Select Board - Regular Meeting

Okay, time is 630. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Tuesday, August 18th, 2026 Rentham Select Board meeting in accordance with Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025. This Tuesday, August 18th, 2026, 630 meeting, public meeting of the Rentham Select Board shall be conducted remotely. Public is invited to join via Zoom. The instructions are on the town's website and our agenda. As a preliminary matter, this is Select Board Chair Chris Gallo. Please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. I'm getting some feedback from John Adams. Can someone mute him, please?

This is John Adams.

John, can you stay muted, please?

Yes.

Thank you. Until you're involved in the conversation, there's some feedback there. I apologize. I was saying, please permit me to confirm that all members... All right, let's try this one more time. Permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Members, when I call your name, please respond to the affirmative. jim anderson is absent uh bill harrington muted you muted billy present there's that handsome voice select woman rouse president and selectman roy lamar president thank you staff when i call your name please respond to the affirmative town manager michael king president assistant town manager greg enos president Administrative Service Manager Amanda Vazapolo. Present. And Executive Assistant Maya Matarazzo. I'm present. Excellent. Welcome, everyone. So as I said, we have a robust agenda. We're going to get right to it. We have a 635 public hearing that we'll get back to at 635. But in the meantime, I'm going to ask that we go to the announcements tab one, and we ask Selectman Harrington to read them into the record, please.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Announcements for this evening. The Stage 3 water ban is in effect starting July 24, 2026. Residents may engage in non-essential outdoor watering once per week on their regular trash collection day. Outdoor watering cannot occur between the hours of 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Further information on restrictions and what is considered essential and non-essential water use can be found on the town website. The 2026 Concert on the Common series begins Sunday, May 31st and lasts until Sunday, August 23rd. All are encouraged to join us on the Sundays at 6 p.m. to enjoy live music at the Town Common. Sweat Beach will be open daily from June 13th until August 23rd between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. The Medicom and Public Health Nurses are hosting a community baby shower on August 25th at the Norfolk Public Library between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The Fisk Library Book Club will be meeting on Tuesday, August 25th at 7 p.m. to discuss The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. For more information, residents are encouraged to contact the library at 508-384-5440. An in-person voter registration will take place on Saturday, August 22nd, 2026 for the state primary elections. On Monday, September 1st, 2026 at Delaney Elementary School, registration will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the town hall and the town clerk's office on the second floor. In-person early voting will be held in a town hall in the Botash Conference Room on second floor, Saturday, August 22nd, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., as well as during regular town hall business hours on Monday, August 24th, through Thursday, August 27th. One last announcement. The second annual poultry plunge has been scheduled for August, I'm sorry, for November 21st, 2026 at 1030 at 89 South Street, which is WPD. And we're looking forward to a very bitter jump. Chris, I think you can make it this year. I checked your calendar.

Ouch. I was sick last year. Really sick. And Mike, don't we have to approve all announcements to the select board chair before we just let people announce willy nilly? Just kidding, Billy. We'll be there in some form of representation. You know, we'll be there and show our support. Thank you so much, as always, for doing a great job with the announcements. Let's go to tab number two and approve the minutes and then we'll jump into the public hearing. So tab number two is approval of the minutes in our packet. We have documentation from the July 14, 2026 open session meeting minutes. Chair would entertain a motion to approve the July 14, 2026 open session meeting minutes.

So moved.

Motion made by Selectman Harrington, second by Selectwoman Rouse. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectman Rouse? Yes. Selectman Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Black and the Moth. Moth, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. Okay. Let's go to tab number three. And tab number three was supposed to be a public hearing for Apple New England, LLC, Applebee's, Neighborhood Bar and Grill, located at 1048 South Street, unit number 30, for an on-premise hearing. restaurant alcohol license. But unfortunately, we received notice that this public hearing has been canceled at the request of the applicant. No further information is available at this time. Mike King, our town manager, will follow up and see if there's any additional information that we can share or get an update when it's available. All right. So no public hearing. Cross that off the list. That means we can go right into tab number four. which is new business. Okay, so in our packet, we have a special event permit. This is nothing new. We've seen this a bunch, especially from Cirque. But this one is different, though. So I'm glad I caught myself. This one is actually at the Cracker Barrel Fairgrounds. from August 21st, 2026 to August 24th, 2026. Typically this board is familiar seeing CERC events at the outlets, which I think we have next on our agenda. With us, we have a gentleman by the name of Mark Landon. Mark, welcome to our meeting. Would you mind just giving this board a quick overview as to what the event is, you know, what's going on there? We notice a change of location. Can you speak to that? That's at the Development Center, if I'm not mistaken. And we'll let the board ask any questions that we might have. But first, I'd like to welcome you to our meeting.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it. First off, Cirque Entertainment owns about seven circuses that travel all around the country. And I'll be honest with you. I do the permits for this particular show that it's coming in. Uh, so two of the seven, one, which is on the East coast. One is on the West coast. Uh, this is the paranormal Cirque. So I'm not really familiar. If you guys have had paranormal in the past, um, or you've had Cirque entertainment, uh, which is, they have like a water show. They have several different types of show. Um, but since we have two different kinds of shows, uh, one is going to be performing in one location, the other at Cracker Barrel fairgrounds, um, The idea is just having something somewhere a little different kind of thing. So at least it looks different, appears different, a different kind of place. So this Paranormal Cirque is recommended for those 16 and over. And we do allow people younger than that in there with parental permission kind of thing. And I'm pretty much just available to answer any questions. If you've seen other circuses from Cirque Entertainment, you're familiar with the quality and what we do.

Yeah, so just to be clear, we're talking just about the one at the Cracker Barrel Fairgrounds for this particular special permit, correct?

That is the one I'm here to speak on. I could probably speak to the other one because I'm familiar with it, although I'm not specifically the person who handles that. So I would say let's...

Yeah, Mark, I would say let's stick to this one then, and then we can address the next one at the next agenda item. This is pretty standard. Our town has done a really nice job of putting these permit packages together. So by the time it reaches this board, it's already been through a lot of checks and balances. Our town managers looked at it, all of our department heads, including first responders, police, fire, et cetera, DPW, Board of Health. All those people have looked at this. So by the time it gets to us, it's in pretty good shape. But I would like to open it up to the Select Board members present just to see if anyone has any questions because it is at a slightly different venue. With that being said, I'll start with Selectwoman Ross.

No questions at this time.

Thank you. Selectman Harrington.

I'm good with it, Mr. Chair.

Excellent. Selectman Lamothe. I too am good with it. Fantastic. See what an educated group we have. So Mark, it looks like you got off pretty easy at this time. So if there's no, Mike, do you have anything to add or are we in good shape?

Nothing to add, Mr. Chair.

Okay, great. So at this time, she ought to obtain a motion to approve the special event application for Paranormal Cirque to take place at the Cracker Barrel Fairgrounds between August 21st, 2026 and August 24th, 2026, pending good standing with Board of Health, Building Inspector and Public Safety.

So moved.

Seconded. Okay, motion made by Selectman Harrington, second by Selectwoman Rouse. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectwoman Rouse? Rouse, yes. Selectman Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Select them in the moth. Moth, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. I'm not used to saying that. Jimmy's not even screwing me up. Make sure he knows that. I'm just kidding. We love him. All right. So, Mark, great to talk with you. Please feel free to hang out if you want for the next agenda item, which is tab number five. Thanks, Mark. which is tab number five. And this is a special event application for Cirque Italia at the Rentham Premium Outlets, October 2nd through October 5th, 2026. Again, in our packet, we have the special event permit application dated October for the time period that I've already described. And with us, we should have someone by the name of Rosa Torres.

Rosa's here and Yolanda's here.

Rosa and Yolanda, welcome to our meeting. I think we've spoken to you ladies before. You both look familiar to me. So I would imagine, you know, give us the quick rundown, but I would imagine this is a similar event as to what you have done in the past at the outlets, unless there's anything different that we should know about.

No, it is very close to what we've done before. And all of the permits have been submitted for, and I've been in contact with all the departments.

Fantastic. Now, just a personal question for me. Mark indicated that the prior event was suggested to be 16 plus. Is there age suggestion with this event as well? No, this is a family-friendly unit. Okay, good, good to let people know that. Great, so I'm gonna open it up quickly to the rest of the board and see if anyone has any questions. Board members, do you have any questions? Speak up if you do. Sulaco-Monroes? No. Harrington? No, no questions. Hoff? No questions. All right, you guys are really getting off easy. Mike King, anything to add?

Nothing to add, Mr. Chair. The applicant was very proactive in reaching out to town departments.

Fantastic, we love to hear that. So at this time, Chioda to obtain a motion to approve the special event application for Circa Italia to take place at the Rentham Outlets between October 2nd, 2026 and October 5th, 2026 pending good standing with the Board of Health Building Instructor and Public Safety.

So moved.

Second. Motion made by Selectman Harrington, second by Selectman Lamothe. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectman Winrose. Yes, yes. Selectman Harrington.

Harrington, yes.

I'm off. Yes. Yes. Motion carries for zero. Congratulations, ladies. We look forward to seeing the event. Okay, have a great night. You too. Okay, now we're going to go to tab number six. Tab number six is a one-day special alcohol license application. This is a watermelon festival at the White Barn Farm for August 22nd, 2026, which looks like this Saturday. We have, I believe we have Katie Pearl with us. Yep, I'm here. Hi, Katie, how are you? Good, how are you? Doing great. So I want you to walk us through this, but just before you do that, I do just want to let the board know that this does fall within the allowable amount of dates that White Barn has with us already. So Katie, do you mind just giving us a quick summary of the event?

Yep, the Watermelon Festival is just kind of a celebration of our summer harvest, specifically the watermelon cantaloupe. It's going to be a beer garden with live music and then some just family-friendly cornhole, all of that type of stuff happening.

What does the winner of the cornhole get?

It's just for fun between people, no real prizes.

Well, then I'm not coming. No, I'm just kidding. You guys always put on great events. Everyone loves watermelon. Everyone loves a beer garden, and it sounds like a great event. Chris, do you have anything to add?

No, it's just like the usual, and we know that we're – Katie and I literally just sat down, and we want to plan the rest of our beer. We're going to get the rest of our dates in by the end of the week for the full season for all of our – beer permits.

Great. We appreciate that. Yeah. So thank you very much. I'm going to open it up to the board. And again, as I've said in the past, for it to get to this level at our board, it's already gone through all the necessity perming process. We've already talked to all the department heads, you know, the chiefs, public safety, DPW, board of health, et cetera. But I do always want to give an opportunity for my select board members to ask any questions, starting with select woman, Rose. We have questions at this time. Okay. Selectman Harrington.

No question, Mr.

Chair. Selectman Lamar. Same here. Everyone's getting off easy today. I love it. So at this time, Chair, we need to obtain a motion to approve special one-day alcohol license application for White Barn Farms Watermelon Festival to take place on August 22, 2026, pending good standing with Board of Health, Building Inspector, and Public Safety.

So moved.

Second. Okay. Motion made by Selectman Harrington. Second by Selectman Lamothe. Any further discussions? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectman Rouse. Rouse, yes. Harrington.

Harrington, yes.

Lamothe. Lamothe, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. Thank you to all. Thank you.

Thanks, guys.

