authorizes commercial recycling in a general use district. Um, we feel that it's more aptly described as upycling than recycling because it's, you know, we've heard uh comments about the other metal recycling plant. This is nothing like that. Um there as the building inspector indicated there is a a 5,000q ft quite type building. It's located at the rear of lot 39. Again uh my it's approximately a/4 mile from we believe the nearest uh Chase Road to butter. Um in that um building um we propose to there is there's currently a food depacking machine which um takes uh recently expired um packaged food such as from grocery stores. Um and it was the purpose is to take that and make uh feed material for Mr. Melo's cattle at the farm. Um uh food is currently of course being brought into the site right now to feed the cattle. Um right now the workers get that food. Similarly they depackage it fruits and vegetables, bread, that type of material is what we're talking about. They do it out in the open. Um they take the packaging

off. They take the food material. They mix it uh in order to create a feed material for the cattle. The purpose of of getting the machinery and putting it in a building with a roof overhead was Mr. Melo wanted to get his workers um out from uh the elements. Um it also kind of modernizes, you know, this basic practice of doing it by hand out out in the open. um which we don't think is is ideal. Um so um we we again uh argue with the building inspector that we think this is an agricultural use because its purpose is to make feed for the animals which is clearly itself an agricultural use. No one questions that. But we did agree that we would come here and apply for a special permit to resolve any issues with regard to that. Um, what the depacking machine does is it separates the packaging from recently expired food uh that's just beyond the expiration date for us humans to eat it, but it can still be eaten by the animals. Um, so we're talking again about vegetables, fruit, bread. Um if there's excess product is used as a nutrient in the composting such as the food and and vegetable and you can mix whatever you know your your purpose is in the machine. You can you can put different uh inputs in and get

get a different product. So what what may be put in for the composting is not exactly the same as what would be put in for the animals. Um, and again, it keeps food waste um out of landfills. And I read an article this morning that um the uh Mass D is saying that the number one material that goes into our state's landfills is food. Um so we're asking for a special permit to allow the continued use um for this purpose which will facilitate and allow the land to continue to be used for agriculture which again uh we think is is beneficial for the town. It creates open space and I think some you know people support agriculture. Um, with regard to traffic issues, again, I I mentioned before the Chase Road traffic study by Mass Highway in 2023 is showing 3,790 vehicles per day. Um, we think there's a safe entrance exit, 89 ft wide. As you you can see the pavement as you go in, how wide it is. it it it forks out um so it provides a sufficient turning radius for vehicles including trucks um both to go left or right and there's as I mentioned before an adequate um sight line um with regard to the trucks that are going to bring food to the depacking facility again we estimate that that's at maximum about 40 uh daily visits per day when that's in operation. But again, the we're still

getting food in for the animals. Now, um 40 uh truck uh visits a day based on the mass uh uh highway uh calculations is give less than 1% of the daily uh average road traffic on Chase Road. There are no deliveries on Chase Road. No trucks are parking there or stopping there to make deliveries. It's all internal to the site. As I mentioned, the uh the building is about a quarter of mile into the site at 89 Chase Road. Um the facility is not open to the general public. Um with regard to um noise being a problem, the the equipment, this deepacking machine is powered by electricity. Um it operates um at 68 dB. Uh a vacuum cleaner operates at 70 dB for comparison purposes. Uh the machine is located in a building that's fully insulated with 4 in of insulation. There are overhead doors that close and given where it's it's located approximately a quarter mile from the nearest neighbors. Um we don't believe there is any noise problem. With regard to odors, um again this is in the middle of not only Mr. Melo's but other adjacent cattle farms. There is going to be odor from the cattle farms. Uh but the delivered food product uh it although it may have passed it's past the expiration date where you or I could buy it at a store um it it is not spoiled. It doesn't smell. It's there's a a first in first out inventory management system. The

product is processed quickly. At the end of the day the plan would be to wash down everything with um appropriate cleaning products. So we don't believe that the um there would be any odor problem from the depacking machinery operation. Um as I mentioned before um the the seaatch clam products Mr. Melo stopped that as of September 22. Um and so this that doesn't have anything to do with the food deacking operation, but um odors that you know people are complaining about from the clam products, we we have tried to address that by stopping uh that material. But the uh the deepacking facility does not use any clam products or anything like that. So that's completely separate and it's on a separate area of the property as you can see from the application. Um, there was some mention about pest issues. Again, the food for the cattle is still being brought and it's being unwrapped and mixed and and dealt with out in the open. We think it's much preferable to do it in an enclosed building. Um, obviously, uh, Mr. Melo doesn't want any pest problems, uh, with regard to his cattle. It's not good for his cattle. Um but uh there would be you know a pest control plan. There are employees approximately four to six employees between both the deepacking operation and the composting that are on site to manage um manage that

mechanical everything.

