Planning Board - Regular Meeting

The Board meeting for tonight, May 5. We do not have any continued meetings and hearings. Unacicipated, any member of the Board have anything under unanticipated? Any member of the public have anything under unanticipated?

Don't worry, we'll just say

no. I'm

actually unanticipated. We had thought about having something on the agenda to discuss the agenda process so that members would get the agenda a little earlier in the week so that if they had anything that they wanted to ask to be put on, then they would be able to. And if they did ask for something to put on and it wasn't on, then they'd be able to inquire why. So, you know, thinking like maybe pull it the draft together, like, on Tuesday or Wednesday, send out the draft agenda to the board members by email, and then say, okay. You need to, you know, get back to, the planner or yourself by Thursday night if they had anything that they'd like to see added or they had questions about something.

And then it would be able to be posted. When do you post, Robin? Thursday. You post Thursday?

Thursday or Friday.

Okay. So we so get, you know, get it out Wednesday morning, get back to you by Wednesday night. It just would I think it would it would make the board members a little more involved. And then if they had any questions, they're not getting their packets over the weekend and then if it's a Monday holiday then you just have Tuesday to ask questions and it's kind of late by then. So I thought if we could try to do it a little earlier and get it out to the members early, that way we would have less unanticipated and it would be more transparent.

So we can't have a discussion about this since it's not on the agenda.

So I'd like to put it on the agenda for the next meeting so we can have a discussion about it. Sure. Thank you.

Anyone else have anything unanticipated? Members of the audience, no? Alright. Payment of bills, I entertain a motion to pay the bills as presented.

So moved. Second.

Motion to second. Any comments or questions?

All in

favor? Aye.

Opposed? Passes unanimously. I entertain a motion to approve the minutes of 04/21/2026.

So moved. Second.

I have a motion to second. Any comments, questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. I didn't say a motion to approve the minutes of 04/28/2026.

So moved. Second.

Motion to second. Any comments, questions? All in favor? Aye. One abstention, four in favor?

I wasn't there.

Alan, you weren't here either.

All right, I'll abstain. I wasn't here on this meeting.

No, that

was Working the meeting. So two abstentions, three in favor. I entertain a motion. What are we doing with the form A? I thought we were doing this in the office, the form a's?

No, we never actually got to the point of deciding the format and how we were going to do it.

Oh, alright. Alright, form a's. 26 Dash 4 Dash A 36 Spruce Street, Cap 101, Lot 2251. My dears, how you doing?

Good evening, planning board. This

is

a Form A. It's got one lot on it and two parcels. Parcel A hopefully is being deeded to the person be in front of it. They were interested in buying the piece of land behind them. And Parcel B is going to be a commercial lot. So that does not have the zoning required for a resident. So it's just being called a parcel because it's a commercial lot, not a residential lot.

Anybody have any comments, questions?

So Mr. Chair, to Ed, so Lot 1 and Parcel B used to be all one lot?

Yes. Parcel A, Lot 1 and Lot B were all one lot.

Okay. Thank you.

So we are confirming all three tonight? Or are we just doing Lot 1? We're doing all of it together, Parcel A, Lot 1 and parcel B? I just want to make sure I'm right.

Yes. You would be creating Parcel A, Parcel B, and Lot 1.

The property.

It's the division of WRPD three and four.

You need a copy, Bill?

I'm just gonna

I got hers booked. No, I've never seen this, that's all. It's on the town line.

Anybody have any comments, questions? There's no one left. Nancy?

Yes, just one. The railroad tracks won't have any issue with the Parcel B, right?

The railroad tracks actually the layout the railroad people actually have two layouts there. They have one layout where the train tracks are and they went along most of the railroad track and got another piece on either side of it. And that's what they did on this. So there's actually three parcels next to it that the train people own. There's a parcel of butting this, then there's a parcel that tracks around and a parcel on the other side also.

Any other comments, questions? Nancy?

No, no. I'm just scratching my head, sorry.

All right. I didn't say a motion to endorse as presented. So moved. Second. A motion to second. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Attention.

Thank you very much.

All right. Public hearings. What's that? No,

we have the fees first, don't we?

Yes. The fees are first.

One more.

Was he wanna wanna put the fees at the deck so we don't have to keep mister Youngquist? No.

Alright. How many we can move.

You okay with that? I'm okay. I'm okay with that.

Whatever you guys want. Yeah.

Yeah. We can move them.

Mhmm. Order right. We'll take it. What?

Alright. So by 06:30, we're gonna have a gonna reopen the hearing for twenty five dash nine RL. Plain Street? Yeah.

You need to read them.

