Town Council - Regular Meeting

the meeting is 82066 827964 passcode is 509355 and the phone number is 309 205-3325 now roll call please council costigan here council tassinieri here tell someone Here. Councilor Dimes.

Present. Councilor Romano. Present. Councilor Reardon. Here. Councilor Finn. Vice President Spoke. Here. President Letary. Here.

Larry was been a fire chief, been with the fire department since 1976. Voted to lieutenant in 89, captain in 91, and then chief of the winter fire department in 1996. Larry spent a total of 32 years on the winter fire department. Then from 2009 to 2013, Larry was elected as a consulate there for his constituents. From 2016 to 2021, Larry was the harbor master. Larry spent the better part of 50 years serving the town of Winthrop. He loved this town. He was a respectful man, had much dignity, was very well thought of throughout the town. I wish his family nothing but the best.

And I ask you for a moment, please.

Minutes have been circulated from the June 9th meeting. Do we have a motion?

Motion.

Seconded by Councilor Dye, seconded by Councilor Romano. Any discussion on the minutes? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. The ayes have it. Minutes have been approved. General information recommendations veterans agent and obviously also the chair of our memorials committee, Phil Ronins.

All right, so I come here with two not lived in the town their whole life as it says right there nanny catino opened the gym every saturday morning from late 50s all the way through to mid 90s uh eight o'clock in the morning until three And that list in front of you, Steve Mahoney could have compiled 5,000 people, but we didn't have the time. That's how many lives he impacted. Matter of fact, six of the people are in Greece playing an Oba 70 basketball tournament, and they were all products of that gym. I had a... Conversation with Mike Berrizioni, and obviously you know that's going to be at some point in Mike Berrizioni's center. There's going to be some renovations to the gym. And Mike was unanimously in favor of naming the court after Manny Coutinho. His quote to me was, Phil, we spent every Saturday morning there. This guy immigrated from Portugal. He's a World War II veteran. He came, he opened the gym, he taught kids sportsmanship, teamwork, the importance of community. Later in life, he would help people actually All of the people on that list and many, many more want him recognized for everything he did for the youth in the town. So that's the first proposal I have for you. The second proposal, I propose it as the chairman of the Memorials Committee. The second person is Richard Honan. My proposal to the committee was to Put a street corner sign, and that will be coordinated, if approved, with Steve. He'll find the proper spot near Richard's house. I didn't need to do a handout for Richard Holman. 21 years of gift baskets at Christmas. Being a veteran and serving overseas, I can tell you how much a care package from home is cherished. And Richard did that for all those years when the Veterans Office didn't have the budget that I have today. It had a minuscule budget. Richard provided monetary resource to my predecessor. He still today provides support to me. Steve will attest to the fact that Richard put a medallion on a veteran that died before 1990. They don't get the flat bronze marker. He affixed it right to the granite stone for us. You know, Richard does that and a million things more. him and i chair the memorials committee uh the memorial day activities the veteran day activities uh and then just you know speaking in the schools and all the other stuff i really don't need to go much on much more on richard holmes so both of these items were unanimously voted on by the memorials committee five to zero and we are recommending to the town council that you approve both of these items. And that's really it. I have one bit of information for you folks. We did have a third item on the agenda. It was in reference to the naming of the firehouse. There was a proposal from the chief, Calandra, to name it the Veterans Memorial Firehouse in memory of the 96 men that gave their lives in this town over the course of multiple wars. My committee decided that they wanted to get input from the firefighters and input from the firehouse building committee so on september 23rd in this room at 6 p.m the memorials committee will hold a meeting and we're looking to get input from the firefighters and of course you guys are all guys and gals are all welcomed also uh to to name uh the firehouse so You know, we greatly appreciate it if you see fit to approve both of those items that I brought forth today. Thank you all very much for your consideration. Thank you. One second, Phil. Sure. I'm sorry.

Do you have any questions?

I should have asked if there's any questions. I'm sorry.

On the two items that was brought up, we will have to.

it's the best job in the world it's so nice to hear yeah such great things about the people that you bring forward thank you so much oh all right thank you now i make a motion to take these recommendations out of order do it now while he's still here sure thank you very much i'd love to make that motion then sure it's been council moves take this out of order it's been motioned by council of mano seconded by council tyson harry any discussion on the motion change

of the limo in the universe. A MOTION COMING OUT OF THE MEMORIALS COMMITTEE. THERE IS A MOTION COMING OUT OF THE MEMORIALS COMMITTEE TO NAME THE MIDDLE SCHOOL GYM NAMED THE BASKETBALL COURT. BASKETBALL COURT. IT WAS ALSO A SUBSEQUENT MOTION COMING OUT OF THE MEMORIALS COMMITTEE TO HAVE A STREET after Richard Hogan. Both of those came out of the Memorials Committee. There's a motion that has been made by Councilor Romano. There's a second by Vice President Swope. Councilor Tassinari. Any discussion on this motion?

No.

short of the third. And they're here to talk to us about the engineering progress at Tileson and Goldstone. There'll be a presentation, I believe. Can we put it on both screens? Stay tuned. Great. Thank you guys for being here. Much appreciated. It's a much anticipated project. We're very anxious to hear the updates and sort of time frame as how we go forward from here.

So we're here tonight to give you a project update. We've been working hard at this for a couple of years now and have a lot of progress that's been made and some positive updates to share.

So we're going to go over an overview of the project.

And from there, we're going to talk about what we've completed and what we're working on currently. And then at the end, we'll go over schedule and cost for the project.

So overview of the project.

So location is at Curlstone and Tileson Road area. That polygon there shows you. We're in a low-lying coastal neighborhood next to the Winthrop Harbor. The storm drains discharge to the harbor through outfalls area. It's influenced by tidal levels in the harbor.

So during high tides, the stormwater at the same rate or higher than the outfall pipe.

So this is a schematic of what the The green outline there shows the catchment for the stormwater. So every time it rains, when the rain hits the ground, it's going to travel towards the outfall through a drainage network of pipes. The existing drainage all congregates to a 12-inch outfall next to Captain Jack's in that center left part of the picture there. So when you have an inch of rain, That whole area has to get conveyed by the drainage system, which is a big challenge, given the size of the existing pipes. It lacks capacity. You have a 12-inch outfall, which is relatively small, speaking to the breadth of that whole area. One thing that's important about elevations here, the neighborhood low point on Girlston Road, right in the middle there, with the small circle, that's at elevation seven. During high tide, on average, we're right around 5 feet. When it's a high, high tide, we're almost at 7 feet. So we're almost at that same elevation as the neighborhood of Bull Point, which presents a huge conveyance of stormwater challenge.

Yeah, and it certainly does present a challenge. The streets are experiencing ponding during heavy As Dan kind of alluded to, the existing system is not sized adequately for today's rainfall intensities, as well as today's design standards. And it's heavily influenced by the tide. Dan did a good job of kind of describing the elevations of the tide. They're roughly right around five to seven range for a typical high tide. The figure on the right kind of shows how the drainage system would operate relative to that tide. So up above at low tide, it may be able to drain by gravity freely because the low tide is way down. But once the high tide comes up, that starts surcharging your system and filling the drainage network. So there's nowhere for the water to go. There's no space in the drainage system to collect it. And the elevations matter here because, like we've been talking about, if that high tide's between 5 and 7, that low point on Girdlestone being at elevation 7, that tide water that's surcharging is getting almost up to existing grade at that location. So this is a problem because it starts ponding in the roadway, which is dangerous for vehicle traffic. It limits access for emergency responders. It can also cause property damage. Additionally, some of the infrastructure in this area is taxed by this. So there's significant infrastructure and utility improvements needed for the project. So what are we thinking about doing? We're going to relocate the outfall, move it someplace more remote that allows for easier access and also help with some potential pumping operations if needed beyond the design storm. We're putting in bigger pipes, so we're upsizing and increasing capacity for flow and volume storage during a design storm event. The design storm event for this is targeted at a 10-year, 24-hour event. And just to kind of give that word of magnitude, that's about five inches of rainfall over a 24-hour period. And that's consistent with MassDOT's projects. planning guidelines. So pretty consistent for this type of roadway drainage system. And one of the biggest and most important parts of this is putting in backflow prevention on the outfall to prevent that tidal surcharge and prevent the tide from controlling the water level in the drainage system. So this is kind of just another schematic of what it's going to look like. Like I said, we're going to upsize the pipes. So we've only drawn the main conveyance lines here. So we'll have larger pipes going down to Tileson, Girdle Stone. All of the periphery drainage will be tied in, the catch basins and so on and so forth. And then it will run down Pleasant going north toward the Pleasant Street Yacht Club, where We found a pretty remote area that's away from a lot of properties and there's pretty easy maintenance access to this now larger outfall. So how does the drainage system work? It works just like a typical gravity system. It's collected by catch basins. We'll note that we're adding catch basins on this project to try and get reduced spread and get water off the road quicker. It's going to flow through these upsized pipes and then discharge to the harbor, which is equipped with the backflow prevention. And that's important. And you can see on this This figure on the right, this kind of shows you how the backflow prevention works. So during low tide, water is able to freely drain through it. The tide gate opens up, lets the water out. And during high tide, when it's up at that 5-7 elevation, that stays closed. This is where the upsized pipes become important because it's able to hold and store a little bit more water. And the system can actually build up and discharge to a tailwater condition with this backflow prevention. But it's just a much more controlled output. which is required for coastal outfall.

Next, we'll talk through the outfall location selection that Bob alluded to at the Pleasant Park Yacht Club. So we went through a four-step process to arrive at that location. So the first logical spot to look was the existing location. That presented some constrained issues that had us move on to step two. I'll go into more detail about all these in the following slides. The alternate site was at the Pleasant Park Yacht Club at 562 Pleasant Street. We were able to talk to the Yacht Club and work with them to identify a couple potential locations Once we had their buy-in that this could be a viable location, we identified two different alternative locations within that location, one being through the middle of the parking lot, the other one on the northern part of that parcel in that open area that Bob was mentioning. From there, we made our selection. So this was the existing location. So as you'll see, it's beneath. So a pipe beneath the building is very unideal. It presents a lot of challenges for maintenance and not something anyone would ever recommend. We looked through the feasibility of trying to replace it in this existing location and it is not a great structural option. Next slide please. So next we looked at staying in that same vicinity. area. This we looked at as well and you can see a planet profile view here showing how tight this site is. So you see that on the right picture you have two adjacent buildings to this corridor. There's retaining walls in that area and it's only about corridor is able to try to construct a pipe and not have it also cost time to multiple angles. This is not an ideal location. And trying to mobilize in there in this area is extremely challenging. It's not something right. for this location, for this outfall. I'll explain some of the benefits on the next slide. So this selected alternative, alternative two, doesn't have an offshore run. Their option would be to extend it offshore, which causes a few issues with maintenance and maintaining it. out to brick wrap. So next we'll talk through some of the specifics of the site and then talk through some of the next steps.

So although it is the recommended location, it is still challenging. It's still a pretty fairly tight area. These are pretty large structures we're putting in between the head bowl, pipes, the man bowls. They're going down pretty deep. So we anticipate that there's going to be a need for a cofferdam for both supportive excavation and then also control of water. If you haven't seen a cofferdam, this is kind of what it looks like on the right. So you're basically able to... cut these sheets down or other means, there's other types of cofferdams as well, but we're just showing a sheet ball one for now. That allows the contractor to work in the dry, excavate down deep and perform their construction in the dry. And this is really needed in marine areas where you're in a really constrained space and working with some of these large types of structures. And just to kind of give a graphic to it, this is kind of what the duckbill tide gate looks like. So as I mentioned, before water can bond up during low tide, that valve will open up and discharge freely. And then during high tide, it closes and it's kind of like a glove or like your fist will open up and kind of close like that during high tide. So water won't be able to surcharge the system. And these are very common. I guess one of the benefits, if you go back real quick, as Dan kind of alluded to, this location does have ease of maintenance where they'll be able to get access right off of Pleasant Street, kind of get down to the outfall to maintain this type gate.

