Th e News Production System (NPS) was used to produce the Municipal Meeting Recaps. NPS, developed by the Wayland Post, includes the use of artificial intelligence and automation programs. These programs are used to record, transcribe, and summarize town government meetings and events. Municipal Meeting Recaps are reviewed and edited by Wayland Post staff members prior to publication. Many of the meeting recordings were produced by WayCAM, whose government on-demand recordings can be viewed at www.waycam.tv/government-on-demand.
212 Cochituate Rd Advisory Committee
8-Oct-25 - 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee02:22:15
3-Sep-25 - 212 Cochituate Road Advisory Committee02:01:27
Tom Fay: We'll call to order the
meeting of the 212 Cochituate
road Advisory Committee at 505.
Thank you for your presence
tonight, both online and in
first, the individuals online
who are members of the committee
include Catherine, Provost, Dean
norburn, Stephanie Lynch and
Bill Adams. With me here in the
large hearing room at the town
building is John Thomas and I'm
Tom Fay. Hopefully joining us
later is Brian Boja, who's a new
member of this committee, and
Bill Whitney cannot make it this
evening. Our agenda this this
evening will include public
comments they will hear from
individuals who live in town
here talk about their experience
with individuals with
disabilities. In addition, we'll
have representatives of work Inc
with us, and possibly Ronnie
Kessler from the from the direct
the Director of Student Services
my own public schools, will also
meet with neighbors in town,
likely close to the site, talk
about our work and answer
questions they may have, and
listen to their comments. After
that, we'll consider approval
minutes from September 3, 2025
meeting. We'll then discuss the
recent RFI request for
information that was issued, and
then we will adjourn. Tonight's
meeting is can be watched by
zoom. It's being taped so you
can you can watch it later on
WayCAM. It is being recorded for
those who want to get public
comment, we ask that you limit
it to two minutes. So is there
anybody in the room tonight that
has public comment? See none?
Anybody online. Have public
comment? Anybody online? Okay,
great. So let's move right into
item three in our agenda. And
I'd ask Miss Brazil and to come
forward with a chair, and
Unknown: it will open up the
discussion to look at the chair
if you want to. I would like a
chair to
place this way. Oh, thank you. I
would. I would prefer to stand.
But back issues
Danny. Danny works fine.
Well, I would like to stand, but
I know that I really can't stand
very long. Oh, I see I apologize
for no apologies, yeah, but I
thank you so much for being able
to address the committee, and my
name is Theresa, but everybody
calls me TC. You guys can call
me TC, and what's your Where do
you live? I see full disclosure,
I do not live in Wayland. My
daughter, my adult daughter, who
is a deaf, blind woman, lives in
Wayland. I am closing in, I
think, on a housing in Wayland,
but right now, I'm the early in
Framingham. Okay, so I try to
stay close to her.
Tom Fay: And you had given
public comment a meeting or two
ago about this topic, and I
thought it'd be be helpful for
our committee to learn more
about your life experience, as
well as Stephanie Lynch, who's a
member of the committee, and
anyone else on the committee,
including Jean, wanted to weigh
in on their personal experience
with with this topic. I thought
it'd be helpful for our
committee to hear hear from you,
so the floor is yours.
Unknown: Well, thank you. I was
trying not to be too personal,
because my daughter does live in
a facility, and we but it was a
long journey to get there, so
just a bit of personal she went
to Perkins School for the Blind,
and then she turned age 22 right
at the time she lost all of her
remaining Hearing. She had been
blind since a very young age,
and so that delayed her
placement, and the first group
home that she lived in was quite
mainstream, but she had a lot of
medical issues that they just
weren't prepared to support, and
she was sick from the day she
moved in until a year later, and
she moved back in with me. We
didn't know it was going to last
so long, but last year, she
finally got a placement in a
group home that was run by
Charles River Center in Wayland.
So we're still adjusting. Some
days she's happy, some days she
cries. Some days I'm happy, some
days I cry. We are very close,
and I intend to see her continue
to be with her as much as
possible. So the problem that
I'm presenting to you is more
global. The It is not our
personal problem at this point
in time, but I, as a retiree,
have sort of become a worker in
the fight for rights and life
for people who are deaf, blind,
specifically deaf, blind,
adults, children who are deaf,
blind have good funding through
education, especially in
Massachusetts, we were the Model
law for the federal law so
adults, however, when when a
person graduates at age 22 and
the deaf family association for
deaf, blind group that I belong
to, we always talk about how
they fall off the cliff, and
that's because there really are
no services. There's no mandate
federal or state to serve deaf,
blind adults if they get
services, residential services
in particular, that is because
they have some additional
problems. Most people who are
deaf, blind these days do seem
to have other add on
disabilities, the famous person
that everybody knows, who you
know was DEP line was, is Helen
Keller. And you know, the cause
of her, deaf, blindness did not
in train all of these other
kinds of disabilities and
medical issues she but if she
were alive today, she would
still need her 24 hour one to
one, that's what we would call
Annie Sullivan at this point,
but there would be no state
funding to support that. She had
to work to find ways so that
they could put a roof over their
heads and put on their table.
She had some grand
opportunities. She was a US
Ambassador to a couple of
countries. I can't recall the
ones right now, but there is a
recent documentary of her real
life, not her glamorized movie,
that is available, I think,
still currently on PBS through
their passport membership
service. And she also, one thing
that most people don't know is
that to to earn money, she was
with a vaudeville troop. She and
Annie Sullivan went on tour with
a vaudeville troop. She remarked
that that was a very great
opportunity for not only to
educate the general public about
deaf blindness, but also to the
shoe yet she got to know the
people in the troop, and that
was a very welcoming community
to her. She had the highest
regard for the others in the
vaudeville
Tom Fay: troop so TC, relative
to your challenges with housing,
tell us about about that if you
could,
Unknown: well, there is no
mandate. Of course, the program
that my daughter was in was
supported by the mass commission
for the blind, deaf, blind
extended supports unit. They
fund a very small number of
deaf, blind people who generally
have multiple disabilities,
including in an intellectual
deficit. So we tried other ways
when she moved back home with
me, because they just could not
meet her needs. And different
agencies would come to our
house, but if they couldn't
come,
Tom Fay: difficulties, and we're back online here at 5:32pm here on August 8, 2025 and before We were rudely interrupted by my lack of electricity. DC, you still have the floor Unknown: well, Tom Fay: you're talking about, you were talking to us about housing challenges, yes. Unknown: And if you want to make it more of a question and answer, sort of a presentation, that's that's fine. I can be flexible. But. The housing challenges are complicated by the fact that the houses that do exist, they really are not capable of supporting deaf, blind people. The they these are deaf, blind people with multiple disabilities. But the primary handicapping condition actually is access, the lack of access to the larger community, to the world, to life, and that is what is just not available. So it's not just about the housing. It's really about the training of the staff, the building up culture that is open and welcoming and supportive of people who have sensory deficits that are blocking their access to Life.
And Stephanie, what's been your experience on housing, hello, Okay, everybody, I think you're muted. I think, can you hear me now? Tom Fay: Hold on Stephanie, okay, Robbie, can you permit us to hear her? Here
Unknown: am I can here you hear me now. Okay, hold on seven,
hello. Definitely they're making it come out of the speaker. Bill Adams: We can hear you can hear me now, we can hear you, but I don't think they can in the town. So,
Unknown: yeah, they can Hello, they unplugged their special speaker. So, oh, no, they might have to turn up the volume is, can you Bill Adams: hear us now? Can you hear us now? Hear Unknown: us now. I'm up to 100 I think. I hope I'm not blasting you guys. No, you're fine. Okay, you're totally fine. Yeah, turn it towards
Tom Fay: okay. So Stephanie, we can hear you now. So And for the record, Brian Boja, our newest members join us. Stephanie Lynch: Welcome Brian. Now that Brian's here, I can start he knows he knows the deal, right? When Jason grew up, I had to find a living situation where he could continue to grow and have an adult life, and I found a life sharing community on a farm in New Hampshire, and he lived there for 11 years. He was he has Down syndrome. He needs a lot, 24/7, supervision and help with meals and bathing, even help with bathing. And he qualifies for waiver services for people who would otherwise need nursing home care, and he just qualified in mass for that too. He lived in a bedroom in a house with a householder, couple their children, a couple of volunteers and several other residents, and this was how he was supportive for this time. And he was part of a comprehensive farm program and the householders and volunteers took care of the shopping and cooking, and he was able to help with chores around the house and work in group settings on the farm and in the kitchen. As a baker, DDS has a problem with people working and living in the same place, so the the situation was always a little unsure. And with covid and everything, he ended up losing the the placement and started over here in Massachusetts, they were also, as he got older, he could no longer. I mean, he, he, they, you know, they have to work at sub zero temperatures in the in the stable, and his physical work in the farm. And as he got, he's 40 now, he got to where that was a bit much for him. And also he's got got a medical situation now that they wouldn't have been able to to take care of. He does. Now that we're in mass, he has a good day program, and we have just gotten some companion service to take him out in the community, and we have learned a bit about the bus services available. So for somebody like him, residential would augment this. But he doesn't need all those services and day program, and he can get those within the community, but he is needs to be able to live near Wayland. He still has need for supervision in care, 24/7, and this living situation should provide for that. And I believe, second. Eight can help with funding other bedrooms for caregivers, so flexibility in the rooms would be good. Farmsteads in New England is another place we tour. They have building swifts, and then each building has several private bedrooms that each person has a bedroom, a little sitting area and a bathroom, and they all enter into one living room and kitchen. So there are several little units in there. They have a communal space. And my vision would be that the little units could be either used for staff or residents, depending on the needs of how many people had more of a physical need that the whether you could have one caregiver take care of a couple of people, or whether people need individual caregivers, or one caregiver could take care of three people or more, depending upon the population that was in the in the facility. And also there has to be flexible. There's flexibility for the needs physical, you know, the blindness, DEP, this, this kind of thing, the physical needs, or more extensive developmental disability, would need more. Other people might need less, but certainly they're going to need more than I think some of the places like they're building, Charles River is building where people can basically live independently, but they need a few hours of staff help and and that whole apartment complex is something Jason could never handle, because his needs are greater than that. And as people age, they're going to need more too. So someplace that he could age in place would be important. I would hope it would be a viable option for people who live grew up in Wayland to stay in their familiar community, near their family. I know that that people now generally have to move far away, many towns over to get into a home situation. And there, I'm sure, has to be rules about choices of which residents could live there. And I know there's sometimes, there's different waiting lists for if you're in town or out of town, and I would hope that it would be available to Wayland residents. I really do see this this. My dream for this place is for people who need more supports than an option, where somebody can basically be independent and needs a little extra supervision. And I would like it to be able to serve people with all kinds of physical disabilities, and the whole building should be accessible, where the different living units maybe have have the flexibility that they could be for staff or residents, and I would see that the places As fitting into a quiet residential setting, really, the neighbors would kind of hardly know they're there, or they would be good neighbors that they're basically would probably be out out much of the day and just around quietly in the neighborhood, and that that's sort of the my vision of things right now, particularly I'm noticing, but JJ has a super few catheter again, and, and I have to be with him, 24/7, until his medical situation gets cleared up. And that's going to be a long process. And, and if I weren't around, you know he would need almost institutional care this point, and I'm hoping he can get back to a point where, you know, and affects the plan. We've got a really good surgeon and everything, but he's going to get older too, and so we're all these, these people. So again, for me, flexibility and being able to stay local is important. That's about what I have to say. Thanks. Any questions anyone has awesome? Tom Fay: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. So what I'd like to do is open up to the committee members and ask them if they have any questions of TC or Stephanie on on the topic.
Katherine Provost: No, no questions. Just thank you both so much for advocating. It's really important to hear and really helpful to hear. I appreciate your input. Unknown: Thank you, John Thomas: John, so TC, I had a question for you so you correct me if I'm wrong. So your daughter was being served previously in a residential model that wasn't working out. So I hear that Unknown: correctly here. Only her first year out of Perkins, okay, and then she was living at home, okay? John Thomas: And now, now she's living in a Charles River staff on bot. So that's the group home on Boston. Impostor. So can you talk a little bit about the the previous one year model and why that wasn't working out? What? What were some? What were some of the issues, the challenges that it really wasn't meeting for your daughter? And could you also talk about you mentioned that you were receiving, your daughter was receiving some state funding through a state agency. Could you talk about how much that was, or if there were any other means of support that she was receiving, any other public funding streams? Unknown: Okay, well, when she was transitioning from Perkins, there were two options for her, because she was blind. She could go with the mass commission for the blind, deaf, blind extended supports unit, or she could go with DDS. So essentially, the deaf, blind extended supports units and MCP are DDS for blind people and deaf blind people. I didn't know the difference. I was pretty naive, but the staff at Perkins recommended to go with the mass Commission for the Blind. I think because there was a little bit more money at that time there, I don't think that is that continues to be true. I believe the total amount that she was getting was probably around $120,000 a year, and I think it costs a lot more than that now to support her. I some of that information is that freely given to families, yeah, but the reason that that first placement failed, I think, on both sides, was that they could not meet her medical needs. She was having some intense neurological symptoms, and they were not staffed for that. There was no nursing component, as there is where she now lives. And on the very same day that I called our case manager at MCV and said, you know, they they can't take care of her. They called and said, We can't take care of her. So it was mutual agreement that that the placement just couldn't work for her. What they had to offer. John Thomas: Were there other residents who were deaf, blind or, Oh Unknown: no, no, it was a very small group home. There were only three other women, and their problems were primarily mental health. Mental Yeah, Tom Fay: Jean, any comments or questions in your question? Thanks for joining us in person. Unknown: Ah. You're going to lose your
world, not at this time, but thank you very much. Sure, sure. Thank you. TC, yeah. So the main thing is, deaf, blind people have no place to live so that they can access the world and life, and there needs to be some physical plant alterations, but it's primarily a staff training and culture of the house issue. Tom Fay: Thank you very much you see, and thank you, Stephanie, appreciate it. I think what I do next is invite members of work Inc forward and because of the technology, turn this computer back and forth, hopefully without losing connection.
So with us is Jim cassida Sure And Sharon Smith, thank
Unknown: you. Are you appearing in that screen? Can you see? Yeah, we're used to having it. Tom Fay: So welcome to both of you and to committee members. As I've indicated before, I've reached out to different organizations that are involved in the topic that we're exploring as a committee, and the organization's list provided to me by Brian bossier, who's new to the committee. And again, welcome Brian, and it so happens I met Mr. Ca many years ago. Unknown: Of project. We remember Tom Fay: a project in the city of Boston, and I'm so glad you're still doing the work you're doing. So what I'd like to do is ask you do is use yourselves tell us about the organization and how you think, well, maybe provide us information that'll be helpful to us, to help us do our work. Unknown: Well, thank you for having us. It's It's unusual for city to a town to invite an agency to talk about building a group home. I was around 50, 4050, years ago when we couldn't do that. I was the working was established in 1965 and I worked 21 years for another agency prior to working, and the institutionalization was happening, but you had to get local cities and towns to approve it, etc, etc. Long story shot that's all changed. That's all changed now, anybody who wants to build a group home must abide by the local, city or towns regulations, as if we were just a normal family. And that's what's that's what's happening today. Matter of fact, I I bought some plans. I'd be happy to show them. We had an experience in Methuen we we've been we've had a group home in Methuen mass for over 40 years, and the clients aging out, and it's not accessible. So we wanted to build a new group home on that site, which our architect had plans for, but we had to go to the Selectmen in MA doing because we needed a 10 foot variance, 10 feet from from me to that chair, and it was we didn't meet the variance. We recorded no so now we're probably going to sell that home and relocate somewhere else. But I want to thank you for allowing Sharon to talk about the history and I've been at working 26 years. Sharon's been working 17 plus years. 19, yeah, so, so, interestingly enough, I started in 1979 and working open the second group home. So and I lived in a group home. My husband and I for five years. I, like we both worked on our social work degrees, so it has changed a lot, and it is a flip, as Jim said, so I can anticipate some of the questions you're thinking about. So, you know, listening to TC, if you were a Tom that decided you were going to build a home for deaf, blind, or for deaf, or for people with, you know, with medical and intellectual disabilities. You know, doing what you're doing is great, but you need to reach out for a state partner, the state partner needs to be committed early on. So whether that's MCB, whether that's DDS, or any other state agency, they the more that they can be part of that process, even if you're looking at braving funding, if you're looking at leveraging HUD funding, or any of the facility consolidation funding that's about you really need somebody who's going to help you understand how to leverage and brave that funding together and get a committed partner. We have a picture here because I was saying to TC, we opened a group home during covid, that neighborhood housing work really built and released from them. And it was designed by a Deaf architect, and it's for Deaf, five deaf individuals, one who's deaf, blind, and it's, you know, the whole house had to be constructed to be DEP friendly, which is very different than a regular group home for people who have intellectual disabilities. Because you have an open four floor plan, you need to be able to have all of the assistive technology in there. You know, at the get go, it's it's good to bed, shake all that stuff. Yeah. So you want to be able to customize what you're doing, have it get a good state partner, but then understand what, when you go with that state partner, what the constraints are. So for example, if you go with DDS, they're fund that they received 50 cents on the dollar from the center of Medicaid studies. So that means you're under those CMS rules. You can look up the final rule, CMS Final Rule, which talks about segregation, and no longer can you have group homes with 10 people. Four. There are still a few campus settings in Massachusetts, but they can't be replicated today, because it's all about community access. You know, are they segregated? We just got approved a duplex, which was four and four, because DDS has such a dire need for housing that, you know, it was unusual, but we were able to do it so it can be done if, if that's a structure you're thinking of, and you know, they that you just, you know, you fall under those rules. So you want to know MCB is great to deal with, because they usually just say, what is DDS paying you? And they replicate that. We have a few, but not many. And the way DDS funds, it is not by the person. It's called the AltR model. So if you have a medical model, you get this chunk of money. You have a, you know, DEP with or a highly clinically intensive so say you're having people who are prioritized because they have behavioral issues that's going to be funded at a high level. So the composition of the group is very important. Listening to to the woman who just spoke, I could barely hear, but what I think I heard is a lot of her son has a lot of medical issues. And, you know, medically fragile, they do have group homes that are have an AltR model for medically fragile, where we're going to build one. We have land in Dorchester. We have a home in Brockton. People. It's, you know, people are aging, they have dementia. It's like a day nursing home, really. And so we're going to reconstruct it, but a medical model, making it more accessible. TC was talking about the staff training and culture, and that's really important, because, you know, whatever population you decide to pick, you want to make sure that it they're going to receive the funding to have the staffing that will be that will be trained, and it's A challenge that we have in our industry, we have difficulties hiring. And we've, we've, we had a hard, you know, coming out of covid, our residential programs got hit hard. I mean, they were closed. People stayed there. But we literally were doing 24/7 and with like, a 35% vacancy rate, we're out from under that. We've we've done a lot to improve that, but because of staff challenges, DDS is moving a lot to its technology. So they call it like remote support monitoring. We're looking at a system we just learned about putting some cameras in common areas of some of the group homes where there's heavy behavioral issues, so that there's never a question about what just happened, as we can see it, and we're kind of going to have to advocate with the state for that. So you really want to pick your if you're looking at the constituents of Wayland, you know, who's your state partner, and then you're going to have to really advocate, because what the state does is they prioritize people who, you know, who has the most need. And if they're going to pay for it, you need to get a commitment. It's Wayland citizens because, you know, it's they'll say, here are the referrals. We have you close referral process. Yeah, it's a closed referral process. We opened a home in Kingston, you know, down by Plymouth mass, and we were able, because we worked with the state from the very beginning to say, we we really want people. We knew we were going to have some neighbor hood problems, because these were high end homes. And so when, when they came out saying or no group home in our neighborhood, we were like, Hey, these are your brothers and sisters. These people grew up in Kingston, grew up in Plymouth. Here are their parents, and it made a big difference. But we have a long term cooperative relationship with our state agencies, so you really want to, once you decide early on, you know, look at maybe even getting a consultant in who really knows the housing market in terms of HUD money, community better? No, do you have see? What is it called? Yeah, community based, block lane, right? That that money, home money, if it's DDS, they can sometimes leverage. FCF, which is, can be 50 cents. I mean, 50% of the cost. There's also the 40 B. I don't know how many affordable units existing in this town, in Wayland, but if all of our units are affordable, I'm sorry, unaffordable. And the state gives you a credit, a grant for that, your money every year because of the number of units you create. Can you talk about your organization overall? Yeah, I'm sorry I got right into
all this in housing. You do other things. We have 24 planning. Three more. We'll have 27 we do. We used to be the lot. We used to be the largest sheltered workshop in the Commonwealth working. We had over when I started working. 26 years ago, over 350 people with disabilities were coming into working, to work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds and I, I agree now I didn't agree at first. I agree now that I designed a building. We designed a building in Dorchester to hold to house, sheltered work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds said to the states, not just to Massachusetts. We didn't. We de institutionalized in the 60s, and what you did was re institutionalize the same people in the community. So they they tell the states, and Sean was on the committee when we went to the state and we got Massachusetts to give $20 million to the agencies that were running these shelter workshops. We still support the same number of people. It's now called Community Based day support. They'll come into the building. We'll help them with their resumes. We'll help them find work well. We're also the largest employer of individuals with disabilities in new Wayland. We have we support about 1200 people. Our main offices in Dorchester. We have offices in Fitchburg, certainly, Rhode Island, Springfield, and what we The other thing we do, we take pride in this. We're a little worried about it. We have about 16 and a half million dollars in federal money, and I'm concerned about that situation, believe it or not, in the 1930s a federal law was passed called the Javits o day act, J, O, D, at the time, it was for it was only for people who were deaf at the time, blind, DEP, blind. The law was amended in 1971 and the loss says that if the federal government needs help, and if individuals who are now disabled, deaf or blind, can provide the help, the Feds must hire them, not May, must, is the most important word of legislation. So as a result of that, working provides total facility management, custodial services, full food services in the native Army Research Lab, IRS, and we have about 130 folks with disabilities working. And what I love about that is these folks, before they went to work, were probably supported by us, but, but, and I'm not saying that's not that's still good. Social Security, disability, food stamps, snap the whole bit. When they get a job with the feds, they get paid for the work they do, not who they are. So how people are making like, $27 an hour, and they're off the door and they're contributing about 7000 a year their own taxes. So that's that's one of the major things of working done with a lot of individuals with disabilities. We also have at our main office, day habilitation. It's essentially a day hospital, otpt, speech, nursing, and so long as those clients have a place to sleep at night, they'll be transported to work in about 830 or eight o'clock every morning, to leave at 330 to go to there, either they group home or back to their families. We're about a total budget is about north of 70 million and working. Also owns a for profit company that's very unique. Not many nonprofits own a for profit, and the for profit company that we own. It's called FM and M, facilities, management, maintenance. We're the stockholder that company. It's in existence to make money for the stockholder, and the company doesn't it's not a program. It's a business we want. That company is now doing about $17 million a year. We clean Boston City Hall, Boston police headquarters, mass art, rent them, Hogan Springfield, courthouse all over the state. And every money that any, any penny that the profits go right to working. And we purchased that company in 2004 2004 and we've generated about $4 million for working to plow. White back into its mission. We don't just do homes. We do a little bit of everything. We don't do behavioral health. I was in that business 20 years, and I got burnt out doing behavioral health stuff, that stuff I've been at working 26 years, and it's been, it's been a good one so far. So we have. We applaud you for inviting us in. Not only us are the providers too. We don't usually get invitations from local officials about, let's build a group home. That's really give me a lot of credit for that. And I told, I told, Look, I talk and dirt road. I looked around the site, big site. It's a big site. But I have a question, what? What's the town of wayland's criteria for single family homes? Is it one acre per lot? Is that what it is? I don't even know what it is, half acre depending on what part of town, but it's half acre on the south side, acre, acre and a half. So whoever, whoever will build a home, whatever provider comes in, they'd have to adhere to those same requirements, Tom Fay: unless it was, as you mentioned earlier, 40 B, then that might be different. Unknown: Might be different. And you can always get a variance to create more 40 B housing, Tom Fay: as is to be zone. It's only pretty Unknown: much the two structures. Okay, let me open up gene. Any questions for I guess, yes. Yes, I'm rather a novice in this area. I'm on this committee because I have a disabled child, so I'm not a professional in the field. Really started in the beginning here the people who work, I'd like to know more about the typical profile in what kind of conditions they have. You know that they're walking a line between, they need support, and they have some capabilities that allow employment. Can you paint a picture for me? And you know the characteristics of this group? Yeah. I mean, so Jim talked to you about our federal program, which is considered more like group supported employment, because people go in, they do their job, and there's always a supervisor, somebody who's trained by working. We also, last year, placed 230 individuals with disabilities into mainstream jobs in the business sector, whether it's five hours a week or 30 hours a week. And so the profile can be a person who has never worked before turning 22 doesn't have good work skills, might have other communication issues. Might be deaf. We do we will work with anyone if they have a desire to work. We we do customized employment. We do individual supported employment, and we do a lot of work around benefits, because a lot of families will say, I don't want my son to lose their benefits. But we can work this many hours, and then we work with the state agency on what types of needs. DDS will not fund a one to one job coach in perpetuity. So the profile is somebody who is able to, at least, you know, be on their own at certain certain points in time, even if they need a ride there and to be picked up there. But you know that the end result is they wouldn't need that one to one support long term, is that helpful?
I in my my my marketing person do a lot of work on trying to get the Commonwealth to identify this group of individuals in the state that could add benefits to the workforce. In this state, there's 400,000 individuals with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 60. That's when most people work. I'm above that, but that's okay. That's when most people work. The unemployment rate amongst that group is over 70% that means the rest of them are supported by us, and I vehemently disagree with that. You talk to a person, they don't want to stay home and sit on the couch and watch TV all day and get their benefit check, because that's that guarantees them a life of poverty. To which one to get this legislature to pass a law similar to the federal law that would mandate, if a business gets a contract with the Commonwealth of mass to do custodial trash pickup, telephone call centers, anything to mandate that a certain percentage of the people they hire must have a disability, that would get them off the door and give them a. Quality of life that they would never have experienced otherwise. So that's another big thing that we try to do. It's really a challenge. I'll give you an example. A young friend of mine has autism. He's in his early 30s now. He studies medieval literature, has a college degree has real interpersonal difficulties. Sure can't hold them a job. My guess is, you folks can figure out something. Well, we actually can hold on for a sec, yes. And then the next person you look at, and he's doesn't have any physical problems, right? And then the next person may have profound perhaps, is lacking upper limbs, you know, has flippers or something. I just trying to figure out handling all these variables requires a lot of effort from an organization, and I just trying to figure out how you folks do that, and what that would mean for us in terms of creating a housing situation for such a highly varied group of people, like, how would we plan to meet their needs when they're so different from each other? You know, it was only eight years ago that DDS funded people with ASD that wasn't funded. We were Autism Spectrum ASD, non ID, they call it. But I think you have to think long and hard about how varied your population is, because the more varied your population is, it's going to drive the staff expertise that's needed. So what we've done is we have a separate program for folks that are ASD, non ID. We have pre engagement, college navigation. We have a work program and a drop in center. So we the staff, specialize in that group of people, college grads, that have such strong anxiety disorders they they can't work. And then we have our other employment services are for folks with intellectual disabilities that, you know, we come we use a lot of customized employment, and that means somebody might not do the whole job, but we know an employer and we can we know that individual can do 50% of the job. So we're really trying to say, Can they come in and do that 50% and you'll never have to worry about that. So it's really taking the models and applying them to the people and how we've done it to be successful is we've segmented those specialties it's really hard to have. And actually, DDS doesn't fund folks with ASD non ID unless they get a residential waiver, and that they would be tough behavioral issues. So we would never put to behave people that present with significant behavioral challenges, with two people that are medically vulnerable or aging, because that is not good, and the staff have to split their specialties. You want to be able to focus on teaching your staff, whether it's the behavioral principles, or working with ASD, is very different, and so that's the approach we've we've taken. We have a lot of micro kind of micro concentration programs within the agency. Is that reflected in the housing people are with one group for their coaching and training on that they're probably living with the same people in their coaching. No, no, I would never want to work with my husband. I live with them. So we have, we purposely try not to have people be together 24 hours a day, because nobody wants that, right, and people are different. So you want to give people choices. You could conceivably have a great group home here in Wayland with five people, and they could all go to different day programs, our day situation jobs too, right? Or different jobs. And we do have a community based day support. We have about 80 people, and they're out in the community all the time doing volunteer work. That's job preparation. So we have over 24 volunteer sites that we're working on of Dorchester, those. So somebody might spend a lot of time volunteering, but no, the match is really, really critical. The matching of the people, the specialty of what you're going to focus on, like TC said, the training for staff who work with people who are deaf, blind, are very. Different than the training of somebody who has ASD and an intellectual disability and is aggressive or is eloped, and you you want to have people be complimented, and you know, some people don't like male female homes, our homes, some are male, some are female, and some are mixed. Some, some compositions do better with a couple of women in the house, and, you know, a few men, and everyone has their own bedroom. So Bill, did you have any question that
Bill Adams: I put a whole bunch of chat questions in the chat. Should I read them out one by one? Yeah, yeah. Unknown: So my first Bill Adams: question was, could you explain a little bit more about what a closed referral system is, and how towns think about whether they would mostly support people who live in the town or maybe a neighboring town versus be open, and how the state thinks about supporting that type of work?
Unknown: That's a good question. That's a good so if, if this closed referral means that we have to get a referral from a funding agency to support an individual, if the town of Wayland has individuals with disabilities who say turning 22 there's a state there's a line item in the state budget called Turning 22 and that would mean that the individual from this town who wants to, who needs, not wants, who needs a supportive environment, like a group home, DDS would have to refer that individual to an agency that would be coming into, like work, Inc, any other provider, agency that's around town, and that that referral would go to the agency, with the preference being that, hey, this, this individuals, was born and raised in Wayland. It's 2022 we want to do a group home and Wayland. We want to refer that person to that particular provider. That's how that will work. Because we Bill Adams: kind of, does the state tend to be open to that type of thing, or is it a little unpredictable? Unknown: I, as chairman, said earlier, I think the first step for you all to do as town officials, is to contact the ConCom wall and say, we have a committee that wants to build a group home. They'd never hear that. Let me tell you, they seldom hear that from from any town official, and I think they'll be very receptive to come in and meet with you and talk about sort of the same types of things Chairman and I have been talking about and Ed Augustus. Ed Augustus is the state. What you know? You know statewide person in charge of housing, but, and then the who's the new EOH, HHS, Commissioner, Secretary. He spoke about Jailyn place, but Melanie used to be, He's the doctor, and he used to be in charge. He was the Deputy Commissioner for EOH HHS, and that EOH HHS actually is over 50% of the state budget. The $62 billion state budget Human Services comprises about 33 billion of that. So there's a lot of resources there. And that would be the first outreach to the state. You have a you have a lot of land, you want to designate it for a group home. I think they'll be very receptive to coming in and meeting and talking to you all about that bill. Other questions. Bill Adams: So my next I'm going to put all three together. But one is like, what happens if a whole can't be sustained financially? Like, what if you run out of money or it doesn't work? And then what are the best predictors of financial stability, like, what are the components that make you likely to be stable and have long term success? And then finally, what might happen if the federal dollars disappear? Like, I'm experiencing that at my academic home, the money just disappears. And what would happen if that happened?
Unknown: Yeah, the state is actually looking at their waiver is going to open with CMS, and they're looking to look at ways to not protect that. But what's going to happen if they lose that 50 cents on the dollar? So we don't have an answer for that, but the best predictor of success and sustainability is a strong partnership with DDS, a strong partnership with a an organization that has good financial you can just look up their 990s that they're financially stable, and that the home itself has a good composition. Regardless of the level of disability, DDS has to place priority one people. So if you have a son or daughter and you want them in this home, but they don't get then. Not eligible for DDS services, people need to start now getting them eligible for DDS services, because they'll say, that's great. You want Wayland constituents, but we have these priority people, and the funding goes there. Bill just working is in every federal site, and unfortunately, the JFK, like we do complete facility management at the JFK Library, we have 17 individuals with disabilities work there shut down, has caused the library to close, and we've had to lay off those people and make sure they get the unemployment, and then when the Feds decide to reopen, they'll get retroactive pay, and we'll figure it all out. But those are all the situations we deal with, day in and day out. And not every federal site closed. Though our GSA sites, we do the tip on nail building, the McCall MC building in town, town, the federal courthouse, what's name in the courthouse, the downtown. We manage all those buildings and this, they're still open. They're still open. It's called essential so, but it's, it's, we always have to take, take a look at our funding sources. And rumors. Has it that the state's going to run into a couple of tough fiscal years because of the federal money that they're losing, and the tax, the tax revenue, is a little down. 50 years I've been in the business. I've been through the ups and downs of it all. We still, we still survive. That's what they asked to do, that housing is needed more of a demand. So I think, you know, you just have to, I don't know who the regional director is in Wayland for DDS, but that would be the person you would reach out to, and they might have a housing person who could help you, but that's where I'd start if that's the route you're going. So I bought the plans, but this is, this is a eight bedroom home, and you know, we would have done this, your son would probably
be able to support this is 884. And four. Okay. Did you build it? Not yet, because Bethune voted against us,
but the plan was for you to buy the land and build, we own the land. We had a home on it that's old, and we would have, we were one of the variants. We would have relocated the five individuals were living there. Temporarily knocked the house down, build this home. But unfortunately, we lost the we lost the free to choke. We had to get free A's, and we didn't get it. So it's a split level home, so that folks are aging, and it's just they need something. Still, other questions. Bill Adams: Sorry, I'm asking all the questions, but so I also represent the neighbors, right? And so I think there's a lot of concern, mostly from people who don't have any experience in this space, like what to expect, what it might look like, what it might do to the value of their homes and the land use and stuff like that. And so what do you say to neighbors, to you know, give them confidence that that this is a positive relationship and that it it's ultimately works well in most of your experience. And I know you've been through this a million times, so I'm just really like to hear from you what you say to neighbors to reassure them that this is a good thing. Unknown: Well, one of the things I've done over the years is invite, invite anybody who has concerns like you just expressed, come visit several of the homes that we're currently in and and talk to the neighbors who live next to our homes.
Talk to the neighbors who who are neighbors of our existing homes. And usually, and I'm not putting our neighbors down. But usually our homes are well manicured. Look better in no home we we working manage, would be a home. Would be home. I wouldn't live in myself. We have beautiful homes, and it's easier to raise money for the bricks and mortar than it is to get the state to pay for the services bricks and mortar. There's a lot of money out there from HUD, Federal Home Loan Bank grants, financing it yourself, that type of thing. But in this case, if you all are setting aside land, one of the biggest costs to build a home is the land, and that's that's a great asset to consider having. So there's also a lot of research online, because group homes have been around now since the 70s. And so you can just Google property values and group homes, and you'll see that over overall, you know after all these years, that sometimes the group home is the nicest home in the neighborhood, because we're held to. Level of scrutiny that, you know, other we could live right next to somebody that had 10 cars because they have teenagers and they don't mow the lawn. We can't do anything about that if we don't mow our lawn, you know, they they drop a dime. So we, we, you know, I think most provider agencies in the state take very good care of the homes. Other questions, Bill,
I yield my podium. Thank you. Thank you. Sean questions, right, not at this time. Catherine, good Stephanie questions, no, no, it's been very helpful. Thank you. What is the largest number of bedrooms in one of your facilities are five? Now five, five, so going to eight will be four and four, two separate. It's like taking two homes and having it an entrance, and then you go into right so there, but, but there, I imagine there's some economies of scale for you in this they function totally separate, like two five person group so it would have two House managers, two overnights. They function totally separate. Okay, it's interesting that you don't anticipate this. We were shocked that DDS gave us approval. These have not been approved in years and years, but their housing needs are so much so this is impressive setting project. No, there's been some in the north, in the up where you live, Jim, so you just can request it up front. And I think they'd even allow you to do if you had enough land, you could do five and five, because it's literally two group homes. But, you know, we were lucky.
So I have a question. You drove by the property I did today? Yeah, so I drove up that dirt road, and I said, I hope I can turn around. I probably got to the top of it. I did turn around and go back out. We look like a big forest. To me, that's all it Tom Fay: looked like. So the property is between two commercial districts, the chituit District and Wayland Town Center. And if when you buy property and you think about building, you look for certain type of residents to live in a certain type of area of the town. Follow me. In other words, do you I use the word discriminate? Of my individuals might be best to live in this area because they're close to the commercial area versus not, Unknown: not really, but we, that's why I drove up there earlier today, to look at. We look for, is it, is it? Is it close to where you all want to live? It's close to a shopping center. Is there on a bus line? Is it on transportation? And, quite frankly, I don't see any of that at all, right? So which would mean we would have to, if whatever provider comes in, they would have to provide significant transportation, a couple of vans. A lot of our homes have one or two vans every every day, because most likely, during the day, the individuals who live in that home are going to have to either go to work in a job or go to a day program somewhere in the in the area. And I don't, I'm not familiar with the Wayland geography in terms of our other services. It doesn't Suburban. Doesn't have any other value over a city. You know, if you have folks that are independent, you can use public transportation. You don't want to put them out in a place they don't have it, so you would be placing people who would need rides anyway, so they're not losing anything. Somebody who could have access should live where they can grab the bus or the tea or something like that. Tom Fay: And in the communities where you operate, homes are there volunteers and local community to participate in the operations or assisting residents, or not Unknown: necessarily, not really, no, the neighbors will come to our cookouts, and we'll invite them in. They'll to meet the residents who live there. They get to know them. We're part of the neighborhood, and that just like everybody else, but not really volunteer part. A provider could solicit volunteers and but it's stringent in the state now, they have the laws. They have to be Corey, fingerprinted, all of that. But it wouldn't preclude them. We just don't happen to do that.
Tom Fay: Any other questions or comments by members of the committee? I. Well, we really appreciate you coming in this evening. You're doing great work, and have many years, and you both should be admired as the entire organization. Thank you, Unknown: and this is wonderful. I spent most of our time fighting towns, fair housing labor. So this is like astounding. Jim told me, I said I didn't believe it, but we went to Methuen, we met with all the neighbors who've been our neighbors for 40 years at that house, and we asked him to come to the meeting with the Selectmen. And they all vote, they'll, they always answered, We don't want the house there. No, they wanted to stay the way, to go away, but exactly. But this house will be built somewhere, guarantee, maybe. Yeah, thank you again. Take care. Why don't we next move on.
Tom Fay: So why don't we move on to Item four on our agenda, which is consideration of the minutes that were in the packet for September 3, 2025 meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second of the motion? Second, any discussion on the motion? Hearing? None all those in favor of motion. I'll go one by one. Stephanie, yes. Catherine, yes. Bill, yes. Brian, Hey, John, yes. Gene Yes. And Tom, yes. That is a unanimous vote. Appreciate that. So the next thing I'd like to do is move on to Item five, which is just an update on the request for information that was completed and placed out on the central register and a deadline of October 16. Bill Whitney was instrumental in completing this with input from John, as well as our own comments, any questions in the process or for the content,
Unknown: look great too. It was great.
Tom Fay: Well, I'll pass those kind of words on to Bill, and let's see what what comes of it. So the next item on our agenda is, is to meet with neighbors at seven o'clock. But before we break, since have a few minutes, I wanted to open up discussion to any ideas people have on organizations and like to hear from or anything they'd like to accomplish that we're not doing that we think would be a good idea for us to look into or discuss in detail as we do our work, any just open it up to anybody.
Unknown: I try to get a fair amount of time thinking about creating a mental model for making this decision by inquiring. You know, how do you group people? What are the variables? That's a tough one. People who don't work in the industry. How do you make that decision? Yeah, how do you decide? You know, all I've looked at statistics and how many people in the Commonwealth have each different kind of disability, and they're all meritorious. They're all under housed. You know, it's, it's not like we can identify one group and say, for some reason, this group has really been left out. I'm really having a hard time just sort of building a decision model for this? Yeah,
yes. Stephanie, Stephanie Lynch: well, maybe if we could design for the widest possible, you know, variation of what might come through and that we could support as many people who need extra help as possible with accessibility and flexibility.
John Thomas: Can I just ask a question? Stephanie, are you are you suggesting the widest possible variance for people living in the in the eventual home? Or are you talking. About casting a wide net for different types of models,
Stephanie Lynch: a model that would would would serve the needs of a variety of different people coming through that that need the support so they would need extra, extra help. It might be due to a medical or an intellectual thing, but that the facility would be structured in such a way that it could be the spaces could be adapted. They would be accessible and they would be adaptable. For instance, that they could serve a caregiver or a resident could live there. So you could have more caregivers or less caregivers, depending on the population that that happened to be living there at the time. Unknown: It sounds like it is tricky, though, like we heard
Brian, I was just gonna say it seems like we have to focus on, I don't know how we choose the group. We have to focus on one population group, and that may be dictated by WHO, WHAT agency is interested in doing this. If this developer who can make this happen, we may have to fall in line with that. Tom Fay: So Brian that that comment is contrary Stephanie's point, I think. But Tom, but Brian, from what you've seen of the group homes that you're you've come in contact with, are there homes that follow Stephanie's suggestion, I mean, a variety of individuals with different disabilities, or is it more of a just from what the president, Unknown: right? I'd Stephanie Lynch: like to clarify a little, because I don't think it's I think we're pretty much saying the same thing. Okay, the funding is going to determine the population too. No deed. If it is, we're going to work with DDS, then we would want to have people who fall under DDS funding, so that it all works together, John Thomas: right? There's a wide variance within DDS, yeah, yeah. That's, I guess, Stephanie, that's what my question to you was, because even within DDS, I mean working sounds like and from my experience, my past experience, they work primarily with DDS, but within DDS, there's a an entire array of people. And I think their presentation tonight was suggesting very similar to their their work programs. You really do want to focus your specialization on a particular group of people. That's that's the way you maximize your getting your biggest bang for the buck. So you don't want to necessarily mix people that are behaviorally challenged with people that are medically agile use their so I guess that's what I was trying to get you to, sort Stephanie Lynch: of, yeah. I don't think we'd be serving that group that behaviorally challenged.
Katherine Provost: I guess I'm I'm in Brian's court in that, it seems to me like it's going to be very difficult for us to dictate what population we want to serve, seems to me like that's putting the cart before the horse, and we've got to put out the request for proposals and see what comes back, and see what team is the most capable and competent, financially stable, and then try to, you know, highest and best use for what we have in Wayland. You know, we don't have easy access to transportation, that kind of thing. At the same time, we're talking about maybe building five units for much, for a population with much more intensive needs, versus maybe, you know, 12 to 14, for a population that doesn't require placement or involvement with DDS, but I don't think we're going to be able to dictate that. I think we have to wait and see what comes back to us once we put out the RFP, unless I'm missing something, Tom Fay: John, you made a comment in a prior meeting about one of our goals being might want to be making sure we serve the families of Wayland. So, you know, is that a consideration that we that we need to think about, you know, and
Unknown: thought on that, I think a project that would serve family of Wayland might be just a straight Ada, accessible building like, for example, most of the condos and stuff around here, they're townhouses. They have big thresholds. There's no adaptable kitchen. There's a big curb to get into the shower. Or the halls aren't wide enough, the doors aren't wide enough. You know, we don't have enough to sort of basic housing for people who have mobility issues, no matter what their age is. And I, you know, since we have potentially two lots here, I find myself thinking, Well, do we want to do maybe a 40 B, friendly, I don't know, project that's all ad a apartment building, you know, where people have with mobility issues, and maybe we able to have some apartments that have the things for people who can't hear because they they're easily wired into the building. So we have some for deaf people. Have some for blind people, we have some for people who have to use a locker wheelchair. But I just don't know how we're going to be constrained by the law. You know, because of all this concern about Luke and people together treating them badly, it would be more like Independent Living apartment building that could accommodate people who, time and time again, can't get up the steps to the porch.
John Thomas: So just back to Bill, one of the questions that you were asking the working people, which I think you know, their response, I think we need to heed. So you were asking about indicators that would signal what would help ensure for the financial stability of whatever program ends up, you know, going on to the site. And their answer, which I firmly concur with, is that you need to look at what's going to be the the provider of the funding for the operation, the operational budget moving forward. And their answer was that it really behooves whoever is doing this. RFP, I guess that's us to reach out to some of those funding sources, if it's going to be DDS, if it's going to be some of the other state agencies, to find out what the level of interest would be in putting together an RFP that would serve a group that they could, in turn, get behind in terms of providing the operational dollars moving forward. Because, like they said, you know, the brick and mortar is kind of the easy part of this whole puzzle. It's really the operational budget moving forward five years, 10 years down the road, that's what's going to determine whether or not this is going to succeed. Bill Adams: That's definitely what I heard from them. Is the partnership part is really important, and that will help us choose, right? So I think we could be a little bit constrained in terms of we're looking for kind of what was described at the town meeting, two group homes were fairly and people in need of quite a bit of support, right? And within that, it could be all kinds of different types of support that people need, but focusing a little bit like that can be helpful. And then we put it out and and we could be even a little competitive. We're going to be so unusual that we're a willing partner, that people might be able to work with us in a way that they wouldn't with others. So we might get a better partnership out of that, because people really want that to work, and we could use that to our advantage. So I agree that we can't, we can't be wide open, but we also need to be somewhat focused. I agree.
Tom Fay: So John, we've heard from some organizations during our meetings that seem to provide the whole package, right? And come in, they can, they can build, and they already have existing relationships with governmental entities for funding purposes. And then some of those organizations, their residents, are funded through private monies. Do you see value in in going with an organization like that, given the town doesn't want to be the administrator necessarily, of of these homes, John Thomas: yeah, no, I I think that would be the organization that you would want to go to. But I think at the same time, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it would be important to reach out to some of the funding, the eventual funding sources for whatever structure some of these organizations are going to put together. I mean, they are going to do the same thing. They are going to reach out if we express an interest in a particular. Proposal they're going to as I can guarantee, one of the first homework assignments that they're going to have is okay, let's talk to a funding source and find out who do they who do they need to serve? Who do they want to serve? Where is there the most need? Is it behavioral challenge? People? Is a medically fragile is it people in the autism spectrum who are also intellectually disabled? You know, where is the greatest need in this particular area, in this particular region, or area office, and they're going to work with that funding source to put together a proposal. I mean, it's, that's, that's going to be the response. So the extent to which we can have have our fingers and, you know, multiple places at the same time, I think we can do that. I think we ought to do that. That's, that's my opinion. Unknown: We do like the idea of talking to the funding agencies. If they're desperate, perhaps they're ready to innovate. You know, we could be a beta project as long as they're on board and they promise to support it. Yeah, I get I get way Catherine. Katherine Provost: I get nervous about state involvement and anything too novice, to be honest. I mean, I just think we could be looking at years of trying to assemble something that's too out of the box. And John, we talked months ago with DDS, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression from a Zoom meeting with four or five people from DDS is they were not at all prepared or comfortable telling us what we should be doing, right? I mean, it was kind of like you guys figure it out and then come talk to us. John Thomas: We also Catherine, if you remember, we were talking to people from the central office, and then we were talking to people from the region, and we were also talking from the area director, and the person from the people from the region and the area director are really the people that are going to be the boots on the ground in terms of making decisions about any kind of program moving forward in the town of Wayland, the people from central office, I think, were very reluctant to commit themselves. Unknown: But if I'm so happy to hear you say that, yeah, John Thomas: or whomever the provides, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we decided that we were going to entertain ARPA from a DDS contractor, residential provider, agency like Charles River or work Inc, or Minuteman ARPA, whomever They're going to be calling DEP Johnson at DDS, Middlesex West Area office to establish a line of communication a guarantee, like I said before, they guarantee you who, who is coming online in this year's turning 22 class. You have a she has a turning 22 coordinator at the area office level, who has, they have a radar of everybody in this area who is going to be turning 22 in the next year, along with a whole list of what those people's needs are in terms of what they are going to need for residential programming, and what they're going to need for day services, what they're going to need for transportation, etc, etc. And so that's how agencies put together ARPA based on what they know is coming down the pipeline. So, I mean, I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is we're we're all novices in the sense that this is not something that municipalities typically do, as we keep hearing time and time again, the state said it right. The central office said it. Folks said it to us, these agencies are saying, Wow, what a pleasant surprise to have a municipal entity actually sort of reaching out. So I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is, I've said it before, we don't want to put the cart before the horse, but frankly, I think we're struggling to know, what is the horse, if the horse is going to be leading the process, you know, do we reach out to the agency? Do we reach out to the state? Do we reach out to people in town to gage what the need is of people in our own community that might want to live in this eventual structure? Katherine Provost: So, so going back to Tom's question about who we could bring in, does it make sense to bring in the regional director? And John Thomas: I think the regional or the area director would would be an excellent idea in my that's just my own personal opinion. Unknown: I would love which i. You John Thomas: could start with DDS, but we could certainly. I mean, if we're entertaining other constituencies, you could talk about the Mass Rehab Commission. You could talk about the Department of Mental Health. I mean, I'm not here to dictate who we ought to be thinking. But again, I'm also not wanting to put the cart before the horse. Katherine Provost: No, I agree, but, but if we're in the information gathering stage, bringing I love the idea of bringing in someone from DDS on the regional or area level, plus MRC. We refer people at the Housing Authority to MRC all the time. I think MRC is a great idea. John Thomas: Trouble is they don't have a huge amount of funding. They're not a residential funder. That's that's the problem. I mean, you know, I admire the work that they do, but that's, yeah, yeah. Katherine Provost: It was only did. It was only to get back to the question of, what's the what's the need, and what would it? I don't know. I don't know who can answer the question. I guess it would be the DDS Regional or area director. And Bill just asked, which is smaller, regional or area that is John Thomas: kind of large and area is the that's that's focusing and drilling Bill Adams: down that area seems more like what we want to hear about, I think. Yeah, John Thomas: well, they're going to be serving all the the, what we would call our contiguous towns and the towns in the MetroWest area.
Bill Adams: And is there a history of sort of regionalization of these, this work like, say, we partnered with three towns that abut Wayland, and then when they build group homes, they support our guys, and when we build them, we could support their guys so that we have a larger pool to work with, but not a huge pool. Does anyone ever do that?
Unknown: I don't know the answer to that. I've never heard of it. Great idea, though. Don't you think?
Tom Fay: All right? Well, certainly I think two ConCom provide days Day Services Bill, I think are serve individuals in the region. For example, I think Charles River has one in need it. So, so, to the extent this regionalization that that might be a model, but John Thomas: I think he's talking about, you know, people in the actual towns that want to sort of band together. It's Bill Adams: such a precious resource, yeah, being able to manage that little bit locally, if it's possible, but it does seem hard to do. Tom Fay: So why don't we take a quick break and convenient seven, and we'll continue our meeting. Okay? Great. Thank you. Bye.
Unknown: We need that camera's
not on yet. Do we need the table? I to feel comfortable. Katherine Provost: Do we have a just one other question? What about someone from Smok coming to which is the regional housing authority coming to talk to us about what what type of developments they see that have worked well, what partners they've worked with? I think they're very involved in in and I don't, I don't even know exactly how, but we could figure out the right person at Smok who might be able to come talk to us as well. Tom Fay: Sure, yeah, I will reach out to them and see whether they are willing to join us. I will do that great. Thank you. So let's turn our attention to Item three of our agenda, which includes a conversation with inviting neighbors to the site, and we have some individuals here, welcome, and maybe individuals online. If so, we'll bring them on, see if I can do that.
Bill Adams: I did hear from at least one mark, Tom Fay: yeah, Robby. How can I bring Mr. Mettler over to the main meeting?
Unknown: I join
Bill Adams: if you get stuck, I have his email. I could probably email him as a committee member, but,
Unknown: okay, good. So Mr. Metrow should join us. Good evening. Mr. Metland,
Hey, Mark, can you hear us? Yeah, you've got me Excellent. I'm here. Tom Fay: Hi, Mr. My name is Tom Fay, welcome. Thank you for the meeting where listening to neighbors about this project, answer questions and listen to your thoughts. So I just ask each person go through and give us your name and address, and then we'll and then we'll get started. So you want to start? Unknown: I'm Allen Lapierre from nine High Rock Road. We abut the property.
Matthew McCall and 15 Woodridge road. I also bought the
property and Deborah lucky
or nine High Rock Road. You give us your address for
us on 13 High Rock Road. Tom Fay: Great welcome. I Yeah. So our committee put this item on the agenda to make sure we have an opportunity to hear your thoughts on potential projects here and your concerns and answer questions. So I open up to anybody who wants to begin. Unknown: Can I just jump in quick point order and just request that this committee endeavor to make the calendar up to date? It's not and it's very difficult to be involved. I've wanted to be involved, and I no idea when the meetings happen, and my only option, really is reading the minutes so you know, I understand that it was added to the agenda sometime in the letter that the the meeting was added to the calendar sometime in the last week. But, you know, I don't think that's enough time for us to stay apprised of the information that's being held here. Tom Fay: Not too good suggestion. What I'll do is make it a point to put in the minutes that the that and this will be in the minutes of the meetings of this committee going forward will be on October is a set meeting. October, 22 2025 from five to 8pm November, 6, 2025 from 11 to 2:11am. 2pm 1113, 25 from 6:30pm to 8pm and 1119 25 from 6pm to 9pm as far as putting them on the town website, it's typical that the agenda is created late, and once the agenda is created, then you then you post it and on the opine law, we have to do it within a certain number of hours part of the meeting. So. But Unknown: now that we have the dates the agenda aside, can we put the dates on that so that like on the calendar, so that I can check to see when the next Tom Fay: meeting is? I'll speak with the Tom the Select board's office, see whether we can do that. Thank you. So thoughts, comments on what you know, what you don't know. Question about the process. Comments you have. The floor is yours.
Unknown: I can I'll start this. I'm kind of, we're kind of coming late into the game here. So there's some information that we don't know. And one is, how many units are you thinking on this property, and how many? And I heard today, four to five people in a unit.
Tom Fay: It's undecided. How many units even how many structures? The Town Meeting Warren article authorizes a Select Board to build at least one structure to house individuals with disabilities. That's that's pretty much it might there be two possibly depends what the Select Board decides, the decision will be impacted by what our committee recommends. And I'm not sure what time you came in to this meeting, but our conversation just before we broke was kind of gave you a sense, I think, of how there are so many variables that we're listening to, considering so many groups that we've heard from, that it's really up in the air. Is a long phrase, but I would say really an open book. You know, it's really an open book. And if I do invite other members of the committee to respond to Alan's question,
Unknown: yeah, we're really an exploratory body. You know, I think of myself as an emissary to the greater community, ordinary citizen who's trying to figure out what this would mean for Wayland, and how we could for benefits of housing to the disabled and have it and be a blessing in the town. So I think at this point, we're really trying to talk to experts, bring experts in to explain to us how this world works. Books, where's the money come to help disabled people? Who are the people who know how to build buildings for disabled people, who are the people the companies that run management of these facilities and the right kinds of services are provided for folks, very exploratory, and at the end of the process, we're going to summarize what we learned and write to the Select Board and say, Okay, we did this sort of panorama. Look at all the vendors and all the government agencies and all the disabled people in the Commonwealth. And here's what we've learned. You know, here's the factors that when you the Select would start making decisions that you want to take into consideration.
Tom Fay: I will say, Listen, I'm sorry you want to say something though I was Bill Adams: just going to say, what I do keep bringing up, even though it wasn't written down, is what the town sort of voted on was two buildings with maybe five to six individuals that need quite a bit of support, so that that would include maybe one or two additional people who live there overnight and full time support those six people and so and then I also remember from the town meeting this commitment to build a building That's consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood that don't look dramatically different or, you know, largely institutional. So I keep bringing that up as a reminder to the committee that that was, even though it wasn't written down, that was what kind of what was discussed. And so that's my hope, is to keep advocating for that idea. But of course, the committee has more rain than you know that if they decide otherwise, Tom Fay: and to Bill's point, from from what I've heard, I invite a committee members to to comment. What we're hearing from the organizations that we have heard thus far suggest that, you know, homes with more than maybe four to six per home really doesn't, isn't effective. It isn't ideal for the residents. So essentially, smaller, better, versus a structure with with many more residents isn't I'm sure the state even would approve it, but just not effective. Unknown: I think all the models, including that most recent one, all of them look residential. They're not institutional. Yeah, Tom Fay: and the and the one resident and the one home for disabled individuals in the town is residential, looking home under 20, not far from the Cochituate, Unknown: the town. At the Tom meeting, it was approved for five to six individuals, both in each building Tom Fay: or in combined No, as Bill pointed out, the written word isn't that specific. We did speak about that, I spoke about, Unknown: that you presented information, right? Yeah, so it's five to six in the aggregate, plus that Katherine Provost: five, five to six per building in two buildings, right? Tom Fay: Okay, five to six per building, it could be only one building has to be at least Unknown: one it wasn't the second one. Have to be affordable housing if a second facility, second one could be an amendment to the warrant. Tom Fay: The amendment just wanted to make sure. Want to make sure that affordable housing, it was affordable so, so the one home could be would have to be Unknown: affordable. Follow me, so I'm don't follow. Can you clarify that. Sure so Tom Fay: the one home could would serve individual adult disabilities, but it would be affordable for the individuals who moved in there,
Unknown: okay, as opposed to capitalized Tom Fay: affordable housing or you pay on pocket only for people who could pay that apart. John Thomas: Okay? I mean, the general consensus is the population that I think, is the spirit of what it is that we're trying to do with, by definition, by almost any definition, would be a population that would be eligible for affordable housing, if, in the absence of a disability. In other words, anybody that's served, for example, by the Department of Department of Developmental Services, is making less than what the median income level would be, yeah, Unknown: but there's a lot more to it, right? Like, you know, if this, if something is qualified and designated as affordable housing within the fair housing, you know, act, then you know, then they're not, they're taking in. They're not able to restrict those residents to mentally handicapped or to being disabled in other capacities. You. Right? So one house may be able to be served this purpose that this committee is intended, but if this second house is to be qualified as affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, then it would be subject to different regulations, and there would be different individuals there. So restricting that just to mentally disabled or other disabilities is not necessarily, you know, a given. It's not something necessarily that would happen. I mean, it'd be subject to different limitations. All Tom Fay: right, so, just so I see I can follow you, suggested that the amendment of the article. Your concern is that Unknown: it, my reading of it was that if you had that, if it was a second house was to be built, a second structure to be built, that second structure would be affordable housing. And my understanding, and maybe it wasn't defined, and, you know, it was written in two minutes, but affordable housing, you know what the intent of that? You know amendment was clearly after was affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, which is different than, you know, what we would be doing. And, you know, frankly, entirely different agencies. I'll have to take a closer look. I think it was the intention was that if we couldn't build anything that Well, I guess I'm concerned that we don't know what the parameters are of this, you know, warrant at this stage, and I don't understand that maybe the amendment was a safeguard to make sure that, well, it wasn't a safety, it was an amendment. So it changed. It was, it was, if it was no group home built the town's going to build, subdivide or something. It would have to be affordable. So if we couldn't do what we're trying to do, then it would have to be affordable. I think that was the intent that would be. That would be the minimum required, right? John Thomas: If we couldn't do if we couldn't make a recommendation to serve the disabled population for whatever reason, which I frankly don't think that's going to there's going to be a barrier to that, based on what I've heard so far. If we hypothetically couldn't do that at a bare minimum, then the fall back would be that the property would be utilized for affordable housing. That's my understanding. Tom Fay: That's helpful. I think there is a good point, Matthew. So what we'll do is we'll explore that. If we need a Tom town council opinion on it, we'll get that. Unknown: So I guess with the floor, I would just say, you know, I appreciate the invitation to participate here and for, you know, to comment and ask questions. I think that, you know, I would reiterate kind of the the other, you know, some, some of what we else, we've heard in that it's difficult to provide comment and ask questions given how broad the net committee is cast. We've heard from, you know, about potential friendly, 40 B developments that would maximize the development on that land. We've heard about farms with livestock on them. We've heard about, you know, tonight's building, or structure or house, which would have individuals that are coming in and out with, you know, large transportation needs. So it's really difficult for us, or me to, you know, really wrap my head around what's going on here, or feel like I can make an impact, or, you know, participate in any way. So I guess where I would start, you know, is that, do we know one? Do we know that this project will benefit the residents of Wayland? And by benefit, you know, I mean in the sense that residents of Wayland would be living in these units that are being built. And if that's the case, then maybe we solve for that problem, rather than, you know, entertain, you know, everything else that's out there, and address and focus the efforts on the individuals that would be living in that in that those houses, if, in fact, this committee or the this project can't, you know, guarantee the that the housing will be used for residents and that the residents are subject to, you know, pooled lottery, like other members of the state or the community at large, I don't know then, where you know the benefit to The town is, and it seems to have gotten lost. So I'd like to get some you know, respect Tom Fay: on that well. In the end, the Select Board will make a decision on how they want to proceed with this land, and they they're elected to speak generally, to do what's best for. The for the town, so they'll make, they'll be the final decision makers on that. But regarding Wayland residents possibly living, it's a great point, and that's something that we've touched upon as a committee, and we'll continue to talk about it. For example, at some point, it's an ARPA RFI issue which limits the residents to individuals living in Wayland. Well, if that's the way we go, we may need to limit it to private companies committed to it versus Unknown: Well, state funded. Yeah, Tom Fay: right. So those are the rules right. State may say, no, no, we're not going to let you do that. We need. There are so many people in your region, they need to have access to this one. But, but if the if the rules permit Wayland to have an RFI request for ARPA or custom proposal where only Wayland residents live, and then, you know, that's what psych board might do. That may be what our committee recommends. So it's it's really unclear. And to your earlier point, I you know what you say makes sense. It's kind of hard for you to put your hands around this, because it's also hard for us at this point. It's just not there yet. We might be there in six weeks, and then it becomes clear. I think then people like you, neighbors, people close by can get your hands around it, and they will ask more pointed questions and raise your concerns. Unknown: So I know Bill Adams: at least in talking to Tom, he did describe at least two meetings with neighbors, the first one to kind of hear concerns and get them on the table, and then another meeting when things are more formulated, to respond specifically. So I think people are thinking that way. So I appreciate that it's under specified right now, but there'll be another chance to react to whatever more specifics the committee comes up with, too, and to provide me feedback along the way, which I'm happy to pass on at any meeting. One
Unknown: of the things I also wanted to ask about was, I guess I don't understand what these folks will be doing during the day. This was presented as an opportunity to engage these individuals and keep them in the community. But it's not really located near anything, and it's not a location that's easy to get to anything. It's one of the few that, I mean, does have a sidewalk. I mean, it's in terrible condition, but maybe, you know, that's part of this process is, you know, replacing the sidewalk. But beyond that, it's at least a mile walk for anyone to get anywhere. And that assumes that the individuals are, you know, able to, you know, to do that on their own. So I guess that was one of my thoughts. And like, how do you then get them into the the into the the community, in engaged with the community in a way that's not, you know, disruptive from a traffic standpoint. You know, we traffic backs up to Woodridge Road in both directions on a regular basis, and adding, you know, an institution that's, you know, moving people in and out on a regular basis, I think would be, you know, problematic. So some of the thoughts that I wanted to ask, no the Tom Fay: good questions, I think what we've heard from different individuals in the industry are that, depending on the nature of the disability, some individuals can work in the community. You know, human Wayland, as we heard from work, Inc, some work in courthouses, something work in state office buildings. They would get transportation there during the day. Some individuals go to Dave programs in the area. It depends on the nature of the disability. Individuals who have much more severe disabilities, they're they're less able to to work in certain environments. It kind of depends on the nature of the residents. Unknown: And has the committee explored traffic concerns? We're not. DEP, no, no. I mean, both roadways are listed as tier two by the state, so they require an audit at some point. Maybe it's something to do at this stage? Tom Fay: Well, since we haven't really gotten the point of knowing where we're going to recommend, that's kind of premature.
Unknown: How does this dovetail to the other big project that's going on down the street on 27 No, that isn't a Christian Academy. That's that have any impact on this? Nothing I'm aware of. I don't think we know what fair tax is doing right now, except they're going to do something.
I was referring to, the traffic scanning uptick, significant. Away Tom Fay: from that, it depends how big a operation,
Unknown: just like, just, Stephanie Lynch: just to comment, you know, for instance, my son, we live on Pine, on Hemlock, and he as part of his day program. And with DDS, there is a bus service that picks up people, individuals around Wayland, most, most of them are living at home, like Jason, and takes them to the program and brings them back. We can't get coverage for all the trips, but it's, it's a very, you know, buy it under the radar kind of thing, and it's all taken care of through his day program and his DDS,
Unknown: questions, comments. I had a question about funding and what happens to the organization and to the property and to the residents. If it doesn't work out, I think, you know, we in Wayland in particular should be ultimately, you know, particularly sensitive to these things. And we are a town of essentially closed storefronts. So, you know, I think that on some level, there's got to be an anticipation or plan as to what would happen if you know their funding does disappear. And, you know, I think it's two tier, right? It's the service funding, and then whatever you know, the maintenance on the property would be a separate fund, I assume. So, I guess what? How do you guys think about, you know, ensuring that the longevity of this organization, and, you know, yes, you can look at the the 990s for the organization and other filings, but not sure that that's really indicative of the service component of that in organization, and their ability to, you know, continue to get funding and dependency on outside sources. Tom Fay: Good question had to came up earlier tonight. I think I would expect the Select Board to place a restriction on land. Either we, the town, will find land lease to the organization that comes in and develops it or sells it outright. But if they do sell it, the property would likely have the DEP destruction. So if an organization went bankrupt or couldn't handle it, we would simply bring in another organization to an RFP to replace I think that in my mind, that's the model, I would say. But, but to your point, I think one of our jobs as a committee is to point out to the Select Board that the organization choose has has a good track record in this well financed
questions
Unknown: I ask a couple of questions for sure?
Is the intention that the town will continue to own the property and lease whatever it is that's developed to a developer and and collect rent over time, or is it intended to sell to developer with confidence for how they can develop the property unclear. Tom Fay: I think both options are around the table, but not nothing clear on that, Unknown: but to the point to the to the extent your question
Tom Fay: raises concerns about organizations taking advantage of the town. I'm confident the any agreement that is arrived at would prevent any undue
Unknown: I guess more that it's a loss of control at some point, right? So you you make a decision through this committee process. You choose a partner, and you sell the land, and you're out. And if it, if the project does collapse, at some point it fails, then we're back where we are today, with an abandoned property, you know, potentially. So that's one concern I had. The other question is, do you have it on your purview of you know what you're going to evaluate in this process speaking to local real estate agents to get a sense of the impact on a butters of the various types of projects. So if a project is two residential looking homes that house five to six people, each with one professional staying overnight. What impact might that be to the six direct abutters, or however many director butters there are, if it is one large building that's commercial and Luke in a large parking lot and houses 25 People, what does that do to abutter values? Is that a fair ask from the abutters to have that be something that you consider and seek professional advice from and report on it as part of this process. Tom Fay: All I'll say that is that one of the members of our committee is Robert Hummel. He's ex officio member, and he's a town planner, and you know some of the issues you mentioned. You know he to the extent we need it and give expert advice on on impacts. He certainly would advise us on on zoning relative to impacts on property values. I'm not sure that's something that we'll do a study on, but I'll leave it up. I open up that committee members on that topic. We're Unknown: not suggesting a commercial building with 25 units. I mean, everything we've talked about something that looks residential, it's relatively small numbers. So I mean, the Dallas river Foundation has that group home on behind coach grill. Coach grill, yeah, you wouldn't know noi. I mean, the neighbors were very concerned naturally in the beginning, and now, as far as I understand, they liked the being about us to this property. And you wouldn't know that these folks are there. They get transported to their programs during the day. And you know there is the ADU have some fans to take people to their destinations, but I'm not sure this has much of an impact on traffic.
Just a point. I the I can hear everybody great, except those of you who are on the committee who I can't see like I can see my fellow neighbors. I can see the folks who are remote. Can hear everybody fine when they speak. I just can't hear you guys very well at all. It's very muffled, so I didn't really catch the whole response to my question. You want to try it again? I was just saying that we're not suggesting commercial build, commercial looking building with 25 that seems excessive. I don't think anybody in this committee would recommend a development like that. Everything we're suggesting is similar to the picture that's in front of you. It looks residential as should have minimal impact on the surrounding neighbors. So it would be pretty similar to the Charles River foundation home behind coach grill, and most people don't even know that that exists in this town. And initially it was neighborhood opposition to that, and as far as what I've heard from people, the neighbors are accepting of it. Now it's worked out. It worked it's worked out for them. They feel like it's provides a service for these people, and it's not a problem. Which house is it? Out of curiosity, right beside folks theater. Okay, so it's on route 20. It's on route 20. Yeah, books and the high place,
but you would, nobody knows it's there. Katherine Provost: And that's Brian. Is that eight units or 10 units? I think it's 12. I think it's 12. Two actually, yeah, Unknown: 12 units, plus a manager, people, 12 people, yeah, and for over 15 years, 20 years, yeah. John Thomas: And that's something that's really, really tough to do these days. I'll just say, I mean, we, those of us who've been working on this for a little while, and people that have been interacting with the state, which would be the eventual funding source, getting anything in the neighborhood of that those kinds of numbers these days is almost impossible. It's really, really hard to get a congregate housing setting funded by the state for more than six people. You really have to have exceptions. That's why some of the examples that they were showing tonight, they were talking about, for example, a duplex with four people on one side and four people on the other. Even that's kind of unusual. So the trend is to keep the numbers smaller, to get away from the institutional model. So I'm just sharing that those are the trends. That's not necessarily what we're going to be advocating for or not advocating for. Unknown: Is that a trend based on the residents themselves, and what kind of works out better for them? Yes? Yes. Okay.
Bill Adams: My Mark's point is an important one. Like whatever possible designs we come up with, we should deliberately think about what evidence do we have from other similar developments that this won't impact the value of people's land surrounding you know, may not be able to do that officially, but as. Principle, we should come up with designs that have been shown to not impact neighbors, home values, and it does seem feasible. Have said,
Unknown: I think the comment was about setbacks, and I think it dovetails with the potentially, with the property value question, in that, if the property is encumbered by the town of Wayland in the sale, such that it, you know, has sufficient setbacks, I would imagine that that would provide, you know, you know, go a long way to offset any potential
discounting a property in relation to the neighbor. So, you know, with that said, I guess we would, as neighbors, advocate for, you know, a pretty substantial setback. You know, to keep this in fitting, as you said, with, you know, a house that is quiet and, you know, not really disruptive in the neighborhood. Jump all you like I'm glad I started. That's what I was thinking of. Is, what are the setbacks? Is it 100 feet? 200 feet? Did you know the answer? And is that something that, Tom Fay: if Robert was here, he could tell us like that, you know, Unknown: I know. Is it 30 feet? And I think 30. I think it's 30 feet for a side, side yard. And I don't know what it is, because what's the zoning in that area? Is it acres only? I think so, yeah, 222, acres, our 60. So I don't know what this side setbacks out what's our 62 acres, right? Yeah, so, I mean, I think we would comply with that. Noi, yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any special treatment. The only difference would be if
Tom Fay: it was a 40 B through the to the Select Board, and then, then there could be relaxation of those.
Unknown: Okay, it hasn't come up at all. They're still in Well, it did come up. We want to do this. It did come up, and it was advocated by by one of the members of this board, one of the seated members? No, Tom Fay: no, I mentioned that. Yeah, no, no, it's come up in this. Yeah, I stand corrected. It has come up, but we haven't seriously talked about, well, this is what we should know. We should recommend Unknown: this clearly what we want to do. Yeah, this is what we think. This is our goal. Not a 40 day, right, right? So going forward, do you have meeting with people like, Tom Fay: yeah, so if you our meetings are all online, so you can go to WayCAM and watch our prior meetings and minutes are also online, and a future meetings will be online as well. So you can't make it, you can watch them. Unknown: But do you have any coming up? Tom Fay: Do you have the meetings, individual meeting with people? Yes, like these companies, yes, yeah. So we have, we have organizations coming in on at least our next two meetings, like the next three meetings, these are organizations that are in the industry that can teach us about what experiences they have, what works, what doesn't work, from funding to, you know, neighborhood. Unknown: Are you concerned about government? You know, as far as the timing, current political environment? No, no.
One last question. I think it's outside the purview of this committee, but, or at least their mandate. But one of the things that I've struggled with is like, what's where the property came from, and the town's acquisition of this property through the foreclosure. You know, I think that there's should be some recognition, it seems somewhat, you know, ironic is not the right word, but that, you know, this individual was suffering from mental health. Town condemned the home and then foreclosed on it, and is now, you know, using it for helping other people with mental health issues. But during the meeting the town meeting, it was brought up, and there was a question raised as to the prior owner and their state and their entitlement to the the funds, and what the the town's intentions were with respect to those I think it was even mentioned that a heir to the estate was present and arrived in presence to discuss the matter at the town meeting. So I guess I just was wondering, you know what the plan there? How does that factor in? To to the finances of this project. If the town is, you know, not planning to return that those funds, does that open us up to lawsuit? And you know, if so, is that a consideration, and if the town is planning to return those funds. How do we then to factor into the, you know, any budget concerns with this project and the costs and costs associated with Tom Fay: it? Yeah, good questions. They came up when the article was being put together, and town council advised us that town owns the property free and clear and doesn't need to be concerned with any future financial obligations to the priority that was the advice. Okay?
Unknown: Matthew still has any questions Mark?
Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Yes on the easements. How? How strict can you be on the easements when you, when you grant this to the operator? I mean, how many, what kind of easements Can you put in as far as care of the property, overall care of the property, and so on? That's a good question. Tom Fay: That's a very good question. I think, I think we need to explore that, but if the town owns, if it's a land lease, we might have more more control over that. But I think what we've heard from the organizations that appeared before us is they take a lot of pride in the properties they own and operate, and they want to be good neighbors, and that that's good to hear, but, but now that's a good question. They want Unknown: to replicate these programs in other towns. So it's in their interest to maintain the properties. I mean, you could have somebody build two houses there, and, you know, have, it could be a disaster. Yet the town has no control over that. But at least with this, I think we can put pressure on I think it's comes from within the agency to maintain the property. Number one, hopefully the town would never have to get involved with them, with cutting the lawn and stuff like that. John Thomas: A lot of the vendors that we're in discussion with including work Inc, that's been around for more than 30 years. There's continuity. I mean, like Brian said, it's in their interest to maintain a property because they want to do this again. They want to replicate the program down the road. So why would they put that at risk? So, I mean, there are no guarantees, but I think that's I mean, again, my experience in working with a lot of these organizations, and some of the ones that we're going to be having come come in Charles River, has been around since the 60s. They have a track record. I would think that we would be looking at that track record, and if there's an RFP to consider, we would be looking at that track record as well. And I'd encourage you to do the same, Katherine Provost: yeah, and I think there's a way for us to even do a tour of some of their properties. I mean, they're really some very beautiful properties run by Minute Man arc and Roach family real estate that are excellent service providers that I think would give a butters a lot of comfort on this issue. John Thomas: Some of us toured a minute man ARPA group home in Sudbury this past year, and it's an immaculate house. Let me tell you, I wish Unknown: that house, okay, it's a restaurant, yeah, right on 117 right across the street. I mean, I wish that house was next to my house. Yeah, quite honestly. Well, I have no My daughter lives in Waltham, lives next to a safe house, and they felt different than this. Safe House is the right term that's for people with disabilities. Yeah. I mean, they're DEP and over five that live. There's no problems, like, but it can't say that their property is immaculate. You know, operates it, I don't,
but it's, there's like it there's no problems.
Bill Adams: So I had another setback question, is it possible for the committee to recommend setbacks that are larger than the standard zoning amounts, or is it pretty much legally cast in stone, like if an architect looks at the land? Or is it Are there ways to specify larger setbacks? Is in specific areas or not. Tom Fay: If Robert was here, you can answer the question, probably I cannot, but I'll put on the list as a question to answer, to be answered. Okay,
other questions or comments. Mike, appreciate. You guys coming in as Bill mentioned. We'll have a at least one other meeting where neighbors will have opportunity to come in and ask questions. By then, I think things will be clear for you and for us. Bill Adams: One other thing, I think just everyone should know that all these are recorded too. So if you can't be here online, you could watch these afterwards and and then there's also a five minutes at the beginning of every meeting, where, if there's an issue from the last meeting you want to bring it up, feel free or tell me, and I'll bring it up too. Unknown: Yeah, we have public comment for every meeting, so feel free to come. Appreciate the invitation. Appreciate your effort. Thank you.
We're all right. We all live in this town. We all live in town.
Tom Fay: So moving on Agenda Item three, Ronnie Kessler worked for the Wayland public schools, and she was hoping to make it tonight, but she's tied up in a school committee meeting, so we'll get her on at another another meeting before I entertain a motion to adjourn. Any final comments or questions by members of the committee. Hearing, none. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I hear a second, second, thank you. Gene, second, I'll do a roll call vote. Brian aye, John aye. Gene, Catherine, yes. Bill Yes. Stephanie Yes. Tom, yes, unanimous vote. Thank you all for your time this evening and see you on the 22nd
Tom Fay: difficulties, and we're back online here at 5:32pm here on August 8, 2025 and before We were rudely interrupted by my lack of electricity. DC, you still have the floor Unknown: well, Tom Fay: you're talking about, you were talking to us about housing challenges, yes. Unknown: And if you want to make it more of a question and answer, sort of a presentation, that's that's fine. I can be flexible. But. The housing challenges are complicated by the fact that the houses that do exist, they really are not capable of supporting deaf, blind people. The they these are deaf, blind people with multiple disabilities. But the primary handicapping condition actually is access, the lack of access to the larger community, to the world, to life, and that is what is just not available. So it's not just about the housing. It's really about the training of the staff, the building up culture that is open and welcoming and supportive of people who have sensory deficits that are blocking their access to Life.
And Stephanie, what's been your experience on housing, hello, Okay, everybody, I think you're muted. I think, can you hear me now? Tom Fay: Hold on Stephanie, okay, Robbie, can you permit us to hear her? Here
Unknown: am I can here you hear me now. Okay, hold on seven,
hello. Definitely they're making it come out of the speaker. Bill Adams: We can hear you can hear me now, we can hear you, but I don't think they can in the town. So,
Unknown: yeah, they can Hello, they unplugged their special speaker. So, oh, no, they might have to turn up the volume is, can you Bill Adams: hear us now? Can you hear us now? Hear Unknown: us now. I'm up to 100 I think. I hope I'm not blasting you guys. No, you're fine. Okay, you're totally fine. Yeah, turn it towards
Tom Fay: okay. So Stephanie, we can hear you now. So And for the record, Brian Boja, our newest members join us. Stephanie Lynch: Welcome Brian. Now that Brian's here, I can start he knows he knows the deal, right? When Jason grew up, I had to find a living situation where he could continue to grow and have an adult life, and I found a life sharing community on a farm in New Hampshire, and he lived there for 11 years. He was he has Down syndrome. He needs a lot, 24/7, supervision and help with meals and bathing, even help with bathing. And he qualifies for waiver services for people who would otherwise need nursing home care, and he just qualified in mass for that too. He lived in a bedroom in a house with a householder, couple their children, a couple of volunteers and several other residents, and this was how he was supportive for this time. And he was part of a comprehensive farm program and the householders and volunteers took care of the shopping and cooking, and he was able to help with chores around the house and work in group settings on the farm and in the kitchen. As a baker, DDS has a problem with people working and living in the same place, so the the situation was always a little unsure. And with covid and everything, he ended up losing the the placement and started over here in Massachusetts, they were also, as he got older, he could no longer. I mean, he, he, they, you know, they have to work at sub zero temperatures in the in the stable, and his physical work in the farm. And as he got, he's 40 now, he got to where that was a bit much for him. And also he's got got a medical situation now that they wouldn't have been able to to take care of. He does. Now that we're in mass, he has a good day program, and we have just gotten some companion service to take him out in the community, and we have learned a bit about the bus services available. So for somebody like him, residential would augment this. But he doesn't need all those services and day program, and he can get those within the community, but he is needs to be able to live near Wayland. He still has need for supervision in care, 24/7, and this living situation should provide for that. And I believe, second. Eight can help with funding other bedrooms for caregivers, so flexibility in the rooms would be good. Farmsteads in New England is another place we tour. They have building swifts, and then each building has several private bedrooms that each person has a bedroom, a little sitting area and a bathroom, and they all enter into one living room and kitchen. So there are several little units in there. They have a communal space. And my vision would be that the little units could be either used for staff or residents, depending on the needs of how many people had more of a physical need that the whether you could have one caregiver take care of a couple of people, or whether people need individual caregivers, or one caregiver could take care of three people or more, depending upon the population that was in the in the facility. And also there has to be flexible. There's flexibility for the needs physical, you know, the blindness, DEP, this, this kind of thing, the physical needs, or more extensive developmental disability, would need more. Other people might need less, but certainly they're going to need more than I think some of the places like they're building, Charles River is building where people can basically live independently, but they need a few hours of staff help and and that whole apartment complex is something Jason could never handle, because his needs are greater than that. And as people age, they're going to need more too. So someplace that he could age in place would be important. I would hope it would be a viable option for people who live grew up in Wayland to stay in their familiar community, near their family. I know that that people now generally have to move far away, many towns over to get into a home situation. And there, I'm sure, has to be rules about choices of which residents could live there. And I know there's sometimes, there's different waiting lists for if you're in town or out of town, and I would hope that it would be available to Wayland residents. I really do see this this. My dream for this place is for people who need more supports than an option, where somebody can basically be independent and needs a little extra supervision. And I would like it to be able to serve people with all kinds of physical disabilities, and the whole building should be accessible, where the different living units maybe have have the flexibility that they could be for staff or residents, and I would see that the places As fitting into a quiet residential setting, really, the neighbors would kind of hardly know they're there, or they would be good neighbors that they're basically would probably be out out much of the day and just around quietly in the neighborhood, and that that's sort of the my vision of things right now, particularly I'm noticing, but JJ has a super few catheter again, and, and I have to be with him, 24/7, until his medical situation gets cleared up. And that's going to be a long process. And, and if I weren't around, you know he would need almost institutional care this point, and I'm hoping he can get back to a point where, you know, and affects the plan. We've got a really good surgeon and everything, but he's going to get older too, and so we're all these, these people. So again, for me, flexibility and being able to stay local is important. That's about what I have to say. Thanks. Any questions anyone has awesome? Tom Fay: Yeah, thanks, Stephanie. So what I'd like to do is open up to the committee members and ask them if they have any questions of TC or Stephanie on on the topic.
Katherine Provost: No, no questions. Just thank you both so much for advocating. It's really important to hear and really helpful to hear. I appreciate your input. Unknown: Thank you, John Thomas: John, so TC, I had a question for you so you correct me if I'm wrong. So your daughter was being served previously in a residential model that wasn't working out. So I hear that Unknown: correctly here. Only her first year out of Perkins, okay, and then she was living at home, okay? John Thomas: And now, now she's living in a Charles River staff on bot. So that's the group home on Boston. Impostor. So can you talk a little bit about the the previous one year model and why that wasn't working out? What? What were some? What were some of the issues, the challenges that it really wasn't meeting for your daughter? And could you also talk about you mentioned that you were receiving, your daughter was receiving some state funding through a state agency. Could you talk about how much that was, or if there were any other means of support that she was receiving, any other public funding streams? Unknown: Okay, well, when she was transitioning from Perkins, there were two options for her, because she was blind. She could go with the mass commission for the blind, deaf, blind extended supports unit, or she could go with DDS. So essentially, the deaf, blind extended supports units and MCP are DDS for blind people and deaf blind people. I didn't know the difference. I was pretty naive, but the staff at Perkins recommended to go with the mass Commission for the Blind. I think because there was a little bit more money at that time there, I don't think that is that continues to be true. I believe the total amount that she was getting was probably around $120,000 a year, and I think it costs a lot more than that now to support her. I some of that information is that freely given to families, yeah, but the reason that that first placement failed, I think, on both sides, was that they could not meet her medical needs. She was having some intense neurological symptoms, and they were not staffed for that. There was no nursing component, as there is where she now lives. And on the very same day that I called our case manager at MCV and said, you know, they they can't take care of her. They called and said, We can't take care of her. So it was mutual agreement that that the placement just couldn't work for her. What they had to offer. John Thomas: Were there other residents who were deaf, blind or, Oh Unknown: no, no, it was a very small group home. There were only three other women, and their problems were primarily mental health. Mental Yeah, Tom Fay: Jean, any comments or questions in your question? Thanks for joining us in person. Unknown: Ah. You're going to lose your
world, not at this time, but thank you very much. Sure, sure. Thank you. TC, yeah. So the main thing is, deaf, blind people have no place to live so that they can access the world and life, and there needs to be some physical plant alterations, but it's primarily a staff training and culture of the house issue. Tom Fay: Thank you very much you see, and thank you, Stephanie, appreciate it. I think what I do next is invite members of work Inc forward and because of the technology, turn this computer back and forth, hopefully without losing connection.
So with us is Jim cassida Sure And Sharon Smith, thank
Unknown: you. Are you appearing in that screen? Can you see? Yeah, we're used to having it. Tom Fay: So welcome to both of you and to committee members. As I've indicated before, I've reached out to different organizations that are involved in the topic that we're exploring as a committee, and the organization's list provided to me by Brian bossier, who's new to the committee. And again, welcome Brian, and it so happens I met Mr. Ca many years ago. Unknown: Of project. We remember Tom Fay: a project in the city of Boston, and I'm so glad you're still doing the work you're doing. So what I'd like to do is ask you do is use yourselves tell us about the organization and how you think, well, maybe provide us information that'll be helpful to us, to help us do our work. Unknown: Well, thank you for having us. It's It's unusual for city to a town to invite an agency to talk about building a group home. I was around 50, 4050, years ago when we couldn't do that. I was the working was established in 1965 and I worked 21 years for another agency prior to working, and the institutionalization was happening, but you had to get local cities and towns to approve it, etc, etc. Long story shot that's all changed. That's all changed now, anybody who wants to build a group home must abide by the local, city or towns regulations, as if we were just a normal family. And that's what's that's what's happening today. Matter of fact, I I bought some plans. I'd be happy to show them. We had an experience in Methuen we we've been we've had a group home in Methuen mass for over 40 years, and the clients aging out, and it's not accessible. So we wanted to build a new group home on that site, which our architect had plans for, but we had to go to the Selectmen in MA doing because we needed a 10 foot variance, 10 feet from from me to that chair, and it was we didn't meet the variance. We recorded no so now we're probably going to sell that home and relocate somewhere else. But I want to thank you for allowing Sharon to talk about the history and I've been at working 26 years. Sharon's been working 17 plus years. 19, yeah, so, so, interestingly enough, I started in 1979 and working open the second group home. So and I lived in a group home. My husband and I for five years. I, like we both worked on our social work degrees, so it has changed a lot, and it is a flip, as Jim said, so I can anticipate some of the questions you're thinking about. So, you know, listening to TC, if you were a Tom that decided you were going to build a home for deaf, blind, or for deaf, or for people with, you know, with medical and intellectual disabilities. You know, doing what you're doing is great, but you need to reach out for a state partner, the state partner needs to be committed early on. So whether that's MCB, whether that's DDS, or any other state agency, they the more that they can be part of that process, even if you're looking at braving funding, if you're looking at leveraging HUD funding, or any of the facility consolidation funding that's about you really need somebody who's going to help you understand how to leverage and brave that funding together and get a committed partner. We have a picture here because I was saying to TC, we opened a group home during covid, that neighborhood housing work really built and released from them. And it was designed by a Deaf architect, and it's for Deaf, five deaf individuals, one who's deaf, blind, and it's, you know, the whole house had to be constructed to be DEP friendly, which is very different than a regular group home for people who have intellectual disabilities. Because you have an open four floor plan, you need to be able to have all of the assistive technology in there. You know, at the get go, it's it's good to bed, shake all that stuff. Yeah. So you want to be able to customize what you're doing, have it get a good state partner, but then understand what, when you go with that state partner, what the constraints are. So for example, if you go with DDS, they're fund that they received 50 cents on the dollar from the center of Medicaid studies. So that means you're under those CMS rules. You can look up the final rule, CMS Final Rule, which talks about segregation, and no longer can you have group homes with 10 people. Four. There are still a few campus settings in Massachusetts, but they can't be replicated today, because it's all about community access. You know, are they segregated? We just got approved a duplex, which was four and four, because DDS has such a dire need for housing that, you know, it was unusual, but we were able to do it so it can be done if, if that's a structure you're thinking of, and you know, they that you just, you know, you fall under those rules. So you want to know MCB is great to deal with, because they usually just say, what is DDS paying you? And they replicate that. We have a few, but not many. And the way DDS funds, it is not by the person. It's called the AltR model. So if you have a medical model, you get this chunk of money. You have a, you know, DEP with or a highly clinically intensive so say you're having people who are prioritized because they have behavioral issues that's going to be funded at a high level. So the composition of the group is very important. Listening to to the woman who just spoke, I could barely hear, but what I think I heard is a lot of her son has a lot of medical issues. And, you know, medically fragile, they do have group homes that are have an AltR model for medically fragile, where we're going to build one. We have land in Dorchester. We have a home in Brockton. People. It's, you know, people are aging, they have dementia. It's like a day nursing home, really. And so we're going to reconstruct it, but a medical model, making it more accessible. TC was talking about the staff training and culture, and that's really important, because, you know, whatever population you decide to pick, you want to make sure that it they're going to receive the funding to have the staffing that will be that will be trained, and it's A challenge that we have in our industry, we have difficulties hiring. And we've, we've, we had a hard, you know, coming out of covid, our residential programs got hit hard. I mean, they were closed. People stayed there. But we literally were doing 24/7 and with like, a 35% vacancy rate, we're out from under that. We've we've done a lot to improve that, but because of staff challenges, DDS is moving a lot to its technology. So they call it like remote support monitoring. We're looking at a system we just learned about putting some cameras in common areas of some of the group homes where there's heavy behavioral issues, so that there's never a question about what just happened, as we can see it, and we're kind of going to have to advocate with the state for that. So you really want to pick your if you're looking at the constituents of Wayland, you know, who's your state partner, and then you're going to have to really advocate, because what the state does is they prioritize people who, you know, who has the most need. And if they're going to pay for it, you need to get a commitment. It's Wayland citizens because, you know, it's they'll say, here are the referrals. We have you close referral process. Yeah, it's a closed referral process. We opened a home in Kingston, you know, down by Plymouth mass, and we were able, because we worked with the state from the very beginning to say, we we really want people. We knew we were going to have some neighbor hood problems, because these were high end homes. And so when, when they came out saying or no group home in our neighborhood, we were like, Hey, these are your brothers and sisters. These people grew up in Kingston, grew up in Plymouth. Here are their parents, and it made a big difference. But we have a long term cooperative relationship with our state agencies, so you really want to, once you decide early on, you know, look at maybe even getting a consultant in who really knows the housing market in terms of HUD money, community better? No, do you have see? What is it called? Yeah, community based, block lane, right? That that money, home money, if it's DDS, they can sometimes leverage. FCF, which is, can be 50 cents. I mean, 50% of the cost. There's also the 40 B. I don't know how many affordable units existing in this town, in Wayland, but if all of our units are affordable, I'm sorry, unaffordable. And the state gives you a credit, a grant for that, your money every year because of the number of units you create. Can you talk about your organization overall? Yeah, I'm sorry I got right into
all this in housing. You do other things. We have 24 planning. Three more. We'll have 27 we do. We used to be the lot. We used to be the largest sheltered workshop in the Commonwealth working. We had over when I started working. 26 years ago, over 350 people with disabilities were coming into working, to work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds and I, I agree now I didn't agree at first. I agree now that I designed a building. We designed a building in Dorchester to hold to house, sheltered work, and they were getting paid. But the Feds said to the states, not just to Massachusetts. We didn't. We de institutionalized in the 60s, and what you did was re institutionalize the same people in the community. So they they tell the states, and Sean was on the committee when we went to the state and we got Massachusetts to give $20 million to the agencies that were running these shelter workshops. We still support the same number of people. It's now called Community Based day support. They'll come into the building. We'll help them with their resumes. We'll help them find work well. We're also the largest employer of individuals with disabilities in new Wayland. We have we support about 1200 people. Our main offices in Dorchester. We have offices in Fitchburg, certainly, Rhode Island, Springfield, and what we The other thing we do, we take pride in this. We're a little worried about it. We have about 16 and a half million dollars in federal money, and I'm concerned about that situation, believe it or not, in the 1930s a federal law was passed called the Javits o day act, J, O, D, at the time, it was for it was only for people who were deaf at the time, blind, DEP, blind. The law was amended in 1971 and the loss says that if the federal government needs help, and if individuals who are now disabled, deaf or blind, can provide the help, the Feds must hire them, not May, must, is the most important word of legislation. So as a result of that, working provides total facility management, custodial services, full food services in the native Army Research Lab, IRS, and we have about 130 folks with disabilities working. And what I love about that is these folks, before they went to work, were probably supported by us, but, but, and I'm not saying that's not that's still good. Social Security, disability, food stamps, snap the whole bit. When they get a job with the feds, they get paid for the work they do, not who they are. So how people are making like, $27 an hour, and they're off the door and they're contributing about 7000 a year their own taxes. So that's that's one of the major things of working done with a lot of individuals with disabilities. We also have at our main office, day habilitation. It's essentially a day hospital, otpt, speech, nursing, and so long as those clients have a place to sleep at night, they'll be transported to work in about 830 or eight o'clock every morning, to leave at 330 to go to there, either they group home or back to their families. We're about a total budget is about north of 70 million and working. Also owns a for profit company that's very unique. Not many nonprofits own a for profit, and the for profit company that we own. It's called FM and M, facilities, management, maintenance. We're the stockholder that company. It's in existence to make money for the stockholder, and the company doesn't it's not a program. It's a business we want. That company is now doing about $17 million a year. We clean Boston City Hall, Boston police headquarters, mass art, rent them, Hogan Springfield, courthouse all over the state. And every money that any, any penny that the profits go right to working. And we purchased that company in 2004 2004 and we've generated about $4 million for working to plow. White back into its mission. We don't just do homes. We do a little bit of everything. We don't do behavioral health. I was in that business 20 years, and I got burnt out doing behavioral health stuff, that stuff I've been at working 26 years, and it's been, it's been a good one so far. So we have. We applaud you for inviting us in. Not only us are the providers too. We don't usually get invitations from local officials about, let's build a group home. That's really give me a lot of credit for that. And I told, I told, Look, I talk and dirt road. I looked around the site, big site. It's a big site. But I have a question, what? What's the town of wayland's criteria for single family homes? Is it one acre per lot? Is that what it is? I don't even know what it is, half acre depending on what part of town, but it's half acre on the south side, acre, acre and a half. So whoever, whoever will build a home, whatever provider comes in, they'd have to adhere to those same requirements, Tom Fay: unless it was, as you mentioned earlier, 40 B, then that might be different. Unknown: Might be different. And you can always get a variance to create more 40 B housing, Tom Fay: as is to be zone. It's only pretty Unknown: much the two structures. Okay, let me open up gene. Any questions for I guess, yes. Yes, I'm rather a novice in this area. I'm on this committee because I have a disabled child, so I'm not a professional in the field. Really started in the beginning here the people who work, I'd like to know more about the typical profile in what kind of conditions they have. You know that they're walking a line between, they need support, and they have some capabilities that allow employment. Can you paint a picture for me? And you know the characteristics of this group? Yeah. I mean, so Jim talked to you about our federal program, which is considered more like group supported employment, because people go in, they do their job, and there's always a supervisor, somebody who's trained by working. We also, last year, placed 230 individuals with disabilities into mainstream jobs in the business sector, whether it's five hours a week or 30 hours a week. And so the profile can be a person who has never worked before turning 22 doesn't have good work skills, might have other communication issues. Might be deaf. We do we will work with anyone if they have a desire to work. We we do customized employment. We do individual supported employment, and we do a lot of work around benefits, because a lot of families will say, I don't want my son to lose their benefits. But we can work this many hours, and then we work with the state agency on what types of needs. DDS will not fund a one to one job coach in perpetuity. So the profile is somebody who is able to, at least, you know, be on their own at certain certain points in time, even if they need a ride there and to be picked up there. But you know that the end result is they wouldn't need that one to one support long term, is that helpful?
I in my my my marketing person do a lot of work on trying to get the Commonwealth to identify this group of individuals in the state that could add benefits to the workforce. In this state, there's 400,000 individuals with disabilities between the ages of 18 and 60. That's when most people work. I'm above that, but that's okay. That's when most people work. The unemployment rate amongst that group is over 70% that means the rest of them are supported by us, and I vehemently disagree with that. You talk to a person, they don't want to stay home and sit on the couch and watch TV all day and get their benefit check, because that's that guarantees them a life of poverty. To which one to get this legislature to pass a law similar to the federal law that would mandate, if a business gets a contract with the Commonwealth of mass to do custodial trash pickup, telephone call centers, anything to mandate that a certain percentage of the people they hire must have a disability, that would get them off the door and give them a. Quality of life that they would never have experienced otherwise. So that's another big thing that we try to do. It's really a challenge. I'll give you an example. A young friend of mine has autism. He's in his early 30s now. He studies medieval literature, has a college degree has real interpersonal difficulties. Sure can't hold them a job. My guess is, you folks can figure out something. Well, we actually can hold on for a sec, yes. And then the next person you look at, and he's doesn't have any physical problems, right? And then the next person may have profound perhaps, is lacking upper limbs, you know, has flippers or something. I just trying to figure out handling all these variables requires a lot of effort from an organization, and I just trying to figure out how you folks do that, and what that would mean for us in terms of creating a housing situation for such a highly varied group of people, like, how would we plan to meet their needs when they're so different from each other? You know, it was only eight years ago that DDS funded people with ASD that wasn't funded. We were Autism Spectrum ASD, non ID, they call it. But I think you have to think long and hard about how varied your population is, because the more varied your population is, it's going to drive the staff expertise that's needed. So what we've done is we have a separate program for folks that are ASD, non ID. We have pre engagement, college navigation. We have a work program and a drop in center. So we the staff, specialize in that group of people, college grads, that have such strong anxiety disorders they they can't work. And then we have our other employment services are for folks with intellectual disabilities that, you know, we come we use a lot of customized employment, and that means somebody might not do the whole job, but we know an employer and we can we know that individual can do 50% of the job. So we're really trying to say, Can they come in and do that 50% and you'll never have to worry about that. So it's really taking the models and applying them to the people and how we've done it to be successful is we've segmented those specialties it's really hard to have. And actually, DDS doesn't fund folks with ASD non ID unless they get a residential waiver, and that they would be tough behavioral issues. So we would never put to behave people that present with significant behavioral challenges, with two people that are medically vulnerable or aging, because that is not good, and the staff have to split their specialties. You want to be able to focus on teaching your staff, whether it's the behavioral principles, or working with ASD, is very different, and so that's the approach we've we've taken. We have a lot of micro kind of micro concentration programs within the agency. Is that reflected in the housing people are with one group for their coaching and training on that they're probably living with the same people in their coaching. No, no, I would never want to work with my husband. I live with them. So we have, we purposely try not to have people be together 24 hours a day, because nobody wants that, right, and people are different. So you want to give people choices. You could conceivably have a great group home here in Wayland with five people, and they could all go to different day programs, our day situation jobs too, right? Or different jobs. And we do have a community based day support. We have about 80 people, and they're out in the community all the time doing volunteer work. That's job preparation. So we have over 24 volunteer sites that we're working on of Dorchester, those. So somebody might spend a lot of time volunteering, but no, the match is really, really critical. The matching of the people, the specialty of what you're going to focus on, like TC said, the training for staff who work with people who are deaf, blind, are very. Different than the training of somebody who has ASD and an intellectual disability and is aggressive or is eloped, and you you want to have people be complimented, and you know, some people don't like male female homes, our homes, some are male, some are female, and some are mixed. Some, some compositions do better with a couple of women in the house, and, you know, a few men, and everyone has their own bedroom. So Bill, did you have any question that
Bill Adams: I put a whole bunch of chat questions in the chat. Should I read them out one by one? Yeah, yeah. Unknown: So my first Bill Adams: question was, could you explain a little bit more about what a closed referral system is, and how towns think about whether they would mostly support people who live in the town or maybe a neighboring town versus be open, and how the state thinks about supporting that type of work?
Unknown: That's a good question. That's a good so if, if this closed referral means that we have to get a referral from a funding agency to support an individual, if the town of Wayland has individuals with disabilities who say turning 22 there's a state there's a line item in the state budget called Turning 22 and that would mean that the individual from this town who wants to, who needs, not wants, who needs a supportive environment, like a group home, DDS would have to refer that individual to an agency that would be coming into, like work, Inc, any other provider, agency that's around town, and that that referral would go to the agency, with the preference being that, hey, this, this individuals, was born and raised in Wayland. It's 2022 we want to do a group home and Wayland. We want to refer that person to that particular provider. That's how that will work. Because we Bill Adams: kind of, does the state tend to be open to that type of thing, or is it a little unpredictable? Unknown: I, as chairman, said earlier, I think the first step for you all to do as town officials, is to contact the ConCom wall and say, we have a committee that wants to build a group home. They'd never hear that. Let me tell you, they seldom hear that from from any town official, and I think they'll be very receptive to come in and meet with you and talk about sort of the same types of things Chairman and I have been talking about and Ed Augustus. Ed Augustus is the state. What you know? You know statewide person in charge of housing, but, and then the who's the new EOH, HHS, Commissioner, Secretary. He spoke about Jailyn place, but Melanie used to be, He's the doctor, and he used to be in charge. He was the Deputy Commissioner for EOH HHS, and that EOH HHS actually is over 50% of the state budget. The $62 billion state budget Human Services comprises about 33 billion of that. So there's a lot of resources there. And that would be the first outreach to the state. You have a you have a lot of land, you want to designate it for a group home. I think they'll be very receptive to coming in and meeting and talking to you all about that bill. Other questions. Bill Adams: So my next I'm going to put all three together. But one is like, what happens if a whole can't be sustained financially? Like, what if you run out of money or it doesn't work? And then what are the best predictors of financial stability, like, what are the components that make you likely to be stable and have long term success? And then finally, what might happen if the federal dollars disappear? Like, I'm experiencing that at my academic home, the money just disappears. And what would happen if that happened?
Unknown: Yeah, the state is actually looking at their waiver is going to open with CMS, and they're looking to look at ways to not protect that. But what's going to happen if they lose that 50 cents on the dollar? So we don't have an answer for that, but the best predictor of success and sustainability is a strong partnership with DDS, a strong partnership with a an organization that has good financial you can just look up their 990s that they're financially stable, and that the home itself has a good composition. Regardless of the level of disability, DDS has to place priority one people. So if you have a son or daughter and you want them in this home, but they don't get then. Not eligible for DDS services, people need to start now getting them eligible for DDS services, because they'll say, that's great. You want Wayland constituents, but we have these priority people, and the funding goes there. Bill just working is in every federal site, and unfortunately, the JFK, like we do complete facility management at the JFK Library, we have 17 individuals with disabilities work there shut down, has caused the library to close, and we've had to lay off those people and make sure they get the unemployment, and then when the Feds decide to reopen, they'll get retroactive pay, and we'll figure it all out. But those are all the situations we deal with, day in and day out. And not every federal site closed. Though our GSA sites, we do the tip on nail building, the McCall MC building in town, town, the federal courthouse, what's name in the courthouse, the downtown. We manage all those buildings and this, they're still open. They're still open. It's called essential so, but it's, it's, we always have to take, take a look at our funding sources. And rumors. Has it that the state's going to run into a couple of tough fiscal years because of the federal money that they're losing, and the tax, the tax revenue, is a little down. 50 years I've been in the business. I've been through the ups and downs of it all. We still, we still survive. That's what they asked to do, that housing is needed more of a demand. So I think, you know, you just have to, I don't know who the regional director is in Wayland for DDS, but that would be the person you would reach out to, and they might have a housing person who could help you, but that's where I'd start if that's the route you're going. So I bought the plans, but this is, this is a eight bedroom home, and you know, we would have done this, your son would probably
be able to support this is 884. And four. Okay. Did you build it? Not yet, because Bethune voted against us,
but the plan was for you to buy the land and build, we own the land. We had a home on it that's old, and we would have, we were one of the variants. We would have relocated the five individuals were living there. Temporarily knocked the house down, build this home. But unfortunately, we lost the we lost the free to choke. We had to get free A's, and we didn't get it. So it's a split level home, so that folks are aging, and it's just they need something. Still, other questions. Bill Adams: Sorry, I'm asking all the questions, but so I also represent the neighbors, right? And so I think there's a lot of concern, mostly from people who don't have any experience in this space, like what to expect, what it might look like, what it might do to the value of their homes and the land use and stuff like that. And so what do you say to neighbors, to you know, give them confidence that that this is a positive relationship and that it it's ultimately works well in most of your experience. And I know you've been through this a million times, so I'm just really like to hear from you what you say to neighbors to reassure them that this is a good thing. Unknown: Well, one of the things I've done over the years is invite, invite anybody who has concerns like you just expressed, come visit several of the homes that we're currently in and and talk to the neighbors who live next to our homes.
Talk to the neighbors who who are neighbors of our existing homes. And usually, and I'm not putting our neighbors down. But usually our homes are well manicured. Look better in no home we we working manage, would be a home. Would be home. I wouldn't live in myself. We have beautiful homes, and it's easier to raise money for the bricks and mortar than it is to get the state to pay for the services bricks and mortar. There's a lot of money out there from HUD, Federal Home Loan Bank grants, financing it yourself, that type of thing. But in this case, if you all are setting aside land, one of the biggest costs to build a home is the land, and that's that's a great asset to consider having. So there's also a lot of research online, because group homes have been around now since the 70s. And so you can just Google property values and group homes, and you'll see that over overall, you know after all these years, that sometimes the group home is the nicest home in the neighborhood, because we're held to. Level of scrutiny that, you know, other we could live right next to somebody that had 10 cars because they have teenagers and they don't mow the lawn. We can't do anything about that if we don't mow our lawn, you know, they they drop a dime. So we, we, you know, I think most provider agencies in the state take very good care of the homes. Other questions, Bill,
I yield my podium. Thank you. Thank you. Sean questions, right, not at this time. Catherine, good Stephanie questions, no, no, it's been very helpful. Thank you. What is the largest number of bedrooms in one of your facilities are five? Now five, five, so going to eight will be four and four, two separate. It's like taking two homes and having it an entrance, and then you go into right so there, but, but there, I imagine there's some economies of scale for you in this they function totally separate, like two five person group so it would have two House managers, two overnights. They function totally separate. Okay, it's interesting that you don't anticipate this. We were shocked that DDS gave us approval. These have not been approved in years and years, but their housing needs are so much so this is impressive setting project. No, there's been some in the north, in the up where you live, Jim, so you just can request it up front. And I think they'd even allow you to do if you had enough land, you could do five and five, because it's literally two group homes. But, you know, we were lucky.
So I have a question. You drove by the property I did today? Yeah, so I drove up that dirt road, and I said, I hope I can turn around. I probably got to the top of it. I did turn around and go back out. We look like a big forest. To me, that's all it Tom Fay: looked like. So the property is between two commercial districts, the chituit District and Wayland Town Center. And if when you buy property and you think about building, you look for certain type of residents to live in a certain type of area of the town. Follow me. In other words, do you I use the word discriminate? Of my individuals might be best to live in this area because they're close to the commercial area versus not, Unknown: not really, but we, that's why I drove up there earlier today, to look at. We look for, is it, is it? Is it close to where you all want to live? It's close to a shopping center. Is there on a bus line? Is it on transportation? And, quite frankly, I don't see any of that at all, right? So which would mean we would have to, if whatever provider comes in, they would have to provide significant transportation, a couple of vans. A lot of our homes have one or two vans every every day, because most likely, during the day, the individuals who live in that home are going to have to either go to work in a job or go to a day program somewhere in the in the area. And I don't, I'm not familiar with the Wayland geography in terms of our other services. It doesn't Suburban. Doesn't have any other value over a city. You know, if you have folks that are independent, you can use public transportation. You don't want to put them out in a place they don't have it, so you would be placing people who would need rides anyway, so they're not losing anything. Somebody who could have access should live where they can grab the bus or the tea or something like that. Tom Fay: And in the communities where you operate, homes are there volunteers and local community to participate in the operations or assisting residents, or not Unknown: necessarily, not really, no, the neighbors will come to our cookouts, and we'll invite them in. They'll to meet the residents who live there. They get to know them. We're part of the neighborhood, and that just like everybody else, but not really volunteer part. A provider could solicit volunteers and but it's stringent in the state now, they have the laws. They have to be Corey, fingerprinted, all of that. But it wouldn't preclude them. We just don't happen to do that.
Tom Fay: Any other questions or comments by members of the committee? I. Well, we really appreciate you coming in this evening. You're doing great work, and have many years, and you both should be admired as the entire organization. Thank you, Unknown: and this is wonderful. I spent most of our time fighting towns, fair housing labor. So this is like astounding. Jim told me, I said I didn't believe it, but we went to Methuen, we met with all the neighbors who've been our neighbors for 40 years at that house, and we asked him to come to the meeting with the Selectmen. And they all vote, they'll, they always answered, We don't want the house there. No, they wanted to stay the way, to go away, but exactly. But this house will be built somewhere, guarantee, maybe. Yeah, thank you again. Take care. Why don't we next move on.
Tom Fay: So why don't we move on to Item four on our agenda, which is consideration of the minutes that were in the packet for September 3, 2025 meeting, and I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. Thank you. Do I have a second of the motion? Second, any discussion on the motion? Hearing? None all those in favor of motion. I'll go one by one. Stephanie, yes. Catherine, yes. Bill, yes. Brian, Hey, John, yes. Gene Yes. And Tom, yes. That is a unanimous vote. Appreciate that. So the next thing I'd like to do is move on to Item five, which is just an update on the request for information that was completed and placed out on the central register and a deadline of October 16. Bill Whitney was instrumental in completing this with input from John, as well as our own comments, any questions in the process or for the content,
Unknown: look great too. It was great.
Tom Fay: Well, I'll pass those kind of words on to Bill, and let's see what what comes of it. So the next item on our agenda is, is to meet with neighbors at seven o'clock. But before we break, since have a few minutes, I wanted to open up discussion to any ideas people have on organizations and like to hear from or anything they'd like to accomplish that we're not doing that we think would be a good idea for us to look into or discuss in detail as we do our work, any just open it up to anybody.
Unknown: I try to get a fair amount of time thinking about creating a mental model for making this decision by inquiring. You know, how do you group people? What are the variables? That's a tough one. People who don't work in the industry. How do you make that decision? Yeah, how do you decide? You know, all I've looked at statistics and how many people in the Commonwealth have each different kind of disability, and they're all meritorious. They're all under housed. You know, it's, it's not like we can identify one group and say, for some reason, this group has really been left out. I'm really having a hard time just sort of building a decision model for this? Yeah,
yes. Stephanie, Stephanie Lynch: well, maybe if we could design for the widest possible, you know, variation of what might come through and that we could support as many people who need extra help as possible with accessibility and flexibility.
John Thomas: Can I just ask a question? Stephanie, are you are you suggesting the widest possible variance for people living in the in the eventual home? Or are you talking. About casting a wide net for different types of models,
Stephanie Lynch: a model that would would would serve the needs of a variety of different people coming through that that need the support so they would need extra, extra help. It might be due to a medical or an intellectual thing, but that the facility would be structured in such a way that it could be the spaces could be adapted. They would be accessible and they would be adaptable. For instance, that they could serve a caregiver or a resident could live there. So you could have more caregivers or less caregivers, depending on the population that that happened to be living there at the time. Unknown: It sounds like it is tricky, though, like we heard
Brian, I was just gonna say it seems like we have to focus on, I don't know how we choose the group. We have to focus on one population group, and that may be dictated by WHO, WHAT agency is interested in doing this. If this developer who can make this happen, we may have to fall in line with that. Tom Fay: So Brian that that comment is contrary Stephanie's point, I think. But Tom, but Brian, from what you've seen of the group homes that you're you've come in contact with, are there homes that follow Stephanie's suggestion, I mean, a variety of individuals with different disabilities, or is it more of a just from what the president, Unknown: right? I'd Stephanie Lynch: like to clarify a little, because I don't think it's I think we're pretty much saying the same thing. Okay, the funding is going to determine the population too. No deed. If it is, we're going to work with DDS, then we would want to have people who fall under DDS funding, so that it all works together, John Thomas: right? There's a wide variance within DDS, yeah, yeah. That's, I guess, Stephanie, that's what my question to you was, because even within DDS, I mean working sounds like and from my experience, my past experience, they work primarily with DDS, but within DDS, there's a an entire array of people. And I think their presentation tonight was suggesting very similar to their their work programs. You really do want to focus your specialization on a particular group of people. That's that's the way you maximize your getting your biggest bang for the buck. So you don't want to necessarily mix people that are behaviorally challenged with people that are medically agile use their so I guess that's what I was trying to get you to, sort Stephanie Lynch: of, yeah. I don't think we'd be serving that group that behaviorally challenged.
Katherine Provost: I guess I'm I'm in Brian's court in that, it seems to me like it's going to be very difficult for us to dictate what population we want to serve, seems to me like that's putting the cart before the horse, and we've got to put out the request for proposals and see what comes back, and see what team is the most capable and competent, financially stable, and then try to, you know, highest and best use for what we have in Wayland. You know, we don't have easy access to transportation, that kind of thing. At the same time, we're talking about maybe building five units for much, for a population with much more intensive needs, versus maybe, you know, 12 to 14, for a population that doesn't require placement or involvement with DDS, but I don't think we're going to be able to dictate that. I think we have to wait and see what comes back to us once we put out the RFP, unless I'm missing something, Tom Fay: John, you made a comment in a prior meeting about one of our goals being might want to be making sure we serve the families of Wayland. So, you know, is that a consideration that we that we need to think about, you know, and
Unknown: thought on that, I think a project that would serve family of Wayland might be just a straight Ada, accessible building like, for example, most of the condos and stuff around here, they're townhouses. They have big thresholds. There's no adaptable kitchen. There's a big curb to get into the shower. Or the halls aren't wide enough, the doors aren't wide enough. You know, we don't have enough to sort of basic housing for people who have mobility issues, no matter what their age is. And I, you know, since we have potentially two lots here, I find myself thinking, Well, do we want to do maybe a 40 B, friendly, I don't know, project that's all ad a apartment building, you know, where people have with mobility issues, and maybe we able to have some apartments that have the things for people who can't hear because they they're easily wired into the building. So we have some for deaf people. Have some for blind people, we have some for people who have to use a locker wheelchair. But I just don't know how we're going to be constrained by the law. You know, because of all this concern about Luke and people together treating them badly, it would be more like Independent Living apartment building that could accommodate people who, time and time again, can't get up the steps to the porch.
John Thomas: So just back to Bill, one of the questions that you were asking the working people, which I think you know, their response, I think we need to heed. So you were asking about indicators that would signal what would help ensure for the financial stability of whatever program ends up, you know, going on to the site. And their answer, which I firmly concur with, is that you need to look at what's going to be the the provider of the funding for the operation, the operational budget moving forward. And their answer was that it really behooves whoever is doing this. RFP, I guess that's us to reach out to some of those funding sources, if it's going to be DDS, if it's going to be some of the other state agencies, to find out what the level of interest would be in putting together an RFP that would serve a group that they could, in turn, get behind in terms of providing the operational dollars moving forward. Because, like they said, you know, the brick and mortar is kind of the easy part of this whole puzzle. It's really the operational budget moving forward five years, 10 years down the road, that's what's going to determine whether or not this is going to succeed. Bill Adams: That's definitely what I heard from them. Is the partnership part is really important, and that will help us choose, right? So I think we could be a little bit constrained in terms of we're looking for kind of what was described at the town meeting, two group homes were fairly and people in need of quite a bit of support, right? And within that, it could be all kinds of different types of support that people need, but focusing a little bit like that can be helpful. And then we put it out and and we could be even a little competitive. We're going to be so unusual that we're a willing partner, that people might be able to work with us in a way that they wouldn't with others. So we might get a better partnership out of that, because people really want that to work, and we could use that to our advantage. So I agree that we can't, we can't be wide open, but we also need to be somewhat focused. I agree.
Tom Fay: So John, we've heard from some organizations during our meetings that seem to provide the whole package, right? And come in, they can, they can build, and they already have existing relationships with governmental entities for funding purposes. And then some of those organizations, their residents, are funded through private monies. Do you see value in in going with an organization like that, given the town doesn't want to be the administrator necessarily, of of these homes, John Thomas: yeah, no, I I think that would be the organization that you would want to go to. But I think at the same time, I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, I think it would be important to reach out to some of the funding, the eventual funding sources for whatever structure some of these organizations are going to put together. I mean, they are going to do the same thing. They are going to reach out if we express an interest in a particular. Proposal they're going to as I can guarantee, one of the first homework assignments that they're going to have is okay, let's talk to a funding source and find out who do they who do they need to serve? Who do they want to serve? Where is there the most need? Is it behavioral challenge? People? Is a medically fragile is it people in the autism spectrum who are also intellectually disabled? You know, where is the greatest need in this particular area, in this particular region, or area office, and they're going to work with that funding source to put together a proposal. I mean, it's, that's, that's going to be the response. So the extent to which we can have have our fingers and, you know, multiple places at the same time, I think we can do that. I think we ought to do that. That's, that's my opinion. Unknown: We do like the idea of talking to the funding agencies. If they're desperate, perhaps they're ready to innovate. You know, we could be a beta project as long as they're on board and they promise to support it. Yeah, I get I get way Catherine. Katherine Provost: I get nervous about state involvement and anything too novice, to be honest. I mean, I just think we could be looking at years of trying to assemble something that's too out of the box. And John, we talked months ago with DDS, and correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression from a Zoom meeting with four or five people from DDS is they were not at all prepared or comfortable telling us what we should be doing, right? I mean, it was kind of like you guys figure it out and then come talk to us. John Thomas: We also Catherine, if you remember, we were talking to people from the central office, and then we were talking to people from the region, and we were also talking from the area director, and the person from the people from the region and the area director are really the people that are going to be the boots on the ground in terms of making decisions about any kind of program moving forward in the town of Wayland, the people from central office, I think, were very reluctant to commit themselves. Unknown: But if I'm so happy to hear you say that, yeah, John Thomas: or whomever the provides, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that we decided that we were going to entertain ARPA from a DDS contractor, residential provider, agency like Charles River or work Inc, or Minuteman ARPA, whomever They're going to be calling DEP Johnson at DDS, Middlesex West Area office to establish a line of communication a guarantee, like I said before, they guarantee you who, who is coming online in this year's turning 22 class. You have a she has a turning 22 coordinator at the area office level, who has, they have a radar of everybody in this area who is going to be turning 22 in the next year, along with a whole list of what those people's needs are in terms of what they are going to need for residential programming, and what they're going to need for day services, what they're going to need for transportation, etc, etc. And so that's how agencies put together ARPA based on what they know is coming down the pipeline. So, I mean, I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is we're we're all novices in the sense that this is not something that municipalities typically do, as we keep hearing time and time again, the state said it right. The central office said it. Folks said it to us, these agencies are saying, Wow, what a pleasant surprise to have a municipal entity actually sort of reaching out. So I think what we're struggling with, quite frankly, is, I've said it before, we don't want to put the cart before the horse, but frankly, I think we're struggling to know, what is the horse, if the horse is going to be leading the process, you know, do we reach out to the agency? Do we reach out to the state? Do we reach out to people in town to gage what the need is of people in our own community that might want to live in this eventual structure? Katherine Provost: So, so going back to Tom's question about who we could bring in, does it make sense to bring in the regional director? And John Thomas: I think the regional or the area director would would be an excellent idea in my that's just my own personal opinion. Unknown: I would love which i. You John Thomas: could start with DDS, but we could certainly. I mean, if we're entertaining other constituencies, you could talk about the Mass Rehab Commission. You could talk about the Department of Mental Health. I mean, I'm not here to dictate who we ought to be thinking. But again, I'm also not wanting to put the cart before the horse. Katherine Provost: No, I agree, but, but if we're in the information gathering stage, bringing I love the idea of bringing in someone from DDS on the regional or area level, plus MRC. We refer people at the Housing Authority to MRC all the time. I think MRC is a great idea. John Thomas: Trouble is they don't have a huge amount of funding. They're not a residential funder. That's that's the problem. I mean, you know, I admire the work that they do, but that's, yeah, yeah. Katherine Provost: It was only did. It was only to get back to the question of, what's the what's the need, and what would it? I don't know. I don't know who can answer the question. I guess it would be the DDS Regional or area director. And Bill just asked, which is smaller, regional or area that is John Thomas: kind of large and area is the that's that's focusing and drilling Bill Adams: down that area seems more like what we want to hear about, I think. Yeah, John Thomas: well, they're going to be serving all the the, what we would call our contiguous towns and the towns in the MetroWest area.
Bill Adams: And is there a history of sort of regionalization of these, this work like, say, we partnered with three towns that abut Wayland, and then when they build group homes, they support our guys, and when we build them, we could support their guys so that we have a larger pool to work with, but not a huge pool. Does anyone ever do that?
Unknown: I don't know the answer to that. I've never heard of it. Great idea, though. Don't you think?
Tom Fay: All right? Well, certainly I think two ConCom provide days Day Services Bill, I think are serve individuals in the region. For example, I think Charles River has one in need it. So, so, to the extent this regionalization that that might be a model, but John Thomas: I think he's talking about, you know, people in the actual towns that want to sort of band together. It's Bill Adams: such a precious resource, yeah, being able to manage that little bit locally, if it's possible, but it does seem hard to do. Tom Fay: So why don't we take a quick break and convenient seven, and we'll continue our meeting. Okay? Great. Thank you. Bye.
Unknown: We need that camera's
not on yet. Do we need the table? I to feel comfortable. Katherine Provost: Do we have a just one other question? What about someone from Smok coming to which is the regional housing authority coming to talk to us about what what type of developments they see that have worked well, what partners they've worked with? I think they're very involved in in and I don't, I don't even know exactly how, but we could figure out the right person at Smok who might be able to come talk to us as well. Tom Fay: Sure, yeah, I will reach out to them and see whether they are willing to join us. I will do that great. Thank you. So let's turn our attention to Item three of our agenda, which includes a conversation with inviting neighbors to the site, and we have some individuals here, welcome, and maybe individuals online. If so, we'll bring them on, see if I can do that.
Bill Adams: I did hear from at least one mark, Tom Fay: yeah, Robby. How can I bring Mr. Mettler over to the main meeting?
Unknown: I join
Bill Adams: if you get stuck, I have his email. I could probably email him as a committee member, but,
Unknown: okay, good. So Mr. Metrow should join us. Good evening. Mr. Metland,
Hey, Mark, can you hear us? Yeah, you've got me Excellent. I'm here. Tom Fay: Hi, Mr. My name is Tom Fay, welcome. Thank you for the meeting where listening to neighbors about this project, answer questions and listen to your thoughts. So I just ask each person go through and give us your name and address, and then we'll and then we'll get started. So you want to start? Unknown: I'm Allen Lapierre from nine High Rock Road. We abut the property.
Matthew McCall and 15 Woodridge road. I also bought the
property and Deborah lucky
or nine High Rock Road. You give us your address for
us on 13 High Rock Road. Tom Fay: Great welcome. I Yeah. So our committee put this item on the agenda to make sure we have an opportunity to hear your thoughts on potential projects here and your concerns and answer questions. So I open up to anybody who wants to begin. Unknown: Can I just jump in quick point order and just request that this committee endeavor to make the calendar up to date? It's not and it's very difficult to be involved. I've wanted to be involved, and I no idea when the meetings happen, and my only option, really is reading the minutes so you know, I understand that it was added to the agenda sometime in the letter that the the meeting was added to the calendar sometime in the last week. But, you know, I don't think that's enough time for us to stay apprised of the information that's being held here. Tom Fay: Not too good suggestion. What I'll do is make it a point to put in the minutes that the that and this will be in the minutes of the meetings of this committee going forward will be on October is a set meeting. October, 22 2025 from five to 8pm November, 6, 2025 from 11 to 2:11am. 2pm 1113, 25 from 6:30pm to 8pm and 1119 25 from 6pm to 9pm as far as putting them on the town website, it's typical that the agenda is created late, and once the agenda is created, then you then you post it and on the opine law, we have to do it within a certain number of hours part of the meeting. So. But Unknown: now that we have the dates the agenda aside, can we put the dates on that so that like on the calendar, so that I can check to see when the next Tom Fay: meeting is? I'll speak with the Tom the Select board's office, see whether we can do that. Thank you. So thoughts, comments on what you know, what you don't know. Question about the process. Comments you have. The floor is yours.
Unknown: I can I'll start this. I'm kind of, we're kind of coming late into the game here. So there's some information that we don't know. And one is, how many units are you thinking on this property, and how many? And I heard today, four to five people in a unit.
Tom Fay: It's undecided. How many units even how many structures? The Town Meeting Warren article authorizes a Select Board to build at least one structure to house individuals with disabilities. That's that's pretty much it might there be two possibly depends what the Select Board decides, the decision will be impacted by what our committee recommends. And I'm not sure what time you came in to this meeting, but our conversation just before we broke was kind of gave you a sense, I think, of how there are so many variables that we're listening to, considering so many groups that we've heard from, that it's really up in the air. Is a long phrase, but I would say really an open book. You know, it's really an open book. And if I do invite other members of the committee to respond to Alan's question,
Unknown: yeah, we're really an exploratory body. You know, I think of myself as an emissary to the greater community, ordinary citizen who's trying to figure out what this would mean for Wayland, and how we could for benefits of housing to the disabled and have it and be a blessing in the town. So I think at this point, we're really trying to talk to experts, bring experts in to explain to us how this world works. Books, where's the money come to help disabled people? Who are the people who know how to build buildings for disabled people, who are the people the companies that run management of these facilities and the right kinds of services are provided for folks, very exploratory, and at the end of the process, we're going to summarize what we learned and write to the Select Board and say, Okay, we did this sort of panorama. Look at all the vendors and all the government agencies and all the disabled people in the Commonwealth. And here's what we've learned. You know, here's the factors that when you the Select would start making decisions that you want to take into consideration.
Tom Fay: I will say, Listen, I'm sorry you want to say something though I was Bill Adams: just going to say, what I do keep bringing up, even though it wasn't written down, is what the town sort of voted on was two buildings with maybe five to six individuals that need quite a bit of support, so that that would include maybe one or two additional people who live there overnight and full time support those six people and so and then I also remember from the town meeting this commitment to build a building That's consistent with other buildings in the neighborhood that don't look dramatically different or, you know, largely institutional. So I keep bringing that up as a reminder to the committee that that was, even though it wasn't written down, that was what kind of what was discussed. And so that's my hope, is to keep advocating for that idea. But of course, the committee has more rain than you know that if they decide otherwise, Tom Fay: and to Bill's point, from from what I've heard, I invite a committee members to to comment. What we're hearing from the organizations that we have heard thus far suggest that, you know, homes with more than maybe four to six per home really doesn't, isn't effective. It isn't ideal for the residents. So essentially, smaller, better, versus a structure with with many more residents isn't I'm sure the state even would approve it, but just not effective. Unknown: I think all the models, including that most recent one, all of them look residential. They're not institutional. Yeah, Tom Fay: and the and the one resident and the one home for disabled individuals in the town is residential, looking home under 20, not far from the Cochituate, Unknown: the town. At the Tom meeting, it was approved for five to six individuals, both in each building Tom Fay: or in combined No, as Bill pointed out, the written word isn't that specific. We did speak about that, I spoke about, Unknown: that you presented information, right? Yeah, so it's five to six in the aggregate, plus that Katherine Provost: five, five to six per building in two buildings, right? Tom Fay: Okay, five to six per building, it could be only one building has to be at least Unknown: one it wasn't the second one. Have to be affordable housing if a second facility, second one could be an amendment to the warrant. Tom Fay: The amendment just wanted to make sure. Want to make sure that affordable housing, it was affordable so, so the one home could be would have to be Unknown: affordable. Follow me, so I'm don't follow. Can you clarify that. Sure so Tom Fay: the one home could would serve individual adult disabilities, but it would be affordable for the individuals who moved in there,
Unknown: okay, as opposed to capitalized Tom Fay: affordable housing or you pay on pocket only for people who could pay that apart. John Thomas: Okay? I mean, the general consensus is the population that I think, is the spirit of what it is that we're trying to do with, by definition, by almost any definition, would be a population that would be eligible for affordable housing, if, in the absence of a disability. In other words, anybody that's served, for example, by the Department of Department of Developmental Services, is making less than what the median income level would be, yeah, Unknown: but there's a lot more to it, right? Like, you know, if this, if something is qualified and designated as affordable housing within the fair housing, you know, act, then you know, then they're not, they're taking in. They're not able to restrict those residents to mentally handicapped or to being disabled in other capacities. You. Right? So one house may be able to be served this purpose that this committee is intended, but if this second house is to be qualified as affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, then it would be subject to different regulations, and there would be different individuals there. So restricting that just to mentally disabled or other disabilities is not necessarily, you know, a given. It's not something necessarily that would happen. I mean, it'd be subject to different limitations. All Tom Fay: right, so, just so I see I can follow you, suggested that the amendment of the article. Your concern is that Unknown: it, my reading of it was that if you had that, if it was a second house was to be built, a second structure to be built, that second structure would be affordable housing. And my understanding, and maybe it wasn't defined, and, you know, it was written in two minutes, but affordable housing, you know what the intent of that? You know amendment was clearly after was affordable housing within the definition of the Fair Housing Act, which is different than, you know, what we would be doing. And, you know, frankly, entirely different agencies. I'll have to take a closer look. I think it was the intention was that if we couldn't build anything that Well, I guess I'm concerned that we don't know what the parameters are of this, you know, warrant at this stage, and I don't understand that maybe the amendment was a safeguard to make sure that, well, it wasn't a safety, it was an amendment. So it changed. It was, it was, if it was no group home built the town's going to build, subdivide or something. It would have to be affordable. So if we couldn't do what we're trying to do, then it would have to be affordable. I think that was the intent that would be. That would be the minimum required, right? John Thomas: If we couldn't do if we couldn't make a recommendation to serve the disabled population for whatever reason, which I frankly don't think that's going to there's going to be a barrier to that, based on what I've heard so far. If we hypothetically couldn't do that at a bare minimum, then the fall back would be that the property would be utilized for affordable housing. That's my understanding. Tom Fay: That's helpful. I think there is a good point, Matthew. So what we'll do is we'll explore that. If we need a Tom town council opinion on it, we'll get that. Unknown: So I guess with the floor, I would just say, you know, I appreciate the invitation to participate here and for, you know, to comment and ask questions. I think that, you know, I would reiterate kind of the the other, you know, some, some of what we else, we've heard in that it's difficult to provide comment and ask questions given how broad the net committee is cast. We've heard from, you know, about potential friendly, 40 B developments that would maximize the development on that land. We've heard about farms with livestock on them. We've heard about, you know, tonight's building, or structure or house, which would have individuals that are coming in and out with, you know, large transportation needs. So it's really difficult for us, or me to, you know, really wrap my head around what's going on here, or feel like I can make an impact, or, you know, participate in any way. So I guess where I would start, you know, is that, do we know one? Do we know that this project will benefit the residents of Wayland? And by benefit, you know, I mean in the sense that residents of Wayland would be living in these units that are being built. And if that's the case, then maybe we solve for that problem, rather than, you know, entertain, you know, everything else that's out there, and address and focus the efforts on the individuals that would be living in that in that those houses, if, in fact, this committee or the this project can't, you know, guarantee the that the housing will be used for residents and that the residents are subject to, you know, pooled lottery, like other members of the state or the community at large, I don't know then, where you know the benefit to The town is, and it seems to have gotten lost. So I'd like to get some you know, respect Tom Fay: on that well. In the end, the Select Board will make a decision on how they want to proceed with this land, and they they're elected to speak generally, to do what's best for. The for the town, so they'll make, they'll be the final decision makers on that. But regarding Wayland residents possibly living, it's a great point, and that's something that we've touched upon as a committee, and we'll continue to talk about it. For example, at some point, it's an ARPA RFI issue which limits the residents to individuals living in Wayland. Well, if that's the way we go, we may need to limit it to private companies committed to it versus Unknown: Well, state funded. Yeah, Tom Fay: right. So those are the rules right. State may say, no, no, we're not going to let you do that. We need. There are so many people in your region, they need to have access to this one. But, but if the if the rules permit Wayland to have an RFI request for ARPA or custom proposal where only Wayland residents live, and then, you know, that's what psych board might do. That may be what our committee recommends. So it's it's really unclear. And to your earlier point, I you know what you say makes sense. It's kind of hard for you to put your hands around this, because it's also hard for us at this point. It's just not there yet. We might be there in six weeks, and then it becomes clear. I think then people like you, neighbors, people close by can get your hands around it, and they will ask more pointed questions and raise your concerns. Unknown: So I know Bill Adams: at least in talking to Tom, he did describe at least two meetings with neighbors, the first one to kind of hear concerns and get them on the table, and then another meeting when things are more formulated, to respond specifically. So I think people are thinking that way. So I appreciate that it's under specified right now, but there'll be another chance to react to whatever more specifics the committee comes up with, too, and to provide me feedback along the way, which I'm happy to pass on at any meeting. One
Unknown: of the things I also wanted to ask about was, I guess I don't understand what these folks will be doing during the day. This was presented as an opportunity to engage these individuals and keep them in the community. But it's not really located near anything, and it's not a location that's easy to get to anything. It's one of the few that, I mean, does have a sidewalk. I mean, it's in terrible condition, but maybe, you know, that's part of this process is, you know, replacing the sidewalk. But beyond that, it's at least a mile walk for anyone to get anywhere. And that assumes that the individuals are, you know, able to, you know, to do that on their own. So I guess that was one of my thoughts. And like, how do you then get them into the the into the the community, in engaged with the community in a way that's not, you know, disruptive from a traffic standpoint. You know, we traffic backs up to Woodridge Road in both directions on a regular basis, and adding, you know, an institution that's, you know, moving people in and out on a regular basis, I think would be, you know, problematic. So some of the thoughts that I wanted to ask, no the Tom Fay: good questions, I think what we've heard from different individuals in the industry are that, depending on the nature of the disability, some individuals can work in the community. You know, human Wayland, as we heard from work, Inc, some work in courthouses, something work in state office buildings. They would get transportation there during the day. Some individuals go to Dave programs in the area. It depends on the nature of the disability. Individuals who have much more severe disabilities, they're they're less able to to work in certain environments. It kind of depends on the nature of the residents. Unknown: And has the committee explored traffic concerns? We're not. DEP, no, no. I mean, both roadways are listed as tier two by the state, so they require an audit at some point. Maybe it's something to do at this stage? Tom Fay: Well, since we haven't really gotten the point of knowing where we're going to recommend, that's kind of premature.
Unknown: How does this dovetail to the other big project that's going on down the street on 27 No, that isn't a Christian Academy. That's that have any impact on this? Nothing I'm aware of. I don't think we know what fair tax is doing right now, except they're going to do something.