Plain Street, Lot 1, Map 22, Lot 2481 Dash Millbar Prom LLC is now open. Alright. The Middleborough Planning Board will hold a public hearing Tuesday, January. Oh, that's the old one. Yeah. Alright. Yeah. We're good.

Yeah. I thought so. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Hold on

one second, mister chair. You have to read the entire legal ad.

I've reopened it.

Reopened the hearing.

Oh. Oh.

Opened once in red flag.

Because they wish they had

to read it.

Read it.

January Okay.

Whatever it was. Okay.

So this has been a long time going. Basically what we have done is we finally came up to agreement with the National Heritage and they put their line on there. And then Thursday night, we're given the CR to the Middleborough Plant Conservation Commission. It's going to vote on the CR to accept it, I guess. But basically, that's all we've been waiting for. It takes forever.

Anybody have any comments or questions?

Mr. Chair? Yes. So do we have anything from Conservation on this?

What would we have?

Did you go to Conservation, Jeff?

There were meeting Thursday night to sign off on the CR.

This Thursday?

This Thursday. Okay. And do We anything natural have a letter.

Okay. Do we have the letter?

No. I didn't think you needed it has nothing to do with you.

Yes. Was about laying it out so that it met Natural Heritage. What they were waiting for. It had nothing to do with us approving anything with it. It was their layout was waiting for that.

Do we have

anything from Natural Heritage that says the layout is acceptable?

No, that was them waiting. That's up to them.

Okay. Why was natural heritage involved?

Why? Yeah. It's endangered species.

Okay. So, again, so we're not supposed to care about whether they got through the endangered species process before we vote to approve.

Correct.

That's their business with that group.

Okay. It's not whether or not we care or not. That it's not under our purview.

Let's put it this way, Tracy. We would not be here unless it's been ironed out.

Right. It's just another piece to the puzzle. Yeah. With with lots like these that are so wet.

There's it's not wet. There's there's no wetlands on the lot. Way in the back.

Well, yeah. That's a there's a lot.

Oh, they're at least three half three, four hundred feet from the Right.

I thought that's what we were waiting for was natural heritage approval.

Not us.

Not us. Okay.

They were waiting for it so that they could get the layout done correctly to meet whatever they had to do. That was all on their side. Once they had that done, then they could bring

They set the lines, we did not.

We actually have you set the lines. Okay.

Nancy?

So one of the questions I had was I know where the Heritage Line is.

But

for Retreat Lot I don't know if we're talking about all of them, but anyway, Retreat Lot 2 And 3.

They're right after this one.

We're on Route 1

right now.

Either way, it all intersects, so the same question would go to all three. Yes. Is it on the front of it?

Do you

have access to the road to go into that? If we do this right now, it doesn't look like you have access because Natural Heritage Line is all along the road to the Plain Street.

Plain Street's out here.

Maybe I'm not explaining it. Do you see where I'm in here?

I understand what you're Plain

Street. Yep.

The driveways are coming off of

Plain Street. Everything beyond that line is restricted.

I think what Nancy's trying to get through is like for Lot 1, the natural heritage line runs right across the beginning of the driveway.

No, it doesn't.

Isn't that the black dotted line?

So you're talking about mapping. That's the line. The That's the restriction line is the dark line.

I'm talking about the dotted line.

Yep. That's the mapping. When you look at the Natural Heritage map, that's the whole area that's mapped. You can do work within that, but you need Natural Heritage's permission. So they decide where they want to see any construction limited.

Any development.

Right, disturbance. Right, so that's where you see the dark line. That's the line of demarcation that you cannot do anything beyond that. So conservation will deal with that, with conservation restriction. And they'll probably have them put up signs.

Yeah, they put up stuff and then they move the turtles or whatever is out of the way. I just wanted to make sure that with all of this, there is road access. Like, there will be road access. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's what my concern was.

Anybody

else have any other comments, questions? I just have one question.

I have a feeling I've asked this before. Retreat lots, is it just the furniture that I can't touch?

Yes.

Okay.

Yes. I just wanted to confirm that. For some reason, I knew it,

but I had to ask.

Because they touch in the back, but the frontage on the road for the access cannot be adjacent to each other.

So the abutter,

because we don't have the rest of the plan, I just want to make sure that that is not a retreat lot as well.

Which one? On 3?

It would be the abutter Jeffrey

Terby. He's got a big horse farm back there.

Okay. So that's not a tree lot.

No, it's not his property.

It's off the property.

Just only because, like I said,

I wanted to

make sure the furniture

was

an issue.

Anybody else have any other comments, questions? I would entertain a motion to close the hearing. So moved. A motion and a second to close the hearing. Any comments, questions? All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Opposed? I now understand motion to

what? We open this Lot 2.