There's also more space for them to actually construct. All right, so completed tasks and on-tone tasks. There's three main, four main tasks ongoing and have been addressed. So the first was site investigation work. So it's just conditions, survey, and geotechnical explorations. applications of their project getting designed in a permanent manner. So that's ongoing. While that's ongoing design, so our drainage collection and conveyance system is complete at this point. We're focusing on wrapping up water mains, sewer, appropriate Activity moving in concert with the rest is also completed survey. It's about survey of the town is in the process of working with the agreement recording. Extra thought through schedule and cost. There's items that are within our control and several that regulators and any conditions that they place upon us based on their rules and regulations. They also have different time durations for their review, the amount of times they might go back and forth with revisions. Things within our control are all the engineering elements, the design of all the infrastructure and all the modeling and calculations associated with those. So we have three main tasks here in our schedule. So our permitting is ongoing and expected to be complete in April next year. And our design is progressing and going on, as I mentioned, in concert with the permitting act and the regulators and some of that existing conditions and information. That puts us in position to do the project in May and then work through the report of the contract and the submittal process in targeting an October start date for the construction.

to thank you guys for coming out it's been a very concise and broad presentation it's much appreciated a couple of things you mentioned you said bigger pipes larger pipes did say at one point 48 inch right at the end any other dimensions getting to that point and you are and i would ask a second five you also mentioned additional catch bases

Right, so the drainage system will vary. It's not going to be 48 inch everywhere. The size of the pipes will range. For the main line, I'll discuss the laterals will be probably 12 or 15 inch. But the main line is going to roughly range from 24 inch to 42, and then the outfall pipe and a large portion of Pleasant Street will be 48. They are currently 8 to 10 inch clay pipes, and with the outfall being 12. put it into some perspective. And I guess to share a little bit more perspective on that, a 12-inch pipe can convey, it's like two CFS roughly, and the 48-inch will be able to convey over 100 CFS under similar conditions.

Two to three percent. Yes.

So it's increasing the capacity. Yes, significantly. I should mention that we're putting two two drained and girdled stone.

Yeah, so girdled stone now. And that's attributed to some of the cover issues due to the topography. Like we mentioned before, it's pretty low. It's also really flat in that area. So there are some cover issues. You want to maintain a certain amount of depth for the pipes for structural integrity of the pipes. So we've had to split it up at this stage to maintain that. They're pretty large pipes. So if you can imagine putting a big pipe underground, there's not much room. So we're splitting it up to have two.

thank you uh uh council classic yes yes thank you uh town council president uh there's a lot here it's a big obviously a very big project um somewhat surprised it's uh dislodged and it's incorporating other areas as well by the way great presentation thank you for all that information first issue at hand is the easement uh the uh you did on girdlestone we're now incorporating other areas of that that location itself and incorporating them into a 48 foot line now but back to the easement you know we're in the 21st century i'm concerned i know there's been uh construction there's buildings on that easement as well has it been entertained that we uh we maybe skirt ourselves a little bit to the left or the right of that area i know it's 12 feet wide but i know you're talking a 48 foot a 48 foot i'm sorry 40 damn pipeline Is it possible to construct or run a smaller pipeline through that area that currently exists as the easement to avoid the $4 to $5 million cost, let alone resolve the issue on Girdlestone exponentially as it relates to just a smaller pipe? They're doing it now with the DBW with a powered This is far more than the solving the girdlestone problem itself. And again, timing is of essence here. I don't think we've even hit some of the tropical storms that are probably in route here. We're talking 2027 of May, start the construction. So in the interim, we've been pumping that area for years now. And we're looking for a quick resolve. The people down in that area as well are looking for a quick resolve. We're now going to incorporate Pleasant Street in. We now have to buy out the easement or some type of negotiation with the Pleasant Park Yacht Club to cut through their property. So I, you know, make an amount out of a mold, as far as I'm concerned, let alone the uh i'm i'm not happy about that uh i'm looking to get that solved as soon as possible um so you know now we have to float a bond and so forth so on our money's an issue of course uh everything's an issue of late uh but with that uh in addition to um that the permits Now we go through an extensive permitting program to get easements and get our piping and get all of our discharges in that area completed. Now we have to go through the state. We know the state loves us right now. And again, the larger pipe itself, again, I would question the fact that I'm not sure that the pipes are 10 inches and, you know, 10 inch diameter pipe from Pleasant Street. I'd be surprised about that if that's, I believe, the

The number you gave me, 10-inch? Along Tylerston and Girdlestone, they're into 10-inch. Yeah. Through the outfall, it's 12. I'd have to flip it up. I quoted Pleasant Street as having 10-inch light pipes.

Yeah, it was not, right?

Well, it goes from Girdlestone to the outfall, current outfall, 12-inch pipes. It's all clay pipe. And all due respect, counselor, you're focusing strictly on the outfall pipe. This is 100-year-old clay pipe. So it's a capacity issue in addition to the outfall pipe. So you get infiltration, inflow infiltration, groundwater inflow infiltration, tidal inflow infiltration. There's no capacity. You can see the rain that we just had, very short duration.

And I understand that, just the DPW director, but that pipe that's there existing now is compromised. It's been compromised for years. So now we're really enlarging this overall program. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for, I mean, we should do every problem here if we can do it at least solve the problem for the people down in girdlestone and tyleston um other than putting this this massive project uh underway so i think it would be probably the people in girdlestone and tyleston who would be the ultimate people to approve this let alone the people who went from the council i get all of that but it just hurts me to know we have an easement already that's been compromised as far as the pipes There's the oversight of this building. I mean, how long ago were those buildings?

Council Cossack and Woodward and Cummings did not build over those. If we could just keep going.

I understand town council presidents, but you have to ask these questions in order to get to the answers. And I'm just, I'll end up ending it. I know we're having a larger pipe here. I had asked several months ago if this was going to incorporate other areas. I was told no. That was from the town manager. And now, you know, we're looking at stone i don't know uh how fast it's going to be cured uh this has to be approved so there's a lot to do here permit wise as well and uh you know i apologize thank you appreciate it there's no no comments no no comments okay i only live there and i can play there's no comments okay okay okay jim good job good job hey council president uh thank you all for your presentation i really appreciate it i do have a lot more questions but none of them pertain to um

the presentation. It was really well done and I think it's important to look at the project not just as a solve for the folks on Towson and Grosvenor but as a long-term commitment to the hardening of the town and we want to save our town. It's not just two streets. We want to save our town from tidal inundation and flood water inundation. This is a great way to start. The price point is a lot higher than I thought we were going to come in at when we initially undertook this. four years ago, three, at least three years. But that's where we have to be to gain the capacity that the director was explaining and these gentlemen are explaining in the stormwater drainage system. And I think that capacity is important, especially when it's right on the tidal, right in the tidal, in the low-lying area. I didn't know that the low-lying area was right at the level of the tide, right on Grosnell Street. I would request that we have a full presentation and hearing on the easement agreement with the Pleasant Park Yacht Club when that is finalized. But I think the only question I have left for you folks is that if we didn't, if we followed Councilor Costner's recommendation and tried to use the existing easement or the area that's to the left, over the current pipeline, would that not still require us to go get all the same permitting and all the same design and all the same waiting period that we're going to have to work through with the state and everyone else? If we're going to repair that existing outflow or create another outflow on the same easement, would we not need the same number of permits and approval from state and DEP and everything else? that we're going to need for this project.

Yeah, so what I would say to that, I guess it's two prongs, right? For maintenance of the existing outfall, it might be less substantial permitting. However, you're always going to have that long-term maintenance access issue. So if something happens to the pipe, it gets compromised. You guys are back to square one. If you wanted to go skirt to the left and create a new outfall, it would require the same permitting.

But at the end of the day, we're not going to have access to maintenance. We're going to have expanding capacity if we were trying to use the same lines. So it's not, I don't think a quick fix is the right solution to this issue. And I apologize to the people on Towson and Girlstone, but if we can get it fixed right the first time and not have to do it six or seven other times, I think it's a, well, a good use of the funding.

them in the audience right now and it's probably good that they got to see some of this also I know sometimes it's hard to hear that big dollar figure but looking at that and understanding more about it it's really planning more for the future also not just current state and what will fix current state and that's where I'm kind of thinking when I was I wish we could get it done a lot faster. But to see this, and it would actually plan a bit more for the future of the area with the issues that we are seeing surrounding the whole town in different areas flooding. I think that's good. And I think there's this, when you start talking about keeping the current easement, the maintenance on it, I'm big on maintenance. on a timely schedule, there's issues. This way, this would alleviate that and it would be able to be done. Plus, fitting into that area, even with the current technology, I started looking into it underground, borrowing and all that, you're still talking a lot of money to bring specialty equipment in to do it. So, the sad part is you can't get it done tomorrow.

area office thank you thank you town council president uh thank you for the presentation wonderful very well um done and um explanations for every avenue i've really enjoyed it thank you I fully support this project, and I do understand everything that this stormwater system encompasses, the adjoining streets, and I know that it might not have been clear that this area encompasses all of that drainage, all goes to that outfall, so it's crucial that we dig up the streets and put in larger pipes for for the whole surrounding area that goes to this new outfall. The new outfall location is, in my eyes, the only option. Just the engineering and shoring up of the buildings to even get in between Captain Jackson and Marina is not anything I would even imagine that we would consider. The liability alone would be astronomical. So thank you for the alternate site. I think it's wonderful. And I think that the Tilestone, Tileson, Girdlestone folks will be happy with the resolution with this project. Do you think that this requires a full Chapter 91 license? Do we have any licensing down there? Or is this going to be a whole new, for the outfall?

I think it's a whole new.

Okay.

There is an existing one on that property, but because the inclusion of the easement, it I think that warrants a new one, especially if there are future enhancements or modifications to it that are needed. You want to be able to have that separate to the town to be able to get a revision or modification to your license.

Do you have a timeline of when you could consider putting this through CONCOM so that the MIPA could get going?

Yeah, I do. I don't have it off the top of my head, but I'm happy to get you that information.

Thank you.

Yes, I'd also like to thank you for the presentation. I would have liked to have gotten it sent to us beforehand, so it would have been easier for us to follow along instead of just looking at the screens. But overall, I appreciate your presentation. I don't have any questions right now, but I would also like to add, this is more for the council president. I think it would make sense that we listen especially to the residents in these areas. I know we have some residents here tonight I'd like to hear from them and them to be able to ask questions to these engineers. while we have some people here. And I think people who wanna speak. But that's up to you, Council President.

Councilor Goodman. Thank you for the presentation. My only concerns are for the easement location. I wanna make sure that we don't have a repeat of another building popping up on top of this thing in 10, 15 years down the road, we're in the same situation. Also, the location of that lot, that lot's full of boats at the end of the season all winter. Because Takala has to get his equipment in there. We don't want to have to be waiting for cranes to move boats so we can get equipment in there. So I would hope that the easement specifies it right away. And also, from your map, it looks like you're going to have manhole covers over there. We need to make sure they're not storing things for the winter on top of these covers that we can't get access in the event of a problem. Because that's just going to delay the pain and suffering for everybody while they're trying to get in there and fix a problem. And I will say that, well, Vice President Swarbrick, I'm sorry.

