Town Council - Regular Meeting

GOOD EVENING.

WELCOME TO WINTHAM TOWN COUNCIL MEETING FOR TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 2026. IT'S 630. WE ARE IN THE HEAVY HEARING ROOM. I CALL THIS MEETING TO FORWARD. COUNCIL CAUCUS AGAIN.

YEAH. COUNCIL TASTERY. HERE. COUNCIL MOLAV.

HERE.

COUNCIL GYMES. PRESENT. COUNCIL MOLAV.

HERE. COUNCIL REAR. HERE. COUNCIL TIN.

HERE.

HERE.

COUNCIL MOLAV. HERE.

Please rise for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands,

seconded by Councilor Romano in the discussion of the minutes. Councilor Romano.

Yes, I was just looking at them. I noticed that we do have the roll call to enter executive session and exit it, but we don't have the normal, basic roll call at the beginning that shows that the whole council is present. If we could just add that, just so it's easier to keep track of who is at the meeting. Motion.

As amended. All those in favor of the minutes as amended by Councilor Romano, General information, recommendations. It's the night we've all been waiting for, right? We have the Finance Commission here to present their findings on the 2027 budget submitted by the town manager. This is part of the charter that brings together the Citizens Finance Committee and the Town Council Subcommittee on Finance. They meet weekly, pretty much, for a three-month period of time where they ask the department that's in command to ask questions I also have the school department in. They had the school department in twice this year. I'm not going to steal any of their thunder that they're going to be presenting, but it was a very devoted group of people, and I do want to recognize the chairperson, Matt Gorkowitz, who was here tonight. Other members is Karen Chavez, who was actually the chair of the Citizens Finance Councilor Tassinari, Councilor Dimes, and Councilor Rabin. Also Bill Galt, Joe Hanlon, Shannon Pujols, Christian Bonaparte, and Michael Gillespie. So we thank you very much for putting in an extraordinary amount of time. It is, to me, one of the most rewarding things to go through and to sit through and learn so much about the town when you're literally going page by page through this budget document. The operating budget million dollar budget, and it's incredible to look at that. So many times people come up and say, oh my God, that's so much money. But when you look through line by line and see how this money is spent and how it is, there's not a lot of fluff in one, but there's not a lot of executives, assistants to the presidents, to this and that. It's a pretty lean machine, and it'll run pretty well. So I just want to introduce Chair Matt Gorkowitz, and what was yours?

Well, first of all, thank you for having me here tonight to present the work of the Finance Commission. As you've already stated, the Commission has met So what I want to be able to do is just kind of give you our summary and observations of what we've seen reviewing the town manager's proposed budget. And with that, I guess I'll just start by again thanking everybody on the commission for their participation. I'm not going to repeat everybody's names. Council President already listed everybody out by name. And so again, I just want to thank everybody meetings um and um um so with that said uh i just want to remind folks who may not be familiar with the finance commission uh what our role is uh and so on the next slide um there are two things that i i think are important to highlight first is that uh finance commission uh per the charter um shall file a report so required file report with the town council with recommendations concerning the adoption of the annual town budget with or without amendment so in many cases we're not necessarily obliged to offer And we do also provide, again, observations and recommendations with any of the department heads in our conversations with the town manager and his finance team. The second thing that I think is important for people to know is that the Finance Commission has some very significant responsibilities and authority. As a commission, we have full access involving all aspects of the budget preparation that the town goes through, and they are required to make that available to us and for department heads to be responsive to requests we have for information and questions that we have about that you've taken lightly and one that I would say, about the commission a little bit about our process this year um we kicked off um well the town kicked it off with their spring forum on april 21st which is really an opportunity where the town manager represents the budget and it sort of officially kicks off the budget season here in the town of woodrow you can see from april 9th to may 28th those are times where we met on a weekly basis with various department heads and the town manager from the town manager's finance department to help answer questions and provide additional details. We completed our deliberations and presented you all with a copy of our report, which you should have. All of you should have received that yesterday. And this presentation today is really to summarize the findings and recommendations of that report. to adopt the budget. We begin our briefings with, as I mentioned, by getting a briefing from the town manager who gives us an overview of the entire budget. There's a lot of information in this budget to take in. And so we start every season with a briefing from hearings for each department. We make those notices posted and folks are able to join. We don't typically take public comment, but we encourage the public to join and we certainly encourage other counselors to join the meetings as well. And we do from time to time. call out and thank the talent finance team. They attend every one of our meetings and provide additional resources and answer questions. And so they equally spend a considerable amount of time during this process. So I want to thank Sarah and Robbie for support so thank you um for this year these are the department heads that we met on the left um the town manager the finance department the winthrop public schools we had in on two separate occasions um the assessors came in we met with the police chief uh higher chief which also includes departments within their um the police department includes 9-1-1 center the harbormaster and for our department of emergency management um we met with the dvw director which department and inspectional services, we do send out invitations to other departments on an optional basis. And I would say that on an annual basis, this list ebbs and flows a little bit. If we don't get to one department one year, the next year, we put them on the list. And so over the course of two or three years, we try to make sure we're rotating through every department, certainly the big departments. And you see, as we go through the budget, there are some time to time. But with that, I'd like to take an opportunity to jump into the FY27 budget as it's proposed by the town manager. And I'll start with just a few key highlights. First of all, I think it's important for the council to know that this budget is structurally balanced and it's balanced with the occurring revenues. That's important. It's important to know that we don't use or rely heavily on one-time revenues, free cash or other types of of conservative approach in forecasting revenues. And we'll see that when we look at some those revenue forecasts, and I think have put in place, I think, a lot of financial policies over the last few years which support the town's AA plus bond rating, which is an excellent bond rating. This budget, despite its challenges and its constraints, I think is a strong budget for education funding, public safety, public works. The budget incorporates a five-year capital plan, which highlights a lot of the infrastructure needs of the town, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. There are significant infrastructure needs, and the town continues to maintain healthy stabilization balances. Right now, the stabilization balance for the town is and what we know are economic downturns, which happen from time to time. So it's important to have those when you need them. The town's budget is based on the town's base budget methodology, which is a new methodology that was put in place a couple of fiscal years that really helped create transparency around the cost structures for both town departments and school departments, and I think has done a lot to show where true costs lie within the town's department. Some of the other things I would say about this budget that you've probably read about, this budget continues to support parks and recreation as well as the rink with additional general fund contributions. town employees at 2.75% for union and 2.5% for non-union employees. And it, I think, relies conservatively on state funding, and we'll talk a little bit more about that in revenues, but I think on a fairly conservative way. So I think a number of key important takeaways to highlight in the town managers' proposed budget recommendations to you all. With that said, let me talk a little bit about revenues and where they come from. Let's start first with the levy limit. So fiscal year 2027, the town's maximum allowable levy limit increases by about $1.5 million, and you can see the buildup of that. About $1 million of new revenue comes strictly from just the 2.5, Proposition 2.5 increase, with an additional $350,000 estimated from new growth. That's probably a pretty reasonable through that backlog, and so we did see a spike for a couple of years of almost 500,000, but I think 350 represents what is a reasonable year-to-year estimate for new growth. Those two numbers combined get you to about $1.5 billion, and those are the revenues that support the taxable revenue. You can see there's about $985,000 of debt exclusions for the town, and there's another $2.4 million of debt exclusions for the school department. So once you calculate your levy limit, which again is a two and a half increase plus new growth, you layer back in your debt exclusions for both the town and the school, and you come up with a maximum levy of about $45.3 million. Now that, it's important to note, includes the $3.5 million override. looking at the levy limit of $41.8 million, that is the beginning point of your calculation, and that includes the $3.5 million that was built in from FY26. So it is built in. If folks are wondering what happened to that, it is there, and we continue from that point to grow off of that. It's important to know that the property taxes for the town are the largest and most dependable revenue source that rate for residential, commercial, and industrial. So we don't have a mixed tax rate. You read about that in a lot of cities and towns. This town has typically won. And again, as I've mentioned, it does include the $3.5 million override.

And that override is dedicated to the school department, for folks who might be wondering what that is and how it's factored into this.