All right. Talk to you soon. All right. So that's tab number six. Let's go to tab number seven. Okay. Just get my bearings here. Okay, tab number seven is going to be a Zoning Board of Appeals update. With us, I saw him on here already, Jim Lawrence. How are you, sir? I am well, thank you. Welcome to the Select Board meeting. It's great to have you, Jim. If you're wondering why we invited you here, This board tries to go out of its way, making sure we have really good communication with all the boards, especially all the very active boards and committees in town. We want to just invite you on just to say hello, get a feel for what you guys are working on, any opportunities, challenges that you might be facing, and anything that you think the town or this board could do to work with you, work beside you to make the town better. So with that being said, you know, that's the reason for the invitation. We welcome you to our meeting, Jim. Appreciate all your past and present service to the town. And we'll turn the floor over to you for an update, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This being my first ever report, I'm just going to do what I think you want. And feel free to ask me questions if there are items that you are aware of that you want to ask. to know. Uh, first of all, I'd say we're doing a, I feel we're doing a pretty good job working through our, our caseload. Um, we had a long night, uh, last month, um, cleaned up a lot of kind of, uh, long, long standing and short standing items. So the, the staff is amazing. They, they keep on top of everything and give us everything we need to do the work we have to do. Um, we're really happy to have Shane, uh, with us, Shane O'Brien, the new, uh, director of planning and economic development. And, and I'm developing my relationship with him so that we can work hand in glove together. We did a, we had seven members, we had five full members, what we have eight and three associate members. And then we had a member leave. And so we elevated one of our members. So the current five full members are myself, William Kasbara, Daniel Humphreys, who's the clerk and has been on for a long time. Jonathan McAllister is an associate member. Joseph Cameron, who's been on for a long time, is also a full member. And Sean Berry has been elevated to a full member from associate member. And then Rachel Hill, who also volunteers, I believe, in the land use office. is also an associate member. So we do actually have, in terms of opportunities, as you requested, we do have an opening for an associate member if there's a town member that is interested in the work of the board and would like to maybe get involved a little bit and learn. We're very fortunate. For years, the board barely had any associate members and they had just the five they needed to do their business. Um, three members came right on in as associate members. And so, uh, when we had a member retire, we had a ready replacement to go and Mr. Berry stepped up to that post. So we're very happy about that. Uh, two months ago, uh, the board reorganized the, uh, the leadership and, uh, I didn't step back quickly enough. So I'm now the chairman of the board and, uh, Mr. Caspar is, has, who has been a long standing chairman of the board in and out. It has agreed to be my vice chairman, so I have some historical longevity behind me on the board. And then Daniel Humphreys, as I mentioned, is the clerk, and Joseph Cameron and Sean Berry are the other two full members of the board. And then the other thing that the board did make a motion about in the last meeting Brett KenCairn, There have been some changes to the zoning law, so we simply made a recommendation to the planning board that they should take a look at the zoning bylaws and that we would certainly be more than willing to work on joint committee or whatever might be useful to help them, you know. Brett KenCairn, Just revamp those laws to to. comport with the new changes in the law. They weren't major things, but there are some changes there. And I think that the town should set some attention to making sure that we get our ducks in a row. I'm sure there's a grace period and a timeframe, but obviously the sooner that kind of work gets done, the clearer it is for everybody who comes in and wants to do something in the town. And we don't have to double back on anything, et cetera. So that's pretty much my report, Mr. Chairman, unless there are any questions.

Sounds great, Jim. And I would agree with you. You know, streamlining these processes are important. Like you, our board, you know, tries to take a look at all the things that we touch, you know, on an annual basis and just kind of check in and make sure that the processes look good. You know, Mike King does a great job of, you know, double checking a lot of that for us. So I would highly recommend to your suggestion, you know, I know you will, but work closely with Shane and Mike King on And then let us know, obviously, you know, and we can and Mike will keep us updated, obviously, as well. But if there's anything that we can be doing to help out. But no, it sounds like you guys are doing a great job. I will turn it over to the board quickly just to see if anyone has any questions or comments for you. But just one little quick point of clarification. I think we you guys might have voted. to make Sean Berry a permanent member, I think we have to do that formally in the next agenda item. So don't leave, Jim, after we're done this conversation. Oh, okay. Yeah, we got to do that formally. I think it's a select board appointment, if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Cameron.

So I guess our vote was preliminary, so that's fine.

Yeah, your vote was a show of, you know, you want this guy on? Yeah. And you're recommending him to us. And hopefully, we agree with you. And we'll get that taken care of.

Didn't mean to usurp your authority.

No, no, no. None taken. I just didn't want anyone to think that, you know, I just want to make sure everyone knows we have to follow the proper channel. But I don't see there being an issue, Jim, at all. So select board members, starting with Select Woman Ross. Anyone have any questions or comments for Mr. Lawrence?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jim, I just want to thank you for that overview. It was very helpful, an important board that we don't quite get to hear enough about. So thank you for your time this evening.

You're quite welcome.

Excellent. Selectman Harrington.

Yes, Michelle, well said. Selectwoman Rouse. Jim, thank you for stepping up to be the chairperson, or not stepping backwards, I guess, in time, as you indicated. Appreciate your service to the community and keep up the good work.

Well said, Selectman Lamothe. I guess I'll be the first to ask a question. Jim, in the docket of things to do, what's the oldest and most cumbersome thing you're dealing with?

I believe that anything... I believe that all the... And there may be someone on the call who can correct me, but I believe that all of the longstanding things have been taken care of. I believe all of the... September initiatives that are coming before us are new. And so if there's something that's been longstanding and hasn't come back in the last six months or eight months since I've been on the board, I'm unaware of it at this point in time.

Well, that's great. When you said you worked long hours to overcome some of these items that were in gestation, it kind of sounded like they'd been there for a long time. But that's great. Great. Good news.

Thank you. Yeah, what actually happens is that sometimes they have time periods. They have to either wait or their process delays us. And particularly in the summer, we meet once a month instead of twice. So sometimes things are a little slowed down at that point. But any backlog is cleared at this point, as far as I'm aware.

And fantastic. Great news. Thank you and keep up the good work.

You're welcome.

Yeah, that's great. So Jim, with that being said, excellent job. Let's move. Stay right there. Stay with us. We're going to move right into tab eight, which is an interview and appointment of Sean Berry. And Sean, is it Berry or Barry?

Berry for the A.

So Barry, not like the fruit, like Barry, B-A-R-R-Y. Okay. I want to make sure I wasn't butchering that, Sean. I apologize. So with that being said, we have documentation in our packet. We have an application from Sean Barry for the Zoning Board of Appeals application. memorandum of zoning Board of Appeals with recommendation you know I looked at the application myself you're a civil engineer you know how long have you been in Rentham 31 years yeah yeah my whole life that's great I was gonna say you don't look that much older than 31 you've been with us your whole life well that's a great thing thank you for that Yeah, your application looks fantastic. There's a recommendation letter from the ZBA. I'll open it up to the other board members to see if anyone has any questions or comments. Starting, we're going to change it up with Roy Lamothe.

So welcome, Sean. And I'm just wondering, how long have you been an associate member?

I think since like early February now, so about six months.

Okay. And you're enjoying it?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay. Now you've got to get to work. All right. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, back to you. Great.

Selectman Harrington. No questions, Mr. Chair. I read through the application. Actually, if my memory serves, I think we met Sean originally when he was put on the board as an associate member, so I have nothing to add. Thank you.

Yeah, you're correct. Thank you for that. And Selectman Winroth.

No further questions. Just, Sean, it's nice to see your involvement in the town and the Zoning Board. So thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Well said. So at this time, she will entertain a motion to appoint Sean Barry to the Zoning Board of Appeals for a term effective immediately and expiring on June 30th, 2029. So moved. Second. Motion made by Selectwoman Rouse. Second by Selectman Lamothe. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectwoman Rouse. Rouse, yes. Selectman Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Selectman Lamothe? Lamothe, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. Congratulations, Sean. Please go get sworn in. Come to town hall, get sworn in before your next meeting, okay?

Okay, will do. Thank you.

And thank you, Jim, for doing such a great job in leading the group.

You're welcome. Thank you very much, Select Board. Appreciate your time. Have a great night. All you do for the town.

Thank you. Least we could do. Have a great night, everybody. All right, let's move on. That was tab number eight. Looks like we have another appointment. Tab number nine. So let's go to tab number nine. And this is my friend, I believe, John Adams. So we have an interview appointment of John Adams to the Commission on Disability. In our packet, we have the volunteer application for John. We have a recommendation from Mary Dovec. as well and i just want to go through my packet um to see if there's anything here we also have with us i believe i saw her is the chair mary dobik on the call this evening is she on the meeting is she here though she's muted yes but she is okay hi how are you sorry i'm not i'm new to zoom You're doing fantastic. You know, if you're on, you're doing great. So I just want to recognize you, Chairwoman Dobeck. Thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for all you do on the Commission on Disability. And we just want to recognize you as we're going to move in to the appointment, the hopeful appointment of John Adams. We're just going to read through his application quickly. We're going to let the board ask any questions that they might have to John. And then we're going to take a vote. Does that sound okay with you, Mary? All right. Well, again, thank you for being here, and thank you for all you do. Mr. Adams, are you with us?

Yes, I am.

How are you, sir?

Very well. Thank you.

So I'm looking at your application, and it looks like you and I are neighbors.

Yes, we are. Okay. Very well.

So I live on Summer. I think our backyards almost touch.

Yes, yes, right on McDougald.

Yeah, so be your front yard and my backyard. You're in the cult of Sac and McDougald, right?

Yes, we are.

So I'm sorry I've never got to meet you. We try to get out and walk around with the kids and ride bikes. Love to meet you at some point, but welcome to the meeting. Meet you in person, I mean. Welcome to the meeting. Do you mind just telling us a little bit about yourself and why you want to get involved with the Commission of Disability?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been a physician. I've lived in town for 15 years. I've been a physician in the towns of Mansfield, Foxborough, and Presley the past year up till June in Norfolk. I retired about a year ago. I've had MS for the last 30 years. Presley walked with the cane and over the many years I've served to advocating for all the patients that I've had as a primary care physician in internal medicine. We filled all kinds of forms for disability, medications, prior authorizations. So certainly I've been an advocate over many years. We advocated for health care back in think 2001 or so. We went with some members of the U.S. Senate, and at that point, they were trying to get rid of the residency programs for primary care, trauma, etc. We advocated to continue. Unfortunately, it went through, and unfortunately, we're still seeing a shortage of primary care docs throughout the country, and we hope that will continue. So I'm Certainly very happy to be a member of the Disability Commission. I bet the members already look forward to continuing.

Sounds fantastic, John. Thank you for that. I'm going to turn it over to, and we already have the recommendation letter from Mary, the chairwoman. So that's fantastic. I'm going to turn it over to my board to see if anyone has any questions or comments for you. And we're going to start with Selectman Lamothe.

John, thank you for filling out an application. And you obviously have far more experience and credibility than I have of questions. So I am going to pass.

Sounds great.

Selectman Harrington.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Well said, Selectman Roth. Thank you very much for joining the team and look forward to meeting you in person. Thank you.

Okay, Selectwoman Rouse.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. John, I think that your personal and professional experience is excellent. I appreciated that summary and background information. For no further questions at this time, I think the commissioner would be lucky to have your experience.

Yeah, well said by all my fellow board members, John. I echo the sentiments of the board. So at this time, Chair, Mike King, anything to add here?