Thank you all very much. Thank you for sharing. When you were thinking about all the possibilities and you were weighing the price versus the result, what was your thinking? I think most of them was on the easement, I take it. That was a big issue when she decided that. 48 inch pipes seems pretty big to me. I don't know. Do we have 48 inch pipes anywhere else in the town?

The downtown project is 48 in 60.

Are they, where are they? Are they down?

They're down the center. They discharged the Dunham's.

Sorry.

You're discharged for the outfall at Donovan's Beach. Okay. Which also means.

Yeah, so it's really controlled by the tide. There's kind of this sweet spot when you're trying to discharge at high tide where you're having to store that event. So if a storm event comes during high tide, you really need the pipes to be upsized for storage. Because some of it might be able to be discharged with a tailwater condition, but not all of it. the system. So the water will sit in there and then when the tide recedes, it's able to release.

So many could experience flooding at low tide though?

Not at low tide. I wouldn't anticipate it for the design storm event that we're looking at.

So when it's low tide, those people never experience flooding?

They shouldn't.

I have heard that sometimes when it's low tide, they do have flooding. That's why I'm asking.

Oh, I bet they do. I bet they do. They have flooding. I know they're pumping today, but they're pumping. We have flooding no matter what the tide is. Yes. That's the capacity issue. The capacity. The pipes are just too small. So even when it's not even controlled by the tide, I'm going to... The size of the pipes is just too small, and that's the problem, which is why Steve has to have his coos out there pumping.

And one more question. When you were asked to do this project, what was the charge? Was it to fix the flooding in that area? What was the charge that you were asked to?

Really focused on looking at the stormwater flooding caused by rainfall in the area.

THE WHOLE AREA?

YEAH, SPECIFICALLY THE PROBLEM AREAS, I THINK, BUT IT'S ATTRIBUTED TO THAT LARGER SUMMER. YEAH, I CAN SPEAK TO THAT.

I MEAN, YOU GUYS REALLY DECIDE WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO WITH THAT. SO IT'S CHARGED WITH FIXING THE DRAINAGE AREA, FIXING THE ALFALT, BUT FOR THAT ENTIRE WATERSHED, RIGHT? YOU CAN'T JUST FIX AN ALFALT PIPE AND NOT FIX

I didn't think that we were ever just going to, this was not a project just to fix Girlstone and Towson. Is that correct? It was. And to fix the entire watershed.

at this information session. This is a general information session. I will commit to having a public hearing and hopefully Woodward and Covington would be back before the end of the summer so we could take questions and people could digest this information and have more concise and proper questions. I will also say that at least over the last two years that we've been going through this, is pretty much in line with what we expect. I think to do any substantial project like this or anything else, and this goes back, I think Councilor Millar talked about, you know, making sure if we're gonna do a project, do it right, and make sure we look past this and make sure that we're going to be able to address any potential issues. But to put a bandaid on this and to hop ass detriment to the residents and a detriment to the citizens. Totally. I also think the Councillor read and brought up some really good points on the easement that we have to make sure that's buttoned up just to let But again, I do want to thank you immensely. I do ask you to come back before the summer's ending so we can have more than two, but And I know, I think you sent it to the town manager, but if we can have a presentation in a timely manner, maybe a day or two before this, so we can have a chance to really, I know you're going to present it, you're going to talk about it, but it's good to be able to have questions really based on information that we've been able to get. So I appreciate that. from General Stabilization Fund to snow and ice account.

Councilor Casanova. Thank you, Council President. This motion comes from the Town Manager Marino. I move the Town Council transfer $250,000 from General Stabilization Fund to the below snow and ice related account to close out the remaining deficit that occurred in FY26. I'll take any other action there, too. The move from the capital stabilization fund is $250,000 to the snow and ice manpower line item for $250,000. The remainder in the capital stabilization fund after the motion will be $5,837,690. It did come out of the finance committee with a positive recommendation this evening.

I will say this is, you know, obviously we had a pretty tough winter. The WDRAG just stepped out, but, you know, the initial budget for snow and ice is $135,000. So if you add $250,000, that's $385,000 for snow and ice, which is substantial for a town like Winthrop, not substantial for the city of Boston.

Mr. President, in the following motion is another $228,000. No, I understand. I understand.

Much more than we've seen in years, but understandably so. To look at just a typical sanding event, if we have some icy weather or whatever, that's a minimum of $10,000 just to go through the town and sand. So we're going to have some of the incredible amount.

What was the budget for snow and ice last year?

It's always been 135. We leave it at that same number. No, because that's the one, the line item that the state allows us to deficit spend. So even if we go over, we can still overspend it and then try to balance the budget later.

Yeah, usually if you go under, I do.

But yeah, that number's been 135 since I got here.

And this started at 60,000 a number of years ago, several years ago, and it goes up. But the thing is, once you try to be more concise in your measure, Any comments from the public in favor of general stabilization? Anyone opposed?

All right. I have a question. Yes. This is from the general stabilization fund, because the amounts that we have here are from the capital stabilization fund. was the balance from the capital stabilization, not from the general stabilization. I think that's labeled in the report. I think it's labeled the $6 million.

Yeah, $6 million is what we have in the general stabilization. General stabilization. Yeah, I think it's just labeled incorrectly. That's just the labels. Because I read it.

Yeah, when I read it, I did read capitalization. Robbie, are you there?

Hi, it's Sarah. Hi, Sarah. Sarah, I think we just labeled this wrong. A slave one.

Okay, so it is the general stabilization. That's the balance. We definitely do not have $6 million. So I'll read that again after the motion. The general stabilization fund will be at a balance of $500,000. There we go. Add hundreds of millions. $5,837,690. General stabilization. Thanks.

I will close this public hearing, and I will entertain a motion from Councilor Romano to suspend council rules and take this motion out of order. Is there a second to that? Second. Second by Councilor Dimes. Any discussions? Say aye. Aye. If no, the ayes have it. But there is a motion that the Town Council transfer $250,000 from General Stabilization Fund to the below snow and ice related account to close out the remaining deficit that a The recommendation does not require a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Council Costigan. Yes. Council Tassinari. Yes. Council Malak. Yes. Council Dines. Yes. Council Romano. Yes. Council Reardon. Yes. Council Finn. Vice President Swope. Yes. President LeCarrie.

Yes. Motion passed. As I will open another public hearing for the Town Council to vote to modify general fund budgets to facilitate closing of fiscal 26.

I MOVED THE TOWN COUNCIL VOTE TO MODIFY THE FOLLOWING GENERAL BUDGETS TO FACILITATE THE JUNE 30, 2026 CLOSING OF THE 2026 FISCAL YEAR OR TAKE ANY OTHER ACTION RELATIVE TO IT. THIS IS A NORMAL COURSE OF BUSINESS. THE MANAGER IS REQUESTING THAT THE COUNCIL REALLOCATE $444,906 ACROSS NINE FUNDING SOURCES INTO 10 other separate funding sources for the same amount. Two of those being snow and ice related. One for the snow and ice snow removal supplies for $196,000. One for snow and ice manpower for $52,876. This also came out of

up to about $633,000 for the year, for the fiscal year 26, which is as much, if not more, than any year in this country that I've been in. 2015 numbers. Yeah. And I do thank the Deputy Director of this program for getting us through that discussion.

Thank you, Council President. I just want to second your thanks to the DBW for handling all that snow this winter and for our police and fire who did respond to several emergencies during that time as well. So they all are working hard for all of us.

Anyone wish to read from the public as a comment or comment? that the Town Council vote to modify the following general fund budgets to facilitate the June 30th, 2026 closing of the fiscal 26th year. I'll take any other action relative to that too. The funding sources are coming from Town Council Reserve $50,000, Regional Dispatch $80,000, Essex Tech, $2,191. Property insurance, $80,000. Unemployment, $20,000. Group insurance, the town, $77,714. Pension appropriation of $600. And the night differential from the police, $20,000 for a total of $444,906. And the destinations are personnel. For ATM and grants, assistance on manager and grants, 2,000. Personnel, MIS, 1,000. Software annual licensing costs, 1,000. Repairs, maintenance, buildings, purchases, services, building maintenance, 20,000. Processing services, 3,000. Repairs, maintenance of infrastructure, 65,000. Charter schools sending tuition, 75,000. Snow and ice manpower. 52,876, no removal supplies, 196,029, and police station repairs for AC, 20,000. Again, that total is balanced at 441,906. Any further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Councilor Costigan? Yes. Councilor Tassinari? Yes. Councilor Malab? Yes. Councilor Dimes? Yes. Councilor Mato? Yes. Councilor Reardon? Yes. Councilor Finn? Yes. Vice President Swope? Yes. President Terry? Yes.

AND CERTIFIED FREE CASH. COUNCIL TESTIMONY.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL PRESIDENT. MOTIONS FROM MANAGER MARINO. I MOVE THAT THE TOWN COUNCIL VOTE TO APPROPRIATE CERTIFIED FREE CASH AS LISTED BELOW. DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER ACTION THERE, TOO? WE'RE GOING TO APPROPRIATE FROM FREE CASH $110,000 TO THE COMPENSATED ABSENCE RESERVE FUND FOR $60,000, THE OPEC TRUST FUND FOR $50,000. FREE CASH CURRENTLY AT $619,388. lest the FY27 capital plan set aside $500,000, lest the current $110,000 request will leave in the FY26 free cash $9,388. Thank you. Questions from the committee? This also came out of the committee with the proposable information.

So these are going to two-line items, basically compensated absence reserve fund, which is a fund that is set aside to cover the cost of any town employees that are retiring that have the balance of a contractual obligation to them. And also it's for the Oakland Trust Fund. with our retirement funds and how we're fully invested in over 102% of it right now. And OPEB Trust is another fund that cities and towns just sold tens, hundreds of millions of dollars to. But we try to make donations whenever it's possible.

You just mentioned you take funds out of an enterprise fund.

portion of that and funding it from the enterprise itself.

So water and sewer would be... We're talking about small. But again, when you say taking money out of an enterprise fund where our water rates are going up all the time, it's very concerning to people.

Well, it's not taking money that isn't used, it's not just taking money because it's there, it's taking money to account for the people that are working. There's an existing liability. But you've lost over it. You didn't explain. below would take any interaction relative there too i think source would be free cash 110 000 of the funding destinations compensated absence reserve fund of sixty thousand and open the trust fund of us for a total of one and ten thousand the discussion on the motion a nine roll call please come to costigan yes that's a destiny yes

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

I move the council appropriate from retain earnings in water and sewer fund in the amount of $800,000 and transfer it to the water and sewer capital stabilization fund for taking any other action thereto. We are appropriating from the water and sewer retained earnings, $800,000, to the water and sewer capital stabilization fund for the same amount. The current retained earnings balance is $1,000,480,832 plus the $800,000 appropriation would leave $680,852 in the water sewer retained earnings fund after the motion. water and sewer capital stabilization. The current fund balance is $1,131,800. After the appropriation, the fund balance will be $1,931,800. This also came out of committee with a positive recommendation. Mr. President, thank you.

Thank you. This coming out of committee with positive recommendation does not require a second. Not there yet. I'll open it to the floor for councilors for discussion.

audience.

amount of $800,000 in transfer to the capital stabilization fund or take any other action. And again, as just stated by constant, this will be a balance and a water store retained earnings after this motion of 680,000 to create a balance and a water store capitalization stable.