May I vote

on this one first?

Oh, yes. You got a vote.

Vote to approve the the Main Street Lot 1, Map 22, Lot 248 Dash, Lot 2481, Nobel Farm LLC. So moved. Do I have a second?

Second.

Motion and second to approve the Quincy Street Lot 1 as presented. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain. One abstention, forward in favor. Passes. All right. We'll now open 20 Five-10RL, Plain Street, Lot 2, Lot 22, Lot 2481, Novarra Farms, LLC, not open. Does anybody have any comments, questions on this one? This is for Retreat Lot Number 2. Or no, just regular regular Lot Number 2. I'm sorry.

No, it's Retreat Lot.

No, it's Retreat Lot.

They're all retreat lots. I already got the form a approved, one and two.

Alright, so it is a retreat lot. Apologies. Any comments, questions?

I got one. Two? First question. The ADU, with the septic system, what's that gonna be?

With an ADU? Yeah,

the other

Yes, ADU on it.

We don't have any ADUs on this.

Yeah, we do.

Yeah, the plan, yeah.

On both of them? Yeah.

Okay, sorry. So I'm

just asking where's the septic system gonna be because the septic system weighing up same thing with the first one we just did. I'm just curious. Yeah. They're tying together?

Mhmm.

Are they gonna have another one?

They'll be tied together more than likely. As long as it complies with title five, that's all that matters.

I know we have no say on that. Was just curious. That's all. Yeah.

Well, that'll that'll come back to

us for approval.

That's not approved yet. No. The ADU is not approved.

The house isn't even approved. So

But it's on the plant. I was just wondering where the subject was going to be.

No, I didn't even realize they put them on there, Okay,

does anybody else have any other comments, questions? All in favor I didn't say a motion to close the hearing.

So moved. Second.

A motion to second to close the hearing. Any comments, questions? All in favor? Presented. So moved. I have motion. Do I have a second?

Second.

A motion and a second. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstained. All in favor, one one abstention. Alright. Moving right along. I have to say the well, I'll open the hearing for 25 Dash RL, Plain Street, Lot 3, MAP 22, Lot 2481, Millboro Farm, LLC. Any questions?

I have one. Yep. I should have asked it on one too, but I didn't. How do you know where that line is going to be? Are you going to stake that out? Is it going to have barriers?

What? For the

For the proposed restriction line. Is there going to be

We'll put whatever they ask us to put. And it will be we have to do a turtle sweep first. And then once that's done, it's up and the barrier's in and that's Okay.

I'm really tempted to ask you what a turtle sweep is, but I don't want to.

Alan, you can come up there.

We can talk about it later.

Turtle sweep is getting All about 150 an

right.

Any other comments or questions?

I have.

How do I sign up for that?

It's the best way to spend the day.

Think everybody You're very quick, though. You gotta be careful. So moved. Second. Motion to second to close the hearing. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passive Ghanaians. Aye. Opposed? I'd entertain the motion to approve the Plain Street Lot 3, NAP 22, Lot 2481, Millboro Farms LLC. So moved. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Abstain. All in favor, one abstention.

Thank you. Thank you.

No. They were both positive hearings.

I know. But I'm the same. He never asked us. I know it's late. But

Wally had any questions, he'd ask. Alright. We're going to now I have a public hearing regarding the fees increase. In accordance with master general law chapter 40 a section five as amended, The planning board will hold a public hearing on Tuesday, 05/05/2026 beginning at 06:30PM within the select Board meeting room. Town Hall, 10 Nickerson Ave, Millbar, Mass for the purpose of providing interested parties with an opportunity to comment on the proposed updates to the town of Millebarro Planning Board fee structure.

To discuss potential changes in Planning Board fee structure, the complete text of the proposed amendment is available for inspection within the planning and community development department Town Hall, Annex 27th Street, 2nd Floor, Middleborough, Mass, Monday, 8AM to 6PM, Tuesday through Thursday, 8AM to 5PM, and Friday, eight to 12PM, or by emailing j mandeal j jmandeal@novaramass.gov. Any person interested in or wishing to be heard on the proposed amendment should appear at the time and place designated. Alright. With that, the hearing is now open. We have the fee structure, the proposed fee structure.

Does anybody have any comments or questions?

I came up with one more thing, if possible.

All

right. When I was looking at everything, and for the Form A, we went up to 200 per parcel. But on the retreat lot, where we only have, like, 600, and is that per retreat lot, or is that just retreat lot?

Each one is individual. Each retreat lot is as tonight we had three, but each one was its own special permit.

Okay. So we don't have to have like per on there, special permit?

No, because it would only be

But it's one each. Okay. I just wanted to make sure.