Do you have anything to add? I'll just add that this is a nine-member commission. And with this appointment, there will still be three openings on the commission for individuals with disabilities.

Okay, so we do need some more people to step up. So that's something that we'll continue to try to market and advertise for you, Chairwoman Doebuck. So that's great. So at this time, and we appreciate everyone that's already stepped up in serving, but obviously we want to fill the nine. So at this time, show to obtain a motion to appoint John Adams to the Commission on Disability for a term effective immediately and expiring on June 30th, 2029. So moved. So there's a motion made by Selectman Harrington, a second by Selectwoman Rouse. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectwoman Rouse? Rouse, yes. Selectman Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Selectman Lamothe? Lamothe, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. John, congratulations. Please come to Town Hall when you're able and get sworn in by the town clerk before your next meeting.

Thank you very much.

Looking forward to seeing you soon, sir.

Indeed.

Okay. Now let's go to tab number 10. Tab number 10 is a Rentham Day planning update. In attendance, we have our world-renowned recreation director, Jeff Plimpton, who's going to give us an update on Rentham Day 2026. Mr. Plimpton, welcome to the meeting, sir.

Thank you, Jeff. I appreciate that. Nice introduction.

Always, at least I can do. Always good to see you. Appreciate all that your team does for our community. Jeff, can you give us an update? How are we looking for Rentham Day 2026?

Yeah, really good. First of all, I can't believe we're at this point of the year. So that's kind of crazy. So the typical day, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. And we start off with the road race, which I think you're running this year, Chris.

Yeah, you running with me?

Up and down Taunton Street. We should be pretty good there. The Upper Common stays the same. We have vendors that will typically have always been on the Common. That will stay the same. Local businesses. DJ will be on the Gazebo this year. So we've got a lot planned within that area. It pretty much stays the same. the road race. Then we transition up into the big change. The big change for us this year will be shutting down Route 1A, South Street, and sort of highlight some of the businesses that are on the street. I think we have a pretty good plan in place. Right now, we're looking at about five tenths that we're planning to put up. This is the anxiety part of the whole thing for me. So we're shutting down the street and then putting these tenths up early, early morning. So Um, so that, uh, goes up and underneath these tents, we'll have picnic tables and we plan to have, um, all the town departments and commissions in this area. So sort of highlight, um, you know, the town, the town hall, um, employees and, uh, people and what we're doing in town, basically, you know, how all the departments work. If people have questions, uh, concerns, that's the chance to answer. So I think we've had a pretty good response from pretty much every department in town, which has been pretty good. So we're happy about that. I know the selectmen are going to be involved in that day as well.

Yeah, that sounds awesome, Jeff. I like that idea a lot. It's a great idea.

Yeah, I went to Mike King last year, and it was actually before last year's Rentham Day, but we couldn't pull it off. We thought it would be a great idea to get things transitioned up into that area. But the main point is that we're highlighting Sweat Park, and Sweat Park is just beautiful. There's a lot going on down there. Of course, we do a lot with pickleball. We'll have a tournament down there during the day. There'll be some other activities going on. So we're really excited about transitioning 1A down through the flagpole area and into Sweat Park. So that's pretty cool. We also will have our bands. We're going to have two bands from 9 to 11 and from 12 to 2. And what we'll do is we'll set up a stage right in front of the lights in the center of town. And that's where they'll perform. So the first tent will be set up with the picnic tables where the people will be able to enjoy the entertainment as well as we're having a lot of, you know, food types. We're having a food truck. We'll have the Rentham Youth Baseball doing their typical hot dogs and hamburgers. The Rentham Fire Department, Pioneer Engine Company doing the clam chowder. So that will all take place up in that area. So it sort of makes everybody, you know, be able to listen to the music. and, um, enjoy the day. So, uh, also in that, uh, 1A stretch, we'll, we'll do the touch a truck, which we typically do. Uh, most likely we'll have plenty of activities. Um, we're just trying to figure out where the little train will go. I mean, that's a huge hit for us. A lot of the little kids come in and get a ride around the, uh, the common. And in this case, most likely we'll be on 1A. Um, so, um, You know, we'll have many activities. We'll have Pat Patriot will be present from 9 to 12, basically. We'll have face painting. We have the clown. Benjamin the Clown will do his show at probably 11 o'clock to 1130. So we've got a lot of different things for the kids to really enjoy. So I think it's a good mix. I can tell you just alone with the planning and everybody chipped in, all departments. We met in December of last year with the fire, police, DPW, Board of Health. They were great. So we got the word out there and said, this is the big change. And we met again probably about two months ago just to go over everything. And It gave us an opportunity to sort of sharpen our pencil a little bit on exactly what's going on. Public safety is probably the most important thing. And working with our Chief McGrath, he's been able to come up with a plan. So there'll be road closures, there'll be road openings. For instance, Common Street will be open for most of the day. When we run the road race, things will be shut down. But then right after that point, it'll be opened up again so people can travel in all directions and where they need to get to. hopefully with minimal problems or impact. So that's important. So the fire department, you know, with these tents going up in the middle of the street, they have to fill up these barrels to weight everything down. So they're helping out. And I'm talking about 5 a.m. in the morning. So we're going to have everything going, you know, setting up in that area. And hopefully cars will be out of the way and we'll be able to set up properly. So Also for all the departments, we'll have tables and chairs for everybody. Basically, they just need to bring if they have any exhibits or anything that such so they can bring and they won't have to worry about carrying a table through the center of town. So a lot of good things. I'm excited about it. I know Mr. King is excited about it. And I think it really shows off our town to a degree that who we are and what we're all about. So we're excited.

Yeah, Jeff, I would agree with you. And it's a culmination on, you know, what, you know, we're wrapping up the contents in the common, which is another huge success that you guys lead the charge on. I really do agree. I think every year you guys find a way to enhance this and make it better. And I know it's a very well-received event from the townspeople. The kids love it. The parents love it. You know, you're probably going to see select them in the moth. on one of the, on the little choo-choo train getting a ride for himself. But we don't have those things, right?

I mean, you need someone to drive it.

Yeah. So Jeff, all joking aside, I love the enhancement. I love the fact that we're shutting down 1A. You might have a few people that are mad about that, but hopefully they can be in the spirit of the day and get over it quickly. I think it's fantastic. You're going to highlight all those businesses and, I strongly encourage them to come outside and, you know, actively engage in the resident community. It's a great opportunity to really showcase themselves. You know, and it just sounds great. So, you know, with that being said, I'll open it up to the other board members, starting with Select Woman Rouse.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Jeff, always good to see you. What outstanding enhancements that you're making, you know, take away the fear of kids and people going across 1A. We're expanding it with more activities there in Sweat Park. Outstanding. Really looking forward to it. Thank you so much for your update.

Thank you, Michelle.

Yeah, she's right. Selectman Harrington.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, yeah, Jeff, great work planning it. I remember you discussing it last year at the close of Rent Them Day, and I thought, geez, that would be an amazing thing to shut the road down and actually make it into a bigger event than it's been. Kudos to you and your team. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Bill.

And Selectman, well said, Selectman Harrington. Selectman Lamar.

Jeff, great job. I'm just kind of wondering what next year will bring. How are you going to top that? All right. Thank you. Take care.

Thank you. Much appreciated. I'd like to thank everybody, all the department heads, the people that I've been working with, and especially Mike King for fostering this to where it is for this year. So appreciate that.

Yeah, I heard he said something about a pyrotechnics display for next year. He's really going to step things up a little bit.

We want it, we'll get it.

Jeff, don't go anywhere because I think you're either obviously involved in the next item too. Mike, so do you have anything to add before I move on? Obviously, there's no vote needed. Mike, do you have anything you want to add to the conversation?

Nothing for this agenda item, Mr. Chair.

Okay, because Jeff did such a great job covering it all. So with that being said, let's move on to Tab 11. Tab 11, everybody, go to your packets. This is one of two CPC projects, potential projects, that we wanted to come on. You know, these projects are very important, and some of them can be very expensive. And, you know, as the, you know, the chief elected authority in town, you know, residents, you know, expect as they should us, you know, to ask questions and have answers for them when they ask. And, you know, I've been getting personally a lot of questions about the CPC articles. Some people are confused, which isn't anyone's fault on here. You know, CPC is a very interesting thing if you're new to it, what you can spend the money on, what you can't spend the money on. You know, and even we'll get into this later. We're still learning about, you know, things that, you know, are considered, you know, preservation versus recurring maintenance, yada, yada, yada. So with that being said, one of the CPC potential projects is the field lighting project at Rice Complex. So we invited Jeff and Chuck. I believe Chuck's going to be taking the lead on this to walk us through the project, kind of why we're doing this, why we think it's a good project, and just give us this kind of overview. And then we'll open it up to the board for any questions or comments. So, Chuck, the floor is yours. And welcome, by the way. Chuck, you might be on mute. Unless, Jeff, can you hear me, Jeff?

I can.

Okay. Is Chuck, I can't see him. Did he leave? Yeah. I know he's sharing his screen. I just can't hear him.

Chuck, your speaker doesn't seem to be working. All right. I think he's trying to unmute again to see if that works.

Gotcha. It's weird. I can't see him. So I appreciate you telling me that.

No, can't hear you still.

Jeff, is this something that you could jump in and take the... Might be a little technical, but I know Chuck was planning to talk about... You know, Jeff, you could always start. He could try logging off maybe and then... But if he logs off, Michael, the screen, will we not be able to see that? All right.

We can always re-upload it as well.

Okay. Is it in our packet?

It is. It's in a separate email, Mr.

Chair. Can you see if Maya can share her screen just in case Chuck falls off? But I would recommend Chuck logging off and logging back in. He's such a great presenting voice too. And then Jeff could always get us going and then hopefully Chuck will. Thanks, Maya.

You can always call him via his phone as well.

Sure. I mean, you guys don't want me walking through this project. So it looks like we'll just pause for a sec.

You know, my recommendation would be if we maybe go to the next tab and get Chuck on.

Yeah, so let's do this. Mike King, here's what I'd like to do, if you're okay with this. I want to go to tab number 14 and then tab number 15 if we have time. So, Maya, if you don't mind, could you stop sharing the screen? I'm going to jump to tab number 14 and give Chuck and Jeff a quick minute here.

Let's back on if you want to see if you can. Chuck, can you speak?

I think he just went to – it looks like he just left the screen probably working on.

Yeah, so let's just give him a sec. I want to move to tab 14. So let's go to tab 14, cable advisory appointment. If we go to tab 14, we'll see that we have an appointment of Jill – Jill, I hope I don't, I don't know if you're, Jill, are you on? Yes, I'm here. Hi, Jill. How are you tonight? Good. How are you? Great. Welcome to the meeting. I don't want to butcher your last name. Can you tell me how to pronounce it? Sure. It's brilliant. So like you're brilliant. Yeah. Sure. All right. I like it. Brilliant. So we have with us this evening, everybody, Jill Brilliant. We're trying to appoint her to the Cable Advisory Committee as a King Philip Regional School Committee representative. Note, Jill is the new Director of Finance and Operations at KP, replacing her predecessor, Larry Azar, on this committee. So we'd like to, first of all, welcome you. It's great to have you. Welcome to the community. And Mike, is there anything else? Can you or Jill maybe give us just a quick background on what the Cable Advisory Committee does for us and why this is an important appointment?