Council Costigan?

Yes. Council Tassinieri? Yes. Council Malak? Yes. Council Dimes? Yes. Council Romano? Yes. Council Reardon? Yes. Council Finn? Vice President Swope? Yes. President Letary? Yes.

It's passed. Public comment. Mr. Morgan.

Mr. Morgan, Precinct 4. I'd just like to ask Whoever is responsible for the audio cross signals on CREST app, CREST app only, whoever we find is responsible for maintaining them, I would ask if they could turn up the audio signal so everyone is able to find it if they're hearing impaired or visually impaired. Thank you. Thank you.

I WANT TO THANK THE BOARD FOR MOVING FORWARD AND GETTING THIS PRESENTATION FOR GERDELSTONE-TYLESTON MOVING FORWARD. IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING. I think that we need to think of Winthrop in the 10 years from now, 20 years from now, and put the work in now so that we don't have the issues that we're having. The pipes are too small, they're crushed, and we need to understand that the DPW is doing a great job keeping the streets now free of ponding and flooding because of our town's And I want to appreciate the council for moving this forward. I think with the pilot program and possibly a bond, we could get this done by 2027. Because you know that I have promised that I will be sitting here until this is done. It's my property. A lot of people, Mark's property, and it needs to be done because we are taxpayers and we care about this town. I was born here and people who have moved here care about this town and we need to think for the future and spend the money now so that we can have Winthrop.

infrastructure. There's been, in the last two weeks in the Girdlestone Road area, some things have happened. I'll start with myself for one. I had the pleasure of having my granddaughter for four days while my daughter gave birth. So I get home from work and Papa, can we go to the park? Okay? Of course, I say yes to her, and I take her in the stroller, and I can't get past the Marino House, the old Pat Marino House, the little white cottage on the right-hand side, because the tree and the sidewalk is only this wide. Okay? It doesn't meet ADA standards. All right? So I have to leave the sidewalk, and when this car is parked, I'm in the middle of the road with my granddaughter. That's unacceptable, okay? And then, just this past Wednesday, at 6.30 in the morning, a gentleman was walking on the other side of the street and tripped over a raised sidewalk, and he fell, and he rang the doorbell of Ricky Baez asking for help. And he was giving him first aid and realized he needed more help, so he called 911. That gentleman went off to the hospital, okay? And then Beth, on the corner of Gertlstone and Marshall, says this nice woman comes down every day with her grandson in a stroller. And again, the same situation at her house. The sidewalk's only this wide. Stroller falls off four inches into her yard. She's afraid of being sued if that child gets hurt, okay? And then the killer. Just yesterday, the nice couple at 66 Marshall had to leave the sidewalk again because they can't get past the Merino house because the gentleman had broken his leg and he's in a wheelchair. And then she has to struggle to pull him up onto the sidewalk after they get past that tree, only to contend with the next tree to get in her side yard, which she struggles to get in, get the wheelchair in because that has direct access into the level that she needs to be on in the house. I sent you pictures. I mean, Council Swope. And I sent them in jest at that time, but we got to start somewhere. We got to start somewhere. We live in a very litigious society. The gentleman that fell, he has every right to sue the town. Okay? Somebody with a disability has a right to sue the town over ADA. Okay? Do we need that? No. Let's be a little more proactive about this. And we can walk through any neighborhood in this town and encounter those very same problems. It's ridiculous. We shouldn't have to be going through this. And then the reason I only had one subject originally, but I met with Mr. Marino, and this was born out of that meeting. All too often, we stand up here and ask questions of the council. and they die on the vine, you never hear anything about them. Okay? I want somebody on this council to make a motion. A motion that whoever stands up here, that that council representative is required to give them an answer to the questions they ask this council so they don't die on the vine. So I don't have to chase Mr. Marino for three days to get a meeting with him. It was a good meeting. We actually agreed on a few things. It's your job to answer our questions, okay? It should be a requirement when a question is asked of a person in Precinct 2, for instance, that that representative gets back to you in a reasonable amount of time. And I think that reasonable amount of time is a week. So we need our questions answered in a timely fashion, and it's all of your jobs to do that. Thank you. Thank you.

So this is more of an update than a comment. So I think it was around the 22nd of June, I emailed... Oh, I'm sorry. Scott Mahoney, right? Precinct 3. So around the 22nd of June, I emailed the town council regarding Tweed Airport in New Haven, Connecticut. They launched a residential indoor air program. and they are providing high-quality HEPA air filtration systems. These are medical quality, not the type you would pick off the shelf at Target or Home Depot to 838 homes. So the airport is paying for those filtration systems for people's homes as long as they qualify. So I reached out to Massport, to Aaron Toffler at the MCAC, They have been trying to get Massport to initiate a residential air filter program like this for people's homes. They were unaware that Tweed was doing this. They were also unaware that there are multiple airports across the country who have similar programs, and they do this in conjunction with their RSIP program, their sound insulation program. So Aaron reached out to Tweed Airport today. and is getting some background information that they can pull together and that the MCAC can bring forth to Massport and say, here's our playbook. Here's our program. We don't need to create this from scratch. They're already doing it. All they have to do is model the program. So if you have 838 homes between Haven and New Haven who are going to receive these air filtration systems, these aren't $200 units. These things go for average of $1,000 to $1,400. lot of money. The difference is these filtration systems don't just filter out the fine particles from jet fuel emissions. They filter out the gases that remain after from the jet fuel emission. So it's a big deal. So Aaron said he would keep me posted about this. But this is definitely a program that Massport wants to do. in conjunction with the ORSIP. So I just wanted to share that back with everybody because I think it's pretty exciting for Winthrop. What Aaron told me today in his email, because I said, would Winthrop, would we qualify for this? And he said, hopefully this will serve as something as a model for us. Based on our error monitoring data of Winthrop, I highly believe that Winthrop would be a prime candidate for such a program.

I had seen one of the motions that's going to be later today on something like parking ordinances, and then it got me thinking. And I was thinking about, huh, why do we have so many issues with parking? Is it because of zoning issues, or is it because of our residential parking structure? Currently on the application for when you apply for your parking permit for street, there are six spots. There are six spots. There's no limit to household permits. None. There's no limit. And on the application, there are six spots. The only limit that exists is for the visitor pass, which is one per household. So you could, in theory, have six cards registered in your name. and have them all parked on the street, per household. I don't know if you could have 12. I don't know if you could have 18, because there's no limit. And each of those only costs $5. So could there be some kind of a study, or has there ever been a study, or something to look into and see how many permits are issued per household, per precinct? Um, like, or like how many households have free plus permits per house. So we can actually see that versus the additional issues around the zoning pieces. Right. So that we can actually get a real picture. Cause I don't know when the, the, I don't know if anything changed, but since 2034, it's been like this. I don't know anything before that I'd have to do a four year for it. I don't want to do that because I don't want to bother Denise more. But just thinking about how can we look at it not just from one way, there's more, and that's going to actually cause people to talk and have conversation. It's not going to be, oh, it's this reason only.

No, there's multiple different reasons.

Also, why not also just if a household has two, they're $5 each, and then anything more than that, be significantly more expensive because that makes sense right anyways that's that's my thoughts and also whoever put the um new crosswalks on my and um pleasant and sunny side buchanan they look great um just be careful when it rains they're very slippery i almost wiped out on my way here so but they look great

Yes.

So, Jennifer Jones, Precinct 1. I'm very happy for what's going on and I'm going forward in that area. But what's going to happen for Morton Street? What's going to happen for Bank Street and all the other areas that flood? I haven't heard anyone talk or even whisper of any plans, any grant writing, any information at all to any of the residents of what the plan is. Is there a plan? Do you care about the other residents? And like I said, oh my God, thank you. Well, what about the rest of us? What about the rest of us? My counseling? You say you all care about all of Winthrop. So where are all your plans? That's what I'd like to see. Or if someone at least look up to someone who's speaking in your district and care about what's going on with them. I guess I'd just like to see that the council take issue to the... residents in the area, not just to all of us. Thank you. Tom.

Good job.

Tom DeDarian, Precinct 3 and your beloved tree warden. And I have good news. The longstanding Revere Street project is coming to a conclusion, and the trees along the road are planted. There are about 20 of them. The trees, it's a kind of funny thing. The trees came from Canada, and they came through a nursery in Canada. Maine. Now, we're kind of wondering, you know, the guys who are planting the trees are wondering, are the trees that are Canadian going to matter, mind being here since they're Canadian? And we explained to them that Winthrop is a big hockey town, so it's okay, and the trees are happy. The trees are red maples. There's sweet gum. They have bright red colors. There's a couple of Swamp oaks or Quercus bicolor that are beacon cultivars. So they're Carmula. So I'm quite happy about those. We're going to put bags on them and keep them watered. And they're going to last 100 years. You guys are all still going to be here then, right? So I'm delighted with that. And Steve says we're getting finally a watering tank. and full of water that won't turn green. So I'm happy. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council President. We addressed all of the Finance Committee items in the public hearings. The four motions that we took out of order and passed all came out of the Finance Committee with a positive recommendation. We had an additional meeting prior to this for Joint Finance Committee and Rules and Ordinance Committee. We discussed a change in tax affairs We had some good feedback from Mr. Morgan for the Council on Disabilities and the concern that raising prices would be a burden to some of our residents. We didn't hear from anyone from Winter Taxi, but we did also hear from the councillors Rear and Dimes, Millar, yourself, President Lettieri, and Councillor Swope on what Winthrop Taxi does mean to the town. It does provide essential services, and it does, the drivers for Winthrop Taxi do provide more of a service to our citizens here in the town. And without those drivers and that service, we would be not as well off here. who need to use those services. Not everybody takes Uber and Lyft. Not everybody has access to Uber and Lyft. Not everybody has a smartphone. I know that sounds insane, but that's true. We did not make a recommendation on this motion, but instead we voted to refer to the full council without a recommendation for the purpose of a public hearing

in in further discussion on the taxi theaters that was our that was the summary of my joint meeting thank you uh councilman uh rules and ordinance we actually had two meetings since the last time we met uh one on june 11th and one on june 25th uh we did have the discussion on the recommendations on town ordinances which was the new ordinance uh motorized scooters and electric bikes It was actually, we looked at it, reviewed it, and unanimously decided that positive recommendation to move that forward. We do understand that it will take a public hearing before we can move that forward to council to have a vote on it. On the 11th, we also covered sections one to four of council rules and procedures. We want to make sure everybody was involved in it and time allotted wasn't there either. So on the 25th, we actually brought back up the council rules and procedures again, sections one to four, along with the previous Rules and Orders Committee and the motion from Councilor LaManna.

We did review them.

There was no recommendation from that motion because it was put out that So they make the movement forward with the council rules and procedures that would like to put forward a full package to the council before putting separate portions of it. There was a vote on Councilor Romano's motion, and it was determined we're not going to move it forward. So we moved on from that. And then we did discuss small commercial vehicle alums for resident parking sticker.

And out of that discussion, we're all in agreement that we'd like to see a parking study completed. So we'll be moving forward with trying to get a recommendation from that.

Because it would be much better to have an understanding of where we stand currently

Councilor Dimes.