It's all Yeah, it's all mechanical. Um they do have an a contract with uh Clancy Brothers Pest Control. It's a longestablished pest control company to do regular monitoring, although we haven't had any problems. Um, and you know, dumpsters are removed on a regular basis as well. So, um, I mean, the odor complaints that you're hearing from uh people tonight about the clams, uh, that really has nothing to do with the the deepacking operation. Um, and we don't believe there are any problem odors from the the fruits and the vegetables that are that are uh going to go through the machinery. Um, and whether that's used as feed product for the animals or whether that um end product is mixed in um with the soil to make compost. Um we again we'd be happy to you know take any questions that the board may have.

So So currently and and we were there we seen the machine. So currently uh we kind of got a little explanation of of how it works from from uh from John and from a worker that was there currently now feeding the how are they doing everything by hand? Everything by hand. Everything gets left outside is the same. So tomorrow with the rain everything everything is on the ground outside. We're trying to bring everything inside is the same. So the same foods that are coming in is the same thing that you in this machine. Yeah. And yes sir go ahead. Yeah you I was going to you anyways next.

So listen carefully to what attorney Burke said. um the introduction of automation that means more product being able to be done in larger quantities. We're going from hand sorting is one thing. When you go automation and conveyor belts, you're allowed to bring a lot more product in, produce a lot more product. So there's a reason why we're gone to automation. He says to bring it in, okay, but there's still going to be a lot more product. You can produce a lot more with automation. Um so there'll be an increase in production. He also mentioned 40 trips. That's 80. That's 40 going in and 40 coming out. That's 80 trips on the road. And these are trucks, garbage trucks. They're big vehicles. We have school children in the morning, right? We get behind school buses. We have So, my point is that not only are we looking what's going to happen today, what's proposed today. What's it going to look like in five and 10 years from now when that production is ramped up and our trucks are so now we have a big decision to make as a town and as a community, as a board? Make sure we get it right. Thank you. I I appreciate all the enthusiasm on growing but we really don't plan on making this some big facility.

So would you be uh would you be amicable to the fact that the board puts production limits? So I own the next parcel where JM is now we've had we have I I was speaking I asked a direct question to through you to Mr. Melo. Is he comfortable in putting production limits on his special permit? I don't think there's anything that we can't work out. Um, but right now next door a,000 ft over we get up to 200 trucks a day coming in and out there and there's never an incident, never a problem. But this adds to that amount point down the road. We are coming down the road. There will be.

So another question. So, if I may to you, uh, so we see large amounts of pallets, wooden pallets stacked up on your farm. Tell us what the use of those pallets are. Before you do that, let me just, you educated me a little bit on this. Yeah, we were selling them uh the market with the tariffs and everything changed. Uh, there's no market for pallets. So, honestly, they're about gone. So, it's given dumped in Freetown because there's no market. And that's my point. Freetown. I'm I'm I'm here to protect Freetown from this kind of uh so we're not going to be the dumping ground for southeastern Massachusetts. I I asked you about the palace, right? Structurally, it's a concern to me. It's a high structure that could topple over. You said no. That's not doing anything. But that is a component for your compost. No.

No. Okay. So, you plan on getting rid of the pallets at some point. I've been giving them away. There's none there. There's only a few there. When's the last time you were there? They come to the B. I stay off your property since we did this with all due respect. So, well, someone was there today with a white car, but it must have been Kevin or somebody else. They was They went through today. That was not me. So, anyway, you're welcome. I I've invited you anytime. Sure. There's almost no pallet, so we're discussing something that's not there. There was a problem and a delay with the There was a delay in getting rid of them. Sell them for a while and and then he to get rid of them, he gave them away. So, it took a little But the option is not to dump him in free town. That's my point. Do not use my part, right?