Sure, Mr. Chair, I can push upon that. So the Cable Advisory Committee works with special counsel to negotiate and renew the town's cable licensing agreements with Comcast and Verizon, respectively, and recommends the negotiated agreements to the select board for approval. The committee is currently working on the Verizon cable license renewal, which expires in December, making this an important time to add members one of which, per the town bylaw, is a representative on behalf of King Philip, which Jill would be filling.

I appreciate that. Makes sense. So, Jill, welcome again to the meeting. It's great to have you. I'm going to open it up to our board members to see if anyone has any questions or comments for you. Selectwoman Rouse?

No questions at this time.

Excellent. Selectman Harrington?

No questions, Mr.

Chair.

So, I welcome them off. Same here, Mr. Chair. Great, I don't have any further questions either. So, Jill, it looks like this is an easy one. A chair would entertain a motion to appoint Jill Brillant, I think I said that right, to the Cable Advisory Committee as King Philip Regional School Committee Representative for a term effective immediately and expiring on June 30th, 2029. So moved.

Is there a second?

Second. Motion made by Selectwoman Rouse, second by Selectman Harrington. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Rouse? Rouse, yes. Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Lamothe? Lamothe, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries 4-0. Have a great night, Jill. Thank you. You too. Okay. Chuck, do we have you back? No, I don't hear him. Do you guys hear him? Is it me? I don't want him to think it's me. No. Chuck, it's usually me, and it's not me. So I don't know what we're going to do.

Mr. Chair, maybe have him call on his phone.

It's a great idea. That's why you're the vice chair. So, Chuck, on the agenda, at the top of the agenda, there's dial in information. And Mike King can always text you that or Amanda or I'm sorry, Maya. You have it. So we're going to let you dial in. I'm going to go to the next agenda item to give you a minute or two to dial in. So hang up with us and then dial in. And then I'm going to come back to you after I hit tab number 15, which is open and close the warrant. So let's go to tab number 15 while Chuck's doing that. And this is a pretty statutory thing that we do twice a year. This is a vote to open and close the warrant for November 9, 2026, annual fall town meeting. In our packet, we have the town meeting warrant memo. The memo is on page 48, pretty straightforward. So, does anyone have any questions or comments? Select board on this? No. Again, pretty standard. I'm seeing no, head shaking no. So at this time, the chair would entertain a motion to open the warrant for the November 9th, 2026 annual fall town meeting on August 15th. 19, 2020, oh yeah, open the meeting on August 9th, open the warrant on August 19th, 2026, and close the warrant on October 9th, 2026.

So moved.

Second. So there's a motion made by Selectman Harrington, and there was a second by Selectwoman Rouse. Any further discussion? Being none, we'll do a roll call vote. Selectwoman Rouse? Yes, yes. Selectman Harrington?

Harrington, yes.

Selectman Lamothe? Lamothe, yes. Gallo, yes. Motion carries. All right, let's go back up to this proposed lighting project. Let's see if we can hear Chuck. Chuck, can you hear us and can you unmute? I see him on his iPhone. I think he's just got to unmute on his iPhone.

Chuck, hit star six.

Can you hear me now?

Chuck, here you are.

I am so sorry.

No, don't worry about it. I was just going to say, though, if you didn't come on, I was going to recommend we deny the project. That's a joke, obviously.

I hope you won't do that, Chris, but...

I would never, Chuck, but I will bust your chops a little bit.

No, that's fine.

I deserve it. I'm happy to have you. It's great to hear your voice. Let's see if Maya did such an amazing job of sharing her screen for us, Chuck. Yeah. I'm not sure if you can see this, but we're looking at we're looking at an overview of rice.

I can I can see it, Chris. And I apologize for the technical issues here on my part. I don't know what's going on. I have a new computer.

So don't worry about it. Listen, I do that in jest, but we had to get those other agenda items done anyway. So it all worked out. The floor is yours, Chuck. Welcome to the meeting. Please give us an interview, not an interview, but an overview. As I stated originally, you know, it's a very important CPC project that they're going to be voting on very soon. It's our obligation to make sure that, you know, we try to get as much information for the residents as possible. You know, we thought it would be a great idea to invite both this project and the Mirror Lake project on afterwards. So the floor is yours, sir.

Well, I appreciate that, Chris. And again, I apologize for the technical difficulties. And so I appreciate Maya sharing the screen there, but you can see in the upper left-hand corner where the two baseball fields are. The one that is closest to the parking lot will receive lighting on the new improvements project at the Rice Complex. What we're asking for CPA funding for is the second field more to the west there, which We received quotes for when we got the bids for the upgrades to the rice facility. It's just that we didn't have the funding to light both fields. We had to add alternate pricing for it. And basically what we want to do now is because we couldn't fund that through the appropriated money for the rice complex, We want to use CPA funding and have presented to the CPC. And I do want to apologize because I'm kind of pinch hitting for My good friend, Ray Palmer, who has been running with this project, but he's on vacation now. So Jeff asked me to jump in and help out. So happy to answer any questions. But I thought I'd talk about just describing the project and then the funding that we're requesting and the benefits to rent them. I'll do this as quickly as possible. But basically, as you know, with the school project at the sweat complex, we're going to be losing at least two fields. and potentially the lighting for four fields because the transformer that enters the site is going to have to be taken down for the building of the new school. So we're hoping to light as many fields over at the Rice Complex to make up for those fields that we lost due to the school project. We're shooting to get two, but the ultimate goal is to light all the fields in the rice complex due to the school project, which is taking some of our fields away from us there. So that's the need for the project. The funding that we're requesting is through the CPC, and we've already presented to them, and they've accepted the project, I think. I think in the initial phase and now they're going to finally, I think later this month, they're going to hopefully approve it to go to town meeting this fall. And basically what we're asking for is we're requesting $350,000 to light that second field. We received the pricing for the bids, as I had mentioned, so we feel pretty comfortable with that budget. And that will light that extra field there. But then the next thing I want to talk about is the benefits to Rentham. You know, it maintains the lighted fields that we're losing both during and after the school project, after it's constructed. And then the other benefits to it is that, you know, we have recreation programs that we really need lighted fields for. And it's going to enhance the recreation's ability to use the rice complex for extended hours. And then it's going to enhance the community and it helps with residents' health, obviously, because it's good for the health of the residents of Wrentham. It's going to increase property values because the strong recreation department helps to... increased property values. But I think that the main thing that recreation does, which is different from most town departments, is that we generate revenues. It's one of the few town departments that generates revenues on a regular basis through user fees, but also tournaments coming in. And a lot of those tournaments and some of our in-town user groups, their existence depends on lighted fields. And just Jeff can talk a little bit more about some of the tournaments we have in, but from the softball tournaments that we have, They come in yearly. It generates $50,000 worth of revenue to the town. Men's softball, about $12,000 to the town. And Rentham Youth Baseball Softball Association, it generates through user fees $45,000. And then through the very successful Recreation Flag Football Program, it generates $35,000. But the added benefit to it is that businesses and residents thrive when recreation has tournaments. You know, you can see that we have a lot of traffic that comes through town and they use the stores and the restaurants in town. So it really generates a lot of business for the business owners in town. So we're really proud of that. And we've heard from many people both outside you know, in town about how we support the businesses, but also the people that come into town saying what a great complex that Jeff and his crew have both at Sweat and at Rice and can handle these nice tournaments that, you know, help to generate revenue for recreation.

Yeah, I will just interject quickly and say that I couldn't agree with you more. I hear constantly people raving about the rice complex, sweat fields, just the caliber of the quality. of the complex and our ability to, you know, pull off successful tournaments. And to your point, I think this board knows, but just in case people listening later on don't, I mean, the vast majority of recreations financing and funding come through these events. Is that a fair statement, Jeff or Chuck?

Yeah, absolutely. I can take that. Yeah, Chuck. Absolutely. Yeah. Everything that we do is driven to, have a sufficient revolving account that makes us run. So, you know, one thing I wanted to add to Chuck's representation of who's using the fields, three out of the four groups that use, you know, let's say using 100% are in-town groups that use. So the Renfrew Youth Baseball is, I would say 80% of the user at Sweat Complex and the lights become a huge part of their program. Fly football, obviously, on 20 nights a year in the fall is a big thing. And then the men's Rentham softball is a program that's in. So really the only thing that's a money driver for us outside that we have is the Dave Lottie softball tournaments. And they come in only three weekends out of the year that really give us a good boost in our revolving account at around 50 grand. So You know, what we lose, you know, rent-a-muse baseball is the loser here. So to light these fields is so very important. So a lot of our use is from in-town users, our whole 11,000 people that live here and are able to use these fields.

That's a good point. Chuck, are you done your presentation just so we can open it up to the board to ask any questions or comments, or you still have more to share?

No, that's it, Chris. And I appreciate the time that you granted to us and be happy to answer any questions that the board has.

No, you guys did a great job. So my question is this 350 to light this field. I, you know, we look at those two fields below that are B and B. What are those, are those currently? So, so we're going to have two of the four fields lit. Is that a fair statement?

That's correct, if that project moves forward, yes.

Okay, so if that project moves forward, we'll have two of the four fields. Any rough numbers on what it's going to cost us to light the rest of those two fields?

I don't know. Wait a minute.

repeat the question the question was if this project passes we're going to get those top two fields lit right but my question is is what's the plan do you have a plan in place and have you discussed a budget to light the bottom two fields that are labeled b and b underneath those top two right so uh the conduit is in place um you know i think that she had polls uh so you're probably looking at roughly uh 300 000 per field

Um, so I would, I would say that's a pretty good guesstimate.

Okay. And is that, would the plan be, you know, to, to again, go to CPC funds and try to secure those funds eventually that way? Or.

I mean, we're always trying to think of, uh, avenues. Um, you know, I've been, um, chatting with Marcus Vaughn, uh, to possibly more than once, uh, possibly think about, uh, some type of state funding through surplus, um, which was the originator of the rice complex money came from that direction. So it would be a great thing if we could do that. The original plan back in 2000, roughly, you know, stated that, you know, we're going to light all these fields.

Yeah.

Just be a huge plus.

No, that's helpful. It's just a good question to ask. It's good for us to know, but I can't stress enough. We appreciate all the hard work and it looks like a great project. I'm obviously not, obviously I don't vote it in, but I would support a project like this. unless someone could give me a good reason not to. So with that being said, I'd like to open it up to the rest of the board members and see if anyone has any comments or questions. I actually am going to change things up and start with Selectman Harrington, because as we all know, Selectman Harrington is the vice chair of the CPC. So he might have some interesting insight as to this project, feedback from the group, et cetera, et cetera. So Selectman Harrington, we're going to start with you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, yeah, we've had numerous conversations with recreation and with the group. I was on vacation when they did their presentation, but I do have it in an email form. We are meeting on the 26th to have additional discussions regarding the project. And I think there was at some point there was some questions regarding the driveway, which is an emergency access only. And the parking area and how is it going to be lighted from the main parking lot to drive through behind the baseball field to get at that backfield? I think there was some concern about that being dark at night. Jeff, maybe you can answer that.

You're talking about the newly formed parking lot and roadway?

Yeah, so the roadway is emergency access to Route 1. Right. So how are you going to access it?

There's no plan for that right now. This is emergency only, not so much emergency, but if we have excess, if we need more parking, we will use this space. So we don't have any plans right now for that to be lit.