Thank you, Town Council President. Myself and Karen Chavez met with P3 and KBA to pre-qualify the subcontractors and general contractors for the bidding of the new firehouse station. That bid will go out July 1st. There's a walkthrough for the interest of bidders on July 7th. Also, some update of what's going on on site right now as part of a change order with the demolition company. They've moved in French excavation to start removing some unsuitable material and bring in suitable material. In addition, they're going to be placing that five-foot stormwater pipe to connect through in between the old auditorium with the gym now. And then fire station. I have been talking to people in precinct to to let them know that they will expect some vibration from the vibratory rollers. The list will be in six inch lifts, I believe, and that will take the reworking on that for at least a couple weeks. That correct? I'm injured. It's probably a little longer. So anyway, things are moving along nicely. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice president.

Thank you. First is, we have had a series of listening post meetings, and this was our final one for the season. I'm going to think about how we're going to handle those next year. But I do like the discussions. It's been an opportunity to listen to a lot of the members of the town. We have had consistent feedback about communication and i know we're we put out a website i know we're trying to do greater on that but we still get lots of complaints we we get complaints about the lack or we got complaints about the lack of minutes that are on the agenda so we can't just click on minutes and have them pop up i've been doing um some others have asked for zoom transcripts i've done them helpful for me and also when you do zoom trans transcripts you can also get a summary live zoom but you can also then edit those minutes which are then sent on but i do i do think we have to keep on this issue of communication because it's come up almost every single time in my listeners we also discuss strategies for more community engagement of course now now that we're into But the suggestion that was brought up about new renters and new folks, about welcome packages, I think that's a great idea, actually, if we could do that. Just to welcome people into town, that's . Also, we talked about green opportunities and transparency around existing And then we ended with this discussion about the incoming tree plantings. Thank you very much. They look great. I know that one was moved from .. Relocated. Relocated. Because that was pretty .. But anyway, they look great. I think that's great. Public health and safety. This has been a different type of committee. And this also will be our last meeting for this season. We did meet on the 24th to discuss performance oversight and continuous improvement issues. And the main focus was just to create an oversight approach that recognizes strong performance, ensures corrective action when needed, and try to institutionalize lessons learned across departments. Tony was there, and we discussed the development of key performance indicators, which he's going to put as we move into next year's budget cycle as it rolls out. We explored ways to recognize excellence. Is there anything we could do in the town to talk about how great some of the town employees are? This is not a question of financial. This is a question of recognition. And I do think that we can think about that more carefully. These meetings have been, I planned these meetings differently, and there are four of them. And they were kind of independent from the requests that we often get from the president of town council about things that we need to handle on public health and safety and public works. But we started with strategy and vision, transparency and accountability, long-term planning in the department for collaboration. And then the final one was this last one, recognition, performance oversight, and continuous improvement. Those are areas where we develop questions for them. We talked about what the mission and vision is. I do think that's, in my way of thinking, that's a possibility for all of us in town council. what our plans were for the year and what our key performance indicators were in terms of the work that we do on the council. And I think that would also help some of the committees and some of the issues that we have in other areas. But I do appreciate Tony Marino, Town Manager Marino, and others who participated in I just think we learned a lot about it, and it was a great discussion. So next year, it's not that the topics will be different, but I think we can explore more in depth on each one of those areas. So thank you very much for your comments and your support.

Thank you. Just before we move on from committee reportage, Quorum of Councils, unless it's posted. If we posted before that, for whatever reason, somebody had questions or whatever, you cannot have a quorum of Councils at a subcommittee meeting.

But you can't post it and just say it'll be a quorum.

So just to let everyone know.

Can you say that again? No, just so somebody, she can't walk into my meeting if there happen to be three others.

others is that four nice right either somebody would leave or if it's posted ahead of time and correct me if i'm wrong uh either top manager as long as you post that they're gonna they could be a woman in the council not to discuss council business but they're going to attend the meeting you're just going to post it as a public meeting should we do that then automatically jim because so that we don't run into COUNCILS THAT ARE ON THE THING BUT WE HAVE YOU KNOW RECENTLY MORE COUNCILS ATTEND THE MEETINGS BECAUSE THEY'RE INTERESTED IN THE TOPIC MATTER SO SOMETIMES YOU'LL END UP WITH FOUR OR FIVE MAYBE EVEN SIX COUNCILS ATTENDING A MEETING SO YOU WANT TO JUST LET THE PUBLIC KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S NO DIFFERENT IF THE COUNCIL WANTS TO ATTEND THE PLANNING BOARD MEETING AND SAY OKAY THERE'S GOING TO BE A QUORUM POTENTIALLY A QUORUM OF THE COUNCIL THAT'S GOING TO THE PLANNING BOARD MEETING JUST LET THE PUBLIC KNOW THAT'S ALL DOES THAT GO IN OUR OPEN DOES THAT GO IN OUR POSTING OF THE PUBLIC MEETING SO THERE'S A SEPARATE POSTING FOR THE COUNCIL AGEN

FOR THE FINANCE OPEN MEETINGS, WE SOMETIMES HAVE FIVE OR MORE COUNSELORS.

I THINK WE JUST HAVE TO POST IT. IS THIS A MASS OPEN MEETING LOG?

IT'S GOVERNED BY THE OPEN MEETING LOG. THERE ARE SEVEN DIFFERENT

require different things. So if it is anticipated that a number of councillors are going to participate, they're going to discuss, maybe deliberate, and come to a conclusion and make a decision, it probably should be at least noted on the notice. If now, for example, there were to be a conservation commission, And each of the councillors wanted to go, let's say, just for example, because . And it was that particular project that was being taken up by the head of public hearing. Now, several councillors represent areas where maybe flooding occurs. They may be able to attend that and speak on behalf as representatives of their constituents or on their own. That I would be more comfortable with if that wasn't necessarily advertised as a public meeting where the town council would be deliberating something and making a decision because they're there in a different capacity. They're not on that side of the table. They're on this side of the table. So that would be less troublesome. But in one in one instance if all the council has showed up at one place one time on council business Then I think to err on the side of caution because we've been dinged one or two times on open meeting law Infractions it probably makes sense to have a footnote. I have just a tagline on the bottom that a majority or a quorum of the council may attend and may participate.

So just, again, for clarification, if it's a CBA meeting or a planning board meeting, anybody can go. Right. Because we're not going to be discussing that or voting on that specific area. Right.

You're not going to be deliberating on that subject.

So are you saying the best way, just, again, it's not any crazy things that we're talking about here, but just to play it safe on subcommittee postings,

You know, it doesn't hurt. I mean, it might be overkill, but, you know, I think that you're not going to get in trouble by doing it. And there may be individuals who are going to read that and say, oh, well, my counselor may be there. And if you're engaging with the subcommittee and participating with those counselors who are on the subcommittee, Now you're part of the discussion. And if you're contributing to something that may lead to a decision, now you're part of the decision-making. So that's what you get in the very dark.

Unless you're taking a motion, then it doesn't matter. Unless you are making a decision. A decision. Does that mean a motion?

It doesn't necessarily mean a motion, but a motion definitely would qualify. But if everybody walked out with the agreement that this is what's going to happen, you've already made a decision within the framework of the scenario that you draw. Yeah.

So I think we should, let's just put it on there. Just pose on everyone.

multi member body of the calendar. I mean, it's just one line on the bottom.

I know a lot of them are already multi member, we don't have to, we don't have to worry about ZBA. I would I would still know. We're not making a decision.

I want to make perfectly clear what you're saying. So if a quorum is in the audience, and say they all happen to go to a planning board meeting, that's okay, even if they all speak.

Well, in that instance, those counselors are not making a decision on the subject as before the planning board or the ZBA. So they're not deliberating on it. They're there in their representative capacity to let the conservation commission or whatever board is make them aware of what their constituents' concerns might be. That's all.

So to follow up on that, so it Because what I'm hearing is it's only in meetings in which there is a counselor who has a vote.

If it's a matter that the council has jurisdiction over and will be deliberating and deciding on, then you need to do it. If you go to a Conservation Commission meeting, it's the Conservation Commission that's making the decision. So I would say, no, you don't need to. If you want to, you can. But you're not going to get in trouble for that. So, I mean, that's sort of built and suspended.

It's just it's just what everybody can go to the meetings. Yeah, it should just be posted that potentially they might be five.

I would say it sounds like what you're talking about is any committee that's advisory. I would send a recommendation to the council. Right. Either way, I think we should put it on all policymaking, non policymaking. There's no reason not to.

You just put it right. Whatever form you use. to create the agenda, just have that as part of an imprint.

Very good. School department report. School department meeting last night was nine minutes. But it was a very brief meeting. It was just warrants. Basically, school was out for the season. The only other topic that was update policy Board of Appeals 312 Shirley Street the applicant seeks a permit to convert the current lodging hotel to a 30-unit apartment building. Chief has requested to establish an apartment building in the VA zone which does not allow pre-examination 50 Somerset Ave. The applicant seeks to reduce the original relief requested and it was approved. And the 312 Shirley Street will be August 20th. Next Board of Appeals special meeting July 7th, 2026 on 17 Winthrop Street. The applicant seeks a permit to demolish and construct a two and one half story single family same square feet. Planning board discussion on 210 Winthrop Street was continued. And the Board of License, Esquina Restaurant, license hour until 1 a.m. for World Cup playoffs. Cinco de Mayo Restaurant, license hour until 1 a.m. for World Cup playoffs. The ABCC approved increased hours all expire on 7-31-26. The town manager's report has been circulated. The town manager has a couple questions. Anything to follow up on, and then we'll let the council.

No, just as we approach, obviously, the big day, the 250th is this Friday, but obviously, as we've seen, there's going to be a pretty big heat wave, so I'd say A lot of stuff for the kids to do. There's going to be a lot of tents coming up to cover some stuff and keep it a little cooler and keep some of the areas cooler. But we're full steam ahead on that. And obviously getting ready for the Seal Boston event on July 11th. It's been taking up most of the time recently. And certainly open it. Any questions? Obviously the bid, as Councillor Dime said, The file sub-bids are due on July 29th, and the general contractor bids are due on the 12th. So we're hoping that trouble's in the ground early September, and we're excited about what's going on with Fire Station.

I thought I'd just open up a question on that same topic on the Fire Station. We've discussed many times that the salute tree there, We hope to have a date.

We talked about doing it over the summer. Obviously, the plaque is still there on the piece of granite. We'll take that out. We talked about not saving that tree. It's in pretty rough condition. But obviously, sourcing a pretty sizable tree, if we can, as large as we can get. And we'll do the ceremony and the bench and board. It's important to work that out.

Yeah, you said you wanted to say.

Sure. So there's a lot of things about Precinct 3 actually to talk about. First, I know it's a new time management report, but if you could just speak more to people who haven't read it yet about what the plans are for the Tall Trips, simply for people down the points.