With that said, total revenues for FY27 total $82 million, which is an increase of about 5.3%. Sorry, that's a little typo. It's an increase of about 2.6%. which is about $2.1 million, you can see that most of the revenue, about 81% of the revenue that supports the town budget comes from the general fund. Enterprise funds are things like water and sewer, solid waste, the rink. These are funds where they're set up to be sort of self-sustaining and typically generate revenue based on user fees of the services. collect to support our enterprise funds. Again, they're typically only available for those enterprise funds. They don't typically get codenamed with the general fund. and they're somewhat self-sustaining. We have some revolving funds like the E.V. Newton revolving fund as an example, which are relatively small, and then the capital stabilization. So for the most part, again, when you hold off enterprise funds, really the general fund is what supports our tax revenue. And if you flip to the next slide, you'll see that within that general fund revenue of $68.3 million, Almost 66% of that is the property tax. So it's important to understand how that's calculated. And you can see from my previous slide, revenue that we generate from that is both constrained and also the largest source of revenue we have to support the budget. The second largest source of revenue to support the general fund is state aid. State aid typically grows a couple hundred thousand a year. I think the town manager does a really good job budgeting fairly conservative for state aid. For example, this year we know that the budget that is in the House and Senate right now does have some of what we've budgeted for here. So I think they do a nice job developing a budget that tries to, again, rely on a conservative amount of state receipts with the idea that as the budget gets finalized, there's potential upside. Local receipts are pretty, I'll talk a little bit more about those, but those are the third largest on local receipts and you can see there are other revenues that are much smaller. If you flip to the next slide, I'll do a little bit more of a deep dive on what the local receipts look like. As you can see from this long list of local receipts, there are really two categories that make up the bulk of the local receipts that support the town. First is motor vehicle excise, represents about 30% of the local receipts and is about 2.3 million dollars as a slight increase year-over-year. The second large MWRA, I think, has then just entered into a 10-year agreement with MWRA. I believe pilot, as my understanding is still being discussed. But those revenues that we get from those sources represent another sort of 39% of local receipts. mind as the council thinks about licenses and permits and what that means to the town. It is the third largest source of revenue as it relates to the local receipts. So when all said and done, when you step back for a moment and you think about the budget and you think about where the revenue comes from to support all the things that you collectively want to do, you have Proposition 2.5, which allows or limits the amount of revenue you can generate on an annual basis, but does provide annually to the town. Again, that grows modestly by 2.5%. You do have new growth at $350,000 a year, and that's a pretty steady number for a town like Winthrop. You're not going to see a lot of spikes in that. You have state aid, which again is around another $200,000 to $300,000 annually, and you have local receipts this year that are going by $300,000. If you look back, that's probably what you would you get about $1.9 million, and that is basically where the additional revenue comes from that you will have to support all of the things that you're looking to do in the operating budget. So with that said, that's where all of your revenue is coming from, and that's sort of what you can expect both for this fiscal year, even as you start thinking ahead and plan for the future, that's probably about what you can anticipate for growth in revenue going forward. On the expenditure side, there's a So when you look at the table on this page, you'll see that we sort of think about things in sort of a couple of different categories. We have our town departments, which total about $27 million for this fiscal year. And when you look at the school department, the school department totals about $41.3 million. That gets you to about a $68 million. When you layer in the enterprise funds, and you can see them all listed here, again, these are funds that do generate revenue every year. They do grow. The expenses on these funds grow every year, and you can sort of see that here in this presentation. But they are, again, involving capital stabilization. So we do get to a total budget for the town of about $84 million. Taking a look at the town departments just for the moment, you'll see that the largest departments are public safety at 14%. You know, the second largest, if you actually look at sort of the non-departmental and shared expenses along with the health and benefits and retirements, there's about 5% for the non-department shared expenses and another 6% for health and retirement benefits. So that's about 11% combined. So that is your second largest category of expenses in support of the non-department. So public safety is first, and then your shared expenses, which are expenses I'll show sort of centralized on behalf of the entire town, of course, and then health and retirement benefits are the second largest. All of these town departments together, the 27.1, represent about 40%. So of the entire $68 million of general fund resources available, 40% is in support of the town budget, and 60% of it is in support of the school department. On the next slide, you get a little bit more of a breakdown of what the Hoyt benefits on the left look like and shared services on the right. Again, as I mentioned, both of these combine to equal about $11. expenses for the town departments. You can see group health insurance, GIC, and pension, along with, if you go down a few, retiree health insurance, is the largest category of employee expenses. And while you don't see it here, the group health insurance is growing considerably year over year. The number in this presentation health insurance. On the shared services side, you can see that there are a number of things that the town purchases on behalf of town departments, electricity, heat. There are telecommunication expenses, fuel and fuel reserves, along with insurance. on behalf of all of the departments. And you can see that there's a little bit of a decline of the share and shared services in part because of the property insurance going down. There's been a lot of effort down by creating some of the projects that are needed. Flipping from town departments to school funding, you can see here that the level service budget presented by the school committee totals about $42.3 million. That is about a $2.3 million increase. It's about a 5% growth over fiscal year 26. That number is about $1.2 million, $1.26 million higher than what is budgeted for currently at 42.5. So there is about a $1.2 million projected gap between where the school level service budget is for 27 and where the town's budget is for 27. I think this is important to know because I think school funding is one of the things that as a council you'll be talking a lot about over the course of the fiscal year, particularly in the beginning of the fiscal year where the school will have to take some action in order to bring the about that. Some of the major cost drivers that are driving some of the 5% increase that we see in school is special education and you can see some examples here that were provided to the school committee around some additional costs that are really mandated outside of the control of the towns. Employee benefits I mentioned as being a big expense for the town departments. It's also a big expense for the employees of the school departments growing by about 8%. In prior years it grew by facing in this environment. Transportation costs are significantly higher, and utilities, technology, and building maintenance, as our schools and conference start to age, become increasingly more challenging for the school to manage within the constraints of the available. On the right, I just wanted to take a moment because it is part of the When you look at the Northeast Vocational School along with the debt service for the building that we also help pay for, it's about $1.2 million for fiscal year 27. Essex Aggies is up to $125,000 for Essex Agricultural School. So we're really about $1.6 million in total funding for vocational school funding that's projected to go up to almost $1.8 million over the next year. talk about school funding so that is a quick summary of again you know the revenues that we have available to us where the expenses are with respect to the proposed budget before you and with that what we wanted to do as a commission is just call out I think what are some key findings given everything that is being presented to First, school funding, as I mentioned, it's 60% of the total budget. The $3.5 million override is in place and has been used to, I would say, rebase the school budget in terms of creating a baseline for how we're funding our school system. It has prevented significant reductions and it has really stabilized the school. So it's important not to minimize the important impact that that has had. It is also true that we that are growing um faster and and greater than two and a half percent uh which is what um you know um our revenue capacity is and so that has led to a continued mismatch between the revenue that we can generate um and some of the growth that the school is seeing so i think there is for this fiscal year um of a projected uh gap uh that uh that needs to be closed um and i think that could be available. Now, that's not a choice for the school to make. That's a choice for you as a council to make as well as the town manager. But there could be some additional upside that could benefit that. There could also be some opportunity to do some prepaid expenses that would help bring that number down, some additional grant funding potentially. But there are things that I know the superintendents management. Health insurance, as we mentioned, 6% increase for the town, 8% for the school department. This is, again, on top of double-digit increases over the last couple years. This is a fast-growing budget item and one that I think requires some additional attention. And certainly, I think the town manager and the folks know that. We have some recommendations later on about that. The solid waste enterprise fund is one that continues to be discussed every year. It requires some attention. It does have some long-term sustainability concerns. The fact is the cost of the tipping fees and the cost of I think the one thing that has been beneficial to the town is that I think the town negotiated a really good contract. And so I think the increases year over year have been, while they're growing at a rate faster than 2.5%, they're certainly not growing at a rate that we've seen in other towns. And so I think they have a favorable contract yet. But even with that said, the costs are growing fast and there may be additional need for trash fee. Public health is another area where we spent a considerable amount of time talking about it. I think going from 26 into 27, we knew that there was going to be some grant funding, some reductions in grant funding. I think there was a lot of concern about that for the public health department. Based on our conversations over the last couple of years, I think the commission really values the work of the public is recommending that we increase that general fund support by, it says $97,000 here, but it's about $98,000 to help offset some of those grants. In our conversation, I think the public health department felt that they would be able to continue to maintain those level of services. Infrastructure needs are growing and are a big and the capital plan identifies about 28 million of projects that could potentially require debt exclusions between 28 and 32. And then grant dependency. We know that there has been some challenges with grants. The budget before you identifies around 2.5 million in grants that have been lost. Identifying security opportunities for grants, I think, is going to be a real priority. And there are federal and regional grants that met with that basically said they would be able to carry out said, these are areas where we know you're going to have ongoing conversations, you know, from the day you adopt the budget until it's going to require active management throughout the year, both with the council and the town manager. So with that, I'll just quickly go through some recommendations that I know I'm probably running up on time. First, I just want to say this is a recommendation that you will see, you've seen in prior reports, MULTI-YEAR FINANCIAL FORECAST IS SOMETHING THAT IS FOUNDATIONAL AND I THINK GOOD FINANCIAL PRACTICE AND I THINK THE TOWN IS DOING A REALLY GOOD JOB AT THIS. THEY HAVE FOR THE FIRST TIME PROVIDED THE COMMISSION WITH A MULTI-YEAR FORECAST OF REVENUE AND EXPENSES AND I THINK IT published alongside the annual operating budget. Again, I talked a little bit about the conservative revenue practices and maintaining strong stabilization fund reserves, as well as continuing their focus on the five-year capital plan, just so that we have a better sense of the long-range planning that's necessary. The next recommendation is to monitor and enforce short-term rentals. i know there's a lot of talk around town about you know the various the activities and the number of short-term rental properties that are that you can find if you decide to search for them or want to rent one but we think that that presents both an opportunity and a challenge for the town both in terms of revenue but also in terms of enforcement so we're looking to potentially evaluate and purchase a software application that allows us to better as a town monitor what's happening in this space so that we can meet the challenges of proper enforcement and so that town departments are able to coordinate enforcement of it while at the same time generating the revenue that should be generated from doing it properly and having it permitted. Ensuring the Solid Waste Enterprise Fund is sustainable. Again, this is one There has been a really good intent by the town to make the fund more structurally balanced. We did have in prior fiscal years over-reliance on some of the retained earnings, and now we've gotten away from that a little bit. This budget continues to reduce reliance on retained earnings, but it also relies on more general fund revenue and potentially even a trash fee increase. So I think part of the recommendation here is trying to take a little view on this and really think about what's needed. I think at some point it would also be to try to build in the ability to build up some Let's get there. Next is, again, the health commission, the GIC, and looking at sort of our health benefits generally. This refers to a health insurance review commission. I think typically as our contract with GIC comes up for renewal, there's a requirement that we have a public employee committee, which could be I think what we're suggesting here is that we have a comprehensive review that looks at contribution ratios, plan design, buyout programs, maybe perhaps similar to a buyout program that the state offers, retiree benefits and calculations. And so this is really speaking more of a holistic view about what our health benefits should look like, recognizing that we still want to be competitive and we still want to be able to recruit future hires. We know that this is a do it. On the other hand, we also have to recognize that it is an area of the budget that's growing substantially year over year, and we want to make sure that we're thinking about what that might look like long term. And it doesn't have to affect incumbent employees. It can also be a prospective view of how we want to think about things. The next is leveraging AI. And I just want to be very clear to say that we're not talking about AI as a way of reducing folks to be able to do their jobs more efficiently and to help the town become more efficient. Not just with the tasks that our employees are doing, but the interaction between our employees and the general public. These things could be as simple as grant writing. We talked a little bit about grant dependency. AI in terms of being able to search for opportunities and actually write grants is an amazing tool and one that I think would be very helpful to our current workforce, records management, public notification, procurement reviews, making sure we're getting the best value by leveraging AI to do analysis. I think it's opportunities that could be evaluated. And certainly, I think this combined with another recommendation you have Another recommendation we have is developing level service agreements, particularly as it relates to the athletic fields. A lot of discussions this year around athletic fields, and while I think there may have been some agreements in place, I think what we're suggesting is that a more formal agreement that documents not just who's doing what, but the level of service that should be provided, I think would be helpful in understanding the relationship. I think the town does CREATION OF A LONG-TERM EV NEWTON BUILDING STRATEGY. AS I MENTIONED, ONE OF THE THINGS IN THIS BUDGET, FOR THE FIRST TIME, THERE'S A GENERAL FUND CONTRIBUTION TO THE EV NEWTON EVOLVING FUND. THIS WAS IN PART TO TACKLE SOME DIFFERENT MAINTENANCE, BUT WE ALSO KNOW THAT THIS YEAR That said, I think what we're suggesting is that the rents that are paid should probably be on a schedule and something that's a little bit more predictable and transparent and trying to have sort of a more of a long-term plan for how we want to generate revenue and how we should generate revenue from the folks that are using it, whether they're town departments or not, and then how those revenues are used Moving right along, address the public health grant exposure. This year, I think the town has done and want to commend the town manager and others for finding the resources to help shore up the public health department and the services they provide. Again, this is another department that has been highly grant dependent over the years and one where, while I think it's important to pay attention a master plan and a CIO function. This is a recommendation that we had last year, and I know in talking with the town manager and his team, this is something that everybody is focusing on wanting to do, and wanting to do well, and there's a lot of different ways we can approach this through regional efforts, but also through leveraging assistance from colleges and universities where you may be able to get some assistance, sometimes so in a way that is cost effective. But I do think overall a master plan for how we think about this and bringing secondarily this activity would generate revenue to support its operations and therefore being able to provide better service to our residents while also not necessarily having significant additional costs to the project. And then the last is the long-term capital plan and our outlook and just continuing to, I think the town's done a really good job expanding upon that and has done a really good job identifying needs and trying to align those needs with what some of the observations and recommendations that we put forward in our letter to you. And again, I just want to stress that, you know, we think this is a good budget and we want to thank the town manager for putting it forward. You know, we've identified there are some things that are going to have to actively be managed over the next fiscal year. But in large part, there's

