Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the Winthrop Town Council meeting for Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. It's currently 6:30. We are in the Neil Shapiro auditorium of the lovely Winthrop High School. Um, call to order and roll call, please. Council of Cost again. Here. Council Ciner here. Council Mal here. Councelor Dime present. Council Romano present. Councelor Rearen here. Councelor Finn here. Vice President Swope here. President Lati here. Sienna quorum. We are in session. Please stand for the pledge

led by Chief Kandra to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

He seems to make me nervous.

All right, it's a good night. Under general information recommendations, we are very fortunate to be doing a couple items with the Winter Fire Department. We will be first giving out three citations. We will be swearing in some new firefighters and we will be promoting some firefighters. So, a very good night uh and a lot to celebrate. So, I am going to read one of the citations. These citations are for firefighter Mike Marorrow, Captain David Higinbotham, and firefighter Eileen Kaine. I will read one of the citations. firefighter, winter fire department, professionalism under pressure, the town council, the citizens of Winthrup, and a very happy mom. I'd like to thank you for your dedicated service to our community, not only as a winter firefighter, but also for your compassion and emotional support during during a time of anxiety and uncertainty. Your professionalism is evident not only in your ability to bring new life into this world with care, dignity, and humanity, but with your continued caring for your community and their safety. Your enthusiasm and commitment to our community will not be forgotten. We wish you nothing but the very best in all your future endeavors. Given this 21st day of April, 2026 at the town of Winth, Massachusetts, Jim Lati, council president and council members Patrick Costigan, Joseph Romano, Paul Reen, Max Tasinari, Kim Dimes, Vice President Suzanne Swopee, Martin Finn, and Kurt Mala. So, congratulations to the three of you. And uh if you guys can just [applause] please stand up and go over by the podium. [applause]

Take this on the water. [applause]

[applause]

real quick to give you a story on this call. Everybody hear me? Yep.

4 months ago, December 27th, 2:30 in the morning, waiting husband placed a call from circ saying his wife was in labor, but you know, they have time. need to know. He was wrong. This crew showed up professionally delivered this child, mother and child. Everything was good. Everything worked out great. Another side story to this is our last contract negotiation with Marino fights. I better serve the citizens. Maybe one day ambulance. That's our plan. So, we have four paramedics now and two were in school. Just so happens that night two of the four were on duty. So, your plan works [applause] [applause] delivered on three years. This is her second deliver. Wow. [laughter] It's amazing. [applause] Right. [applause] We'll now be swearing in three new winter firefighters, Jean Souza Diaz, Derek Goodwin, and Christopher Behringer. So, I would ask you to go up to the podium and the town clerk will swear you in individually.

I will be after swearing affirm sharply formed through the fight in good faith to the best of my ability. I father promise to impart my professional stand of quality and integrity [snorts] that the conductive my position shall be above and merit public confidence and promise to uphold the constitution of the United States of Massachusetts and the council [applause]

This is so cool. Yeah, it's awesome. Iman will faithfully discharge upon me as a firefighter in good faith to the best of my ability.

I promise to my professional stand with quality and integrity so that the conduct of my position shall be above and public. I dare of the United States of Massachusetts. Congratulations. [applause]

[snorts] Last but not least, Mr. Christopher told me [snorts] I could embarrass them. Hold on. [laughter] All right. To the [snorts] best of my ability.

That's right. Christopher standards of quality integity my position shall be publicution of the United States of I promise. [applause] [snorts]

And who's ever going to pin our new iPad music? Hello. Thank you. [snorts] [applause] All right. Now, we have uh three promotions and instead of a movie, Three Men and a Baby, we have two lieutenants and a captain. [laughter] So, I'd like to um ask Kevin Gorman and Phil Lumbberg and Eric Husseek to go up to the podium, please.

[snorts]

I cannot faithfully charge incumbent upon me as a lieutenant fire department. I can only promise to impart my professional standings of quality and integrity that the conduct of the appeal of my position shall be reproduced the law of the power of the Massachusetts by congratulations. [applause] I Bill Lber in charge to perform the duty to become an appointment as lieutenant of the fire to the best I stand inity so that my position must approach public uphold the United States of Massachusetts and congratulations

[applause] [applause]

I officer faithfully discharge that you can come upon me as a captain the fire in good faith to the best of my ability. I promise to my professional standality and integity my position as a captain of the fire department. I promise United States of Massachusetts. Congratulations. [applause]

[applause]

Maybe I So cute. She's adorable. I know. Little socks.

[applause]

She's beautiful. Look at that baby. She's a doll.

Thank you. We We do a lot of minutia up here. This is one of the best things we get to do. And this is real. You know, these people help give us security when we go to bed at night. seven days a week, 24 hours a day. So, I thank them. My sincere [snorts] gratitude, appreciation. Thank you guys and women. Um, getting back to the business, we had minutes distributed from the April 7th meeting. Is there a motion to approve? Motion by councelor Dime, second by councelor Romano. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say I.

Oppos? No. The eyes have it. Public hearing. We have a public hearing for the 2027 or the fiscal 27 budget. Um fiscal 27 budget will be from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. I will open the public hearing. Um tonight we are going to have discussion, brief discussion uh during the council meeting, but the end of this meeting we it will roll over into the spring forum. The spring forum is where we will go over an in-depth discussion of the budget, how it was put together, um, everybody that was involved in it, and give you guys a brief glimpse of what's looking ahead. So, uh, if the town manager has any questions during the public hearing or any

uh, the only thing I'll say is the uh, for anybody who hasn't seen it, the FY27 budget is on our website. Um, it's in PDF format. is tab. So you just can scroll through the table of contents and go to whatever section you want to. Other than that, we'll have more information during the spring form.

And we will be the finance commission was a which is a composition of the council subcommittee on finance and the citizens finance group will be having meetings pretty much every Thursday from now until May. Um department heads will be going in presenting their budget going over line by line. Uh the finance commission takes this job incredibly seriously and they will literally go over every line of the budget, make suggestions and come back to the council in early June. Is there anyone who has any questions or concerns on the fiscal 27 budget that would like to be heard now? Seeing none, any council like to be heard now? Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. And we will have public comment,

Mr. Delahanty. Yes.