I was referring to, the traffic scanning uptick, significant. Away Tom Fay: from that, it depends how big a operation,
Unknown: just like, just, Stephanie Lynch: just to comment, you know, for instance, my son, we live on Pine, on Hemlock, and he as part of his day program. And with DDS, there is a bus service that picks up people, individuals around Wayland, most, most of them are living at home, like Jason, and takes them to the program and brings them back. We can't get coverage for all the trips, but it's, it's a very, you know, buy it under the radar kind of thing, and it's all taken care of through his day program and his DDS,
Unknown: questions, comments. I had a question about funding and what happens to the organization and to the property and to the residents. If it doesn't work out, I think, you know, we in Wayland in particular should be ultimately, you know, particularly sensitive to these things. And we are a town of essentially closed storefronts. So, you know, I think that on some level, there's got to be an anticipation or plan as to what would happen if you know their funding does disappear. And, you know, I think it's two tier, right? It's the service funding, and then whatever you know, the maintenance on the property would be a separate fund, I assume. So, I guess what? How do you guys think about, you know, ensuring that the longevity of this organization, and, you know, yes, you can look at the the 990s for the organization and other filings, but not sure that that's really indicative of the service component of that in organization, and their ability to, you know, continue to get funding and dependency on outside sources. Tom Fay: Good question had to came up earlier tonight. I think I would expect the Select Board to place a restriction on land. Either we, the town, will find land lease to the organization that comes in and develops it or sells it outright. But if they do sell it, the property would likely have the DEP destruction. So if an organization went bankrupt or couldn't handle it, we would simply bring in another organization to an RFP to replace I think that in my mind, that's the model, I would say. But, but to your point, I think one of our jobs as a committee is to point out to the Select Board that the organization choose has has a good track record in this well financed
questions
Unknown: I ask a couple of questions for sure?
Is the intention that the town will continue to own the property and lease whatever it is that's developed to a developer and and collect rent over time, or is it intended to sell to developer with confidence for how they can develop the property unclear. Tom Fay: I think both options are around the table, but not nothing clear on that, Unknown: but to the point to the to the extent your question
Tom Fay: raises concerns about organizations taking advantage of the town. I'm confident the any agreement that is arrived at would prevent any undue
Unknown: I guess more that it's a loss of control at some point, right? So you you make a decision through this committee process. You choose a partner, and you sell the land, and you're out. And if it, if the project does collapse, at some point it fails, then we're back where we are today, with an abandoned property, you know, potentially. So that's one concern I had. The other question is, do you have it on your purview of you know what you're going to evaluate in this process speaking to local real estate agents to get a sense of the impact on a butters of the various types of projects. So if a project is two residential looking homes that house five to six people, each with one professional staying overnight. What impact might that be to the six direct abutters, or however many director butters there are, if it is one large building that's commercial and Luke in a large parking lot and houses 25 People, what does that do to abutter values? Is that a fair ask from the abutters to have that be something that you consider and seek professional advice from and report on it as part of this process. Tom Fay: All I'll say that is that one of the members of our committee is Robert Hummel. He's ex officio member, and he's a town planner, and you know some of the issues you mentioned. You know he to the extent we need it and give expert advice on on impacts. He certainly would advise us on on zoning relative to impacts on property values. I'm not sure that's something that we'll do a study on, but I'll leave it up. I open up that committee members on that topic. We're Unknown: not suggesting a commercial building with 25 units. I mean, everything we've talked about something that looks residential, it's relatively small numbers. So I mean, the Dallas river Foundation has that group home on behind coach grill. Coach grill, yeah, you wouldn't know noi. I mean, the neighbors were very concerned naturally in the beginning, and now, as far as I understand, they liked the being about us to this property. And you wouldn't know that these folks are there. They get transported to their programs during the day. And you know there is the ADU have some fans to take people to their destinations, but I'm not sure this has much of an impact on traffic.
Just a point. I the I can hear everybody great, except those of you who are on the committee who I can't see like I can see my fellow neighbors. I can see the folks who are remote. Can hear everybody fine when they speak. I just can't hear you guys very well at all. It's very muffled, so I didn't really catch the whole response to my question. You want to try it again? I was just saying that we're not suggesting commercial build, commercial looking building with 25 that seems excessive. I don't think anybody in this committee would recommend a development like that. Everything we're suggesting is similar to the picture that's in front of you. It looks residential as should have minimal impact on the surrounding neighbors. So it would be pretty similar to the Charles River foundation home behind coach grill, and most people don't even know that that exists in this town. And initially it was neighborhood opposition to that, and as far as what I've heard from people, the neighbors are accepting of it. Now it's worked out. It worked it's worked out for them. They feel like it's provides a service for these people, and it's not a problem. Which house is it? Out of curiosity, right beside folks theater. Okay, so it's on route 20. It's on route 20. Yeah, books and the high place,
but you would, nobody knows it's there. Katherine Provost: And that's Brian. Is that eight units or 10 units? I think it's 12. I think it's 12. Two actually, yeah, Unknown: 12 units, plus a manager, people, 12 people, yeah, and for over 15 years, 20 years, yeah. John Thomas: And that's something that's really, really tough to do these days. I'll just say, I mean, we, those of us who've been working on this for a little while, and people that have been interacting with the state, which would be the eventual funding source, getting anything in the neighborhood of that those kinds of numbers these days is almost impossible. It's really, really hard to get a congregate housing setting funded by the state for more than six people. You really have to have exceptions. That's why some of the examples that they were showing tonight, they were talking about, for example, a duplex with four people on one side and four people on the other. Even that's kind of unusual. So the trend is to keep the numbers smaller, to get away from the institutional model. So I'm just sharing that those are the trends. That's not necessarily what we're going to be advocating for or not advocating for. Unknown: Is that a trend based on the residents themselves, and what kind of works out better for them? Yes? Yes. Okay.
Bill Adams: My Mark's point is an important one. Like whatever possible designs we come up with, we should deliberately think about what evidence do we have from other similar developments that this won't impact the value of people's land surrounding you know, may not be able to do that officially, but as. Principle, we should come up with designs that have been shown to not impact neighbors, home values, and it does seem feasible. Have said,
Unknown: I think the comment was about setbacks, and I think it dovetails with the potentially, with the property value question, in that, if the property is encumbered by the town of Wayland in the sale, such that it, you know, has sufficient setbacks, I would imagine that that would provide, you know, you know, go a long way to offset any potential
discounting a property in relation to the neighbor. So, you know, with that said, I guess we would, as neighbors, advocate for, you know, a pretty substantial setback. You know, to keep this in fitting, as you said, with, you know, a house that is quiet and, you know, not really disruptive in the neighborhood. Jump all you like I'm glad I started. That's what I was thinking of. Is, what are the setbacks? Is it 100 feet? 200 feet? Did you know the answer? And is that something that, Tom Fay: if Robert was here, he could tell us like that, you know, Unknown: I know. Is it 30 feet? And I think 30. I think it's 30 feet for a side, side yard. And I don't know what it is, because what's the zoning in that area? Is it acres only? I think so, yeah, 222, acres, our 60. So I don't know what this side setbacks out what's our 62 acres, right? Yeah, so, I mean, I think we would comply with that. Noi, yeah, yeah. I don't think there's any special treatment. The only difference would be if
Tom Fay: it was a 40 B through the to the Select Board, and then, then there could be relaxation of those.
Unknown: Okay, it hasn't come up at all. They're still in Well, it did come up. We want to do this. It did come up, and it was advocated by by one of the members of this board, one of the seated members? No, Tom Fay: no, I mentioned that. Yeah, no, no, it's come up in this. Yeah, I stand corrected. It has come up, but we haven't seriously talked about, well, this is what we should know. We should recommend Unknown: this clearly what we want to do. Yeah, this is what we think. This is our goal. Not a 40 day, right, right? So going forward, do you have meeting with people like, Tom Fay: yeah, so if you our meetings are all online, so you can go to WayCAM and watch our prior meetings and minutes are also online, and a future meetings will be online as well. So you can't make it, you can watch them. Unknown: But do you have any coming up? Tom Fay: Do you have the meetings, individual meeting with people? Yes, like these companies, yes, yeah. So we have, we have organizations coming in on at least our next two meetings, like the next three meetings, these are organizations that are in the industry that can teach us about what experiences they have, what works, what doesn't work, from funding to, you know, neighborhood. Unknown: Are you concerned about government? You know, as far as the timing, current political environment? No, no.
One last question. I think it's outside the purview of this committee, but, or at least their mandate. But one of the things that I've struggled with is like, what's where the property came from, and the town's acquisition of this property through the foreclosure. You know, I think that there's should be some recognition, it seems somewhat, you know, ironic is not the right word, but that, you know, this individual was suffering from mental health. Town condemned the home and then foreclosed on it, and is now, you know, using it for helping other people with mental health issues. But during the meeting the town meeting, it was brought up, and there was a question raised as to the prior owner and their state and their entitlement to the the funds, and what the the town's intentions were with respect to those I think it was even mentioned that a heir to the estate was present and arrived in presence to discuss the matter at the town meeting. So I guess I just was wondering, you know what the plan there? How does that factor in? To to the finances of this project. If the town is, you know, not planning to return that those funds, does that open us up to lawsuit? And you know, if so, is that a consideration, and if the town is planning to return those funds. How do we then to factor into the, you know, any budget concerns with this project and the costs and costs associated with Tom Fay: it? Yeah, good questions. They came up when the article was being put together, and town council advised us that town owns the property free and clear and doesn't need to be concerned with any future financial obligations to the priority that was the advice. Okay?
Unknown: Matthew still has any questions Mark?
Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. Yes on the easements. How? How strict can you be on the easements when you, when you grant this to the operator? I mean, how many, what kind of easements Can you put in as far as care of the property, overall care of the property, and so on? That's a good question. Tom Fay: That's a very good question. I think, I think we need to explore that, but if the town owns, if it's a land lease, we might have more more control over that. But I think what we've heard from the organizations that appeared before us is they take a lot of pride in the properties they own and operate, and they want to be good neighbors, and that that's good to hear, but, but now that's a good question. They want Unknown: to replicate these programs in other towns. So it's in their interest to maintain the properties. I mean, you could have somebody build two houses there, and, you know, have, it could be a disaster. Yet the town has no control over that. But at least with this, I think we can put pressure on I think it's comes from within the agency to maintain the property. Number one, hopefully the town would never have to get involved with them, with cutting the lawn and stuff like that. John Thomas: A lot of the vendors that we're in discussion with including work Inc, that's been around for more than 30 years. There's continuity. I mean, like Brian said, it's in their interest to maintain a property because they want to do this again. They want to replicate the program down the road. So why would they put that at risk? So, I mean, there are no guarantees, but I think that's I mean, again, my experience in working with a lot of these organizations, and some of the ones that we're going to be having come come in Charles River, has been around since the 60s. They have a track record. I would think that we would be looking at that track record, and if there's an RFP to consider, we would be looking at that track record as well. And I'd encourage you to do the same, Katherine Provost: yeah, and I think there's a way for us to even do a tour of some of their properties. I mean, they're really some very beautiful properties run by Minute Man arc and Roach family real estate that are excellent service providers that I think would give a butters a lot of comfort on this issue. John Thomas: Some of us toured a minute man ARPA group home in Sudbury this past year, and it's an immaculate house. Let me tell you, I wish Unknown: that house, okay, it's a restaurant, yeah, right on 117 right across the street. I mean, I wish that house was next to my house. Yeah, quite honestly. Well, I have no My daughter lives in Waltham, lives next to a safe house, and they felt different than this. Safe House is the right term that's for people with disabilities. Yeah. I mean, they're DEP and over five that live. There's no problems, like, but it can't say that their property is immaculate. You know, operates it, I don't,
but it's, there's like it there's no problems.
Bill Adams: So I had another setback question, is it possible for the committee to recommend setbacks that are larger than the standard zoning amounts, or is it pretty much legally cast in stone, like if an architect looks at the land? Or is it Are there ways to specify larger setbacks? Is in specific areas or not. Tom Fay: If Robert was here, you can answer the question, probably I cannot, but I'll put on the list as a question to answer, to be answered. Okay,
other questions or comments. Mike, appreciate. You guys coming in as Bill mentioned. We'll have a at least one other meeting where neighbors will have opportunity to come in and ask questions. By then, I think things will be clear for you and for us. Bill Adams: One other thing, I think just everyone should know that all these are recorded too. So if you can't be here online, you could watch these afterwards and and then there's also a five minutes at the beginning of every meeting, where, if there's an issue from the last meeting you want to bring it up, feel free or tell me, and I'll bring it up too. Unknown: Yeah, we have public comment for every meeting, so feel free to come. Appreciate the invitation. Appreciate your effort. Thank you.
We're all right. We all live in this town. We all live in town.
Tom Fay: So moving on Agenda Item three, Ronnie Kessler worked for the Wayland public schools, and she was hoping to make it tonight, but she's tied up in a school committee meeting, so we'll get her on at another another meeting before I entertain a motion to adjourn. Any final comments or questions by members of the committee. Hearing, none. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. I hear a second, second, thank you. Gene, second, I'll do a roll call vote. Brian aye, John aye. Gene, Catherine, yes. Bill Yes. Stephanie Yes. Tom, yes, unanimous vote. Thank you all for your time this evening and see you on the 22nd
Board of Assessors
6-Oct-25 - Board of Assessors12:08
8-Sep-25 - Board of Assessors13:49
11-Aug-25 - Board of Assessors08:52
Robert Leroux: It is six
o'clock. We have a quorum, and
again, Zach will not be joining
us,
Massimo Taurisano: so I may
start just reading the preamble.
So pursuant to chapter two of
the acts of 2025 this meeting
will be conducted via remote
participation, knowing personal
attendance by members of the
public will be permitted. This
meeting may be recorded, which
would made available to the
public, WayCAM, as soon as after
the meeting, as is practical,
practicable, public will be
excluded from executive
sessions. So 601 now we can call
the meeting to order by roll
call. So Massimo tarizano, here,
Steve Klitgord: you click on
here.
Unknown: Philip parks here.
Massimo Taurisano: Okay, so we have quorum, like you said, and I think is any public comment or present that we need to be aware of. Unknown: No See, no public comment. Okay, Massimo Taurisano: so looks like the first item on the agenda is review of the minutes of Monday, September eight, 2025 Dave or the opine session. I
Steve Klitgord: have no questions, Unknown: yeah, Garvey, the minutes, nope, no questions or additions for me, thanks, Steve Klitgord: guys, I can move then that we accept the medians of Monday, October 6, 2025, as presented. Unknown: Philip Park seconds.
Steve Klitgord: Steve, click on Yes. Unknown: Philip parks, yes.
Doug, you are mute.
DEP McCall, a yes. Massimo Taurisano: Massimo Charena, yes,
Robert Leroux: unanimous, thank you,
Massimo Taurisano: Rob. You want me to keep going? Or you call the items as Fay, Robert Leroux: I can take it from here. We did ask for whether or not there was public comment Correct, yes, yes, okay, we did taking some notes my apology. So I'm on page four of your package. Fiscal year, 2026, calendar year, 20, 23/9 commitment, 2023 hyphen, 09 there's one bill evaluation is $23,001 the tax implication is $575.03 and it's to be issued October 9 of this year,
looking for a motion, looking for the acting chair to request a motion for action. Massimo Taurisano: Okay, so can someone provide a motion to act on this, on this document as as mentioned, Steve Klitgord: and move that we accept the ninth commitment of 2023, dash Oh, nine for the motor assess motor vehicle and trailer excise tax, totaling valuation of $23,001 with a tax of 570, $3.03
Unknown: Willow Park seconds, sorry. Doug, yours. Steve Klitgord: Steve quick, good, yes. Unknown: Phil Park shows. McNeil, yes, I know, yes.
Robert Leroux: Thank you. Unanimous. Following page is the Munis accounting showing you the totals as we just voted on page six, motor vehicle and x and trailer excise fiscal year 2026 for calendar year 2024 this is the eighth commitment in 2024 the total tax dollars is $383.35 to be issued October 9. Massimo Taurisano: Okay, can I have a motion to accept this and move forward with that. Steve Klitgord: I move that we accept the motor vehicle and trailer excise. Eighth commitment for 2024 dash Oh, eight totaling tax of $383.35 that will be issued on October 9. 2025,
Unknown: And Philip Park seconds Steve Klitgord: and by roll call. Steve clipgood, yes. Unknown: Philip Park Yes. McNeely, yes,
Robert Leroux: thank you. Following page is the Munis accounting totals again, Bill of one valuation of $15,334 in the excise tax, Bill of $383.35 on page eight, motor vehicle and trailer excise fiscal year 2026, calendar year 2025, this is the fifth commitment we have 358 bills, evaluation of $8,386,215.15
the tax is $89,366.03 to be issued on October 9. Massimo Taurisano: Can I have a motion to move forward with this. Steve Klitgord: I move that we accept the assessor's warrant for motor vehicle and trailer excise. Fifth commitment. 2025, dash, oh five for a total of $83,366.03 that will be issued on October 9. Unknown: 2025, Philip Park seconds and Steve Klitgord: by it all call Steve click, go ahead, yes. Unknown: Phillip parks, yes. Tom McNeil, yes. Massimo Taurisano: Massimo Charena, yes, unanimous. Robert Leroux: Thank you. Following page on page nine is again the Munis accounting totaling $89,366.03
moving on to directors, review and update of Office activities. Our consultant, Bishop, Roy Bishop, was in our office Friday. I spent the majority of Friday with him working on the sales analysis for calendar year 2024 that we're using for values in FY 2026 we hope to complete this process October 17, which will allow us to open up the 2026 disclosure period, which will begin Monday, October 20 at 8am to Friday, October 24 at 12:30pm hopefully you all received Your postcards in the mail by USPS. They will mailed Friday, September 26 this notice of disclosure was also advertised on the board of assessors web page and the Assessor's Office web page and the town October 2025 newsletter. So we believe we've covered all the bases on behalf of the board, and it will be an interesting session. Once again, through disclosure, looking down the line, we have scheduled the board of selectmen to host the board of assessors on November 17, Monday, no Monday, November 17 at 7pm to help them understand The 2026 tax classification and help them through the process. So please have that on your calendar, and your support is greatly appreciated and desirable. Are there any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair prior to this meeting, Unknown: not, no, Robert Leroux: I'm all set. Are there any members thoughts and concerns? Nope, none for me. Thank you. The date of our next meeting, we propose it to be Monday, November 3, 2025 Same as usual, with an open session, Executive Session, open session starting at six, and executive at 630. Plus or minus. Massimo Taurisano: I can rob, I can just anticipate I will be away overseas on that day. Okay, thank you. So I'm not going to be able to attend, unfortunately, thank Robert Leroux: you. I will keep you in the loop of who will be attending and notify you when the materials are ready. Okay.
Let me take a text here, just in case it's Zach.
Unknown: No, we're good.
Robert Leroux: So if the acting chair would like to close the meeting so we can go into Executive Session. Massimo Taurisano: That would be nice. It's 611 actually, and we are about to enter into Executive Session for the purposes of complying with GL C 59 section 60 and GLC, 214 section 1b as permitted by purpose. Seven of GLC, 38 section 21 A, to review and discuss the following review the minutes of Monday, September eight, 2025 we're going to vote to accept and release. Then we're gonna talk about the motor vehicle abatements For the month of September. 2025 vote was set. We're gonna have the ATB case docket number f 35 for 405, and then we're gonna talk about FY 2025 for the ATB real estate, negotiate Solomon ladder three, Glen, Coke drive, then the abatement and those of the conservation Preservation Act, abatements still for the same address. And then for FY 2025 ATP, case docket number f, 3545 86 and so we can close this open session. We will not return to open meeting. And we can close this by roll call,
Steve Klitgord: Steam, click code, yes. Unknown: Roll Park show McCall, yes, yes, thank you. All right.
Massimo Taurisano: Okay, so we have quorum, like you said, and I think is any public comment or present that we need to be aware of. Unknown: No See, no public comment. Okay, Massimo Taurisano: so looks like the first item on the agenda is review of the minutes of Monday, September eight, 2025 Dave or the opine session. I
Steve Klitgord: have no questions, Unknown: yeah, Garvey, the minutes, nope, no questions or additions for me, thanks, Steve Klitgord: guys, I can move then that we accept the medians of Monday, October 6, 2025, as presented. Unknown: Philip Park seconds.
Steve Klitgord: Steve, click on Yes. Unknown: Philip parks, yes.
Doug, you are mute.
DEP McCall, a yes. Massimo Taurisano: Massimo Charena, yes,
Robert Leroux: unanimous, thank you,
Massimo Taurisano: Rob. You want me to keep going? Or you call the items as Fay, Robert Leroux: I can take it from here. We did ask for whether or not there was public comment Correct, yes, yes, okay, we did taking some notes my apology. So I'm on page four of your package. Fiscal year, 2026, calendar year, 20, 23/9 commitment, 2023 hyphen, 09 there's one bill evaluation is $23,001 the tax implication is $575.03 and it's to be issued October 9 of this year,
looking for a motion, looking for the acting chair to request a motion for action. Massimo Taurisano: Okay, so can someone provide a motion to act on this, on this document as as mentioned, Steve Klitgord: and move that we accept the ninth commitment of 2023, dash Oh, nine for the motor assess motor vehicle and trailer excise tax, totaling valuation of $23,001 with a tax of 570, $3.03
Unknown: Willow Park seconds, sorry. Doug, yours. Steve Klitgord: Steve quick, good, yes. Unknown: Phil Park shows. McNeil, yes, I know, yes.
Robert Leroux: Thank you. Unanimous. Following page is the Munis accounting showing you the totals as we just voted on page six, motor vehicle and x and trailer excise fiscal year 2026 for calendar year 2024 this is the eighth commitment in 2024 the total tax dollars is $383.35 to be issued October 9. Massimo Taurisano: Okay, can I have a motion to accept this and move forward with that. Steve Klitgord: I move that we accept the motor vehicle and trailer excise. Eighth commitment for 2024 dash Oh, eight totaling tax of $383.35 that will be issued on October 9. 2025,
Unknown: And Philip Park seconds Steve Klitgord: and by roll call. Steve clipgood, yes. Unknown: Philip Park Yes. McNeely, yes,
Robert Leroux: thank you. Following page is the Munis accounting totals again, Bill of one valuation of $15,334 in the excise tax, Bill of $383.35 on page eight, motor vehicle and trailer excise fiscal year 2026, calendar year 2025, this is the fifth commitment we have 358 bills, evaluation of $8,386,215.15
the tax is $89,366.03 to be issued on October 9. Massimo Taurisano: Can I have a motion to move forward with this. Steve Klitgord: I move that we accept the assessor's warrant for motor vehicle and trailer excise. Fifth commitment. 2025, dash, oh five for a total of $83,366.03 that will be issued on October 9. Unknown: 2025, Philip Park seconds and Steve Klitgord: by it all call Steve click, go ahead, yes. Unknown: Phillip parks, yes. Tom McNeil, yes. Massimo Taurisano: Massimo Charena, yes, unanimous. Robert Leroux: Thank you. Following page on page nine is again the Munis accounting totaling $89,366.03
moving on to directors, review and update of Office activities. Our consultant, Bishop, Roy Bishop, was in our office Friday. I spent the majority of Friday with him working on the sales analysis for calendar year 2024 that we're using for values in FY 2026 we hope to complete this process October 17, which will allow us to open up the 2026 disclosure period, which will begin Monday, October 20 at 8am to Friday, October 24 at 12:30pm hopefully you all received Your postcards in the mail by USPS. They will mailed Friday, September 26 this notice of disclosure was also advertised on the board of assessors web page and the Assessor's Office web page and the town October 2025 newsletter. So we believe we've covered all the bases on behalf of the board, and it will be an interesting session. Once again, through disclosure, looking down the line, we have scheduled the board of selectmen to host the board of assessors on November 17, Monday, no Monday, November 17 at 7pm to help them understand The 2026 tax classification and help them through the process. So please have that on your calendar, and your support is greatly appreciated and desirable. Are there any topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair prior to this meeting, Unknown: not, no, Robert Leroux: I'm all set. Are there any members thoughts and concerns? Nope, none for me. Thank you. The date of our next meeting, we propose it to be Monday, November 3, 2025 Same as usual, with an open session, Executive Session, open session starting at six, and executive at 630. Plus or minus. Massimo Taurisano: I can rob, I can just anticipate I will be away overseas on that day. Okay, thank you. So I'm not going to be able to attend, unfortunately, thank Robert Leroux: you. I will keep you in the loop of who will be attending and notify you when the materials are ready. Okay.
Let me take a text here, just in case it's Zach.
Unknown: No, we're good.
Robert Leroux: So if the acting chair would like to close the meeting so we can go into Executive Session. Massimo Taurisano: That would be nice. It's 611 actually, and we are about to enter into Executive Session for the purposes of complying with GL C 59 section 60 and GLC, 214 section 1b as permitted by purpose. Seven of GLC, 38 section 21 A, to review and discuss the following review the minutes of Monday, September eight, 2025 we're going to vote to accept and release. Then we're gonna talk about the motor vehicle abatements For the month of September. 2025 vote was set. We're gonna have the ATB case docket number f 35 for 405, and then we're gonna talk about FY 2025 for the ATB real estate, negotiate Solomon ladder three, Glen, Coke drive, then the abatement and those of the conservation Preservation Act, abatements still for the same address. And then for FY 2025 ATP, case docket number f, 3545 86 and so we can close this open session. We will not return to open meeting. And we can close this by roll call,
Steve Klitgord: Steam, click code, yes. Unknown: Roll Park show McCall, yes, yes, thank you. All right.
Board of Health
Jonathan Storer: Was September
15. 2025 it's hybrid meeting in
person or via zoom. one may
watch or participate remotely
with the meeting link. We found
that wayland.us public body
meeting information. virtual in
person and hybrid. Pursuant to
chapter two of the acts of 2025.
This meeting will be conducted
in person and via remote means.
in accordance with applicable
law. This meeting way may be
recorded which will be made
available to the public on
WayCAM as soon after the meeting
is back and do a roll call.
Brett Mortis here. Katie stiff
here. Genevieve Anna here. John
store here.
Unknown: perfect. Thank you.
We have a public comment first. one way online. and I'll Lindsay is going to join us as a part of the agenda at seven o'clock. Jonathan Storer: So they're not don't see any public comment online. Unknown: Okay? So. Abby. do you have public money? Abigail Charest: Sure. Should I go now or Well. no. you're part Unknown: of the agenda. Okay. yep. so we're ready to get started with the with the first agenda Jonathan Storer: item. No. it's first agenda is review and comment on subject design plans for Wayland High School. Drafted by is it? Ty Tyne bond with guest town engineer. Abby Charest. Abigail Charest: Hi. how are you? You can Unknown: come up a little closer. because sometimes it's hard to get
Abigail Charest: well. I hope to be a little bit farther along on this project. But the engineer that I usually work with has appendix burst. and he's been in the hospital. so we're a little bit farther behind than I had wanted to be. but we did get out into the field and did some test bits and do the soil evaluation test with Darren. and we have those results on the top of The third page here. talking about design standards for the leach fields and how much we'll have to have the additional reserve areas associated. But again. so we're still looking at the high school treatment plant. It's been offline for a long time. When we looked at the flows. they were lower than 10.000 gallons a day. So we've been looking at designing something under Title Five. It is in the zone two. so we'd have to do some additional nitrogen removal. which means we need an IA system. We've looked at a couple of IA systems. We looked at an and Nitro. But because we had so many more examples of the amphidrome system being used in schools. we felt like That was the best one to go with. We felt that some of the operations difficulties with the treatment plant previously were due to those variable flows from the school. and that. since am for drum could demonstrate more of a background with the schools. we felt more comfortable with that technology. I did text in since we just were chatting in the office. we're a little bit concerned about the probability of finding someone Unknown: to do O and M operation in MA. Operation. oh. sorry. Abigail Charest: Operation. operation maintenance. because these types of systems are often used on the cape because they are specific to nitrogen sensitive areas. But White Water has people. and there is a company called Unknown: Lewis. Oh. okay. Abigail Charest: so there's. there's some people around. So we'll be continuing to look at that and get you. you know. further design drawings and specifications. So I just want to give you an update. let you know that still working on this. and see if you have any questions so far. Also. just to say that please think about how you want to go through review and design of this. It if this was a treatment plant. we have previously been out requests for qualifications and gotten engineering firms. and that's why we use tie and bond. That's how we found them. So if this was a treatment plant. we would just go out to bid for construction. Uh. on this with the time bond design. with having me reviewed it. um. but since it's going through the board here. you guys would be normally send it out for additional review. You just think about if the town has had me review it and time bond design. and if you want to send Julia Junghanns: it. that would be for. like. an example of a peer review we've had done on some other projects recently. for for some larger systems where some of the dosing might be looked at. or mounting calculations and things like that that we would typically have another set of eyes look at. you know. from a peer review consultant sometimes. and then staff. I mean. we do the review in house. And then. you know. the board has been involved with this design. because we're changing from. you know. having the wastewater facility on site to the conventional system with alternative technology. So. you know. typically for residential projects. the board isn't typically involved. but because of those intricacies of this change where we have been involved. because there's a variance. you know. to use those different flow so. so that's. you know. part of but staff would also be reviewed with a design and feedback.
Unknown: So we usually would send it out for additional review. depending on. you know. what we end up with for Abigail Charest: flow them. so 8000 gallons. Yeah. on the other hand. this is a town project. so the town's already paid for the design. And to have. as opposed to having. like a commercial development come in with something. then you want to have that with you. Unknown: so we almost wouldn't need to. in this case. just because you've already. sort of. Abigail Charest: it's been through the town engineer as Unknown: well. which is you. but do you do septic design reviews? Abigail Charest: I mean. I have. you Unknown: have. yeah. okay. yeah. because I didn't know if you had the like for pressure dosing or mounding. or any of those types Abigail Charest: of things. More specifically than we're looking at the technologies and goals of the IA systems. yeah. and working with full towns to do. like a comprehensive stuff. Unknown: once we get a little further on. we'll have. you know. better idea for. you know. if there was additional review needed. you know. if we felt like we wanted that. but we'll work together. Jonathan Storer: And then. after it's built. is there testing to make sure that we meet the requirements for
Abigail Charest: nitrogen the there's operation and maintenance Julia Junghanns: of it. It depends which approval is is used for the and we're not sure which approval is used yet. We did. you know. Darren. I took a quick look at it. because each technology has different types of approvals that change all the time. So once we have an idea which one is being used. then there's a whole set of different rules and parameters for testing and whatnot that we would look at to figure out what would be needed for the long term O and M operation and maintenance.
Unknown: We haven't seen new amped around go in in quite some time. So. you know. it's something that we would look at. I mean. we will get all of them when they come through. But for a system this size. it might be new territory for us. You know. what's at the middle school? The Middle School. I think is a bio clear. okay. that's right. yeah. Abigail Charest: yes. I asked them to look at that as I my initial assumption would be that I would rather have a consistent technology throughout town. but time Bond did not.
Unknown: Why did they have a reason why this passed towards their mental Jonathan Storer: system? I'll find there's a large system for an assisted living housing development in Carlisle that's they've been dealing with nitrogen problems for the last couple of years. And I'll find out what the system Unknown: is. So it's not meeting the parameter correct. Jonathan Storer: and the they must have test or somewhere in the leaching field. and it's all. it's always coming up too high. Oh. wow. Okay. so once it's built. it's pretty expensive to try to. Unknown: right? Yeah. And. Abigail Charest: Yeah. luckily. the soils were pretty good out there. Sandy. It was a little bit of fill at the top that we have to pick out and remove a buck Jonathan Storer: once we got what is the I haven't walked over there. What is the land there now? Is it just open space? Is it woods or Abigail Charest: it's open space? There is sort of a hill area that the leaching fields are on. and then it kind of slopes down to baseball field. and then the football practice field. And as you go towards the football practice the groundwater gets higher and higher. but we're able to position this up on that mounted area. Jonathan Storer: And will the land be able to be utilized for anything after the fields are in. Abigail Charest: um. nothing that you could build on. but kids would be able to run around on Jonathan Storer: it. yep. okay. I didn't know how what it's going to be peppered with test pits or. you know. the spots that you can test. or what it would look like. Abigail Charest: I think they use it for frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee first to golf. yeah. Jonathan Storer: because it's not flat. yeah.
Unknown: yeah. that's so that's important regarding the nitrogen removal. because it is so close to the town wells. you know. So I'm sure that Ty and bond will be looking at that closely. yeah. to figure out what the best I mean. they're saying. yeah. good. wrong at this point. So yeah. Jonathan Storer: then maybe any system. I mean. do you when you purchase a system like that. Is it based on your gallons per day. and is it. is it that you err on the to be a little larger versus. yeah. and could systems be expanded if they needed to be okay? So it depends Abigail Charest: on the system. I don't know if an extended. but I'll look into that. But usually you err on the side of making sure you can cover up peak flows. although the Title Five is usually the peak flows. And then some of the systems can also be expanded. or additional filters can be added. I mean. Jonathan Storer: with these systems. that's really the pre treatment is going to be the secret. That's right. it's in its success.
Unknown: So probably maybe the next month or so. Abigail Charest: we'll hear from you again. Yeah. they're saying that we'll submit something by the day. Oh. okay. yeah. is there Unknown: like a deadline that you're trying Abigail Charest: to meet? I would like to start construction after baseball season.
Unknown: Are they? Oh. because it's right next to the baseball field. So then. just out of curiosity. I might be getting hit. But yeah. what will happen to the wastewater units that are in the building and any components that have been Abigail Charest: we'll need to use some of the electricity and some of the wiring for the instrumentation. but we'll also do some demo inside that building and take out some of the and we actually will have to wait until after July 1 together. position to go um. right after that. and trying to timeline the construction so that we're doing the fields in the summer. And if we have to do some of the treatment by the treatment plant. we can do that rather than McCall that we just start. I don't
Jonathan Storer: remember what type of leaching field will it be? Is it just like a big stone in black bed? Or. yeah. yes. it would Unknown: be pressure desk. right? This one. yes. because of the gallons per day I would. I believe it has. right. yeah. but it would still be. well. it's pressure. dose. Abigail Charest: it's pressure. yeah. yeah. show it. yeah. a little horse man over here. Yeah?
It's dose for another reason to like to have multiple reasons. Finally. they've seen it made it it's also Unknown: uphill. right? Sure that makes sense. I
Awesome. That's up there. I think thank you very happy.
We are a few minutes early. I don't know if you want to
go over some of the health director updates. We do have Lindsay here. but I don't know if she's sound prepared. or you should just stick to the seven o'clock time. Maybe
I could talk about mosquitoes from the health director on the Oh. she hasn't helped see that.
Hi. Lindsay. hi. How are you? I don't know. I don't camera option. For some reason I can see all of you and I'm here. But okay. I just found the link on the website Julia. so I don't know if there's a different link. I need to participate via video.
That was probably my fault. No. no. it's fine. I mean. I see the meeting link. but I don't know. Do
promote to panelist. Can you do that? Oh. yeah. did it work?
It says she'll be rejoining. Okay. yes. here I am. Okay. Oh. perfect. You're Hired. right? All right. we just get rid of that little box. Perfect. Thank you.
All right. okay. great. sorry to not be able to be in person. Well. thanks for joining. Yeah. we do appreciate it. Yes. absolutely. absolutely and again. apologies I couldn't be there in person. juggling kids schedules and all the things in the evening. but happy to be here and Julie. I figured I'd just go over the annual report. and certainly I'm happy to answer any questions that folks have. That's great. I'm just going to hand out a fresh coffee so everyone has it great. sure. So for those of who I haven't met. I'm Lindsay steinstep. the executive director at hrs Human Relations Service. the community mental health agency that serves West and Wayland and Wellesley. And I thought I would just review our FY 25 year and then again. answer any questions you all have. Our visits for Wayland residents were up this past year fairly significantly. We did just over 1100 clinical hours for Wayland residents. And I should back up and say. we see. you know. children all the way through. seniors in the community. and actually have recently made a push to ensure that seniors in all three of the towns that we serve are aware that we take Medicare and. you know. welcome them to access services through us as well. And I think some of that marketing has been useful because we've gotten sort of an influx of intakes from the senior community. which is great. but certainly. you know. most of our referrals come through the public school system or other residents who use services at hrs before. So the visit count was up from FY 24 and FY 24 just to go back. we did 864 clinical visits. So again. fy 25 we did 11 192 we did 30 consultation hours to the public school to sort of small groups or individuals within the public school system. I do some of those. My colleague. Alan Wyatt does some of those. And then Dr Luke Baker sirode Does some of the consultations as well. and certainly we're available to add. subtract. change consultation schedule as needed throughout the year. So many. some of you may remember that in years past. if there's been a tragic loss in a school community or something like that. we're always happy to come and support a school community. Or administrator as the need arises. But these consultations that I'm reviewing now. the 30 we did in FY 25 are just sort of our standard consultations that that we continue to do year to year. and in terms of our intake program. just in general. we had 31 new Wayland resident clients in FY 25 and then 52 sort of unique clients all together. So the difference there being that the 52 includes clients who have been at hrs for more than a year. So for example. children. you know. often we're doing long term work. generally. But kids. adolescents. may have seen the same therapist from FY 24 into FY 25 but we did 31 new intakes for Wayland residents in FY 2510 of those were kids under the age of 1112. Of them were between the ages of 12 and 18. and then nine of them were 19 plus. so sort of a range in terms of age. far and away. the sort of diagnostic category that we see the most of is anxiety. That may not surprise many of you. though anxiety is sort of a large umbrella. So there are. you know. plenty of diagnostic labels that would fall under that. but just for the purposes of a broad overview. that's certainly the primary issue that folks who come to seek our services are struggling with generally. And then actually right behind that was ADHD this past year. and then just under that. depression. usually depression. or historically. I should say. depression and anxiety have been sort of neck and neck. or closer together than the numbers show this past year. which is just interesting. You know. on a larger scale. as we think about what residents are contending with when it comes to mental health issues. and let's see. what else can I share in terms of referrals out so in the report. I go over that we. you know. one of our sort of big agency wide pushes this past year has been to build up our clinical staff just to ensure that we have the clinical capacity to serve as many residents as we can. We are a organization of roughly 35 total employees. so 25 you know. clinical staff. So we're never going to be able to meet the mental health needs of all of Wayland in any year. of course. but certainly. we want to make sure that we see as many as we can who are appropriate for care at hrs. And so this past year. we welcomed five trainees. which represented the largest training class that we've ever had. And these trainees are. I should mention. you know. late stage doctoral students or social work fellows who have graduated from their program and are just accruing hours towards their own independent licensure. So it's not. you know. I hesitate to use the word trainee. because usually people feel like that's sort of a real entry level clinician. And these clinicians have a lot of clinical experience already under their belt. and are supervised. It's a two year program that we have so welcoming that larger class of trainees last year. and again. they're still with us this year for the second year. really helped us to increase our clinical capacity. which I think is one of the reasons that the numbers were up this past year. just in terms of visits. And it also helps us to refer out fewer cases. of course. So you know. there are cases that we're going to refer out. even if we did have capacity because they're not appropriate for care at hrs. they might be looking for specialized treatment. They might have an insurance that we don't take. something like that. but so for so. we referred out 20 Wayland residents this past year. and nine of those were not appropriate for care at hrs. They had an insurance retake and needed to use their insurance or they were seeking specialized treatment of some kind. The other refer out cases were either folks who called at a time that we didn't have capacity to see them. they may have had a particular time that they needed to be seen. Some children and adolescents. you know. really don't have a lot of availability. and our after school evening hours go certainly the fastest throughout the year. So but if we do refer out. we refer Wayland residents to folks in the community that either a staff member. a clinical staff member. has recommended. knows. sometimes it's somebody who's worked at hrs in the past. So it's a really well vetted list. So I always mentioned that because I think that's another great service hrs can offer to the community is kind of a personalized. really well vetted referral system. So we're more than happy to work with any Wayland resident to get connected to mental health treatment and and we're going to the INT. Team. the clinicians who are on that team are going to stick with any resident until they find a provider if we can't see them that they are satisfied with. So as much as they want to continue to reach out to us. if they're having difficulty. we're going to stick with them and make sure that they get connected as well. But overall. our referral numbers are down. and the number of Wayland residents you know. seen in house has gone up in the last couple of years. and just again for reference. and this is all in the report. But in FY 23 we saw 677 residents. as I said. In FY 24 864 and then just over 1100 this past fiscal year. So it's going up. So Right?
And what else can I share? Let me pause and then not inundate you with numbers and ask if people have particular questions. either from the report or just about hrs currently. in general. happy to do my best.
I was wondering you under the diagnosis breakdown. There's one that just had. is a NA is that just somebody that saw referral. but there is no real diagnosis with it. So the diagnostic breakdown actually. and I can look into what that is. that this is actually all of the cases seen. and that could just be. somehow the coding it could be. let's see. you know. couples is in there. The way that that information got coded in our system. whatever the diagnostic category was. just didn't fall into one of these categories. So I will look into that. I don't know exactly it should be an other. I would assume. But that's just an error in our sort of the way our operations manager who collects the data from our electronic health record system.
it got code. okay. yeah. Was there any. any. any other. like. really severe cases that would be like. stand out in terms of. like. very. very severe depression or any. anything. or has it been. like. more or less manageable? You know. I would say it's manageable. HMS is not an acute care facility. So if we're working with a resident. or a resident's been referred. or we hear about an individual you know through the school system who's struggling. you know. to a great degree. essentially. when they present to us. we're likely going to recommend a higher level of care than outpatient treatment. We do come across these cases and help the folks in the school system you know work with individuals. if they're school aged. who you know can be really struggling with a pretty severe depressive episode. But again. if they come to us seeking treatment and they're in the midst of it. we're we're likely to recommend either going to the hospital just to assess for safety reasons and liability reasons. or a higher level of care if it's already sort of identified that it's really severe. That being said. we have a psychiatrist on staff who's trained as a child and adult analyst. and he. you know. certainly has a tremendous amount of experience. and as long as somebody is in treatment. in therapy at hrs. they can access medication management through us. So. you know. we certainly see folks who are struggling with a severe depression. but I would say overall. our clientele are able to function. you know. for the most part. day to day. whether they're school aged or within The adult population. Thank you. Yeah. absolutely. Other questions. I
Julia Junghanns: do appreciate the information. as we had talked about. you know. previously. when we fell shut hope was here. She's actually left the town and no longer working here. unfortunately. Unknown: So yeah. but some more information. And you know. we can pull that into our annual report that is due the end of this month. And so. you know. we've been working busily on our draft. and no so we appreciate your coming in. I don't know if any other folks have questions. but we do have some time as we have scheduled. Yeah. Absolutely. And we were happy to add one of the things. just for others on the call that Michelle was interested in. was referral source data. So we were. we started gathering that this past fiscal year upon request. And. you know. it's interesting to see. it's always a sensitive thing to figure out how to gather. you know. more data. right? But also be sensitive to folks calling to seek mental health treatment and not be. you know. asking too many questions for our own data gathering purposes. Within that first call. we want to make sure that they feel comfortable giving information. And for some people. it may be sensitive how they learned about hrs or from whom. and and the data. as you can see in the chart. sort of supports what we thought. 28 you know. referrals from the public school district. but a couple from the Senior Center. which was great to see. And then. you know. and this is self report. So. so the clients themselves who presented are giving us that information. 12 self referred. four from family members. five from community and then six from PCPs. which was higher than anticipated. But we we always try to connect with local PCPs. just to make sure they're aware about us and our services. We have a longer standing relationship with Western pediatrics and many residents of the three towns we serve. you know. are seen there. so they know about us. But there are others who have become more familiar Framingham peds and others. a couple providers in in Wayland as well. So that's good to see that that primary care providers of kids are referring to us and staying connected to us as well. and certainly. as we train new staff and social work fellows and postdoc fellows. we make sure that they're reaching back out to those pediatricians or primary care offices with permission. of course. from the patients. just to coordinate care in an ongoing way. and we gather the information about who their primary care provider is right at the beginning. when they're when they're signing registration paperwork and getting getting up and going in treatment. So I think that was the. one of the main. you know. pieces of data that Michelle was interested in. and then also just getting a sense of the total number of Wayland residents and scene versus just new intakes. We used to just report on that and then yes. the specific consultations happening year to year. I think Julia. that was mostly the data that we added
to mentioned it. I had another question when Sure so from referral to appointment time. what's that access like? That's a great question. So usually we are we have an intake meeting on Thursdays every week. and if a case is assigned. they're going to hear from that clinician. We really require that that clinician. that the case has been assigned. to get in touch with the individual or family the next day. because our goal is that that individual would be seen the following week. right? So it's a Thursday. they're. you know. likely we've assigned them to a time that the clinician has given to us as available when we make the match. But usually those aren't going to be Friday. even if the case is assigned Friday. So I would say the longest number of business days would be six. right? If it's if a Friday was looked for and they were going to be given that time the following Friday. but assuming no other scheduling issues get in the way it would be seen the following week. Yeah. So you know. between two and six business days they should be seen. That being said. I can get you the exact answer now that we have an electronic health record system. and it's likely that the average would show a longer amount of time. And of course. just the way averages work. That's because. you know. sometimes the clinician will call the next day after case is assigned. And of course. the child or adolescent has something in place. you know. an activity or something that following week. at a time that they had told the intake team they do have available and will it just gets pushed out. So I often find that it's easier to kind of explain our system than state what our electronic record system would say is the average. But certainly. if you're interested in what that says. I'm happy to get that data. But if there are no other scheduling issues. we're if we're assigning the case that clinician has the availability the following week in their schedule to see the person. Thank you. and I should say. maybe you asked about first contact. So we assigned cases on Thursday. if a Wayland resident calls hrs. they're going to get a call back from a member of the intake team within 24 hours of their call. Um. and that's we know during business hours. So we don't our phone is answered all the time. because we have an answering service on on the weekends in case there's something urgent clinically going on. but if it's during the weekly call back within 24 hours. and then a senior clinician on the intake team will take information and present the case at the intake meeting that occurs once a week on Thursdays. So again. it's variable based on the day that somebody calls. but a resident will always get a call back from one of those people within 24 hours of calling initially. So that's the other variable that can sort of depending on the day that they call and how many days until the intake meeting. It's can consider change. You know. how quickly the turnaround happens in terms of first visit. But one of the benefits of having senior clinicians staff the intake team. is that they're also in gathering information about what a resident is looking for in terms of treatment. They're also assessing. you know. acuity and whether or not there would be any problem waiting until that first appointment. So they're not going to have somebody who's in great distress. And really. you know. their sense is that they won't be able to function well until that next appointment. They're not just going to say. just sit tight. There are clinicians. and are also going to figure out how to get the resident what they need in the interim so they would only be waiting for an appointment if that was clinically appropriate to do. So.
I just had a question on. Looks like it's page two. I'm just trying to figure out. you know. where you talk about FY 25 clinical hours to town residents. non school. But then below that. you know the hours are referencing counseling to children and families. So the non school language. and I should take that out. but remember last year when we were talking about kind of the origin of the contract with the Wayland Board of Health and the work that we did in schools. Initially. when the contract was created. we were helping the Wayland school in part. we were doing some outpatient work. but we were also helping Wayland. the Wayland public school system service. IEPs. particularly the counseling goals written into IEPs because the school district didn't have enough counseling staff to service all of the counseling needs within Student IEPs that existed. So some of this funding helped to support that. So I'm a clinician at hrs. for example. if I got assigned a Wayland school case. that's what we would call it. Then that would mean that I would be meeting with a child who attends the Wayland public school. you know. weekly for counseling. I wouldn't be with them in the summer. because. again. the counseling need was written into their individualized education plan. and I was servicing that need for the district that those sort of school based counseling hours being covered within this contract ended. you know. I think over 10 years ago now. and we encouraged that piece of the work to end. School districts have hired more clinical staff now. It's better to have those counseling needs met by an in house clinician. In House meeting within the school district they can better coordinate the care. That's just the model that school districts have adopted. So it certainly makes more sense for a kid to be seen on an outpatient basis at hrs if a clinical need arises and they're referred. usually schools think you know of referring kids who don't just need counseling support to get through the school day or be functioning in school. but they could really benefit from talking to someone outside of school. So we haven't done any of those in school hours in a long time. but. but I think that language was sort of written into the report template. really. to differentiate between outpatient clinical hours done at hrs to provide therapy for Wayland residents and the School Based counseling hours that we provided historically. But we're kind of counseling hours to service kids IEPs. Does that clarify? I think so. I just. and I remember we talked about that before it was just. you know. mainly trying to identify. you know
Julia Junghanns: how people are getting note. how people are aware of your services. And you know is that generally. through the school system and different relationships. you know at the school that are through your services that are provided. Unknown: Potentially. yes. certainly. So you know. the vast majority of referrals to us came through the public school district this past fiscal year. but there are other residents who you know. family. friends. neighbors. things like that. You know. other folks in the community who have sought services. Do you know refer some residents. And as I said. we did some marketing work with the senior centers in all of the towns and and they referred a couple of patients. So. so. and then. you know. also PC piece in the area as well. So. but again. the vast majority of people refer to us came through the public school district.
Quiet buddy.
yeah. non school. It's just old language to differentiate between just traditional outpatient clinical hours. and I'll be
done in just a couple minutes. Couple minutes. Five minutes. What time are you holding down? What time are you going? Five minutes. Okay. thank you. Oh. how long is time? How many minutes do we have. like this. like this thing? How many minutes do we have now? How many one second. I'm gonna bring him out there anyway.
You know. one of the basis is the questions that we have before to try and identify. you know. how people know their services outside of the school center? Yeah. and. you know. I think she explained that they have done some. you know. informational. I don't know exactly. some type of outreach. I think. to. you know. Senior Center. but it seems like. you know. I'm not. The school is still. you know. really the part where it says non school in life. that to me. just just a little bit hard to grasp that I'd like to remove that from this. because it doesn't really match up with what's actually. all right. sorry about that. No. that's okay. Um. I was just trying to figure out. you know. when people look at the support. how they. you know. look at that section and feel like it's services that are not being provided to the schools. And I understand what you're explaining to us. which makes sense. because I know we've talked about that before. but it seems like the report should probably be a little different. you know. in the way it's described. I would think. you know. updating the language. Maybe just update the language a little bit so that it's. I
Julia Junghanns: don't know exactly what the language should be. but. you know. non school. to me. is sort of misleading. because it is school work that's being done for families in the school system. Unknown: No. it's not. That's not what that that section means. So I think perhaps removing non school will help clinical hours to town residents. The 1100 92 is clinical hours of outpatient therapeutic services provided to Wayland residents. period. nothing to do with school. That's just outpatient clinical services provided consultation hours to school staff. Consultation is another service we provide and for all of the towns that we serve West and Wayland and Wellesley. We do consultation work with folks in the school administrators. principals. vice principals. the guidance team. special educators. etc. to help support the work that they do. We provide a unique clinical perspective as outpatient providers. but are also very familiar with the school system and can help them think about difficult cases in a new way. family systems issues in a new way. That's just the 30 hours that we did. So if you see in the school services section. so general services. maybe. if you look at that section. general non school services. the counseling to children and families. 1100 92 that's clinical hours provided to Wayland residents. nothing to do with school and similarly. the intake and referral services the 51 hours that's work that our intake team is doing with Wayland residents across the lifespan who are seeking mental health treatment. the school services that we have. Provider. just the consultation. and then we didn't do any last year. but any urgent psychiatric evaluations.
Julia Junghanns: I think we're maybe talking about two different things. because I'm looking at it from a different a different perspective. potentially. where are people finding out about hrs? Are they finding out about hrs in the school setting. not necessarily related to any IEP in the school? That's what I'm sort of. you know. right? Unknown: So you're on. you're wondering about the referral source data. So if you look at the last page. the chart on the last page. referral source data is. at least for anybody who accessed care through us. You're wanting to know how they found out about us. And so in 28 of the cases. someone within the school district at some level. Sorry. the last page. If there are four pages in the report. I believe it's on page four and then it's in the right hand column. Referral source.
Okay. looks like it's clear. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go right ahead. Continue. please. Oh. that's okay. So. so this is just a new section of data that we added to the report this past fiscal year because Michelle was curious about just your question. Julia. where are people? Where are people who are presenting for treatment at hrs. finding out about hrs. And in 28 it was the cases the the school district. Someone in the school district told them about us. Six of the cases. they found out about us through a primary care provider. Five through a friend or community for family member. And then. you know. in 12 cases. they self refer. meaning that's just what they indicated. right? So this data is a little bit complicated to get. You know. I wouldn't. I think it's. it's helpful in some ways. But again. individuals who are presenting to treatment. we can ask them. sort of for this information. how did you learn about us? And then the data is. what is it? Some may choose not to give us that information. but those that did gave us the information in this section.
And as I said. just as we expected. there are a large amount of people who find out about us through the public school district. If you think about families within the district who have children. They could be presenting to hrs for couples. treatment parent guidance. you know. treatment for themselves. but learn about a community health agency through the school district at some point. whether it's back to school night. something like that. So we imagined before even presenting this referral source data. that many of the referrals came somehow through the school district. But as you can see. there are the senior center PCPs in the community. friends family also referred Wayland residents to hrs as well. Am I better answering your question now about sort of how people learn about hrs and our services? Yes. that is helpful. Okay.
I asked one more question. Sorry. So if you had 52 unique clients in fiscal year. 2025 what was the number for 2024 Do you know? I'm just wondering if it's typical. the hours that were the clinical hours. if that's like typical. because. if you like. just. do I just divide the number of hours by the number of people. which probably isn't like accurate. is like 23 hours? Is that kind of typical in a year? You know? So that services? Yes. I mean. certainly there is no real typical. you know. So exactly. you can't really divide it and get a sense of what is average. but because we work with children and families. it is longer term work. We're not doing short term work for the most part. Some people may come for five to 10 sessions and feel better and move along. But you know. when we're working with children. if you get a new child case. the evaluation alone is between three and five sessions. because you're meeting with parents initially. then meeting with the child for three to five sessions. and then having parents back to give some feedback and make a treatment plan from there. So the number of sessions. certainly. you know. is greater. I would say overall for a child case. So you were asking the number of unique Wayland residents that were seen in FY 24 overall. And I can pull that up just from last year's report. Really quickly. It's. it's. I believe this year's is higher than last year's. you know. in that category as well. given that would be my guess anyway. that. given that the clinical hours are up. but it sounds like you're wondering about sort of average number of sessions that an individual is in treatment overall. And if that's possible to determine. or if this is sort of a normal number of sessions for that number of residents. yes. yeah. So I think that the number of clinical hours being up does correlate with us being able to serve more residents than we did last fiscal year and the fiscal year prior. Certainly I don't think it's always that correlation is not always. you know. completely straight line. because it depends on the type of treatment needed. age of the client. etc. But there will be a correlation between those two numbers the vast majority of the time. and I'll just look and see if I can get that quickly. The total number of unique clients from last year's report is I think
what I just found is the number of new cases assigned in FY 24
which was 17 in 24 compared to 31 this year. So that was certainly up as well. And I'll
look right now and continue. Can take other questions as I do this. if there are any. I
think that's. I think that's great that you take the time and go through set multiple sessions to talk to parents and everything. I think that's like. that's awesome instead of or like. Yeah. that's really great that taking the time to go through multiple sessions. I'm glad you think so. Yeah. certainly it feels like best practice to us and working with kids and families and well. it's going to result in more visit. It's. I personally would never begin treatment with a child without doing a thorough. you know. history. gathering a full history from parents. understanding their concerns. And then also. even after. you know. you need to meet with a child. I would say at least three times to you know. even get a sense of who they are and whether continuing on in therapy will be useful for the child. I always like to reach out to any school providers during that initial evaluation who might be involved as well. You just need to gather all that data at first so it can't happen.
I'm any other questions.
Thank you so much for your time. Yes. I'm not finding that figure. I my guess is that the number is high 30s or in the 40s of total unique residency in last year. if the number of new cases was 17. I think we just started reporting some of this new data within this fiscal year and maybe in the mid year report from last year that I could probably find as well. anyway. But yeah. that's my guess. So certainly that number was lower last year as well the total number of residents seen within the year. given this account. thank you. Lindsay. we appreciate your Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much for the support from the board. It's really critical to the work we do and to make sure that all Wayland residents you know can have their mental health needs serve. regardless of their ability to pay. I think is really critical and valuable to the community. So thank you for supporting the work that we do in the way that you do. and if other questions come up. don't hesitate to reach out. Happy to come back. hopefully next time in person. Thanks for tolerating my son's questions about mid Yeah. Appreciate it. Okay. thanks. everybody. That's
not five minutes. How many is five minutes?
So I don't know if everyone had a chance to look at the annual report. but I printed out a copy of it. just a case that we can it's a draft. obviously. this is the full report
for the whole department. We're still working on gathering some information. but it's. there's quite a bit of it that's already done. The nursing section is not done yet. So there's a few things that would be added. But in general. it's. you know. similar to prior years.
See if anything's our septic permits are up from the past couple of years. We went from 109 to 116 in FY 25 well testing was up a little bit
new construction. I
Not as many title fives. but it's hard to track those. because. you know. when we do a permit. it's good for a few years. So people may not actually do that work in the same year that they pull apartment. So you know. it runs over a few years. so you can sort of see the trends for the past few years for any
septic comments.
But we are up on building approval reviews. We had 280 this year and last year we had 207 uh.
So we're so we're the volume is sort of slowly increasing. I mean. that's what the numbers show for this fiscal year. I mean. we still have some time to go for our preliminary numbers for FY 26 I don't know where we're at right now. you know. But FY 25 ends. you know. So it starts on July one. and it's confusing. It starts on July one of 24 and runs to June 30 of 25 so it's a little bit. you know. you have to kind of go back in time to remember what we did at that time. Um. but in the in the end. it works out. you know. So now we're in the next fiscal year. I don't know how it lines up with. you know. where We're at with numbers to compare with preliminary but I
the areas in red we're still working on. but some of it is our Communicable Disease Information. and some of it is. you know. the public health nursing section. Um
hrs is not in here yet because I did not have their report last week when I was updating this. Um.
some of our large projects. Charena Farms subdivision. Veritas Christian Academy development project. Saint Anne's 40 bean development. did you see the new one? Which one was that? And race road? Oh. that's going to be. yeah. we're. we're just sort of hearing about that. but we will. I mean. that's huge. That's a huge project. But Darren. I believe. did soil testing up there recently the Coptic charge. yeah. there were plans online somewhere that I saw. yeah. so that'll be another. you know. those large projects can be very time consuming for us to look at the septic design plans. and when they want to phase it too. they're going to right? So another complicated. phased project where there'll be pressure dosing. mounting calculations. probably a hydro geo review. which potentially could also be for the high school septic system. You know. some of those things we can look at. but we generally don't look at hyper geo reviews. And so we'll have to probably have a consultant look at some of those components. but they can be time consuming. especially if they're a Phase project
that the the church that's on rice Road. yes. the Coptic Jonathan Storer: Church. it's. it's kind of residences in Unknown: it too. So the church is getting demolished. Jonathan Storer: or in phases. They're going to build a new church before they take down the old one.
Unknown: Yeah. I think they they have a fin recently. Yes. they did. because I remember. Were hearing about something recently. Julia Junghanns: We've been talking about it at. you know. just land use meetings with town staff. Just initially. they had come in and explained what they were planning on. And then. you know. we talk about it again. And then we hear about. you know. different phases the project. when they're going to other. you know. like site plan review or zba. I can't remember which one they may have been at recently. but they haven't made it to us yet. but we did do soil testing. Jonathan Storer: So what struck me is they were utilizing every bit of that piece of property. yeah. yeah. between parking lot or athletic court or housing or whatever it was all. Unknown: Yeah. that'll be very busy and on rice road. I
anything in red is the old stuff from last year. so it has to be. I mean. I think we've done a lot. so we'll be fine with meeting the deadline of September 30. but they would tell you that if you don't submit your annual report. your board Beat this man disbanded. which is pretty extreme. We've always submitted it useless to say it
oh and China rose got the sushi. So that is going to go specs. yeah. actually. they did hire a consultant. and they went through that process. I guess I should. I haven't talked more about recently. but I will find Out.
Jonathan Storer: What has Veritas been doing lately is that just charging along. or I haven't heard or read anything Unknown: recently. they were working on building permit reviews.
Jonathan Storer: That's the last time they got all through conservation.
Unknown: I don't know if they have a comment with them. does it conservation just take so long? So yeah. sure. they've actually completed their process. yeah. with conservation. But if they're working on the building application. I would think they have something.
Wow. So at the end of the report. we've got an FY. well. that should be FY 26 FY 26 focus areas. These are just things that you know we're continuing. that we're still working on. I don't know if the board has any feedback or thoughts about areas that the board might feel important or of interest to focus on. In addition to some of these things that I have already plugged in.
we do feel like it's a very important goal to get our Building reviews and eventually our septic reviews respond. open. go.
although we have a new IT director. which isn't good. but the one of the IT staff recently resigned. so that'll be difficult. But you know. things happen. People leave. and I'm sure that we will find someone. but it might be a little cumbersome to pick up where we left off. which. you know. we were making some good progression on that. but we're very eager to get our building reviews on Open Gov. You know. we feel like it will be a really good move to have. you know. a more streamlined process for residents in the application process. and so we're anticipating that happening. And then. you know. we'll work on septic reviews. But that's. you know. that's down pike. I mean. I think the building part would be most of interest to people you know. that are. I think it's a bit of a struggle to get through that process. It's a little disjointed right now. where it's. you know. some is on open go. some isn't some paper. some is online. So. you know. I look forward to seeing that get all opened up. Jonathan Storer: And have you found anyone to replace Michelle? Yet Unknown: we have. which is great news. We went through some interviews with some really good applicants. And you know. we had two rounds of interviews. Heather joined us. myself. the HR director and Heather. and we expect Laura Carter to start with us on September 22 she's coming from a job where she has a job share between Concord and Maynard as the public health nurse. and she's a nurse practitioner. We're very excited. and think she'll be great fit. So as in frantically working on some logistics and planning for flu clinics Julia Junghanns: and. you know. just getting some dates set. you know. the locations and the times and strategizing some staffing and whatnot. On. So when she walks in here. there's some work that's already done. because it's going to be busy. We have vaccine already. so people are calling about clinics. and we have flu vaccine. and we have Unknown: high dose and regular we will be getting some covid vaccine as well. So we'll do some covid clinics. but not right away. because. like. here. make it a little crazy. but we can. We'll work on that too. So. but yes. I'm very excited. It's been a little stressful. Jonathan Storer: Well. you've been wearing multiple hats for a little bit. Julia Junghanns: yeah. I mean. it's. you know. plus anticipating. you know. what happens if we don't have someone and. I mean. I felt like we would. because we had some really good candidates. and. you know. I felt like. you know. we would get someone in here. So that was good part. but then going through that process. it always takes longer than you expect. you know. and and HR really did help us along. but it just always. you know. people on vacation. or you know this or that. and people have to get give notice. You know. I mean. it's a process so.
Unknown: but finally.
does she want to come meet us? Or. yeah. I am sure she will.
So didn't skip a little bit over here. but
that's. you know. basically the update on flu clinic planning. The two dates that we have are October 15 and October 22 three to 7pm
you know. we like to have a couple on Wednesdays. because those are the early release days for school. and that way we can try to capture Julia Junghanns: kids and families where we can the 15th is probably going to be the senior clinic we haven't you sent out any registration or sign ups yet that will be coming. You know. we have to get the because Unknown: it's all online now. You know. you register online. and so once we have those registration links ready. we will do some advertising. But those are the two clinics that we've set up so far. which will be in this room in the town building and so
On. budget updates.
Tom is very. very closely looking at the budget for FY 27 and they also already looked at our non salary budget. Everyone's not just us. everyone's non salary budget to see where you can shave out. you know. some costs that potentially could be cut from our budget. And so we've done that. We haven't heard Julia Junghanns: about formal budget planning. I think they're having some big meetings about how to approach these concerns for an override. And you know. there's a proposal that I think the Select Board is reviewing. I don't know if they're reviewing that tonight. I think there have any hearing on property on West plain street. So
Unknown: there were some proposals that I think were being provided by the town manager and the finance director. and so they're looking for some direction from the Select Board on which way to go and whether they need to go to ask for override from Tom meeting next spring. So that's that. That's what's going on there. It's. I don't know exactly what will happen. but we'll see. I'll keep everyone in the loop of any new information I have. Heather. our school nurse leader. is. has been. you know. working on the. you know. preschool meetings with the school nurses. and we've been in touch. you know. a number of times she's been handling all that. So very thankful for all of her help getting everyone ready. To start the school year. and. you know. they're in full swing now. That was a couple weeks ago. So very thankful that. you know. she was able to step in and and handle that without any. you know. big bumps in the road. I haven't heard of any. anything crazy going on. I'm just going to knock on the table. but
mosquito surveillance. excuse me. We did have testing done last week. and there were no positives. They are doing testing again. today or tomorrow. it is possible we could have a positive mosquito for West Nile. At this point. the populations are much lower than they were because it's been so cool at night. and so I don't know that there would be any need to have additional measures taken. as far as. like. you know. considering canceling programs or things like that. This time of year. if it's cool at night. the populations really start plummeting. And when I say that. I mean of the mosquitoes themselves and their activity. they're much slower moving. Julia Junghanns: Warm days. they're still out there. There's no There's no obliteration of all mosquitoes at this point. You know that would be after the first heavy cross. but people should still be. you know. protecting themselves using bug spray. and you know. trying to avoid peak mosquito hours. especially you know. senior citizens or people with immunocompromised systems Unknown: underlying health issues. potentially. you know. West Nile could be a risk for those those populations. but we will find out more when I get results back from our mosquito control project. which hopefully will be maybe tomorrow. maybe Wednesday or Thursday. but that will be probably the last time they do testing this year.
Are they testing for West Nile and Tripoli? So they they look at the populations and the types of mosquitoes. So if they found they do have some light traps. which would be where they would find mosquitoes that could potentially carry Tripoli. Um.
Julia Junghanns: I know that it's much. much less likely here. because we don't have Cedar swamps. but I know they're looking at what types of mosquitoes they find. So I can ask Laura about that when they do their next testing. But typically. the mosquitoes that would carry that disease would be a certain species. So they would. you know. look at what the trap collects. and determine if there was any mosquitoes that could potentially be carrying that he didn't mention that. But I can ask. you know. out of you know. knowledge. you know. we don't get an actual print out of a report. So it's like. you know. it's basically. um. whether there's positives or not. And then sometimes the mosquito. some species. they will tell us that. oh. there's a lot of these types of species. so maybe we'll test for that. so that type of thing. So. but I can ask more about that. It's interesting to know. you know.
Jonathan Storer: where are the closest cedar swamps. Unknown: Sudbury.
Jonathan Storer: And do you know what kind of mosquitoes carry? Unknown: Tripoli I do. although I haven't heard this season. and I think it might be off the radar for a lot of towns. because we haven't really heard of of that many problems with Tripoli being carried in mosquitoes to see Jonathan Storer: Asian tiger mosquito or which one carries Unknown: don't think it's that mosquito. It's you'll see it in Melena is one of them. Jonathan Storer: I just. I don't. didn't have any idea how far they travel. and I Googled it. It Some don't travel Unknown: very far that we put right on the route 20 corner. and they stay over there. Yeah. no. it is possible. you know. because obviously mosquitoes travel and and Jonathan Storer: they sometimes ride the wind. is what? Yes. Google says. that's for sure. Julia Junghanns: They do. Do. and so. you know. but there's a lot of science involved with it too. that I probably am not aware of right now as to potentially why this. you know. is happening where we're seeing more West Nile than triple E mosquitoes carry. you know. plus we've had West Nile cases in humans. and so that elevates it who are at a high risk right now. for for West Nile. although. as I mentioned. as the nights cool. it becomes. you know. less concerning. I mean. it's still a risk where people should. you know. put back on protect themselves. but
Unknown: the populations start really going down. but. you know. people are still outside and should wear bug spray long sleeves. you know. spray deed. all over again. spray deed is the best thing that is. I'm sure there's a lot of reasons not to UD use deed. but it is good to prevent mosquitoes. you know. so lots of garlic. you know. staying away from areas where there's a lot of foliage. where the mosquito sort of gather. and swampy wetland areas. Things like that. especially at dusk or early morning. Um. the update on 195 main street at the old DEP W site.
Julia Junghanns: They are doing a little bit more work. I did watch the last meeting that they had. and the PFAS numbers were even higher from additional testing that they had done in the groundwater monitoring wells. and so they were going to look more closely towards where the septic system leach field is at the Middle School as a potential suspect source for PFAS. So that's being still looked at. I'm not sure where that's going to go. because. according to Unknown: Ben Gould. it's not something that is really fixable by digging the soil out. Julia Junghanns: You know. I don't know exactly what the solution would be. But I think you know this. the town will still have to do something to satisfy the state's non compliance letter for having this PFAS in water. in in the zone too. So that's. that's basically what's going on. I don't have anything new on that
Unknown: 10 short drive we are. We did have information coming from someone regarding concerning housing conditions. and so we're going to initiate an inspection at the property. Initially. it's. you know. basically requesting an inspection. So I will let the board know how that goes and what happens next.
General business. Oh. there was the MWRA connection. I had shared the letter that went out in the end of August regarding the emergency connection to the MWRA. I don't know exactly where that stands as of today. as far as the repair of piping at the happy follow wells So. but the good news is we had the ability to connect and use the butter from MWRA. Um. general business. Oh. one more thing. We do have some events coming up that are part of National Recovery Month. There's a whole calendar of events that was put together by Olivia do for who is our regional substance use prevention coordinator. and each town in our seven town collaborate. Collaborative has. you know. different events going on. and so this. I believe. is on the town's website. where each day there's something going on. And we also have a survey. which is to help us under understand what potentially the opioid needs are in our community. It's. you know. easy to take the survey by a link on this handout. This was also put together by a. Olivia do for who has been doing a great job. you know. on prevention work. and this was. you know. one of the things that they wanted to try and identify what people think the needs are in each community out of our seven Tom collaborative. yeah.
general business. there's a stack of bills. which we apologize for. Patty had gotten behind with vacations and things like that. So if there's any questions. please let me know I'm happy to answer them. Or you could always stop in if you wanted to. you know. in the office. And then we do have one set of minutes that are ready. May 12. Did everyone have a chance to look at them. or have a copy here? Okay. so then we would just need to someone would need to make a motion to approve the minutes. a motion to approve the minutes from May 12. Yes. I second the motion.
What do we do now? Need to take a vote. yeah. and I
don't remember what we say. So basically. you know each person votes. and you go around asking each person if they vote yes. Jonathan Storer: Okay. Genevieve and on. do you vote yes? Or how do you vote yes? Brent mortis. Unknown: yes. Jonathan Storer: Katie step. yeah. And John story. yes. Unknown: excellent. Thank you.
We don't have June. but we're working on that. so that should be ready next
time I thought you were gonna say. I know you know. you just That's right. I forgot Robert. Yeah.
any other questions or concerns or I will definitely bring Laura in to one of our board meetings so you can meet her and welcome her to Wayland. and you know she'll be working with Heather Yates and our fabulous nursing team that we have that's been running smoothly as you know. so far this school year. which is very happy about. yeah. isn't there something else you want to announce? What I
Jonathan Storer: don't know? I just noticed something Unknown: that I got engaged. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. thank you. Couple weeks ago. few weeks ago. thank you.
So I mean. I don't think there's anything else someone needs to make a motion to close. I make a motion to close the meeting.
Second. just go around again. Jonathan Storer: Jen. you have an on? Yes? John store. yes.
Unknown: Brett mortis. yes. Katie stuff. yeah. great. Thank you. All right. if you.
We have a public comment first. one way online. and I'll Lindsay is going to join us as a part of the agenda at seven o'clock. Jonathan Storer: So they're not don't see any public comment online. Unknown: Okay? So. Abby. do you have public money? Abigail Charest: Sure. Should I go now or Well. no. you're part Unknown: of the agenda. Okay. yep. so we're ready to get started with the with the first agenda Jonathan Storer: item. No. it's first agenda is review and comment on subject design plans for Wayland High School. Drafted by is it? Ty Tyne bond with guest town engineer. Abby Charest. Abigail Charest: Hi. how are you? You can Unknown: come up a little closer. because sometimes it's hard to get
Abigail Charest: well. I hope to be a little bit farther along on this project. But the engineer that I usually work with has appendix burst. and he's been in the hospital. so we're a little bit farther behind than I had wanted to be. but we did get out into the field and did some test bits and do the soil evaluation test with Darren. and we have those results on the top of The third page here. talking about design standards for the leach fields and how much we'll have to have the additional reserve areas associated. But again. so we're still looking at the high school treatment plant. It's been offline for a long time. When we looked at the flows. they were lower than 10.000 gallons a day. So we've been looking at designing something under Title Five. It is in the zone two. so we'd have to do some additional nitrogen removal. which means we need an IA system. We've looked at a couple of IA systems. We looked at an and Nitro. But because we had so many more examples of the amphidrome system being used in schools. we felt like That was the best one to go with. We felt that some of the operations difficulties with the treatment plant previously were due to those variable flows from the school. and that. since am for drum could demonstrate more of a background with the schools. we felt more comfortable with that technology. I did text in since we just were chatting in the office. we're a little bit concerned about the probability of finding someone Unknown: to do O and M operation in MA. Operation. oh. sorry. Abigail Charest: Operation. operation maintenance. because these types of systems are often used on the cape because they are specific to nitrogen sensitive areas. But White Water has people. and there is a company called Unknown: Lewis. Oh. okay. Abigail Charest: so there's. there's some people around. So we'll be continuing to look at that and get you. you know. further design drawings and specifications. So I just want to give you an update. let you know that still working on this. and see if you have any questions so far. Also. just to say that please think about how you want to go through review and design of this. It if this was a treatment plant. we have previously been out requests for qualifications and gotten engineering firms. and that's why we use tie and bond. That's how we found them. So if this was a treatment plant. we would just go out to bid for construction. Uh. on this with the time bond design. with having me reviewed it. um. but since it's going through the board here. you guys would be normally send it out for additional review. You just think about if the town has had me review it and time bond design. and if you want to send Julia Junghanns: it. that would be for. like. an example of a peer review we've had done on some other projects recently. for for some larger systems where some of the dosing might be looked at. or mounting calculations and things like that that we would typically have another set of eyes look at. you know. from a peer review consultant sometimes. and then staff. I mean. we do the review in house. And then. you know. the board has been involved with this design. because we're changing from. you know. having the wastewater facility on site to the conventional system with alternative technology. So. you know. typically for residential projects. the board isn't typically involved. but because of those intricacies of this change where we have been involved. because there's a variance. you know. to use those different flow so. so that's. you know. part of but staff would also be reviewed with a design and feedback.
Unknown: So we usually would send it out for additional review. depending on. you know. what we end up with for Abigail Charest: flow them. so 8000 gallons. Yeah. on the other hand. this is a town project. so the town's already paid for the design. And to have. as opposed to having. like a commercial development come in with something. then you want to have that with you. Unknown: so we almost wouldn't need to. in this case. just because you've already. sort of. Abigail Charest: it's been through the town engineer as Unknown: well. which is you. but do you do septic design reviews? Abigail Charest: I mean. I have. you Unknown: have. yeah. okay. yeah. because I didn't know if you had the like for pressure dosing or mounding. or any of those types Abigail Charest: of things. More specifically than we're looking at the technologies and goals of the IA systems. yeah. and working with full towns to do. like a comprehensive stuff. Unknown: once we get a little further on. we'll have. you know. better idea for. you know. if there was additional review needed. you know. if we felt like we wanted that. but we'll work together. Jonathan Storer: And then. after it's built. is there testing to make sure that we meet the requirements for
Abigail Charest: nitrogen the there's operation and maintenance Julia Junghanns: of it. It depends which approval is is used for the and we're not sure which approval is used yet. We did. you know. Darren. I took a quick look at it. because each technology has different types of approvals that change all the time. So once we have an idea which one is being used. then there's a whole set of different rules and parameters for testing and whatnot that we would look at to figure out what would be needed for the long term O and M operation and maintenance.
Unknown: We haven't seen new amped around go in in quite some time. So. you know. it's something that we would look at. I mean. we will get all of them when they come through. But for a system this size. it might be new territory for us. You know. what's at the middle school? The Middle School. I think is a bio clear. okay. that's right. yeah. Abigail Charest: yes. I asked them to look at that as I my initial assumption would be that I would rather have a consistent technology throughout town. but time Bond did not.
Unknown: Why did they have a reason why this passed towards their mental Jonathan Storer: system? I'll find there's a large system for an assisted living housing development in Carlisle that's they've been dealing with nitrogen problems for the last couple of years. And I'll find out what the system Unknown: is. So it's not meeting the parameter correct. Jonathan Storer: and the they must have test or somewhere in the leaching field. and it's all. it's always coming up too high. Oh. wow. Okay. so once it's built. it's pretty expensive to try to. Unknown: right? Yeah. And. Abigail Charest: Yeah. luckily. the soils were pretty good out there. Sandy. It was a little bit of fill at the top that we have to pick out and remove a buck Jonathan Storer: once we got what is the I haven't walked over there. What is the land there now? Is it just open space? Is it woods or Abigail Charest: it's open space? There is sort of a hill area that the leaching fields are on. and then it kind of slopes down to baseball field. and then the football practice field. And as you go towards the football practice the groundwater gets higher and higher. but we're able to position this up on that mounted area. Jonathan Storer: And will the land be able to be utilized for anything after the fields are in. Abigail Charest: um. nothing that you could build on. but kids would be able to run around on Jonathan Storer: it. yep. okay. I didn't know how what it's going to be peppered with test pits or. you know. the spots that you can test. or what it would look like. Abigail Charest: I think they use it for frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee first to golf. yeah. Jonathan Storer: because it's not flat. yeah.
Unknown: yeah. that's so that's important regarding the nitrogen removal. because it is so close to the town wells. you know. So I'm sure that Ty and bond will be looking at that closely. yeah. to figure out what the best I mean. they're saying. yeah. good. wrong at this point. So yeah. Jonathan Storer: then maybe any system. I mean. do you when you purchase a system like that. Is it based on your gallons per day. and is it. is it that you err on the to be a little larger versus. yeah. and could systems be expanded if they needed to be okay? So it depends Abigail Charest: on the system. I don't know if an extended. but I'll look into that. But usually you err on the side of making sure you can cover up peak flows. although the Title Five is usually the peak flows. And then some of the systems can also be expanded. or additional filters can be added. I mean. Jonathan Storer: with these systems. that's really the pre treatment is going to be the secret. That's right. it's in its success.
Unknown: So probably maybe the next month or so. Abigail Charest: we'll hear from you again. Yeah. they're saying that we'll submit something by the day. Oh. okay. yeah. is there Unknown: like a deadline that you're trying Abigail Charest: to meet? I would like to start construction after baseball season.
Unknown: Are they? Oh. because it's right next to the baseball field. So then. just out of curiosity. I might be getting hit. But yeah. what will happen to the wastewater units that are in the building and any components that have been Abigail Charest: we'll need to use some of the electricity and some of the wiring for the instrumentation. but we'll also do some demo inside that building and take out some of the and we actually will have to wait until after July 1 together. position to go um. right after that. and trying to timeline the construction so that we're doing the fields in the summer. And if we have to do some of the treatment by the treatment plant. we can do that rather than McCall that we just start. I don't
Jonathan Storer: remember what type of leaching field will it be? Is it just like a big stone in black bed? Or. yeah. yes. it would Unknown: be pressure desk. right? This one. yes. because of the gallons per day I would. I believe it has. right. yeah. but it would still be. well. it's pressure. dose. Abigail Charest: it's pressure. yeah. yeah. show it. yeah. a little horse man over here. Yeah?
It's dose for another reason to like to have multiple reasons. Finally. they've seen it made it it's also Unknown: uphill. right? Sure that makes sense. I
Awesome. That's up there. I think thank you very happy.
We are a few minutes early. I don't know if you want to
go over some of the health director updates. We do have Lindsay here. but I don't know if she's sound prepared. or you should just stick to the seven o'clock time. Maybe
I could talk about mosquitoes from the health director on the Oh. she hasn't helped see that.
Hi. Lindsay. hi. How are you? I don't know. I don't camera option. For some reason I can see all of you and I'm here. But okay. I just found the link on the website Julia. so I don't know if there's a different link. I need to participate via video.
That was probably my fault. No. no. it's fine. I mean. I see the meeting link. but I don't know. Do
promote to panelist. Can you do that? Oh. yeah. did it work?
It says she'll be rejoining. Okay. yes. here I am. Okay. Oh. perfect. You're Hired. right? All right. we just get rid of that little box. Perfect. Thank you.
All right. okay. great. sorry to not be able to be in person. Well. thanks for joining. Yeah. we do appreciate it. Yes. absolutely. absolutely and again. apologies I couldn't be there in person. juggling kids schedules and all the things in the evening. but happy to be here and Julie. I figured I'd just go over the annual report. and certainly I'm happy to answer any questions that folks have. That's great. I'm just going to hand out a fresh coffee so everyone has it great. sure. So for those of who I haven't met. I'm Lindsay steinstep. the executive director at hrs Human Relations Service. the community mental health agency that serves West and Wayland and Wellesley. And I thought I would just review our FY 25 year and then again. answer any questions you all have. Our visits for Wayland residents were up this past year fairly significantly. We did just over 1100 clinical hours for Wayland residents. And I should back up and say. we see. you know. children all the way through. seniors in the community. and actually have recently made a push to ensure that seniors in all three of the towns that we serve are aware that we take Medicare and. you know. welcome them to access services through us as well. And I think some of that marketing has been useful because we've gotten sort of an influx of intakes from the senior community. which is great. but certainly. you know. most of our referrals come through the public school system or other residents who use services at hrs before. So the visit count was up from FY 24 and FY 24 just to go back. we did 864 clinical visits. So again. fy 25 we did 11 192 we did 30 consultation hours to the public school to sort of small groups or individuals within the public school system. I do some of those. My colleague. Alan Wyatt does some of those. And then Dr Luke Baker sirode Does some of the consultations as well. and certainly we're available to add. subtract. change consultation schedule as needed throughout the year. So many. some of you may remember that in years past. if there's been a tragic loss in a school community or something like that. we're always happy to come and support a school community. Or administrator as the need arises. But these consultations that I'm reviewing now. the 30 we did in FY 25 are just sort of our standard consultations that that we continue to do year to year. and in terms of our intake program. just in general. we had 31 new Wayland resident clients in FY 25 and then 52 sort of unique clients all together. So the difference there being that the 52 includes clients who have been at hrs for more than a year. So for example. children. you know. often we're doing long term work. generally. But kids. adolescents. may have seen the same therapist from FY 24 into FY 25 but we did 31 new intakes for Wayland residents in FY 2510 of those were kids under the age of 1112. Of them were between the ages of 12 and 18. and then nine of them were 19 plus. so sort of a range in terms of age. far and away. the sort of diagnostic category that we see the most of is anxiety. That may not surprise many of you. though anxiety is sort of a large umbrella. So there are. you know. plenty of diagnostic labels that would fall under that. but just for the purposes of a broad overview. that's certainly the primary issue that folks who come to seek our services are struggling with generally. And then actually right behind that was ADHD this past year. and then just under that. depression. usually depression. or historically. I should say. depression and anxiety have been sort of neck and neck. or closer together than the numbers show this past year. which is just interesting. You know. on a larger scale. as we think about what residents are contending with when it comes to mental health issues. and let's see. what else can I share in terms of referrals out so in the report. I go over that we. you know. one of our sort of big agency wide pushes this past year has been to build up our clinical staff just to ensure that we have the clinical capacity to serve as many residents as we can. We are a organization of roughly 35 total employees. so 25 you know. clinical staff. So we're never going to be able to meet the mental health needs of all of Wayland in any year. of course. but certainly. we want to make sure that we see as many as we can who are appropriate for care at hrs. And so this past year. we welcomed five trainees. which represented the largest training class that we've ever had. And these trainees are. I should mention. you know. late stage doctoral students or social work fellows who have graduated from their program and are just accruing hours towards their own independent licensure. So it's not. you know. I hesitate to use the word trainee. because usually people feel like that's sort of a real entry level clinician. And these clinicians have a lot of clinical experience already under their belt. and are supervised. It's a two year program that we have so welcoming that larger class of trainees last year. and again. they're still with us this year for the second year. really helped us to increase our clinical capacity. which I think is one of the reasons that the numbers were up this past year. just in terms of visits. And it also helps us to refer out fewer cases. of course. So you know. there are cases that we're going to refer out. even if we did have capacity because they're not appropriate for care at hrs. they might be looking for specialized treatment. They might have an insurance that we don't take. something like that. but so for so. we referred out 20 Wayland residents this past year. and nine of those were not appropriate for care at hrs. They had an insurance retake and needed to use their insurance or they were seeking specialized treatment of some kind. The other refer out cases were either folks who called at a time that we didn't have capacity to see them. they may have had a particular time that they needed to be seen. Some children and adolescents. you know. really don't have a lot of availability. and our after school evening hours go certainly the fastest throughout the year. So but if we do refer out. we refer Wayland residents to folks in the community that either a staff member. a clinical staff member. has recommended. knows. sometimes it's somebody who's worked at hrs in the past. So it's a really well vetted list. So I always mentioned that because I think that's another great service hrs can offer to the community is kind of a personalized. really well vetted referral system. So we're more than happy to work with any Wayland resident to get connected to mental health treatment and and we're going to the INT. Team. the clinicians who are on that team are going to stick with any resident until they find a provider if we can't see them that they are satisfied with. So as much as they want to continue to reach out to us. if they're having difficulty. we're going to stick with them and make sure that they get connected as well. But overall. our referral numbers are down. and the number of Wayland residents you know. seen in house has gone up in the last couple of years. and just again for reference. and this is all in the report. But in FY 23 we saw 677 residents. as I said. In FY 24 864 and then just over 1100 this past fiscal year. So it's going up. So Right?
And what else can I share? Let me pause and then not inundate you with numbers and ask if people have particular questions. either from the report or just about hrs currently. in general. happy to do my best.
I was wondering you under the diagnosis breakdown. There's one that just had. is a NA is that just somebody that saw referral. but there is no real diagnosis with it. So the diagnostic breakdown actually. and I can look into what that is. that this is actually all of the cases seen. and that could just be. somehow the coding it could be. let's see. you know. couples is in there. The way that that information got coded in our system. whatever the diagnostic category was. just didn't fall into one of these categories. So I will look into that. I don't know exactly it should be an other. I would assume. But that's just an error in our sort of the way our operations manager who collects the data from our electronic health record system.
it got code. okay. yeah. Was there any. any. any other. like. really severe cases that would be like. stand out in terms of. like. very. very severe depression or any. anything. or has it been. like. more or less manageable? You know. I would say it's manageable. HMS is not an acute care facility. So if we're working with a resident. or a resident's been referred. or we hear about an individual you know through the school system who's struggling. you know. to a great degree. essentially. when they present to us. we're likely going to recommend a higher level of care than outpatient treatment. We do come across these cases and help the folks in the school system you know work with individuals. if they're school aged. who you know can be really struggling with a pretty severe depressive episode. But again. if they come to us seeking treatment and they're in the midst of it. we're we're likely to recommend either going to the hospital just to assess for safety reasons and liability reasons. or a higher level of care if it's already sort of identified that it's really severe. That being said. we have a psychiatrist on staff who's trained as a child and adult analyst. and he. you know. certainly has a tremendous amount of experience. and as long as somebody is in treatment. in therapy at hrs. they can access medication management through us. So. you know. we certainly see folks who are struggling with a severe depression. but I would say overall. our clientele are able to function. you know. for the most part. day to day. whether they're school aged or within The adult population. Thank you. Yeah. absolutely. Other questions. I
Julia Junghanns: do appreciate the information. as we had talked about. you know. previously. when we fell shut hope was here. She's actually left the town and no longer working here. unfortunately. Unknown: So yeah. but some more information. And you know. we can pull that into our annual report that is due the end of this month. And so. you know. we've been working busily on our draft. and no so we appreciate your coming in. I don't know if any other folks have questions. but we do have some time as we have scheduled. Yeah. Absolutely. And we were happy to add one of the things. just for others on the call that Michelle was interested in. was referral source data. So we were. we started gathering that this past fiscal year upon request. And. you know. it's interesting to see. it's always a sensitive thing to figure out how to gather. you know. more data. right? But also be sensitive to folks calling to seek mental health treatment and not be. you know. asking too many questions for our own data gathering purposes. Within that first call. we want to make sure that they feel comfortable giving information. And for some people. it may be sensitive how they learned about hrs or from whom. and and the data. as you can see in the chart. sort of supports what we thought. 28 you know. referrals from the public school district. but a couple from the Senior Center. which was great to see. And then. you know. and this is self report. So. so the clients themselves who presented are giving us that information. 12 self referred. four from family members. five from community and then six from PCPs. which was higher than anticipated. But we we always try to connect with local PCPs. just to make sure they're aware about us and our services. We have a longer standing relationship with Western pediatrics and many residents of the three towns we serve. you know. are seen there. so they know about us. But there are others who have become more familiar Framingham peds and others. a couple providers in in Wayland as well. So that's good to see that that primary care providers of kids are referring to us and staying connected to us as well. and certainly. as we train new staff and social work fellows and postdoc fellows. we make sure that they're reaching back out to those pediatricians or primary care offices with permission. of course. from the patients. just to coordinate care in an ongoing way. and we gather the information about who their primary care provider is right at the beginning. when they're when they're signing registration paperwork and getting getting up and going in treatment. So I think that was the. one of the main. you know. pieces of data that Michelle was interested in. and then also just getting a sense of the total number of Wayland residents and scene versus just new intakes. We used to just report on that and then yes. the specific consultations happening year to year. I think Julia. that was mostly the data that we added
to mentioned it. I had another question when Sure so from referral to appointment time. what's that access like? That's a great question. So usually we are we have an intake meeting on Thursdays every week. and if a case is assigned. they're going to hear from that clinician. We really require that that clinician. that the case has been assigned. to get in touch with the individual or family the next day. because our goal is that that individual would be seen the following week. right? So it's a Thursday. they're. you know. likely we've assigned them to a time that the clinician has given to us as available when we make the match. But usually those aren't going to be Friday. even if the case is assigned Friday. So I would say the longest number of business days would be six. right? If it's if a Friday was looked for and they were going to be given that time the following Friday. but assuming no other scheduling issues get in the way it would be seen the following week. Yeah. So you know. between two and six business days they should be seen. That being said. I can get you the exact answer now that we have an electronic health record system. and it's likely that the average would show a longer amount of time. And of course. just the way averages work. That's because. you know. sometimes the clinician will call the next day after case is assigned. And of course. the child or adolescent has something in place. you know. an activity or something that following week. at a time that they had told the intake team they do have available and will it just gets pushed out. So I often find that it's easier to kind of explain our system than state what our electronic record system would say is the average. But certainly. if you're interested in what that says. I'm happy to get that data. But if there are no other scheduling issues. we're if we're assigning the case that clinician has the availability the following week in their schedule to see the person. Thank you. and I should say. maybe you asked about first contact. So we assigned cases on Thursday. if a Wayland resident calls hrs. they're going to get a call back from a member of the intake team within 24 hours of their call. Um. and that's we know during business hours. So we don't our phone is answered all the time. because we have an answering service on on the weekends in case there's something urgent clinically going on. but if it's during the weekly call back within 24 hours. and then a senior clinician on the intake team will take information and present the case at the intake meeting that occurs once a week on Thursdays. So again. it's variable based on the day that somebody calls. but a resident will always get a call back from one of those people within 24 hours of calling initially. So that's the other variable that can sort of depending on the day that they call and how many days until the intake meeting. It's can consider change. You know. how quickly the turnaround happens in terms of first visit. But one of the benefits of having senior clinicians staff the intake team. is that they're also in gathering information about what a resident is looking for in terms of treatment. They're also assessing. you know. acuity and whether or not there would be any problem waiting until that first appointment. So they're not going to have somebody who's in great distress. And really. you know. their sense is that they won't be able to function well until that next appointment. They're not just going to say. just sit tight. There are clinicians. and are also going to figure out how to get the resident what they need in the interim so they would only be waiting for an appointment if that was clinically appropriate to do. So.
I just had a question on. Looks like it's page two. I'm just trying to figure out. you know. where you talk about FY 25 clinical hours to town residents. non school. But then below that. you know the hours are referencing counseling to children and families. So the non school language. and I should take that out. but remember last year when we were talking about kind of the origin of the contract with the Wayland Board of Health and the work that we did in schools. Initially. when the contract was created. we were helping the Wayland school in part. we were doing some outpatient work. but we were also helping Wayland. the Wayland public school system service. IEPs. particularly the counseling goals written into IEPs because the school district didn't have enough counseling staff to service all of the counseling needs within Student IEPs that existed. So some of this funding helped to support that. So I'm a clinician at hrs. for example. if I got assigned a Wayland school case. that's what we would call it. Then that would mean that I would be meeting with a child who attends the Wayland public school. you know. weekly for counseling. I wouldn't be with them in the summer. because. again. the counseling need was written into their individualized education plan. and I was servicing that need for the district that those sort of school based counseling hours being covered within this contract ended. you know. I think over 10 years ago now. and we encouraged that piece of the work to end. School districts have hired more clinical staff now. It's better to have those counseling needs met by an in house clinician. In House meeting within the school district they can better coordinate the care. That's just the model that school districts have adopted. So it certainly makes more sense for a kid to be seen on an outpatient basis at hrs if a clinical need arises and they're referred. usually schools think you know of referring kids who don't just need counseling support to get through the school day or be functioning in school. but they could really benefit from talking to someone outside of school. So we haven't done any of those in school hours in a long time. but. but I think that language was sort of written into the report template. really. to differentiate between outpatient clinical hours done at hrs to provide therapy for Wayland residents and the School Based counseling hours that we provided historically. But we're kind of counseling hours to service kids IEPs. Does that clarify? I think so. I just. and I remember we talked about that before it was just. you know. mainly trying to identify. you know
Julia Junghanns: how people are getting note. how people are aware of your services. And you know is that generally. through the school system and different relationships. you know at the school that are through your services that are provided. Unknown: Potentially. yes. certainly. So you know. the vast majority of referrals to us came through the public school district this past fiscal year. but there are other residents who you know. family. friends. neighbors. things like that. You know. other folks in the community who have sought services. Do you know refer some residents. And as I said. we did some marketing work with the senior centers in all of the towns and and they referred a couple of patients. So. so. and then. you know. also PC piece in the area as well. So. but again. the vast majority of people refer to us came through the public school district.
Quiet buddy.
yeah. non school. It's just old language to differentiate between just traditional outpatient clinical hours. and I'll be
done in just a couple minutes. Couple minutes. Five minutes. What time are you holding down? What time are you going? Five minutes. Okay. thank you. Oh. how long is time? How many minutes do we have. like this. like this thing? How many minutes do we have now? How many one second. I'm gonna bring him out there anyway.
You know. one of the basis is the questions that we have before to try and identify. you know. how people know their services outside of the school center? Yeah. and. you know. I think she explained that they have done some. you know. informational. I don't know exactly. some type of outreach. I think. to. you know. Senior Center. but it seems like. you know. I'm not. The school is still. you know. really the part where it says non school in life. that to me. just just a little bit hard to grasp that I'd like to remove that from this. because it doesn't really match up with what's actually. all right. sorry about that. No. that's okay. Um. I was just trying to figure out. you know. when people look at the support. how they. you know. look at that section and feel like it's services that are not being provided to the schools. And I understand what you're explaining to us. which makes sense. because I know we've talked about that before. but it seems like the report should probably be a little different. you know. in the way it's described. I would think. you know. updating the language. Maybe just update the language a little bit so that it's. I
Julia Junghanns: don't know exactly what the language should be. but. you know. non school. to me. is sort of misleading. because it is school work that's being done for families in the school system. Unknown: No. it's not. That's not what that that section means. So I think perhaps removing non school will help clinical hours to town residents. The 1100 92 is clinical hours of outpatient therapeutic services provided to Wayland residents. period. nothing to do with school. That's just outpatient clinical services provided consultation hours to school staff. Consultation is another service we provide and for all of the towns that we serve West and Wayland and Wellesley. We do consultation work with folks in the school administrators. principals. vice principals. the guidance team. special educators. etc. to help support the work that they do. We provide a unique clinical perspective as outpatient providers. but are also very familiar with the school system and can help them think about difficult cases in a new way. family systems issues in a new way. That's just the 30 hours that we did. So if you see in the school services section. so general services. maybe. if you look at that section. general non school services. the counseling to children and families. 1100 92 that's clinical hours provided to Wayland residents. nothing to do with school and similarly. the intake and referral services the 51 hours that's work that our intake team is doing with Wayland residents across the lifespan who are seeking mental health treatment. the school services that we have. Provider. just the consultation. and then we didn't do any last year. but any urgent psychiatric evaluations.
Julia Junghanns: I think we're maybe talking about two different things. because I'm looking at it from a different a different perspective. potentially. where are people finding out about hrs? Are they finding out about hrs in the school setting. not necessarily related to any IEP in the school? That's what I'm sort of. you know. right? Unknown: So you're on. you're wondering about the referral source data. So if you look at the last page. the chart on the last page. referral source data is. at least for anybody who accessed care through us. You're wanting to know how they found out about us. And so in 28 of the cases. someone within the school district at some level. Sorry. the last page. If there are four pages in the report. I believe it's on page four and then it's in the right hand column. Referral source.
Okay. looks like it's clear. Yeah. I'm sorry. Go right ahead. Continue. please. Oh. that's okay. So. so this is just a new section of data that we added to the report this past fiscal year because Michelle was curious about just your question. Julia. where are people? Where are people who are presenting for treatment at hrs. finding out about hrs. And in 28 it was the cases the the school district. Someone in the school district told them about us. Six of the cases. they found out about us through a primary care provider. Five through a friend or community for family member. And then. you know. in 12 cases. they self refer. meaning that's just what they indicated. right? So this data is a little bit complicated to get. You know. I wouldn't. I think it's. it's helpful in some ways. But again. individuals who are presenting to treatment. we can ask them. sort of for this information. how did you learn about us? And then the data is. what is it? Some may choose not to give us that information. but those that did gave us the information in this section.
And as I said. just as we expected. there are a large amount of people who find out about us through the public school district. If you think about families within the district who have children. They could be presenting to hrs for couples. treatment parent guidance. you know. treatment for themselves. but learn about a community health agency through the school district at some point. whether it's back to school night. something like that. So we imagined before even presenting this referral source data. that many of the referrals came somehow through the school district. But as you can see. there are the senior center PCPs in the community. friends family also referred Wayland residents to hrs as well. Am I better answering your question now about sort of how people learn about hrs and our services? Yes. that is helpful. Okay.
I asked one more question. Sorry. So if you had 52 unique clients in fiscal year. 2025 what was the number for 2024 Do you know? I'm just wondering if it's typical. the hours that were the clinical hours. if that's like typical. because. if you like. just. do I just divide the number of hours by the number of people. which probably isn't like accurate. is like 23 hours? Is that kind of typical in a year? You know? So that services? Yes. I mean. certainly there is no real typical. you know. So exactly. you can't really divide it and get a sense of what is average. but because we work with children and families. it is longer term work. We're not doing short term work for the most part. Some people may come for five to 10 sessions and feel better and move along. But you know. when we're working with children. if you get a new child case. the evaluation alone is between three and five sessions. because you're meeting with parents initially. then meeting with the child for three to five sessions. and then having parents back to give some feedback and make a treatment plan from there. So the number of sessions. certainly. you know. is greater. I would say overall for a child case. So you were asking the number of unique Wayland residents that were seen in FY 24 overall. And I can pull that up just from last year's report. Really quickly. It's. it's. I believe this year's is higher than last year's. you know. in that category as well. given that would be my guess anyway. that. given that the clinical hours are up. but it sounds like you're wondering about sort of average number of sessions that an individual is in treatment overall. And if that's possible to determine. or if this is sort of a normal number of sessions for that number of residents. yes. yeah. So I think that the number of clinical hours being up does correlate with us being able to serve more residents than we did last fiscal year and the fiscal year prior. Certainly I don't think it's always that correlation is not always. you know. completely straight line. because it depends on the type of treatment needed. age of the client. etc. But there will be a correlation between those two numbers the vast majority of the time. and I'll just look and see if I can get that quickly. The total number of unique clients from last year's report is I think
what I just found is the number of new cases assigned in FY 24
which was 17 in 24 compared to 31 this year. So that was certainly up as well. And I'll
look right now and continue. Can take other questions as I do this. if there are any. I
think that's. I think that's great that you take the time and go through set multiple sessions to talk to parents and everything. I think that's like. that's awesome instead of or like. Yeah. that's really great that taking the time to go through multiple sessions. I'm glad you think so. Yeah. certainly it feels like best practice to us and working with kids and families and well. it's going to result in more visit. It's. I personally would never begin treatment with a child without doing a thorough. you know. history. gathering a full history from parents. understanding their concerns. And then also. even after. you know. you need to meet with a child. I would say at least three times to you know. even get a sense of who they are and whether continuing on in therapy will be useful for the child. I always like to reach out to any school providers during that initial evaluation who might be involved as well. You just need to gather all that data at first so it can't happen.
I'm any other questions.
Thank you so much for your time. Yes. I'm not finding that figure. I my guess is that the number is high 30s or in the 40s of total unique residency in last year. if the number of new cases was 17. I think we just started reporting some of this new data within this fiscal year and maybe in the mid year report from last year that I could probably find as well. anyway. But yeah. that's my guess. So certainly that number was lower last year as well the total number of residents seen within the year. given this account. thank you. Lindsay. we appreciate your Absolutely. Yes. Thank you very much for the support from the board. It's really critical to the work we do and to make sure that all Wayland residents you know can have their mental health needs serve. regardless of their ability to pay. I think is really critical and valuable to the community. So thank you for supporting the work that we do in the way that you do. and if other questions come up. don't hesitate to reach out. Happy to come back. hopefully next time in person. Thanks for tolerating my son's questions about mid Yeah. Appreciate it. Okay. thanks. everybody. That's
not five minutes. How many is five minutes?
So I don't know if everyone had a chance to look at the annual report. but I printed out a copy of it. just a case that we can it's a draft. obviously. this is the full report
for the whole department. We're still working on gathering some information. but it's. there's quite a bit of it that's already done. The nursing section is not done yet. So there's a few things that would be added. But in general. it's. you know. similar to prior years.
See if anything's our septic permits are up from the past couple of years. We went from 109 to 116 in FY 25 well testing was up a little bit
new construction. I
Not as many title fives. but it's hard to track those. because. you know. when we do a permit. it's good for a few years. So people may not actually do that work in the same year that they pull apartment. So you know. it runs over a few years. so you can sort of see the trends for the past few years for any
septic comments.
But we are up on building approval reviews. We had 280 this year and last year we had 207 uh.
So we're so we're the volume is sort of slowly increasing. I mean. that's what the numbers show for this fiscal year. I mean. we still have some time to go for our preliminary numbers for FY 26 I don't know where we're at right now. you know. But FY 25 ends. you know. So it starts on July one. and it's confusing. It starts on July one of 24 and runs to June 30 of 25 so it's a little bit. you know. you have to kind of go back in time to remember what we did at that time. Um. but in the in the end. it works out. you know. So now we're in the next fiscal year. I don't know how it lines up with. you know. where We're at with numbers to compare with preliminary but I
the areas in red we're still working on. but some of it is our Communicable Disease Information. and some of it is. you know. the public health nursing section. Um
hrs is not in here yet because I did not have their report last week when I was updating this. Um.
some of our large projects. Charena Farms subdivision. Veritas Christian Academy development project. Saint Anne's 40 bean development. did you see the new one? Which one was that? And race road? Oh. that's going to be. yeah. we're. we're just sort of hearing about that. but we will. I mean. that's huge. That's a huge project. But Darren. I believe. did soil testing up there recently the Coptic charge. yeah. there were plans online somewhere that I saw. yeah. so that'll be another. you know. those large projects can be very time consuming for us to look at the septic design plans. and when they want to phase it too. they're going to right? So another complicated. phased project where there'll be pressure dosing. mounting calculations. probably a hydro geo review. which potentially could also be for the high school septic system. You know. some of those things we can look at. but we generally don't look at hyper geo reviews. And so we'll have to probably have a consultant look at some of those components. but they can be time consuming. especially if they're a Phase project
that the the church that's on rice Road. yes. the Coptic Jonathan Storer: Church. it's. it's kind of residences in Unknown: it too. So the church is getting demolished. Jonathan Storer: or in phases. They're going to build a new church before they take down the old one.
Unknown: Yeah. I think they they have a fin recently. Yes. they did. because I remember. Were hearing about something recently. Julia Junghanns: We've been talking about it at. you know. just land use meetings with town staff. Just initially. they had come in and explained what they were planning on. And then. you know. we talk about it again. And then we hear about. you know. different phases the project. when they're going to other. you know. like site plan review or zba. I can't remember which one they may have been at recently. but they haven't made it to us yet. but we did do soil testing. Jonathan Storer: So what struck me is they were utilizing every bit of that piece of property. yeah. yeah. between parking lot or athletic court or housing or whatever it was all. Unknown: Yeah. that'll be very busy and on rice road. I
anything in red is the old stuff from last year. so it has to be. I mean. I think we've done a lot. so we'll be fine with meeting the deadline of September 30. but they would tell you that if you don't submit your annual report. your board Beat this man disbanded. which is pretty extreme. We've always submitted it useless to say it
oh and China rose got the sushi. So that is going to go specs. yeah. actually. they did hire a consultant. and they went through that process. I guess I should. I haven't talked more about recently. but I will find Out.
Jonathan Storer: What has Veritas been doing lately is that just charging along. or I haven't heard or read anything Unknown: recently. they were working on building permit reviews.
Jonathan Storer: That's the last time they got all through conservation.
Unknown: I don't know if they have a comment with them. does it conservation just take so long? So yeah. sure. they've actually completed their process. yeah. with conservation. But if they're working on the building application. I would think they have something.
Wow. So at the end of the report. we've got an FY. well. that should be FY 26 FY 26 focus areas. These are just things that you know we're continuing. that we're still working on. I don't know if the board has any feedback or thoughts about areas that the board might feel important or of interest to focus on. In addition to some of these things that I have already plugged in.
we do feel like it's a very important goal to get our Building reviews and eventually our septic reviews respond. open. go.
although we have a new IT director. which isn't good. but the one of the IT staff recently resigned. so that'll be difficult. But you know. things happen. People leave. and I'm sure that we will find someone. but it might be a little cumbersome to pick up where we left off. which. you know. we were making some good progression on that. but we're very eager to get our building reviews on Open Gov. You know. we feel like it will be a really good move to have. you know. a more streamlined process for residents in the application process. and so we're anticipating that happening. And then. you know. we'll work on septic reviews. But that's. you know. that's down pike. I mean. I think the building part would be most of interest to people you know. that are. I think it's a bit of a struggle to get through that process. It's a little disjointed right now. where it's. you know. some is on open go. some isn't some paper. some is online. So. you know. I look forward to seeing that get all opened up. Jonathan Storer: And have you found anyone to replace Michelle? Yet Unknown: we have. which is great news. We went through some interviews with some really good applicants. And you know. we had two rounds of interviews. Heather joined us. myself. the HR director and Heather. and we expect Laura Carter to start with us on September 22 she's coming from a job where she has a job share between Concord and Maynard as the public health nurse. and she's a nurse practitioner. We're very excited. and think she'll be great fit. So as in frantically working on some logistics and planning for flu clinics Julia Junghanns: and. you know. just getting some dates set. you know. the locations and the times and strategizing some staffing and whatnot. On. So when she walks in here. there's some work that's already done. because it's going to be busy. We have vaccine already. so people are calling about clinics. and we have flu vaccine. and we have Unknown: high dose and regular we will be getting some covid vaccine as well. So we'll do some covid clinics. but not right away. because. like. here. make it a little crazy. but we can. We'll work on that too. So. but yes. I'm very excited. It's been a little stressful. Jonathan Storer: Well. you've been wearing multiple hats for a little bit. Julia Junghanns: yeah. I mean. it's. you know. plus anticipating. you know. what happens if we don't have someone and. I mean. I felt like we would. because we had some really good candidates. and. you know. I felt like. you know. we would get someone in here. So that was good part. but then going through that process. it always takes longer than you expect. you know. and and HR really did help us along. but it just always. you know. people on vacation. or you know this or that. and people have to get give notice. You know. I mean. it's a process so.
Unknown: but finally.
does she want to come meet us? Or. yeah. I am sure she will.
So didn't skip a little bit over here. but
that's. you know. basically the update on flu clinic planning. The two dates that we have are October 15 and October 22 three to 7pm
you know. we like to have a couple on Wednesdays. because those are the early release days for school. and that way we can try to capture Julia Junghanns: kids and families where we can the 15th is probably going to be the senior clinic we haven't you sent out any registration or sign ups yet that will be coming. You know. we have to get the because Unknown: it's all online now. You know. you register online. and so once we have those registration links ready. we will do some advertising. But those are the two clinics that we've set up so far. which will be in this room in the town building and so
On. budget updates.
Tom is very. very closely looking at the budget for FY 27 and they also already looked at our non salary budget. Everyone's not just us. everyone's non salary budget to see where you can shave out. you know. some costs that potentially could be cut from our budget. And so we've done that. We haven't heard Julia Junghanns: about formal budget planning. I think they're having some big meetings about how to approach these concerns for an override. And you know. there's a proposal that I think the Select Board is reviewing. I don't know if they're reviewing that tonight. I think there have any hearing on property on West plain street. So
Unknown: there were some proposals that I think were being provided by the town manager and the finance director. and so they're looking for some direction from the Select Board on which way to go and whether they need to go to ask for override from Tom meeting next spring. So that's that. That's what's going on there. It's. I don't know exactly what will happen. but we'll see. I'll keep everyone in the loop of any new information I have. Heather. our school nurse leader. is. has been. you know. working on the. you know. preschool meetings with the school nurses. and we've been in touch. you know. a number of times she's been handling all that. So very thankful for all of her help getting everyone ready. To start the school year. and. you know. they're in full swing now. That was a couple weeks ago. So very thankful that. you know. she was able to step in and and handle that without any. you know. big bumps in the road. I haven't heard of any. anything crazy going on. I'm just going to knock on the table. but
mosquito surveillance. excuse me. We did have testing done last week. and there were no positives. They are doing testing again. today or tomorrow. it is possible we could have a positive mosquito for West Nile. At this point. the populations are much lower than they were because it's been so cool at night. and so I don't know that there would be any need to have additional measures taken. as far as. like. you know. considering canceling programs or things like that. This time of year. if it's cool at night. the populations really start plummeting. And when I say that. I mean of the mosquitoes themselves and their activity. they're much slower moving. Julia Junghanns: Warm days. they're still out there. There's no There's no obliteration of all mosquitoes at this point. You know that would be after the first heavy cross. but people should still be. you know. protecting themselves using bug spray. and you know. trying to avoid peak mosquito hours. especially you know. senior citizens or people with immunocompromised systems Unknown: underlying health issues. potentially. you know. West Nile could be a risk for those those populations. but we will find out more when I get results back from our mosquito control project. which hopefully will be maybe tomorrow. maybe Wednesday or Thursday. but that will be probably the last time they do testing this year.
Are they testing for West Nile and Tripoli? So they they look at the populations and the types of mosquitoes. So if they found they do have some light traps. which would be where they would find mosquitoes that could potentially carry Tripoli. Um.
Julia Junghanns: I know that it's much. much less likely here. because we don't have Cedar swamps. but I know they're looking at what types of mosquitoes they find. So I can ask Laura about that when they do their next testing. But typically. the mosquitoes that would carry that disease would be a certain species. So they would. you know. look at what the trap collects. and determine if there was any mosquitoes that could potentially be carrying that he didn't mention that. But I can ask. you know. out of you know. knowledge. you know. we don't get an actual print out of a report. So it's like. you know. it's basically. um. whether there's positives or not. And then sometimes the mosquito. some species. they will tell us that. oh. there's a lot of these types of species. so maybe we'll test for that. so that type of thing. So. but I can ask more about that. It's interesting to know. you know.
Jonathan Storer: where are the closest cedar swamps. Unknown: Sudbury.
Jonathan Storer: And do you know what kind of mosquitoes carry? Unknown: Tripoli I do. although I haven't heard this season. and I think it might be off the radar for a lot of towns. because we haven't really heard of of that many problems with Tripoli being carried in mosquitoes to see Jonathan Storer: Asian tiger mosquito or which one carries Unknown: don't think it's that mosquito. It's you'll see it in Melena is one of them. Jonathan Storer: I just. I don't. didn't have any idea how far they travel. and I Googled it. It Some don't travel Unknown: very far that we put right on the route 20 corner. and they stay over there. Yeah. no. it is possible. you know. because obviously mosquitoes travel and and Jonathan Storer: they sometimes ride the wind. is what? Yes. Google says. that's for sure. Julia Junghanns: They do. Do. and so. you know. but there's a lot of science involved with it too. that I probably am not aware of right now as to potentially why this. you know. is happening where we're seeing more West Nile than triple E mosquitoes carry. you know. plus we've had West Nile cases in humans. and so that elevates it who are at a high risk right now. for for West Nile. although. as I mentioned. as the nights cool. it becomes. you know. less concerning. I mean. it's still a risk where people should. you know. put back on protect themselves. but
Unknown: the populations start really going down. but. you know. people are still outside and should wear bug spray long sleeves. you know. spray deed. all over again. spray deed is the best thing that is. I'm sure there's a lot of reasons not to UD use deed. but it is good to prevent mosquitoes. you know. so lots of garlic. you know. staying away from areas where there's a lot of foliage. where the mosquito sort of gather. and swampy wetland areas. Things like that. especially at dusk or early morning. Um. the update on 195 main street at the old DEP W site.
Julia Junghanns: They are doing a little bit more work. I did watch the last meeting that they had. and the PFAS numbers were even higher from additional testing that they had done in the groundwater monitoring wells. and so they were going to look more closely towards where the septic system leach field is at the Middle School as a potential suspect source for PFAS. So that's being still looked at. I'm not sure where that's going to go. because. according to Unknown: Ben Gould. it's not something that is really fixable by digging the soil out. Julia Junghanns: You know. I don't know exactly what the solution would be. But I think you know this. the town will still have to do something to satisfy the state's non compliance letter for having this PFAS in water. in in the zone too. So that's. that's basically what's going on. I don't have anything new on that
Unknown: 10 short drive we are. We did have information coming from someone regarding concerning housing conditions. and so we're going to initiate an inspection at the property. Initially. it's. you know. basically requesting an inspection. So I will let the board know how that goes and what happens next.
General business. Oh. there was the MWRA connection. I had shared the letter that went out in the end of August regarding the emergency connection to the MWRA. I don't know exactly where that stands as of today. as far as the repair of piping at the happy follow wells So. but the good news is we had the ability to connect and use the butter from MWRA. Um. general business. Oh. one more thing. We do have some events coming up that are part of National Recovery Month. There's a whole calendar of events that was put together by Olivia do for who is our regional substance use prevention coordinator. and each town in our seven town collaborate. Collaborative has. you know. different events going on. and so this. I believe. is on the town's website. where each day there's something going on. And we also have a survey. which is to help us under understand what potentially the opioid needs are in our community. It's. you know. easy to take the survey by a link on this handout. This was also put together by a. Olivia do for who has been doing a great job. you know. on prevention work. and this was. you know. one of the things that they wanted to try and identify what people think the needs are in each community out of our seven Tom collaborative. yeah.
general business. there's a stack of bills. which we apologize for. Patty had gotten behind with vacations and things like that. So if there's any questions. please let me know I'm happy to answer them. Or you could always stop in if you wanted to. you know. in the office. And then we do have one set of minutes that are ready. May 12. Did everyone have a chance to look at them. or have a copy here? Okay. so then we would just need to someone would need to make a motion to approve the minutes. a motion to approve the minutes from May 12. Yes. I second the motion.
What do we do now? Need to take a vote. yeah. and I
don't remember what we say. So basically. you know each person votes. and you go around asking each person if they vote yes. Jonathan Storer: Okay. Genevieve and on. do you vote yes? Or how do you vote yes? Brent mortis. Unknown: yes. Jonathan Storer: Katie step. yeah. And John story. yes. Unknown: excellent. Thank you.
We don't have June. but we're working on that. so that should be ready next
time I thought you were gonna say. I know you know. you just That's right. I forgot Robert. Yeah.
any other questions or concerns or I will definitely bring Laura in to one of our board meetings so you can meet her and welcome her to Wayland. and you know she'll be working with Heather Yates and our fabulous nursing team that we have that's been running smoothly as you know. so far this school year. which is very happy about. yeah. isn't there something else you want to announce? What I
Jonathan Storer: don't know? I just noticed something Unknown: that I got engaged. Congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. thank you. Couple weeks ago. few weeks ago. thank you.
So I mean. I don't think there's anything else someone needs to make a motion to close. I make a motion to close the meeting.
Second. just go around again. Jonathan Storer: Jen. you have an on? Yes? John store. yes.
Unknown: Brett mortis. yes. Katie stuff. yeah. great. Thank you. All right. if you.
Board of Public Works
George Uveges: Okay? It is six
o'clock. so I am going to call
the meeting to order. I'm going
to start by reading the
information on the agenda. right
below the agenda heading says
note items may not be discussed
in the order listed or at the
specific time. Estimated times
are approximate. All topics may
be subject to deliberation and
vote. In addition. the common
abbreviations. the B. O. W. P.
uses. DPW for the Department of
Public Works. MWRA. for
Massachusetts water resource
authority. and PFAS for poly
whatever that is. but it's
written out on the agenda. One
may watch or may participate
remotely with the meeting link
that can be found at and then
the link is there on the agenda.
Pursuant to chapter two of the
acts of 2025 the meeting will be
conducted via remote
participation. No in person
attendance by members of the
public will be permitted this
meeting may be recorded. which
will be made available to the
public on WayCAM as soon after
the meeting as practical. All
right. let's start with a roll
call. If we could. Mike
Spellman. I here. Mike
wakeebacker. here. Judy here. Ed
Yes. here. and myself here.
Okay. that's the opening we have
everybody in attendance.
Announcements? Anybody have
announcements?
Michael Wegerbauer: I just want
to go ahead.
Unknown: Sorry. The only
announcement I have is the grant
money that I mentioned last
time. My understanding is that
the town is not pursuing it.
However. it did bring up the
idea that. independent of any
kind of grant money. would be
nice to ask kleinfielder to look
into any kind of way to reduce
ongoing operating costs through.
I don't know. solar panels or
geothermal or something.
George Uveges: Okay. noted.
Mike. you had something?
Michael Wegerbauer: Yeah. I just
want to announce that we had met
with the Department of Revenue
to discuss the water enterprise
fund revenue and budgeting. and
we had a very good. quick
meeting. And I'm happy to give a
summary at some point.
George Uveges: We'll be talking
about that later. Yep. okay.
okay. Any other announcements?
Tom Holder: Just a real quick
one. real light duty. We have a
an employee that's retiring. Joe
How many years is Joey philippo.
I put
you on the spot. Anyway. We've got a long. long standing employee. graduate of Wayland High School. retiring after decades of service. so we're having a send off for him Thursday at noon at the DEP W so anybody that is in the area and is free during that time frame. please feel free to join us at the Public Works facility. George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Alright. open it up for public comment. You watching the hands. Joe Doucette: I just wanted to let you know that he was employed January 2004 was any started? So I just looked that up. good. George Uveges: So 24 years. very nice. Tom Holder: Okay. so I see Jeff Stein. so I'm going to allow him to speak. Jeff. are you there? Unknown: I am. Tom Holder: Can you hear me loud and clear? Michael Wegerbauer: Oh. good. Well. thank you. Then. I'm Jeff Stein. I live at 48 Sherman's Bridge Road in Wayland. I'm an architect past dean of the Boston architectural college. I can see Sherman's bridge from my house. and of course. I can hear it that. by the way. is a feature. not a problem. The sound of the bridge is part of the charm of this neighborhood and part of what makes this bridge a place. I just want to point out that working on a project like this is more complex than it might have been even a generation ago. especially for this project. your constituency is not just car commuters. landscapers with their extra wide trailers. school busses. It's bicyclists. motorcycles. pedestrians. people who are fishing. boaters. his. Historians. nature. photographers. tax paying neighbors. people have held weddings on this wooden bridge. We're all your clients. and you should know we need more than a fast. smooth driving lane with metal guard rails. Speed is already a problem on Sherman's Bridge Road. where there are regular car crashes on the road. but interestingly. not on the bumpy wooden bridge itself. The wooden bridge gives identity to a neighborhood that has grown up around it to this region of Wayland and Sudbury. and we'd like to preserve that identity and its place in our town's history. on a scenic road where commuters are already traveling way too fast. Asphalt on Gulam might not be the answer. I'm just saying.
George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Jeff. There is going to be a forum on Sherman bridge coming up. so I would encourage you to come to that forum. Michael Wegerbauer: Great. Thank you.
George Uveges: We have anybody else Tom Tom Holder: I see several people in attendance. but I don't see any more hands.
George Uveges: You're in attendance and would like to speak. please raise your hand. otherwise we will move on.
Tom Holder: Okay. here we go. I have Rebecca. Rebecca. you are on Unknown: Okay. Hi. I'm Rebecca Devine. I'm at 17 Hereford Road in Wayland. Just as a side note. I'm not related to Greg. as far as I know. but my family has been at this property since 1942 and so we have a long history at the bridge. I will say that. Well. I appreciate the wood bridge. I don't. unlike many of my neighbors. appreciate the noise of it. I have found in my many years living here. and my grandmother having lived here my entire life. that the bridge has not been well maintained as far as I'm concerned. in between seasons and Joe. maybe you could answer the question. Is it really that it alternates from one town to the other on maintenance every year. Or do you guys split the maintenance? Because it seems like every June the bridge is not maintained until it becomes the next fiscal fiscal year. I will agree with Jeff that there is too much speed. and we don't need it to be faster. but the maintenance has been atrocious since the built bridge was rebuilt in 1991 as far as I can tell.
Michael Wegerbauer: I think Joe. you can respond if You have an answer to the question about who is alternating? Joe Doucette: I want to say it was three or four years ago. or maybe longer than that. we had decided with Sudbury to the bridge. Instead of alternating back and forth. we've literally split the bridge in half. They take care of one half. We take care of the other half. We do maintain it approximately two times a year. it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain it. because the stringers have essentially turned into Swiss cheese. So as much as we attempt to maintain it and keep the boards in place. the Yeah. it's a kind of a losing battle. Unknown: And Joe one follow up on that. is it true that those boards come from one supplier only. and only one person can get them for you. Is that part of my understanding as to why it's been such an issue on maintenance? Joe Doucette: No. we've struggled to find suppliers because we do have to have them made in certain lengths. et cetera. We in the past few years have gone through a couple different vendors. But no. it's. it's not. it's not difficult to get a supplier. but it's not easy as well. It's. we've gone through a few and we currently do have a supplier form. Unknown: Okay. thanks. I think those are just some of the issues that may be helpful when you guys are doing your full meeting. Thank you. Joe. Thank you. Tom Holder: Tom anybody else I am looking and as of now. I do not see any other hands. George Uveges: All right. going once. going twice. nothing. Tom Holder: nothing. no. changes. George Uveges: Okay. let's close public comment and move into the status of the long term water supply project.
Tom Holder: It's all yours. Tom Sure. sure. to start off the conversation. we just see if I. I do see Greg Devine. no relation to Rebecca. Sure. so Greg has joined us tonight. Greg is employed by the mass DEP. and he works in the office that oversees the State Revolving Fund. So in knowing that there has been some periodic questions asked relative to the SRF program and how it relates to our financing of the MWRA project. I invited Greg to join us. He can provide you know a brief overview of the SRF funding program and entertain questions that board members may have. So with that. I would recognize Greg.
Unknown: Thank you. Tom appreciate you all inviting me here this evening. Happy to share a little bit about the program. about myself. I have been serving the SRF program in this capacity for about six years now. So I am the SRF Program Section Chief. responsible for projects in both the Northeast region in which the town of Wayland resides. as well as the western region. So in that capacity. we have overseen projects of all types. most recently. and obviously. we've dealt with quite a few projects that involve PFAS. or rather. the elimination. or at least the reduction thereof to the public's drinking water supply. So what I wanted to touch upon here are a couple of what I would say are benefits of utilizing the program and how it can be helpful to town and a community in terms of how it impacts rates and being able to move forward with the capital projects. but also speak to some of the upcoming milestones and just kind of a higher level timeline now that Tom and his team have you know. launched into this endeavor in terms of submitting to our program for consideration a two part capital project. So the SRF program blends money received from the federal government a corresponding state match as well as recycled funds in order to offer support for capital projects. And so with that. we are able to. on an annual basis. offer terms and conditions from a lending borrowing perspective that differ from a more traditional bond ban sort of scenario. and certainly quite different than what a commercial lending institution would offer. Our starting baseline interest rate is 2% so especially in this day and age. if you're tracking any of the mortgage rates. what have you. 2% significantly less. We have recognized the fact that the challenges of eliminating PFAS from raw water sources comes with a pretty high price tag. So what we've tried to do to better support communities in the effort to eliminate PFAS is to offer a reduction from the 2% down to a 0% borrowing capacity. So effectively. for every dollar borrowed toward your project. you pay back that $1 now I would be remiss to say that there aren't any fees or charges associated with this. There is. which is typical of most lending vehicles. and origination fee as well as an administrative fee. So these fees add up to about $5 per 1000 borrowed. and so your effective interest or any outside charges other than the principal on the loan would just be that administrative slash origination fee. So pretty. pretty small dollars. all things considered. the term of our loans typically start at 20 years. and so we ask for a corresponding useful life certificate from your design engineer of record to support and corroborate that the investment by yourself as the town as well as us. that the project in the associated infrastructure will be viable for at least 20 years. We can. at certain times. look beyond the 20 year term and go out as far as 30 years. With that 30 year we do make some market rate adjustments to cover the additional 10 years of repayment. And so of late. that has been in the range of about point four to point six add on to the baseline loan. So in this case. let's just effectively call the overall borrowing to be a somewhere about 75 basis points. or about three. Three quarters of a percentage point. just as a conservative target for borrowing. If we were to go beyond the 20 years. up to something in the 30 year neighborhood. the corresponding useful life certificate would have to correspond with that. because we'd want to make sure that the assets and the effort itself is covered. in fact. viable for that entire period of time during which there is a debt service or in a different way of repayment George Uveges: mode happening. Greg. one question. a little bit of confused in terms of the rates. One point you said 1.4 to 1.6 and then you said a point seven. five. Yeah. Unknown: George. let me clarify. 0.4 to 0.6 would be the ad on to the term note. if we went from 20 years to 30 years. thank you for clarifying. George Uveges: And is that for the full 30 years. or it's just that. just for the last 10 it Unknown: would be for the full 30 and so the amortization on that. And you know. we provide draft schedules would just be adjusted out across the course of two payments per year. January and July.
George Uveges: And is that principal and interest. or principal? And then to split the interest. Unknown: in the case of 0% it would almost effectively be mostly principal each time. So we could offer two courses of repayment. either a level debt service. meaning equal payments twice a year for the life of the loan. or a level principal where the interest will drop down in time. beginning with the highest interest payment on your first payment and then trickling down to zero. similar to what you see on a normal house or car loan. George Uveges: Okay. Fay. and we're just. we're looking at the cash flow impact of some of this. That's why I asked the Unknown: question. Sure. absolutely. And what we can do. if it is at all helpful to your conversation. is I can work with our financial counterparts at the Massachusetts clean water trust our financial arm. and have them put together a few tables. if that would be helpful for a visual and just to kind of review some of those numbers. rather than you all trying to project those out in your preferred financial software. George Uveges: Good. We appreciate that. okay. but that's very helpful. Yeah. Unknown: So. you know. really. the you know. the strength of the program is the fact that you know we can offer and lend to you at a point where. for the debt service incurred. there's not going to be a further surcharge onto the impact of the rates. right? And that's what we're really trying to target here. is recognizing that capital projects. just. you know. they scale to an extent. but not so much so that there's not an impact to your customers. And so we try to be somewhat sensitive to that in our approach. So that's yes. Judy. thank you. Is the rate locked in. it is okay. And what would determine. if it's a 20 year or 30 year. that would ultimately be the preference of you all as the owner. So you would at the time of permanent financing meeting. the project has been complete and that we're executing on a permanent loan. it would be structured based upon your input and decision at that George Uveges: time. Okay. in other words. what we apply for. right. right? Unknown: So the advantage of our programs. we have interim financing. So effectively. during the course of the construction project itself. you can borrow the money and pay all your bills. and at the time of project completion was when we would set in and lock in those terms for you. So effectively. you get the money upfront. and then we enter into debt service Once the project has completed. or in the course of a multi year project. we would try to target somewhere around the 50 or so percent mark to say we're going to lock you in an effective two years from now. you'll have to begin your repayment method so you have beneficial use of the very project before you start to incur those costs and recognize that debt service coming onto your books. George Uveges: But you're still paying the fee at that period of time. you're just not having to make a payment. Unknown: No. no. no. the fee. the fees and everything are deferred until the time of the project's completion in your first payment. right? George Uveges: But I understand that's the payment. But the question is. for that. let's say a project is two years. As we draw that money for the two years. there will be an interest that will be added on to the principal during that construction period. That's not free money. Unknown: It is free money up front. Yeah. So the. George Uveges: No. I'm talking about the payment. I understand we're not going to have to make a interest payment that the question is. is that there is no interest in my understanding correct charge during that two year period? That's correct. Unknown: That's correct. Yep. So the the interest is based. Upon the amount borrowed independent of the interim state. So whether you're utilizing a 14 month construction period or a 30 month construction period. that would be irrelevant. We are simply going to target the principal value borrowed independent of time. George Uveges: Okay. so the interest accrual doesn't start till the actual loan on after construction is occurred. That's correct. Yes. And what months did you say there were payments due Unknown: January and July? So we try to charge at the beginning of a fiscal year and then halfway through. so that you can try to forecast that as you go into your fiscal year projections and budget analysis. And as we approach the time of permanent financing. we would make sure that you're fully aware. We'd share with you those amortization schedules so that you're fully informed of what that first you know series of payments would be. Michael Wegerbauer: Okay? Good. Thank you very much. So sure thing only here. Greg and thank you for joining. We just want to confirm we would not be eligible for SRF if we were to construct in the flood zone. which is where the current facility stands. That's been our understanding. and we've made decisions based on that. If you have that answer Andy confirm that it'd be nice. but if not. that's okay. Unknown: There are avenues to say that work within a flood zone can be considered. provided that there are provisions to protect the critical features and functions therein and that were not negatively impacting said flood plain. right? So there. there are a couple of qualifiers to that understanding. and sometimes the effort to do that might not offset the value add of going through the program. Michael Wegerbauer: Yeah. it's not something we want to do just just trying to cross our t's and dot our eyes Unknown: understood. Great. awesome. So. if I may. I'm just going to touch upon timeline here a little bit. So we received. during our annual solicitation period this past summer. what we call a project evaluation form or PDF. And so in essence. that's an expression of interest for upcoming capital work that will be considered by the SRF program. So currently. we are in the process of reviewing and evaluating all of these expressions of interest that we have received across the state. and through that evaluation. we'll come up with a ranking based upon tiered scoring as to what we can and will fund in the upcoming calendar year. So that final deliverable to the public is called an intended use plan. So annually. our intended use plan catalogs and lists out all the projects that will be included and supported by SRF funding moving forward. So based upon historical timelines. we are targeting the issuance of a draft IUP list somewhere circa the end of the calendar year. likely maybe January of 2026 for the 2026 year. Okay. and following the presumption that the projects that were submitted make the list. we would then have a 18 month timeline from which the draft plan was published to when we would expect a the project to be underway. And so the end target date based upon that math. would be a contract award to a construction entity for the work. for the proposed work to occur no later than June. 30 of 2027. in the interim. we would look for A financial commitment from the town no later than June 30 of 2026. so effectively. what we're trying to do here is align our intended use plan to come out circa the time that you would advance warrant articles for consideration by your finance committees. and to make some sort of land agenda for your annual town meeting. by which you know that vote would then support the intended project. which is one of the commitments that we look to from a community in order to move forward on the the SRF program. The other milestone is typically fall of each calendar year. We get through June. we had a successful vote during the annual town meeting. Then the SRF loan application comes due in early October of that calendar year. and we start to get into the weeds of what we're looking for from an administrative and also a financial capacity in terms of do we. Have full rights to the parcel. or parcels or the project corridor. Have we done all of our external agency reviews and endangered species. natural heritage. any anything from mass historical. any impacts. to railroad corridors. MBTA. mass highway. DCR. etc. etc. So there's a pretty robust process there. and what that says that that's us up for is a successful procurement period at some time following the loan application. so that you can and your project team enter into the procurement process in accordance with mass general law. without any exceptions or flaws to that approach. Right? So in essence. our setup really protects you as the owner. And that's really what a lot of our checklists. what a lot of our deliverables are intended to do. is to protect you as owners. such that all of the intermediary steps are done in accordance with either the prevailing laws of Massachusetts and or the requirements of the SRF program. because. as you recall. we do collect monies. both federally and as a state match. and so with with that comes some requirements and regulations. So we try to have the T's and I's dotted in a sequential fashion. such that you're not overloaded with a large package. with the excitement of receiving a bid that's viable and wanting to move forward. So we kind of. you know. set things up across those 18 months from the draft IEP circa January of the year and the following June. George Uveges: Greg. one question going back to what you're talking about. the town commitment. we're going through a discussion now about whether it's going to be in water rates or real estate taxes or some combination. Does that matter to you at all in terms
Unknown: of the loan? Technically. no. We look. we look for the community to have a viable option for borrowing money against the SRF program. We do look that the water department is an enterprise fund where theoretically. the ability to pay for this comes via rates. However. there can be some conversation with the Clean Water trust as to how those payments are made. recognizing that oftentimes raising rates to match new debt service is not always the most viable solution. at least in the in the short term. right. having not raised rates preemptively. oftentimes. a reactionary rate increase might leave you with a slight gap In terms of your ability to make those payments.
Question. so I assume these are state funds and are not impacted by any matching funds from the federal government. Yes. No. not exactly. We do. We do rely on grants that come to us from the EPA. and then typically. there is a state match involved with the funding. So if for rough numbers. if we were to see. you know. a 20 or so. maybe 24% match to all federal funds at the state level that said. we do receive PFAS specific grant money on an annual basis. and so right now. we have in our possession grant monies that we can extend forward for the next calendar year. so we won't necessarily be immediately cut off should federal funding disappear. There's still other ways that we draw money in. both in terms of the state match. but also recycling funds coming in from older projects. right? We lend money out. it comes back. And so those three different streams. as we commingle them. do allow us to create a buffer to some of the ups and downs of funding streams as we go along. that could mean that in the future. we make some adjustments in terms of multi year projects. Maybe the commitment isn't in full in one fell swoop. So we offer the money to you in different tranches. But you know. as as it stands right now. our intent is to continue to fund projects to the maximum extent possible. And so it could be that we adjust it to say. Okay. if you have a $30 million project. we might only offer you $10 million in year number one. but then honor. you know. additional funding in a second year. as opposed to committing the full value of the projected cost upfront 30 million and deny several other projects the opportunity to proceed. And we look at the cash flow analysis and the intended burn rate so that you know there isn't a gap in the funding. but it's unlikely that in the first six to nine months there would be a $30 million draw. Work on a lot of our local. you know. PFAS driven projects. So it doesn't answer your question in full. but I don't have a crystal ball as to say. you know. how will Washington respond to different influences moving forward? But we're trying to guard against it. There's been a bit of austerity on our side in the last 18 months in anticipation of it. but as long as the money is there through continuing resolutions. we're going to continue getting it out on the street. George Uveges: just to build on Judy's comic. And I understand there. you know. who has a crystal ball comment. but is there any indication at this point from Washington that there's going to be a change in the funding under this program. Unknown: I think it depends on who you ask from Washington. That's a surprise. And again. not George. not to be cheeky. but I think that right now. we just have to understand that. you know. independent of politics. there are real needs here by everyone you know. whether it's to take a shower. have a cup of tea. Enjoy a cup of coffee. You know. there's a real value here to supporting the projects that we endeavor to complete. So I think that. independent of some of the ripples and waves that we're experiencing. will find a way of. you know. supporting the projects that we commit to. and we're only going to commit to those projects that we feel that we can fund. So let's say. for example. in the next four months. we get some big updates that will impact how we draft our intended use plan. So that. you know. we're making a commitment to maybe a few fewer projects. but those projects will be supported. Or we say. All right. folks. we're going to do. you know. some sort of crazy scenario where we're going to fund everything 50% year one and try to transfer the balance over. So again. this is me just kind of spit balling different possibilities that we could do in order to maintain that commitment. But we were not just going to go and say. oh. yeah. every everybody gets a treatment plant and then not be able to honor that commitment in the second year. should the funding streams kind of dry up? George Uveges: I understand. Thank you. Out of the number of projects that you have requests for funding. what's your normal percentage that you will say yes to? Unknown: Well. that number is decreasing for this very fact that we have inserted measures of austerity so the drinking water program is over prescribed on an annual basis. and not so much driven by the lack of money out of Washington. but more the. you know. very real need of a lot of PFAS and the remediation or elimination thereof. So I'd say that on the drinking water side of the of the faucet. We're probably trending around a 1/3 to 40% funding out of the total ask. But with that in mind. we're not necessarily receiving 100% of PFAS projects. booster pump stations. water storage tanks. water main replacement. so the full gamut of the distribution system. supply and treatment. So. you know. we try to prioritize and triage the projects that you know offer them the most value in terms of need basis. Are there great projects out there every year? You bet. do we? Do we cringe that we can't fund them all. sure. but we have to draw the last somewhere. okay? George Uveges: And if you. if you are not. not in that 1/3 or 40% is that a no forever. or is that you go back into the pool next year? Unknown: It's. it's a no for the for the calendar year and consideration. George Uveges: okay? So you can get. you might get it to next year. Unknown: you'd have to reapply. You simply copy and paste from the prior year and then kind of refresh that expression of interest. But yes. it would be considered without any sort of additional bias or any sort of prejudice toward it. It would be an objective review moving George Uveges: forward. Does it help if it's your second year. or is it irrelevant? Unknown: That's irrelevant. Okay. thank you.