You can see by listening to that presentation the amount of detail you guys go through and the granular effort that you take. It's shown. It's a tremendous amount of work, but it's very enlightening for people who attend these meetings and take part in these meetings to see and answer a lot of questions that

for all the work that he did on the presentation. He makes it look easy, and we know that it's really not. Thank you to Chair Chavez. She did an immense amount of work putting these meetings together, lining up the folks from the town, and keeping all of our commission members on track, so thank you. you to town manager sarah johnson robbie powers and everybody in in the town finance office for the data and thank you to all the members of the commission um there were there were a few long nights uh but but i think mostly what we what we get from that is these AS A COUNCIL DIG INTO AND SEE WHAT WE CAN PULL OUT OF THERE THAT WE CAN IMPLEMENT SOONER THAN LATER. BECAUSE WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT IN RECOMMENDATIONS ARE THINGS THAT CAN HELP US SET THIS TOWN UP FOR LONG-TERM SUCCESS, EVEN THOUGH WE MAY ONLY BE SITTING IN THESE SEATS FOR FOUR YEARS. AND IT'S REALLY OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO TAKE THAT LONG-TERM VIEW. I KNOW IT'S OUR LAST RECOMMENDATION HERE, BUT A capital plan seems like it's a long way away. But I mean, look at our five-year capital plan today. There are several items on there that were in our five-year capital plan two years ago that just keep getting pushed down the line. So I just want to ask my fellow councilors to take a serious look at these recommendations and see what we can pull out of here for policies and procedures that we can actually implement for the time. And thank the commission members and the chairs again. Thank you, Karen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

Thank you, President Letary. It's been an honor working with the Finance Commission. Thank you, Chair Rickwitz, and special thanks to Karen Chavez for your professionalism. We are privileged to have such a knowledge, dedicated Finance Commission. I can't say enough about the knowledge that I gained. during the meetings with the commission. In particular, the public hearings with our department heads were amazing to me. To hear what each one of our department heads does in this town, what their accomplishments were for fiscal year 26 and what their goals are for fiscal year 27 are truly amazing. I just can't say enough. It's been a privilege and thank you to everybody for that.

Vice President Schwartz.

that Tess and Mary said about the work. I did have some ideas about this project actually prior to going into it, so I'll just rattle them off. I think to strengthen the budget, I would like to see many more departmental narratives and goals individually by department. I think the biggest thing I'd like to see in Tony manager, town council manager, and we've talked about this, is introducing more key performance indicators in every way. So I know what we're paying for. And I guess the best way to say it is, is the money spent worth it? And some of that could be in projects versus line items. So for example, if we bundled snow removal, we'd understand what it costs to do snow removal. It's projects, it's... I think that's one that I wanted to see. So to shift from a kind of a program, to shift to a program service based budgeting would be terrific. And I know that what we're using is standard for It's clear if I could understand it by service. The operating and capital costs, I've been interested, because I looked at all the capital costs, and I would consider some of those maintenance costs. Obviously, the firehouse is a capital cost. But some of the budget is maintenance, and I'm not sure how that gets interfaced. And I'm not sure how it gets combined. A couple more things. One thing is I don't think that many of the town residents have read that budget. And if we could do something to improve kind of a public-facing accessibility to it. So it's maybe four or five pages of everything they've said. but just what our goals are and how we're going to be able to measure those in the future. But I do think that your work is extremely important, and the Finance Commission and everyone else who has worked on this has improved the budget for the last three years that I've looked at it, and those are my recommendations for next year. Thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate all the work that goes into this. I know just reading through the budget, I can spend hours just on one section alone.

So it's amazing how every year this gets done, the way it gets done. I just want to touch on the recommendations.

I do believe technology, we are way behind the ball on technology, and I believe the recommendations.

We really need to start driving that. A couple of reasons.

Utilizing AI can actually be a huge cost savings on work process flows. So the one thing that I, looking at the budget year after year, we never talk about loss elimination and cost savings. What can we do differently to save money in this department so we can utilize that money elsewhere? AI can help that. I use it in work process flows legally. um it helps it can help create standards on how work can be done to save time to be able to allocate time to do other things um so i think the technology we need to really as a council kind of be focused on that um and the recommendation for the eb newton i've dug into that a few times now I do think there is an aspect in that that should be looked at too. Those are the two main things I just wanted to touch on.