Thank you. [cough]

Again, just Terry Delianti precinct precinct 6. Um I just want to start out to say the last meeting was a great meeting. Democracy was took place. Um people compromised and we came to a solution. Um I'm about process. I don't care if you enter a lawsuit or you don't enter a lawsuit as long as we do it the right correct way and that it's probably good. So, since that last meeting, uh, there was an online post that was made that in my view contains false and discriminatory statements [snorts] regarding council dimes written statement that she read out loud during that last meeting, specifically post claims that council dimes statement [clears throat] written by me. That assertion is incorrect. I did not consult on, draft, or have any involvement whatsoever in the preparation of her statement. I want to be clear on that point. give credit where credit's due and don't take someone else's credit that belongs to them. I will say, however, that I did appreciate the statement that she delivered and the time and effort that she put into into her researching and preparing it. I also want to address a much broader issue before that is before the town manager house since it's been recommended by the council that explore potentially getting involved in litigation. And I just want to caution everyone that we should be careful of how we enter litigation and that we should properly vet [clears throat] our partners in litigation and the litigation itself. Um litigations especially against a large kome like the commal is a significant step even where services are offered on a proono basis the town assumes the risk potential exposure long-term consequences of that legal strategy that we don't solely

control since we're partnering with proono attorneys by way of example I reviewed the court filings and orders in a recent Essex county matter involving similar litigation. This litigation involved the proono attorney, the Manchester Community Center and Harst Point Condo Association after the town had worked out an agreement that would save the h um Manchester Community Center and give them a year to move out of the Harvest Point Condo association. That went to a town meeting. It was voted that agreement was voted to support the Manchester community center. However, a proono attorney took the case and took it away from the town and brought it to court. The ultimate result was that they had no claim. The claim was for adverse possession. The grant to the community center was simply that they could use the building but not the land. In that grant, it specifically said but not the land. So there was no visit that ended up costing the Manchester Community Center. The judgments were issued for $200,000. Proono attorneys mean their service is free. Litigation is not. So just be careful. I would uh request the town manager vet our partners, vet what they've been involved in, and only enter this if we control the determination. the mediation and the final results.

Thank you. Thank you for the time. Any other public comments?

All right, seeing none correspondence. Denise, I have none. No

committee reports. Uh, finances. Councelor Tasinari. Thank you, Council President. Uh, finance committee met earlier this evening at 5:40 p.m. with councelor Dimes, councelor Ren, myself in attendance along with uh Terry Deahanty in the audience, Sarah Johnson for the town of Winrip and Karen Chavez in her capacity as the chair of the retirement board. We met to discuss one motion that is the town council vote to adopt the retirement board's recommendation to increase the retirees cola from 14,000 to 16,000. Now, we're not increasing the payment out from 14,000 to 16,000. We're increasing the cost of living increases on the first 14,000 to the first 16,000. What that's going to equate to annually, according to Miss Johnson, is $12,000 annually from the retirement fund, which is currently fully funded and would have no impact on the operating budget. Um, the motion for a favorable recommendation to the council was passed by the finance committee in that meeting. And that is full summary of tonight's meeting. Thank you. Uh, if there's a motion to take that motion out of order, there's a motion by council Romano, second by councelor Dimes to take that old business item out of order. All those in favor? Any discussion?

U, Vice President Swope. Yep. Thank you, Mr. President. Um, 12,000 total. 12,000 total approximately every year. Every year. Thank you. Um motion uh all those in favor of taking this out of order signify by saying I I oppose. No. The eyes have it. We'll take that motion out of order.

There is a motion that the town council vote to adopt Winthrop retirement board's recommendation to increase town retirees cola base from its current 14,000 to 16,000 or take any other action relative there too. That came out of committee. Does not require a second uh discussion. And just I just want, you know, some people might think, oh, everybody's getting a $2,000 raise. That's not what it is. That's the base that it's calculated off. It basically comes out to between 30 and $50 um per retiree. Um this brings us up to a base that is comparable to most cities and towns in the Commonwealth. Any discussion? Any questions? Seeing that, roll call, please.

Council cost again. Yes. Councer, yes. Council Mal, yes. Council Dime, yes. Councelor Romano, yes. Councelor Rearen, yes. Council Finn, yes. Vice President Swope, yes. President Lati, yes.

Motion passes. Thank you. School department report. There has not been because of vacation. There has not been a school committee meeting. There will be one next Monday night. Update on policymaking committees. Conservation Commission has not met. Board of Appeals 190 Otis Street continued until May 14th. Applicant seeks a permit to build a 2 and a half story dwelling on a 4,000 square foot lot. That is continued. 990 Shirley Street, a use variance for a doggy daycare. That has been granted. [clears throat] Planning Board first project meeting on the new firehouse relief request and that has been continued. Board of license has a meeting uh their April meeting has been rescheduled. Uh town manager report has been um disseminated. If we have any questions uh start at this end this time. Councel

Finn. No questions. Council Red. No. Council Romano. Um, I just want you to go over the Shirley Street work because that's something I'm getting a lot of questions about. I know it's in the report, but just to say it to everyone here. Sure. Um, we have the National Grid did a gas line project last summer. Uh, the gas line work and the tie-ins have been completed. What they're doing now is making repairs to the sidewalk. Um, and then we actually were able to get money from National Grid to put into our [snorts] paving account and DPW through our paving contractors will be making sure that the roadway gets what they call a mill and overlay. they'll, you know, grind the road down and put new pavement down and that will be done before the end of June. Now, according to director Keller, who is there tonight? So, for anybody asking questions, that's the process and we will have it done before the summertime kicks off the end of June.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Anything else? Councel Council Dimes. None. Vice President SW. Um, thank you, Council President. Just wanted to ask the a followup on your your comments that you did you did put Thank you. you did put that in the in the minutes about the um motion that we made last week. Yes.