Anybody else have any other comments or questions?

Well, the only other thing I wanted to ask is when we go over this in the future, like how we're going to do it yearly, is if we can actually try to get more input from other towns or whatever and make sure if we're kind of in the same ballpark.

I don't think we have. I think that's up to us.

Yeah. Okay.

I think having this on an agenda, like on a biannual basis, be a great idea, if we could add that to a calendar.

So from the working meeting, we updated with blue some of the numbers. And on the back, where it says site plan review, we just laid in a different structure for the tiers. And we actually added waivers. That was something we don't currently have and that's something we put in. Other than that, it's the same structure you've seen before that was proposed everything in the red. So a few minor changes, a little update and an addition.

Anybody have any comments or questions?

I'd like to thank Joe for doing the minutes that night. You did a good job.

I said I'd do my best.

You did a good job.

So this is the chair. Yep. It's like a 20% increase, right?

Mostly. A couple of things went up a little bit more to round them.

I just wanted it out there for the public

who's About 20% because we haven't gone up with the prices over five years.

With the exception of the tiers.

The tiers are a little bit different, but that's new anyway. We really just started that.

Right.

But that's how we come up with this. Correct. Okay. So they know.

Anybody have any comments, questions on it? Anyone in the public have any comments or questions? All right. With that, I would then say a motion to approve as presented. Motion to approve.

I think you need to close All the hearing

right. I'd say a motion to close the hearing.

So moved. Second.

Motion to second. Closing hearing. Any comments or questions? All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed? Passes unanimously. Hearing is now closed. I'd entertain a motion to accept to approve the changes as presented. So move the fees and increase.

Second.

Motion is second. Any comments, questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Do we have to do anything now except just update our prices? Yeah.

These will be effective tomorrow. Beautiful.

Well, Yeah.

That's your fault, Joe.

All right. Beautiful. All right. Taco Bell about a complaint.

So we've received a complaint that last meeting and we asked her to put in writing. She did a very good job in writing and pictures. It really comes down to now it's a zoning violation. We gave them what their requirements were. It's in the special permit. They agreed to it. And it doesn't appear as though they're meeting what's in their requirements. So it's really the pleasure of the Board how we want to proceed.

We don't really have an enforcement on it, do we?

We do not. No, not as this Board, no.

So

I could send this to the Taco Bell rep. And maybe it would enlighten him that maybe the lights are on a timer or something like that, that is malfunctioning. So that might take care of that. Of course, in here is about the trash pickup and you could probably look into that. But as far as us doing any kind of enforcement, meaning they don't do some of the things that are in the special permit, we would need to go to zoning for that,

the zoning enforcement officer. I would suggest that we send this to the Taco Bell rep, give them an opportunity. And if there's no improvement, we send it to the joint enforcement officer.

Yes. What I'll do is I'll loop Bob in on this. Yes.

I can send it to both of them at the same

time.

That's what I would suggest we do.

That we

know what it is we're attempting to do. Is that what the Board wants me to do?

I just I have a question. What does trash being picked up at 4AM have to do with zoning?

Because it's more of a nuisance complaint.

Okay. So a nuisance complaint goes to zoning enforcement?

Yeah. Okay.

We have no enforcement capability.

Right. No. I realize that. I'm just trying to think. Wouldn't that be a Board of Health complaint because it's regarding trash pickup?

Only if the trash was the problem.

Well, appears that there is trash blowing around onto the neighbor's yards.

Two different things.

So that's not a zoning issue. That's a Board of Health issue.

That's a separate thing?

That could be.

So I'm going to send everything to him and I'll talk to Bob and Bob can explain in more detail to me as to what he might have jurisdiction over. If he believes there's something that the health department should get involved in, we'll loop them in also.

Right. I mean, blowing

I'm hoping that

blowing trash is definitely Board of Health.

Just be a case of they were unaware of it and they fix it. Because so far, they've been pretty good about following up on the things we talked to them about. They did a good job on what we had asked them, boy, it was last fall. And they said, please give us the winter on the ballad. Without any prompting, the ballad went in right in the time frame they said it was going to happen. So I'm hoping they just don't know. I mean they're not at Taco Bell. Taco Bell is not at this all the time. It's an individual owner and manager. So it could be that the likes are managed by corporate.

No. Mr. Chair? Also smell, that's Board of Health. That's not zoning. And she's complaining about the odors, so that's Board of Health. Fire alarms would be the fire department. So I think that just saying we're going to send this to the zoning enforcement officer, I think we need to get a little bit of a better handle on this.

What I'm going to do is speak with the zoning enforcement officer. The things that he would not handle, then I would go to the places that are more appropriate. But I I need to start with one place.