July 11th, anticipate early arrivals. People are going to want to get there early and get their spot, you know, sort of like they do with the half shell in Boston and whatnot. They'll want to get there early and line up. So as early as, you know, 7 a.m. will be, buses will be running. MBTA will be running their normal buses coming through, doing the pickups at no parking for non-residents down, you know, past Town Landing. So, we want to be able to pull signs all up and down the street. We'll have police officers and tow trucks available if anybody violates that, but the thought process is they're going to be able to drive down, get down by Taps and Elliott and Otis. They'll be able to loop around there, drop anybody they want to drop off, and then leave and, you know, park somewhere else in town. Or if it's, you know, any town residents, they could go walk back or Uber back or whatever they want to do, but we'll also be letting them go out, drop people off, and come back out. That'll happen that day. We'll have shuttle bus services that we'll be providing from the town. There's three buses. Two of them will be shuttling people where they drop off at Otis and Tass down to the screening area, down to the Deer Island Park area. They'll be screening there and then letting people walk. And then there'll be what they call a clean bus on the other side of the screening station that will be taking people in that need assistance while you know, through the security gate and get down there. So it's going to be all day. It runs until 4 o'clock, you know, and then most of the people will probably, you know, be looking to leave town at that point. But we have the parking stickers of the people from Otis, you know, that way that's going to be detoured. People can come in. We've already had some people come in and ask for them. We'll also be available July 3rd at the 250th event. And then on July 7th from 5 to 7, we'll have a table out front of the Harbor Master's office and we'll be it's going to be in the detour areas um anybody else that's out in that area though i would say if you anticipate needing your driveway for a parking spot you know the day of you know use your residence sticker and get on the street park the night before because people are going to start showing up early and even regular residents that might have parking stickers you know trying to park down there but we're gonna if you want to you know utilize for friends and family to visit and you got two extra spots in your driveway then you know get your cars out on the road leave them there and you know as soon as we fill up those parking spots again something people should think about when they're planning all their festivities. If you're not interested in the Tall Ships, it's going to be very difficult getting it out of town that day. It's going to be an inconvenience no matter what we do. So plan accordingly. If you're interested in it, just stay there and enjoy the Tall Ships. If you're not, then maybe you'll want to make some other plans that day.

Yes. Also, this isn't exactly in your time, Andrew, but I know it's something we've had conversations, so as Director Cowler, Representative to our folks, could you speak a little bit about Ural Beach and the management we're currently doing right now? I know we're trying to follow DEP guidelines, but I get a lot of questions from people in my fee sector, so I know what we can share to them.

Sure. Well, right now, as we know, the areas are fenced off for the Fledge is the word I state, fully fledge. So the babies that have been born, they have to fully fledge and be able to fly in their own way and move the fencing area. That hasn't occurred down in the area that way in question. I know certain residents are upset about the end of the beach area that's fenced off, and I certainly understand that. But we know that, you know, the videos that people are sending me are the parents or the parent birds that lay the eggs. They're the ones flying around and snorkeling around. not the hatchling yet so we're hoping by mid-july those that'll be gone and then we can take all the fencing down um but we are following the guidelines that are you know based off the regulations and um we are looking though and one of the things we talked about when we met with you know rick turco and some of the residents and yourself councilman out there um We had pushed really hard in the beach management plan in the beginning is to be able to take some of the vegetation out at the ends of the beach because we knew that that would be, if we make it a nice sandy area, that's what the pullover's like and then we'd, you know, get to the ends of the beach and we would leave the recreational area alone. DEP fought us on that and took all that language out. So we've asked Rep Turco if he could, you know, maybe put a little political pressure on. I re-sent him that language. He's got that language that was taken out. So we're going to try to get a meeting with DEP so maybe we can have an amendment to the beach management plan. So next season we can get out there in the winter months and actually clear out some of that vegetation and make it a little more attractive. No guarantee that they'll go there, but certainly the more attractive that we make it, you know, the clovers could be on the outer perimeters and that would make it a little bit easier to enjoy the recreational peace and not disturb the residents so much.

Thank you for that. That was great. You're welcome. Sorry, thank you. I just have one quick question. I need parking stickers. Does anybody need to bring a license?

Just a license just to show the day you live there. Just similar to 4th of July, like a lot of people get stopped and just show their license to get back out there. Same kind of thing. Just show us a license and a lot of stickers. It's going to make it easier for the state police and the people around there to let people in and out as they need to go do their business during the day.

Thank you. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Town Manager, for your report. I was looking for an update on that, the spreadsheet that you had circulated probably two months ago now on the tracking of the grants coming into town.

Yeah, well, we updated it on the budget. That's been too much since then, but I can certainly update it. Yeah, okay. for the next meeting. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the picture that I included in that. We got a complimentary email from our friends from Scotland who are in town, Stayed in town, and they had a great time. They sent us a picture of them in front of Blackstrap Barbecue. Even the day we raised the 9th and Juneteenth flag, some of the other friends walked by that day. So I mean, they were in town. They had a good time, and they wanted to let us know they appreciated our hospitality. And I said, welcome back anytime. That's great. Thanks, President Schwartz.

Manager Marino, you know, the city of Boston did find that they have a sister town in Scotland. That came up in a listening folks meeting that I had. So we may, if you have their address, I may just.

I have the email address, sure.

Send them a little. You got it.

All right. All right. And before we move on, I just want to thank Sarah Johnson, our finance director. Today's her official. She'll be around to consult.

As we meet her next budget season, she'll be around to consult. We're not getting rid of her altogether, but yeah, the day-to-day stuff.

The taxi fares are, we got the report from the Finance Committee. We're going to put that on the schedule, and we could put a public hearing, potentially, on the next meeting. I have appointments from the last meeting that was Council privilege to this meeting. Now, these appointments now, they're expiring today. appointment made by council president and terry the following policy making committee participation commission stephen mcchinsky board of appeals john young jason bright and advancing board of assessors peter bill historical oh no those are all reappointments

Oh, my console test and a second by. Discussion.

Yes. So I would like to 1st start on when it comes to the 2 board of people, 1 of them is going from an associate member to a full member should want to take the.

Council accept the reappointment made by Council President Letourneau to the following committees. I'd like to, putting forward Steven Machinsky for Conservation Commission. Motion by Council Tess Neri, seconded by Council Danik. Discussion on Mr. Machinsky.

I used my Council privilege last meeting asking for an application and I still have not gotten one. Were they not, was he not asked? I don't know.

If I'm wrong again, in the charter, for reappointment, do they need a...

According to the current charter and the current language of the other documents that the council is bound by, it speaks to appointment. It does not speak to reappointment. Now, the council has the authority to change that. Right now, it only refers to appointment. So if the drafter, the framers of the charter, witnesses and whoever truly of the council rules and regs wanted it on reappointment also, they would have said it. I mean, the presumption is they would have said it. But right now, it only says appointment.

Now, do we have any, I mean, I know Steven is incredibly well versed in conservation and has been for over a decade.

Do we have, I thought you were saying no pay board?

No.

I mean, I have his original, I could go back paperwork, but no, not the reappointments. The newbies, there's applications.

I do have a motion later on that would require reappointments to also turn in applications as well. And I know Attorney Splatter, you shared with me a letter. I don't know if the whole council was able to see it, but it was on your opinion. about these reappointments that if they're not voted on, they get to stay in their seat. Is that correct?

Yes. According to section 10-2 of the charter, which also incorporates the definition of section 1-9, if there is a person up, if there is a position that's going to be appointed the current sitting member, whether it's a board or a commission, stays in that seat even if it's beyond June 30th until that seat is filled. And that is obviously to maintain the continuation of government and so that you don't end up in a situation where maybe there are two or three appointments or commissions expiring on the same year that you now don't have either enough to fulfill the requirement of the statute, because some boards and commissions are governed by statute, you must have X number of members. And your local ordinance and rules and regs say that you must have Y number for a quorum. So I think it was in anticipation for a board basically going out of business until the new members had been sworn.

And that's different in a situation like that. That's a totally different situation. It's a different situation, but

I totally agree with their ruling when it comes to this, at least one from my reading of the charter. I don't want to bite you on that, but to me that does mean that if we don't do these appointments today, these people, they still get to stay in their seats until we do vote to reappoint them. Would that be correct?

Reappoint them or somebody else.

Okay. So I don't see a reason to take this vote today. I would still like to see the updated applications. Let me ask you a question.

If an appointment is not made today, They are still staying on.

Yes, according to 10-2.

So in the new fiscal year now, the only thing that would change is if the council president found a new suitable candidate. Other than that, they would stay on. No, no, no. If they are not reappointed tonight, Are they therefore there until their next term would end or until?

No. No, it doesn't say that they automatically get a new term. It only says that they stay in the seat until either they're reappointed or somebody is appointed in their state. So they don't automatically get three years.

So my next question would be is if they stay in the seat tonight, to vote on it tonight, they would stay there until it is voted on.

Correct?

So let's say it was voted on the next meeting, July 21st.

At that point, if they did not have five votes, they would still stay on until there was a replacement put forward by the council president.

It is, because there's no exception to that 10-2.

Thank you. So Council Tess has a question for the Council.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Attorney Zavala, when you laid out the initial part of your argument about requesting applications for points, original office of the charter considered those two separate things?

Don't know. There were a lot of things in the charter that are nebulous, and I think you just need to make common sense judgments on it. I do know, though, that in many cases where a charter section refers to something or someone Something that's going to happen in a certain instance. But later on, down the list of sections, it omits that event in that section. Like in section one, it says that meetings are going to be held on Tuesday or whatever. And then it doesn't say in section five, meetings of a committee are on Tuesday. Tuesday. The law says that if you state it in one area, but omit it in the other area, that that was done intentionally.

So we do mention reappointments somewhere else in the charter, but we don't mention it in that section where we require... Or do we not mention reappointments at all?

I don't think... I don't see reappointments at all.

So we don't mention reappointments at all, then an appointment and a reappointment are the same thing, in my eyes, if it's only mentioned in one way in the charter.

Well, I... What the charter says is that you interpret the meaning of the word as it is used and as it is defined. And it does define that you get appointed. Now, you can, as a council, adopt a procedure where now you can ask people. Because in the charter, it says that the council or a committee thereof may require a person being appointed to a policymaking board or a non-policy making board to come before them. May require. That's mandatory. What it doesn't say is may require a resume. But you can call them in. That's the difference.

If I could add on that, because it doesn't require, it doesn't mean we can't, as a council, make our own internal procedures requiring it, correct?

Correct.

OK. So the way I see it is the charter says we must at least do this, and we at least have the powers to do that. But as a council, we can decide on more requirements.

Exactly. So what you're expressing is actually what I was just going to say, is that The charter presumes that you're going to propound rules, regulations, and so forth consistent with the charter in order to carry out the purpose of that section. So you could do that for your rules and procedures.

As a legislative body, we have that right?

Yes.

OK. And the other thing I just wanted to circle back, and this was mentioned a little earlier in this conversation, but just to be clear, If these names do not get voted on tonight, the reappointment specifically, the people on this list will not see any effect to their currencies.

No, they stay on.

They stay on. And they stay on with the same exact powers.

Yes, because if they're, I would expect, and I know that those two are Board of Appeals members, we have a meeting, Town does, on, I think, 7 July, and then you have one at the end of July. There needs to be members there that this board can't go because there are ramifications for a quasi-judicial board not making a decision within like 65 days. Certain bad things happen.

So my point and my whole point is there's no reason to take this vote tonight when it comes to worrying about these boards won't be able to fill their duties. Not taking a vote does not affect these boards' duties or any of these board members for the time being. So I would like to request the council would... Um, right now, right now there's a motion. I'd like to ask the accounts to withdraw the emotion.

Right now we have a motion on the table for conservation commission. It's been made in 2nd. You have discussion on that. And you're asking for something for somebody that's been here in a position. These names are not just picked out of a hat. This is asked by the chairperson of that committee. I think it's a sign of disrespect to somebody who's been in that seat for 12 years. But you can ask. You get five votes. You have five votes, you get it. So, Council of Dimes.

Council of Dimes. President McTierney, is this for discussion? Can I make a statement?

We're having discussion on the appointment of Stephen McChesney.