And as I understand it um that um that attorney is working on this as we speak, but I do I wondered if we could have an update on how we're progressing on any of those issues that have come up like you did. For example, I was uh glad to get the letter that that you received from from the um LC a e hlc. Yes. And I would like any followup. Um if if once it's completed once you've completed something, I would just like to know where we'd stand on all that. Whatever it whatever you're working with regard to the OHLC. Yeah.

Okay. Well, they we had um I think three questions. Two of them were um answered there. Uh one was the uh the asking them to give us a specific letter saying that you know it wouldn't impact condo docks. Um they said that they well they without reading the specific contractions they couldn't give a legal opinion on it and then they stated some information on the frequently asked questions uh section to give a little more clarification. The second piece is we had some concerns about the approval letters and in the end it seems like you know regardless of whether we approve a district or not they seem like they could you know resend it and make it do something else. Um they did clarify that a little bit. They made some minor tweaks to it and gave us an example of what they did, I believe, down the Cape and Bourne or something like that, but that wasn't much of a change. Um, and we still haven't heard anything back. But we do get sort of an answer um that, you know, if some somewhere down the road this court case concludes and the town isn't victorious, you know, what would happen and would be a district be forced upon us or could we take a district of our choosing and get it approved? They seem to think that they work with us on that and they answer that at the meeting we have with them. Um, so most of those questions were answered and that's where we stand on that right now. on the first question they essentially didn't change that's not a a legal ruling that was that's just their FY their

frequently asked questions right there their interpretation based on their law didn't answer the questions I think that you had about the conduct dogs either but I also if as we proceed with whatever happens in um both attorney cipeta's case a as well as the other case on the exemption I'd just like to know if whatever involvement we have once it's done. I understand if it's in litigation, you don't want to share whatever is happen going on, but whatever is completed, I'd like to hear about it and let's wish both of them the best.

Yes. Uh, attorney was in contact with attorney Walsh today and there is some um additional filing that attorney Walsh is going to do and he's going to get the information attorney so we can get it into our, you know, motion to interview. Exactly. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you, Attorney. Council [clears throat] Mala, nothing. Council test.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Mr. Manager, thank you for your report. [snorts] I also have a few questions about the special the results of the special town council meeting from April 14th [cough and clears throat] just to make sure that the any any intervenor or any involvement by the town doesn't constitute an additional financial burden. I think I think Mrs. Delhi did a better job than I'm going to do in providing these questions. [clears throat] So maybe I'll ask him for a copy of his comment by the end of this meeting and then I I'll raise the same questions again next meeting. But there should be under no circumstances no financial commitment from the town to be involved in this suit in addition to what it's going to cost the town for attorney's time. uh any financial appropriations would have needed to go through the financial committee and also be presented in front of the full council. Um is there any idea from your office, Mr. Manager, if there would be any financial commitments resulting from this lawsuit?

Uh no. Um I received an email on it earlier today too, but uh with regard to that, no, and I responded the same. Uh attorney obviously is a [clears throat] in-house, you know, employee. Um so his salary is included in the general fund. any work he does, you know, covered by that. So, there won't be any other than what we pay him in the salary. There wouldn't be any increased cost at this time. However, if that were to change, I would certainly come back to the council and update them. But right now, we don't anticipate any additional financial obligations. Would you be able to provide at the next meeting an estimate of a prrated amount that was spent based on what attorney's hourly rate is by how many hours he's dedicated to this endeavor. Sorry. I'm sure we'll be able to keep track of hours and, you know, give them ballpark. For sure.

Yeah, that would be helpful, I think, because that's a financial commitment that the town's making to this lawsuit that we didn't bring. Well, it's lost opportunity, right? When money [clears throat] we're spending on this is attorney can't spend working on other things. So, that's exactly my point. Thank you. Yeah. And then we also now don't know if there's any going if there will be any resulting negative financial impact to the town based on the joining of this suit. That's that's also an open question as happened to I'm sorry the town of Manchester Mr. Delante Mr. Delhanti Manchester by the sea. So,

at this point, we're not in compliance with [clears throat] 3A. So, any sort of, you know, we already, you know, talked about potential grants we can apply for and that kind of stuff, but I'm not unsure as to what else you may be referring to. I haven't had

I don't know if there's any certain financial penalties ruled against us during that during that court case that we're now filing an intervenor for or we'd be partially responsible for in addition to the to the complaint complaintants on the case. like attorney stated did the uh the last special meeting, you know, that case was a little over a year old. Um really what we're really focused on [snorts] now is our lawsuit with the attorney general. We've got a uh motion to dismiss that's pending from the state that Attorney Ziplet has got to, you know, file a brief on and you'll get some answers back to the state. So, we're working on that right now. So, other than that, I think that's kind of where we stand. If anything changes, I'll certainly update the council, but that's where we stand today.

Great. Thank you. I look forward to hearing more about how much time is being spent on someone else's lawsuit. [clears throat] Thank you. Con uh Councel Costan.

Yes, Mr. President. Uh with regards to 3A and uh town manager's report, I would uh I [clears throat] would maybe swing that 180 degrees as it relates to uh the town manager giving us a report on what the cost of 3A in um in abiding by that uh that law would cost the town to the contrary. So as as we say the exemption case is to uh again exempt us from the burden of that lawsuit and there will be a cost associated with that when it does and if it does uh come to this town. So again there's two sides of the coin here. There's a cost uh associated to that law to the town of Winth as well whether you call it an infrastructure or the need for schools. I mean just read the exemption case it's all spelled out there. As far as the litigation cost itself, as uh one of the uh individuals in the in the auditorium here mentioned, uh you know, pro bono by uh by a couple of lawyers working with our town lawyer. Um I'd be surprised if there was a a major cost associated with that, but that is just my opinion. So, I just want to be clear that there's a cost either way we slice this. So, uh thank you, Council President.