But the one of the main things she complained about is they're picking up the trash 04:00 in the morning.

Right. Mhmm.

So that's zoning to enforce that.

Mhmm.

They're probably what they is, they're probably one of the first ones on his roof. I don't know where he started from, but you know

what I'm saying?

And that's why.

That's lot easier to drive a roof before in the morning than it is at nine in the morning.

Yeah, know that. Unless they can put him a little bit farther back on the route, I don't know where he's coming from, you know what I mean, how it's played out.

So one of the things I had brought to Joe before, and it's in here about that left turn only, I know we don't have any jurisdiction because DOT changed things. But that white is still not yellow. That area that's supposed to be yellow paint, and it was told to them by DOT on the plans that we have that it was supposed to be yellow paint and it's white, That needs to be yellow. But I don't know if we have any sign that says no left turn there either. Don't know if there's any signage. There is a sign. There is a sign?

It's on the backside of the do

not enter sign. Okay. But

the white, if I think, I don't know if that would help, but usually people pay attention to yellow.

It is depicted in the drawings Right. As yellow. As yellow. Yes. But that is off of our property onto the right of way for the state.

Yeah. It wasn't even supposed to be painted. Don't think I thought it was.

No. They threw that in at the end.

It was supposed to be like the bubbles, circles.

Well, think that's it's a thick layer of material that gets laid down. I'm not sure if you call it paint. You drive over, you can actually feel you driving over.

It's a little bit

it's raised.

But if we can look into that part of it, too, I don't know

It was definitely depicted as yellow. And there's no argument on their side. They just didn't do it. They did it all in white. But I can ask about that also because that I'll send them the drawing.

And you didn't mention the ballad to them yet, right? I don't know if we want to do it on the same thing.

They did the ballad then.

Oh, the ballad Yes.

See it.

Yes, they did that.

They already did it? Nice. I didn't see it. So that's good.

They did it in

early days. Yeah, it's easy. It's easy.

All

Next up, number two, internal posting of the Tom Klab position. Everybody on board with the final draft? The last version, Nancy's suggested revisions?

I actually, on that, Mr. Chair, I wasn't feeling well. I was having some health issues, I actually used the wrong posting to make corrections. I I don't know if I had Leanne's copy that had the change in it with the one mile, so that would be a discrepancy with what was sent back from what was sent to Allison, you know, to HR versus what had?

All right. Leanne.

What we have for physical demands, office based work with occasional site visits must be able to walk uneven terrain up to one mile and lift up to 50 pounds.

But the other thing I had in here, and I sent it to you the other day when I was able to watch the tapes, the McCann, is the other job description has related, and this one has professional. And the last time we approved all this, we went by the job description first to change the job posting to match the job description. But this was never stated in any of the changes because it wasn't noticed. And I just noticed it recently. But when I watched the meetings, all it said was experience.

When the motion was made, it just said four plus years experience. So professional and related were left out of the motion. So I don't know if we want to say, you know, I don't know. I mean, we can easily change it, you know, so that they both match. That's the only thing I really saw different in both of them.

All right. So I'm looking at internal job posting, the PDF of the internal job posting. Yep. And that's the one we want to go with?

I'm looking at the one that has the yellow on the top.

Yep. Yep. All right. So we all have are we all looking at the same

thing? Mhmm.

Yes. All right.

Let's go through this and see what we like. Does anybody have any changes, suggested changes on this version? Yes. You go first, Nancy.

The four plus years of the professional experience should be changed to something to match the job description of either related or

don't know. How about professional related experience?

Yeah. That would work.

Alright. Is that a motion? Let me say yes.

Yes.

Do I have a second? Second. Alright. So motion and a second to add the word related after professional. So it'll read four plus years of professional related experience. Yep. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Thank you. Anything else?

The date.

Yeah. We'll change the dates to the appropriate date.

And so this will be posted tomorrow? If the board votes, so votes? Yeah. We're just voting on the posting, correct? Not the job description. Right. I'd like to make a motion to send the internal posting to HR and request that they post on May 6.

Second. The motion is second. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Alright. Talent plan and job description.

Mister chair, I would like to ask that we change the same verbiage to plan and related in the job description.

Is there a motion? Yes. Second. A motion and a second to change the same thing on the job description. Would be professional related experience. Anybody have any comments or questions?

I have another change on it.

Let's do this one at a time.

Okay. All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Passes unanimously. Tracy?

I'm just looking at the title of the job description that had Nancy's revisions. It says Planning and Community Development at the top.

Yeah, we have to take that off.

So that needs to be gone. That's

it. Yep. We noticed that.

What you're going say in the front?

Well, just

going say town planner.