Tom Holder: One question that's been posed Greg is. is there a principle forgiveness component to this? Unknown: There is principal forgiveness offered through the program the the town of Wayland. however. based upon our kind of economic and adjusted income models. doesn't necessarily qualify for any additional principal forgiveness. Now. that said. I don't want to you know. just throw out there a stinging rebuke in the arena of PFAS. we reduce the amount of principal forgiveness across the board. Why? Because you're already borrowing at 0% so there's already an economic advantage to having to deal with a more expensive topic. But in the case of Wayland. no. there wouldn't be any additional principal forgiveness offered. So.
George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Craig. is you Unknown: have more or do we? No. I want to be mindful of the time and again. I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you all and hopefully answer a few questions and not leave more cause for concern or uncertainty as we navigate the process George Uveges: uncertainty and this kind of thing. I can't imagine anybody have questions. Judy. Mike. Mike. anything else? Michael Wegerbauer: Ed. I'm sorry. Just one nothing here. Thanks for your time. Gregory. if you were in a tight situation. and it sounds like PFAS might be somewhat prioritized over some other projects. but didn't have the full funding available. Would it? Would it be not you? You? Would you possibly come back to us with an option to fund a portion. because we have two major activities ongoing. coming up with the connection to the MWRA. as well as the plant construction? Unknown: Yeah. I mean that that's certainly in the cards. Mike. I think that whether it was one large project or a series of contracts. we would certainly try to find a way. And if there are other funding vehicles in play. we can certainly. you know. kind of CO fund a project. whether it's grant monies for design permitting or another sort of grant opportunity during the construction phase. We can. we can blend those streams together. George Uveges: Great are funded over the two years. as you talked about. right? Unknown: Yeah. so. you know. we look at the SRF program as kind of a. you know. financial safety net that you can insert different funding mechanisms throughout. And the advantages of our program are that. you know. we can be offer that interim financing package. so you can kind of. you know. triage through if certain funds need to be spent early or grant monies. or sun setting. you know. get that money inserted into the project early on. and then rely on us and. you know. the latter stages of a of a project. George Uveges: So Greg. I can guarantee you. we won't be shy about getting everything that qualifies under the program. Unknown: Nor should you be. You You have to respond back to your customer base. and you're right payer. so I would assume nothing less. Okay. George Uveges: Spellman. anything all good? Okay? Judy Ed. it's not all right. Tom. do you have anything that you want to add? Tom Holder: No. I do not. I very much appreciate Greg attending with us tonight. provided a lot of necessary information. and we'll we'll be talking soon. Greg. George Uveges: sure thing. We appreciate it. and we will follow up as other things come up. I can guarantee you. please do. Unknown: I'm here for just Michael Wegerbauer: that. Thank you. Thank you. Greg. Thank you. Thanks. Greg. George Uveges: Okay. we have three other topics under this listing. Tom Holder: Yep. I can take the next one. design impacts to project cost. As you know. we've just reached the 30% design milestone a month or two ago. We're now proceeding towards a 60% design threshold milestone. And to date. we are not aware of any issues that are before us that would cause the cost of the project to increase. There are. you know. a number of things that the MWRA is asking of us relative to the alignment of the transmission main. how we actually secure that. you know. the close proximity to the Haltman aqueduct. you know. has them paying very close attention to that. But even with those requests. we are still confident that we're maintaining the current cost projections.
George Uveges: Okay. questions by anybody? Okay. discussion of town funding options. Do you want to start Tom or you want me to start? Tom Holder: I think that that is a topic in other folks court George Uveges: nice punch. Okay. I understand I haven't been able to see the Select Board WayCAM from yesterday because it's not up yet. but Tom tells me they spent about an hour talking about this. The impact. or impression I get from both the Finance Committee and listening to people on the Select Board. Is there some discussion about. do you fund it all with real estate taxes. or do you split it between the two. between happy hollow and the MWRA? And what as we get down later into some of the slides that will be presented. you'll see the impact of that split. We've split our analysis into the three pieces being the new non MWRA. happy hollow. happy hollow and MWRA increases. I'm not sure that we will get a quick answer. They have said that they believe they have until December with the drafting of the warrant to make that decision. And if they do the one loan option. there's like two ways. one exempt borrowing in in total. and one where the Select Board can decide on a periodic. ie. annual or more basis. how much to cover in real estate taxes. that that decision is not there yet. so we're going to have to keep providing them information and having meetings until we Get to probably December. when an actual decision will be made. But at this point. I don't think that the Select Board has made any decision. They're still in a trying to gather information stage. They did vote down the peer review at two meetings ago. so that that prevents that project from slowing down what we're going through. And I think that's basically the total anybody have any questions I can try and answer. Tom can try and answer.
Okay. so the message is. stay tuned. We'll get back to you on that from the Select Board. Okay. review of happy hollow repairs. Tom Holder: Tom. yep. I'm going to hand that off to Don he's directly managing that effort. Don Millette: Hello. everybody. I'll keep it short so the we completed the second round of repairs on Friday afternoon. The glue set up over the weekend. my staff and I pressure tested and drew a bacteria sample yesterday. a few minutes ago. the test results came back negative for E coli. so we will be putting the system back into operation first thing tomorrow morning. George Uveges: good. and the cost is going to be within what we had from the in the excess capital funds from prior projects. So there's no hit. as I understand it. to the expenses for the year. correct? Okay. with that coming online. Do you have any idea when we're going to be able to cancel the watering band?
Don Millette: Good question. The state just ramped up our drought alert. so we are now in a. I believe it's a level two drought currently. right now. So I did not get a chance to look at the flow of the Sudbury river there before the meeting started. but I can follow up after this meeting with an answer on that. George Uveges: All right. would you let the board know on that? Yes. obviously. one of the questions is how much water we can be pumping and billing. I know that with it coming online. you'll be able to stop the emergency correct news. and Tom has assured us that that's not going to it's going to it's going to be expensive. but not put a large dent in the contingency. Tom. do you remember what you said the dollar amount that you think it's going to be? Tom Holder: We calculated back of the napkin about $2.300 a day. It's been operating for about three weeks. So you know. in the order of. yeah. 5050. George Uveges: grand. okay. okay. yeah. if you can let us know that. because obviously I'd like to just from the business side. the ability to start to pump some of that water would help in terms of meeting what we signed up for in terms of revenue. Yes. Fay. yes. So that being able to pump. Don Millette: yeah. yeah. So we'll be shutting that the MWRA connection off tomorrow. once happy is up and running. and then I have to reach out to the state to ask them to lift the emergency declaration. So. you know. there's a little bit of time there. but I will definitely follow up ASAP with an answer for you. George Uveges: Thank you very much. Anybody have questions Michael Wegerbauer: so don this was on for about three weeks. We were on we're using the emergency connection for about. Three weeks is that correct? Don Millette: Yes. The the first repair took place on September 5. so. yeah. yeah. about about three weeks. Cool. Michael Wegerbauer: We're about 80 cubic feet per second. Don Millette: Oh. cool. okay.
Michael Wegerbauer: I know that's very low. Don Millette: I believe our threshold is 74 I think is our trigger. so I just need to double check on that. But I believe that's the number. okay.
George Uveges: okay. Anything else for that section? All right. Tom the lead service pipe replacement program. Tom Holder: Just to provide a little bit of background. I'm sure the board members of some are familiar with what we call the lead and copper rule. and that's been a regulation that's been in place for from. you know. many years. and we've. you know. been performing sampling and analysis notification of folks that have homes that are built in particular periods of of time. that where lead solder may have been used. lead pipe may have been used as a result of. you know. the episode that occurred years ago in Flint. Michigan. the EPA and mass DEP now have the revised lead and copper rule. revised LCR. revised. And as part of that. we're required to do additional sampling. And if you recall. we had $139.000 grant from the state to perform a lead service line inventory. And that's all part of what is being called a lead service line replacement program. So we performed the inventory we have that. It's actually up on our website. We've got significant amount of information relative to that on our website. We've got a GIS layer that shows all of that. But the next steps that the water division and the town need to take is that we need to investigate a number of those lead service lines. geographic sampling of what the lead of what the service line material is. Once we affirm that we are required to replace any lead service that we own. any service lines that are unknown. and there is a possibility that it might be practical and feasible to assist homeowners with their side of things. So Kirsten Ryan with Kleinfelder is joining us tonight. I know that she had asked a colleague. Ajay to to join I see him here as well. So with that. I'd like to turn it over to Kirsten and Ajay to to offer up an overview of what I'm what I'm talking about. Kirsten Ryan: Thank you. Tom. hi everybody. Kirsten Ryan. project manager from Kleinfelder. here to give you an update on this program. Have a slide deck that I'm going to collaborate with. with Ajay Sharma. my colleague. and provide you that update. So let me get that going.
Unknown: I did this correctly. No. Kirsten Ryan: you're not seeing the right screen. Are you? Tom Holder: Well. we're seeing the presentation. It's not. it's not the slideshow format. but we can. we can see your screen which. which shows all the slides in left hand column in George Uveges: the you know. I think she just has to click on this. begin the slideshow. Unknown: You go. okay. Kirsten Ryan: always takes a second anyway. So. yeah. So Tom said this has been an ongoing project. I believe we started about two years ago. so kind of a slow and steady product progress. but we finished up. really. in the spring of this past of this year. So. so there's a lot of information here. and I'll try to. you know. go slow enough to explain. but not so. so slow that we're running over our time. Lot of acronyms as all these federal rules tend to be. It's a federal rule. the lead and copper rule. and it's got several versions. as Tom mentioned. the lead and copper rule originally was published in 1991 and then revised in 2021 to get to the LCR R. which were current. Only under right now. the LCR i is the lead and copper rule improvements that comes into effect in November 2027 and that is going to have profound implications for compliance with this. Going forward. it's it's a much more robust. So we're going to talk about that. So first I want to just talk about what we got done under this grant that Tom mentioned the overall program purpose of it's all about inventory. At this point. your service lines. This is what was required on the under the LCR are. you know. it's all about public health. really. at the end of the day. trying to identify if there are any lead or like containing service lines left in the ground. Most towns. including Wayland there. there aren't any. we have not found any lead lines in Wayland. What? We have a lot of incomplete information. so we're working to build that all out. So some there is a website that the town has up. It's got a lot of great information on it. and ways that people can check their own lines. which we'll talk about a little bit. So this grant was from mass DEP. We conducted really four tasks. record review and data screening. inventory development and GIS mapping. So the inventory is on the website. I would say it's complete as it needed to be for this grant. It's it's a work in progress. We'll talk about that. We did some public outreach and then put together a compliance plan. which we'll talk about going forward. So we looked a lot of historical records. all the tie cards. assessors database. we used a technique called optical character recognition. along with AI software to help get all those paper. handwritten records and try to review them quickly. And we also QE you see them manually by hand. Michael Wegerbauer: Can I ask yeah question. so. when we installed the new meters. Tom or Don were we able to review or Kirsten. were we able to review and see if there were lead lead piping being used. or is that not something that's visible when you're installing a meter? Kirsten Ryan: I mean. I could. so I know that was part of what the work for that contractor was asked to do. Yeah. I've seen a draft database. so I believe that it's still getting finalized. but that is definitely going to be very valuable information. That's going to be a great source of information to establish what the privately owned portion of the service line is and right? You know we have to the rule says you need to establish material for any any line that's older than 1986 has to be determined. And if it's unknown. then it's essentially treated as if it wasn't lead. So the map from this initial effort is on the website. interactive map.
And this is as of you know. last fall was the compliance deadline for getting that initial service line inventory. So you'll hear different. different terms. There's this phase of the project was the initial Service Inventory. as much as information as you could possibly get. By November 2024. was compiled. zero lead 12. what's called galvanized requiring replacement. This is when. if you have a galvanized pipe that you cannot prove. was never that there was never any lead upstream of it. then it's treated as if it may contain lead. because it could absorb lead over time. We also did review historical records from the town. but you know. back in the day people. it just wasn't tracked. You know. I know most communities. whenever they would find any. they would rip it out. and that's the case here. So we have about 42% of the system. probably less now. because this doesn't account for the meter replacement data. but as of last winter. about 42% still unknown. I mentioned the directed GIS map. You can go in for yourself and check what your property. what the data is showing right now. And we are encouraging folks to update on that information if you think it's an error. And I believe the next slide talks about public outreach. Yes. that's part of this. Was trying to ask residents to help out with the effort also. so that we didn't have to. you know. go poke around their basements. Nobody really likes people doing that. So we developed several materials. Um during the course of the project. and you may remember them. but last summer. we developed a postcard sort of explained how people could check their own service line. either by going and reporting it through a web link or using the QR code information on how to reduce your exposure to lead by running your cap. you know. just in case of the precaution. and we also that QR code pops up a web app that you can. you know. walks you through how to enter your information. So that's something that's still up and available and will remain so. you know. more public. more publicizing of that might be a good thing to do as part of a next phase when we see what. what data is still outstanding.
So kind of just summarizing a little bit of what I touched on here is those deliverables under the the LCR are we completed a last October. that initial Service Inventory. as I mentioned. then the public. we're required to. the town is required to send out notifications to anybody who had a lead galvanized requiring replacement or GRR or unknown service line. So. you know. as a precaution with health ways to protect yourself. if you might have a lead line. or if we're not sure what you have. So those things have all been checked off. The next thing is looking forward to this lcri And those compliance timelines. So by November 1 of 2027 is the next milestone in which you need to submit what's they're calling a baseline inventory. And why that. What that means is that forms the baseline from which your compliance plan for replacing any lead or GRR lines needs to start. and you need to replace 10% per year. So we're trying to get as many classified. The goal would be to try to get as many unknowns classified by that time. so that your replacement rate is more manageable. And Ajay is going to get into a little bit of weeds here with some of those requirements. George Uveges: Christian before. before we go. There just 111. comment. if I could. one of my concerns. and I've talked to Tom about this. is the cost to the town. for example. for any of the town buildings or schools that might have lead piping that needs to be replaced. or the lines that Are the town responsibility up to the users. residents section. and then the cost. if they decide to pay for or somehow come up with a funding program for residents that have it that's not built into the capital plan. And I think we need to start to make them aware of this potential. because it may impact what they're going to sign up to do on other things. So the sooner or the faster that we can get some of this information. even if we don't have a cost yet. but can at least identify those potential items. I think that would be a service to the town. so that we can start to get them to think about it. Because I can guarantee you. there probably isn't a lot of thought going into this right now in terms of the five year capital plan.
Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. I we have. we have put some thought towards that. We have some very high level estimates that we've been working with based on similar projects we're doing. lead service line replacements for the town of City of Somerville. for example. So we. I think. have enough information at this point to put ballpark numbers for your use. and that would be. as we get to later in the slide deck. sort of part of the plan going forward. right? Yeah. yeah. George Uveges: Because I think. you know. we have a obligation to start to get people to think about some of this. Yeah. absolutely. Kirsten Ryan: Thank you. Yeah. you're welcome. So. yeah. I'm gonna turn it over Jay to kind of get a little bit into the weeds about the requirements. I think he can probably keep it at a fairly high level. Unknown: But over to you. Ajay. thanks. Kirsten. yeah. I'm going to do my best here to keep it at a high level. The intent. really with this slide here is to just outline the number of requirements under the lcri. But my goal here is to just make this a little bit more digestible and then Kirsten. if you go over to the next George Uveges: slide. before you go off of that slide. sure. second Sure. The last box on the right hand side says sampling of secondary schools on request only are we going to make sure we sample all of our secondary schools so we're not leaving anybody out. Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. that's at your discretion. I mean. I think it's a great idea to do that. George Uveges: So Tom I can't commit for the town. but I would think that not to do that would raise reasonable questions. Let's put it that way. Tom Holder: yeah. we actually work with the facilities department right now in assisting them towards their sampling program. Okay? I
George Uveges: just would hate to have somebody look at that and say. Oh. we're not doing them all. Yep. yep. You don't care about my kids. Yeah. I understand 100%
Unknown: curious. If you wouldn't mind going to the next slide here. So. like I mentioned. the way to kind of make all of these different requirements digestible is breaking it down here into three phases. So. like. here's some just talk through phase one is everything up until July 1 of 2025. with the two major deliverables being the initial service line inventory that was submitted. as well as notifying any customer last November who had a lead GRR or unknown service line with a specific letter. So everything up to that point is completed. Now. what we're calling phase two is everything from now until 2027 again. November 1 2027. being the time. or the day. I should say that the LCR I officially goes into effect. So the way that we're or essentially what we're calling this. is a proactive compliance plan. And what we're recommending here for all these various bullets here in a phase two. in phase two. with the most important item being to eliminate unknowns and also replacing your known letter. grr service lines. But the heavy emphasis here is really on eliminating unknowns. and that'll be the first thing I talk through here. So Kirsten. I think we go to the next slide. I think it's just highlighted. There we go. and then the one after that. So how exactly do we plan to eliminate unknowns? Or let me start and back up here. Why are we planning to eliminate unknowns and replacing any known lead and gr service lines all before 2027 The goal here is really to take an administrative burden off of the town. like we had to do last November. of notifying every customer who had a lead GRR or unknown service line. if you no longer have any unknowns. no longer have any lead or gr service side service lines. you'll no longer need to continually send those notifications out. That is one of the things under this rule. is that as long as you continue to have a single unknown GRR or lead service lines. those notifications will need to continue to go out. In addition. one of the newer requirements of the lcri is also a brand new sampling protocol. so this will change how the sample is being taken. And not just that. but the lead action level exceedance will go down from 15 parts per billion down to 10. So with that new protocol in mind. there is a higher chance here of getting super close to that new action level exceedance. and ideally without any unknowns. any letter grrs. Even with the new sampling protocol. your likelihood of getting close to that lead. Action level exceedance is significantly reduced. And again. just emphasizing here. we're trying to reduce administrative the administrative burden on the town. because. again. the folks that such as the town. the folks that are going to be attending to the calls when those notifications go out. ongoing questions and concerns. that obviously takes a lot of resources and town staff to handle. George Uveges: Now. when you say town staff. are you really referring to Tom staff? Absolutely okay. I just want to make sure that we differentiate between what's going to fall on the water department and the other town. Because one of the obvious questions is. after we're through with the grant and we're into all these other costs. What is going to be the cost of the program? Who is going to bear that cost. ie water rates or the town. and what's the staffing level that's going to be required to do that? So we can build it into our financial forecast? Because my guess. remembering the model. None of this is in future cost for us. Is that correct? Tom Holder: Tom. yeah. we have not placed any. you know. cost placeholders in any of our budgets. whether it be operational or capital. for this program. So this. this will be something. as you mentioned. we will now be inserting. George Uveges: okay. and have to talk to Mike McCall in terms of how and what does he want. Does he want to put this in the water department or as a separate expense going forward. and who's going to pay? Whose dime is it coming from? Because this is not going to. This is not. I assume. a cheap process. It is not. And right now. as they're looking at the prop two and a half override. this is all going to be in addition to any costs that are currently out there.
Unknown: And I'll touch on some. uh. some of the specific ways that we're going to help provide that cost to George here in the coming slides. Kirsten Ryan: yeah. we'll talk about funding sources as well. Yeah. it's. it's not a real rosy picture at the moment. for George Uveges: funding for this. Why should this be different from anything else we're dealing Kirsten Ryan: with? And the PFAS is like kind of overshadowing this. even right on the on the larger should I go next slide? Ajay. yes. please. Unknown: Yep. So the question is. now. how exactly do you eliminate unknowns? And one of the most cost effective solutions. or approaches to this is using a predictive model and Kirsty. go to the next slide. Essentially what we're proposing here is using a predictive model to classify all your remaining unknowns. And all that would that would entail is essentially the unknowns. Right now. Kirsten. do you remember how many were on our first slide there? I don't. Okay. no worries. I think it was. it was above 1000 or so. Yeah. at least. And so if Kirsten Ryan: I can just interrupt this real quick. I just want to make sure people are aware that this methodology is one we've already been using. It's mass DEP accepts this methodology. You know. it's. it's not something that is like. unique to our approach. necessarily. or its industry. It's. it's pretty much become part of industry standard. right? Unknown: And the reason for that. and the reason why it's become an industry standard. it allows you to not have to dig up every single unknown location. The idea here. and again. being dictated by state guidance. is that based on the total number of services that the town has. that would include total being all of the known and unknown led Grr. the state guidance would then dictate a couple 100 locations that are randomly chosen in which you would need to know the material meaning that those would be the locations that you would go out and investigate. You would get the material information for. and then you would use that information to train the predictive model. And the idea here is that once that predictive model is trained. it's going to assign a probability of lead at all of the remaining unknowns. and depending on how much lead is found. So for for right now there. there hasn't been any lead found. However. this model would still treat the GRR that has been found as lead. and it will assign a probability. allowing us to prioritize inspections. again. with the goal that will not have to dig up every single unknown location in the town. George Uveges: Yeah. the answer your question. your unknowns are 20 200.2 100. Unknown: Perfect. Thank you. Any questions on this.
Kirsten Ryan: and then we'd use a random. randomized approach. so that's not biased. right. Unknown: correct. exactly the and the biases that that Kirsten is alluding to. we would want to make sure that the couple 100. and we're talking about three shy of 400 300 Yeah. 360 year ish locations. We want to make sure that all of those locations. for example. are preferentially homes that were built after 1986 or newer developments. We want to try to capture a good representative snapshot of the entire town. but only with just shy of 400 holes. Essentially. next slide. please. Pearson. and then. sorry. the one before that. It's a little delayed. What's that? The slide? Right. perfect. So again. eliminating unknowns here and then replacing any of the known lead that come up services. That's going to be a big emphasis here for phase two. that also tends to be the most expensive part of what we're proposing as part of phase two. And then the other components that we're going to be talking about is public outreach. and then sampling plan updates. Then I can go to the next slide here. Pearson. So public outreach. again. like I emphasized earlier. as long as a service in the town remains to be unknown. letter. grr. those notifications will continue need to go out. The state has also made some updates to that. so that'll include wanting to keep. or essentially keeping those notifications up to date before they go out to customers. And then. Kirsten Ryan: Essentially that deadline is coming up around again. So I think it's actually Unknown: it's December 31. of 2025 Yeah. Kirsten Ryan: So what you'll see at the end our plan in the near future is to update the inventory that exists as right now with what the information from the meter replacement program. and then those notifications will have to go out by the end of December based on that update. Unknown: Sorry. no. you're good. You're good. And then the next item. second bullet here. when services are inventoried using a. for example. vacuum excavation. any of those locations. and specifically the customers that live at those locations. they're going to need to receive a specific notification that has specific education materials about why this inventory and work is being done and ways to protect themselves. again. just being mandated by the regulation. So it has a lot of the same required language that the notifications last November had. In addition. the lcri does have additional requirements on if a lead. action level exceedance is ever met that notification form. But also need to have additional language. And then lastly. here there is a new Consumer Confidence Report regulation. So obviously that would necessitate going through that. seeing what's pertinent to lead and copper rule improvements. the new Reg. and making sure that that content is also updated in your wallet. water quality reports and then sampling plan updates. similar to what I mentioned earlier. not only is the protocol sampling going to change. however. there will also be new locations in which those samples need to be taken. So that is another thing that we'd be proposing is make sure your staff are trained and know how to take those samples with the new protocol in mind. and then helping to select those new locations. Next slide. please. Kirsten. And then the very last item here is the historical 90th percentile analysis. Basically. again. we just be taking a look at how your lead sample results have historically looked. Analyze it to make sure that you're not going to be in jeopardy when the new action level goes into play. And if need be. like I said. analyze that. perform a study. and again. with the new action level coming down from 15 parts billion down to 10. along with the new sampling protocol. there could be a higher likelihood if there still is any letter GRR in the system after 2027 of getting close to that action level. So that would be a part of what we'd be proposing here. And then next slide. please. Kirsten. so in terms of estimated costs. we'll go into a little bit more detail about what we're proposing as our next scope for this project. However. the one thing I did want to highlight there is just based on the current status of the inventory. And again. Mike. to your point earlier. this does not include any of the updates that would be made to the inventory based on the meter change our program. So current status wise. based on what we'd be looking at to replace any of the currently known gr service lines. as well as what we're projecting based on what we've seen so far of our encounter rate to lead and gr service lines. replacement total would come out to just shy of about million dollars. And George. to your point earlier. this is just very high level numbers. However. as part of our next scope. we are going to put together a more cohesive plan that will go into a little bit more detail to round out these numbers just a bit based on what we know and some of the existing clients that we support. George Uveges: Okay. quick question. This slide says it's starting in 228 the slide that you set out before said this amount is going to be before 2027 Correct? Unknown: Yeah. So that's this slide here. starting 2028 is the more accurate slide. This slide here. Kirsten Ryan: I think it might be up to the town how quickly you'd want to get into this like so you're not required to have everything replaced. I just want to make sure everybody's clear. You're not required to have all of those lines identified and replaced by 2028 or by 2027 it would be I it would be beneficial if it was. it was possible. you know. so that's why this is kind of a. like a more aspirational plan. But. you know. I think you. I think you can definitely accomplish the inventory being complete by November 2027. I. Yeah. so I guess I just don't. I just don't want to have expectations be too unrealistic. George Uveges: Okay. and the and the inventory is a 74.000 or is that not the inventory? Kirsten Ryan: Yes. it is. So this. this is quite different than some other communities. in that we understand that you have a vacuum excavator. and. you know. this assumes that the town is able to actually perform the physical work of of looking. you know. of uncovering the line so that we can identify it with our. you know. with some of our support. So. yeah. George Uveges: okay. so as you put your your cost sheet together. I think it would be beneficial to put. you know. the actual due dates that has to be done by such and such a date. Or you would do it between X and Y dates. so that people can better estimate when in the expenses are going to have to be taken care of. Unknown: Absolutely. Yeah. right. Yeah. And George. just to clarify your point there. yes. we would basically put together a cost with not just the required dates of when everything would need to get done. but also what we're making recommending as part of this proactive compliance plan. And we can differentiate the two. George Uveges: Yeah and Tom. I think you need to talk to Brian and find out if this kind of cost can be borrowed or has to be paid in the year. because you're just replacing something that you have and doing some a lot of inventory work. So I'm not sure that you could borrow for this. but we need to know one way or the other. It would be nice not to have that hit all in one year. But what the life is. and if it can be borrowed. is. is going to be the question for our investment bankers? Tom Holder: Yep. Good point. You know. we'll be working with Brian soon on this. So very good point.
Kirsten Ryan: Like curiously. yeah. so that having the. the your piece of equipment. to be able to do those. to dig those. you know. little holes. is going to save you. like. several million dollars. I mean. it is a lot of labor. though. so that is. like a consideration. um. you know. for the DEP w to be able to take that on. I think. you know. that's something to consider. Tom Holder: you know. So our intent is. you know. Don and myself and his team will be work working out a schedule so that we have enough coverage to to handle the stations. but then also assign two individuals to operate that factor truck and to be able to. you know. on a daily basis. make stops with that equipment and perform the vacuum excavation. So that's that's our intent. Kirsten Ryan: Yep. I think it's great. George Uveges: yeah. and that would be good because that's not an incremental expense that's already built into your labor structure.
Kirsten Ryan: So this graphic is a draft of. you know. kind of how we're trying to envision this playing out over time. You know. we're here. We're This is the inventory phase two that that we'd like to start on working with the DEP W to run our. you know. predictive model in the randomizer to establish this list of 361 locations that need to be excavated. preparing notifications for the homeowner to make sure they're They know what's happening. And then. you know. being able to. based on those results. revise that inventory again. and then revise the program cost estimates and apply for funding. So this is kind of how we're looking at it playing out. And then. you know. we have the year one replacement. starting. you know. in summer of 2028. I think might be a little. I don't know that it could be possible to accomplish that prior. you know. I think the other thing that the board and the town will need to think about is how to handle. how they want to handle the private side replacements that are required. because that could be. you know. a challenging thing to think through. George Uveges: especially if you have to go underneath the house or whatever to get to those pipes. Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. if it's a longer run. you know. if there's. I don't know. a stone wall or something there. There's different ways different communities have gone about it. The MWRA does have a program. you know. and you would. you know. we expect that you would become members sometime. you know. during 20. 2027 they do have a program that the financing terms are more favorable than the SRF program for service replacements. And you will find that the SRF funding requires a full replacement. You can't take SRF loan money to just replace the public side. You would need to replace the whole the whole side. So. you know. some communities have already doing it that way. Some have concerns about about that. So that's something we can we can continue the conversation around. And I'm sorry I should have explained the colors like the orange. Here are the deadlines. and this is that the deadlines where things kick in for the lcri. the sampling. the new sampling protocols kick in in January of 2028 as well. So.
okay. couple more slides. and then we'll be almost done here. So. you know. mentioned. vacuum excavation is very costly. so the town can perform that. which is wonderful. I touched upon SRF. They have they're currently offering loans. and unfortunately. not grants at this time to fund the type of inventory work that we're describing us as our immediate next steps. and they're available on a rolling basis that you know. knowing that the town has their own excavator. I don't think it's worth pursuing. you know. alone to get reimbursed for the effort. since it's. you know. relatively lower cost compared to a town that needed to hire an excavator for 300 locations. So there are construction loans available at this time for the replacement work. As I mentioned. those are also open on a rolling basis. so you don't have to wait for the typical SRF cycle. Again. mentioned that require full service replacement. However. you do need to appropriate the money locally. so you would have to get. you know. a warrant vote
in order to apply. So that's something to consider. and they do not. they do not fund the design of the replacement. you know. bid package design or bidding of a service replacement contract is not eligible. So there's another. you know. self funded thing to consider. George Uveges: Just have a little unclear the replacement activity. When would you say that would start? Kirsten Ryan: I think. I think in summer of 2028.
George Uveges: so about the same time as we'd be hitting them with the with the MWRA loan cost.
Tom Holder: and it requires. I mean. the lcri requires 10% per year. Is that the expectation? Yes. So. you know. Kirsten Ryan: assuming you have relatively few it is. You don't have to do it this way. You know. I think it's just. if it's feasible. it's desirable.
George Uveges: I'm just wondering what we're gonna be telling people as we go through. okay. okay.
Kirsten Ryan: we have prepared a task order to assist with this next phase we mentioned. I guess the other number was a little bit off. but anyway. our scope would include support for the inspection process the town. vacancing the public side. We would be usually utilizing the predictive modeling. you know. kind of guiding the town on the at list of addresses to investigate. updating the inventory. updating the GIS. submitting it to DEP. updating the GIS map. providing those required consumer notices. providing some content for the CCR. water quality report. disturbance notifications. really A lot of public outreach assistance we had also built in a couple more updates for the board and formalizing that clients plan and assistance with applying for a loan. George Uveges: and this would be physical 26 Project. correct. correct. Correct? And that is not in our current budget. right? Tom Holder: It would be under contracted services. George Uveges: I knew I understand where it'd be under. but that wasn't the question. Tom. Question is. do you have enough money in your budget to do this? And the other things you had planned.
Unknown: it will be. yeah.
George Uveges: So something said. get a gift. Okay.
Kirsten Ryan: Okay. lastly. let's see just wrapping up here. Yeah. I didn't. I don't know if there's this. I don't. I don't remember if you have a fall town 2025. town meeting that these are just questions for discussion. For that. you know. spring. obviously. I know you're putting in capital requests in the near term for the spring appropriation. So just it is an aggressive timeline that we laid out. and the cost would be rough approximations. But you know. the trade off of kind of delaying overall progress would be higher long term costs and regulatory burden. potentially and possible public concern. So these are just some things to consider. And I think that's all we have. Men. Tom Holder: As you can see. this is a significant issue. significant effort required. significant cost. You know. we wanted to get this information out to the board to to brief you on what this is all about. And so. you know. we'll be planning on how to pay for it. how to staff it. But it's not optional. So it's one of these things that we have to we have to figure out. Kirsten Ryan: well. I guess we probably should have mentioned that. You know. with the federal government changes. there was some thought that maybe that certain elements would be rolled back. or whatever. but they the Trump administration has a firm support for this rule. This they have come out and said the EPA has come out and said they are not going to roll this one back. Did I say that correctly? AJ. yeah. yeah. Unknown: And then we also know that the state. Massachusetts. is planning on also writing the same regulation into their own state regulations. and mass DEP could make some of these requirements a little bit more stringent. So we know. at a bare minimum. the LCR requirements established by the federal government need to be met.
Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. yeah. We did have an earlier slide that the replacements have all have to be done by 2037 so there is. there is quite a timeline in that helps. help cities where they have. you know. 1000s of these things to deal with. right? If there's a handful of them and it's feasible to just deal with them. You know. it's something to think about. so
George Uveges: a lot to take in. Kirsten Ryan: Yes. I know it's George Uveges: very informative. Okay. Tommy. if you go through this at all with Mike McCall Tom Holder: in passing. so he needs to have a better understanding of this as well.
George Uveges: Okay. questions by the board ADU. Unknown: So my understanding is that so far. we have found zero lead. Is that have Tom? I guess maybe there's a Tom question. have we looked at all of the municipal buildings. the school buildings? Is that in the zero?
Tom Holder: Now. I recall in the inventory. there were 12. What was the 12 that we had to do? You remember? What if you want Unknown: to see your locations? George Uveges: What is it about the galvanized?
Unknown: Yeah. the galvanized. right. damn. Are you asking where the GR locations were? Tom Holder: Yeah. I just and trying to was. I don't. I don't know. particularly. you know where these locations are. but Kirsten Ryan: I don't know off the top of my head about the schools. I mean. I just want to clarify. though. that we're talking about the the regulation covers the service. where it comes from. the meter. I mean. I'm sorry. from the street and to the house to the meter. It doesn't cover the premise plumbing. which is the plumbing internal to the building. George Uveges: but it does cover from the street to the house. Kirsten Ryan: Yes. that's service. Yeah. Unknown: okay. And there also would be. there may not be. there might be daycares. but on your existing lead and copper sampling plan. there would be a couple schools at least on that list and which samples are being taken. Is that right? Tom. Don Don Millette: Yeah. correct. So. so currently. right now. under the current rules. we're required to take two samples from two different schools. and we do it on a rotating basis. Typically. I'll. I'll rotate the town. Buildings. the town schools. and then I will have a separate list of rotating for the daycares in town. Unknown: And so far. we have not found lead. Is that correct? Correct? Don Millette: I mean. we've been sampling. you know. for lead and copper my entire career in the water industry. And. you know. like here in Wayland. you know. currently. right now. we. we have never violated the 90 percentile rule. So that means. you know. out of the the. I'm sorry. out of the 30 required samples that were required to take. you know. you basically figure out your 90th percentile. and that number cannot exceed the state and federal. you know. lead and copper level.
George Uveges: I am now confused. but that's okay.
Unknown: What I'm trying to figure out is that's a non answer to your question. Judy. are we going to have a really big problem? We're going to have a very small problem. And if all the municipal buildings and the daycares and schools are tested on a regular basis and they all pass muster. whatever the current rules are.
Don Millette: it's really these unknowns. Well. it's. it's. it's really the unknowns. you know. And and those unknowns are most likely going to be in the old. older areas of town where. you know. galvanized pipes were used. you know. like back in the day. you know. And those. those are the ones that we're going to have to investigate. George Uveges: Don you're testing. though. is that lead in the water? Or were you testing for lead pipes on the property? Don Millette: We we sample the water for for lead. am copper. George Uveges: So okay. but that's different. You know. if those pipes have not started to breach. you might not pick up anything. Don Millette: yeah. but this is all part of the same program. you know. yeah. it like Unknown: they correlate pretty much. George. yeah. if there was any lead pipes. those samples would most likely come back. But again. it's. it's the risk of the lower action level. And then. like. Don was saying. to calculate the 90th percentile. there's like. a whole new protocol that would get you might maybe closer to getting close to that lower action level. And that's where the Kirsten Ryan: risk. I mean. the town does implement corrosion control. and the new water facility will. you know. as well. So that's that's that's probably why you haven't exceeded anything. and in combination with there may perhaps not be any lead in the system. But I guess to your question. Judy. with six. about 60% of everything classified and only having found 11 or 12 so far. you know logic would dictate that. hopefully you're not going to triple or quadruple or have 10 times more. hopefully you're only going to maybe double that amount. Unknown: and that y'all are curious to the public facing map on the town website that'll show you Kirsten Ryan: actually got it up right now. Okay? I can show you.
We can see it here. okay. so. for example. the orange color is. is a galvanized and
Unknown: then if you zoom in. Kirsten Ryan: you gotta zoom in to like the individual. So this is Sherman Ridge Road. The customer owned side is galvanized. Unknown: And again. this is based on a very conservative. rightfully conservative assumption. in which. as you can see here. even though the system side of that service line was plastic. we can't prove that that galvanized service was ever downstream of any lead. And again. galvanized pipe ever. it was never. never. sorry. never downstream of any lead. And so we can't ever galvanize pipe typically would act as a sponge for lead. And that's the conservative approach. Is just getting it out of your system.
Kirsten Ryan: It tends to. when you're zoomed out. it blocks like several parcels at once. usually. Unknown: yeah. so if you see multiple points here. you can continue to zoom in. and that'll show you. and also mean that there's. there's multiple services going to that single. single property. George Uveges: yeah. the one that you just had up. did that say it was a government building?
Kirsten Ryan: It's not going to say at the 139 Boston pulse road. I don't know what George Uveges: it says. System. own material. government. Oh. galvanized. I'm sorry. yeah. Unknown: is there a call? Color for unknown. Kirsten Ryan: yeah. unknown is green. Unknown is green. yeah. non lead is like. we know it's not lead. okay? And if you click on it. and if there is information. it'll say copper or what have
Unknown: you. no. And then Judy on the unknown ones. we do have an option where. obviously. if the customer can help to identify what their material is. they can they can directly access their own inspection form and submit that information to us. Or if it's incorrect. they can also do that. Okay. thank you.
George Uveges: Okay. when we test the lead. do we also test the AC? Are
Kirsten Ryan: you asking us? No. we're not. We're not looking for that. I mean asbestos cement pipe. You mean. Unknown: yeah. the aspects month is worse than live. Kirsten Ryan: I don't. yeah. I don't know if the system has any water mains made of asbestos. Meant. I've never heard of service line made of asbestos cement Tom Holder: was Don still on. was I? Yeah. Don Millette: yeah. So we. we have less than a mile of of AC pipe in town. and we do sample. we for asbestos. I believe that's coming up later this year in the fourth quarter of our sampling plan. So we will be pulling a sample this year for that.
George Uveges: Okay. anything else we need these folks to go through to scare us? Oh. one more thing. I think I know the answer. but to any of the deadlines for the LCR Compliance would that affect any of our borrowing for the water supply project?
Unknown: So I guess you elaborate. Kirsten Ryan: that's a Tom question. Yeah.
Tom Holder: yeah. So if I understand the correct question correctly. does the results of our lead inventory and all of this work impact our ability to get the SRF funding? Yeah. is that what you're asking? Mike. yeah. I mean. and you know. and I'll answer this briefly. but then I might just kick it right back to to Kirsten. is that as part of the as part of the SRF funding program. we have to meet. you know. particular criteria. ensure that we're operating our water system properly. and the work that we've done. performing this inventory and embarking on phase two of The program. we are meeting all of the expected requirements. and we're on par with with what the expectations are to meet the lead and copper rule revised and improvement. So what we're doing will ensure that we're able to to meet the SRF requirements. Unknown: Okay? Thank you. Yeah. George Uveges: The only other impact it could have that I could see is if it was so huge. it would impact our ability to service this and the loans. And I don't see that coming out of here. I
Yeah. anything else anybody has? Okay. we thank you very much. Tom Holder: Thank you all thank you. All right. thanks. Kirsten. talk soon. George Uveges: Bye. Thank you. And Tom. have you signed up for the this proposal. the 70. whatever it is. $8.000
Tom Holder: I'm preparing to Yes. I have it in my desk. Okay.
George Uveges: all right. Next topic is the agenda. the water Enterprise Fund budget. funding motions. Mike. it's your motion. Did you want to start? Michael Wegerbauer: I can start. But I. I had mentioned to Tom that I have kind of a hard stop at 730 or at 740 so I'm not sure we'll be able to finish this tonight. I can. at least I did simplify the motions so I can share those. Is on my screen. If I can figure out how to do that. let's see.
So these motions are simply to ensure that we have a voice and how. how we're managing the water enterprise fund right now that I feel has been taken out of our bailiwick a little bit. and this is these two motions are basically just to firmly bring us back into the mix when it comes to making financial decisions about water enterprise fund. So the first is a motion to request that we designate retained earnings as a funding source for the operating budget in an amount equal to the contingency expense dollar amount. This is how it was designed years ago. This how we set it up with Louise plus any anticipated xx excess projection for retained earnings above the target we set at the beginning of the year. What this does is the deal ours main concern has been with our stated revenue budget in our in our operating budget article. and the reason it's been overstated is because we intended to use the retained earnings as a funding source for the contingency expense. That's how it was designed. So we've been overstating our revenue budget. And when we met with them. they really didn't have much of a problem with our balance. our retained earnings balance. they didn't mention that at all they had they said it was going to be a quick meeting. because we said Tom may or may not join he was on vacation. They said. Well. I think this is going to be very quick. I had sent them an overview of our rate setting process. including the amount of our expense savings each year for the past. I think. four years. and they noted that our expense savings was in line with our lower revenue. So they didn't have a problem with our rates. the rates that we set this year. So in any case. if we bring this back in line. as you can see here. from the outset. when we started. when we added the contingency expense line for every year that we had the contingency. contingency expense listed in our budget. we match that as using retained earnings as a funding source. So it's just to put that back in place. plus any projection where we might be above retained earnings. dor will be very happy. because our budget for water revenue will be lower and will likely hit that most of the time. So that's that's number one. Number two is. in more recent years. we found that finance staff. or FinCom. I'm not sure who. but they were. instead of borrowing for large capital acquisitions. they were putting that on water revenue. not even retained earnings. They were asking us to increase our revenue for that one year to pay for a capital expense. I don't think they understood how that would affect our ability to set rates. or the requirement it would put on us to set rates much higher in that year to cover a long term capital expense. So this makes sure that they would have to come to us to get our approval to use something other than debt or borrowing as a funding source. So none of this restricts restricts the town from choosing a path it just firmly puts back in play our decision making process and our approval and as water commissioners. this is our responsibility. So these are the two motions. I've simplified them a bit as I mentioned. I can answer any questions folks have. And because this. this needs to be sorted out before the warrant is approved. we've got some time. It's not as though this has to be decided tonight. and that's why we put it off a couple times because it's not super urgent. We've got a lot on our plate. Okay? George Uveges: Thank you. Mike. I mean. I sent out some information. Mike says it's a my opinion. but I look at it more as information. I like to. Go through. Can you turn off your sharing please.
Michael Wegerbauer: before we go into it? Does anyone have any questions about about that. or any comments? I know George is against it. so we're going to hear the cons. and I'm not sure why. why he's against it. but.
Unknown: okay.
George Uveges: I tried to go through and provide information in terms of what reality is versus some of the things that have been thrown around. The first big surprise that I got was in terms of the free cash required. Now the information that we had today will change this fiscal 29 with the MWRA in the RSF. because the timing is going to be different. So I don't think this increase is going to happen. but I'll have to go back and check. But the real issue is here. because
Michael Wegerbauer: free cash for the water Enterprise Fund. George Uveges: yes. yeah. free cash for the water Enterprise Fund. The issue is that we the way we have set up our fees. or our we call it the rates for the fees for the water usage. We've got that increase in 27 built throughout the year. But the problem is that will be borrowed as part of the town's borrowings. and we will have to make that principal payment in the fall. being. normally November of 26 which is fiscal 27 even though we've only collected four months worth of so we're going to have a shortfall that we have to cover. Now we haven't had that before. because our interest expense was not as large as the cash balance or free cash balance that we had. So we're able to cover those interest payments. But as you'll see on that sheet. the amount that we're going to have to fund. we will not have the cash collected from this. and we may have a problem of a shortfall and not be able to service that debt if we do not increase. let alone decrease. that amount of free cash. So that's the first issue. George. Michael Wegerbauer: Can we just clarify some terms? We have a fund balance. and we have retained earnings. and you're talking about free cash. which is something I hear in the town side of the of the budget. but I have never. we've never discussed that. At least I haven't. George Uveges: It's just another term for the cash balance. free cash. Michael Wegerbauer: if you remember the fund the fund balance. or the retained George Uveges: earnings fund balance. not talking about retained earnings at all. this is cash on hand. cash we have to cover the expenditures that we have throughout the year. Michael Wegerbauer: So what does this have to do with our ability to make these decisions? These are strictly to ensure that we get to weigh in on these decisions. It's simply stating clearly that we get to do our job what we were voted to do. George Uveges: No. it's not Mike. It is Mike. You're setting it the with the part of the part of the expenses be paid by retained earnings. but we are going to have enough retained earnings anyways. We've got to significantly increase the rates to cover this timing difference or cash flow difference in terms of your debt service payments. It doesn't recognize the reality of life. Michael Wegerbauer: Our retained earnings have gone up every year. George. every single year it is I have. okay. all right. I I do not have time at this point. That's why I said I'll start it. But I don't think we're going to decide it tonight. And I really asked the other board members if. if you could please look into this. And we are diametrically opposed on this. George and I. and to me. it seems straightforward. This is just giving us the ability to make decisions that we are authorized and responsible for making. George Uveges: It sends the wrong message. Mike. this is your sheet on retained earnings. and you'll see it's basically flat. We had one year where we had a good year because of covid. and build more water than we have in any of the other years. and that gave us a push. but basically your retained earnings and your cash balance is basically flat over that time period. There's no build. there's the numbers. Michael Wegerbauer: There is a build. I can share my screen with the numbers. but George Uveges: this is a sheet from the town. This is. My sheet. This is the information from the town. Michael Wegerbauer: I don't know what you're looking at. I don't see anything on the screen. Nothing out there. George. there's been nothing up there the whole time you've been talking so George Uveges: okay. we haven't done it should be Hold on. I've got it up on mine. So let me see what we got here. I
Michael Wegerbauer: Matt has shared what our retained earnings balance has been year after year. and it's increased. And everyone has that sheet. and it's shown an increase. So I'm not sure where you're getting this new information. but George Uveges: well. it went out to everybody. It was in their package. Michael Wegerbauer: okay. but we went through this model with with Matt for many meetings in a row. and it showed an increase in retained earnings. steady increase. So.
Unknown: So Mike. you can't stay right. so maybe we should move this. Michael Wegerbauer: I think. So. yeah. yeah. thank you. Judy. so George Uveges: luckily. that's
Michael Wegerbauer: okay. all right. So. yeah. I'll send out to Tom that the updated motions that I just read through. and we can look at it next meeting
tonight. right I am George Uveges: then I I think you need to stay and we need to talk about this right now. Michael Wegerbauer: We're short players. Mike. come on. The game must go on. George Uveges: Well. we all but the broken ribs are keeping me on the reserve list. Michael Wegerbauer: Yeah. hopefully you'll be back soon. Hopefully. Unknown: All right. good luck. Mike. but not too much. Thanks. Michael Wegerbauer: Thanks. Take care. Bye.
George Uveges: Just so that
Tom Holder: are you unable to share it? George. percent.
George Uveges: I'm having real problems just even staying on Zoom. so hold on. Got too many things anyways. in the pack. in the in the package. in the that you have the packet. there is a sheet that talks about retained earnings. okay? And I don't. does everybody have their print out from the package? Yeah. I have it open. Okay? You can see the there's two lines. One is your fund balance. okay. and the other is your retained earnings. And I apologize for some reason I can't get there on here. Tom Holder: is this the sheet that has the bar graph on the right top? George Uveges: Yes. it is. Okay. yep.
Unknown: Yeah. page 34
George Uveges: I don't have a page. I don't have the page numbers on here. but it's it says water enterprise fund beginning fund balance. Tom Holder: yes. that's the one. It's got a bar graph. yep. blue and red bars. yes. George Uveges: And you can see that the fund balance at the end of 20 was 1.000.005 and is 1.000.004 at the end of 25 so basically flat. your retained earnings is a million. Oh. 44 to million. 151. so it's up about $100.000 for five years. So that's what I'm talking about. I mean. it's been fairly flat. and the benefit came in 21 where we had the large increase. because you can see it went from one four to one eight in cash. and from one zero to one three. and that was the covid years. So you know. when we talk about it being built. that you know that's not what's happening. So I'm just trying to get the actual facts in this.
Tom Holder: Come on. We are seeing a screen. It's the Zoom invite I know
George Uveges: I apologize. this is not
Unknown: what I'm trying to do. Any
George Uveges: idea I do I have to leave the meeting and come back.
Tom Holder: I mean. We can hear and see you loud and clear. I just don't know if. if that. if the Zoom connection is prohibiting you from sharing a screen. George Uveges: Yeah. I have no idea. But anyway. so that's. that's the one. Now. the second thing is. you know. we talk about the fact that. you know our expenses are always underneath. are always less than the actual what's been budgeted. But if you take a look at the sheet that has the financial summary. you'll see that what it doesn't include is the encumbrances and liabilities. and that wipes out most of that difference so you don't have that. I think I can share maybe this one. Tom Holder: Yeah. this is the one that says financial summary in the top left.
George Uveges: Do you see that? Nothing yet. I
Unknown: I don't know.
Michael Wegerbauer: I give up. all right?
Tom Holder: Something's happening here. George Uveges: Yeah. I'm going crazy. I'm going out for a drink. Hold on.
Tom Holder: Now we have the acrobat reader screen. and you got more than I do. So. yeah. I just figured I'd let you know what we're seeing. I
George Uveges: I don't know if you have it. but it's came out in the packet from Anita on Friday. Unknown: It's page 36
I'm looking at something that says financial summary. Yep. I have to look at it sideways. Yeah. Did we lose George? Oh. there he is.
Maybe we should make this one of the first items for the next meeting. because we have other topics tonight. right? And George. we can't hear you. George. you're on mute.
George Uveges: The problem. we can do that. but people better understand that. The problem is we're sending a very mixed message to the board. a Select Board and the Finance Committee when we talk about these kinds of things at the same time. we're asking them to underwrite a lot of our cost. So we'll. we'll put this away. but please read the information that I've given you. look at the inserts. because what you're being told is not necessary. The facts in terms of. he doesn't have all the information. and I've shared it with him. but he doesn't want to recognize it. like the encumbrances and liabilities. the fact that. you know. we historically have not made our net number because of revenue shortfall. And I think Tom You told me that three last three years. we've used some of the contingency. which means. if you adopted his promotion. you would be reducing retained earnings for that. So just keep in mind that I am not a little bit opposed. but violently opposed to this. because it sends the wrong message and the information is not correct. That's why I talk about the timing and the appropriate reserve levels. Tom Holder: Can you see? Unknown: Oh. there it is.
Tom Holder: I know we're wrapping up the discussion. I. I just figured I I gave this a whirl. and so I was able to to find. I'm not sure if there's. if there's anything you wanted to recap. George. yeah. you George Uveges: can. Thank you very much. You can see here. here. we've lost money. We made money there. But if you see at the bottom of that schedule. that's because the town gave us. Or $200.000 for consulting fees that we had budgeted. So if it hadn't been for that. we would have had a loss. and we just basically broke even in 25 Tom does a good job if he sees the revenue shortfall. which is this line right here. where. what are you looking at? See it says revenue. Budget Variance. You can see that most of the years we are significantly short and making our revenue target right here. right the only time we didn't is in 21 where we had the actual results from the covid year. we'll pump more water than we have in any of the other years. So. you know. we just need. I mean. we. first of all. we have the right. okay. and no disagreement with Mike on that. We have the right at any time when we set the rates to go through and use retained earnings and put that into warrant. that's our right. but sending messages to the town in the Select Board that we're going to dictate it. versus doing anything on a consulting basis with them. especially with what we have coming forward to me. is just crazy. to put it bluntly. So I will get off my box soapbox. and there you go. Tom Holder: there was the other one you were referencing. Yes. George Uveges: you can see. this is the sheet. and you can see. this is your cash level. and this is your fund balance that I'm talking about that we need to have for cover the payment of the debt service when it comes it comes through. because we're on the water tower. it's a 26 expense. our first payment. it's going to be borrowed in 26 and and we're going to talk. when we get to a different section. about what we might be able to do. But that debt service is going to be in November of 27
November of 26 in fiscal 27 and we've only collected four months of the 12 months worth of the rate increase. so we've got to have enough cash to pay that debt service.
Tom Holder: And was this. this line in yellow George. which is the certified retained earnings. which you get from the finance department. Is this what you were referring to when. when Mike was still on the screen. when he was George Uveges: talking about. we build it each year? Yes. and that's not a build each year. And this is not my schedule. This is from the town. Unknown: So this goes to FY 25 and you were talking about FY 27 is that correct? George Uveges: Well. I'm talking about in 27 we need the cash to do the debt service. because there's a sheet in there. if you can find it like that. has the it's called free cash required.
Tom Holder: Which which screen are you talking about? George Uveges: George. I'm sorry it says should. should be free cash required. Tom Holder: Let me just see what encumbrances I'm going to scroll. Let me know if you there's a handful of here. Just stop me if you see the one that you're referring to.
George Uveges: it wasn't in the package that went out. Oh. I'm sorry. okay. yeah. it was in the one that I was been working on and finally got the information I needed. Tom Holder: Oh. the municipal account one. George Uveges: well. it was with that. but it's called free cash required. It was in the three that went out. Tom Holder: Yeah. I can
George Uveges: Tom sent those out today.
Tom Holder: Yeah. with me one minute here. I
uh. free cash analysis. George Uveges: yes. uh. free cash required. yeah. but the Tom Holder: yeah analysis. yeah. yep. I got it all right. Bear with me here.
George Uveges: I'm sorry. folks. that I got. I think I had too many things open. There's a problem. How about that? Yep. can you make that a little larger at all? Let's see. And if not. don't. okay. that's better. So what. what it is. is that we have got debt service. and we're the debt. We don't borrow it. The town borrows it. and we make the payment. They use our cash to make those payments. And when I talking to Brian. got some schedules for him. What happens is that you pay the principal and one interest. Payment in November or in the fall. and you make your second interest payment in the spring. So you've gotta have enough cash on hand to cover that. And so those two debt services is the 1.000.002 53. that's the cash that we have to have on hand. I'm sorry. that is the cash we have available. Let me see go back.
Okay. start. We need 2.2 million. You see under total right here. Yeah. right. no. up on top the under fiscal 27 go up to Oh. yep. got it. yep. yep. okay. and go right here. total. right there. Yeah. that's the quorum required. Out of that. we're going to have collected 756.000 and this is all work in process. I've sent it to Matt to look at. so don't view this as gospel. but the the information is the same. So we're going to collect 756.000 that means we need 1.000.002 in cash to cover it. We don't want to use all retainer and all free cash that we have and go to zero. So we have to have some amount. So I use 15% and that you can just adjust that to whatever you want. Means that we need $2 million roughly. of free cash. and we have 1.000.004 at 630. 24 so that would give us. we need an increase of about $600.000 so that's what we have to look at in terms of using that cash amount. We can't we can't just consider it as available for losses. because it also has to be used as cash to fund our operations. that's the message.
So please look at the sheets that were sent out for this. both in the packet and in the other three sheets. I've asked Tom if he could send that other three sheets out as a supplemental package. and we're going to work on that so that everybody has it. But that's the thought process. The second part of that the MWRA. I have to rework. because he gave us different information in terms of the timing of when those payments would be due versus the normal town debt.
All right. so apologize to my problems with the shares Guys. Tom Holder: yeah. we got through it. Unknown: No worries.
all right?
George Uveges: Okay. status of the capital project. I'm not even going to try. Tom. could you put that sheet up that did go out in the package. Tom Holder: in the in the packet? Yep. All right. Bear with me. It's going to take me in A moment to find it in.
George Uveges: I. if you can. we can just everybody has it. should have it as part of their package in front of them. So. yeah. Tom Holder: if you want to start talking about. I'm trying to shift gears and get that back up on my screen. George Uveges: Okay. talks about three. three areas of. actually four areas of new debt coming through. This is not dual source. net. This is all the column. if you remember. in terms of the model. it was called new debt. Other than dual source. you've got water mains. water tank. MWRA is. And other and this is what's driving those There you go. This is what's driving that increase in terms of the interest in interest expense. So there's two things to take away from this. One is that we've got risk. obviously. in terms of the any cost increases coming through on this that would drive up that interest. Interest expense. The interest rate that Matt used was 4% in 26 and 5% in 27 and on. So we possibly have some upside in the interest expense for that. But most of the dollars. as you'll see. are coming in in 26 the life of most of these items. because this does not include the equipment purchases. which he also has in there. is 20 years. So it'd be 20 year financing and equipment normally is five years. So the debt service in 26 of this is 1.2 million. I'm sorry. 27 because it's being borrowed in 26 and so the one of the things that we can look at. if we have any flexibility with the town. is the timing of when this is going to be borrowed. and if it could be pushed into the next year. That provides us a little bit of time to build up enough cash to help fund that as it comes due. Because again. this rate increases. You remember. is billed into 27 not 26 and so depending on when these are going to be done or paid. in 27 we will not have other than four months collected when the first payment has to be made. So that's part of the requirement in terms of the additional cash.
And when the you listen to. I don't know if anybody listens to the FinCom discussions. You know one of the FinCom members wanted to know why. what we do with the money? Because the water is free. and that's not a truism. This is where a lot of it goes.
Questions. you understand the point I'm making here? Do I need to clarify anything? No. it's all very clear to me. Judy.
Unknown: I'm getting tired. and this is all swimming in my head now. So okay. Is that making sense to me? George Uveges: Yeah. look at it this way. you got a credit card bill that's due on the 15th. but you don't get paid until the 30th. That's what. that's what we're talking about.
Unknown: So it looks like with it's 8 million in 2026 is that correct?
Tom Holder: You're looking at this figure right Michael Wegerbauer: here. right? Yes. yeah. And
George Uveges: the biggest part of that is the water tank. right? So if any of that can be pushed out a little bit. so we don't have to borrow the money in 26 and have the first payment in 27 it provides us more time. Tom Holder: But I think that that borrowing will be happening as early as November. because that project will begin in the spring and will be completed in the fall of calendar year 26 so I think that if that borrow occurs in November. I think the debt service will hit in fiscal 27 George Uveges: they borrow before when the project starts. Is that the idea? Tom Holder: Yeah. because we have to have. we have to have funds to be able to execute a contract. Okay. yeah. So it's either a ban or a borrow. And I know that Brian is doing a borrow in November. I believe that these items are loaded into that George Uveges: Okay. so that's why the first payment is going to be in November of 27 when we would only have. I'm sorry. November of 2626 2727 No. 2626 Tom Holder: next November. Yeah. yeah. calendar year 26 right. George Uveges: And we would only have collected four months of that increase at that point. So we have to have cash on hand to cover the other eight months until it's repaid over the year.
And that goes back to the prior comment about why we need free cash or cat cash balance. Okay. can I clarify anything? Or Judy looks like she's saying. What in the world is going on? Unknown: Yeah. I'm I'm a goner. sorry. Let's move on. I don't want to hold everyone George Uveges: up. All right. Well. if. So you look at this. and if we need to check. just give me a call. You and I can talk individually. We just can't get a group. Unknown: right? Gotcha?
Tom Holder: Okay. come for pizza on Thursday.
Unknown: Pizza and spreadsheets. Okay. there we go.
George Uveges: Okay. and the next one. I don't know if you can put it up. This is the schedule on that went out today on the potential impact of the water rate increases. water rate analysis. v6
and this is. this is a started with what Judy had asked for and then expanded on it. And basically this is what Mike McCall had asked for. saying. Okay. tell me for various users. what the impact is on the various levels of the user and what? So what we've done is that Tom people and Sarah did a great job in coming up with a number of accounts. total water Billings and average bills at the various dollar levels. Okay. that's the first three columns. Unknown: This one I get you should it's yours. Okay. George Uveges: And then we go through we get the impact of the rate increase for other debt service. happy hollow. MWRA in total. Because again. the finance committee wanted to get the breakdown between happy hollow and the MWRA versus having it combined. So we broke those out. and footnote B and C gives you the percentage of those. then that gives you the total increase. and then you get your projected average water rate bill. So for example. as a residential you have 85 accounts that have an average of $4.000 as a billing. contrasted to 2700 Dave. an average water bill of 271 on the top line. So the increase is $200 for the lowest level person. and 3000 Oh. 25 for the highest billing. taking the highest billing to 7100 and the smallest building to an average of 500 and then we do the same thing with commercial same thing with municipal buildings. And one of the things that's interesting on this one is and Tom and I have talked. I am a little suspicious about the municipal rates that are being used. because I'm sorry I'm not being built because it seems low to me. You know. there's only an only $7.000 water billings for a year for municipal water usage. So Tom is going to investigate why that is irrigation is about 27.000 for 21 irrigation sources. and Tom says that's because most of them don't work. So that's why that's lower. And then we have schools. which are 34.000 Which to me also seems a little bit low for 12 meters. you know. an average of $3.000
you know. you've got a lot of people that are more than that. just for their residents. and you've got a number of school buildings and students. So that's again. a question. And then we have some common meter accounts where they're tied in for condos or your housing authority. which is an FHA. and broke that out in terms of those. So that gives you your picture in terms of your averages for the different users. And then if you go. you go to the next page. Mike. and so with the next page is I just took those amounts to show the impact of the increases from these based on each type. for municipal. municipal irrigation schools. and in total. Because. again. this is something that is going to have to be paid for by the town as they go through. And you can see it's about a $51.000 increase in terms of their water Billings. And that's assuming that these numbers are right. which they may not be. I don't know. I'm just. shall we say. my suspicious is up. Tom Holder: and we will. we'll follow up and make certain that these are accurate. George Uveges: yeah. and this is information we've never had before. so and that avoided Judy for asking for it and for the work that Sarah did. Tom Holder: Yeah. it was. it was quite an effort to get those figures together. George Uveges: Yeah. If trigger. that's 10.000 billings that she had to sort through. because 5000 customers and two buildings a piece. And by the way. the total of that comes pretty close to our revenue for water usage. Remember that this is based on billings. and that's based on collections. It was actually closer than I thought it would be. Questions. this help you. is this what you think they're looking for? Anybody still waiting. That's good stuff. Yeah. no. still here. It's good stuff. I'll buy Sarah a slice of pizza on Thursday.
Unknown: Um. well. I'm with you. George in that I'm I find the numbers awfully low for the schools. Um. does seem a little strange. George Uveges: yeah. especially because schools are billed at Tier rates. I'm told. whereas municipal are only billed at tier one rates. no matter how much water they use. which is something that we need to take a look at. Tom Holder: But now that we have the format and she's got the formulas locked in now we can take a closer look at at the actual raw data and make some changes if we find some some things that are not reported quite right here. George Uveges: So I do software should help with that too. right? Unknown: So I assume that the municipal buildings in the schools also have the new meters. They do.
George Uveges: It's a matter. I think. of capturing those. First of all. is everything metered? Is the first question. And then second is. are those meters covering everything in the building. or are we getting the proper reads on those or something else going on. We don't. I don't know. We don't know. Tom Holder: Yeah. I mean. I can tell you that everything is metered. It is very likely. almost guaranteed. that the meters are located in a place whereby that's they're capturing all the consumption. I think it's going to wind up being. you know. data manipulation. When we take a look at. you know. where the raw data is coming from. George Uveges: let's not call it data manipulation. because that has a bad tone to Tom Holder: it. Yeah. not being a data analysis. yeah. George Uveges: the accumulation of the data. yeah. yep. And the the other thing on this and the rate impacts with the want to bring in here the dor that discussion. I think Brian was we can take that down. Thank you. Yep. Brian was very surprised and pleased at how it went. Basically. they said that they would. they understood what we were trying to do. And that was the new meters. and moving to a quarterly instead of annual billing to give us volume an increase in terms of the Billings. because by going to quarterly. you'll get one extra billing of a quarter in this fiscal year. Okay. and so that should give us a boost. Now how much of that boost is. I don't know. and I couldn't model it. but it should be significant. So we'll have to take a look at that. And while you know. we had a good meeting. they said. We hear you. but we don't. We try. We we're going to make sure that our trust is warranted. We're going to follow up with you in terms of how this goes. And so I've talked to Tom. and I think what we should do is have at each of our meetings a little financial summary of where we are in terms of the Billings and cost against budget to see that where we're trending. Because I think he's. I think I was told that the our total billing so far for the two months is only like $10.000 higher. Unknown: When does the quarterly Bill start? Tom Holder: You're jumping the gun. That's the next agenda item.
Unknown: Yeah. what I would I could tell Mike Spellman really wanted to know. I've got Tom Holder: the answer. January 1. George Uveges: Okay. that's. that's the target date. Yes. yeah. So we will see. But let us say that Mike. that Tom and I have had this discussion several times. That Fair. fair. Okay. any other questions on that? No. Unknown: So you said that the schools are paying the tiered rates. but the municipal or buildings are at the flat tier one. George Uveges: I believe that is true. right Tom Tom Holder: that that's the way it's. Things are set up currently. yes. Unknown: and the irrigation is at tier one. So not. not to be. you know. sketchy here. or anything. but if. if we at least build them at cost. how would that impact our rate increases in terms of residential? Would it? How much would we be able to not increase on residential if we get the municipal to pay at least. I don't know. cost of water? Well. they do Tom Holder: that. That tier one. George Uveges: $6 it cost is about 11. right? So. but the problem is that their volume is not that high. So even if you double it. I mean. you're talking about what. 7033 you're talking about $30.000
Unknown: Yeah. I'm surprised by how low it was. but I guess that's one of the things we want. Tom Holder: Yeah. okay. George Uveges: they are on the hunt. but one of the things I want to be careful of is nobody decides that this is a witch hunt because we don't think we're getting what we want. So we're looking for how we can punish them. That's not politically smart. and that's not what we're trying to do. We're just trying. at this stage. trying to understand and then see what makes sense for all users. Unknown: Right? Agreed?
George Uveges: All right. anything else on that set helpful? We'll. we'll. we'll keep trying to refine that. and we'll come back and Tom will start to present us with the actual results versus budget every month going forward. Unknown: Thank you very much. Really appreciate all the hard work. Tom please let Sarah know. Tom Holder: I will pass on. yeah. and this. and she's got support from from some of the others in the office as well. I'll let them all know. but yeah. George Uveges: tell her she they all get a big star. Okay. am I? Tom Holder: Am I? Yeah. So we are. Middle of September. We're about 88% complete. and that's based upon the number of meter installs. You know we are. as you'll look back on the progress reports each month. we're starting to slow down. The meter locations that we're currently having installed are the the more difficult ones we're having to. you know. reschedule. trying to seek opportunities to get into people's homes. you know. So this is. this is expected. It's pretty typical of a meter replacement program. It was forecasted that we would be significantly complete by October. completed with the project in December. So I I still feel we're in a good place. but that gives you a sense of of where we are with that. Bear with me as I look at the agenda some of the things that I was going to talk about. So the water usage trend I've been talking over the last couple of months in comparing the routes that we're billing and we're doing a comparison on what we've seen as water consumption back when we had the old meters installed. comparative to when the new meters are installed. and the first month was route one. we looked like we had about a 7% increase. Route two. which was in August. it looked about flat comparing 24 to 25 route five. that just went out. is a combination of commercial and residential looks like it may have actually decreased a bit. We were able to to get and compile these figures today. so we'll. we'll be taking a look at. you know. is there any particular things that occurred this year rather than last year? Are there. you know. commercial vacancies? Are there accounts that there's a reason why they would be lower. So we'll. we'll be taking a look at that. but it gives you a sense. It's not consistent. It's not. you know. we're seeing the same percentage increase each particular month. George Uveges: And we also have to keep in mind it depends on when those meters were swapped in exchange for the billing period. So for example. if your billing period was January to June on six months and you got a new meter installed in May. well. most of it billing water usage was from the old water meter. So that has an impact too. plus the the fact that we have the uh. Sprinkling band. which we had last year too. You know. we may have more compliance this year. Tom Holder: Who knows? Yeah. yeah. And. you know. as I've been providing these monthly update reports. you'll see each route how many meters are being replaced. you know. so it's not. it's not consistent. You know. the the installers are going from one route to the next as they progress through the program. So it's that also has an impact. And so it's not an apples to apples comparison. George Uveges: Yeah. we won't get a real read until we have a full billing cycle with the new meters. yep. Tom Holder: But I do understand. you know. we're trying to get a sense of. you know. because we were predicting. at least expecting. you know. a 6% increase overall. So just trying to get some affirmation that we can actually achieve that. but remains to be seen. George Uveges: Yeah. and what we may have to do as we take a look coming towards the end of the year. seeing how much of that we're actually getting. and an estimate of what we think will pick up from the going to semi annual Billings and the cash flow that we're going to need for debt service for the other debt and happy hollow. Do we need to look at a rate increase in January. I hope not. but it may be the only choice that we have. because we can't have more cash going out than we have cash in the bank.
Tom Holder: Yep. something to consider.
George Uveges: We'll make this real popular. but
Unknown: no Christmas parties for you.
George Uveges: Sorry. they just throw stuff at me. Anyways. the column headings when it says hold for Tom. what does that mean? Tom Holder: And I was hoping Don was able to stick with us for the remainder of the meeting. Was I think he had a better sense of that. I really. and I've worked with mass installation on on these columns and the figures that are actually in some some of them are actually populated. There's some redundancy on these things. but there really is no hold for town that would imply that we're holding them up that there's some things that we need to do that that is that's not the case. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't pay too much attention to that column. Okay. getting. getting back to. you know. Judy's question about the quarterly billing. you know. as you correctly stated. our target is January one. so that would be the. you know. the third quarter of this fiscal year. We've been working with staff. We've been working with Matt Abraham. trying to get an understanding of. you know. the revenue that would be expected as a result of making the transition to quarterly billing. some of the things that we need to contemplate and we have to work through in the coming months is. you know. selecting the particular routes that are going to be in each monthly bill. You know. we're going to likely have two routes within each month. So say. month of January would be routes one and five. February would be routes two and six. and then. you know. in March would be three and four. and then you would start again in April. one and five. So making those determinations. we also. when we set new rates. Munis has a proration capability whereby. you know. in July the bills go out. you know. 1/6 of the bill is the new rates. five. six is the old and then in the August bills. it's. you know. two. six are the new rates. and four. six of the old rates. that kind of a thing. So we have to work through that proration. We also have to figure in what we're calling a rate factor. We have to be mindful that if somebody the way that the semiannual billing went out. if they were to have a bill period that actually extended past the three months or the six months. that would cause them to be fall into a higher tier. you know. that wouldn't be acceptable. so we have to be mindful of that and and be able to implement. you know. what we're calling a rate factor. Obviously. the tier thresholds are going to be reduced in half. going from semiannual to quarterly. as well as the base charge. you know. would be. would be half. just like you do for commercial now. right? Exactly. commercial or quarterly. So it's so those things. So those are the. some of the considerations. all the things that we have to work out. But. you know. we've got. we got a couple of months to to work through it. That's why we're thinking January is a a. Solid target date. we should be able to get ourselves prepared and organized to have a relatively seamless transition. George Uveges: Yeah. the only. only feasible way you may be able to do it is after you issue the six month bill. then go to quarterly. Otherwise it may be too complicated for the user? Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah. Well. that's and that's why. and we got to obviously make certain that these considerations that I just listed out are. you know. how do I say implemented in munis. so that all of this. you know. is done correctly. George Uveges: Yep. it's the last thing we want is to implement this and then have a lot of billing errors. Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah. And. you know. obviously we're not the first. you know. municipal community to do this. There's a lot of experience out there. and so we're. you know. gathering that lesson. those lessons learned. George Uveges: Yep. Okay. Questions? Anybody? No. okay. Sherman bridge. Tom Holder: yeah. wanted to provide an update. I know we had a couple of folks you know under public comment voicing their concerns. Just gonna. you know. tonight. George Uveges: just. I think they're still on the line. She Tom Holder: they. they were patient enough. They stuck through beautiful Yeah. So I just. you know. a couple of talking points. just to give a kind of a broad overview of where we are with this. You know. we received bridge inspection reports for all the town bridges from MassDOT. Recent Sherman's bridge reports have indicated that the condition of the bridge is severe and that the repairs should be made a priority by the town mass.is now performing more frequent inspections due to the deteriorating condition of Sherman's bridge. as Joe had described earlier in the in the meeting. You know. town staff make frequent repairs to the bridge deck that involves the replacement of these these timber deck boards. as he explained. you know. these are special order. They're. you know. atypically sized. They're very large timber pieces. But. you know. we have the ability to get them. One of the primary issues that we're having right now is the fastening lag bolts which hold the deck boards in place. could no longer be anchored to the stringers underneath. They just. there's nothing left to bite. They've those boards have been replaced so many times. There are also a number of other required repair components that involve the in kind replacement of the wooden sidewalk that's there in place. the wooden rails that are. you know. included with the bridge edges. as well as repaired to a number of piles that are indicated in the most recent inspection report. the towns plural. Sudbury and Wayland have engaged the Engineering Corporation tech as well as capital strategic solutions To perform the design and public outreach activities to to assist with that. There was an intermunicipal agreement that that's been signed executed between Wayland and Sudbury. and that formalizes the shared project responsibilities. The one favorable item that we learned was that Mass DOT has offered to purchase the repair materials and perform much of the repair work within their contracted services arrangements that they have. The value of this is in the order of a million dollars. without which. you know. would be born by the respective towns the report. the proposed repairs are mindful to preserve. you know. the wooden historic appearance of much of the bridge. but the proposal does include Mass DOT recommended installation of an asphalt service. you know. to the bridge deck. And I. I know that's what folks have the most concern about. And so you know this will having an asphalt service. one of the one or two of the primary supporting factors of that is. is. in essence. it doubles the repair lifetime. and it provides for some conservation of entities that that we've learned from meeting with both the Conservation agents from Sudbury and Wayland. We have arranged because we understand that this is an important topic. and there are folks that are impassioned about this bridge. So we have arranged for a public forum that's scheduled for Wednesday. October 1. It'll be located at the Sudbury Community Center. whereby town officials and project engineers will provide an overview of the project and be able to hear public comments. So we're pleased to be able to do this. It's really a formal. Uh. opportunity for folks to appear. be heard. get their concerns played out. and we'll be able to answer questions and and have a much better understanding both sides us and the residents on. on. on what needs to be done there at the bridge. So I would encourage folks to to join us on October 1.
George Uveges: Okay. the comments about speeding across the bridge is that it is there a possibility of putting a speed bump in the beginning and end on each each side of the end. each end of the bridge. so that it slows people down. Tom Holder: So I mean. that has been a traffic. you know. kind of mitigation thought that we are not supportive of. We get periodic requests to install speed bumps. speed humps throughout town when folks are concerned about speed. and there are a number of logistical problems to equipment. to response times. to drainage aspects that cause us to we are not supportive of speed humps. but there are. you know. traffic mitigation ideas that could be implemented that would at least address that concern. George Uveges: When I used to travel to Europe. it was interesting. Their speed bumps. they they were. they could put out in the spring and take out for winter. and so it wasn't a problem with plows and those kinds of things that way. Tom Holder: Yeah. seeing that. yeah. I mean. I have. and we've actually in some communities that I've worked at. We've. we've tried them. and they've become problematic. the condition of them. that kind of they become. you know. pretty poor the condition of them and trying to manage and maintain and replace them. It's. it's. it's not that. George Uveges: not that practical. All right. so so much for my ideas and what I know. no. okay. where the Tom Holder: listening and hearing ideas is what this is all about? George Uveges: Yep. Okay. so that meeting is October 1. right? Yeah. Tom Holder: So I would encourage you know obviously residents that we've got a web page established Sudbury is actually hosting it on waylands. DEP W project page. Those you click on it. it brings you to the project web page. We have door hangers that are being distributed over the course of the next coming days. just advertising this forum. So we're doing as much as we can to advertise this and encourage participation. George Uveges: Good. Anybody have questions? Okay. slowly but surely. Tom Holder: what I would ask is that. you know. in the coming week. I'll pull the this board membership. because if we do have a quorum attending. I'll need to post it is a public meeting. Okay? Good thought. George Uveges: Transfer station.
Tom Holder: I'm going to defer to the DPW superintendent. You're up.
Joe Doucette: All right. Be easy. George. It's past my bedtime. You and me both. George Uveges: I'm drinking water so I so
everybody should add in their package the transfer statement. P L from last year. And I've asked. Tom. do you have the comparisons that are listed in the agenda. in the RFQ? So that's our items for this one. Tom Holder: So go for it. So Joe Doucette: it's pretty simplistic. It's just it. It showed what calendar date from the periods from six. 123. to 910. 23 listing in 2023 sticker sold. Was 1401. 2024 was 1504. George Uveges: I'm so we don't. we don't have this anywhere. Do we? Joe Doucette: This is information Anita provided to me today. George Uveges: Alright. so well. you talking about like is we thought we would have had. oh. I thought Joe Doucette: maybe that's what she had put in there. But. George Uveges: no. I don't think it went out. Got it. So what are we? We're having sticker sales. Joe Doucette: So these are full sticker sales. This does not include second stickers. trailers. etc. or replacements. These were just full sticker. Sales towed. Sold to. let's say residents. 2023 was. and this is to the date till September 10. just to give you an idea. George Uveges: So July one to September 10. June Joe Doucette: listed at six one. So Tom Holder: yeah. that's where we start. We start selling stickers for the next fiscal year on on June 1. that is correct. Joe Doucette: Okay. okay. so 1401 in 2023 1504 in 2024 and then this year we're 1264. ouch. Unknown: So it went up in 2020 it
Joe Doucette: actually went up in and now we're hit some reality. I think.
George Uveges: And what's. what's the price of a full price sticker. 200 so that's
Unknown: Roughly. what is it Joe Doucette: two. what is it 264.
Unknown: $52.000. $2.000.40
Joe Doucette: I see 48.000 but George Uveges: well. it's 1504 to 1264. right. Joe Doucette: correct. You're George Uveges: probably right. So
Joe Doucette: it's 240 stickers. Four 800 Yeah. 48.408
George Uveges: Yeah. 48.000 Joe Doucette: Yeah. 48 48.000 sorry.
George Uveges: and that should make life interesting. because. remember. we don't have a subsidy from the town this year. because the 50.000 that we got from them is for the consulting project.
Joe Doucette: We do. we do have the reserve fund. yep.
And we do. you know. obviously. I'm assuming you've talked with an either or what the value that is currently? It's $303.000 George Uveges: as of June 30. Yep. that was on the sheets he sent us. Yeah. Now. if we take a look at the results from last year. Our total revenue was the 554. 76 but in there. and I'm not sure the what the 75.000 transfer from the general fund. So that would be like I did this wrong.
So roughly about 475.000 of revenue. Our expenses were 513
so that's about a 40.000 hour loss. roughly. I'm doing this on the seat of my pants here. So. so that Joe Doucette: well she had for carryover budget of last year. going into this year. 44.400 deposit. That was in the positive. but that was included. like you said. the 75.000 included. George Uveges: yeah. I'm trying. because that's not reoccurring revenue. So if you take the 550 less than 75 is 475. 476.
Joe Doucette: and we did carry the George Uveges: encumbrances over too. Yep. that's. that's. that's an improvement. We. I appreciate that. And our expenses were 513 with the encumbrances.
and so we lost roughly $38.000
Unknown: what are tipping fees? What does that mean?
Joe Doucette: Go ahead. George. George Uveges: that's the cost to have it picked up and taken to the incinerator. right? Tom Holder: Those are just the disposal costs for both both recycling and trash. Okay?
George Uveges: So the problem is that if we lose the. The 48 I'm sure we've got some increase in expenses. We're gonna take a nice chunk out of the 300.000 because we'll be looking at a probably 80 to $100.000 loss. Joe Doucette: I think we'd be better obviously. looking at this after the first quarter ends. yeah. when we could sit down with you. or. you know. bring you in and sit down with Anita. and we'll go over the quarter quarter reports. George Uveges: And I think we should. every quarter present those to the board. because with the request for the consulting and the pressure we're going to get from the finance committee. Think it's important this board be informed about where we are as we go through
Joe Doucette: and just an update on the RFQ that that has been given to the changes you asked for have been included. and it's with the assistant town manager who's handling the procurement for that. So that's in her hands currently. Is that gone out for two people? It has not gone out yet. She's still editing it and just. you know. boiler plating the information. And I think we were going to discuss or have a committee formed or a group form to discuss that. once we have it. yep.
George Uveges: and you should make sure that there's somebody from the FinCom on that.
Tom Holder: Yeah. Do we want to talk a little bit about the membership. you know? And it's not on our agenda to vote or anything like that. But I just. I'm interested to hear. you know. obviously we can. you know. have associated staff be a part of it? Perhaps a member of the Board of Public Works. you're suggesting a member of the FinCom. I recall Klaus was relatively active at one point on this topic. whether or not there's a desire to have him. you know. on the selection committee. review committee. and then also if there's a kind of a body that is actually going to kind of work work through this with staff entirely up to but there's some. some thoughts anyway. because. you know. once. once this goes out. we're going to have a. you know. a deadline date of. probably. I know. three weeks to a month. George Uveges: Yeah. no. but I think. I think I would be asking. I think Klaus is a good idea. And I think somebody from FinCom. if they could appoint somebody. You may get some resistance there. and then somebody between Mr. Spellman and Judy from our board. and you know. somebody from your staff and Joe. probably five people.
Unknown: So what surprises me? You know. just. just as a balancing thing. I was talking to someone who was concerned about water rates going up. and I said. just as a ballpark figure. your average homeowner. we're probably looking at $400
in terms of the water rate increases. And I said. here's one way you can save about four to $500 is to stop using your trash pickup and use transfer station instead. And if you include the $200 a year cost to use black earth. which is part of your transfer station services. you would be saving even more money. And the answer I got back was. oh. but that's so much more. Like you complain about the amount of money that you don't want to be paying for clean water. but you you couldn't be bothered to take your old trash out. So. I mean. people wanted their cake and eat it too. So it's a little discouraging to me. yep. George Uveges: But you know. hopefully what will come out of this is somehow where we can tie the two in together. And. you know. there'll be things that the trash service won't take and I can understand I would. I have no desire to have to haul my trash down there on the Saturday when I'm out playing golf instead. But if there are things your trash company won't take. you know. putting something in so it works. so you could take it to the transfer station might be much more acceptable. because it's not like calling your uh rubbish. but yeah. you know. I think that's part of the change in the community in terms of what we were 30 years ago and what we are today. Mm.
Tom. does that answer your question? Is that Sure. between those two. somebody will volunteer? Oh. Mike's leaning forward. okay. thank you. Mike. absolutely. Unknown: I'll be there. Tell me when and where. Tom Holder: All right. well. I will. I will solicit participation from the other groups that you were referring to. and I can reach out to Klaus and see if that's something he'd be interested in joining. George Uveges: I think he's still on the audit committee. isn't he. I believe. So. yeah. so he could be their representative. because they're the ones that started this whole question. right? Okay. okay. so anything else on transfer station? Tom Holder: I think that's what we had planned. George Uveges: Okay. any board member concerns?
Unknown: None here. No.
George Uveges: all right. minutes. any changes to minutes?
Unknown: No. no.
George Uveges: Okay. the only thing that I had is on page four. It had under scope of work. under transfer station. You're going to follow up with Abby Shuto regarding a question of solar panels. Tom Holder: So it's really difficult to follow up with Abby chute. she left the town. but look. you know. but in knowing that. I heard back from Mike Faia. who was the facilities director. and they had solicited a proposal from Ty and bond to assist them with the evaluation of installing solar at the at the landfill. And apparently. that effort did not get a lot of traction. I'm not really sure how to how to characterize this. but there really hasn't been any further activity relative to investigating solar at the landfill. George Uveges: Okay. because I was thinking that also ties to Judy's comments about the solar at New happy hollow. Because if you can't get it there. you know may not be enough space and availability to make it worth somebody worthwhile to install
Unknown: geothermal. just to keep that in mind. especially with the new water treatment plant to lower operating costs. George Uveges: where would you get geothermal? Well. you're you Unknown: have to dig George Uveges: right? Well. yeah. but there has to be thermal underneath somewhere.
Unknown: I'm not the expert on it. but my understanding is that it's. it's readily available. I don't know Mike. Do you know
Mike? Do you know anything about geothermal? Kirsten Ryan: I know it's pretty much everywhere. Yeah. Unknown: it's. it's not. it's not rare. George Uveges: Could we do that as a transfer station? Do you think?
Tom Holder: Well. I think it's. I think it's generally used for. actually. the heating and cooling of a building. not so much if you're thinking about using it to run the compress. you know. the compactors and stuff. It's. it's just for climate control. really. you know. So there isn't a whole lot of that at the transfer station. Unknown: Okay. yeah. it sounds great. George Uveges: Use it for generating electricity. okay. well. something new. Talk to Kleinfelder and see how much money we have left in the budget. Because I'm sure. I don't think somebody is going to come out and pay for it and sell you the proceeds over and above their cost recovery. Tom Holder: I think. you know the way it works. I think the equipment. because I've. you know. don't have direct experience. but I've heard of others that you know. the the equipment that you would have within the building is pricey. but then you have to do kind of the the long term cost analysis to see whether or not the reduction in your heating costs. how long of a payback period that would be to offset the increased cost of the equipment so it's it's something we could certainly look at. yeah. George Uveges: including the debt service cost. Yeah. Okay. anything else on that?
Unknown: No. I. Yeah.
George Uveges: okay. In terms of the minutes. I'm sorry. not minutes. but the meeting dates. Tom Holder: Do you want to I'm sorry to interrupt George Uveges: a vote. yeah. yep. Can I get a thank you for keeping me out of trouble. which is a full time job in itself. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes. please So Judy seconded. Mike Spellman. seconds. roll call. vote. Judy aye. Mike Spellman. Aye aye. Ed aye. George I moved 400. I zero. okay. dates of the meetings. One of the questions that I asked is if we're going to have to add any meetings for the warrant article and the decision on the financing of the dual I'm sorry the new new debt. other than the dual sourcing. Do we think we're going to need to have another meeting between November 18 and December 16. Or can we wait on that? I'm just concerned that the warrant and everything else that goes with it is going to tie us up somewhat.
Tom Holder: I would. I would think. if you know. if we wanted to discuss this again at the October 21 meeting. I think that that. I don't think we'll have a better sense on what the the agenda load looks like for. you know. for the remaining meetings. and if we have to slip something in between. or if it's a joint meeting between Select Board and FinCom. like we've been doing. we could. we could slip something in? George Uveges: Yeah. I'm. I'm thinking that. and that's fine. I'm thinking we're going to have some significant discussion about the financing. and need to be tied in there before the war goes to press. Tom Holder: And that there's. you know. one other group that you've. you know. may or may not be following is that there has been a capital project committee formed. and they have begun meeting. and it's their mission to learn and vet capital projects and schedule them on a five year capital schedule. Yep. you know. So that'll be a stop that I'll be making talking about what we have planned and. you know. So I think that there
was response and some of their decisions will impact what our capital plan looks like. George Uveges: Yep. okay. and obviously they you need to bring them into the loop on the lead pipe discussion. correct. Okay. all right. so we'll leave it as is topics not reasonably anticipated. 48 hours ahead. Anybody have anything? Tom Holder: Staff have none? Unknown: None here. Nope. George Uveges: okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn. please? So move so Judy. moves. Ed. seconds. roll call. Vote Judy. yay. Mike. yes. Ed. Mike. yes. And George. yes. adjourn. Vote 400. thank you. And again. I apologize for the problems I had with the sharing the screen. Take care and I appreciate it. George. good night. Unknown: All right. Good night all.
you on the spot. Anyway. We've got a long. long standing employee. graduate of Wayland High School. retiring after decades of service. so we're having a send off for him Thursday at noon at the DEP W so anybody that is in the area and is free during that time frame. please feel free to join us at the Public Works facility. George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Alright. open it up for public comment. You watching the hands. Joe Doucette: I just wanted to let you know that he was employed January 2004 was any started? So I just looked that up. good. George Uveges: So 24 years. very nice. Tom Holder: Okay. so I see Jeff Stein. so I'm going to allow him to speak. Jeff. are you there? Unknown: I am. Tom Holder: Can you hear me loud and clear? Michael Wegerbauer: Oh. good. Well. thank you. Then. I'm Jeff Stein. I live at 48 Sherman's Bridge Road in Wayland. I'm an architect past dean of the Boston architectural college. I can see Sherman's bridge from my house. and of course. I can hear it that. by the way. is a feature. not a problem. The sound of the bridge is part of the charm of this neighborhood and part of what makes this bridge a place. I just want to point out that working on a project like this is more complex than it might have been even a generation ago. especially for this project. your constituency is not just car commuters. landscapers with their extra wide trailers. school busses. It's bicyclists. motorcycles. pedestrians. people who are fishing. boaters. his. Historians. nature. photographers. tax paying neighbors. people have held weddings on this wooden bridge. We're all your clients. and you should know we need more than a fast. smooth driving lane with metal guard rails. Speed is already a problem on Sherman's Bridge Road. where there are regular car crashes on the road. but interestingly. not on the bumpy wooden bridge itself. The wooden bridge gives identity to a neighborhood that has grown up around it to this region of Wayland and Sudbury. and we'd like to preserve that identity and its place in our town's history. on a scenic road where commuters are already traveling way too fast. Asphalt on Gulam might not be the answer. I'm just saying.
George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Jeff. There is going to be a forum on Sherman bridge coming up. so I would encourage you to come to that forum. Michael Wegerbauer: Great. Thank you.
George Uveges: We have anybody else Tom Tom Holder: I see several people in attendance. but I don't see any more hands.
George Uveges: You're in attendance and would like to speak. please raise your hand. otherwise we will move on.
Tom Holder: Okay. here we go. I have Rebecca. Rebecca. you are on Unknown: Okay. Hi. I'm Rebecca Devine. I'm at 17 Hereford Road in Wayland. Just as a side note. I'm not related to Greg. as far as I know. but my family has been at this property since 1942 and so we have a long history at the bridge. I will say that. Well. I appreciate the wood bridge. I don't. unlike many of my neighbors. appreciate the noise of it. I have found in my many years living here. and my grandmother having lived here my entire life. that the bridge has not been well maintained as far as I'm concerned. in between seasons and Joe. maybe you could answer the question. Is it really that it alternates from one town to the other on maintenance every year. Or do you guys split the maintenance? Because it seems like every June the bridge is not maintained until it becomes the next fiscal fiscal year. I will agree with Jeff that there is too much speed. and we don't need it to be faster. but the maintenance has been atrocious since the built bridge was rebuilt in 1991 as far as I can tell.
Michael Wegerbauer: I think Joe. you can respond if You have an answer to the question about who is alternating? Joe Doucette: I want to say it was three or four years ago. or maybe longer than that. we had decided with Sudbury to the bridge. Instead of alternating back and forth. we've literally split the bridge in half. They take care of one half. We take care of the other half. We do maintain it approximately two times a year. it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain it. because the stringers have essentially turned into Swiss cheese. So as much as we attempt to maintain it and keep the boards in place. the Yeah. it's a kind of a losing battle. Unknown: And Joe one follow up on that. is it true that those boards come from one supplier only. and only one person can get them for you. Is that part of my understanding as to why it's been such an issue on maintenance? Joe Doucette: No. we've struggled to find suppliers because we do have to have them made in certain lengths. et cetera. We in the past few years have gone through a couple different vendors. But no. it's. it's not. it's not difficult to get a supplier. but it's not easy as well. It's. we've gone through a few and we currently do have a supplier form. Unknown: Okay. thanks. I think those are just some of the issues that may be helpful when you guys are doing your full meeting. Thank you. Joe. Thank you. Tom Holder: Tom anybody else I am looking and as of now. I do not see any other hands. George Uveges: All right. going once. going twice. nothing. Tom Holder: nothing. no. changes. George Uveges: Okay. let's close public comment and move into the status of the long term water supply project.
Tom Holder: It's all yours. Tom Sure. sure. to start off the conversation. we just see if I. I do see Greg Devine. no relation to Rebecca. Sure. so Greg has joined us tonight. Greg is employed by the mass DEP. and he works in the office that oversees the State Revolving Fund. So in knowing that there has been some periodic questions asked relative to the SRF program and how it relates to our financing of the MWRA project. I invited Greg to join us. He can provide you know a brief overview of the SRF funding program and entertain questions that board members may have. So with that. I would recognize Greg.
Unknown: Thank you. Tom appreciate you all inviting me here this evening. Happy to share a little bit about the program. about myself. I have been serving the SRF program in this capacity for about six years now. So I am the SRF Program Section Chief. responsible for projects in both the Northeast region in which the town of Wayland resides. as well as the western region. So in that capacity. we have overseen projects of all types. most recently. and obviously. we've dealt with quite a few projects that involve PFAS. or rather. the elimination. or at least the reduction thereof to the public's drinking water supply. So what I wanted to touch upon here are a couple of what I would say are benefits of utilizing the program and how it can be helpful to town and a community in terms of how it impacts rates and being able to move forward with the capital projects. but also speak to some of the upcoming milestones and just kind of a higher level timeline now that Tom and his team have you know. launched into this endeavor in terms of submitting to our program for consideration a two part capital project. So the SRF program blends money received from the federal government a corresponding state match as well as recycled funds in order to offer support for capital projects. And so with that. we are able to. on an annual basis. offer terms and conditions from a lending borrowing perspective that differ from a more traditional bond ban sort of scenario. and certainly quite different than what a commercial lending institution would offer. Our starting baseline interest rate is 2% so especially in this day and age. if you're tracking any of the mortgage rates. what have you. 2% significantly less. We have recognized the fact that the challenges of eliminating PFAS from raw water sources comes with a pretty high price tag. So what we've tried to do to better support communities in the effort to eliminate PFAS is to offer a reduction from the 2% down to a 0% borrowing capacity. So effectively. for every dollar borrowed toward your project. you pay back that $1 now I would be remiss to say that there aren't any fees or charges associated with this. There is. which is typical of most lending vehicles. and origination fee as well as an administrative fee. So these fees add up to about $5 per 1000 borrowed. and so your effective interest or any outside charges other than the principal on the loan would just be that administrative slash origination fee. So pretty. pretty small dollars. all things considered. the term of our loans typically start at 20 years. and so we ask for a corresponding useful life certificate from your design engineer of record to support and corroborate that the investment by yourself as the town as well as us. that the project in the associated infrastructure will be viable for at least 20 years. We can. at certain times. look beyond the 20 year term and go out as far as 30 years. With that 30 year we do make some market rate adjustments to cover the additional 10 years of repayment. And so of late. that has been in the range of about point four to point six add on to the baseline loan. So in this case. let's just effectively call the overall borrowing to be a somewhere about 75 basis points. or about three. Three quarters of a percentage point. just as a conservative target for borrowing. If we were to go beyond the 20 years. up to something in the 30 year neighborhood. the corresponding useful life certificate would have to correspond with that. because we'd want to make sure that the assets and the effort itself is covered. in fact. viable for that entire period of time during which there is a debt service or in a different way of repayment George Uveges: mode happening. Greg. one question. a little bit of confused in terms of the rates. One point you said 1.4 to 1.6 and then you said a point seven. five. Yeah. Unknown: George. let me clarify. 0.4 to 0.6 would be the ad on to the term note. if we went from 20 years to 30 years. thank you for clarifying. George Uveges: And is that for the full 30 years. or it's just that. just for the last 10 it Unknown: would be for the full 30 and so the amortization on that. And you know. we provide draft schedules would just be adjusted out across the course of two payments per year. January and July.
George Uveges: And is that principal and interest. or principal? And then to split the interest. Unknown: in the case of 0% it would almost effectively be mostly principal each time. So we could offer two courses of repayment. either a level debt service. meaning equal payments twice a year for the life of the loan. or a level principal where the interest will drop down in time. beginning with the highest interest payment on your first payment and then trickling down to zero. similar to what you see on a normal house or car loan. George Uveges: Okay. Fay. and we're just. we're looking at the cash flow impact of some of this. That's why I asked the Unknown: question. Sure. absolutely. And what we can do. if it is at all helpful to your conversation. is I can work with our financial counterparts at the Massachusetts clean water trust our financial arm. and have them put together a few tables. if that would be helpful for a visual and just to kind of review some of those numbers. rather than you all trying to project those out in your preferred financial software. George Uveges: Good. We appreciate that. okay. but that's very helpful. Yeah. Unknown: So. you know. really. the you know. the strength of the program is the fact that you know we can offer and lend to you at a point where. for the debt service incurred. there's not going to be a further surcharge onto the impact of the rates. right? And that's what we're really trying to target here. is recognizing that capital projects. just. you know. they scale to an extent. but not so much so that there's not an impact to your customers. And so we try to be somewhat sensitive to that in our approach. So that's yes. Judy. thank you. Is the rate locked in. it is okay. And what would determine. if it's a 20 year or 30 year. that would ultimately be the preference of you all as the owner. So you would at the time of permanent financing meeting. the project has been complete and that we're executing on a permanent loan. it would be structured based upon your input and decision at that George Uveges: time. Okay. in other words. what we apply for. right. right? Unknown: So the advantage of our programs. we have interim financing. So effectively. during the course of the construction project itself. you can borrow the money and pay all your bills. and at the time of project completion was when we would set in and lock in those terms for you. So effectively. you get the money upfront. and then we enter into debt service Once the project has completed. or in the course of a multi year project. we would try to target somewhere around the 50 or so percent mark to say we're going to lock you in an effective two years from now. you'll have to begin your repayment method so you have beneficial use of the very project before you start to incur those costs and recognize that debt service coming onto your books. George Uveges: But you're still paying the fee at that period of time. you're just not having to make a payment. Unknown: No. no. no. the fee. the fees and everything are deferred until the time of the project's completion in your first payment. right? George Uveges: But I understand that's the payment. But the question is. for that. let's say a project is two years. As we draw that money for the two years. there will be an interest that will be added on to the principal during that construction period. That's not free money. Unknown: It is free money up front. Yeah. So the. George Uveges: No. I'm talking about the payment. I understand we're not going to have to make a interest payment that the question is. is that there is no interest in my understanding correct charge during that two year period? That's correct. Unknown: That's correct. Yep. So the the interest is based. Upon the amount borrowed independent of the interim state. So whether you're utilizing a 14 month construction period or a 30 month construction period. that would be irrelevant. We are simply going to target the principal value borrowed independent of time. George Uveges: Okay. so the interest accrual doesn't start till the actual loan on after construction is occurred. That's correct. Yes. And what months did you say there were payments due Unknown: January and July? So we try to charge at the beginning of a fiscal year and then halfway through. so that you can try to forecast that as you go into your fiscal year projections and budget analysis. And as we approach the time of permanent financing. we would make sure that you're fully aware. We'd share with you those amortization schedules so that you're fully informed of what that first you know series of payments would be. Michael Wegerbauer: Okay? Good. Thank you very much. So sure thing only here. Greg and thank you for joining. We just want to confirm we would not be eligible for SRF if we were to construct in the flood zone. which is where the current facility stands. That's been our understanding. and we've made decisions based on that. If you have that answer Andy confirm that it'd be nice. but if not. that's okay. Unknown: There are avenues to say that work within a flood zone can be considered. provided that there are provisions to protect the critical features and functions therein and that were not negatively impacting said flood plain. right? So there. there are a couple of qualifiers to that understanding. and sometimes the effort to do that might not offset the value add of going through the program. Michael Wegerbauer: Yeah. it's not something we want to do just just trying to cross our t's and dot our eyes Unknown: understood. Great. awesome. So. if I may. I'm just going to touch upon timeline here a little bit. So we received. during our annual solicitation period this past summer. what we call a project evaluation form or PDF. And so in essence. that's an expression of interest for upcoming capital work that will be considered by the SRF program. So currently. we are in the process of reviewing and evaluating all of these expressions of interest that we have received across the state. and through that evaluation. we'll come up with a ranking based upon tiered scoring as to what we can and will fund in the upcoming calendar year. So that final deliverable to the public is called an intended use plan. So annually. our intended use plan catalogs and lists out all the projects that will be included and supported by SRF funding moving forward. So based upon historical timelines. we are targeting the issuance of a draft IUP list somewhere circa the end of the calendar year. likely maybe January of 2026 for the 2026 year. Okay. and following the presumption that the projects that were submitted make the list. we would then have a 18 month timeline from which the draft plan was published to when we would expect a the project to be underway. And so the end target date based upon that math. would be a contract award to a construction entity for the work. for the proposed work to occur no later than June. 30 of 2027. in the interim. we would look for A financial commitment from the town no later than June 30 of 2026. so effectively. what we're trying to do here is align our intended use plan to come out circa the time that you would advance warrant articles for consideration by your finance committees. and to make some sort of land agenda for your annual town meeting. by which you know that vote would then support the intended project. which is one of the commitments that we look to from a community in order to move forward on the the SRF program. The other milestone is typically fall of each calendar year. We get through June. we had a successful vote during the annual town meeting. Then the SRF loan application comes due in early October of that calendar year. and we start to get into the weeds of what we're looking for from an administrative and also a financial capacity in terms of do we. Have full rights to the parcel. or parcels or the project corridor. Have we done all of our external agency reviews and endangered species. natural heritage. any anything from mass historical. any impacts. to railroad corridors. MBTA. mass highway. DCR. etc. etc. So there's a pretty robust process there. and what that says that that's us up for is a successful procurement period at some time following the loan application. so that you can and your project team enter into the procurement process in accordance with mass general law. without any exceptions or flaws to that approach. Right? So in essence. our setup really protects you as the owner. And that's really what a lot of our checklists. what a lot of our deliverables are intended to do. is to protect you as owners. such that all of the intermediary steps are done in accordance with either the prevailing laws of Massachusetts and or the requirements of the SRF program. because. as you recall. we do collect monies. both federally and as a state match. and so with with that comes some requirements and regulations. So we try to have the T's and I's dotted in a sequential fashion. such that you're not overloaded with a large package. with the excitement of receiving a bid that's viable and wanting to move forward. So we kind of. you know. set things up across those 18 months from the draft IEP circa January of the year and the following June. George Uveges: Greg. one question going back to what you're talking about. the town commitment. we're going through a discussion now about whether it's going to be in water rates or real estate taxes or some combination. Does that matter to you at all in terms
Unknown: of the loan? Technically. no. We look. we look for the community to have a viable option for borrowing money against the SRF program. We do look that the water department is an enterprise fund where theoretically. the ability to pay for this comes via rates. However. there can be some conversation with the Clean Water trust as to how those payments are made. recognizing that oftentimes raising rates to match new debt service is not always the most viable solution. at least in the in the short term. right. having not raised rates preemptively. oftentimes. a reactionary rate increase might leave you with a slight gap In terms of your ability to make those payments.
Question. so I assume these are state funds and are not impacted by any matching funds from the federal government. Yes. No. not exactly. We do. We do rely on grants that come to us from the EPA. and then typically. there is a state match involved with the funding. So if for rough numbers. if we were to see. you know. a 20 or so. maybe 24% match to all federal funds at the state level that said. we do receive PFAS specific grant money on an annual basis. and so right now. we have in our possession grant monies that we can extend forward for the next calendar year. so we won't necessarily be immediately cut off should federal funding disappear. There's still other ways that we draw money in. both in terms of the state match. but also recycling funds coming in from older projects. right? We lend money out. it comes back. And so those three different streams. as we commingle them. do allow us to create a buffer to some of the ups and downs of funding streams as we go along. that could mean that in the future. we make some adjustments in terms of multi year projects. Maybe the commitment isn't in full in one fell swoop. So we offer the money to you in different tranches. But you know. as as it stands right now. our intent is to continue to fund projects to the maximum extent possible. And so it could be that we adjust it to say. Okay. if you have a $30 million project. we might only offer you $10 million in year number one. but then honor. you know. additional funding in a second year. as opposed to committing the full value of the projected cost upfront 30 million and deny several other projects the opportunity to proceed. And we look at the cash flow analysis and the intended burn rate so that you know there isn't a gap in the funding. but it's unlikely that in the first six to nine months there would be a $30 million draw. Work on a lot of our local. you know. PFAS driven projects. So it doesn't answer your question in full. but I don't have a crystal ball as to say. you know. how will Washington respond to different influences moving forward? But we're trying to guard against it. There's been a bit of austerity on our side in the last 18 months in anticipation of it. but as long as the money is there through continuing resolutions. we're going to continue getting it out on the street. George Uveges: just to build on Judy's comic. And I understand there. you know. who has a crystal ball comment. but is there any indication at this point from Washington that there's going to be a change in the funding under this program. Unknown: I think it depends on who you ask from Washington. That's a surprise. And again. not George. not to be cheeky. but I think that right now. we just have to understand that. you know. independent of politics. there are real needs here by everyone you know. whether it's to take a shower. have a cup of tea. Enjoy a cup of coffee. You know. there's a real value here to supporting the projects that we endeavor to complete. So I think that. independent of some of the ripples and waves that we're experiencing. will find a way of. you know. supporting the projects that we commit to. and we're only going to commit to those projects that we feel that we can fund. So let's say. for example. in the next four months. we get some big updates that will impact how we draft our intended use plan. So that. you know. we're making a commitment to maybe a few fewer projects. but those projects will be supported. Or we say. All right. folks. we're going to do. you know. some sort of crazy scenario where we're going to fund everything 50% year one and try to transfer the balance over. So again. this is me just kind of spit balling different possibilities that we could do in order to maintain that commitment. But we were not just going to go and say. oh. yeah. every everybody gets a treatment plant and then not be able to honor that commitment in the second year. should the funding streams kind of dry up? George Uveges: I understand. Thank you. Out of the number of projects that you have requests for funding. what's your normal percentage that you will say yes to? Unknown: Well. that number is decreasing for this very fact that we have inserted measures of austerity so the drinking water program is over prescribed on an annual basis. and not so much driven by the lack of money out of Washington. but more the. you know. very real need of a lot of PFAS and the remediation or elimination thereof. So I'd say that on the drinking water side of the of the faucet. We're probably trending around a 1/3 to 40% funding out of the total ask. But with that in mind. we're not necessarily receiving 100% of PFAS projects. booster pump stations. water storage tanks. water main replacement. so the full gamut of the distribution system. supply and treatment. So. you know. we try to prioritize and triage the projects that you know offer them the most value in terms of need basis. Are there great projects out there every year? You bet. do we? Do we cringe that we can't fund them all. sure. but we have to draw the last somewhere. okay? George Uveges: And if you. if you are not. not in that 1/3 or 40% is that a no forever. or is that you go back into the pool next year? Unknown: It's. it's a no for the for the calendar year and consideration. George Uveges: okay? So you can get. you might get it to next year. Unknown: you'd have to reapply. You simply copy and paste from the prior year and then kind of refresh that expression of interest. But yes. it would be considered without any sort of additional bias or any sort of prejudice toward it. It would be an objective review moving George Uveges: forward. Does it help if it's your second year. or is it irrelevant? Unknown: That's irrelevant. Okay. thank you.
Tom Holder: One question that's been posed Greg is. is there a principle forgiveness component to this? Unknown: There is principal forgiveness offered through the program the the town of Wayland. however. based upon our kind of economic and adjusted income models. doesn't necessarily qualify for any additional principal forgiveness. Now. that said. I don't want to you know. just throw out there a stinging rebuke in the arena of PFAS. we reduce the amount of principal forgiveness across the board. Why? Because you're already borrowing at 0% so there's already an economic advantage to having to deal with a more expensive topic. But in the case of Wayland. no. there wouldn't be any additional principal forgiveness offered. So.
George Uveges: Okay. thank you. Craig. is you Unknown: have more or do we? No. I want to be mindful of the time and again. I appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation with you all and hopefully answer a few questions and not leave more cause for concern or uncertainty as we navigate the process George Uveges: uncertainty and this kind of thing. I can't imagine anybody have questions. Judy. Mike. Mike. anything else? Michael Wegerbauer: Ed. I'm sorry. Just one nothing here. Thanks for your time. Gregory. if you were in a tight situation. and it sounds like PFAS might be somewhat prioritized over some other projects. but didn't have the full funding available. Would it? Would it be not you? You? Would you possibly come back to us with an option to fund a portion. because we have two major activities ongoing. coming up with the connection to the MWRA. as well as the plant construction? Unknown: Yeah. I mean that that's certainly in the cards. Mike. I think that whether it was one large project or a series of contracts. we would certainly try to find a way. And if there are other funding vehicles in play. we can certainly. you know. kind of CO fund a project. whether it's grant monies for design permitting or another sort of grant opportunity during the construction phase. We can. we can blend those streams together. George Uveges: Great are funded over the two years. as you talked about. right? Unknown: Yeah. so. you know. we look at the SRF program as kind of a. you know. financial safety net that you can insert different funding mechanisms throughout. And the advantages of our program are that. you know. we can be offer that interim financing package. so you can kind of. you know. triage through if certain funds need to be spent early or grant monies. or sun setting. you know. get that money inserted into the project early on. and then rely on us and. you know. the latter stages of a of a project. George Uveges: So Greg. I can guarantee you. we won't be shy about getting everything that qualifies under the program. Unknown: Nor should you be. You You have to respond back to your customer base. and you're right payer. so I would assume nothing less. Okay. George Uveges: Spellman. anything all good? Okay? Judy Ed. it's not all right. Tom. do you have anything that you want to add? Tom Holder: No. I do not. I very much appreciate Greg attending with us tonight. provided a lot of necessary information. and we'll we'll be talking soon. Greg. George Uveges: sure thing. We appreciate it. and we will follow up as other things come up. I can guarantee you. please do. Unknown: I'm here for just Michael Wegerbauer: that. Thank you. Thank you. Greg. Thank you. Thanks. Greg. George Uveges: Okay. we have three other topics under this listing. Tom Holder: Yep. I can take the next one. design impacts to project cost. As you know. we've just reached the 30% design milestone a month or two ago. We're now proceeding towards a 60% design threshold milestone. And to date. we are not aware of any issues that are before us that would cause the cost of the project to increase. There are. you know. a number of things that the MWRA is asking of us relative to the alignment of the transmission main. how we actually secure that. you know. the close proximity to the Haltman aqueduct. you know. has them paying very close attention to that. But even with those requests. we are still confident that we're maintaining the current cost projections.
George Uveges: Okay. questions by anybody? Okay. discussion of town funding options. Do you want to start Tom or you want me to start? Tom Holder: I think that that is a topic in other folks court George Uveges: nice punch. Okay. I understand I haven't been able to see the Select Board WayCAM from yesterday because it's not up yet. but Tom tells me they spent about an hour talking about this. The impact. or impression I get from both the Finance Committee and listening to people on the Select Board. Is there some discussion about. do you fund it all with real estate taxes. or do you split it between the two. between happy hollow and the MWRA? And what as we get down later into some of the slides that will be presented. you'll see the impact of that split. We've split our analysis into the three pieces being the new non MWRA. happy hollow. happy hollow and MWRA increases. I'm not sure that we will get a quick answer. They have said that they believe they have until December with the drafting of the warrant to make that decision. And if they do the one loan option. there's like two ways. one exempt borrowing in in total. and one where the Select Board can decide on a periodic. ie. annual or more basis. how much to cover in real estate taxes. that that decision is not there yet. so we're going to have to keep providing them information and having meetings until we Get to probably December. when an actual decision will be made. But at this point. I don't think that the Select Board has made any decision. They're still in a trying to gather information stage. They did vote down the peer review at two meetings ago. so that that prevents that project from slowing down what we're going through. And I think that's basically the total anybody have any questions I can try and answer. Tom can try and answer.
Okay. so the message is. stay tuned. We'll get back to you on that from the Select Board. Okay. review of happy hollow repairs. Tom Holder: Tom. yep. I'm going to hand that off to Don he's directly managing that effort. Don Millette: Hello. everybody. I'll keep it short so the we completed the second round of repairs on Friday afternoon. The glue set up over the weekend. my staff and I pressure tested and drew a bacteria sample yesterday. a few minutes ago. the test results came back negative for E coli. so we will be putting the system back into operation first thing tomorrow morning. George Uveges: good. and the cost is going to be within what we had from the in the excess capital funds from prior projects. So there's no hit. as I understand it. to the expenses for the year. correct? Okay. with that coming online. Do you have any idea when we're going to be able to cancel the watering band?
Don Millette: Good question. The state just ramped up our drought alert. so we are now in a. I believe it's a level two drought currently. right now. So I did not get a chance to look at the flow of the Sudbury river there before the meeting started. but I can follow up after this meeting with an answer on that. George Uveges: All right. would you let the board know on that? Yes. obviously. one of the questions is how much water we can be pumping and billing. I know that with it coming online. you'll be able to stop the emergency correct news. and Tom has assured us that that's not going to it's going to it's going to be expensive. but not put a large dent in the contingency. Tom. do you remember what you said the dollar amount that you think it's going to be? Tom Holder: We calculated back of the napkin about $2.300 a day. It's been operating for about three weeks. So you know. in the order of. yeah. 5050. George Uveges: grand. okay. okay. yeah. if you can let us know that. because obviously I'd like to just from the business side. the ability to start to pump some of that water would help in terms of meeting what we signed up for in terms of revenue. Yes. Fay. yes. So that being able to pump. Don Millette: yeah. yeah. So we'll be shutting that the MWRA connection off tomorrow. once happy is up and running. and then I have to reach out to the state to ask them to lift the emergency declaration. So. you know. there's a little bit of time there. but I will definitely follow up ASAP with an answer for you. George Uveges: Thank you very much. Anybody have questions Michael Wegerbauer: so don this was on for about three weeks. We were on we're using the emergency connection for about. Three weeks is that correct? Don Millette: Yes. The the first repair took place on September 5. so. yeah. yeah. about about three weeks. Cool. Michael Wegerbauer: We're about 80 cubic feet per second. Don Millette: Oh. cool. okay.
Michael Wegerbauer: I know that's very low. Don Millette: I believe our threshold is 74 I think is our trigger. so I just need to double check on that. But I believe that's the number. okay.
George Uveges: okay. Anything else for that section? All right. Tom the lead service pipe replacement program. Tom Holder: Just to provide a little bit of background. I'm sure the board members of some are familiar with what we call the lead and copper rule. and that's been a regulation that's been in place for from. you know. many years. and we've. you know. been performing sampling and analysis notification of folks that have homes that are built in particular periods of of time. that where lead solder may have been used. lead pipe may have been used as a result of. you know. the episode that occurred years ago in Flint. Michigan. the EPA and mass DEP now have the revised lead and copper rule. revised LCR. revised. And as part of that. we're required to do additional sampling. And if you recall. we had $139.000 grant from the state to perform a lead service line inventory. And that's all part of what is being called a lead service line replacement program. So we performed the inventory we have that. It's actually up on our website. We've got significant amount of information relative to that on our website. We've got a GIS layer that shows all of that. But the next steps that the water division and the town need to take is that we need to investigate a number of those lead service lines. geographic sampling of what the lead of what the service line material is. Once we affirm that we are required to replace any lead service that we own. any service lines that are unknown. and there is a possibility that it might be practical and feasible to assist homeowners with their side of things. So Kirsten Ryan with Kleinfelder is joining us tonight. I know that she had asked a colleague. Ajay to to join I see him here as well. So with that. I'd like to turn it over to Kirsten and Ajay to to offer up an overview of what I'm what I'm talking about. Kirsten Ryan: Thank you. Tom. hi everybody. Kirsten Ryan. project manager from Kleinfelder. here to give you an update on this program. Have a slide deck that I'm going to collaborate with. with Ajay Sharma. my colleague. and provide you that update. So let me get that going.
Unknown: I did this correctly. No. Kirsten Ryan: you're not seeing the right screen. Are you? Tom Holder: Well. we're seeing the presentation. It's not. it's not the slideshow format. but we can. we can see your screen which. which shows all the slides in left hand column in George Uveges: the you know. I think she just has to click on this. begin the slideshow. Unknown: You go. okay. Kirsten Ryan: always takes a second anyway. So. yeah. So Tom said this has been an ongoing project. I believe we started about two years ago. so kind of a slow and steady product progress. but we finished up. really. in the spring of this past of this year. So. so there's a lot of information here. and I'll try to. you know. go slow enough to explain. but not so. so slow that we're running over our time. Lot of acronyms as all these federal rules tend to be. It's a federal rule. the lead and copper rule. and it's got several versions. as Tom mentioned. the lead and copper rule originally was published in 1991 and then revised in 2021 to get to the LCR R. which were current. Only under right now. the LCR i is the lead and copper rule improvements that comes into effect in November 2027 and that is going to have profound implications for compliance with this. Going forward. it's it's a much more robust. So we're going to talk about that. So first I want to just talk about what we got done under this grant that Tom mentioned the overall program purpose of it's all about inventory. At this point. your service lines. This is what was required on the under the LCR are. you know. it's all about public health. really. at the end of the day. trying to identify if there are any lead or like containing service lines left in the ground. Most towns. including Wayland there. there aren't any. we have not found any lead lines in Wayland. What? We have a lot of incomplete information. so we're working to build that all out. So some there is a website that the town has up. It's got a lot of great information on it. and ways that people can check their own lines. which we'll talk about a little bit. So this grant was from mass DEP. We conducted really four tasks. record review and data screening. inventory development and GIS mapping. So the inventory is on the website. I would say it's complete as it needed to be for this grant. It's it's a work in progress. We'll talk about that. We did some public outreach and then put together a compliance plan. which we'll talk about going forward. So we looked a lot of historical records. all the tie cards. assessors database. we used a technique called optical character recognition. along with AI software to help get all those paper. handwritten records and try to review them quickly. And we also QE you see them manually by hand. Michael Wegerbauer: Can I ask yeah question. so. when we installed the new meters. Tom or Don were we able to review or Kirsten. were we able to review and see if there were lead lead piping being used. or is that not something that's visible when you're installing a meter? Kirsten Ryan: I mean. I could. so I know that was part of what the work for that contractor was asked to do. Yeah. I've seen a draft database. so I believe that it's still getting finalized. but that is definitely going to be very valuable information. That's going to be a great source of information to establish what the privately owned portion of the service line is and right? You know we have to the rule says you need to establish material for any any line that's older than 1986 has to be determined. And if it's unknown. then it's essentially treated as if it wasn't lead. So the map from this initial effort is on the website. interactive map.
And this is as of you know. last fall was the compliance deadline for getting that initial service line inventory. So you'll hear different. different terms. There's this phase of the project was the initial Service Inventory. as much as information as you could possibly get. By November 2024. was compiled. zero lead 12. what's called galvanized requiring replacement. This is when. if you have a galvanized pipe that you cannot prove. was never that there was never any lead upstream of it. then it's treated as if it may contain lead. because it could absorb lead over time. We also did review historical records from the town. but you know. back in the day people. it just wasn't tracked. You know. I know most communities. whenever they would find any. they would rip it out. and that's the case here. So we have about 42% of the system. probably less now. because this doesn't account for the meter replacement data. but as of last winter. about 42% still unknown. I mentioned the directed GIS map. You can go in for yourself and check what your property. what the data is showing right now. And we are encouraging folks to update on that information if you think it's an error. And I believe the next slide talks about public outreach. Yes. that's part of this. Was trying to ask residents to help out with the effort also. so that we didn't have to. you know. go poke around their basements. Nobody really likes people doing that. So we developed several materials. Um during the course of the project. and you may remember them. but last summer. we developed a postcard sort of explained how people could check their own service line. either by going and reporting it through a web link or using the QR code information on how to reduce your exposure to lead by running your cap. you know. just in case of the precaution. and we also that QR code pops up a web app that you can. you know. walks you through how to enter your information. So that's something that's still up and available and will remain so. you know. more public. more publicizing of that might be a good thing to do as part of a next phase when we see what. what data is still outstanding.
So kind of just summarizing a little bit of what I touched on here is those deliverables under the the LCR are we completed a last October. that initial Service Inventory. as I mentioned. then the public. we're required to. the town is required to send out notifications to anybody who had a lead galvanized requiring replacement or GRR or unknown service line. So. you know. as a precaution with health ways to protect yourself. if you might have a lead line. or if we're not sure what you have. So those things have all been checked off. The next thing is looking forward to this lcri And those compliance timelines. So by November 1 of 2027 is the next milestone in which you need to submit what's they're calling a baseline inventory. And why that. What that means is that forms the baseline from which your compliance plan for replacing any lead or GRR lines needs to start. and you need to replace 10% per year. So we're trying to get as many classified. The goal would be to try to get as many unknowns classified by that time. so that your replacement rate is more manageable. And Ajay is going to get into a little bit of weeds here with some of those requirements. George Uveges: Christian before. before we go. There just 111. comment. if I could. one of my concerns. and I've talked to Tom about this. is the cost to the town. for example. for any of the town buildings or schools that might have lead piping that needs to be replaced. or the lines that Are the town responsibility up to the users. residents section. and then the cost. if they decide to pay for or somehow come up with a funding program for residents that have it that's not built into the capital plan. And I think we need to start to make them aware of this potential. because it may impact what they're going to sign up to do on other things. So the sooner or the faster that we can get some of this information. even if we don't have a cost yet. but can at least identify those potential items. I think that would be a service to the town. so that we can start to get them to think about it. Because I can guarantee you. there probably isn't a lot of thought going into this right now in terms of the five year capital plan.
Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. I we have. we have put some thought towards that. We have some very high level estimates that we've been working with based on similar projects we're doing. lead service line replacements for the town of City of Somerville. for example. So we. I think. have enough information at this point to put ballpark numbers for your use. and that would be. as we get to later in the slide deck. sort of part of the plan going forward. right? Yeah. yeah. George Uveges: Because I think. you know. we have a obligation to start to get people to think about some of this. Yeah. absolutely. Kirsten Ryan: Thank you. Yeah. you're welcome. So. yeah. I'm gonna turn it over Jay to kind of get a little bit into the weeds about the requirements. I think he can probably keep it at a fairly high level. Unknown: But over to you. Ajay. thanks. Kirsten. yeah. I'm going to do my best here to keep it at a high level. The intent. really with this slide here is to just outline the number of requirements under the lcri. But my goal here is to just make this a little bit more digestible and then Kirsten. if you go over to the next George Uveges: slide. before you go off of that slide. sure. second Sure. The last box on the right hand side says sampling of secondary schools on request only are we going to make sure we sample all of our secondary schools so we're not leaving anybody out. Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. that's at your discretion. I mean. I think it's a great idea to do that. George Uveges: So Tom I can't commit for the town. but I would think that not to do that would raise reasonable questions. Let's put it that way. Tom Holder: yeah. we actually work with the facilities department right now in assisting them towards their sampling program. Okay? I
George Uveges: just would hate to have somebody look at that and say. Oh. we're not doing them all. Yep. yep. You don't care about my kids. Yeah. I understand 100%
Unknown: curious. If you wouldn't mind going to the next slide here. So. like I mentioned. the way to kind of make all of these different requirements digestible is breaking it down here into three phases. So. like. here's some just talk through phase one is everything up until July 1 of 2025. with the two major deliverables being the initial service line inventory that was submitted. as well as notifying any customer last November who had a lead GRR or unknown service line with a specific letter. So everything up to that point is completed. Now. what we're calling phase two is everything from now until 2027 again. November 1 2027. being the time. or the day. I should say that the LCR I officially goes into effect. So the way that we're or essentially what we're calling this. is a proactive compliance plan. And what we're recommending here for all these various bullets here in a phase two. in phase two. with the most important item being to eliminate unknowns and also replacing your known letter. grr service lines. But the heavy emphasis here is really on eliminating unknowns. and that'll be the first thing I talk through here. So Kirsten. I think we go to the next slide. I think it's just highlighted. There we go. and then the one after that. So how exactly do we plan to eliminate unknowns? Or let me start and back up here. Why are we planning to eliminate unknowns and replacing any known lead and gr service lines all before 2027 The goal here is really to take an administrative burden off of the town. like we had to do last November. of notifying every customer who had a lead GRR or unknown service line. if you no longer have any unknowns. no longer have any lead or gr service side service lines. you'll no longer need to continually send those notifications out. That is one of the things under this rule. is that as long as you continue to have a single unknown GRR or lead service lines. those notifications will need to continue to go out. In addition. one of the newer requirements of the lcri is also a brand new sampling protocol. so this will change how the sample is being taken. And not just that. but the lead action level exceedance will go down from 15 parts per billion down to 10. So with that new protocol in mind. there is a higher chance here of getting super close to that new action level exceedance. and ideally without any unknowns. any letter grrs. Even with the new sampling protocol. your likelihood of getting close to that lead. Action level exceedance is significantly reduced. And again. just emphasizing here. we're trying to reduce administrative the administrative burden on the town. because. again. the folks that such as the town. the folks that are going to be attending to the calls when those notifications go out. ongoing questions and concerns. that obviously takes a lot of resources and town staff to handle. George Uveges: Now. when you say town staff. are you really referring to Tom staff? Absolutely okay. I just want to make sure that we differentiate between what's going to fall on the water department and the other town. Because one of the obvious questions is. after we're through with the grant and we're into all these other costs. What is going to be the cost of the program? Who is going to bear that cost. ie water rates or the town. and what's the staffing level that's going to be required to do that? So we can build it into our financial forecast? Because my guess. remembering the model. None of this is in future cost for us. Is that correct? Tom Holder: Tom. yeah. we have not placed any. you know. cost placeholders in any of our budgets. whether it be operational or capital. for this program. So this. this will be something. as you mentioned. we will now be inserting. George Uveges: okay. and have to talk to Mike McCall in terms of how and what does he want. Does he want to put this in the water department or as a separate expense going forward. and who's going to pay? Whose dime is it coming from? Because this is not going to. This is not. I assume. a cheap process. It is not. And right now. as they're looking at the prop two and a half override. this is all going to be in addition to any costs that are currently out there.
Unknown: And I'll touch on some. uh. some of the specific ways that we're going to help provide that cost to George here in the coming slides. Kirsten Ryan: yeah. we'll talk about funding sources as well. Yeah. it's. it's not a real rosy picture at the moment. for George Uveges: funding for this. Why should this be different from anything else we're dealing Kirsten Ryan: with? And the PFAS is like kind of overshadowing this. even right on the on the larger should I go next slide? Ajay. yes. please. Unknown: Yep. So the question is. now. how exactly do you eliminate unknowns? And one of the most cost effective solutions. or approaches to this is using a predictive model and Kirsty. go to the next slide. Essentially what we're proposing here is using a predictive model to classify all your remaining unknowns. And all that would that would entail is essentially the unknowns. Right now. Kirsten. do you remember how many were on our first slide there? I don't. Okay. no worries. I think it was. it was above 1000 or so. Yeah. at least. And so if Kirsten Ryan: I can just interrupt this real quick. I just want to make sure people are aware that this methodology is one we've already been using. It's mass DEP accepts this methodology. You know. it's. it's not something that is like. unique to our approach. necessarily. or its industry. It's. it's pretty much become part of industry standard. right? Unknown: And the reason for that. and the reason why it's become an industry standard. it allows you to not have to dig up every single unknown location. The idea here. and again. being dictated by state guidance. is that based on the total number of services that the town has. that would include total being all of the known and unknown led Grr. the state guidance would then dictate a couple 100 locations that are randomly chosen in which you would need to know the material meaning that those would be the locations that you would go out and investigate. You would get the material information for. and then you would use that information to train the predictive model. And the idea here is that once that predictive model is trained. it's going to assign a probability of lead at all of the remaining unknowns. and depending on how much lead is found. So for for right now there. there hasn't been any lead found. However. this model would still treat the GRR that has been found as lead. and it will assign a probability. allowing us to prioritize inspections. again. with the goal that will not have to dig up every single unknown location in the town. George Uveges: Yeah. the answer your question. your unknowns are 20 200.2 100. Unknown: Perfect. Thank you. Any questions on this.
Kirsten Ryan: and then we'd use a random. randomized approach. so that's not biased. right. Unknown: correct. exactly the and the biases that that Kirsten is alluding to. we would want to make sure that the couple 100. and we're talking about three shy of 400 300 Yeah. 360 year ish locations. We want to make sure that all of those locations. for example. are preferentially homes that were built after 1986 or newer developments. We want to try to capture a good representative snapshot of the entire town. but only with just shy of 400 holes. Essentially. next slide. please. Pearson. and then. sorry. the one before that. It's a little delayed. What's that? The slide? Right. perfect. So again. eliminating unknowns here and then replacing any of the known lead that come up services. That's going to be a big emphasis here for phase two. that also tends to be the most expensive part of what we're proposing as part of phase two. And then the other components that we're going to be talking about is public outreach. and then sampling plan updates. Then I can go to the next slide here. Pearson. So public outreach. again. like I emphasized earlier. as long as a service in the town remains to be unknown. letter. grr. those notifications will continue need to go out. The state has also made some updates to that. so that'll include wanting to keep. or essentially keeping those notifications up to date before they go out to customers. And then. Kirsten Ryan: Essentially that deadline is coming up around again. So I think it's actually Unknown: it's December 31. of 2025 Yeah. Kirsten Ryan: So what you'll see at the end our plan in the near future is to update the inventory that exists as right now with what the information from the meter replacement program. and then those notifications will have to go out by the end of December based on that update. Unknown: Sorry. no. you're good. You're good. And then the next item. second bullet here. when services are inventoried using a. for example. vacuum excavation. any of those locations. and specifically the customers that live at those locations. they're going to need to receive a specific notification that has specific education materials about why this inventory and work is being done and ways to protect themselves. again. just being mandated by the regulation. So it has a lot of the same required language that the notifications last November had. In addition. the lcri does have additional requirements on if a lead. action level exceedance is ever met that notification form. But also need to have additional language. And then lastly. here there is a new Consumer Confidence Report regulation. So obviously that would necessitate going through that. seeing what's pertinent to lead and copper rule improvements. the new Reg. and making sure that that content is also updated in your wallet. water quality reports and then sampling plan updates. similar to what I mentioned earlier. not only is the protocol sampling going to change. however. there will also be new locations in which those samples need to be taken. So that is another thing that we'd be proposing is make sure your staff are trained and know how to take those samples with the new protocol in mind. and then helping to select those new locations. Next slide. please. Kirsten. And then the very last item here is the historical 90th percentile analysis. Basically. again. we just be taking a look at how your lead sample results have historically looked. Analyze it to make sure that you're not going to be in jeopardy when the new action level goes into play. And if need be. like I said. analyze that. perform a study. and again. with the new action level coming down from 15 parts billion down to 10. along with the new sampling protocol. there could be a higher likelihood if there still is any letter GRR in the system after 2027 of getting close to that action level. So that would be a part of what we'd be proposing here. And then next slide. please. Kirsten. so in terms of estimated costs. we'll go into a little bit more detail about what we're proposing as our next scope for this project. However. the one thing I did want to highlight there is just based on the current status of the inventory. And again. Mike. to your point earlier. this does not include any of the updates that would be made to the inventory based on the meter change our program. So current status wise. based on what we'd be looking at to replace any of the currently known gr service lines. as well as what we're projecting based on what we've seen so far of our encounter rate to lead and gr service lines. replacement total would come out to just shy of about million dollars. And George. to your point earlier. this is just very high level numbers. However. as part of our next scope. we are going to put together a more cohesive plan that will go into a little bit more detail to round out these numbers just a bit based on what we know and some of the existing clients that we support. George Uveges: Okay. quick question. This slide says it's starting in 228 the slide that you set out before said this amount is going to be before 2027 Correct? Unknown: Yeah. So that's this slide here. starting 2028 is the more accurate slide. This slide here. Kirsten Ryan: I think it might be up to the town how quickly you'd want to get into this like so you're not required to have everything replaced. I just want to make sure everybody's clear. You're not required to have all of those lines identified and replaced by 2028 or by 2027 it would be I it would be beneficial if it was. it was possible. you know. so that's why this is kind of a. like a more aspirational plan. But. you know. I think you. I think you can definitely accomplish the inventory being complete by November 2027. I. Yeah. so I guess I just don't. I just don't want to have expectations be too unrealistic. George Uveges: Okay. and the and the inventory is a 74.000 or is that not the inventory? Kirsten Ryan: Yes. it is. So this. this is quite different than some other communities. in that we understand that you have a vacuum excavator. and. you know. this assumes that the town is able to actually perform the physical work of of looking. you know. of uncovering the line so that we can identify it with our. you know. with some of our support. So. yeah. George Uveges: okay. so as you put your your cost sheet together. I think it would be beneficial to put. you know. the actual due dates that has to be done by such and such a date. Or you would do it between X and Y dates. so that people can better estimate when in the expenses are going to have to be taken care of. Unknown: Absolutely. Yeah. right. Yeah. And George. just to clarify your point there. yes. we would basically put together a cost with not just the required dates of when everything would need to get done. but also what we're making recommending as part of this proactive compliance plan. And we can differentiate the two. George Uveges: Yeah and Tom. I think you need to talk to Brian and find out if this kind of cost can be borrowed or has to be paid in the year. because you're just replacing something that you have and doing some a lot of inventory work. So I'm not sure that you could borrow for this. but we need to know one way or the other. It would be nice not to have that hit all in one year. But what the life is. and if it can be borrowed. is. is going to be the question for our investment bankers? Tom Holder: Yep. Good point. You know. we'll be working with Brian soon on this. So very good point.
Kirsten Ryan: Like curiously. yeah. so that having the. the your piece of equipment. to be able to do those. to dig those. you know. little holes. is going to save you. like. several million dollars. I mean. it is a lot of labor. though. so that is. like a consideration. um. you know. for the DEP w to be able to take that on. I think. you know. that's something to consider. Tom Holder: you know. So our intent is. you know. Don and myself and his team will be work working out a schedule so that we have enough coverage to to handle the stations. but then also assign two individuals to operate that factor truck and to be able to. you know. on a daily basis. make stops with that equipment and perform the vacuum excavation. So that's that's our intent. Kirsten Ryan: Yep. I think it's great. George Uveges: yeah. and that would be good because that's not an incremental expense that's already built into your labor structure.