Technology, we really need to focus on increasing the value of usage. All right, and I will just say I think

budget, and we're not using one-time monies. We're using reoccurring monies, and it is a pretty conservative budget. Some of that conservatism leads towards free cash at the end of the years, but it's way better off being conservative than these budget estimates being a little too aggressive. I think that's important. I think another thing that you look at the work the Finance Commission's done, you look at the audit reports that come out when the town's being run financially and such and they give recommendations they give their thoughts and tasks that they would like the town to address and they've gone down drastically i mean it was you know these into 20 tasks i think there was a handful and they'll talk about you know You know, Vice President Swope talks about this, too, with follow-up, not only just talking about the tasks that they wish, but they'll come back the following year and say, okay, this one has been addressed, this one has not, this one has. And this is still a lot of the work that Tony does, but those audit reports are also an interesting read, and I encourage people to take a look at that. And, you know, just the process going forward, and we've changed this up a little bit over the last handful of years where we're giving the council the opportunity to digest this information. In years past, the council would just vote this budget right now, and I don't think that that's fair to the work the Finance Commission did, and I don't think it's fair to the consulates who haven't had the opportunity to maybe take that in-depth look. You know, there was a little bit talked about the schools. and in general, you know, obviously we thank the town manager, his team, but I think a big thank you is to someone who, when you look at that override, is in and you see the incredible need there was for that and not only for that $3.5 million override but to create a stabilization fund which the goal was and still is to prolong the life of the need for that. When you're looking at I think Matt talked about earlier in his report how new money coming into the town and the limitations were $2.5 and you're basically looking at $1.5 million a year in new revenue and you're looking at Yeah, the school basically is a 60-40 split. So the school is 60% of $125 million is $900,000. Then you look at the health insurance line, and if it goes up 8%, that's almost $600,000 of that $900,000. That doesn't account for utility costs increase or just employee increases and such. It's a very difficult process to get through, but I think, you know, forward, we will introduce motions tonight on the new business, so we will come back on the old business next week to vote these. In that period of time, I hope the council has taken the opportunity to take a deeper dive into this, which was just presented to us, and also the budget, if you have any thoughts on amendments, if you think that there's an you have to also have a place where you're taking it from, right? You can't add a debit without a credit. So if you're looking to give the police department, because they need it for overtime or whatever the situation might be, and you think they need 100 grand more, you just have to find 100 grand somewhere else in the budget to offset that. But I think these are items that, given that week's lead time, will give you an opportunity to take this information Other than that, I thank Matt again and his team for all the work they do and the finance of the committee and the council. So thank you very much, Matt. that. Celeste.

Hi, Celeste. We're here at Precinct 1. I'd like to thank the Finance Commission, too. I think that you did a thoughtful, thorough job.

Can I just hold you up one minute? Because my glasses, I didn't look. I just have to do two public hearings, and we'll get back to you. We have two public hearings. Town Council votes are approved. appropriate certified for cash revolving fund closed hours for fiscal 26. uh that hearing is open thank you council president the motion reads i move

2026 or take any other action there too. It is a reduction of free cash by $160,000 dedicated to the Pauline Street revolving fund, which is the Jim Newton revolving fund for $80,000. The reduction of free cash by that $160,000 with the $500,000 set aside for the capital plan leaves us with $119,388 of free cash after this motion is approved. We met just before the raising of the Pride flag this evening. The subcommittee met. We did give this motion a favorable recommendation.

Thank you. To anyone from the audience that would like to speak

These appropriations are for the building maintenance in both cases.

So we'll be renewing the building for the gym as we move on to put that back together after the demolition of the middle school. Yeah. Council President, Town Manager says I move that the Town Council vote to authorize unpaid bills for the prior year to be paid from the current year departmental budgets as most of the law or take any other action there too. It is a total of $20,232.45 of several invoices that the Town received after the close of prior fiscal years. Some of them are pretty old or LOST THE BILL, SOME OF THE OFFENDERS, I SHOULD SAY, LOST THE BILL, TOOK THEIR TIME IN BILLING US AND ENDED UP OUTSIDE THE FISCAL YEAR THAT THEY WERE APPROPRIATED IN ORIGINALLY, SO WE JUST NEED TO AUTHORIZE THE TOWN MANAGEMENT TO PAY THE PRIORITY OF EFFICIENCIES IN THIS CURRENT FISCAL YEAR. IN FISCAL YEAR 2026, RIGHT, TOWN MANAGEMENT? YES. FY2026, MIGHT AS WELL CLOSE THESE OUTSTANDING ABILITIES. But this also came out of the finance subcommittee with a positive recommendation.

And this is not something that's unusual. Sometimes it's disconcerting, especially when you see a bill that was in fiscal 2022 or 23 or 24. You can expect to see some from fiscal 25 that came in after July 1st last year that you want to pay off or whatever. But it is discouraging. But it's not unusual. And it does occur every year.

Yes. this, so the total of 20,000 is less than prior to this meeting. And we've also authorized. So we're doing, we're incrementally doing better. And we thank the top manager and his staff for that.

So. And I can just add one other thing. I know it was a question asked at the hearing. bill was in a, frankly, reconciling a past due balance. That was only $22, so that was one of the old ones. And then a couple of the independent newspapers for legal ads, they hadn't sent us the bills, so we've been trying to do a better job with them to get those bills in in a more timely fashion. So a couple of those were older. One was a $500, one was a $60. So we wrapped those up, but we're doing a better job of getting the independent newspaper articles in. So I wanted to get that answer. My name's Commissioner Member Cameron Chavez.

from the public wish to be heard. Either way. Anyone else on the council? Now, Celeste, lead us off in public comment.

Celeste Vieira-Hood, Precinct 1. Again, I'd like to thank the Finance Commission. I think you did a very thoughtful and thorough and comprehensive job. It presented it at a level of abstraction that was absorbable, even though I think I need another pass at it. To echo Vice President Swope, I'd love to see an opportunity for a little bit more granular detail, maybe like a click-through. So if it's posted on the town website, we can click in. Very specifically, I'd like to know more about the state aid and what that source is. I want to know if any of this relates to previous grants or potential grants. I know that you were very specific about noting that the sources of revenue were not just kind of the occasional one-off or potential streams, but recently we've been aware that there's funding of a program that was enduring for 16 years that is now going to be discontinued due to lack of grants. I THINK HAVING THAT INFORMATION WOULD BE HELPFUL TO INFORM THE TOWN COUNCIL AND ALSO THE PUBLIC TO INFORM WHAT WE ASK OF THE TOWN COUNCIL. THANK YOU. WONDERFUL JOB. APPRECIATE IT.

many times in the last three years concerning the negotiations Winthrop and Massport.

It was first suggested by me about three years ago that the town should put out a request for interest in representing the town with negotiations. I think the last negotiation with Massport was over 20 years ago, 2021. in this room, negotiating a $5, $10, $15, $25 million, $50 million contract, whatever way it plays out with Massport. I asked for counsel to put out a request for interest. It's a simple procedure. It's the simplest procedure that has ever come across in this room. You find out. And I looked into it a little bit. O'Hare, Chicago, O'Hare Airport did something similar to this just recently. And so why not get the opinion of that person that did that negotiation? It doesn't cost anything to do it. Instead, we're having secret meetings, executive sessions, banter, who's saying what and why. We mentioned at one meeting that he was working with a consultant to negotiate the contract with Massport. And then he mentioned in the next breath, or not the next breath, but a little while later in the meeting, that he had one or two meetings with a consultant. I would think if you're talking about a $20 million, 20-year contract, similar to the one we had, that you would understand and make anybody else understand whether you talk to that person once or twice. It's a very important matter. So that leaves a lot of speculation about what exactly is going on here. I'd like this whole negotiation with Massport to be brought to light so that everybody in the town can understand the procedure and understand who is going to be negotiating this deal. In Massport, I believe the number that I remember is there's 18,000 jobs concerning Massport. Somebody there is related to somebody here in this room. 18,000 jobs. It could be a conflict that nobody's talking about. Groupies, maybe the people that give out the money at Massport or not give out the money. So that could have been brought to light a long time ago. Instead, the secret meetings, executive sessions, bring it to light. Hire somebody from outside the town that's not connected to a person that has a job at MassPort. Marcy.

Marcy Hamilton, Precinct 2. I'd like to publicly thank Anita Preble for all the work she did for 16 years. Her work was just so incredible throughout the schools, throughout families, and it created such a community. And I totally appreciate her, and I think she should be, somehow this program should be funded. I know there's nothing in the budget, but I would hate to see this program disappear. It was how many times have we talked about international night? This is when families get together and they see people from different cultures and they see what Winthrop is all about, the diversity, the kindness, and the experience of coming together at the early stages. She works with daycares and families and early literacy and works her way up through the school. She does an incredible job, and I would hope that the council might give her a commendation for her tireless work. Thank you.

Yes. Zoom.

Diane, can you hear us? Diane Sands.

I can, yeah.

Go ahead, Diane. Yes.

Diane Sands, Sands Precinct 5. I want to deviate a little bit from the subject tonight and just go back to the last meeting that we had. I want to thank the five counselors for their vote. I appreciate it. The other question I have is I researched a little bit about the exemption vote and the pre-vote, pre-town vote for the council of Colonel Lauren K. Dimes. I did pull something out of the transcript that they campaigned on. And this is from October 16. So they were elected on November 4th. And basically, the current law said it's a poorly written law. I have mentioned at many council meetings and at discussions throughout the town with other people, California has been doing this for a while now. And they have failed epically. They keep putting additional laws in place to keep trying to fix all the loopholes. I am for an exemption for our town, and our state should appreciate all the work that this town has done over the years being ahead of the curve. Now, Pia Dimes last week engaged the council and chastised them for not taking the moral high ground and was seemingly very strong in her language. and said, what is it that you don't understand? So I'm just reading this from the tree. Let's see. It's a one-size-fits-all law that is not right for winter. Our age and undersized infrastructure, our density and our limited egress are justifiable reasons for an exception from 3A, said Davis. So I've never heard why the two people They flipped on the February, I believe it was February 3rd meeting, and they didn't even start until January, I believe, 6th. So it didn't take long, and I don't want to be suspicious, but I am. I'd like to know the reasons. Kurt said he didn't have enough information, but he seems to know all about California and all the things they've done, so I think he's done some research. I mean, This law has been discussed for two, almost three years. If they don't know about the problem right now, they shouldn't be on the council. They should resign. They needed to know this. It's the most important thing going on in our town. I just would like to hear from everybody about correct him, Jim, and see what your reasoning was for not supporting an exemption that had no balance Because you know mine. And if we lost, we lost. There's just no downside to it. There's no reason not to vote for it. Personal animals, perhaps. But I don't like what it brings to mind. So I would like to get something in writing from the three of you. And so I can publish it. And I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Shannon Poulos.