There's a use farm. I need the food that comes in to feed the cattle. I'm entitled to have some pallets. The food comes on pallets. Yes. And you collect the Yes. And then they go out. Okay. That's all, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, sir. There's There's almost no pallets there now. So, do you guys have any questions on this right now? Are you I thought you were Do you want to continue? Are you I thought that's what you were going to do. All right. I don't care.

I just just if they need to bring more information if you guys had questions now. It would be good to try to get them out so we can if we needed more information from them to make a decision. Um, I remember we did the site plan review and I remember you did say you had you had questions at the time, but obviously we we couldn't answer them during that meeting. Uh, uh, we couldn't ask them during that meeting. Uh, so again, I know I just asked it, but and you know, building inspector, but are you when 40 if 40 trucks were to come in uh with food and you said that's

Go ahead, sir. But you know that that as Mr. Burke said that's at a peak. I mean there's some days that none comes in. Uh we do sometimes I think stop and shop is Tuesday most of the time Tuesdays, Thursdays and two on Saturday for the feed. We need fresh feed. So the feed you're using to feed your cows on the farm and Yeah, that's part of that count. Okay. So, I know he said 40 trucks. I was just trying to He said 40 trucks were coming in. 40 truck 40 trucks are not going out or they're going out. They're leaving when they're unloaded. Okay. All right. I was thinking he was bringing 40 trucks of of material

coming. I got it now. I as I said asked the question I answered my own question in my head. All right. So, currently right now it's it's the same food. Is is it going to be about the same amount of food or with the truck the traffic that you see now it I don't expect it to change? Yeah. Um you explained to us that you have you mix different proteins. Yeah. So what happens if you get a load of this and this doesn't come in for two weeks? Well, it's on your schedule and well then the cows eat a little more fruit than the high protein. Is it stored inside or it's outside? But on

there's almost nothing stored inside. Okay. It's just processed inside and goes right back out. Um you meant keep going. What other um suppliers do you have besides Stop and Shop? um off the top of your head. Some different uh food operations. We'll get a call. It could be a trucker from Stop and Shop. They rejected a load of uh cantaloupe or something for some. It didn't arrive on time, so they didn't make the sale. Uh we'll get a call. Things like that. Okay.

Lights at the um lights at the depackager. Is there any kind of um Yeah, just like the as you saw the lights that was there. Uh what about at night? Same lights is during the day or at night. Yes.

Uh that's it for right now that I have. So everything that gets processed goes right to the cows. Uh mainly yes in the hoppers for the feed for the cows. Well nothing gets stored up nothing gets stored for like a day.

Not there. No no. So I'm just trying to again I'm going to probably ask the same question just a different way. Without using the machine you're producing obviously you're producing less because you have to do it by hand. But you're doing it right now by hand is is very much overstressed. Uh doing it where we we've been trying to buy time till we go through this hearing. But I mean that poor guy and his brother, they're working like dogs trying to open up everything.

And then your machine. Um so you guys were explaining it to us when we were there. The food goes in one thing. You mix some other stuff up here, but then the like the package in the trash goes through a chute. Yeah. And it goes right into a dumpster. Yes. Right outside and it gets hauled out. Correct. So when they're doing it now by hand in the yard, they have to pick up every piece. Right. And And some gets left on the ground. We try not to. Frank Burgron has asked me and we've tried to absolutely pay attention and limit whatever's there. So, is it more would the trash be more contained by using the machine?

Oh, 100%. But so would the food. And now at least you're all processing it inside that chances of something being on the ground. You're eliminating it. Someone mentioned that there was I think someone mentioned I I don't remember who it was, but mentioned that there was maybe someone mentioned that there was pallets of food at the other quanta. Uh, is would that be more put down? You mean the one out front? I think so. I think that's what they said. Yeah, that's where we feed the cows. Not at that quite, but at that barn. So, it go from there up there. We're hoping to move as much as we can to the back.

Okay. And process it more humane to be honest with you. Okay. And so just for clarification um he needs a special permit to use the machine but not to do it by hand.