Kirsten Ryan: So this graphic is a draft of. you know. kind of how we're trying to envision this playing out over time. You know. we're here. We're This is the inventory phase two that that we'd like to start on working with the DEP W to run our. you know. predictive model in the randomizer to establish this list of 361 locations that need to be excavated. preparing notifications for the homeowner to make sure they're They know what's happening. And then. you know. being able to. based on those results. revise that inventory again. and then revise the program cost estimates and apply for funding. So this is kind of how we're looking at it playing out. And then. you know. we have the year one replacement. starting. you know. in summer of 2028. I think might be a little. I don't know that it could be possible to accomplish that prior. you know. I think the other thing that the board and the town will need to think about is how to handle. how they want to handle the private side replacements that are required. because that could be. you know. a challenging thing to think through. George Uveges: especially if you have to go underneath the house or whatever to get to those pipes. Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. if it's a longer run. you know. if there's. I don't know. a stone wall or something there. There's different ways different communities have gone about it. The MWRA does have a program. you know. and you would. you know. we expect that you would become members sometime. you know. during 20. 2027 they do have a program that the financing terms are more favorable than the SRF program for service replacements. And you will find that the SRF funding requires a full replacement. You can't take SRF loan money to just replace the public side. You would need to replace the whole the whole side. So. you know. some communities have already doing it that way. Some have concerns about about that. So that's something we can we can continue the conversation around. And I'm sorry I should have explained the colors like the orange. Here are the deadlines. and this is that the deadlines where things kick in for the lcri. the sampling. the new sampling protocols kick in in January of 2028 as well. So.
okay. couple more slides. and then we'll be almost done here. So. you know. mentioned. vacuum excavation is very costly. so the town can perform that. which is wonderful. I touched upon SRF. They have they're currently offering loans. and unfortunately. not grants at this time to fund the type of inventory work that we're describing us as our immediate next steps. and they're available on a rolling basis that you know. knowing that the town has their own excavator. I don't think it's worth pursuing. you know. alone to get reimbursed for the effort. since it's. you know. relatively lower cost compared to a town that needed to hire an excavator for 300 locations. So there are construction loans available at this time for the replacement work. As I mentioned. those are also open on a rolling basis. so you don't have to wait for the typical SRF cycle. Again. mentioned that require full service replacement. However. you do need to appropriate the money locally. so you would have to get. you know. a warrant vote
in order to apply. So that's something to consider. and they do not. they do not fund the design of the replacement. you know. bid package design or bidding of a service replacement contract is not eligible. So there's another. you know. self funded thing to consider. George Uveges: Just have a little unclear the replacement activity. When would you say that would start? Kirsten Ryan: I think. I think in summer of 2028.
George Uveges: so about the same time as we'd be hitting them with the with the MWRA loan cost.
Tom Holder: and it requires. I mean. the lcri requires 10% per year. Is that the expectation? Yes. So. you know. Kirsten Ryan: assuming you have relatively few it is. You don't have to do it this way. You know. I think it's just. if it's feasible. it's desirable.
George Uveges: I'm just wondering what we're gonna be telling people as we go through. okay. okay.
Kirsten Ryan: we have prepared a task order to assist with this next phase we mentioned. I guess the other number was a little bit off. but anyway. our scope would include support for the inspection process the town. vacancing the public side. We would be usually utilizing the predictive modeling. you know. kind of guiding the town on the at list of addresses to investigate. updating the inventory. updating the GIS. submitting it to DEP. updating the GIS map. providing those required consumer notices. providing some content for the CCR. water quality report. disturbance notifications. really A lot of public outreach assistance we had also built in a couple more updates for the board and formalizing that clients plan and assistance with applying for a loan. George Uveges: and this would be physical 26 Project. correct. correct. Correct? And that is not in our current budget. right? Tom Holder: It would be under contracted services. George Uveges: I knew I understand where it'd be under. but that wasn't the question. Tom. Question is. do you have enough money in your budget to do this? And the other things you had planned.
Unknown: it will be. yeah.
George Uveges: So something said. get a gift. Okay.
Kirsten Ryan: Okay. lastly. let's see just wrapping up here. Yeah. I didn't. I don't know if there's this. I don't. I don't remember if you have a fall town 2025. town meeting that these are just questions for discussion. For that. you know. spring. obviously. I know you're putting in capital requests in the near term for the spring appropriation. So just it is an aggressive timeline that we laid out. and the cost would be rough approximations. But you know. the trade off of kind of delaying overall progress would be higher long term costs and regulatory burden. potentially and possible public concern. So these are just some things to consider. And I think that's all we have. Men. Tom Holder: As you can see. this is a significant issue. significant effort required. significant cost. You know. we wanted to get this information out to the board to to brief you on what this is all about. And so. you know. we'll be planning on how to pay for it. how to staff it. But it's not optional. So it's one of these things that we have to we have to figure out. Kirsten Ryan: well. I guess we probably should have mentioned that. You know. with the federal government changes. there was some thought that maybe that certain elements would be rolled back. or whatever. but they the Trump administration has a firm support for this rule. This they have come out and said the EPA has come out and said they are not going to roll this one back. Did I say that correctly? AJ. yeah. yeah. Unknown: And then we also know that the state. Massachusetts. is planning on also writing the same regulation into their own state regulations. and mass DEP could make some of these requirements a little bit more stringent. So we know. at a bare minimum. the LCR requirements established by the federal government need to be met.
Kirsten Ryan: Yeah. yeah. We did have an earlier slide that the replacements have all have to be done by 2037 so there is. there is quite a timeline in that helps. help cities where they have. you know. 1000s of these things to deal with. right? If there's a handful of them and it's feasible to just deal with them. You know. it's something to think about. so
George Uveges: a lot to take in. Kirsten Ryan: Yes. I know it's George Uveges: very informative. Okay. Tommy. if you go through this at all with Mike McCall Tom Holder: in passing. so he needs to have a better understanding of this as well.
George Uveges: Okay. questions by the board ADU. Unknown: So my understanding is that so far. we have found zero lead. Is that have Tom? I guess maybe there's a Tom question. have we looked at all of the municipal buildings. the school buildings? Is that in the zero?
Tom Holder: Now. I recall in the inventory. there were 12. What was the 12 that we had to do? You remember? What if you want Unknown: to see your locations? George Uveges: What is it about the galvanized?
Unknown: Yeah. the galvanized. right. damn. Are you asking where the GR locations were? Tom Holder: Yeah. I just and trying to was. I don't. I don't know. particularly. you know where these locations are. but Kirsten Ryan: I don't know off the top of my head about the schools. I mean. I just want to clarify. though. that we're talking about the the regulation covers the service. where it comes from. the meter. I mean. I'm sorry. from the street and to the house to the meter. It doesn't cover the premise plumbing. which is the plumbing internal to the building. George Uveges: but it does cover from the street to the house. Kirsten Ryan: Yes. that's service. Yeah. Unknown: okay. And there also would be. there may not be. there might be daycares. but on your existing lead and copper sampling plan. there would be a couple schools at least on that list and which samples are being taken. Is that right? Tom. Don Don Millette: Yeah. correct. So. so currently. right now. under the current rules. we're required to take two samples from two different schools. and we do it on a rotating basis. Typically. I'll. I'll rotate the town. Buildings. the town schools. and then I will have a separate list of rotating for the daycares in town. Unknown: And so far. we have not found lead. Is that correct? Correct? Don Millette: I mean. we've been sampling. you know. for lead and copper my entire career in the water industry. And. you know. like here in Wayland. you know. currently. right now. we. we have never violated the 90 percentile rule. So that means. you know. out of the the. I'm sorry. out of the 30 required samples that were required to take. you know. you basically figure out your 90th percentile. and that number cannot exceed the state and federal. you know. lead and copper level.
George Uveges: I am now confused. but that's okay.
Unknown: What I'm trying to figure out is that's a non answer to your question. Judy. are we going to have a really big problem? We're going to have a very small problem. And if all the municipal buildings and the daycares and schools are tested on a regular basis and they all pass muster. whatever the current rules are.
Don Millette: it's really these unknowns. Well. it's. it's. it's really the unknowns. you know. And and those unknowns are most likely going to be in the old. older areas of town where. you know. galvanized pipes were used. you know. like back in the day. you know. And those. those are the ones that we're going to have to investigate. George Uveges: Don you're testing. though. is that lead in the water? Or were you testing for lead pipes on the property? Don Millette: We we sample the water for for lead. am copper. George Uveges: So okay. but that's different. You know. if those pipes have not started to breach. you might not pick up anything. Don Millette: yeah. but this is all part of the same program. you know. yeah. it like Unknown: they correlate pretty much. George. yeah. if there was any lead pipes. those samples would most likely come back. But again. it's. it's the risk of the lower action level. And then. like. Don was saying. to calculate the 90th percentile. there's like. a whole new protocol that would get you might maybe closer to getting close to that lower action level. And that's where the Kirsten Ryan: risk. I mean. the town does implement corrosion control. and the new water facility will. you know. as well. So that's that's that's probably why you haven't exceeded anything. and in combination with there may perhaps not be any lead in the system. But I guess to your question. Judy. with six. about 60% of everything classified and only having found 11 or 12 so far. you know logic would dictate that. hopefully you're not going to triple or quadruple or have 10 times more. hopefully you're only going to maybe double that amount. Unknown: and that y'all are curious to the public facing map on the town website that'll show you Kirsten Ryan: actually got it up right now. Okay? I can show you.
We can see it here. okay. so. for example. the orange color is. is a galvanized and
Unknown: then if you zoom in. Kirsten Ryan: you gotta zoom in to like the individual. So this is Sherman Ridge Road. The customer owned side is galvanized. Unknown: And again. this is based on a very conservative. rightfully conservative assumption. in which. as you can see here. even though the system side of that service line was plastic. we can't prove that that galvanized service was ever downstream of any lead. And again. galvanized pipe ever. it was never. never. sorry. never downstream of any lead. And so we can't ever galvanize pipe typically would act as a sponge for lead. And that's the conservative approach. Is just getting it out of your system.
Kirsten Ryan: It tends to. when you're zoomed out. it blocks like several parcels at once. usually. Unknown: yeah. so if you see multiple points here. you can continue to zoom in. and that'll show you. and also mean that there's. there's multiple services going to that single. single property. George Uveges: yeah. the one that you just had up. did that say it was a government building?
Kirsten Ryan: It's not going to say at the 139 Boston pulse road. I don't know what George Uveges: it says. System. own material. government. Oh. galvanized. I'm sorry. yeah. Unknown: is there a call? Color for unknown. Kirsten Ryan: yeah. unknown is green. Unknown is green. yeah. non lead is like. we know it's not lead. okay? And if you click on it. and if there is information. it'll say copper or what have
Unknown: you. no. And then Judy on the unknown ones. we do have an option where. obviously. if the customer can help to identify what their material is. they can they can directly access their own inspection form and submit that information to us. Or if it's incorrect. they can also do that. Okay. thank you.
George Uveges: Okay. when we test the lead. do we also test the AC? Are
Kirsten Ryan: you asking us? No. we're not. We're not looking for that. I mean asbestos cement pipe. You mean. Unknown: yeah. the aspects month is worse than live. Kirsten Ryan: I don't. yeah. I don't know if the system has any water mains made of asbestos. Meant. I've never heard of service line made of asbestos cement Tom Holder: was Don still on. was I? Yeah. Don Millette: yeah. So we. we have less than a mile of of AC pipe in town. and we do sample. we for asbestos. I believe that's coming up later this year in the fourth quarter of our sampling plan. So we will be pulling a sample this year for that.
George Uveges: Okay. anything else we need these folks to go through to scare us? Oh. one more thing. I think I know the answer. but to any of the deadlines for the LCR Compliance would that affect any of our borrowing for the water supply project?
Unknown: So I guess you elaborate. Kirsten Ryan: that's a Tom question. Yeah.
Tom Holder: yeah. So if I understand the correct question correctly. does the results of our lead inventory and all of this work impact our ability to get the SRF funding? Yeah. is that what you're asking? Mike. yeah. I mean. and you know. and I'll answer this briefly. but then I might just kick it right back to to Kirsten. is that as part of the as part of the SRF funding program. we have to meet. you know. particular criteria. ensure that we're operating our water system properly. and the work that we've done. performing this inventory and embarking on phase two of The program. we are meeting all of the expected requirements. and we're on par with with what the expectations are to meet the lead and copper rule revised and improvement. So what we're doing will ensure that we're able to to meet the SRF requirements. Unknown: Okay? Thank you. Yeah. George Uveges: The only other impact it could have that I could see is if it was so huge. it would impact our ability to service this and the loans. And I don't see that coming out of here. I
Yeah. anything else anybody has? Okay. we thank you very much. Tom Holder: Thank you all thank you. All right. thanks. Kirsten. talk soon. George Uveges: Bye. Thank you. And Tom. have you signed up for the this proposal. the 70. whatever it is. $8.000
Tom Holder: I'm preparing to Yes. I have it in my desk. Okay.
George Uveges: all right. Next topic is the agenda. the water Enterprise Fund budget. funding motions. Mike. it's your motion. Did you want to start? Michael Wegerbauer: I can start. But I. I had mentioned to Tom that I have kind of a hard stop at 730 or at 740 so I'm not sure we'll be able to finish this tonight. I can. at least I did simplify the motions so I can share those. Is on my screen. If I can figure out how to do that. let's see.
So these motions are simply to ensure that we have a voice and how. how we're managing the water enterprise fund right now that I feel has been taken out of our bailiwick a little bit. and this is these two motions are basically just to firmly bring us back into the mix when it comes to making financial decisions about water enterprise fund. So the first is a motion to request that we designate retained earnings as a funding source for the operating budget in an amount equal to the contingency expense dollar amount. This is how it was designed years ago. This how we set it up with Louise plus any anticipated xx excess projection for retained earnings above the target we set at the beginning of the year. What this does is the deal ours main concern has been with our stated revenue budget in our in our operating budget article. and the reason it's been overstated is because we intended to use the retained earnings as a funding source for the contingency expense. That's how it was designed. So we've been overstating our revenue budget. And when we met with them. they really didn't have much of a problem with our balance. our retained earnings balance. they didn't mention that at all they had they said it was going to be a quick meeting. because we said Tom may or may not join he was on vacation. They said. Well. I think this is going to be very quick. I had sent them an overview of our rate setting process. including the amount of our expense savings each year for the past. I think. four years. and they noted that our expense savings was in line with our lower revenue. So they didn't have a problem with our rates. the rates that we set this year. So in any case. if we bring this back in line. as you can see here. from the outset. when we started. when we added the contingency expense line for every year that we had the contingency. contingency expense listed in our budget. we match that as using retained earnings as a funding source. So it's just to put that back in place. plus any projection where we might be above retained earnings. dor will be very happy. because our budget for water revenue will be lower and will likely hit that most of the time. So that's that's number one. Number two is. in more recent years. we found that finance staff. or FinCom. I'm not sure who. but they were. instead of borrowing for large capital acquisitions. they were putting that on water revenue. not even retained earnings. They were asking us to increase our revenue for that one year to pay for a capital expense. I don't think they understood how that would affect our ability to set rates. or the requirement it would put on us to set rates much higher in that year to cover a long term capital expense. So this makes sure that they would have to come to us to get our approval to use something other than debt or borrowing as a funding source. So none of this restricts restricts the town from choosing a path it just firmly puts back in play our decision making process and our approval and as water commissioners. this is our responsibility. So these are the two motions. I've simplified them a bit as I mentioned. I can answer any questions folks have. And because this. this needs to be sorted out before the warrant is approved. we've got some time. It's not as though this has to be decided tonight. and that's why we put it off a couple times because it's not super urgent. We've got a lot on our plate. Okay? George Uveges: Thank you. Mike. I mean. I sent out some information. Mike says it's a my opinion. but I look at it more as information. I like to. Go through. Can you turn off your sharing please.
Michael Wegerbauer: before we go into it? Does anyone have any questions about about that. or any comments? I know George is against it. so we're going to hear the cons. and I'm not sure why. why he's against it. but.
Unknown: okay.
George Uveges: I tried to go through and provide information in terms of what reality is versus some of the things that have been thrown around. The first big surprise that I got was in terms of the free cash required. Now the information that we had today will change this fiscal 29 with the MWRA in the RSF. because the timing is going to be different. So I don't think this increase is going to happen. but I'll have to go back and check. But the real issue is here. because
Michael Wegerbauer: free cash for the water Enterprise Fund. George Uveges: yes. yeah. free cash for the water Enterprise Fund. The issue is that we the way we have set up our fees. or our we call it the rates for the fees for the water usage. We've got that increase in 27 built throughout the year. But the problem is that will be borrowed as part of the town's borrowings. and we will have to make that principal payment in the fall. being. normally November of 26 which is fiscal 27 even though we've only collected four months worth of so we're going to have a shortfall that we have to cover. Now we haven't had that before. because our interest expense was not as large as the cash balance or free cash balance that we had. So we're able to cover those interest payments. But as you'll see on that sheet. the amount that we're going to have to fund. we will not have the cash collected from this. and we may have a problem of a shortfall and not be able to service that debt if we do not increase. let alone decrease. that amount of free cash. So that's the first issue. George. Michael Wegerbauer: Can we just clarify some terms? We have a fund balance. and we have retained earnings. and you're talking about free cash. which is something I hear in the town side of the of the budget. but I have never. we've never discussed that. At least I haven't. George Uveges: It's just another term for the cash balance. free cash. Michael Wegerbauer: if you remember the fund the fund balance. or the retained George Uveges: earnings fund balance. not talking about retained earnings at all. this is cash on hand. cash we have to cover the expenditures that we have throughout the year. Michael Wegerbauer: So what does this have to do with our ability to make these decisions? These are strictly to ensure that we get to weigh in on these decisions. It's simply stating clearly that we get to do our job what we were voted to do. George Uveges: No. it's not Mike. It is Mike. You're setting it the with the part of the part of the expenses be paid by retained earnings. but we are going to have enough retained earnings anyways. We've got to significantly increase the rates to cover this timing difference or cash flow difference in terms of your debt service payments. It doesn't recognize the reality of life. Michael Wegerbauer: Our retained earnings have gone up every year. George. every single year it is I have. okay. all right. I I do not have time at this point. That's why I said I'll start it. But I don't think we're going to decide it tonight. And I really asked the other board members if. if you could please look into this. And we are diametrically opposed on this. George and I. and to me. it seems straightforward. This is just giving us the ability to make decisions that we are authorized and responsible for making. George Uveges: It sends the wrong message. Mike. this is your sheet on retained earnings. and you'll see it's basically flat. We had one year where we had a good year because of covid. and build more water than we have in any of the other years. and that gave us a push. but basically your retained earnings and your cash balance is basically flat over that time period. There's no build. there's the numbers. Michael Wegerbauer: There is a build. I can share my screen with the numbers. but George Uveges: this is a sheet from the town. This is. My sheet. This is the information from the town. Michael Wegerbauer: I don't know what you're looking at. I don't see anything on the screen. Nothing out there. George. there's been nothing up there the whole time you've been talking so George Uveges: okay. we haven't done it should be Hold on. I've got it up on mine. So let me see what we got here. I
Michael Wegerbauer: Matt has shared what our retained earnings balance has been year after year. and it's increased. And everyone has that sheet. and it's shown an increase. So I'm not sure where you're getting this new information. but George Uveges: well. it went out to everybody. It was in their package. Michael Wegerbauer: okay. but we went through this model with with Matt for many meetings in a row. and it showed an increase in retained earnings. steady increase. So.
Unknown: So Mike. you can't stay right. so maybe we should move this. Michael Wegerbauer: I think. So. yeah. yeah. thank you. Judy. so George Uveges: luckily. that's
Michael Wegerbauer: okay. all right. So. yeah. I'll send out to Tom that the updated motions that I just read through. and we can look at it next meeting
tonight. right I am George Uveges: then I I think you need to stay and we need to talk about this right now. Michael Wegerbauer: We're short players. Mike. come on. The game must go on. George Uveges: Well. we all but the broken ribs are keeping me on the reserve list. Michael Wegerbauer: Yeah. hopefully you'll be back soon. Hopefully. Unknown: All right. good luck. Mike. but not too much. Thanks. Michael Wegerbauer: Thanks. Take care. Bye.
George Uveges: Just so that
Tom Holder: are you unable to share it? George. percent.
George Uveges: I'm having real problems just even staying on Zoom. so hold on. Got too many things anyways. in the pack. in the in the package. in the that you have the packet. there is a sheet that talks about retained earnings. okay? And I don't. does everybody have their print out from the package? Yeah. I have it open. Okay? You can see the there's two lines. One is your fund balance. okay. and the other is your retained earnings. And I apologize for some reason I can't get there on here. Tom Holder: is this the sheet that has the bar graph on the right top? George Uveges: Yes. it is. Okay. yep.
Unknown: Yeah. page 34
George Uveges: I don't have a page. I don't have the page numbers on here. but it's it says water enterprise fund beginning fund balance. Tom Holder: yes. that's the one. It's got a bar graph. yep. blue and red bars. yes. George Uveges: And you can see that the fund balance at the end of 20 was 1.000.005 and is 1.000.004 at the end of 25 so basically flat. your retained earnings is a million. Oh. 44 to million. 151. so it's up about $100.000 for five years. So that's what I'm talking about. I mean. it's been fairly flat. and the benefit came in 21 where we had the large increase. because you can see it went from one four to one eight in cash. and from one zero to one three. and that was the covid years. So you know. when we talk about it being built. that you know that's not what's happening. So I'm just trying to get the actual facts in this.
Tom Holder: Come on. We are seeing a screen. It's the Zoom invite I know
George Uveges: I apologize. this is not
Unknown: what I'm trying to do. Any
George Uveges: idea I do I have to leave the meeting and come back.
Tom Holder: I mean. We can hear and see you loud and clear. I just don't know if. if that. if the Zoom connection is prohibiting you from sharing a screen. George Uveges: Yeah. I have no idea. But anyway. so that's. that's the one. Now. the second thing is. you know. we talk about the fact that. you know our expenses are always underneath. are always less than the actual what's been budgeted. But if you take a look at the sheet that has the financial summary. you'll see that what it doesn't include is the encumbrances and liabilities. and that wipes out most of that difference so you don't have that. I think I can share maybe this one. Tom Holder: Yeah. this is the one that says financial summary in the top left.
George Uveges: Do you see that? Nothing yet. I
Unknown: I don't know.
Michael Wegerbauer: I give up. all right?
Tom Holder: Something's happening here. George Uveges: Yeah. I'm going crazy. I'm going out for a drink. Hold on.
Tom Holder: Now we have the acrobat reader screen. and you got more than I do. So. yeah. I just figured I'd let you know what we're seeing. I
George Uveges: I don't know if you have it. but it's came out in the packet from Anita on Friday. Unknown: It's page 36
I'm looking at something that says financial summary. Yep. I have to look at it sideways. Yeah. Did we lose George? Oh. there he is.
Maybe we should make this one of the first items for the next meeting. because we have other topics tonight. right? And George. we can't hear you. George. you're on mute.
George Uveges: The problem. we can do that. but people better understand that. The problem is we're sending a very mixed message to the board. a Select Board and the Finance Committee when we talk about these kinds of things at the same time. we're asking them to underwrite a lot of our cost. So we'll. we'll put this away. but please read the information that I've given you. look at the inserts. because what you're being told is not necessary. The facts in terms of. he doesn't have all the information. and I've shared it with him. but he doesn't want to recognize it. like the encumbrances and liabilities. the fact that. you know. we historically have not made our net number because of revenue shortfall. And I think Tom You told me that three last three years. we've used some of the contingency. which means. if you adopted his promotion. you would be reducing retained earnings for that. So just keep in mind that I am not a little bit opposed. but violently opposed to this. because it sends the wrong message and the information is not correct. That's why I talk about the timing and the appropriate reserve levels. Tom Holder: Can you see? Unknown: Oh. there it is.
Tom Holder: I know we're wrapping up the discussion. I. I just figured I I gave this a whirl. and so I was able to to find. I'm not sure if there's. if there's anything you wanted to recap. George. yeah. you George Uveges: can. Thank you very much. You can see here. here. we've lost money. We made money there. But if you see at the bottom of that schedule. that's because the town gave us. Or $200.000 for consulting fees that we had budgeted. So if it hadn't been for that. we would have had a loss. and we just basically broke even in 25 Tom does a good job if he sees the revenue shortfall. which is this line right here. where. what are you looking at? See it says revenue. Budget Variance. You can see that most of the years we are significantly short and making our revenue target right here. right the only time we didn't is in 21 where we had the actual results from the covid year. we'll pump more water than we have in any of the other years. So. you know. we just need. I mean. we. first of all. we have the right. okay. and no disagreement with Mike on that. We have the right at any time when we set the rates to go through and use retained earnings and put that into warrant. that's our right. but sending messages to the town in the Select Board that we're going to dictate it. versus doing anything on a consulting basis with them. especially with what we have coming forward to me. is just crazy. to put it bluntly. So I will get off my box soapbox. and there you go. Tom Holder: there was the other one you were referencing. Yes. George Uveges: you can see. this is the sheet. and you can see. this is your cash level. and this is your fund balance that I'm talking about that we need to have for cover the payment of the debt service when it comes it comes through. because we're on the water tower. it's a 26 expense. our first payment. it's going to be borrowed in 26 and and we're going to talk. when we get to a different section. about what we might be able to do. But that debt service is going to be in November of 27
November of 26 in fiscal 27 and we've only collected four months of the 12 months worth of the rate increase. so we've got to have enough cash to pay that debt service.
Tom Holder: And was this. this line in yellow George. which is the certified retained earnings. which you get from the finance department. Is this what you were referring to when. when Mike was still on the screen. when he was George Uveges: talking about. we build it each year? Yes. and that's not a build each year. And this is not my schedule. This is from the town. Unknown: So this goes to FY 25 and you were talking about FY 27 is that correct? George Uveges: Well. I'm talking about in 27 we need the cash to do the debt service. because there's a sheet in there. if you can find it like that. has the it's called free cash required.
Tom Holder: Which which screen are you talking about? George Uveges: George. I'm sorry it says should. should be free cash required. Tom Holder: Let me just see what encumbrances I'm going to scroll. Let me know if you there's a handful of here. Just stop me if you see the one that you're referring to.
George Uveges: it wasn't in the package that went out. Oh. I'm sorry. okay. yeah. it was in the one that I was been working on and finally got the information I needed. Tom Holder: Oh. the municipal account one. George Uveges: well. it was with that. but it's called free cash required. It was in the three that went out. Tom Holder: Yeah. I can
George Uveges: Tom sent those out today.
Tom Holder: Yeah. with me one minute here. I
uh. free cash analysis. George Uveges: yes. uh. free cash required. yeah. but the Tom Holder: yeah analysis. yeah. yep. I got it all right. Bear with me here.
George Uveges: I'm sorry. folks. that I got. I think I had too many things open. There's a problem. How about that? Yep. can you make that a little larger at all? Let's see. And if not. don't. okay. that's better. So what. what it is. is that we have got debt service. and we're the debt. We don't borrow it. The town borrows it. and we make the payment. They use our cash to make those payments. And when I talking to Brian. got some schedules for him. What happens is that you pay the principal and one interest. Payment in November or in the fall. and you make your second interest payment in the spring. So you've gotta have enough cash on hand to cover that. And so those two debt services is the 1.000.002 53. that's the cash that we have to have on hand. I'm sorry. that is the cash we have available. Let me see go back.
Okay. start. We need 2.2 million. You see under total right here. Yeah. right. no. up on top the under fiscal 27 go up to Oh. yep. got it. yep. yep. okay. and go right here. total. right there. Yeah. that's the quorum required. Out of that. we're going to have collected 756.000 and this is all work in process. I've sent it to Matt to look at. so don't view this as gospel. but the the information is the same. So we're going to collect 756.000 that means we need 1.000.002 in cash to cover it. We don't want to use all retainer and all free cash that we have and go to zero. So we have to have some amount. So I use 15% and that you can just adjust that to whatever you want. Means that we need $2 million roughly. of free cash. and we have 1.000.004 at 630. 24 so that would give us. we need an increase of about $600.000 so that's what we have to look at in terms of using that cash amount. We can't we can't just consider it as available for losses. because it also has to be used as cash to fund our operations. that's the message.
So please look at the sheets that were sent out for this. both in the packet and in the other three sheets. I've asked Tom if he could send that other three sheets out as a supplemental package. and we're going to work on that so that everybody has it. But that's the thought process. The second part of that the MWRA. I have to rework. because he gave us different information in terms of the timing of when those payments would be due versus the normal town debt.
All right. so apologize to my problems with the shares Guys. Tom Holder: yeah. we got through it. Unknown: No worries.
all right?
George Uveges: Okay. status of the capital project. I'm not even going to try. Tom. could you put that sheet up that did go out in the package. Tom Holder: in the in the packet? Yep. All right. Bear with me. It's going to take me in A moment to find it in.
George Uveges: I. if you can. we can just everybody has it. should have it as part of their package in front of them. So. yeah. Tom Holder: if you want to start talking about. I'm trying to shift gears and get that back up on my screen. George Uveges: Okay. talks about three. three areas of. actually four areas of new debt coming through. This is not dual source. net. This is all the column. if you remember. in terms of the model. it was called new debt. Other than dual source. you've got water mains. water tank. MWRA is. And other and this is what's driving those There you go. This is what's driving that increase in terms of the interest in interest expense. So there's two things to take away from this. One is that we've got risk. obviously. in terms of the any cost increases coming through on this that would drive up that interest. Interest expense. The interest rate that Matt used was 4% in 26 and 5% in 27 and on. So we possibly have some upside in the interest expense for that. But most of the dollars. as you'll see. are coming in in 26 the life of most of these items. because this does not include the equipment purchases. which he also has in there. is 20 years. So it'd be 20 year financing and equipment normally is five years. So the debt service in 26 of this is 1.2 million. I'm sorry. 27 because it's being borrowed in 26 and so the one of the things that we can look at. if we have any flexibility with the town. is the timing of when this is going to be borrowed. and if it could be pushed into the next year. That provides us a little bit of time to build up enough cash to help fund that as it comes due. Because again. this rate increases. You remember. is billed into 27 not 26 and so depending on when these are going to be done or paid. in 27 we will not have other than four months collected when the first payment has to be made. So that's part of the requirement in terms of the additional cash.
And when the you listen to. I don't know if anybody listens to the FinCom discussions. You know one of the FinCom members wanted to know why. what we do with the money? Because the water is free. and that's not a truism. This is where a lot of it goes.
Questions. you understand the point I'm making here? Do I need to clarify anything? No. it's all very clear to me. Judy.
Unknown: I'm getting tired. and this is all swimming in my head now. So okay. Is that making sense to me? George Uveges: Yeah. look at it this way. you got a credit card bill that's due on the 15th. but you don't get paid until the 30th. That's what. that's what we're talking about.
Unknown: So it looks like with it's 8 million in 2026 is that correct?
Tom Holder: You're looking at this figure right Michael Wegerbauer: here. right? Yes. yeah. And
George Uveges: the biggest part of that is the water tank. right? So if any of that can be pushed out a little bit. so we don't have to borrow the money in 26 and have the first payment in 27 it provides us more time. Tom Holder: But I think that that borrowing will be happening as early as November. because that project will begin in the spring and will be completed in the fall of calendar year 26 so I think that if that borrow occurs in November. I think the debt service will hit in fiscal 27 George Uveges: they borrow before when the project starts. Is that the idea? Tom Holder: Yeah. because we have to have. we have to have funds to be able to execute a contract. Okay. yeah. So it's either a ban or a borrow. And I know that Brian is doing a borrow in November. I believe that these items are loaded into that George Uveges: Okay. so that's why the first payment is going to be in November of 27 when we would only have. I'm sorry. November of 2626 2727 No. 2626 Tom Holder: next November. Yeah. yeah. calendar year 26 right. George Uveges: And we would only have collected four months of that increase at that point. So we have to have cash on hand to cover the other eight months until it's repaid over the year.
And that goes back to the prior comment about why we need free cash or cat cash balance. Okay. can I clarify anything? Or Judy looks like she's saying. What in the world is going on? Unknown: Yeah. I'm I'm a goner. sorry. Let's move on. I don't want to hold everyone George Uveges: up. All right. Well. if. So you look at this. and if we need to check. just give me a call. You and I can talk individually. We just can't get a group. Unknown: right? Gotcha?
Tom Holder: Okay. come for pizza on Thursday.
Unknown: Pizza and spreadsheets. Okay. there we go.
George Uveges: Okay. and the next one. I don't know if you can put it up. This is the schedule on that went out today on the potential impact of the water rate increases. water rate analysis. v6
and this is. this is a started with what Judy had asked for and then expanded on it. And basically this is what Mike McCall had asked for. saying. Okay. tell me for various users. what the impact is on the various levels of the user and what? So what we've done is that Tom people and Sarah did a great job in coming up with a number of accounts. total water Billings and average bills at the various dollar levels. Okay. that's the first three columns. Unknown: This one I get you should it's yours. Okay. George Uveges: And then we go through we get the impact of the rate increase for other debt service. happy hollow. MWRA in total. Because again. the finance committee wanted to get the breakdown between happy hollow and the MWRA versus having it combined. So we broke those out. and footnote B and C gives you the percentage of those. then that gives you the total increase. and then you get your projected average water rate bill. So for example. as a residential you have 85 accounts that have an average of $4.000 as a billing. contrasted to 2700 Dave. an average water bill of 271 on the top line. So the increase is $200 for the lowest level person. and 3000 Oh. 25 for the highest billing. taking the highest billing to 7100 and the smallest building to an average of 500 and then we do the same thing with commercial same thing with municipal buildings. And one of the things that's interesting on this one is and Tom and I have talked. I am a little suspicious about the municipal rates that are being used. because I'm sorry I'm not being built because it seems low to me. You know. there's only an only $7.000 water billings for a year for municipal water usage. So Tom is going to investigate why that is irrigation is about 27.000 for 21 irrigation sources. and Tom says that's because most of them don't work. So that's why that's lower. And then we have schools. which are 34.000 Which to me also seems a little bit low for 12 meters. you know. an average of $3.000
you know. you've got a lot of people that are more than that. just for their residents. and you've got a number of school buildings and students. So that's again. a question. And then we have some common meter accounts where they're tied in for condos or your housing authority. which is an FHA. and broke that out in terms of those. So that gives you your picture in terms of your averages for the different users. And then if you go. you go to the next page. Mike. and so with the next page is I just took those amounts to show the impact of the increases from these based on each type. for municipal. municipal irrigation schools. and in total. Because. again. this is something that is going to have to be paid for by the town as they go through. And you can see it's about a $51.000 increase in terms of their water Billings. And that's assuming that these numbers are right. which they may not be. I don't know. I'm just. shall we say. my suspicious is up. Tom Holder: and we will. we'll follow up and make certain that these are accurate. George Uveges: yeah. and this is information we've never had before. so and that avoided Judy for asking for it and for the work that Sarah did. Tom Holder: Yeah. it was. it was quite an effort to get those figures together. George Uveges: Yeah. If trigger. that's 10.000 billings that she had to sort through. because 5000 customers and two buildings a piece. And by the way. the total of that comes pretty close to our revenue for water usage. Remember that this is based on billings. and that's based on collections. It was actually closer than I thought it would be. Questions. this help you. is this what you think they're looking for? Anybody still waiting. That's good stuff. Yeah. no. still here. It's good stuff. I'll buy Sarah a slice of pizza on Thursday.
Unknown: Um. well. I'm with you. George in that I'm I find the numbers awfully low for the schools. Um. does seem a little strange. George Uveges: yeah. especially because schools are billed at Tier rates. I'm told. whereas municipal are only billed at tier one rates. no matter how much water they use. which is something that we need to take a look at. Tom Holder: But now that we have the format and she's got the formulas locked in now we can take a closer look at at the actual raw data and make some changes if we find some some things that are not reported quite right here. George Uveges: So I do software should help with that too. right? Unknown: So I assume that the municipal buildings in the schools also have the new meters. They do.
George Uveges: It's a matter. I think. of capturing those. First of all. is everything metered? Is the first question. And then second is. are those meters covering everything in the building. or are we getting the proper reads on those or something else going on. We don't. I don't know. We don't know. Tom Holder: Yeah. I mean. I can tell you that everything is metered. It is very likely. almost guaranteed. that the meters are located in a place whereby that's they're capturing all the consumption. I think it's going to wind up being. you know. data manipulation. When we take a look at. you know. where the raw data is coming from. George Uveges: let's not call it data manipulation. because that has a bad tone to Tom Holder: it. Yeah. not being a data analysis. yeah. George Uveges: the accumulation of the data. yeah. yep. And the the other thing on this and the rate impacts with the want to bring in here the dor that discussion. I think Brian was we can take that down. Thank you. Yep. Brian was very surprised and pleased at how it went. Basically. they said that they would. they understood what we were trying to do. And that was the new meters. and moving to a quarterly instead of annual billing to give us volume an increase in terms of the Billings. because by going to quarterly. you'll get one extra billing of a quarter in this fiscal year. Okay. and so that should give us a boost. Now how much of that boost is. I don't know. and I couldn't model it. but it should be significant. So we'll have to take a look at that. And while you know. we had a good meeting. they said. We hear you. but we don't. We try. We we're going to make sure that our trust is warranted. We're going to follow up with you in terms of how this goes. And so I've talked to Tom. and I think what we should do is have at each of our meetings a little financial summary of where we are in terms of the Billings and cost against budget to see that where we're trending. Because I think he's. I think I was told that the our total billing so far for the two months is only like $10.000 higher. Unknown: When does the quarterly Bill start? Tom Holder: You're jumping the gun. That's the next agenda item.
Unknown: Yeah. what I would I could tell Mike Spellman really wanted to know. I've got Tom Holder: the answer. January 1. George Uveges: Okay. that's. that's the target date. Yes. yeah. So we will see. But let us say that Mike. that Tom and I have had this discussion several times. That Fair. fair. Okay. any other questions on that? No. Unknown: So you said that the schools are paying the tiered rates. but the municipal or buildings are at the flat tier one. George Uveges: I believe that is true. right Tom Tom Holder: that that's the way it's. Things are set up currently. yes. Unknown: and the irrigation is at tier one. So not. not to be. you know. sketchy here. or anything. but if. if we at least build them at cost. how would that impact our rate increases in terms of residential? Would it? How much would we be able to not increase on residential if we get the municipal to pay at least. I don't know. cost of water? Well. they do Tom Holder: that. That tier one. George Uveges: $6 it cost is about 11. right? So. but the problem is that their volume is not that high. So even if you double it. I mean. you're talking about what. 7033 you're talking about $30.000
Unknown: Yeah. I'm surprised by how low it was. but I guess that's one of the things we want. Tom Holder: Yeah. okay. George Uveges: they are on the hunt. but one of the things I want to be careful of is nobody decides that this is a witch hunt because we don't think we're getting what we want. So we're looking for how we can punish them. That's not politically smart. and that's not what we're trying to do. We're just trying. at this stage. trying to understand and then see what makes sense for all users. Unknown: Right? Agreed?
George Uveges: All right. anything else on that set helpful? We'll. we'll. we'll keep trying to refine that. and we'll come back and Tom will start to present us with the actual results versus budget every month going forward. Unknown: Thank you very much. Really appreciate all the hard work. Tom please let Sarah know. Tom Holder: I will pass on. yeah. and this. and she's got support from from some of the others in the office as well. I'll let them all know. but yeah. George Uveges: tell her she they all get a big star. Okay. am I? Tom Holder: Am I? Yeah. So we are. Middle of September. We're about 88% complete. and that's based upon the number of meter installs. You know we are. as you'll look back on the progress reports each month. we're starting to slow down. The meter locations that we're currently having installed are the the more difficult ones we're having to. you know. reschedule. trying to seek opportunities to get into people's homes. you know. So this is. this is expected. It's pretty typical of a meter replacement program. It was forecasted that we would be significantly complete by October. completed with the project in December. So I I still feel we're in a good place. but that gives you a sense of of where we are with that. Bear with me as I look at the agenda some of the things that I was going to talk about. So the water usage trend I've been talking over the last couple of months in comparing the routes that we're billing and we're doing a comparison on what we've seen as water consumption back when we had the old meters installed. comparative to when the new meters are installed. and the first month was route one. we looked like we had about a 7% increase. Route two. which was in August. it looked about flat comparing 24 to 25 route five. that just went out. is a combination of commercial and residential looks like it may have actually decreased a bit. We were able to to get and compile these figures today. so we'll. we'll be taking a look at. you know. is there any particular things that occurred this year rather than last year? Are there. you know. commercial vacancies? Are there accounts that there's a reason why they would be lower. So we'll. we'll be taking a look at that. but it gives you a sense. It's not consistent. It's not. you know. we're seeing the same percentage increase each particular month. George Uveges: And we also have to keep in mind it depends on when those meters were swapped in exchange for the billing period. So for example. if your billing period was January to June on six months and you got a new meter installed in May. well. most of it billing water usage was from the old water meter. So that has an impact too. plus the the fact that we have the uh. Sprinkling band. which we had last year too. You know. we may have more compliance this year. Tom Holder: Who knows? Yeah. yeah. And. you know. as I've been providing these monthly update reports. you'll see each route how many meters are being replaced. you know. so it's not. it's not consistent. You know. the the installers are going from one route to the next as they progress through the program. So it's that also has an impact. And so it's not an apples to apples comparison. George Uveges: Yeah. we won't get a real read until we have a full billing cycle with the new meters. yep. Tom Holder: But I do understand. you know. we're trying to get a sense of. you know. because we were predicting. at least expecting. you know. a 6% increase overall. So just trying to get some affirmation that we can actually achieve that. but remains to be seen. George Uveges: Yeah. and what we may have to do as we take a look coming towards the end of the year. seeing how much of that we're actually getting. and an estimate of what we think will pick up from the going to semi annual Billings and the cash flow that we're going to need for debt service for the other debt and happy hollow. Do we need to look at a rate increase in January. I hope not. but it may be the only choice that we have. because we can't have more cash going out than we have cash in the bank.
Tom Holder: Yep. something to consider.
George Uveges: We'll make this real popular. but
Unknown: no Christmas parties for you.
George Uveges: Sorry. they just throw stuff at me. Anyways. the column headings when it says hold for Tom. what does that mean? Tom Holder: And I was hoping Don was able to stick with us for the remainder of the meeting. Was I think he had a better sense of that. I really. and I've worked with mass installation on on these columns and the figures that are actually in some some of them are actually populated. There's some redundancy on these things. but there really is no hold for town that would imply that we're holding them up that there's some things that we need to do that that is that's not the case. So I wouldn't. I wouldn't pay too much attention to that column. Okay. getting. getting back to. you know. Judy's question about the quarterly billing. you know. as you correctly stated. our target is January one. so that would be the. you know. the third quarter of this fiscal year. We've been working with staff. We've been working with Matt Abraham. trying to get an understanding of. you know. the revenue that would be expected as a result of making the transition to quarterly billing. some of the things that we need to contemplate and we have to work through in the coming months is. you know. selecting the particular routes that are going to be in each monthly bill. You know. we're going to likely have two routes within each month. So say. month of January would be routes one and five. February would be routes two and six. and then. you know. in March would be three and four. and then you would start again in April. one and five. So making those determinations. we also. when we set new rates. Munis has a proration capability whereby. you know. in July the bills go out. you know. 1/6 of the bill is the new rates. five. six is the old and then in the August bills. it's. you know. two. six are the new rates. and four. six of the old rates. that kind of a thing. So we have to work through that proration. We also have to figure in what we're calling a rate factor. We have to be mindful that if somebody the way that the semiannual billing went out. if they were to have a bill period that actually extended past the three months or the six months. that would cause them to be fall into a higher tier. you know. that wouldn't be acceptable. so we have to be mindful of that and and be able to implement. you know. what we're calling a rate factor. Obviously. the tier thresholds are going to be reduced in half. going from semiannual to quarterly. as well as the base charge. you know. would be. would be half. just like you do for commercial now. right? Exactly. commercial or quarterly. So it's so those things. So those are the. some of the considerations. all the things that we have to work out. But. you know. we've got. we got a couple of months to to work through it. That's why we're thinking January is a a. Solid target date. we should be able to get ourselves prepared and organized to have a relatively seamless transition. George Uveges: Yeah. the only. only feasible way you may be able to do it is after you issue the six month bill. then go to quarterly. Otherwise it may be too complicated for the user? Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah. Well. that's and that's why. and we got to obviously make certain that these considerations that I just listed out are. you know. how do I say implemented in munis. so that all of this. you know. is done correctly. George Uveges: Yep. it's the last thing we want is to implement this and then have a lot of billing errors. Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah. And. you know. obviously we're not the first. you know. municipal community to do this. There's a lot of experience out there. and so we're. you know. gathering that lesson. those lessons learned. George Uveges: Yep. Okay. Questions? Anybody? No. okay. Sherman bridge. Tom Holder: yeah. wanted to provide an update. I know we had a couple of folks you know under public comment voicing their concerns. Just gonna. you know. tonight. George Uveges: just. I think they're still on the line. She Tom Holder: they. they were patient enough. They stuck through beautiful Yeah. So I just. you know. a couple of talking points. just to give a kind of a broad overview of where we are with this. You know. we received bridge inspection reports for all the town bridges from MassDOT. Recent Sherman's bridge reports have indicated that the condition of the bridge is severe and that the repairs should be made a priority by the town mass.is now performing more frequent inspections due to the deteriorating condition of Sherman's bridge. as Joe had described earlier in the in the meeting. You know. town staff make frequent repairs to the bridge deck that involves the replacement of these these timber deck boards. as he explained. you know. these are special order. They're. you know. atypically sized. They're very large timber pieces. But. you know. we have the ability to get them. One of the primary issues that we're having right now is the fastening lag bolts which hold the deck boards in place. could no longer be anchored to the stringers underneath. They just. there's nothing left to bite. They've those boards have been replaced so many times. There are also a number of other required repair components that involve the in kind replacement of the wooden sidewalk that's there in place. the wooden rails that are. you know. included with the bridge edges. as well as repaired to a number of piles that are indicated in the most recent inspection report. the towns plural. Sudbury and Wayland have engaged the Engineering Corporation tech as well as capital strategic solutions To perform the design and public outreach activities to to assist with that. There was an intermunicipal agreement that that's been signed executed between Wayland and Sudbury. and that formalizes the shared project responsibilities. The one favorable item that we learned was that Mass DOT has offered to purchase the repair materials and perform much of the repair work within their contracted services arrangements that they have. The value of this is in the order of a million dollars. without which. you know. would be born by the respective towns the report. the proposed repairs are mindful to preserve. you know. the wooden historic appearance of much of the bridge. but the proposal does include Mass DOT recommended installation of an asphalt service. you know. to the bridge deck. And I. I know that's what folks have the most concern about. And so you know this will having an asphalt service. one of the one or two of the primary supporting factors of that is. is. in essence. it doubles the repair lifetime. and it provides for some conservation of entities that that we've learned from meeting with both the Conservation agents from Sudbury and Wayland. We have arranged because we understand that this is an important topic. and there are folks that are impassioned about this bridge. So we have arranged for a public forum that's scheduled for Wednesday. October 1. It'll be located at the Sudbury Community Center. whereby town officials and project engineers will provide an overview of the project and be able to hear public comments. So we're pleased to be able to do this. It's really a formal. Uh. opportunity for folks to appear. be heard. get their concerns played out. and we'll be able to answer questions and and have a much better understanding both sides us and the residents on. on. on what needs to be done there at the bridge. So I would encourage folks to to join us on October 1.
George Uveges: Okay. the comments about speeding across the bridge is that it is there a possibility of putting a speed bump in the beginning and end on each each side of the end. each end of the bridge. so that it slows people down. Tom Holder: So I mean. that has been a traffic. you know. kind of mitigation thought that we are not supportive of. We get periodic requests to install speed bumps. speed humps throughout town when folks are concerned about speed. and there are a number of logistical problems to equipment. to response times. to drainage aspects that cause us to we are not supportive of speed humps. but there are. you know. traffic mitigation ideas that could be implemented that would at least address that concern. George Uveges: When I used to travel to Europe. it was interesting. Their speed bumps. they they were. they could put out in the spring and take out for winter. and so it wasn't a problem with plows and those kinds of things that way. Tom Holder: Yeah. seeing that. yeah. I mean. I have. and we've actually in some communities that I've worked at. We've. we've tried them. and they've become problematic. the condition of them. that kind of they become. you know. pretty poor the condition of them and trying to manage and maintain and replace them. It's. it's. it's not that. George Uveges: not that practical. All right. so so much for my ideas and what I know. no. okay. where the Tom Holder: listening and hearing ideas is what this is all about? George Uveges: Yep. Okay. so that meeting is October 1. right? Yeah. Tom Holder: So I would encourage you know obviously residents that we've got a web page established Sudbury is actually hosting it on waylands. DEP W project page. Those you click on it. it brings you to the project web page. We have door hangers that are being distributed over the course of the next coming days. just advertising this forum. So we're doing as much as we can to advertise this and encourage participation. George Uveges: Good. Anybody have questions? Okay. slowly but surely. Tom Holder: what I would ask is that. you know. in the coming week. I'll pull the this board membership. because if we do have a quorum attending. I'll need to post it is a public meeting. Okay? Good thought. George Uveges: Transfer station.
Tom Holder: I'm going to defer to the DPW superintendent. You're up.
Joe Doucette: All right. Be easy. George. It's past my bedtime. You and me both. George Uveges: I'm drinking water so I so
everybody should add in their package the transfer statement. P L from last year. And I've asked. Tom. do you have the comparisons that are listed in the agenda. in the RFQ? So that's our items for this one. Tom Holder: So go for it. So Joe Doucette: it's pretty simplistic. It's just it. It showed what calendar date from the periods from six. 123. to 910. 23 listing in 2023 sticker sold. Was 1401. 2024 was 1504. George Uveges: I'm so we don't. we don't have this anywhere. Do we? Joe Doucette: This is information Anita provided to me today. George Uveges: Alright. so well. you talking about like is we thought we would have had. oh. I thought Joe Doucette: maybe that's what she had put in there. But. George Uveges: no. I don't think it went out. Got it. So what are we? We're having sticker sales. Joe Doucette: So these are full sticker sales. This does not include second stickers. trailers. etc. or replacements. These were just full sticker. Sales towed. Sold to. let's say residents. 2023 was. and this is to the date till September 10. just to give you an idea. George Uveges: So July one to September 10. June Joe Doucette: listed at six one. So Tom Holder: yeah. that's where we start. We start selling stickers for the next fiscal year on on June 1. that is correct. Joe Doucette: Okay. okay. so 1401 in 2023 1504 in 2024 and then this year we're 1264. ouch. Unknown: So it went up in 2020 it
Joe Doucette: actually went up in and now we're hit some reality. I think.
George Uveges: And what's. what's the price of a full price sticker. 200 so that's
Unknown: Roughly. what is it Joe Doucette: two. what is it 264.
Unknown: $52.000. $2.000.40
Joe Doucette: I see 48.000 but George Uveges: well. it's 1504 to 1264. right. Joe Doucette: correct. You're George Uveges: probably right. So
Joe Doucette: it's 240 stickers. Four 800 Yeah. 48.408
George Uveges: Yeah. 48.000 Joe Doucette: Yeah. 48 48.000 sorry.
George Uveges: and that should make life interesting. because. remember. we don't have a subsidy from the town this year. because the 50.000 that we got from them is for the consulting project.
Joe Doucette: We do. we do have the reserve fund. yep.
And we do. you know. obviously. I'm assuming you've talked with an either or what the value that is currently? It's $303.000 George Uveges: as of June 30. Yep. that was on the sheets he sent us. Yeah. Now. if we take a look at the results from last year. Our total revenue was the 554. 76 but in there. and I'm not sure the what the 75.000 transfer from the general fund. So that would be like I did this wrong.
So roughly about 475.000 of revenue. Our expenses were 513
so that's about a 40.000 hour loss. roughly. I'm doing this on the seat of my pants here. So. so that Joe Doucette: well she had for carryover budget of last year. going into this year. 44.400 deposit. That was in the positive. but that was included. like you said. the 75.000 included. George Uveges: yeah. I'm trying. because that's not reoccurring revenue. So if you take the 550 less than 75 is 475. 476.
Joe Doucette: and we did carry the George Uveges: encumbrances over too. Yep. that's. that's. that's an improvement. We. I appreciate that. And our expenses were 513 with the encumbrances.
and so we lost roughly $38.000
Unknown: what are tipping fees? What does that mean?
Joe Doucette: Go ahead. George. George Uveges: that's the cost to have it picked up and taken to the incinerator. right? Tom Holder: Those are just the disposal costs for both both recycling and trash. Okay?
George Uveges: So the problem is that if we lose the. The 48 I'm sure we've got some increase in expenses. We're gonna take a nice chunk out of the 300.000 because we'll be looking at a probably 80 to $100.000 loss. Joe Doucette: I think we'd be better obviously. looking at this after the first quarter ends. yeah. when we could sit down with you. or. you know. bring you in and sit down with Anita. and we'll go over the quarter quarter reports. George Uveges: And I think we should. every quarter present those to the board. because with the request for the consulting and the pressure we're going to get from the finance committee. Think it's important this board be informed about where we are as we go through
Joe Doucette: and just an update on the RFQ that that has been given to the changes you asked for have been included. and it's with the assistant town manager who's handling the procurement for that. So that's in her hands currently. Is that gone out for two people? It has not gone out yet. She's still editing it and just. you know. boiler plating the information. And I think we were going to discuss or have a committee formed or a group form to discuss that. once we have it. yep.
George Uveges: and you should make sure that there's somebody from the FinCom on that.
Tom Holder: Yeah. Do we want to talk a little bit about the membership. you know? And it's not on our agenda to vote or anything like that. But I just. I'm interested to hear. you know. obviously we can. you know. have associated staff be a part of it? Perhaps a member of the Board of Public Works. you're suggesting a member of the FinCom. I recall Klaus was relatively active at one point on this topic. whether or not there's a desire to have him. you know. on the selection committee. review committee. and then also if there's a kind of a body that is actually going to kind of work work through this with staff entirely up to but there's some. some thoughts anyway. because. you know. once. once this goes out. we're going to have a. you know. a deadline date of. probably. I know. three weeks to a month. George Uveges: Yeah. no. but I think. I think I would be asking. I think Klaus is a good idea. And I think somebody from FinCom. if they could appoint somebody. You may get some resistance there. and then somebody between Mr. Spellman and Judy from our board. and you know. somebody from your staff and Joe. probably five people.
Unknown: So what surprises me? You know. just. just as a balancing thing. I was talking to someone who was concerned about water rates going up. and I said. just as a ballpark figure. your average homeowner. we're probably looking at $400
in terms of the water rate increases. And I said. here's one way you can save about four to $500 is to stop using your trash pickup and use transfer station instead. And if you include the $200 a year cost to use black earth. which is part of your transfer station services. you would be saving even more money. And the answer I got back was. oh. but that's so much more. Like you complain about the amount of money that you don't want to be paying for clean water. but you you couldn't be bothered to take your old trash out. So. I mean. people wanted their cake and eat it too. So it's a little discouraging to me. yep. George Uveges: But you know. hopefully what will come out of this is somehow where we can tie the two in together. And. you know. there'll be things that the trash service won't take and I can understand I would. I have no desire to have to haul my trash down there on the Saturday when I'm out playing golf instead. But if there are things your trash company won't take. you know. putting something in so it works. so you could take it to the transfer station might be much more acceptable. because it's not like calling your uh rubbish. but yeah. you know. I think that's part of the change in the community in terms of what we were 30 years ago and what we are today. Mm.
Tom. does that answer your question? Is that Sure. between those two. somebody will volunteer? Oh. Mike's leaning forward. okay. thank you. Mike. absolutely. Unknown: I'll be there. Tell me when and where. Tom Holder: All right. well. I will. I will solicit participation from the other groups that you were referring to. and I can reach out to Klaus and see if that's something he'd be interested in joining. George Uveges: I think he's still on the audit committee. isn't he. I believe. So. yeah. so he could be their representative. because they're the ones that started this whole question. right? Okay. okay. so anything else on transfer station? Tom Holder: I think that's what we had planned. George Uveges: Okay. any board member concerns?
Unknown: None here. No.
George Uveges: all right. minutes. any changes to minutes?
Unknown: No. no.
George Uveges: Okay. the only thing that I had is on page four. It had under scope of work. under transfer station. You're going to follow up with Abby Shuto regarding a question of solar panels. Tom Holder: So it's really difficult to follow up with Abby chute. she left the town. but look. you know. but in knowing that. I heard back from Mike Faia. who was the facilities director. and they had solicited a proposal from Ty and bond to assist them with the evaluation of installing solar at the at the landfill. And apparently. that effort did not get a lot of traction. I'm not really sure how to how to characterize this. but there really hasn't been any further activity relative to investigating solar at the landfill. George Uveges: Okay. because I was thinking that also ties to Judy's comments about the solar at New happy hollow. Because if you can't get it there. you know may not be enough space and availability to make it worth somebody worthwhile to install
Unknown: geothermal. just to keep that in mind. especially with the new water treatment plant to lower operating costs. George Uveges: where would you get geothermal? Well. you're you Unknown: have to dig George Uveges: right? Well. yeah. but there has to be thermal underneath somewhere.
Unknown: I'm not the expert on it. but my understanding is that it's. it's readily available. I don't know Mike. Do you know
Mike? Do you know anything about geothermal? Kirsten Ryan: I know it's pretty much everywhere. Yeah. Unknown: it's. it's not. it's not rare. George Uveges: Could we do that as a transfer station? Do you think?
Tom Holder: Well. I think it's. I think it's generally used for. actually. the heating and cooling of a building. not so much if you're thinking about using it to run the compress. you know. the compactors and stuff. It's. it's just for climate control. really. you know. So there isn't a whole lot of that at the transfer station. Unknown: Okay. yeah. it sounds great. George Uveges: Use it for generating electricity. okay. well. something new. Talk to Kleinfelder and see how much money we have left in the budget. Because I'm sure. I don't think somebody is going to come out and pay for it and sell you the proceeds over and above their cost recovery. Tom Holder: I think. you know the way it works. I think the equipment. because I've. you know. don't have direct experience. but I've heard of others that you know. the the equipment that you would have within the building is pricey. but then you have to do kind of the the long term cost analysis to see whether or not the reduction in your heating costs. how long of a payback period that would be to offset the increased cost of the equipment so it's it's something we could certainly look at. yeah. George Uveges: including the debt service cost. Yeah. Okay. anything else on that?
Unknown: No. I. Yeah.
George Uveges: okay. In terms of the minutes. I'm sorry. not minutes. but the meeting dates. Tom Holder: Do you want to I'm sorry to interrupt George Uveges: a vote. yeah. yep. Can I get a thank you for keeping me out of trouble. which is a full time job in itself. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes. please So Judy seconded. Mike Spellman. seconds. roll call. vote. Judy aye. Mike Spellman. Aye aye. Ed aye. George I moved 400. I zero. okay. dates of the meetings. One of the questions that I asked is if we're going to have to add any meetings for the warrant article and the decision on the financing of the dual I'm sorry the new new debt. other than the dual sourcing. Do we think we're going to need to have another meeting between November 18 and December 16. Or can we wait on that? I'm just concerned that the warrant and everything else that goes with it is going to tie us up somewhat.
Tom Holder: I would. I would think. if you know. if we wanted to discuss this again at the October 21 meeting. I think that that. I don't think we'll have a better sense on what the the agenda load looks like for. you know. for the remaining meetings. and if we have to slip something in between. or if it's a joint meeting between Select Board and FinCom. like we've been doing. we could. we could slip something in? George Uveges: Yeah. I'm. I'm thinking that. and that's fine. I'm thinking we're going to have some significant discussion about the financing. and need to be tied in there before the war goes to press. Tom Holder: And that there's. you know. one other group that you've. you know. may or may not be following is that there has been a capital project committee formed. and they have begun meeting. and it's their mission to learn and vet capital projects and schedule them on a five year capital schedule. Yep. you know. So that'll be a stop that I'll be making talking about what we have planned and. you know. So I think that there
was response and some of their decisions will impact what our capital plan looks like. George Uveges: Yep. okay. and obviously they you need to bring them into the loop on the lead pipe discussion. correct. Okay. all right. so we'll leave it as is topics not reasonably anticipated. 48 hours ahead. Anybody have anything? Tom Holder: Staff have none? Unknown: None here. Nope. George Uveges: okay. Can I have a motion to adjourn. please? So move so Judy. moves. Ed. seconds. roll call. Vote Judy. yay. Mike. yes. Ed. Mike. yes. And George. yes. adjourn. Vote 400. thank you. And again. I apologize for the problems I had with the sharing the screen. Take care and I appreciate it. George. good night. Unknown: All right. Good night all.
Capital Improvement Planning Committee
10-15-25 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee01:43:36
09-30-25 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee02:07:27
9/9/2025 - Capital Improvement Planning Committee01:26:15
Kelly Lappin: Okay recording in
progress chapter two of the acts
of 2025 this meeting will be
conducted in person and via
remote means, in accordance with
applicable law. This meeting may
be recorded and will be made
available to the public on
WayCAM as soon after the meeting
as is practical when required by
law or allowed by the chair.
Persons wishing to provide
public comment or otherwise
state in the meeting. May do so
by in person attendance or by
accessing the meeting remotely.
As noted above, we request
public comment be limited to two
minutes per person,
Unknown: Tom older who is an ex officio member depw Director, and Carol Martin was on there, but dropped off. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so Tom ex officio member is participating via zoom. Kelsi powers is attending in person as an ex officio you. Ex officially ex officio member, are you not presenting? Okay? All right, and then members of the voting, members of the committee here are here in person, myself, Kelly Latham, Brian ARPA, he Brad Carver and John Klein, Unknown: manager joined and Carol Martin.
Kelly Lappin: All right. And so we also have Carol Martin with our Select Board Liaison here on Zoom, and Michael McCall Unknown: Tom manager on Zoom. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so I'm gonna review the agenda for six o'clock. Via are they? Unknown: Robbie, are those three? Can we move at least the two ex officio members? Are they full participants? Kelly Lappin: Oh, it looks like they're
Unknown: just you bring them over to full participant status. Kelly Lappin: So Michael and Tom, it's up Unknown: to you if you want to invite Carol in as a participant versus
Kelly Lappin: you can invite Carol over to she'll still have to ask to be acknowledged. All right, so agenda. We've done the call to order. We're reviewing the agenda. We'll do announcements in a minute. So 605, public comment and members response. 615 review and vote to approve the minutes of our meeting of September 9. 625, review existing capital information, which is primarily from the warrant and address any member questions. 725, summarize and discuss capital relevant information from the financial presentation made to the Select Board on 924, 740, review draft capital and DEP policies under consideration by the Select Board. Those I believe, Brian, you know, have been approved by the Select Board. So we can flip to the to the approved ones, and then 750 topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair. 48 hours posting and setting the time of our next meeting, and we should adjourn hopefully by around eight. And times are approximate, Unknown: as is order Kelly Lappin: Fay, so any announcements from any members, I'll start Brad, okay, all right, good, and then we can go into the agenda. So let's start public comment. Oh, sorry, nope. So public comment, do we have anybody else online? No one else in there. So soon, there's no public comment, right and now we will move to reviewing and approving, vote to approve the minutes of September 9. So Brian had sent those out right after our meeting. Did anybody have any comments edits to get Brian on those, what changes. No need to discuss. So can I get a motion to approve those second All right? And so you could just do an All in favor, right? All in favor, aye. That's everybody. We're good.
Unknown: I wouldn't say I, but I
Kelly Lappin: Okay, those are approved, and now we'll move to reviewing the existing capital information. So I had sent the committee members whole bunch of existing resources, things that were already out there, most of which were from the warrant, as well as some other items related to capital. And so I asked everybody to do their own homework. I know I bombarded you with a ton of stuff, so I understand if you didn't look at every single thing and under you know, got it all committed Tom. Right now, but want to start with, if anybody had specific questions about any of those materials, we'll try and address and if not, and we just want to do kind of an overview between Brian and I. We've got enough experience we can talk through the landscape to give you sort of that baseline understanding of what's not necessarily every single project, but how does this right capital come together and how does it work? So start with questions. Unknown: I don't have any particular Bradford Carver: questions other than I think, because I'm new to this, I don't have the financial background you guys have, I think, an overview of how it works, how the sausage is made, yep, would be, would be helpful for me to put everything in context. Kelly Lappin: Sure I would expect that anything else. Unknown: I had two specific questions, and I may have just missed it when I looked at the budget, how are grants shown in the offsetting capital requests? And if they are, and the other is just, I think, how is carryover? We didn't spend it, we didn't finish the project in the prior year. How is that shown in the budget? Or is it Kelly Lappin: good? Questions? So grants? Brian, correct me if I'm wrong. Usually the request at Tom meeting, if there's it depends on the type of grant. Michael, you can correct me too, right? So in many cases, we have to appropriate, as a town depends on the grant, but we have to appropriate the full cost, right? In some cases, so like reimbursement for the schools, we appropriate the full crop, the full cost, and then we get reimbursed, because it takes some time. So most of what you see in the plan, I can't think of very many that are in the plan right now that we were discussing or anticipating grants. The only one that comes to mind is snake Brook dam, which we have talked about definitely more that there's a couple that definitely had it that had grants in the write up,
Kelsi, I was just gonna say if you look to the 2025 warrant item number six, which is a stormwater Asset Management Program, this one is actually a reimbursable grant. So we had to put up the money upfront the 206 950, but the town anticipates being reimbursed for 124,001 70. So that's when it comes to all the lot of the grants, especially with capital. It will be like mentioned within the description and justification, or if it's fully grant, it would be under the total funding sources, which is listed on pages 48 and 49 of the annual town meeting. It actually breaks out all the summary of the funding sources. So if there are, if it's like a front loaded grant, where they give us the money in advance to pay for whatever capital it'll appear on there as as part of the funding source, if it's a reimbursable grant, such as item number six, usually that comes through in the description and justification of of the information that's being given to us by the department.
Unknown: Particular item that you're mentioning, Kelsi, this water item is a good example for a different reason. It was not in the five year capital plan the finance committee got pretty well along in its review of the fiscal 26 capital budget and the five year capital plan. And the Tom holder, who's online here, DEP W director, came to the Tom manager and the Finance Committee and the finance director, and said, Hey, we have this opportunity to get whatever it was, 40% 60% reimbursement from the state, but we don't have this in our plan or in the capital budget. Would you consider? Can't remember if we had already voted it and we had to reopen it. But that's an example of there's a plan, and then there's exceptions to the plan. In that case, you know, getting a good chunk of what otherwise going to have to get done paid for by the state, certainly there's a good rationale to bring in. So I think that particular one is a good example. On the the other one that Kelsi and Kelly mentioned, the state Brook dam project has been lingering around for three or four years. It had an initial appropriation from the town meeting two or three years ago, it was inserted into the fiscal 26 capital budget. At the same time, the town had submitted several grant requests, both state and federal, and have been unsuccessful through several funding rounds. And then, you know, we got it approved at town meeting, so in theory, they can move forward with project, but they were still hopeful of getting state. In federal money, and in fact, the state just came through with $884,000 and I'm not sure how likely it is, but there's they're still holding out hope that the federal government might come through with a good chunk of that other million four but at some point they have to get going on that project, because there was also part of it funded with ARPA funds, and those funds have to be spent by the end of fiscal by the end of calendar, 2726 I mean ARPA, American rescue plan Act funds federal government back. And so you had to commit it to certain projects that were qualified, and then you had to go ahead and then spend it no later than the end of calendar, 26 so the town manager is working with Conservation Director and trying to make sure that things get going so we don't, you know, lose The ability to use the ARPA funding. And think they're either going out or have gone out to bid, or hopefully final cost estimates for the project. We went out to bid last week. Okay, so it remains to be seen whether that whole bundle of money is going to be sufficient again over the last number of years, there's plenty of examples where the project gets approved, really get done in due course, and then they can finally get the estimates in and inflation, whatever competitive bidding environment they've got to come back to town meeting for more, more money. So hopefully, hopefully there's enough money that's now been approved to get that project done. But so it's an expanded answer to your question, but it's an example of it's covered a lot of areas. It's an example of the fluidity of process, despite the objective of trying to lock in a plan. So going back to the budget, does so does it have to be approved, assuming we won't get the grants in all cases? I think Kelly Lappin: it depends on the you can correct me, Kelsi or Mendel. It depends on the type of grant, right? So if the grants already approved, and at the front and front loaded, and it's, I think it's possible that we could do an article without right, with that subtracted, but if it's a reimbursement, you have to Unknown: do it, yeah, okay, so in the budget, unless it's up front, we would assume the full cost is in there. So the reimbursement then goes into the free capital budget, yeah. Where does it go? When you get it, it gets matched against the capital project and whatever funds have been appropriated through borrowing or use of other sources just don't get used, right? I guess I might go in that right, assuming it could be a year later that project closed. Is it just want, like, I'm just more from a budget? Is it washed in the budget, or does it actually get it close to that budget and reduced? Kelly Lappin: So what happens is we do something called capital close out. So when the project's done, and I've been managing the capital project since John a capital project since John Bugbee left as the former assistant manager, if there's any monies that is left over, it gets released. So I send a memo back to Brian Keaveney, and it some it appear sometimes that money, I don't know how he held it, because in my mind, it just goes back to the general fund, but, but it depends. So some of it is is earmarked as like surplus capital. So you can see in the summary for funding sources, especially for this so we had surplus capital, so unspent funds from completed capital projects in the amount of 590,000 zero, 42 so some, in some cases, it'll just go back to the general fund, which then just gets appropriated as free cash the next year gets certified, or it gets held over and is used again to pay for more capital projects in the intervening years, and is noted as surplus capital. But this surplus capital doesn't explicitly say what projects it comes from. It just kind of sits in its own and it depends what the depends what the original funding source for a project was. The funding source is debt, right? You can't then take that, that surplus and use it on a project that's not eligible to be DEP, right? So if there is some matching, that has to happen, but usually that comes from the finance director, right? When they're doing capital budget to say, hey, here's the projects that are getting closed out. Here's where the sources of close outs on how they can be used. Unknown: So again, last year, if you look at the in the warrant on page 36 there's the, at least the anticipated motions that were to be made at town meeting under the omnibus budget. Uh, operating a capital budgets. And Kelly's point, in addition to just surplus capital, which Kelsi was alluding to, we had surplus bond proceeds that require, if she said, very specific uses. That is, they have to be projects that would have otherwise qualified for debt financing at the same term. And again, the finance director has a lot of input and into what it could be used for. And so, you know, there's more on the back end. I mean, I assume that's thoughts that we basically deal with, unless it's extremely Kelly Lappin: deal with it if it's available. So I would say we don't plan for it, right? So when we're because, when we're in, we're going to be looking at capital projects. We're planning for it. We can't plan on the fact that there's going to be surplus from other projects. So I think that happens. Typically, it's at the tail end of the process, like, we've got a plan together, and then there's some, hey, we've got surplus we can use it for for this, and take it out of whatever we were gonna we're gonna propose, my experience has been more often than not, it's been last minute emergency projects that have come up and you've needed to rejigger so you've used surplus capital Unknown: to help Close the Gap. Is that a Kelsi? Is that, I assume the finance director, sort of annually goes through that analysis with department heads, trying, trying to end the school department, trying to get a sense, because, like, three years ago, they closed out over a million dollars of projects that were done. And at these excess proceeds have been appropriated to Kelly's point. They then got used to fund that year's capital budget. The next year, I think it was only, like $50,000 or something. And then last year, it was $590,000 and so I'd assume, as a process policy, you know, I would think we would least want to know that that is happening. And I think last year, the finance committee was given the camera was an Excel spreadsheet or from the Tom accounting system. But there was an analysis, literally at every capital open capital project, of which there were 8090, projects. And then had across the page to be closed out, and then kind of accumulate up all those amounts. And each of those close outs require either a department or a committee to sometimes have to vote that it's done, done, and they are giving up those proceeds. But it makes no sense to have that usable capital sitting around. So hopefully that'll be just part of sort of keeping an eye on the inventory of open projects. Kelly Lappin: Yeah, I, if I may, Madam Chair, yes, we try to meet, I try to meet with the department heads quarterly to go over that and to get their statuses of how, how the projects are going along, and if they need any assistance, and how much, if they think they're going to get any money back or and those meetings are also like to close out, because I have a couple of projects that are in the tail end, and just making sure that they're done, and when they're done, we can be done with it, with school projects. The school committee has to meet to close those out. So those can time. Take some time to allude to your point, but I do try to meet with the department heads that have capital on a quarterly basis to go over it. And if I have time, I try to meet a little bit more often than that. And then I report that back to the town account and final structure. And he does the actual Mach nation of closing out the process, and then I just keep the records. Unknown: So does it make sense to tie that debrief out to us when it's quarterly? Here it's a status of the projects, just from a planning standpoint. We know these are not voted on. These, these are closing to have up or down. What is the inflation threshold for not having to go back and vote? I know we talked about this last time. I just didn't write it down. Kelly Lappin: Oh, for not having to go back and vote. I don't know that there is an inflation threshold. It's if there's no money left, Unknown: right, you got it. Is there an overspend threshold? Or is it to the penny? Or the way Kelly Lappin: that it should work is that the overspend is built into the project that we had approved. Unknown: So I plus zero? Well, Kelly Lappin: I don't know that it's plus. It depends. I would say any major building project has has allowance in it for overages. I'm not going to say that every single Michael or Kelsi, you can speak to this, that every single truck that DEP W has on there has, you know, a certain amount of overage in their amount. But I don't think they it's not to the penny, not to the dollar, necessarily. Unknown: But is that in the approved amount, or is that, is they asked for amount and the actual request says, plus 5% okay, it's in the approved whatever amount we is approved in the plan is the amount. That's the four. And it's for a Tom meeting. Tom meeting is approving individual line item projects. So if you're over on one, you can't department like just pick on DEP w if the truck ends up costing more than was appropriated my knowledge Tom, you can correct me, they can't spend excess funds they have in another line item that happened that was also appropriated at some other town meeting. My knowledge that that's not possible. So it behooves everybody, as best they can to build in, certainly an inflation factor, contingency factors, but and mostly that's during the covid years, due to bunch of issues, the town got fairly behind on getting to and starting projects that got approved, and as a result, and given the passage of time, there were a number of projects that ended up it was clear they're not going to have enough money to tweet it, and so they had to sort of wait until the next available town meeting to go back and ask for additional appropriation. The fire station two is a good example where I think there was at least three the initial appropriation and at least two more after that. And part of that was passage of time. Part of it was unforeseen circumstances beyond the contingency. And there's plenty of those examples that have occurred when I was on the board of selectmen. It was around the time the public safety building was built, I think I stood before Tom meeting at least three or four times, asking for more money. And that's just not the way you want to Kelly Lappin: but one of the goals of having this meeting is that we hopefully have better right, with better control over that from a planning perspective, right? That it's planned for that projects being monitored, which Kelsi is doing, right, a great job. Can't say it was always being tracked quarterly. I can't even say it was being tracked annually. So staying on top of projects and making sure that they're moving forward, right, is going to help with that. The goal would be that we're not we're in minimal situations where we have to go back to the town and ask for Unknown: more money, right? Lisa, and it would be helpful. Of all of us, I suspect you probably have a bit more of the project management background, if I recall, from your resume. Yeah. So if there's things that you've done in the private sector that conceivably at least could be discussed here, it may not fit in the municipal world, given restrictions, but I know when we deal with financial matters, I tend to bring up things from my time in private sector, and again, they don't always translate into municipal finance. But, you know, I think towns should always be open to looking for different ways to go at these projects, to ultimately get them done efficiently, cost effectively, etc, etc, so and just have an accurate budget. I mean, I think that's the just know where the when the money's going, right. Yeah. Can I ask you that question? Then, yeah, this leads to laundry list, unfortunately. So from a budgeting approval standpoint, I just want to make sure it correctly. If we approve it for 26 gets voted and but in reality, the spending gets delayed to halfway, gets 27 as many projects will carry over from a budget standpoint, does that line and move to 27 and if so, when Kelly Lappin: no so? And I think I answer in two parts. One, capital is not restricted to a given fiscal year. So once the project is approved, that project can be done, conceivably, over any period of time, with probably some restrictions around debt and how you issue debt. But projects can and have extended far beyond when they were intended to be done. And Brian gave a good example during covid, right? Because of priorities on things that needed to be done in order to get buildings open, ADU freeze during covid, and also because, I'm sure you're fully aware right, materials that work hard to get extreme inflation in the building sector, stuff like that. Things got more delayed, but no, they don't have to be used in that year. One of the things we talked about in the capital planning working group before, when we were getting the article ready to go to town meeting, was the idea of when something we weren't necessarily doing publicly, maybe it was being done behind the scenes, but when a project's being proposed for approval at a town meeting that we have a schedule associated with it of when do we think this project is going to be completed? Certainly, big projects have big buildings, have that associated with them, but lay half an expectation for everything. When we expect to see this closed out so that we can have a little bit of accountability over it. But I think also kelsi's process of meeting with everybody is it also helps foster that. Like, all right, it's there. Why isn't it moving? Can we get it moving? But for the reason that that Brian said, I would like to avoid going back to town meeting, I would like the town to have to avoid, to be able to avoid going back to town meeting. The longer something goes on for, the more, the higher the likelihood you go back to town meeting, right? Because the longer it goes on for, the more likely the cost have increased beyond what you've beyond what you've budgeted and had approved.
Unknown: Can I add? So then, how does that affect the free cash, or the surplus cash that's in there, versus the DEP? Because I assume you're not going to take the debt on if the project hasn't started. Kelly Lappin: Yeah. So I think that was the second part I wanted to talk about. So I think maybe it makes sense to talk a little bit about funding sources, and I'm going to point you to page if you have the warrant open page 49 on top of page 49 just as a good place to start. This isn't the be all, end all, but it's a good place to look. So this was the FY 26 capital budget, summarized that box at the top by what the funding source was. And so thinking, maybe if we walk through each of them, and there's people that probably aren't on here, and talk about what they are, that might help a little bit. So borrowing, so debt issuance, you're right. So debt issuance, town meeting is approving that we do a capital project, and we do it with debt. The actual debt issuance is handled by the treasurer's office. So finance director oversees the treasurer's office in conjunction with the Select Board, so they're actually approving, right, signing the paperwork for the DEP placement. That doesn't necessarily happen right right away after town meeting. As I recall, we typically do debt issuances either November February, depending on advice from our financial advisor and the timing of the project. So we're not going to go out and issue debt if we're not ready to start the project, and it'll also come down to how projects get grouped, and whether or not we have cash to kind of pull things over on hand so that we don't need to issue the debt right away, because you're not doing it right every month. So there's grouping projects together. Unknown: A couple of sidebar comments there. There's two ways to finance the project. One is short term financing with bond anticipatory notes, which are generally interest only payments. And you'll typically use that type of financing where you're not ready to do a full bond offer. You don't have enough projects, enough dollar amount to make it, you know, economically feasible. And so, you know, the Treasurer and a finance director might, you know, and we have some outstanding now in town that'll partially fund projects to get them going. And then once there's a critical mass, as we're about to come up on here in November, a critical mass of water projects, for example. They're now currently partially funded with bond and participatory notes. Then long term bonds will be issued, takes out the short term financing is to when the financing long term is put on. I mean, so in the short term case, well, albeit, they could issue that whenever. They tend to also try to do that periodically, so they're not constantly in their grouping. So it's not for a project, it's just for that, typically, for a group of projects, Bradford Carver: right? But just so I'm clear just but it's for the full value of the project. Unknown: In the bond anticipatory notes, sometimes yes, sometimes no, when you get to the bond issuing the long term bonds, typically, that's the full authorized amount to borrow, unless there's been some change. And we have a couple of examples in the fiscal 26 capital budget that you know it's probably too detailed to get into tonight, but there are always exceptions. But just picking up on one of the points Kelly made, you would think that unless you're ready to go with Project, particularly when you're talking about issuing the long term bonds, it would behoove the town not to issue bonds too far in advance, because you obviously start paying at whatever 4% today, and you might be invested proceeds probably are being invested today at around 4% but if you look back three to four years, you might be paying two and a half to three and a half percent and making nine. Think so it's costing the town well. When the Council on Aging building was set to get going, there was 11 million plus or minus of bonds voted for that project. There's bunch of other projects grouped in and I think it was at least a year, if not more, before any of those bond proceeds got spent on the project for various reasons, and we'll talk about the DEP policy later, but it reminded me of an issue that came up with a public safety building years ago, where they had likewise borrowed in advance of spending down the money at a pace the federal law requires it. The tax code requires you to spend it down at and if you don't spend it down fast enough, the town has to pay a rebate to the federal government. And I recall back with the Public Safety building, the town actually had to cut a check because there's interest arbitrage going on between what the lower rates on Muni debt versus what you might be earning in a taxable investment, and it just depends on the markets. So I do have an open question out to the finance director on the Council on Aging bonding of 11 million because I believe it was sitting there beyond the point where it was supposed to be starting to be spent, and it's not my job to police that, but having lived through it many years ago, you know you don't want to have to wait for the arrest to show up at your doorstep and say, Yo, us money. So I think I think back to Kelly's point. When these projects get brought forth approved, having a good sense of what the timeline is, and that people are actually committed to getting it going, and they're closer to be able to do that now than they were two or three years ago, because there was 90 projects stacked up that needed to get completed. And so I think that's always the goal. Yeah, and there's some big projects coming down the line. That's why I say that there's where large projects in the 20 year schedule that could be over five or six years. I mean, you don't, you don't need to borrow that right away. Especially, think the market's gonna change Kelly Lappin: and you won't, necessarily. I think if we get to looking at the actual like DEP schedule, you'll see projects that got issued in pieces, right? That were bigger projects that got issued in pieces. So it is possible to do that. One of the things that Brian just said, I just said it at our last meeting, is the job right, that we're facing as a committee in conjunction with the town manager, right is not just how much money and where the money comes from, but resources to do the project. So one of the problems that the town definitely suffered from was appropriating funds for projects, approving projects that there was no way could be done in a reasonable period of time. And so that created the cycle of, we got to go back to town meeting and get more money. It's like, well, probably knew we weren't going to get this done for for three years, right? Why did we slate it that way? And there's reasons. I mean, I know Tom holder has told me before, right? Sometimes you need to have the project approved in order to start the process right? So there are reasons to do it, but that's goes back to if there's clear expectations at the outset of this is the project, this is the timeline for the project, then there's something to hold accountable to. And we're not in a situation of, I thought we were starting. We issued the bonds, and we haven't used any of it or Unknown: suffering the projects into preliminary, you know, do the do the assessments for the quarter million and then move on breaking it Kelly Lappin: into pieces? Yep. And Unknown: what we've seen in the last two or three years, because of what Kelly described, is that finance director recommended to the town manager, who then recommended the Finance Committee, even though the five year plan called for certain projects to be coming up for that particular year's capital budget, to just push them out, literally push other than life safety type thing. Push everything they push things out, like a year, push the whole schedule back a year. And so that that I would assume would be part of our review process. I'm not clear on whether we're reviewing or doing, but we'll talk about that some other time. Yeah, I think Kelly Lappin: right now, I'm just trying to make sure we've got enough foundational knowledge to deal with projects when they come in. So talked a lot about barring already. Unfortunately, I don't think we're completely done. So Brian differentiated part of the borrowing nuances. I think the other piece that's important to understand is that borrowing can happen in sort of, I think, three different flavors, right? One is within the levy. Yeah. And I'll talk about what the levy is in a minute. Second is excluded or outside the levy, right? And then the third is through self supporting funds. So probably going to get a little tricky, because when we talk about water historically, we would have said it on the self supporting DEP, right? The water fund is going to pay the payment on the debt. When we get to talking about MWRA, we'll probably flip that on its head and have discussions about whether or not that's self supporting, Unknown: maybe ambulatory. That was still positive, right? What was that ambulatory? And those service fees that we got Kelly Lappin: there? Oh, ambulance fees. Yeah, so that's another so that's not debt, but it could have debt. So that's another, another way, typically, though, I think the way we used ambulance fees before is the town took on the debt, and then the ambulance fund reimburses the town for the debt. So it's a little bit different than the water fund, where the water fund the debt falls under the water water enterprise fund, and they're paying the DEP, so little bit different. So the levy,
Unknown: yeah, keeping up on all this. And I'm going to tell Kelly Lappin: you guys the same thing I see at work, like we're saying it. Will say it as many times as you need us to. You can ask the question as many times as you want in as many meetings as you want. Okay, Levy. Are either of you familiar with the levy? Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna put taxes, Yeah, same taxes. I'm gonna butcher this, I'm sure. But I'm gonna try to do this simple, as simple an explanation as I can. The laws of Massachusetts say that the town cannot raise taxes more than a certain percent. That is a half percent plus new growth. I'm not, I'm not getting into the detailed explanation. I will. I can send you guys, there's a good presentation on the State's website that explains how the levy works, and I I can't do it as good as that presentation, so I will send you the presentation. But that's a constraint that the town has the fine finance committee and Tom manager. Everybody are going to face when they're doing the budget. You can get around that in a couple of different ways. You can vote, as a community, we're going to override. We agree as a community that we're going to do more than that, than that limit for a given year. For many years. Recently, the town hasn't been up against that limit we're we're running into it possibly this year, right? So it hadn't been an immediate issue, but it had been an identity issue, and at least in the time I lived here, which has been a while, we had had an override vote for that purpose. For capital projects, you can vote to exclude a project's debt from the levy. So it's basically like an over. It is an override, but it's specific to that project. So you're voting rather than voting to say, hey, tax, the tax levy can go up by more than than the limit, but would otherwise be allowed. You're saying the cost of this specific project is excluded for the life of the project. So you're taking that piece out whatever the debt service is for that project. You're excluding it from that limit. And does Bradford Carver: it have to be a capital project, actual physical product project, or can Unknown: it be to be excluded Kelly Lappin: the town, in theory, could do it for, I think, for anything, but we don't, right. We have a policy to have it be a bigger over a certain threshold. I can't remember. We used to say two and a half. I don't know what we what we're at, is it still two and a half. It's so over two and a half million projects that you would have in town that were done as excluded debt, big ones that I can think of the high school when it Unknown: was it's with respect to debt that's associated with a capital that's funding a capital project. And I think Kelly's saying that traditionally, the town has used that mechanism generally for larger capital projects, just because, if you had to include both debt services levy debt and excluded that both those debt services appear in the town's operating budget, but for purposes of not running into the state's prop two and a half limitation, any excluded debt service gets taken outside of that silo of calculation and then kind of added in, again, if you will, to what ultimately gets taxed to the residents for the period. Time that debt is outstanding, once that debt is fully paid off, that's been excluded, that override piece for that goes away. Bradford Carver: So for something like the NWA project, which I know is big on the horizon, is that something you could do through excluded debt Unknown: that's going to require probably a separate and probably not tonight, but a separate discussion, because there's different options for how to handle the paying of the debt associated with that project. Kelly Lappin: But it could Yes. There's a lot Yes, but it could Unknown: be excluded debt in a couple different ways, Kelly Lappin: and it requires so an excluded debt vote requires a vote here on building right? Taxpayers come out and vote, and it's 50% for the exclusion at the ballot box, yes, and then you're still going to go to town meeting and vote the project right, and debt is a two thirds majority vote at Tom meeting. So it's, a two step process, right? The first step is, is it going to be excluded or not? The second is, are we going to actually approve the project? Unknown: That rule is for generally, all capital, including this, MWRA happy hollow, well, project with one exception, which I don't want to get into tonight, but there is a special rule that's currently being debated by select board or considered by the cycle back to that also get it characterized excluded DEP without going to the ballot. Michael McCall: Yeah, you didn't mention, you mentioned those two steps, town meeting and the ballot, but there still is the vote of the Select Board, unless I missed you saying, Yeah, Unknown: put the question on the ballot. The Select Board has to vote. Board members have to vote in favor. Put a debt exclusive question on a ballot. It's a super majority and and so there's, there's a lot of you have to get over and the town, my recollection, having looked at the last 20 plus years of both prop two and a half operating overrides and debt exclusion overrides, I don't think the town, with one exception, which is the first go around in the high school, the town hasn't failed to pass a debt exclusion question of the ballot. And generally, when that happens at the ballot, since we generally voted before town meeting, you can do it after. It's generally also been passed the two thirds vote at town meeting on the operating side, which we're not talking about tonight, there's a different threshold to get it on the ballot at a different threshold town meeting, because you're generally operating but all these things are very, sort of specific, particular, and I'm not sure it's sort of this. It's important for you to have kind of a background knowledge of that. I don't necessarily think this committee is going to be involved in. Who's making what decision on what's excluded, we may make a recommendation as to what projects warrant using excluded debt versus levy debt, which traditionally has fallen upon the Finance Committee to do in the past, but beyond that. So it's important to try to grasp and as Kelly said, there's no doubt that we're going to have to come back to this and and if she can pass out to the rest of you the primer, I think that'd be helpful to kind of read through it. It's a video, whatever. Yeah, I think the important Kelly Lappin: part, because I agree with Ryan, I don't know that it's our right, we might make a recommendation. It's not our job to decide excluded or not. And at the end of the day, the cost the taxpayers the same. So it's it's dealing with, you know, override land and whether or not there's an override, but you're going to pay the debt service in either situation. So in terms of, can we bear the load as a town, that doesn't change. So I don't know that it has too much impact on what we have to do as a committee and deciding where it fits, other Unknown: than understanding, albeit it hasn't happened often in Wayland in the last 20 plus years. If you get a no vote, that project can still go forward, but it would have to go forward with levy debt, which would eviscerate the operating budget, right? Means the only way to accomplish that would be to cut services which are Kelly Lappin: poor, vote overrides every year and vote Unknown: operating different threshold, so which is also difficult. So what does it show in the summary for outside Kelly Lappin: the living so there wasn't in in this particular warrant, there wasn't that this year. We didn't have any excluded debt in this particular year. Unknown: Was it unusual to have free cash then as well? Is that kind of why? Kelly Lappin: No so free cash is ever so. Why don't we? We'll step through the rest of the categories and then go back to the ones that aren't in here. Unknown: We. Free cash is never free. I get it. That's taxpayer money. That's taxpayer money that's sitting in a reserve, right? Kelly Lappin: So free cash is taxpayer money that is sitting in reserve, which is essentially the result of either right under spending of prior year budgets or more revenue that came in than was anticipated in the budget. Right? Unknown: It could be sourced from Dennis. It could, it could have to be used for another debt project. Kelly Lappin: No free cash should be, should be Unknown: unrestricted, I think surplus capital and at some point it'd be helpful. You know, Brian, Kevin, he the finest director, be with us. But I believe surplus capital can initially be utilized to put against other like capital projects, right, right? And we have some of that here, if it's not, if there's surplus capital, and it's not utilized in that fashion, I believe it basically defaults free cash, defaults to free cash, but it's not restricted. It's not restricted for use capital projects. So there's a kind of a premium to try to corral that. You don't have to, but kind of corral that and apply it to new budgeted capital projects. Kelly Lappin: And the reason there's a little bit of a difference there is because if you could use it against you could match it against another project, you can use it right away without sort of affecting free cash. If it's going to roll into free cash, you're not going to see that. It's not going to get certified for another year, right? So there's a bit of a delay in seeing it show up in our in our financials. So, but once it's in free cash, it no longer has a specific restructuring on it's not tied anymore, okay, so that's where free cash comes from. So that is not you think about these borrowing is going to have an impact on the budget, because there's going to be debt service. How that lays out is going to depend on the debt instrument, right? Is the debt instrument a ban where it's just interest only for a period, so next year's budget's just going to have the interest piece versus a bond is going to be interest in principle, and it's a bigger piece. And getting further complicated. If you do a situation where you do a ban for your you might have to double up on your your principal payment in the first year. So that's going to affect how much is going into the budget in any given year. Is going to be based on that cadence of what those debt items are, how they were financed, what the payment on them is. So it's not it's not always straightforward. In many cases, if you're approving a debt project, you're not going to see it in the fiscal year budget that you're approving at that same Tom meeting. You're likely going to see it in the next meeting, depending on when they expect the issue so that all gets into what are you issuing? When are you issuing is going to affect when you see it in the budget, but ultimately, taxpayers are going to feel that in the future in their tax rate. Unknown: One other, this is something you've never had to deal with, I don't think. But another, I'm not going to spend a lot of time in it, but it's just it's ongoing right now. Free cat is likely going to be used with respect to the fiscal 26 approved Capital Budget Project, some of them to have the general fund for a period of time, roughly December, end of this year through June of next year, to fund about $6 million of those projects before fun anticipatory notes are going to be issued. And the benefit of doing that is that you don't have to pay any interest for that six month period. And still, your projects can go forward, but using the free cash in that fashion, which requires some paperwork and some accounting entries must be repaid before the end of the fiscal year to get it back into free cash, which then gets certified. And the town hasn't utilized this in recent history, if at all, but it's something that's going to be utilized to try to address a operating budget levy gap for fiscal 27 which, again, maybe we get to tonight, and one of the agenda items about sort of the current operating budget environment. But so it you know, the point is, there are a lot of traditional ways that the town has done business, but at times the town has needed to try to be creative and extend it. Can find that there are legitimate legal avenues to do things that we haven't here before done. And there's another one gets on here that what. Has done, been done in the past, which you'll get to in this list. But you know, the town kind of looks at all of its various pockets of financing before necessarily going straight to to the taxpayer, saying we need more money if we already have different resources. Kelly Lappin: So yeah, so before we move on to the rest of them, I would say borrowing and free cash tend to be the biggest two buckets in any given year. They I think they would always be on here. The rest of them, other other than the ambulance fund, not necessarily so free cash that I just want to set so free cash, because it's money right in excess from prior years, won't affect the tax rate, right going forward. So it's not a part of the operating budget increase, because it's already been paid for by taxpayers in their previous tax bills. That said you want your free cash balance in the town to be a certain amount, and I can't remember Unknown: what it is, 20% 20% target of the total operating Kelly Lappin: budget. So it's not an amending right
source of money. Like we can't just keep taking from it and taking from it. We tend to restrict it. Unknown: It's good financial practice. But Moody's who rates the town's debt, which they'll be doing here shortly. And the town is one of 13 communities, I think, with a triple A rating, which means we get a little bit lower borrowing cost. So you want to try it as best you can maintain the AAA rating. And they have a series of best practices, one of which is, take your collective reserve funds, including free cash, the debt Stabilization Fund, which is another recently set up reserve, which Kelly will get to in a minute, and special education reserve. And there's a couple others floating around, and they want that if you know, if you can around 20% of your total 100 plus million dollar operating budget. Amazing, they want free cash to be 20% Kelly Lappin: balance. So not what we're spending from it, but the balance of it. So basically, your savings account, right? Like, they want the town to have a certain amount of money in reserve at any Unknown: not what you're using here, but what's available. Oh, okay, we use we Kelly Lappin: can't just like, you'd be like, yeah, it doesn't affect the taxpayer. I want to take as much as I can from free cash, but we've got to maintain right, good fiscal practices in town, so it's not a ever flowing source of money. Unknown: Okay, so sorry. So the borrowing number that's in here is that what's planned to be borrowed this Kelly Lappin: year. That's the amount that's planned to be borrowed within the levy, okay, surplus capital we talked about a little bit earlier. So that is capital projects previously approved that were not used for one reason or the other, that we're able to match up to projects that are in the current list. Again, it's unspent funds from prior projects that have already been approved and already been taxed, unless they're debt, in which case they will be taxed. But it's not changing anything beyond what we already anticipated from a from a tax load, okay, receipts reserved for sale of real estate fund. This is an unusual one. This is not typically in here. And so this was, there's a realist, there's a fund in which I Brian, you probably know better than I where, where these funds came from, but this is Unknown: generally, if the town sells asset, real estate, assets that it owns, it'll take those proceeds and deposit them in this, again, separate reserve fund, called titled reserve receipts, reserved for real estate, sale of real estate, Weird name, but it's another reserve, but it generally come from prior sales of land, generally. And there are, there are some restrictions on what it can be used for, and the votes required to be able to use. I'm not going Kelly Lappin: to spend much more time than that, though, because it's not, it's not a common one that we're going to be Unknown: in this particular budget. It was used largely to fund the state book dam, absent getting the federal grant. And then there was a last minute change to the budget to move some money that had been in an out year for route 20 quarter design work. And the the quid pro quo for moving it up was to use that reserve fund as a funding source, but there's assuming this amount is used in the town doesn't get federal grant. That account probably has under a million dollars in it at this point, and. Kelly Lappin: Um, all right, capital stabilization was an account established, I'm going to guess probably five years ago. Maybe it wasn't quite that long ago, for purposes of putting money aside for capital, the idea being was floated, and I don't know that we ever really achieved this. But because debt service can be uneven for some of the reasons I talked about earlier, right, depending on how, how a project cadence is, capital spending that's in the tax rate in a given year can be uneven. And we had a number of years where the amount being spent on capital in a budget around debt in a budget was decreasing year over year, and it was getting right. It gets spent right. Whenever it was a decrease, you find there's another place for it to get spent. So the idea was, keep your capital budget item right, whatever that amount is, level year over year, and to the extent you don't use it because you didn't have projects set aside, any difference would go into the stabilization fund if that happened. I don't think that has happened in any years. One it Unknown: hasn't happened from that perspective, but the account has been funded through a separate funding article, meaning there's a hope, albeit unlikely, in the next decade, for reasons we'll talk about, but I would expect, and generally, it's been funded, but not always with initially, I think it may have been funded with taxation. The last few years has been funded with free cash. I believe, if it was done for the reasons Kelly was stating where, particularly the levy debt services is rolling off and you didn't have any other projects coming on, you try to level service that debt line effectively by taking whatever the drop off is and depositing in account and collect that through tax revenue. Kelly Lappin: Yeah, that was one of the thoughts that was never consistent. There was never a full agreement on on that, but that was one of the thoughts and setting it Unknown: up. And then if it swings the other way, then you have a place you might go where it doesn't immediately cause you to have to borrow money, additional money, or put it on the tax rate, and so you have money in, money out. Kelly Lappin: So I always think of this one as sort of, you know, like my my own project, savings funding home. Right? When I want to do a project that's going to be big, I start putting money aside ahead of time. That's sort of the concept here, right? Whether what the funding sources or were the reasons we have funding sources has changed over time. It's going to depend one year to the next, but there is a little bit of money. Again, it's not, I don't think it's a ton. I don't know. Kelsi, you know how much is in there, Unknown: in the top staples? Yeah, plus or minus a million dollars. Kelly Lappin: So again, it's not a place that's gonna like, solve it's about problems here, but there was a project maybe use 100,000 of that. Unknown: Yeah. I mean this in this year, my finance committee, it was small enough that we let it go. This was a town manager asked for $100,000 each of the next five years to do some repair and rehab work on athletic fields and recreation fields, athletic fields. And the finance director identified capital stabilization fund as a source to fund that particular line item. And I said it was 100 grand. We we let it go as a funding source. It didn't seem to make the most sense to us, but all Kelly Lappin: right. And then ambulance fees, we talked a little bit about it, but this is revenues coming from the town's ambulances. There's, historically, I think there's been a balance there, again, not a huge balance of funds in the ambulance fund, but we tend to try to match ambulance fund fees, projects and use of the ambulance fund with things that are for fire, right for the fire department, so that it's matched up. And in the case of debt, like I said, John, not a given that it's that it's working the same way that it would for the water department, but we have done debt where then the ambulance fund sort of reimburses the general fund for some of their bigger items, like an ambulance or A fire truck, right? Unknown: And you may have answers. I'm just making sure. And so borrowing outside the levy, where would that show up? It's on the borrowing line, so that that excluded debt versus levy debt. You'll see in the finance committee report, there's a reference to excluded debt and levy. Debt on probably the only place you're going to see it when the warrant
page 10 operating budget has a debt and interest line item that includes both levy debt and excluded DEP. So that's in the operating budget. Look at page 10. That's an analysis on the bottom section of that table of the town's annual maximum levy limit. And you'll see, if you look scroll down, you'll see a subtotal line label levy limit. Right below it, you'll see debt exclusion, yep. And basically, the levy limit is inclusive of whatever you need to fund your operating budget, inclusive of levy debt service, but exclusive of excluded debt which gets it bypasses the prop two and a half, two and a half percent a year limitation, but only the shoe. It shows you funding sources. So is this 4.6 Kelly Lappin: so if we were doing a project that was excluded, DEP, there would be, it would be, it's a whole article written up on it. It would, we would vote it separate from Unknown: just outside of that, okay, I'd say, traditionally, I think of late, that's probably the way it's going to go. Yeah, it has Kelly Lappin: been a while. Has shown up while we've done a couple of smaller ones, we we've put in the main vote by Unknown: typically large dollar mouse, ie, 3 million, 4 million and north end up in a separate article to give the town a bit more time to debate that project the town meeting. But that 12 million there doesn't include that other DEP, we didn't have any excluded debt, new excluded debt in fiscal Okay, so we would show up there if there was in the fiscal year. Yeah. So that was my confusion. There was Yeah. So if this estimate, if we had, if we had proposed issuing excluded debt, its debt service would have shown up where the 4,000,006 46 is, yep. So you can see that line item is kind of popped up in 24 because we must have issued some excluded debt, and then it's been kind of trending down, okay, but we do have some projects on the horizon that would you would expect, we'll use excluded debt. It was more than I just expected to see the line there. But it's because, okay, I suggested to the finance director recently that both here and again, I'm not sure it would end up in the capital plan anyway, but in the operating budget, if you look at I looked at page 45 of the warrant is your total debt and interest line item, which, again, is debt service for both Levy and excluded debt. I've suggested to the finance director, he might consider breaking that line item up into two components with a subtotal, because the discussion about letting excluded is likely going to be at the forefront in the next three or four months. And so whether he takes me up on that, yeah, Kelly Lappin: try to focus on the understanding and worry about the presentation right a little bit later date. But the one there's probably more than one item that's not here that I want to mention, but there's one in particular, and that is, if you look in prior year warrants, you'd see a category called cash capital that was probably the most straightforward, and that it's a tax right? It's amounts that your project, you were going to fund, that you're going to have included in the budget as tax. What we historically had done was road work was was cash capital. That changed a couple of years ago to borrowing, but we have historically been years where we had cash capital in there. Right now it's not again. Sometimes I don't necessarily see it returning in the years where we're facing overrides. Unknown: And I think the discussion, I think I understand why it found its way, because it wasn't always funded through taxation. If you go back a bunch of years, it was borrowed and and there were a number of years where the town was generating excess free cash year over year, and the good portion of the town was saying, wait a minute, why don't we slow our taxes instead of building up these reserves? And so I think there were a number of things that found their way into the budget to try to compress what was otherwise then available to pay for everything else. And by putting, my opinion, by putting the funding of road improvements, which generally, May, I don't know what the timeframe Tom is in Wayland, but generally, to put a new blacktop down, you would hope it lasts 1015, years anyway. And so that would seem like that's a long. Term makes sense. Maybe a borrowed over a period of time, and once you start borrowing it every year, you're eventually going to end up with a portion of that debt service in your operating budget. So you probably get, Kelly Lappin: you get back to the same place you're just buying yourself, like five, six years. Unknown: We moved a place, and we moved it out a couple years ago, just because we were starting to lose our levy capacity, and so we were looking for in that particular it wasn't that issue. It was a concern that the tax year over year tax increase was too high. It was closing on 8% and so we were looking for ways to try to drop that year over year, tax increase and the roads came out of the operating budget, and it's now the finance director is okay with that, as long as we committed to borrow it each year going forward,
Kelly Lappin: spending time in the bottom section, yeah, I am. I just was getting hung up. It looks like there's an errata in the total funding sources that that 12 million is really supposed to be 9,000,007 85, I think it was. I think you guys changed the format and separated water. Unknown: Yes, so Rada was Tom chair. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so the bottom section is those Unknown: numbers don't add up to 12 million. Okay, that was fixed the town meeting, yeah. But I was, Kelly Lappin: since I wasn't involved, I was like, Wait a minute. Okay, so the bottom section is the bottom section because Unknown: I think it's still worth doing it. But I just asked the town manager question, Michael, have you had any I know you've been busy with a bunch of things. Have you had any chance to get your own clarity on whether this committee, in addition to the general fund capital, will be expected to deal with both enterprise fund capital and CPA capital? And if not, that's fine, we'll just come back to it another time. But I Michael McCall: don't know if I have an answer for you tonight, but I do think that is part of the budget that we present to Tom meeting, because it's included at the end of the capital budget. You do see those called out in separate sections, and I would think it would be prudent to have second set of eyes looking at those requests. But I can think about that for you.
Unknown: Yeah, just the biggest one it'll be relevant to is the MWRA happy hollow. Well, project for example, which has already been vetted by Kelly Lappin: multiple it's MWRA. But it's also going back to my earlier comment about resources, are both financial resources and people resources. Those projects all require people resources the same way the others do. So it's hard to it's hard for us as a body to sit here and say, yep, we've got room and space to do these without considering CPA and water fund projects. So the bottom section, or actually, yeah, bottom section of this page is water, wastewater and the transfer station enterprise funds. So these are projects for those specific funds that are going to be paid from those funds, either by directly paying, right, directly paying. And there aren't any on here, but they could the same concept as cash capital, right? It's coming out of the fund directly. So if the project costs 100,000 you take $100,000 out of those funds, or you're borrowing, and the debt service is being paid by the fund, right? So these are considered self supporting funds versus tax levy most of the time, most of the time, with the exception of that line item. So if you'll go down right, water enterprise fund borrowing, is debt service going to be paid by the water Enterprise Fund, wastewater borrowing, the debt service is going to be paid by the wastewater Enterprise Fund. Surplus capital is the same as what we talked about previously, except likely it was surplus. It should have been surplus capital that were capital projects that were approved to be paid from these funds, so they can use it for projects that can come from these funds. General Fund free cash subsidy is the exception, right? So this was dollars coming from the general fund, I believe, to pay for that compact or replacement at the transfer station Enterprise Fund, because I'm guessing the transfer station enterprise fund didn't have enough money to pay for the project, and so that's the exception on this page. Unknown: The other comment I mentioned here is that, unlike the discussion above, on the differentiating levy debt. Or excluded debt. None of that applies to debt issued to the extent it's going to be paid for through water rates or wastewater management rates or transfer station fees. It's general obligation of the town, but it doesn't affect the town's levy limit because it's separate. And these are in the parlance of municipal government, these are, they're a little bit more than accounting entries on the town's books, but they're a separate accounting fund that are expected again, to generate their own revenues and pay their own expenses and have a balanced budget and or grow surpluses, like the town surpluses, to kind of cushion for unforeseen expenses as we go forward. Bradford Carver: So I go back and check, but this so the $3 million is that part of the operating budget, or is it just not part of it, because it's the Enterprise Fund. Okay, so Unknown: last year there was a debate, which I unfortunately one that was championing the debate. There's an article, a separate article on page 28 of the Warren enterprise fund budgets. And you'd say to yourself, that's probably where you'd find the operating budget and the capital budget for the enterprise funds. But historically, the enterprise for not ever and ever, but for some number of years, the Enterprise Fund, operating budget and capital budgets appeared under the omnibus budget article, and we're all voted kind of at the same time in a combined fashion. And town council inform the town a couple years ago, at least as related, the operating budget wasn't supposed to be doing that. Needed to vote on the operating budget anyway, separately. So from that point forward, this separate article was created covering just the operating budget. Last year, I questioned a question of two years ago wasn't enough time to do anything about it. Last year, I questioned, why not also, for the same reason, put the enterprise fund capital budgets over there. And town council came back and said, Well, you have a point. And yeah, you could do that. You could also separate it out in the omnibus budget and have a separate motion that's dedicated only to the enterprise fund capital budget, which is what we ended up doing last year, or in the spring or three you could create a separate yet another enterprise fund article that dealt solely with the capital which Finance Committee wasn't too interested in. My hope is that the current finance committee will re look at this again this year and have another discussion about whether it makes sense to pull the capital for the enterprise funds and just deal with all of that stuff the Enterprise Fund budget article, but at least Town Council is okay with pulling it apart under the omnibus article, but we had to do a separate motion, so we had Four different motions under this article at town meeting, which got a little bit unwieldy. That's more than you probably needed. Kelly Lappin: So we've spent a lot of time on one specific area. I do think it's important, because I think it's the found, sort of the foundation of like we're going to be talking about projects, there's got to be a place for the money to come from, and we need to understand what what that impact is. Unknown: I want to ask you a philosophical question that we should you just hit the button of the TV for us. Yeah, continue watching. Sorry, TV screen itself
and there's a remote
so obviously, we're talking about a lot of detailed financial items, which are again important generally to the process. As I think about, sort of just kind of a very high level Capital Planning Committee. In my mind, I could certainly say, well, our job is to and look out into the future longer than has historically been done to try to identify and begin to report on on a consistent basis. ADU projects, needs, wants and let the financing be dealt with, with the finance director, the town manager, the finance committee, having said that the town has followed, or certainly over the last number of years, a revenue based approach to capital funding, which is, what are our financial resources? There's lots of things people need to do, want to do, but we don't have unlimited. Resources to do that. And so I understand the concept that you need to have at least a feel for what do we have available in each and every year. One is staring us right in the face, fiscal 27 and then as you start to go out the next four years, maybe have a little clearer picture. And then obviously go out 10 or more years after that, lot less clear picture. Is it in the discussions that the working group had, is it your view that this committee will be working closely with the finance director at the outset, with the finance director kind of establishing, from his perspective, what those financial limitations, I Kelly Lappin: think the finance director and the finance committee, so what we anticipated is they're still going to need a guideline right of what is available or within the realm of possibility. So the way I view this, and I think it's consistent with what we talked about, Carol or Michael can correct me, right? We're looking at all the projects being proposed, right, evaluating them for priority and readiness, right? And then they need to be slotted according to resource availability, both financial and human. Unknown: Is that, is that in your discussions, is that
Kelly Lappin: I don't, I don't see collaborative this committee, yeah, I think it's got to be collaborative, because this, I don't think this committee should be taking on the task of financial, what the resort, right? What the ultimate affordability is right between the finance director, the finance committee, others need to be providing the guideline, right? And, yeah, is there going to be it to be collaborative? Because there's going to have to be some push pull, right? Because I think you would say you're basing purely on affordability. Then I don't know how you do MWRA, but clearly you have to have water, so there's got to be some back and forth. But I would expect that finance director, Finance Committee, are providing some guidelines, some guide posts around what's in the realm of possible, because ultimately they're the ones that kind of have to go to have to go to right in the town manager to town meeting and present it as a part Unknown: of so. And I agree with all that. So my concern is it's we have a number of chickens and number of eggs here. Finance Committee leads to three years I was on it. Waited and waited and waited. They were kept apprised of the prior year numbers they look at. They were kept apprised of process, but ultimately they were presented with a town manager recommended capital budget, and it included proposed sources, including the five year plan. And then the finance committee reviewed that and thought about it and agreed, disagreed, and eventually it came to either what was proposed or, you know, make whatever changes they felt they needed to make before they could then present a same information to the town for us to we can obviously start the process. Well, we can't. We can't start the process. We have to wait for the town manager to start the information or data gathering process or request process to find out what people are looking for in terms of the fifth year in the plan, plus any changes pose in the first four. Let's forget about year six through 15 at the moment, so that that hopefully is either started or will get started very quickly here. Otherwise we can't do anything. But it sounds to me, Kelsi, if what you just described is your anticipation, that would be a slightly different timing wise, slightly different responsibility of the FinCom, because it sounds like they would need early on in the process to be interacting with the finance director. So they jointly then present to us, okay, once you're done, however we do it? Either we're doing a collection or it's done by the finance director, he's always done and he presents us with his sort of pre vetted five year scenario, and then we start our work. That's another open question I have. I prefer that, but, but when we then ultimately have to come to the point of making recommendations to the town manager, you're saying, we kind of need to know what the revenue constraints are, because they likely will affect what we're thinking Kelly Lappin: my that's my opinion. Otherwise, I don't know how you slot and prioritize if you don't know the constraints. Unknown: I mean, we could know that from the finance director. He certainly has had his own opinion in that. And we will continue Kelly Lappin: if you assume, and if you know, if history of the last three years continues, that might be sufficient, right? Because the. Finance Committee didn't necessarily push back too much on on that recommendation, I would like to whether or not it was given a lot of thought, but Finance Committee prints right in the warrant in the report, a general guideline, I think right, and that's on page 16, on the type of funding sources, what they would expect me to use. I think you and I both know from experience that's a range, and it's general, and it and it changes right from year to year based on what's going on. So I'm happy to accept it from the finance director, right, as long as right, there's general comfort that it's not going to we're going to get that go to a bunch of work, spit something out the other side, and there's going to be a like, no, no, no. We can't afford that unless we get really good at this. And we know, well, if you, if you bring any of these things down, this is the project that moves out, right? So in a perfect world, we don't live in this one, right? We're ranking all the projects in every funding source. And you've, you've predetermined, if you cut me off short, this is the one that goes right. Unknown: So some of those funding sources, I think, and I haven't had time to review the final, final version of the DEP policy and the capital planning policy, both of which are included in the 150 pages Kelsi of town financial policies. But I believe that some of the at least constraints, whether they're parameters or not, I don't know, but there's some certainly constraints that are being proposed from a policy perspective on amounts of debt service relative to the budget, etc, but, but I think, I think what we're talking about now is in getting the FinCom Buy in much earlier, like since we're supposed to be reporting at the town manager by October 15, which isn't going to happen right this year anyway, but given which will probably run out of talk about in great detail tonight, but given what the next decade looks like on the operating levy situation, the town levy situation, there's going To have to be some level of discussion about, how does, how does the funding of Capital Square with what the town's gonna, on the other side, be trying to do to figure out how to eliminate a structural deficit that's going to be there for a decade, and, you know, it makes no sense for the town to be, you know, working on trying To solve, which can be very difficult, the structural deficit without the use of opine to override along the way and have us over here approving a bunch of projects with a bunch of levy debt that is simply adding, you know, adding costs to the operating budget that impact. Kelly Lappin: I don't disagree with you, Brian, I think I want to cut this off, though, because we're coming up on time here.
Yes, Carol, I recognize Carol Martin. Unknown: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Carol Martin, Lake Road, member of the Select Board. I don't know if you'd like to speak, Michael, but I think I would like to answer a couple of these questions. Maybe you'll hop in after me. Under the town manager act, it is the town manager who is now the CFO of the town, and His responsibilities include preparing the budget and the capital plan, which was previously under the Finance Committee, which we changed to coincide with the town manager Act last year when we updated chapter 19 two. So the flow, and you'll see this on page 69 of the thing under number 20 dash three, it tells you that you're going to prepare this capital plan with a term defined by the town manager, and the report will be submitted to the town manager. You're not working with the finance committee to get the buy in, Michael, you'll chime in here. You're working with Michael and obviously, most likely Brian, and whomever Michael designates as part of his finance team to come up with a plan, which will, then, once he's comfortable with that, send it to the finance committee for review. Brian, Kevin, just to be clear,
Mr. Kevin, I'm sorry the finance hop in here. Kelly Lappin: Yeah. No. Thank you for reminding us of that, but I would also say right, and I expect then that that Michael would do this right as town manager, still going to need right? He's presenting it, but the Finance Committee is still ultimately putting an opinion on it. So we still want to be connected, right? We don't want to be in a situation where there's a. A disagreement where the Finance Committee doesn't recommend Michael McCall: a non starter in your plan,
Kelly Lappin: collaboration across but agree. So we're going to take our we're going to take it from right our marching orders from a guideline from Michael with with Brian's assistance. But I would still like a head nod, right? That Finance Committee is not going to come Unknown: back. And a good example, and I'm not proposing this, but a good example would be, it could be the town manager proposes this with input from the finance director, or Ultimately, it comes from the finance committee, but they could come to the conclusion, based on what they're seeing in the operating Levy, that other than life safety, spending, has got to move out for at least a year. So we can understand which is what's currently trying to be done with fiscal year 27 is take some actions that will hold off a prop two and a half override until we get past collective bargaining, which is coming up. And so I could see, you know, a conclusion being we got to put everything off from the capital side, except for life safety, just to buy time. To Michael, your point, we'd hate to do a lot of work, and maybe it's not. It may. It's work has to be done anyway. And so it's just a question of, okay, everything we thought we might want to recommend doing a fiscal 27 here's the five items that we now. Here we we understand why we'll keep doing but everything else has to push out. But it'd be better to in the near term, if possible, have a, at least a sense of whether that's even a possibility. Is just an example.
So I didn't, I'd like to just finish my thought, and that is that certainly the Finance Committee wants to be consulted, but you'll all work out the process of who gets consulted first, to me the way it reads, you work through the town manager, who then is going with through Brian Kevin to the Finance Committee. I may not necessarily be your, your your number one contact. Kelly Lappin: So agreed. Yeah, already. Thank you for
Unknown: talking about process, do think, and this is important stuff, because we're at the outset here, and I want to just speed down a path. So Mr. Town manager, from a process standpoint, I've always found Brian, Kevin, a to be very detailed and thoughtful and pulling together what he presented to the to you, and then what you ultimately presented to the Finance Committee in terms of a capital budget for the next fiscal year, plus the remaining four years of the five year capital plan. And I assume that he once you sent out your memo asking for everybody to submit their CIP forms. He accumulated all that information in an Excel workbook, which he's provided as a blank and he's done his own prioritization. He's He's overlaid on that what he believes financially needs to be kind of the sourcing and what years. And then ultimately, I presume, Michael, that got presented to you before it eventually found its way to the FinCom. I'm just curious, do you envision anything changing on that process and, and, and he'll still do all that work and then present that work product to us before it then gets presented to you. Or are we? Are you expecting that? And he's expecting that we're somehow be collecting all that information, putting that Excel workbook together, making the initial prioritizations? I sort of hope that's not the case, but I'm just curious what clarity Michael McCall: you know, he and I talked today, and I, a little while ago, sent that memo out to all the department heads, asking them to fill in their CIPC forms. Because we, as you, point out, we've, we've had a lot going on. I would have liked to have done it about a week or two ago, and we've asked them to get them back within about 30 days, third week of November. So we're pushing them to get the information back to us. I envision that we would be sharing that with you at some point, whether he compiles it and we make I envisioned us getting that information and sharing it with you so that you could look at it and help us make a determined you make a recommendation that we, in turn, go to the FinCom with in we did this where I was the assistant town manager. We had this type of process. We had it. We were starting it in south bridge when I. Left, we got a capital planning committee established, and we were going to do the same thing with the committee. You'd have additional sets of eyes with different levels of expertise coming in to evaluate these and so then you make your recommendations, and then we also would do a second check of those looking at our finances, but hoping to get a community based perspective of what we what we should be focusing on rather than what oftentimes would happen. At least, in my opinion, is it comes down to the manager and the finance director trying to shoehorn the right number of projects in based on the amount of money you have. Unknown: So I'm still. I'm not still. I think that that process question needs work. I guess the question I'd have though was so that that was the process up until a month ago. So is it. And I don't mean I get this a feeling to try not Hey, start your own review, see if you make different opinions, but do not waste all that five years of effort. Do we get a debrief of this is why I chose these five years of projects. This is what went into it, so that we're not just dismissing it and starting with what we read. Yes. So I Kelly Lappin: would say what I'm gonna I'm gonna say, from my opinion, what was missing in the prior process. So because we have a new committee, why do we have a new committee? What was, what I think was missing in the prior process? And I hope, I hope, right, Brian's still going to do that step of compiling it and and providing it to us, right? The walkthrough of, okay, this is what was requested, and this is what I'm I'm thinking we should slot in. And here's why. That was something I didn't feel in the time I was on FinCom that there was ever enough time or focus on of and what we what? Because there wasn't. What often happened was there would be last minute ads, right? There would be things like, Oh, well, the middle school needs a new boiler. And it's like, well, that was in the plan and got pushed back. Why does it, why did it get pushed back? Right? So having those discussions on this is what we're doing, and this is why, and this committee having some input right, from a community perspective, of like, yeah, have we thought right? Maybe we have different opinions based on our different backgrounds and that we have an open meeting discussion process around those projects to get to, ultimately, what's the recommendation? Maybe it'll be exactly what Brian Right gives us to begin with. But I think there's, there's some work that we can add from our various backgrounds on why, right? And that's something in years of doing the warrant and the write ups that follow the section we were just in in the warrant of each project. I mean, when was I learning that stuff, when I was writing it to put it in the warrant, versus at the earlier stage in the process of being presented the capital projects and debating whether or not they fit, both from a resource standpoint, human resources, financial resources, but also is what we were missing was, why is this the highest priority? Is it just because the amount fits can be paid from this funding source, and we have that much in this funding source, or is it because of the whole list of projects we're putting on the docket? This one's the most important from health and safety perspective, whatever that may be, that was the step that I thought was most critically missing, and why I was on the capital working group, and why I'm here today, right is because I think that's that's where the added value needs to be inserted. And maybe there's other things along the way we're going to identify, but that's the piece that I think is most critical based on past experience, Unknown: and we can certainly, although, again, unfortunately, it's probably premature based on experience. If we thought that the four years of last year's five year plan are static, we could certainly invite in, depending on hours and getting permission from the town manager the various department heads that put in those requests that are now in the five year plan to go through each one and what the rationale in their minds for why they needed it. You what you will likely find, if you look back in what we saw on the Finance Committee would be what was requested in which years you will likely see them requesting things in different years as to where it finally got slotted in. And so you may and it's fine you may get and it's probably appropriate that this committee get a let the department heads have a an ability to say, Okay, here's here's what we wanted, here's where it got put. But it may be premature, because what Michael has asked them to do is add the fifth year plus, right? Let us know of any proposed. Changes to what's already in the plan. And so the question is, do we then have to wait until they've submitted? And then, you know, Brian can certainly, from a staff level, accumulate the information, but as quickly as we can get the requesters in front of us to walk through to your point, so we could then begin to evaluate. Kelly Lappin: Would ask, I know, Michael, you said you just sent it out, and they have, would you say, 30 days Michael McCall: to less than we're trying to get that by the third week of October. Yeah. Kelly Lappin: So to the extent I would ask that, to the extent you have a couple of A plus students who are on the front end of that, you know, not naming names Tom, we will, we will get, we get to talk earlier. Yeah, we that. We don't wait until we have a consolidated plan. We get to talk to whoever got to submit first, right? We're talking to them earlier. Bradford Carver: And I guess a related question, I think I already know the answer based on how this conversation is going. I mean, if, if the school submits a request for the middle school and says a roof is going to cost $1.5 million is it our task also to say, Well, that seems remarkably low or remarkably high? How did you come up with that number? Is, are we supposed to be vetting the numbers that are presented. Kelly Lappin: I think it would be good if there was some level of vetting. And I don't, not in a non trusted way. But just like, hey, talk to us about where this estimate came from. Because I think different department heads do that in a different way, right, some depending on, you know, if it's equipment, you know, I talk to the dealer, this is what the current quote is. Here's right, versus the Council on Aging right, where the pmbc is involved and they are, they are checking right and kicking the tires on the itemized cost and the inflation and and Unknown: permanent, permanent, municipal. It Kelly Lappin: depends on the project. Okay, how much of that we need to do, but I don't think it hurts to have like, tell me where these came from. Unknown: Well, again, a good example of that in the fiscal 26 budget was there's this crazy fire sensor switch at the middle school had to be replaced. It's causing all sorts of problems. Kind of got 200 last minute requests, $350,000 I still don't know why it changed, but back in July, and I'm on a budget working group, Brian, Kevin, he said, Oh, by the way, we don't need $350,000 it's going to be $50,000 well, that's $300,000 of possibly another project that got delayed, that could have been plotted into the plan. I don't know the particulars, and anytime you save money, that's great. I prefer going that direction. Another example would be up until last year. We're on a path to have to refurbish, rebuild the wastewater management facility at the high school, which wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, at an estimated cost. And Tom holder, I know Tom is, I think it's now in the building facilities management side, but it's a five and a half million dollar cost, and it was carried in the five year plan, and then last year, it got pulled from the plan because the town's engineer is working on a strategy to use a more traditional septic system bleaching field solution that, guess what, hopefully will cost a lot less than five and a half million. Well, that's good, right? But it's unclear whether that is going to pass muster the DEP, but having the ability to have that discussion, I think, is important to understand what's what's the risk of those kind of things moving sideways, anything that you can save money do more efficiently. I'm all for it's the surprises on the other side or the last minute. You know, we just absolutely have to do this. Kelly Lappin: So Brian, I'm going to cut you off. We've, we've got a lot we're not going to get to and I want to, I do want to move on to some of the other agenda items. So what I'm going to do now is we covered a small piece of what I had in the review capital information items. You guys had some great questions, like I said before, your questions don't need to end, right? You can, you can send, and you can send questions directly to me, right? And I'll make sure that we're addressing them at the next meeting. But I'm gonna hold up right. We're not gonna get into the projects that are in the existing capital plan. I think the I will work with Michael to slot out right, based on when you think things are coming in, to slot out, when we can talk to folks right where it makes sense. Don't think it's going to need to be every person submitting right? It's it's going to be based on what the highest priority and biggest dollar amounts are first, or what's ready first, but we can work out a schedule of how we're going to achieve that right, and then I think it makes the most sense to do it at that point, because then we can take projects that were previously submitted for a given department, what they're currently submitting, right, and go through the Okay, what changed and why? Why do these numbers make sense? Why are these the priority projects over other projects? And I think the hardest part of getting a handle on how that priority measures against priorities of other departments, right? That's, that's the piece. I think we're really here to help connect. So I want to move on, and we can always, like I said, I'm going to keep this as a standing more general item, that we can always have meetings that we talk about, any questions you guys have on the existing materials that I've provided that are from the warrant, you know, various template spreadsheets. But I want to move on to the item that is the next item, which is the capital relevant information from the financial presentation made to the Select Board. So, Brian, you alluded to this a couple of times, and I know you're very close to it because you're on the budget Working Group. Would you mind? I mean, I can do it, but would you mind giving an overview of the because they're both items relevant, relevant to capital? Unknown: Sure. So the finance director set up a working group, both last year and this year. May have done it in prior years and gonna probably do it anyway, but at the urging, the finance committee started to forecast out at least one year on the budget without actually starting to create the budget, and we encouraged him to go out at least three years, if not more. And so we started meeting in July, he presented to the working group of five year operating budget forecast, and based on that operating budget forecast, it was unclear whether fiscal 27 was going to have sufficient levy limit to avoid potentially significant budget cuts and or going to the talent prop two and a half override, which we haven't had to do since late 2000s it's the last one. And as we got into it, it became, I think, clearer to the group, particularly the school side, who, prior year, had towed the line and held down their budget growth, including not refilling certain positions. To achieve that, to stay, hopefully stay within the levy limit, and after certain items cut the town's way because we don't know, certain big items like health care, insurance premiums state aid don't come until January, February of next year. The Finance Director has to slot in a conservative estimate, and last year, they both provided positive surprises, so we were able to hold the line on the budgets that were pre agreed to budget Max limits, and we went from anticipating zero unused levy to we ended up with close to 2 million unused Levy. And had people known there was going to be 2 million of additional unused Levy, I suspect there might not have been as much willingness to constrain the spending. Okay, but we also knew that was just fiscal 26 if you look fiscal 27 eight and nine, it was clear we have a structural issue, because our budget growth over the last decade has been 4% last five years, it's been four and a half percent year over year. And you know, you have compensation growing during certainly the post covid years popped up. We're about to enter into a new three year collective bargaining session. And so it became pretty clear that we're going to we were going to come up short with fiscal 27 even when we added back in partially some of the what we expected were conservative estimates. And then we asked the financial record to go ahead and run it out for until 2037 and that wasn't a random year. We picked a year after the town's retirement funding of its past unfunded liability with is projected to be fully paid off. Ma, it's required by state to be paid off by then, unless they change their unless they change rules, which they've done once along the way in every communities you know, maybe 50% funded. So that line item in the entire budget is a pretty big dollar line item, and it's scheduled to grow. That's one of the structural issues. But it goes. Way at the moment in 2036 and so we asked him to project out to the year after that. And what we saw and what the Select Board saw last week is a graph that you can find in the Select Board Meeting packet for last Thursday's meeting, a graph that shows three years of surplus, unused levy through fiscal 26 a decade worth of red getting from going from 2 million to 6 million. And it's a little misleading in the out three or four years, you're six through 10, just because of the way the finance director dealt with excluded debt in the past, but there, at the moment, there are no real easy fixes, other than, you know, continuing to look for efficiencies in the town operation, which town has been doing, and trying to find everything it can possibly having to make budget cuts, and then figuring out a strategy for when to approach the residents with prop two and a half overrides, and whether you do one every year or bundle them do kind of three years at a time, yet to be determined. And so the thought was there was a recommendation from the town manager and the school superintendent that it probably be great if we could get past fiscal 27 without having to do an override, because it's going to get messy in the collective bargaining process. You'd rather kind of know what the agreements were so we can settle them in 12 months as well as next spring, we have some potentially big financial issues to deal with. The $38 million long term water supply project is going to go to town meeting for approval, subject to what we review and recommend in the town manager and what town manager recommends to the Finance Committee and what they ultimately agree to present town, there's currently about a five and a half million dollar debt exclusion that would be required next spring ballot to make repairs to this building and and then there were certain strategies that this group came up with try to Avoid and put it off for one year the potential override and those required input and ultimate buy in by the Select Board, which ultimately they did last evening, one of those is to go to the voters in November or December and asked to re characterize the remaining $5.2 million of levy debt on the DEP W facility near the town dump, backside of it, which was originally borrowed as levy debt, and if the town so agrees that the ballot change it to exclude a debt for the balance of that loan, because that's chewing up, at the moment, about $700,000 of levy limit. And so in every year it goes down, but the next three years, it's six, $700,000 a year. So it's not only a fix for fiscal 27 but for how much, how big the overrides are for the rest of the years. The second thing was, as Kelly mentioned, and kind of passed by pretty quickly when you borrow bonds for any of these capital projects. Right now, Brian was planning. Spirit is planning in November to issue $16 million of bonds, you have to start paying principal back, typically a year later, and then interest as well. And typically, what happens is you end up borrowing in one fiscal year, and the accounting for the principal payment occurs in the following fiscal year, along with 12 months of interest plus anywhere from four to six months of additional interest based on the time you borrowed the funds originally. So you borrow in November, you've got six or seven months plus a full year. And so what you see, typically in the DEP maturity schedules, is a there's a bump in the first year of debt service because of the extra interest, and then it goes down the following year and then is amortizing, typically over whatever the term of the debt is. And so we discussed and Brian agreed and presented sucker, and they've agreed to borrow half of what was going to be borrowed solely for water and wastewater management projects, because they're in process, ready to go. Have no impact on the levy, but use bond anticipatory notes in part, and general funds, free cash in part for a period of time, followed by bond antic notes for a period of time, and then bond that other 8 million a year from November, which pushes out that. First principal payment into fiscal 28 so that between the conversion of levy debt to excluded debt saves 700,000 a levy the putting off of half of the bond borrowing saves about 850,000 of levy delays, delays. It's got to be paid, and that's about 1,000,007 and we were running about 1,000,008 to million nine shortfall. And the town manager and the school superintendent are work to try to find another three to $500,000 of budget savings. So depending on what happens at the ballot in November, December, if there's a favorable vote, they can then build a budget on that basis, which won't need a prop two and a half operating override in the spring, and then there's clearly going to need to be overrides in the following nine years and and so that's kind of where that is at this point in time and again, some of these big budget, items that will be known in January, February, may or may not cut the town's way. Health insurance is another big one. Last year, the town was budgeting a 10% year over year increase, and it had a 2.6 2.8% increase because the consortium the town belongs to used part of its million dollar Trust Fund to buy down. Kelly Lappin: I want to, I cut you off, Brian, because I think, I think you've gotten to the relevant point. So the reason I wanted to discuss it with the committee is only so that they're aware, right, that challenges, there are challenges, and those structural challenges are being planned, at least for FY 27 to be met by doing things right, different than than previously planned, related to capital, right? So they're both capital, one of them the the reclassifying the debt of the DEP W building, you could argue, probably should have always been excluded debt. There were reasons at the time my understanding why it wasn't excluded debt at the time my you know, their rumors effectively, right? But had to do with getting that that vote through, so that that building could be built, because the prior building was in not great shape. Whatever those reasons are, what we're asking now is the town, and this is what matters, right? We're asking the town to reconsider that decision and move that for the balance of the debt of the levy. Unknown: At the time, the FinCom unanimously recommended it be done as excluded debt required, as I said earlier, four votes, and select board put it on the ballot. Only three voted in favor, two voted opposed. And therefore the project continued forward to town meeting, but it got funded with levy DEP, which is not typical for projects of $11 million and at the time, when you read the Tom warrant, the FinCom comments said, you know, we could come the town could come back to the voters in a later year, if it can get two thirds of the then select board and majority vote at the ballot to convert it. And here we are. Kelly Lappin: So Brian, you're saying last night at the meeting that was Unknown: the, yeah, there were four votes to put the question on a ballot. They are going to hold a special action sometime mid to mid November to up to December 20. They haven't set a precise date yet. Okay, so it's going to go to the voters to make that decision. They still haven't heard yet from the FinCom, which, under their policy, they're supposed to hear from them before they took vote. But assuming the FinCom, and the chair of the FinCom sits on the budget working group, and he has seemingly himself, been supportive of the notion, okay, but if the FinCom were to come back as a committee saying we don't agree with this. It's possible cycle. It could not move forward Kelly Lappin: to the FinCom originally. So, you know, I'm Unknown: just saying it for the moment. It's on track to move forward, okay? And on the financing piece the finance director is holding is called Moody's next week. He's now, I believe, going to move forward and only tell him he wants to borrow 8,000,016 permanent basis. He's He's progressing on that plan, and that'll all get done in November. Okay, all right, which is different from, Kelly Lappin: yeah, I think that's typical. Time enough on that topic unless, I mean, you guys could ask that one. We can say that for next time when. Unknown: But I do think that at some early point in the process, we need to get input, at least in the town manager as whether he views those fiscal challenges on the operating side. Plan to have any bearing on what should or could be recommended on the capital side, given that any debt, Kelly Lappin: I would expect it would right, because any debt service is going to affect the budget, and it's going to eat feed right into that Okay. On the next item was to review the capital and DEP policies. However, those were approved. Once I sent you are not the ones that were approved. There were some changes. I'm going to push that off to our next meeting, so that you guys have time to read them and any changes and we can talk about it. I don't. We don't have, not anything that we have input into if they've already been approved. Yeah. Unknown: I mean, there's only one item I called out, and it's still in the final version, which basically has the process for gathering the capital data, says that in October, the town manager will send out, well, that isn't going to work. Yeah, that doesn't line up with that. We make our October so I suspect at some point in the future when they get around to editing the policies. And in the meantime, we're just going to have to rely on the town manager to acknowledge that he's got to get going in July or August next year. So I Kelly Lappin: would ask that I will send those more recent versions out that you come to our next meeting with any questions or concerns, because if there's already, we likely have to suggest an edit for the next time it's updated or in the meantime, hopefully honored. Unknown: But do you know again, you, I think your working group vetted at least the dead policy. Did you vet both of them? Kelly Lappin: I believe we did earlier on. There Unknown: were, they're not in the final versions, but they were in both policies. There was a table that was computing certain parameters, percentages of operating budget, and I was having problems figuring out where all the numbers came from. So I reached out to the finance director and said, I can figure out where some of these come from, but I can't others. And then I noticed they got those two tables were pulled and so I was just curious, if you recall any, because he didn't put together. I don't, I have to look at it and then. But they're not in, they're not in their final Kelly Lappin: version, okay, all right. Any I don't have any other topics that I didn't anticipate. Does anybody else have anything that came up recently that tonight, Unknown: this topic, when you're going to set the next meeting? Could we just talk about one potential, probably a little longer term agenda item. And again, it's just, if you have nothing else to do, you can read town reports. There was a committee set up a number of years ago, all the Wayland real estate plan, the rap report, the rap report, which inventory to all town real estate, land and projects. And it's a tremendous report, tremendous, lot of work was done. And I was wondering if we could, at some point, slot in Anette Lewis, who worked on that is just an example to come in and at a very high level, give us a sense of what she believes that the value of that report could be to a committee like this, because it's the last big planning document, because you'd like to think we can both zoom in on request, but zoom out to say, how does that fit with some or number of different plans. There's a recreation field plan, there's there's a town master plan was done in 2004 even in 2011 that has been reviewed since you'd like to think you're making decisions in accordance with plans that have a lot of work done in. And the rap report was one of them. And I would a hate to see us as this would be more likely important when we get into start talking about year six through 15 or Yeah. So shall you add the Tom master plan to that review? It's kind of, I mean, it's so old I just and it's, it's only available electronically. You can get, you can get it through links on the planning department website. Apparently, it's a very thick volume, one of which is at the library and one of which is in the planning office. But planning department website has a link for each chapter in the town's master plan. And then there's, he has a link to the 2011 there's a separate committee set up to review the progress on the master plan, and that report, you can pull down the wrap reports on the Planning Board website as well the Planning Department website, so they're heavy duty long documents, but I just think further down the road as we get into long range planning, yeah. Kelly Lappin: I take it under consideration, Brian, but not, not in the near Unknown: Yeah, I agree. We have a lot to do just Kelly Lappin: to get through this year. Yeah, but I will. I'll see if I can find, I can find the links and send you what there is. I is the master Kelsi is the master plan being updated. I thought I read something about the master plan being updated. I don't. I'd have to check out Michael McCall: maybe the route 20 master plan. But I don't Unknown: think, okay, not the town's housing production plans got to be updated. Okay? Yeah, plans and we're a planning committee. Okay, thank you. Kelly Lappin: All right, can we talk about date and time? Next couple one we're done. I don't think I ever came out of a finance committee meeting. Okay? And dates and times for our next meeting. All right, awesome. Well, I'd like to get some some consensus, but I also don't have those here, so Unknown: I can circulate an email with a couple, yeah, I'm Kelly Lappin: actually, yeah, I'm gonna circulate an email. Part of Unknown: it just depends what you think the next meetings or topics will be. It may be more of this type of stuff, yeah? Kelly Lappin: So my thinking is that probably some more of background stuff needs to be done still before we and while we're waiting for information from the department heads on their requests. But Michael, I'll, I'll send you a note just if you want to help me figure out when we think we might have the various departments ready to talk about, but I think we've got work to we have work to do in the meantime. So I'm thinking in I gotta just look at my calendar, because I don't know if I can do next week or the fall. I would like to go every other week. I do not want to be in every week. Are we still six to eight Unknown: or are you getting requests from the ex officio staff members to try to do something like Kelly Lappin: to stick to six to eight until we're asking folks to come in here, right? So while we're doing still doing background stuff, getting to speed on what is out there, I think we can stick with six to eight, but then when we're asking the ex officio members to come in, we got to try and accommodate right at least, at least every other Unknown: two of you that work. Would I think? Liz, I can't. Liz, I think, and hopefully you'll reach out to Liz and just say, watch the table. Yeah, would be doing like, 830 in the morning meetings be easier than doing five o'clock at night meetings or neither one is particularly
Kelly Lappin: your job, sure, so if I'm taking time off during the day, I have to account for that as time off. So it's indifferent to me, right? Yeah. Unknown: I mean, I I have to yield to those that are working. I can, but I'm also sensitive to how we address, Kelly Lappin: yeah, I would like, I'm guessing this next meeting, we're not going to have necessarily things back from the departments. So if we were to do not this next week, but the week after, so I'd stick to six to eight for that one, and then when we're ready to have folks come in, we can do something earlier. Unknown: Right now, you're you're gonna look but you're thinking, Tuesday, I'm thinking it's a little tough Kelly Lappin: to do it every week, and that's a lot given how much have done this, the information is Unknown: something I'm trying to think Tuesday night is the best night given the last two weeks, I'm going to Tuesday or Wednesday for that time slot. Bradford Carver: So, yeah, I should, I had to move a couple things around, but that's I can do Kelly Lappin: those. Okay, let me look at my calendar and email. Okay, I Unknown: have other opportunities. But just since we're here. Those are easy, I think, to say, Yeah, I mean, I agree, every week, a lot, but if we want to just do a couple, like, two, three weeks and just kind of grind through it, so be Kelly Lappin: it. I would rather save it. We're gonna, we're gonna be doing more meetings. I would rather save it from when we're talking to department heads and and moving that accordingly, right? I don't want to spend every week taking you down or down the background rat hole. Unknown: So that's for us. It's new. So, Kelly Lappin: you know, yeah, I am just sensitive to how, how much. Any one person can absorb right? That much information. Bradford Carver: Very helpful for me. Because actually, I, Brian, had some of the questions you had about process, and you know what exactly our tasks and roles are, is very helpful. Okay, I just Unknown: worry we're gonna get into the actual review of the data, that we're still be asking fundamental questions, and it's gonna, Kelly Lappin: yeah, you might be, but that's okay too, right? Unknown: I'm not better to ask question. You all are gonna be on the committee for a while, hopefully, and so you got to get the foundation, and again, it, it takes at least a year, yeah, when you step into one of these committees, to get used to the processes and get Kelly Lappin: it all down before we start looking at Capital. Six years into being on FinCom, I think I had, you know, like, 50% of it, and Unknown: I know you want to adjourn, but the reason I was pressing on the finance director's continued role is I've been on a number of committees where folks like Kelly have ended up having to hands on, do a lot of stuff while they're working a job. I have had similar experiences, and it's not a lot of fun, and probably Kelly had to think about coming back to do this. So you have things, they have things, not that staff has an overload of work too, but if you have things traditionally have been by the staff, I would much prefer to see them up to a point, to the accumulation and the creation review materials that we could then spend our time vetting stuff and talking about it. That's why I was pressing on that a little bit. Especially they're just going to redo it. Just going to redo it their own way. Kelly Lappin: Okay, everybody, any other ex officio members? Anything you want to add or comment Unknown: on? Thanks for attending. Want to go home? Please. Please excuse me. Please include me on that date. Email. Thank you. Yeah. Are you our liaison? Carol now, yeah, she's our liaison. I am okay. Thanks for attending, Kelsi. Hope you're feeling all right. Kelly Lappin: I got a little cloth that's all right. I get a motion to adjourn. So moved second, second. All right. All in favor, aye, we are adjourned at 808. Recording stopped. Thank you very much.