I'm not speaking on behalf of the Finance Commission, although I do want to just thank Matt Gluckowitz for all the work he does. I don't think that the town possibly understands the asset that we have of him and the time and dedication he gives. But one thing I would like the town council to consider is that the recommendations that have been put forth, although in the context of the budget itself, you vote on the budget and none of those recommendations might change. would really really encourage both the town council and and and um to think about how we can incorporate those recommendations into more of a regular town council update or town manager update or perhaps even you know maybe um you know take some sort of emotion around like what are priorities around the town council around some of these recommendations because i do think that Sometimes, you know, these are often very repeated recommendations. And so, you know, how can we figure out a way and a mechanism to hold all of ourselves accountable to figuring out what of these recommendations do we really feel like have, you know, have the ability to make impact, you know, on our town services or on our budget. And then holding ourselves accountable to, you know, showing, I think, there's an element of kind of KPI, right? How do we incorporate these into objectives of our town departments? I think in particular around AI, which I'm very passionate about, AI can sound really scary, but in reality, it's really not. I mean, it's about getting licenses for folks to experiment with. I'm the least technological i've been able to you know create efficiency and effectiveness in my day-to-day job every day and so i just encourage um you know town manager marino is to really get our functional leaders within the town departments to be leaning in where they can to that it can be sometimes a fairly low cost option um but you know take the recommendations and really think about where we can lean into those but not just uh to have, but really making this a top-down. We need every department to come up with three MBOs every year to say, what are you gonna do to lean into a particular type of

Correspondence. Oh, no.

Sorry. Community reports. Finance. Rules and ordinance.

Rules and ordinance met May 27th at 530. We did cover everything that was on the agenda, discussed the ordinance amendment for use variance. We reviewed some of the submissions, and we reviewed the amendments. from those quotes. And then the 4C committee recommendations for the motorized scooters, electric bikes, we actually had Officer Batano come in. Chico, when you didn't make it, there were some suggestions to edit the ordinance as written to include a few more items in it.

So we chose to continue that. And then the town council rules and procedures, we had a quick discussion on it.

I know we're waiting for a packet or something, but we did discuss how a future meeting will start going through them.

Thank you.

We met with the public health and safety meeting also on the 27th and Tony joined us with and myself and we talked a bit about the alignment of the administrative staff on a multi-year interdepartmental plan notion so that we can strengthen everything we do in this This conference, we really centered around the challenges. So, for example, particularly water main breaks, replacement, pavement planning. And Tony explained how the town coordinated all of our departments for road work with utility replacements and lead line installations to avoid repeating digging. I know that that doesn't always work perfectly, but he's trying. I know that three years ago, maybe it was one where I was like, what? Three times. So I know he's doing better. But that's still, we were trying to figure out how we could better coordinate all of our departments so that we reduce the redundancy and reduce the reworking. We did discuss the high cost of water main replacements. And with Winthrop Street, the project was estimated at $4 million and explored ways to better align private development with public infrastructure needs. And this has come up several times just in the last year. I think you remember the example that we were working on, on the projects on Pauling Street. We really need to think about how that project works from beginning to end. Because we faced cutting down a tree because we had to put in a new electrical model. And that's unfortunate. It's not, however, that the developer didn't know that because at least he's willing to put three trees in or the one that we had to cut down. So that's a perfect example of public-private partnership. So the developer needs to know what his responsibility is before we get involved in the project. And we need to know what ours is and how that's going to work from beginning to end. So I think it's not that we don't agree on that. It's just kind of discussed. It's just difficult to do. And we also talked about, and Tony The town manager also mentioned that tonight. Because I wasn't aware of all the work that Tony's been doing coordinating his work with other surrounding towns. That's really an important notion. And I'm not sure that we've explored all the possibilities of that. We might be able to save some money on doing a lot of communications with other towns. Three people, three towns coordinated on trash perhaps would get a lower rate because we could agree that all three of us would participate in that. So I don't think we're finished with that idea. So we just need, I think, better communications about department activities and we need to better, I think the town needs to understand the justification for the money that we're spending. about that. Tony did bring the five-year capital plan, the water system capital plan. The zoning and department plan is a 600-page document. It's all in paper. But if we could take those three documents, I mean, maybe this is pie in the sky. You can probably correct me on this. But if we could mesh that information on those three documents, maybe we could decide where the best places are to build new developments in this town. And where we maybe, you know, we're going to find a problem that we don't understand because we didn't coordinate that information. So I think there's a lot of opportunities there going on for our next committee.

Yep, we'll go move on from public health and safety to listening posts.

Because what we talked about in the listening post is all about how we could better use and AI, to better use AI to coordinate our work. I know Solomon Thompson, he's a graduate from University of Pennsylvania in electrical engineering, then he's a master's in computer science, and he has his own company, so he came and just talked to us about what he's building in an AI system that allows you to coordinate information in a neural network. I know we have a lot of pieces parts, and sometimes it's been very hard to put those pieces parts together to actually use the information to improve the systems that we have. So for example, I've been to the assessor's office many times, and if I ask for something, and they'll say, we can get it for you, we just have to have a special report for it. If we could get more integration in that system, and I know that Jim and Tony are already working on this, so that we can better understand what we have, what taxes are being paid, what apartments we have, all that coordinated together so we can ask the kind of questions that we need to ask. How many rentals do we have? And that's what we're working on. And I know that we've already talked about a software that might be very helpful in that regard. But there's lots of ways, I think, that we can do this. So Solomon came to talk to us about it. And the result of that is that I'm going to talk with both the town manager and also the council president, and just deciding on a pilot, just one, what journey do you want to take? Here's where we are. Here's where we need to go. And for free, Solomon will work with us in just demonstrating that idea. And it's not that I'm trying to sell something to myself. I'm just trying to demonstrate the fact that we could use some type of work in to make our systems better. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Firehouse Building Committee met before our meeting this evening and progress is still going well. Bids will go out for general contractor the end of June. Probably get those back early August. Plan is to presented to us, which I'm hoping to be able to get on the town website on the link for the fire station, to give it a much better view, both front view from Pauline Street and back view from Brookfield Road, give people an idea of, you know, Finishing touches, where it's going to look from. You see the setbacks from on Wheelock Street to the building. The amount of space between the gymnasium, the old gymnasium, and the new fire station. The walking path that will be from Pauline Street out to Ingleside Park. So it gives you a much better and clearer visual. Also takes you inside the building. It shows you some of the enhancements that have been made in there. Next meeting is, I believe, July 8th? 6th. July 6th, which will be Monday night, I believe, 4.30, late Monday afternoon in the Harvey Haring Room. So I encourage you to go on the website, take a look at any updates, and we will keep you posted on that. July 6th, Monday. Council test night.

Thank you, Mr. President. This is great news that we're getting so far. POSSIBLE COULD WE GET AN UPDATE ON WHAT WE'RE DOING FOR OUR FIREFIGHTERS IN THE EXISTING BUILDINGS TO GET THEM THROUGH THIS WINTER YEP WE CAN DO THAT I KNOW WE HAD ISSUES WITH THE FLOOR ON PAULINE STREET We want to make sure that we can survive the last year in those old buildings. Okay.

Very good. School department report. The meeting last night, I was unable to attend, but I can share that the WTA and the Winter School Committee has come to an understanding of a new three-year contract. The contract, unfortunately, begins July 1, 2025, so we're already entering the second year of that three-year contract. I thank both parties for being diligent, for maintaining through the process in reaching what both sides feel is a fair contract for all. The WTA ratified that contract, I think, late last week. And now it takes a little bit of time to just physically write the contract out and share it. So I'm sure that will be done in relatively short order. But that's a huge milestone for the committee, for the superintendent. Also, last Friday evening, I know a lot of counselors were able to attend the length of my school graduation, which was incredible. you know, three hours before graduation started at 6 o'clock, they decided to fund, you know, looking at weather forecasts and such to move it indoors. And I know that was a tough decision for the superintendent, as well as Matt Cromby, the principal of the high school. But not only did they do that, in the afternoon of the day of graduation, but they got a bunch of, a lot of high school kids that came and moved all the chairs from the Miller Field into the auditorium, into the gym, actually, and did a fantastic job. The gym looked great. Everything worked out well. Overflow went into the auditorium where they were able to watch it on a big screen. It was a beautiful event. And to see, you know, the small town we are, and it's scholarship money. Winthrop High School gave out over $600,000 to this year's graduating class. A major piece of that is the Fasella Family Scholarship, which was started roughly eight years ago. We had a couple of just regular people that lived a very frugal life. When they both passed, they left the schools over $6 million, almost $7 million for the winter public schools. And the public schools invest that money, and every year, they disperse the amount of money that was made during the year. And this year was the best year ever for them. It was over $330,000 that they distributed to over 19 children from Winthrop High School. And that's fantastic. And then you have the Ramonde family, which was a winter family that just has a passion for winter schools. And they donate each year over the past three or four years now. They give five $25,000 scholarships. And they do an amazing job. Along with the scholarship committee, which helps process all the... all the items that were done by the students, the drafts that they had a right to submittal for these scholarships, they do a great job. So to see that amount of funds being doled out to a small town like Windup is just an amazing thing. But great job, congratulations to all the kids, whether they're going on to school, the workforce, active duty, whatever it happens to be, gap years, we wish them nothing but success. It's amazing the type of students that we have come around and went to buy in. Thank you to Lisa and her team for all that, and to Matt Crombie, the principal of the high school.