Yeah, it's just going to say town planner. Yep. So I did see one that was crossed out and it was under definition. And it had in the planning department crossed out where it reads the town planner offers, actually Robin bought this one. The town planner offers technical and professional expertise to the planning board and the planning department carrying out duties as set forth in Mass General Laws, town bylaws, and rules and regulations for some reason and the planning department is crossed out. I don't think that should be crossed out.

I agree.

Agree. All right.

So I'll make a motion then to reinstate the definition in the first sentence and the planning department to the job description.

Second. Any comments, questions?

All in favor? Aye.

Opposed? Alright. Aye. And to say the motion to accept it as amended. So moved. Second. Motion to second. Any comments, questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passes unanimously. Move. Planning Board revolving and other accounts turn back funds update.

Okay. So when we were alerted to the impending budget deficit, we were asked by the interim town manager to look under the couch cushions to see what you could find to turn back. So we did that. And in doing so and a question that I had had in previous years was our revolving account where all of our application fees are deposited. It kept growing year after year after year.

And so I asked, what is this account? Why does it keep growing? Why does the planning board have all of this money? Which to date amounts to $383,000 And I never received any answer. So doing a little bit of research, I found that the planning department back in 1986 had received an act of legislature giving them the authority to have this revolving account.

However, we were only supposed to be keeping $20,000 at one time. And so if you had all these fees going in and it went over that $20,000 it's supposed to go directly into the general fund whenever this would happen throughout the year. That has never happened. It has or it hasn't happened in a very long time. We've asked finance.

They don't know. They didn't know anything about this. So they now have it. So they will, in June, be receiving from our revolving account $363,000 So we did do our part in finding coins under the couch cushions for

the Can't we just keep it Put it down.

Use it on our own department?

We can you can't pay can use it for oh, let me get to that. Such expenses shall include payment for services rendered to said town by engineers, surveyors, architects, and other persons who give professional and technical advice to assist the planning board in carrying out its responsibilities under law. The only time we've used this was when we did the subdivision subdivision rules rules and and regulations. Regulations. Yeah. But it's just kept for I don't even know how many years Mr. Chair? Accruing money

to land. So we're going

to keep It was a very pleasant surprise. And then they slashed our whole department.

So we're going to keep $20,000 Oh, in that Sorry. We're going to keep 20,000 Yes.

We will always have $20,000 We will always have $20,000 Yes. So there was that one. And then there was another account that was set up by the prior town planner, Ruth. Don't even know how many years ago Tammy brought this to my attention. And that has $30,741 That has never been used. It's just been accruing small amounts of interest each month. So it's never been used. We don't even know what it's used for, what its purpose was. Finance doesn't know either. So that will be going back as well.

And we also, our construction observation funds and our surety funds this is before I started in 2018. The ones going forward from 2018, we have under control. But prior to that, there's $4,000,000 that is sitting in hundreds of accounts. $4,000,000 It's $4,000,000

It's all the roads that have been worked on in this town for decades and decades and decades that whether they were closed out and accepted or not, the final process of returning all the funds didn't seem to happen apparently. So those accounts just sat there.

Some of them are like thirty, forty years old. So I don't know how we're going to do it, but we should be going back to find out who the legal entity is to recoup those funds. And then if it's a surety, then the board has to vote on it. If it's just an old construction observation account, we can just give them the money. But it's $4,000,000 It's a huge project.

But important to note, a lot of that money isn't something that should be returned because the roads were never finished. They were abandoned before the process was finished. And the funds back then were so small that you can't go and do anything with them now. So if you have 30,000 or $40,000

I'm not

going to do anything.

And I've had the DPW out to look at a few things over the years, and there's hundreds of thousands of dollars of work to bring the roads up to level to acceptable. So we're not going to do

What type of roads? Do they all do it now?

No, no, no. They're paved roads in many cases.

They just don't

get don't

know. They're just not

maintained. Unfinished.

Right. That's why we

have so many problems.

When the developer

know, did this.

They abandoned it. Yes. And if it had been acted upon decades ago when that happened, you probably would have had enough funds to finish it up, to finish up whatever drainage was going on or signage or final type of topping done or anything like that. It wasn't done. So that now it's sat.

What looked like a lot of money twenty five years ago is a laughable mouth because you can't get anything done for that. And that's where we are. There's a legal process that the town will have to really work on is to what do you do with those monies. It's not enough to repair it, but you can't give it back to because the developer doesn't deserve to get the money back.

So what do you do?

There might be a possibility, and I'm just going to say this possibility, that if the people on these roads are approached and they create a association, you might be able to if the attorneys say you can, you may be able to give that money to the association for the people who live on the road, and then they can do with it as they see fit because it's a private road. The town is not going to improve it.