Unknown: Tom older who is an ex officio member depw Director, and Carol Martin was on there, but dropped off. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so Tom ex officio member is participating via zoom. Kelsi powers is attending in person as an ex officio you. Ex officially ex officio member, are you not presenting? Okay? All right, and then members of the voting, members of the committee here are here in person, myself, Kelly Latham, Brian ARPA, he Brad Carver and John Klein, Unknown: manager joined and Carol Martin.
Kelly Lappin: All right. And so we also have Carol Martin with our Select Board Liaison here on Zoom, and Michael McCall Unknown: Tom manager on Zoom. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so I'm gonna review the agenda for six o'clock. Via are they? Unknown: Robbie, are those three? Can we move at least the two ex officio members? Are they full participants? Kelly Lappin: Oh, it looks like they're
Unknown: just you bring them over to full participant status. Kelly Lappin: So Michael and Tom, it's up Unknown: to you if you want to invite Carol in as a participant versus
Kelly Lappin: you can invite Carol over to she'll still have to ask to be acknowledged. All right, so agenda. We've done the call to order. We're reviewing the agenda. We'll do announcements in a minute. So 605, public comment and members response. 615 review and vote to approve the minutes of our meeting of September 9. 625, review existing capital information, which is primarily from the warrant and address any member questions. 725, summarize and discuss capital relevant information from the financial presentation made to the Select Board on 924, 740, review draft capital and DEP policies under consideration by the Select Board. Those I believe, Brian, you know, have been approved by the Select Board. So we can flip to the to the approved ones, and then 750 topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair. 48 hours posting and setting the time of our next meeting, and we should adjourn hopefully by around eight. And times are approximate, Unknown: as is order Kelly Lappin: Fay, so any announcements from any members, I'll start Brad, okay, all right, good, and then we can go into the agenda. So let's start public comment. Oh, sorry, nope. So public comment, do we have anybody else online? No one else in there. So soon, there's no public comment, right and now we will move to reviewing and approving, vote to approve the minutes of September 9. So Brian had sent those out right after our meeting. Did anybody have any comments edits to get Brian on those, what changes. No need to discuss. So can I get a motion to approve those second All right? And so you could just do an All in favor, right? All in favor, aye. That's everybody. We're good.
Unknown: I wouldn't say I, but I
Kelly Lappin: Okay, those are approved, and now we'll move to reviewing the existing capital information. So I had sent the committee members whole bunch of existing resources, things that were already out there, most of which were from the warrant, as well as some other items related to capital. And so I asked everybody to do their own homework. I know I bombarded you with a ton of stuff, so I understand if you didn't look at every single thing and under you know, got it all committed Tom. Right now, but want to start with, if anybody had specific questions about any of those materials, we'll try and address and if not, and we just want to do kind of an overview between Brian and I. We've got enough experience we can talk through the landscape to give you sort of that baseline understanding of what's not necessarily every single project, but how does this right capital come together and how does it work? So start with questions. Unknown: I don't have any particular Bradford Carver: questions other than I think, because I'm new to this, I don't have the financial background you guys have, I think, an overview of how it works, how the sausage is made, yep, would be, would be helpful for me to put everything in context. Kelly Lappin: Sure I would expect that anything else. Unknown: I had two specific questions, and I may have just missed it when I looked at the budget, how are grants shown in the offsetting capital requests? And if they are, and the other is just, I think, how is carryover? We didn't spend it, we didn't finish the project in the prior year. How is that shown in the budget? Or is it Kelly Lappin: good? Questions? So grants? Brian, correct me if I'm wrong. Usually the request at Tom meeting, if there's it depends on the type of grant. Michael, you can correct me too, right? So in many cases, we have to appropriate, as a town depends on the grant, but we have to appropriate the full cost, right? In some cases, so like reimbursement for the schools, we appropriate the full crop, the full cost, and then we get reimbursed, because it takes some time. So most of what you see in the plan, I can't think of very many that are in the plan right now that we were discussing or anticipating grants. The only one that comes to mind is snake Brook dam, which we have talked about definitely more that there's a couple that definitely had it that had grants in the write up,
Kelsi, I was just gonna say if you look to the 2025 warrant item number six, which is a stormwater Asset Management Program, this one is actually a reimbursable grant. So we had to put up the money upfront the 206 950, but the town anticipates being reimbursed for 124,001 70. So that's when it comes to all the lot of the grants, especially with capital. It will be like mentioned within the description and justification, or if it's fully grant, it would be under the total funding sources, which is listed on pages 48 and 49 of the annual town meeting. It actually breaks out all the summary of the funding sources. So if there are, if it's like a front loaded grant, where they give us the money in advance to pay for whatever capital it'll appear on there as as part of the funding source, if it's a reimbursable grant, such as item number six, usually that comes through in the description and justification of of the information that's being given to us by the department.
Unknown: Particular item that you're mentioning, Kelsi, this water item is a good example for a different reason. It was not in the five year capital plan the finance committee got pretty well along in its review of the fiscal 26 capital budget and the five year capital plan. And the Tom holder, who's online here, DEP W director, came to the Tom manager and the Finance Committee and the finance director, and said, Hey, we have this opportunity to get whatever it was, 40% 60% reimbursement from the state, but we don't have this in our plan or in the capital budget. Would you consider? Can't remember if we had already voted it and we had to reopen it. But that's an example of there's a plan, and then there's exceptions to the plan. In that case, you know, getting a good chunk of what otherwise going to have to get done paid for by the state, certainly there's a good rationale to bring in. So I think that particular one is a good example. On the the other one that Kelsi and Kelly mentioned, the state Brook dam project has been lingering around for three or four years. It had an initial appropriation from the town meeting two or three years ago, it was inserted into the fiscal 26 capital budget. At the same time, the town had submitted several grant requests, both state and federal, and have been unsuccessful through several funding rounds. And then, you know, we got it approved at town meeting, so in theory, they can move forward with project, but they were still hopeful of getting state. In federal money, and in fact, the state just came through with $884,000 and I'm not sure how likely it is, but there's they're still holding out hope that the federal government might come through with a good chunk of that other million four but at some point they have to get going on that project, because there was also part of it funded with ARPA funds, and those funds have to be spent by the end of fiscal by the end of calendar, 2726 I mean ARPA, American rescue plan Act funds federal government back. And so you had to commit it to certain projects that were qualified, and then you had to go ahead and then spend it no later than the end of calendar, 26 so the town manager is working with Conservation Director and trying to make sure that things get going so we don't, you know, lose The ability to use the ARPA funding. And think they're either going out or have gone out to bid, or hopefully final cost estimates for the project. We went out to bid last week. Okay, so it remains to be seen whether that whole bundle of money is going to be sufficient again over the last number of years, there's plenty of examples where the project gets approved, really get done in due course, and then they can finally get the estimates in and inflation, whatever competitive bidding environment they've got to come back to town meeting for more, more money. So hopefully, hopefully there's enough money that's now been approved to get that project done. But so it's an expanded answer to your question, but it's an example of it's covered a lot of areas. It's an example of the fluidity of process, despite the objective of trying to lock in a plan. So going back to the budget, does so does it have to be approved, assuming we won't get the grants in all cases? I think Kelly Lappin: it depends on the you can correct me, Kelsi or Mendel. It depends on the type of grant, right? So if the grants already approved, and at the front and front loaded, and it's, I think it's possible that we could do an article without right, with that subtracted, but if it's a reimbursement, you have to Unknown: do it, yeah, okay, so in the budget, unless it's up front, we would assume the full cost is in there. So the reimbursement then goes into the free capital budget, yeah. Where does it go? When you get it, it gets matched against the capital project and whatever funds have been appropriated through borrowing or use of other sources just don't get used, right? I guess I might go in that right, assuming it could be a year later that project closed. Is it just want, like, I'm just more from a budget? Is it washed in the budget, or does it actually get it close to that budget and reduced? Kelly Lappin: So what happens is we do something called capital close out. So when the project's done, and I've been managing the capital project since John a capital project since John Bugbee left as the former assistant manager, if there's any monies that is left over, it gets released. So I send a memo back to Brian Keaveney, and it some it appear sometimes that money, I don't know how he held it, because in my mind, it just goes back to the general fund, but, but it depends. So some of it is is earmarked as like surplus capital. So you can see in the summary for funding sources, especially for this so we had surplus capital, so unspent funds from completed capital projects in the amount of 590,000 zero, 42 so some, in some cases, it'll just go back to the general fund, which then just gets appropriated as free cash the next year gets certified, or it gets held over and is used again to pay for more capital projects in the intervening years, and is noted as surplus capital. But this surplus capital doesn't explicitly say what projects it comes from. It just kind of sits in its own and it depends what the depends what the original funding source for a project was. The funding source is debt, right? You can't then take that, that surplus and use it on a project that's not eligible to be DEP, right? So if there is some matching, that has to happen, but usually that comes from the finance director, right? When they're doing capital budget to say, hey, here's the projects that are getting closed out. Here's where the sources of close outs on how they can be used. Unknown: So again, last year, if you look at the in the warrant on page 36 there's the, at least the anticipated motions that were to be made at town meeting under the omnibus budget. Uh, operating a capital budgets. And Kelly's point, in addition to just surplus capital, which Kelsi was alluding to, we had surplus bond proceeds that require, if she said, very specific uses. That is, they have to be projects that would have otherwise qualified for debt financing at the same term. And again, the finance director has a lot of input and into what it could be used for. And so, you know, there's more on the back end. I mean, I assume that's thoughts that we basically deal with, unless it's extremely Kelly Lappin: deal with it if it's available. So I would say we don't plan for it, right? So when we're because, when we're in, we're going to be looking at capital projects. We're planning for it. We can't plan on the fact that there's going to be surplus from other projects. So I think that happens. Typically, it's at the tail end of the process, like, we've got a plan together, and then there's some, hey, we've got surplus we can use it for for this, and take it out of whatever we were gonna we're gonna propose, my experience has been more often than not, it's been last minute emergency projects that have come up and you've needed to rejigger so you've used surplus capital Unknown: to help Close the Gap. Is that a Kelsi? Is that, I assume the finance director, sort of annually goes through that analysis with department heads, trying, trying to end the school department, trying to get a sense, because, like, three years ago, they closed out over a million dollars of projects that were done. And at these excess proceeds have been appropriated to Kelly's point. They then got used to fund that year's capital budget. The next year, I think it was only, like $50,000 or something. And then last year, it was $590,000 and so I'd assume, as a process policy, you know, I would think we would least want to know that that is happening. And I think last year, the finance committee was given the camera was an Excel spreadsheet or from the Tom accounting system. But there was an analysis, literally at every capital open capital project, of which there were 8090, projects. And then had across the page to be closed out, and then kind of accumulate up all those amounts. And each of those close outs require either a department or a committee to sometimes have to vote that it's done, done, and they are giving up those proceeds. But it makes no sense to have that usable capital sitting around. So hopefully that'll be just part of sort of keeping an eye on the inventory of open projects. Kelly Lappin: Yeah, I, if I may, Madam Chair, yes, we try to meet, I try to meet with the department heads quarterly to go over that and to get their statuses of how, how the projects are going along, and if they need any assistance, and how much, if they think they're going to get any money back or and those meetings are also like to close out, because I have a couple of projects that are in the tail end, and just making sure that they're done, and when they're done, we can be done with it, with school projects. The school committee has to meet to close those out. So those can time. Take some time to allude to your point, but I do try to meet with the department heads that have capital on a quarterly basis to go over it. And if I have time, I try to meet a little bit more often than that. And then I report that back to the town account and final structure. And he does the actual Mach nation of closing out the process, and then I just keep the records. Unknown: So does it make sense to tie that debrief out to us when it's quarterly? Here it's a status of the projects, just from a planning standpoint. We know these are not voted on. These, these are closing to have up or down. What is the inflation threshold for not having to go back and vote? I know we talked about this last time. I just didn't write it down. Kelly Lappin: Oh, for not having to go back and vote. I don't know that there is an inflation threshold. It's if there's no money left, Unknown: right, you got it. Is there an overspend threshold? Or is it to the penny? Or the way Kelly Lappin: that it should work is that the overspend is built into the project that we had approved. Unknown: So I plus zero? Well, Kelly Lappin: I don't know that it's plus. It depends. I would say any major building project has has allowance in it for overages. I'm not going to say that every single Michael or Kelsi, you can speak to this, that every single truck that DEP W has on there has, you know, a certain amount of overage in their amount. But I don't think they it's not to the penny, not to the dollar, necessarily. Unknown: But is that in the approved amount, or is that, is they asked for amount and the actual request says, plus 5% okay, it's in the approved whatever amount we is approved in the plan is the amount. That's the four. And it's for a Tom meeting. Tom meeting is approving individual line item projects. So if you're over on one, you can't department like just pick on DEP w if the truck ends up costing more than was appropriated my knowledge Tom, you can correct me, they can't spend excess funds they have in another line item that happened that was also appropriated at some other town meeting. My knowledge that that's not possible. So it behooves everybody, as best they can to build in, certainly an inflation factor, contingency factors, but and mostly that's during the covid years, due to bunch of issues, the town got fairly behind on getting to and starting projects that got approved, and as a result, and given the passage of time, there were a number of projects that ended up it was clear they're not going to have enough money to tweet it, and so they had to sort of wait until the next available town meeting to go back and ask for additional appropriation. The fire station two is a good example where I think there was at least three the initial appropriation and at least two more after that. And part of that was passage of time. Part of it was unforeseen circumstances beyond the contingency. And there's plenty of those examples that have occurred when I was on the board of selectmen. It was around the time the public safety building was built, I think I stood before Tom meeting at least three or four times, asking for more money. And that's just not the way you want to Kelly Lappin: but one of the goals of having this meeting is that we hopefully have better right, with better control over that from a planning perspective, right? That it's planned for that projects being monitored, which Kelsi is doing, right, a great job. Can't say it was always being tracked quarterly. I can't even say it was being tracked annually. So staying on top of projects and making sure that they're moving forward, right, is going to help with that. The goal would be that we're not we're in minimal situations where we have to go back to the town and ask for Unknown: more money, right? Lisa, and it would be helpful. Of all of us, I suspect you probably have a bit more of the project management background, if I recall, from your resume. Yeah. So if there's things that you've done in the private sector that conceivably at least could be discussed here, it may not fit in the municipal world, given restrictions, but I know when we deal with financial matters, I tend to bring up things from my time in private sector, and again, they don't always translate into municipal finance. But, you know, I think towns should always be open to looking for different ways to go at these projects, to ultimately get them done efficiently, cost effectively, etc, etc, so and just have an accurate budget. I mean, I think that's the just know where the when the money's going, right. Yeah. Can I ask you that question? Then, yeah, this leads to laundry list, unfortunately. So from a budgeting approval standpoint, I just want to make sure it correctly. If we approve it for 26 gets voted and but in reality, the spending gets delayed to halfway, gets 27 as many projects will carry over from a budget standpoint, does that line and move to 27 and if so, when Kelly Lappin: no so? And I think I answer in two parts. One, capital is not restricted to a given fiscal year. So once the project is approved, that project can be done, conceivably, over any period of time, with probably some restrictions around debt and how you issue debt. But projects can and have extended far beyond when they were intended to be done. And Brian gave a good example during covid, right? Because of priorities on things that needed to be done in order to get buildings open, ADU freeze during covid, and also because, I'm sure you're fully aware right, materials that work hard to get extreme inflation in the building sector, stuff like that. Things got more delayed, but no, they don't have to be used in that year. One of the things we talked about in the capital planning working group before, when we were getting the article ready to go to town meeting, was the idea of when something we weren't necessarily doing publicly, maybe it was being done behind the scenes, but when a project's being proposed for approval at a town meeting that we have a schedule associated with it of when do we think this project is going to be completed? Certainly, big projects have big buildings, have that associated with them, but lay half an expectation for everything. When we expect to see this closed out so that we can have a little bit of accountability over it. But I think also kelsi's process of meeting with everybody is it also helps foster that. Like, all right, it's there. Why isn't it moving? Can we get it moving? But for the reason that that Brian said, I would like to avoid going back to town meeting, I would like the town to have to avoid, to be able to avoid going back to town meeting. The longer something goes on for, the more, the higher the likelihood you go back to town meeting, right? Because the longer it goes on for, the more likely the cost have increased beyond what you've beyond what you've budgeted and had approved.
Unknown: Can I add? So then, how does that affect the free cash, or the surplus cash that's in there, versus the DEP? Because I assume you're not going to take the debt on if the project hasn't started. Kelly Lappin: Yeah. So I think that was the second part I wanted to talk about. So I think maybe it makes sense to talk a little bit about funding sources, and I'm going to point you to page if you have the warrant open page 49 on top of page 49 just as a good place to start. This isn't the be all, end all, but it's a good place to look. So this was the FY 26 capital budget, summarized that box at the top by what the funding source was. And so thinking, maybe if we walk through each of them, and there's people that probably aren't on here, and talk about what they are, that might help a little bit. So borrowing, so debt issuance, you're right. So debt issuance, town meeting is approving that we do a capital project, and we do it with debt. The actual debt issuance is handled by the treasurer's office. So finance director oversees the treasurer's office in conjunction with the Select Board, so they're actually approving, right, signing the paperwork for the DEP placement. That doesn't necessarily happen right right away after town meeting. As I recall, we typically do debt issuances either November February, depending on advice from our financial advisor and the timing of the project. So we're not going to go out and issue debt if we're not ready to start the project, and it'll also come down to how projects get grouped, and whether or not we have cash to kind of pull things over on hand so that we don't need to issue the debt right away, because you're not doing it right every month. So there's grouping projects together. Unknown: A couple of sidebar comments there. There's two ways to finance the project. One is short term financing with bond anticipatory notes, which are generally interest only payments. And you'll typically use that type of financing where you're not ready to do a full bond offer. You don't have enough projects, enough dollar amount to make it, you know, economically feasible. And so, you know, the Treasurer and a finance director might, you know, and we have some outstanding now in town that'll partially fund projects to get them going. And then once there's a critical mass, as we're about to come up on here in November, a critical mass of water projects, for example. They're now currently partially funded with bond and participatory notes. Then long term bonds will be issued, takes out the short term financing is to when the financing long term is put on. I mean, so in the short term case, well, albeit, they could issue that whenever. They tend to also try to do that periodically, so they're not constantly in their grouping. So it's not for a project, it's just for that, typically, for a group of projects, Bradford Carver: right? But just so I'm clear just but it's for the full value of the project. Unknown: In the bond anticipatory notes, sometimes yes, sometimes no, when you get to the bond issuing the long term bonds, typically, that's the full authorized amount to borrow, unless there's been some change. And we have a couple of examples in the fiscal 26 capital budget that you know it's probably too detailed to get into tonight, but there are always exceptions. But just picking up on one of the points Kelly made, you would think that unless you're ready to go with Project, particularly when you're talking about issuing the long term bonds, it would behoove the town not to issue bonds too far in advance, because you obviously start paying at whatever 4% today, and you might be invested proceeds probably are being invested today at around 4% but if you look back three to four years, you might be paying two and a half to three and a half percent and making nine. Think so it's costing the town well. When the Council on Aging building was set to get going, there was 11 million plus or minus of bonds voted for that project. There's bunch of other projects grouped in and I think it was at least a year, if not more, before any of those bond proceeds got spent on the project for various reasons, and we'll talk about the DEP policy later, but it reminded me of an issue that came up with a public safety building years ago, where they had likewise borrowed in advance of spending down the money at a pace the federal law requires it. The tax code requires you to spend it down at and if you don't spend it down fast enough, the town has to pay a rebate to the federal government. And I recall back with the Public Safety building, the town actually had to cut a check because there's interest arbitrage going on between what the lower rates on Muni debt versus what you might be earning in a taxable investment, and it just depends on the markets. So I do have an open question out to the finance director on the Council on Aging bonding of 11 million because I believe it was sitting there beyond the point where it was supposed to be starting to be spent, and it's not my job to police that, but having lived through it many years ago, you know you don't want to have to wait for the arrest to show up at your doorstep and say, Yo, us money. So I think I think back to Kelly's point. When these projects get brought forth approved, having a good sense of what the timeline is, and that people are actually committed to getting it going, and they're closer to be able to do that now than they were two or three years ago, because there was 90 projects stacked up that needed to get completed. And so I think that's always the goal. Yeah, and there's some big projects coming down the line. That's why I say that there's where large projects in the 20 year schedule that could be over five or six years. I mean, you don't, you don't need to borrow that right away. Especially, think the market's gonna change Kelly Lappin: and you won't, necessarily. I think if we get to looking at the actual like DEP schedule, you'll see projects that got issued in pieces, right? That were bigger projects that got issued in pieces. So it is possible to do that. One of the things that Brian just said, I just said it at our last meeting, is the job right, that we're facing as a committee in conjunction with the town manager, right is not just how much money and where the money comes from, but resources to do the project. So one of the problems that the town definitely suffered from was appropriating funds for projects, approving projects that there was no way could be done in a reasonable period of time. And so that created the cycle of, we got to go back to town meeting and get more money. It's like, well, probably knew we weren't going to get this done for for three years, right? Why did we slate it that way? And there's reasons. I mean, I know Tom holder has told me before, right? Sometimes you need to have the project approved in order to start the process right? So there are reasons to do it, but that's goes back to if there's clear expectations at the outset of this is the project, this is the timeline for the project, then there's something to hold accountable to. And we're not in a situation of, I thought we were starting. We issued the bonds, and we haven't used any of it or Unknown: suffering the projects into preliminary, you know, do the do the assessments for the quarter million and then move on breaking it Kelly Lappin: into pieces? Yep. And Unknown: what we've seen in the last two or three years, because of what Kelly described, is that finance director recommended to the town manager, who then recommended the Finance Committee, even though the five year plan called for certain projects to be coming up for that particular year's capital budget, to just push them out, literally push other than life safety type thing. Push everything they push things out, like a year, push the whole schedule back a year. And so that that I would assume would be part of our review process. I'm not clear on whether we're reviewing or doing, but we'll talk about that some other time. Yeah, I think Kelly Lappin: right now, I'm just trying to make sure we've got enough foundational knowledge to deal with projects when they come in. So talked a lot about barring already. Unfortunately, I don't think we're completely done. So Brian differentiated part of the borrowing nuances. I think the other piece that's important to understand is that borrowing can happen in sort of, I think, three different flavors, right? One is within the levy. Yeah. And I'll talk about what the levy is in a minute. Second is excluded or outside the levy, right? And then the third is through self supporting funds. So probably going to get a little tricky, because when we talk about water historically, we would have said it on the self supporting DEP, right? The water fund is going to pay the payment on the debt. When we get to talking about MWRA, we'll probably flip that on its head and have discussions about whether or not that's self supporting, Unknown: maybe ambulatory. That was still positive, right? What was that ambulatory? And those service fees that we got Kelly Lappin: there? Oh, ambulance fees. Yeah, so that's another so that's not debt, but it could have debt. So that's another, another way, typically, though, I think the way we used ambulance fees before is the town took on the debt, and then the ambulance fund reimburses the town for the debt. So it's a little bit different than the water fund, where the water fund the debt falls under the water water enterprise fund, and they're paying the DEP, so little bit different. So the levy,
Unknown: yeah, keeping up on all this. And I'm going to tell Kelly Lappin: you guys the same thing I see at work, like we're saying it. Will say it as many times as you need us to. You can ask the question as many times as you want in as many meetings as you want. Okay, Levy. Are either of you familiar with the levy? Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna put taxes, Yeah, same taxes. I'm gonna butcher this, I'm sure. But I'm gonna try to do this simple, as simple an explanation as I can. The laws of Massachusetts say that the town cannot raise taxes more than a certain percent. That is a half percent plus new growth. I'm not, I'm not getting into the detailed explanation. I will. I can send you guys, there's a good presentation on the State's website that explains how the levy works, and I I can't do it as good as that presentation, so I will send you the presentation. But that's a constraint that the town has the fine finance committee and Tom manager. Everybody are going to face when they're doing the budget. You can get around that in a couple of different ways. You can vote, as a community, we're going to override. We agree as a community that we're going to do more than that, than that limit for a given year. For many years. Recently, the town hasn't been up against that limit we're we're running into it possibly this year, right? So it hadn't been an immediate issue, but it had been an identity issue, and at least in the time I lived here, which has been a while, we had had an override vote for that purpose. For capital projects, you can vote to exclude a project's debt from the levy. So it's basically like an over. It is an override, but it's specific to that project. So you're voting rather than voting to say, hey, tax, the tax levy can go up by more than than the limit, but would otherwise be allowed. You're saying the cost of this specific project is excluded for the life of the project. So you're taking that piece out whatever the debt service is for that project. You're excluding it from that limit. And does Bradford Carver: it have to be a capital project, actual physical product project, or can Unknown: it be to be excluded Kelly Lappin: the town, in theory, could do it for, I think, for anything, but we don't, right. We have a policy to have it be a bigger over a certain threshold. I can't remember. We used to say two and a half. I don't know what we what we're at, is it still two and a half. It's so over two and a half million projects that you would have in town that were done as excluded debt, big ones that I can think of the high school when it Unknown: was it's with respect to debt that's associated with a capital that's funding a capital project. And I think Kelly's saying that traditionally, the town has used that mechanism generally for larger capital projects, just because, if you had to include both debt services levy debt and excluded that both those debt services appear in the town's operating budget, but for purposes of not running into the state's prop two and a half limitation, any excluded debt service gets taken outside of that silo of calculation and then kind of added in, again, if you will, to what ultimately gets taxed to the residents for the period. Time that debt is outstanding, once that debt is fully paid off, that's been excluded, that override piece for that goes away. Bradford Carver: So for something like the NWA project, which I know is big on the horizon, is that something you could do through excluded debt Unknown: that's going to require probably a separate and probably not tonight, but a separate discussion, because there's different options for how to handle the paying of the debt associated with that project. Kelly Lappin: But it could Yes. There's a lot Yes, but it could Unknown: be excluded debt in a couple different ways, Kelly Lappin: and it requires so an excluded debt vote requires a vote here on building right? Taxpayers come out and vote, and it's 50% for the exclusion at the ballot box, yes, and then you're still going to go to town meeting and vote the project right, and debt is a two thirds majority vote at Tom meeting. So it's, a two step process, right? The first step is, is it going to be excluded or not? The second is, are we going to actually approve the project? Unknown: That rule is for generally, all capital, including this, MWRA happy hollow, well, project with one exception, which I don't want to get into tonight, but there is a special rule that's currently being debated by select board or considered by the cycle back to that also get it characterized excluded DEP without going to the ballot. Michael McCall: Yeah, you didn't mention, you mentioned those two steps, town meeting and the ballot, but there still is the vote of the Select Board, unless I missed you saying, Yeah, Unknown: put the question on the ballot. The Select Board has to vote. Board members have to vote in favor. Put a debt exclusive question on a ballot. It's a super majority and and so there's, there's a lot of you have to get over and the town, my recollection, having looked at the last 20 plus years of both prop two and a half operating overrides and debt exclusion overrides, I don't think the town, with one exception, which is the first go around in the high school, the town hasn't failed to pass a debt exclusion question of the ballot. And generally, when that happens at the ballot, since we generally voted before town meeting, you can do it after. It's generally also been passed the two thirds vote at town meeting on the operating side, which we're not talking about tonight, there's a different threshold to get it on the ballot at a different threshold town meeting, because you're generally operating but all these things are very, sort of specific, particular, and I'm not sure it's sort of this. It's important for you to have kind of a background knowledge of that. I don't necessarily think this committee is going to be involved in. Who's making what decision on what's excluded, we may make a recommendation as to what projects warrant using excluded debt versus levy debt, which traditionally has fallen upon the Finance Committee to do in the past, but beyond that. So it's important to try to grasp and as Kelly said, there's no doubt that we're going to have to come back to this and and if she can pass out to the rest of you the primer, I think that'd be helpful to kind of read through it. It's a video, whatever. Yeah, I think the important Kelly Lappin: part, because I agree with Ryan, I don't know that it's our right, we might make a recommendation. It's not our job to decide excluded or not. And at the end of the day, the cost the taxpayers the same. So it's it's dealing with, you know, override land and whether or not there's an override, but you're going to pay the debt service in either situation. So in terms of, can we bear the load as a town, that doesn't change. So I don't know that it has too much impact on what we have to do as a committee and deciding where it fits, other Unknown: than understanding, albeit it hasn't happened often in Wayland in the last 20 plus years. If you get a no vote, that project can still go forward, but it would have to go forward with levy debt, which would eviscerate the operating budget, right? Means the only way to accomplish that would be to cut services which are Kelly Lappin: poor, vote overrides every year and vote Unknown: operating different threshold, so which is also difficult. So what does it show in the summary for outside Kelly Lappin: the living so there wasn't in in this particular warrant, there wasn't that this year. We didn't have any excluded debt in this particular year. Unknown: Was it unusual to have free cash then as well? Is that kind of why? Kelly Lappin: No so free cash is ever so. Why don't we? We'll step through the rest of the categories and then go back to the ones that aren't in here. Unknown: We. Free cash is never free. I get it. That's taxpayer money. That's taxpayer money that's sitting in a reserve, right? Kelly Lappin: So free cash is taxpayer money that is sitting in reserve, which is essentially the result of either right under spending of prior year budgets or more revenue that came in than was anticipated in the budget. Right? Unknown: It could be sourced from Dennis. It could, it could have to be used for another debt project. Kelly Lappin: No free cash should be, should be Unknown: unrestricted, I think surplus capital and at some point it'd be helpful. You know, Brian, Kevin, he the finest director, be with us. But I believe surplus capital can initially be utilized to put against other like capital projects, right, right? And we have some of that here, if it's not, if there's surplus capital, and it's not utilized in that fashion, I believe it basically defaults free cash, defaults to free cash, but it's not restricted. It's not restricted for use capital projects. So there's a kind of a premium to try to corral that. You don't have to, but kind of corral that and apply it to new budgeted capital projects. Kelly Lappin: And the reason there's a little bit of a difference there is because if you could use it against you could match it against another project, you can use it right away without sort of affecting free cash. If it's going to roll into free cash, you're not going to see that. It's not going to get certified for another year, right? So there's a bit of a delay in seeing it show up in our in our financials. So, but once it's in free cash, it no longer has a specific restructuring on it's not tied anymore, okay, so that's where free cash comes from. So that is not you think about these borrowing is going to have an impact on the budget, because there's going to be debt service. How that lays out is going to depend on the debt instrument, right? Is the debt instrument a ban where it's just interest only for a period, so next year's budget's just going to have the interest piece versus a bond is going to be interest in principle, and it's a bigger piece. And getting further complicated. If you do a situation where you do a ban for your you might have to double up on your your principal payment in the first year. So that's going to affect how much is going into the budget in any given year. Is going to be based on that cadence of what those debt items are, how they were financed, what the payment on them is. So it's not it's not always straightforward. In many cases, if you're approving a debt project, you're not going to see it in the fiscal year budget that you're approving at that same Tom meeting. You're likely going to see it in the next meeting, depending on when they expect the issue so that all gets into what are you issuing? When are you issuing is going to affect when you see it in the budget, but ultimately, taxpayers are going to feel that in the future in their tax rate. Unknown: One other, this is something you've never had to deal with, I don't think. But another, I'm not going to spend a lot of time in it, but it's just it's ongoing right now. Free cat is likely going to be used with respect to the fiscal 26 approved Capital Budget Project, some of them to have the general fund for a period of time, roughly December, end of this year through June of next year, to fund about $6 million of those projects before fun anticipatory notes are going to be issued. And the benefit of doing that is that you don't have to pay any interest for that six month period. And still, your projects can go forward, but using the free cash in that fashion, which requires some paperwork and some accounting entries must be repaid before the end of the fiscal year to get it back into free cash, which then gets certified. And the town hasn't utilized this in recent history, if at all, but it's something that's going to be utilized to try to address a operating budget levy gap for fiscal 27 which, again, maybe we get to tonight, and one of the agenda items about sort of the current operating budget environment. But so it you know, the point is, there are a lot of traditional ways that the town has done business, but at times the town has needed to try to be creative and extend it. Can find that there are legitimate legal avenues to do things that we haven't here before done. And there's another one gets on here that what. Has done, been done in the past, which you'll get to in this list. But you know, the town kind of looks at all of its various pockets of financing before necessarily going straight to to the taxpayer, saying we need more money if we already have different resources. Kelly Lappin: So yeah, so before we move on to the rest of them, I would say borrowing and free cash tend to be the biggest two buckets in any given year. They I think they would always be on here. The rest of them, other other than the ambulance fund, not necessarily so free cash that I just want to set so free cash, because it's money right in excess from prior years, won't affect the tax rate, right going forward. So it's not a part of the operating budget increase, because it's already been paid for by taxpayers in their previous tax bills. That said you want your free cash balance in the town to be a certain amount, and I can't remember Unknown: what it is, 20% 20% target of the total operating Kelly Lappin: budget. So it's not an amending right
source of money. Like we can't just keep taking from it and taking from it. We tend to restrict it. Unknown: It's good financial practice. But Moody's who rates the town's debt, which they'll be doing here shortly. And the town is one of 13 communities, I think, with a triple A rating, which means we get a little bit lower borrowing cost. So you want to try it as best you can maintain the AAA rating. And they have a series of best practices, one of which is, take your collective reserve funds, including free cash, the debt Stabilization Fund, which is another recently set up reserve, which Kelly will get to in a minute, and special education reserve. And there's a couple others floating around, and they want that if you know, if you can around 20% of your total 100 plus million dollar operating budget. Amazing, they want free cash to be 20% Kelly Lappin: balance. So not what we're spending from it, but the balance of it. So basically, your savings account, right? Like, they want the town to have a certain amount of money in reserve at any Unknown: not what you're using here, but what's available. Oh, okay, we use we Kelly Lappin: can't just like, you'd be like, yeah, it doesn't affect the taxpayer. I want to take as much as I can from free cash, but we've got to maintain right, good fiscal practices in town, so it's not a ever flowing source of money. Unknown: Okay, so sorry. So the borrowing number that's in here is that what's planned to be borrowed this Kelly Lappin: year. That's the amount that's planned to be borrowed within the levy, okay, surplus capital we talked about a little bit earlier. So that is capital projects previously approved that were not used for one reason or the other, that we're able to match up to projects that are in the current list. Again, it's unspent funds from prior projects that have already been approved and already been taxed, unless they're debt, in which case they will be taxed. But it's not changing anything beyond what we already anticipated from a from a tax load, okay, receipts reserved for sale of real estate fund. This is an unusual one. This is not typically in here. And so this was, there's a realist, there's a fund in which I Brian, you probably know better than I where, where these funds came from, but this is Unknown: generally, if the town sells asset, real estate, assets that it owns, it'll take those proceeds and deposit them in this, again, separate reserve fund, called titled reserve receipts, reserved for real estate, sale of real estate, Weird name, but it's another reserve, but it generally come from prior sales of land, generally. And there are, there are some restrictions on what it can be used for, and the votes required to be able to use. I'm not going Kelly Lappin: to spend much more time than that, though, because it's not, it's not a common one that we're going to be Unknown: in this particular budget. It was used largely to fund the state book dam, absent getting the federal grant. And then there was a last minute change to the budget to move some money that had been in an out year for route 20 quarter design work. And the the quid pro quo for moving it up was to use that reserve fund as a funding source, but there's assuming this amount is used in the town doesn't get federal grant. That account probably has under a million dollars in it at this point, and. Kelly Lappin: Um, all right, capital stabilization was an account established, I'm going to guess probably five years ago. Maybe it wasn't quite that long ago, for purposes of putting money aside for capital, the idea being was floated, and I don't know that we ever really achieved this. But because debt service can be uneven for some of the reasons I talked about earlier, right, depending on how, how a project cadence is, capital spending that's in the tax rate in a given year can be uneven. And we had a number of years where the amount being spent on capital in a budget around debt in a budget was decreasing year over year, and it was getting right. It gets spent right. Whenever it was a decrease, you find there's another place for it to get spent. So the idea was, keep your capital budget item right, whatever that amount is, level year over year, and to the extent you don't use it because you didn't have projects set aside, any difference would go into the stabilization fund if that happened. I don't think that has happened in any years. One it Unknown: hasn't happened from that perspective, but the account has been funded through a separate funding article, meaning there's a hope, albeit unlikely, in the next decade, for reasons we'll talk about, but I would expect, and generally, it's been funded, but not always with initially, I think it may have been funded with taxation. The last few years has been funded with free cash. I believe, if it was done for the reasons Kelly was stating where, particularly the levy debt services is rolling off and you didn't have any other projects coming on, you try to level service that debt line effectively by taking whatever the drop off is and depositing in account and collect that through tax revenue. Kelly Lappin: Yeah, that was one of the thoughts that was never consistent. There was never a full agreement on on that, but that was one of the thoughts and setting it Unknown: up. And then if it swings the other way, then you have a place you might go where it doesn't immediately cause you to have to borrow money, additional money, or put it on the tax rate, and so you have money in, money out. Kelly Lappin: So I always think of this one as sort of, you know, like my my own project, savings funding home. Right? When I want to do a project that's going to be big, I start putting money aside ahead of time. That's sort of the concept here, right? Whether what the funding sources or were the reasons we have funding sources has changed over time. It's going to depend one year to the next, but there is a little bit of money. Again, it's not, I don't think it's a ton. I don't know. Kelsi, you know how much is in there, Unknown: in the top staples? Yeah, plus or minus a million dollars. Kelly Lappin: So again, it's not a place that's gonna like, solve it's about problems here, but there was a project maybe use 100,000 of that. Unknown: Yeah. I mean this in this year, my finance committee, it was small enough that we let it go. This was a town manager asked for $100,000 each of the next five years to do some repair and rehab work on athletic fields and recreation fields, athletic fields. And the finance director identified capital stabilization fund as a source to fund that particular line item. And I said it was 100 grand. We we let it go as a funding source. It didn't seem to make the most sense to us, but all Kelly Lappin: right. And then ambulance fees, we talked a little bit about it, but this is revenues coming from the town's ambulances. There's, historically, I think there's been a balance there, again, not a huge balance of funds in the ambulance fund, but we tend to try to match ambulance fund fees, projects and use of the ambulance fund with things that are for fire, right for the fire department, so that it's matched up. And in the case of debt, like I said, John, not a given that it's that it's working the same way that it would for the water department, but we have done debt where then the ambulance fund sort of reimburses the general fund for some of their bigger items, like an ambulance or A fire truck, right? Unknown: And you may have answers. I'm just making sure. And so borrowing outside the levy, where would that show up? It's on the borrowing line, so that that excluded debt versus levy debt. You'll see in the finance committee report, there's a reference to excluded debt and levy. Debt on probably the only place you're going to see it when the warrant
page 10 operating budget has a debt and interest line item that includes both levy debt and excluded DEP. So that's in the operating budget. Look at page 10. That's an analysis on the bottom section of that table of the town's annual maximum levy limit. And you'll see, if you look scroll down, you'll see a subtotal line label levy limit. Right below it, you'll see debt exclusion, yep. And basically, the levy limit is inclusive of whatever you need to fund your operating budget, inclusive of levy debt service, but exclusive of excluded debt which gets it bypasses the prop two and a half, two and a half percent a year limitation, but only the shoe. It shows you funding sources. So is this 4.6 Kelly Lappin: so if we were doing a project that was excluded, DEP, there would be, it would be, it's a whole article written up on it. It would, we would vote it separate from Unknown: just outside of that, okay, I'd say, traditionally, I think of late, that's probably the way it's going to go. Yeah, it has Kelly Lappin: been a while. Has shown up while we've done a couple of smaller ones, we we've put in the main vote by Unknown: typically large dollar mouse, ie, 3 million, 4 million and north end up in a separate article to give the town a bit more time to debate that project the town meeting. But that 12 million there doesn't include that other DEP, we didn't have any excluded debt, new excluded debt in fiscal Okay, so we would show up there if there was in the fiscal year. Yeah. So that was my confusion. There was Yeah. So if this estimate, if we had, if we had proposed issuing excluded debt, its debt service would have shown up where the 4,000,006 46 is, yep. So you can see that line item is kind of popped up in 24 because we must have issued some excluded debt, and then it's been kind of trending down, okay, but we do have some projects on the horizon that would you would expect, we'll use excluded debt. It was more than I just expected to see the line there. But it's because, okay, I suggested to the finance director recently that both here and again, I'm not sure it would end up in the capital plan anyway, but in the operating budget, if you look at I looked at page 45 of the warrant is your total debt and interest line item, which, again, is debt service for both Levy and excluded debt. I've suggested to the finance director, he might consider breaking that line item up into two components with a subtotal, because the discussion about letting excluded is likely going to be at the forefront in the next three or four months. And so whether he takes me up on that, yeah, Kelly Lappin: try to focus on the understanding and worry about the presentation right a little bit later date. But the one there's probably more than one item that's not here that I want to mention, but there's one in particular, and that is, if you look in prior year warrants, you'd see a category called cash capital that was probably the most straightforward, and that it's a tax right? It's amounts that your project, you were going to fund, that you're going to have included in the budget as tax. What we historically had done was road work was was cash capital. That changed a couple of years ago to borrowing, but we have historically been years where we had cash capital in there. Right now it's not again. Sometimes I don't necessarily see it returning in the years where we're facing overrides. Unknown: And I think the discussion, I think I understand why it found its way, because it wasn't always funded through taxation. If you go back a bunch of years, it was borrowed and and there were a number of years where the town was generating excess free cash year over year, and the good portion of the town was saying, wait a minute, why don't we slow our taxes instead of building up these reserves? And so I think there were a number of things that found their way into the budget to try to compress what was otherwise then available to pay for everything else. And by putting, my opinion, by putting the funding of road improvements, which generally, May, I don't know what the timeframe Tom is in Wayland, but generally, to put a new blacktop down, you would hope it lasts 1015, years anyway. And so that would seem like that's a long. Term makes sense. Maybe a borrowed over a period of time, and once you start borrowing it every year, you're eventually going to end up with a portion of that debt service in your operating budget. So you probably get, Kelly Lappin: you get back to the same place you're just buying yourself, like five, six years. Unknown: We moved a place, and we moved it out a couple years ago, just because we were starting to lose our levy capacity, and so we were looking for in that particular it wasn't that issue. It was a concern that the tax year over year tax increase was too high. It was closing on 8% and so we were looking for ways to try to drop that year over year, tax increase and the roads came out of the operating budget, and it's now the finance director is okay with that, as long as we committed to borrow it each year going forward,
Kelly Lappin: spending time in the bottom section, yeah, I am. I just was getting hung up. It looks like there's an errata in the total funding sources that that 12 million is really supposed to be 9,000,007 85, I think it was. I think you guys changed the format and separated water. Unknown: Yes, so Rada was Tom chair. Kelly Lappin: Okay, so the bottom section is those Unknown: numbers don't add up to 12 million. Okay, that was fixed the town meeting, yeah. But I was, Kelly Lappin: since I wasn't involved, I was like, Wait a minute. Okay, so the bottom section is the bottom section because Unknown: I think it's still worth doing it. But I just asked the town manager question, Michael, have you had any I know you've been busy with a bunch of things. Have you had any chance to get your own clarity on whether this committee, in addition to the general fund capital, will be expected to deal with both enterprise fund capital and CPA capital? And if not, that's fine, we'll just come back to it another time. But I Michael McCall: don't know if I have an answer for you tonight, but I do think that is part of the budget that we present to Tom meeting, because it's included at the end of the capital budget. You do see those called out in separate sections, and I would think it would be prudent to have second set of eyes looking at those requests. But I can think about that for you.
Unknown: Yeah, just the biggest one it'll be relevant to is the MWRA happy hollow. Well, project for example, which has already been vetted by Kelly Lappin: multiple it's MWRA. But it's also going back to my earlier comment about resources, are both financial resources and people resources. Those projects all require people resources the same way the others do. So it's hard to it's hard for us as a body to sit here and say, yep, we've got room and space to do these without considering CPA and water fund projects. So the bottom section, or actually, yeah, bottom section of this page is water, wastewater and the transfer station enterprise funds. So these are projects for those specific funds that are going to be paid from those funds, either by directly paying, right, directly paying. And there aren't any on here, but they could the same concept as cash capital, right? It's coming out of the fund directly. So if the project costs 100,000 you take $100,000 out of those funds, or you're borrowing, and the debt service is being paid by the fund, right? So these are considered self supporting funds versus tax levy most of the time, most of the time, with the exception of that line item. So if you'll go down right, water enterprise fund borrowing, is debt service going to be paid by the water Enterprise Fund, wastewater borrowing, the debt service is going to be paid by the wastewater Enterprise Fund. Surplus capital is the same as what we talked about previously, except likely it was surplus. It should have been surplus capital that were capital projects that were approved to be paid from these funds, so they can use it for projects that can come from these funds. General Fund free cash subsidy is the exception, right? So this was dollars coming from the general fund, I believe, to pay for that compact or replacement at the transfer station Enterprise Fund, because I'm guessing the transfer station enterprise fund didn't have enough money to pay for the project, and so that's the exception on this page. Unknown: The other comment I mentioned here is that, unlike the discussion above, on the differentiating levy debt. Or excluded debt. None of that applies to debt issued to the extent it's going to be paid for through water rates or wastewater management rates or transfer station fees. It's general obligation of the town, but it doesn't affect the town's levy limit because it's separate. And these are in the parlance of municipal government, these are, they're a little bit more than accounting entries on the town's books, but they're a separate accounting fund that are expected again, to generate their own revenues and pay their own expenses and have a balanced budget and or grow surpluses, like the town surpluses, to kind of cushion for unforeseen expenses as we go forward. Bradford Carver: So I go back and check, but this so the $3 million is that part of the operating budget, or is it just not part of it, because it's the Enterprise Fund. Okay, so Unknown: last year there was a debate, which I unfortunately one that was championing the debate. There's an article, a separate article on page 28 of the Warren enterprise fund budgets. And you'd say to yourself, that's probably where you'd find the operating budget and the capital budget for the enterprise funds. But historically, the enterprise for not ever and ever, but for some number of years, the Enterprise Fund, operating budget and capital budgets appeared under the omnibus budget article, and we're all voted kind of at the same time in a combined fashion. And town council inform the town a couple years ago, at least as related, the operating budget wasn't supposed to be doing that. Needed to vote on the operating budget anyway, separately. So from that point forward, this separate article was created covering just the operating budget. Last year, I questioned a question of two years ago wasn't enough time to do anything about it. Last year, I questioned, why not also, for the same reason, put the enterprise fund capital budgets over there. And town council came back and said, Well, you have a point. And yeah, you could do that. You could also separate it out in the omnibus budget and have a separate motion that's dedicated only to the enterprise fund capital budget, which is what we ended up doing last year, or in the spring or three you could create a separate yet another enterprise fund article that dealt solely with the capital which Finance Committee wasn't too interested in. My hope is that the current finance committee will re look at this again this year and have another discussion about whether it makes sense to pull the capital for the enterprise funds and just deal with all of that stuff the Enterprise Fund budget article, but at least Town Council is okay with pulling it apart under the omnibus article, but we had to do a separate motion, so we had Four different motions under this article at town meeting, which got a little bit unwieldy. That's more than you probably needed. Kelly Lappin: So we've spent a lot of time on one specific area. I do think it's important, because I think it's the found, sort of the foundation of like we're going to be talking about projects, there's got to be a place for the money to come from, and we need to understand what what that impact is. Unknown: I want to ask you a philosophical question that we should you just hit the button of the TV for us. Yeah, continue watching. Sorry, TV screen itself
and there's a remote
so obviously, we're talking about a lot of detailed financial items, which are again important generally to the process. As I think about, sort of just kind of a very high level Capital Planning Committee. In my mind, I could certainly say, well, our job is to and look out into the future longer than has historically been done to try to identify and begin to report on on a consistent basis. ADU projects, needs, wants and let the financing be dealt with, with the finance director, the town manager, the finance committee, having said that the town has followed, or certainly over the last number of years, a revenue based approach to capital funding, which is, what are our financial resources? There's lots of things people need to do, want to do, but we don't have unlimited. Resources to do that. And so I understand the concept that you need to have at least a feel for what do we have available in each and every year. One is staring us right in the face, fiscal 27 and then as you start to go out the next four years, maybe have a little clearer picture. And then obviously go out 10 or more years after that, lot less clear picture. Is it in the discussions that the working group had, is it your view that this committee will be working closely with the finance director at the outset, with the finance director kind of establishing, from his perspective, what those financial limitations, I Kelly Lappin: think the finance director and the finance committee, so what we anticipated is they're still going to need a guideline right of what is available or within the realm of possibility. So the way I view this, and I think it's consistent with what we talked about, Carol or Michael can correct me, right? We're looking at all the projects being proposed, right, evaluating them for priority and readiness, right? And then they need to be slotted according to resource availability, both financial and human. Unknown: Is that, is that in your discussions, is that
Kelly Lappin: I don't, I don't see collaborative this committee, yeah, I think it's got to be collaborative, because this, I don't think this committee should be taking on the task of financial, what the resort, right? What the ultimate affordability is right between the finance director, the finance committee, others need to be providing the guideline, right? And, yeah, is there going to be it to be collaborative? Because there's going to have to be some push pull, right? Because I think you would say you're basing purely on affordability. Then I don't know how you do MWRA, but clearly you have to have water, so there's got to be some back and forth. But I would expect that finance director, Finance Committee, are providing some guidelines, some guide posts around what's in the realm of possible, because ultimately they're the ones that kind of have to go to have to go to right in the town manager to town meeting and present it as a part Unknown: of so. And I agree with all that. So my concern is it's we have a number of chickens and number of eggs here. Finance Committee leads to three years I was on it. Waited and waited and waited. They were kept apprised of the prior year numbers they look at. They were kept apprised of process, but ultimately they were presented with a town manager recommended capital budget, and it included proposed sources, including the five year plan. And then the finance committee reviewed that and thought about it and agreed, disagreed, and eventually it came to either what was proposed or, you know, make whatever changes they felt they needed to make before they could then present a same information to the town for us to we can obviously start the process. Well, we can't. We can't start the process. We have to wait for the town manager to start the information or data gathering process or request process to find out what people are looking for in terms of the fifth year in the plan, plus any changes pose in the first four. Let's forget about year six through 15 at the moment, so that that hopefully is either started or will get started very quickly here. Otherwise we can't do anything. But it sounds to me, Kelsi, if what you just described is your anticipation, that would be a slightly different timing wise, slightly different responsibility of the FinCom, because it sounds like they would need early on in the process to be interacting with the finance director. So they jointly then present to us, okay, once you're done, however we do it? Either we're doing a collection or it's done by the finance director, he's always done and he presents us with his sort of pre vetted five year scenario, and then we start our work. That's another open question I have. I prefer that, but, but when we then ultimately have to come to the point of making recommendations to the town manager, you're saying, we kind of need to know what the revenue constraints are, because they likely will affect what we're thinking Kelly Lappin: my that's my opinion. Otherwise, I don't know how you slot and prioritize if you don't know the constraints. Unknown: I mean, we could know that from the finance director. He certainly has had his own opinion in that. And we will continue Kelly Lappin: if you assume, and if you know, if history of the last three years continues, that might be sufficient, right? Because the. Finance Committee didn't necessarily push back too much on on that recommendation, I would like to whether or not it was given a lot of thought, but Finance Committee prints right in the warrant in the report, a general guideline, I think right, and that's on page 16, on the type of funding sources, what they would expect me to use. I think you and I both know from experience that's a range, and it's general, and it and it changes right from year to year based on what's going on. So I'm happy to accept it from the finance director, right, as long as right, there's general comfort that it's not going to we're going to get that go to a bunch of work, spit something out the other side, and there's going to be a like, no, no, no. We can't afford that unless we get really good at this. And we know, well, if you, if you bring any of these things down, this is the project that moves out, right? So in a perfect world, we don't live in this one, right? We're ranking all the projects in every funding source. And you've, you've predetermined, if you cut me off short, this is the one that goes right. Unknown: So some of those funding sources, I think, and I haven't had time to review the final, final version of the DEP policy and the capital planning policy, both of which are included in the 150 pages Kelsi of town financial policies. But I believe that some of the at least constraints, whether they're parameters or not, I don't know, but there's some certainly constraints that are being proposed from a policy perspective on amounts of debt service relative to the budget, etc, but, but I think, I think what we're talking about now is in getting the FinCom Buy in much earlier, like since we're supposed to be reporting at the town manager by October 15, which isn't going to happen right this year anyway, but given which will probably run out of talk about in great detail tonight, but given what the next decade looks like on the operating levy situation, the town levy situation, there's going To have to be some level of discussion about, how does, how does the funding of Capital Square with what the town's gonna, on the other side, be trying to do to figure out how to eliminate a structural deficit that's going to be there for a decade, and, you know, it makes no sense for the town to be, you know, working on trying To solve, which can be very difficult, the structural deficit without the use of opine to override along the way and have us over here approving a bunch of projects with a bunch of levy debt that is simply adding, you know, adding costs to the operating budget that impact. Kelly Lappin: I don't disagree with you, Brian, I think I want to cut this off, though, because we're coming up on time here.
Yes, Carol, I recognize Carol Martin. Unknown: Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Carol Martin, Lake Road, member of the Select Board. I don't know if you'd like to speak, Michael, but I think I would like to answer a couple of these questions. Maybe you'll hop in after me. Under the town manager act, it is the town manager who is now the CFO of the town, and His responsibilities include preparing the budget and the capital plan, which was previously under the Finance Committee, which we changed to coincide with the town manager Act last year when we updated chapter 19 two. So the flow, and you'll see this on page 69 of the thing under number 20 dash three, it tells you that you're going to prepare this capital plan with a term defined by the town manager, and the report will be submitted to the town manager. You're not working with the finance committee to get the buy in, Michael, you'll chime in here. You're working with Michael and obviously, most likely Brian, and whomever Michael designates as part of his finance team to come up with a plan, which will, then, once he's comfortable with that, send it to the finance committee for review. Brian, Kevin, just to be clear,
Mr. Kevin, I'm sorry the finance hop in here. Kelly Lappin: Yeah. No. Thank you for reminding us of that, but I would also say right, and I expect then that that Michael would do this right as town manager, still going to need right? He's presenting it, but the Finance Committee is still ultimately putting an opinion on it. So we still want to be connected, right? We don't want to be in a situation where there's a. A disagreement where the Finance Committee doesn't recommend Michael McCall: a non starter in your plan,
Kelly Lappin: collaboration across but agree. So we're going to take our we're going to take it from right our marching orders from a guideline from Michael with with Brian's assistance. But I would still like a head nod, right? That Finance Committee is not going to come Unknown: back. And a good example, and I'm not proposing this, but a good example would be, it could be the town manager proposes this with input from the finance director, or Ultimately, it comes from the finance committee, but they could come to the conclusion, based on what they're seeing in the operating Levy, that other than life safety, spending, has got to move out for at least a year. So we can understand which is what's currently trying to be done with fiscal year 27 is take some actions that will hold off a prop two and a half override until we get past collective bargaining, which is coming up. And so I could see, you know, a conclusion being we got to put everything off from the capital side, except for life safety, just to buy time. To Michael, your point, we'd hate to do a lot of work, and maybe it's not. It may. It's work has to be done anyway. And so it's just a question of, okay, everything we thought we might want to recommend doing a fiscal 27 here's the five items that we now. Here we we understand why we'll keep doing but everything else has to push out. But it'd be better to in the near term, if possible, have a, at least a sense of whether that's even a possibility. Is just an example.
So I didn't, I'd like to just finish my thought, and that is that certainly the Finance Committee wants to be consulted, but you'll all work out the process of who gets consulted first, to me the way it reads, you work through the town manager, who then is going with through Brian Kevin to the Finance Committee. I may not necessarily be your, your your number one contact. Kelly Lappin: So agreed. Yeah, already. Thank you for
Unknown: talking about process, do think, and this is important stuff, because we're at the outset here, and I want to just speed down a path. So Mr. Town manager, from a process standpoint, I've always found Brian, Kevin, a to be very detailed and thoughtful and pulling together what he presented to the to you, and then what you ultimately presented to the Finance Committee in terms of a capital budget for the next fiscal year, plus the remaining four years of the five year capital plan. And I assume that he once you sent out your memo asking for everybody to submit their CIP forms. He accumulated all that information in an Excel workbook, which he's provided as a blank and he's done his own prioritization. He's He's overlaid on that what he believes financially needs to be kind of the sourcing and what years. And then ultimately, I presume, Michael, that got presented to you before it eventually found its way to the FinCom. I'm just curious, do you envision anything changing on that process and, and, and he'll still do all that work and then present that work product to us before it then gets presented to you. Or are we? Are you expecting that? And he's expecting that we're somehow be collecting all that information, putting that Excel workbook together, making the initial prioritizations? I sort of hope that's not the case, but I'm just curious what clarity Michael McCall: you know, he and I talked today, and I, a little while ago, sent that memo out to all the department heads, asking them to fill in their CIPC forms. Because we, as you, point out, we've, we've had a lot going on. I would have liked to have done it about a week or two ago, and we've asked them to get them back within about 30 days, third week of November. So we're pushing them to get the information back to us. I envision that we would be sharing that with you at some point, whether he compiles it and we make I envisioned us getting that information and sharing it with you so that you could look at it and help us make a determined you make a recommendation that we, in turn, go to the FinCom with in we did this where I was the assistant town manager. We had this type of process. We had it. We were starting it in south bridge when I. Left, we got a capital planning committee established, and we were going to do the same thing with the committee. You'd have additional sets of eyes with different levels of expertise coming in to evaluate these and so then you make your recommendations, and then we also would do a second check of those looking at our finances, but hoping to get a community based perspective of what we what we should be focusing on rather than what oftentimes would happen. At least, in my opinion, is it comes down to the manager and the finance director trying to shoehorn the right number of projects in based on the amount of money you have. Unknown: So I'm still. I'm not still. I think that that process question needs work. I guess the question I'd have though was so that that was the process up until a month ago. So is it. And I don't mean I get this a feeling to try not Hey, start your own review, see if you make different opinions, but do not waste all that five years of effort. Do we get a debrief of this is why I chose these five years of projects. This is what went into it, so that we're not just dismissing it and starting with what we read. Yes. So I Kelly Lappin: would say what I'm gonna I'm gonna say, from my opinion, what was missing in the prior process. So because we have a new committee, why do we have a new committee? What was, what I think was missing in the prior process? And I hope, I hope, right, Brian's still going to do that step of compiling it and and providing it to us, right? The walkthrough of, okay, this is what was requested, and this is what I'm I'm thinking we should slot in. And here's why. That was something I didn't feel in the time I was on FinCom that there was ever enough time or focus on of and what we what? Because there wasn't. What often happened was there would be last minute ads, right? There would be things like, Oh, well, the middle school needs a new boiler. And it's like, well, that was in the plan and got pushed back. Why does it, why did it get pushed back? Right? So having those discussions on this is what we're doing, and this is why, and this committee having some input right, from a community perspective, of like, yeah, have we thought right? Maybe we have different opinions based on our different backgrounds and that we have an open meeting discussion process around those projects to get to, ultimately, what's the recommendation? Maybe it'll be exactly what Brian Right gives us to begin with. But I think there's, there's some work that we can add from our various backgrounds on why, right? And that's something in years of doing the warrant and the write ups that follow the section we were just in in the warrant of each project. I mean, when was I learning that stuff, when I was writing it to put it in the warrant, versus at the earlier stage in the process of being presented the capital projects and debating whether or not they fit, both from a resource standpoint, human resources, financial resources, but also is what we were missing was, why is this the highest priority? Is it just because the amount fits can be paid from this funding source, and we have that much in this funding source, or is it because of the whole list of projects we're putting on the docket? This one's the most important from health and safety perspective, whatever that may be, that was the step that I thought was most critically missing, and why I was on the capital working group, and why I'm here today, right is because I think that's that's where the added value needs to be inserted. And maybe there's other things along the way we're going to identify, but that's the piece that I think is most critical based on past experience, Unknown: and we can certainly, although, again, unfortunately, it's probably premature based on experience. If we thought that the four years of last year's five year plan are static, we could certainly invite in, depending on hours and getting permission from the town manager the various department heads that put in those requests that are now in the five year plan to go through each one and what the rationale in their minds for why they needed it. You what you will likely find, if you look back in what we saw on the Finance Committee would be what was requested in which years you will likely see them requesting things in different years as to where it finally got slotted in. And so you may and it's fine you may get and it's probably appropriate that this committee get a let the department heads have a an ability to say, Okay, here's here's what we wanted, here's where it got put. But it may be premature, because what Michael has asked them to do is add the fifth year plus, right? Let us know of any proposed. Changes to what's already in the plan. And so the question is, do we then have to wait until they've submitted? And then, you know, Brian can certainly, from a staff level, accumulate the information, but as quickly as we can get the requesters in front of us to walk through to your point, so we could then begin to evaluate. Kelly Lappin: Would ask, I know, Michael, you said you just sent it out, and they have, would you say, 30 days Michael McCall: to less than we're trying to get that by the third week of October. Yeah. Kelly Lappin: So to the extent I would ask that, to the extent you have a couple of A plus students who are on the front end of that, you know, not naming names Tom, we will, we will get, we get to talk earlier. Yeah, we that. We don't wait until we have a consolidated plan. We get to talk to whoever got to submit first, right? We're talking to them earlier. Bradford Carver: And I guess a related question, I think I already know the answer based on how this conversation is going. I mean, if, if the school submits a request for the middle school and says a roof is going to cost $1.5 million is it our task also to say, Well, that seems remarkably low or remarkably high? How did you come up with that number? Is, are we supposed to be vetting the numbers that are presented. Kelly Lappin: I think it would be good if there was some level of vetting. And I don't, not in a non trusted way. But just like, hey, talk to us about where this estimate came from. Because I think different department heads do that in a different way, right, some depending on, you know, if it's equipment, you know, I talk to the dealer, this is what the current quote is. Here's right, versus the Council on Aging right, where the pmbc is involved and they are, they are checking right and kicking the tires on the itemized cost and the inflation and and Unknown: permanent, permanent, municipal. It Kelly Lappin: depends on the project. Okay, how much of that we need to do, but I don't think it hurts to have like, tell me where these came from. Unknown: Well, again, a good example of that in the fiscal 26 budget was there's this crazy fire sensor switch at the middle school had to be replaced. It's causing all sorts of problems. Kind of got 200 last minute requests, $350,000 I still don't know why it changed, but back in July, and I'm on a budget working group, Brian, Kevin, he said, Oh, by the way, we don't need $350,000 it's going to be $50,000 well, that's $300,000 of possibly another project that got delayed, that could have been plotted into the plan. I don't know the particulars, and anytime you save money, that's great. I prefer going that direction. Another example would be up until last year. We're on a path to have to refurbish, rebuild the wastewater management facility at the high school, which wasn't doing what it was supposed to do, at an estimated cost. And Tom holder, I know Tom is, I think it's now in the building facilities management side, but it's a five and a half million dollar cost, and it was carried in the five year plan, and then last year, it got pulled from the plan because the town's engineer is working on a strategy to use a more traditional septic system bleaching field solution that, guess what, hopefully will cost a lot less than five and a half million. Well, that's good, right? But it's unclear whether that is going to pass muster the DEP, but having the ability to have that discussion, I think, is important to understand what's what's the risk of those kind of things moving sideways, anything that you can save money do more efficiently. I'm all for it's the surprises on the other side or the last minute. You know, we just absolutely have to do this. Kelly Lappin: So Brian, I'm going to cut you off. We've, we've got a lot we're not going to get to and I want to, I do want to move on to some of the other agenda items. So what I'm going to do now is we covered a small piece of what I had in the review capital information items. You guys had some great questions, like I said before, your questions don't need to end, right? You can, you can send, and you can send questions directly to me, right? And I'll make sure that we're addressing them at the next meeting. But I'm gonna hold up right. We're not gonna get into the projects that are in the existing capital plan. I think the I will work with Michael to slot out right, based on when you think things are coming in, to slot out, when we can talk to folks right where it makes sense. Don't think it's going to need to be every person submitting right? It's it's going to be based on what the highest priority and biggest dollar amounts are first, or what's ready first, but we can work out a schedule of how we're going to achieve that right, and then I think it makes the most sense to do it at that point, because then we can take projects that were previously submitted for a given department, what they're currently submitting, right, and go through the Okay, what changed and why? Why do these numbers make sense? Why are these the priority projects over other projects? And I think the hardest part of getting a handle on how that priority measures against priorities of other departments, right? That's, that's the piece. I think we're really here to help connect. So I want to move on, and we can always, like I said, I'm going to keep this as a standing more general item, that we can always have meetings that we talk about, any questions you guys have on the existing materials that I've provided that are from the warrant, you know, various template spreadsheets. But I want to move on to the item that is the next item, which is the capital relevant information from the financial presentation made to the Select Board. So, Brian, you alluded to this a couple of times, and I know you're very close to it because you're on the budget Working Group. Would you mind? I mean, I can do it, but would you mind giving an overview of the because they're both items relevant, relevant to capital? Unknown: Sure. So the finance director set up a working group, both last year and this year. May have done it in prior years and gonna probably do it anyway, but at the urging, the finance committee started to forecast out at least one year on the budget without actually starting to create the budget, and we encouraged him to go out at least three years, if not more. And so we started meeting in July, he presented to the working group of five year operating budget forecast, and based on that operating budget forecast, it was unclear whether fiscal 27 was going to have sufficient levy limit to avoid potentially significant budget cuts and or going to the talent prop two and a half override, which we haven't had to do since late 2000s it's the last one. And as we got into it, it became, I think, clearer to the group, particularly the school side, who, prior year, had towed the line and held down their budget growth, including not refilling certain positions. To achieve that, to stay, hopefully stay within the levy limit, and after certain items cut the town's way because we don't know, certain big items like health care, insurance premiums state aid don't come until January, February of next year. The Finance Director has to slot in a conservative estimate, and last year, they both provided positive surprises, so we were able to hold the line on the budgets that were pre agreed to budget Max limits, and we went from anticipating zero unused levy to we ended up with close to 2 million unused Levy. And had people known there was going to be 2 million of additional unused Levy, I suspect there might not have been as much willingness to constrain the spending. Okay, but we also knew that was just fiscal 26 if you look fiscal 27 eight and nine, it was clear we have a structural issue, because our budget growth over the last decade has been 4% last five years, it's been four and a half percent year over year. And you know, you have compensation growing during certainly the post covid years popped up. We're about to enter into a new three year collective bargaining session. And so it became pretty clear that we're going to we were going to come up short with fiscal 27 even when we added back in partially some of the what we expected were conservative estimates. And then we asked the financial record to go ahead and run it out for until 2037 and that wasn't a random year. We picked a year after the town's retirement funding of its past unfunded liability with is projected to be fully paid off. Ma, it's required by state to be paid off by then, unless they change their unless they change rules, which they've done once along the way in every communities you know, maybe 50% funded. So that line item in the entire budget is a pretty big dollar line item, and it's scheduled to grow. That's one of the structural issues. But it goes. Way at the moment in 2036 and so we asked him to project out to the year after that. And what we saw and what the Select Board saw last week is a graph that you can find in the Select Board Meeting packet for last Thursday's meeting, a graph that shows three years of surplus, unused levy through fiscal 26 a decade worth of red getting from going from 2 million to 6 million. And it's a little misleading in the out three or four years, you're six through 10, just because of the way the finance director dealt with excluded debt in the past, but there, at the moment, there are no real easy fixes, other than, you know, continuing to look for efficiencies in the town operation, which town has been doing, and trying to find everything it can possibly having to make budget cuts, and then figuring out a strategy for when to approach the residents with prop two and a half overrides, and whether you do one every year or bundle them do kind of three years at a time, yet to be determined. And so the thought was there was a recommendation from the town manager and the school superintendent that it probably be great if we could get past fiscal 27 without having to do an override, because it's going to get messy in the collective bargaining process. You'd rather kind of know what the agreements were so we can settle them in 12 months as well as next spring, we have some potentially big financial issues to deal with. The $38 million long term water supply project is going to go to town meeting for approval, subject to what we review and recommend in the town manager and what town manager recommends to the Finance Committee and what they ultimately agree to present town, there's currently about a five and a half million dollar debt exclusion that would be required next spring ballot to make repairs to this building and and then there were certain strategies that this group came up with try to Avoid and put it off for one year the potential override and those required input and ultimate buy in by the Select Board, which ultimately they did last evening, one of those is to go to the voters in November or December and asked to re characterize the remaining $5.2 million of levy debt on the DEP W facility near the town dump, backside of it, which was originally borrowed as levy debt, and if the town so agrees that the ballot change it to exclude a debt for the balance of that loan, because that's chewing up, at the moment, about $700,000 of levy limit. And so in every year it goes down, but the next three years, it's six, $700,000 a year. So it's not only a fix for fiscal 27 but for how much, how big the overrides are for the rest of the years. The second thing was, as Kelly mentioned, and kind of passed by pretty quickly when you borrow bonds for any of these capital projects. Right now, Brian was planning. Spirit is planning in November to issue $16 million of bonds, you have to start paying principal back, typically a year later, and then interest as well. And typically, what happens is you end up borrowing in one fiscal year, and the accounting for the principal payment occurs in the following fiscal year, along with 12 months of interest plus anywhere from four to six months of additional interest based on the time you borrowed the funds originally. So you borrow in November, you've got six or seven months plus a full year. And so what you see, typically in the DEP maturity schedules, is a there's a bump in the first year of debt service because of the extra interest, and then it goes down the following year and then is amortizing, typically over whatever the term of the debt is. And so we discussed and Brian agreed and presented sucker, and they've agreed to borrow half of what was going to be borrowed solely for water and wastewater management projects, because they're in process, ready to go. Have no impact on the levy, but use bond anticipatory notes in part, and general funds, free cash in part for a period of time, followed by bond antic notes for a period of time, and then bond that other 8 million a year from November, which pushes out that. First principal payment into fiscal 28 so that between the conversion of levy debt to excluded debt saves 700,000 a levy the putting off of half of the bond borrowing saves about 850,000 of levy delays, delays. It's got to be paid, and that's about 1,000,007 and we were running about 1,000,008 to million nine shortfall. And the town manager and the school superintendent are work to try to find another three to $500,000 of budget savings. So depending on what happens at the ballot in November, December, if there's a favorable vote, they can then build a budget on that basis, which won't need a prop two and a half operating override in the spring, and then there's clearly going to need to be overrides in the following nine years and and so that's kind of where that is at this point in time and again, some of these big budget, items that will be known in January, February, may or may not cut the town's way. Health insurance is another big one. Last year, the town was budgeting a 10% year over year increase, and it had a 2.6 2.8% increase because the consortium the town belongs to used part of its million dollar Trust Fund to buy down. Kelly Lappin: I want to, I cut you off, Brian, because I think, I think you've gotten to the relevant point. So the reason I wanted to discuss it with the committee is only so that they're aware, right, that challenges, there are challenges, and those structural challenges are being planned, at least for FY 27 to be met by doing things right, different than than previously planned, related to capital, right? So they're both capital, one of them the the reclassifying the debt of the DEP W building, you could argue, probably should have always been excluded debt. There were reasons at the time my understanding why it wasn't excluded debt at the time my you know, their rumors effectively, right? But had to do with getting that that vote through, so that that building could be built, because the prior building was in not great shape. Whatever those reasons are, what we're asking now is the town, and this is what matters, right? We're asking the town to reconsider that decision and move that for the balance of the debt of the levy. Unknown: At the time, the FinCom unanimously recommended it be done as excluded debt required, as I said earlier, four votes, and select board put it on the ballot. Only three voted in favor, two voted opposed. And therefore the project continued forward to town meeting, but it got funded with levy DEP, which is not typical for projects of $11 million and at the time, when you read the Tom warrant, the FinCom comments said, you know, we could come the town could come back to the voters in a later year, if it can get two thirds of the then select board and majority vote at the ballot to convert it. And here we are. Kelly Lappin: So Brian, you're saying last night at the meeting that was Unknown: the, yeah, there were four votes to put the question on a ballot. They are going to hold a special action sometime mid to mid November to up to December 20. They haven't set a precise date yet. Okay, so it's going to go to the voters to make that decision. They still haven't heard yet from the FinCom, which, under their policy, they're supposed to hear from them before they took vote. But assuming the FinCom, and the chair of the FinCom sits on the budget working group, and he has seemingly himself, been supportive of the notion, okay, but if the FinCom were to come back as a committee saying we don't agree with this. It's possible cycle. It could not move forward Kelly Lappin: to the FinCom originally. So, you know, I'm Unknown: just saying it for the moment. It's on track to move forward, okay? And on the financing piece the finance director is holding is called Moody's next week. He's now, I believe, going to move forward and only tell him he wants to borrow 8,000,016 permanent basis. He's He's progressing on that plan, and that'll all get done in November. Okay, all right, which is different from, Kelly Lappin: yeah, I think that's typical. Time enough on that topic unless, I mean, you guys could ask that one. We can say that for next time when. Unknown: But I do think that at some early point in the process, we need to get input, at least in the town manager as whether he views those fiscal challenges on the operating side. Plan to have any bearing on what should or could be recommended on the capital side, given that any debt, Kelly Lappin: I would expect it would right, because any debt service is going to affect the budget, and it's going to eat feed right into that Okay. On the next item was to review the capital and DEP policies. However, those were approved. Once I sent you are not the ones that were approved. There were some changes. I'm going to push that off to our next meeting, so that you guys have time to read them and any changes and we can talk about it. I don't. We don't have, not anything that we have input into if they've already been approved. Yeah. Unknown: I mean, there's only one item I called out, and it's still in the final version, which basically has the process for gathering the capital data, says that in October, the town manager will send out, well, that isn't going to work. Yeah, that doesn't line up with that. We make our October so I suspect at some point in the future when they get around to editing the policies. And in the meantime, we're just going to have to rely on the town manager to acknowledge that he's got to get going in July or August next year. So I Kelly Lappin: would ask that I will send those more recent versions out that you come to our next meeting with any questions or concerns, because if there's already, we likely have to suggest an edit for the next time it's updated or in the meantime, hopefully honored. Unknown: But do you know again, you, I think your working group vetted at least the dead policy. Did you vet both of them? Kelly Lappin: I believe we did earlier on. There Unknown: were, they're not in the final versions, but they were in both policies. There was a table that was computing certain parameters, percentages of operating budget, and I was having problems figuring out where all the numbers came from. So I reached out to the finance director and said, I can figure out where some of these come from, but I can't others. And then I noticed they got those two tables were pulled and so I was just curious, if you recall any, because he didn't put together. I don't, I have to look at it and then. But they're not in, they're not in their final Kelly Lappin: version, okay, all right. Any I don't have any other topics that I didn't anticipate. Does anybody else have anything that came up recently that tonight, Unknown: this topic, when you're going to set the next meeting? Could we just talk about one potential, probably a little longer term agenda item. And again, it's just, if you have nothing else to do, you can read town reports. There was a committee set up a number of years ago, all the Wayland real estate plan, the rap report, the rap report, which inventory to all town real estate, land and projects. And it's a tremendous report, tremendous, lot of work was done. And I was wondering if we could, at some point, slot in Anette Lewis, who worked on that is just an example to come in and at a very high level, give us a sense of what she believes that the value of that report could be to a committee like this, because it's the last big planning document, because you'd like to think we can both zoom in on request, but zoom out to say, how does that fit with some or number of different plans. There's a recreation field plan, there's there's a town master plan was done in 2004 even in 2011 that has been reviewed since you'd like to think you're making decisions in accordance with plans that have a lot of work done in. And the rap report was one of them. And I would a hate to see us as this would be more likely important when we get into start talking about year six through 15 or Yeah. So shall you add the Tom master plan to that review? It's kind of, I mean, it's so old I just and it's, it's only available electronically. You can get, you can get it through links on the planning department website. Apparently, it's a very thick volume, one of which is at the library and one of which is in the planning office. But planning department website has a link for each chapter in the town's master plan. And then there's, he has a link to the 2011 there's a separate committee set up to review the progress on the master plan, and that report, you can pull down the wrap reports on the Planning Board website as well the Planning Department website, so they're heavy duty long documents, but I just think further down the road as we get into long range planning, yeah. Kelly Lappin: I take it under consideration, Brian, but not, not in the near Unknown: Yeah, I agree. We have a lot to do just Kelly Lappin: to get through this year. Yeah, but I will. I'll see if I can find, I can find the links and send you what there is. I is the master Kelsi is the master plan being updated. I thought I read something about the master plan being updated. I don't. I'd have to check out Michael McCall: maybe the route 20 master plan. But I don't Unknown: think, okay, not the town's housing production plans got to be updated. Okay? Yeah, plans and we're a planning committee. Okay, thank you. Kelly Lappin: All right, can we talk about date and time? Next couple one we're done. I don't think I ever came out of a finance committee meeting. Okay? And dates and times for our next meeting. All right, awesome. Well, I'd like to get some some consensus, but I also don't have those here, so Unknown: I can circulate an email with a couple, yeah, I'm Kelly Lappin: actually, yeah, I'm gonna circulate an email. Part of Unknown: it just depends what you think the next meetings or topics will be. It may be more of this type of stuff, yeah? Kelly Lappin: So my thinking is that probably some more of background stuff needs to be done still before we and while we're waiting for information from the department heads on their requests. But Michael, I'll, I'll send you a note just if you want to help me figure out when we think we might have the various departments ready to talk about, but I think we've got work to we have work to do in the meantime. So I'm thinking in I gotta just look at my calendar, because I don't know if I can do next week or the fall. I would like to go every other week. I do not want to be in every week. Are we still six to eight Unknown: or are you getting requests from the ex officio staff members to try to do something like Kelly Lappin: to stick to six to eight until we're asking folks to come in here, right? So while we're doing still doing background stuff, getting to speed on what is out there, I think we can stick with six to eight, but then when we're asking the ex officio members to come in, we got to try and accommodate right at least, at least every other Unknown: two of you that work. Would I think? Liz, I can't. Liz, I think, and hopefully you'll reach out to Liz and just say, watch the table. Yeah, would be doing like, 830 in the morning meetings be easier than doing five o'clock at night meetings or neither one is particularly
Kelly Lappin: your job, sure, so if I'm taking time off during the day, I have to account for that as time off. So it's indifferent to me, right? Yeah. Unknown: I mean, I I have to yield to those that are working. I can, but I'm also sensitive to how we address, Kelly Lappin: yeah, I would like, I'm guessing this next meeting, we're not going to have necessarily things back from the departments. So if we were to do not this next week, but the week after, so I'd stick to six to eight for that one, and then when we're ready to have folks come in, we can do something earlier. Unknown: Right now, you're you're gonna look but you're thinking, Tuesday, I'm thinking it's a little tough Kelly Lappin: to do it every week, and that's a lot given how much have done this, the information is Unknown: something I'm trying to think Tuesday night is the best night given the last two weeks, I'm going to Tuesday or Wednesday for that time slot. Bradford Carver: So, yeah, I should, I had to move a couple things around, but that's I can do Kelly Lappin: those. Okay, let me look at my calendar and email. Okay, I Unknown: have other opportunities. But just since we're here. Those are easy, I think, to say, Yeah, I mean, I agree, every week, a lot, but if we want to just do a couple, like, two, three weeks and just kind of grind through it, so be Kelly Lappin: it. I would rather save it. We're gonna, we're gonna be doing more meetings. I would rather save it from when we're talking to department heads and and moving that accordingly, right? I don't want to spend every week taking you down or down the background rat hole. Unknown: So that's for us. It's new. So, Kelly Lappin: you know, yeah, I am just sensitive to how, how much. Any one person can absorb right? That much information. Bradford Carver: Very helpful for me. Because actually, I, Brian, had some of the questions you had about process, and you know what exactly our tasks and roles are, is very helpful. Okay, I just Unknown: worry we're gonna get into the actual review of the data, that we're still be asking fundamental questions, and it's gonna, Kelly Lappin: yeah, you might be, but that's okay too, right? Unknown: I'm not better to ask question. You all are gonna be on the committee for a while, hopefully, and so you got to get the foundation, and again, it, it takes at least a year, yeah, when you step into one of these committees, to get used to the processes and get Kelly Lappin: it all down before we start looking at Capital. Six years into being on FinCom, I think I had, you know, like, 50% of it, and Unknown: I know you want to adjourn, but the reason I was pressing on the finance director's continued role is I've been on a number of committees where folks like Kelly have ended up having to hands on, do a lot of stuff while they're working a job. I have had similar experiences, and it's not a lot of fun, and probably Kelly had to think about coming back to do this. So you have things, they have things, not that staff has an overload of work too, but if you have things traditionally have been by the staff, I would much prefer to see them up to a point, to the accumulation and the creation review materials that we could then spend our time vetting stuff and talking about it. That's why I was pressing on that a little bit. Especially they're just going to redo it. Just going to redo it their own way. Kelly Lappin: Okay, everybody, any other ex officio members? Anything you want to add or comment Unknown: on? Thanks for attending. Want to go home? Please. Please excuse me. Please include me on that date. Email. Thank you. Yeah. Are you our liaison? Carol now, yeah, she's our liaison. I am okay. Thanks for attending, Kelsi. Hope you're feeling all right. Kelly Lappin: I got a little cloth that's all right. I get a motion to adjourn. So moved second, second. All right. All in favor, aye, we are adjourned at 808. Recording stopped. Thank you very much.
Conservation Commission
8-Oct-25 - Conservation Commission01:26:03
10-Sep-25 - Conservation Commission03:05:27
20-Aug-25 - Conservation Commission01:59:40
09-24-25 - Conservation Commission02:26:24
Sean Fair: Alright, seeing that
631 and we do have a quorum to
begin the Conservation
Commission meeting for
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
notices and agendas will be
posted at least 48 hours in
advance of meetings, excluding
Saturday, Sundays and legal
holidays. One may watch or may
participate remotely with a
meeting link that can be found
the following link and pursuant
to chapter two, the acts of
2025, this meeting will be
conducted by remote means, in
accordance with applicable law.
This meeting may be recorded
made available to the public on
WayCAM as soon after the
meeting. That is practical. With
that, we got Linda at Town
building. We got Lisa Aubin,
Barbara hollow, Shannon Fisher,
myself and Luke Legere all
dialing in remotely. Emily is
dialing remotely as well. Emily,
right with that said, let's open
the public hearings. This is
gonna be for one, a 397, Boston
Post Road, also known as
Russell's DEP file number 322,
dash, 1048, this is a continued
Notice of Intent file pursuant
to wayland's wetlands and water
resource protection Bylaw and
the wetland Protection Act
submitted by Dan skihan for the
after the fact paving work and
installation of a storm water
management at 397, Boston Post
Road and 99 Pelham Island Road
and Wayland mass. Proposed work
is with 200 foot riverfront
area, 100 foot buffer zone of
boarding, vegetated wetland
property shown on assessor's
map. 30, sorry assessor's map.
23, parcel, 004, and 015, Linda,
Linda Hansen: so we just
received the peer review results
today from dylis and Roy. I sent
them to the applicant and the
engineer, and they would like to
continue and have the ability to
comment and reply to the peer
review the
Sean Fair: 20 what's our next meeting? 2929 is that, when they want to for Linda, next one? Yes, okay, Luke Legere: I move that we continue the hearing to October 29 after 630 Unknown: under both, right under both. Yes, sir, perfect. You'll hear a second. Second. Sean Fair: Make this sound like Shannon Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yep. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. Sean fairs, yes. Thank you, folks. Okay, on to 1b this is 169 rice road DEP file number 322, dash, 1053, it's also continued Notice of Intent follow pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protection Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Saint Philip editors and Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church for the work at 169 rice road and Wayland mass. The proposed work includes the demolition of existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking services, a courtyard, sports field and storm water management systems. The project is in with a 200 foot riverfront area and 100 foot buffers on a boring, vegetative Wayland property is shown on assessor's map, 40, parcel 08, Linda, I Linda Hansen: believe we have the applicants team here to give us an update.
Unknown: We do. Hi everyone. For the record, my name is Andrew Tebow, wetland scientist with Goddard consulting. The updates actually won't come from me tonight. They'll come from the remainder of the team. Linda, similar to last time the majority of the project team is on this as attendees, I'm going to have them raise their hands if you don't mind, promoting them as panelists, and then Sean land and will be happy to kick this off for us. Thank
I'll give a minute for them to come in. Thank you for doing that. Sure.
Good evening. Can everybody hear me? Yep. Okay, great. So since our last meeting on the 10th of September, we provided additional information, both requested and voluntary from Goddard. We provided the wetlands border report in updated data sheets. We've also provided updated planting plan, which shows the existing trees to remain at the perimeter as well as the surrounding vegetation. We've updated the lighting study with proposed foot candles on the site and the surrounding the building. And lastly, we've provided a site section that cuts through the entire site, that basically runs east, west, and it's looking at the site from the south. So we understand that since the last meeting, there's been communication between the Conservation Commission the Board of Health. Of Design Review Board, DEP w in the planning department. And what we're hoping for this evening and requesting is for the commission to vote to allow the st flipper project to proceed with the peer review process.
That's that's where we stand.
Linda Hansen: Sean, my understanding is that the planning board is taking the lead on the peer review. They're the ones who received the quotes from with and the scope of work was, was a joint effort by all the lane use departments. So that way, the Cochituate is only doing one peer review, as opposed to multiple, you know, by each of department itself. So the stormwater peer review is included in, I believe. Wait, who's doing this now? ECT, is it ECT doing this one Unknown: that sounds that sounds, yeah, we've spoken with with Robert, and yes, we understand that the proposals have been presented to the client, and they have actually accepted that and made the payment for that. There's also a traffic peer review as well, and I believe that's in the process as well, yeah. Linda Hansen: So that was my understanding, that once, once the money, the funding, is received, the peer review will move forward. Okay, so I don't, I don't think there's any more input that we need to provide for that it's just a matter of waiting for them to finish the the peer review process. Unknown: I'm sorry, that's my misunderstanding. I thought that we needed the approval from the Conservation Commission.
Linda Hansen: So we did not. Did we not take a vote the last time?
Unknown: I'll jump in quickly. This is Andrew with Goddard. So we did not. We were last with you guys about a month ago. We had introduced the project at that time, but we had continued the meeting out until tonight, with the intention at the time of our original presentation, it sounded like the planning department, the Conservation Commission, hadn't, hadn't had enough time to correspond back and forth, so we never took an official vote to proceed with peer review. If it's occurring jointly, that's great. We just want to make sure the commission has the opportunity to make sure that we're ready to proceed with the peer review. Linda Hansen: You know, I know my notes say that the commission was in favor of a peer review. Again, I guess it's kind of redundant for us to vote on that, since it's already in progress and that and that the planning board is taking the lead on that, since they also need storm water for the site plan review, if you want us to, I'm sure the commission is happy to take a vote on that,
Unknown: as long as we have your long as it's on the meeting minutes, we have the paper trail that we are pursuing peer review, and it's occurring jointly, we just want to make sure that we're on the same page. So that's a good way Sean Fair: to proceed. Okay, so you don't need about that one day, right? You're already doing this with planning. Linda Hansen: Yeah, planning board is taking the lead on this one. So because they have a greater scope of work, they've included conservation for storm water, and they've also included the health department for any of their whatever their scope of work was for that, I'm not sure what that is so. And in addition to that, planning board will have a needs of traffic studies. So that's done, that's being done separately. Sean Fair: So okay, so we only think for now, then depends what it's what continuation till after the till we get the actual plans with the peer review. Unknown: Yeah, we'll Linda Hansen: have to get some input. We're going to need a response from the peer reviewer. And I think it's important for the the Coptic church to go through the planning board process also, because if there's going to be any design changes, it will probably be through their process. And process, not necessarily through ours. So I don't know at some point, I think that's next week. Is that Unknown: correct? That is correct. Okay, Sean Fair: so between that Board of Health meeting, sorry, planning meeting, next week and our peer review is the 29th too short a window for the continuation, or is that what's the next continuation? Then do you think, based on what we're at, what we're looking at, scope
Unknown: wise, I would think that we would need to get comments back from our peer reviewer, and I'm not sure how long that's going to take, and we can be in communication with the planning board in regards to the comments that we get back, so we can try to get on the the next scheduled meeting after we receive those comments, and are able to receive. On to them. Sean Fair: Okay, to read against for now, we have to pick a date. We say the 29th in the worst case scenario, if they continue, you'll let Linda know in advance. Does that sound right? Unknown: That sounds good to us. Okay? Because Linda Hansen: then the next meeting after that is November 19. So put that on your schedule. So if we, if we don't have all the material ready for the our next hearing date, then we'll then the following hearing date would be November 19.
Unknown: And I'm sorry, what was the next 129? Thank you. Sean Fair: Commission members. Any thoughts, comments, concerns? No. Luke Legere: I think as long as Linda is satisfied with the scope of the peer review, I have nothing to add. Love it. Okay. Sean Fair: So let's then we'll look under both for continuation, sometime after 630 on the October 29 please. So moved. Thank you. Luke, do I hear a second? Second sound like Babs Roll call, please? Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke jeer, Unknown: yes. Sean Fair: Barbara Hall, yeah, I think I saw Jenny Brown. Come in. Sorry. Hi, Jenny. Jenny Brown, yes, please. Aubin, yes, and Sean fair as a yes. All right, we'll see you folks in a few weeks. Unknown: Thank you commission. Thank you. Thank you. All right, on to 1c Sean Fair: this is 11. Cameron road DEP file number 322, dash, 1054, that's also continued Notice of Intent felt pursuant to Wayland wetlands and water resource protection by law and the weather protection act submitted by ADU mwrato for the construction of an addition to a single family home in 11 Cameron road and Wayland mass property is shown on assessor's map, 38 parcel 149, and is located within 100 feet of bordering vegetated wet Linda Unknown: um, I believe Andrew is doing this one also, right? I am. So we can jump right into this one. All right, up into it. Awesome. Thank you guys. If I have permission to share my screen, I'll pull it up and I'll I'll run through what we got for you. Please see.
Can you guys see the screen right here. Sean Fair: It's black right now, but something's about to come out.
Unknown: Yep, there's Perfect. Thank you. So this is the original site plan submitted. I'm just going to start with a quick introduction of what we discussed last time, and then we've changed since then. So for the Commission's records again, my name is Andrew Tebow. I'm the wetland scientist on the project and a project and a project manager with Goddard consulting. So I was last with you folks on September 24 at that time, that was our introductory hearing for the project. I had explained that this was at 161 square foot addition off the southern portion of McCall. Let me house at 11 Cameron road. So we had discussed that the work was proposed all over existing lawn off the southern edge of the house and was about 86 feet from the wetlands. At that time, we had had a couple comments. We were discussing back and forth. One was, DEP had made a note that the existing limit of lawn and tree line was not shown on the original site plan that we see here. And then we had a conversation with the Commission that that was especially important, because under Chapter 194 the 15 foot no disturbed zone, we were looking to evaluate how much of that 15 foot no disturbed zone exists at present on the site, if we have an average of a 15 foot throughout and so what we did since then, and this was submitted to the Commission on October 1, we had The surveyors revised the site plan. They added in the tree line and the lawn labels to show what's undeveloped on the site and what's developed on the site. And so, as I said at the last meeting, we were discussing we knew from aerial imagery that the lawn had cut across about a portion of the backyard. We knew that there was at least a pre existing portion of that lawn that would be within the 15 foot notice served zone. So we were looking to see if there was an average of 15 feet throughout the site of an undeveloped buffer zone that would be compliant with the intent of chapter 194 so once this was revised, what I had done here in this letter that the Commission received is I took eight measurements from the wetland flags out to the limit of lawn around the site to show an average of the buffer zone on the site. So I chose eight. So there was quite a few sample sizes, and then you'll also notice that I took three at that narrowest location. The intent was to make sure the data wasn't skewed. Take a bunch of data and make sure that you took a bunch of the closest point to make sure that if I gave the commission an average of what's out there for buffer zone on the site, that it was a reasonable representation of the property. So what we did is we found that the majority of the property has much greater than a 15 foot no disturbed zone that's undeveloped on site right now. As we can see, the wetlands come up on this property about halfway through, because there's a seat comes out of the yard up in this section, but the remainder actually comes off site and continues. To move. And we had everywhere from about six feet at closest to as far as 62 feet and 72 feet in spots. And what this meant was we have an average width of the buffer zone that's undeveloped on this property of about 29.8 feet. So that is about double what the 15 foot no disturbed zone was. And so this letter was submitted intending to evaluate and demonstrate that the property is in substantial compliance with the intent of that 15 foot no disturbed zone. So that was done to both answer DEP comment about adding the limit along, and then the discussions we had at the last meeting. So this letter was submitted essentially to review and button up that comment. And then Linda had made a good point that we were not unaware of, that there was a different septic system as built for this property that the Board of Health had. And what that meant was the proposed addition was actually going to be about nine feet from the septic system itself, which though not necessarily conservation issue, Wayland Board of Health has a 10 foot setback from foundation to septic system, and so we just slightly modified the addition and we added a note. So what we're doing is moving the foundation back a little bit, and we're just cantilevering the front floor to make sure that we have the feet six inches just to meet that separation. So I submitted a revised plan today, just to shows this here, the commission is unlikely to have seen that, yet it doesn't change any portion of the project as far as the limits of development or any of the measurements I just outlined. It was just to demonstrate the intent that we will make sure we comply with the Board of Health setbacks. So that's what we have for you. Otherwise, everything else was clarified in October 1 letter, and if there's any questions on that, I'm certainly here to answer them. Thanks, Andrew. Linda, start with you, please. Yeah, Linda Hansen: like, I think I told Andrew after the meeting that the one thing that he really, he really should do is get the Board of Health approval, which is going to be required anyway, for a building permit because of the proximity of the tanks in the leach field to the new addition. That's something that's required under the Health Department rules. So I'd like to make sure he goes through that process and make sure to just so the health department approves this plan. Before we approve we issue an order conditions, because otherwise, if the plans change again, you know, we'd have to go through this all over again. So I think if you can submit that to them in the near, very near future, that we should be ready for the next meeting. Also check the I did check the previous permit for this project, and I noticed that they they didn't have two separate lobes of wetlands. They had a where that topography line is between, what is that number? I can't see it on my smoke. It's right Unknown: here on my cursor. Yeah, Linda Hansen: like 20. We're 25 to 995, or 96 or whatever that is. Yeah, that's where the wetland line was. Was? It was pretty much where that DEP part that that contour line is. So also just wanted to bring that up. I don't know if things have changed. Yeah, Unknown: that's interesting. So I'll address that comment first, because that's an easy one. So there's that's like, actually, like a monoculture of Japanese knotweed in that section, way back there. And this is sort of a groundwater breakout where you can see a bit of a bank starting to form. There's a pretty clear vegetative break, but it may not have existed previously. I think we have the added benefit of with so much of a break from the undeveloped portion, it wouldn't affect this project. And I will add, Linda, that your comment makes perfect sense to us. So I have spoke about that with both the builder, because the builder will be doing this with the Board of Health. So I spoken with the builder and the homeowner. Both of them understand that and fully intend to to file this with the Board of Health as soon as possible. So I think our intention with the Commission tonight is just to make sure that all remaining comments are addressed and discussed with you guys that way, once we go to the Board of Health, if there are no revisions, then we'll be good to close that with you guys as well. Linda Hansen: You know, Andrew, I drove by. I didn't, I didn't get out go on the property, because, with a fenced in yard, I wasn't sure if they had dogs or something, and I hadn't let them know I was coming. So just, I was in the neighborhood anyway for 13 Charena. So I just drove down there. And I was surprised. Is that not weed? I thought that looked like, like bamboo. I mean, like, you know, like regular bamboo back there looks like a huge stand of bamboo, really Unknown: tall. Maybe there is. I did this earlier in the year, so I know when you go back in this, in this further section, it's first, it's grape, and it's a bunch of blueberry, things like that, a bunch of shrubs. And once you go back in there, so when I was there in the spring, of course, I've done a lot of properties since then, I think it was not weed, but bamboo does escape from properties. A lot of people use it for for landscaping. It's the fish pole bamboo, and it runs away. So I'll look at some photos, just out of curiosity to see what's Linda Hansen: over there. It's a pretty impressive stand of bamboo Unknown: takes over. It's, it's, it looks pretty until it takes over a random area. Yeah, Linda Hansen: yeah. They might want to get that in control before it starts to consume everything. So, yeah. Unknown: Yeah, we didn't, we didn't plant that. I don't know where that's coming from, a neighbor or something like that. It tends to Adam. It spreads by rhizomes, and if a neighbor uses it in some landscaping, it'll run from another property to somebody else's. Sean Fair: But So sounds like anything else that from our end, so assuming they sail through, they get back to us and just kind of get this poor condition. Okay, so it sounds like, then continuation to the 29th assuming a clean bill from the other board, and we'll wrap it up then. Is that what we're Linda Hansen: doing? Sounds like it that makes, I think that makes I think that makes the most sense, because we don't want to have to turn around and reopen this or amend this later on if there are any changes. So yep, and it won't hold Unknown: up the process, because they have to go through Board of Health anyways for a building permit. So I think that's perfectly amenable to us. And you know, thank you for giving us the the verbal clarification that we're good to go and we'll go from here, we'll work at the Board of Health. Okay? Thank you, perfect. Sean Fair: All right, so can I get then also under both and continuation for some time after six 630 sometime after 630 on the 29th of October, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Thank you. Babs, Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Unknown: Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs, yes, all set. Thanks. We appreciate it here.
Sean Fair: All right, we're in the public meetings now. This is for two, A, 13, Charena Road lot. A 1d, dash, 1044, that's a continued request for determination file pursuant to Wales wetlands and water resource protection bylaw in the Protection Act, standard by Carol Carol seedo for the demolition of existing single family house and construction of five bedroom single family home and associated utilities, including a driveway, walkway septic system and a storm water management system. At Law, a one on the 13 Charena Road subdivision in Wayland mass the property is shown on assessor's map, 38 lot 157, and is located within 100 foot buffer zone of a boarding vegetated Wayland. Linda Hansen: Linda ability years received all the new information that was submitted for this and includes what is it, plans and previous analysis and a storm water and erosion control report. So I guess Kevin can update you with the new information. Sure. Kevin O'Leary: Hi, Kevin O'Leary from Jill, some company. Thank you for your time. October 1, we submitted a new packet, or a revised packet of information, which included minor revisions to the site development plan and also revisions to an impervious lot area analysis plan, also a hydrological report that we submitted to the Commission in DGT for peer review, and we got a letter back today from Linda about DGT comments, and they have no further comments in that regard, we satisfied their requirements. So I think we're finally through the hydrology on this project. Again. This is a single family house lot, 60,000 square feet, and I can do share screen to bring up plans that the Commission wishes, wishes to see them. It's about 54 5500 square feet of 100 foot puffer zone alteration along the edge of the existing 50 foot private way which services are formerly service number 13 Charena Road, single family house. It's got an existing barn on the property, and a proposed single family house is what's on the plans. With all the site work, new driveway. It's removing a lot of impervious, existing impervious driveway area, a portion of the house, and then regrading in the 100 foot buffer zone. So a recharge basin is proposed to collect a portion, approximately half of the existing barn roof, in the entire roof of the proposed house, so it's self contained with no discharge. It holds 100 year storm for those two rooftops, or half a rooftop and then a full house. So I think we're all in compliance with the requirements, and we'd like to see if the commission is comfortable closing the hearing tonight, please.
Sean Fair: Okay, thanks, Kevin. Linda, start with you, please. Linda Hansen: So how are you managing the runoff from the driveway, Kevin O'Leary: from the proposed driveway? I. Um, it flows down to the towards the proposed Street, and on the revised plan, I show I cross pitch it towards the lawn area that runs along the side of the driveway and down the shoulder of the road.
If I can screen share, I could pull up the detailed site plan and Unknown: show the again. So where is it going? Kevin O'Leary: Then into the grass shoulder in the front yard. It's headed for the area between the proposed septic leaching trenches in the sideline of the private way.
Linda Hansen: So all 1900 feet of driveway is going into the lawn. Kevin O'Leary: Yes, I
Linda Hansen: Why wouldn't go into the catch basin in front of the in front
Kevin O'Leary: of the driveway. There is no catch basin in front of the driveway. Linda Hansen: What is this on the plan? Again? There's no Kevin O'Leary: There's no screen. What I Unknown: can Kevin O'Leary: the commission see this plan on the screen? Yeah, I think Linda, this is the commission members Island, and this is the proposed driveway in the contours are Linda Hansen: you make that bigger? Sure, tiny end screen.
Kevin O'Leary: So the proposed driveway is 12 feet wide in here is the the edges of it. And these contours are created with a slight swale along the edge of pavement and then off the pavement. The way I've got the contours drawn is to create a drainage swale off the pavement, coming around this way, and then I've highlighted a swale in this area to direct the water down parallel to the lot line and parallel to the edge of pavement here for the proposed 20 foot wide right away.
Linda Hansen: So I'm asking about the catch basin, which is right where it says ARPA number a one. Oh, Kevin O'Leary: I'm sorry, Linda, that's that's off the property. That's in the 40 foot right of way, and that's part of the roadway drainage that goes back to the recharge basin near the cul de sac, up in this area a couple 100 feet up the road this ADU, theoretically, a droplet of water landing on the street here would flow all the way down to the existing catch basins, down towards the beginning of the street and the existing low point. It's, it's at least a 250 feet, 300 feet,
Linda Hansen: okay, but I mean, when I look at the the other plan that you provided, it doesn't look like the the catch basin or the the catch basin looked like it was east of the driveway for lot two or no for lot one, Kevin O'Leary: right? This is lot one, lot a one, yes, Linda Hansen: yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's not in the same places that you had on the previous the order conditions that are the NOI that you submitted, are those supposed to be the same Kevin O'Leary: ones? Yeah, they haven't moved this, this catch basin out here, because we previously on the on a prior submission for lot a when we had a on the first submission, we had a catch basin in the driveway. Unknown: Yeah. Linda Hansen: Why was that taken out? Kevin O'Leary: Because Bert Cory was DGT was recommending secondary treatment prior to disposal into the infiltration basin for the driveway runoff. Linda Hansen: Okay, so you saying that on this? This the plan that was submitted with a with a Notice of Intent, the driveway location is, is different than what you have on there now Kevin O'Leary: the Notice of Intent for the roadway, yeah, because you have Linda Hansen: it on in here, and it looks like the catch basins much farther. Is farther east of it. Kevin O'Leary: No, I don't think the catch basins have changed. And, yeah, the driveway aprons we show on the subdivision plan are in the same general location. I think that the same width, but we didn't have the detailed site plan for the house or the individual lots. I think we just showed them coming more or less straight in at 90 degrees to the front lot line.
Linda Hansen: Also area drain and foundation drain. You have that discharging right next to the septic leach field. Kevin O'Leary: Are there setbacks for that? Yes, and they're satisfied, Linda Hansen: which is, what is the setback? I Kevin O'Leary: wanna say, 10 feet. Okay, do
Linda Hansen: and, well, I mean, my analysis of your, you know what I asked for in the response to the your submittal last time was for impervious surface calculations. I just wanted new. New and existing to be removed. I asked, I don't want the uncontrolled. I'm not sure how you come up with that. And in my calculation, I have new impervious is equal to 6623 feet, okay? And what you're removing is a portion of the house and the driveway, which is 2859 so the difference is 3764 that's, that's what the net impervious is. That needs to be managed, right? Kevin O'Leary: I can't, you know, agree with your numbers, but I have that on a plan in the share screen. I could pull it Linda Hansen: up. I mean, your hydrocade model has driveway to house retaining wall and proposed house that you modeled. But some of the impervious was not modeled like the retaining wall in the driveway, the front walk the I Kevin O'Leary: think that was it. No, that's all in the model. All these impervious areas over here is a post development impervious areas on the lot, and these are the pre development impervious areas on the lot. So the in the prior plan, I had labeled this as pre development uncontrolled impervious areas. What uncontrolled means is that it flows off the property with no drainage controls. And you requested that I remove that descriptor. So I did and I resubmitted. This is the plan with the October 2 date, done. Originally submitted on September 30. You had a few comments. I, you know, re label tables. You can read the revision. I mean, yeah, the revision block down here, blah, blah, blah. So this looking Linda Hansen: for something simpler. Kevin, that's all, so that's, that's all looking for was just, you know, pre and post kind of how much is impervious is getting added to this property? Okay, Kevin O'Leary: right here. It's right here, Linda, here's pre development right here, 7356, here's post right here, 11,000 Oh, two. Oh, okay, these computations here, these two numbers here, take the roofs. Half the barn is 1600 the house envelope is 3778, so the net, uncontrolled impervious flowing off the site is this, 5642, which is a reduction from the 7356, so here's the net post development impervious area that flows to the front lot line. It's less, it's less than existing by 1714, square feet.
Linda Hansen: Okay, we also have various plans for the barn. So have those are they? Are they no longer putting in the additional driveway and parking area? Kevin O'Leary: That's right, that's true. Yes, it's just the existing driveway is shown on the plans. Okay,
that existing barn driveway is up here at 11 117 square feet.
It's down here on the post development, 1117,
Unknown: Linda, anything else on your end? No, I don't think so. So, Sean Fair: just so you're guy having answered, you're good to go from what you need, Linda Hansen: I guess so. You know, I'm relying on the peer review for his expertise in stormwater, and he seems to be fine with it. So there's nothing more I have to add. Unknown: Okay, commission, Sean Fair: thoughts, comments, concerns. I Shannon Fischer: may need a refresher on this, but I know that last time that we met, there was some back and forth about, you know, existing conditions. So some materials, you know, were being like. Some things weren't being counted that should have been counted. And I don't remember the exact specifics, right? Do you guys recall this? I want to confirm that we have the actual existing conditions here. And I remember that there was some back and forth about this last time.
Linda Hansen: No, I don't, I don't remember that. So Luke Legere: I noi, I remember that Shannon, I thought there was, like, we were sort of disputing or debating, like new impervious. What that meant, right? Is that what you're referring to, Shannon Fischer: yeah, exactly. And then there's, there's questions about, like, the some of the existing, like, yeah, there were definite questions about that. And I, and I think it matters, so I, I'm trying to recall now. Sean Fair: So I guess the ultimate question is, Linda, based on the numbers, you understand them to be, you go with the numbers of the new or impervious, right? Shame is that kind of what you're asking, though, essentially, right? Shannon Fischer: I should have reviewed my notes before this. There were questions where, and Luke, I'm glad to remember this. You might be able to sort of back me up here on this, but there was, I'm. Matter of some, I hope I don't get this backwards, some existing impervious was being included as existing conditions when actually it had been removed a couple of years ago.
Unknown: Yeah, I recall something like that too, but I don't Luke Legere: know we were like going back in time to define existing conditions. Yes, that's right, basically, right. Kevin O'Leary: I could maybe shed a little bit on that. The on previous plans. We had a proposed driveway that came into the barn, you know, as a side load driveway, and that's been removed from the plans. In the last meeting, I also showed a plan that I had got from Wayland GIs that showed two existing barn components that came into this area, and I was using those to try to demonstrate and give an explanation to support the hydrology and the proposed conditions that the property formerly had much more impervious area than what we were showing or taking credit for, but I've removed that information and abandoned that approach. Shannon Fischer: Okay, so what we're seeing is the actual right now, this minute, existing conditions on this map. Unknown: Yes, okay, Linda Hansen: and Shannon. The other thing was that we talked about the drainage issue, about using the drainage easement, and we agreed to hire a title attorney to investigate that. We have not received the response from the title attorney yet, Unknown: but it appears that they have. They're no longer sending water. Linda Hansen: I guess probably the barn driveway is probably still going down in that direction, right?
Kevin O'Leary: Yeah, the existing barn driveway is, but our hydrological analysis, which DGT had, has no further comment on, has the the at the front lot line, there's a design point for hydrological modeling and the reductions that design point between pre and post development significant and substantial. And I have those on another plan I could pull up and show you. I mean, I think for the smaller or the higher frequency storms, the reductions are in the in the range of 60 to 70% lower runoff post development, because we're collecting, well, first of all, we're removing a lot of impervious area with the existing driveway, and we're collecting a lot of the roof area and putting it into the infiltration basin so there's no runoff from the from those impervious proposed impervious surfaces. Well, proposed house surface and existing barn. Linda Hansen: Sorry, did you model the area drain and foundation drain? Because now that you're changing the this to pretty much an acre of lawn, I mean, you're not going to get the same uptake, you know, with with given that the existing vegetation is probably better at taking up storm water and runoff, so then you're discharging that to next to the leach field. And again, that's, that's probably, you know, I mean, that's, is that your design point too? Is that, Kevin O'Leary: no, the design points down here at the front line, and yes, we do take it into account in the hydrological model. Unknown: Okay, okay. Linda Hansen: So that whole backyard is going to be, is going to be converted to lawn. Kevin O'Leary: Then, yes, it's yes, it is in the
in one of my plans I could pull up, it shows the pre development brush and wood area coming approximately through here. And so you can see that we're pushing it back a little bit and converting this section to lawn. This is a big pile of fill that was placed here by the prior owner, is my understanding, because he wanted to create some screening. And then below that, like over here, I think, is existing grade. So a lot of the vegetation in this area is invasives that have grown up over, churned up, churned up Earth.
Shannon Fischer: Is the removal of the vegetation material, which you say is mostly invasive. Is that marked on the maps? Like do we, I don't have the tree removal plan. I see some trees marked on the front, but do we have things marked in the back here? It doesn't look like it? Kevin O'Leary: No, all the trees are small caliper. They're, to my knowledge, they're under the six inches at breast height.
Unknown: Okay? What else do?
Sean Fair: Yeah. So Shannon, to get your question, I guess answer that they basically sound like it changed both assumptions and so that what we were talking about last time is taken care of, I guess. Linda Hansen: Linda, yeah, I don't have any further comments about the stormwater. Unknown: Okay. Luke Legere: Yeah, that was sort of, I just wanted to confirm the same thing Shannon did that the that question of of existing conditions, and then the title drainage issue had been resolved. It sounds like they've changed the design to address both of those. So I'm I have nothing further. Shannon Fischer: I do think the shame that they're just going for a lawn in the backyard, when you know there could be much better solutions, it seems like an unusually large stockpile area. And given, like a lot of the neighbors, concerns about flooding that that you know may be caused by a lot of the tree removal overall, and the tree removal to come on the lots like, you know, I don't think that planting trees and reducing this lawn would would be a bad idea. I actually think it would be an excellent idea. It's, it's a shame. And, you know, you wonder why the future owners wouldn't also like some screening. Yeah,
Unknown: Okay,
Sean Fair: anybody else comments from commission? Barbara Howell: Just the usual, but why are they allowing a garbage grinder for their new septic?
Kevin O'Leary: Because it meets all the requirements Unknown: life the
Kevin O'Leary: Wayland board of health regulations for sizing a septic system require it to be increased in capacity to accommodate for use of a garbage grinder. They don't recommend a garbage grinder to be installed, but they require the components to have the capacity to handle the added organic loading.
Shannon Fischer: There actually could have been like fewer trees taken down and a smaller septic system, if there just wasn't a garbage disposal.
Kevin O'Leary: Maybe, maybe not the breakout slope grading probably would have got into the same trees, because even if you shorten the trenches a little bit on either end, you know, the breakout slope grading or the the activity in this area, would probably still wipe the trees out. The two trees down here, and also there's the two trees up here. I don't know if the commissioner, but these are replacement trees up in this area.
Linda Hansen: Do we have information on that? I don't remember seeing that Kevin O'Leary: up on the right hand side of the plan over here is a tree replacement. Linda Hansen: Say what you were planting, though. Kevin O'Leary: Well, there's a two inch let me see here, right here, there's two, over two and a half inches in diameter trees. Shannon Fischer: Okay, what species? Though, I think we Kevin O'Leary: I'm not sure we call it a species. I didn't think that was a requirement. Shannon Fischer: I mean, this looks like it's within the 100 foot buffer zone, isn't it? So I think that we want to be absolutely certain that these are valuable native trees. Kevin O'Leary: I don't think the proponent has a problem replacing them with native trees, and I'll and one of the trees is outside the 100 foot buffer zone. It's over here, but we're proposing two within the 100 foot buffer Shannon Fischer: zone. Did you ever run the calculations on like, for sure, like, you're like, you're assuming that the septic wouldn't have needed to be a little bit smaller and save some trees, but it would have been a good experiment to check that, to see if you could spare anything like in a project this size, where you're taking down so many trees like I think it's sort of incumbent on you to try every single thing to spare every tree you can
Linda Hansen: Okay. Sean, there's only two trees on this slot that are getting taken down. Taken down, though. So yeah, that's probably for grading anyway. So Shannon Fischer: as we know, like a single mature tree can absorb and release anywhere from several 1000 to 40,000 gallons of water. I love that new that that just finished reading it. So yes, but yeah, Unknown: but it's a good point. You know, we, I know it's not connected to the to the rest of the Charena project, but there will be more trees ultimately coming down when the homes are built. So if there's some opportunity at the back, very back of this property, again, not necessarily connected. They're not. It's not the same project, but if that can help, and some of the replacement plantings are, you know, at the far back of this property, it could go a long way, especially if they're not anywhere close to the house, if there's a lot of backyard there, yeah.
Linda Hansen: Well, I would keep, I would put a condition in the permit that they will need to, they will, they will need to plant native within the buffer zone. You know, that's, that's our, one of our standard conditions. Kevin O'Leary: So, yeah, that's not a problem. That's no objection. Unknown: Commission. Anything else.
Sean Fair: Okay, if Linda's good, I'm good, and I think all the suggestions are great. And so, yeah, I guess everybody else wants to make the motion.
Barbara Howell: Anybody? Luke, move and negative. Unknown: Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. Barbara Howell: Moving negative under a negative term is under the well and Protection Act and permit under Chapter 194
Sean Fair: Thank you. ARPA doyer, a second that
Unknown: was Luke going through Sean Fair: Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, can I go last? Shannon Fischer: Can you what? Sorry, can I go last? I'm still thinking about a Unknown: little last. Yeah, Luke, was your
Sean Fair: ARPA hollow? Yes? Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, Unknown: I'm still Well, I'm a little bit with Shannon on this one, just that there could be some opportunity at the back of this property for some additional trees, just for for further flood prevention, we can sit around the neighbors comments and what's going to be happening further down the road when the other houses get developed. So that's something I would like to see be considered.
Linda Hansen: But I mean, once, if they replace the trees based on our compensation plan, you know that we have in place, we can ask for it, but we can't require it under, under the permit. Unknown: Okay, exactly. All right, then I'll say yes. Okay, Sean fair is a yes. Charena Fisher, Shannon Fischer: I guess I'm a yes. If it's Pat, if Barbara is a yes, I'll go, Sean Fair: Well, yeah, it's, it's, I would argue it's what we can do what we want to do, or two different things sometimes. Okay, we're good. There. We should be good.
Kevin O'Leary: I have a question, Sean, it's if I may. I'm sorry, did I interrupt? Were you going to another Nope, you're good. Just quick. Do it. Linda, can you tell us the status of the order conditions for the roadway? Linda Hansen: I'm working on it. I've just had, you know, you can see my agenda. It's been pretty crazy here. So working Kevin O'Leary: on it, what does that mean with regard to a time frame? Linda Hansen: I should have it done by next week at some point. So okay, Kevin O'Leary: we appreciate it. Thanks. You got Unknown: all right. Thanks, Kevin, thank you.
Sean Fair: Okay, 2b, 13 Stanton Street. D1, 047, request for determination file pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protections Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Chester Nielsen for the replacement of covered porch and construction of a walkway at 13 Stan Street in Wayland. Mass property is shown on the assessor's map, 50 1c lot 06 the proposed work is with 100 200 foot riverfront area and 100 foot wetland buffer Linda Hansen: zone. Linda, I believe we have the homeowner here, Chester, with us. I don't know if he's if he can hear us. Do you want to present the project to the commission?
Sean Fair: You're muted. Chester, if you're you're speaking. It looks
Linda Hansen: like stepped away or something. Sean Fair: See if I can ask him to unmute himself.
Unknown: Hello, I'm sorry, this is Chester. I did. I didn't know, right? So go good at fast. I'm sorry. I am single dad in it tonight, I was putting my daughter down yours. Okay, so from what I was seeing, I I just wanted to let you know where I stand. I live at 13 Stanton Street. I purchased the property from Mr. Poncio back in June of 2022 over the class two years of the property, I've noticed that the front porch that we have was sinking, and after some exploratory discovery, determined that it was significant dry rot, given that of two small children, both under three, as I'm single Danny right now, I need to replace and the porch because it's just unfit for use. The prospectus, as we looked at it, was to stand on the current footprint. But the fact that our house has a very unique footprint in that our. Side door, which is in the the packet I provided to you all. On the northeast side, it has a landing, like a small, like three foot landing, a stair step. We just wanted to continue that along. Yeah, May I share my screen? Yes, please. This is rather, I'm sorry for the low brow aspect of this, but let me see if I can share here. Okay, so this is just general Google Map. Can the committee see this? Nope, oh, okay, let's try this one more time. There we go. There it is. There it is, okay, so there's so this is 13 second. This is the Porsche that needs to be repaired. This is, there's a doorway right here. And what our hope is, if the committee does not see fit as to allow us to connect these two portions right here and create one stairwell that goes over this lawn. We would appreciate the opportunity to just simply repair this portion, since it's unusable and relatively unsafe, but what we're hoping for is a an accommodation to allow us to allow this door to connect with a walkway over this extended lawn portion here, so that we will only have one staircase that will run down this this grassy area. So
Linda Hansen: where's the walkway going? Chester, where's that? Can you show us where that is, sure. Unknown: So do you see this orange door here? Yeah, it would. It would run along the length of the house to the existing footprint right over that. Linda Hansen: I thought by walkway you meant like you were, in turn, like a sidewalk type thing that you Oh, Unknown: no, ma'am. I'm just going to try and do it like uncovered, elevated porch way that's got no roof over it. I just the, I just wanted to give this like six feet here. It was an Linda Hansen: option. I just misunderstood. Unknown: So, of course.
Linda Hansen: So it shows you can show the commission what the so called stream looks like. I know you could. You can just ma'am a little bit right? Unknown: Yes, it's right here. We've been pretty fastidious with making sure that we have been keeping it in accordance with what you all want. I understand that there's a give and take. I understand about commission. I appreciate what you all are trying to do. And so when I was one of the things that my wife and I've been talking about is there's stream runs here. We've let it run pretty wild, but we would love to allow it to take over a couple more feet, since we're taking three feet from here, we would like to give, since I mow my own lawn, give this, give this lawn back, and do a lot of local flora here. And obviously we would, in this area here, where we connect, run gravel underneath, and then run local Massachusetts, like this area, kind of floor here to try and just bring back a lot of stuff and get rid of these, you know, these hedges and these, these use. But this is where it the this is the real big issue at hand, which is this small creek that we've been maintaining and overseeing since we purchased the property.
Linda Hansen: Because typically, what we put in most of our conditions and our permits is that we like to have a vegetated buffer along any resource area and not and we would encourage not to have lawn right to the bank of the stream. So any restoration that you do over there would be much encouraged. I mean, a lot of that, you get a lot of runoff from on that stream. I know that because I've been out there 2019 we've have a permit on the house in front of you. We have a permit on so we're very familiar with the neighborhood. And Unknown: I know Mr. Pons ADU is not unfamiliar with this August committee. Linda Hansen: But also that, I mean, you get a lot of material that gets deposited into that stream, and so I think it would make a lot of sense to have have more vegetation in there that can that can pick up nutrients. It can pick up stuff, you know, and pollutants and things like that. Can kind of water. And that's what those cat tails do a great job of picking up a lot of nitrogen and stuff. So it would be a huge water quality improvement to have a little bit more vegetation in that area. Unknown: So I would say that really quickly, just because this is because this committee is aware, if I turn this, you'll see that there is no barn here. This is on Pelham from last year. So that shows how old this photo is. If you came through, I have the eagle scout in me, the kid from the scouts. And excuse me, but this has become far more robust this photo. And so, like I said, it's gorgeous. It flowers beautifully. We get all the bees right that come around here. So I'm, I'm all about doing what I can about this stream here, and to be honest, surrendering a lot of this lawn because this is really it's gorgeous. So again, we're happy to either introduce local stuff or let it kind of reclaim as you see fit. But of course, over here, we would then surround this area with local stuff. But yes, we would definitely work on this stream as well. All right, sounds good.
Commission, thoughts.
Sean Fair: Sounds good on my, my end and yeah, Linda's good with it. I'm good. I like that idea. Yeah, I Shannon Fischer: actually kind of like the idea too, of like letting it sort of reclaim and see what grows, maybe with selective seeding, because that, you know, that reduces the risk of getting, like, jumping worm contaminants right on that seed bank, right or right on that bank right there. So you might like, if you remind me, I might just let it happen and then sort of manage for invasives that you'll inevitably have, of course, Unknown: just real quick. This is kind of informal. My wife went for a run and ran across a house in the area where we are, and there was a garden that had a bunch of local indigenous plants. And then there were like pamphlets where you could learn from it, is that any of you guys that have that, or because it was a beautiful, like local garden, but I just want to see if it was any of y'all, Oh, wow. Linda Hansen: No, no, Unknown: I'll tell you on the route. But everything that's in there is kind of like an English garden. And then there's a pamphlet on riots, local, Sean Fair: maybe Wayland Garden Club. They're pretty No, Unknown: it was, it was a, it was a residential home. Oh, wow. I like Shannon Fischer: the idea. Like, I'd love to check it out, see how they're doing it. And maybe, maybe we can do something similar up by our houses. Unknown: Fabulous. But yes, okay, well, great. And I can get, I can, I have a bunch of, as Shannon knows, like Cardinal flowers growing kind of like in the wet area of our backyard, just and they're beautiful. They love, like, wet and sunshine. And I can give you a bunch of seeds, okay, 100% yes, as I like I said, anything I can do to make this look the way it's supposed to look. And, I mean, I love the fact that I own this left side of the property, but it's one of the things where, like, if I can't really do much with it because it's so close to everything that would need a permit, I'd love to just kind of, again, surrender it to Oh, thank you, Shannon. Surrender it. So if we can talk about what we can do here, because it's great, it's a great area that's low lane, like, I'd love to just give it back, because if you're going to flood, I may as well have a bunch of stuff with roots that can handle it right, so Linda Hansen: we can talk about that offline. But I'm sorry, yeah, of course, focus on the approval of the permit at this point. Okay, Sean Fair: yes, ma'am. I love it. Chester, though, yeah, yeah. Love the idea the commission, if we're, if we're good, I'm looking then for a motion for a negative determination on the welcome protection act in a permanent under 194 so moved second. Thank you, Luke. I think that was Shannon. I heard this for a second, Barbara Howell: termination, Sean Fair: negative determination, negative determination. I Unknown: said, you want a negative yep and a perm, yep? Sean Fair: Roll call, please? Shannon Fisher, yep. Luke Legere, yes. ARPA Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. And Sean fair as a yes, all set. Good luck being single dad. Unknown: Oh my god, she's out of the country for a week. We've had throw ups. We've had everything. It's been wild. But again, like Wayland said, I'll talk about this offline. Thank you for keeping the bubble, Linda, I appreciate you. Alright. Thanks. Yes, sir. Take care. Thank y'all. Alright. On to one. Sean Fair: Sees this four week lock row d, dash, 1048, request for determination file pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protection by law and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Roderick McLeod for the replacement of a septic system at four Wheelock road and Wayland. Ma property is shown on assessor's map, 24 lot, 53 and the proposed work is 100 feet of a border vegetated wetland. Linda Hansen: Linda. We have Mike damonica, the septic contractor, and who's going. To present this to the commission, Unknown: sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Linda and members of the commission. Mike demotica, for my client, Roderick McLeod at four Wheelock road. This is pretty simply a straight septic repair of an existing failed system that actually was breaking out of the ground in the rear of the property. Health Department had issued a an order to fix it immediately, which my client has done. We perform soil testing on the lot. We have stayed at the existing design flow of three bedrooms. There's no change in impervious no change in grading, with the exception of a small grading line around the proposed septic. What we propose to put in is an IA technology, a Presby pipe system. It's approximately 100 and 190 feet away from the resource area. Actually, I guess Linda, if you want, I could share the plan,
sure. Yeah, please do. Let me see if I can do this. It's been a little while, so i
i Okay. I'm having a little trouble. Sorry, noi, we all have in our packet as well. Yeah, Linda Hansen: Mike made a change earlier, just to add top of bank onto the plan, because there is a stream, believe it or not, conservation owns that land next to you. Yeah? Little, tiny, little parcels. That was like, it's always a surprise that we own that so and so we're pretty I think we know about that stream already. We just did the okay. Just did the subject over 25 Lee Road, which is right on the other side of this property. So, right,
Unknown: jeez, I'm just,
he must be like me? Yeah, I am Barbara. I don't do honestly, I haven't done a zoom, and I don't know how long, so it's nice to see you again. I know it's been a little while. I try to stay out of trouble.
Yeah, my IT department is actually way at college, so usually she helps me when I need to put this up.
Still can't see it, right? Nope,
everyone now, Yep, here it comes. Sorry about that. Thanks for your patience. So on the western, westerly side is this stream, which has been determined perennial, intermittent. It's been a little bit of everything. The outer riparian is pretty much the entire lot. The inner is here, 100 feet what, what we propose is a septic tank in the back, in the back of the house here, to a pump chamber, and then a force main with a back bend up to this area where we propose to put in a 32 by 18 Presby pipe system. So it's an IA technology. We're not looking for any variances from the health department. They've actually approve the plan. As I said, there's a small grading change here around the outside of the leech field, basically for to provide for cover. We couldn't really move it any further to the south on the lot because of this 48 inch tree that's shown here, we would have to cut that. Our proposal doesn't require removal of any trees on the lot. We proposed straw wattles here in the back, and then a roll of straw wattles here across the front. All our access will be across the driveway here to the backyard and then off the driveway to work here. I think that pretty much answers or provides information, any questions I'd be happy to to answer? Next, Mike, Linda, Linda Hansen: no, I don't this. This is, again, a failed system, and it really needs to be replaced, and they're doing the best they can to put it as far away and putting in an innovative system. So I don't have any problems with that, and it's already been proved by board health. So, okay, commission anyone, I'm assuming it has Mike, sorry, I'm assuming it's been approved already. Unknown: Yes, yes, yeah, Darren. Darren approved it. I think it was Monday. He had one couple couple of small review comments that we addressed, but nothing major. He was just looking for some buoyancy calculations for the tank and the pump chamber. Yeah, no problem. Shannon Fischer: I want to thank you for, like, looking out for that tree, and maintaining a 48 inch tree is is worthy to really save. So thank you for doing that. Unknown: Yeah, it's pretty dynamic tree. It's really nice. What kind is it?
Shannon Fischer: It's okay, if you don't know. I just literally just curious. It will in no way impact anything. I'm trying
Unknown: to think, is it a maple? I can't remember if it's a maple or not. Sorry, all good mission. We good Sean Fair: someone want to make the motion Barbara Howell: move the negative under Wayland Protection Act and a permanent under Chapter 194 Unknown: second. Sean Fair: Thank you. Babs, thank you. Luke Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Howell, yeah. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs a yes, you're all set. Unknown: Thanks so much for your time. You too good to see you. Barbara, good to see you.
All right. On to
Sean Fair: mansion road and Lake Shore Drive. D, dash, one, four, sorry, 1049, request for determination file pursuant to Wayland wetlands and water resource protection Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Abigail cherish for the Department of Public Works, the storm drainage system improvements at nine. Mason road long intersect intersection of Lakeshore drive and mansion road and Wayland. Mass proposed product is shown assessors map 4060 parcel 02 and the intersection between mansion road and Lakeshore drive and assessors map 40 6b the product is within 100 foot buffer zone of boarding vegetative Wayland. Linda, Linda Hansen: well, we have our esteemed town engineer, Abby, on board here, and who will present the project to you guys. Unknown: Abby, Hi, how are you? It's my first time coming for a permit here, so be kind. Um, let's see. Let me just show you the drawings. It's really just a replacement project, and I was working on it to try to get some grant in here. Let me see if I can.
Can you see that? Nope, no, ma'am. I
You are screen sharing. Here we go. Linda Hansen: Started screen sharing, but nothing's come up yet. Yeah, Unknown: let me see if I can close down some other things.
There it is.
No, no, that's not high school. You don't want that yet. There's no wetlands over there, so you don't have to worry about it. We need to worry about it. All right, here we go,
existing conditions.
Mm, my tiny little work computer instead of my big screens. Alright, so on the left here is West Lane Street, and then we have mansion road here, down to Lakeshore drive, and this is mansion beach at one point there's drainage in West lane that went down mansion road, and I think just went in as an outfall to Dudley pond in the 80s. At some point they cut this line and went to an infiltration unit, really just one of those beehive infiltrators in this corner here, and then there's two in this area here. And what happened over time is that actually in the installation of it, they were installed backwards so it doesn't actually kind of overflow. And what ends up. Happening is that water backs up on West lane and ends up flooding into the homes in this area here. So what we're proposing to do is to reconnect this and put in a new infiltration unit I'll show you on the next just in here, you can see some of the manholes and the two existing outfalls. This outfall, we can see and we can inspect. It's got a grown over with invasives in this area. And this out fall, we can actually no longer inspect. It's become buried over time. So the project would put be putting in a new infiltration unit that would infiltrate more of the water and treat more of the water and be inspected by DEP w in the construction so that wouldn't be installed backwards. We'd Reconnect the drain line this way, and we'd refurbish the two outfalls in the area here on the beach.