Thank you, councelor. [clears throat] It's confusing. Old business. Uh, we have three things in committee. We have town council discuss ordinance amendment 17.52.030 use variance which came up earlier uh in committee with rules and ordinance and with the planning board um meeting scheduled for the rules uh on April 28th at 6:30 in the hobby room. Town council vote to approve video recordings of committee meetings to be posted. Um, also meeting on April 28th at 6:30 in the Harvey room and a motion to amend council rules and procedures rule two and I and I believe there's other um items from that motion which is also going to be on the uh April 28th meeting. Um, we already voted on the other item. new business is the town manager's proposed fiscal 27 budget. Um I'm not sure who has yet to receive their budget books if any everybody's received their budget books. Uh and again we will be going over the budget at nauseium over the next handful of months. Um but we will be going a deep dive into this in the spring forum in about a half an hour. [clears throat] Okay. Okay. Um. All right. New business. Towns council appropriate and transfer $85,61741 from fund 527 health cycle program to the tipping fees solid waste enterprise fund. That will be referred to finance. Uh, town council appropriate $30,000 from handicap parking fines account uh

to the expense benefit persons uh with disabilities account that will be sent to finance. Um, town council review ordinance committee recommendation on town ordinance that will be referred to rules but just uh There was a letter submitted um on February 9th um from the chair of the OC and I will quickly read the letter. Um, Council President Letter and Town Council members, in accordance with section 96 of the town charter, periodic review of the charter and ordinances shall be done in each year ending in a five or zero by a committee consisting of nine members. Pursuant to this requirement, a nine member committee was appointed by the council president on February 25th, 2025. This committee is referred to as the ordinance review committee. The chair was Karen Chavis, medical uh field. Uh clerk Carol Meech, information technology. Hannah Belchure, higher education administration. Caitlyn Burroughs, project manager. Uh Tim Kalinan, uh Esquire, legal as well as WPD. Uh Vincent Crossman, public safety. Kurt Mala, global manager and town counselor. Shannon Pulho, finance. Denise Quist, municipal government, went up town clerk. Between October 1st and February 5th of 26, the OC had 12 meetings. All meetings were posted on the town calendar along with the agenda and were announced in the town manager's weekly newsletter. The primary focus of the OC during this review cycle was to review town ordinances and recommend changes as indicated in ordinance and add ordinances as necessary. O all OC recommendations were forwarded to town

attorney Cipoleta for review and approval. Included with this letter are all ordinances that the OC is forwarding to the town council for the review. Parking ordinance and with need to be looked at and updated the OC with 100% input from vice president swoop submitted for review. Ordinance changes to town attorney um Cipoleta. Attorney Cipoleta has notified the OC. This appears to replace current ordinances and is under review. Special thank you to town manager administrative assistant Lissa um who sent notifications to all department heads requesting they send to the OC any ordinances they wanted to change or add new ordinances. DPW Director Caller and Chief of Police Goodwin and Lieutenant Kalan responded to that request. Attorney Cippeta accepted all correspondents from the OC and attended meetings to help us in the process. the OC to like to recommend uh the department heads review the ordinances that affect their departments on a regular basis. A view over a period of time would help with every five-year review that is done by the charter section 96 on a personal uh and thank you to President Lati and and Vice President Swope for attending 90% of the meetings and their valuable contribution. Karen Chavez, chair of the OC. Um this is something that is required by the charter. We still have other ordinances we want to look at on a regular basis. We're not limited to just looking at ordinances on a on a year ending in zero and five and we will continue to do that and I'm sure we have others in the pipeline that will be coming before us. But um that will be referred to rules and ordinance and also the town council review ordinance recommendation from the tree committee. Um I believe Mr. I uh Chris Ayello from the tree committee has um recommended a an ordinance and we will also be looking at that and that will be referred to rules.

[clears throat] There's one appointment that would require I believe anyway would require uh council vote and that appointment is that town council accept the appointment by town council president to appoint Jerry Falo on the board of license for a term to end June 30th, 2029. Joey's um service to this town over the past 60 years is incredibly commendable and we thank him for that. Um I would like to ask for a motion. Motion.

Motion by councilmano. Second by vice president Swopee. Any discussion on the motion. Seeing none, all those in favor say I. Oppose. No. Congratulations Jerry. Hopefully another 60. Um public comment. Yes.

Hello. I would like to just ask this town council. Now what? Now what? I'm here because I would like the continuation of the phase report from the climate commission to be completed. Now I know [snorts] we don't have the money to complete the final phase. Um but now one council at the interview said we could do it for a lot cheaper. I hope you stick to the plan. I hope the easement comes through and we get the easement to continue that plan until we get the money to finish the job. I told you three years ago, two years ago that I'm going to sit here until that's The band-aid approach is not acceptable. We need the work done. I'm sure that area is not the only area that needs fixed. So, we need to get the money for the capital improvements to save our community. And I would hope that the climate commission comes back to have a voice with the council. Thank you.

Thank you, M Celeste. Thank you, Celest Precinct One. Um, I'm sorry I wasn't at the last meeting. Um, in my first point, I have a lot to say today. I feel like these special meetings run unwieldy and are deliberate and they feel exclusive. I feel like they are intentful in keeping people with thoughtful concerns and arguments away from them. Um, I want to say that I take exception to the ex exponential financial impacts that we are dealing with here. um the legal fees that we're facing for non-compliance, the additional legal fees as council pointed out for now we're going to be sued. He wants to wait into a lawsuit and we're also losing Jim. I recently saw that you conceded that we're missing out on about $500,000 in grants and that doesn't include the MVP grants and also the pool cores grants. So by my calculations we're hearing more like $2 million in grants. [snorts] Um, additionally, um, sorry, and as for the ongoing decrying that somehow identifying the current zoning at Seal Harbor to align with the 3A um, submission is somehow overreach to benefit developers, but the actual variances that enabled its inception were not is is kind of um a little bit uh, hilarious to me. Um, I also want to go back and that I take exception to sitting in former town counselors listing themselves as plaintiffs on the lawsuit and then not recusing themselves from [snorts] voting. I don't think that they should have the opportunity to weigh in more than once in more than one capacity. I also don't think that it's appropriate that they listed their official title as plaintiffs. Um, and then you know there's been a long-standing concern that another counselor who was way too

close to this issue not recusing himself from proceedings altogether. During this 2 and 1/2 year plus discourse, I have yet to hear supportable arguments against submitting the thoughtful proposal at hand and allow us to get back to the work of running the town and meeting commitments and repairing its infrastructure. Um, you know, we have impanled a climate commission. We have brought on board a specialist in writing grants. But all along one anchor argument in supporting opposition to 3A is that we don't receive grants. We don't use grants. We're we're self-s subsisting and we're proving that not to be true. For two and a half years, we have batted this ball back and forth, back and forth, but we have done nothing else. And I'm going to go back to the leveraging of attorney Cipellet's um you know contribution to the town for continuing this whole area. Um, again, I haven't seen in the many um, conversations that we've had a supportable argument to not submit the plan that we have in place that merely illustrates the zoning that we actually are living in in this town meets the needs of 3A and it doesn't require anything else. And I certainly have not seen it exhibited by this self-appointed government of four that is holding us hostage, one of which as recently as three months ago, conceded that they knew nothing about the issue before they're being impanled to the town.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Yes, Terry.