The town hasn't been plowing those roads?

They can't.

They're not accepted roads.

They're not accepted roads.

But then definitely not plowing them. We're not seeing them.

No. No. We were sued. The town was sued

I back remember that.

The town was not supposed

to. But they probably are. They probably have been then, right?

Well, and I can't speak for the DPW, and I wouldn't dare do so. They're private roads. Repairs or improvements can be done to them. And the monies are relatively short monies. It's just so many of these We roads on these

get the printouts every quarter, And it's this thick.

And we just cut all our staff so we can't even assign somebody to do one or two of these every month. Yeah. And really, the attorneys would have

to first tell the town, what can you even do with the ones that you shouldn't be returning to the developers? That itself is a process. Then you'd have to have somebody who would then reach out to all of the people on every single road to see, do they have

an association? Some of these accounts has any?

Well, how do you clean up the That's what it comes down to. Quite an undertaking.

Quite an undertaking. Just an update to let you know.

So I don't know what we could do about it, but I don't want to forget about it again. Yeah. And I don't know how to do that either.

After town meeting and everything's settled, someone needs to reach out to the attorneys to get them working on how would you go about this. We can't be the first town that has had this issue and what to do.

Mr. Chair,

I'm more concerned about the other departments if this is what we found.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm sure there's

There's nest eggs everywhere.

That was one of my suggestions to Joe Perkins was I sent him all this and I said, if I can find this, I said, every department should be going through their trial balances that they get every quarter and scouring the lines. I still have some lines. There's three in animal control that I have to go over with Sue to figure out what is this money. Like, can it go in the donations account? Or does it go into the general fund? Like every department has these, and every department needs to go through their trial balance, like line by line.

Wouldn't you think this would

all go through finance? Oh,

there's so many.

Like, doesn't this get people checked by finance? I've made this recommendation several times. I don't have an answer. I don't know.

Well, Mr. Chair, I do have a question to Leanne. Who's been paying for all of the costs that where that $1,000,000

Well, it's just money sitting in an account.

But to offset engineers and survey and architects. Was for individual developments.

But the $300 Subdivisions.

That this article created in 'eighty six. Bill, were you on the board back there?

'eighty six? No.

Got on in 'eighty seven, did you? No. But this act to establish a revolving fund was for the architects and other professional technical advice. Who's been paying that if we haven't been using that account?

Yeah, that's my question.

There's nothing going out.

No, there's nothing going out.

But who's

paying the We never paid anyone.

Well, pay for it. The applicants. The applicants are paying for it.

Yeah. There's make it easy. There's 100 accounts. Let's say 15 of them are active. So the 15 that are active that we're working with, as the bills from P and P come in, each one has their own account. So they put money in, and then money goes out of that account. It's we're talking about all the older accounts that are decades and decades and decades old that

When the project

was when the project completed came in

They never returned the money. The money just sat there.

It's been at an interest.

Yeah. So to be clear, we can't use that money to solve the budget deficit.

No. Right.

Well, 363,000 is going Right. Towards

1,000,000. I don't want

in as phone

calls and emails.

Well, if somebody wants to take the trial balance and go through the hundreds of accounts and figure it out, maybe they could get half of it. I don't know. Some of those accounts are so old that who knows who the legal entity would be for a project forty years ago. There may not be anybody. But there's a process to go through to find that out.

That may be something that town council will have to do. The whole thing. Because I mean, they're going to have to cert these

The charges will

inform you.

Registries and well, maybe that money can be used to pay them to do it. It's related to

the project.

But you don't know how much money you're going to have if you find who it needs to be returned to. I think as long as we can get a process, like a written process, to go by, that's half the problem. And then it's just checking boxes. Okay, I did that, I did that, I did that. Now I need to do this for each and every one of them.

Didn't we used to have an attorney Wickston or something like that?

That was for the zoning

Oh, John Witten?

Maybe that's what it was.

John Witten. He was the ZB

You could

ask him. Was retired. That's too bad.

Yeah. He moved to He always really unbelievable.

You tell me it might cost more money to find out?

Some of the accounts, I bet you it would. Yeah.

I mean, there has to be a process.

There has to

be some process.

We'll leave it there.

That you send recertified letters to the last known entity. And if you don't hear anything back within a certain amount of time, then you can take the steps to vote. It's got to be something like that.

You suggested that we do a biannual review of fees. Why don't we attach this to that notice? And when we're talking about increasing fees, we can talk about trying to get the fees back to whoever they belong to. Want to figure out how to get rid of that account. Yeah. Initially, sounds like, great, we just found money in our pocket.