Yeah. So initially it came through as the agricultural use exemption that allows you to have all kind of things that because you have agricultural use. My determination based on my investigation and walkthrough is that this is not an agricultural use. This is a manufacturing use. as a recycling or composting manufacturing use that needs a special permit. So he didn't and to his credit he didn't push back on the fact that he he doesn't have the agricultural exemption which means to the town we get paid more money because now it's manufacturing. He said I'll I'll do the right thing. I'll I'll address my neighbors. I'll get the special permit and I'll try to do what I can for the town through that process. Now the question is how much you bringing in? How much of that is being fed to the cows? And what's left for production and for retail? That's the numbers we don't have and that's crucial.

The state says as far as Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, so DP will will give you whatever you want. So I I I was involved in Somerset, New Bedford, SP junk tires. We state will give you permits for junk tires all day long. You know why? Cuz nobody else wants them. But Freetown wants junk tires. They'll give you a permit. Here you go. This is not the discussion we're having here today. I I disagree with that. It's actually very difficult to get a permit. Um, I've tried to prove that we we are doing the right thing. We're in we're improving life all the way around. Um,

so I'm just I'm just still trying to clarify that point. So you're saying that the the excess product that he's making he needs to I I know what you're saying on the agriculture but he uses that product in the composting which we ostensibly we're taking in product to feed the cows that's the agricultural use. I'm saying well you're taking a lot more product you need to feed how many cows you have. So it's not an agricultural use it's a a a a manufacturing use. So that's where we are now. But the question is how much of that is going to be used to feed the cows or whatever and how much going be left to manufacture a product that's going to be resold in retail stores. And if that's good with everybody, I'm good with it. I'm just here to say this is the process

right now as far as as far as agriculture cows so that you can educate me. It takes about 50 pounds of fruit or vegetables for each cow per day. So I have 10 and something. Dennis has I don't know how many and for the last several years I've tried uh uh Lincoln hasn't been taken in now but he has in the past with feeding hundreds of cows. Uh that's not the qu the question. How much you taking in to feed 100 cows? That's the point. And what's left after you feed the 100 cows and where's that what's that use going to be? Uh what what's the result of that?

It's obviously a value if it's good. It's a value to feed other farms. There you go. Farms, agriculture. Are you going to be Are you going to be selling to other farms other than what's right around you? No, I give it to them. Thank you. I've never charged. That's it, Mr. Chairman. All right. Um, you guys think we need like him to prof. Yeah, I have no other questions, but Yeah. You ready to go? No, I if there are folks that like really want to It's up to you.

Who Who want This is Now, this is going to be about the depackaging commercial recycling permit. Uh if anyone wants to step up somewhere else, I got one question on that. Now, if he's pulling a permit on that and getting that permit, is that transferable to somebody else or is that going to be to him only and that's only him? So, again, you know what I mean? We could if if the board leans that way for the depackaging uh recycling, commercial recycling.

What I understand is he solely don't have money into that. Somebody else does. So what there's going to be money made there. That's what I'm saying. There's more trucks going to come in. You You might see 40 trucks coming over time. It's going to get more and more. I appreciate you checking on my finances, but but I live if I want to leave this to my son. I certainly intend to if he wants to continue with the farm and things like that that I I live right next door, so I can see the building. I can hear noises over there. You know what I mean? It's just it's an you know you hear noises. I do hear noises. Jesus.

When the building now I'm worried because nobody's supposed to be there. We haven't occupied it in 6 months. What I'm saying is when the when the when it's going to be running, I'm right there. I'm going to be able to hear. No noise. Unless you can hear a vacuum in the other side of the police station. No noise. So, what we could do just like I I mentioned on the uh the special department, we just continue next meeting. Um the board could pretty much do a few things. We can deny it. We can approve it. We could approve it with conditions. Yes. And we're here to kind of figure out what the

Yeah. Well, my my concern, you know what I mean? when it's up and running and you're seeing more traffic coming in and out of there and then more stuff cuz you're going to be making more than what the cow's going to be. You know what I mean? So, the the traffic, you know what I mean? The noise. As far as that goes, to answer your question, we can put limits on how many trucks can go in. Um, hours of operation, stuff like that or again, we can it could be tonight, it could it could be, you know. Thank you. Go

ahead, sir.

Mark Prosovski, Chase Road. Um, my only concern with the process is that I mean it's it's very it's easier than people handpicking is that the it's you know the proteins when you compost them that's that's putriable material and when he it's going to excel it's going to make the composting operation it's going to feed the composting operation. Um, so it's just it's just a question of granted we're not talking about the composting operation, but this is a feed source for the cows, but the overage is a feed source for the composting, which is going to compound the composting issue potentially by by having that higher volume potential. That that would be my big concern.