Update on policy-making committee.

Board of Appeals, 54 Otis Street, lot 189, they voted to grant a variance with conditions. they voted to grant variance with conditions. All detailed decisions can be found on the Board of Appeals website. Next planning board meeting date is June 15th, 2026. In the Board of License, renewals of coin-operated laundries are all completed. Renewals of used cars and car lots are completed. Farmer's Market was approved for a wine license. And a one-day alcohol license for this Strawberry Festival was also approved. Town Manager's Report has been circulated, gives the Town Manager

We've been working on this for a little while to get the short-term rentals up and running. They'll be taking care of getting all the notification letters out because they've got the database of all the Airbnbs and BRBOs that are out there, over 100. And we'll get that out, and then we're going to get them in and also use their online platform to allow people to apply online. What we'll need to come back to the council with is just to establish a fee. That's the only thing we haven't done yet, so we'll have to take a look around what other communities are charging for the Airbnbs and short-term rentals and propose a fee to the council. adopt so we can uh test that with these applications then we'll see all the other questions um sean driscoll had texted me wanted to remind everybody about the park opening tomorrow night um ash yeah the dog playground over on veterans road next to lewis lake uh they're doing that opening um Tomorrow night, Wednesday night, 530 to 7. Obviously, Toronto does a great job with those park openings, so anybody who wants to go over there and have some good time, go over there and open that park.

Thank you. I did notice you mentioned 3A on your town manager's report, and there's been a lot of discussion We got to the grant.

There was discussion during public comment.

There's been a lot of discussion on social media.

I want to tell everybody that myself and the town manager have reached out to Representative Turco, who was in the process of reaching out to the governor's office to see if they could rethink the decision on that last grant. It's kind of comical in a way that the grant is for funding, Commonwealth for Children, which is kind of ironic when they're taking money away from kids that really need the services. So, you know, I encourage people to, and we might have even more people here tonight to talk about that, but I encourage people to get details about that, and we'll have further details as soon as we hear from Representative Cherko on that. That's all I know.

Yes, just to follow up with what President Letourneau was saying, did we get an official letter from them saying that we were denied on the basis? Superintendent Howard did, based on 3A. I would like to see that letter. Well, it was an email, but we'll certainly send it that way. Is Attorney Zippo-Letourneau doing anything?

Not yet. We're waiting to see what Rep Turco does. One of the things we will go after or at least talk about is the fact that this was or any sort of non-compliance that Winther may or may not be able to create at the time. So the fact that they're pulling the rug out from under it now when it's still a year or two left on the grant certainly could be a contract violation. So we'll look into that as well.

Thank you. And one more thing is I see you also have I don't know if you want to say a little bit more about our first story.

No, no, it's fine. Just, I mean, everything's moving forward. Councilor Romano, thank you. We did attend the last meeting that we had with him. I don't know if you want to give any updates on that.

Yeah, no, so I appreciate the invite from Major Romino, the entire SEAL Boston team, the MWRA. It looks like all systems go, you could say, for the Tall Ship Survival, July 11th at Der Island Anchor. there is going to be special parking stickers for that event, right? So the process, I know it's also listed here, and this is good if anyone lives there, that July 3rd, our 250th celebration, you can get them there. Do those people have to sign up, Tom, you know? No, they can just come up, show their driver's license, and we'll... Okay, so you'll have it ready for all the residents, so they just have to show up.

We'll have a staff member there. That's just, I want to make sure that it's up. Okay, thank you. And we'll also offer another day after the 3rd, similar to what we did back in 2003. people can go up there and show their license and get the stickers out.

And I would also just like to ask that I'll put it up on the website or whatever, just to get the word out to these people that, hey, you're going to go pick up your sticker. Sure. That they're going to be able to get it. And we'll blast it on social media and stuff. I'm sure you will, and I appreciate that.

Thank you. Frank, please. I know that John has already talked to you about that, but the Disability Commission, just as long as they have said,

view of this and say, I don't know if they were included in your... Not in the original plan, but we'll show them the copy of the plan once now that we've got it finalized, we've got a little progress in how we talked about it at the last meeting.

Both in Tallships as well as in... And the other thing is that I wrote it to Attorney Cipolletta, and he said that one of his major arguments about these grants were that they were not in the legislation. and that he had already legally also is fighting this.

Well, yeah, we had to show harm, right? And the harm was the tree grant. Now we have additional ones that we came out on top of that. But yeah, that was already listed in his response to the Attorney General's office. Thank you very much.

Councilor Tessa. Thank you, Council President. Manager Marino, we have the short-term rentals licensing fee that we have to decide on. Do we have to decide on... I should remember this, but I don't, on any kind of fines or recourse to someone who is hosting their place for rental that is not licensed?

The fines are laid out in our zoning. This is an adoption. We adopted this policy, so we have fines already listed in our ordinances. that the ISD will start with, you know, the $100 per day and then up to $300 maximum per day, things like that. So those are sort of layered in there already. I'll double check to see if we have to add anything in additional language, but I think we're okay on that, but I'll double check.

And then part of the new ordinance that we passed just last year was all of these short-term rentals need to be owner-occupied to qualify for that license. Yeah, just whatever the... I believe that was in there as well, yeah. Yeah, so if there's any of them that are listed that are not owner-occupied, they would presumably not qualify for a license, right?

Correct, and there's also a cap on the license that we have. I think it was 120 or something like that, so anything... Percentage. Yeah, percentage, right, a percentage, but anything above whatever that number is, we'll have to, you know, go on a wait list, and then, you know, people can get that biggest two- or three-year or something like that, and then they'll have to give it up, and then somebody else will be eligible for it.

It'll be a process for sure.

Thank you, President Letary. Town Manager Marino, thank you for your report. Thank you for following through with the short-term rental software. Very passionate about that, and I appreciate that. And I just wanted to touch base on our 250th celebration. The meetings have continued. The event is forming up nicely. Definitely looking for volunteers from the council if anyone is interested in lending some time that day. That would be awesome.

And we're a little forward to it Oh business Public hearings, but First one is down council vote to appropriate certified free cash. We talk talking fun close out fiscal 26 I'll read the motion again notice Motion by Councilor Raimondo to leave the reading second by Vice President Swope. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. So there's a motion coming out of committee in the motion to vote to appropriate certified free same time and i think the exact price in there so let's just do a roll call to make sure council costigan yes council test nary yes council love yes council dimes yes council romano yes council reardon yes council pin yes vice president swope yes presently terry yes motion passes council test now we vote to authorize unpaid bills from prior year similar i'm well i can read it i'll be here

I move the Town Council vote to authorize them. They billed as a priority here at the Cave and Cairnview Department. The budget is noted below. Is there any interaction with Gate 2? The total for that is $20,232.45. And it also came out of a committee with a positive recommendation. Motion.

All right. This came out of a committee with a positive recommendation. Does not require a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Councilor Costigan? Yes. Councilor Tassinari? Yes. Councilor Malab? Yes. Councilor Dimes? Yes. Councilor Romano? Yes. Councilor Reardon? Yes. Councilor Fitt? Yes. Vice President Swope? Yes. President Letary?

Yes. Motion passes. Councilor Malab, Town Council discussed the ordinance amendment use variance. Is that still in committee? Do we expect that?

I wrote that I move that the Winthrop Town Council propose and refer for review the attached amendments to Title 17 zoning of the Code of Ordinances concerning the prohibition of use variances and clarification of the powers of the Board of Appeals. So the purpose of the amendment is to clarify the variances 0.050 to conform to the limitations established by the state law on local zoning regulations. Amend section 17.52.020 to expressly provide that the Board of Appeals shall have no authority to grant a variance for any use not otherwise permitted within applicable zoning district.

Add a new section 17.

durability and effective date provisions so further i move that the town council refer this proposal uh proposed zoning amendment to the planning board for its review recommendation and public hearing pursuant to master general law chapter 48 section 5 and any applicable provisions of the winter charter and code of ordinances so following through the planning board's recommendation and completion of all statutory notice and hearing requirements

All right. Sorry. Just coming out of the committee with positive recommendation does not require a second. I applied to a committee for taking this up in a pretty timely manner. And hopefully we get that from the planning board in a timely manner as well. And I'm sure we will. And thank you very much. Any further discussion? Council Member.

Yes. So I just have a question about this process. So once it's sent to the planning board, are they going to... They have to have a hearing. They have to have a hearing. Okay. Is that their June hearing? You just said they have a meeting scheduled in June. Do they have a 30-day? Do they have a time frame?