I served with Stephen Machinsky on the Conservation Commission for three years. He's been the longest-running member of the Conservation Commission. I would like to know, Councilor Armando, what knowledge do you have of the Conservation Commission and the Wetland Protection Act and the Massachusetts General Law that regulates the Conservation Commission that you would be able to ask pertinent questions of Stephen in front of council or how you would be able to look at his application and know that he was qualified for a conservation commission when you've never even attended a meeting.

Why would any, why does the council even have the, if I could respond, why would the council even have the authority to approve any appointment in that case? I mean, we have that right according to the charter. I mean, I don't think that's too much of a hurdle to ask for a new application for reappointment. I don't mean to insult anyone. I will state it publicly here today to Mr. McKinsey. I'm sure he does great work and I trust your word very much. I think that many of us don't know what you know about the candidate, and I would like to have a chance to meet them when I haven't met.

And I don't think, because this is not just for this council, it's for the councils in the future. I mean, there are, I know one of the members here that I've had many discussions with, I like very much, I certainly want him to stay. But I also think the council would be very well and better informed let me say that if indeed these people came before us and we had a chance to talk to them I mean I've been to a lot of Board of Appeals meetings but I would like I have a lot I have a lot of questions and so I would I would appreciate them coming before

and i i would just add to this first of all again i think we owe a debt of gratitude to these people who are willing to serve this town we have counselors i would assume at this table that just voted on an 80 million budget that never went to one finance commission meeting and i guarantee you do not know any that the chairpersons of their boards have recommended that they stay on. We're just trying, again, to have a continuation of government. If we have 30 applications, it might be a different story. We don't. Again, there's a motion. I don't even know what your motion is. There's a motion made and seconded. Do you have a request or a motion to make?

I have.

Council President, I appreciate your question. Yes, Council President. Thank you. Council President. I don't want to see us lose good people in these seats on these policy-making committees or on the non-policy-making committees. I just don't think we should treat reappointments differently than appointments in terms of at least getting an application to make sure the folks are still interested so that the current council can review because not all of us were here when they were originally appointed and saw that original original application or original submission for their interest i don't see why would if the charter doesn't specifically treat reappointments and appointments differently i don't see why the council should have a policy to treat them differently i don't know if we should call every single person in for an interview that might be a little bit a little bit too too That might be setting the bar a little bit too high for someone who's going to volunteer their time on these commissions and committees, but at least to have something that the council can review, say yes, you know, whoever it is, Jason Wright, has been on the Board of Appeals for, and actually like having how many years they've been on the Board of Appeals. Been on the Board of Appeals several years, has already worked through we could just reconfirm that for the people who sit on the council list we're not I bet there's at least one person on here on this list that's been in town government longer than some of us have been a lot so just so that the new folks to the council can have an idea of who we are voting for and why I think it's also a good idea for council to do

anybody they're voting for and it doesn't have to be laid out to them you know and i think it could be literally doing the work calling the chairperson going to a subcommittee meeting looking at you know go on the uh on the town website and look at some of them that have been there um yeah everything can't be doesn't necessarily have to be spoon-fed it requires a little bit of work can we get on with this i have a motion we have a second do you have a

I don't think asking for an application is too much, and I agree that all the counselors should be doing their due diligence, but there's a lot of committees and boards in town, and a lot of them don't have updated meeting minutes, which makes it even harder for counselors to track. These meetings are supposed to be uploaded to WCAT. I know we voted on that in the past, but they haven't been getting uploaded yet, which I think it's another thing that our town leaders or town clerk, we should look into, making sure that they actually do get uploaded to WCAT as we're voting on this. I think that'd make it a lot easier for councilors to do their due diligence. Until then, I don't know what the issue is with asking for application. And I'll say it again, I don't mean this to personally insult anyone in town. I appreciate all the works that our various boards and committees do. Yeah.

Okay, so there's a motion and a second. I'm going to ask for a vote. I would like to say, though, what is the threshold for this vote to pass?

It would be 5 yes votes, correct?

Yes. Okay. So if it's 5 yes votes, I would like to say. I DON'T KNOW ABOUT THIS KIND OF VOTE.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? OKAY.

COUNSEL COSTIGAN.

FOR ALL THOSE REASONS, I ABSTAIN.

COUNSEL TASCINARI.

YES.

COUNSEL MULLAH. YES. COUNSEL DIMES. YES. COUNSEL ROMANO. I ABSTAIN. Councilor Reardon? Yes. Councilor Finn? Vice President Spoke? I abstain. Councilor Terry?

Yes. Motion is passed. Council Council accept the reacquaintment made by Council President Letary to the following class and main committees, Board of Appeals, and John Young. Motion to be added to that. Second. second by council of that is discussion.

So this is so John Young is the one who's currently on the board. Does anyone

Two years ago, the town of Winthrop accepted the statute to increase the number of board of appeals members from three to five. And in a three-member board, in order to issue a variance or a special permit, you needed three for three. In a five-person board, you need four out of five.

I'd also like to say, for the same reasons I listed earlier, I'm going to have to abstain once again.

Thank you. Roll call, please.

Council Costigan.

Abstain.

Council Castaneri.

Yes.

Council Malak. Yes. Council Dimes. Yes. Council Romano. I abstain. Council Reardon. Abstain. Council Finn. Vice President Swope. Abstain. as a material.

Yes. So that does not pass. So Mr. Young will stay on the board on the CBA until I find a suitable replacement.

I would I don't necessarily Yes, but like, just like the application and I would be open to voting. But that's your call. Thank you. verification. I thought he stayed on the board. Can I

I just would like an application.

That's fine. If I could choose to bring an application back, or you could stay either way. But I mean, it would be much better and cleaner if you brought an application back.

Yes, absolutely.

And it's also true that it's the council president's distinction if he wanted to make the reappointment in the first place.

So what does it mean that he was an associate member? Did he have voting privileges?

Yes, he did. Associate members are defined by Chapter 48 and also defined in our ordinances. And there are certain cases where members may not member would sit in. There are also cases where a member who ordinarily would be sitting on a case would have a conflict of interest. Maybe it was a neighbor. So the associate members, when they sit, have full voting powers and full authority to decide, deliberate, and to make a decision.

Same reasons above, I shall abstain again, just to let you all know, just to stay consistent. Thank you. Roll call.

Council Costigan.

Abstain.

Council Tassinari.

Yes.

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

Yes.

Yeah, I'd like to say, I do know Peter Gill, and I quite like Peter Gill, but that doesn't matter. I still can't vote without a Peter Gill application. It's no disrespect to former President Gill and all the great work he's done for this town. I just want to make that very clear to me. There's six votes to kill. And I hope if this vote in any state doesn't pass because of abstentions, if that happened, I would hope that the President would not appoint someone else in his stead. But that's...

You are not going to learn anything from a resume or an application from Mr. Gill that you do not or should not already know. But I appreciate your comments.

Roll call, please.

Council Costigan.

Under the principle and the forgiveness of Mr. Gill, I abstain.

Council Tassinari.

Yes.

Council Malang.

Yes.

Council Dimes. Yes. Council Romano. I abstain. Council Reardon.

Yes.

Council Finn. Vice President Swope. I'm staying. President Letary.

Yes. Motion is passed. Town Council accepted the appointment made by Council President Letary to the following policies of the community. Policy making. Historical community. Motion. Second.

Motion by Council President Letary. Second by Council of Dimes. Council of the Mayor. Yes. For the same reasons above, I shall abstain again. Once again, nothing personal to any of these people. I just hope that we get applications in the future.

Council Costigan.

Abstain.

Council Tassinieri. Yes. Council La. Yes. Council Dimes. Yes. Council Romano. Abstain. Council Reardon. Yes. Council Finn. Vice President Swope. Abstain. Vice President Materi.

Yes. council refer one way on court early this I have some of the residents I've been thinking about asking this for many years and just going to move this to TSAC to take a look at the it all the way down to Pleasant. I would think, just, I'm not a professional traffic person, but I would probably think of this as going from the top of Cordova down to Pleasant, because the parking would remain on the right side. DPW wouldn't have to rip up signs from one side of the street to the other. Now, it's easy to come back with any sort of recommendation, a trial, whatever, but I just think, community traffic-wise, similar thoughts refer to t-sac to look at lincoln street and brookfield road brookfield road lincoln street and bill bill coming together uh bill is a one-way coming towards brookfield so It's one way going the other way, right? So it wouldn't be a situation where I'm looking for a four-way stop. Just looking at Lincoln Street has no stop signs going either way up or down. Brookfield has a stop sign going down towards Beale. So I just think it's something to look at to potentially look at additional stop signs. And I know there are all kinds of guidelines and regulations regarding stop signs. I'm sure they will at least take a look at this and give us an update.

I think you're right about that. Because when you come down, when Lincoln comes down, you can't see. There's something about Lincoln. I think it's the hill. No, you can see all right. Well, I can't. I can see from Lincoln, but I'm talking about when I'm coming up Brookfield. I can't. When I look at the left, I think it's because people park there or whatever. But I cannot see. So I think it's a great idea that we study.

It was definitely this winter with the amount of snow we had, and they're still mounds. It made it more obvious to me. And it's, you know, nobody's doing anything wrong. They're just going straight without stopping. I just normally slow down because you get nervous getting to an intersection. But again, just something to take a look at. And I encourage counselors and sit here i'm sure for three hours and talk about potential one waves of change and not size of the road or whatever so i i think you know i would like to have more uh input from kind of constituents on that as well so president if i could just for anybody who's noticing this uh it's a new closed caption feature that wcat is rolling out tonight so i just want to that's why the worst thing popping up

Anyway, I was curious. I talked to Mike Cabral earlier about it. He said this was going to happen tonight.

Thank you.

That's great. Thank you very much. Yeah, that was earlier. Thank you.

A couple of new business items.

would be referring to finance council town council appropriate one million six hundred sixty six thousand dollars cost of shore main rehabilitation on winthrop street and other identified areas that would be referred to finance town council appropriates one million five hundred thousand for cost of water main replacement at winthrop street and that will be sent to finance now we have some motions by uh with the florida council of my

I move that all policy-making multi-member body appointments and reappointments shall have an application in a resume submitted to the Council. This application and resume shall be given to the council within 48 weekday hours of the appointment being filed to the clerk of the council. A vote shall not commence on any candidate if the council has not had at least 48 weekday hours before the town council meeting in which the vote on the candidate is taking place to review the application. Thank you. all non-policy making multi-member body appointments in the appointments shall have an application submitted to the council this application shall be given to the council within 48 weekly hours of the appointment being filed to the clerk of the council um when i wrote this motion just to point out i did not put resumes at the distinction between non-policy making and policy making that's something that's probably something they can discuss but i'm not sure if resumes are necessarily needed for policy making as there would be for non-policy making, in my opinion. But that's up for further discussion.

Your motion will be sent, and then there could be discussion.

Yeah. I just wanted to get that up there. Because I noticed on the agenda it said non-policy making application and resume. And the motion doesn't mention resume. Yeah, so the last motion, the last motion was I move to require Jason Wright and John Young, the two current Board of Appeals candidates for appointment, to appear before it at the next town council meeting that they can physically attend. Both candidates should be prepared to answer questions from the council as they investigate the appointment, as is allowed in the length of town charter section 2-10. A vote shall not commence on the appointment of either of these two candidates until they appear before the council and the council is allowed to ask questions. we'll just have we don't have to have a subcommittee or anything like this we'll ask the council club to send that thank you and um do our questions questions even answer something like this or could would the would the council be allowed to agree with council okay yep thank you council president um vice president um this is a motion about parking that the town council moved to

But when we discussed it, we saw that there were holes in the parking ordinance. So if I am wrong or you were wrong to send it to you, because I don't know if you write ordinances or not, then I don't know who does. But I know parking. And both parking and zoning were so big. We are now getting flooded, of course, with a lot of issues about having, overall, bottom line, we don't have enough parking for the cars we have, so we've got to figure it out.