Thank you. Ah Jesus Noah Roseman Nick drive. Um as I sit here and listen to the two requests for a special permit. It's clear to me that it's one request in total. The second permit will fuel the first. The recycling will have extra food that's expired. Not all of it will go to the cows. The rest will end up in the compost which will then fuel the odor. What I ask the planning board to see is that this request is the same as going to the casino and putting a bet on two numbers rather than one. You're hoping that one will stick so that what ends up happening is that you win in the end because I got to say it again. taking the food out of the packaging ends up in compost for sure or ends up whatever being sold. But us neighbors are still stuck with the same stench. If I'm at the craps table and I just want to win, I'll bet on five and nine. [Applause]

My name is Chris Parker. I live at 72 Chase Road. Not only am I downwind, I'm downstream. But my question to the board is, can anybody tell me what the definition to general commercial composting and recycling is? and what it involves. That's the definition. I'm sure it just doesn't involve what John would like to do with it. Unpackaging stuff. Well, we're not. We didn't name it. Kyle did. Yeah.

No, I have it. I have I know he said composting, but I think he means what we're actually talking about now, which is uh Yeah. So, in your bylaw, there's a definition of um to find it for you. Commercial recycling. Yeah, here you go. Commercial recycling facility. Is that's on your by Okay, you can read. Yeah, I'm going to read what our bylaw says about a commercial recycling facility. So, our bylaw says a uh facil what?

Oh, all right. So, commercial recycling facility according to our town bylaws is a facility where recyclable material is collected from the public and or private business and sorted, processed and or bailed in preparation for shipment to an to others for man a remanufacture into new material or as a reused product. doesn't. So that's not what John Mr. Melo needs, right? That's right. You're right. You don't need that.

I've argued that with Cal, but I'm trying to appease him, but it it's not.

He's right. So, well, we're here for a special permit because I mean that is what the applicant applied for. Um, do you you plan on having truckloads? Are you planning on re Go ahead, sir. Just again the the problem with it is if something is that open-ended when you put it out, you have no way to govern it as it goes down the line. I think it's important. It's maybe not what he even wants.

Well, we could we can put that in the conditions or something. I don't have a problem with that. I have no intentions to do other than what I said. Okay.

If you're going to continue, I think that's something to follow up with Carl though. Yeah, I think here again if he's not again if he's not remanufacturing or or sending it to a place for remanufacture well it's it's an or but I we it's an or yeah I guess we'll just research that a little bit more continue it

talk with Carl about you know if you're going to continue you can go over the definition with Carl K, I'm sorry. I just got to ask you again. And I know you've you've already commented on this that it will be more product. I I understand that. And some of it uh some of it could be used or would be used in the composting. I'm just trying to here we're trying He uh Mr. Melo is saying that he's going to use this machine to feed his cows and maybe it's a we're going to take whatever is of food grade and use it for food. That's our intention. That's the ultimate goal. Um, other than that, I can't offer you much more.

But the extra you're giving you're saying, you're giving it to somebody else's farm. Yes, sir. I mean, what's the difference between giving it and selling it? Is there really? There's there's a legal a huge legal difference. That's correct. I always give it. So, Mr. chairman it sir. So it's irrelevant what he's doing and that what's relevant is how much of it he's taking in cuz that'll give us an idea where it's going. Is it manufacturing? Is it agricultural? Based on what he's coming in and where it's going. Let me help with definition. Doesn't change with ounces. Uh that's a fact.

Okay. Just again, it's a question that you might want to follow with Carl, but yeah, they applied for a special. They applied for a special I mean, as far as whether I was told I had to. No, that's not true. You always have the option to appeal. Yes. Always, John. But America, we had agree. I I wanted to work.

So, go back to real real simple. John came to under the agricultural opices that I have agriculture with more than five land. I'm entitled to this. I did an inspection. I did a review. I did an investigation. I said, "John, to me, this doesn't look like it's an agricultural." He didn't push back on that part of it. He said, "Kyle, what do I got to do to make this happen?" John, so according to our bylaws, this use, you'll have to get a special permit, and that's why we're here today. Okay. All right. So, I guess the uh So, my point is that if he felt it was an agricultural use to feed the cows, he would have said, "No, this is agricultural. I'm going to I'm going to, you know, I'll fight you on this."