Thank you. Um I guess you Terry Delhanti precinct six same as the first changed. Um so going back just as a comment to clarify [snorts] uh council test my response to him. So this was the Manchester community center. It was a nonprofit man city of town of Manchester got involved to try to save them and so that's where the town came in. So there was damages to the MCC the nonprofit of $200,000. They only had 120,000 in the bank account. Um I understand there was a trustee process in the middle of that that it was settled. So financially was settled. But let's talk about non-financial damage. What litigation and what has litigation done to us in a non-financial damage sense? What has it done to the community? What are we doing to mend those fences? What are we doing to move the town forward? You have two sides right down the middle. Everyone says, "Well, we were all voted by the populace 14,000 votes, but you didn't have 14,000 voters last last election." So, that's not true. So, you you're supposed to represent people who vote and don't vote, people who are for an issue and against an issue. Your job is to represent anyone and to bring us together. What are we doing to bring us together? I know council president has um been on this board many times and many times you've sat through difficult discussions and conversations. I think those just difficult discussions have to happen again. I'm sure under your leadership it will. Um but why one has to look at why does someone push and push and push to get the town involved in the lawsuit? Why do they want the town in the first place? motion after motion after motion coming from the 3A people for against 3A, right? Why? Look at the track records. Vet

them. not only asking the town manager to vet our partners or potential partners that make sure that we control the end result and that we don't get hung up in litigation because the 3A say no to 3A says we're not going to settle and the tenant wants to settle. It's about process and procedure not about the lawsuit. But then again, we have to look at how do we mend fences? How do we bring the community back together? and how do we move forward from this? And that's part of your job as councils. So, um, and I know under the town manager's leadership, council president leadership, we'll get there. It's going to take some time. It's going to take some effort. So, what are damages in a sense? It's not just litigation, money damages, it's also reputational damages, community damage, and what do we do about th those types of damages, and how do we get beyond this? Thank you.

Thank you. I don't know. Um, I'm not going to talk about anything y'all are talking about right now. So, I just want to share that this coming Saturday um is April 25th, which marks one year from two of our neighbors and community members being taken by ice in front of my house. March one year. Okay. [snorts] So, I want everyone to just that Saturday um on the bridge. It marks our week 52 of our standout which was directly inspired by our leaders. So come together as a community on that bridge. It's not about people every anyone that steps on that bridge during that time period. It does not matter what we argue about outside of that precise moment. Everyone is welcome. Come join us. Come drive by. Come stand over. Everyone's

Thank you.

All right. public relations. Vice President Swope will be holding her listening post on April 29th at 6 PM in the Jav room. And Vice President Swope will also be holding a subcommittee meeting for public health, safety, and works uh that same day, April 29th at 4:30. I encourage people to swing by. Uh, also on April 25th, 9 to 11:00 a.m., friends of Bell Ale Marsh in the DCR at the Mary Kelly Pavilion at the Bell Ale Marsh for an Earth Day cleanup. April 25th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Winthrop Improvement and Historical Association Aubber Day Celebration at the Dean Winthrop House. and April 29th at the senior center at 1:00 there'll be a discussion on ADUs. So immediately following this actually yep pretty much immediately following this we will go in we will break from this meeting and we will go into uh the spring forum. So seeing no further business in front of the council I consider this meeting adjourned. Uh, I'd like to introduce Tony Marino, our town manager, along with our CFO, Sarah Johnson. The town charter gives us two sessions a year, a spring session and a fall session that we have to have a public forum. The spring the fall form is for the delivery of services and the spring form is about finance. So, tonight we're going to use this opportunity. Tony and Sarah are going to use this opportunity to roll out the

fiscal 27 budget and to go over the process of how it was put together and the intense amount of work that it took to get this budget together. So, without further ado, Tony Marino. [applause] Thank you, Mr. Council President. I appreciate it. Thank you for everybody for attending. Um we start off with um the appreciation s if you go to the next slide please. Y um Sarah's going to jump into the meat the nuts and bolts of the general fund budget but I did want to highlight like we did last year uh the capital plan. Uh we have a 5-year capital plan that was built um when I got here back in 2022. Um you know this plan is designed to address a lot of our larger capital needs. uh list projects that we know are upcoming. Um and I've worked closely with um the council members on the uh economic development committee um that was we set up forth to make sure we put in things like um the chairfield uh larger projects that we knew back before we had a fire station, we put the fire station in there. Large projects like that that so people understood that they were coming on the horizon and not necessarily we had the funds to pay for them yet, but items that we had to address. Uh, this also has some of the smaller day-to-day stuff that we do and maintenance on buildings and whatnot. I'll run through it real quick just so everybody gets a handle on what we're looking to present this year. Uh, next slide, please. Probably a little hard to read from down there, but I'll run through it. We always put some money in for roofing repairs cuz we never know when we're going to need that throughout the town. So, we have $10,000 aotted in there for that. Um, we have some exterior pointing work. Uh we have a great fire station and we've done a lot of work on it over the last few years to make it better. But one of the things that we have to continue to do is uh repoint the brick work on the outside. We get a lot of wind driven rain here in Winthre and that rain will penetrate the brick and cause leaks. Uh we get quite a bit of it last year and we're looking to