Okay, thank you, Linda, start with you, please. You're gonna mute, by the way, Linda,
Linda Hansen: this is a huge improvement over existing conditions. So hopefully the grant comes through and we can make some positive changes here.
Unknown: We wanted to add into the permit, sort of having the contractor remove some of these invasive so that we can. I know that the neighbors in the area like to have that area clean as well. Linda Hansen: Yeah. I mean, we can. We can also go through and identify, you know, what they can and cannot take down. Yeah, helps too. Unknown: Because whatever's helpful, really, what I'd like to do is Linda Hansen: this is a trust issue with contractors. So,
Unknown: very true. Well, yeah, really what I'd like to do is to be able to inspect it as part of our MS four permit for the town, and really have that infiltration working the way it should be working.
Richard, any other thoughts,
Shannon Fischer: I love not flooding people's homes. That sounds great. I do want to back a second like I really like the idea of removing the invasives and having some of the conservation folks marking them. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Linda,
Unknown: huge improvement over existing conditions. Sounds good.
Sean Fair: Read all right, then let's make the motion Luke Legere: I move that we issue a negative determination under the Act and a permit under Chapter 194 Sean Fair: Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second second? If you have a Shannon Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara hollow, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes, and Sean fair as a yes. All set. Thanks. Unknown: Abby, thank you. Nice meeting you. Thank you.
Sean Fair: Okay, on to the CEO strip, your compliance. This is a two, a 19 snake work road DEP file number 322, dash, 1004, Linda, Linda Hansen: this was, do we have, we have some? Oh, Matthew's on here. This is a request for replacement of a septic system. Is that correct? Unknown: Yes, yes. Septic system has been replaced. Okay? Linda Hansen: I mean, I think it looks like you followed most of the conditions. I know you said you didn't want to add the six inch gap at one point under the fence because you have small dogs. You know, as long as you don't have lawn down there in the in the 15 foot notice, Tom, because I noticed the fence is within, within that area. I mean, that would be, our preference is not to have it in that area, but because it's already there, that was my only, you know, issue with this is that we, you know, your neighbor also, at 21 put in a bunch of shrubs and just, you know, it's not very naturalized to the way he did it. It looks like you kind of did something similar. We prefer, actually, not to have a lot of grass in that area where the naturalization areas. But beyond the fence, is that just, is that just wild? Or is that, sorry, just beyond the fence is just wild, okay? Well, then, then, I mean that, I think that satisfies our need to have a vegetated buffer in there. So because it doesn't look like you have much use of your rear the second half of your rear yard there, yes.
Sean Fair: So then it sounds like you're in favor then of the COC, yeah. Linda Hansen: And I'm assuming you already have a. Did you get a by a closure from the Health Health Department, right? Yes. Okay. And then the other one of the conditions was, it was yard waste in the back, and we just want to make sure that that's also taken care of at some point, so that has been, that has been cleared. Great. So I'm going to do a quick site visit, hopefully in the next few days, and then I'll issue this, yeah, and then the commission will vote to issue a COC commission. Sean Fair: You're good. Appreciate it. Okay. Can we get a motion on for the issuance of Pacific compliance for 19 snake Brook road? Please. Luke Legere: So moved subject to Linda performing a site visit and confirming conditions as expected. Sean Fair: Thank you, Luke, do I hear seconds?
Unknown: Second? Sean Fair: Think that was Jenny Yes. Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Howell, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. Shoppers, yes. All set. Unknown: Thank very much. Commission. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate
Sean Fair: it. All right, on to three topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair, 40 hours in advance, if any quick, quick ADU, I think y'all received or got an email from Jean Milburn, she and I had a chat today. She may want to we're a talk a little bit later on, but work with us on possibly a tree bank and a revolving fund and bring that to the town this coming March, or whenever it is. So, long story short, maybe reaching out to a few of you on the side, see if you want to be a part of that. And she'd like to submit her services time and help to do that. And so people's radar, if I reach out to you, it's kind of a that's what that's from. So I responded to her email and check to help us on part of that. So that's the only thing from Yeah, real nice showing on my end. Unknown: Linda, anything else last second came up? Linda Hansen: No, I guess we should probably just let the commission know that we have our second settlement discussion scheduled for tomorrow with Saint Anne's correct. We had one last week, and we have asked Amy quizzle our town council to join us tomorrow's call to see if we can get some resolution. Unknown: Thank you for
reminding me, Sean, just to let you know, I just went into the office last week and spoke with Linda and Emily, and I had offered to call some of the surrounding towns that have the tree bank just to better understand how they're managing it, right, like, what money is coming in. I know that in, for instance, in Newton, just from one of my best friends that live there, there they have a backlog. And then when you look at Lexington site, they have a backlog. Because I'm just interested in how it works, who handles it, you know, I know that there's been public comment that, you know, let's not sign on for something that we don't enough resources to handle. So I thought I'd offer to make some phone calls and learn a little bit more. But let's see. You know if Gene's done some of that as well, and I've got a few phone calls or emails in just yet, but I haven't heard back just yet, but I only started today. Sean Fair: Awesome. Well, so thank you. So I'll definitely reach out to you tomorrow. I've done some work on my end up to this point, so if you could be part of that and help with G Unknown: even better. Yeah, thank you. Join forces. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa, yeah. Linda Hansen: Well, speaking of town meeting articles, I mean, we talked about doing that the tree Bank is a revolving fund that has to go through town meeting if you establish a revolving fund. And the second thing we talked about, Sean and I just, you know, was, you know, there's a drought bill right now in front of, you know, the state legislators. And you know what I think, what kind of brings me is that when we have a drought, we still have so many people irrigating their lawns, and they often have a sign private well, it's the same aquifer, you know? I mean, it just, I just don't, I just wish we could somehow limit or ban irrigation during times when we are in a pretty severe drought situation. And I mean, look at the Sudbury river, you know, can see it's really shrunk in size. And you know that the all the golf courses are still irrigating from the Sudbury river. And that's, I don't think we can change that, but I think, I think there's a lot of irrigation going on that doesn't really need to be done during a drought period. And so that was one thought about putting in a warrant article for that. And then the third thing is, is that CPC articles are due November 15. I believe it is this year. Am I right? Emily? Is that? Is that correct? 13th, 15th, something like that. And so we're trying to one thing we're going to submit is. An article to replace the bridges over at Hamlin woods, the beavers have changed the water levels, and basically one of the one of the paths has no bridge anymore. It's kind of sunk in the water. So we're going to need a fairly good size boardwalk, probably to cover that. And we're going to need, definitely need help to do that. So we're going to look for some contractors, some may Boy Scouts or something, to help us with that, and we're going to put in an article or application for that. But if you guys can think of something else that would improve our lands or something that we should embark on, let us know. CPC is a great funding source for us.
Sean Fair: CP, meeting right after this. Actually, we're meeting right now, same time, so I'm going from here to there. Shannon Fischer: You know, I don't know that it was be ready for it now, but like, we could start just to plant seeds in people's minds, you know, like, maybe someday we could identify high traffic roads where wildlife seemed to, like, especially get hit and look into, like, tunnels or something. I know this. This is like, really far out there, but wherever wildlife tunnels go in, mortality can drop by over 90% and I think that would be so worth doing someday, if we could ever look into that. Although I actually have an unrelated follow up question to you, Linda, why? Why couldn't we, why couldn't something affect the golf courses ability to water straight out of the Sudbury? Because that that seems atrocious, like, well, it Linda Hansen: gets really complicated, because that's, you know, that's their business, you know. And I don't want to get involved with that. That's, that's, that's just more than I can handle as a single person here. So I think, I think we're gonna let the state legislators decide how that that can get handled in the future. I mean, you know, if I'm not a golfer, Sean can weigh on this one, but, I mean, most of the green isn't really golfed on, right? I mean, it's just the, you know, yeah, intent to shoot over that
Sean Fair: question is their grant, their grandfathered in, so now your legal piece and so that's, Luke Legere: yeah, yeah. I think generally for that amount of water withdrawal you're looking at DEP being the permitting authority anyhow, so it's really probably not something we'd actually have purview over in the first place, but Linda Hansen: I looked into this, Luke, I don't think they have a permit for that. They have a certain I mean, I think it's like some enormous number, like 10,000 gallons a day they can pump out without a permit. Luke Legere: That's, yeah, I mean, that's the threshold. Generally, they were probably pretty close to that. But maybe, yeah, you're right. If they're below, maybe they don't need one. Linda Hansen: They don't need one. And so, you know, a lot of that. And I don't think there's any any regulatory, you know, oversight or anything. So it's, you know, it's, it's a tough one, so, but no, I'm not taking that one on. So Wayland Shannon Fischer: has so many golf courses too. You think that in the age where, like, precipitation cycles are changing so dramatically, like we could all come together and agree that maybe something should not be watered and kind of change practices. But I won't start the fight tonight, maybe later, but not tonight. Unknown: You think of all the golf courses they have out in the southwest, you know, oh, man, and swimming pools a Shannon Fischer: golf course would be a great place to put some of those ginormous developments that want a clear cut forest, like we
Linda Hansen: just had to drive by Sandy per on a nice day, and that place was packed. Barbara Howell: So the golf course and the post road goes underwater all the time. Linda Hansen: Oh, yeah, that's the country club. Shannon Fischer: It could be like, it could be a new added challenge, like the sand pits and whatever. If instead, there were, like, drought spots where the grass was all dry. It's like another sand pit like that. Could be an improvement on the golf game. Linda Hansen: We won't go there. But anyway, think about if you can come up with some. If you have some great ideas or something that we should maybe take on or submit an application for CPC, let me know. Like I said, right now, we have one firm idea, and we're always we can come up with many ideas in our office, right? Emily is just a matter of what, what it is that we can implement, you know, that's, that's really the the constraint for us is just having the resources and staff to do things. Shannon Fischer: So actually, I do have an idea. I'll email you about it. Sean Fair: All right. Approval, LCA, public comments. So approval of minutes. Babs, how are we looking for September 24 you good? Unknown: All right, with me, Challenger, look at them.
Sean Fair: Okay, we're good looking again. The motion then to approve the minutes of September. September, 24 2025, please. So moved. Thank you. Luke. Do I hear a second?
Second? McCall Shannon, Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs a yes, thank you. Unknown: I think that's it. Yes. I'll let Sean Fair: you know what CPC is doing as I happen there, and I'll be texting or calling somebody next couple days, so can look up for that. All right, sounds good. All right. Last motion, please, gain a motion to adjourn for the evening, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear seconds? Second? That was Shannon again. I think last roll call tonight. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. And Sean fairy, yes. All set. Good night, everybody. And.
Sean Fair: 20 what's our next meeting? 2929 is that, when they want to for Linda, next one? Yes, okay, Luke Legere: I move that we continue the hearing to October 29 after 630 Unknown: under both, right under both. Yes, sir, perfect. You'll hear a second. Second. Sean Fair: Make this sound like Shannon Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yep. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. Sean fairs, yes. Thank you, folks. Okay, on to 1b this is 169 rice road DEP file number 322, dash, 1053, it's also continued Notice of Intent follow pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protection Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Saint Philip editors and Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church for the work at 169 rice road and Wayland mass. The proposed work includes the demolition of existing church and construction of three new buildings, parking services, a courtyard, sports field and storm water management systems. The project is in with a 200 foot riverfront area and 100 foot buffers on a boring, vegetative Wayland property is shown on assessor's map, 40, parcel 08, Linda, I Linda Hansen: believe we have the applicants team here to give us an update.
Unknown: We do. Hi everyone. For the record, my name is Andrew Tebow, wetland scientist with Goddard consulting. The updates actually won't come from me tonight. They'll come from the remainder of the team. Linda, similar to last time the majority of the project team is on this as attendees, I'm going to have them raise their hands if you don't mind, promoting them as panelists, and then Sean land and will be happy to kick this off for us. Thank
I'll give a minute for them to come in. Thank you for doing that. Sure.
Good evening. Can everybody hear me? Yep. Okay, great. So since our last meeting on the 10th of September, we provided additional information, both requested and voluntary from Goddard. We provided the wetlands border report in updated data sheets. We've also provided updated planting plan, which shows the existing trees to remain at the perimeter as well as the surrounding vegetation. We've updated the lighting study with proposed foot candles on the site and the surrounding the building. And lastly, we've provided a site section that cuts through the entire site, that basically runs east, west, and it's looking at the site from the south. So we understand that since the last meeting, there's been communication between the Conservation Commission the Board of Health. Of Design Review Board, DEP w in the planning department. And what we're hoping for this evening and requesting is for the commission to vote to allow the st flipper project to proceed with the peer review process.
That's that's where we stand.
Linda Hansen: Sean, my understanding is that the planning board is taking the lead on the peer review. They're the ones who received the quotes from with and the scope of work was, was a joint effort by all the lane use departments. So that way, the Cochituate is only doing one peer review, as opposed to multiple, you know, by each of department itself. So the stormwater peer review is included in, I believe. Wait, who's doing this now? ECT, is it ECT doing this one Unknown: that sounds that sounds, yeah, we've spoken with with Robert, and yes, we understand that the proposals have been presented to the client, and they have actually accepted that and made the payment for that. There's also a traffic peer review as well, and I believe that's in the process as well, yeah. Linda Hansen: So that was my understanding, that once, once the money, the funding, is received, the peer review will move forward. Okay, so I don't, I don't think there's any more input that we need to provide for that it's just a matter of waiting for them to finish the the peer review process. Unknown: I'm sorry, that's my misunderstanding. I thought that we needed the approval from the Conservation Commission.
Linda Hansen: So we did not. Did we not take a vote the last time?
Unknown: I'll jump in quickly. This is Andrew with Goddard. So we did not. We were last with you guys about a month ago. We had introduced the project at that time, but we had continued the meeting out until tonight, with the intention at the time of our original presentation, it sounded like the planning department, the Conservation Commission, hadn't, hadn't had enough time to correspond back and forth, so we never took an official vote to proceed with peer review. If it's occurring jointly, that's great. We just want to make sure the commission has the opportunity to make sure that we're ready to proceed with the peer review. Linda Hansen: You know, I know my notes say that the commission was in favor of a peer review. Again, I guess it's kind of redundant for us to vote on that, since it's already in progress and that and that the planning board is taking the lead on that, since they also need storm water for the site plan review, if you want us to, I'm sure the commission is happy to take a vote on that,
Unknown: as long as we have your long as it's on the meeting minutes, we have the paper trail that we are pursuing peer review, and it's occurring jointly, we just want to make sure that we're on the same page. So that's a good way Sean Fair: to proceed. Okay, so you don't need about that one day, right? You're already doing this with planning. Linda Hansen: Yeah, planning board is taking the lead on this one. So because they have a greater scope of work, they've included conservation for storm water, and they've also included the health department for any of their whatever their scope of work was for that, I'm not sure what that is so. And in addition to that, planning board will have a needs of traffic studies. So that's done, that's being done separately. Sean Fair: So okay, so we only think for now, then depends what it's what continuation till after the till we get the actual plans with the peer review. Unknown: Yeah, we'll Linda Hansen: have to get some input. We're going to need a response from the peer reviewer. And I think it's important for the the Coptic church to go through the planning board process also, because if there's going to be any design changes, it will probably be through their process. And process, not necessarily through ours. So I don't know at some point, I think that's next week. Is that Unknown: correct? That is correct. Okay, Sean Fair: so between that Board of Health meeting, sorry, planning meeting, next week and our peer review is the 29th too short a window for the continuation, or is that what's the next continuation? Then do you think, based on what we're at, what we're looking at, scope
Unknown: wise, I would think that we would need to get comments back from our peer reviewer, and I'm not sure how long that's going to take, and we can be in communication with the planning board in regards to the comments that we get back, so we can try to get on the the next scheduled meeting after we receive those comments, and are able to receive. On to them. Sean Fair: Okay, to read against for now, we have to pick a date. We say the 29th in the worst case scenario, if they continue, you'll let Linda know in advance. Does that sound right? Unknown: That sounds good to us. Okay? Because Linda Hansen: then the next meeting after that is November 19. So put that on your schedule. So if we, if we don't have all the material ready for the our next hearing date, then we'll then the following hearing date would be November 19.
Unknown: And I'm sorry, what was the next 129? Thank you. Sean Fair: Commission members. Any thoughts, comments, concerns? No. Luke Legere: I think as long as Linda is satisfied with the scope of the peer review, I have nothing to add. Love it. Okay. Sean Fair: So let's then we'll look under both for continuation, sometime after 630 on the October 29 please. So moved. Thank you. Luke, do I hear a second? Second sound like Babs Roll call, please? Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke jeer, Unknown: yes. Sean Fair: Barbara Hall, yeah, I think I saw Jenny Brown. Come in. Sorry. Hi, Jenny. Jenny Brown, yes, please. Aubin, yes, and Sean fair as a yes. All right, we'll see you folks in a few weeks. Unknown: Thank you commission. Thank you. Thank you. All right, on to 1c Sean Fair: this is 11. Cameron road DEP file number 322, dash, 1054, that's also continued Notice of Intent felt pursuant to Wayland wetlands and water resource protection by law and the weather protection act submitted by ADU mwrato for the construction of an addition to a single family home in 11 Cameron road and Wayland mass property is shown on assessor's map, 38 parcel 149, and is located within 100 feet of bordering vegetated wet Linda Unknown: um, I believe Andrew is doing this one also, right? I am. So we can jump right into this one. All right, up into it. Awesome. Thank you guys. If I have permission to share my screen, I'll pull it up and I'll I'll run through what we got for you. Please see.
Can you guys see the screen right here. Sean Fair: It's black right now, but something's about to come out.
Unknown: Yep, there's Perfect. Thank you. So this is the original site plan submitted. I'm just going to start with a quick introduction of what we discussed last time, and then we've changed since then. So for the Commission's records again, my name is Andrew Tebow. I'm the wetland scientist on the project and a project and a project manager with Goddard consulting. So I was last with you folks on September 24 at that time, that was our introductory hearing for the project. I had explained that this was at 161 square foot addition off the southern portion of McCall. Let me house at 11 Cameron road. So we had discussed that the work was proposed all over existing lawn off the southern edge of the house and was about 86 feet from the wetlands. At that time, we had had a couple comments. We were discussing back and forth. One was, DEP had made a note that the existing limit of lawn and tree line was not shown on the original site plan that we see here. And then we had a conversation with the Commission that that was especially important, because under Chapter 194 the 15 foot no disturbed zone, we were looking to evaluate how much of that 15 foot no disturbed zone exists at present on the site, if we have an average of a 15 foot throughout and so what we did since then, and this was submitted to the Commission on October 1, we had The surveyors revised the site plan. They added in the tree line and the lawn labels to show what's undeveloped on the site and what's developed on the site. And so, as I said at the last meeting, we were discussing we knew from aerial imagery that the lawn had cut across about a portion of the backyard. We knew that there was at least a pre existing portion of that lawn that would be within the 15 foot notice served zone. So we were looking to see if there was an average of 15 feet throughout the site of an undeveloped buffer zone that would be compliant with the intent of chapter 194 so once this was revised, what I had done here in this letter that the Commission received is I took eight measurements from the wetland flags out to the limit of lawn around the site to show an average of the buffer zone on the site. So I chose eight. So there was quite a few sample sizes, and then you'll also notice that I took three at that narrowest location. The intent was to make sure the data wasn't skewed. Take a bunch of data and make sure that you took a bunch of the closest point to make sure that if I gave the commission an average of what's out there for buffer zone on the site, that it was a reasonable representation of the property. So what we did is we found that the majority of the property has much greater than a 15 foot no disturbed zone that's undeveloped on site right now. As we can see, the wetlands come up on this property about halfway through, because there's a seat comes out of the yard up in this section, but the remainder actually comes off site and continues. To move. And we had everywhere from about six feet at closest to as far as 62 feet and 72 feet in spots. And what this meant was we have an average width of the buffer zone that's undeveloped on this property of about 29.8 feet. So that is about double what the 15 foot no disturbed zone was. And so this letter was submitted intending to evaluate and demonstrate that the property is in substantial compliance with the intent of that 15 foot no disturbed zone. So that was done to both answer DEP comment about adding the limit along, and then the discussions we had at the last meeting. So this letter was submitted essentially to review and button up that comment. And then Linda had made a good point that we were not unaware of, that there was a different septic system as built for this property that the Board of Health had. And what that meant was the proposed addition was actually going to be about nine feet from the septic system itself, which though not necessarily conservation issue, Wayland Board of Health has a 10 foot setback from foundation to septic system, and so we just slightly modified the addition and we added a note. So what we're doing is moving the foundation back a little bit, and we're just cantilevering the front floor to make sure that we have the feet six inches just to meet that separation. So I submitted a revised plan today, just to shows this here, the commission is unlikely to have seen that, yet it doesn't change any portion of the project as far as the limits of development or any of the measurements I just outlined. It was just to demonstrate the intent that we will make sure we comply with the Board of Health setbacks. So that's what we have for you. Otherwise, everything else was clarified in October 1 letter, and if there's any questions on that, I'm certainly here to answer them. Thanks, Andrew. Linda, start with you, please. Yeah, Linda Hansen: like, I think I told Andrew after the meeting that the one thing that he really, he really should do is get the Board of Health approval, which is going to be required anyway, for a building permit because of the proximity of the tanks in the leach field to the new addition. That's something that's required under the Health Department rules. So I'd like to make sure he goes through that process and make sure to just so the health department approves this plan. Before we approve we issue an order conditions, because otherwise, if the plans change again, you know, we'd have to go through this all over again. So I think if you can submit that to them in the near, very near future, that we should be ready for the next meeting. Also check the I did check the previous permit for this project, and I noticed that they they didn't have two separate lobes of wetlands. They had a where that topography line is between, what is that number? I can't see it on my smoke. It's right Unknown: here on my cursor. Yeah, Linda Hansen: like 20. We're 25 to 995, or 96 or whatever that is. Yeah, that's where the wetland line was. Was? It was pretty much where that DEP part that that contour line is. So also just wanted to bring that up. I don't know if things have changed. Yeah, Unknown: that's interesting. So I'll address that comment first, because that's an easy one. So there's that's like, actually, like a monoculture of Japanese knotweed in that section, way back there. And this is sort of a groundwater breakout where you can see a bit of a bank starting to form. There's a pretty clear vegetative break, but it may not have existed previously. I think we have the added benefit of with so much of a break from the undeveloped portion, it wouldn't affect this project. And I will add, Linda, that your comment makes perfect sense to us. So I have spoke about that with both the builder, because the builder will be doing this with the Board of Health. So I spoken with the builder and the homeowner. Both of them understand that and fully intend to to file this with the Board of Health as soon as possible. So I think our intention with the Commission tonight is just to make sure that all remaining comments are addressed and discussed with you guys that way, once we go to the Board of Health, if there are no revisions, then we'll be good to close that with you guys as well. Linda Hansen: You know, Andrew, I drove by. I didn't, I didn't get out go on the property, because, with a fenced in yard, I wasn't sure if they had dogs or something, and I hadn't let them know I was coming. So just, I was in the neighborhood anyway for 13 Charena. So I just drove down there. And I was surprised. Is that not weed? I thought that looked like, like bamboo. I mean, like, you know, like regular bamboo back there looks like a huge stand of bamboo, really Unknown: tall. Maybe there is. I did this earlier in the year, so I know when you go back in this, in this further section, it's first, it's grape, and it's a bunch of blueberry, things like that, a bunch of shrubs. And once you go back in there, so when I was there in the spring, of course, I've done a lot of properties since then, I think it was not weed, but bamboo does escape from properties. A lot of people use it for for landscaping. It's the fish pole bamboo, and it runs away. So I'll look at some photos, just out of curiosity to see what's Linda Hansen: over there. It's a pretty impressive stand of bamboo Unknown: takes over. It's, it's, it looks pretty until it takes over a random area. Yeah, Linda Hansen: yeah. They might want to get that in control before it starts to consume everything. So, yeah. Unknown: Yeah, we didn't, we didn't plant that. I don't know where that's coming from, a neighbor or something like that. It tends to Adam. It spreads by rhizomes, and if a neighbor uses it in some landscaping, it'll run from another property to somebody else's. Sean Fair: But So sounds like anything else that from our end, so assuming they sail through, they get back to us and just kind of get this poor condition. Okay, so it sounds like, then continuation to the 29th assuming a clean bill from the other board, and we'll wrap it up then. Is that what we're Linda Hansen: doing? Sounds like it that makes, I think that makes I think that makes the most sense, because we don't want to have to turn around and reopen this or amend this later on if there are any changes. So yep, and it won't hold Unknown: up the process, because they have to go through Board of Health anyways for a building permit. So I think that's perfectly amenable to us. And you know, thank you for giving us the the verbal clarification that we're good to go and we'll go from here, we'll work at the Board of Health. Okay? Thank you, perfect. Sean Fair: All right, so can I get then also under both and continuation for some time after six 630 sometime after 630 on the 29th of October, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second? Thank you. Babs, Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Unknown: Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs, yes, all set. Thanks. We appreciate it here.
Sean Fair: All right, we're in the public meetings now. This is for two, A, 13, Charena Road lot. A 1d, dash, 1044, that's a continued request for determination file pursuant to Wales wetlands and water resource protection bylaw in the Protection Act, standard by Carol Carol seedo for the demolition of existing single family house and construction of five bedroom single family home and associated utilities, including a driveway, walkway septic system and a storm water management system. At Law, a one on the 13 Charena Road subdivision in Wayland mass the property is shown on assessor's map, 38 lot 157, and is located within 100 foot buffer zone of a boarding vegetated Wayland. Linda Hansen: Linda ability years received all the new information that was submitted for this and includes what is it, plans and previous analysis and a storm water and erosion control report. So I guess Kevin can update you with the new information. Sure. Kevin O'Leary: Hi, Kevin O'Leary from Jill, some company. Thank you for your time. October 1, we submitted a new packet, or a revised packet of information, which included minor revisions to the site development plan and also revisions to an impervious lot area analysis plan, also a hydrological report that we submitted to the Commission in DGT for peer review, and we got a letter back today from Linda about DGT comments, and they have no further comments in that regard, we satisfied their requirements. So I think we're finally through the hydrology on this project. Again. This is a single family house lot, 60,000 square feet, and I can do share screen to bring up plans that the Commission wishes, wishes to see them. It's about 54 5500 square feet of 100 foot puffer zone alteration along the edge of the existing 50 foot private way which services are formerly service number 13 Charena Road, single family house. It's got an existing barn on the property, and a proposed single family house is what's on the plans. With all the site work, new driveway. It's removing a lot of impervious, existing impervious driveway area, a portion of the house, and then regrading in the 100 foot buffer zone. So a recharge basin is proposed to collect a portion, approximately half of the existing barn roof, in the entire roof of the proposed house, so it's self contained with no discharge. It holds 100 year storm for those two rooftops, or half a rooftop and then a full house. So I think we're all in compliance with the requirements, and we'd like to see if the commission is comfortable closing the hearing tonight, please.
Sean Fair: Okay, thanks, Kevin. Linda, start with you, please. Linda Hansen: So how are you managing the runoff from the driveway, Kevin O'Leary: from the proposed driveway? I. Um, it flows down to the towards the proposed Street, and on the revised plan, I show I cross pitch it towards the lawn area that runs along the side of the driveway and down the shoulder of the road.
If I can screen share, I could pull up the detailed site plan and Unknown: show the again. So where is it going? Kevin O'Leary: Then into the grass shoulder in the front yard. It's headed for the area between the proposed septic leaching trenches in the sideline of the private way.
Linda Hansen: So all 1900 feet of driveway is going into the lawn. Kevin O'Leary: Yes, I
Linda Hansen: Why wouldn't go into the catch basin in front of the in front
Kevin O'Leary: of the driveway. There is no catch basin in front of the driveway. Linda Hansen: What is this on the plan? Again? There's no Kevin O'Leary: There's no screen. What I Unknown: can Kevin O'Leary: the commission see this plan on the screen? Yeah, I think Linda, this is the commission members Island, and this is the proposed driveway in the contours are Linda Hansen: you make that bigger? Sure, tiny end screen.
Kevin O'Leary: So the proposed driveway is 12 feet wide in here is the the edges of it. And these contours are created with a slight swale along the edge of pavement and then off the pavement. The way I've got the contours drawn is to create a drainage swale off the pavement, coming around this way, and then I've highlighted a swale in this area to direct the water down parallel to the lot line and parallel to the edge of pavement here for the proposed 20 foot wide right away.
Linda Hansen: So I'm asking about the catch basin, which is right where it says ARPA number a one. Oh, Kevin O'Leary: I'm sorry, Linda, that's that's off the property. That's in the 40 foot right of way, and that's part of the roadway drainage that goes back to the recharge basin near the cul de sac, up in this area a couple 100 feet up the road this ADU, theoretically, a droplet of water landing on the street here would flow all the way down to the existing catch basins, down towards the beginning of the street and the existing low point. It's, it's at least a 250 feet, 300 feet,
Linda Hansen: okay, but I mean, when I look at the the other plan that you provided, it doesn't look like the the catch basin or the the catch basin looked like it was east of the driveway for lot two or no for lot one, Kevin O'Leary: right? This is lot one, lot a one, yes, Linda Hansen: yeah, yeah. But I mean, it's not in the same places that you had on the previous the order conditions that are the NOI that you submitted, are those supposed to be the same Kevin O'Leary: ones? Yeah, they haven't moved this, this catch basin out here, because we previously on the on a prior submission for lot a when we had a on the first submission, we had a catch basin in the driveway. Unknown: Yeah. Linda Hansen: Why was that taken out? Kevin O'Leary: Because Bert Cory was DGT was recommending secondary treatment prior to disposal into the infiltration basin for the driveway runoff. Linda Hansen: Okay, so you saying that on this? This the plan that was submitted with a with a Notice of Intent, the driveway location is, is different than what you have on there now Kevin O'Leary: the Notice of Intent for the roadway, yeah, because you have Linda Hansen: it on in here, and it looks like the catch basins much farther. Is farther east of it. Kevin O'Leary: No, I don't think the catch basins have changed. And, yeah, the driveway aprons we show on the subdivision plan are in the same general location. I think that the same width, but we didn't have the detailed site plan for the house or the individual lots. I think we just showed them coming more or less straight in at 90 degrees to the front lot line.
Linda Hansen: Also area drain and foundation drain. You have that discharging right next to the septic leach field. Kevin O'Leary: Are there setbacks for that? Yes, and they're satisfied, Linda Hansen: which is, what is the setback? I Kevin O'Leary: wanna say, 10 feet. Okay, do
Linda Hansen: and, well, I mean, my analysis of your, you know what I asked for in the response to the your submittal last time was for impervious surface calculations. I just wanted new. New and existing to be removed. I asked, I don't want the uncontrolled. I'm not sure how you come up with that. And in my calculation, I have new impervious is equal to 6623 feet, okay? And what you're removing is a portion of the house and the driveway, which is 2859 so the difference is 3764 that's, that's what the net impervious is. That needs to be managed, right? Kevin O'Leary: I can't, you know, agree with your numbers, but I have that on a plan in the share screen. I could pull it Linda Hansen: up. I mean, your hydrocade model has driveway to house retaining wall and proposed house that you modeled. But some of the impervious was not modeled like the retaining wall in the driveway, the front walk the I Kevin O'Leary: think that was it. No, that's all in the model. All these impervious areas over here is a post development impervious areas on the lot, and these are the pre development impervious areas on the lot. So the in the prior plan, I had labeled this as pre development uncontrolled impervious areas. What uncontrolled means is that it flows off the property with no drainage controls. And you requested that I remove that descriptor. So I did and I resubmitted. This is the plan with the October 2 date, done. Originally submitted on September 30. You had a few comments. I, you know, re label tables. You can read the revision. I mean, yeah, the revision block down here, blah, blah, blah. So this looking Linda Hansen: for something simpler. Kevin, that's all, so that's, that's all looking for was just, you know, pre and post kind of how much is impervious is getting added to this property? Okay, Kevin O'Leary: right here. It's right here, Linda, here's pre development right here, 7356, here's post right here, 11,000 Oh, two. Oh, okay, these computations here, these two numbers here, take the roofs. Half the barn is 1600 the house envelope is 3778, so the net, uncontrolled impervious flowing off the site is this, 5642, which is a reduction from the 7356, so here's the net post development impervious area that flows to the front lot line. It's less, it's less than existing by 1714, square feet.
Linda Hansen: Okay, we also have various plans for the barn. So have those are they? Are they no longer putting in the additional driveway and parking area? Kevin O'Leary: That's right, that's true. Yes, it's just the existing driveway is shown on the plans. Okay,
that existing barn driveway is up here at 11 117 square feet.
It's down here on the post development, 1117,
Unknown: Linda, anything else on your end? No, I don't think so. So, Sean Fair: just so you're guy having answered, you're good to go from what you need, Linda Hansen: I guess so. You know, I'm relying on the peer review for his expertise in stormwater, and he seems to be fine with it. So there's nothing more I have to add. Unknown: Okay, commission, Sean Fair: thoughts, comments, concerns. I Shannon Fischer: may need a refresher on this, but I know that last time that we met, there was some back and forth about, you know, existing conditions. So some materials, you know, were being like. Some things weren't being counted that should have been counted. And I don't remember the exact specifics, right? Do you guys recall this? I want to confirm that we have the actual existing conditions here. And I remember that there was some back and forth about this last time.
Linda Hansen: No, I don't, I don't remember that. So Luke Legere: I noi, I remember that Shannon, I thought there was, like, we were sort of disputing or debating, like new impervious. What that meant, right? Is that what you're referring to, Shannon Fischer: yeah, exactly. And then there's, there's questions about, like, the some of the existing, like, yeah, there were definite questions about that. And I, and I think it matters, so I, I'm trying to recall now. Sean Fair: So I guess the ultimate question is, Linda, based on the numbers, you understand them to be, you go with the numbers of the new or impervious, right? Shame is that kind of what you're asking, though, essentially, right? Shannon Fischer: I should have reviewed my notes before this. There were questions where, and Luke, I'm glad to remember this. You might be able to sort of back me up here on this, but there was, I'm. Matter of some, I hope I don't get this backwards, some existing impervious was being included as existing conditions when actually it had been removed a couple of years ago.
Unknown: Yeah, I recall something like that too, but I don't Luke Legere: know we were like going back in time to define existing conditions. Yes, that's right, basically, right. Kevin O'Leary: I could maybe shed a little bit on that. The on previous plans. We had a proposed driveway that came into the barn, you know, as a side load driveway, and that's been removed from the plans. In the last meeting, I also showed a plan that I had got from Wayland GIs that showed two existing barn components that came into this area, and I was using those to try to demonstrate and give an explanation to support the hydrology and the proposed conditions that the property formerly had much more impervious area than what we were showing or taking credit for, but I've removed that information and abandoned that approach. Shannon Fischer: Okay, so what we're seeing is the actual right now, this minute, existing conditions on this map. Unknown: Yes, okay, Linda Hansen: and Shannon. The other thing was that we talked about the drainage issue, about using the drainage easement, and we agreed to hire a title attorney to investigate that. We have not received the response from the title attorney yet, Unknown: but it appears that they have. They're no longer sending water. Linda Hansen: I guess probably the barn driveway is probably still going down in that direction, right?
Kevin O'Leary: Yeah, the existing barn driveway is, but our hydrological analysis, which DGT had, has no further comment on, has the the at the front lot line, there's a design point for hydrological modeling and the reductions that design point between pre and post development significant and substantial. And I have those on another plan I could pull up and show you. I mean, I think for the smaller or the higher frequency storms, the reductions are in the in the range of 60 to 70% lower runoff post development, because we're collecting, well, first of all, we're removing a lot of impervious area with the existing driveway, and we're collecting a lot of the roof area and putting it into the infiltration basin so there's no runoff from the from those impervious proposed impervious surfaces. Well, proposed house surface and existing barn. Linda Hansen: Sorry, did you model the area drain and foundation drain? Because now that you're changing the this to pretty much an acre of lawn, I mean, you're not going to get the same uptake, you know, with with given that the existing vegetation is probably better at taking up storm water and runoff, so then you're discharging that to next to the leach field. And again, that's, that's probably, you know, I mean, that's, is that your design point too? Is that, Kevin O'Leary: no, the design points down here at the front line, and yes, we do take it into account in the hydrological model. Unknown: Okay, okay. Linda Hansen: So that whole backyard is going to be, is going to be converted to lawn. Kevin O'Leary: Then, yes, it's yes, it is in the
in one of my plans I could pull up, it shows the pre development brush and wood area coming approximately through here. And so you can see that we're pushing it back a little bit and converting this section to lawn. This is a big pile of fill that was placed here by the prior owner, is my understanding, because he wanted to create some screening. And then below that, like over here, I think, is existing grade. So a lot of the vegetation in this area is invasives that have grown up over, churned up, churned up Earth.
Shannon Fischer: Is the removal of the vegetation material, which you say is mostly invasive. Is that marked on the maps? Like do we, I don't have the tree removal plan. I see some trees marked on the front, but do we have things marked in the back here? It doesn't look like it? Kevin O'Leary: No, all the trees are small caliper. They're, to my knowledge, they're under the six inches at breast height.
Unknown: Okay? What else do?
Sean Fair: Yeah. So Shannon, to get your question, I guess answer that they basically sound like it changed both assumptions and so that what we were talking about last time is taken care of, I guess. Linda Hansen: Linda, yeah, I don't have any further comments about the stormwater. Unknown: Okay. Luke Legere: Yeah, that was sort of, I just wanted to confirm the same thing Shannon did that the that question of of existing conditions, and then the title drainage issue had been resolved. It sounds like they've changed the design to address both of those. So I'm I have nothing further. Shannon Fischer: I do think the shame that they're just going for a lawn in the backyard, when you know there could be much better solutions, it seems like an unusually large stockpile area. And given, like a lot of the neighbors, concerns about flooding that that you know may be caused by a lot of the tree removal overall, and the tree removal to come on the lots like, you know, I don't think that planting trees and reducing this lawn would would be a bad idea. I actually think it would be an excellent idea. It's, it's a shame. And, you know, you wonder why the future owners wouldn't also like some screening. Yeah,
Unknown: Okay,
Sean Fair: anybody else comments from commission? Barbara Howell: Just the usual, but why are they allowing a garbage grinder for their new septic?
Kevin O'Leary: Because it meets all the requirements Unknown: life the
Kevin O'Leary: Wayland board of health regulations for sizing a septic system require it to be increased in capacity to accommodate for use of a garbage grinder. They don't recommend a garbage grinder to be installed, but they require the components to have the capacity to handle the added organic loading.
Shannon Fischer: There actually could have been like fewer trees taken down and a smaller septic system, if there just wasn't a garbage disposal.
Kevin O'Leary: Maybe, maybe not the breakout slope grading probably would have got into the same trees, because even if you shorten the trenches a little bit on either end, you know, the breakout slope grading or the the activity in this area, would probably still wipe the trees out. The two trees down here, and also there's the two trees up here. I don't know if the commissioner, but these are replacement trees up in this area.
Linda Hansen: Do we have information on that? I don't remember seeing that Kevin O'Leary: up on the right hand side of the plan over here is a tree replacement. Linda Hansen: Say what you were planting, though. Kevin O'Leary: Well, there's a two inch let me see here, right here, there's two, over two and a half inches in diameter trees. Shannon Fischer: Okay, what species? Though, I think we Kevin O'Leary: I'm not sure we call it a species. I didn't think that was a requirement. Shannon Fischer: I mean, this looks like it's within the 100 foot buffer zone, isn't it? So I think that we want to be absolutely certain that these are valuable native trees. Kevin O'Leary: I don't think the proponent has a problem replacing them with native trees, and I'll and one of the trees is outside the 100 foot buffer zone. It's over here, but we're proposing two within the 100 foot buffer Shannon Fischer: zone. Did you ever run the calculations on like, for sure, like, you're like, you're assuming that the septic wouldn't have needed to be a little bit smaller and save some trees, but it would have been a good experiment to check that, to see if you could spare anything like in a project this size, where you're taking down so many trees like I think it's sort of incumbent on you to try every single thing to spare every tree you can
Linda Hansen: Okay. Sean, there's only two trees on this slot that are getting taken down. Taken down, though. So yeah, that's probably for grading anyway. So Shannon Fischer: as we know, like a single mature tree can absorb and release anywhere from several 1000 to 40,000 gallons of water. I love that new that that just finished reading it. So yes, but yeah, Unknown: but it's a good point. You know, we, I know it's not connected to the to the rest of the Charena project, but there will be more trees ultimately coming down when the homes are built. So if there's some opportunity at the back, very back of this property, again, not necessarily connected. They're not. It's not the same project, but if that can help, and some of the replacement plantings are, you know, at the far back of this property, it could go a long way, especially if they're not anywhere close to the house, if there's a lot of backyard there, yeah.
Linda Hansen: Well, I would keep, I would put a condition in the permit that they will need to, they will, they will need to plant native within the buffer zone. You know, that's, that's our, one of our standard conditions. Kevin O'Leary: So, yeah, that's not a problem. That's no objection. Unknown: Commission. Anything else.
Sean Fair: Okay, if Linda's good, I'm good, and I think all the suggestions are great. And so, yeah, I guess everybody else wants to make the motion.
Barbara Howell: Anybody? Luke, move and negative. Unknown: Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. Barbara Howell: Moving negative under a negative term is under the well and Protection Act and permit under Chapter 194
Sean Fair: Thank you. ARPA doyer, a second that
Unknown: was Luke going through Sean Fair: Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, can I go last? Shannon Fischer: Can you what? Sorry, can I go last? I'm still thinking about a Unknown: little last. Yeah, Luke, was your
Sean Fair: ARPA hollow? Yes? Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, Unknown: I'm still Well, I'm a little bit with Shannon on this one, just that there could be some opportunity at the back of this property for some additional trees, just for for further flood prevention, we can sit around the neighbors comments and what's going to be happening further down the road when the other houses get developed. So that's something I would like to see be considered.
Linda Hansen: But I mean, once, if they replace the trees based on our compensation plan, you know that we have in place, we can ask for it, but we can't require it under, under the permit. Unknown: Okay, exactly. All right, then I'll say yes. Okay, Sean fair is a yes. Charena Fisher, Shannon Fischer: I guess I'm a yes. If it's Pat, if Barbara is a yes, I'll go, Sean Fair: Well, yeah, it's, it's, I would argue it's what we can do what we want to do, or two different things sometimes. Okay, we're good. There. We should be good.
Kevin O'Leary: I have a question, Sean, it's if I may. I'm sorry, did I interrupt? Were you going to another Nope, you're good. Just quick. Do it. Linda, can you tell us the status of the order conditions for the roadway? Linda Hansen: I'm working on it. I've just had, you know, you can see my agenda. It's been pretty crazy here. So working Kevin O'Leary: on it, what does that mean with regard to a time frame? Linda Hansen: I should have it done by next week at some point. So okay, Kevin O'Leary: we appreciate it. Thanks. You got Unknown: all right. Thanks, Kevin, thank you.
Sean Fair: Okay, 2b, 13 Stanton Street. D1, 047, request for determination file pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protections Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Chester Nielsen for the replacement of covered porch and construction of a walkway at 13 Stan Street in Wayland. Mass property is shown on the assessor's map, 50 1c lot 06 the proposed work is with 100 200 foot riverfront area and 100 foot wetland buffer Linda Hansen: zone. Linda, I believe we have the homeowner here, Chester, with us. I don't know if he's if he can hear us. Do you want to present the project to the commission?
Sean Fair: You're muted. Chester, if you're you're speaking. It looks
Linda Hansen: like stepped away or something. Sean Fair: See if I can ask him to unmute himself.
Unknown: Hello, I'm sorry, this is Chester. I did. I didn't know, right? So go good at fast. I'm sorry. I am single dad in it tonight, I was putting my daughter down yours. Okay, so from what I was seeing, I I just wanted to let you know where I stand. I live at 13 Stanton Street. I purchased the property from Mr. Poncio back in June of 2022 over the class two years of the property, I've noticed that the front porch that we have was sinking, and after some exploratory discovery, determined that it was significant dry rot, given that of two small children, both under three, as I'm single Danny right now, I need to replace and the porch because it's just unfit for use. The prospectus, as we looked at it, was to stand on the current footprint. But the fact that our house has a very unique footprint in that our. Side door, which is in the the packet I provided to you all. On the northeast side, it has a landing, like a small, like three foot landing, a stair step. We just wanted to continue that along. Yeah, May I share my screen? Yes, please. This is rather, I'm sorry for the low brow aspect of this, but let me see if I can share here. Okay, so this is just general Google Map. Can the committee see this? Nope, oh, okay, let's try this one more time. There we go. There it is. There it is, okay, so there's so this is 13 second. This is the Porsche that needs to be repaired. This is, there's a doorway right here. And what our hope is, if the committee does not see fit as to allow us to connect these two portions right here and create one stairwell that goes over this lawn. We would appreciate the opportunity to just simply repair this portion, since it's unusable and relatively unsafe, but what we're hoping for is a an accommodation to allow us to allow this door to connect with a walkway over this extended lawn portion here, so that we will only have one staircase that will run down this this grassy area. So
Linda Hansen: where's the walkway going? Chester, where's that? Can you show us where that is, sure. Unknown: So do you see this orange door here? Yeah, it would. It would run along the length of the house to the existing footprint right over that. Linda Hansen: I thought by walkway you meant like you were, in turn, like a sidewalk type thing that you Oh, Unknown: no, ma'am. I'm just going to try and do it like uncovered, elevated porch way that's got no roof over it. I just the, I just wanted to give this like six feet here. It was an Linda Hansen: option. I just misunderstood. Unknown: So, of course.
Linda Hansen: So it shows you can show the commission what the so called stream looks like. I know you could. You can just ma'am a little bit right? Unknown: Yes, it's right here. We've been pretty fastidious with making sure that we have been keeping it in accordance with what you all want. I understand that there's a give and take. I understand about commission. I appreciate what you all are trying to do. And so when I was one of the things that my wife and I've been talking about is there's stream runs here. We've let it run pretty wild, but we would love to allow it to take over a couple more feet, since we're taking three feet from here, we would like to give, since I mow my own lawn, give this, give this lawn back, and do a lot of local flora here. And obviously we would, in this area here, where we connect, run gravel underneath, and then run local Massachusetts, like this area, kind of floor here to try and just bring back a lot of stuff and get rid of these, you know, these hedges and these, these use. But this is where it the this is the real big issue at hand, which is this small creek that we've been maintaining and overseeing since we purchased the property.
Linda Hansen: Because typically, what we put in most of our conditions and our permits is that we like to have a vegetated buffer along any resource area and not and we would encourage not to have lawn right to the bank of the stream. So any restoration that you do over there would be much encouraged. I mean, a lot of that, you get a lot of runoff from on that stream. I know that because I've been out there 2019 we've have a permit on the house in front of you. We have a permit on so we're very familiar with the neighborhood. And Unknown: I know Mr. Pons ADU is not unfamiliar with this August committee. Linda Hansen: But also that, I mean, you get a lot of material that gets deposited into that stream, and so I think it would make a lot of sense to have have more vegetation in there that can that can pick up nutrients. It can pick up stuff, you know, and pollutants and things like that. Can kind of water. And that's what those cat tails do a great job of picking up a lot of nitrogen and stuff. So it would be a huge water quality improvement to have a little bit more vegetation in that area. Unknown: So I would say that really quickly, just because this is because this committee is aware, if I turn this, you'll see that there is no barn here. This is on Pelham from last year. So that shows how old this photo is. If you came through, I have the eagle scout in me, the kid from the scouts. And excuse me, but this has become far more robust this photo. And so, like I said, it's gorgeous. It flowers beautifully. We get all the bees right that come around here. So I'm, I'm all about doing what I can about this stream here, and to be honest, surrendering a lot of this lawn because this is really it's gorgeous. So again, we're happy to either introduce local stuff or let it kind of reclaim as you see fit. But of course, over here, we would then surround this area with local stuff. But yes, we would definitely work on this stream as well. All right, sounds good.
Commission, thoughts.
Sean Fair: Sounds good on my, my end and yeah, Linda's good with it. I'm good. I like that idea. Yeah, I Shannon Fischer: actually kind of like the idea too, of like letting it sort of reclaim and see what grows, maybe with selective seeding, because that, you know, that reduces the risk of getting, like, jumping worm contaminants right on that seed bank, right or right on that bank right there. So you might like, if you remind me, I might just let it happen and then sort of manage for invasives that you'll inevitably have, of course, Unknown: just real quick. This is kind of informal. My wife went for a run and ran across a house in the area where we are, and there was a garden that had a bunch of local indigenous plants. And then there were like pamphlets where you could learn from it, is that any of you guys that have that, or because it was a beautiful, like local garden, but I just want to see if it was any of y'all, Oh, wow. Linda Hansen: No, no, Unknown: I'll tell you on the route. But everything that's in there is kind of like an English garden. And then there's a pamphlet on riots, local, Sean Fair: maybe Wayland Garden Club. They're pretty No, Unknown: it was, it was a, it was a residential home. Oh, wow. I like Shannon Fischer: the idea. Like, I'd love to check it out, see how they're doing it. And maybe, maybe we can do something similar up by our houses. Unknown: Fabulous. But yes, okay, well, great. And I can get, I can, I have a bunch of, as Shannon knows, like Cardinal flowers growing kind of like in the wet area of our backyard, just and they're beautiful. They love, like, wet and sunshine. And I can give you a bunch of seeds, okay, 100% yes, as I like I said, anything I can do to make this look the way it's supposed to look. And, I mean, I love the fact that I own this left side of the property, but it's one of the things where, like, if I can't really do much with it because it's so close to everything that would need a permit, I'd love to just kind of, again, surrender it to Oh, thank you, Shannon. Surrender it. So if we can talk about what we can do here, because it's great, it's a great area that's low lane, like, I'd love to just give it back, because if you're going to flood, I may as well have a bunch of stuff with roots that can handle it right, so Linda Hansen: we can talk about that offline. But I'm sorry, yeah, of course, focus on the approval of the permit at this point. Okay, Sean Fair: yes, ma'am. I love it. Chester, though, yeah, yeah. Love the idea the commission, if we're, if we're good, I'm looking then for a motion for a negative determination on the welcome protection act in a permanent under 194 so moved second. Thank you, Luke. I think that was Shannon. I heard this for a second, Barbara Howell: termination, Sean Fair: negative determination, negative determination. I Unknown: said, you want a negative yep and a perm, yep? Sean Fair: Roll call, please? Shannon Fisher, yep. Luke Legere, yes. ARPA Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. And Sean fair as a yes, all set. Good luck being single dad. Unknown: Oh my god, she's out of the country for a week. We've had throw ups. We've had everything. It's been wild. But again, like Wayland said, I'll talk about this offline. Thank you for keeping the bubble, Linda, I appreciate you. Alright. Thanks. Yes, sir. Take care. Thank y'all. Alright. On to one. Sean Fair: Sees this four week lock row d, dash, 1048, request for determination file pursuant to wayland's wetlands and water resource protection by law and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Roderick McLeod for the replacement of a septic system at four Wheelock road and Wayland. Ma property is shown on assessor's map, 24 lot, 53 and the proposed work is 100 feet of a border vegetated wetland. Linda Hansen: Linda. We have Mike damonica, the septic contractor, and who's going. To present this to the commission, Unknown: sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Linda and members of the commission. Mike demotica, for my client, Roderick McLeod at four Wheelock road. This is pretty simply a straight septic repair of an existing failed system that actually was breaking out of the ground in the rear of the property. Health Department had issued a an order to fix it immediately, which my client has done. We perform soil testing on the lot. We have stayed at the existing design flow of three bedrooms. There's no change in impervious no change in grading, with the exception of a small grading line around the proposed septic. What we propose to put in is an IA technology, a Presby pipe system. It's approximately 100 and 190 feet away from the resource area. Actually, I guess Linda, if you want, I could share the plan,
sure. Yeah, please do. Let me see if I can do this. It's been a little while, so i
i Okay. I'm having a little trouble. Sorry, noi, we all have in our packet as well. Yeah, Linda Hansen: Mike made a change earlier, just to add top of bank onto the plan, because there is a stream, believe it or not, conservation owns that land next to you. Yeah? Little, tiny, little parcels. That was like, it's always a surprise that we own that so and so we're pretty I think we know about that stream already. We just did the okay. Just did the subject over 25 Lee Road, which is right on the other side of this property. So, right,
Unknown: jeez, I'm just,
he must be like me? Yeah, I am Barbara. I don't do honestly, I haven't done a zoom, and I don't know how long, so it's nice to see you again. I know it's been a little while. I try to stay out of trouble.
Yeah, my IT department is actually way at college, so usually she helps me when I need to put this up.
Still can't see it, right? Nope,
everyone now, Yep, here it comes. Sorry about that. Thanks for your patience. So on the western, westerly side is this stream, which has been determined perennial, intermittent. It's been a little bit of everything. The outer riparian is pretty much the entire lot. The inner is here, 100 feet what, what we propose is a septic tank in the back, in the back of the house here, to a pump chamber, and then a force main with a back bend up to this area where we propose to put in a 32 by 18 Presby pipe system. So it's an IA technology. We're not looking for any variances from the health department. They've actually approve the plan. As I said, there's a small grading change here around the outside of the leech field, basically for to provide for cover. We couldn't really move it any further to the south on the lot because of this 48 inch tree that's shown here, we would have to cut that. Our proposal doesn't require removal of any trees on the lot. We proposed straw wattles here in the back, and then a roll of straw wattles here across the front. All our access will be across the driveway here to the backyard and then off the driveway to work here. I think that pretty much answers or provides information, any questions I'd be happy to to answer? Next, Mike, Linda, Linda Hansen: no, I don't this. This is, again, a failed system, and it really needs to be replaced, and they're doing the best they can to put it as far away and putting in an innovative system. So I don't have any problems with that, and it's already been proved by board health. So, okay, commission anyone, I'm assuming it has Mike, sorry, I'm assuming it's been approved already. Unknown: Yes, yes, yeah, Darren. Darren approved it. I think it was Monday. He had one couple couple of small review comments that we addressed, but nothing major. He was just looking for some buoyancy calculations for the tank and the pump chamber. Yeah, no problem. Shannon Fischer: I want to thank you for, like, looking out for that tree, and maintaining a 48 inch tree is is worthy to really save. So thank you for doing that. Unknown: Yeah, it's pretty dynamic tree. It's really nice. What kind is it?
Shannon Fischer: It's okay, if you don't know. I just literally just curious. It will in no way impact anything. I'm trying
Unknown: to think, is it a maple? I can't remember if it's a maple or not. Sorry, all good mission. We good Sean Fair: someone want to make the motion Barbara Howell: move the negative under Wayland Protection Act and a permanent under Chapter 194 Unknown: second. Sean Fair: Thank you. Babs, thank you. Luke Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Howell, yeah. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs a yes, you're all set. Unknown: Thanks so much for your time. You too good to see you. Barbara, good to see you.
All right. On to
Sean Fair: mansion road and Lake Shore Drive. D, dash, one, four, sorry, 1049, request for determination file pursuant to Wayland wetlands and water resource protection Bylaw and the wetland Protection Act submitted by Abigail cherish for the Department of Public Works, the storm drainage system improvements at nine. Mason road long intersect intersection of Lakeshore drive and mansion road and Wayland. Mass proposed product is shown assessors map 4060 parcel 02 and the intersection between mansion road and Lakeshore drive and assessors map 40 6b the product is within 100 foot buffer zone of boarding vegetative Wayland. Linda, Linda Hansen: well, we have our esteemed town engineer, Abby, on board here, and who will present the project to you guys. Unknown: Abby, Hi, how are you? It's my first time coming for a permit here, so be kind. Um, let's see. Let me just show you the drawings. It's really just a replacement project, and I was working on it to try to get some grant in here. Let me see if I can.
Can you see that? Nope, no, ma'am. I
You are screen sharing. Here we go. Linda Hansen: Started screen sharing, but nothing's come up yet. Yeah, Unknown: let me see if I can close down some other things.
There it is.
No, no, that's not high school. You don't want that yet. There's no wetlands over there, so you don't have to worry about it. We need to worry about it. All right, here we go,
existing conditions.
Mm, my tiny little work computer instead of my big screens. Alright, so on the left here is West Lane Street, and then we have mansion road here, down to Lakeshore drive, and this is mansion beach at one point there's drainage in West lane that went down mansion road, and I think just went in as an outfall to Dudley pond in the 80s. At some point they cut this line and went to an infiltration unit, really just one of those beehive infiltrators in this corner here, and then there's two in this area here. And what happened over time is that actually in the installation of it, they were installed backwards so it doesn't actually kind of overflow. And what ends up. Happening is that water backs up on West lane and ends up flooding into the homes in this area here. So what we're proposing to do is to reconnect this and put in a new infiltration unit I'll show you on the next just in here, you can see some of the manholes and the two existing outfalls. This outfall, we can see and we can inspect. It's got a grown over with invasives in this area. And this out fall, we can actually no longer inspect. It's become buried over time. So the project would put be putting in a new infiltration unit that would infiltrate more of the water and treat more of the water and be inspected by DEP w in the construction so that wouldn't be installed backwards. We'd Reconnect the drain line this way, and we'd refurbish the two outfalls in the area here on the beach.
Okay, thank you, Linda, start with you, please. You're gonna mute, by the way, Linda,
Linda Hansen: this is a huge improvement over existing conditions. So hopefully the grant comes through and we can make some positive changes here.
Unknown: We wanted to add into the permit, sort of having the contractor remove some of these invasive so that we can. I know that the neighbors in the area like to have that area clean as well. Linda Hansen: Yeah. I mean, we can. We can also go through and identify, you know, what they can and cannot take down. Yeah, helps too. Unknown: Because whatever's helpful, really, what I'd like to do is Linda Hansen: this is a trust issue with contractors. So,
Unknown: very true. Well, yeah, really what I'd like to do is to be able to inspect it as part of our MS four permit for the town, and really have that infiltration working the way it should be working.
Richard, any other thoughts,
Shannon Fischer: I love not flooding people's homes. That sounds great. I do want to back a second like I really like the idea of removing the invasives and having some of the conservation folks marking them. Yeah, I think that's a great idea. Linda,
Unknown: huge improvement over existing conditions. Sounds good.
Sean Fair: Read all right, then let's make the motion Luke Legere: I move that we issue a negative determination under the Act and a permit under Chapter 194 Sean Fair: Thank you, Luke. Do I hear a second second? If you have a Shannon Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara hollow, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes, and Sean fair as a yes. All set. Thanks. Unknown: Abby, thank you. Nice meeting you. Thank you.
Sean Fair: Okay, on to the CEO strip, your compliance. This is a two, a 19 snake work road DEP file number 322, dash, 1004, Linda, Linda Hansen: this was, do we have, we have some? Oh, Matthew's on here. This is a request for replacement of a septic system. Is that correct? Unknown: Yes, yes. Septic system has been replaced. Okay? Linda Hansen: I mean, I think it looks like you followed most of the conditions. I know you said you didn't want to add the six inch gap at one point under the fence because you have small dogs. You know, as long as you don't have lawn down there in the in the 15 foot notice, Tom, because I noticed the fence is within, within that area. I mean, that would be, our preference is not to have it in that area, but because it's already there, that was my only, you know, issue with this is that we, you know, your neighbor also, at 21 put in a bunch of shrubs and just, you know, it's not very naturalized to the way he did it. It looks like you kind of did something similar. We prefer, actually, not to have a lot of grass in that area where the naturalization areas. But beyond the fence, is that just, is that just wild? Or is that, sorry, just beyond the fence is just wild, okay? Well, then, then, I mean that, I think that satisfies our need to have a vegetated buffer in there. So because it doesn't look like you have much use of your rear the second half of your rear yard there, yes.
Sean Fair: So then it sounds like you're in favor then of the COC, yeah. Linda Hansen: And I'm assuming you already have a. Did you get a by a closure from the Health Health Department, right? Yes. Okay. And then the other one of the conditions was, it was yard waste in the back, and we just want to make sure that that's also taken care of at some point, so that has been, that has been cleared. Great. So I'm going to do a quick site visit, hopefully in the next few days, and then I'll issue this, yeah, and then the commission will vote to issue a COC commission. Sean Fair: You're good. Appreciate it. Okay. Can we get a motion on for the issuance of Pacific compliance for 19 snake Brook road? Please. Luke Legere: So moved subject to Linda performing a site visit and confirming conditions as expected. Sean Fair: Thank you, Luke, do I hear seconds?
Unknown: Second? Sean Fair: Think that was Jenny Yes. Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Howell, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. Shoppers, yes. All set. Unknown: Thank very much. Commission. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate
Sean Fair: it. All right, on to three topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair, 40 hours in advance, if any quick, quick ADU, I think y'all received or got an email from Jean Milburn, she and I had a chat today. She may want to we're a talk a little bit later on, but work with us on possibly a tree bank and a revolving fund and bring that to the town this coming March, or whenever it is. So, long story short, maybe reaching out to a few of you on the side, see if you want to be a part of that. And she'd like to submit her services time and help to do that. And so people's radar, if I reach out to you, it's kind of a that's what that's from. So I responded to her email and check to help us on part of that. So that's the only thing from Yeah, real nice showing on my end. Unknown: Linda, anything else last second came up? Linda Hansen: No, I guess we should probably just let the commission know that we have our second settlement discussion scheduled for tomorrow with Saint Anne's correct. We had one last week, and we have asked Amy quizzle our town council to join us tomorrow's call to see if we can get some resolution. Unknown: Thank you for
reminding me, Sean, just to let you know, I just went into the office last week and spoke with Linda and Emily, and I had offered to call some of the surrounding towns that have the tree bank just to better understand how they're managing it, right, like, what money is coming in. I know that in, for instance, in Newton, just from one of my best friends that live there, there they have a backlog. And then when you look at Lexington site, they have a backlog. Because I'm just interested in how it works, who handles it, you know, I know that there's been public comment that, you know, let's not sign on for something that we don't enough resources to handle. So I thought I'd offer to make some phone calls and learn a little bit more. But let's see. You know if Gene's done some of that as well, and I've got a few phone calls or emails in just yet, but I haven't heard back just yet, but I only started today. Sean Fair: Awesome. Well, so thank you. So I'll definitely reach out to you tomorrow. I've done some work on my end up to this point, so if you could be part of that and help with G Unknown: even better. Yeah, thank you. Join forces. Thank you. Thanks, Lisa, yeah. Linda Hansen: Well, speaking of town meeting articles, I mean, we talked about doing that the tree Bank is a revolving fund that has to go through town meeting if you establish a revolving fund. And the second thing we talked about, Sean and I just, you know, was, you know, there's a drought bill right now in front of, you know, the state legislators. And you know what I think, what kind of brings me is that when we have a drought, we still have so many people irrigating their lawns, and they often have a sign private well, it's the same aquifer, you know? I mean, it just, I just don't, I just wish we could somehow limit or ban irrigation during times when we are in a pretty severe drought situation. And I mean, look at the Sudbury river, you know, can see it's really shrunk in size. And you know that the all the golf courses are still irrigating from the Sudbury river. And that's, I don't think we can change that, but I think, I think there's a lot of irrigation going on that doesn't really need to be done during a drought period. And so that was one thought about putting in a warrant article for that. And then the third thing is, is that CPC articles are due November 15. I believe it is this year. Am I right? Emily? Is that? Is that correct? 13th, 15th, something like that. And so we're trying to one thing we're going to submit is. An article to replace the bridges over at Hamlin woods, the beavers have changed the water levels, and basically one of the one of the paths has no bridge anymore. It's kind of sunk in the water. So we're going to need a fairly good size boardwalk, probably to cover that. And we're going to need, definitely need help to do that. So we're going to look for some contractors, some may Boy Scouts or something, to help us with that, and we're going to put in an article or application for that. But if you guys can think of something else that would improve our lands or something that we should embark on, let us know. CPC is a great funding source for us.
Sean Fair: CP, meeting right after this. Actually, we're meeting right now, same time, so I'm going from here to there. Shannon Fischer: You know, I don't know that it was be ready for it now, but like, we could start just to plant seeds in people's minds, you know, like, maybe someday we could identify high traffic roads where wildlife seemed to, like, especially get hit and look into, like, tunnels or something. I know this. This is like, really far out there, but wherever wildlife tunnels go in, mortality can drop by over 90% and I think that would be so worth doing someday, if we could ever look into that. Although I actually have an unrelated follow up question to you, Linda, why? Why couldn't we, why couldn't something affect the golf courses ability to water straight out of the Sudbury? Because that that seems atrocious, like, well, it Linda Hansen: gets really complicated, because that's, you know, that's their business, you know. And I don't want to get involved with that. That's, that's, that's just more than I can handle as a single person here. So I think, I think we're gonna let the state legislators decide how that that can get handled in the future. I mean, you know, if I'm not a golfer, Sean can weigh on this one, but, I mean, most of the green isn't really golfed on, right? I mean, it's just the, you know, yeah, intent to shoot over that
Sean Fair: question is their grant, their grandfathered in, so now your legal piece and so that's, Luke Legere: yeah, yeah. I think generally for that amount of water withdrawal you're looking at DEP being the permitting authority anyhow, so it's really probably not something we'd actually have purview over in the first place, but Linda Hansen: I looked into this, Luke, I don't think they have a permit for that. They have a certain I mean, I think it's like some enormous number, like 10,000 gallons a day they can pump out without a permit. Luke Legere: That's, yeah, I mean, that's the threshold. Generally, they were probably pretty close to that. But maybe, yeah, you're right. If they're below, maybe they don't need one. Linda Hansen: They don't need one. And so, you know, a lot of that. And I don't think there's any any regulatory, you know, oversight or anything. So it's, you know, it's, it's a tough one, so, but no, I'm not taking that one on. So Wayland Shannon Fischer: has so many golf courses too. You think that in the age where, like, precipitation cycles are changing so dramatically, like we could all come together and agree that maybe something should not be watered and kind of change practices. But I won't start the fight tonight, maybe later, but not tonight. Unknown: You think of all the golf courses they have out in the southwest, you know, oh, man, and swimming pools a Shannon Fischer: golf course would be a great place to put some of those ginormous developments that want a clear cut forest, like we
Linda Hansen: just had to drive by Sandy per on a nice day, and that place was packed. Barbara Howell: So the golf course and the post road goes underwater all the time. Linda Hansen: Oh, yeah, that's the country club. Shannon Fischer: It could be like, it could be a new added challenge, like the sand pits and whatever. If instead, there were, like, drought spots where the grass was all dry. It's like another sand pit like that. Could be an improvement on the golf game. Linda Hansen: We won't go there. But anyway, think about if you can come up with some. If you have some great ideas or something that we should maybe take on or submit an application for CPC, let me know. Like I said, right now, we have one firm idea, and we're always we can come up with many ideas in our office, right? Emily is just a matter of what, what it is that we can implement, you know, that's, that's really the the constraint for us is just having the resources and staff to do things. Shannon Fischer: So actually, I do have an idea. I'll email you about it. Sean Fair: All right. Approval, LCA, public comments. So approval of minutes. Babs, how are we looking for September 24 you good? Unknown: All right, with me, Challenger, look at them.
Sean Fair: Okay, we're good looking again. The motion then to approve the minutes of September. September, 24 2025, please. So moved. Thank you. Luke. Do I hear a second?
Second? McCall Shannon, Roll call, please. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa Aubin, yes. And Sean fairs a yes, thank you. Unknown: I think that's it. Yes. I'll let Sean Fair: you know what CPC is doing as I happen there, and I'll be texting or calling somebody next couple days, so can look up for that. All right, sounds good. All right. Last motion, please, gain a motion to adjourn for the evening, please. So moved. Thank you, Luke. Do I hear seconds? Second? That was Shannon again. I think last roll call tonight. Shannon Fisher, yes. Luke Legere, yes. Barbara Holl, yes. Jenny Brown, yes. Lisa ARPA, yes. And Sean fairy, yes. All set. Good night, everybody. And.
Cultural Council
13-Aug-25 - Cultural Council
Pallavi Nagesha: Hello
everybody. It is 707. And I'm
calling to the order are the
cultural councils August
meeting. and we'll do a quick
roll call so I see Naresh
Mysore.
Naresh Mysore: Yep. Here. Pallavi Nagesha: Marie Isenberg Marie Isenburg: yes Unknown: Maryam Libdi Maryam Libdi: here. Pallavi Nagesha: and Kevin. Kevin Goodwin: yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: And this is Pallavi Nagesha. I'm here. And absent are Donna Mitra. Charles Bent and Alyssa Ao. all right. so the first order of business is the July 9 meeting minutes. Have you all had a chance to look at the meeting minutes? Unknown: Yes. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: So I'm going to Kevin Goodwin: and I. and I move approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. do I have a second?
Marie Isenburg: I have I have questions about the notes. I'm not ready for approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so let's go through the questions. Marie has questions. and we will go go go over that.
Marie Isenburg: There we go. Okay. okay. first of all. I want to ask. I mean. maybe this has to go later. but we had. we wanted to know about whether whether Kelsi confirmed that the grant was paid we are or is that okay? Maybe. wait. no. that'll come up later. Excuse him. Okay. Can I change there was no coverage by the event. by way? P and I'd like to replace that by Wayland Post. And Wayland Post grantee. reception. coverage.
okay. DEP. okay. and let me see. See. okay. I thought maybe we could change counsel. Haven't heard from Melissa. I was wondering if there was a different way we could say that. Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. so we can say the youth liaison. Marie Isenburg: The youth liaison is what we haven't heard from. the youth liaison. Or. should we say the youth liaison is still working on it? Or. or we will assume the recruiting for the youth member. Or. No. that's not right. Okay. I'll just put the youth liaison there. Okay. okay. and I'd like to take the word try out of Maryam proposed that she can do some outreach efforts for that. take the word. try to and just see that she can do some outreach efforts for that. sounds good. Okay. see. all right. that's. that's all I have. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: so. Marie. are you making the corrections? Marie Isenburg: I'm writing them down. I don't know who's doing notes tonight. Unknown: The notes will be automatically generated Correct. Marie. Marie Isenburg: well. I can. I can. I can make the corrections on this and just send it back to you. Okay. I have them underlined. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. okay. so I will once. once the corrections are made. I will repost them. and we will take a vote. I would expect all of you to respond to that email and say that you are okay with it before I send it over to post it as the official July Meeting Notes. Any questions about that? No. okay. that's fine. okay. so some of the old business utility box project update. I haven't gotten in touch with Rahul. I can so there are two things that we can do right now is either just get in touch with Rahul and have him complete the painting. or re revisit it and open it up again for for the. Participants. So
let me go over one proposal at the time. One proposal is to just me to get in touch with Rahul and get him arrange for him to complete the painting. Do I have agreement on that? Marie Isenburg: Sure if you think yes. all right. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. Miriam. are you okay with that? Yes. noi. are you okay with that? Yes. Maria. you okay with that? Yes. Kevin. are you okay with that? Yes. okay. I will get in touch with him and get him to do that. The next order of things is the grant cycle discussion. The grant this year is opening on the second of September. and it will be open until the 18th of October. I believe. Let me just double check that correct. So it is open until the 18th of October. The important dates. October 9. our financial report is due. Naresh. do you have any any questions about that? Or do you need any information? Naresh Mysore: Yeah. I need Kelsi. I think. to send me the financial statement for what's available for. you know. from our budget. So I'll ping her and get that statement. because I need that as the input to the budget. Okay. Marie Isenburg: so how's this? I have a question. yeah. has the state already appropriated a $6.900 to our account? Or do we have to wait for that? Or how does that go? Are Pallavi Nagesha: you talking about last year's? But Marie Isenburg: this year is coming up. Pallavi Nagesha: we don't have Marie Isenburg: so. oh. it's on the website. We don't think that's right.
Naresh Mysore: I haven't been notified of any. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: no. I haven't been notified either. Marie Isenburg: Oh. because all there's a long list of every LCC on on the Pallavi Nagesha: on the mass cultural website. Marie Isenburg: yeah. yeah. Oh. okay. okay. well. I saw 6900 anyway. okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: Um. I will. I will look into that. And.
Marie Isenburg: yeah. it wasn't on our LCC. on my personal. uh. information account. but it was on the general MCC site. that's what I can tell you. Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: I will. I will get a better. Yeah. I see that on the on their side. I will definitely reach out and make sure that this is what we have.
Marie Isenburg: Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: and then the publicity and signage. I have the signage up the dates we got to put the signage. Is it? Sorry. Kevin. do you have a question?
Kevin Goodwin: Who may know? Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so the signage. I got the dates for the signage. We have it. We have it for the week of October 6. So October 6 through the 13th. we will have two signage is put in. one on the Wayland. western town line. on route 20. and one near the Cochituate center fire station. So those are the two signages we'll have. We'll have them for a week. And one more thing we should do is the next couple bulletins that go out from. The town we should be on that the newsletters. So we should be on those newsletters. and I will create a write up. and I'll share it with the group. so whoever sees that. you know. the email go around for the bulletins. Just make sure that we are on it. Do uh. And the other thing is that we should also see if. if the WP Wayland press has information about the grant as well for the next couple for I know how often that paper goes out. but be there every two weeks on two weeks on Friday. Unknown: okay. so maybe starting the last this last week of August. we should Try to be in there for as well. Just make sure that Wayland post has the information about the grant as well. Maryam Libdi: As soon as we have the write up. I can share that with them. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. I will do the right. I'll create a write up and send it to you. Marie. you had you were saying something. sorry. Marie Isenburg: No. you took care of it. Thank you. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: all right. okay. anything else you want to know about the grant cycle grants before we move on. Maryam Libdi: can you say those dates again? You said September? What? Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. so the grant opens September 2. and is it the it closes. the applications open September 2. and they close. October 18.
Maryam Libdi: You want to also send it in the old school news. Unknown: yes. yeah. So whatever the write up. I'll get the write up to you by the weekend. and you can. you can share it with the school news. We can share it with Wayland press. and we can also share it with the Town bulletin.
Kevin Goodwin: Hey old school news Pallavi Nagesha: the school news letter. Kevin Goodwin: oh. okay. oh. I thought somebody said old school news Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: Now the whole school news letter. yeah. All right? And then the bulletin. road project. I know we last week. it was deferred. Do we want to talk about this today?
Marie Isenburg: I don't have anything to offer. Okay. so I have to break some All Pallavi Nagesha: right. no worries. no worries. Okay. we don't have Alyssa to do news. Up youth update. so we will skip that and on to new business. which is the youth members. Miriam. do you have information about that? Maryam Libdi: Yes. we have two interested youth members. They were sent link by the town clerk. They're actually watching us right now. but it seems like the Zoom link they were sent was a watch only and not as panelists. Yeah. there's something we can do right now. or they can just. Unknown: I only have Iniyan Gandhi watching. Is that? Is that one of the youth members. Maryam Libdi: Iniyan Gandhi and Mustafa. are both watching. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. I only see Iniyan. I can definitely allow him to. I'm going to promote him to panelists so he can. Maryam Libdi: okay. let me see if I can double check that most of us using
Marie Isenburg: good job. How did you do that?
Pallavi Nagesha: So the host can and promote people to panelists and Marie Isenburg: yeah. so I don't think how she found Oh. okay. Pallavi Nagesha: how Miriam found them? Yeah. she will have to talk about that.
Okay. there he is. okay. Maryam Libdi: okay. most of us. I think.
Pallavi Nagesha: yes. So I found him. I promoted him to a panelist. so they're both here. And welcome Iniyan and Mustafa. And if you want to turn on your microphones or videos and say hello. love to see you. Mustafa Kheir: Hi. How are you? Unknown: Hi. I am good. Iniyan Gandhi: How are we going? Pallavi Nagesha: Hi. Iniyan. so do you have questions for us? I mean. first of all. I would like you to introduce yourself to our panel.
Mustafa Kheir: Hi. my name is Mustafa here. I'm gonna be a junior in the fall. Oh. I'm interested in joining this board because. you know. I just want to have a say and where. where the grants and where the grants go in our community. and to make that difference. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. Iniyan Gandhi: Hi. I'm Joe. I'm Iniyan. I'm go to Wayland High School. Um.I'm also just interested in. like. what goes on in this town and stuff. So. yeah. so I joined. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. and Iniyan. What grade are you going to be going into? Iniyan Gandhi: I'm going to 11th grade. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so both of you. so you're a junior and you're a sophomore. Okay. perfect. Okay. so welcome. Mustafa Kheir: sorry. no. I'm also going to be we're both going to be juniors. sorry. Pallavi Nagesha: Oh. okay. all right. okay. So do you have any questions for us at this time?
Iniyan Gandhi: Nothing yet. Mustafa Kheir: Yes. Iniyan Gandhi: I guess just keep going with the procedure and all Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. Sounds good. Sounds good. So what we need you to do is send a letter to the town clerk. an email to the town clerk. expressing your interest in joining as youth liaisons on the Cultural Council. and we'll take it from there. We meet once a month on Wednesdays at 7pm It's usually the second Wednesday of every month at 7pm and most of what we do is and as you saw. if you were listening to our our meeting is kind of go over what's going. what is happening and what is left to do. A lot of our work is around the grants. but not everything. We do other things too. And you just heard us talk about the utility box painting project. That's something that we took on. And we do this like we we have our discretionary fund that we can spend on one things around the town. And occasionally we do. we do projects like this to to spend that discretionary fund. The grant process will start from September. from next month. we will not so October. November will be the first month we will start to talk about the grants. and start to vote around the grants. And we should be finished by December. because the results are due the first week of January. So we try to finish everything as early as possible. The your opinions. and of course. your inputs will be greatly appreciated. The biggest thing that we are looking for from our youth liaison is our connection to the school system. especially of any programs that you have up and coming that we can kind of get into as the Cultural Council. and also to let people know that the grant program is available open and to bring in participation from our youth into this as you know. you know. groups like the robotics group have been regularly applying to to us. and we love to see that. We'd love to see them succeed and and any other such groups or individuals who are interested in in applying for grants to do anything that is of use to our community. right? Usually. people see the Cultural Council and think of arts. But culture is not just arts. It is community. And a lot of things are under the purview of community. right? Whether it be STEM related. arts. related. politics. whatever have you. So. Uh. encourage people to look at that if they're if they have an idea and are confused and don't know that this can whether this is this comes under cultural grants. they can reach out to us. We're happy to chat with them and give them any advice that they need. So that is what we're looking at from our youth liaisons. And welcome. We're really happy to have you. Alyssa was a great partner. but she's off to college. and this is this is going to be great. So thank you. Thank you for volunteering. Mustafa Kheir: Thank you Iniyan Gandhi: for the opportunity. pall: Awesome. Okay. anything else? I didn't have any other agenda items. Do we have anything else we need to discuss at this at this time. Marie Isenburg: wondering when? When do we usually do the members update on the Mass website. we have a bunch. like three. I think we have about four members or something on that site. Maybe. Pallavi Nagesha: yeah. we should. So if you have signed in. it should automatically show you as as a member. but I will go take a look and make sure that that all the mem all the correct members are listed on that website.
And I also reached out through Jailyn to the other two members who we haven't seen and at the meetings in a while. Charles Bent and Donna Mitra. And they did get in touch with Charles who who informed them that he hasn't been getting meeting invites. and I hope they've corrected that and they gave me a phone number. I did call Charles at the beginning of the call today. just to let him know that we are meeting and it's on. I hope he does get in touch with me and we can figure that out. We haven't heard back from Donna. so I'll continue to reach out and see what's going on with them. Unknown: Do you think it would be beneficial for Mustafa and Iniyan to take the LCC member training
Pallavi Nagesha: so once they write their letter of intent to the town clerk and they get inducted. they will be sent all the necessary links to kind of join and all the training material as well. So once they sign on to the mass Cultural Council website. as as members of our Cultural Council. that page will be available to them to take the training and all of those. You know. I'm sure. Miriam. you remember the emails you got to take the training in. So they will get those as well once they sign up. but they need to submit that letter of intent and officially get on. Yeah.
Unknown: I did we talk about
Marie Isenburg: the box that was painted? I think I deleted his name. Was it from Rick last time. and I have it on the other file. Did we? Did we confirm that that was paid out? Or can we. or I thought we would get in touch with him and let him know when the process was completed. Pallavi Nagesha: So which. which Marie Isenburg: was to check with Kelsi about the payment
Pallavi Nagesha: to to
Marie Isenburg: wasn't to be coming up with the wrong file. Was it Rick? Somebody will remember? Okay. yeah. yeah. yes. yeah. So has that been confirmed that that payment has gone out?
Pallavi Nagesha: I haven't confirmed that the payment has gone out. but we did inform Kelsi that this is we've approved and then they can pay. Marie Isenburg: Did you have to submit the minutes with that. or was it just done? Pallavi Nagesha: No. she just wanted us to. I can. I can reach out and make sure that that the payment has gone out. I.
Any other discussions we have. In
that case. our next meeting is going to be on the 10th of September. at 730 and at that time. I want to see how we can by the 10th of September. I don't believe we'll have a good
numbers of applicants. It's too early. but we can start to think about how to encourage people to apply. Definitely. I think we have the idea of send sending information on the school newsletters. the town newsletters. and put it also in the Wayland post. So we will have some avenues of doing this. also Mustafa or any and if you. either of you are interested in kind of working with our social media. let me know. I can. I can add you to those accounts. And we usually post there. Mustafa Kheir: I can. I can do. I'm interested in that perfect. Pallavi Nagesha: perfect so once I'll get into I'll reach out to you. Mustafa. and we can talk about that. It's just a matter of adding you to those accounts. And so we have an Instagram account and we have a Facebook account. So Marie Isenburg: one more question. of course. Go ahead. Okay. are we doing anything for the Wayland arts or culture thing that's happening in October. Pallavi Nagesha: The Yeah. yeah. we are not Marie Isenburg: okay. Okay.
Maryam Libdi: Are we part of that? Is that the reason
Pallavi Nagesha: I am not sure we funded them this year. I thought we didn't. We didn't fund them. right? They didn't apply for funding this year because they went to the mass Cultural Council and got a bigger grant. So they didn't apply to to us for funding. So we haven't funded them this year.
Marie Isenburg: Can we have a presence there? Pallavi Nagesha: We can have a presence there. if this is. if that's something that we are interested in doing. definitely. if anybody has an idea and you can present it. we will try to get that. get in there. I mean. they have booths if you want us. if you think it's a good idea for us to have a booth over there. we can do that.
Marie Isenburg: Is it next meeting too late to decide on Pallavi Nagesha: that? It is. it is too late next meeting to decide on that? So we will have to kind of do this through email. If anybody has an idea and we want to just vote on it through email before then we can do that. Maryam Libdi: Mary. can you remind me of the exact date? It's in October. right? What Pallavi Nagesha: two? I'm going to say the fourth. but I may be wrong.
I don't remember. Maryam Libdi: Yes. it's on the fourth I just checked. I think it's a good idea because there's a. you know. around 15 days until the end of our cycle. So it could be a good place to market for it. But I personally can't take care of the table if we have on that day. Okay. I agree. Maybe our youth can.
Pallavi Nagesha: yeah. yeah. yeah. it is all day. but we can. We can be there. like when. when they start. and then when. when they end. For sure. last year. we did. We did have a presence there. but we funded them. so they kind of used our banner and we were. we were. We had a booth. People came up into us. to us and talk to us and learned. What we do and so on. So I am also traveling that weekend. so I won't be there to have the booth. but if our youth are both interested in doing that. I can certainly reach out to that committee and make sure we have space for that?
Maryam Libdi: Okay. perfect. Thank you. We have budget to reserve that table. or is it Pallavi Nagesha: let me ask? Let me ask. We do have money and discretionary funds to reserve a table. So I am not sure. I'm trying to find information about that. I'm not sure how much it's going to cost. But do I have a motion to spend our discretionary funds on that? If. if need Marie Isenburg: be. I'm discretionary. So I Maryam Libdi: second. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: so noreish. are you okay with us spending on the discretionary funds on that? Naresh Mysore: Yeah. sure. yeah. I may not be in town so. but yes. I approve. Pallavi Nagesha: Kevin. Are you okay with us spending some discretionary fund money on that. Kevin Goodwin: okay. I moved approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. thank you. Thank you. Maria. My Okay. Spending on that. yes. Maria. are you okay? Spending on that. yes. and I am okay as well. So I'll find out what it costs and and I will let you all know. Okay. you. Thank you for bringing that up. Marie.
anything else we need to discuss touch upon this this time around. So my action item is to update last month's meeting notes and send it around. If you can all quickly take a look and respond back to me. This time. I will ask you to hit Reply All so that it comes back to the entire council. so that it's recorded. and once that's done. I will have it posted.
Marie Isenburg: So do you have the changes you need? Then you don't need anything from me at this point. Pallavi Nagesha: Were you making the changes. Marie. or Marie Isenburg: did you I can? I can. yeah. unless you had it there already. Yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: Marie. if you can just send it to the council. So send it to the council correct. send it to the so that we all have it. and we'll just vote on it over there. and I can then post it.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. since you're going to be out of town. do we have any. like. ultra Council marketing material. banners or things to use for the multicultural fest? If have Pallavi Nagesha: banners and I can. yeah. so I have it in my garage. Two of them. I'm going to be taking a couple of them to leave it with the DPW. So if somebody wants to. or Naresh. I can leave it with you. Or Mariam. I can leave it with you.
Maryam Libdi: We will also need. like. some. you know. flyers about the grant cycle. Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. So I think the information that I send for sending emails and such. we can also create a. if one of our Youth Can. can help us create a quick flyer for that. It'll be great. So once I send that information out. use that information to make a flyer. and we can have that. Marie Isenburg: How about if we just take the. the LCC applicant. simple. right. offline. and maybe just put that on the flyer. They have a pretty comprehensive. I don't know. Pallavi Nagesha: I mean. the fly. that whole information will be too long for a flyer. We just need to see. hey. this is happening. and here's where you can go and apply. And that that's that should be enough. Maryam Libdi: you know. something with basic information and a barcode that takes you to the application. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: Yes. all right. I should have information about the for for the email. and also the information that should go on to the poster in to all of you by the end of the week. Indian and Mustafa. I don't know. Whether you will be added to the list. to the Cultural Council list. by that's that quickly. but you'll you'll have to send. hopefully. the sooner you send the information to the town clerk. the sooner that will happen. But in the meantime. if you can quickly email the Cultural Council so that I will have your just send us a hello note or something. so that I will have your and send it through your school email. so everything is public in and accounted for. So I will have that and I can send you. I can add you to any correspondence until you're added to the town list. Okay. all right.
anything else?
If there's nothing. do I have a motion to conclude? Kevin Goodwin: So moved. Pallavi Nagesha: Thanks. Kevin. any seconds. So we are ending our meeting today early 743. thank you all for attending. Naresh. Are you agreed to close the meeting? Yes. yes. I am Maria Mayu. Maria. you. Kevin. are you? Yes. and so am I? So we close the meeting and we welcome our youth liaisons. and we will meet next month. This will be the second Wednesday of next month of September. which is the 10th see you all have a lovely rest of the week. rest of the month. I'll talk to you also. Mustafa Kheir: Thank you. Thank you so much. Unknown: Thank you. Thank you.
Naresh Mysore: Yep. Here. Pallavi Nagesha: Marie Isenberg Marie Isenburg: yes Unknown: Maryam Libdi Maryam Libdi: here. Pallavi Nagesha: and Kevin. Kevin Goodwin: yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: And this is Pallavi Nagesha. I'm here. And absent are Donna Mitra. Charles Bent and Alyssa Ao. all right. so the first order of business is the July 9 meeting minutes. Have you all had a chance to look at the meeting minutes? Unknown: Yes. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: So I'm going to Kevin Goodwin: and I. and I move approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. do I have a second?
Marie Isenburg: I have I have questions about the notes. I'm not ready for approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so let's go through the questions. Marie has questions. and we will go go go over that.
Marie Isenburg: There we go. Okay. okay. first of all. I want to ask. I mean. maybe this has to go later. but we had. we wanted to know about whether whether Kelsi confirmed that the grant was paid we are or is that okay? Maybe. wait. no. that'll come up later. Excuse him. Okay. Can I change there was no coverage by the event. by way? P and I'd like to replace that by Wayland Post. And Wayland Post grantee. reception. coverage.
okay. DEP. okay. and let me see. See. okay. I thought maybe we could change counsel. Haven't heard from Melissa. I was wondering if there was a different way we could say that. Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. so we can say the youth liaison. Marie Isenburg: The youth liaison is what we haven't heard from. the youth liaison. Or. should we say the youth liaison is still working on it? Or. or we will assume the recruiting for the youth member. Or. No. that's not right. Okay. I'll just put the youth liaison there. Okay. okay. and I'd like to take the word try out of Maryam proposed that she can do some outreach efforts for that. take the word. try to and just see that she can do some outreach efforts for that. sounds good. Okay. see. all right. that's. that's all I have. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: so. Marie. are you making the corrections? Marie Isenburg: I'm writing them down. I don't know who's doing notes tonight. Unknown: The notes will be automatically generated Correct. Marie. Marie Isenburg: well. I can. I can. I can make the corrections on this and just send it back to you. Okay. I have them underlined. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. okay. so I will once. once the corrections are made. I will repost them. and we will take a vote. I would expect all of you to respond to that email and say that you are okay with it before I send it over to post it as the official July Meeting Notes. Any questions about that? No. okay. that's fine. okay. so some of the old business utility box project update. I haven't gotten in touch with Rahul. I can so there are two things that we can do right now is either just get in touch with Rahul and have him complete the painting. or re revisit it and open it up again for for the. Participants. So
let me go over one proposal at the time. One proposal is to just me to get in touch with Rahul and get him arrange for him to complete the painting. Do I have agreement on that? Marie Isenburg: Sure if you think yes. all right. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. Miriam. are you okay with that? Yes. noi. are you okay with that? Yes. Maria. you okay with that? Yes. Kevin. are you okay with that? Yes. okay. I will get in touch with him and get him to do that. The next order of things is the grant cycle discussion. The grant this year is opening on the second of September. and it will be open until the 18th of October. I believe. Let me just double check that correct. So it is open until the 18th of October. The important dates. October 9. our financial report is due. Naresh. do you have any any questions about that? Or do you need any information? Naresh Mysore: Yeah. I need Kelsi. I think. to send me the financial statement for what's available for. you know. from our budget. So I'll ping her and get that statement. because I need that as the input to the budget. Okay. Marie Isenburg: so how's this? I have a question. yeah. has the state already appropriated a $6.900 to our account? Or do we have to wait for that? Or how does that go? Are Pallavi Nagesha: you talking about last year's? But Marie Isenburg: this year is coming up. Pallavi Nagesha: we don't have Marie Isenburg: so. oh. it's on the website. We don't think that's right.
Naresh Mysore: I haven't been notified of any. yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: no. I haven't been notified either. Marie Isenburg: Oh. because all there's a long list of every LCC on on the Pallavi Nagesha: on the mass cultural website. Marie Isenburg: yeah. yeah. Oh. okay. okay. well. I saw 6900 anyway. okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: Um. I will. I will look into that. And.
Marie Isenburg: yeah. it wasn't on our LCC. on my personal. uh. information account. but it was on the general MCC site. that's what I can tell you. Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: I will. I will get a better. Yeah. I see that on the on their side. I will definitely reach out and make sure that this is what we have.
Marie Isenburg: Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: and then the publicity and signage. I have the signage up the dates we got to put the signage. Is it? Sorry. Kevin. do you have a question?
Kevin Goodwin: Who may know? Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so the signage. I got the dates for the signage. We have it. We have it for the week of October 6. So October 6 through the 13th. we will have two signage is put in. one on the Wayland. western town line. on route 20. and one near the Cochituate center fire station. So those are the two signages we'll have. We'll have them for a week. And one more thing we should do is the next couple bulletins that go out from. The town we should be on that the newsletters. So we should be on those newsletters. and I will create a write up. and I'll share it with the group. so whoever sees that. you know. the email go around for the bulletins. Just make sure that we are on it. Do uh. And the other thing is that we should also see if. if the WP Wayland press has information about the grant as well for the next couple for I know how often that paper goes out. but be there every two weeks on two weeks on Friday. Unknown: okay. so maybe starting the last this last week of August. we should Try to be in there for as well. Just make sure that Wayland post has the information about the grant as well. Maryam Libdi: As soon as we have the write up. I can share that with them. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. I will do the right. I'll create a write up and send it to you. Marie. you had you were saying something. sorry. Marie Isenburg: No. you took care of it. Thank you. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: all right. okay. anything else you want to know about the grant cycle grants before we move on. Maryam Libdi: can you say those dates again? You said September? What? Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. so the grant opens September 2. and is it the it closes. the applications open September 2. and they close. October 18.
Maryam Libdi: You want to also send it in the old school news. Unknown: yes. yeah. So whatever the write up. I'll get the write up to you by the weekend. and you can. you can share it with the school news. We can share it with Wayland press. and we can also share it with the Town bulletin.
Kevin Goodwin: Hey old school news Pallavi Nagesha: the school news letter. Kevin Goodwin: oh. okay. oh. I thought somebody said old school news Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: Now the whole school news letter. yeah. All right? And then the bulletin. road project. I know we last week. it was deferred. Do we want to talk about this today?
Marie Isenburg: I don't have anything to offer. Okay. so I have to break some All Pallavi Nagesha: right. no worries. no worries. Okay. we don't have Alyssa to do news. Up youth update. so we will skip that and on to new business. which is the youth members. Miriam. do you have information about that? Maryam Libdi: Yes. we have two interested youth members. They were sent link by the town clerk. They're actually watching us right now. but it seems like the Zoom link they were sent was a watch only and not as panelists. Yeah. there's something we can do right now. or they can just. Unknown: I only have Iniyan Gandhi watching. Is that? Is that one of the youth members. Maryam Libdi: Iniyan Gandhi and Mustafa. are both watching. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. I only see Iniyan. I can definitely allow him to. I'm going to promote him to panelists so he can. Maryam Libdi: okay. let me see if I can double check that most of us using
Marie Isenburg: good job. How did you do that?
Pallavi Nagesha: So the host can and promote people to panelists and Marie Isenburg: yeah. so I don't think how she found Oh. okay. Pallavi Nagesha: how Miriam found them? Yeah. she will have to talk about that.
Okay. there he is. okay. Maryam Libdi: okay. most of us. I think.
Pallavi Nagesha: yes. So I found him. I promoted him to a panelist. so they're both here. And welcome Iniyan and Mustafa. And if you want to turn on your microphones or videos and say hello. love to see you. Mustafa Kheir: Hi. How are you? Unknown: Hi. I am good. Iniyan Gandhi: How are we going? Pallavi Nagesha: Hi. Iniyan. so do you have questions for us? I mean. first of all. I would like you to introduce yourself to our panel.
Mustafa Kheir: Hi. my name is Mustafa here. I'm gonna be a junior in the fall. Oh. I'm interested in joining this board because. you know. I just want to have a say and where. where the grants and where the grants go in our community. and to make that difference. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. Iniyan Gandhi: Hi. I'm Joe. I'm Iniyan. I'm go to Wayland High School. Um.I'm also just interested in. like. what goes on in this town and stuff. So. yeah. so I joined. Pallavi Nagesha: okay. and Iniyan. What grade are you going to be going into? Iniyan Gandhi: I'm going to 11th grade. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. so both of you. so you're a junior and you're a sophomore. Okay. perfect. Okay. so welcome. Mustafa Kheir: sorry. no. I'm also going to be we're both going to be juniors. sorry. Pallavi Nagesha: Oh. okay. all right. okay. So do you have any questions for us at this time?
Iniyan Gandhi: Nothing yet. Mustafa Kheir: Yes. Iniyan Gandhi: I guess just keep going with the procedure and all Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. Sounds good. Sounds good. So what we need you to do is send a letter to the town clerk. an email to the town clerk. expressing your interest in joining as youth liaisons on the Cultural Council. and we'll take it from there. We meet once a month on Wednesdays at 7pm It's usually the second Wednesday of every month at 7pm and most of what we do is and as you saw. if you were listening to our our meeting is kind of go over what's going. what is happening and what is left to do. A lot of our work is around the grants. but not everything. We do other things too. And you just heard us talk about the utility box painting project. That's something that we took on. And we do this like we we have our discretionary fund that we can spend on one things around the town. And occasionally we do. we do projects like this to to spend that discretionary fund. The grant process will start from September. from next month. we will not so October. November will be the first month we will start to talk about the grants. and start to vote around the grants. And we should be finished by December. because the results are due the first week of January. So we try to finish everything as early as possible. The your opinions. and of course. your inputs will be greatly appreciated. The biggest thing that we are looking for from our youth liaison is our connection to the school system. especially of any programs that you have up and coming that we can kind of get into as the Cultural Council. and also to let people know that the grant program is available open and to bring in participation from our youth into this as you know. you know. groups like the robotics group have been regularly applying to to us. and we love to see that. We'd love to see them succeed and and any other such groups or individuals who are interested in in applying for grants to do anything that is of use to our community. right? Usually. people see the Cultural Council and think of arts. But culture is not just arts. It is community. And a lot of things are under the purview of community. right? Whether it be STEM related. arts. related. politics. whatever have you. So. Uh. encourage people to look at that if they're if they have an idea and are confused and don't know that this can whether this is this comes under cultural grants. they can reach out to us. We're happy to chat with them and give them any advice that they need. So that is what we're looking at from our youth liaisons. And welcome. We're really happy to have you. Alyssa was a great partner. but she's off to college. and this is this is going to be great. So thank you. Thank you for volunteering. Mustafa Kheir: Thank you Iniyan Gandhi: for the opportunity. pall: Awesome. Okay. anything else? I didn't have any other agenda items. Do we have anything else we need to discuss at this at this time. Marie Isenburg: wondering when? When do we usually do the members update on the Mass website. we have a bunch. like three. I think we have about four members or something on that site. Maybe. Pallavi Nagesha: yeah. we should. So if you have signed in. it should automatically show you as as a member. but I will go take a look and make sure that that all the mem all the correct members are listed on that website.
And I also reached out through Jailyn to the other two members who we haven't seen and at the meetings in a while. Charles Bent and Donna Mitra. And they did get in touch with Charles who who informed them that he hasn't been getting meeting invites. and I hope they've corrected that and they gave me a phone number. I did call Charles at the beginning of the call today. just to let him know that we are meeting and it's on. I hope he does get in touch with me and we can figure that out. We haven't heard back from Donna. so I'll continue to reach out and see what's going on with them. Unknown: Do you think it would be beneficial for Mustafa and Iniyan to take the LCC member training
Pallavi Nagesha: so once they write their letter of intent to the town clerk and they get inducted. they will be sent all the necessary links to kind of join and all the training material as well. So once they sign on to the mass Cultural Council website. as as members of our Cultural Council. that page will be available to them to take the training and all of those. You know. I'm sure. Miriam. you remember the emails you got to take the training in. So they will get those as well once they sign up. but they need to submit that letter of intent and officially get on. Yeah.
Unknown: I did we talk about
Marie Isenburg: the box that was painted? I think I deleted his name. Was it from Rick last time. and I have it on the other file. Did we? Did we confirm that that was paid out? Or can we. or I thought we would get in touch with him and let him know when the process was completed. Pallavi Nagesha: So which. which Marie Isenburg: was to check with Kelsi about the payment
Pallavi Nagesha: to to
Marie Isenburg: wasn't to be coming up with the wrong file. Was it Rick? Somebody will remember? Okay. yeah. yeah. yes. yeah. So has that been confirmed that that payment has gone out?
Pallavi Nagesha: I haven't confirmed that the payment has gone out. but we did inform Kelsi that this is we've approved and then they can pay. Marie Isenburg: Did you have to submit the minutes with that. or was it just done? Pallavi Nagesha: No. she just wanted us to. I can. I can reach out and make sure that that the payment has gone out. I.
Any other discussions we have. In
that case. our next meeting is going to be on the 10th of September. at 730 and at that time. I want to see how we can by the 10th of September. I don't believe we'll have a good
numbers of applicants. It's too early. but we can start to think about how to encourage people to apply. Definitely. I think we have the idea of send sending information on the school newsletters. the town newsletters. and put it also in the Wayland post. So we will have some avenues of doing this. also Mustafa or any and if you. either of you are interested in kind of working with our social media. let me know. I can. I can add you to those accounts. And we usually post there. Mustafa Kheir: I can. I can do. I'm interested in that perfect. Pallavi Nagesha: perfect so once I'll get into I'll reach out to you. Mustafa. and we can talk about that. It's just a matter of adding you to those accounts. And so we have an Instagram account and we have a Facebook account. So Marie Isenburg: one more question. of course. Go ahead. Okay. are we doing anything for the Wayland arts or culture thing that's happening in October. Pallavi Nagesha: The Yeah. yeah. we are not Marie Isenburg: okay. Okay.
Maryam Libdi: Are we part of that? Is that the reason
Pallavi Nagesha: I am not sure we funded them this year. I thought we didn't. We didn't fund them. right? They didn't apply for funding this year because they went to the mass Cultural Council and got a bigger grant. So they didn't apply to to us for funding. So we haven't funded them this year.
Marie Isenburg: Can we have a presence there? Pallavi Nagesha: We can have a presence there. if this is. if that's something that we are interested in doing. definitely. if anybody has an idea and you can present it. we will try to get that. get in there. I mean. they have booths if you want us. if you think it's a good idea for us to have a booth over there. we can do that.
Marie Isenburg: Is it next meeting too late to decide on Pallavi Nagesha: that? It is. it is too late next meeting to decide on that? So we will have to kind of do this through email. If anybody has an idea and we want to just vote on it through email before then we can do that. Maryam Libdi: Mary. can you remind me of the exact date? It's in October. right? What Pallavi Nagesha: two? I'm going to say the fourth. but I may be wrong.
I don't remember. Maryam Libdi: Yes. it's on the fourth I just checked. I think it's a good idea because there's a. you know. around 15 days until the end of our cycle. So it could be a good place to market for it. But I personally can't take care of the table if we have on that day. Okay. I agree. Maybe our youth can.
Pallavi Nagesha: yeah. yeah. yeah. it is all day. but we can. We can be there. like when. when they start. and then when. when they end. For sure. last year. we did. We did have a presence there. but we funded them. so they kind of used our banner and we were. we were. We had a booth. People came up into us. to us and talk to us and learned. What we do and so on. So I am also traveling that weekend. so I won't be there to have the booth. but if our youth are both interested in doing that. I can certainly reach out to that committee and make sure we have space for that?
Maryam Libdi: Okay. perfect. Thank you. We have budget to reserve that table. or is it Pallavi Nagesha: let me ask? Let me ask. We do have money and discretionary funds to reserve a table. So I am not sure. I'm trying to find information about that. I'm not sure how much it's going to cost. But do I have a motion to spend our discretionary funds on that? If. if need Marie Isenburg: be. I'm discretionary. So I Maryam Libdi: second. Okay. Pallavi Nagesha: so noreish. are you okay with us spending on the discretionary funds on that? Naresh Mysore: Yeah. sure. yeah. I may not be in town so. but yes. I approve. Pallavi Nagesha: Kevin. Are you okay with us spending some discretionary fund money on that. Kevin Goodwin: okay. I moved approval. Pallavi Nagesha: Okay. thank you. Thank you. Maria. My Okay. Spending on that. yes. Maria. are you okay? Spending on that. yes. and I am okay as well. So I'll find out what it costs and and I will let you all know. Okay. you. Thank you for bringing that up. Marie.
anything else we need to discuss touch upon this this time around. So my action item is to update last month's meeting notes and send it around. If you can all quickly take a look and respond back to me. This time. I will ask you to hit Reply All so that it comes back to the entire council. so that it's recorded. and once that's done. I will have it posted.
Marie Isenburg: So do you have the changes you need? Then you don't need anything from me at this point. Pallavi Nagesha: Were you making the changes. Marie. or Marie Isenburg: did you I can? I can. yeah. unless you had it there already. Yeah. Pallavi Nagesha: Marie. if you can just send it to the council. So send it to the council correct. send it to the so that we all have it. and we'll just vote on it over there. and I can then post it.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. since you're going to be out of town. do we have any. like. ultra Council marketing material. banners or things to use for the multicultural fest? If have Pallavi Nagesha: banners and I can. yeah. so I have it in my garage. Two of them. I'm going to be taking a couple of them to leave it with the DPW. So if somebody wants to. or Naresh. I can leave it with you. Or Mariam. I can leave it with you.
Maryam Libdi: We will also need. like. some. you know. flyers about the grant cycle. Pallavi Nagesha: Yeah. So I think the information that I send for sending emails and such. we can also create a. if one of our Youth Can. can help us create a quick flyer for that. It'll be great. So once I send that information out. use that information to make a flyer. and we can have that. Marie Isenburg: How about if we just take the. the LCC applicant. simple. right. offline. and maybe just put that on the flyer. They have a pretty comprehensive. I don't know. Pallavi Nagesha: I mean. the fly. that whole information will be too long for a flyer. We just need to see. hey. this is happening. and here's where you can go and apply. And that that's that should be enough. Maryam Libdi: you know. something with basic information and a barcode that takes you to the application. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Pallavi Nagesha: Yes. all right. I should have information about the for for the email. and also the information that should go on to the poster in to all of you by the end of the week. Indian and Mustafa. I don't know. Whether you will be added to the list. to the Cultural Council list. by that's that quickly. but you'll you'll have to send. hopefully. the sooner you send the information to the town clerk. the sooner that will happen. But in the meantime. if you can quickly email the Cultural Council so that I will have your just send us a hello note or something. so that I will have your and send it through your school email. so everything is public in and accounted for. So I will have that and I can send you. I can add you to any correspondence until you're added to the town list. Okay. all right.
anything else?
If there's nothing. do I have a motion to conclude? Kevin Goodwin: So moved. Pallavi Nagesha: Thanks. Kevin. any seconds. So we are ending our meeting today early 743. thank you all for attending. Naresh. Are you agreed to close the meeting? Yes. yes. I am Maria Mayu. Maria. you. Kevin. are you? Yes. and so am I? So we close the meeting and we welcome our youth liaisons. and we will meet next month. This will be the second Wednesday of next month of September. which is the 10th see you all have a lovely rest of the week. rest of the month. I'll talk to you also. Mustafa Kheir: Thank you. Thank you so much. Unknown: Thank you. Thank you.
Design Review Board
10-14-25 - Design Review Baord43:27
9-Sep-25 - Design Review Board01:03:20
3-Sep-25 - Design Review Board01:07:33
William Sterling: Three, and
this is the Design Review Board,
aka Design Review advisory board, and we are meeting tonight on soon only, but it's probably being recorded. It should be recorded, so anyone who wants to will be able to check it out later as well the I will ask if there's any public comment, raise your hand if anyone wants to say something other than the topic that we're covering tonight, which is the application of Saint mercurious and Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church, plus later on, around 730 we're going to review the design guidelines and then meeting minutes and then trying to adjourn by eight or so.
I see no raised hands. Somebody has their hand raised. That was me. I think I clicked on my raised hand. No. Robin Borgestedt: Kent Walker has his hand raised very top. William Sterling: Okay, I see it. Thank you. Unknown: Anytime, hello, talk, William Sterling: Kent, you're now on if you'd like to raise a point, yeah, Unknown: yeah. I've looked at the design materials that were submitted to the Tom, and I am astonished that they are so so little in keeping with the location on rice road. Robin Borgestedt: So Mr. Walker, if these comments are about the application that we're reviewing tonight, those public comments should come after we discuss the application. Unknown: This is my head. I thought you wanted to know who. Yeah, this is for Robin Borgestedt: public comments about things that are not on the agenda. Specifically, I Unknown: beg your pardon. William Sterling: Okay, we welcome your comments when we get on that topic,
Robin Borgestedt: can the folks who are here to speak about the application from the architect raise their hand so that we know who we need to pull into the meeting? Yeah?
There we go.
William Sterling: So I think we should move on, then to the two who just raised their hand to talk about the project, since we've already reviewed it last week when you were unable to attend, and I will allow both of you at the same time, I guess, and you all to decide which of You wants to speak slanden or lost the name Courtney. Unknown: Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great, thank you. I think Courtney and I can speak when, when we need to. William Sterling: Oh, good. Well, we usually ask the applicant to write a summary, or speak a summary of what it is you would like us to know about your project, and then we'll respond.
Unknown: Would you like me to go now? Yeah, now, it'd be great. Okay, great. So thank you for the opportunity to present the project. We appreciate it the goal with the design of this project and this campus is basically to reflect the traditions of the Coptic Church. And we had a meeting a with the butters the other night, and I think there was much surprise to the design of the building, and it was not a traditional Catholic Church. This has very definite Coptic Orthodox features, and we are trying to be sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood in the landscape. As you know, the building complex sits in the hillside where there is a great difference of about 30 feet from the lower portion to the. Upper portion up by Turkey Hill. So it's organized into three separate buildings. There is the church building. There is a building with a recreational use as well as classrooms. And at the end of that building there is additional classrooms and some senior housing. The third building is the the church building the diocese, and they are planned to be phased in design and construction. The church itself is a is the focal point of the design. It will be, it is planned to be the first building to be designed and constructed. The existing church will remain as is it is, until the end of the second phase, which is the Building B, which you would see on the plans. And then the the third building would would come considerably, much later. So throughout the design process, we've worked with the topography, and we've done this for a few reasons. We wanted it to sit within the hillside so that it didn't present itself in a very obvious way to the surrounding neighbors up behind in Turkey Hill. It it does sit sort of in the center, and it is around a center Piazza, which is sort of a courtyard, and that is done so that there are gatherings that you know would happen in there, and would minimize the noise you know, which would presumably be more prevalent on the on the outside. So I would say that we are trying to stick with and meet, you know, all the design guidelines set forth by the town of Wayland and and so I think that's really a brief description of of what the complex is. Can I William Sterling: interrupt you for a second at this stopping point? Selanda, I need your your full name, and I presume you're with DSK. Is that Unknown: right? Yes, it's Sean, S, S, H, A, U, N, Landon,
William Sterling: okay, I got it. Unknown: Thank you. Sorry it didn't show up that way in the header. William Sterling: Is Courtney also going to speak? Or do we move on? Unknown: I am here in order to answer any questions. My name is Courtney Borelli, also from DSK architects, good.
William Sterling: So I guess now then I would, I'd pass the baton around to our board members. Robin, would you like to ask any questions or discuss any of the things that you want them to address.
I think you're on mute.
Robin Borgestedt: Okay, sorry. One of the things we discussed last week is you commented today that you're trying to work with the topography in the area, but it seems like you're doing the opposite with some retaining walls and really pushing into that hill. And it seems like you're more fighting the topography than working with it. So that was a concern. We really don't know if you're working with the design guidelines, because this is really, there isn't enough detail in this plan to let us know whether that is or isn't true, and is just an awful lot of pavement here as well. So those were some of the concerns we had this. The massing of these buildings is just, I think, of concern, considering what was on the site before. So I think it's probably why you had some pushback from the butters. But I. Right, some concerns with the use of the space and the fact that we have very little detail to go on to know whether you're meeting the design guidelines in terms of the materials and the look and feel of the building and some of the other design guidelines that exist in Tom anything for you.
Tatiana Person: I'm wondering if, in addition to those plans that were presented, you have any 3d view for us to see how it's overall looks, how it sits on the hill, maybe we misread the plan, and it's a bit different.
William Sterling: I'm sorry, Tanya, I didn't hear all of that. Tatiana Person: I was wondering if they could present any 3d view representing the design.
William Sterling: I think that's a good question. I
Unknown: uh, I guess we could present that. I'm not sure how to to actually get that up on the screen. William Sterling: You have the drawings you submitted. Robin could actually post all those, if you Robin Borgestedt: want. Yeah, there isn't really the, well, we have the plans. I'm just, my point is that I think they're they don't really give us details in terms of finishes and materials and things like that, which is what we're supposed to be reviewing. So but I would, Mr. Landon, I'm sure you can share your screen and show the plans if you have them that you want to show Unknown: we do have an axon. It's right on the second page. That helps a little bit. It is a little bit difficult, obviously, with the amount of topography here to see, but page two does have an axon view.
They said we don't have it. Tatiana Person: Robin, maybe I could pull it on the screen. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, I can share my screen if you guys can't
Unknown: unmute it. It.
Robin Borgestedt: So is this the plan you're talking about? Yes, Tatiana Person: so maybe on this view, you could explain to us how you work with topography and how those buildings work together.
William Sterling: I actually have a few questions that might help launch the answers you're looking for. There are, there are things that we that I would ask, even without all the detailed information. And by the way, I there may be a lot of pushback from abutters about seeing an Egyptian style Coptic church, but I think that as applicants are within their rights, given the state Dover law that was passed that a project can't be rejected because of the style of the building you're putting up there. So that that is basically it's not a valid criticism from a legal point of view. You may hate it, but that's completely legal, so that will not be part of our discussion. Except I would say I've been to Egypt, and I've been to see Coptic churches, and I think it's actually very similar to St Mark's and Alexandria. I think it's consistent with the style of the traditions of that of that religion. And I think it's very interesting. I think I also think, though, that rather than being strictly reproduct, reproduction of a traditional design that goes back 1000 years that you may want to talk to the owners The property about, first of all, there's this building design code that is now strictly imposing solar panels on the roof and other environmental you know, I should say sustainable methods of design. The only one that comes to me on this is that it may be an interesting kind of variation of that style to push it in the direction of a passive solar so that the size of the walls that face south could be more glass than the sides that face. East North could be less from a sustainable point of view without really sacrificing the traditional appearance of the building. And I would take that one step further and say that our mission in Wayland is to be a green community, and we would therefore encourage a net zero building. And this is an opportunity for you and your client, where you have a long term investment, they could do a cost benefit analysis and determine the benefit of doing a net zero energy building, whether it's solar or a combination of solar and geothermal, or what have you to to achieve that goal. And I think that the one that I feel is easy is free energy is passive solar, where you can face the glass of the buildings to the south, shade them with solar shades. And then I'm thinking more of the your diocese Center and the school, that if you orient them to the south and face glass with solar shading, you get a lot of free energy in the winter that has really no extra cost, because you're just building the building envelope in it with glass in different places, and less glass on the north face, where you have nothing but heat loss through glass on the north side of the building. So that's something I would hope that. And if you're looking for a project that will get a lot of positive attention and feedback, I think that going net zero and showing how you can do that and still have a traditional looking building would make the magazines, if that's something you're looking for. The other questions, I think, that we will not have tonight, I agree with Robin that we don't have detailed information yet, but one of the big questions, I'm sure the neighbors will be concerned about as well, will be the lighting of the parking lot and the how you intend to achieve a dark sky. And I would just say off the top of my head that whatever part you do have requirements for making that parking safe, and the requirements for lighting levels of five foot candles and so forth, you will be required to have lights for lighting up that parking lot. But a way to make it less intrusive on the neighbors, I think that I agree with you. If you settle this site into the hill, then the neighbors are less likely to be bothered by the lights. But I think even better, would be going with low profile lights. That means they're only 12, or at the most, 14 feet off the ground. It means you'll have to have more of the poles, but also well shielded lights that are not visible from any public way. And if you're going to achieve that, I think, I think that the zoning board will probably be very happy about the the only other question I had was, you Yes, the I'm trying to read my notes while talking. I'm sorry,
yeah, the only other thing was that you don't need to just meet the minimum code standard. It would be ideal if you'd go beyond the minimum code standard, standard for building envelopes and solar energy and so forth. That's if you want to respond to that and answer questions about that. I would appreciate that tonight. Otherwise, you know, we'll open it up to other people who are watching. Unknown: So to to speak about the the solar we we have basically covered all of the flat roofs of the Diocese building and the north side of the building B with with panels there, and we are basically just in. In the site planning approval process, and have not gotten to the schematic design phase of the buildings just yet. And so the the materials, or the materiality of the buildings has not been designed yet. We have forms for each of the buildings, and the size of the building was basically designed to provide adequate space for the number of parishioners that they have. And so that really kind of sets the the parameters for the church building in terms of the lighting. We are We are well aware of dark night, and we have done a lighting study, as well as a an acoustic study, you know, for the building complex. And so we're looking into all of those and how best to serve the project and the neighborhood around it. So I guess I really just want to make it known that we're very early on in the design phase of the buildings and all of these things you know, will be taken into consideration and best practice, like I said, for the church And for the neighborhood will be incorporated,
Tatiana Person: also additional comment regarding the site planning, if you are still in the earlier stage, maybe you should consider to register redistribute the parking. It's kind of unfortunate that as you enter into this complex, the first thing that you face, it's quite significant amount of parking. Unknown: We have a a code, which, I guess is it's one parking space per three people. And so we have provided the number of spaces that meet the occupant load for the building complex. And so that's what, that's, what's driving the parking around the buildings. Tatiana Person: I understood the number of parking, but just to consider it, to redistribute it differently. So it's the parking, it's won't be the first thing, because you enter the bill as a side. Basically you see, you do see this charge, but basically your see the parking lots right away. Maybe it should be somehow taken to the back, or Unknown: we have been very push the parking towards the back of the site, really, because that's the Turkey Hill side of the site which is closest to residential neighbors. So we're really trying to orient the parking towards rice road on that side, versus having those parking spaces up towards residential neighbors.
Tatiana Person: Okay, maybe in this case, just green barrier between the parking and the buildings would help as well. Unknown: We have also done a landscape plan. So that landscape plan encompasses the entire site, and so there is a combination of trees and shrubberies being used to essentially replace the trees that are being removed. And so, as you would imagine, there is, there's quite an extensive amount of landscape going in there, and I think that that's going to really soften the parking space as well as the buildings, the trees along rice road will remain as they're in the wetland buffer so. So landscape is, is, is being thought about quite extensively.
Robin Borgestedt: I think at our last meeting, when we discussed the application, I don't remember if it was Bill or Tanya, but somebody had suggested that instead of two large parking lots, that you have one two story parking lot, so that there was less impermeable space. I uh, just a thought noted. Thank you, Bill,
do you want to open it up for public comment? William Sterling: Yeah, I don't have any. Other questions at this point, so I think I will ask anyone who wants to raise their hand. I will try and there's one I'm just going to order. I have them there. That's Oh, sorry. Go ahead again. I thought you were muted. Robin Borgestedt: He is muted. JL, Hello, yeah, yes, can you state your name and your street address for the record? Unknown: Yes, it's Joseph shared her 147 rice road. Okay, I guess the question I have, and maybe this isn't the right forum for that, I'm just kind of surprised that I heard about this for the first time, like recently, is this, are they digging into conservation land for those parking lots?
William Sterling: Bill, do you want to let the architect answer that? Listen. JJ, here is your reminder,
Robin Borgestedt: Mr. Landon or miss Borelli, do you want to address that question? Unknown: JJ, sure. The entire property is owned by the church, and none of it is conservation property. So you're putting all three of those buildings in that small property. Then it is five and a half acres.
William Sterling: You answer that let me, Susan, I will let you ask a question. Unknown: Thank you. My name is Susan Todd, and I'm a resident of Turkey Hill village, and I was reading the general guidelines for the town, the design guidelines, general guideline number one says newly constructed buildings should not overwhelm or disregard the adjacent context with regard to building, location, Scale, bulk, massing, material, color, texture and fenestration. And my question is whether or not the Dover amendment allows for a church to be exempt from all the general guidelines of the town, which clearly would be severely challenged by a building project of this scale and scope. Can you help me understand, William Sterling: I know a little bit about the Dover amendment that basically is based on exactly this kind of a question in the town of Dover, I believe it was a Catholic church tried to get a zoning approval, and town of Dover turned them down. So they appealed it to the state. The state overturned that, and then they passed a law saying no one can ever do this again. So yes, this is another case where Dover amendment is designed exactly for this condition. You can't just say it's too big for my neighborhood.
Can I go into another question? Nicole, I'm just calling the order they show up here.
Unknown: Can you hear me?
Robin Borgestedt: Fairly?
Unknown: Yes, Hi, I'm Nicole Goodwin. I live at one Turkey Hill. So I'm located, I literally just moved in to this location, and I believe my property is going to be directly affected by this expansion. So I'd love more information on what I am going to see and lose in my backyard, because I'm right. Is there going to be information provided in terms of tree line and sight line for me being in that location?
William Sterling: Let me interject first before the architect answers that. I think I would encourage them, when they get to that stage of the design, to improve on this isometric drawing that they've done with actual perspective renderings, basically overlays of photographs of the various views that people driving on rice road and in the. Neighborhood will see. I think that's going to be very important for everyone in the town to get perspective views from the public ways. Now I let the architect answer in any way they feel they should. Unknown: Mr. Sterling, I think you're you're absolutely correct. The fact that we find the building in Revit and we do have sitting in the site, gives us the opportunity to be able to look at and gage the amount of coverage that would be between in a butters property in the church. The plan for for the trees, around the parking and around the perimeter of the of the site, our plan to to stay there, to remain and provide that Piper. And you know, as you you know, we are in the very beginning stages of this design, and we can continue to look at that further if it seems like we are, you know, coming across as offensive to anybody. So I guess that's our response. Yeah. I would, I would greatly appreciate that. That'd be really thoughtful, knowing that, I mean, I know this area is considered chosen for its sort of nature and its peace and quiet, and that is why I moved here. And I, you know, I also appreciate your ability to worship. And I just, I would, I would appreciate that being thoughtful in terms of how you guys, I already am aware of the noise of the children from the church. So if that could be heavily considered, since I am, like, literally right behind the property, I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you.
Robin Borgestedt: I would point out that in the plans that were submitted with the application, there are some elevations from different sides. It's not always clear what you know where there'll be trees blocking your view from that elevation, but you should review those. And I think I would remind people that they might want to attend the at least go on to the Zoom link for the October 15 Planning Board meeting where this will be discussed much more in detail. Unknown: Definitely, definitely. Thank you, William Sterling: noi, I would encourage the Kent Walker to speak. He had plugged in earlier and talked before, Aunt Walker Unknown: computer, his wife, Helene Feinberg Walker and we are at 13 Brandywine in Turkey Hill village. And I have to first say something positive, which is, I enjoy the noise of the children playing. It's happy noise, and I'm glad that that's provided for them. What I'm interested in asking now is if there's been an impact study on a scenic highway, and I don't know that Dover was having a church built on the scenic highway and in a conservation area. And I don't know if some exemptions can be made for that. That's one thing is our scenic Highway, which will have a very large a building, three large buildings. They may be very beautiful buildings, but nonetheless, there are three very large buildings with Spire, two spires and a dome. And the other part of that, aside from the scenic highway, is the there's a lovely buffer of many mature trees right along the road between Turkey Hill on Turkey Hill Road. The church side has wonderful mature trees. Um, a very lovely buffer zone there. So from where I live, I don't see the church. The buffer of the trees is beautiful. Plus they're wonderful mature trees, and my understanding is that they'll be taken down about 450 mature trees, replaced with baby trees and shrubs and parking and impermeable surfaces. And this is, I mean, we came here for the conservation land. It's gorgeous, that's what brought us, and it's peaceful and quiet. You see Fox, you see Turkey, SWAT turkeys. Anyway, I'm hoping that a lot of thought will be given to the nature of the area, the nature of the area, and the nature of the area, and how that. That will be disrupted. Thank you. William Sterling: Thank you. I missed your name, your first name, Helene, Unknown: he L, E, N, E. William Sterling: Thank you for giving your information. Let me go on then to the next one on this. This, this, Barbara,
Unknown: Hello, yes, can hear you. Barbara,
to me whether the planning board has already approved this or what? William Sterling: What is your last name? Barbara? Oh, Unknown: no, no. I live on 1201. Magnolia drive. William Sterling: Thank you. Unknown: So my question? Well, I have a couple questions. One, has the planning board approved this? Robin Borgestedt: It hasn't even come before the planning board yet. Unknown: Okay, and the design is not detailed yet. When is it anticipated that construction would begin after approval. If there is approval, the William Sterling: architect would have to answer that. I don't know if their schedule is like Unknown: the schedule right now would be towards the end of 2027
Okay, so the future sessions with the planning board and the zoning board are all preliminary to approval. Is that? William Sterling: Yes, that's right. Unknown: Thank you. Okay, William Sterling: thank you for joining in. Beth Raynor is next.
Hello. Unknown: I'm Beth Raynor, or Elizabeth Raynor. I'm at eight, Christina in Turkey Hill. And I also had a number of questions, as Healey raised because the drawings would indicate that although the architect mentioned trees being planted, it really looks as if the asphalt will go right to the property line. So from all the views that we can see, they'll either be parking or there will be a fire road, also asphalt on the perimeter, and there doesn't even appear to be any space to replace the 450 trees that will be removed. I would like to add that I don't believe that any of the, at least any of the Turkey Hill village residents that I have talked to have any issue with the nature of the church design, as much as scope, scale and removal of the natural resources on the property and replacement of that with impermeable surfaces. So I just wish to say that, and I did want to say that I am a little confused, because I know the Dover amendment does protect the, you know, religious communities from building spaces where they it's important for them to worship. However, I see this project as having multiple uses and one includes religious worship, their church. One includes, so, you know, a church complex, I would say, and then once, an athletic complex. So that includes a soccer field, as I understand it, that although it wasn't seen on all the drawings, that there would be a soccer field, there would be interior basketball courts and such. So I consider that sort of a separate thing from worship. And then the third being the housing, which is, you know, a 25 apartment complex. So I see this as not a single building or even a group of buildings for worship, but really a much larger scope, and I think this is the problem. I certainly know that that I'm experiencing and trying to understand, and also if the if the architect could speak, given the extremely large scale of this, as to how long they perceive the anticipate, the project, the construction to go on, how many years? Because it would seem that many, many years would would be required to do this. So thank you for listening. William Sterling: Those are great questions, I think that the Arctic may be able to answer what. The phasing. You answered what phase one might be, but you didn't answer what two and three, or a and b and c you call them. So do you have an answer to that? Yes. Unknown: So the phasing is set up that building a, which is the church. We're trying to get into the design of the church before the end of the year, and that will take, basically, to, I believe, the end of August next year, to get through the building B, which is the recreational building with classrooms in it. There has been some discussion about the time in which that is is goes into design, and we haven't quite finalized that, but I think the presumption is anywhere from three to five years. And the Building C, which is the diocese building, is considerably, much longer than that. After building B,
William Sterling: 1015, years is there's no guess. Unknown: I would say you're not far off. Robin Borgestedt: And do you have any idea? I think what they're asking is how long the actual construction will take, if you're starting in 2027 How long do you expect construction to go on? Unknown: We've estimated the construction time to be about 18 months for the church and similar for the building date.
William Sterling: That sounds all right. And I don't think
that our committee can answer the questions, the legal questions about I can take a guess, but I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think we can answer that. I think that really will come down to the legal staff for the applicant to explain and defend. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, yeah. I think you'll hear more about that in the planning board meetings where that's more of an issue, because the design review board doesn't we don't approve or deny anything. All we do is evaluate and advise. So Dover is not really so much of a concern for us. It's really a planning board issue. William Sterling: Yeah, let me go to the next raised hand. Meyer Dana,
Unknown: hello, hello. Can you hear me? Yes. I just had a few questions Robin Borgestedt: name and address, first, oh, nine. Christina Unknown: in Turkey Hill village. William Sterling: I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. Unknown: Nine Christina, okay, thank you. The plan that you actually put up on the screen a while ago shows the main entrance. What it doesn't show is, is that the only access point no onto the property.
I mean, right now they use a driveway that comes in off of Turkey Hill Road, William Sterling: as they show they showed two driveways, both off rice road, Unknown: the drive from Turkey Hill Road is being removed. Ah, there's William Sterling: a curve on rice road. On Unknown: the other question I had is, I It's a it seems a bit ingenuous that the architect would say what we're trying to do is recess the buildings into the hill to minimize their visibility to the neighborhood primarily, and certainly it's going to be Turkey Hill village. When the brief thing I saw about this, and I haven't had a chance to really look at prints is that the hill is 30 feet high and the church is going to be 90 feet high. Thank you. I mean, is that a correct statement? That is a correct statement The how is that burying it in the back the side of the hill. Well, we're not building it on top of the hill. You know, we're trying to for the for the folks in Turkey Hill. We're trying to give them relief in the form of the elevation change as well as the. The existing trees that are around the perimeter, and so that greatly reduces the overall height of what is being presented to them in in the way of the church elevation.
I think that's, I don't mean to be rude, but that's a self serving comment. It's going to stick up 60 feet above the top of the hill, yes, which is considerably more than, probably more than the trees that are there now, which apparently you're going to cut most of them down, not around the perimeter. William Sterling: I think it would help this discussion next time we meet to have the architect draw the buffer zone, break it out separately, so that the butters get a better picture of how much buffer there is, how many trees are in the buffer zones. Unknown: One other question, and I'm not I'm not familiar with the Dover amendment enough to and I'm not sure if this is the only place to go talk about it. I guess my impression is the DOVER amendment allows a church to build a church? William Sterling: No, it's not just a church. It's any nonprofit. It's opened up much wider than people seem to think, Unknown: and that includes schooling, housing, and then office building could be
there's no office building. You know, in this space, I assume that's what the diocese center is, or what the front building on rice road. That's a that's actually the main space is to be used for gathering, sort of a function hall.
I see, I I just, I kid, I can't get over the mass of this project in relation to the location. I think it's, it's takes away from the whole ambience of why people are living in this area. But so be it, it's nothing more I can say.
William Sterling: Thank you. Ken brush has raised his hand,
is Ken still on? I think it should
Robin Borgestedt: be, I guess not. Well, he's muted. Mr. Brass, you're muted. Can you unmute yourself? Okay. Can you hear me now? Now we can. Unknown: Yes. Hey, I live at five. Brandy one. I like the fact that this includes housing, because I think there's a critical need for more housing. My two questions, though are to reduce the scope of this project, is there a possibility to retrofit the existing church building to not serve as not to replace the church, but perhaps to reduce the need for, I don't know, maybe building three. And my second question involves the environmental impact of removing 400 trees on the topography, particularly with regards to rain, snow, ice melt, that change of, as I said, topography, how is, what's the impact of that? Is that been looked into less we have to deal with flooding, center, basement. Thank you. William Sterling: Thank you for asking those again. Robin Borgestedt: My response would be that you should participate in the planning board meetings and any Conservation Commission meetings and other meetings that will come up later on in this process, starting with planning board on October 15, that's really outside the purview of design review. I think. Is that true? William Sterling: Bill, yeah, I think that's true. Now we had someone race again. I'll go back to
Robin Borgestedt: Jay, Mr. Sheridan, yeah,
William Sterling: if you would like to ask,
Unknown: Hey, can you hear me? I'm sorry. I'll lower my hand. I actually did that. I apologize. Robin Borgestedt: No problem. Is there anybody else?
William Sterling: I didn't see any others. Robin Borgestedt: That's it. Anybody else for public comment? Last call.
Mr. Brush, did you have something else to say? Or you just still have your hand up?
Unknown: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Robin Borgestedt: that's okay. Just wanted to make sure, yep.
William Sterling: So is there any closing statement that the applicant would like to make before we move on to another item on our agenda?
Unknown: Yeah, I just, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to present this and allow us to hear the comments from from the crowd. The building, I just want to say, is basically been carefully designed to balance the tradition and function, you know, of the community. And you know, I know that there's been a lot of talk about, you know, the the size and massing of the building, but we, we are doing our best to break them down into, you know, more, you know, three buildings, so that it's not just a, you know, too large or, you know, one large building. And so we're doing, you know, everything that we we can to to make the building function as well as provide a complex that that does actually fit in there. So I just wanted to take that time to make that point. Okay, thank you. William Sterling: Any committee members have any more comments, or should we continue this hearing? Because I think it was pretty clear that we don't have enough information to really make a decision yet. So we would like to continue this hearing to a time when the architects could answer some of these questions about parking lot lighting, buffer zones and proposed an existing landscape that will be Unknown: just that they're not going to approve anything they don't have enough information, and that the architects have to come back with a laundry list of stuff they're giving them Sorry. Robin Borgestedt: Can people please mute themselves if they're not speaking? Thanks. Yeah.
William Sterling: So I think that enough, though, that we we need more information and we look forward to seeing the answers.
Robin Borgestedt: Do we need to continue this to a specific date? Otherwise, we're supposed to issue a decision within No, William Sterling: that's true. Does the architect able to tell us when they can be ready with revised proposed plan? Unknown: I think we'll have to get back to you on that. I don't think we can do that at this this time. Okay,
Robin Borgestedt: so then we need it. Do we need an extension so that we don't hit our 30 day? Well, I checked William Sterling: with Robert on that we used to have to do that when I was on the zoning board, but he says it's no longer required. We just reschedule when they're ready. Robin Borgestedt: So then I move that we reschedule us to a point in time when the architect and the applicant already with more detailed information. William Sterling: Okay, anyone want to second that? Tanya? Want to second
Robin Borgestedt: that? Say it out loud. Tanya, Tatiana Person: yes, second. William Sterling: Okay, thanks. We're all in favor, I presume, of Yes. Thank you all for coming. It's been a really interesting discussion, and I think this kind of open communication will lead to, I'm sure that can lead to a number of compromise solutions that will certainly, you know, certainly be an improvement over what you feel is going in right now. I hope that it will have open discussions in the future.
Unknown: Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right. Thank you. Thank you for having us so. William Sterling: The next item on the agenda is the review of the Wayland design guidelines. And anyone who wants, I guess, could stay. I. Are tuned. I would leave it again, open it up to Tanya and Robin. If you had any new comments having looked at the meeting notes, you may that may refresh your memory of what we had discussed and whether you have any comments, if not, I think that what we may have to do is basically assign folks to take on different aspects that were discussed at the meeting.
Tatiana Person: I don't have new comments. I could repeat my old one, if needed. Okay? And I do think there is a significant difference, distinguished difference between residential and commercial architecture, which should be identified in the guidelines. Yeah, it could be commercial. Commercial architecture could be done in the traditional, respectful way, respectful way to the environment and and context and but it should have different feel involved in surrounded, surrounding residential architecture and elements, material, lighting, should be identified in a different way for commercial versus for residential area. And I think we do need distinct commercial we're trying to create a commercial district, and for that very reason, we need to identify a proper, proper architecture for this. And in addition to the specific guidebooks, guidebooks that was presented, I think we need better examples than what's there. So just additional comment the sketches that were presented, I think we should look for and find better examples that will represent this idea. Also the very important things that the density. We should look at the density of this area and define its should be defined also in the guidelines. Okay,
William Sterling: great. Thanks. And Robin, Robin Borgestedt: yeah. I mean, most of the things that you listed, I think there were seven things looking here, yeah, six things. Most of them were fine. You know, the the I DoD should be, there should be a map in there, and I'm sure Robert can provide one the photo affinities coming out. Obviously, I didn't know if there's something else that we can think of that represents sort of a modern village style. Finnerty certainly wasn't a modern village style. You know? I guess you know, they're the the sort of, the large office building that's in this in on route 20, that yellow building, and the the building next to the post office, it's a small office building there, and the CVS, you know, those, I think, what most people would think of as a village style commercial thing. But, you know, if we want to do other things that are have a more modern feel than we should be providing an image. So I don't know if somebody has something off the top of their head that they want to if we want to next, you know, at another meeting, look at some photos of buildings and pick what goes in there, and then make the design standard. If we're broadening that for commercial property, then you know, we can look at those images and see what we can do to sort of make William Sterling: a great first step that we, maybe all three of us, come up with some photographs that we can share at the next meeting and that we would insert as good examples. I think that's great. Tony. You what you just discussed. It'd be great if you go out and find some buildings you can photograph and say this is Tatiana Person: what you're talking about. Yeah. William Sterling: Well, I was even thinking after your comment last week, Robin of driving back through Concord because you had mentioned that. And I, I know it's true, but I want to go back and look at how many and what vintage and what what it is that makes them, you know, fit into that sort of village style. Robin Borgestedt: Yep, I think that. You know. And even, you know, downtown Wellesley has, you know, it has a vibe. It's got a thing going on, and it's so you can kind of look there, and there's good, bad and ugly there as well. So, yeah, and then, so, you know, we had some building materials we wanted to discourage. And that's matter of you know, coming up with a list, I think you two are probably better at that than I am, because I don't really know the extensive array of building materials that are out there. And then, yes, signage. I think we're going to work on signage with the zoning board and planning board and see what we can do there. Yep. So yeah, you know there was some images you wanted to replace, so we can just work on that. Let's do that. So like you want to pull out the sketch of the Shell gas station to see if we can find something that is acceptable, I don't know William Sterling: well, it none of them will ever actually fit into, you know, either residential or commercial style, because they're they're always just Flat Roof, you know, protection from the Robin Borgestedt: weather? Yeah? Well, there has to be some somewhere, William Sterling: delicate ways of detailing, those right, really ugly ways of detail. So I think we can find a couple examples that are least offensive. Let's put it that way. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, they sometimes. That's all you can get. Yeah. So, and that was sort of the list. So it's just something we kind of have to work through as we go along. But I think starting with some images, and then sort of going backwards, taking the images that we like, that we agree on, and then extrapolating a description out of that to turn into a design guideline. Great. William Sterling: I think it's great. So if there's nothing else on the design guidelines, we can move on to the next topic if Unknown: you want. Yep.