No, I thought it would be easier to work with my town, and I want to Um, but at at the end of the day, I'm I'm feeding my cows one way or another. All right. Um, with with due process, you can with due process. Absolutely. All right. Uh, we're going to take one more and I think we're going to continue this.

It's Frank Berseron 90 Chase. My whole thing is just what you're saying is like the definition of things. I It's so vague. I just implore the sport. Like I I just wanted to say what he just said. I'm like I'm sitting there like commercial recycling that means anything. But John, it's on the paper though. I agree. I don't care if you It should be in the paperwork. I'll call it that. Not me. That should be in the paperwork, not commercial. Like when you say commercial, you can bring steel, wood, I plastic and I think that's you could tread it, bail it. That that's a complaint. He's right. He's 100% right. Right. That's the definition.

That's why the relation comparing it with XL parallel products in New Mexico. Why would we compare Excel? Because of the way it was commercial. The way it was presented. Oh, sorry. 100%. I disagree with KL on that. But I love I'm willing to stand up and do whatever we need to do. So So again, for the record, just can you give a summary of what you plan on doing with that and paperwork though, right? I understand that paperwork. We can draw up Yeah. Then restrictions, paperwork. Okay.

Stuff like that that doesn't necessar And I understand people have said, "What what can you do if he if he if he violates it?" Well, Kyle can go down there and and do Can I just make one other point while I'm thinking of cuz when I guess you said the the road count of the Chase Road, there must be statistics somewhere like there is

what? No, but what a road is max handled like before it's I don't even know the term, but how many trucks can go up and down a road before you're like this is insanity? There must be some kind of number put out by the highway department that you could defer to and not make it my opinion, but to say, "Look, there has to be a limit, especially if it's school time or it's this time or it's whatever." It can't just be unlimited because that is the fear of everybody. This thing's just going to blow up and we're going to have traffic and hundreds of trucks going. Even when I'm trying to get on my driveway, you sit there and wait sometimes because of traffic. Unfortunately, we're less than 1%.

But that's my point. Uh, Route 6 has 30,000 cars a day. So, are we going to turn Chase Road into Route Six? That's that. But it should be based on facts, not I think, I should, I don't think so, kind of, sort of. There's got to be a source for that somewhere from the state, right? State Highway Department or something. I mean, they they determine when you have to put a light in when you have so many cars. They determine when you need to put a roundabout. They determine when you need an extra lane. There's got to be something to say this is the max and we've got a row count and it can't go past.

DOT has told us that it's less than 1% of the total traffic. It's insignificant for traffic. Chase Road has less than 1% of what? We would be increasing Chase Road. I'll let you say the total amount of traffic that we're proposing 40 trips is 1% of the total that's there today. So that 1% is not statistically significant when you look at traffic uh patterns and consideration and and that's a max. It could be a quarter of that. But in all respect, wasn't it earlier? We weren't talking about 40 trucks a day. We were talking about a couple a week, 12 a week or something like that.

We said 40 is the max a day. Yeah. But it could be none a day. But I'm trying to be upront. I get it. So I believe you uh specificity is all I wanted to stress. I believe you said like the average it could be 0 to 40. Yeah. Would the average you did an average of 12 per day. Some days you might have more than that. Some days you could have less. Right. The chairman point of information again. So we're talking about two bridges in the Sonet. These trucks will be going over one bridge, another bridge and heading to John's property. We're adding more weight to those bridges. We're already in trouble with them. They got to be repaired. So we're adding more stress on them. More truck going over those same bridges. Kyle, I really feel for you, but they come off at 1:40.

I see easy trucks every morning coming. Trucks come to me. Hold on, please. So, in the morning, I see easy. I see must see three or four trucks in the morning. 7 7:30 come from a Fall River picking up Fall River. I was talking tractor trailers. Oh, thank you. Okay. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Um, good. That is a point. Uh, but I guess that would more refer to the composting one because Yeah, I believe we're enforcing stop and shop to take the highway. Correct. Yeah. Plus the weighted leaves. Yes. What's that? Yeah. Up here. Stop and shop. Yeah, they they should be taking the highway. They were supposed to be and I've noticed they haven't.