do some more this year. Um we've got the obviously we're wrapping up the river street tip project. Uh some one of the things while we do that, we've been working on and uh working through getting the main street tip project. So that will take it from McGee Corner down to Bell Isle Bridge. Uh one of the things we have to do and people who don't know the process is the town has to foot the bill for the engineering. So we've been chipping away at that to try to get that work done with CHA. So we're proposing $100,000 to work towards that. Um we always put money in for public seaw wall repairs. We have $50,000 aotted for that. sidewalk replacement, $75,000. Asphalt resurfacing, we've got $250 that goes in there along with our um the chapter 90 money that we get uh which is about $450,000. That'll give us a you know almost uh $700,000 for the year for that. Next page, we have the See, go down here. We put in as we have for the last few years, we've got tree plantings. um tree plantings allows us to do um tree plantings in the fall and the spring uh with our very energetic tree warden. We burned through that money pretty early last year. So um we was able to do some fundraising. We got some additional trees and we're hoping to find some additional funds for some more trees as we keep planting through the seasons here. Um and we have the uh cemetery work. We've been a long-standing project. We've been doing so many linear feet per year. This should be the last year of it, but we have $40,000 aotted to replace the fence in the cemetery. And that should be the last sections that we need. Uh listed in the sort of the tannanish brown here, we have water and sewer. We haven't had don't have any numbers in there yet cuz we're still finalizing what uh next year's water rates going to be and what we can afford, but we are going to look to keep going with the water meter replacement program. Uh exercising our main water valves on the street and then replacing them when we need to. Um, this is all part of the

upkeep and keeping our water system working. As we get to now, we've got some, uh, money for the schools. Uh, we work closely with the schools on this and they give us our yearly requests. Uh, we have money in there for ball field maintenance at $25,000 that I referenced a week or so ago. Um, we have to do some uh, seal topping on the roof at at uh, Arthur T. School, $30,000. uh replace uh actuator and BMS devices um over at the uh coming school as well. 95,369 and then a paging system inside the school. We have to replace that for 48,000. Over at Fort Banks, uh we've got a some drain repair work, $4,900 at the lower roof. And then over here at the Winthre Middle School building, uh one of the larger ones is we have uh uh Gentech uh door controllers. they need to be replaced and that's A2751. On the last page, we have get into some of our equipment. Uh DPW, uh they're looking to do a we uh did a lease to own on our trash truck. This is the final year payment on that of $70,000. Uh we're looking to replace a Ford F250 pickup. Again, we're going to do lease to own. This year's payment will be 12,000. And then what we're looking for, and we have an opportunity to get it at sort of a discount. Um, you know, was last year's model, but we're looking to pick up a Chevy uh pickup truck, no pun intended there, but uh $45,000. What our intention is is to use that to be able to tow trailers around a utility vehicle for DPW, but also we're going to buy a um watering tank and uh we'll be able to use a forklift, slide this watering tank in the back of the pickup truck and let our tree warden and others drive it around to uh keep up the water bags full during the summertime. So, that's the plan for that. Trying to check off a request that's been for the last couple of years now to make sure all the trees

we plant, we keep watered and we don't lose them. Um, we have water out of the water and sewer fund. Um, the the enterprise account. We have an F350 response truck that we're going to replace. Again, lease to own. $16,000 will be this year's payment. Uh, DPW F550 dump truck, one of the larger ones. Again, lease to own, $28,000. Um, we've got the lease payment on the firet truck pumper that's coming in. And actually, our fire team has went down and se driven down to see it. Uh, we're ready to pick up I believe in May, right, Chief? Oh, all right. It's in out of bed. It's in Massachusetts. Where'd you have to go before? Florida.

Florida and see it. So, yeah. So, it's back in. It's in Massachusetts now. So, we should have it soon. Um, we've got a couple more lease payments on that, plus the money that the council moved around for us last week. So, that will take care of that. And we'll have a new piece of apparatus in the fire department. We're happy about that, especially to go in our brand new fire station soon to open. Um, we've got a in the command vehicle, we got to replace an existing command vehicle, uh, Chevy Tahoe 75,000. And we have purchased a new Zodiac inflatable boat, but we may not need that. That we have that in there, but we may be able to take that off. Um, in the police department, we always carry one police cruiser every year, so we have $75,000 for that. Uh, body cameras. Uh, this is a lease we did, lease to own a few years back. $60,000 of that payment. And we're also doing a lease to own on some new tasers at $30,000. And then lastly is it. We always try to put in some money so we can keep our computer stock up to up to date. So we have $10,000 allowed in there for that to replace existing computers throughout the town. Uh that puts our grand total for the year. And you can see the different funding sources. We highlight them in colors there. We've got general funding and debt exclusion of 689,269. Uh motion forward for the council to consider using the building maintenance fund for 137,751. Uh free cash at 500,000, water and sewer enterprise funds to be 44,000, waterways fund 25,000, but again that's for the boat that we may not need. So we might not do that. And then that gives us the grand total of um and the 689 number. Yeah, we'll use that for the 1,39620. Um, and then there's a couple of blocks there on the page. You'll see it. It's also in the capital plan in the budget book. You know, free the funding source for FY27 free cash 500,000. We'll have a motion for capital stabilization for 689269. Water and sewer enterprise fund retain

earnings 44,000 waterways fund 25,000 and the building maintenance fund for 137751 which again grant total $1,396,020. Uh that'll be FY27's capital plan and I'll touch briefly on the budget process. You know, the department has put a lot of work into these budgets. Uh we use what's called the GFOA uh budget format, government finance officers association format. It's designed to be a more transparent budget. It gives out more information for the department's lists, you know, um the mission for the department, uh goals and objectives. Uh lot of stats in there with regard to what they you know things they've done over the year for police how many arrests were made uh fire department how many calls they went on how many were ambulance how many were fire related things like that um all that information is in there it's really well done and I would anybody who's interested watch the finance committee meetings our department heads when they go they really do a great job of presenting and really uh propping themselves up and uh talking about the good work they do uh they we start this work back in November December time frame. Um, and it was all the way up until probably the last couple of weeks. Um, you know, all that far is a special thanks to Lissa in my office. We couldn't put this book together without her. She puts a ton of work at the end here and takes all our stuff and compiles this great PDF and, uh, takes care of getting all these books together. So, thank you, Lissa. Um, quick draft of the budget was presented on April 9th to the finance commission. Uh the final proposed budget will be approved by the town council on or before June 16th which will put us in compliance with that 15 days before the end of the fiscal year that we have to approve the budget. And like I said, the finance committee started a few weeks ago. They've already done on the first night they did uh my department did finance, they did the fire department last week and up this Thursday will be uh DPW, public works, you know, water and sewer, things like that. So, um, and with that, I am going to pass the microphone over to my esteemed colleague

here, Sarah Johnson, and she will give you the update on our base budget document and, you know, how we tick and tie all these numbers together.