William Sterling: Okay, so that's just the meeting notes from the last meeting.
I sent a copy. I already had a Nina send you a copy. I hope you got it. I don't know. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, I just got it. I haven't really had a chance to read through it. It's longer than our usual minutes. William Sterling: Oh, yeah, because we really discuss a lot. Yeah. Robin Borgestedt: So maybe we can approve them at a we do we know when we're having our next meeting aside tonight. That's right, we can do another meeting in a couple weeks. William Sterling: Okay? We'll defer that. And then then I can make a motion that we adjourn at 806. Robin Borgestedt: Okay, I second it, I second it, William Sterling: okay, all those in favor, yes. Tanya Belton, okay, it's uh, it was a good meeting. Thanks a lot.
aka Design Review advisory board, and we are meeting tonight on soon only, but it's probably being recorded. It should be recorded, so anyone who wants to will be able to check it out later as well the I will ask if there's any public comment, raise your hand if anyone wants to say something other than the topic that we're covering tonight, which is the application of Saint mercurious and Saint Mina Coptic Orthodox Church, plus later on, around 730 we're going to review the design guidelines and then meeting minutes and then trying to adjourn by eight or so.
I see no raised hands. Somebody has their hand raised. That was me. I think I clicked on my raised hand. No. Robin Borgestedt: Kent Walker has his hand raised very top. William Sterling: Okay, I see it. Thank you. Unknown: Anytime, hello, talk, William Sterling: Kent, you're now on if you'd like to raise a point, yeah, Unknown: yeah. I've looked at the design materials that were submitted to the Tom, and I am astonished that they are so so little in keeping with the location on rice road. Robin Borgestedt: So Mr. Walker, if these comments are about the application that we're reviewing tonight, those public comments should come after we discuss the application. Unknown: This is my head. I thought you wanted to know who. Yeah, this is for Robin Borgestedt: public comments about things that are not on the agenda. Specifically, I Unknown: beg your pardon. William Sterling: Okay, we welcome your comments when we get on that topic,
Robin Borgestedt: can the folks who are here to speak about the application from the architect raise their hand so that we know who we need to pull into the meeting? Yeah?
There we go.
William Sterling: So I think we should move on, then to the two who just raised their hand to talk about the project, since we've already reviewed it last week when you were unable to attend, and I will allow both of you at the same time, I guess, and you all to decide which of You wants to speak slanden or lost the name Courtney. Unknown: Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, great, thank you. I think Courtney and I can speak when, when we need to. William Sterling: Oh, good. Well, we usually ask the applicant to write a summary, or speak a summary of what it is you would like us to know about your project, and then we'll respond.
Unknown: Would you like me to go now? Yeah, now, it'd be great. Okay, great. So thank you for the opportunity to present the project. We appreciate it the goal with the design of this project and this campus is basically to reflect the traditions of the Coptic Church. And we had a meeting a with the butters the other night, and I think there was much surprise to the design of the building, and it was not a traditional Catholic Church. This has very definite Coptic Orthodox features, and we are trying to be sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood in the landscape. As you know, the building complex sits in the hillside where there is a great difference of about 30 feet from the lower portion to the. Upper portion up by Turkey Hill. So it's organized into three separate buildings. There is the church building. There is a building with a recreational use as well as classrooms. And at the end of that building there is additional classrooms and some senior housing. The third building is the the church building the diocese, and they are planned to be phased in design and construction. The church itself is a is the focal point of the design. It will be, it is planned to be the first building to be designed and constructed. The existing church will remain as is it is, until the end of the second phase, which is the Building B, which you would see on the plans. And then the the third building would would come considerably, much later. So throughout the design process, we've worked with the topography, and we've done this for a few reasons. We wanted it to sit within the hillside so that it didn't present itself in a very obvious way to the surrounding neighbors up behind in Turkey Hill. It it does sit sort of in the center, and it is around a center Piazza, which is sort of a courtyard, and that is done so that there are gatherings that you know would happen in there, and would minimize the noise you know, which would presumably be more prevalent on the on the outside. So I would say that we are trying to stick with and meet, you know, all the design guidelines set forth by the town of Wayland and and so I think that's really a brief description of of what the complex is. Can I William Sterling: interrupt you for a second at this stopping point? Selanda, I need your your full name, and I presume you're with DSK. Is that Unknown: right? Yes, it's Sean, S, S, H, A, U, N, Landon,
William Sterling: okay, I got it. Unknown: Thank you. Sorry it didn't show up that way in the header. William Sterling: Is Courtney also going to speak? Or do we move on? Unknown: I am here in order to answer any questions. My name is Courtney Borelli, also from DSK architects, good.
William Sterling: So I guess now then I would, I'd pass the baton around to our board members. Robin, would you like to ask any questions or discuss any of the things that you want them to address.
I think you're on mute.
Robin Borgestedt: Okay, sorry. One of the things we discussed last week is you commented today that you're trying to work with the topography in the area, but it seems like you're doing the opposite with some retaining walls and really pushing into that hill. And it seems like you're more fighting the topography than working with it. So that was a concern. We really don't know if you're working with the design guidelines, because this is really, there isn't enough detail in this plan to let us know whether that is or isn't true, and is just an awful lot of pavement here as well. So those were some of the concerns we had this. The massing of these buildings is just, I think, of concern, considering what was on the site before. So I think it's probably why you had some pushback from the butters. But I. Right, some concerns with the use of the space and the fact that we have very little detail to go on to know whether you're meeting the design guidelines in terms of the materials and the look and feel of the building and some of the other design guidelines that exist in Tom anything for you.
Tatiana Person: I'm wondering if, in addition to those plans that were presented, you have any 3d view for us to see how it's overall looks, how it sits on the hill, maybe we misread the plan, and it's a bit different.
William Sterling: I'm sorry, Tanya, I didn't hear all of that. Tatiana Person: I was wondering if they could present any 3d view representing the design.
William Sterling: I think that's a good question. I
Unknown: uh, I guess we could present that. I'm not sure how to to actually get that up on the screen. William Sterling: You have the drawings you submitted. Robin could actually post all those, if you Robin Borgestedt: want. Yeah, there isn't really the, well, we have the plans. I'm just, my point is that I think they're they don't really give us details in terms of finishes and materials and things like that, which is what we're supposed to be reviewing. So but I would, Mr. Landon, I'm sure you can share your screen and show the plans if you have them that you want to show Unknown: we do have an axon. It's right on the second page. That helps a little bit. It is a little bit difficult, obviously, with the amount of topography here to see, but page two does have an axon view.
They said we don't have it. Tatiana Person: Robin, maybe I could pull it on the screen. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, I can share my screen if you guys can't
Unknown: unmute it. It.
Robin Borgestedt: So is this the plan you're talking about? Yes, Tatiana Person: so maybe on this view, you could explain to us how you work with topography and how those buildings work together.
William Sterling: I actually have a few questions that might help launch the answers you're looking for. There are, there are things that we that I would ask, even without all the detailed information. And by the way, I there may be a lot of pushback from abutters about seeing an Egyptian style Coptic church, but I think that as applicants are within their rights, given the state Dover law that was passed that a project can't be rejected because of the style of the building you're putting up there. So that that is basically it's not a valid criticism from a legal point of view. You may hate it, but that's completely legal, so that will not be part of our discussion. Except I would say I've been to Egypt, and I've been to see Coptic churches, and I think it's actually very similar to St Mark's and Alexandria. I think it's consistent with the style of the traditions of that of that religion. And I think it's very interesting. I think I also think, though, that rather than being strictly reproduct, reproduction of a traditional design that goes back 1000 years that you may want to talk to the owners The property about, first of all, there's this building design code that is now strictly imposing solar panels on the roof and other environmental you know, I should say sustainable methods of design. The only one that comes to me on this is that it may be an interesting kind of variation of that style to push it in the direction of a passive solar so that the size of the walls that face south could be more glass than the sides that face. East North could be less from a sustainable point of view without really sacrificing the traditional appearance of the building. And I would take that one step further and say that our mission in Wayland is to be a green community, and we would therefore encourage a net zero building. And this is an opportunity for you and your client, where you have a long term investment, they could do a cost benefit analysis and determine the benefit of doing a net zero energy building, whether it's solar or a combination of solar and geothermal, or what have you to to achieve that goal. And I think that the one that I feel is easy is free energy is passive solar, where you can face the glass of the buildings to the south, shade them with solar shades. And then I'm thinking more of the your diocese Center and the school, that if you orient them to the south and face glass with solar shading, you get a lot of free energy in the winter that has really no extra cost, because you're just building the building envelope in it with glass in different places, and less glass on the north face, where you have nothing but heat loss through glass on the north side of the building. So that's something I would hope that. And if you're looking for a project that will get a lot of positive attention and feedback, I think that going net zero and showing how you can do that and still have a traditional looking building would make the magazines, if that's something you're looking for. The other questions, I think, that we will not have tonight, I agree with Robin that we don't have detailed information yet, but one of the big questions, I'm sure the neighbors will be concerned about as well, will be the lighting of the parking lot and the how you intend to achieve a dark sky. And I would just say off the top of my head that whatever part you do have requirements for making that parking safe, and the requirements for lighting levels of five foot candles and so forth, you will be required to have lights for lighting up that parking lot. But a way to make it less intrusive on the neighbors, I think that I agree with you. If you settle this site into the hill, then the neighbors are less likely to be bothered by the lights. But I think even better, would be going with low profile lights. That means they're only 12, or at the most, 14 feet off the ground. It means you'll have to have more of the poles, but also well shielded lights that are not visible from any public way. And if you're going to achieve that, I think, I think that the zoning board will probably be very happy about the the only other question I had was, you Yes, the I'm trying to read my notes while talking. I'm sorry,
yeah, the only other thing was that you don't need to just meet the minimum code standard. It would be ideal if you'd go beyond the minimum code standard, standard for building envelopes and solar energy and so forth. That's if you want to respond to that and answer questions about that. I would appreciate that tonight. Otherwise, you know, we'll open it up to other people who are watching. Unknown: So to to speak about the the solar we we have basically covered all of the flat roofs of the Diocese building and the north side of the building B with with panels there, and we are basically just in. In the site planning approval process, and have not gotten to the schematic design phase of the buildings just yet. And so the the materials, or the materiality of the buildings has not been designed yet. We have forms for each of the buildings, and the size of the building was basically designed to provide adequate space for the number of parishioners that they have. And so that really kind of sets the the parameters for the church building in terms of the lighting. We are We are well aware of dark night, and we have done a lighting study, as well as a an acoustic study, you know, for the building complex. And so we're looking into all of those and how best to serve the project and the neighborhood around it. So I guess I really just want to make it known that we're very early on in the design phase of the buildings and all of these things you know, will be taken into consideration and best practice, like I said, for the church And for the neighborhood will be incorporated,
Tatiana Person: also additional comment regarding the site planning, if you are still in the earlier stage, maybe you should consider to register redistribute the parking. It's kind of unfortunate that as you enter into this complex, the first thing that you face, it's quite significant amount of parking. Unknown: We have a a code, which, I guess is it's one parking space per three people. And so we have provided the number of spaces that meet the occupant load for the building complex. And so that's what, that's, what's driving the parking around the buildings. Tatiana Person: I understood the number of parking, but just to consider it, to redistribute it differently. So it's the parking, it's won't be the first thing, because you enter the bill as a side. Basically you see, you do see this charge, but basically your see the parking lots right away. Maybe it should be somehow taken to the back, or Unknown: we have been very push the parking towards the back of the site, really, because that's the Turkey Hill side of the site which is closest to residential neighbors. So we're really trying to orient the parking towards rice road on that side, versus having those parking spaces up towards residential neighbors.
Tatiana Person: Okay, maybe in this case, just green barrier between the parking and the buildings would help as well. Unknown: We have also done a landscape plan. So that landscape plan encompasses the entire site, and so there is a combination of trees and shrubberies being used to essentially replace the trees that are being removed. And so, as you would imagine, there is, there's quite an extensive amount of landscape going in there, and I think that that's going to really soften the parking space as well as the buildings, the trees along rice road will remain as they're in the wetland buffer so. So landscape is, is, is being thought about quite extensively.
Robin Borgestedt: I think at our last meeting, when we discussed the application, I don't remember if it was Bill or Tanya, but somebody had suggested that instead of two large parking lots, that you have one two story parking lot, so that there was less impermeable space. I uh, just a thought noted. Thank you, Bill,
do you want to open it up for public comment? William Sterling: Yeah, I don't have any. Other questions at this point, so I think I will ask anyone who wants to raise their hand. I will try and there's one I'm just going to order. I have them there. That's Oh, sorry. Go ahead again. I thought you were muted. Robin Borgestedt: He is muted. JL, Hello, yeah, yes, can you state your name and your street address for the record? Unknown: Yes, it's Joseph shared her 147 rice road. Okay, I guess the question I have, and maybe this isn't the right forum for that, I'm just kind of surprised that I heard about this for the first time, like recently, is this, are they digging into conservation land for those parking lots?
William Sterling: Bill, do you want to let the architect answer that? Listen. JJ, here is your reminder,
Robin Borgestedt: Mr. Landon or miss Borelli, do you want to address that question? Unknown: JJ, sure. The entire property is owned by the church, and none of it is conservation property. So you're putting all three of those buildings in that small property. Then it is five and a half acres.
William Sterling: You answer that let me, Susan, I will let you ask a question. Unknown: Thank you. My name is Susan Todd, and I'm a resident of Turkey Hill village, and I was reading the general guidelines for the town, the design guidelines, general guideline number one says newly constructed buildings should not overwhelm or disregard the adjacent context with regard to building, location, Scale, bulk, massing, material, color, texture and fenestration. And my question is whether or not the Dover amendment allows for a church to be exempt from all the general guidelines of the town, which clearly would be severely challenged by a building project of this scale and scope. Can you help me understand, William Sterling: I know a little bit about the Dover amendment that basically is based on exactly this kind of a question in the town of Dover, I believe it was a Catholic church tried to get a zoning approval, and town of Dover turned them down. So they appealed it to the state. The state overturned that, and then they passed a law saying no one can ever do this again. So yes, this is another case where Dover amendment is designed exactly for this condition. You can't just say it's too big for my neighborhood.
Can I go into another question? Nicole, I'm just calling the order they show up here.
Unknown: Can you hear me?
Robin Borgestedt: Fairly?
Unknown: Yes, Hi, I'm Nicole Goodwin. I live at one Turkey Hill. So I'm located, I literally just moved in to this location, and I believe my property is going to be directly affected by this expansion. So I'd love more information on what I am going to see and lose in my backyard, because I'm right. Is there going to be information provided in terms of tree line and sight line for me being in that location?
William Sterling: Let me interject first before the architect answers that. I think I would encourage them, when they get to that stage of the design, to improve on this isometric drawing that they've done with actual perspective renderings, basically overlays of photographs of the various views that people driving on rice road and in the. Neighborhood will see. I think that's going to be very important for everyone in the town to get perspective views from the public ways. Now I let the architect answer in any way they feel they should. Unknown: Mr. Sterling, I think you're you're absolutely correct. The fact that we find the building in Revit and we do have sitting in the site, gives us the opportunity to be able to look at and gage the amount of coverage that would be between in a butters property in the church. The plan for for the trees, around the parking and around the perimeter of the of the site, our plan to to stay there, to remain and provide that Piper. And you know, as you you know, we are in the very beginning stages of this design, and we can continue to look at that further if it seems like we are, you know, coming across as offensive to anybody. So I guess that's our response. Yeah. I would, I would greatly appreciate that. That'd be really thoughtful, knowing that, I mean, I know this area is considered chosen for its sort of nature and its peace and quiet, and that is why I moved here. And I, you know, I also appreciate your ability to worship. And I just, I would, I would appreciate that being thoughtful in terms of how you guys, I already am aware of the noise of the children from the church. So if that could be heavily considered, since I am, like, literally right behind the property, I would greatly appreciate that. Thank you.
Robin Borgestedt: I would point out that in the plans that were submitted with the application, there are some elevations from different sides. It's not always clear what you know where there'll be trees blocking your view from that elevation, but you should review those. And I think I would remind people that they might want to attend the at least go on to the Zoom link for the October 15 Planning Board meeting where this will be discussed much more in detail. Unknown: Definitely, definitely. Thank you, William Sterling: noi, I would encourage the Kent Walker to speak. He had plugged in earlier and talked before, Aunt Walker Unknown: computer, his wife, Helene Feinberg Walker and we are at 13 Brandywine in Turkey Hill village. And I have to first say something positive, which is, I enjoy the noise of the children playing. It's happy noise, and I'm glad that that's provided for them. What I'm interested in asking now is if there's been an impact study on a scenic highway, and I don't know that Dover was having a church built on the scenic highway and in a conservation area. And I don't know if some exemptions can be made for that. That's one thing is our scenic Highway, which will have a very large a building, three large buildings. They may be very beautiful buildings, but nonetheless, there are three very large buildings with Spire, two spires and a dome. And the other part of that, aside from the scenic highway, is the there's a lovely buffer of many mature trees right along the road between Turkey Hill on Turkey Hill Road. The church side has wonderful mature trees. Um, a very lovely buffer zone there. So from where I live, I don't see the church. The buffer of the trees is beautiful. Plus they're wonderful mature trees, and my understanding is that they'll be taken down about 450 mature trees, replaced with baby trees and shrubs and parking and impermeable surfaces. And this is, I mean, we came here for the conservation land. It's gorgeous, that's what brought us, and it's peaceful and quiet. You see Fox, you see Turkey, SWAT turkeys. Anyway, I'm hoping that a lot of thought will be given to the nature of the area, the nature of the area, and the nature of the area, and how that. That will be disrupted. Thank you. William Sterling: Thank you. I missed your name, your first name, Helene, Unknown: he L, E, N, E. William Sterling: Thank you for giving your information. Let me go on then to the next one on this. This, this, Barbara,
Unknown: Hello, yes, can hear you. Barbara,
to me whether the planning board has already approved this or what? William Sterling: What is your last name? Barbara? Oh, Unknown: no, no. I live on 1201. Magnolia drive. William Sterling: Thank you. Unknown: So my question? Well, I have a couple questions. One, has the planning board approved this? Robin Borgestedt: It hasn't even come before the planning board yet. Unknown: Okay, and the design is not detailed yet. When is it anticipated that construction would begin after approval. If there is approval, the William Sterling: architect would have to answer that. I don't know if their schedule is like Unknown: the schedule right now would be towards the end of 2027
Okay, so the future sessions with the planning board and the zoning board are all preliminary to approval. Is that? William Sterling: Yes, that's right. Unknown: Thank you. Okay, William Sterling: thank you for joining in. Beth Raynor is next.
Hello. Unknown: I'm Beth Raynor, or Elizabeth Raynor. I'm at eight, Christina in Turkey Hill. And I also had a number of questions, as Healey raised because the drawings would indicate that although the architect mentioned trees being planted, it really looks as if the asphalt will go right to the property line. So from all the views that we can see, they'll either be parking or there will be a fire road, also asphalt on the perimeter, and there doesn't even appear to be any space to replace the 450 trees that will be removed. I would like to add that I don't believe that any of the, at least any of the Turkey Hill village residents that I have talked to have any issue with the nature of the church design, as much as scope, scale and removal of the natural resources on the property and replacement of that with impermeable surfaces. So I just wish to say that, and I did want to say that I am a little confused, because I know the Dover amendment does protect the, you know, religious communities from building spaces where they it's important for them to worship. However, I see this project as having multiple uses and one includes religious worship, their church. One includes, so, you know, a church complex, I would say, and then once, an athletic complex. So that includes a soccer field, as I understand it, that although it wasn't seen on all the drawings, that there would be a soccer field, there would be interior basketball courts and such. So I consider that sort of a separate thing from worship. And then the third being the housing, which is, you know, a 25 apartment complex. So I see this as not a single building or even a group of buildings for worship, but really a much larger scope, and I think this is the problem. I certainly know that that I'm experiencing and trying to understand, and also if the if the architect could speak, given the extremely large scale of this, as to how long they perceive the anticipate, the project, the construction to go on, how many years? Because it would seem that many, many years would would be required to do this. So thank you for listening. William Sterling: Those are great questions, I think that the Arctic may be able to answer what. The phasing. You answered what phase one might be, but you didn't answer what two and three, or a and b and c you call them. So do you have an answer to that? Yes. Unknown: So the phasing is set up that building a, which is the church. We're trying to get into the design of the church before the end of the year, and that will take, basically, to, I believe, the end of August next year, to get through the building B, which is the recreational building with classrooms in it. There has been some discussion about the time in which that is is goes into design, and we haven't quite finalized that, but I think the presumption is anywhere from three to five years. And the Building C, which is the diocese building, is considerably, much longer than that. After building B,
William Sterling: 1015, years is there's no guess. Unknown: I would say you're not far off. Robin Borgestedt: And do you have any idea? I think what they're asking is how long the actual construction will take, if you're starting in 2027 How long do you expect construction to go on? Unknown: We've estimated the construction time to be about 18 months for the church and similar for the building date.
William Sterling: That sounds all right. And I don't think
that our committee can answer the questions, the legal questions about I can take a guess, but I'm not a lawyer, so I don't think we can answer that. I think that really will come down to the legal staff for the applicant to explain and defend. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, yeah. I think you'll hear more about that in the planning board meetings where that's more of an issue, because the design review board doesn't we don't approve or deny anything. All we do is evaluate and advise. So Dover is not really so much of a concern for us. It's really a planning board issue. William Sterling: Yeah, let me go to the next raised hand. Meyer Dana,
Unknown: hello, hello. Can you hear me? Yes. I just had a few questions Robin Borgestedt: name and address, first, oh, nine. Christina Unknown: in Turkey Hill village. William Sterling: I didn't hear that. I'm sorry. Unknown: Nine Christina, okay, thank you. The plan that you actually put up on the screen a while ago shows the main entrance. What it doesn't show is, is that the only access point no onto the property.
I mean, right now they use a driveway that comes in off of Turkey Hill Road, William Sterling: as they show they showed two driveways, both off rice road, Unknown: the drive from Turkey Hill Road is being removed. Ah, there's William Sterling: a curve on rice road. On Unknown: the other question I had is, I It's a it seems a bit ingenuous that the architect would say what we're trying to do is recess the buildings into the hill to minimize their visibility to the neighborhood primarily, and certainly it's going to be Turkey Hill village. When the brief thing I saw about this, and I haven't had a chance to really look at prints is that the hill is 30 feet high and the church is going to be 90 feet high. Thank you. I mean, is that a correct statement? That is a correct statement The how is that burying it in the back the side of the hill. Well, we're not building it on top of the hill. You know, we're trying to for the for the folks in Turkey Hill. We're trying to give them relief in the form of the elevation change as well as the. The existing trees that are around the perimeter, and so that greatly reduces the overall height of what is being presented to them in in the way of the church elevation.
I think that's, I don't mean to be rude, but that's a self serving comment. It's going to stick up 60 feet above the top of the hill, yes, which is considerably more than, probably more than the trees that are there now, which apparently you're going to cut most of them down, not around the perimeter. William Sterling: I think it would help this discussion next time we meet to have the architect draw the buffer zone, break it out separately, so that the butters get a better picture of how much buffer there is, how many trees are in the buffer zones. Unknown: One other question, and I'm not I'm not familiar with the Dover amendment enough to and I'm not sure if this is the only place to go talk about it. I guess my impression is the DOVER amendment allows a church to build a church? William Sterling: No, it's not just a church. It's any nonprofit. It's opened up much wider than people seem to think, Unknown: and that includes schooling, housing, and then office building could be
there's no office building. You know, in this space, I assume that's what the diocese center is, or what the front building on rice road. That's a that's actually the main space is to be used for gathering, sort of a function hall.
I see, I I just, I kid, I can't get over the mass of this project in relation to the location. I think it's, it's takes away from the whole ambience of why people are living in this area. But so be it, it's nothing more I can say.
William Sterling: Thank you. Ken brush has raised his hand,
is Ken still on? I think it should
Robin Borgestedt: be, I guess not. Well, he's muted. Mr. Brass, you're muted. Can you unmute yourself? Okay. Can you hear me now? Now we can. Unknown: Yes. Hey, I live at five. Brandy one. I like the fact that this includes housing, because I think there's a critical need for more housing. My two questions, though are to reduce the scope of this project, is there a possibility to retrofit the existing church building to not serve as not to replace the church, but perhaps to reduce the need for, I don't know, maybe building three. And my second question involves the environmental impact of removing 400 trees on the topography, particularly with regards to rain, snow, ice melt, that change of, as I said, topography, how is, what's the impact of that? Is that been looked into less we have to deal with flooding, center, basement. Thank you. William Sterling: Thank you for asking those again. Robin Borgestedt: My response would be that you should participate in the planning board meetings and any Conservation Commission meetings and other meetings that will come up later on in this process, starting with planning board on October 15, that's really outside the purview of design review. I think. Is that true? William Sterling: Bill, yeah, I think that's true. Now we had someone race again. I'll go back to
Robin Borgestedt: Jay, Mr. Sheridan, yeah,
William Sterling: if you would like to ask,
Unknown: Hey, can you hear me? I'm sorry. I'll lower my hand. I actually did that. I apologize. Robin Borgestedt: No problem. Is there anybody else?
William Sterling: I didn't see any others. Robin Borgestedt: That's it. Anybody else for public comment? Last call.
Mr. Brush, did you have something else to say? Or you just still have your hand up?
Unknown: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Robin Borgestedt: that's okay. Just wanted to make sure, yep.
William Sterling: So is there any closing statement that the applicant would like to make before we move on to another item on our agenda?
Unknown: Yeah, I just, I want to thank you for giving us this opportunity to present this and allow us to hear the comments from from the crowd. The building, I just want to say, is basically been carefully designed to balance the tradition and function, you know, of the community. And you know, I know that there's been a lot of talk about, you know, the the size and massing of the building, but we, we are doing our best to break them down into, you know, more, you know, three buildings, so that it's not just a, you know, too large or, you know, one large building. And so we're doing, you know, everything that we we can to to make the building function as well as provide a complex that that does actually fit in there. So I just wanted to take that time to make that point. Okay, thank you. William Sterling: Any committee members have any more comments, or should we continue this hearing? Because I think it was pretty clear that we don't have enough information to really make a decision yet. So we would like to continue this hearing to a time when the architects could answer some of these questions about parking lot lighting, buffer zones and proposed an existing landscape that will be Unknown: just that they're not going to approve anything they don't have enough information, and that the architects have to come back with a laundry list of stuff they're giving them Sorry. Robin Borgestedt: Can people please mute themselves if they're not speaking? Thanks. Yeah.
William Sterling: So I think that enough, though, that we we need more information and we look forward to seeing the answers.
Robin Borgestedt: Do we need to continue this to a specific date? Otherwise, we're supposed to issue a decision within No, William Sterling: that's true. Does the architect able to tell us when they can be ready with revised proposed plan? Unknown: I think we'll have to get back to you on that. I don't think we can do that at this this time. Okay,
Robin Borgestedt: so then we need it. Do we need an extension so that we don't hit our 30 day? Well, I checked William Sterling: with Robert on that we used to have to do that when I was on the zoning board, but he says it's no longer required. We just reschedule when they're ready. Robin Borgestedt: So then I move that we reschedule us to a point in time when the architect and the applicant already with more detailed information. William Sterling: Okay, anyone want to second that? Tanya? Want to second
Robin Borgestedt: that? Say it out loud. Tanya, Tatiana Person: yes, second. William Sterling: Okay, thanks. We're all in favor, I presume, of Yes. Thank you all for coming. It's been a really interesting discussion, and I think this kind of open communication will lead to, I'm sure that can lead to a number of compromise solutions that will certainly, you know, certainly be an improvement over what you feel is going in right now. I hope that it will have open discussions in the future.
Unknown: Thank you. Thank you for coming. All right. Thank you. Thank you for having us so. William Sterling: The next item on the agenda is the review of the Wayland design guidelines. And anyone who wants, I guess, could stay. I. Are tuned. I would leave it again, open it up to Tanya and Robin. If you had any new comments having looked at the meeting notes, you may that may refresh your memory of what we had discussed and whether you have any comments, if not, I think that what we may have to do is basically assign folks to take on different aspects that were discussed at the meeting.
Tatiana Person: I don't have new comments. I could repeat my old one, if needed. Okay? And I do think there is a significant difference, distinguished difference between residential and commercial architecture, which should be identified in the guidelines. Yeah, it could be commercial. Commercial architecture could be done in the traditional, respectful way, respectful way to the environment and and context and but it should have different feel involved in surrounded, surrounding residential architecture and elements, material, lighting, should be identified in a different way for commercial versus for residential area. And I think we do need distinct commercial we're trying to create a commercial district, and for that very reason, we need to identify a proper, proper architecture for this. And in addition to the specific guidebooks, guidebooks that was presented, I think we need better examples than what's there. So just additional comment the sketches that were presented, I think we should look for and find better examples that will represent this idea. Also the very important things that the density. We should look at the density of this area and define its should be defined also in the guidelines. Okay,
William Sterling: great. Thanks. And Robin, Robin Borgestedt: yeah. I mean, most of the things that you listed, I think there were seven things looking here, yeah, six things. Most of them were fine. You know, the the I DoD should be, there should be a map in there, and I'm sure Robert can provide one the photo affinities coming out. Obviously, I didn't know if there's something else that we can think of that represents sort of a modern village style. Finnerty certainly wasn't a modern village style. You know? I guess you know, they're the the sort of, the large office building that's in this in on route 20, that yellow building, and the the building next to the post office, it's a small office building there, and the CVS, you know, those, I think, what most people would think of as a village style commercial thing. But, you know, if we want to do other things that are have a more modern feel than we should be providing an image. So I don't know if somebody has something off the top of their head that they want to if we want to next, you know, at another meeting, look at some photos of buildings and pick what goes in there, and then make the design standard. If we're broadening that for commercial property, then you know, we can look at those images and see what we can do to sort of make William Sterling: a great first step that we, maybe all three of us, come up with some photographs that we can share at the next meeting and that we would insert as good examples. I think that's great. Tony. You what you just discussed. It'd be great if you go out and find some buildings you can photograph and say this is Tatiana Person: what you're talking about. Yeah. William Sterling: Well, I was even thinking after your comment last week, Robin of driving back through Concord because you had mentioned that. And I, I know it's true, but I want to go back and look at how many and what vintage and what what it is that makes them, you know, fit into that sort of village style. Robin Borgestedt: Yep, I think that. You know. And even, you know, downtown Wellesley has, you know, it has a vibe. It's got a thing going on, and it's so you can kind of look there, and there's good, bad and ugly there as well. So, yeah, and then, so, you know, we had some building materials we wanted to discourage. And that's matter of you know, coming up with a list, I think you two are probably better at that than I am, because I don't really know the extensive array of building materials that are out there. And then, yes, signage. I think we're going to work on signage with the zoning board and planning board and see what we can do there. Yep. So yeah, you know there was some images you wanted to replace, so we can just work on that. Let's do that. So like you want to pull out the sketch of the Shell gas station to see if we can find something that is acceptable, I don't know William Sterling: well, it none of them will ever actually fit into, you know, either residential or commercial style, because they're they're always just Flat Roof, you know, protection from the Robin Borgestedt: weather? Yeah? Well, there has to be some somewhere, William Sterling: delicate ways of detailing, those right, really ugly ways of detail. So I think we can find a couple examples that are least offensive. Let's put it that way. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, they sometimes. That's all you can get. Yeah. So, and that was sort of the list. So it's just something we kind of have to work through as we go along. But I think starting with some images, and then sort of going backwards, taking the images that we like, that we agree on, and then extrapolating a description out of that to turn into a design guideline. Great. William Sterling: I think it's great. So if there's nothing else on the design guidelines, we can move on to the next topic if Unknown: you want. Yep.
William Sterling: Okay, so that's just the meeting notes from the last meeting.
I sent a copy. I already had a Nina send you a copy. I hope you got it. I don't know. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah, I just got it. I haven't really had a chance to read through it. It's longer than our usual minutes. William Sterling: Oh, yeah, because we really discuss a lot. Yeah. Robin Borgestedt: So maybe we can approve them at a we do we know when we're having our next meeting aside tonight. That's right, we can do another meeting in a couple weeks. William Sterling: Okay? We'll defer that. And then then I can make a motion that we adjourn at 806. Robin Borgestedt: Okay, I second it, I second it, William Sterling: okay, all those in favor, yes. Tanya Belton, okay, it's uh, it was a good meeting. Thanks a lot.
Economic Development Committee
12-Sep-25 - Economic Development Committee01:33:39
28-Aug-25 - Economic Development Committee33:31
14-Aug-25 - Economic Development Committee01:33:27
Rebecca Stanizzi: Alright, we
will call to order the Wayland
EDC meeting for September,
Friday, September 12. 2005 one
may be a watch or might
participate remotely with the
meeting link that can be found
on the agenda pursuant to
chapter two of the acts of 2025
this meeting will be conducted
in person and via remote means,
in accordance with applicable
law. This meeting will be
recorded and made available to
the public on WayCAM as soon
after the meeting as is
practicable. So with that, I'm
not seeing any attendees or
public comment. No one is here
publicly. Technically, this is a
hybrid meeting, but all the
participants right now are in
person. So Karen Kelly, Katie
Harris, David Larry and myself,
Rebecca Stan, see, we may have
one other person joining
remotely, I believe, so we'll
keep track when that happens. So
meeting minutes from August 28
was not able to get those done
yet. That was again, sort of our
meeting of just tackling the
memo. So we'll do that for next
time town planner update, I
added it, but Robert is still on
vacation, so back next week, I
think. So hopefully next
meeting, we'll be able to get
that, get that report from him.
I did note on the planning board
agenda, they mentioned the
splash pad in the town planner
report at the end. I didn't
watch it,
Karen Kelly: but Oh, from when
Rebecca Stanizzi: they met
Wednesday, I think usually go
back and we came and you can
yep, yep, just swing by and ask
Anina, because it was a Nina who
reported instead of Robert.
Karen Kelly: So okay, because it
was
Unknown: this past Wednesday.
Yeah, yeah, I'll pop in and
watch that
Katie Noble Harris: link. David, if you happen to David Villari: it'll take me, like, three days to find it, but I will, well, Rebecca Stanizzi: it's always at the end. So on the agenda, it's always the town planner report at the end that Yes. So, yes, yeah. So just deliver for Adina speaking. And you know, time of date, timestamp, Karen Kelly: wait till Monday to look right, David Vallari: just because it'll take, Rebecca Stanizzi: sometimes it takes a couple of days. Yeah, and it's funky right now. It's not an I don't think they switched it back. It's still, you go to wake him, usually you see the whole grid of meetings. But it's like, it's not working right now. I think they're posting directly to YouTube or something, I don't know, but go look at the top of the list, and you'll see them there. Marvel. David Villari: Yeah, I'll find at some point. And then when I do, I'll send a link today, and we can save Rebecca Stanizzi: Alright, so the EDC annual reports. So for newbies, if you've never seen, actually, the Wayland town report, it's like they publish a book pretty much every year, and every board and committee gives a report of what they did for the past year. So usually it's like they say to be about 1000 words. This is about 1100 but ultimately, so we're saying before I struggled to get it below 1000 like, Oh, it's just the guidelines. Okay, so it just kind of gives an update of the business that you did in the fiscal year. So that is July 120 24 through June 30 of 2025, which is the fiscal year. Karen Kelly: So they're a digital copy of it. Rebecca Stanizzi: There must be on the on the website. Yeah, it's usually there's like, stack of them sitting around somewhere, but, yeah, it's kind of interesting. Flip through a nail. Like everybody, every board and committee is reporting on what they did Unknown: so well. And that would be like, if we did have a digital copy, that would be a great thing to to like when you think about what is the use of AI and and not some are trying to listen to meetings where there's many people talking in person, and some are not, but to actually take something like this that's been approved by every single town board and committee in writing and then be able to push that out as a piece of content a podcast or Something like that, right? That's good point me to be a lot more accurate. Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: Probably really wonder how many people actually read it, but there's a lot of ton of useful information Katie Noble Harris: in it. Yeah. So is there a digital copy, or we're not sure, Rebecca Stanizzi: it must be posted on the website somewhere, okay, thank Interesting. Yeah, who would be the right person ask? Yep, yep. I'm sure if you look on the web, it's almost got a beat. I don't know if it's a state requirement, but it's really something they've they've done. Katie Noble Harris: So when does it usually release the whole Rebecca Stanizzi: Fay. It's always due by September 30, yep. And then, typically you see it within like, a month or two. So they just format everything and then just print it all out. It's literally like, you know, it's like a book like that, kind of interesting in your record of what the town did for eons and eons go back years. So were there any comments on this? Anything that didn't read, right? Anything I forgot,
Karen Kelly: anything to add
Katie Noble Harris: that was great. It was like, super informative. And Memory Lane, yeah, Unknown: we did do a lot, a lot good, great.
Rebecca Stanizzi: And then liaison, I put in. And slash Tom, because technically, as of the end of the fiscal year, we had Tom, but just and technically Nick was still our clerk as of the end of fiscal year 25 because that was the end of his term. But so it's literally that snapshot at the we had 30th 2025 Unknown: haven't shared a survey that we didn't hear. I'm sorry, no, Rebecca Stanizzi: and they, they limit you and what you can attach as visuals and attachments, things Unknown: like that. No, I don't mean to start. I mean, they know, okay, that you Rebecca Stanizzi: that we did the survey, the survey results are not Unknown: that's fine, okay, yeah, sorry, that's awesome.
Great. So we could, but no, I want to make sure that we that's mentioned in here. It is interesting. Katie Noble Harris: This is just a tiny note not to belabor anything. But like that, some of these things, like the economic development bond bill and then the tip funds, those are something that like are going to keep they haven't happened yet, and so we're going to have to keep, keep going, keep going with them to get the those big Rebecca Stanizzi: funds. It takes years. Yeah, yeah. So report that went so last year there was like a wrap up of October occupied and generating full tax revenues. So it's like, that snapshot, and then it was like, Oh, we have a new it's like, it literally just sold. But otherwise, you know, before it was just what you did on rivers. I mean, Riverside took us eight years, so it was a long time. So some are longer, some are shorter. All right, any other comments? David, you have anything that you want? David Villari: Just very nice. Minor edits to that one section. Small words, Rebecca Stanizzi: just on the non critical Yeah, to the splash pad. Okay, ground area. Does that say what you guys wanted to say? Is it like a fair capture as of June 30, you guys actually sent the memo? Oh, not until after Labor Day, right? Um, so we in there at all will be recommending, because we were definitely talking about it in June. Yeah, we started talking about it may is considering,
David Villari: is considering, considering is considering, and then maybe just help on wording to reduce some pieces of the funding discussions there CPA only is where I think we're worth exploring, like local fundraising and then Tom meeting budget as well, if needed. Yep, the town Rebecca Stanizzi: meeting budget, you'd be capital budget, and you're going to be down the totem pole, right? So you're not gonna be able to most likely either way, I think so. Saying CPA only might restrict us. Okay? So I'll take it only Yeah, David Villari: and then and amenities, I think would be the only other thing. Yeah, yeah.
Katie Noble Harris: I was interested in the on the last page, the EDC sponsored article for the historic facade of Sydney. I That's the first I've heard of that is, would we ever want to check back in on that, or is it just not worth it? Rebecca Stanizzi: So it came down to the prop. It's a private property. Yeah, right. And so it was an older gentleman and had health and family issues, and he just couldn't kind of get motivated enough to do it. So essentially, CPA said, you know, you've had it for three years. We've set aside those funds, but if you see, he's not going to use it. And so that's we said to him, like, get move it or lose it, right? And basically, let go, because he just couldn't, couldn't quite deal with it. So that was, that was very sad, because we know if the building is still owned by that same person, I have heard it might have been bought by the people next door, who, when he was saying that they might be interested, they were not interested in doing the historic so might be worth checking in. We can always go back to CPA, go back to town meeting, re request the funds, but that's sort of the discipline. They let it go for a little while, but at the end of the day, they don't want to hold on to those David Villari: funds forever. So yeah. So just Katie Noble Harris: curious, if it's worthwhile for us to even just know who the owner of that building is. Seems like a lot of work to try to get those funds. Maybe we don't want to focus our energy on but might just be worthwhile Rebecca Stanizzi: knowing it'd be easy. Now everybody knows what it was, and you know, sort of, oh, look, they're back and they're willing to do it, and here's their signed document. David Villari: Then it could probably be very pretty quick. So, Katie Noble Harris: 70 to 70. Okay, Rebecca Stanizzi: anything else?
Hearing? None? Do I hear a motion to approve. Katie Noble Harris: Motion to approve Unknown: a motion second, second and second. All in favor. Karen, Hi, Katie, hi, Becky. All right. Rebecca Stanizzi: So, so approved as amended. So this came in hot at the last minute that you EDC goals. So given that we did not get you guys have it right, given that we don't have Val's in here, and also given that Jeff didn't rank the major categories, but this just gives you kind of a data dump of where people are at and then also what people wanted to spearhead, and either that or work on so we can kind of digest it a little bit. I mean, even I admit it's really a chance to kind of really deep dive into the data. And kind of typically, what we do before is then rank them. You show where those priorities are based on where the numbers popped out. But you can kind of see, you know, the major categories. It's interesting to see where people were seeing what was important. And a lot of this is also, you know, important based on the time that you have, because it's just only, only so much time in the day. So but, David, I was interested. I think you had a note, and you had several notes on yours, but, like, you had 10s, like, very low on existing corridor cleanup tasks. But why was that? I forget it was because, David Villari: because it should come down to, like, other departments to do the enforcement right, not necessarily. EDC, if we're, if we're, our charter is to, that's what Rebecca Stanizzi: you were feeling like Design Review Board was on top of it, sort of thing. David Villari: Bill Sterling and the team seems to have been empowered by Select Board to, like, take some control on all those guidelines, all those zoning laws, for the facade rules, etc. So, I mean, okay, but that was Rebecca Stanizzi: why you but you saw it as important, which was a high number, but then it was, like a low number. Well, exactly reverse. David Villari: That's exactly reverse. That's exactly that was why I think it's still really important for like, the overall objective of the EDC, like it played into it, but it's the responsibilities of Rebecca Stanizzi: another team to execute well, part of it, as we've seen, like, it falls in between a bunch of teams, right? So Design Review Board, they look at proposals coming in, not necessarily looking backwards, right? And then building department, they're also looking at what's coming in, and not necessarily they can, but they're often not. And so it's like, how do we, how do we marshal those and get them pushed forward? David Villari: So, but, like, so, like, the code administration, I think Robert said very specifically, like, that's the planning board's job Rebecca Stanizzi: on the zoning side, yeah. So part of it is, I think cataloging, which is what Katie and I were doing, literally walking around. And, you know, what do we want to be notifying property owners about? And then it's a question of, who is it going out through? David Villari: Yep. So, okay, Katie Noble Harris: that's actually doing the logistics, like the actual grunt work of making it happen, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, or making and making sure that it happens in the different directions. So, yeah, David Villari: yeah, don't let my 10s, like, super skew it. Do this kind of, Do I understand the roles? Yeah,
Katie Noble Harris: this is just one note. I'm curious to Karen, like, what you think about this. I think I would have said, like a year ago, like, put a one as to, like, reaching out to new businesses. And I will admit I can do more work on that front, and I'm happy to do it, depending on our decisions on this, but I kind of feel like my opinions have changed after working on outreach to a few businesses. Just kind of feels like maybe it's not worth our while, and that if people do want to expand, they will be looking at Wayland, Unknown: and so you're talking about existing or new, Katie Noble Harris: new coming to Wayland. It feels like maybe it's just not worth our time and energy to be going out and making I mean, yeah, occasionally like trying to do our best. But I just, I don't know, after some of the experiences and meetings we've had, I'm it kind of feels like it's a lot of effort for not a lot of Unknown: I appreciate you on that, and also, like the brokers are supposed to be doing this, yeah, yeah. I just it feels like we're, I feel like I'm trying to insert myself into space. I don't know well, and so, you know? And then it's like, well, then what's the process? So we, and then who, like, also thinking through, like, Who do we reach out to at these chains? You know, I think that's the other we might be totally barking the wrong tree. David Villari: Like, I think Jeff said it too. It's like that's very much a broker to broker transaction that we should stay out of, in a way. And I think I did the same thing. I marked that as lower down for us, but then higher up, I marked things like us putting a database together that represents those businesses or those empty storefronts, so that it's easier to access and find out. So give that to brokers. We have the sale brokers, you know, with all that information, all of the, you know, the one mile, two mile, three mile info, like, right at their fingertips, yeah, and then maybe that makes it a little easier, Katie Noble Harris: yeah, it feels like a different thing, reaching out to brokers, rather than like individual businesses. Rebecca Stanizzi: We can, we can hit. 15 or 20 different groups with that one broker. So we need to make sure that the brokers are educated and then David Villari: and see the vision of, like, where everything's trying to go, because they're not seeing that on the day to day, Rebecca Stanizzi: right? Yeah. And most important that they can reach out and who to reach out to at the town, because as they walk in blindly, right? And then you want them to at least have that, yeah, that connection, that conduit, David Villari: I have the same thoughts, Katie Noble Harris: yeah. I mean, does doesn't it feel like we've kind of trying to, yeah? Karen Kelly: No, I, I totally agree with you. Rebecca Stanizzi: That comes down to the predilections of the property owner and what their goals are, and then the vendor and like, there's so many variables, it's just hard to Yeah. Unknown: You think about as like, a risk discussion too. Like, is a business owner going to trust someone just like, as a town representative? It's going to be great. Like that should be a best business risk evaluation that they're doing on the broker sides. I don't think it's necessarily bad. I don't think it looks bad for an economic development group To, but I don't, I think like, we might like, but again, we might reach out to one of five potential people in an org, right, that like might be the one responsible for something like this, and then it just could be a lot of wasted energy. That's my biggest fear. And we only have so much time and David Villari: exactly, Rebecca Stanizzi: and the test case, like, if there is an economic development director, then people know to go to them, like, it's just that natural magnet, because otherwise, if it's not, like, do I got a planning board, do I got a slick board? Like, what do I do? But if there's an ed director, that's where you go if you want to potentially locate so that's the beauty of having that position. And then they are then full time or part time, you know, focused on that, right? Katie Noble Harris: And they're probably tapped into the brokers and the Rebecca Stanizzi: this, over time, they'll get to know everybody who's kind of sniffing around town. Unknown: So it's interesting, we actually all aligned on that. Yeah, I couldn't go I never picked any number low. It's five. My brain only works on scales of one to five. David Villari: I started to fill it out, then I put 10 is like, we should work on that. Yeah? Then you're Rebecca Stanizzi: like, I know. David Vallari: So I did that backwards for a minute. Katie Noble Harris: Is it 10 correct? Rebecca Stanizzi: The lowest
Karen Kelly: trend lines? I think, you know, David Villari: I can always just wait her scores, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, yeah. I think my lowest was a seven. So yeah, I David Villari: did try to, like, focus on putting things as higher, like 10s and eights and stuff, just because there's, like, six of us, yeah. And that was it, yeah. It's like, I think everything here on this list is important in some way, shape or form. It's just, if we have to tackle something to make an impact, what do we do? That's right, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: And then, you know, most importantly off to the right is who's willing to lead an issue and who wants to work on it, kind of seeing some of this stuff. And again, that's why saying, like, pick multiples just because they're, you know, we may have a wealth of people want to work on a certain topic. So that kind of gives a good view of what people are interested in. Karen Kelly: slacker, Rebecca Stanizzi: I know, and Katie. So Katie didn't do it. It was off to the side. Like, I want to do nothing. Unknown: I missed you. Like, look at this. I like and like, David Villari: you can just everything. I put my name next to and Karen too. I think that's where Katie's been, because we tend to overlap very well.
Rebecca Stanizzi: So I think over the next, you know, before next month's meeting, it's a lot to digest right here, but you can kind of look at the data, think it through. You can insert, I'll send it, we'll kind of recirculate the file. Okay, we'll get valves in there, and then, you know, kind of digest. But particularly, okay, it's interesting knowing where we want to go in prior years that there were so many things thrown at the wall, like we're pretty focused in what we're doing now. It's a Karen point. You know, Karen, you didn't have anything lower than a five, right? So it's kind of before. When we were first doing it was, like, all over the map, and you have things that we had a scale of one to five, and it wasn't dense enough, like it didn't give you enough with somebody else's three or something like that. So that was where the 10 came from. But so we'll get Vals Katie, if you can input your your wanting to lead and wanting to participate in and then, yeah, just kind of digest it and what you're seeing and kind of natural teams. David Villari: May find a couple in the others. And I think I might be the only one that did that. Rebecca Stanizzi: So sorry. No, no, you that's exactly what you're supposed to do. Unknown: But I think the only, like, real, other one that's worth discussing, or it needs more detail around it, I'll send a memo, is that last one on the last page, business vacancy fees, Rebecca Stanizzi: is that if there's a vacant storefront, then they're gonna I David Villari: found, like, a really nice set of case studies on like Wellington, they brought it down from like 17 vacancies all the way to six in less than a year, because they started to impose vacancy fees, basically for empty storefronts. Rebecca Stanizzi: We talked about this a bit. Did? We did? We're so unusual. Friendly already. Yeah. Rated that. But. David Villari: But like, who's whose friend should we be? Are we the brokers friend, or are we the town representative? Rebecca Stanizzi: In town, we represent property owners and we are the town. That's good. Clarity, right? That's fine. So it's kind of easy, like in Arlington, things that are more dense, it's much easier. It is typically a small spot in a bigger building. Here, it's typically the whole building, or it's, you know, it's much more impactful. So for us to do a fee that is meaningful enough to get their attention in reverse, it's going to be painful enough that they're going to be really annoyed, right? So it's, you know, part of it was, you know, before it was Whole Foods, that was, that was the poster child, right? That it was just sitting there empty Santander, Bank of America. You kind of knew that something they were paying but you know, kind of our big gaps in our teeth are now kind of filling in, which is good, David Villari: but the math is always like, this is a problem with plazas. And like any large landlord corporation like the math always favors them to boost rents higher, which strangles small businesses out, right? Because they always want, if I have 10 storefronts, and they're like, Okay, I could charge $5,000 a month and have six, you know, tenants, instead of 10, I have $30,000 coming in per month. Or, you know, another landlord come in and under charge and have all 10 filled. But that problem there is that they'd have now four extra, you know, utility bills, water bills, maintenance fees for extra people to keep track of, make sure they're paying their rent like it's a lot more work for them. So there's like, a cost benefit to landlords keeping rent high, and if you de incentivize that, then you bring that more neutral. Unknown: I just worry that we're already, we already struggle to attract retailers. David Villari: But it's not the retailers we're attracting. The brokers own it, right? And the retailers because of the rates of rent. Like, if you talk to businesses in the plaza, a lot of them say the same thing. They're like, rents pretty high, you know? And rents high, and that's controlled by Zurich, or whoever. Right? Katie Noble Harris: Could it be, I'm thinking, not for small businesses? Could it be something that is for larger properties? Yeah, I don't know if that changes your feeling Unknown: about it. I mean, I don't know if we don't think it would discourage I mean, it isn't right. It's not an impact on the small business. It's an impact on the person who owns the building.
Katie Noble Harris: And that owner of the building would have to meet a threshold either their national chain or their Karen Kelly: problem is, though, that the whole foods Plaza was 80% full. Yeah, yeah, it was just dark leases. Katie Noble Harris: So, but I think, couldn't it affect something like David Vallari: empty storefronts would be the like criteria that Rebecca Stanizzi: as a landlord, you can't force your tenant to occupy the space, so I don't know. But if you, if you saw something that was a good summary of case studies, David Villari: well, they, I'll send it. I mean, I created the case study list and stuff. Okay, but there was another one that looked at like, beautification is the wrong word, but it was like, they didn't upkeep the property. So the old Bank of America site, with the lack of mowing for how many years, would have been something that got, like fined, and eventually the fines would have outweighed just paying someone to mow the lawn. And so you would have had a mow the lawn, right? So it's, it's doesn't need to be big to be an impact, right? And get what you want out of the town center Unknown: there, I think, does that fall under the design guidelines? Rebecca Stanizzi: Like the plant flowing doesn't. That's the thing, the maintenance, the initial design does, the meat doesn't. And that's one of the questions is, you know, we sit down with Nate the building inspector and say, What? What do we have the rights control? We're not, we're not like a homeowners association. You have to keep your grass mode and your flowers, right? It's just so we may not have that tool. Should we have that tool in our code? You know that David Villari: all that, it's a tool that other towns have found out how to use. Yeah, right? Rebecca Stanizzi: Useful to know for the next time. David Villari: Yeah, so I'll write it up. I mean, I know, like, I totally hear it. I knew anyway, so I could be enrolled. Unknown: No, I don't think there's a right or wrong here. And I think, like, again, it's like, if it's we would just need to thread the needle, because there are so many ways that even Santander, technically, they're, they have a lease right, they they're getting rent money every month right from that bank. So unless we, in my mind, if we were to do something, we would need to do something that would also thread the needle of penalizing people who a lot like, take offices, yeah, that just like, remain unoccupied for more than six months, or something like that. And I don't know we can do that legally, but in my mind, that would be a practical component. Rebecca Stanizzi: That's one where somebody's paying rent but not looking occupies, correct. The next is like a town center that one corner, this kitty corner from ex golf and across for our sway, the new staff that has been empty from the beginning. It's still gravel in there, like we can do something, right? David Villari: So, oh, I had a question on that, because it was in the infographic. We say 90% is that on square footage? Or number of storefronts? I couldn't square footage. That's on square footage? Yeah, it's like, because the supermarket's huge, yeah. So what could we look at that, fortunately, number maybe as as also, like, what's the storefront vacancy? Because that I'd be curious about, is that more like 60% because it feels more like 60 Rebecca Stanizzi: well, by the time you had the medical bill, they'll be pretty high. I mean, it's just like, you know, yeah, Town Center Plaza. I mean, you have two that are, they're, they're right at Alyssa, Andrew, like they're so prominent, if the old artists of the kids strong space and then that want to cross, everything else is, David Villari: I think, still, I think I counted six when I was there last week that are just empty, empty stores. Yeah, I Unknown: don't know. To Cara, well, like to Carl going to bagel table and David Villari: to card spaces. There was a place behind Takara too, as well. That's a dermatologist. It's a services space available and big, plastered, you might Rebecca Stanizzi: just, but that's for Takara. Yeah. Just, yeah, dermatologist. Couple hair around that David Villari: way, either way. Like, I was curious, because it doesn't always feel like 90 when you're down there and you talk to the storefront people, and they're, Unknown: they're saying the same thing. Do you think it's but I do think it is close to 90, like, I think it just feels, the thing is, like, there's a lot of things about the way that Plaza was designed. Like, when we've gone in and talked to business owners, they're like, You never see people here. And part of that is the design things behind the swift and so you have these little pathways, you know, it's almost like a little street in there, but like, there's, you know, there's a reason why all the new types of like shopping positive squares with parking in the middle, and if you're sitting outside of the restaurant, you can see all the other restaurants and people walking around. There's a sense of, like, there's activity here, and that is just, Katie Noble Harris: it's designed backwards, almost the building space, in Karen Kelly: our very professional opinion, Rebecca Stanizzi: interesting with the new property owner does with it? Yeah, they're good at this. Yeah, they'll understand this. They could change, Katie Noble Harris: change the businesses to incoming businesses to face. Rebecca Stanizzi: They could change incoming businesses. They could add additional square they could reconfigure. They could do whatever, I think there's still additional retail space that they could build. They just haven't, they haven't chosen builders. You're listening. So that'll be those discussions with the David Villari: property owner, the other others that I had added here on support Wayland businesses that section talk about like the ribbon cuttings and the Wayland post and like that could tie in nicely, too, for people that are just driving by and on 20 that don't get the Wayland post Sudbury people. What if you had, like, chocolate therapy on the Billboard, like, one month Unknown: and then so is this an existing billboard? David Villari: You're thinking it's the billboard right at the town center that the town uses, like, every now and then they're advertising like, oh, the planes are coming through, yeah. But like, you see that when you're sitting at the light, yeah? Like it's very visible, yeah? And I'm just wondering, like, could we one week a month, right? Or one week a quarter, or whatever, get a business on there, grow the same Wayland Post article, yeah, and just highlight it, yeah, and then do the same thing in South Wayland and see if we drive a little traffic. Yeah. Unknown: Are you thinking about the what the intersection of old con path and 126 David Villari: Yeah, I couldn't think though, if there was an outboard type thing already in Rebecca Stanizzi: use there, there is, there is, yeah, there's one there and there's one at 20 and 25 Katie Noble Harris: Why would we ever want to do a new one, like an additional one, kind of up, up a little further. Unknown: We do need, like in general, we need signs that are promoting the retail, the current retailers in town, in town center, yeah, yes, the signage, I mean, David Villari: that's, it's after the intersection on the road, yeah. And you can Unknown: even see what's up there. You can't turn you can't see what's up there. There's no sign ahead of time. Yeah, it's just, like, there's just so many basic things I don't know. Like, if there's anything else, like, I like this idea, and we have this, then we have this. The infrastructure is there, intersection there too. I think that could be a good place to start. David Villari: I mean, because if we're doing the work for the Wayland post articles or whatnot, then you just trip it down. Cater it. Put a picture on the map of where the business is. People can go get it Rebecca Stanizzi: well. Plus Katie, as we walked around and talked to some of the property owners, right? You want to incent them to make changes, like change the sign. We were talking with cooks automotive, and he might be interested in doing a sign. Like, great, if you did that well, you hopefully get you profiled in Wayland post, and you'd put them there. Like, you'd want to reward those companies and businesses that go out of their way to make improvements and highlight that Lloyd was in. He was good. He is interested. Yes, yes. He's good, yeah. So, yeah. So all this can virtuous cycle of getting some of that information out there. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, kind of changing topic. If that's okay. Just back to this. I don't know if there's a way like I'm thinking about explore meals, tax, explore rooms tax. And also, I don't know if it's on here anywhere like but getting gas. Station approval to have convenience stores, but things like that, those feel like we've kind of missed the deadline for town meeting this year. So I don't know if there's like, a way to say, Okay, this is something that's on our charter or agenda, whatever, but kind of like, not right now. Like, I don't know how we would break that down, if that's something for 25 or 2627 David Villari: Yep. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part of that is kind of, it's sort of in the route 20 master plan. It's buried in that. So we could kind of flush that out as a topic, because, again, we have that as a survey question, right? Didn't we, when we surveyed, and people were surprisingly amenable to that. David Villari: So the meals tax that exists already, it doesn't like point seven, five, I thought it did, Rebecca Stanizzi: doesn't I thought it did like the town meeting thing, right? It's something, yeah, there's we have to be past the Tom meeting. But yeah, most cities and really thought it did. I thought we had one, and I went looking for it, and I was like, and I was like, Oh, can't we use a little bit of that for, you know, doing, like, cleaning up the corridor or something. We don't have it. I'm going to be like, David Villari: super rude to go to chat for a minute. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, that's something we could maybe punt to FinCom to see if they Well, that's Rebecca Stanizzi: part of it, so we can talk through we still have this joint meeting, and I haven't heard from Phil, which is kind of strange, but that's one of the things on there. Is, you know, what are those things that we can be doing to boost our tax base? And with that, you're not going to get a lot of money. It's going to be maybe 100 grand, if you're lucky. But if you use those funds to then clean up the corridor or, you know, do something with it and magnify it instead of just having it, you know, go in the endless Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, probably new songs. Unknown: Chatgpt thinks we do too. Did we used to 75% I don't think so. I think so I'm going to see what it Rebecca Stanizzi: ask for this source. Can you do that? I'm finding more. I'll use this very finding more and more often it's on. It's like, yeah, me, it's kind of interesting. Anyway, all right, so we are 909, just to keep this going. So if you can fill out yours spearhead and the do, I'll get vows, we'll integrate it, kind of think it, and then I'll sort of rank it a little bit more to kind of the data will pop a little bit more. Yeah, if anything else you thinking of, anything else, Katie Noble Harris: things that we want to they're important, but they're just not timely right now, like the do it in the future. I think, Unknown: I think we need to wait for Jeff to fill out his thing, and then we circle back to that. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yes, yeah, we can kind of do that, and maybe we have sort of that bottom list of looking ahead to fiscal year 27 Yes, God yes. That's a kind of horrifying thought, but yeah,
David Villari: there were community banks didn't maybe touch base with separately because I couldn't score them, just because I didn't know enough about them. Yeah, yeah, we can Rebecca Stanizzi: chat about those a little bit. Yeah, we can do that. Okay, all right. So the upcoming Joint Finance Committee, EDC, I still have a bunch of notes, and I finally just put them all in one spot. So that's this, if you guys have this, give that one with the green stripes. There we go. So in a joint meeting with the FinCom, I tried to separate it into what are high impact things we can do, what are medium and what are low? Like, you can have a bunch of ideas, but, you know, like, the meals tax is not going to be moving the needle a whole lot unless you Super Target it. So you know the highest impact, and you know, you can be talking about this. These are some of the data. So this is sort of, you know, every FinCom loves a spreadsheet, right? So high impact things are encouraging town homes and revisiting MBTA communities encouraging town homes. This has the data. Our existing commercial tax base is 160 million. Alta Oxbow itself was 73 it just sold for 98 that gives you perspective. It's this high, big, splashy thing going on, but town homes are the quiet engine. We don't have to build more Alta oxbows, nor should we like it's that was in its place in time, and it solved 40 B and all that stuff, but town homes right now, our existing condominium townhouse base is three and a half times our commercial tax base. It dwarfs our commercial tax base. So, and this is sort of people are fine with them, right? They're used to them. They make sense. They're really land efficient. They're super low in services. Usually it's retirees, a lot of school kids, private roads, infrastructure. It's basically like the equivalent of commercial. The reason why towns and cities like commercial is because usually it's low services, high revenues. This is basically more so it's three and a half times a commercial tax base. This is our financial engine in this town. A few questions here. Unknown: So one is, is is it? Is it our financial engine, mostly because we don't have a lot of zoning for commercial in terms of, Rebecca Stanizzi: okay, yeah. I mean our commercial tax base is literally, it's 2.8% of our entire tax base, 2.8% that's Karen Kelly: it, because you have so little. Zoning for commercial Rebecca Stanizzi: use is that correct? Our commercial is not as dense as it could, but you're never, based on our limited areas, you're never going to suddenly right up the native mall, right? It's not Unknown: okay. So then, then, because I one of the things that was on my mind to discuss at this meeting was, you know, I just saw some more chatter online about, about, you know, what we need to do to get the financial engine moving in this town and people shouting all kinds of wrong information about and so I was like, we need to put something out about this. And so it's exactly that. And so I'm just thinking in my mind, and Katie, I'm happy to take this on, is putting together, like, I don't even know if it's an infographic or if it's like a PSA, like we've done before, like we did with the talent center, stuff about, here's what's really going on. But I do think it would be really valuable to kind of like, pull some pieces of some major facts about what is driving the engine, why it's driving the engine, and how we can think about Yeah, David Villari: you had that on Rebecca Stanizzi: the on the priorities, I think, yeah. So I put at the top, and this was actually an order was on the agenda, which is why it was at the top. But, yeah, but part of that is exactly that, because people don't necessarily understand. I mean, even looking at Town Center, even I was surprised looking at it, I was expecting a little bit more it literally, River Trail place, 42 units is worth the same as the entire rest of the town center plaza, yeah, yeah. Like, stop and think about that, three acres versus 21 acres. This is how much these are worth. I mean, literally, those are assessed at like a million dollars a piece. So it's huge. I mean, even that is, you know, worth $42 million right? So that's 42 across the way all to Oxbow. Huge, massive, what, like eight acres. That's 70, right? The town homes were really good at building expensive town homes. Yeah, we're good at that. Lean into it, land efficient, generate those tax revenue crisis, yeah, David Villari: if you could, if you could get the mahoneys to not do cascade and instead build like five, six town homes on there, whatever. Rebecca Stanizzi: We probably have more than that, because they're like a two, but yeah, I mean, it's ultimately for this size building that. And I would not be surprised if they came back and said, I just want to do town homes. I would not shock me in the slightest, because the same value building a lot less square footage in a very cost effective stick built way, you're going to get the same value, right? So, yeah, it's kind of like, how do we get people focused in that mindset? And then do we encourage zoning in that regard? Do we, you know, second of this is the MBTA communities. If we put MBTA community zoning, which is literally 15 units an acre, River Trail places, 12, it's not like you have to build like, apartment buildings with MBTA communities. It's 15. Is not that dense. It's basically close to townhomes. So because we have are so dense at Alta Oxbow, it averages out across the entire town for 15 you have to hit that threshold. So you know where Alta Oxbow is, 27 you could put 10 somewhere, which is what they did when they put the zoning over at mate stop, right? So that's River Trail place just within put that down David Villari: with the data you gave here, right? 21 acres for the 42 43 million. Right? Three acres, 41 and a half, that's $2 million an acre if you're doing commercial or $13.8 million per acre doing town homes. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yep, yep. So and then, you know, and then, you know, and that doesn't even count Wayland columns, which is also there, yeah, I don't know if that was originally part of the raythe It must have been part of the Raytheon site, but that's another 40 million. Which one Wayland? So River Trail is behind the common the town green, okay, it's right there. And then Wayland Commons is along 27 so that's the one. It's the kind of as you first turn in, off of 27 David Villari: it's right and left. And that makes sense, because that's bigger acreage they have. They have a Rebecca Stanizzi: lot of conservation. They're the where the housing is not that tight, but the site itself is literally 18 Acres, because there's a ton of green space around. David Villari: If we took like, a look at just on the map, the density of the housing, like, how many acres would that be if? Rebecca Stanizzi: I'd guess probably, like, five to seven. It's not quite as dense as River Trail place, but, David Villari: but still. So that's, let's call it like 38.3 divide by I'll go the high, high route seven. That's five and a half million dollars per acre instead of the two commercial Rebecca Stanizzi: Yep, yeah. And so then the column on the right is just taking our tax rate at the top and just putting into perspective what it means in terms of tax revenues. So, you know, we always, I always tout that all talks about is making about 1,000,001 a year in tax revenues. So our entire commercial tax base just makes two and a half million. It's just that you could, you could expand, you could double your commercial tax base, which will never happen, never, and you still are not going to make the dent that you could make with other things. So revisiting MBTA communities. So as we know, with MBTA communities right now, our 25 acre districts. Are you aware of MBTA communities? Do you know the nuts and bolts? Bad enough short story we have to do like 50 acres. You have to designate it for a minimum of 15 units an acre. Great. And you can average across your site. Some can be more dense. Some could be less right. One of the sites has to be a minimum of 25 acres. The second 25 acres has to be lots that are minimum size of five acres. So it can be five and 10 and 10. It can be 55555, you know, it's basically you can make a collection of those. So our 25 acre district that was designated is put at Mainstone. So it's in Colts way. It's a street that was already it's already built out as townhouse condominiums, right? And it has been for a while. So they put it there because if you plug it into the model at the state, which was our criteria, it says, Oh, this works. But you know that it will never, all those condominium owners won't get together collectively, sell a builder, tear them down, and then, you know, build something like, it'll never happen. And that honestly, was the thought process at the planning board when they were thinking through they wanted, they didn't want to create housing necessarily, they would have commentary, and they're like, We don't like this law, and we shouldn't have to comply with it, but we have to. So, you know, grumpy and they did it. But what that does center point might actually well, so the town center was put on there, right? However, there is a deed restriction with Raytheon right. And so build above the height that they currently have for the no, they cannot put additional residential on the site without Raytheon approval. It's a deed restriction so that one may be blocked logistically, right? So what do those mean? So you required acres, you have 50 acres. You have to do 15 years. So we should be doing 750 units. I'm going to check with Robert, I believe, with our plan, ours Rebecca Stanizzi: in the economic development bond bill is at like 896, if I'm following what our zoning was, that we approved. So I'll check that number. But right now, at Alta Oxbow, some of them comply with that right. We could count our non age restricted units. Two thirds are non age restricted. One is a senior building. So it leaves us 720 units left to be built. So at an average Alta value, just being low, using that as an apartment value, then it's $240 million worth of that was that $100,000 to look at MBTA communities, to re look development, or that's $3.7 million in tax revenues. So that is value within the MBTA communities. If it were all built out, will it be over time? I don't know, but the two pinch points one is our paper district. It's not buildable, and we are giving up $1.3 million in tax revenues forever, right?
at it and think, How can we look at it from an economic development perspective, to create more housing for us? This housing is worth money to us, right? Again, it's like, it's just, it's if we do, you know, like, single family homes are the the worst thing we can possibly do, because it's public roads. It's. Very expensive infrastructure, like all this stuff, eye services. Whereas doing this, and not necessarily in Alta, you might do something more dense that side of town, and do town homes somewhere else. So these are the numbers. I mean, this is where you're going to move the needle in terms of tax revenues. So the next page is medium impact. And this is where you start thinking about, Okay, what if we make our commercial districts better? What if we add square if we add square footage, or, what if we make the districts better, right? Unknown: And DEP, I know we talked about mixed use zoning. Town Center, route 20 is it is Town Center currently mixed use. I mean, there are obviously different parcels of land that have both residences on it and businesses on it is the business area of town center zone for mixed use
Rebecca Stanizzi: right now. It is because, as the MBTA communities before, it wasn't mostly because it followed the deed. So with the MBTA communities, they added the ability to mix in the residential but you're running up against the deed. Okay. Okay, good. And right now, in the route 20 corridor, you can't, but that's one of the questions for the route 20 master plan is to be able to add, is to be able to, you know, if you want to do a second or third floor, it could be office, it could be residential. Unknown: So, but is that off limits right now for Town Center? Because if you're just building on top of existing structures, Rebecca Stanizzi: the deed restriction is you can't do residential without their approval. Unknown: Is No, is no, so it's not zoned. Then for mixed where the commercial is, Rebecca Stanizzi: it's zoned. But the deed prohibits, Unknown: prohibit the property owner rules this in a pickle. A like, Rebecca Stanizzi: Yeah, we were hoping that, you know, Raytheon be a good corporate citizen Massachusetts housing, we just did the zoning. Won't you please come on. Unknown: And they're like, No. They're not even not breaking ground anywhere new. But they Rebecca Stanizzi: just, they're just like, from them, it's, it's a formerly contaminated site, so doing anything beyond what they're doing now just invites risk that additional contamination will be found. They're like, No. And that's, you know, that's in the DEP, so kind of you'd love to get beyond it, but you're not the property owner. You can't force them to do something. So again, do you put that zoning somewhere else? Unknown: So how would we like? Obviously, we got new zoning class passed last year. But when you're thinking about, um, most of the town is already zoned for residential. So then how, like, how do you go about, you know, like, what is the process by which pieces of land are identified to build town homes? And then, you know, like, what does that look like? Becky, like, what role do we play and make like, Rebecca Stanizzi: if the town really want to do it, we could work with certain property owners. The question is, is there land left in stone? Is there Right? Like, where are those pockets? Yeah, can you find those pockets? Identify them. Is this something that we want to encourage we have town land. So that's one of them on here is activate underutilized town land. We have 13 acres Orchard Lane. It's owned, yeah? Orchard Lane, I keep hearing about, yeah. So it's 13 acres by the schools. It's owned by the schools. Yeah. So it's 13 acres is too small for a school. It's kind of, there were playing fields that were suggested there, and like, heads exploded at the neighborhood, because nobody wants to have 50 million cars going in to their small roads. You know, what have? Town homes. Town homes are very different. It's very quiet. It's not as if you have screaming kids and you have 100 people descending on a playing field, you know, like, multiple times over a weekend or every afternoon, right? It's very different. You know, people understand it, right? And so he took that, and that's looking at this and, like, literally, what are the dollar values? You took five acres, you put MBTA community zoning on it for 1515, units. But you know what? We own the land. We can dictate how many units go there. We can dictate what it looks like, just like we did at Rivers Edge. So say that there's 12 units an acre. It's a little bit less dense than over there. You have 60 units. You probably get, you'd probably get over $100,000 per unit for land value. But there's going to be some infrastructure. There's no roads. You have to add something. So like at 80 that would get you almost $5 million so the school would get $5 million and then $60 million worth of condos would be built, which then generates a million dollars a Unknown: year. Essentially, it looks like the school district or the town sells the land to a developer to build town homes. But can they dictate what they're going to do with Rebecca Stanizzi: that land? River's Edge? Absolutely. If you're the property owner, just like Raytheon, it's terms of sale with terms of sale. So when we did rivers edge, we said, we wrote the zoning for them. We said, this is as of right? So they just had to submit their plans and go through the normal kind of code review sort of stuff. But we had design criteria, we had floor plans, we had height like we mapped out everything. And when we put it out to RFP, we said, give us your plans of what you're going to look like. So we even could pick between the bidders of what esthetic we liked. So that's why we got a really good product. When you're the property owner, you can do that, right? So pound Karen Kelly: makes five. A million dollars Rebecca Stanizzi: and then, and it generates a million dollars a year. Yeah, forward, right, yeah, yeah. Unknown: So, like, I'm curious about why this was not I think this did come up with MBTA housing. Like, where is the sticking point here? Is it still like, well, we might need that for schools. Or, like, where is the sticking point, inertia? David Villari: It's also, I mean, yeah, I'm looking at the map. Orchard Lane is, like, pretty small and, like, quaint and quiet residential right now, like, you're building 60 units, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah? But think of main stem is gonna there's a lot of units that you really don't perceive from the road, right? It's 13 acres, and you take five, you can absolutely set back from everybody else, like you can, you'll never really see it. It'll be just like main stone, like, it's just set back and, you know, it's like a little David Villari: road that goes I just wonder if your inertia rates are like, very different, you have an easier time building, which is, like, what Robert's very concerned about is it's hard to get us to do it, like, if that number goes down from 60 to like 20, is everyone just like, Yeah, let's go do it. Everyone sees the vision that it plays into MBTA and 40 B potentially, and all these other things, and then it's just done instead of multi year play out of Unknown: pushback, yes, although we sacrifice a lot of recurring revenue, like tax Rebecca Stanizzi: revenue, but it's not gonna be worth trade offs to be worth it coin for just 20 units. Unknown: Yeah, I agree. Like, you, if you're gonna do it, do it, yeah? And I think, I mean, I'm no expert, but, like, there is a way. I mean, like those town homes in town center are lovely. Rebecca Stanizzi: They're stunning on the outside, yeah? Like, I just think it's like an eyesore or anything David Villari: I'm calling it from like a bird in the hand burning your Bush type thing. It's like, I'd rather have it in the hand and get Unknown: having a million, then we'd still get pushed back. Either, either way, there's going to be a bill David Villari: Exactly. There's part of it too, though, is if you build those, like those town homes that are a little bit larger, maybe more attractive, the tax base of those homes goes up as well. So it's not just that they're valued at which per unit, 1 million, right? But if you have 60 on that acre, like, do we really think we get a million? Is that? Is that in line with the density? Rebecca Stanizzi: And that's what they're getting newer ones at Main stone, that's what they're getting at River Trail place. That's kind of no but is it 1,000,005 then, if you built like, no means, because at some point there is a price sensitivity to a town hall. If you have a million and a half to 2 million, you're gonna go buy a house, right? You're not gonna so it's kind of, that's the that sweet spot, right? Fair, yeah. So it's just kind of, this is, you know, if we can control it, we can make it worth our while. So that's we had lobbied for with MBTA. Communities put the zoning there, we can check the box, and then it's there, and then we can decide, as a town, what kind of density we want to have there, right? And then we did Unknown: your pushback that kind of kept Orchard Lane off the docket was Rebecca Stanizzi: actually being considered by the planning board, and then it just fell off. They found mainst like, Okay, we're done. Katie Noble Harris: So, yeah, slightly different angle on this. You ever give an incentive to a current property owner to put in a town home? I think that that's what people of Wayland. I'm just like remarking on, like, what I always seen see is the development. And I might be ignorant, but it feels to me like there might be a couple of properties in town that aren't being utilized. Can those Unknown: be and like a dwell, like in a ADU? ADU, yeah, yeah. Katie Noble Harris: Or maybe just, okay, this isn't the right type of building, but the the one with the facade, like, Could, could we entice that to that owner of the building? Hey, we'll give you this much money if you convert that building to be, well, I guess that wouldn't be a town home, but are there any existing buildings that could become town homes or or existing land that has stuff on it? Rebecca Stanizzi: So that's a question. So you'd kind of look at all the parcels in town with that lens and see, like what makes Katie Noble Harris: sense, but like an incentive also, given it's mostly just writing Rebecca Stanizzi: zoning that they can build, right? So remember they were talking, remember when we were doing the Self Storage, there was the guy who was trying to do the solar compact cluster, right? So there was eight acres up on Shaw drive. Basically, it's semi remote, right? But they wanted to do essentially cluster. We have a cluster development by law right now, but is extremely onerous. Really hard to go through it? Do you simplify that so more people will check that box? I think if you give them a path, they'll do it. But seeing the path that's in place right now is really hard. You literally have to design the site as if it's single family homes and then design it again with the cluster. So you compare the two and do like it's literally it's huge amount. So I think if you just streamline that, I think you could that would be enough incentive for those people who are willing to do it that they would Katie Noble Harris: do it. Just wonder if that feels like a little bit more palatable than building something totally new and or maybe both at the same time, both at the same time. No. So
Rebecca Stanizzi: anyways, the medium impact. Adding density commercial districts the planning board, when they were talking with the tax assessor, they were struggling. Well, what's worth more residential or office? Basically the same like it's so incrementally, not not material. Just add the square footage, right that adding the value to the commercial districts, that's where you're sort of elevating your game right now, route 20 corridor is not commanding higher rents because it looks like crap, but that will change over time. How do you make that quarter look better? Good news property owners and the town does better. Bad news makes rents more expensive. So there's it's a push and pull, but at the end of the day, you know that adding the value might be more impactful, and in fact, that may improve your tax basis 2.8% right? The rest of it, if you live in a town that's really attractive, those values go up, right? So it's almost like you're boosting it for the visual, but for the rest of everybody else to sort of float their votes, activate and under the site, town land and the last one of the meals tax in the room stats very small dollars. But you know, if they were leveraged, you might be able to get something out of them. But if you guys have other ideas, as we sort of massage this at this point, I have not heard back from Phil yet. I know they're probably diving into stuff. So it might be October at this point. David Villari: So for the meals, one you show, 10, 1215, is that just when the breakdown Rebecca Stanizzi: of what we get, if we Yeah, I'm guessing as to what we are. I mean, we do have coach bro, which breaks it. But, you know, I'd be curious to know what the each of them are getting on an annualized basis, is that David Villari: in like, fiscal reports, anywhere, in any report that Rebecca Stanizzi: so if any, you know, any restaurant property or just reports, rents, expenses, and David Villari: that's it. So you're not, no idea what the potential revenue here is based on. I mean, we could Rebecca Stanizzi: talk with Jeff, and Jeff could probably give us some kind of, yeah, yeah. But, you know, ultimately, in this range, you know, you're not talking it's not suddenly that we're going to find half a million dollars, right? David Villari: Because you look at it in like, I think I mentioned this on the survey too, is, is meals tax, or something like that. You could also play it by, you know, local districts too, and you say Town Center meals tax will go to feed upkeep, landscaping, fees, all these other things, looking at signage and like, maybe that's just Rebecca Stanizzi: the that would incent the restaurant owners to go along with it, if they reap the reward, like we all reap the rewards. And I think it's a really good virtuous cycle, as opposed to, we're just going to collect tax and we'll be on our Ma we're going to go take care of the schools for meals, tax. Thanks for that one. Yeah, exactly, harder, and it would annoy you every single time that you saw it on your bill, exactly. David Villari: But if you're like, oh, meals, tax, played, paid for the playground, we're happy, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So the rooms tax, we clearly don't have that many Airbnbs. This is what Jesse does, actually. So I know he has a multiple number of them, but it's a higher tax. You can do it up to 6% so the state charges 5.7 towns and cities can go up to 6% so as opposed to point seven 5% it adds up faster. But it's a question of what those revenues are, and is it okay? So we have 10 Airbnb and I'm guessing, yes, I'm guessing, I think when I looked at an airbn, you know, you can kind of see David Villari: that, because that's why I didn't give it a score, I was like, how worth it? Is it to chase all that. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yeah, yeah. So this just kind of gives the the dollar impact there. Interestingly, I would have expected the room stacked up in less, but if you do it at the max, you know, it's like, will it stop somebody from coming to Wayland? Probably not. You know, it's like, when you do air and B's vrbos anywhere else, it just gets tacked on at the end. It's one of those annoying fees, and they, Oh, we collect, collect revenue. So the 200 things, exactly, yeah, exactly, exactly. So this is, I'm going to send this because Phil was asking kind of a draft and what, what we were thinking, if anybody adding on to this questions, otherwise, we kind of revisit it next month and then plan to go and have a joint meeting with FinCom too. But that's sort of the how do we get high, medium, low, and thinking of, you know, what's what's worth the effort, right? You can do a lot of things, but at the end of the day, what's going to David Villari: actually, very obviously,
Unknown: can we put on the to do list, like putting something together to share online on this which, like I said, I'm happy Katie Noble Harris: to do. I think next meeting a bit, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, I think after, probably after the FinCom meeting, I think that would be a good time to get their feedback, too, and kind of see where they, you know, just to get that we, you know, EDC met jointly with the FinCom, and we just wanted to give you some highlights of that discussion. And you know, they may have some interesting tidbits for us that we don't, we don't know, we might want to publicize, but if you want to start thinking about it absolutely, and then, you know, to get it out after you share this job with me, yes, absolutely, yeah. So I'll circulate this. I didn't want to throw everything spreadsheet. It's a spreadsheet I can click and follow through, yeah, and you can play with numbers, yeah.
Katie Noble Harris: So that's yeah. David Villari: Okay, Rebecca Stanizzi: so we are at 937, so we spend a lot of time so zipping through some of the other stuff. So splash, slide, playground, you heard from Carol, right? Yeah, she David Villari: gave me, like, very informal call on what you wanted to do with. Was, was find out when we can get on that agenda. So I agreed for us to be on the October six. And the way she's going to do that is she's going to run through town manager and make sure that there weren't other agenda topics that he'd like to have above that one. And yeah, she was very kind. She gave, like, her own candid personal feedback too, on the project. Which was overall positive, right? Like, overall positive, but, like, coming from EDC, I think they're going to be looking for, like, a very clear breakdown of what is the benefit. And I think that's going to be tough is like, how do we quantify increasing foot traffic for a financial plan? Rebecca Stanizzi: I think you can find those metrics, yeah, I think places that have added them, yeah, I don't chat GPT, but, like, so there's David Villari: over six, like, that's the example dominant question we're gonna get. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, Catherine might be able to help with that too, based on the touch of truck data that she got from last year. David Villari: That's true about that. Yeah, yeah. She gets cell phone data from, like this. They come in, they're like, Oh, we can track people's cell phones and see where they came from. Katie Noble Harris: Who's they? A company that Catherine got. David Villari: Like, it's creepy. He said it Rebecca Stanizzi: was creepy. Got it. She's like, Oh, David Villari: yeah, come to this free trial. And it's, she's smart with it. I'm showing me how good it is before I buy it, and she doesn't ever buy it. It's good. That was fine to hear that around trying to find the right, right one. Yeah, right data. So I think that's going to be like the dominant How do we show that narrative and explain that there's a benefit she hadn't really caught on in the proposal where we, like recommended it could also be phased so I think we really want to highlight that, because for $25,000 I can pour a three inch slab of concrete, get a 16 by 16 posted beam pavilion down and throw some $250 Home Depot pick up picnic tables right? Like I can do that for 25 if someone tells you that 75 they're lying right, like that is a cheap, easy construct. You have to go through a procurement law, I think. Yeah, so that's But either way, procurement laws shouldn't make it keep it under five grand. It should make it more expensive. Oh, it does. And if it does, then that's part of the systemic problems that towns have, but that's fine, whatever. Yeah. So I looked at that, and I discussed that with her, and she was like, okay, yeah. Like, not everything needs to be a giant proposal that has to go through town meeting, and maybe we discuss that with them. Of like, how can we use shared streets, things like that, to play into this and make it happen faster. Yeah. And then I, she and I talked very informally, too, about the deed restrictions and LSL and stress the importance there of that. Rebecca Stanizzi: That's the LSP. LSP LSP is the environmental issues David Villari: licensed site. Professional, yeah, so that's the Raytheon has their own license site. Professional, that controls that site for their own internal liability for anything long term, right? So if you want to do anything on that land, they have to sign off. And we had the health department informally help us out with just looking at, like screening, and they did confirm that playground, even as simple as that would fall under to, like a fixed structure that would have to get signed off, approved by them. Yeah, so there's hurdles. Have we? Unknown: Okay? So then that me, it's like, is it? David Villari: Should we? I, you're going down the same road, I think. Is it worth it if it might not happen? And that's why she said, Let's not do touch a truck. Let's not do any outreach yet. Let's chat with them, make sure that Select Board wants to go forward with it. Then the first thing we're going to hit is the health department work, the LSP, aols, all that stuff, clear that hurdle, and if that's clear, then we just see what go forward. Unknown: I think that you're right that we need to keep it like, very like. This could be very simple, easy. Let's just, let's not get in the weeds of this meeting. Let's just talk about what like could be and like, but we still have this other huge hurdle of breakout in front of us. We just generally want to know if this life board understands, and like, to your point, like, what would be the economic since the EDC bringing it benefit of it, but I think, like, don't get in the weeds. Let's not Yeah, yeah. We tool right now? Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part I was talking with Tom Fay, not knowing that part of the discussion about touch a truck, and that is, mean, the environmental, environmental, right? So part of it is not being able to get some feedback at touch a truck, you're going to have every family I know. In the town there. So I was saying to Tom, could we come to select board meeting next Monday or two weeks after, which is the 29th and just five minutes on the agenda? And just say, will you please just let us survey people at touch a truck, because then we'll have the data to bring to you for that October meeting. Right? Who will they Karen Kelly: care about that David Villari: data? But only be two days a date. That's a lot to collect all that data. Unknown: We're better off sending if we're going to collect data editing, we're going to get more if we send an email instead of being a touch dog. Yeah, okay, I'm not saying I'd be there. I'm saying I've tried to collect data from people, and it's not that easy. Yeah, got to get aggressive Rebecca Stanizzi: and let's kind of email and such a truck at the same time. It gives us that excuse, right? Email is a must, yeah, oh, yeah, without a doubt, not such a pressing it's getting an email and and they're hearing it David Villari: truck. But the other thing I wasn't sure about is, like, because this is a plaza owned area, right? The foot traffic increase going to be for the plaza, for those businesses. How does that play into, like, what we receive back as a town? And I don't know that answer Unknown: at all. Not educated, like, right? Like, how much more money does each business like, David Villari: are we talking like 1% Rebecca Stanizzi: of their sales actually comes back as I don't know what the numbers are. It's just elevating the value of the plaza, right? So is that where the money is? Yeah, value, elevation, value in the real estate tax. Yeah, we don't have, like, a sales tax. We don't have a local like that. Mean, we have, well, we don't have meals tax. So, yeah, it's, it's just purely real estate values. David Villari: Okay, that's cool. So then I got to talk to Chris at ConCom, who we'd started those, like, very informal discussions with two the comments, the playground vendor. Oh, and they had that one Wrentham Plaza, and they put the playground on, and I bet I could find the before and after valuations with the playground, yeah. Like, that was that Unknown: as the that's the drive, yeah, yeah. Get us through the discussion. Okay, yeah, yeah. Katie Noble Harris: I wonder if Watertown has anything, because they just put in that new splash pad. Yeah, I'm
Rebecca Stanizzi: sure if you chat GPT, it'll pop up a bunch of stuff. David Villari: It's just whether that's fine sits or Yeah, the valuation difference in the surrounding Rebecca Stanizzi: area, part of it'd be interesting to know. At town center right now, typically in a commercial valuation, they'll look at your rents and then your expenses, right? But they'll look at your actual vacancy. So the question is, how much vacancy is baked in? And if you know part of it is filling vacant spaces, and that helps bring up the valuation, and then it's kind of floating the rents, the rents already high, right? But if you can get those last spaces filled, then that's that may be something we actually talk with the assessor. And so we have a David Villari: matter both ways. We say assessed value would go up in general, because you have, if you can build store, friends obsessed, and then two, you actually fill those properties. So assessed value also goes up for, yeah, that's definitely the goal. So I would, I think I'll request some assistance on putting that story together. But, yeah, okay, so, so, October 6. October 6, Katie Noble Harris: Monday, okay, in person for Unknown: you. I'll pop in, in person. Yeah, right here. So I won't be there. I'll be out of the country. Will you? Okay? Yeah, bummer. We'll prep you before,
Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, I mean, it's for them. You'll have to, it's not like they're suddenly going to dive into all the data, right? It's going to be very high level numbers, if we can, if you can, show that, you know, other properties have increased the value of that commercial tax base by 10% like, just gorilla math, like this is what it means, right? So now we know what the valuation is for the commercial it's Unknown: really just a nod to move forward. But it's not a nod of it's a very it's a non committal not that's all we're asking. Rebecca Stanizzi: It's just starting the process. Yes, yes, yes. And the other Katie Noble Harris: thing I know, a possible objection that was raised was the cost of, like, landscaping. And I think one thing that we could do is private fundraising, like, raise money to try and cover those costs. Rebecca Stanizzi: If we can find those precedents, find the precedents where they've done it. What's that David Villari: I said? I'll just move it in one that was part of the reason why I think we wanted to get with DPW and understand like they're the ones that do the maintenance facilities. Team is going to do the construction. So, like, those two inputs would have been really great to go into the Select Board meeting. But process wise, like, because we're just advisory to select Rebecca Stanizzi: board, yeah, just map out. This is, this is what we want to do, first steps, environmental, DEP, W, I could just, and then, then you just Katie Noble Harris: go and do it, yeah, that's something that's even in the new plaza owners lease, is that they mow the lawn for the playground,
Rebecca Stanizzi: or they already they do. I think they do.
Karen Kelly: Nothing has to mow the lawn over there. Unknown: But is it the town these goats that just come Rebecca Stanizzi: out good to know and get that information. So. David Villari: Of galaxy, or is it? Yeah, Zara people, okay, yeah. So I'll take a crack and I'll circulate when it can feedback. Okay, um, all right.
Rebecca Stanizzi: So quickly the other so the pre order pickup window outreach, we were talking about that before. So I think it's the information to the brokers. So you guys were trading something you wanted to compare with Jeff, who's not here. You guys want to kind of connect and then be able to send it out after next meeting. Katie Noble Harris: I redid it a little bit. I think I need Jeff's input on some of this stuff. I'm a little bit like that. Okay, got it? You're confused about some of it. Yeah. All right, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: And then the question, you know, can we post it even though nobody's going to our web page, maybe we can drive a little traffic to it, but it'd be great to get that posted on the town website somewhere. Katie Noble Harris: So I guess we'll call it outreach to brokers. Yeah.
Rebecca Stanizzi: Okay, so existing quarter conditions clean up. So Katie, do you want to update our stroll? Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, Becky, I took a stroll down Route 20 the other day. Beautiful morning. Rebecca Stanizzi: It was a beautiful when he came out. I heard everyone around with a piece of paper, and you're taking pictures, like, what are you doing? You guys actually walked down. We did. We walked the whole corridor. Oh, that's coming out and talking to us. And, yeah, imagine we had sidewalks. I know what a concept. David Villari: No, it's not very fun with the stroller. No, Katie Noble Harris: yeah. So we started kind of near Pelham Island and worked our way down. And yeah, had a bunch of business owners come up and inquire what we were doing, and had some great conversations. We made contacts with a few business owners that we just haven't been able to get their contact info for So Becky got that info and reached out to a few of those people. And I'd say it was like a really positive interaction that we had learned some Wayland history, and then we just took some pictures and wrote down some notes about some things that we think could be improved in the Rebecca Stanizzi: future. And I was just organizing that and then getting into our columns of zoning cleanup. And then, you know what? Zoning has to change, whether it's landscape or whatever, but, and then we also ran into the maple maple gate, maple tree, maple tree landscaping guy, Vinny. David Villari: So you know, I got his contact too. He's doing our loan. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part of what you see in that corridor are some property owners who just let their landscaping go, right? And so talking to the vet that, you know, woman who works there came out and talked to us, and their weeds are all overgrown, but the dogs like it, right? But clearly, they're not paying for landscaping, but it's expensive, right? For a landscaper to show up for this little, tiny plot, it's going to be expensive. So if we can talk with Vinny like, what if you had the whole corridor, or you had, you know, five or six that you just coming in one fell swoop, and it's really cost effective for the different people. Would you be willing, you know, talking to those people? Would you be willing to do that? And I think that could make a huge difference, even just the landscape.
David Villari: There you go, round two. Rebecca Stanizzi: So apologies to anybody watching. Hopefully you can still see it. We got cut off for some reason. But yeah, so the landscape part, it'd be great to kind of figure that out. He seems to be super motivated, so we're meeting with him next Tuesday. When we met with cook automotive, he came out. Was talking like, if you, if you work there, that sign, the gas sign, clearly needs to come down. But he's like, yeah, like, you want me to take it down? I'll take it down, but you do a new one. Oh, let's talk. We're like, oh, it'd be lovely to have a nice sign. And, you know, so we're gonna go and talk about so, yeah. David Villari: So I go to Lloyd all the time for our cars, so I'm happy to go down and talk to him right there. So if that makes it easier for you too, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So it'd be great if, you know, he could be our test case, and he could write a story about it in the post. They get some good PR, you know, like, this virtuous cycle of, oh, look, somebody did that. Oh, I'll do that. So, yeah. So he had shared by next time, and Danny David Villari: and I talked with he shared that he tried to get that Santander building as, like, office space and some training space, and it just couldn't work out because of, like, high, high, high rent prices and some other hurdles. Did he share that story with you guys too? No, but I'm sure we'll hear it, because that's also valuable. It's like, we're looking to expand, like, better commercial use of that area in a corridor, like, hey, Vinny, tell us what those problems were, and you kind of had that is like, tell us what the problems were, sex. Better understand them. Yeah. So he's he has one, and if you guys already have good contact, Rebecca Stanizzi: okay, talk to him. Next Tuesday. We'll be seeing him. We'll ask him. Okay, so we'll click that for next month, and then we can kind of look at it and then reach out from there to because we've been talking with Bill Sterling at DRB and Tom White and CPA, and then also mentioned it to Nate at the building department. So hopefully we can get that moving along with the goal of, can we get it cleaned up for next spring. It's next spring. Duncan will be opening, you know, ultimately, terrain will be opening in the in the summertime, so we get the whole corridor looking nice. That would route 20 Master Plan sidewalks, curb cut. I've been reaching out. I got approval to be able to do that, so I'm talking with Tom holder to get that moving along. So I. Him yesterday, just to find out if he's moving it along. But the next step is to do an RFP for that scope of services. So he had one couple that he was looking at, and I had sort of pulled out a chat GPT and had him do one. So it's, it's like state bidding, it's, it's, it's just, yeah, typical protocol. So hopefully we get that one moving, because the cash is there. We are have the ability to do it. And it's just, I know that Tom is really busy so, but he believes in it as a topic, so he lived through it in his town, and the difference that it made with the with the new curb cuts and sidewalks, so ribbon cuttings. So United volleyball is opening this weekend. But have they said? Unknown: So I have a back channel with them, yeah. So, you know, did you see my email Monday, where I CC to everyone and said, Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, like, it's happening this Saturday. So no, so Unknown: that's what I'm saying, like, so I think it's important for us to kind of own each of these businesses if we're having conversations with them, yeah, just so that all the communications so they they are doing it, like an open house for their current teams and stuff. Yeah, their current members this weekend. And then they had asked last week, hey, we're doing that. We they said, We're doing this next weekend. We would like to have the river coming the next week. Do you have any recommendations on, like, best time of day, or blah, blah, blah, and then I CC them in with the rest of the ribbon cutting crew, and said, Hey guys, great news. See you seeing BBC folks like they would like to get something started for next week. Michael, what is your availability? No one responded. So if Rebecca Stanizzi: it's Robert has said he's going to do it, then I would ping Anina directly and say, Anina, can you step in at least today? Unknown: I think, I think in general, we have to have another discussion as the ribbon cutting committee, because this is going to go on forever, and if the person running point is not available, we need to have a secondary person. It's just not reasonable. It's also not reasonable to cc new lessees in town, and have no one respond from the town. It's just not good enough. It's not okay, my opinion. So I'm upset about that, and I feel like Michael should be upset about that too. It's a terrible look for us. So moving forward with that, like, I'm not really sure what to do, I can reach back out to them and say, Hey, I'm sorry. No one's responded. Somebody's on vacation Rebecca Stanizzi: would stop by in Nina's office. Just went by and say, Can you at least just love in an email? Yeah, Robert usually hums these he's been out, but you know, it's on our radar. And you know, maybe she has thoughts as to certain day or time if he's she's been talking with Robert in the past, but just so they get something today, Unknown: she needs to be given permission to do so I may ask. I'll ask her to, yeah, I don't know that she will, because, well, Rebecca Stanizzi: she's supposed to be standing in for him this week, so okay, if nothing else, then the placeholder, he'll be back. Type of thing. We hear you like, I agree that, you know, it shouldn't just kind of fallen off into David Villari: that hole either. They look to open. I mean, I saw a bunch of people, so they are open, right? Rebecca Stanizzi: Yes. Like, a soft opening, Unknown: yeah, yeah. Like, very soft. But they're having, like, games. I don't know if they've actually she they said open house this weekend and then ribbon cutting next week. So they're definitely starting, I don't know, David Villari: after bike rides with my kids, like, we stop in, we get chocolate, chocolate therapy. And then there was, like, kids, like, flowing out of volleyball, like, a bunch of yay. Unknown: They also was interesting. When I was in there, they raised the ceilings. Yeah, they didn't, actually, so I take it back, they didn't actually raised the ceiling, they removed the ceiling. Yeah, yeah, to do this. But I walked in there, I was like, man, actually, there's some space up there. So anyway, they're very nice. They have a manager who's very responsive. They really want to be part of the community. David Villari: And it drove a lot of traffic, because each one of the kids that I saw was getting picked up in like, their own car, yeah, nobody I saw. I saw people like, then pulling over to the grocery store, right? And I was like, Oh, man. Like, if they just knew the kids could just walk five feet and go spend $5 at the chocolate store too, yeah? Like, that would be Yeah, but they'll figure that Rebecca Stanizzi: over time, hopefully, yes. Would be great if inside there was a map on the wall of the retailers around David Villari: we only have, like the plaza, only has one map that shows all the businesses, and that's outside, yeah, which is that little circle next to the back door of bagel table. That's the only location that I saw, yeah, could be better. But anyway, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, but it's not for them to be able to broadcast. That's why they're coming, because they like the fact there was so much around. So the question is, do you have, are they planning on doing a little map or, you know, we help them dudes get a David Villari: poster, stick it on the doors Exactly, exactly down the street. Unknown: You've done a good I know that somebody had forwarded us by retailer of the month boarding us emails. Hmm, and they, I remember there was one email where they said, like, oh, there's all these great retailers in the plaza, and, like, listed them out, yeah, but like to continue to do that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's keep moving. I need to jump, Katie Noble Harris: okay, the same lines, just like life text. I sent an email, and again, no response from the town, and they're having an opening this weekend. Unknown: So what did you send to them? To who, like, what was the message Katie Noble Harris: was I sent to Michael and the rest of our looks like they're having that they're opening this Saturday. Is there anyone from town that might be able to attend? Karen Kelly: Oh, that's so funny. I thought that he sent that about the Katie Noble Harris: UBC. No, no, it's for the life tax. Karen Kelly: Okay, sorry, I looked very late Katie Noble Harris: last night. Robert said, I'm happy to take the lead, but there's no right way, because he was he the one who forwarded that to us. Yes, okay, yes, just no follow up. So I'm Unknown: not like, we're not going to be involved in this and have this kind of behavior, like, it's not okay. So right, Rebecca Stanizzi: all right, Collins market, so I went to the zba hearing, so everybody's aware of the townhouse they do. So everybody loves it. They have no parking. And so I was talking with them after the fact, and I said, they want to do have you
seen their plans downstairs, half the floor is kind of dining area. And then upstairs, half the floor is sending real estate is still there, and then they have, like a space that would be for dinner or for events or whatever. So they have quite a few potential seats, and they have no official parking, so there's spaces out front. The discussion was, we're right now put just like around the corner on Pelham Island. Put signs that say max two hours, because right now, employees from those other buildings take those parking spots and park all day, and they do the same thing at the depot. So put signs there. Zba is like, I don't know if we can actually do that, but they could recommend to the town to do that, so at least get those spots flowing. But I talked with them offline after the fact, and they said, as we were standing in the parking lot, so the pediatricians just redid their parking lot, and it backs right up to the building. And I said, you guys should talk with them, because it's dead empty at night, and you need nights and weekends, and that's exactly when they're not there. So coordinate with them. Rent some parking it's good publicity for them, you know, just passing by their building, and then you can book events, because events, they'll need the parking right? They'll meet for dinner. You can't be schlepping that far away when it's February, right? It's lovely in June. But yeah, so with that, I mean, clearly the zba was trying to figure out how to approve it, but if they could at least do that, I think it'd be a slam dunk, and they'd be good to go. So that was the email. So I met with I met one of the proponents consultant, and yeah, I did not so Kirsten was too tied up with people who were talking after the fact. So that's why they were wanting to reach out, and we can kind of communicate with them. But I think if they can just do that little bit, the library is unwilling to share their parking. They are okay. David Villari: Library own the accessory town building as well. It's the rail Karen Kelly: trip. They do, yeah? It's owned by the town. Rebecca Stanizzi: It's, it's dedicated, yeah, and they have the whole lot, yeah. So they are unwilling to, because, I mean, so much gets abused right now with the bike trail, right? And, you know, here, people will walk, but to have it as official, Unknown: what do you think is the likelihood that she'll be able to, like space, share with pediatricians. I think if Rebecca Stanizzi: they could. I mean, pediatricians, you know, it's like they can share on their snow plowing bill. And, you know, it's like there's liability insurance. David Villari: It's just hard to see this be a problem because, like, parking is, if you have to walk 100 feet, it's a good thing for the town. We're trying to get foot traffic. That's interesting. It's like, you want to see more people using the street, slowing down, making sure crosswalks get used on the DEP W curve, but all that stuff. So it's like, don't let that barrier, Rebecca Stanizzi: I know. But the interesting thing so when we were walking around and me talking with silk veterinarian. They just bought the chiropractor building on the corner. Why? Because they wanted the parking spots. So silk is that stress for parking. They have maybe two spots. Say, I have in front there, and it is a pain in the neck, pain in the neck. So mean, clearly businesses like that, I don't want to say that they are, but they're the ones putting their employees over on 27 so if they can't park there, where are they going to go? You know, it's going to it's going to get tight, and in the morning it's incredibly congested. So I'm hoping a lot of people do walk, but it we've all seen Starbucks, right? So I'm of the mindset, let it go, and if it's too difficult for people to go in the morning, that's the business's problem. That was sort of the discussion. Like, at some point you're harming yourselves by not having that parking. And that's why I'm like, you know, it's like you can't use that parking during the day, but at least if you've had it when you really want to make your money and just find a liquor license, right? So, and I think so. So, yeah, so it's like, you'll want to have that parking. So are we out of liquor licenses? David Villari: Like, a half when you do? Can't sell wine in beer and tequila, just Rebecca Stanizzi: beer and wine. You know, not I remember. It was mentioned before, but I don't remember it in the zba app. Maybe it's just coffee for right now, but they're definitely doing dinner or an event. Oh, yeah. So if you have an event, you unless you bring your own Unknown: eat with terrain. There's place we have space for both, David Villari: I don't, yeah, but Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah. Long story short, like our zoning code is so wacky that they could, literally, if they squinted, probably approve the building without parking, but it doesn't pass the giggle test, right? So it's just our thing is so poorly written. It's just, it's bizarre. So yeah, they're just trying to figure out. So Tom, who's an architect, not an attorney is trying to figure out, so he needs to check with Town Council, and, you know, can they approve it without any, you know, dedicated parking? But when I was talking to them afterwards, if you can just get something, yeah, that's dedicated, everyone will just breathe a lot easier. During the day, you will get people off the bike path and walking and but you you know, at night, it's going to be different. So it's kind of you gotta and we all events is where you make your money. Yeah, that's David Villari: so you need a bike rack, yeah? Rebecca Stanizzi: So anyway, so there they were. Well prepared, well received. Had people speaking sport like nobody was really the only service the library said, We love the concept, don't use parking. So that was sort of the extent David Villari: surprising they would say that, because, like, if you're parking to go get a coffee and then you use the library lot, you're more likely to now be like, All right, kids, let's go in. Let's go read a book, and you'll use the library more. Unknown: Yeah, I don't know their volumes. Like, I don't know. Like, I Yeah, it's full Rebecca Stanizzi: often, okay, yeah, the library, the library, yeah, yep, it is. You can usually get a space, but it's, yeah, okay, so infographic, sorry, how much time do you guys have left? It is now 1005. Minutes. You have five minutes All right, so you have you looked at this revised or not, or Okay,
Katie Noble Harris: photo of sign, yeah, Yeah, okay.
Oh yes, sir.
David Villari: My that was my 90% Katie Noble Harris: I should just put 90% square footage. David Villari: It's worth clarifying, yeah, because I, I'm like, oh, that's b Yeah, if I look at it, I say square front, Rebecca Stanizzi: but it is, when you stop and think about it, like all the doctor's offices. I mean, everything is basically filled except that, you know, and like, you're always going to have one or two that are baking at any given time, but it's those, it's the kids strong, and it's the one across that makes it feel like he's David Villari: I just I walked in, like, I like, consciously went by and tried to count the number of doors, yeah, stickers on it, like, front doors. And it was like, six still, Rebecca Stanizzi: but the kid strong being all one space, or were you counting because it has multiple David Villari: doors? That's where I don't I don't have, like, their layout of the plaza. Is that available online? Just missed it disruption. It's just gonna call summit Rebecca Stanizzi: and just, oh, I have one. I said, I don't know if it's on. I don't know if they posted online, but yeah, I'll text Unknown: you out. Yeah, yep. Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: I think we should do so. So with the sale, I think data is good, the occupancy rate, the tax projections, those are always like the three hot buttons, just like small tweaks in language, but the bike path, so did you get a hold of Larry? Katie Noble Harris: Yes, it is that's correct. Rebecca Stanizzi: Well, you just say what they're paving. When are they paving? Katie Noble Harris: I can try and get more info from him, Rebecca Stanizzi: because one is like, what are they actually doing? The connector from Russell's to Sudbury that way. But then the question they're they're supposedly paving, what's now stoned us. That drives some people crazy. David Villari: That should be after. I think timing was, from what I saw. It's after they build the bridge, because they consider, you know, the stone dust area, it's writable, it's usable. Yeah, so they were going to do the bridge work and all that, and get the commitment and do paving here. But is it? DCR is Rebecca Stanizzi: doing it? I thought it was like a different pot of money or something. No, I don't know. Try to find out when, you know, hopefully when that's happening is that sort of the missing link you Unknown: and I were just chatting about, maybe we take any text feedback now and then she and I can work on this together for next meeting, just clean up some design and other stuff, and then have it ready to go. Okay, she's been doing a lot. I can help there with Rebecca Stanizzi: lot of stuff going on. Cool, alright. So get any comments. So guys, alright, that's alright. This is on the property of contact list. I clean that up. We're actually in pretty good shape. It's really it's looking great. I remember the colors on it. Yeah, I was asking you, do the colors mean anything was that just left over? Katie Noble Harris: You added a lot of info, the colors for were for like, information that I was missing. Okay, so I Rebecca Stanizzi: can kind of change around for that, just to highlight with the box we're missing. Yes, I didn't want to change it without I'm like, there's maybe some system here, I don't know, Katie Noble Harris: but yeah, you can change it, or I can change it whatever you want. Rebecca Stanizzi: Okay, all right, and then committee liaison updates, joint meeting with FinCom. Now it's probably gonna be October lanes. I did ping Jeff. I said, Any update on lab? And he's like, No, I was chastened. He's Jason. He was just so concerned about the last I think we need sort of a, yeah, he's to go by right, and talk with them. I think it was just too they didn't quite understand getting a phone call. Katie Noble Harris: Otherwise, I'm happy to go by. I'm at often at the high school for like, Val Rebecca Stanizzi: lives there too. So the question is, and I think before he stopped in, I don't know, Val is sort of the natural one. He lives around the corner type of thing. So I'll ping him and see if he can pick up that ball. And then the economic development bond bill we still don't have. So it could be researching other bond bills. It could be anywhere over five years. I'm like, Oh, nice, right? So you really plan on that? Yeah, and, oh, I should have taken off 14 West plane was supposed to come off. There is public forum next Monday. Next Monday. Do you think you'll go to that, or I probably will just to listen. But I think that I know the library would love to do a satellite there. I don't know if anybody's gonna be organized enough to do community center different from the library, but, and then it's a question of the office David Villari: uses, was that going forward is count use. That's what's Rebecca Stanizzi: being proposed. That's why they're doing this public forum. And so the question is, what within the town, like officials, town uses, or, yeah, yeah, because you can easily move, like the school department over, yeah, anything we can do to condense here, it's going to make it less expensive to build or rebuild, or whatever we're doing later Katie Noble Harris: notice, a bit of chatter about that building online, and I do wonder if, in the new near future, like maybe later this fall or winter, if it would be, depending on how it goes with the meeting, if it would be worthwhile to kind of put some numbers down for people to read an infographic. Yeah, because I think that there's some assumptions that maybe people are making about it, or why the town buildings, wow, that would be helpful for people to see the math down. Unknown: Yeah, yep. And like the cost per square footage to build the community center versus Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the client makes some useful sense. Yep. All right, whether that's us or not, I'm actually not sure, but yeah, Rebecca Stanizzi: so next month I'm coming back on the 10th so it's also a social Columbus Day weekend. So 17th, work for you guys. We're in October. I know, isn't it crazy? October 7, October 17, 830,
Katie Noble Harris: as of right now, David Villari: yes, yes.
Katie Noble Harris: Okay, easy.
Rebecca Stanizzi: Anything else before we adjourn? Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion, David, motion, second, second, Aaron, second, all in favor. Aye, four, oh, we are adjourned at 10:11am,
Katie Noble Harris: link. David, if you happen to David Villari: it'll take me, like, three days to find it, but I will, well, Rebecca Stanizzi: it's always at the end. So on the agenda, it's always the town planner report at the end that Yes. So, yes, yeah. So just deliver for Adina speaking. And you know, time of date, timestamp, Karen Kelly: wait till Monday to look right, David Vallari: just because it'll take, Rebecca Stanizzi: sometimes it takes a couple of days. Yeah, and it's funky right now. It's not an I don't think they switched it back. It's still, you go to wake him, usually you see the whole grid of meetings. But it's like, it's not working right now. I think they're posting directly to YouTube or something, I don't know, but go look at the top of the list, and you'll see them there. Marvel. David Villari: Yeah, I'll find at some point. And then when I do, I'll send a link today, and we can save Rebecca Stanizzi: Alright, so the EDC annual reports. So for newbies, if you've never seen, actually, the Wayland town report, it's like they publish a book pretty much every year, and every board and committee gives a report of what they did for the past year. So usually it's like they say to be about 1000 words. This is about 1100 but ultimately, so we're saying before I struggled to get it below 1000 like, Oh, it's just the guidelines. Okay, so it just kind of gives an update of the business that you did in the fiscal year. So that is July 120 24 through June 30 of 2025, which is the fiscal year. Karen Kelly: So they're a digital copy of it. Rebecca Stanizzi: There must be on the on the website. Yeah, it's usually there's like, stack of them sitting around somewhere, but, yeah, it's kind of interesting. Flip through a nail. Like everybody, every board and committee is reporting on what they did Unknown: so well. And that would be like, if we did have a digital copy, that would be a great thing to to like when you think about what is the use of AI and and not some are trying to listen to meetings where there's many people talking in person, and some are not, but to actually take something like this that's been approved by every single town board and committee in writing and then be able to push that out as a piece of content a podcast or Something like that, right? That's good point me to be a lot more accurate. Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: Probably really wonder how many people actually read it, but there's a lot of ton of useful information Katie Noble Harris: in it. Yeah. So is there a digital copy, or we're not sure, Rebecca Stanizzi: it must be posted on the website somewhere, okay, thank Interesting. Yeah, who would be the right person ask? Yep, yep. I'm sure if you look on the web, it's almost got a beat. I don't know if it's a state requirement, but it's really something they've they've done. Katie Noble Harris: So when does it usually release the whole Rebecca Stanizzi: Fay. It's always due by September 30, yep. And then, typically you see it within like, a month or two. So they just format everything and then just print it all out. It's literally like, you know, it's like a book like that, kind of interesting in your record of what the town did for eons and eons go back years. So were there any comments on this? Anything that didn't read, right? Anything I forgot,
Karen Kelly: anything to add
Katie Noble Harris: that was great. It was like, super informative. And Memory Lane, yeah, Unknown: we did do a lot, a lot good, great.
Rebecca Stanizzi: And then liaison, I put in. And slash Tom, because technically, as of the end of the fiscal year, we had Tom, but just and technically Nick was still our clerk as of the end of fiscal year 25 because that was the end of his term. But so it's literally that snapshot at the we had 30th 2025 Unknown: haven't shared a survey that we didn't hear. I'm sorry, no, Rebecca Stanizzi: and they, they limit you and what you can attach as visuals and attachments, things Unknown: like that. No, I don't mean to start. I mean, they know, okay, that you Rebecca Stanizzi: that we did the survey, the survey results are not Unknown: that's fine, okay, yeah, sorry, that's awesome.
Great. So we could, but no, I want to make sure that we that's mentioned in here. It is interesting. Katie Noble Harris: This is just a tiny note not to belabor anything. But like that, some of these things, like the economic development bond bill and then the tip funds, those are something that like are going to keep they haven't happened yet, and so we're going to have to keep, keep going, keep going with them to get the those big Rebecca Stanizzi: funds. It takes years. Yeah, yeah. So report that went so last year there was like a wrap up of October occupied and generating full tax revenues. So it's like, that snapshot, and then it was like, Oh, we have a new it's like, it literally just sold. But otherwise, you know, before it was just what you did on rivers. I mean, Riverside took us eight years, so it was a long time. So some are longer, some are shorter. All right, any other comments? David, you have anything that you want? David Villari: Just very nice. Minor edits to that one section. Small words, Rebecca Stanizzi: just on the non critical Yeah, to the splash pad. Okay, ground area. Does that say what you guys wanted to say? Is it like a fair capture as of June 30, you guys actually sent the memo? Oh, not until after Labor Day, right? Um, so we in there at all will be recommending, because we were definitely talking about it in June. Yeah, we started talking about it may is considering,
David Villari: is considering, considering is considering, and then maybe just help on wording to reduce some pieces of the funding discussions there CPA only is where I think we're worth exploring, like local fundraising and then Tom meeting budget as well, if needed. Yep, the town Rebecca Stanizzi: meeting budget, you'd be capital budget, and you're going to be down the totem pole, right? So you're not gonna be able to most likely either way, I think so. Saying CPA only might restrict us. Okay? So I'll take it only Yeah, David Villari: and then and amenities, I think would be the only other thing. Yeah, yeah.
Katie Noble Harris: I was interested in the on the last page, the EDC sponsored article for the historic facade of Sydney. I That's the first I've heard of that is, would we ever want to check back in on that, or is it just not worth it? Rebecca Stanizzi: So it came down to the prop. It's a private property. Yeah, right. And so it was an older gentleman and had health and family issues, and he just couldn't kind of get motivated enough to do it. So essentially, CPA said, you know, you've had it for three years. We've set aside those funds, but if you see, he's not going to use it. And so that's we said to him, like, get move it or lose it, right? And basically, let go, because he just couldn't, couldn't quite deal with it. So that was, that was very sad, because we know if the building is still owned by that same person, I have heard it might have been bought by the people next door, who, when he was saying that they might be interested, they were not interested in doing the historic so might be worth checking in. We can always go back to CPA, go back to town meeting, re request the funds, but that's sort of the discipline. They let it go for a little while, but at the end of the day, they don't want to hold on to those David Villari: funds forever. So yeah. So just Katie Noble Harris: curious, if it's worthwhile for us to even just know who the owner of that building is. Seems like a lot of work to try to get those funds. Maybe we don't want to focus our energy on but might just be worthwhile Rebecca Stanizzi: knowing it'd be easy. Now everybody knows what it was, and you know, sort of, oh, look, they're back and they're willing to do it, and here's their signed document. David Villari: Then it could probably be very pretty quick. So, Katie Noble Harris: 70 to 70. Okay, Rebecca Stanizzi: anything else?
Hearing? None? Do I hear a motion to approve. Katie Noble Harris: Motion to approve Unknown: a motion second, second and second. All in favor. Karen, Hi, Katie, hi, Becky. All right. Rebecca Stanizzi: So, so approved as amended. So this came in hot at the last minute that you EDC goals. So given that we did not get you guys have it right, given that we don't have Val's in here, and also given that Jeff didn't rank the major categories, but this just gives you kind of a data dump of where people are at and then also what people wanted to spearhead, and either that or work on so we can kind of digest it a little bit. I mean, even I admit it's really a chance to kind of really deep dive into the data. And kind of typically, what we do before is then rank them. You show where those priorities are based on where the numbers popped out. But you can kind of see, you know, the major categories. It's interesting to see where people were seeing what was important. And a lot of this is also, you know, important based on the time that you have, because it's just only, only so much time in the day. So but, David, I was interested. I think you had a note, and you had several notes on yours, but, like, you had 10s, like, very low on existing corridor cleanup tasks. But why was that? I forget it was because, David Villari: because it should come down to, like, other departments to do the enforcement right, not necessarily. EDC, if we're, if we're, our charter is to, that's what Rebecca Stanizzi: you were feeling like Design Review Board was on top of it, sort of thing. David Villari: Bill Sterling and the team seems to have been empowered by Select Board to, like, take some control on all those guidelines, all those zoning laws, for the facade rules, etc. So, I mean, okay, but that was Rebecca Stanizzi: why you but you saw it as important, which was a high number, but then it was, like a low number. Well, exactly reverse. David Villari: That's exactly reverse. That's exactly that was why I think it's still really important for like, the overall objective of the EDC, like it played into it, but it's the responsibilities of Rebecca Stanizzi: another team to execute well, part of it, as we've seen, like, it falls in between a bunch of teams, right? So Design Review Board, they look at proposals coming in, not necessarily looking backwards, right? And then building department, they're also looking at what's coming in, and not necessarily they can, but they're often not. And so it's like, how do we, how do we marshal those and get them pushed forward? David Villari: So, but, like, so, like, the code administration, I think Robert said very specifically, like, that's the planning board's job Rebecca Stanizzi: on the zoning side, yeah. So part of it is, I think cataloging, which is what Katie and I were doing, literally walking around. And, you know, what do we want to be notifying property owners about? And then it's a question of, who is it going out through? David Villari: Yep. So, okay, Katie Noble Harris: that's actually doing the logistics, like the actual grunt work of making it happen, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, or making and making sure that it happens in the different directions. So, yeah, David Villari: yeah, don't let my 10s, like, super skew it. Do this kind of, Do I understand the roles? Yeah,
Katie Noble Harris: this is just one note. I'm curious to Karen, like, what you think about this. I think I would have said, like a year ago, like, put a one as to, like, reaching out to new businesses. And I will admit I can do more work on that front, and I'm happy to do it, depending on our decisions on this, but I kind of feel like my opinions have changed after working on outreach to a few businesses. Just kind of feels like maybe it's not worth our while, and that if people do want to expand, they will be looking at Wayland, Unknown: and so you're talking about existing or new, Katie Noble Harris: new coming to Wayland. It feels like maybe it's just not worth our time and energy to be going out and making I mean, yeah, occasionally like trying to do our best. But I just, I don't know, after some of the experiences and meetings we've had, I'm it kind of feels like it's a lot of effort for not a lot of Unknown: I appreciate you on that, and also, like the brokers are supposed to be doing this, yeah, yeah. I just it feels like we're, I feel like I'm trying to insert myself into space. I don't know well, and so, you know? And then it's like, well, then what's the process? So we, and then who, like, also thinking through, like, Who do we reach out to at these chains? You know, I think that's the other we might be totally barking the wrong tree. David Villari: Like, I think Jeff said it too. It's like that's very much a broker to broker transaction that we should stay out of, in a way. And I think I did the same thing. I marked that as lower down for us, but then higher up, I marked things like us putting a database together that represents those businesses or those empty storefronts, so that it's easier to access and find out. So give that to brokers. We have the sale brokers, you know, with all that information, all of the, you know, the one mile, two mile, three mile info, like, right at their fingertips, yeah, and then maybe that makes it a little easier, Katie Noble Harris: yeah, it feels like a different thing, reaching out to brokers, rather than like individual businesses. Rebecca Stanizzi: We can, we can hit. 15 or 20 different groups with that one broker. So we need to make sure that the brokers are educated and then David Villari: and see the vision of, like, where everything's trying to go, because they're not seeing that on the day to day, Rebecca Stanizzi: right? Yeah. And most important that they can reach out and who to reach out to at the town, because as they walk in blindly, right? And then you want them to at least have that, yeah, that connection, that conduit, David Villari: I have the same thoughts, Katie Noble Harris: yeah. I mean, does doesn't it feel like we've kind of trying to, yeah? Karen Kelly: No, I, I totally agree with you. Rebecca Stanizzi: That comes down to the predilections of the property owner and what their goals are, and then the vendor and like, there's so many variables, it's just hard to Yeah. Unknown: You think about as like, a risk discussion too. Like, is a business owner going to trust someone just like, as a town representative? It's going to be great. Like that should be a best business risk evaluation that they're doing on the broker sides. I don't think it's necessarily bad. I don't think it looks bad for an economic development group To, but I don't, I think like, we might like, but again, we might reach out to one of five potential people in an org, right, that like might be the one responsible for something like this, and then it just could be a lot of wasted energy. That's my biggest fear. And we only have so much time and David Villari: exactly, Rebecca Stanizzi: and the test case, like, if there is an economic development director, then people know to go to them, like, it's just that natural magnet, because otherwise, if it's not, like, do I got a planning board, do I got a slick board? Like, what do I do? But if there's an ed director, that's where you go if you want to potentially locate so that's the beauty of having that position. And then they are then full time or part time, you know, focused on that, right? Katie Noble Harris: And they're probably tapped into the brokers and the Rebecca Stanizzi: this, over time, they'll get to know everybody who's kind of sniffing around town. Unknown: So it's interesting, we actually all aligned on that. Yeah, I couldn't go I never picked any number low. It's five. My brain only works on scales of one to five. David Villari: I started to fill it out, then I put 10 is like, we should work on that. Yeah? Then you're Rebecca Stanizzi: like, I know. David Vallari: So I did that backwards for a minute. Katie Noble Harris: Is it 10 correct? Rebecca Stanizzi: The lowest
Karen Kelly: trend lines? I think, you know, David Villari: I can always just wait her scores, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, yeah. I think my lowest was a seven. So yeah, I David Villari: did try to, like, focus on putting things as higher, like 10s and eights and stuff, just because there's, like, six of us, yeah. And that was it, yeah. It's like, I think everything here on this list is important in some way, shape or form. It's just, if we have to tackle something to make an impact, what do we do? That's right, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: And then, you know, most importantly off to the right is who's willing to lead an issue and who wants to work on it, kind of seeing some of this stuff. And again, that's why saying, like, pick multiples just because they're, you know, we may have a wealth of people want to work on a certain topic. So that kind of gives a good view of what people are interested in. Karen Kelly: slacker, Rebecca Stanizzi: I know, and Katie. So Katie didn't do it. It was off to the side. Like, I want to do nothing. Unknown: I missed you. Like, look at this. I like and like, David Villari: you can just everything. I put my name next to and Karen too. I think that's where Katie's been, because we tend to overlap very well.
Rebecca Stanizzi: So I think over the next, you know, before next month's meeting, it's a lot to digest right here, but you can kind of look at the data, think it through. You can insert, I'll send it, we'll kind of recirculate the file. Okay, we'll get valves in there, and then, you know, kind of digest. But particularly, okay, it's interesting knowing where we want to go in prior years that there were so many things thrown at the wall, like we're pretty focused in what we're doing now. It's a Karen point. You know, Karen, you didn't have anything lower than a five, right? So it's kind of before. When we were first doing it was, like, all over the map, and you have things that we had a scale of one to five, and it wasn't dense enough, like it didn't give you enough with somebody else's three or something like that. So that was where the 10 came from. But so we'll get Vals Katie, if you can input your your wanting to lead and wanting to participate in and then, yeah, just kind of digest it and what you're seeing and kind of natural teams. David Villari: May find a couple in the others. And I think I might be the only one that did that. Rebecca Stanizzi: So sorry. No, no, you that's exactly what you're supposed to do. Unknown: But I think the only, like, real, other one that's worth discussing, or it needs more detail around it, I'll send a memo, is that last one on the last page, business vacancy fees, Rebecca Stanizzi: is that if there's a vacant storefront, then they're gonna I David Villari: found, like, a really nice set of case studies on like Wellington, they brought it down from like 17 vacancies all the way to six in less than a year, because they started to impose vacancy fees, basically for empty storefronts. Rebecca Stanizzi: We talked about this a bit. Did? We did? We're so unusual. Friendly already. Yeah. Rated that. But. David Villari: But like, who's whose friend should we be? Are we the brokers friend, or are we the town representative? Rebecca Stanizzi: In town, we represent property owners and we are the town. That's good. Clarity, right? That's fine. So it's kind of easy, like in Arlington, things that are more dense, it's much easier. It is typically a small spot in a bigger building. Here, it's typically the whole building, or it's, you know, it's much more impactful. So for us to do a fee that is meaningful enough to get their attention in reverse, it's going to be painful enough that they're going to be really annoyed, right? So it's, you know, part of it was, you know, before it was Whole Foods, that was, that was the poster child, right? That it was just sitting there empty Santander, Bank of America. You kind of knew that something they were paying but you know, kind of our big gaps in our teeth are now kind of filling in, which is good, David Villari: but the math is always like, this is a problem with plazas. And like any large landlord corporation like the math always favors them to boost rents higher, which strangles small businesses out, right? Because they always want, if I have 10 storefronts, and they're like, Okay, I could charge $5,000 a month and have six, you know, tenants, instead of 10, I have $30,000 coming in per month. Or, you know, another landlord come in and under charge and have all 10 filled. But that problem there is that they'd have now four extra, you know, utility bills, water bills, maintenance fees for extra people to keep track of, make sure they're paying their rent like it's a lot more work for them. So there's like, a cost benefit to landlords keeping rent high, and if you de incentivize that, then you bring that more neutral. Unknown: I just worry that we're already, we already struggle to attract retailers. David Villari: But it's not the retailers we're attracting. The brokers own it, right? And the retailers because of the rates of rent. Like, if you talk to businesses in the plaza, a lot of them say the same thing. They're like, rents pretty high, you know? And rents high, and that's controlled by Zurich, or whoever. Right? Katie Noble Harris: Could it be, I'm thinking, not for small businesses? Could it be something that is for larger properties? Yeah, I don't know if that changes your feeling Unknown: about it. I mean, I don't know if we don't think it would discourage I mean, it isn't right. It's not an impact on the small business. It's an impact on the person who owns the building.