I'm not sure.

45 days.

45 days. And is this going to be like a joint meeting with the council? No, it doesn't. No. It could be if they choose to, but no, they don't need to.

Council Costigan.

Yes.

Council Tessinieri. Yes. Council Malab.

Yes.

Council Dimes. Yes. Council Romano. Yes. Council Reardon. Yes. Council Finn. Yes. Vice President Swope. Yes. President Letary. Yes.

Council review ordinance committee recommendations on scooters. That is continued. Council review ordinance board of san diego let's have more hearings on that in the news series all right um council to discuss to formally readopt its rules and procedures um that's also oh okay so this is going back to uh I think Councilor Lath spoke about this earlier. I think last year, early last year, a little over a year ago, we had sent to committee to take a look at all the rules and ordinances. And I remember going to the meetings that Vice President Belcher ran. And they would take a meeting, go over Rule 1, Rule 2, and go forward. I think they got through a handful of meetings. Other stuff got in the way, and they never came back with recommendations. But I know we've in discussions with a former consulate of Belcher to get any notes they might have. So this is technically still in committee. So this is on your calendar for whenever you choose to do it. And just whatever information we can get from the work that had already been done, we will forward to you. it's not delayed though that piece doesn't have to come back after rule 12. i just want to make sure that we get through all right new business i have a couple things i put on here and i'm going to send them to committee mostly things that i've been thinking about but one is the sidewalk improvement discussion it's it's been mentioned in the past that you know over years to no fault of anybody we planted trees in wrong places, whether it be in parks or sidewalks that maybe not be conducive to sidewalks or whatever. And we have a pretty strict policy on trees. Going around neighborhoods and looking at a handful of instances where you have concrete sidewalks that are just being overgrown by tree roots and such. And I think we need to come up with some sort of process. encourage us to come up with some sort of process or mechanism where a property owner or anybody really, I mean, this is a public safety issue, this is a handicap accessibility issue, and it's just, you know, we talked about our tree canopy and how we want to preserve it for our future. Well, part of that is seeing where there's been a mistake made for whatever reason in addressing the problem and fixing it. Vice President Swope talked earlier about, like, linkage. contractors in the town if they're doing a project. I remember back in the old hospital, the linkage there was to pave the whole street from Brookfield and Lincoln down to Pleasant and Lincoln. And I think in this situation, even with citizens, maybe a homeowner, I mean, we expect not a lot, but we expect home maintain their property and we get pretty tough on them in the winter they should expect the same from us and they should expect a sidewalk that's accessible that's walkable that if we have any damage to somebody's property it should be addressed so you know I could name a handful of these right off the top of the bat and I'm sure there's more and maybe it involves some sort of linkage from the homeowners, maybe it doesn't, but maybe it involves if we had to, you know, look at a tree and, again, to address the situation for handicap accessibility and passage and such, and if that tree was deemed to be worth or whatever the situation is but I just think it's something that needs to be discussed because there's some really horrendous examples of this in the town that I think we're doing a disservice to the citizens because again our first priority or my first priority and I'm assuming the council's too is for the safety of our citizens so I would like to send that to public When you have a chance, take a look at that, put it on your calendar, and come back with any thoughts you might have on that. The other one, and send this to Rules and Ordinance, small commercial vehicle allowance for resident parking stickers. This has been talked about since we started resident parking stickers. We have a lot of small business owners, plumbers, electricians, contractors, whatever, that have it. And I'm not... an expert on tonnage or whatever and maybe it's under three-quarters of a ton truck or whatever it is van but um and maybe they pay a little more for whatever the thing is i think this is something that needs to be looked at telling you what to do with it but i think it's something that i would like rules and ordinance to take a look at um but we do have a lot of small business owners that They're the same taxes as somebody who has a residential, regular car, not a commercial vehicle. And there obviously has to be some sort of restrictions on you don't want an 18-wheeler parked on the sidewalk or a big two-ton truck. But I think this is something that should be looked at. for our citizens and for our community. So I will move that to Rules and Ordinance. Also, a software program that we talked about pretty much at length already, but this is a program that we saw at the MMA conference. Pretty much all the counselors that were there took a look at this, and it was an amazing program where, you know, they said, where are you from? We said, Wentworth, and they did a little thing with you have 220 units that are being advertised on the Airbnb. How many of them are licensed? Ten. And it's, you know, A, it's a loss of revenue. B, it's just making sure of the code and everything else and parking restrictions and such. And, you know, as we said earlier, unit owners that are in the property. So we that are providing services. And we have others that take advantage in some ways. So after multiple discussions with town manager, this program is relatively short money at eight grand, I think, all in. They not only provide a service to identify the properties, but they can send out letters as part of the program. This is something that will be a huge benefit, I think, to the town. So I thank the town manager for following up on that. And, you know, we were going to offer, I was going to offer an amendment for money needed for that, but the town manager has found it within his budget, so we don't have to do that. So thank you. The other one, as we, again, come close to summer, DCR, beach request, I've asked Tony again to reach out. They came before us here, I think it was July 1st or something like that last year, and said they were going to put out ramps for walking to the ocean. They were going to provide us with a cleaning schedule, and I might have missed it, but I didn't see any of that happen. So I've asked Tony again to reach out. I don't know if you've had any luck with that. I did talk to him, yeah, a

SOMEBODY'S GOING TO GO THROUGH PUBLIC RELATIONS, BUT THEY WILL GET US A STATEMENT AS TO UPDATE ON WHAT THEY'RE GOING TO DO THIS YEAR AND THE RAMPS AND ALL THE CONCERNS THE COUNCIL PRESIDENT GAVE ME. SO I ANTICIPATE GETTING SOMETHING FROM THEM HOPEFULLY THIS WEEK, IF NOT EARLY NEXT WEEK. BUT ONCE I GET IT, I'LL SEND IT OFF TO THE COUNCIL MEMBERS.

OKAY. AND TOWN COUNCIL MEETING SCHEDULED FOR JUNE. SO AS WE'VE HEARD FROM THE FINCON COMMISSIONER, WE I'm asking for a motion to suspend council rules to change the meeting schedule from June. So the second meeting in June will move from the 16th to the 9th. I'll put it on the table. There's a motion by Council Dime, second? Second. Second by Council Tassinati. The charter says that the council must vote on the budget within 15 days of the beginning of the fiscal year. Town manager's budget becomes the budget of the town. The council has no say in it.

The 15th day before would be June 16th.

I am very finicky about the budget and don't want to take any chances of any kind of weather event, power outage, whatever it happens to be for them. So this budget will be voted on June 9th. we will i mean the budget process will not be an overly long process to vote on the budget and any amendments that we need um i do not see a need at this point for a meeting on the 16th if there is we can have one but i don't think we if we don't need it there's no reason to have it uh to have three meetings in three weeks um any discussion upon the motion of the council yes um i've been thinking about this too looking at the calendar

And I think it might be more advantageous than we talked about earlier, especially in the ninth, and then move the ninth one back perhaps maybe to the 30th, and then we don't have to meet the week after the fourth. Just so that that gives you a three-week gap twice instead of just taking a month off.

So amending the motion to change the meeting schedule for the July 7th meeting. No. So what?

I'm just following the idea out there. I just want to see the council's thoughts. I think it might be more advantageous if we move right now the 16th to the 30th, or call it that. Let me try and think of a better way to word this, because I don't know what's the most prudent way to do this. I would like our meeting scheduled to be, I have a calendar. We meet the 30th, and then we don't meet again until the 21st of July. And then we meet the 9th of July.

So that gives you three weeks twice. So just let me so July would be the seventh and the 21st. Is that right? Yes. Okay, so you're making a potentially making an amendment to the motion that was made so to to to suspend council rules for the meetings. the next two months so to move the meeting scheduled for june 16th and july 7th yes to june 30th and july and and keep july 21st the same yeah and move and well then there'll be a separate special meeting call for that if that was the case so basically what you'd like to do okay can i have a withdrawal of the original motion withdrawal and withdrawal Now, Councilor Amano, if you don't mind, would like to make a motion to suspend council rules and change the June 16th meeting to June 30th and to cancel the first meeting in July, which would be July 7th. Now, there's a motion made by Councilor Amano to give a second to that. Second. Second. discussion on that and I'll just say so if this motion was to pass I would then announce a special meeting for June 9th be so I'm not going to say this but I'll announce a special meeting for June 9th um okay any further discussion on that

No, I just, once again, I think this makes more sense because then it gives us a three-week gap twice instead of you have like this big almost a month, yeah, two days less than a month-long gap.

I just think it lines up better. Okay. Any other discussion?