Thank you, Tony. Uh, so we begin when we look at budgeting with the revenues because you always want to budget to your revenues. Um, because you have to be very careful in a community because communities can get themselves in trouble if they budget to their expenditures and not to their revenues. So, we look at revenues first and then once we determine our revenues, then we determine how we're going to share the budget. And so, this document, the FY27based budget document begins with what was paid out in FY26 to the schools and the town. And that equals our budget for last year, which was the 66 405 382 at the in green and then we say okay what do we have for FY27 and on that yellow line we aortion additional FY27 revenue so that 1,696520 is what we're sharing of new revenue between the town and the school we have to back off our debt exclusions from the prior year and add in the new debt exclusions and then it comes down to what the schools are going to get for their budget which is 41 million 259738 and then 27,101299 for the town. Um, and that total equals 68,36137. And the bulk of that money comes from our tax levy. So, by Mass General Law, and everybody's probably heard about Prop 2 and a half, you get your last year's levy, which is the $40,460,386. And then you get 2 and a half% of that. And then you also we have to estimate new growth, what we think we'll get for

new growth. And last year we did very well. We estimated 350,000 and we actually brought in 349 398. So we were close. Um we're estimating 350,000 again for FY27. Um few years ago the assessors did a really nice job and they went back and they looked at some of the old building permits, old revenue, and we captured a lot more money. So we had a couple of years of 500,000, you know, and a little bit 450. Um, but now that all of that older new growth has been caught up, now we're at like 350. Um, so then the schools because they had a $3.5 million override, we wanted to be fair to them and we said, "Okay, well, they had their override, so we're going to give them the 2.5% growth on that override. So that's 87500." And you'll notice that little orange line carries through with the schools, too. Um so that portion the total for estimated FY27 uh levy limit is 41 million821896. So that's the biggest portion of all the [clears throat] revenue that we're sharing of the $68 million. Next slide. Um, and then the next largest piece is from state aid and the state gives us money and they call it the cherry sheet because many years ago it used to be printed on pink paper. So that's why it's called the cherry sheet. So if you hear the state, you know, people talking about the cherry sheet, that's why. So we are going to or well I should say we're anticipating the governor allotted $16 million282 $360 for win um and then we also have to pay charges to the state you know MBTA there's a bunch of other different costs

that we have to pay that's estimated at a million443788 and then we also have cherry sheet offsets and that's for the library and so we have to back off a million493914 of that 16 million they're giving us. So the net comes down to 14,788446. Then the next largest piece that we collect ourselves from the town and all the residents from the various departments um is local receipts because it's money that's generated locally. The largest piece of that is motor vehicle excise. So the motor vehicle excise bills that we all pay on our cars here in Massachusetts. People who live in Winthre, Winthre gets that money. So that's a nice bonus. That's like $23 million. Um the next largest is the pilot payments and um we get over well close to $3 million on those. Um and then the rest is more um smaller fees um you know miscellaneous fees and fines. A big portion of that is building permits because the building department generates a lot of um money in building permits, liquor permits, you know, um and so plumbing permits and the rest go on and on. the police for different fines, court fines, um treasurer's office, multiple lean certificates, um multiple uh town clerk, she's got a lot of, you know, court fees that she accepts, too. So, that all considers part of, you know, local receipts. um we have to charge off back off some of that value for the allowance for abatement because if the assessors say to you, well, we're assessing your home at a million dollars and you say, "My house isn't worth a million dollars." You know, um the neighbor next door only

sold for $800,000. And so someone asks for an abatement and then the assessors look at your value again and then they may say well maybe you know this house over here sold for higher that house over there is a colonial yours is a colonial that class has gone up. So they have many different methods that they use. Um but they may say well you know maybe it's only worth $975,000. So then you get an abatement for $25,000 or that resident will. we have a fund that we set aside for that and that's why we need to have that allowance for abatement and in order to to do that we have to back off some of the revenue to create that fund. Um and then that's another total estimated receipts to share total of 22 million. So we're getting awful close to that 68 million now. And then there's other revenue that we directly use to offset um from other sources or things in our budget. Um cemetery lock, cemetery perpetual care for taking care of the cemeteries. Um, we have a maintenance stabilization fund, regional 911, and then the enterprise funds, they're run separately than the general fund. We're talking about the general fund here, but our largest enterprise fund is the water sewer fund. And then we have the rink and we have park and wreck and we have our trash um solid waste. And then uh why am I forgetting one?