I believe there's some active enforcement that should be being handled with that, but that's a different subject. It might be going to the food pantry. Break another leg trying to Well, I don't want you to enforce that. I'd be glad to, but no, I mean the stop and shop trucks that go past my house come from 140. Okay, so that's your street. They can't go on a highway. He doesn't have a ramp like they do in a Sona. My my trucks the trucks that hauled to me, right?

Yes. are not from a son at stop and shop. They're from the trust me the food pantry and I think South Kingston or North Kingston but that it's where they produce the produce you know they cut up the produce. It's not stop and shop tractors either if you I mean Mr. Paco would tell you right. So what are the five or six stop and shop? They're stop and shop trailers. They're not stop and shop tractors.

I just wanted there's a difference. So if you see stop and shop trucks going by the tractors, that's nothing to do with me. the stop and shop trucks. That's what's happening. All right, we're going to uh Can I ask a clarifying question? You're probably not going to want to come back, right? So, we'll we'll Can I ask you a clarifying question? Yes. So, if I'm understanding it right, the difference, what constitutes the need for a special permit in this case for him to continue operating his business as is.

It's not necessarily that he's going to sell for retail. It's the fact that there's actual manufacturing going on on the property and that and that Wait, hold on. I'm not done. And that he is potentially receiving more than he actually needs. So that's a production because uh 50 lbs per cow per day, 100 cows is approximately more like 300 cows. Okay. But with the amount of how many you can ask Lincoln, he's here. How many years have I given him food? He stopped taking the food. Now you started at 100. Now we're up to three. What's next? Well, it's up to you. Do you have any, Ted?

We just heard you. You first said 100 cows. Now you're up to No, I have 10 and something cows. My neighbor has I don't know. He's here. You could ask him, but uh and in Dennis, I feed Dennis's cows, too. This is not a crime feed. Is this like a less expensive way to feed your cows? Yes. Yes. And we try to with this I'm just trying to understand how you're staying afloat if you're receiving all of this. And then you're just giving it away and then you're spending money on machines and workers. We get to keep we get to keep the bulk of it. So I'm sure 52 weeks a year that I'm at least feeding my cows. Any extra I try to give to my neighbors. But you are you are producing more than you need

sometimes, which is what I think is what is constituting this to be a special permit and not just agricultural activities on his property. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'm as far as I'm concerned with strictly agricultural. Yeah. But so but with the building that you now have that you have a machine in um I heard that there are trucks delivering. Are there trucks tipping? He said that Kyle asked me not to operate one day. So we have not operated one day. What would be happening then? Would trucks be tipping inside the building instead of dumping out front? Yes. Where Mr. Bradron can see we're hopefully moving to loading docks.

But that's what I'm asking. The trucks the ideally the trucks would be delivering and tipping backing in and tipping into the building. No. Well, they'd loaded the the garage the door the sliding doors overhead doors are are but how many doors are there? How many overhead doors? Okay. And they're closed all the other times. Yeah. So So I don't I mean I don't know the closest resident and if they're listening to doors open and close, they'll be listening to doors open and close. They'll be listening to trucks beeping as they back up, which is a a noise nuisance to human health. Just so you know. What is um the sounds of trucks backing up, the the beeping and the clacking. It is. I've been doing it 45 years. I like it. National Institutes of Health,

but the National Institutes of Health has has determined that that sound is a nuisance and a hindrance to human health. I'm just saying. just don't anymore. I I do have to stop you on that one because we're here for a special permit um as far as trucks backing up, but it's for the facility where there would be overhead doors opening and closing and trucks entering and delivering. So, that's part of that facility. I am requesting no more New Bedford residents for our town meeting. I I am going to request that. I'm requesting you don't you don't do what you do. I just have real reel it in, man. Go ahead. Real quick real quick. Don't look at me.

The order. He He said something. The The trucks that we're talking about, I assume they're tractor trailers. Gross 80,000 lb trucks. No, I don't know. There's not that much. If you have to guess, you got 40 trucks coming in with 10, 15, 20,000 lbs of food each roughly. I'm listening. I'm just asking. You must know what you take in. No. No. There's sometimes in a whole tractor trailer, you might get five ton of food. You might, you might get four there, sometimes three ton. This is fruit that's loose in the trucks and they're gay. Even if you get a tractor trailer and it comes in with 10,000 that's a tractor trailer 10,000 lbs, right?