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. We do six. At six o'clock on Tuesday, July 9th. Okay, so there's a special meeting on Tuesday, June 9th with town council starting at six o'clock. Agenda will be up. Okay. Committee opening. So also, And there are several committee openings that are potentially there. And I would like to read a letter. This is the time of the year where I'll hear from a lot of committee members that wish to be reappointed or wish to not be reappointed. And I did receive an email that I thought was incredibly worthy to be read, so I will read that. It says, hi, Jim. My tenure is up on the Board of Licenses of June 26. I'm asking not to be reappointed. I have served this community proudly. for over the last 50 years and elected and appointed positions as well, serving in many community and fraternal organizations, and now it's time to call it a day. I started as an elected town meeting member and was appointed to Conservation Commission. as an elected member of the Board of Health, then elected to the Board of Selectmen three times, the Winthrop School Committee, and finally, Winthrop Town Council President. I am proud of my service to this community, having served on each school building committee as well as the Millerfield Reconstruction Committee. I consider it an extreme honor to serve the citizens of Winthrop and hope that I have contributed in some way to make this community the wonderful seashore community it is. I want to take a minute to thank Ron. And it's kind of, you know, ironic. You have Ron, who has served this community with love and passion for 50 years. And now we have his grandson, Christian, who just started his first term on the on the Finance Commission, on the Citizens Finance Committee. So it's fitting that Ron takes this time to step down. So I just want to take a moment to congratulate Ron on a well-deserved retirement from his service to the town of Winthrop. So thank you, Ron.

Thank you.

Now, saying that, we need a lot of people. So we have openings on various committees. I have not heard back from all members and their chairs to talk about the openings that are potentially there. But I do know that there is an opening on the Board of License. And I encourage you to take a look at the town website. The town clerk will have a list up there shortly with, and I know that there is, so another one I know that there is, there is going to be an opening on the Board of Appeals. Potentially two openings on the Board of Appeals.

There's two on the Board of License now, too.

So there will be two openings on the Board of License and two openings on the Board of Appeals. Those are verified. The other ones are still waiting to hear back from the chairs and from the committee members to see their thoughts on these. over the past couple of days, too. Taxi fares in the town of Winter, we've got a taxi service, which everybody is aware of. And through ordinance, the taxi service, if they need to adjust their fares in any way, whether it be gas prices or just the economy in general or whatever it happens to be, they can't do it without the approval of the Winter Town Council. Which I personally think is something we should take a look at. I could understand in years past when that was the option. other opportunity. And I think it's great that the town took the time to make sure that the overview was being effective because this affected the citizens. And if you have a monopoly in town and you have no other services, you want to make sure that you have a check on that, a check and balance, I guess. So I don't know if this is something in the future that we should take a look at seeing if this is required because there are other options for me. Anyway, for now, the owner of Winthrop Taxi has requested a fair increase for in-town service. So this is anybody going from a Winthrop location to a Winthrop location. So I would like this sent to finance. And I believe... So the increase is... I think they're looking from $8 to $10. I also do believe that there are senior rates. There are senior rates, but this would be the typical fare from going from one destination in Winthrop to another destination in Winthrop. And I think there are specific fares going to the airport, from the airport to Winthrop and such. But this fare increase that they're looking for is just for Winthrop to Winthrop fare increase. So that would be referred to finance. Now, I'm just going to name these budget amendments that we're going to make, our budget motions that we're going to take up at the next meeting, but in all transparency, I want to be able to put them on the old business again, make sure I have faith and confidence that we can pass these motions before time warranted. The following motions will be continued. Town Council Adopt Annual General Operating Budget for Fiscal Year 2027. Town Council Adopt Annual Revolving Budgets for Fiscal 2027. Town Council Adopt Annual Capital Plan for Fiscal 2027. Town Council adopt Larson Rink Enterprise Fund Budget for Fiscal 27. Town Council adopt Recreation Enterprise Fund Budget for Fiscal 27. Town Council adopt Habermas Enterprise Budget for Fiscal 27. Town Council adopt Solid Waste Enterprise Fund for Fiscal 27. Town Council appropriate funds to Education Stabilization Fund. Town Council transfer $250,000 from General Stabilization Fund to Snow and Ice Account That will be referred to finance. Hopefully before next Tuesday. Town Council vote to modify fund budgets to facilitate closing of fiscal 26 fiscal year. That will also be sent to finance. Town Council vote to appropriate $110,000 in certified free cash. That will be sent to finance. Town Council vote to appropriate $800,000 from retained earnings the water source fund, transfer to water source capital stabilization fund, and that will be referred to finance.

Public comment. Mr. Dodds.

I'm sorry. Yes. You want the tax payers to go to finance, not rules? Yes. Okay. It's fine because it's in money.

The town, I don't know. It's choose to have a joint meeting who can have the joint meeting. OK. Mr. Dowd.

Jack Dowd, Precinct 4. We had this discussion going on on a certain tree that's right in the square.

Years past, we had a great representation

Senate, the House of Representatives. Thinking about putting aside money, getting money, to put all underground service from Midcar Square down to Woodside, everything underground. Because it is a very wide street. It could be a very beautiful street, except for wires and transformers. Now there's discussion about taking a tree down so that they can put a telephone. with a transformer on it right over here at 22 Pauline Street. Am I confused about something? Is this what's going on here?

That's already been passed by the council a couple of meetings ago, I believe.

What was passed?

What you're discussing, that tree.

So in other words, we're going a little bit backwards here. We want to have a nice boulevard, but we've got to replace a tree with a telephone pole. Is that what the story is?

Now, permission to answer your question. Go ahead. Thank you. My understanding is, well, my understanding, my knowledge is that this was passed at the meeting. This was, my understanding is that there's a rule with the national grid that they cannot have a pole within 10 feet of a tree. That's correct.

A new one.

A new one, a new pole. Now, the tree is coming down. My understanding is the owner of the property is putting up, right? How many trees? Three, five. So then.

So this has already been determined. This has been determined, yes. It's already determined. Thank you very much. Okay. All right, Celeste.

Celeste Ribeiro, are you at Precinct 1? To touch on the tree issue, I think that that should be kind of, and I understand the strategy that if it's a detriment and deemed a detriment of a property owner, you know, should have some say. But I also think that it should be kind of baked into an infrastructure strategy. For example, we should have an aspiration for a certain tree canopy, use that, however it's determined by the tree committee and other key stakeholders. And that should be something we should aspire to when we're planting trees. And then also something we should aspire to maintain. So for example, as discussed in that meeting, right, the concept of if you impact a tree, you need to replace it. by an equal replacement or, you know, thereabouts. So I think that as you take this under consideration, you know, that's how we should think about it. And we should aspire to a tree infrastructure just like we should with anything else, right? With drainage infrastructure and other infrastructure in town and have that same approach so that it doesn't, every time a unique situation comes up, that we're scrambling, trying to figure out how we're going to address it. And so that we don't implement a policy that says, hey, you have the right to remove a tree, period, the end. I think that that's just kind of a dead end approach. I have one more thing. Oh, with the taxi fares, similarly, right, it's probably an antiquated approach, I think you alluded to, Council President Lettieri, to have them come up every time they want to increase the fare, but maybe to put an ordinance in place that sets the conditions if, you know, the expense of operation goes up by X, Y, Z factors, then that can trigger an increase not to exceed whatever the formula is. Again, you don't want to go to just a dead end policy or make it where they're coming in and giving you arbitrary information that we don't have a barometer to measure it by. That's all.

Thank you. Mr. Morgan.

John. John Morgan, tracing four. You talked about sidewalks a little earlier in trees. I would like to ask that if this discussion continues that everyone treat a representative from the tree committee uh the commissioner of disabilities the town manager effort needs to be booked and then and if it needs to be involved uh the town manager is the town's ada coordinator so uh i believe if there's anything to do with sidewalks accessibility and trees everyone should have a seat at the table so we can discuss the possibilities without having uh So many delays as it's as of right now the I'll say the 190 summons to that tree is in civil court for two years How can we avoid that? How can we discuss that and And make winter accessible with people in trees. Thank you. Thank you

Mr. DeDarian. Tom DeDarian, Precinct 3 and your beloved tree warden. We talked about sidewalks and trees, and I had a little discussion with some trees. I talk to trees on a regular basis. They don't want to live in a sidewalk next to a road. That may have been a good idea when Many of the biggest trees in town were planted 200 years ago. When the climate was cooler, there was less pollution, less road salt. There weren't big trucks knocking into them. Most of the trees you'll see in town on busy roads have been hit by cars and trucks. So we should try to put our trees someplace other than between concrete, a Granite curb and asphalt if we can put them Into people's yards where they're not going to interfere with the sidewalk We should do that as a regular policy and make that make that Something that people are willing to do and want to do So we could plant trees purchased by the town in people's yards. They still contribute to the canopy of the town and they don't interfere with the sidewalk. That's a long policy. It's going to take a long time to replace the big old trees with younger trees that are a little further away from the road. I'm working with insurance companies that are paying for damage to our town property, our town trees, They're replacing the tree and giving us several more trees, depending on the diameter of the tree destroyed. We can plant those trees any place we want. So as a policy, I would like to plant trees not in sidewalks. Where we have sidewalks, trees get bigger and bigger, and the sidewalk gets smaller, and you can't fit by in some parts of the town. And we should set up trees so that that doesn't happen in 100 years. I am aware of that, the tree committee is aware of that, and we should proceed in that direction and maybe tell our citizens that we could provide trees for them in the yards, in their front yards, a few feet away from the sidewalk.

All right, and I will just say, again, I comment on sidewalks and stuff that's not directed to commercial It just gives me cause for concern when I walk around and see unpassable streets and us just, in some way, just not addressing it the way it should be addressed. And we should have, you know, our citizens, especially in accessible situations, need to take police and do things in this model. Thank you. Seeing no further business before the council, this meeting