So before I send this to a committee, I would like to ask the Chinese subletters if this is something we can address.

Two things. The Vice President is correct. The Council did not ask me to do this. I did receive what was sent to the ORC back in October. I met with the ORC on December 3rd, 2025. The clerk sent it to me on Thursday night, and I believe it So I think we're all talking about the same one. I did actually write a memorandum on that. And I did make comments. And the council should have it. I finished that on Sunday night and filed it on Monday. I gave it to the president, I gave it to the town manager, and I think the clerk has it as well.

I would just like to say, you sent it to me. I don't think the whole council ever got it sent.

Yeah, I don't know.

So I know that might not suit you, but I think that's something to point out.

Yeah, once it leaves my hands, I'm not really sure. I don't put a tracker on it. Did we get a clarification on this? Well, I can comment on the motion. The motion is illegal because all variances are governed by Chapter 40A. Section 10 says that only the Zoning Board of Appeals has the right to control variances. In the terms of the motion, as I have heard it, but I haven't read it, I don't have a problem with it, it seeks to stop the progress of any variance that has already been granted, if I understand that. Was that not what was first submitted to them?

Pending or planned. Pending. But not already. It's in the planning stages, but it hasn't been voted on.

Well, if it's pending, they're already grandfathered. Because if you get your... First of all, you'd have to change the ordinance. And... If you have an application in for a special permit, a variance, or an order of conditions prior to the first date of legal advertising, you've solidified your position and would not be subject to whatever changes happen thereafter. Chapter 40A says that only the ZBA can control variances. It also says that no municipality may make an ordinance or a bylaw that conflicts with Chapter 40A, Section 10. Chapter 40A, Section 10 grants authority to the Board of Appeals to to grant variances. This motion does not have the strength of an ordinance. And even if it were an ordinance, it would be illegal. So there is probably another way to do this. And I think maybe have the full council take a look at the memorandum that I did over the weekend. maybe send it to whatever committee would be appropriate. But to say that you can't apply for a variance as a homeowner would be an interference with their property rights, number one, and would may constitute a taking.

But can the Board of Appeals turn down all variances?

They can. See, the Board of Appeals is unique in that it is a quasi-judicial board. It's not a committee and it's not a court, but it does have the powers of a judicial board. So they are lawmaking, not only the policy they're developing, They decide on things that come before them. So because those powers and authority are granted through the state by Chapter 40A, they are in a unique position. Not even the town council and the city of Peabody, I believe, attempted to have the town council take But Peabody was one and Newton was the other one. They tried to take the power of variances and grant them themselves. Supreme Judicial Court says they can't. You can't interfere with the duties that were... Excuse me. Imposed upon the Zoning Board of Appeals. Only the Zoning Board of Appeals can do it. The Town Council cannot interfere with Chapter 48. So anything you do, if you voted this, it's not an ordinance. It would be irrelevant. If you adopted an ordinance, it would be illegal. And anyone who would want to apply for a variance... that would have an action against the town because you're interfering with their property rights. If they've already been granted a very, or if it's pending, you're stopping them from completing the process to improve their property or to affect their property. So I think maybe take a little step back with this one because it could put the town in real jeopardy. And I would tell the Board of Appeals, you don't have to abide by this. You know, they don't. You can't say that you're putting a moratorium on variances because it flies in the face of Chapter 48, and it's illegal. That's business.

Are you supposed to write it so it is legal?

I'm sorry?

Write what we, how would you recommend we go about?

Let me give, you know, I'm always willing to help.

Fine.

But tell me where you want to get, and I'll tell you how to get there.

Fine. What we need in this town right now, until we can have a full parking study, until we understand what we've got here, we need to stop this continual change. I mean, the Board of Appeals does continue to give a lot of parking variances. And frankly, there are not many people in this town that right now can even park in front of their homes that they're trying to find places to park. So until we can figure out how we can straighten this out, because it's a mess. I mean, Aaron mentioned something about having, you know, have a family and have six on-street parking. We have a problem with that. It was just a matter of trying to temporarily restrain. That's what I'm trying to get at. The number of permits we're giving so that we can figure out how we can better plan.

traffic and parking there well you probably do that with the resident parking thing but you cannot do it with furloughs because state law it overrides us i think maybe this is a so you're saying you could do it with resident no i i understand pay an excise tax you could No, no, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is where your authority lies. Your authority lies in creating and running a resident parking sticker program. That's within your purview. And that's left to your discretion and your good judgment. Variances are dictated by the state. That is not within your purview. That's all I'm saying. You can tinker with the resident parking sticker program, if you'd like. Or you could have a committee do it. You have the authority to do that. Whether it's a good idea or not is a whole different debate. But you can't interfere with Chapter 48. Just vice president's view.

So then, so that's all I'm trying to get to. I'm just trying to figure out how we can do it. In terms of a resident parking rule, can we restrict the number of resident parking stickers we give out?

I mean, I looked at, I didn't fly over to just get the wave tops of the resident parking sticker program. and didn't do a real deep dive into it. I know it exists. I don't know what the criteria is for a resident being able to get two or three or four stickers. I don't know. But I did jot down when it was being discussed here a little earlier that if you're going to do something, and as a matter of fact, I think Aaron brought it up, that you may want to take a look at your parking sticker program and the permits. And I think maybe the suggestion was that some people were getting permits that shouldn't be getting them, and I don't know that that's true or not. But maybe that you should tie your parking permits to the number of parking spaces that are required by zoning and how many off-street parking spaces that house already has in determining how many stickers that they're allowed to get. I'm not saying that that's going to work. I'm not telling you what to think. I'm just telling you what you may want to think about.

Well, that's what they do at Somerville. And that's what I was trying to get at the multi, because we're building so many multi family homes. What they do in Somerville is that you can have as many off-street parking spaces as allowed by the actual length of your building.

The footage, yeah, the footage.

And I wrote that.

I know.

I think I wrote it. And so that's what they do. But I don't know if that's possible. It sounds as if this is going to take us a while, President Deary, to think about. Maybe we could ask that attorney. So we'll talk with whomever you think is appropriate and start working on something that would help us get to a more understanding of parking while we do agree to a study and follow it.

But there's two things I want to talk about. First, I do want to say I'm in support of a parking study, as was mentioned. I know that I'll lose an order to talk about this and all that. I believe that they're planning on making recommendations with specifics about a parking study. So stay tuned for that. And then furthermore, we're talking about variance. I'd like to ask the use variance, which I know was sent to the planning board. They were supposed to have a meeting. I believe it got canceled due to a miscommunication or something like that. And I don't think they've been on it since. So Do you know where that is right now?

I don't know where it's currently residing. I did write at the council's request an opinion on it. And just to refresh, the only variance that chapter 48, section 10 allows the council, in this case, the council to get involved with is the use variance. That's the only one. And it says specifically that unless it is accepted by the town and it grows into its ordinance, then you don't have a use variance. So that's moving along appropriately. I don't know where it is, if it's in rules and ordinance. now they need to have they need to have that no maybe I should ask for us has does the council had a public hearing on that yet waiting for the planning board well the planning board has X number of days to do that and if you don't have a recommendation Now, I don't know how many days it's been lying dormant at the planning board. And I know that they had one or two meetings that they had to cancel for lack of a point.

I'm pretty sure it's coming up at their meeting in July. And they're aware of it.

You may want, again, you may want to consider, just for sake of expediency, having a joint public hearing. That way you don't have to have one later. And that will cut out probably 30 or 45 days.

Yes, thank you. I would just like to try and get the pet days. I'd like to suggest we appoint public hearing if it's possible, since that's also something worth looking into. I'd like to ask the Attorney-Supporter something going back specifically about the rules and ordinance committee and its procedures, if I'm allowed to at this time. I made a motion in the last Rules and Ordinance Procedures to send a motion back to the Council with a positive recommendation. That motion failed. Does that mean it still gets sent back with a negative recommendation? Is that how that procedure works?

Well, this is what I heard. I made a note because I knew this was going to come up because you and I talked about this. But Councilman Millar, who I believe is the chair of that subcommittee, I think said that the committee didn't want to kill it. They just wanted to set it all up as one package. It sounds to me like it was deferred.

The motion was I moved to send this motion to the council with the positive recommendation that motion failed by a vote of two to one Does that mean that it's now should be sent back to the council with a negative recommendation?

Yes, okay If that motion wasn't sent to the subcommittee Well, well best when I wrote this an opinion overnight if it was sent by if the if the council voted to send it to the subcommittee and then the subcommittee If it fell out of thin air while they just started talking about it, then no. It has to follow the procedural assumption. Okay.

And that was my question. Thank you, Attorney. And I forgot to just ask, is there a way for that motion to be resubmitted to the council, or is it just dead?

No, no, no.

You could get it for councils, and you could submit any motion you want to the council. Would it have to go back to the committee? If the committee already voted in

Yes.

I have two motions. I have two appointments. One is non-policy maintenance. Council President has appointed non-policy committee

I appreciate that these applications have been sent in. I have no problem about either of these appointments. And the difference between this and what we talked about earlier is applications. So yeah, that's it. I will support these motions.

So there's a motion and a second.

Council Costigan.

Yes.

Council Tassinieri.

Yes.

Council Malab.

Yes.

Council Dimes. Yes. Council Romano. Yes. Council Reardon. Yes. Council Finn. Vice President Spoke. Yes. Council Terry. Yes.

sitting here listening to these discussions about applications and what have you, and what everybody lost sight of in this whole process is you're changing the designation of a planning board member from an associate to a full member. CBA, just for... What? CBA. CBA, I'm sorry. Because you're changing the job think you should be asking for that application because you're completely changing the job from an associate to a full member. And yes, you know, not everybody knows this person. This person should come before the court and should be heard from. I know that they've been there a long time, but again, you know, they should be vetted because it's a new position. checks on people for every every board members and things like that. And if we don't, why not?

Karen Charles, please to direct account we had to leave, but he just wanted me to remind everybody that it's regular rubbish pickup. There is no holiday pickup this week. and that the transfer station is open. Regular hours on Friday are closed on Saturday. Thank you.

Just one more. And this is private manager Marino. Do we have an anticipation of numbers of people coming into winter for the topships, prairie to sail?

I think on the last one, there was 3,000 to 4,000 people. And I know the number. Can you expect more for this one?

Well, the last time they did it, it was raining. Yeah. It is predicated by weather. I know that. But we anticipate a larger influx.

They've got an area that a whole part of 5,000 people. So I

Celebrations on July 3rd. Again, as we had talked about, celebration at the Winter Landing on the 250th, 12 noon. It will start at noon. Boat parade at 3.30. Shuttles start at 11 a.m. and shuttles end at 8 p.m. There's a shuttle schedule.

It will be.

Shuttle schedule will be on the Winter... on the website. July 4th, obviously, harbors period at 944th Annual. And 9.15 p.m., there will be the fireworks. And July 11th through the 16th is Sail Boston beginning at 7 a.m. TAPSAV will be closed to all traffic after Otis Street. Shuttles will be available. Pockets to It's a one-day viewing. Seeing no further business. The next regular scheduled council meeting will be the next meeting because we already had them. No, we have the next meeting is July 23rd.

The next meeting, yeah. Just wanted to make sure that all that.