Right. So you're going to come from the main parking lot around a baseball field and behind everything to get to that lot?

If I could jump in, Bill, I don't think that we'd be using that lot at night because those fields won't be lit. So there wouldn't be any need to have that parking lot in use. Okay.

So there's nothing for future lighting projects on that side?

Well, I would anticipate that we'd probably light the parking lot and we'll only have means of entrance and egress to that parking lot from Emerald Street. That road and the parking lot would be lit when the other fields are lit.

Right. So the only way to access that back parking lot is to come through Emerald Street and behind that big baseball field down around. Correct. Correct. I think that someone brought that question up at one point. I just don't recall what meeting it was. That's all I have, Mr. Chair.

So if I'm understanding correctly, Chuck, you're saying it wouldn't need to be lit right away because you wouldn't be using that additional parking after dusk because those fields would not be used after dusk. Is that fair?

That's correct, Chris.

Okay.

That's current planning.

Say it again, Bill?

That the current planning wouldn't be used, but at some time, future planning, they're going to be back for lights for fields.

I think they're all labeled D. Yeah, so when those fields are lit, then we'll light the parking lot and the road as well.

So are they putting, because whomever, whatever contractor, putting in the conduit for that also or no?

Well, I think that the plan is that the lights for the fields would light the parking lot. We have conduits going to all of the proposed fields, and they'll be right next to the parking lot.

So in the project for fields 3, 4, and 5, there is conduit going in?

during this current project, they're putting conduit in for future lighting. Okay. All right.

That's it. Thank you.

Well, thank you. Appreciate that, Selectman Harrington. Let's go to Selectman Lamothe. No questions at this time. Thank you, guys. Let's go to Selectwoman Rouse.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've been watching this closely, being a part of the Roderick School Building Committee. I know that... You know the process to lose the fields, while the school is being built and then after and the support that presented itself wanting those fields to be there and having these lights and that this was the original plan for the rice complex. I think chuck you did a great job offering more clarification and information and you as well Jeff. I think that a facility like this does nothing but enhance our town and our community. It brings us together, it gives a great place for our youth, gets them outside, brings other members to our town, increases businesses. So all the things that were stated, I think this is a great project for the town and CPC funds.

Thanks, Michelle.

Yeah, I would concur. Thank you. Great. So gentlemen, I want to wish you both the best, you know, on the process, how it goes next week. Obviously, we'll be talking to Selectman Harrington. Selectman Harrington is our CPC member of the Select Board. I hope he's going to let them know that, you know, of the Select Board members, although we're not taking a formal vote because we really don't vote. We don't have any authority over this vote. But I think it's pretty safe to say I support this project. It seems like Michelle would support this project. Seems like Roy's shaking his head. Yes, he would support this project. So, you know, and I'm not going to speak for Bill. I know Bill probably has to be very careful what he says because he's the vice chair of the CPC. But three of the five members, and Jimmy's not here, so I can't speak for him. But three of the four active members and present members on this board and this meeting tonight are all favorably supporting this project. So I hope that gets to the CPC. I'm sure Bill will relay that message. Absolutely. I wish both the best.

We appreciate that, Chris. All right, guys. Chris, I also want to thank Mike King and his staff because they've been very instrumental in helping us out with the first of the design and bidding of this project and also submitting the CPC request. So I want to thank them for that as well.

And we're going to move on to tab 12. So at this time, we're going to go to tab 12. Maya, if you could. Yeah, she's so great. Thank you, Maya. Let's go to tab 12. With us, this is now a second project that's going before the CPC funds. And this is the Mirror Lake Project. So with us, I believe we have Mike Bocanegra. Mike, is that a fair pronunciation?

Yep, that's really good. Yeah, you pronounced that right. I'm glad I didn't butcher that one.

Welcome to the meeting, Mike. It's great to have you. We also have Doug Surratt. Doug, I think you're muted. I see your mouth moving. It's... If you want to unmute and say hi, feel free. Otherwise, it's completely up to you. But we welcome you. There you are.

And we are. Sorry about that. Yes. Doug Surrett. Thank you.

Doug Surrett. I got two for two. So Doug and Mike, welcome to our meeting. It's great to have you. As you heard from the past. Applicants, part of our job is the select board. People wanna know how we're spending, not us, but how the town's spending its money. We have constituents reaching out to us on these projects. They're very important projects for the town and CPC funds potentially. So we thought it'd be prudent to have both the Rice Complex project and your project from Mira Lake on this evening to give us and the voters, your fellow taxpayer voters, kind of an overview of the project, what we're trying to do. And I think it's good, too, for us to, you know, for you guys to just update our board as to kind of what's been going on in Mira Lake tonight. Things you're doing challenges, you know, I, we can go through kind of the financing later but I see that, you know, you've been receiving steady funding from CPC from, you know, 2019 2021 2023, and then a big amount in 2024. So just to kind of get an overview and an update from you on the lake itself, as well as this project would be very much appreciated. I do also want to say that we're also very lucky to have with us, Matt Tannis. Matt Tannis is our regional health director. person. I call him our lake czar. I've given him that name. And Mike King, we asked him to be the expert on all the lakes in Rentham and to see how we can share resources, information. It's very, very difficult to take care of lakes, as you guys know. So we think Matt has done a pretty good job, instrumental job. So we have Matt, and I want to hear from Matt eventually as well. So at this time, Mike and Doug, I'm going to turn the meeting over to you. Say welcome. And we do have a we you can we can either put the presentation up for you or we can let you share your screen or whatever you want.

I think it would be easiest if Maya put it up. But before we put that up, just to give people on this call a little bit of background. Back in the teens, the town of Rentham actually helped to fund a study of the lake because it was starting to get covered with weeds and it was becoming shallow. That study showed that the lake was... aggressively becoming eutrophied, which basically means that the bottom keeps coming up and it gets shallower and shallower. And we started having lots of issues with weed cover in the lake. To the point you mentioned earlier, in 2017, Friends of Mirror Lake, which is a group of people, private group that was formed to support the lake, basically came to the town and said we would appreciate help in dealing with not only the weed proliferation, but also the fact that we had to decide what would the future of the lake be if it continued to be shallower and shallower. And I think most people may know this, but the lake is 85% in Rentham, 15% in Norfolk, and there's a small beach area and a boat launch area. Also, for those that may not be aware, actually the town of Wrentham and the town of Norfolk are the two largest owners of waterfront on the lake. The town of Norfolk owns the beachfront and the lake, the boat dock area. The town of Wrentham actually right next to my property on Shear Street owns 200 feet of waterfront and one of the islands in the lake, which we've presented in the past would be options for Jeff and his group to look at potential access points to the lake for people in Rentham. But anyways, what we've been doing for the last, since basically 2019 with the town, is getting CPC films to help avoid proliferation of weeds in the lake. In 2020, during COVID, the lake was actually decimated by some very aggressive weeds called curly-leaf pondweed, And you couldn't even put a boat or a kayak in it. Children were swimming in the lake and weeds were coming up all over their bodies. So we were able to, with the support of both towns, Rentham Inn and Norfolk, start treating the weeds aggressively in 2021. And we've been doing so. ever since with support from Rentham. Now, in addition to that, and this is to the credit of the town of Rentham, we also requested funds to do what's called a phase one and phase two lake bottom analysis. Basically the town had asked us historically, hey, we're funding, weed treatment, but what is the future of the lake besides just weed treatment? And the answer to that was to get an actual scientific study done of the lake bottom, which was funded in two phases, one was three years ago, the second one was just this past year, and you mentioned that there was a large amount of money allocated this past year, $200,000 for this scientific study. Without getting into all the gory details, what this study did was it basically said, if we analyze every so many square feet of the lake bottom and make sure that there's no toxic waste in the lake, and that involved a really significant amount of scientific effort to do that, then we meet the federal government's EPA guidelines as well as the Mass DEP guidelines for being able to then take remedies in the lake. And the most common remedy in a lake with the current situation we're in, would be some form of hydro dredging, which Matt Tannison has been involved in those discussions. So if you want to put up the presentation, Maya, I'll do a quick summary if it's okay, and we can just tell you kind of where things are at.

Sure, go right ahead.

Okay, so this cover page just shows the company that was hired, which the town of Rentham helped to fund this in a significant way. The company's called TRC. They're an expert in working with lakes and analyzing the health and fitness of lakes. And this is actually at the beachfront area where they collected 66, I believe, sediment samples from throughout the lake and followed a very scientific method. Next slide, Maya. This is a quick summary of what was A hundred page report, very scientific detail, 65 megabytes, which we delivered to CPC in the last couple of months. And it just basically says the first page here is that TRC was contracted with both the town of Rentham and Norfolk. with our assistance, Friends of Mirror Lake, to assess the future for restoration of Mirror Lake and keeping it alive and not having it become basically a weed bed. And it talks a little bit more about the project than the lake. Next slide. So on this slide, it's simply talking about the sediment analysis and the fact that the analysis was done at a highly scientific level, following the federal and state guidelines for water quality. The idea is that they literally went through the entire lake and took sediment samples to determine if there are any toxic chemicals in the lake that would cause us to not be able to help remove some of the sediment from the lake. Next slide. This next one basically kind of gives you a list of all the scientific tests that were done. And we don't need to go through all of them other than to say that they all follow, again, the federal and state guidelines. The second part of this slide at the bottom talks about the fact that there were no major PCBs or pesticide or any other major items. It's important to note, and this is one reason why it's so important to try and save Mirror Lake as not only a public recreation and open space property, but you may not be aware of Mirror Lake is one, according to TRC, because it's one of the few lakes in the region all throughout New England that has never had any industry on it. Unlike most rivers and lakes where at one point or another chemicals or other items might've been dumped into the waterbed, Mirror Lake has never had that. So as a result, we've been told that Mirror Lakes from a cleanliness point of view in terms of the lake bottom is in the top 5% in the region. And if we go to the next slide, The final summary suggests that from every kind of scientific methodology point of view, that Mira Lake sediments are clean without any significant contamination and therefore would be highly available for reuse pending consultation with MassDEP. If the client determines they would like to pursue dredging in the future to enhance long-term recreational potential in Mirror Lake, the next steps would be consultation and approval from SDP, et cetera, et cetera. So what that basically means is that this scientific study which you helped fund shows that not only is this lake one of the cleanest lakes in New England, but should there be an availability of funding to support dredging some of the bottom, the actual materials that get removed from the lake are not only clean, but they're some of the best fertilizer in the world. And in fact, discussion has been ongoing that potentially after those materials were removed from the lake and placed somewhere near the lake to dry out, that in fact the towns could sell that material and recoup some of the money. Next slide. This shows you the lake. The northeast corner is in Norfolk. The rest of the lake is in Rentham. And these are all the testing sites throughout the lake that they followed for the 60-some-odd samples that they took. Next slide.

Hey, Doug, hold on a sec. Go back to the... Maya, can you go back to the last slide? Yep. So if I'm... Just so we can give the viewers an understanding, give me, like, a rough line... You said the northeast corner of the lake is in Norfolk and the rest is in Rentham. So go by your groupings here.

Group 17 to group 19 is Norfolk. And everything to the left of group 17 and group, well, group 18 or 19 is Rentham. And where's the beach? The beach is just to the... At 11 o'clock from Group 17.

So the beach is in Norfolk at 11 o'clock from 17. And where's the boat launch?