No, that $4,000,000 is not

$4,000,000 not town money. For us.

Yeah, it's

not town money. Right. Right. But I have one question, if you know the answer, Leanne or Joe. Has it always been that Middleborough building here that people would pay that they always paid if Anders came in and wanted something and he paid for the architect, like if it was going to be $2,300

Yeah, for review.

Right, for the review. But was it always that way going back? I mean, might be the one thing to find out, if going back on something

I don't know for how long, but I know it was that way before I started here and when I worked at Outback when there were projects before any of the boards that it was the applicant who paid for the review. And that was oh, gosh.

And that's a pretty standard

practice process

for now anyway. Yeah.

You know what would be a good one to actually ask of this is Neil. They've been around a long time. Neil probably wouldn't

have I would rather ask an attorney.

No, but I'm just saying, like, he would have known if he paid to do his business because he had the shop, right?

Well, the accounts exist. The monies were paid in. Right. Whether it was for surety or whether it was for costs that would be associated with an engineering firm or something to review or to constantly review and update the

think the

construction of the developments, but mostly insurance. It's mostly what

it is. Yes. I think the limit should be raised on the revolving fund, maybe we look into that next year as for an article at town meeting. In 'eighty six, it was $20,000

Well, this is the state legislature that we would have to petition.

All right. Think that's a discussion that's worth the time. Right. Code of conduct.

I can probably start. Like I had said last time we talked, I think I mean, I understand why this was brought about and everything. And I've watched the meeting that it was brought about. But I just think I just think the first part, a and b is good, c, not needed. I think the guides for individuals speaking at public meetings, I think we just need a printable guide that can be used.

I don't even think this needs to be in here because the only one seeing it is us. Like if we had a guide that someone came in and said, hey, know, well, just have something that they can see, the public can see. And then if you wanted to keep distribution, have something that says, like, the chair will provide a copy of the code of conduct to all board members or the planning department each April after an election to everyone. You know what I mean? Just give it to everyone instead of those elected. And then

the I certainly don't need this stuff every year. When do I want it?

All right. Then we don't need it. Then don't pass it out. I don't know. Pass it out when someone new comes on the board. But we don't even need to have distribution then. I don't know. I mean, we're going to have the code of conduct, then I think I really think only A and B are needed. And the guide maybe have that as just a separate principle separate page.

I have a question. So you want to keep A, which is conduct generally and in relation to the community, and B, which is conduct in relation to your fellow board members, but you want to remove conduct in relation to the planning department staff?

And D.

Okay. Why would you want to remove if you want conduct for the community and board members, why would you want to remove that regarding staff?

Well, because we're here, and this is the community, it's how you work within the board. I'm a board member, Ian is a board member, and you guys are here. But some of this stuff doesn't pertain. According to this, we can't ask questions to the planning staff.

Well, could I mean, it says that, you can tweak that, sure. You don't have to remove an entire section. Mr. Chair? It's just a question. Just a question.

Mr. Chair? Can I ask, do we have this in Word? Probably. I would be more than happy to go through it and streamline it. Because we do not need a four page code of conduct. I would be more than happy to go through it and streamline it and bring it in for the board to review.

Alright.

I think that's all it needs is some streamlining. Yeah. It's very wordy. And I think it can be cut down to two pages.

Anybody else have any other comments, questions?

So we do this for next week? I mean, our next meeting?

I don't personally see why we have to change the thing. We haven't had one issue with it in almost three years. Big fan of it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I think it's just too much. It's four pages. And other boards and committees and commissions don't have this. So I think it needs to be cut down. I think we need to just make it two pages. And the intent will be kept. But I think some of it was saying the same things multiple times throughout the document. And I think it can be just cut down and worded so that it includes a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and we don't have four pages.

A lot of it we cover in the open meeting law and things. When we do the oath, a lot of it is in that oath we take. I mean, I don't know. Like I said, I would have only kept A and B. If anything, I mean, I don't even know. I understand why it was done.

Mr. Chair?

Yep. I don't see why we

just can't leave the way it is. Neither do I. I agree. 07/18/1923, Code of Comic Plan, I leave it the way it is. That's my motion. Second.

Motion is second to leave it the way it is. Any other comments, questions? All in favor? Aye.

Nay. Aye.

Nay. Three in favor to oppose. Stays the way it is.

All right. Then I hope that well, everyone has a copy now. Are we here?

I see a motion to adjourn.

Oh, we have the other things.

No, we don't. Oh, we don't.

It's for review? The other things are just for review? KPR.

Oh, that's just for, like, correspondence.

I see a motion to adjourn.

So moved.

Second. Motion to second. Any comments or questions? All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Passenger Nim. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.