Harvard. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um and so enterprise funds are supposed to be self- sustaining. They bring in revenue and they pay their expenses, but yet for like sewer and water, you all get your water bills. And so, but when you pay your water bills, they come to the treasur's office. And so our treasurer, he's accounting for that water. His staff is taking those water payments in. Um, in the accounting side, we're paying some of their water bills. Um, we also process their payroll. So, there's what we call indirect costs for Tony's time, my time, um, the payroll person, the treasurer's office, you know, right down the line. And so, the town, the general fund helps them. And so, they pay, the enterprise funds pay the town for some of those services. So basically, when you add up all of that revenue, the levy, your um the debt service, because that gets taxed outside the levy if it was voted as a debt exclusion, like the new fire station, um some of that is the new debt for the new fire station. And then that 22 million that we talked about before, which was the um state aid and the local receipts. And when you add all of those pieces together, it equals 68,361037, which is the exact amount of money that we're sharing with the town and the schools. So, our budget is balanced. Um, which is a good thing. Um, and that's not easy. It's difficult. um because whenever the department heads ask us for money, there's always more asks than the money we have to go around. So, unfortunately, there are tough decisions that are made. Um and it's it's difficult because you'd love to be able

to fund everything that everyone asks for, but unfortunately there's just not enough money to go around. Um, and so basically the budget books that Tony mentioned, the PDF is on our website. Um, yeah, this is what the budget book looks like. It's, uh, takes a little bit to download because it's a very bulky document. It's got a lot of information in it. Um, but the budget format promotes the best practices in public budgeting. Um it focuses on information, transparency and accountability. Um the departments talk about um their mission statement, their goals, what are their objectives, what do they accomplish in the prior fiscal year, what what you know what do they want to do for the you know next fiscal year in FY27. Um the information is presented in an easy to digest format and um it gives a great snapshot into the town's finances and every year the finance committee um will say well you know can we add a little something can we do you know explain some more of the funds or can we look at free cash or certify retained earnings. So every year we've added another section um to the book. So if you look at last year's book there's even more information in this year's book. Um and if you just to highlight the format of the um

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I can I missed a slide. I can go back to that one. Um

one more. Thank you. So, this is an example of the town council's budget. So, we look at what they actually spent in FY20 forward. That's the first column. And then, well, I should say third column. and then what they actually spent in FY25, what we budgeted for this fiscal year, what they've actually expended halfway through the year because we just the 1231 date is kind of easier to digest. You can just multiply it by two and figure out what you think you're probably going to spend. It works in some cases, but not in all. Um, and then what a department actually requested and then what the town manager is proposing. And then we have a change column. what the change was from year to year and then the percentage. So when I said it halfway through the year works for most cases but not all. It's because some appropriations get paid fully in the beginning of the year like our retirement appropriation you know um or insuranceances we get a discount. So we're like oh we like discounts we'll pay that on you know July 15th for the whole year. And so when you look at it, you think, "Oh my, you know, they spent almost that whole budget right in the right in July." Well, there's a reason for that because we get a discount. So when you look at some lines in the budget, you'll see that a lot has been spent right away or it might be a software program and we have to pay 50% upfront. So, there's various reasons why we do what we do, but you'll notice that um if you look at the budget book, there's some lines that are almost fully spent, and that would be why. Um Rivera, can you go back two slides? Yeah, the summary budget. I skipped over that. I apologize. Um so, basically in FY27, total general government went from 3.5

million to 3.8 million this year. Uh public safety went from 9.4 4 to 9.66. Vocational education went from 1.636 to 1.602. It went down just a little bit. Um, DPW, there's an explanation for this. It looks like we cut their budget, but in effect, it was 2.77 million and now it's 2.71. We didn't cut the DPW. There's a department code 425, which is in the same series as the DPW, which is 420. And so the shared expenses for fuel and electricity and some other items in that budget were cut, but not the DPW budget. So there was an increase in the DPW budget. So that optically looks a little funny, but we didn't cut Steve's budget. Um, total cultural and human services was 1.1, it's now 1.3. And then other non-EP departmental went from 7.7 to 7.9. And those budgets are a lot of the insuranceances and they're the employee benefits. And unfortunately, a lot of those costs we can't necessarily control because the GIC gives us an increase and that's what we pay. Um, there are some things that we can control in health insurance. And do you want to talk about that? there's a public employee commission that can be brought together that can discuss benefits and maybe restructuring benefits or so that's something that we're going to be looking into. Yes. So basically and then the schools 40.150 um last year 41.259 this year. So there is as Tony said a lot of work that goes in to preparing the budget and we take the information that the departments give us and um we discuss you know budgets with the department heads and if we have to make cuts you know unfortunately it's

explained to them why we have to make the cuts that we have to um and Tony always talks with them and if there's something that he can do to help he does. And if you can't, well, unfortunately, we can't. So, um, that brings us to questions. Um, does anyone have any questions for us?

All right. Can I just ask your capital? Sure. What percent would you say? things that we already

I haven't broken it down by percentage. I mean, I I'd like to think it was half and half, but it might not be this year. I mean, we have some other long-term leases that we committed to. So, I'll get you that percentage. I don't have it off the top of my head, but I'll certainly pull that up for you. It's fine. Uh, a couple things I do want to highlight. Um, I know that last year with fin the finance commission, there was some concerns over, you know, public health, uh, the clear team and all the monies, uh, some of the grants that they were losing. Um Meredith did put a request in a little larger than normal. We were able to make that grant that request so we weren't losing any positions over there. So we were able to fund the you know whatever they lost in grant money this year. So uh that helped. We did for solid waste. Um you know we were thankful to get only a 6% increase last year but remember our increases in the years before were only about 2 1.5%. So 6%'s a substantial increase. And unfortunately these days um what we pay in tonnage to get rid of both trash and recycling has gone up um substantially. Uh recycling used to be very inexpensive to get rid of and that's just not the case anymore. It's almost as much as trash now to get rid of. So what we call our tipping fees or our tonnage there to get rid of the trash. We had budgeted 600,000. I thought you could start a motion in tonight's council budget to move money around to help offset some of the overages for this year. And then next year um we had to move some money around. uh we will have to do a slight increase on the trash fee, but we tried to minimize that by we were only moving 400,000 over for trash um to cover it last year. This year we took that number to 480 to help offset some of the loss uh the expenses to minimize, you know, the impact to the residents. So, uh more to follow on that. We're still fine-tuning that number, but we will certainly get it out. And this year, so we aren't surprising everybody, the plan is is we'll put an insert in with the first trash bill explaining everything and why it, you know, may or may not go up. um and go from there. So, um that was it. Any other questions? I just wanted to highlight a few of those things. All right. I'm not going to ask again. So, I'm sure everyone wants to go watch the Celtics game or the Bruins. So, um

very good. Thanks everybody. I appreciate it. Uh if you my door is always open and you need any questions, want anything answered, come on by. I'm happy to love talking the budget. [applause] Thank you.