Slightly to the left of that. If you look at that little cove curve in the area from Group 17, that whole section is owned by the town of Norfolk, as well as that road that comes down that's called Mirror Lake Avenue. So that's all Norfolk. The whole rest of the lake is Wrentham. I live on the other side near Group 18 off of Shear Street. And then the area that the town actually owns, there's 200 feet of waterfront just below Group 18 next to my property, as well as one of the islands in the lake. But like I said, it's about 85-15 Wrentham to Norfolk.

I appreciate that. Go ahead, please proceed.

Next slide, please. The next slide shows that as part of what the town paid for was an analysis of the entire region around the lake and identifying areas of potential spoils location. Without getting into all the gory details, the idea around dredging would be that you would use basically the equivalent of a water-based huge vacuum cleaner on a barge that would suck the dirt and sludge out of the bottom of the lake, and it would get relocated somewhere in the region where it would dry out. It's required by EPA and the state to let it sit for approximately a year until it's dry. It then gets retested to make sure there's nothing dangerous in it. And then at that point, as I said, you're talking about millions of cubic feet of the world's greatest fertilizer. So these points on this map, which are both in Norfolk and Rentham, are simply pointing out potential areas that could be used to locate the dirt and sludge from the bottom of the lake. Frankly, the northeast corner, which is, if you look on the map, it says, the right-hand middle part of the map, it says 12. 12 is right where Rentham and Norfolk meet. And frankly, in my opinion, that would be a good area over there to do it. But this is all speculative for the future. Part of the study was that they would come up with some recommendations for locations, but any decisions on where things would go would be sometime in the future. Next slide. Okay, so this is the last slide, and this is sort of the mostly good news. The good news is now, according to the federal government and the state of Massachusetts, Muir Lake goes to the top of the list as a prime candidate for dredging. and as a way of saving the lake in the future. And frankly, also avoiding the problem with the weeds that you've been paying for because once the lake, right now the lake is four to six feet deep and getting shallower every year. Once the lake is eight to 10 to 12 feet deep, the water column doesn't allow light through it and weeds don't grow nearly as much. And as a result, the chance of the lake being taken over by weeds is a lot less. The bad news is, and this has been discussed all along with CPC and with Concom, dredging is really expensive. And part of the deal that we made when we signed up for this as friends of Mira Lake is that we said, if we can do this test and prove that the lake is in fact viable and worth saving, that we will work with both towns to go elsewhere. Those two sources, are the state and federal funding. And the good news is that both Massachusetts and the federal government have specific programs that all towns in Massachusetts can petition for funding. I will point you to the bottom three pictures at the bottom of the slide. Jake Auchincloss's office, who's our federal representative for this region, he actually is one of the number one proponents of protecting open space and waterways and other types of appropriations. And I'm showing you a picture of their website where they actually have an entire category of things that any municipality in Massachusetts can apply for. This one happened to be a 10 mile river dredging project that was sponsored by the town of North Attleboro for both Attleboro and North Attleboro and Plainville. But the point is, is that these are multimillion dollar projects. I'm not saying that we are guaranteed to get them, but I am saying that he's a huge advocate. And I personally met with his office and his chief of staff, and they have said to us, once we can actually move forward with this now that we have the scientific study done. That gives us the golden ticket, if you will, to apply for these kinds of funds through his office. I will say this, with this particular source, as well as with the state of Massachusetts, the challenge is that Friends of Mirror Lake, being a private entity, cannot petition for state and federal funds. It has to be done by both of the towns and we'll come back to that in a second. The second thing on the bottom right hand corner is an MVP grant program that just came out in the last two years from the state of Massachusetts and this allows any municipality in the state of Massachusetts to be able to apply for funding for dredging. There's already been one that's done for coastal dredging. There's never been one for inland dredging. And that's now one that you can apply for grants. Again, the same challenge is Friends of Mirror Lake cannot do that, even if we end up doing a lot of the legwork behind the scenes, which is how it's gone so far. So the challenge ahead to pursue this is that Rentham and Norfolk can only be the entities that make these kinds of funding requests. And we met with Norfolk about a month and a half ago and they're on board with the idea of trying to pursue this. Norfolk Town Planner, Rich McCarthy was involved in that meeting and he raised his hand and he's kind of the designated point person for this project. On that end, we told them we were gonna be talking with you guys and that we would hope that we would be able to get somebody on the Rentham side at some level to be able to also be a part of this project. And again, the good news is while we can't be the front people to these requests, Friends of Mira Lake can and will continue to do what we've been doing, which is most of the legwork and the background and the paperwork and the sort of behind the scenes stuff that requires you know, work, but we understand that we don't wanna, there's nobody in the town whose job is to save Mira Lake. So we realized that we need to sort of be that resource that helps put this thing together. So anyways, that's the summary of that project. That study was just completed in June. The report was just completed in June. Again, it's been distributed to many members in CPC and CONCOM already. And the one other, I guess, piece of bad news is the way the EPA rules work is you have five years from the date of the study, which is June, to find funding and take action. And if after five years you don't take action, the study expires because after that point, pollution could be introduced by some source.

So I'm going to just – and this has been an incredible presentation, but just in respect of time, is there any other high-level points you'd like to make before I open it up to the board to ask you some questions?

Yes. So the last thing is, is it – CPC has been very supportive of this, as I said, for years. We have a request in while we're pursuing this funding, we have a request for limited funds to continue to provide weed treatment for the curly leaf pond weed in the league, which is extremely invasive. And that is on their list of items to review and approve or not approve for the next year. How much are you looking for, Doug? I think it's a total of maybe about $20,000 over the next three years. It's not a huge amount of money, but what it is is it's a stopgap measure to keep the weeds at bay, if you will, which we've been doing very successfully for the last few years. And so, if we can pursue this funding at the state and federal level to make a more permanent improvement to the lake, one which our children will love, then we, in the short run, just need another couple of years of weed treatment to help make sure that we keep the lake healthy while we source this other big project. So that would be my ask at this point, and then I'll let you open it up.

No, I appreciate that. Very robust and informationally packed presentations. I appreciate a lot of great information there. So I'm just trying to get my bearings. As I mentioned, we have a report, not a report, but a note here. So would you say, Doug, that the... The monies given from CPC to date, 23,019, 38,000 in 2021, 38,000 in 2023. And then there was a big amount as you indicated, 208,000 actually in 2024. I know that was a lot of studies, but was there weed maintenance as well? Like was all that CPC money a lot of that weed maintenance?

Yeah, yes. So last year, the funding was exclusively for this project that I just described, along with $40,000 on the Norfolk side. Prior to that, we had approved funding in two, three-year cycles. And the total amount that the town ended up paying per year for weed treatment, including what at the time was lily pad treatment, as well as Curlylea Pondweed was somewhere in the vicinity of $9,000 a year. The rest of it was studies. Frankly, the town paid for the phase one study, which was about $30,000, and then paid for this big one this past year.

Okay, I appreciate that. I'm going to open it up to the board members now. I do want to ask Mike King, actually, I want to talk to Matt Tannis first as well, because I know that this has been an ongoing conversation that internally the town's had. There's this whole conversation, Doug and Mike, about CPC funds. And we always have to be very careful on our audit and how we use these funds. And there's a conversation going around right now, actually, about preservation versus maintenance. And funds cannot, I'm going to let Mike King maybe chime in on that, but it's just something that I want to at least let the board know about if they don't know about it, because it's very important on potential uses of CPC funds. Mike, can you, can Maya stop sharing for a second and Mike King, do you mind? Just touching on that quickly, I think it's important enough to touch on. And then I would like to talk to Matt Tannis and get his kind of perspective on Mirror Lake and the kind of what we're doing over there.

Of course, Mr. Chairman. So, you know, concerns have been communicated regarding the frequency of the Mirror Lake funding requests and specifically whether the proposed weed treatments should be considered maintenance rather than preservation. Generally, preservation involves intervention intended to address an issue for a significant period of time, whereas maintenance involves work performed on a regular or recurring basis. This distinction is important because maintenance is a prohibited use of Community Preservation Act funding, and given the recurring nature of the proposed treatments and the importance of appropriately applying CPA funds, we have asked town council to provide some guidance on whether the proposed work qualifies as an eligible preservation expense, and we are currently awaiting response.

So it's just good information, I think, for both Doug, Mike, the Friends of Mirror Lake, and CPC members to be aware of. Obviously, we've got to be very careful that we're not violating mass general law in how we're expending funds. I think that would be a major problem. I'm not suggesting that we are, but clearly someone is concerned enough about it that it's been brought to our attention and we have to get the attorneys to weigh in.

Chris, could I add one quick thing regarding maintenance? In our last meeting with CPC, we did discuss the fact that historically we had treated lily pads, which are a native species, but they were in fact clogging one part of the lake. And we've agreed with CPC that going forward, through our own private funding, We're going to be paying for our own weed treatment for the lily pads. And maybe I know you're going to let Matt talk. Maybe Matt could also address the fact that the issue that we're trying to keep getting help on is this curly leaf pond weed, which is a invasive species that actually comes from Asia. And the reason it's not in our mind maintenance is because the last time we stopped treating it in 2019-20, it took over the whole lake in one season and literally ruined the lake. And we've been trying to recover from that ever since. So we see that as a different problem from what you would typically call maintenance.

I appreciate that. We respect that. So, Matt Tannis, are you still with us?

I am.

Matt, so welcome to the meeting. Appreciate all you do for the town. Shared health agent, Rentham and Norfolk. Matt, what is your, I know you're intimately involved with the lakes. Just give us your assessment of Mirror Lake and this conversation that we're having tonight, if you could, high level.