Yeah, maybe. Okay. So, sometimes less. So, we all know that they carry 80,000 gross. So, they're coming in basically empty at 10,000 lb, correct? 40 trucks, but full 40 40. Okay. But you said 10,000 lb roughly. Yes, that's full. Times 40 trucks is 400,000 lb of food divided by 50 lb per cow. Unless you're feeding 8,000 cows a day. 8,000. You got a lot of excess, which is what that gentleman said. How many ton did you use? Well, all I did was 10,000 lb times 40 trucks max. That's 400,000 lb.

What about the days that we said there's no trucks coming in? Well, I mean, you're still you're still But even if you don't get food for the rest of the year, in one day, you got enough to feed 8,000 cows. I'm not going to. So, you're producing a lot of excess. You're nuts. I'm nuts. No. Calculated the Y.

I'm just saying he has concerns that you're going to produce X excess. Okay. Even at your current production, you have 100 times what you need. 100 times at your current production. And you're ramping up because you're going to go automated. You're not you're not worried about some guy hurting his hands. You want to go automated so you can go more. And that's 40 trucks coming in. When you have excess, there's going to be trucks going in to get what you have excess out because if you can't feed your cows, they're going to another cow. Oh, but he's not selling, right? All right. Order on that. Thank you. Just do simple math. You don't need Yeah, that's you don't you don't need a lot of brains to say on Chase.

Is it one question? Because we're going to go ahead. Does he charge a tipping fee to take in the spoil product? I'm not sure what that did. Yeah. None of his none of his business. My none of my competitor's business for the question. Real quickly is if you're getting a tipping fee and you can process it and make it go away and it ends up in the back lot composting, there's there's a profit motive there to get bigger. That's it.

Okay. All right. So, we're going to uh end up continue with this, but also new information, some other stuff we have to review. So, we're going to sign the same uh extension to December 16th, and we'll vote on that. I'll make the motion. I'll second. All right. Uh roll call. Vote. Carrie. I. Dave. I. James. Bye.

Hi. All right, let me sign this. [Music] [Music] [Music] There was Where's the agenda? I

must have seen an old one. Okay. I thought I saw something else. Gotcha. No, no, no. I was curious. Well, they still have to continue the meeting. You need more about this one. One for you and one for us. Okay. We're going to have a separate motion.

All right. Excuse me. We still have other stuff on our agenda. So, if you want to talk, you got to step outside, please. Well, you also still have to vote to continue that they can watch. I know about no. Or you you don't have to leave. You just have to quiet down. [Music] I know. I know. I'm just trying everyone. We got to be fair, right? Um All right. I will entertain a motion to continue the special permit uh public hearing

to November 4th at 6 commercial recycling uh November 4th 6 p.m. here. All right, we'll do uh roll call. Gary I Steve. Dave. Hi. James. Hi. Hi. All right. So, that is Thank you for your time tonight. Yes, you guys are all set. November 4th, 6:00 p.m. All right. Thank you guys. We actually have another thing on the agenda, don't we?

Minutes. I thought we had some other continuation. Minutes, my friend. All right. We will go to the last item on the agenda which is the minutes from the last just the last meeting. From the last meeting I thought there was a whole bunch of other items like we have to extend I thought there was something there. Williams way that one. No no you must have been looking at another agenda. Someone give you the wrong one cuz we're done this minute. You asked me to keep it slim. She got the SL. I could have sworn I saw it. We all lost our agenda. I thought I did, too. But maybe I was

I thought I seen it, too, cuz I think Oh, maybe I stole. We were looking at it. Here it is. Be careful cuz if you don't follow the agenda. Here you go. Uh, yeah. A lot. Did you find it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Thank you. That was an old agenda. Yeah, you did a good job. Thank you. Oh, no. And we could that got continued. That got continued. And then this game got you. All right. Yeah. Minutes from uh 107 25. Do we all have a chance to review those minutes? Uh look to me.

All right. So I will uh enterain a motion to approve those minutes from 10725. I'll second. Uh, all in favor? I We don't need James on there. I guess it's not a special permit anyway. It's just minutes. All right. And then most importantly, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. Thank you. I was going to say that. All in favor? I All right. [Music]