Uh, certainly Mirror Lake is, has a depth issue that continues to, to worsen every year, uh, between sediment and, um, just organic matter that, that winds up getting into the lake, whether it be the weeds that are in the lake, um, you know, or, or just general organic matter, you know, tree leaves fall off the trees, you know, grass clippings that might happen to blow into the lake, whatever it may be. Um, Even sediment from runoff, you know, drainage, things like that can all add to the problem. Certainly the weed issue, you know, should the lake be dredged, as it was already touched on, once you reach a depth of 8 to 10 feet, you know, some lake can't reach water. the bottom of the lake so the weeds just won't grow, which if you look at Lake Pearl, when you get to the middle of the lake, there's no weeds. The weed growth is more on the edges where it's more shallow. That being said, in terms of the phase one or phase two study, the phase one study was done, and that was before I was dealing with the lakes. Two years ago, Friends of the Bear Lake came to CPC and asked for funding for the phase two study, and it's a percentage match with Norfolk, you know, since it's about an 85-15% split. Norfolk, of course, approved their side, or their percentage, There was a pretty lengthy discussion at the CPC meeting regarding the Phase 2 study. A big part of the discussion was the Phase 1 study, I believe, was only valid for, if memory serves me right, two years, or the Phase 1 would have to be done again. So that was the big push to get the Phase 2 study, which the tenure of the The study is much longer. I'm not 100% sure. I believe it's good or valid for 10 years that it can be used to apply for grants for the dredging. So the Friends of the Mirror Lake, if you will, to get the phase two, they were under the gun to get that rolling, which they did and have completed. It was much more... Intensive study, much more samples, a better collection of data throughout the entire lake, not just a couple samples to get a general ballpark idea. So that's been done. We did receive the report in, I think I received it at the end of June. Relatively extensive, of course. And yes, it's definitely a positive thing that the sediment is not contaminated with any harmful chemical or compounds. So as far as dredging work, when it comes to staging the material or finding a place for it to be brought to long-term or permanently, it's not a matter of concern regarding contaminants and is it going to want to contaminate soil and water supplies and things like that. So that was definitely a bonus and a highlight of the study that the material is not hazardous. We are having some difficulty with finding a suitable staging location. TRC had originally proposed the dredge material to be staged at the Rentham State School in large fields somewhat adjacent to where the Cracker Barre Fair is where it really where the parking goes. And I know they use that whole area for, you know, cross country races and things like that. I don't believe TRC was aware that it was state property. I think they thought it was town property. So I don't believe that that would be a suitable location. I had been trying to work with Brian Antonoli, to see what other areas in town could be used that would be a reasonable distance to the lake. You know, it was obviously a trucking, you know, the further it is, the more it's going to cost. But also we were cautious, you know, When you're stockpiling a huge amount of material that's being dredged, you know, it's saturated with water. You know, we'd be concerned with runoff that could possibly happen to abutting properties or into the roadways. Any odors that possibly could emanate from the product as it dries out. And, of course, Brian's currently not around, you know, with the town of Rentham right now. So those conversations have somewhat stalled and stopped, but we have not been able to find a single suitable location at this time. So that's certainly a major concern going forward with dredging. And I, of course, being a shared agent with Norfolk, do speak to Rich McCarthy on an almost daily basis. And we did have a pretty lengthy discussion regarding funding for the judging uh... As of right now, a lot of state and federal money regarding related to environmental health and public health has diminished greatly. It's not to say that the programs are not still in existence. It's just the amount of money available continues to decrease. So there was concern as of right now while programs exist, they could be applied for, um, you know, how much, or if any money, you know, the mirror lake project would, would get, um, We had some shared concerns about that. I think Mr. McCarthy had made some phone calls, and some of the grant programs, while they still exist, are currently based on hold with federal funding. Over a year ago, a lot of federal funds were frozen. Even on the public health side, outside of the lake issues, a lot of our grant funding from the state and federal has started to dry up. We have some concern about the immediate funding for the dredging project and then any issues relating to the material. We're wondering also who's going to take the material once it dries out. Those are questions that we've had. There's certainly no doubt that i don't want to say permanent because in you know 100 150 years you know sediment will certainly build up again but um the long-term solution to mirror lake certainly is is dredging there's no doubt about that um you know and that was a big part of the study um it's just what is currently feasible right now um if there's certainly programs available you know i i have no problem and i i know Mr. McCarthy would have no problem, you know, helping to facilitate and, you know, of course, be the applicants for those programs. I just think it'll certainly be an uphill battle for funding.

Matt, if you don't mind me jumping in, does anyone even have a rough estimate as to what the dredging of this lake would cost in today's dollars?

Yeah, if you don't mind, I can answer that.

Hold on a sec. Let me make sure Matt can't answer that, Doug.

Oh, sorry. I've heard anywhere from $5 to $10 million, but I'm not sure now. I haven't heard anything since the phase two study has been completed. So if Doug has a better estimate, he can certainly answer.

Doug, what are your thoughts? Sorry for interrupting. That is the ballpark. What it comes down to is it's a math function based on millions of cubic feet of dirt. And every cubic feet of dirt that gets removed relates to a certain dollar amount. So one of the open questions is, if we were to find funding, then how much funding could we find funding? How much funding could we find enough money to remove a certain amount from the lake that would be beneficial? In other words, if And I'm making this up. If I won the lottery tomorrow and I got $10 million and I said, I'm going to donate that to pay for the lake, then we would be able to make the lake 20 feet deep instead of 10 feet deep, just to use an example. It is definitely in the... multiple millions, probably not 10. And if you look at most of these projects that we've researched, they're typically, the extent of the project is based on the source of the funding. And I agree with Matt's comment on the current political climate for supporting these things. But as he said, these programs are not dead, they're maybe more underfunded than they might have been a couple of years ago. And again, we're not looking to do this tomorrow afternoon, right? This is something where we have a certain number of years that we can pursue it. And I think what we're basically trying to do is get the ball running. As he said, Rich is both supportive from Norfolk and cautious, which I think is an appropriate response at this point. But I told everybody in CPC and in CONCOM from day one when we started these conversations in both towns that our goal was to figure out how to do this without costing either town any more money and so that's that's our deal and uh what we're really asking for is just help we need we need a face that has a title from the town to say here you go now i guess rich could do it by himself because certainly norfolk owns part of the lake uh But it would be, I think, more appropriate that Rentham do it and also look at using the available property that the town owns to maybe create a public access point.

Yeah, and that's a conversation for another day, I would imagine. Listen, I think we got to leave it there. I'm going to open it up to the other select board members, but here's what I suggest. I think Mike King should reach out. Mike, if you don't mind doing this as an action item, let's reach out to the Norfolk Town Manager and Planner, and maybe you, me, the Norfolk Town Manager, Planner, and our Planner can have a conversation. I know we have a direct relationship with auction class, you know, and we're supposed to see him in the near future. We could get his appetite for, you know, the appetite for funding like this, Mike, as another action item. And, you know, we could report back you know, obviously to the full board and then to the Friends of Merrill Lake and Norfolk. But at this time, I do have to leave it there for time. I'm going to open it up to the select board members to ask any questions or comments that they might have.

Chairman, can I make this suggestion? I have a lot of questions. Could I make the suggestion that we propose and send these questions to Michael, have him accumulate them and then forward them for a later date and a more extensive response?

Selectman LaMoff, that is an incredible idea. I think that's a great idea because I think everyone has a lot of questions and we don't have time to get to them all tonight. But I do want to give an opportunity to the board members to at least recognize and ask one of those questions, you know, just because I did that for the other group. But I want to be fair and do it for this group as well. So I am going to start with Vice Chair of the CPC, Selectman Harrington.

Yeah, so I've been involved, you know, this is year four or four and a half. We did with the original project, with the original study and for this particular study. The question we have, which is, you know, obviously gone to our legal department to determine if it's maintenance or preservation, which we'll be discussing again on the 26th, I think it is. There's a lot. The packet that they sent us has a ton of information. If it's okay with the group, I can share that package, or I'll actually have Heather send it out. It's a great read if you're a scientist. And, you know, the biggest thing is the funding, obviously. And it all depends on how much funding can be on a federal or state level. And specifically, if there's any match that the town would have to come up with. Because the original numbers for the project were, if memory serves, were considerably higher than the $5 to $10 million range.

Okay.

For the dredging. That's...

Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Any other comments before I pass it on, Bill?

That's it.

Okay. So I'll go to Sleckelman-Rouse.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So just to clarify, the CPC request, Doug, and first of all, thank you so much for the information. Great presentation and very informative. The CPC request is for $20,000, correct? Yes.

Yeah, just to clarify, we've been doing three-year cycles for this funding going back to the 2019 year. And so our cycle expired this past year. And so now we're trying to get it redone. And it's basically a little over 20,000. I don't have the number right in front of me. It's a little over 20,000 over three years. So it's about 7,000 a year is what it comes down to.

And then just for clarification or just educating me, does NOFOC require any sort of license to use the boat ramp?

No, it's one of the only free places in the whole region that you can actually go to a small beach and launch a boat and nobody bothers you and nobody asks you for any money. That's a... You know, it's an ongoing discussion in Norfolk, but they've always treated it as a public beach area that... there's no lifeguards or anything. It's just an open area that people use. And frankly, it's used by people not only in Rentham and Norfolk, but all around the region.

I guess my last question, and this can be tabled if we need more time. I really would love to understand how this is managed by other lakes in town, either by you, Mr. King, or Doug or Matt, in terms of what the other lakes do, because I don't seem to remember them coming for CPC funding for for any weed maintenance. So any education on that would be greatly appreciated as well.

I can probably answer as far as Lake Archer since there is no public access point at all. The Lake Archer Association, I believe they fund their weed treatments, if they do any, as an association themselves. Lake Pearl, since there is the permitted beach and boat ramp, the weed treatments are funded through the general operating budget that we do. And Mira Lake, of course, is before the CPC.

Right. And just a quick point. We have an ongoing relationship with Norfolk on this same topic. And we have another two years with them of funding for the Norfolk and obviously a smaller percentage than the Rentham side. So in a perfect world, We would like to continue, at least for the next couple of years, doing the same thing for both parts of the lake. It would be somewhat not productive, if you think about it, for us to use Norfolk's money and treat 15% or so of the lake and then literally have to draw an imaginary line through the lake and say, don't go any further than that.

Sure. Mr. Lackawanna-Ross, does that answer your question? For now, thank you. Okay. Did I get everyone? Roy.

I'll defer my questions to Michael and we'll deal with them later.

Yeah, definitely send follow-up questions in because I could tell this is a very, there's a lot more information needed, I think, for us. So we're going to leave it there, Doug and Mike. I appreciate you both coming on. As we said, it was a very informative presentation. Appreciate all the hard work. Mike King, I do want to have a follow-up conversation with the town manager of Norfolk as well. It just seems like there's a lot that we should be discussing with the town manager and the planner. So we're going to do that on our end. And I know Selectman Harrington, I know that there's concerns, as we said, that we're getting legal determination on from the CPC with regard to preservation versus maintenance. And I understand your perspective, Doug. You've done a great job driving that point home. So I would say at this point, I think we've got to move on to the next agenda item. I appreciate it, and I look forward to having further conversations about this topic with you all.

Great. We appreciate the time and your support. Thank you. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Let's get right into tab 13 here. This is a great segue. So we've got two members of our board that we've touched on a lot of Selectman Harrington tonight. Selectman Harrington, obviously, is the representative, the select board representative of the CPC. You know, shame on us for not getting more updates from Billy does a great job of updating us when we ask them but Mike and I and Michelle we're kind of talking at one of our weekly calls, and we just think it's such an important. source of taxpayer funds, we want to get a regular update bill on the agenda. And if you have nothing for us, that's okay. So we're just going to add something like Mike does with his town manager report. We're going to do something similar for the CPC update. And we're going to ask you to update us. If there's any updates, every meeting, we can talk about what's going on and then we can kind of just give you our input and, you know, you tell us your input. And then, you know, we ask that you share that with the broader group. And similarly, Roy, we recently appointed Roy to the housing production committee. He's actually the chairman. I don't know how that happened, but he's the chairman of the committee. Good for him. And similarly, Roy, we want to do the same thing. If you want to give us a quick update tonight, I mean, Bill does it, but we already got Bill's updates. We had two projects on and extensively talked about them. I know you sent Mike and I an email on a topic, makerhoods, or I think that's how I'm pronouncing it. If you want to give us a high-level update on the housing production plan, you know, what you guys are doing, you know, any... question you know any points of friction or things that you think we need to know about uh that'd be great or you can start it at the next meeting um but i do want to just make it known that we are going to do the same thing just like the town manager's report with the cpc update we want to get a housing production plan update mike king is that fairly said yes mr chairman we will add them as standing agenda items Select Women RELs, do you concur that that's the conversation that we had as well?

Yes, I do. Thank you.

Okay. Roy, so back to you. Do you have any high level update you want to share with us this evening?

I have updates on both. It's based on how much time, not that it's take a lot of time, but I have updates on both if you'd like.

So when you say both, can you give us like a high level five minute update on each?

Yeah, I think it won't take any more than that for sure. Awesome. Please go ahead and we appreciate your time. So, you know, the Housing Production Plan Committee has met three times to date. First meeting was on May 12th, and it was basically a meet and greet among the committee and the RKG and INUS Land Strategies Group. The initial meeting was the committee exposed to a bunch of statistical data that RKG has on their website. It's an accumulation of all the town information that's available in the public domain and from surveys of our residents. This survey goes out every year. You know, it's directionally accurate in terms of data and values of properties and income levels and the like. But it's a small sample. So it's, again, directionally accurate. pertinent. And I do want to say that you'll get a full update from them in a proposal later on this year. So you'll get the full agenda at that point. The June meeting was the initial action was to appoint officers. Shane was not on board at that time, so thus I was elected as chair, Rebecca Zitterman as vice chair, and Amy Jones as the clerk. RKJG then proceeded to do a deeper dive into the data, and at that point we had the ability to go in and kick the tires since the first meeting, and we peppered them with all types of questions just to understand where the numbers are coming from, what do they mean, how we use them and the like. The Innis Land Strategies team is responsible for public engagement and there was some time spent at both meetings discussing the opportunity for them to do so, you know, using the Concert on the Commons, Wrentham Day, Fisk Library event, postcards, you name it, how do we really get feedback from our residents. uh subsequent to that meeting and today's meeting i reviewed the website and observed the frequently asked questions that kind of existed way back in the 2005 housing development plan it was provided by the state very high level but also very intense go it went deep so for people within our organization within our our town And even for the committee, it was really over their heads. So we, I'll say we dumbed it down and I rewrote it and Shane took it from there. And that is now up on our website, available for the committee to look at, available for our team to really understand how we want to answer those questions and that was the key because we want the committee at least and yourselves to be able to understand what is a housing production plan and what those frequently asked questions are so that's up and running right now on our website I also looked through the 2005 housing production plan, and there were about 20 recommendations that came out of that 2005. Now, not all recommendations that come out of a group like that are things that we want to adopt. I mean, they're making great plans or decisions about, hey, changing this bylaw to make it easy for these 40 Bs, but that may not be something we all want to do. So of those 20, I put it out there to Michael and to Shane. I said, how many of these things did we do? Well, we subsequently spoke, Shane and I, and we decided, hey, let's not worry about how many we did or didn't do. Let's see what is being generated by the RKG group this time. And then we'll sit and decide along with you what things we want to embrace and what things we just want to put on the shelf, because not all of them make sense. In today's meeting, we introduced Shane O'Brien to the committee. RKG shared a few more comments. They also gave us a draft of the production plan, which was given to Shane, I guess, on Friday. He shared it with us on Monday. I didn't read the entire thing just yet, but we've given ourselves a couple of weeks to read through it, push edits and recommendations to Shane, which he'll engage RKG to do. As we just began to discuss the engagement plan, the committee, particularly myself, is very disappointed with the INES land strategies group. They've been talking about this engagement, what they want to do and what content, what questions to ask. Very disappointed because they really haven't done much of anything. So we gave until next Tuesday to give us a plan, give us the comments, what are the questions we think we want, or give us all the questions and we'll decide what questions we're looking for. So that's a bit of a disappointment. Now, RKG was suggesting that we go to the zoning board and then to the select board sometime in June. late October, early November. And since we're not up against a time frame to make sure we get something done, I noticed that we've got our town meeting on November 11. We said, hey, let's not rush anything. Let's make sure we have the right level of engagement from the public. If we need more feedback from the public, we might be able to get more engagement at the town meeting. by handing out these flyers and letting people go online and answer the questions. So we're going to push that off and go, you know, have this final version of the housing production plan to the zoning board, then to the board, probably in late November, early December. So that's that update. Any questions?

I have no questions at this time.

Okay. Should I go on to the employment oriented development or push that out to another day?

Is it a high level?

Like, is it even less time than it took to do that?

All right, great, go ahead.

Okay.

I'm timing you, you were over five minutes on that one.

There you go. Affordable housing is scarce and stable employment is increasingly difficult to find. Business ownership offers a path to integrational wealth, but faces obstacles that push the American dream out of reach for many. OK, makers hoods introduced a framework designed to overcome these obstacles. It's called Employment Oriented Develop EOD. This term is a new approach to urban planning and design and integrates affordable housing, productive workspaces and entrepreneurial support and infrastructure to increase employment and create household wealth. The idea is best understood in contrast to transient oriented development. Now TOD, transient oriented development, is how can residents reach employment via roads, buses, trains, subway, et cetera. Kind of like what we were up against with the train and having to build apartments close to the train in the MTBA. But transit can connect people to an opportunity in dense mixed use area. Walking cities is terrific, but in sub suburbs, this is more difficult. In commercial spaces occupied by national chains, Don't by itself create local wealth and own businesses and productive assets. The rent-the-mall lets are a perfect example of this. It's given us a great tax base, but it hasn't created any wealth for our residents. So employment-oriented development asks, how can residents create employment where they live? EOD prioritizes production, enterprise, ownership, and income creation. The premise of EOD is that the built environment should make it easier for people to support themselves through enterprise that meets creating community where affordable housing is connected to affordable workspaces. producing facilities, businesses, services, customer service networks, and access to capital. And within our capital system, large companies have access to institutional investors. In the middle firms, they rely more on regular banking. And at the bottom, companies are looking at startups for used micro enterprises, friends, families, NGOs, philanthropic environments, and special angel investors. This group is called the layer, this lower layer is the promotable soup of hustlers. And companies like Amazon, Hewlett Packard, Disney, Apple, Google, all started in garages. So our policies, our energies, or our incentives and our strategies should be aimed at making that soup hospitable to the possible small-scale entrepreneurs of all kinds. This will require guidance, coaching, mentorship on our part, and maybe one of those top-tier businesses will reinvest in our town should they make it. So it's a simple concept of Maker's Mark is to create a live work community where micro entrepreneurs can lower their household costs and business expenses while receiving the support they need from building a sustainable enterprises. That's a zoning. It's not so much a zoning. It's how you build this environment so that, you know, the people that have these micro businesses can live right above them and work and live within those spaces. And it cuts down on their costs.

Are you referring to like potentially an apartment building that has shared space where these entrepreneurs could gather and help? Okay, something like that. Okay. Interesting. I mean, I'd want to hear more about the concept and see what obviously what's the cost? Is there a developer that would actually do this? And what is our current zoning allow? Mike, King, these are all questions that come to mind. with regard to this. But I'll say this. I appreciate the update, Roy. I definitely want to hear more about the production plan and this concept at a later meeting. So when you have updates, please feel free to email them to us.

I'll have Shane talk about at another meeting what he's observed in Fall River, some other places that have done something similar.

Sure. I think that's a very good opportunity for us to do that. So let's table it there, Roy. Again, appreciate all the hard work you do in chairing that committee for us. Appreciate Bill's hard work on CPC. Let's take this because it's getting late here. I'm going to go to public comment, which is tab 16. Residents who wish to participate in public comment be allotted two minutes to speak and must state their name and address for the record. Unmute and put your camera on if possible. At the start of the comment, a timer will be sent from Maya Matarazzo. It should be visible on the top of the screen. And an alarm will chime when time's up. I'm going to give anyone who wants to speak an opportunity now. Please raise your hand. It doesn't look like we have... Well, we might have a couple of people on, but I'll give 10 seconds. If anyone wants to raise their hand and say anything, go right ahead. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay. At this time, we're going to go to tab number 17, and we're going to turn it over to Mike King for his town manager's report.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and apologies in advance. My voice is a little hoarse this evening. My first update is Sweat Park electrical improvements. Construction on the Sweat Park lighting project has slowed as the contractor awaits delivery of the lighting poles, which have significant lead times. The poles are currently expected to arrive on September 14th. In the meantime, the conduit and handholds for the project have been installed and backfilled. This project is This work part of the project has been completed with limited impact on surrounding park activities. Update on the rice complex improvement project. The contractor for the rice complex project is mobilizing on site this week to begin construction. The goal is to complete the field work in early fall, allowing seeding to occur during the optimal growing season. I will note that the D'Amico playground is temporarily closed. while construction activities are taking place in the surrounding area. Update on the Roderick School Building Project. The town will be issuing its first debt for the Roderick School Building Project next month. The issuance will consist of a $5 million short-term bond anticipation note. This is to cover anticipated project expenses through the fiscal year consistent with the project's cash flow analysis. The town is only borrowing the amount needed at this time rather than issuing a larger amount of debt up front. This approach will help minimize interest costs by avoiding unnecessary borrowing before additional project funds are needed. Another update is in regards to a strategic communications plan. One of the initiatives currently underway as part of the select board strategic plan and an FY27 administration goal is the development of a strategic communications plan. As part of this effort, the town will distribute surveys in September focused on both external and internal communications. These surveys will help establish a better understanding of the effectiveness of the town's current communication practices and identify opportunities for improvement. The strategic communications plan goal is to include a baseline assessment of the town's current communications environment, strategies to promote consistent and effective communication, and evaluate the mechanisms that utilize measurable performance indicators to assess the progress and overall effectiveness of our town communications. And my last update is this past Friday, Haribo, which is well-known for its gummy candies, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Rimfa Meltlets. Chairman Gallo and I had the opportunity to attend and officially welcome Haribo to the town of Renfam. This is only Haribo's second retail location in the United States, and representatives expressed their excitement about being in Renfam and becoming an active part of the local business community. And that concludes my town manager's report.

Great job, Mike. I hope your voice feels better. And great job on the strategic initiative communication project for the select board. That's really good. And yeah, Haribo was fun. Haribo was fun. I brought the kids. They got to try some gummies. And would you believe I had a few people reach out to me to ask me if they were marijuana gummies? They didn't know the gummies, the gummy bears. I was like, yeah, I'm bringing my kids to a weed thing. Dummies. So, it was a great success. Outlets are doing great overall. It was packed. We had lunch at Tavern in the Square afterwards. That was also packed. So, looks like they were well-received in the community, and the outlets was doing great. So, great job on the time manager report, Mike. Anyone have anything from Mike before we go into executive session? Seeing none... okay seeing none um now we're going to go into executive session master in the law chapter 38 section 21a2 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining uh in our office i'm sorry the documentation in our packet we have the inter-office memorandum to the select board from gregina greg enos uh so at this time i'm gonna uh ask for a motion to enter into executive session pursuant to mass journal law chapter 30 section 21a2 to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the fire department union and are back into open session for purposes of adjournment only. So let's get into executive session. Let's kick off Rentham Community and Media. Anyone else who's not supposed to be on? And let me know, Mike, when we're good to proceed.

I would just take a vote on the motion.

Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. I did ask for a motion. Do I have a motion? HAB-Masyn Moyer- Select been rolling off. Give me the motion. Do we have a second. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Select woman routes. Give us a second. We'll do any further discussion. HAB-Masyn Moyer- We'll do a roll call votes like woman routes. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes, select them in Harrington. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes, select them in the month. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes gallo yes motion carries for zero. We're in executive session. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So let's kick them out. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Great job. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Woof. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Woof. I got through the whole meeting without making a mistake until then.

Stupid executive. Not a mistake.

No. Okay. Hey, we're only human. Great job, everybody. I know we got to jump into this executive session marathon.