Katie Noble Harris: And that owner of the building would have to meet a threshold either their national chain or their Karen Kelly: problem is, though, that the whole foods Plaza was 80% full. Yeah, yeah, it was just dark leases. Katie Noble Harris: So, but I think, couldn't it affect something like David Vallari: empty storefronts would be the like criteria that Rebecca Stanizzi: as a landlord, you can't force your tenant to occupy the space, so I don't know. But if you, if you saw something that was a good summary of case studies, David Villari: well, they, I'll send it. I mean, I created the case study list and stuff. Okay, but there was another one that looked at like, beautification is the wrong word, but it was like, they didn't upkeep the property. So the old Bank of America site, with the lack of mowing for how many years, would have been something that got, like fined, and eventually the fines would have outweighed just paying someone to mow the lawn. And so you would have had a mow the lawn, right? So it's, it's doesn't need to be big to be an impact, right? And get what you want out of the town center Unknown: there, I think, does that fall under the design guidelines? Rebecca Stanizzi: Like the plant flowing doesn't. That's the thing, the maintenance, the initial design does, the meat doesn't. And that's one of the questions is, you know, we sit down with Nate the building inspector and say, What? What do we have the rights control? We're not, we're not like a homeowners association. You have to keep your grass mode and your flowers, right? It's just so we may not have that tool. Should we have that tool in our code? You know that David Villari: all that, it's a tool that other towns have found out how to use. Yeah, right? Rebecca Stanizzi: Useful to know for the next time. David Villari: Yeah, so I'll write it up. I mean, I know, like, I totally hear it. I knew anyway, so I could be enrolled. Unknown: No, I don't think there's a right or wrong here. And I think, like, again, it's like, if it's we would just need to thread the needle, because there are so many ways that even Santander, technically, they're, they have a lease right, they they're getting rent money every month right from that bank. So unless we, in my mind, if we were to do something, we would need to do something that would also thread the needle of penalizing people who a lot like, take offices, yeah, that just like, remain unoccupied for more than six months, or something like that. And I don't know we can do that legally, but in my mind, that would be a practical component. Rebecca Stanizzi: That's one where somebody's paying rent but not looking occupies, correct. The next is like a town center that one corner, this kitty corner from ex golf and across for our sway, the new staff that has been empty from the beginning. It's still gravel in there, like we can do something, right? David Villari: So, oh, I had a question on that, because it was in the infographic. We say 90% is that on square footage? Or number of storefronts? I couldn't square footage. That's on square footage? Yeah, it's like, because the supermarket's huge, yeah. So what could we look at that, fortunately, number maybe as as also, like, what's the storefront vacancy? Because that I'd be curious about, is that more like 60% because it feels more like 60 Rebecca Stanizzi: well, by the time you had the medical bill, they'll be pretty high. I mean, it's just like, you know, yeah, Town Center Plaza. I mean, you have two that are, they're, they're right at Alyssa, Andrew, like they're so prominent, if the old artists of the kids strong space and then that want to cross, everything else is, David Villari: I think, still, I think I counted six when I was there last week that are just empty, empty stores. Yeah, I Unknown: don't know. To Cara, well, like to Carl going to bagel table and David Villari: to card spaces. There was a place behind Takara too, as well. That's a dermatologist. It's a services space available and big, plastered, you might Rebecca Stanizzi: just, but that's for Takara. Yeah. Just, yeah, dermatologist. Couple hair around that David Villari: way, either way. Like, I was curious, because it doesn't always feel like 90 when you're down there and you talk to the storefront people, and they're, Unknown: they're saying the same thing. Do you think it's but I do think it is close to 90, like, I think it just feels, the thing is, like, there's a lot of things about the way that Plaza was designed. Like, when we've gone in and talked to business owners, they're like, You never see people here. And part of that is the design things behind the swift and so you have these little pathways, you know, it's almost like a little street in there, but like, there's, you know, there's a reason why all the new types of like shopping positive squares with parking in the middle, and if you're sitting outside of the restaurant, you can see all the other restaurants and people walking around. There's a sense of, like, there's activity here, and that is just, Katie Noble Harris: it's designed backwards, almost the building space, in Karen Kelly: our very professional opinion, Rebecca Stanizzi: interesting with the new property owner does with it? Yeah, they're good at this. Yeah, they'll understand this. They could change, Katie Noble Harris: change the businesses to incoming businesses to face. Rebecca Stanizzi: They could change incoming businesses. They could add additional square they could reconfigure. They could do whatever, I think there's still additional retail space that they could build. They just haven't, they haven't chosen builders. You're listening. So that'll be those discussions with the David Villari: property owner, the other others that I had added here on support Wayland businesses that section talk about like the ribbon cuttings and the Wayland post and like that could tie in nicely, too, for people that are just driving by and on 20 that don't get the Wayland post Sudbury people. What if you had, like, chocolate therapy on the Billboard, like, one month Unknown: and then so is this an existing billboard? David Villari: You're thinking it's the billboard right at the town center that the town uses, like, every now and then they're advertising like, oh, the planes are coming through, yeah. But like, you see that when you're sitting at the light, yeah? Like it's very visible, yeah? And I'm just wondering, like, could we one week a month, right? Or one week a quarter, or whatever, get a business on there, grow the same Wayland Post article, yeah, and just highlight it, yeah, and then do the same thing in South Wayland and see if we drive a little traffic. Yeah. Unknown: Are you thinking about the what the intersection of old con path and 126 David Villari: Yeah, I couldn't think though, if there was an outboard type thing already in Rebecca Stanizzi: use there, there is, there is, yeah, there's one there and there's one at 20 and 25 Katie Noble Harris: Why would we ever want to do a new one, like an additional one, kind of up, up a little further. Unknown: We do need, like in general, we need signs that are promoting the retail, the current retailers in town, in town center, yeah, yes, the signage, I mean, David Villari: that's, it's after the intersection on the road, yeah. And you can Unknown: even see what's up there. You can't turn you can't see what's up there. There's no sign ahead of time. Yeah, it's just, like, there's just so many basic things I don't know. Like, if there's anything else, like, I like this idea, and we have this, then we have this. The infrastructure is there, intersection there too. I think that could be a good place to start. David Villari: I mean, because if we're doing the work for the Wayland post articles or whatnot, then you just trip it down. Cater it. Put a picture on the map of where the business is. People can go get it Rebecca Stanizzi: well. Plus Katie, as we walked around and talked to some of the property owners, right? You want to incent them to make changes, like change the sign. We were talking with cooks automotive, and he might be interested in doing a sign. Like, great, if you did that well, you hopefully get you profiled in Wayland post, and you'd put them there. Like, you'd want to reward those companies and businesses that go out of their way to make improvements and highlight that Lloyd was in. He was good. He is interested. Yes, yes. He's good, yeah. So, yeah. So all this can virtuous cycle of getting some of that information out there. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, kind of changing topic. If that's okay. Just back to this. I don't know if there's a way like I'm thinking about explore meals, tax, explore rooms tax. And also, I don't know if it's on here anywhere like but getting gas. Station approval to have convenience stores, but things like that, those feel like we've kind of missed the deadline for town meeting this year. So I don't know if there's like, a way to say, Okay, this is something that's on our charter or agenda, whatever, but kind of like, not right now. Like, I don't know how we would break that down, if that's something for 25 or 2627 David Villari: Yep. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part of that is kind of, it's sort of in the route 20 master plan. It's buried in that. So we could kind of flush that out as a topic, because, again, we have that as a survey question, right? Didn't we, when we surveyed, and people were surprisingly amenable to that. David Villari: So the meals tax that exists already, it doesn't like point seven, five, I thought it did, Rebecca Stanizzi: doesn't I thought it did like the town meeting thing, right? It's something, yeah, there's we have to be past the Tom meeting. But yeah, most cities and really thought it did. I thought we had one, and I went looking for it, and I was like, and I was like, Oh, can't we use a little bit of that for, you know, doing, like, cleaning up the corridor or something. We don't have it. I'm going to be like, David Villari: super rude to go to chat for a minute. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, that's something we could maybe punt to FinCom to see if they Well, that's Rebecca Stanizzi: part of it, so we can talk through we still have this joint meeting, and I haven't heard from Phil, which is kind of strange, but that's one of the things on there. Is, you know, what are those things that we can be doing to boost our tax base? And with that, you're not going to get a lot of money. It's going to be maybe 100 grand, if you're lucky. But if you use those funds to then clean up the corridor or, you know, do something with it and magnify it instead of just having it, you know, go in the endless Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, probably new songs. Unknown: Chatgpt thinks we do too. Did we used to 75% I don't think so. I think so I'm going to see what it Rebecca Stanizzi: ask for this source. Can you do that? I'm finding more. I'll use this very finding more and more often it's on. It's like, yeah, me, it's kind of interesting. Anyway, all right, so we are 909, just to keep this going. So if you can fill out yours spearhead and the do, I'll get vows, we'll integrate it, kind of think it, and then I'll sort of rank it a little bit more to kind of the data will pop a little bit more. Yeah, if anything else you thinking of, anything else, Katie Noble Harris: things that we want to they're important, but they're just not timely right now, like the do it in the future. I think, Unknown: I think we need to wait for Jeff to fill out his thing, and then we circle back to that. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yes, yeah, we can kind of do that, and maybe we have sort of that bottom list of looking ahead to fiscal year 27 Yes, God yes. That's a kind of horrifying thought, but yeah,
David Villari: there were community banks didn't maybe touch base with separately because I couldn't score them, just because I didn't know enough about them. Yeah, yeah, we can Rebecca Stanizzi: chat about those a little bit. Yeah, we can do that. Okay, all right. So the upcoming Joint Finance Committee, EDC, I still have a bunch of notes, and I finally just put them all in one spot. So that's this, if you guys have this, give that one with the green stripes. There we go. So in a joint meeting with the FinCom, I tried to separate it into what are high impact things we can do, what are medium and what are low? Like, you can have a bunch of ideas, but, you know, like, the meals tax is not going to be moving the needle a whole lot unless you Super Target it. So you know the highest impact, and you know, you can be talking about this. These are some of the data. So this is sort of, you know, every FinCom loves a spreadsheet, right? So high impact things are encouraging town homes and revisiting MBTA communities encouraging town homes. This has the data. Our existing commercial tax base is 160 million. Alta Oxbow itself was 73 it just sold for 98 that gives you perspective. It's this high, big, splashy thing going on, but town homes are the quiet engine. We don't have to build more Alta oxbows, nor should we like it's that was in its place in time, and it solved 40 B and all that stuff, but town homes right now, our existing condominium townhouse base is three and a half times our commercial tax base. It dwarfs our commercial tax base. So, and this is sort of people are fine with them, right? They're used to them. They make sense. They're really land efficient. They're super low in services. Usually it's retirees, a lot of school kids, private roads, infrastructure. It's basically like the equivalent of commercial. The reason why towns and cities like commercial is because usually it's low services, high revenues. This is basically more so it's three and a half times a commercial tax base. This is our financial engine in this town. A few questions here. Unknown: So one is, is is it? Is it our financial engine, mostly because we don't have a lot of zoning for commercial in terms of, Rebecca Stanizzi: okay, yeah. I mean our commercial tax base is literally, it's 2.8% of our entire tax base, 2.8% that's Karen Kelly: it, because you have so little. Zoning for commercial Rebecca Stanizzi: use is that correct? Our commercial is not as dense as it could, but you're never, based on our limited areas, you're never going to suddenly right up the native mall, right? It's not Unknown: okay. So then, then, because I one of the things that was on my mind to discuss at this meeting was, you know, I just saw some more chatter online about, about, you know, what we need to do to get the financial engine moving in this town and people shouting all kinds of wrong information about and so I was like, we need to put something out about this. And so it's exactly that. And so I'm just thinking in my mind, and Katie, I'm happy to take this on, is putting together, like, I don't even know if it's an infographic or if it's like a PSA, like we've done before, like we did with the talent center, stuff about, here's what's really going on. But I do think it would be really valuable to kind of like, pull some pieces of some major facts about what is driving the engine, why it's driving the engine, and how we can think about Yeah, David Villari: you had that on Rebecca Stanizzi: the on the priorities, I think, yeah. So I put at the top, and this was actually an order was on the agenda, which is why it was at the top. But, yeah, but part of that is exactly that, because people don't necessarily understand. I mean, even looking at Town Center, even I was surprised looking at it, I was expecting a little bit more it literally, River Trail place, 42 units is worth the same as the entire rest of the town center plaza, yeah, yeah. Like, stop and think about that, three acres versus 21 acres. This is how much these are worth. I mean, literally, those are assessed at like a million dollars a piece. So it's huge. I mean, even that is, you know, worth $42 million right? So that's 42 across the way all to Oxbow. Huge, massive, what, like eight acres. That's 70, right? The town homes were really good at building expensive town homes. Yeah, we're good at that. Lean into it, land efficient, generate those tax revenue crisis, yeah, David Villari: if you could, if you could get the mahoneys to not do cascade and instead build like five, six town homes on there, whatever. Rebecca Stanizzi: We probably have more than that, because they're like a two, but yeah, I mean, it's ultimately for this size building that. And I would not be surprised if they came back and said, I just want to do town homes. I would not shock me in the slightest, because the same value building a lot less square footage in a very cost effective stick built way, you're going to get the same value, right? So, yeah, it's kind of like, how do we get people focused in that mindset? And then do we encourage zoning in that regard? Do we, you know, second of this is the MBTA communities. If we put MBTA community zoning, which is literally 15 units an acre, River Trail places, 12, it's not like you have to build like, apartment buildings with MBTA communities. It's 15. Is not that dense. It's basically close to townhomes. So because we have are so dense at Alta Oxbow, it averages out across the entire town for 15 you have to hit that threshold. So you know where Alta Oxbow is, 27 you could put 10 somewhere, which is what they did when they put the zoning over at mate stop, right? So that's River Trail place just within put that down David Villari: with the data you gave here, right? 21 acres for the 42 43 million. Right? Three acres, 41 and a half, that's $2 million an acre if you're doing commercial or $13.8 million per acre doing town homes. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yep, yep. So and then, you know, and then, you know, and that doesn't even count Wayland columns, which is also there, yeah, I don't know if that was originally part of the raythe It must have been part of the Raytheon site, but that's another 40 million. Which one Wayland? So River Trail is behind the common the town green, okay, it's right there. And then Wayland Commons is along 27 so that's the one. It's the kind of as you first turn in, off of 27 David Villari: it's right and left. And that makes sense, because that's bigger acreage they have. They have a Rebecca Stanizzi: lot of conservation. They're the where the housing is not that tight, but the site itself is literally 18 Acres, because there's a ton of green space around. David Villari: If we took like, a look at just on the map, the density of the housing, like, how many acres would that be if? Rebecca Stanizzi: I'd guess probably, like, five to seven. It's not quite as dense as River Trail place, but, David Villari: but still. So that's, let's call it like 38.3 divide by I'll go the high, high route seven. That's five and a half million dollars per acre instead of the two commercial Rebecca Stanizzi: Yep, yeah. And so then the column on the right is just taking our tax rate at the top and just putting into perspective what it means in terms of tax revenues. So, you know, we always, I always tout that all talks about is making about 1,000,001 a year in tax revenues. So our entire commercial tax base just makes two and a half million. It's just that you could, you could expand, you could double your commercial tax base, which will never happen, never, and you still are not going to make the dent that you could make with other things. So revisiting MBTA communities. So as we know, with MBTA communities right now, our 25 acre districts. Are you aware of MBTA communities? Do you know the nuts and bolts? Bad enough short story we have to do like 50 acres. You have to designate it for a minimum of 15 units an acre. Great. And you can average across your site. Some can be more dense. Some could be less right. One of the sites has to be a minimum of 25 acres. The second 25 acres has to be lots that are minimum size of five acres. So it can be five and 10 and 10. It can be 55555, you know, it's basically you can make a collection of those. So our 25 acre district that was designated is put at Mainstone. So it's in Colts way. It's a street that was already it's already built out as townhouse condominiums, right? And it has been for a while. So they put it there because if you plug it into the model at the state, which was our criteria, it says, Oh, this works. But you know that it will never, all those condominium owners won't get together collectively, sell a builder, tear them down, and then, you know, build something like, it'll never happen. And that honestly, was the thought process at the planning board when they were thinking through they wanted, they didn't want to create housing necessarily, they would have commentary, and they're like, We don't like this law, and we shouldn't have to comply with it, but we have to. So, you know, grumpy and they did it. But what that does center point might actually well, so the town center was put on there, right? However, there is a deed restriction with Raytheon right. And so build above the height that they currently have for the no, they cannot put additional residential on the site without Raytheon approval. It's a deed restriction so that one may be blocked logistically, right? So what do those mean? So you required acres, you have 50 acres. You have to do 15 years. So we should be doing 750 units. I'm going to check with Robert, I believe, with our plan, ours Rebecca Stanizzi: in the economic development bond bill is at like 896, if I'm following what our zoning was, that we approved. So I'll check that number. But right now, at Alta Oxbow, some of them comply with that right. We could count our non age restricted units. Two thirds are non age restricted. One is a senior building. So it leaves us 720 units left to be built. So at an average Alta value, just being low, using that as an apartment value, then it's $240 million worth of that was that $100,000 to look at MBTA communities, to re look development, or that's $3.7 million in tax revenues. So that is value within the MBTA communities. If it were all built out, will it be over time? I don't know, but the two pinch points one is our paper district. It's not buildable, and we are giving up $1.3 million in tax revenues forever, right?
at it and think, How can we look at it from an economic development perspective, to create more housing for us? This housing is worth money to us, right? Again, it's like, it's just, it's if we do, you know, like, single family homes are the the worst thing we can possibly do, because it's public roads. It's. Very expensive infrastructure, like all this stuff, eye services. Whereas doing this, and not necessarily in Alta, you might do something more dense that side of town, and do town homes somewhere else. So these are the numbers. I mean, this is where you're going to move the needle in terms of tax revenues. So the next page is medium impact. And this is where you start thinking about, Okay, what if we make our commercial districts better? What if we add square if we add square footage, or, what if we make the districts better, right? Unknown: And DEP, I know we talked about mixed use zoning. Town Center, route 20 is it is Town Center currently mixed use. I mean, there are obviously different parcels of land that have both residences on it and businesses on it is the business area of town center zone for mixed use
Rebecca Stanizzi: right now. It is because, as the MBTA communities before, it wasn't mostly because it followed the deed. So with the MBTA communities, they added the ability to mix in the residential but you're running up against the deed. Okay. Okay, good. And right now, in the route 20 corridor, you can't, but that's one of the questions for the route 20 master plan is to be able to add, is to be able to, you know, if you want to do a second or third floor, it could be office, it could be residential. Unknown: So, but is that off limits right now for Town Center? Because if you're just building on top of existing structures, Rebecca Stanizzi: the deed restriction is you can't do residential without their approval. Unknown: Is No, is no, so it's not zoned. Then for mixed where the commercial is, Rebecca Stanizzi: it's zoned. But the deed prohibits, Unknown: prohibit the property owner rules this in a pickle. A like, Rebecca Stanizzi: Yeah, we were hoping that, you know, Raytheon be a good corporate citizen Massachusetts housing, we just did the zoning. Won't you please come on. Unknown: And they're like, No. They're not even not breaking ground anywhere new. But they Rebecca Stanizzi: just, they're just like, from them, it's, it's a formerly contaminated site, so doing anything beyond what they're doing now just invites risk that additional contamination will be found. They're like, No. And that's, you know, that's in the DEP, so kind of you'd love to get beyond it, but you're not the property owner. You can't force them to do something. So again, do you put that zoning somewhere else? Unknown: So how would we like? Obviously, we got new zoning class passed last year. But when you're thinking about, um, most of the town is already zoned for residential. So then how, like, how do you go about, you know, like, what is the process by which pieces of land are identified to build town homes? And then, you know, like, what does that look like? Becky, like, what role do we play and make like, Rebecca Stanizzi: if the town really want to do it, we could work with certain property owners. The question is, is there land left in stone? Is there Right? Like, where are those pockets? Yeah, can you find those pockets? Identify them. Is this something that we want to encourage we have town land. So that's one of them on here is activate underutilized town land. We have 13 acres Orchard Lane. It's owned, yeah? Orchard Lane, I keep hearing about, yeah. So it's 13 acres by the schools. It's owned by the schools. Yeah. So it's 13 acres is too small for a school. It's kind of, there were playing fields that were suggested there, and like, heads exploded at the neighborhood, because nobody wants to have 50 million cars going in to their small roads. You know, what have? Town homes. Town homes are very different. It's very quiet. It's not as if you have screaming kids and you have 100 people descending on a playing field, you know, like, multiple times over a weekend or every afternoon, right? It's very different. You know, people understand it, right? And so he took that, and that's looking at this and, like, literally, what are the dollar values? You took five acres, you put MBTA community zoning on it for 1515, units. But you know what? We own the land. We can dictate how many units go there. We can dictate what it looks like, just like we did at Rivers Edge. So say that there's 12 units an acre. It's a little bit less dense than over there. You have 60 units. You probably get, you'd probably get over $100,000 per unit for land value. But there's going to be some infrastructure. There's no roads. You have to add something. So like at 80 that would get you almost $5 million so the school would get $5 million and then $60 million worth of condos would be built, which then generates a million dollars a Unknown: year. Essentially, it looks like the school district or the town sells the land to a developer to build town homes. But can they dictate what they're going to do with Rebecca Stanizzi: that land? River's Edge? Absolutely. If you're the property owner, just like Raytheon, it's terms of sale with terms of sale. So when we did rivers edge, we said, we wrote the zoning for them. We said, this is as of right? So they just had to submit their plans and go through the normal kind of code review sort of stuff. But we had design criteria, we had floor plans, we had height like we mapped out everything. And when we put it out to RFP, we said, give us your plans of what you're going to look like. So we even could pick between the bidders of what esthetic we liked. So that's why we got a really good product. When you're the property owner, you can do that, right? So pound Karen Kelly: makes five. A million dollars Rebecca Stanizzi: and then, and it generates a million dollars a year. Yeah, forward, right, yeah, yeah. Unknown: So, like, I'm curious about why this was not I think this did come up with MBTA housing. Like, where is the sticking point here? Is it still like, well, we might need that for schools. Or, like, where is the sticking point, inertia? David Villari: It's also, I mean, yeah, I'm looking at the map. Orchard Lane is, like, pretty small and, like, quaint and quiet residential right now, like, you're building 60 units, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah? But think of main stem is gonna there's a lot of units that you really don't perceive from the road, right? It's 13 acres, and you take five, you can absolutely set back from everybody else, like you can, you'll never really see it. It'll be just like main stone, like, it's just set back and, you know, it's like a little David Villari: road that goes I just wonder if your inertia rates are like, very different, you have an easier time building, which is, like, what Robert's very concerned about is it's hard to get us to do it, like, if that number goes down from 60 to like 20, is everyone just like, Yeah, let's go do it. Everyone sees the vision that it plays into MBTA and 40 B potentially, and all these other things, and then it's just done instead of multi year play out of Unknown: pushback, yes, although we sacrifice a lot of recurring revenue, like tax Rebecca Stanizzi: revenue, but it's not gonna be worth trade offs to be worth it coin for just 20 units. Unknown: Yeah, I agree. Like, you, if you're gonna do it, do it, yeah? And I think, I mean, I'm no expert, but, like, there is a way. I mean, like those town homes in town center are lovely. Rebecca Stanizzi: They're stunning on the outside, yeah? Like, I just think it's like an eyesore or anything David Villari: I'm calling it from like a bird in the hand burning your Bush type thing. It's like, I'd rather have it in the hand and get Unknown: having a million, then we'd still get pushed back. Either, either way, there's going to be a bill David Villari: Exactly. There's part of it too, though, is if you build those, like those town homes that are a little bit larger, maybe more attractive, the tax base of those homes goes up as well. So it's not just that they're valued at which per unit, 1 million, right? But if you have 60 on that acre, like, do we really think we get a million? Is that? Is that in line with the density? Rebecca Stanizzi: And that's what they're getting newer ones at Main stone, that's what they're getting at River Trail place. That's kind of no but is it 1,000,005 then, if you built like, no means, because at some point there is a price sensitivity to a town hall. If you have a million and a half to 2 million, you're gonna go buy a house, right? You're not gonna so it's kind of, that's the that sweet spot, right? Fair, yeah. So it's just kind of, this is, you know, if we can control it, we can make it worth our while. So that's we had lobbied for with MBTA. Communities put the zoning there, we can check the box, and then it's there, and then we can decide, as a town, what kind of density we want to have there, right? And then we did Unknown: your pushback that kind of kept Orchard Lane off the docket was Rebecca Stanizzi: actually being considered by the planning board, and then it just fell off. They found mainst like, Okay, we're done. Katie Noble Harris: So, yeah, slightly different angle on this. You ever give an incentive to a current property owner to put in a town home? I think that that's what people of Wayland. I'm just like remarking on, like, what I always seen see is the development. And I might be ignorant, but it feels to me like there might be a couple of properties in town that aren't being utilized. Can those Unknown: be and like a dwell, like in a ADU? ADU, yeah, yeah. Katie Noble Harris: Or maybe just, okay, this isn't the right type of building, but the the one with the facade, like, Could, could we entice that to that owner of the building? Hey, we'll give you this much money if you convert that building to be, well, I guess that wouldn't be a town home, but are there any existing buildings that could become town homes or or existing land that has stuff on it? Rebecca Stanizzi: So that's a question. So you'd kind of look at all the parcels in town with that lens and see, like what makes Katie Noble Harris: sense, but like an incentive also, given it's mostly just writing Rebecca Stanizzi: zoning that they can build, right? So remember they were talking, remember when we were doing the Self Storage, there was the guy who was trying to do the solar compact cluster, right? So there was eight acres up on Shaw drive. Basically, it's semi remote, right? But they wanted to do essentially cluster. We have a cluster development by law right now, but is extremely onerous. Really hard to go through it? Do you simplify that so more people will check that box? I think if you give them a path, they'll do it. But seeing the path that's in place right now is really hard. You literally have to design the site as if it's single family homes and then design it again with the cluster. So you compare the two and do like it's literally it's huge amount. So I think if you just streamline that, I think you could that would be enough incentive for those people who are willing to do it that they would Katie Noble Harris: do it. Just wonder if that feels like a little bit more palatable than building something totally new and or maybe both at the same time, both at the same time. No. So
Rebecca Stanizzi: anyways, the medium impact. Adding density commercial districts the planning board, when they were talking with the tax assessor, they were struggling. Well, what's worth more residential or office? Basically the same like it's so incrementally, not not material. Just add the square footage, right that adding the value to the commercial districts, that's where you're sort of elevating your game right now, route 20 corridor is not commanding higher rents because it looks like crap, but that will change over time. How do you make that quarter look better? Good news property owners and the town does better. Bad news makes rents more expensive. So there's it's a push and pull, but at the end of the day, you know that adding the value might be more impactful, and in fact, that may improve your tax basis 2.8% right? The rest of it, if you live in a town that's really attractive, those values go up, right? So it's almost like you're boosting it for the visual, but for the rest of everybody else to sort of float their votes, activate and under the site, town land and the last one of the meals tax in the room stats very small dollars. But you know, if they were leveraged, you might be able to get something out of them. But if you guys have other ideas, as we sort of massage this at this point, I have not heard back from Phil yet. I know they're probably diving into stuff. So it might be October at this point. David Villari: So for the meals, one you show, 10, 1215, is that just when the breakdown Rebecca Stanizzi: of what we get, if we Yeah, I'm guessing as to what we are. I mean, we do have coach bro, which breaks it. But, you know, I'd be curious to know what the each of them are getting on an annualized basis, is that David Villari: in like, fiscal reports, anywhere, in any report that Rebecca Stanizzi: so if any, you know, any restaurant property or just reports, rents, expenses, and David Villari: that's it. So you're not, no idea what the potential revenue here is based on. I mean, we could Rebecca Stanizzi: talk with Jeff, and Jeff could probably give us some kind of, yeah, yeah. But, you know, ultimately, in this range, you know, you're not talking it's not suddenly that we're going to find half a million dollars, right? David Villari: Because you look at it in like, I think I mentioned this on the survey too, is, is meals tax, or something like that. You could also play it by, you know, local districts too, and you say Town Center meals tax will go to feed upkeep, landscaping, fees, all these other things, looking at signage and like, maybe that's just Rebecca Stanizzi: the that would incent the restaurant owners to go along with it, if they reap the reward, like we all reap the rewards. And I think it's a really good virtuous cycle, as opposed to, we're just going to collect tax and we'll be on our Ma we're going to go take care of the schools for meals, tax. Thanks for that one. Yeah, exactly, harder, and it would annoy you every single time that you saw it on your bill, exactly. David Villari: But if you're like, oh, meals, tax, played, paid for the playground, we're happy, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So the rooms tax, we clearly don't have that many Airbnbs. This is what Jesse does, actually. So I know he has a multiple number of them, but it's a higher tax. You can do it up to 6% so the state charges 5.7 towns and cities can go up to 6% so as opposed to point seven 5% it adds up faster. But it's a question of what those revenues are, and is it okay? So we have 10 Airbnb and I'm guessing, yes, I'm guessing, I think when I looked at an airbn, you know, you can kind of see David Villari: that, because that's why I didn't give it a score, I was like, how worth it? Is it to chase all that. Rebecca Stanizzi: Yeah, yeah. So this just kind of gives the the dollar impact there. Interestingly, I would have expected the room stacked up in less, but if you do it at the max, you know, it's like, will it stop somebody from coming to Wayland? Probably not. You know, it's like, when you do air and B's vrbos anywhere else, it just gets tacked on at the end. It's one of those annoying fees, and they, Oh, we collect, collect revenue. So the 200 things, exactly, yeah, exactly, exactly. So this is, I'm going to send this because Phil was asking kind of a draft and what, what we were thinking, if anybody adding on to this questions, otherwise, we kind of revisit it next month and then plan to go and have a joint meeting with FinCom too. But that's sort of the how do we get high, medium, low, and thinking of, you know, what's what's worth the effort, right? You can do a lot of things, but at the end of the day, what's going to David Villari: actually, very obviously,
Unknown: can we put on the to do list, like putting something together to share online on this which, like I said, I'm happy Katie Noble Harris: to do. I think next meeting a bit, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, I think after, probably after the FinCom meeting, I think that would be a good time to get their feedback, too, and kind of see where they, you know, just to get that we, you know, EDC met jointly with the FinCom, and we just wanted to give you some highlights of that discussion. And you know, they may have some interesting tidbits for us that we don't, we don't know, we might want to publicize, but if you want to start thinking about it absolutely, and then, you know, to get it out after you share this job with me, yes, absolutely, yeah. So I'll circulate this. I didn't want to throw everything spreadsheet. It's a spreadsheet I can click and follow through, yeah, and you can play with numbers, yeah.
Katie Noble Harris: So that's yeah. David Villari: Okay, Rebecca Stanizzi: so we are at 937, so we spend a lot of time so zipping through some of the other stuff. So splash, slide, playground, you heard from Carol, right? Yeah, she David Villari: gave me, like, very informal call on what you wanted to do with. Was, was find out when we can get on that agenda. So I agreed for us to be on the October six. And the way she's going to do that is she's going to run through town manager and make sure that there weren't other agenda topics that he'd like to have above that one. And yeah, she was very kind. She gave, like, her own candid personal feedback too, on the project. Which was overall positive, right? Like, overall positive, but, like, coming from EDC, I think they're going to be looking for, like, a very clear breakdown of what is the benefit. And I think that's going to be tough is like, how do we quantify increasing foot traffic for a financial plan? Rebecca Stanizzi: I think you can find those metrics, yeah, I think places that have added them, yeah, I don't chat GPT, but, like, so there's David Villari: over six, like, that's the example dominant question we're gonna get. Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, Catherine might be able to help with that too, based on the touch of truck data that she got from last year. David Villari: That's true about that. Yeah, yeah. She gets cell phone data from, like this. They come in, they're like, Oh, we can track people's cell phones and see where they came from. Katie Noble Harris: Who's they? A company that Catherine got. David Villari: Like, it's creepy. He said it Rebecca Stanizzi: was creepy. Got it. She's like, Oh, David Villari: yeah, come to this free trial. And it's, she's smart with it. I'm showing me how good it is before I buy it, and she doesn't ever buy it. It's good. That was fine to hear that around trying to find the right, right one. Yeah, right data. So I think that's going to be like the dominant How do we show that narrative and explain that there's a benefit she hadn't really caught on in the proposal where we, like recommended it could also be phased so I think we really want to highlight that, because for $25,000 I can pour a three inch slab of concrete, get a 16 by 16 posted beam pavilion down and throw some $250 Home Depot pick up picnic tables right? Like I can do that for 25 if someone tells you that 75 they're lying right, like that is a cheap, easy construct. You have to go through a procurement law, I think. Yeah, so that's But either way, procurement laws shouldn't make it keep it under five grand. It should make it more expensive. Oh, it does. And if it does, then that's part of the systemic problems that towns have, but that's fine, whatever. Yeah. So I looked at that, and I discussed that with her, and she was like, okay, yeah. Like, not everything needs to be a giant proposal that has to go through town meeting, and maybe we discuss that with them. Of like, how can we use shared streets, things like that, to play into this and make it happen faster. Yeah. And then I, she and I talked very informally, too, about the deed restrictions and LSL and stress the importance there of that. Rebecca Stanizzi: That's the LSP. LSP LSP is the environmental issues David Villari: licensed site. Professional, yeah, so that's the Raytheon has their own license site. Professional, that controls that site for their own internal liability for anything long term, right? So if you want to do anything on that land, they have to sign off. And we had the health department informally help us out with just looking at, like screening, and they did confirm that playground, even as simple as that would fall under to, like a fixed structure that would have to get signed off, approved by them. Yeah, so there's hurdles. Have we? Unknown: Okay? So then that me, it's like, is it? David Villari: Should we? I, you're going down the same road, I think. Is it worth it if it might not happen? And that's why she said, Let's not do touch a truck. Let's not do any outreach yet. Let's chat with them, make sure that Select Board wants to go forward with it. Then the first thing we're going to hit is the health department work, the LSP, aols, all that stuff, clear that hurdle, and if that's clear, then we just see what go forward. Unknown: I think that you're right that we need to keep it like, very like. This could be very simple, easy. Let's just, let's not get in the weeds of this meeting. Let's just talk about what like could be and like, but we still have this other huge hurdle of breakout in front of us. We just generally want to know if this life board understands, and like, to your point, like, what would be the economic since the EDC bringing it benefit of it, but I think, like, don't get in the weeds. Let's not Yeah, yeah. We tool right now? Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part I was talking with Tom Fay, not knowing that part of the discussion about touch a truck, and that is, mean, the environmental, environmental, right? So part of it is not being able to get some feedback at touch a truck, you're going to have every family I know. In the town there. So I was saying to Tom, could we come to select board meeting next Monday or two weeks after, which is the 29th and just five minutes on the agenda? And just say, will you please just let us survey people at touch a truck, because then we'll have the data to bring to you for that October meeting. Right? Who will they Karen Kelly: care about that David Villari: data? But only be two days a date. That's a lot to collect all that data. Unknown: We're better off sending if we're going to collect data editing, we're going to get more if we send an email instead of being a touch dog. Yeah, okay, I'm not saying I'd be there. I'm saying I've tried to collect data from people, and it's not that easy. Yeah, got to get aggressive Rebecca Stanizzi: and let's kind of email and such a truck at the same time. It gives us that excuse, right? Email is a must, yeah, oh, yeah, without a doubt, not such a pressing it's getting an email and and they're hearing it David Villari: truck. But the other thing I wasn't sure about is, like, because this is a plaza owned area, right? The foot traffic increase going to be for the plaza, for those businesses. How does that play into, like, what we receive back as a town? And I don't know that answer Unknown: at all. Not educated, like, right? Like, how much more money does each business like, David Villari: are we talking like 1% Rebecca Stanizzi: of their sales actually comes back as I don't know what the numbers are. It's just elevating the value of the plaza, right? So is that where the money is? Yeah, value, elevation, value in the real estate tax. Yeah, we don't have, like, a sales tax. We don't have a local like that. Mean, we have, well, we don't have meals tax. So, yeah, it's, it's just purely real estate values. David Villari: Okay, that's cool. So then I got to talk to Chris at ConCom, who we'd started those, like, very informal discussions with two the comments, the playground vendor. Oh, and they had that one Wrentham Plaza, and they put the playground on, and I bet I could find the before and after valuations with the playground, yeah. Like, that was that Unknown: as the that's the drive, yeah, yeah. Get us through the discussion. Okay, yeah, yeah. Katie Noble Harris: I wonder if Watertown has anything, because they just put in that new splash pad. Yeah, I'm
Rebecca Stanizzi: sure if you chat GPT, it'll pop up a bunch of stuff. David Villari: It's just whether that's fine sits or Yeah, the valuation difference in the surrounding Rebecca Stanizzi: area, part of it'd be interesting to know. At town center right now, typically in a commercial valuation, they'll look at your rents and then your expenses, right? But they'll look at your actual vacancy. So the question is, how much vacancy is baked in? And if you know part of it is filling vacant spaces, and that helps bring up the valuation, and then it's kind of floating the rents, the rents already high, right? But if you can get those last spaces filled, then that's that may be something we actually talk with the assessor. And so we have a David Villari: matter both ways. We say assessed value would go up in general, because you have, if you can build store, friends obsessed, and then two, you actually fill those properties. So assessed value also goes up for, yeah, that's definitely the goal. So I would, I think I'll request some assistance on putting that story together. But, yeah, okay, so, so, October 6. October 6, Katie Noble Harris: Monday, okay, in person for Unknown: you. I'll pop in, in person. Yeah, right here. So I won't be there. I'll be out of the country. Will you? Okay? Yeah, bummer. We'll prep you before,
Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, I mean, it's for them. You'll have to, it's not like they're suddenly going to dive into all the data, right? It's going to be very high level numbers, if we can, if you can, show that, you know, other properties have increased the value of that commercial tax base by 10% like, just gorilla math, like this is what it means, right? So now we know what the valuation is for the commercial it's Unknown: really just a nod to move forward. But it's not a nod of it's a very it's a non committal not that's all we're asking. Rebecca Stanizzi: It's just starting the process. Yes, yes, yes. And the other Katie Noble Harris: thing I know, a possible objection that was raised was the cost of, like, landscaping. And I think one thing that we could do is private fundraising, like, raise money to try and cover those costs. Rebecca Stanizzi: If we can find those precedents, find the precedents where they've done it. What's that David Villari: I said? I'll just move it in one that was part of the reason why I think we wanted to get with DPW and understand like they're the ones that do the maintenance facilities. Team is going to do the construction. So, like, those two inputs would have been really great to go into the Select Board meeting. But process wise, like, because we're just advisory to select Rebecca Stanizzi: board, yeah, just map out. This is, this is what we want to do, first steps, environmental, DEP, W, I could just, and then, then you just Katie Noble Harris: go and do it, yeah, that's something that's even in the new plaza owners lease, is that they mow the lawn for the playground,
Rebecca Stanizzi: or they already they do. I think they do.
Karen Kelly: Nothing has to mow the lawn over there. Unknown: But is it the town these goats that just come Rebecca Stanizzi: out good to know and get that information. So. David Villari: Of galaxy, or is it? Yeah, Zara people, okay, yeah. So I'll take a crack and I'll circulate when it can feedback. Okay, um, all right.
Rebecca Stanizzi: So quickly the other so the pre order pickup window outreach, we were talking about that before. So I think it's the information to the brokers. So you guys were trading something you wanted to compare with Jeff, who's not here. You guys want to kind of connect and then be able to send it out after next meeting. Katie Noble Harris: I redid it a little bit. I think I need Jeff's input on some of this stuff. I'm a little bit like that. Okay, got it? You're confused about some of it. Yeah. All right, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: And then the question, you know, can we post it even though nobody's going to our web page, maybe we can drive a little traffic to it, but it'd be great to get that posted on the town website somewhere. Katie Noble Harris: So I guess we'll call it outreach to brokers. Yeah.
Rebecca Stanizzi: Okay, so existing quarter conditions clean up. So Katie, do you want to update our stroll? Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, Becky, I took a stroll down Route 20 the other day. Beautiful morning. Rebecca Stanizzi: It was a beautiful when he came out. I heard everyone around with a piece of paper, and you're taking pictures, like, what are you doing? You guys actually walked down. We did. We walked the whole corridor. Oh, that's coming out and talking to us. And, yeah, imagine we had sidewalks. I know what a concept. David Villari: No, it's not very fun with the stroller. No, Katie Noble Harris: yeah. So we started kind of near Pelham Island and worked our way down. And yeah, had a bunch of business owners come up and inquire what we were doing, and had some great conversations. We made contacts with a few business owners that we just haven't been able to get their contact info for So Becky got that info and reached out to a few of those people. And I'd say it was like a really positive interaction that we had learned some Wayland history, and then we just took some pictures and wrote down some notes about some things that we think could be improved in the Rebecca Stanizzi: future. And I was just organizing that and then getting into our columns of zoning cleanup. And then, you know what? Zoning has to change, whether it's landscape or whatever, but, and then we also ran into the maple maple gate, maple tree, maple tree landscaping guy, Vinny. David Villari: So you know, I got his contact too. He's doing our loan. Rebecca Stanizzi: So part of what you see in that corridor are some property owners who just let their landscaping go, right? And so talking to the vet that, you know, woman who works there came out and talked to us, and their weeds are all overgrown, but the dogs like it, right? But clearly, they're not paying for landscaping, but it's expensive, right? For a landscaper to show up for this little, tiny plot, it's going to be expensive. So if we can talk with Vinny like, what if you had the whole corridor, or you had, you know, five or six that you just coming in one fell swoop, and it's really cost effective for the different people. Would you be willing, you know, talking to those people? Would you be willing to do that? And I think that could make a huge difference, even just the landscape.
David Villari: There you go, round two. Rebecca Stanizzi: So apologies to anybody watching. Hopefully you can still see it. We got cut off for some reason. But yeah, so the landscape part, it'd be great to kind of figure that out. He seems to be super motivated, so we're meeting with him next Tuesday. When we met with cook automotive, he came out. Was talking like, if you, if you work there, that sign, the gas sign, clearly needs to come down. But he's like, yeah, like, you want me to take it down? I'll take it down, but you do a new one. Oh, let's talk. We're like, oh, it'd be lovely to have a nice sign. And, you know, so we're gonna go and talk about so, yeah. David Villari: So I go to Lloyd all the time for our cars, so I'm happy to go down and talk to him right there. So if that makes it easier for you too, yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: So it'd be great if, you know, he could be our test case, and he could write a story about it in the post. They get some good PR, you know, like, this virtuous cycle of, oh, look, somebody did that. Oh, I'll do that. So, yeah. So he had shared by next time, and Danny David Villari: and I talked with he shared that he tried to get that Santander building as, like, office space and some training space, and it just couldn't work out because of, like, high, high, high rent prices and some other hurdles. Did he share that story with you guys too? No, but I'm sure we'll hear it, because that's also valuable. It's like, we're looking to expand, like, better commercial use of that area in a corridor, like, hey, Vinny, tell us what those problems were, and you kind of had that is like, tell us what the problems were, sex. Better understand them. Yeah. So he's he has one, and if you guys already have good contact, Rebecca Stanizzi: okay, talk to him. Next Tuesday. We'll be seeing him. We'll ask him. Okay, so we'll click that for next month, and then we can kind of look at it and then reach out from there to because we've been talking with Bill Sterling at DRB and Tom White and CPA, and then also mentioned it to Nate at the building department. So hopefully we can get that moving along with the goal of, can we get it cleaned up for next spring. It's next spring. Duncan will be opening, you know, ultimately, terrain will be opening in the in the summertime, so we get the whole corridor looking nice. That would route 20 Master Plan sidewalks, curb cut. I've been reaching out. I got approval to be able to do that, so I'm talking with Tom holder to get that moving along. So I. Him yesterday, just to find out if he's moving it along. But the next step is to do an RFP for that scope of services. So he had one couple that he was looking at, and I had sort of pulled out a chat GPT and had him do one. So it's, it's like state bidding, it's, it's, it's just, yeah, typical protocol. So hopefully we get that one moving, because the cash is there. We are have the ability to do it. And it's just, I know that Tom is really busy so, but he believes in it as a topic, so he lived through it in his town, and the difference that it made with the with the new curb cuts and sidewalks, so ribbon cuttings. So United volleyball is opening this weekend. But have they said? Unknown: So I have a back channel with them, yeah. So, you know, did you see my email Monday, where I CC to everyone and said, Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, like, it's happening this Saturday. So no, so Unknown: that's what I'm saying, like, so I think it's important for us to kind of own each of these businesses if we're having conversations with them, yeah, just so that all the communications so they they are doing it, like an open house for their current teams and stuff. Yeah, their current members this weekend. And then they had asked last week, hey, we're doing that. We they said, We're doing this next weekend. We would like to have the river coming the next week. Do you have any recommendations on, like, best time of day, or blah, blah, blah, and then I CC them in with the rest of the ribbon cutting crew, and said, Hey guys, great news. See you seeing BBC folks like they would like to get something started for next week. Michael, what is your availability? No one responded. So if Rebecca Stanizzi: it's Robert has said he's going to do it, then I would ping Anina directly and say, Anina, can you step in at least today? Unknown: I think, I think in general, we have to have another discussion as the ribbon cutting committee, because this is going to go on forever, and if the person running point is not available, we need to have a secondary person. It's just not reasonable. It's also not reasonable to cc new lessees in town, and have no one respond from the town. It's just not good enough. It's not okay, my opinion. So I'm upset about that, and I feel like Michael should be upset about that too. It's a terrible look for us. So moving forward with that, like, I'm not really sure what to do, I can reach back out to them and say, Hey, I'm sorry. No one's responded. Somebody's on vacation Rebecca Stanizzi: would stop by in Nina's office. Just went by and say, Can you at least just love in an email? Yeah, Robert usually hums these he's been out, but you know, it's on our radar. And you know, maybe she has thoughts as to certain day or time if he's she's been talking with Robert in the past, but just so they get something today, Unknown: she needs to be given permission to do so I may ask. I'll ask her to, yeah, I don't know that she will, because, well, Rebecca Stanizzi: she's supposed to be standing in for him this week, so okay, if nothing else, then the placeholder, he'll be back. Type of thing. We hear you like, I agree that, you know, it shouldn't just kind of fallen off into David Villari: that hole either. They look to open. I mean, I saw a bunch of people, so they are open, right? Rebecca Stanizzi: Yes. Like, a soft opening, Unknown: yeah, yeah. Like, very soft. But they're having, like, games. I don't know if they've actually she they said open house this weekend and then ribbon cutting next week. So they're definitely starting, I don't know, David Villari: after bike rides with my kids, like, we stop in, we get chocolate, chocolate therapy. And then there was, like, kids, like, flowing out of volleyball, like, a bunch of yay. Unknown: They also was interesting. When I was in there, they raised the ceilings. Yeah, they didn't, actually, so I take it back, they didn't actually raised the ceiling, they removed the ceiling. Yeah, yeah, to do this. But I walked in there, I was like, man, actually, there's some space up there. So anyway, they're very nice. They have a manager who's very responsive. They really want to be part of the community. David Villari: And it drove a lot of traffic, because each one of the kids that I saw was getting picked up in like, their own car, yeah, nobody I saw. I saw people like, then pulling over to the grocery store, right? And I was like, Oh, man. Like, if they just knew the kids could just walk five feet and go spend $5 at the chocolate store too, yeah? Like, that would be Yeah, but they'll figure that Rebecca Stanizzi: over time, hopefully, yes. Would be great if inside there was a map on the wall of the retailers around David Villari: we only have, like the plaza, only has one map that shows all the businesses, and that's outside, yeah, which is that little circle next to the back door of bagel table. That's the only location that I saw, yeah, could be better. But anyway, Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah, but it's not for them to be able to broadcast. That's why they're coming, because they like the fact there was so much around. So the question is, do you have, are they planning on doing a little map or, you know, we help them dudes get a David Villari: poster, stick it on the doors Exactly, exactly down the street. Unknown: You've done a good I know that somebody had forwarded us by retailer of the month boarding us emails. Hmm, and they, I remember there was one email where they said, like, oh, there's all these great retailers in the plaza, and, like, listed them out, yeah, but like to continue to do that, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's keep moving. I need to jump, Katie Noble Harris: okay, the same lines, just like life text. I sent an email, and again, no response from the town, and they're having an opening this weekend. Unknown: So what did you send to them? To who, like, what was the message Katie Noble Harris: was I sent to Michael and the rest of our looks like they're having that they're opening this Saturday. Is there anyone from town that might be able to attend? Karen Kelly: Oh, that's so funny. I thought that he sent that about the Katie Noble Harris: UBC. No, no, it's for the life tax. Karen Kelly: Okay, sorry, I looked very late Katie Noble Harris: last night. Robert said, I'm happy to take the lead, but there's no right way, because he was he the one who forwarded that to us. Yes, okay, yes, just no follow up. So I'm Unknown: not like, we're not going to be involved in this and have this kind of behavior, like, it's not okay. So right, Rebecca Stanizzi: all right, Collins market, so I went to the zba hearing, so everybody's aware of the townhouse they do. So everybody loves it. They have no parking. And so I was talking with them after the fact, and I said, they want to do have you
seen their plans downstairs, half the floor is kind of dining area. And then upstairs, half the floor is sending real estate is still there, and then they have, like a space that would be for dinner or for events or whatever. So they have quite a few potential seats, and they have no official parking, so there's spaces out front. The discussion was, we're right now put just like around the corner on Pelham Island. Put signs that say max two hours, because right now, employees from those other buildings take those parking spots and park all day, and they do the same thing at the depot. So put signs there. Zba is like, I don't know if we can actually do that, but they could recommend to the town to do that, so at least get those spots flowing. But I talked with them offline after the fact, and they said, as we were standing in the parking lot, so the pediatricians just redid their parking lot, and it backs right up to the building. And I said, you guys should talk with them, because it's dead empty at night, and you need nights and weekends, and that's exactly when they're not there. So coordinate with them. Rent some parking it's good publicity for them, you know, just passing by their building, and then you can book events, because events, they'll need the parking right? They'll meet for dinner. You can't be schlepping that far away when it's February, right? It's lovely in June. But yeah, so with that, I mean, clearly the zba was trying to figure out how to approve it, but if they could at least do that, I think it'd be a slam dunk, and they'd be good to go. So that was the email. So I met with I met one of the proponents consultant, and yeah, I did not so Kirsten was too tied up with people who were talking after the fact. So that's why they were wanting to reach out, and we can kind of communicate with them. But I think if they can just do that little bit, the library is unwilling to share their parking. They are okay. David Villari: Library own the accessory town building as well. It's the rail Karen Kelly: trip. They do, yeah? It's owned by the town. Rebecca Stanizzi: It's, it's dedicated, yeah, and they have the whole lot, yeah. So they are unwilling to, because, I mean, so much gets abused right now with the bike trail, right? And, you know, here, people will walk, but to have it as official, Unknown: what do you think is the likelihood that she'll be able to, like space, share with pediatricians. I think if Rebecca Stanizzi: they could. I mean, pediatricians, you know, it's like they can share on their snow plowing bill. And, you know, it's like there's liability insurance. David Villari: It's just hard to see this be a problem because, like, parking is, if you have to walk 100 feet, it's a good thing for the town. We're trying to get foot traffic. That's interesting. It's like, you want to see more people using the street, slowing down, making sure crosswalks get used on the DEP W curve, but all that stuff. So it's like, don't let that barrier, Rebecca Stanizzi: I know. But the interesting thing so when we were walking around and me talking with silk veterinarian. They just bought the chiropractor building on the corner. Why? Because they wanted the parking spots. So silk is that stress for parking. They have maybe two spots. Say, I have in front there, and it is a pain in the neck, pain in the neck. So mean, clearly businesses like that, I don't want to say that they are, but they're the ones putting their employees over on 27 so if they can't park there, where are they going to go? You know, it's going to it's going to get tight, and in the morning it's incredibly congested. So I'm hoping a lot of people do walk, but it we've all seen Starbucks, right? So I'm of the mindset, let it go, and if it's too difficult for people to go in the morning, that's the business's problem. That was sort of the discussion. Like, at some point you're harming yourselves by not having that parking. And that's why I'm like, you know, it's like you can't use that parking during the day, but at least if you've had it when you really want to make your money and just find a liquor license, right? So, and I think so. So, yeah, so it's like, you'll want to have that parking. So are we out of liquor licenses? David Villari: Like, a half when you do? Can't sell wine in beer and tequila, just Rebecca Stanizzi: beer and wine. You know, not I remember. It was mentioned before, but I don't remember it in the zba app. Maybe it's just coffee for right now, but they're definitely doing dinner or an event. Oh, yeah. So if you have an event, you unless you bring your own Unknown: eat with terrain. There's place we have space for both, David Villari: I don't, yeah, but Rebecca Stanizzi: yeah. Long story short, like our zoning code is so wacky that they could, literally, if they squinted, probably approve the building without parking, but it doesn't pass the giggle test, right? So it's just our thing is so poorly written. It's just, it's bizarre. So yeah, they're just trying to figure out. So Tom, who's an architect, not an attorney is trying to figure out, so he needs to check with Town Council, and, you know, can they approve it without any, you know, dedicated parking? But when I was talking to them afterwards, if you can just get something, yeah, that's dedicated, everyone will just breathe a lot easier. During the day, you will get people off the bike path and walking and but you you know, at night, it's going to be different. So it's kind of you gotta and we all events is where you make your money. Yeah, that's David Villari: so you need a bike rack, yeah? Rebecca Stanizzi: So anyway, so there they were. Well prepared, well received. Had people speaking sport like nobody was really the only service the library said, We love the concept, don't use parking. So that was sort of the extent David Villari: surprising they would say that, because, like, if you're parking to go get a coffee and then you use the library lot, you're more likely to now be like, All right, kids, let's go in. Let's go read a book, and you'll use the library more. Unknown: Yeah, I don't know their volumes. Like, I don't know. Like, I Yeah, it's full Rebecca Stanizzi: often, okay, yeah, the library, the library, yeah, yep, it is. You can usually get a space, but it's, yeah, okay, so infographic, sorry, how much time do you guys have left? It is now 1005. Minutes. You have five minutes All right, so you have you looked at this revised or not, or Okay,
Katie Noble Harris: photo of sign, yeah, Yeah, okay.
Oh yes, sir.
David Villari: My that was my 90% Katie Noble Harris: I should just put 90% square footage. David Villari: It's worth clarifying, yeah, because I, I'm like, oh, that's b Yeah, if I look at it, I say square front, Rebecca Stanizzi: but it is, when you stop and think about it, like all the doctor's offices. I mean, everything is basically filled except that, you know, and like, you're always going to have one or two that are baking at any given time, but it's those, it's the kids strong, and it's the one across that makes it feel like he's David Villari: I just I walked in, like, I like, consciously went by and tried to count the number of doors, yeah, stickers on it, like, front doors. And it was like, six still, Rebecca Stanizzi: but the kid strong being all one space, or were you counting because it has multiple David Villari: doors? That's where I don't I don't have, like, their layout of the plaza. Is that available online? Just missed it disruption. It's just gonna call summit Rebecca Stanizzi: and just, oh, I have one. I said, I don't know if it's on. I don't know if they posted online, but yeah, I'll text Unknown: you out. Yeah, yep. Yeah. Rebecca Stanizzi: I think we should do so. So with the sale, I think data is good, the occupancy rate, the tax projections, those are always like the three hot buttons, just like small tweaks in language, but the bike path, so did you get a hold of Larry? Katie Noble Harris: Yes, it is that's correct. Rebecca Stanizzi: Well, you just say what they're paving. When are they paving? Katie Noble Harris: I can try and get more info from him, Rebecca Stanizzi: because one is like, what are they actually doing? The connector from Russell's to Sudbury that way. But then the question they're they're supposedly paving, what's now stoned us. That drives some people crazy. David Villari: That should be after. I think timing was, from what I saw. It's after they build the bridge, because they consider, you know, the stone dust area, it's writable, it's usable. Yeah, so they were going to do the bridge work and all that, and get the commitment and do paving here. But is it? DCR is Rebecca Stanizzi: doing it? I thought it was like a different pot of money or something. No, I don't know. Try to find out when, you know, hopefully when that's happening is that sort of the missing link you Unknown: and I were just chatting about, maybe we take any text feedback now and then she and I can work on this together for next meeting, just clean up some design and other stuff, and then have it ready to go. Okay, she's been doing a lot. I can help there with Rebecca Stanizzi: lot of stuff going on. Cool, alright. So get any comments. So guys, alright, that's alright. This is on the property of contact list. I clean that up. We're actually in pretty good shape. It's really it's looking great. I remember the colors on it. Yeah, I was asking you, do the colors mean anything was that just left over? Katie Noble Harris: You added a lot of info, the colors for were for like, information that I was missing. Okay, so I Rebecca Stanizzi: can kind of change around for that, just to highlight with the box we're missing. Yes, I didn't want to change it without I'm like, there's maybe some system here, I don't know, Katie Noble Harris: but yeah, you can change it, or I can change it whatever you want. Rebecca Stanizzi: Okay, all right, and then committee liaison updates, joint meeting with FinCom. Now it's probably gonna be October lanes. I did ping Jeff. I said, Any update on lab? And he's like, No, I was chastened. He's Jason. He was just so concerned about the last I think we need sort of a, yeah, he's to go by right, and talk with them. I think it was just too they didn't quite understand getting a phone call. Katie Noble Harris: Otherwise, I'm happy to go by. I'm at often at the high school for like, Val Rebecca Stanizzi: lives there too. So the question is, and I think before he stopped in, I don't know, Val is sort of the natural one. He lives around the corner type of thing. So I'll ping him and see if he can pick up that ball. And then the economic development bond bill we still don't have. So it could be researching other bond bills. It could be anywhere over five years. I'm like, Oh, nice, right? So you really plan on that? Yeah, and, oh, I should have taken off 14 West plane was supposed to come off. There is public forum next Monday. Next Monday. Do you think you'll go to that, or I probably will just to listen. But I think that I know the library would love to do a satellite there. I don't know if anybody's gonna be organized enough to do community center different from the library, but, and then it's a question of the office David Villari: uses, was that going forward is count use. That's what's Rebecca Stanizzi: being proposed. That's why they're doing this public forum. And so the question is, what within the town, like officials, town uses, or, yeah, yeah, because you can easily move, like the school department over, yeah, anything we can do to condense here, it's going to make it less expensive to build or rebuild, or whatever we're doing later Katie Noble Harris: notice, a bit of chatter about that building online, and I do wonder if, in the new near future, like maybe later this fall or winter, if it would be, depending on how it goes with the meeting, if it would be worthwhile to kind of put some numbers down for people to read an infographic. Yeah, because I think that there's some assumptions that maybe people are making about it, or why the town buildings, wow, that would be helpful for people to see the math down. Unknown: Yeah, yep. And like the cost per square footage to build the community center versus Katie Noble Harris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the client makes some useful sense. Yep. All right, whether that's us or not, I'm actually not sure, but yeah, Rebecca Stanizzi: so next month I'm coming back on the 10th so it's also a social Columbus Day weekend. So 17th, work for you guys. We're in October. I know, isn't it crazy? October 7, October 17, 830,
Katie Noble Harris: as of right now, David Villari: yes, yes.
Katie Noble Harris: Okay, easy.
Rebecca Stanizzi: Anything else before we adjourn? Do I have a motion to adjourn? Motion, David, motion, second, second, Aaron, second, all in favor. Aye, four, oh, we are adjourned at 10:11am,
ELVIS Committee
13-Aug-25 - ELVIS Committee
David Bernstein: So we have a
full agenda, so let's get
started. It's now 732 I hereby
call this meeting to order.
First order of business is to
appoint a a secretary. Pro Tom
Larry, can we impinge on you
again? Yes, sure. Thank you very
much, sir. Okay. Do we have any
public comment? Robbie, is there
anyone out there?
Unknown: I see no, but they're
with their hand raised. Okay.
David Bernstein: Is anyone on
the elbows committee or Miranda?
Anyone have public comment they
want to kick us off with I do
not. Okay. Alright. So that
being done, let's move to the
first item of the agenda, which
is to approve the minutes of our
last meeting, which was on 2005
312 so here they are,
Unknown: 25 312 Yep.
David Bernstein: Think that's
what it says. It does, yep. So
here's this, here's the minutes.
Boy, I can never find something
that will drag this. I'm not a
big fan of Windows 11 here.
Let's not put that in the
minutes anyway. So here are the
minutes courtesy of Larry. Does
anyone have any corrections that
need to be made to these
minutes? Anyone? I thought they
were pretty good myself, but all
right, in the absence of any
corrections. Is there a motion
to approve these minutes? So
moved, so Lynn. Lynn moved, and
John seconded. Anyone All in
favor? Aye, aye. Anyone opposed,
hearing nothing that will record
the boat as unanimous
Larry Krakauer: in the past,
we've on some technicality. You
thought we needed to poll
everyone. I'm perfectly happy to
do it this way, just it was
different the last time,
David Bernstein: I think we're
okay this way. I mean, if
somebody wants, if we have a non
unanimous vote, we'll take a
poll. How about that? But given
that no one is opposing, I don't
think we need to do that. Okay,
so that is now disposed of. So
the next item of business is to
review performance of electronic
voting during the last town
meeting. So I think that's right
there. Okay, so this is a
summary that I recorded. Don had
forecast 500 voters, recommended
600 handsets. His recommendation
was based on the fact that the
2023 town meeting attendance was
quite low, and a lot of the
responses came from people who
hadn't attended any the last
couple town meetings. Mike Faia,
our facilities director, ordered
500 handsets and five check in
stations. Oti, because several
of us were nervous, brought 300
extra handsets, and they set up
two base stations, but they had
a third ready to go if they
needed it. And so at one other
point, the check in staff was
issued a voter card for voting
in case we had insufficient
handsets. So a number of us were
just nervous that that the 500
handsets ordered weren't going
to be enough. Trudy, you know,
was prepared for that, in her
way. Oti brought extra handsets,
and what we ended up with was a
total of 480 people showing up
the first night. So we came
within 20 minutes or 20 people
of Don's original 500 forecast.
There were no failed handsets,
there were no voting problems,
but we were plagued by iPhone
hotspots activating, and I
actually tracked one down to the
person he lives in the street
next to us who did it, and I'm
going to seek him out before the
next town meeting, if he's
present, and let him know that
that's really not acceptable.
Because it wasn't just a matter
of having those hot spots be
active. Whenever I go around and
look for them, they'd get turned
off and then they'd get turned
back on again when I sat down.
So you know it was, it was
someone trying to get some work
done and conceal the fact that
they were disrupting our
meeting. The next night, we had
a peak attendance of 337 again,
no failed handsets, no voting
system problems, and so that was
a bit of an issue. But total
unique voters 597 and so as far
as I'm concerned, this is as
good as it gets.
Larry Krakauer: Dave, where the handset, sorry, the hot spots. Any problem? I that, you know, they everything was working fine. So even if the hot spots were there, were they causing difficulty, David Bernstein: the only way to know that would be to record the number of retries that are required every time there's communication between the base station and a handset, and unless we go bug out the oti folks about that, that it's, it's, it's problem. Larry Krakauer: Yeah, so we don't know that. There was certainly no difficulty at any level that you know caused us to notice problems. David Bernstein: No Correct. I Unknown: mean, a symptom of that, a symptom of a problem would be, you know, there'd be a longer delay in the response, correct, and we didn't see any of that, pretty much things were instantaneous, David Bernstein: right from our testing. But you know, when there's 500 handsets, you know, 10% of them could be having to retry twice, and we wouldn't know it. So I think our rule has to be that we just don't tolerate hot spots, because we don't know how many of them would be required to actually cause problems. And given, you know, given the susceptibility, I think we just have to stay on top of that. Okay, so total unique voters was 597 which is three less than what we tell everybody is our average for town meeting attendance in Wayland. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So that was the the summary of how the meetings went after the meeting, Miranda indicated that she would like to consider reducing the duration of voting from 30 Seconds to 20 seconds, and we discussed that with Mark fight, and he said it would be fine, so long as we didn't have more than 400 voters. So Miranda, did you want to comment on this? Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, so it's interesting seeing the statistics now that okay, we could have done that on the second night, but we and periodically through the first one we didn't have over 400 people, we could have, I just I feel like when I say the window is open, that we're all just eyeballing each other for a lot of too long a time period. It just seems like it takes the voting period is just too long. And then I asked Tom meeting, and it the majority seemed to agree that the 30 minutes seemed unneces. 30 seconds seems unnecessary. But obviously we have the technical issues that when we have over 400 people, we would have to keep it at 30 seconds. So I'm not, I'm not married to the concept of doing 20 seconds. What do you people think? Do you think we do it, as long as I know that I have fewer than 400 people in attendance, or fewer, fewer than 400 people registered voters, voting, that I do it, or you see it fraught with problems. Lynne Dunbrack: I can see on the first night, if you had a situation where the attendance fluctuated, so maybe at the beginning it was around, you know, at the 400 threshold where it was okay to do 20 seconds. And then, you know, now we have a big article that everybody's, you know, wants to weigh in on. So now, you know, there's many more attendees, so now we have to flip to 30. How long do we stay at? 30 seconds before we can flip back to 20? Because now people have gone home because they made their big vote. I think maybe on on the last day where, you know, we don't typically have those big or not usually have those big articles for voting. You know, it's a pretty standard amount of people who come and it's not fluctuating up and down. You could probably get away that my concern, I guess, where I'm going with this is my concern would be, if you were flipping between 20 and 30 because of fluctuation, whether that might confuse some voters. I mean, I know it's only 10 seconds, so it shouldn't be a big deal either way. But, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, no, I think Lynne Dunbrack: that would be my and I'm not. I can be convinced either way, but I that would be my one concern. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, no, I, and I appreciate that. I, I I I think that if the town meeting knew that the issue is, there's a cap of 400 people, once there's 400 people, we have to go over to 30 seconds. As long as that was put out, made very, very public, then they would understand it. I guess my question then becomes is, am I able to know how many, how many handsets have been put out on every single warrant article? I mean, do we know that in real time? We do. We do so it is feasible for me to, you know, go through the first six, seven articles, doing it at 20 seconds, and then all of a sudden, somebody, I'm alerted on Article eight, we're up to, we're up to over 401 people. We have to convert to 30 seconds on and can oti go do the 20 to 32nd David Bernstein: I believe so exchange. Miranda S. Jones: I mean, so then it's feasible to do it. I just think the town, town meeting has to understand what what the issue is. And I think what you say, the threshold is 400 then they would appreciate it. So, I don't know. So I'm going to think about that a that. David Bernstein: And here's a suggestion for what we might try. Yep. Suppose we say that if at the beginning of the meeting there are 400 or fewer voters, we will start out with a 22nd voting window, and you the moderator, will announce that, yep, if at any time, do. During the meeting, the number of voters rises above 400 then the oti people will notify Elvis, and Elvis will come notify you, and you'll make an announcement that from now on, the voting window will be expanded to 30 seconds, okay, I would suggest that once the voting window expands to 30 seconds, it not be reduced again during that session. Okay, that's fair confuse people, yep. Okay. You know, as people get used to this, maybe later on, we can reduce it at the end of the meeting, if it's appropriate. But I would say to start, let's say we can start at 20 and raise it to 30, but once we get to 30, we keep it at 30 for the duration of the session. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, that's a fair compromise. I can see doing that I agree, because David Bernstein: that eliminates the problem Lin was concerned with. Yeah, Miranda S. Jones: no, I think that's, that's a good way of looking at it. Okay, okay, listen, I'm, I'm up for any suggestion, any and all suggestions about making Tom meeting move along more quickly and and to that end, there are a lot of other things being discussed about making that happen that don't necessarily involve Elvis. And if you want to hear about them, we can talk offline, but, but my goal is to get this done in one night, so it may not happen this next year. It may not happen the year after, but at some point it would be nice to routinely get it down to one night. One of the big ways of getting it done is by using utilizing the Consent Calendar and putting more articles on one consent calendar and getting a series of articles passed in one fell swoop. But we have to get the town used to it and that that comes with its own issues. So anyway, that's my goal. Is to make this more efficient. Okay, so David Bernstein: is everybody comfortable with the 20 to 30 proposal as a trial at the next town meeting? Unknown: Yes, yes. Sounds Larry Krakauer: like a simple proposal. I like it. There's really nothing rigid about this 400 threshold, right? This, this was, David Bernstein: well, it's oti. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, yeah.
David Bernstein: Mark likes it when we are consistent with his requirements. Okay, so I think we've disposed of items five and six. Let's now move on to remote participation, where we'll spend most of the time this evening. So the first thing I'd like to do is just remind everybody that there are two bills. 2272 is a home rule petition for Wayland alone that would allow us to do remote participation in our town meetings. 2274 is the same language, but statewide. Well, everybody in the state to be able to do this. So I want to start by going through our remote participation presentation, to which I've made updates here and there mostly is real feedback while giving it now. We talked about this, I think, at our meeting last March. So not all, not all the changes are new, but there's a couple of things I want to review here. So the first one is on slide six. So we have this depiction on slide five of what we have today, a voting system with an on premises set of handsets. It used to be that this just said voting system, which is inconsistent, because what we're really doing is we're expanding this to not just allow remote participants to vote, but to be able to listen and speak. So I named it the town meeting system. If somebody has a better name for that, that's fine with me. But just to differentiate from the fact that previously, it was just a voting system, and now with remote participation, it's full participation, with listening, speaking and voting, and the slide previously didn't wasn't consistent with that point. Any comments on that? Okay, if not moving on to Slide 12, there's Lucy. So this is, there's a couple points here. One is one of the moderators I presented to. Said, you know where you really should be able to show us who's speaking. So there now shows that a friend, Robert Smith, is speaking. You might ask, Well, how does that get in there? Well, this is a pretty good argument for an assistant moderator who, among other things, whenever somebody introduces themselves, enters that person's name into the system so that all the remote participants can see who it is, and it wouldn't be a bad idea if the video, whatever video was displaying on premises, showed the first thing. There's another point on this slide, and that is that some people saying, I think our moderator is one of them. I'd rather see town meeting video here. I'd rather that remote participants saw video and heard as well as heard audio. So I guess we could say that that would be an option, that each town could decide whether you know when we're there's discussion going on, do remote participants see transcribe text, or do they see video? Or maybe that should even be a per participant. Option where each remote participant can decide. Now, before we go too much further, there's one other data point. There is town meeting video broadcast on WayCAM In our case, but that broadcast has a 10 second delay, so I'm not sure that if what we ended up with was 10 second delayed video with real time audio that that would be very helpful. So I don't know that we can resolve this here, but there's the question of what gets displayed during discussion. Is it transcribe text, which a lot of people would find helpful? Is it real time audio and video that we somehow pipe? Or is it real time audio with video from WayCAM. All of those, I believe, are technically feasible. We just have to decide, you know, what we want. And my guess is no three towns are going to make the same decision, which means that whoever implements this software is going to have to cater to all of the options that people might want. Comments. Lynne Dunbrack: I have a comment, but it's not so much related to this as our prior conversation about the voting window, because the 10 second delay from WayCAM will impact that. But I don't want to derail the first David Bernstein: question. That's a That's a fair point. You could argue that 10 second delayed video would be counterproductive for exactly that reason. Yeah, that whatever's going on, you're 10 you're 10 seconds behind real time. Is that 10 Lynne Dunbrack: second delay? Just out of curiosity, is that 10 second delay in late in case someone uses one of
Miranda S. Jones: the seven words? George Carlin, Lynne Dunbrack: Carlin, thank you. I was like, Carlton came up first. And I was like, that's not David Bernstein: right, words none of us would ever use. Miranda S. Jones: Do you know how often I have to check myself? It is part of my vernacular on a daily basis. So, but for whatever reason, whenever I get in front of people like that, I don't, for some David Bernstein: reason, my guess is, in order to have 10 second delay video, waycamp has to have real time video, and then they put it through a 10 second delay. So it's possible, I imagine, that if we wanted to, we could get real time video and display and have that be piped out to the remote participants. I don't know what's involved in that, yeah, I Miranda S. Jones: don't know what sort of regulations there are with federal regulations in terms of broadcasting, and if there has to be, because of the because of the issue about things that are inappropriate to be broadcast, I really don't know what the town council maybe. David Bernstein: So some research that has to be done. There's a number of options. We have to decide which ones are ones that might be useful, and then which ones? You know, what do we have to do to do them? But I just thought is very, sort of a very interesting set of requirements that pop out of this one slide. But, Miranda S. Jones: but to lens point, if I if I may, though, I mean, I foresee, do you all foresee that if we were to have remote participation, and people are voting on their hands, on their either iPads or their cell phones. Do you think we will still be using the clickers for people who are in person? David Bernstein: I We certainly will the first time we ever try remote participation. Okay, over time, I would hope that we could get to the point where people on premises are using the same software on the same kinds of devices, whether they're their own smartphone or ones that oti brings brings up, right? I agree only. The only issue with that is we would go from trying to shut down WiFi hotspots to making sure that we have enough WiFi bandwidth in the room to handle all the handsets. Yeah, Unknown: Dave, go make a comment. Go right ahead. Alan, so if you transition to not using the clickers, doesn't that change the business model with oti that you we presently have, because they're priced based on clickers, yeah, and, and they also provide the show. So you can't cut them out by replacing the clickers, because you still need their services, David Bernstein: we would need to negotiate a new business model. Unknown: Okay? Well, that doesn't exist. I just wanted to point that out, David Bernstein: right? We won't need to do that right away, because, like I said, the first time, we're not going to change all the variables simultaneously. The first time we do this for real, it will be remote participants using smartphones and tablets, but the on premises people will continue to use clickers. And then as we get the remote participation stuff really working, and our confidence grows, then we can begin to investigate using the remote participant stuff on premises. And at that point, we'd have to have a discussion with whoever our supplier is, that you know, both parties are comfortable with, Miranda S. Jones: but to the point of the 10 second delay, I think as we once this passes, we will need to figure out, how do we do this? So everyone's voting, both those people in person and those people participating remotely. How are they starting the voting window at this. Same time? Yeah, and I don't know what the Don Schuler: answer, just one comment. Don't you think people will actually be watching the town meeting on their TV while they're actually doing some of the voting remotely? I mean, they may be watching it and say, Oh, now here comes the interesting part. Let me get on my, you know, pick up my
David Bernstein: they will understand that there's a 10 second delay. It'll be fine. But you know, if you're engaged, if you're going to speak, if you want to vote, you really have to be using your handset, otherwise, it'll be 10 seconds behind the times, Don Schuler: right? Well, yeah, you will. But I mean, I think people might be doing that anyway. They might be doing both, yeah, could fairly common situation. Or we David Bernstein: could have Wayland. We could have Wayland declared a a community that never uses bad words over the air. And we don't need a 10 second.
Miranda S. Jones: I'm not. I'm not signing that. So Larry Krakauer: okay, well, is this really over the air? I mean, this is all cable. David Bernstein: Well, it's over Wi Fi, so it is over the air, but I don't think that counts. Larry Krakauer: No, no, yeah, I don't you're not supposed to be in on the Wi Fi. David Bernstein: I think the only, the only destination that needs the 10 second delay for our legal purposes would be WayCAM. Larry Krakauer: Well, no, but that's the question I'm thinking in terms of WayCAM. Oh, it's not over the air either. It's it's on a cable system. Oh, that's David Bernstein: true, and it's not like you don't hear about broadcast. Yes, yeah. CC, right. But wait a second, we don't hear, we hear bad words on lots of things that come over the case Miranda S. Jones: we do on cable. That was the whole point of cable, right? David Bernstein: So the real question is, why does White cam need a 10 second delay? Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, it's good question, Unknown: yeah. And also not David Bernstein: the outcome I was expecting. Very cool. Unknown: I remember a seven second delay for the FCC. Anybody remember that? No,
David Bernstein: okay, well, that was productive. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, any other No, I'm in touch with WayCAM Because we're planning on doing a bunch of Tom meeting things, putting it up on the website, and making a series of videos to teach people about Tom meeting and maybe get them more interested in it. I'll ask them if they understand why there's a 10 second delay. Okay, if they've got, if they know the regulation behind it, if whatever it is, David Bernstein: yeah, that'd be great. Sure. Any other discussion about this slide? Okay, let's move on to Slide 17. So here some things got added. A this section up here tells the moderator whether or not any points of order have been raised, and the one below it tells the moderator whether or not a question has been called. I think we already discussed at our last meeting the need to have both local and remote people on the list in chronological order, so that hasn't changed, but it was very embarrassing. I spelled the last name of New Zealand's Prime Minister incorrectly, and I was correct, so that's now correct. Lynne Dunbrack: It's alright, Dave. It makes you feel any better. We had a guest vendor come in, potential client, or they may have been clients at the time, and we had dutifully named all of our conference rooms like capitals and big major cities, and Auckland was one of them, and we had it misspelled on the conference room. Well done. Our Kiwi guests were very quick to gently point out, in a very polite way that we misspelled it. Big City. Yeah, David Bernstein: yep. Not good. Okay, slide 21 so this is just the remote participants view of the speaker queue. And you know, it's just too bad we don't have any graphic designers in this team. We're good at everything except graphic design, so I've just got l's and R's in here to designate local and remote. Doubtless we could have some icons created that better illustrate that. But Lynne Dunbrack: so on on. The question here for Jacinda, is that calling the question or they have a point of order question. This is, David Bernstein: this is just she wants to ask a question. Oh, okay, Miranda S. Jones: that's more like point of order. But you know what? You raise a good point, which I discussed with Dave recently, and the software program could be created so that whatever the person is, is what, whatever their purpose is to speak, it can be ranked because moderators are supposed to, depending upon what the nature of the reason is for the person to be at the microphone, they have a certain ranking that moderators are supposed to adhere to, so that, for example, motions to terminate debate are ranked higher than other motions. For example, motions to amend and you could, and that's. In town meeting time, and you could build that into the software program so it actually takes, it could obviate the need to have that scrum in front of the moderators, you know, podium, because, you know, there's often people coming up saying, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to speak. And so the moderator has to figure out who gets to talk next, and if they, if people, regardless of if they're at home or they're in person, if they log in, this is, this is me, and this is what I want to talk about. This is why I'm approaching I mean, the Pro and the con microphones are pretty easy, except what for the people who are in person, but the rest of it, you could have the software rank everybody for the moderator, which would make it more efficient? David Bernstein: Yep, and that could be, that could be set up so that each moderator could choose his or her own ranking, because they might not. Miranda S. Jones: That's the thing, Dave, is that moderators aren't supposed to Tom meeting time. Oh, really, a cover of Tom meeting time, it dictates what is well, then Don Schuler: the software will be easier. Yeah, I have a question, do you actually have multiple screens? Or what happens when you're looking at this and then you also want to hear what the person is saying? And David Bernstein: no, you only have one screen. And Don Schuler: as we envisioned it, if you just flip between David Bernstein: back to, you know, you'd go back to speaker or listen or whatever. I think you click return here to go back to that may not be the most well, Don Schuler: how about if you're, how about if you're, you're, you're listening to one of the people talking in the pro or con area. And then you decide I want to get on the list too
well. Then you stop hearing the person that that's talking. I David Bernstein: i assume the way this would work is that you, at all times hear Tom meeting audio, no matter what you're doing, unless you're speaking, okay, you'd have the audio. Yeah, you'd always have town meeting audio, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't Don Schuler: necessarily have the transcript into into text. David Bernstein: Now, you know, if we want to get sophisticated, we could say that, if the user has a tablet, we could, you know, divide it up into two vertical panes, so you could do two things at once. You could have, you know, one thing showing the speaker queue and the other one, but that other one showing a page like this, or the real time transcription. But I think that's, you know, that's an optimization to be considered later. Okay, but you're right. We have to make sure that when you're doing something other than listening to the current speaker and seeing that transcription, or seeing video, that when you go to other screens that you don't, you don't get disconnected from town meeting because you can't hear anything anymore. So that's an important point. Yeah, I don't think we ever specified it. So Lynne Dunbrack: for the for the in person, folks like Boris and Emmanuel. How did they? How do they register, register themselves on this queue? Is this David Bernstein: something that I think we talked about this. We talked about this at the last meeting. The low tech. There's a couple ways to do it. The low tech way is to post a person in a staff person at each microphone with a tablet, who, every time someone approaches the microphone, queries them for their name and enters that into the system right away, so that they're just there. The high tech way would be, you know, even with clickers, every the system knows that my handset, b4 71 is Dave Bernstein, so if we could change the clicker design so that if you push four, it means you want to speak in favor. If you push five, you want to speak against. If you push six, you want to ask a question, so your name would get entered into the queue that way. So somewhere in between those two extremes is what we'd end up doing. Got it and of course, it gets easy if everybody's using this application on premises, but that's not t equals zero, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, but you know what, Dave it just to that point, using a clicker, that four equals this five using one and two is easy enough. THE MODERATOR reminds people, but the other way wouldn't. However, what I would also say is this creates more accurate record for the town clerk when, when she's she's taking notes, and to have a listing of everybody who spoke is so much easier for her, too. Yep, just another benefit from David Bernstein: this. So at minimum, we just have to post a staff person in each microphone to record people's names as they approach the microphone. Yeah? So that that's a guaranteed, you know, we know we can make that work, yeah? Something better. We will. I agree with you that pushing buttons on the clicker not, ideally, not going to work, yeah, too complicated for people. Larry Krakauer: Well, actually, collecting names is not that easy. I mean, you know, people say their names, but really you'd almost have to stop them and ask them for spam. Selling in many cases true. David Bernstein: Well, maybe not Larry, because remember, only people who check in can speak. So the the tablets that people the staff uses could have a list of all legal speakers and just type in the first few letters of their name, and you've got it just like we is exactly like what we do when people check in now on the check in stations, so I think that can be facilitated.
Other Other questions on this slide, slide 21 or comments or suggestions. Okay, let's move on to Slide 26 Okay, so this is a list of things that I have accumulated. Some of them we've already discussed, showing the remote participants the name of the current speaker. A number of moderators pointed out that in their world, people can actually submit a text file with an amendment. So coming up with some way to support that. This would be trivial. If people were using desktops where they could prepare, you know, a text file or a Word document and send it. You know, if people are using their phones or tablets, they would somehow have to get their amendment into their phone or their tablet in order to be able to submit it. We have to think about how to, how to, how to come up, what way to support that we don't allow this, do we? Miranda,
Miranda S. Jones: I don't know. It's, it's so I'm debating this right now. I'm having an ongoing debate with Dennis Barry about changing the way we do amendments. So amendment has to, if it's more than 10 words, it has to be in writing, right? People bring amendments all the time to town meeting, emotions to amend the the article that's being presented. Sometimes do it. You know, you have to file amendment within 48 hours of Tom eating, or at least before, with within 48 hours of town meeting. And so all the amendments come beforehand. And so Dennis and I've been debating, should we think about doing something like that to make Tom meeting more efficient so people are more prepared so and but does that then deprive the ability to amend on the spot? Sometimes issues come up that maybe no one had thought about. So I don't know what the answer David Bernstein: you could argue that the need for an amendment doesn't become obvious until there's some discussion that reveals it that Miranda S. Jones: could have exactly No. I completely agree. And I can cite an example of one by law that we almost passed several years ago, and it had to do with sex offenders. And I remembered somebody. Everyone thought this. It was the chief of police brought it. Everyone thought this would be a no brainer article, and it was defeated because of the debate that flowed from it. And I don't remember if it was amended or not, but it's just things can change at Tom meeting that you don't you don't anticipate. David Bernstein: So the worst case here is that some remote participant has a brainstorm like that debate and wants to submit an amendment that's more than 10 words, yes. Miranda S. Jones: So we have to figure out how to how to factor that into the Yeah, into the software. Because if we are going to truly offer remote participation, then they need to be able to fully participate. We said this is not remote voting, so maybe remote voting might be one thing, but we're asking for remote participation, so they have to be able to figure out how to amend, if they so desire. And I don't know what the answer is to that, yeah, David Bernstein: just, I just an idea just popped into my head that the person could write their amendment on a piece of paper, you know, in their kitchen, and then have their camera take a picture of it Miranda S. Jones: and scan it in. Scan it? Yeah, the effect David Bernstein: it would have to do character recognition. You just have, I mean, you'd end up with that piece of paper in front of you, the moderator, and you could then read the amendment. Miranda S. Jones: But why couldn't? Why couldn't they, if they're if they're on their phones, why couldn't they type it in? Why couldn't there be some way it's just like you're typing a text message or an email David Bernstein: typing on a phone is not a skill that everybody has, but Lynne Dunbrack: there's voice recognition. Yeah, yeah, they would just have to hit Oh yeah. You know, yeah, when Miranda S. Jones: I taught my husband that a few years ago, it's changed his world. That's recognition, David Bernstein: yep. So that Lynne Dunbrack: actually gotten really good, because I have discovered that DEP, if I was texting with somebody, and then put my phone down, it will start to transcribe a phone meeting I'm on, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, yeah, if you mean, if you forget to shut off the microphone. So I put Lynne Dunbrack: that down, and I was like, Oh, my God, my my phone is typing and it is literally transcribing, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, what was being said? What's cool about that is, and actually really well, David Bernstein: what's cool is that that means that anytime anybody wants to make an amendment that could be captured, whether it's 10 words or or yep or not, and again, you're back to, you know, records for the town clerk, right? Yep. Unknown: Actually. Larry Krakauer: True. I use voice recognition all the time on texting, but I find I always have to edit, agreed. Well, not always, but often, if it's short and often, yes, yeah, David Bernstein: okay, well, that was productive. Okay. I love this one. Enable the moderator remote participants to sequence through multiple color schemes. You know, some people are color blind, so you have to be able to, you know, tolerate give people options there. We talked about this one at the last our last meeting, that if somebody who registered to participate remotely changed their mind and shows up on premises to allow them to check in and then instantly disable them from participating remotely for the remainder of that session. So twice, wouldn't Unknown: the software just do that? Yes, you would think so required, David Bernstein: but it's a requirement. So we want to, you know, want to capture it Lynne Dunbrack: just to play devil's advocate. What happens they come in, they do their big, big vote. You know, they come in to give and then they go home. So do we have the ability or people just decide to go home? Well, at 10, David Bernstein: I arbitrarily wrote it down as once you check in on premises, that's it for that session. You can't go back and remotely participate, just because I wanted to make sure there wasn't some hole where somebody could end up voting twice, we could certainly relax that if we were confident in the technology, Lynne Dunbrack: yup. Well, I'm just, I'm just thinking of like parents who might be able to come in for one vote, but then need to go home because they have to really care babysitter, you know, especially if you have a meeting that goes super David Bernstein: late. So the problem is, I mean, the work devil's advocate. You know, I I'm at on I've registered on premises. I'm checked in. I leave town meeting, but I don't check out somehow, and so the system still thinks I'm there, and then I go home and vote. I don't know, but that way I'm still not voting twice, Lynne Dunbrack: yeah, unless you've given your headset, your handset and slipped out now your proxy voting with yourself. It's just an interesting thing to think about, is what happens? Because that'll be the thing is, like someone will, you know, I can see the inevitable. It's 1030 I want, I need to go home. And really, yeah, David Bernstein: yeah. We should make it as flexible as we can, so long as we maintain the integrity of the system from a voting point of view, agreed. Okay, show the article, the current articles, time remaining, and the current speakers, time remaining. That's auto you know, the bigger point here is that moderators are pretty resistant to remote participation in general. You know, when Miranda tried talking to the mass moderators Association about this, he got a lot of negative feedback. I did.
Miranda S. Jones: It was not pretty. David Bernstein: Most of it comes down to inertia. I mean, they know how to do what they're doing. Now, this threatens to make their meetings much bigger and have to deal with people who aren't physically in front of them. Miranda S. Jones: Well, I also, I don't necessarily think that it was, I don't think it was necessarily that they were afraid of more people participating. I think it was that they would have to learn how to do it differently. And that's an and I you know, the moderators are a fairly diverse group. There's about 20% of them are women. I couldn't tell you what the ages, the ages are, but there's a lot of older men. Not that that's something negative, per se, but they also, but they seem to be very and, you know, I'm one of the older ones at 61 so, so, but, but my attitude is like the Tom wants us, we got to make this happen. But I always think change is a good thing. So, I mean, that's how progress happens. Nevertheless, some of them are stuck in the sort philosophically about, but Tom meeting is supposed to be all in one place, you know, on on the town green type of thing, and which is very archaic, that thinking, but, but I would say a majority of the people who aren't in the philosophical philosophical school are the ones that are afraid of the security of the vote and getting hacked and have not listened to Dave's presentation, and therefore are afraid because they haven't sat through this PowerPoint, and so they don't realize that a number of very smart people who are in this field have have Been looking at all these issues for several years now, and have come up with ways to combat the problems as the as they're presented. So anyway, so there's a there's a we don't have their we don't have the authority to that. We don't have their recommendation or support yet. But that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. And listen, we have a few towns that want to do it, and so that's what we're going that's how we're going forward. David Bernstein: So the point I was trying to make here is that anything we can do to make things easier for the moderator will help us, because it will, it will facilitate their being willing to give it a try and. And along the same lines, the moderator needs to be able to select the motion that will be the subject of the next vote. Make that easy to do. Miranda, the more, the more I think about this stuff, the more I think that remote participation, at least in a town like Wayland, is almost always going to require an assistant moderator to do some of these tasks. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, I'm sure you, I'm sure you're probably right. You know, when we get it past Dave, then when we get the permission to be able David Bernstein: to well, and we'll be doing a ton of testing so we'll be able to see what Unknown: we're doing, yeah, David Bernstein: but you know, anyway, Miranda S. Jones: if any of you can think of who would like this job as assistant moderator, please let me know. Lynne Dunbrack: And honestly, I think some of this would help the in person people like, I think, because sometimes it is confusing when you're you know, on the gym floor or the field floor, like which, which amendment Are We Now voting for? Like voting for the first one or the second one. So, Miranda S. Jones: and that's on the moderator to be very clear as to what it is to make sure before people vote, that they know exactly what they're voting on, whether it's the main motion or one of the amendments or some ancillary motion. David Bernstein: Okay, any more comments on this slide? Any more additional requirements? Anyone's thought up while we were debating this? Okay, let's move on to Slide 29 so here, I'm not sure exactly what changed. This is the same audit table. We've already always had talked about the designated auditors. I think maybe it's this, and that's the idea that designated auditors don't Is it? Um, designated auditors don't report discrepancies by clicking the report discrepancy button the way that a non designated auditor would, they actually send a text, a text message to a moderator smartphone that's programmed to only accept messages from those designated auditors. So in security terms, it's an out of band report mechanism so that if a designated auditor sees a problem, the moderator hears about it without any Reliance or dependence on the voting system or the town meeting system at all. So it's just a technologically upgraded way of informing the moderator, because my recommendation would be, if even one designated auditor reports a discrepancy, that means we're, you know, somebody's twisting votes over the internet, and this just gives us a more reliable way of conveying that information. Any comments on that? Lynne Dunbrack: Yeah, I remember. So I was actually confused by this, mostly like, why was the that person called out for being a discrepancy? Like, I was looking at the chart going, it kind of looked like the other items. So, and maybe there's a detailed question you can answer offline. It's not, I don't want to derail I didn't David Bernstein: quite catch the question. Lynne Dunbrack: Lynn, so you go back one of the slides, I think it was, or maybe the build this one. No, no, it was the, yeah, that. So why? Why is that particular entry? I'm assuming that's called out as having a discrepancy, because it's, it's so David Bernstein: this is, this entry is highlighted because it's supposed to indicate that this the person whose shoulder we're looking over the remote participant. That's their secret voter code, yep, and they see that their vote was recorded Yes, and that's what tells them that their vote was recorded correctly. And if not, they push the report discrepancy button. Oh, Lynne Dunbrack: all right, so this is a self report by the by the meeting attendee, right? David Bernstein: And then the other thing here is that there's running totals of yeses and no's and there's, there should be a total line that shows the total yeses and no's, and the moderator announces the remote vote as well as the total vote. So everybody who's auditing, if they want to, can confirm that the arithmetic was done correctly, that what the moderators chose was the remote vote matches, which adds up at the bottom of the audit table. And since these are all running counts, it's easy to check the arithmetic,
Lynne Dunbrack: quick except for the total. Totals don't add up to all the yeses in the there's, well, David Bernstein: there's three yeses and there's four nos. And there they are, and you can see them. They're not the yes column increments every time there's a yes, and the no column increments every time there's a no, and the abstain column increments every time there's an abstain, so 341, is the total of that vote. Lynne Dunbrack: Okay, so you're not, you're not counting the the total of,
Unknown: I get it, I think I get it. Yeah. Lynne Dunbrack: So if you look at the if you're doing this as an Excel spreadsheet, you one would think. That the yes column would be the total of that which is more David Bernstein: than Oh, but we're doing it as a running count, so that people who don't have calculators in front of them can just follow along and say yep, every time there was a yes vote, every time there was a no vote, yep, the no column increased, and I can see the totals adding up to what the moderator ultimately announces, Lynne Dunbrack: I see. Okay, Don Schuler: so there's, so there's going to be a line here for every remote person or every person, yep, okay. David Bernstein: And you know, it's a scrollable table, and it's scrollable table, and I think, I think the way it will likely work is that you type in the first few letters of your voter code and that, you know, it narrows it down, and then you select it, and Lynne Dunbrack: it's going to validate that you and this, you and the code are equal, so that you couldn't just decide, I'm going to, like, fool around with This and click on anybody's David Bernstein: Well, I mean, clicking on this does nothing other than highlight the row that when you report a discrepancy, you're just reporting a discrepancy as as the owner of this remote participants device. It's not like you can report a fake a discrepancy from somebody else. If you click the Report discrepancy button, it's you who logged in here. Lynne Dunbrack: Oh, so it's highlighting you on the screen. Yes, David Bernstein: I just did that for presentation purposes. Lynne Dunbrack: Okay, so So you would, so you either only, you'd only see your own record. David Bernstein: Well, no, you'd see, because the system. You don't want the system to know who you are from a secret voter code point of view, correct. The system shows all the secret voter codes you scroll around or type in a few letters to find, to find yours, but, but that's just so you can see that your vote was correctly received. That's the only thing that does. The selection here has no impact on what happens if you click the Report discrepancy button, if you click the Report discrepancy button, if you're logged in here with the you know, the Lynn Dunbar username and password, then the discrepancy comes from Lynn Dunbar independent of what you did here. Okay, Lynne Dunbrack: and you can only report your own quote, your own discrepancy, and not all these other ones. Okay, David Bernstein: correct, correct. Don Schuler: But you said there's a limited number of auditing people, or what did they call them? Oh, designated. David Bernstein: Well, there can be as many as the moderator chooses to recruit. And I would argue that we want more rather than less, because the more of these there are the higher the fraction number of people that are auditing every single they're auditing their vote every single vote, but which means we have a better chance of detecting tamper. Unknown: But this table is not just the designated audience auditors. This is everyone who's voted right, and the designated auditors are basically, in some sense, just a minimum number of people who are going to audit it. And if everybody wants to designate themselves as being an auditor and check it, all the better, right? We David Bernstein: want many remote participants to audit their vote as possible. We want to encourage that, but we can't guarantee that they will. The designated auditors are people who the moderator knows and recruits who basically agree, yes, I will audit my vote every single time. Unknown: But the system doesn't know who they are. That's correct, and that's an important thing, because if the system knew who they were, it can make sure it doesn't screw their vote around, just everybody else's. Yep. David Bernstein: Yeah, good point. And that's how this out of band reporting system works, because the discrepancy report isn't conveyed by the by the system. It's conveyed completely independently of the of the town meeting system. Are you worried about? Say that there's 300 people remotely logged in, and everyone is is checking their vote. You know, some people could forget their vote, or something like that, and you might get a lot of people claiming there's a discrepancy, and there is, and that's another reason for having a designated auditors, there are going to be some members who will get confused and get the wrong line here or something, and we may get a few discrepancies that are noise. So that's why the distinction is a discrepancy from a designated auditor one, and we're done discrepancies from the general public in the absence of discrepancies. Here, you might, you know, be willing to tolerate a few, and testing will tell us how well this works. Unknown: But the same thing with handsets, the handset basically set, you know, at the end says you, you know, voted yes or whatever, and you're supposed to look at it and make sure it's right. And you know, you could say, well, 1000 people, 100 people, are going to say, Oh, I got it wrong. But the reality is, typically, the ones who come up and say they got it wrong are the ones, when you talk to them, who voted wrong. You know, they just did. They you said, I hit, you know, plus or whatever, and it didn't vote yes. So I don't think it's a historically, I don't think it's a problem. David Bernstein: You know, the testing will tell us, because we're going to test with high school kids, we're going to test with senior citizens, you know, before we do this live and we'll, we'll get some sense of how good are people at being able to do this, and how many bogus discrepancy reports do we get, Don Schuler: you know, with the handset, there was a couple times we did an audit, but everybody kind of trusted it after that, and nobody bothers to do what happened, you know, so, so I think it could be the same thing once, once people feel confident that it hasn't shown up, you know, after a Couple of town meetings, that they'll they'll be less checking going on once they feel right. Miranda S. Jones: That would be a mistake, though, agreed. You'd still want the designated David Bernstein: audit, no matter what these these, yeah, way as reliable auditors, but we always want some number of designated auditors. Okay? THE MODERATOR could encourage people to audit their vote. Yeah, okay. Unknown: On this slide, Larry Krakauer: I somehow this seems complicated. I mean, the or it the auditing is harder than just having your own handset and checking your vote. You've got to know how to look up your audit code. And so it takes very little to confuse people, in a way that seconds the importance of the designated auditors, right? They will know what they're doing. Most people probably will not and will just ignore this capability altogether. It's kind of confusing. David Bernstein: Well, you know, this is the heart of how we detect tampering with boats over the internet. So the good news is that it works. The bad news is that it may be too complicated for some people, and the question is, is there a better way to do it? I don't know of one. You know, if we come up with a better one, we should certainly consider it, but, but you know, to be able to have votes go over the internet and keep them private, remember, I mean, if you just have everybody's public votes were public, this would be trivial, because it would just say Dave Bernstein, yes, and everybody could see I voted yes. I could see I voted yes. But it's when you replace people's names with secret voter codes in order to maintain the privacy of the vote is what makes it, I think, more more complicated. Larry,
Larry Krakauer: yeah, yeah, I that's the importance of the designated auditors. Because, in some sense, people who are not designated auditors might not be doing this very much. So, so you need the designated I might say, I don't know whether this is any importance, but Miranda was talking about, you know, moderators, thinking about the good old days of small towns and everybody knows each other, and the traditional town meeting and so on. That you may recall, the traditional town meeting was why I was initially reluctant to consider secret votes. The traditional town meeting did not have secret votes. Stood up for what you were going to vote for, and let people see it. Miranda S. Jones: In this town,
Unknown: that's courage that you're putting on we put on other people that it's unfair. They just want to vote. They want to vote with their hearts, their minds and their pocketbooks. They don't they should not have to, quote, unquote, stand up and show their vote, because they could be harassed. David Bernstein: Larry's point, it wasn't that we should restore that. He's just pointing out that at the inception of town meeting, that's how it worked. Miranda S. Jones: Well, Dave and I raised this issue when we've we've done these presentations about Wayland was a very private vote for a long for a long time, and not all Tom meetings open. Tom meetings are like that. A lot of people do secret ballots, and we never did until electronic voting came. And then all of a sudden, we switched from a public vote to a very private vote, and the town has embraced that to the point where my first town meeting was a special town meeting when we had that one warrant article town meeting in December of 2023 and we did a secret ballot rather than going since we didn't, since the Select Board did not vote to have electronic voting, since there was just one more in Article, because it's so expensive, we had, rather than going back to the shout out vote that we used to do, we did a secret ballot, because everyone's gotten used to private voting and so, so I mean it, and that is the uniqueness of town meeting. Every town is a little bit different. How Tom meeting is done, and Wayland has changed. It has morphed over the last 14 years. With electronic voting. And this is yet another change, but the town wants it because, because it so more people can participate. Larry Krakauer: So I said clearly, it clearly is what people want. That's absolutely, yeah. David Bernstein: Any other comments on this slide? A good discussion. Alright, one, see, we're 20, so 41 so this is a point I want to make explicit here we have two pieces of legislation before the legislature, one a Home Rule petition. The other is statewide legalization. So everybody has endorsed the statewide bill. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the League of Women Voters, the mass Municipal Association, and so our position is, ideally, we'll get statewide approval. Short of statewide approval, we'd like to have at least Wayland and two other towns get approval so that we can get started on building software, because nobody's going to build the software until it's made legal. So this may be a little bit of a switch, where, in the past, we were kind of focused on our home rule petition, and then, oh yeah, there's the statewide bill as well. We're explicitly asking for the statewide bill first. Now that doesn't mean we're not going to test the hell out of this before. You know, we encourage anybody else to use it, but I just wanted to make that flip explicit here for everybody comments or questions. Okay, so 44 these are all the town that you guys know. This is all the towns we talked to. 44 is a summary of current legislation. So this is a little repetitious. 2272 is our home rule petition submitted by Representative Gentile, along with Representative Linsky, who's also a Wayland congressperson, and our senator Eldridge. HD 965, has to do with Lexington town meetings, which are representative. So it's not, has not, not relevant. 2274 is a statewide bill I was just talking about. We're now up to 10 co sponsors of that bill. The League of women's voters has jumped on this with both feet. They have run two different webinars for us, one for all league members, and a second one for all legislators, and we ended up with 100 people showing up at each one of those webinars. Nancy brumbach, who is the league's legislative director, has just been incredibly helpful, but she's put in tons of hours and tons of time and got lots of resources for us, and we have a lot to thank them for. The turning point was when they realized that our solution for conveying votes over the internet was indeed secure. That was for them. That was that was when the light bulb went on. Before that they just didn't trust it.
Something new, as of last week, Senator Barrett, who's a Senator for Concord, Weston Carlisle, has submitted a bill that is identical textually, to this statewide bill, but he submitted to the Senate. Senator Barrett is the assistant Senator Majority Leader. There's two of them, but he's one of them. So he is the first member of legislative leadership who has, in a high profile way, jumped on board of supporting what we're doing. And as best as I can figure out, it's legislative leadership that decides whether or not this committee, which is where our bill is right now, will either, you know, refer us for study, as has happened the last two legislative sessions, or will actually give us the go ahead to move move on, which would take our bill to the Ways and Means Committee, which is another story, all by itself. So this was a huge victory. I think a couple weeks ago, Miranda and I went into the state house, along with two people from Concord who we've been working with, and we presented to Senator Barrett. So he's seen this presentation we're looking at now. He reacted very positively, I think. And he has, you know, he's helping us as as much as we could ask. So I'm very happy about that these bills get into a cold, different, competing matter, and that is, they address not just town meetings, but public meetings. Public meetings are meetings governed by the Open Meeting Law. And the problem is that some of these bills want to make hybrid public meetings mandatory, and some of them want to make hybrid public meetings optional, and the League of women's voters wants them to be mandatory, and the Massachusetts Municipal Association wants them to be optional, because small towns can't necessarily afford it, and there's a debate between the House and the Senate. So we're basically done. King that set of disagreements, because the two bills we're pushing are statewide bills that only address how needed. Okay, anyway. Any comments about this or questions? Okay, so does anybody have a problem with me releasing this version of the presentation as a public document, so that it will go on our website, Towns website? So is there a motion to to make this public? Lynne Dunbrack: Any John can be moved, and I'll be second. David Bernstein: Okay. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed hearing nothing, the vote will be recorded as unanimous. Thank you, everybody. I know that was a lot to go through, but we had to go through it. Okay? Don Schuler: I have one question. You know, you mentioned that if it's a represent representative town meeting. They actually do have a remote participation at this point. But David Bernstein: what do they have? It sounds like they I don't know. Do they have the capability to do debating and make amendments and everything like we were going to do for our voting? At least two towns have been using a combination of zoom and a product called V voter, which is made by oti, our friends oti. So they zoom for remote speaking and listening, and they use V voter for remote voting, and it's public voting. The problem is, and I've heard this both from I've heard it from the moderator of Plymouth, and I know it's a problem in Lexington, is that the 200 or so delegates, the people, the representatives who vote, get confused, having to switch between the two. So every time I do that presentation for somebody who's had that experience, they say, this is exactly what we need, because our representatives get confused having to move to separate applications when they want to vote or speak or listen. And I've actually heard from Mark fight that he feels the same way that you know, what we've developed here, this integrated town meeting system that just leads the remote participant through the steps is exactly what everybody needs, even representative town meeting. And my guess is you're going to see Mark moving in that direction at oti. It's to the point where, in Lexington, one of the Select Board members who evidently has a software background, basically wrote a remote participation application for representative town meeting, and they're using that in Lexington, and we might want to talk to him about that, just to get a sense for what he did. But any other questions before we move on? Okay, so the next thing, the next document, is this one. Yes, this one. No. Wrong place documents. The next document is this one. So one of the challenges we face, and we don't face it directly, is that we're told that the Secretary of State, Mr. Galvin, is not comfortable with using the Internet to convey votes, and that his discomfort is the reason that during the pandemic, remote participation in representative town meeting was made legal, but remote participation in open town meeting was not there's a woman who reports to the Secretary of State. She's the director of elections. Her name is Michelle passenari. We had some interaction with her many years ago having to do with check in at town meeting with electronic voting. So she's not a stranger. So we have tried hard to convince director test scenario and Secretary of State Galvin that that we can make town meet remote participation accurate and secure. And so, with some help from Larry and John last, last, last April, we wrote up. This is basically a text version of the presentation with a few slides in there, and you can see it was done before I changed this to town meeting system, so it's an interesting thing to read. You know, it shouldn't be any different than what the presentation is. The reason for bringing it up is we've yet to hear any response from either of them, we heard indirectly that director Tom gave this document to her, quote, cybersecurity team who has questions, but all of our attempts to get to be able to engage with them, to understand their questions, or to answer their questions, or to give them a presentation, have not succeeded. So. We've asked Senator Barrett we talked about before, who's evidently good friends with Mr. Galvin, to please intercede on our behalf and arrange for us to have a conversation. Still hasn't happened. So exactly how much resistance we're getting from this? I don't know. No one's ever come to us and said, Well, we passed this, except Secretary Galvin is peeing all over it. That's not we don't know that that's happening, but my view is that any opposition is bad opposition, and so we're just trying as hard as we can to get an opportunity to understand what their concerns are and address them, Miranda S. Jones: right? But also remembering that Secretary Galvin runs, he's in charge of the elections, this is, this is something completely different than town meeting, which is the legislative body for each individual town. So, so, so you think, okay, he runs elections. This really has nothing to do with Secretary Galvin. It really doesn't. The other thing is, the legislature isn't governed by Secretary Galvin. He's an elected official. He's very He's unique. He's in the executive branch of government. The legislature is the legislative branch. So in some respects, who cares what Secretary Galvin thinks it really doesn't matter. And also, my understanding is that not that many people in the state legislature particularly respect Secretary Galvin. So in some regards, I think we focus. We should focus more of our effort on on getting the people to focusing on our bills that are pending and trying to get support within the legislature, rather than Secretary Galvin, yes, it would be nice to have His blessing, but I don't know. Michelle test Mary, clearly, is avoiding us, yeah. Well, some respects, you David Bernstein: could, I don't. I don't disagree. I'm perhaps a little more, you know, trying Miranda S. Jones: to eliminate any and all obstacles, yeah, and I understand why, David Bernstein: yeah. So we're not spending any time on this. I mean, you know, we I ping them occasionally, but we're not doing anything other than trying to get time with Miranda S. Jones: them. Yeah, no, I understand it would be great to have His blessing, but, but I wouldn't. I just want David Bernstein: to keep everybody here informed of what's understandable. Yeah, so any questions about that one, alright, let's move on to item 7c so the end of last April, Miranda and I journeyed into the state house and we met with the co chair, the house, co chair of the municipalities and regional government committee, we presented the presentation you just saw, and the chair, Jack Lewis, and his staff, were very attentive. They gave us a full hour. They asked really good questions. They didn't tip their hand or anything. But I felt like we got a fair hearing, and I was really happy that we were able to do that. So that went well. I think I already mentioned this in item D, that the League of women's voters and the Massachusetts Municipal Association have, in fact, endorsed the this bill, H, 2274 which is the statewide bill. I don't know that we need to look at that endorsement. Keep bringing up the wrong folder here. Sorry. So here's the League of women's voters endorsement, endorsing age 2274 so the endorsements great, the help we're getting from Nancy brumbach is irreplaceable. She's just incredible. And we're we've learned a ton. I should also point out that rep Gentile has an assistant, a legislative assistant named Simon. Ravi Robbie Simon, and he's been also extremely helpful. He's put a ton of time into this. He's educated us, and he's advocating for us. So really, can't be unhappy with the support we're getting, comments or questions. Here's another really good thing. In early June, Concord town meeting approved an article asking the Select Board to file a Home Rule petition along the lines of waylands, that article passed the Select Board is in the process of writing up the legislation. As we speak, I already mentioned this, which is the League of Women Voters, held a webinar for their chapters. There were 95 people who participated. There's video, if you haven't looked at it, if you want to watch what Miranda and I basically do our dog and pony show, but it was very good, and we got some really good questions that were fun to answer. A couple of weeks later, the league hosted a webinar for all state legislators and their staff. I actually have an analysis of that of the attendees, so let's see, do I have that? Yes. Okay, so this is that there were 101 people who showed up for the for the legislative webinar. 78 of them actually attended, and 19 did not. And so there were several senators who. Spoke Senator Barrett and Senator Eldridge. There are several people who endorse Dave Kaufman is a legislative director of the mass Municipal Association. They carry a ton of weight. In this process, we had 25 legislators or legislative staff members, and interestingly, we had 42 people who weren't legislators, but were town clerks, were town managers or town administrators Select Board members. So somehow or another, the news of this webinar leaked out, and a lot of town people ended up participating. So again, we got some good questions, and it was all up. You know, thanks to the League of Women Voters that we got to speak directly to a lot of people who will make can make a difference in all this. Any questions about this? Okay, let me get back to the agenda. Okay, so then I guess this was last month or late last, late in July, Miranda I Tom Fay, a number of people testified before the municipal and regional government committee. When you testify, you get three minutes, but you can submit written testimony. And I submitted written testimony as did Miranda, as did Tom, the written testimony I submitted was a version of the document we sent to Director passenari And the Secretary of State. And the only reason I want to bring it up is that a couple months ago, on Wayland social media, I asked people if they felt disenfranchised by the lack of remote participation. And two people responded. They sent me notes. One was Alexandra puglio. Another was Heather Ryan and I decided to append a section to that document I spoke of called Voices of disenfranchised Wayland voters, in which I basically quoted what they said. You know, Alexandra, it cost her $150 just to go to town meeting one night because she had to get health care or child care for her children. And Heather has multiple sclerosis. She can't attend. She wants to, and I thought the passion of both of them wanting to attend, but being unable to, would hopefully have an impact on the committee. And then my closing line, we're not asking for money, we're just asking for permission. Hopefully that will help as well. Unknown: Yeah, hmm, David Bernstein: any comments or questions about this stuff?
Okay, I feel like I'm getting a degree in civics. So item h, this is pretty cool. I asked Mark fight to submit testimony to the committee, and he did so here's his testimony, in which he basically talks about what we're doing and why we're doing it, supports it, and makes the point that nobody's going to write the software until it's made legal. And that was the key message we wanted him to send, and he sent it so very happy with that. Mark has been very helpful in doing this. Any comments or questions about that? A possible third town for a Home Rule position is Weston. Weston's moderator, guy named rip Hastings is very supportive. There's three members of their Select Board. They only have three, and one of them is gung ho on remote participation and thinks at least one of the other one is as well. So they're moving towards getting a Home Rule petition. We'll probably have to go and present to them, but that seems to be working pretty well. So that's just a status report. So that completes a rather lengthy hour and 15 minute discussion of remote participation. Are there any comments or questions about any of this?
Lynne Dunbrack: No, I think we raised them through the course of the discussion. Good, okay, for myself, I should say, David Bernstein: anybody else? All right, so let's then move on to Item eight, which is the Elvis annual report. So let me bring that up. Everybody see that? Okay, yep, okay, so Trudy already submitted her correction, which is changing FY 2024 to FY 2025 The question is, is there anything else in here that needs to change? So does anybody have any comments?
Lynne Dunbrack: No comments David Bernstein: for me. Okay, Don John, yep.
Unknown: Larry seems good. David Bernstein: Okay. Do I have a motion to submit this report as written as the FY 2025, Elvis annual report. So second? Unknown: What was the second John? Was the second John? I. Okay, okay, David Bernstein: all in favor, aye, any opposed, hearing no opposition, we'll record the vote as unanimous. Okay, so believe it or not, that is our agenda. That was the last non public item on the agenda in the wrong place. Where is the agenda? There's the agenda. So Robbie, is there any one out there who members of the public that have hands raised for public comment? Oh, I see none. Okay. Anyone here want to make closing remarks? Alan, yeah, Unknown: yes, I would love it to thank you. First, I want to say that in seeing what Elvis has done with remote participation, I'm amazed, and I compliment you all. You've taken it to a place that honestly, I didn't think where it was going to go, but you're there, and I think that you're going to close the deal. So what I wanted to say tonight was really two things. One of the just make an announcement. The other ones, I wanted to tell you a little story, but I figured I saved the best for last and do it reverse order. I just think that during because of my own life and what's going on and things that I've decided to resign from Elvis, and so I've always kind of fantasized, if I was a professor, that I would be Professor Emeritus. Okay, so I figure I must be Elvis emeritus. Maybe you could, maybe you could think of me that way. All right. So the other thing I want to tell you is is always like stories of origin. So I'm proud to tell you that 14 years ago, and Miranda just bought up the 14 years that this was after I was a select man. I was unelected, by the way, okay, and an event occurred at a town meeting where we were at an auditory at the high school. My wife and I were there, and it was an article having to do with the town center. I didn't like the article, and my wife didn't either. So when it came time to vote no, and in those days we had no electronic voting, you would stand up for the No, you'd stand up for the Yes, right? So we stood up for the No, and as we're standing there, and you know, they have to count you, so you're standing there for quite a while, like, remember that, right? They go around the audience and check you off on a sheet of paper. So there was a colleague of mine, and I'll keep names out of it, who was on the board of selectmen, all right? And he was, like, making little sounds, and I turned around, and he's making head motions to me to sit down. Like, sit down. You could just imagine that somebody with their head motioning you to sit down. So I felt kind of uncomfortable about that. And when the vote was over, and my wife and I were going home, I said to my wife, why the bleep does anybody have to know how we're voting? And then I said, Well, why the bleep does anybody have to know how anybody's voting? So a couple days later, I was watching the TV, and I saw Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the TV show. And of course, they have little clickers on them, where people they get audience participation. So I looked up the show where they did some research, and I found that the company who handled the clickers on that show was out of Orlando, Florida, and they were options technologies, interactive. So I started working with Mark fight, and was getting him to give me quotes, what it would take to buy a system. And we were up around $200,000 now I have to, I'm going to be very honest and tell and tell you that the powers to be did not want this. And it's a really simple principle, if you give people privacy, then you're giving them power and you're giving away power. So government tends not to want to give away its power. So the government of Wayland did not want us to have its power. And I don't want to go into all the stories, but it was very evident, and other people could probably support this, if they give you their stories, their versions of it. So by the end of it, I came to Mark and I said, Look, you've done dental shows, you've done Las Vegas. You've done all this other stuff, but you've never done a New England town meeting. And there's like 241 towns and cities in Massachusetts. Look at the opportunity. What I'm asking you, Mark is give us a free trial, just one. And I know that was not. Small ask that was a big ask. So he said, Let me think about it. And a few days later, he came back and he says, Yes, I'll do that. And he sends me a fax describing what he's going to do for Wayland. Now you know, you may know that once you put an article in, you're allowed to change your motion as long as the moderator think it's within scope. So everything is secret except Dave Bernstein No, and George Harris, my favorite attorney, no, because he wrote me a motion of 25 words or less that would do it legally. So I walk up to the microphone, and everybody thinks I'm about to make a motion for $200,000 and there's people on on the batters deck, ready to kill me. Okay? And all of a sudden, I do it 25 words or less, free trial next spring, costs nothing, and I hear this sound go over the audience. So Dave and I had it planned. He was going to be at the at the microphone, and I would walk to different points in the auditorium. Dave would point out that if I was right there at the front row, I'd have much more volume, and I would seem like more than one vote. And if I would walk back to this spot in the middle of the auditorium, then sound would drop over, drop off, one over. What is it r squared? Or one over R? R squared? Right? R1, over r. So the drop the sound would drop in half. And if I walk to the back of the auditorium, so we put on a little demonstration like that. No, went well. So when it came time to vote. I'm going to tell you that every person at that audience yelled yay, in favor of the free trial. Minus one, okay, because when it came to Nay, I got one no. So that was it. That was that was the how people wanted this. And the reason is, they wanted their privacy. Their government didn't want their privacy, but they wanted their privacy. So I say to you that they wanted their privacy from the beginning. They didn't have to be convinced of it. They had gone through Well, 400 years. Is that? How old this technology was of yelling at town meeting, but they had gone through at least a decade of being exposed with by their vote and feeling harassed. Well, if they work for the town of Wayland, by their jobs, if they had kids in school system, they had fear that their kids wouldn't be selected for a team or get special instructions these, I'm not making this up. These are stories that came to us. So anyway, it came in, and my theory was this, it's called the puppy dog theory. Once you take the puppy dog home from the from the store, you don't want to give the puppy dog back. All I wanted to do was get the clickers into their hands and let them feel the privacy. And they've never let it go for 14 years, not even we, when we fell flat on our faces due to Wi Fi interference or because there was people plotting to get more than one clicker for themselves to really torpedo this thing. We still stayed strong, and we rewrote the rules and made sure it wouldn't happen again. And here we are, 14 years later. And Dave tell me how many communities now? More David Bernstein: than 70. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, might even me over 90 possibly. Unknown: Okay, so Miranda S. Jones: you started, you started a thing. Unknown: Yeah, it was a pebble in the pond, but you guys carried the ripples out to the way to the tidal wave. Okay, so here I am, Professor Elvis Emeritus, signing out. Okay, I'm sure we'll talk again. Have a nice night. All David Bernstein: right, thank you Alan. Thank you Alan. Thank you Alan. Thanks for all of it. Alan, Larry Krakauer: would not have happened without you. Yeah, thank Unknown: you. Thank you right. Bye, David Bernstein: bye. So obviously we're sad to that Alan has decided to retire, but that's his privilege. Miranda and I will start a recruiting drive to find someone who could take Alan's place. If you happen to know of anyone who would be a good candidate, please let us know, because we you know, but we will, we will go on and we will continue to carry the ball forward. So that's all I have. I think that's it for the meeting. Does anyone have any parting words? If not, thank you all for the time. This is a longer meeting than usual, hour and a half. But here we are at 857, I hereby declare the Meeting adjourned. Larry Krakauer: Do we need a motion to adjourn or not? You can make it. Larry, I. Okay, move we adjourn. David Bernstein: Second All in favor, aye, anyone opposed hearing nothing, the motion will be recorded as unanimous.
Larry Krakauer: Dave, where the handset, sorry, the hot spots. Any problem? I that, you know, they everything was working fine. So even if the hot spots were there, were they causing difficulty, David Bernstein: the only way to know that would be to record the number of retries that are required every time there's communication between the base station and a handset, and unless we go bug out the oti folks about that, that it's, it's, it's problem. Larry Krakauer: Yeah, so we don't know that. There was certainly no difficulty at any level that you know caused us to notice problems. David Bernstein: No Correct. I Unknown: mean, a symptom of that, a symptom of a problem would be, you know, there'd be a longer delay in the response, correct, and we didn't see any of that, pretty much things were instantaneous, David Bernstein: right from our testing. But you know, when there's 500 handsets, you know, 10% of them could be having to retry twice, and we wouldn't know it. So I think our rule has to be that we just don't tolerate hot spots, because we don't know how many of them would be required to actually cause problems. And given, you know, given the susceptibility, I think we just have to stay on top of that. Okay, so total unique voters was 597 which is three less than what we tell everybody is our average for town meeting attendance in Wayland. So I thought that was pretty interesting. So that was the the summary of how the meetings went after the meeting, Miranda indicated that she would like to consider reducing the duration of voting from 30 Seconds to 20 seconds, and we discussed that with Mark fight, and he said it would be fine, so long as we didn't have more than 400 voters. So Miranda, did you want to comment on this? Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, so it's interesting seeing the statistics now that okay, we could have done that on the second night, but we and periodically through the first one we didn't have over 400 people, we could have, I just I feel like when I say the window is open, that we're all just eyeballing each other for a lot of too long a time period. It just seems like it takes the voting period is just too long. And then I asked Tom meeting, and it the majority seemed to agree that the 30 minutes seemed unneces. 30 seconds seems unnecessary. But obviously we have the technical issues that when we have over 400 people, we would have to keep it at 30 seconds. So I'm not, I'm not married to the concept of doing 20 seconds. What do you people think? Do you think we do it, as long as I know that I have fewer than 400 people in attendance, or fewer, fewer than 400 people registered voters, voting, that I do it, or you see it fraught with problems. Lynne Dunbrack: I can see on the first night, if you had a situation where the attendance fluctuated, so maybe at the beginning it was around, you know, at the 400 threshold where it was okay to do 20 seconds. And then, you know, now we have a big article that everybody's, you know, wants to weigh in on. So now, you know, there's many more attendees, so now we have to flip to 30. How long do we stay at? 30 seconds before we can flip back to 20? Because now people have gone home because they made their big vote. I think maybe on on the last day where, you know, we don't typically have those big or not usually have those big articles for voting. You know, it's a pretty standard amount of people who come and it's not fluctuating up and down. You could probably get away that my concern, I guess, where I'm going with this is my concern would be, if you were flipping between 20 and 30 because of fluctuation, whether that might confuse some voters. I mean, I know it's only 10 seconds, so it shouldn't be a big deal either way. But, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, no, I think Lynne Dunbrack: that would be my and I'm not. I can be convinced either way, but I that would be my one concern. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, no, I, and I appreciate that. I, I I I think that if the town meeting knew that the issue is, there's a cap of 400 people, once there's 400 people, we have to go over to 30 seconds. As long as that was put out, made very, very public, then they would understand it. I guess my question then becomes is, am I able to know how many, how many handsets have been put out on every single warrant article? I mean, do we know that in real time? We do. We do so it is feasible for me to, you know, go through the first six, seven articles, doing it at 20 seconds, and then all of a sudden, somebody, I'm alerted on Article eight, we're up to, we're up to over 401 people. We have to convert to 30 seconds on and can oti go do the 20 to 32nd David Bernstein: I believe so exchange. Miranda S. Jones: I mean, so then it's feasible to do it. I just think the town, town meeting has to understand what what the issue is. And I think what you say, the threshold is 400 then they would appreciate it. So, I don't know. So I'm going to think about that a that. David Bernstein: And here's a suggestion for what we might try. Yep. Suppose we say that if at the beginning of the meeting there are 400 or fewer voters, we will start out with a 22nd voting window, and you the moderator, will announce that, yep, if at any time, do. During the meeting, the number of voters rises above 400 then the oti people will notify Elvis, and Elvis will come notify you, and you'll make an announcement that from now on, the voting window will be expanded to 30 seconds, okay, I would suggest that once the voting window expands to 30 seconds, it not be reduced again during that session. Okay, that's fair confuse people, yep. Okay. You know, as people get used to this, maybe later on, we can reduce it at the end of the meeting, if it's appropriate. But I would say to start, let's say we can start at 20 and raise it to 30, but once we get to 30, we keep it at 30 for the duration of the session. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, that's a fair compromise. I can see doing that I agree, because David Bernstein: that eliminates the problem Lin was concerned with. Yeah, Miranda S. Jones: no, I think that's, that's a good way of looking at it. Okay, okay, listen, I'm, I'm up for any suggestion, any and all suggestions about making Tom meeting move along more quickly and and to that end, there are a lot of other things being discussed about making that happen that don't necessarily involve Elvis. And if you want to hear about them, we can talk offline, but, but my goal is to get this done in one night, so it may not happen this next year. It may not happen the year after, but at some point it would be nice to routinely get it down to one night. One of the big ways of getting it done is by using utilizing the Consent Calendar and putting more articles on one consent calendar and getting a series of articles passed in one fell swoop. But we have to get the town used to it and that that comes with its own issues. So anyway, that's my goal. Is to make this more efficient. Okay, so David Bernstein: is everybody comfortable with the 20 to 30 proposal as a trial at the next town meeting? Unknown: Yes, yes. Sounds Larry Krakauer: like a simple proposal. I like it. There's really nothing rigid about this 400 threshold, right? This, this was, David Bernstein: well, it's oti. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, yeah.
David Bernstein: Mark likes it when we are consistent with his requirements. Okay, so I think we've disposed of items five and six. Let's now move on to remote participation, where we'll spend most of the time this evening. So the first thing I'd like to do is just remind everybody that there are two bills. 2272 is a home rule petition for Wayland alone that would allow us to do remote participation in our town meetings. 2274 is the same language, but statewide. Well, everybody in the state to be able to do this. So I want to start by going through our remote participation presentation, to which I've made updates here and there mostly is real feedback while giving it now. We talked about this, I think, at our meeting last March. So not all, not all the changes are new, but there's a couple of things I want to review here. So the first one is on slide six. So we have this depiction on slide five of what we have today, a voting system with an on premises set of handsets. It used to be that this just said voting system, which is inconsistent, because what we're really doing is we're expanding this to not just allow remote participants to vote, but to be able to listen and speak. So I named it the town meeting system. If somebody has a better name for that, that's fine with me. But just to differentiate from the fact that previously, it was just a voting system, and now with remote participation, it's full participation, with listening, speaking and voting, and the slide previously didn't wasn't consistent with that point. Any comments on that? Okay, if not moving on to Slide 12, there's Lucy. So this is, there's a couple points here. One is one of the moderators I presented to. Said, you know where you really should be able to show us who's speaking. So there now shows that a friend, Robert Smith, is speaking. You might ask, Well, how does that get in there? Well, this is a pretty good argument for an assistant moderator who, among other things, whenever somebody introduces themselves, enters that person's name into the system so that all the remote participants can see who it is, and it wouldn't be a bad idea if the video, whatever video was displaying on premises, showed the first thing. There's another point on this slide, and that is that some people saying, I think our moderator is one of them. I'd rather see town meeting video here. I'd rather that remote participants saw video and heard as well as heard audio. So I guess we could say that that would be an option, that each town could decide whether you know when we're there's discussion going on, do remote participants see transcribe text, or do they see video? Or maybe that should even be a per participant. Option where each remote participant can decide. Now, before we go too much further, there's one other data point. There is town meeting video broadcast on WayCAM In our case, but that broadcast has a 10 second delay, so I'm not sure that if what we ended up with was 10 second delayed video with real time audio that that would be very helpful. So I don't know that we can resolve this here, but there's the question of what gets displayed during discussion. Is it transcribe text, which a lot of people would find helpful? Is it real time audio and video that we somehow pipe? Or is it real time audio with video from WayCAM. All of those, I believe, are technically feasible. We just have to decide, you know, what we want. And my guess is no three towns are going to make the same decision, which means that whoever implements this software is going to have to cater to all of the options that people might want. Comments. Lynne Dunbrack: I have a comment, but it's not so much related to this as our prior conversation about the voting window, because the 10 second delay from WayCAM will impact that. But I don't want to derail the first David Bernstein: question. That's a That's a fair point. You could argue that 10 second delayed video would be counterproductive for exactly that reason. Yeah, that whatever's going on, you're 10 you're 10 seconds behind real time. Is that 10 Lynne Dunbrack: second delay? Just out of curiosity, is that 10 second delay in late in case someone uses one of
Miranda S. Jones: the seven words? George Carlin, Lynne Dunbrack: Carlin, thank you. I was like, Carlton came up first. And I was like, that's not David Bernstein: right, words none of us would ever use. Miranda S. Jones: Do you know how often I have to check myself? It is part of my vernacular on a daily basis. So, but for whatever reason, whenever I get in front of people like that, I don't, for some David Bernstein: reason, my guess is, in order to have 10 second delay video, waycamp has to have real time video, and then they put it through a 10 second delay. So it's possible, I imagine, that if we wanted to, we could get real time video and display and have that be piped out to the remote participants. I don't know what's involved in that, yeah, I Miranda S. Jones: don't know what sort of regulations there are with federal regulations in terms of broadcasting, and if there has to be, because of the because of the issue about things that are inappropriate to be broadcast, I really don't know what the town council maybe. David Bernstein: So some research that has to be done. There's a number of options. We have to decide which ones are ones that might be useful, and then which ones? You know, what do we have to do to do them? But I just thought is very, sort of a very interesting set of requirements that pop out of this one slide. But, Miranda S. Jones: but to lens point, if I if I may, though, I mean, I foresee, do you all foresee that if we were to have remote participation, and people are voting on their hands, on their either iPads or their cell phones. Do you think we will still be using the clickers for people who are in person? David Bernstein: I We certainly will the first time we ever try remote participation. Okay, over time, I would hope that we could get to the point where people on premises are using the same software on the same kinds of devices, whether they're their own smartphone or ones that oti brings brings up, right? I agree only. The only issue with that is we would go from trying to shut down WiFi hotspots to making sure that we have enough WiFi bandwidth in the room to handle all the handsets. Yeah, Unknown: Dave, go make a comment. Go right ahead. Alan, so if you transition to not using the clickers, doesn't that change the business model with oti that you we presently have, because they're priced based on clickers, yeah, and, and they also provide the show. So you can't cut them out by replacing the clickers, because you still need their services, David Bernstein: we would need to negotiate a new business model. Unknown: Okay? Well, that doesn't exist. I just wanted to point that out, David Bernstein: right? We won't need to do that right away, because, like I said, the first time, we're not going to change all the variables simultaneously. The first time we do this for real, it will be remote participants using smartphones and tablets, but the on premises people will continue to use clickers. And then as we get the remote participation stuff really working, and our confidence grows, then we can begin to investigate using the remote participant stuff on premises. And at that point, we'd have to have a discussion with whoever our supplier is, that you know, both parties are comfortable with, Miranda S. Jones: but to the point of the 10 second delay, I think as we once this passes, we will need to figure out, how do we do this? So everyone's voting, both those people in person and those people participating remotely. How are they starting the voting window at this. Same time? Yeah, and I don't know what the Don Schuler: answer, just one comment. Don't you think people will actually be watching the town meeting on their TV while they're actually doing some of the voting remotely? I mean, they may be watching it and say, Oh, now here comes the interesting part. Let me get on my, you know, pick up my
David Bernstein: they will understand that there's a 10 second delay. It'll be fine. But you know, if you're engaged, if you're going to speak, if you want to vote, you really have to be using your handset, otherwise, it'll be 10 seconds behind the times, Don Schuler: right? Well, yeah, you will. But I mean, I think people might be doing that anyway. They might be doing both, yeah, could fairly common situation. Or we David Bernstein: could have Wayland. We could have Wayland declared a a community that never uses bad words over the air. And we don't need a 10 second.
Miranda S. Jones: I'm not. I'm not signing that. So Larry Krakauer: okay, well, is this really over the air? I mean, this is all cable. David Bernstein: Well, it's over Wi Fi, so it is over the air, but I don't think that counts. Larry Krakauer: No, no, yeah, I don't you're not supposed to be in on the Wi Fi. David Bernstein: I think the only, the only destination that needs the 10 second delay for our legal purposes would be WayCAM. Larry Krakauer: Well, no, but that's the question I'm thinking in terms of WayCAM. Oh, it's not over the air either. It's it's on a cable system. Oh, that's David Bernstein: true, and it's not like you don't hear about broadcast. Yes, yeah. CC, right. But wait a second, we don't hear, we hear bad words on lots of things that come over the case Miranda S. Jones: we do on cable. That was the whole point of cable, right? David Bernstein: So the real question is, why does White cam need a 10 second delay? Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, it's good question, Unknown: yeah. And also not David Bernstein: the outcome I was expecting. Very cool. Unknown: I remember a seven second delay for the FCC. Anybody remember that? No,
David Bernstein: okay, well, that was productive. Miranda S. Jones: Okay, any other No, I'm in touch with WayCAM Because we're planning on doing a bunch of Tom meeting things, putting it up on the website, and making a series of videos to teach people about Tom meeting and maybe get them more interested in it. I'll ask them if they understand why there's a 10 second delay. Okay, if they've got, if they know the regulation behind it, if whatever it is, David Bernstein: yeah, that'd be great. Sure. Any other discussion about this slide? Okay, let's move on to Slide 17. So here some things got added. A this section up here tells the moderator whether or not any points of order have been raised, and the one below it tells the moderator whether or not a question has been called. I think we already discussed at our last meeting the need to have both local and remote people on the list in chronological order, so that hasn't changed, but it was very embarrassing. I spelled the last name of New Zealand's Prime Minister incorrectly, and I was correct, so that's now correct. Lynne Dunbrack: It's alright, Dave. It makes you feel any better. We had a guest vendor come in, potential client, or they may have been clients at the time, and we had dutifully named all of our conference rooms like capitals and big major cities, and Auckland was one of them, and we had it misspelled on the conference room. Well done. Our Kiwi guests were very quick to gently point out, in a very polite way that we misspelled it. Big City. Yeah, David Bernstein: yep. Not good. Okay, slide 21 so this is just the remote participants view of the speaker queue. And you know, it's just too bad we don't have any graphic designers in this team. We're good at everything except graphic design, so I've just got l's and R's in here to designate local and remote. Doubtless we could have some icons created that better illustrate that. But Lynne Dunbrack: so on on. The question here for Jacinda, is that calling the question or they have a point of order question. This is, David Bernstein: this is just she wants to ask a question. Oh, okay, Miranda S. Jones: that's more like point of order. But you know what? You raise a good point, which I discussed with Dave recently, and the software program could be created so that whatever the person is, is what, whatever their purpose is to speak, it can be ranked because moderators are supposed to, depending upon what the nature of the reason is for the person to be at the microphone, they have a certain ranking that moderators are supposed to adhere to, so that, for example, motions to terminate debate are ranked higher than other motions. For example, motions to amend and you could, and that's. In town meeting time, and you could build that into the software program so it actually takes, it could obviate the need to have that scrum in front of the moderators, you know, podium, because, you know, there's often people coming up saying, I want to do this, I want to do that, I want to speak. And so the moderator has to figure out who gets to talk next, and if they, if people, regardless of if they're at home or they're in person, if they log in, this is, this is me, and this is what I want to talk about. This is why I'm approaching I mean, the Pro and the con microphones are pretty easy, except what for the people who are in person, but the rest of it, you could have the software rank everybody for the moderator, which would make it more efficient? David Bernstein: Yep, and that could be, that could be set up so that each moderator could choose his or her own ranking, because they might not. Miranda S. Jones: That's the thing, Dave, is that moderators aren't supposed to Tom meeting time. Oh, really, a cover of Tom meeting time, it dictates what is well, then Don Schuler: the software will be easier. Yeah, I have a question, do you actually have multiple screens? Or what happens when you're looking at this and then you also want to hear what the person is saying? And David Bernstein: no, you only have one screen. And Don Schuler: as we envisioned it, if you just flip between David Bernstein: back to, you know, you'd go back to speaker or listen or whatever. I think you click return here to go back to that may not be the most well, Don Schuler: how about if you're, how about if you're, you're, you're listening to one of the people talking in the pro or con area. And then you decide I want to get on the list too
well. Then you stop hearing the person that that's talking. I David Bernstein: i assume the way this would work is that you, at all times hear Tom meeting audio, no matter what you're doing, unless you're speaking, okay, you'd have the audio. Yeah, you'd always have town meeting audio, but you wouldn't, you wouldn't Don Schuler: necessarily have the transcript into into text. David Bernstein: Now, you know, if we want to get sophisticated, we could say that, if the user has a tablet, we could, you know, divide it up into two vertical panes, so you could do two things at once. You could have, you know, one thing showing the speaker queue and the other one, but that other one showing a page like this, or the real time transcription. But I think that's, you know, that's an optimization to be considered later. Okay, but you're right. We have to make sure that when you're doing something other than listening to the current speaker and seeing that transcription, or seeing video, that when you go to other screens that you don't, you don't get disconnected from town meeting because you can't hear anything anymore. So that's an important point. Yeah, I don't think we ever specified it. So Lynne Dunbrack: for the for the in person, folks like Boris and Emmanuel. How did they? How do they register, register themselves on this queue? Is this David Bernstein: something that I think we talked about this. We talked about this at the last meeting. The low tech. There's a couple ways to do it. The low tech way is to post a person in a staff person at each microphone with a tablet, who, every time someone approaches the microphone, queries them for their name and enters that into the system right away, so that they're just there. The high tech way would be, you know, even with clickers, every the system knows that my handset, b4 71 is Dave Bernstein, so if we could change the clicker design so that if you push four, it means you want to speak in favor. If you push five, you want to speak against. If you push six, you want to ask a question, so your name would get entered into the queue that way. So somewhere in between those two extremes is what we'd end up doing. Got it and of course, it gets easy if everybody's using this application on premises, but that's not t equals zero, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, but you know what, Dave it just to that point, using a clicker, that four equals this five using one and two is easy enough. THE MODERATOR reminds people, but the other way wouldn't. However, what I would also say is this creates more accurate record for the town clerk when, when she's she's taking notes, and to have a listing of everybody who spoke is so much easier for her, too. Yep, just another benefit from David Bernstein: this. So at minimum, we just have to post a staff person in each microphone to record people's names as they approach the microphone. Yeah? So that that's a guaranteed, you know, we know we can make that work, yeah? Something better. We will. I agree with you that pushing buttons on the clicker not, ideally, not going to work, yeah, too complicated for people. Larry Krakauer: Well, actually, collecting names is not that easy. I mean, you know, people say their names, but really you'd almost have to stop them and ask them for spam. Selling in many cases true. David Bernstein: Well, maybe not Larry, because remember, only people who check in can speak. So the the tablets that people the staff uses could have a list of all legal speakers and just type in the first few letters of their name, and you've got it just like we is exactly like what we do when people check in now on the check in stations, so I think that can be facilitated.
Other Other questions on this slide, slide 21 or comments or suggestions. Okay, let's move on to Slide 26 Okay, so this is a list of things that I have accumulated. Some of them we've already discussed, showing the remote participants the name of the current speaker. A number of moderators pointed out that in their world, people can actually submit a text file with an amendment. So coming up with some way to support that. This would be trivial. If people were using desktops where they could prepare, you know, a text file or a Word document and send it. You know, if people are using their phones or tablets, they would somehow have to get their amendment into their phone or their tablet in order to be able to submit it. We have to think about how to, how to, how to come up, what way to support that we don't allow this, do we? Miranda,
Miranda S. Jones: I don't know. It's, it's so I'm debating this right now. I'm having an ongoing debate with Dennis Barry about changing the way we do amendments. So amendment has to, if it's more than 10 words, it has to be in writing, right? People bring amendments all the time to town meeting, emotions to amend the the article that's being presented. Sometimes do it. You know, you have to file amendment within 48 hours of Tom eating, or at least before, with within 48 hours of town meeting. And so all the amendments come beforehand. And so Dennis and I've been debating, should we think about doing something like that to make Tom meeting more efficient so people are more prepared so and but does that then deprive the ability to amend on the spot? Sometimes issues come up that maybe no one had thought about. So I don't know what the answer David Bernstein: you could argue that the need for an amendment doesn't become obvious until there's some discussion that reveals it that Miranda S. Jones: could have exactly No. I completely agree. And I can cite an example of one by law that we almost passed several years ago, and it had to do with sex offenders. And I remembered somebody. Everyone thought this. It was the chief of police brought it. Everyone thought this would be a no brainer article, and it was defeated because of the debate that flowed from it. And I don't remember if it was amended or not, but it's just things can change at Tom meeting that you don't you don't anticipate. David Bernstein: So the worst case here is that some remote participant has a brainstorm like that debate and wants to submit an amendment that's more than 10 words, yes. Miranda S. Jones: So we have to figure out how to how to factor that into the Yeah, into the software. Because if we are going to truly offer remote participation, then they need to be able to fully participate. We said this is not remote voting, so maybe remote voting might be one thing, but we're asking for remote participation, so they have to be able to figure out how to amend, if they so desire. And I don't know what the answer is to that, yeah, David Bernstein: just, I just an idea just popped into my head that the person could write their amendment on a piece of paper, you know, in their kitchen, and then have their camera take a picture of it Miranda S. Jones: and scan it in. Scan it? Yeah, the effect David Bernstein: it would have to do character recognition. You just have, I mean, you'd end up with that piece of paper in front of you, the moderator, and you could then read the amendment. Miranda S. Jones: But why couldn't? Why couldn't they, if they're if they're on their phones, why couldn't they type it in? Why couldn't there be some way it's just like you're typing a text message or an email David Bernstein: typing on a phone is not a skill that everybody has, but Lynne Dunbrack: there's voice recognition. Yeah, yeah, they would just have to hit Oh yeah. You know, yeah, when Miranda S. Jones: I taught my husband that a few years ago, it's changed his world. That's recognition, David Bernstein: yep. So that Lynne Dunbrack: actually gotten really good, because I have discovered that DEP, if I was texting with somebody, and then put my phone down, it will start to transcribe a phone meeting I'm on, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, yeah, if you mean, if you forget to shut off the microphone. So I put Lynne Dunbrack: that down, and I was like, Oh, my God, my my phone is typing and it is literally transcribing, Miranda S. Jones: yeah, what was being said? What's cool about that is, and actually really well, David Bernstein: what's cool is that that means that anytime anybody wants to make an amendment that could be captured, whether it's 10 words or or yep or not, and again, you're back to, you know, records for the town clerk, right? Yep. Unknown: Actually. Larry Krakauer: True. I use voice recognition all the time on texting, but I find I always have to edit, agreed. Well, not always, but often, if it's short and often, yes, yeah, David Bernstein: okay, well, that was productive. Okay. I love this one. Enable the moderator remote participants to sequence through multiple color schemes. You know, some people are color blind, so you have to be able to, you know, tolerate give people options there. We talked about this one at the last our last meeting, that if somebody who registered to participate remotely changed their mind and shows up on premises to allow them to check in and then instantly disable them from participating remotely for the remainder of that session. So twice, wouldn't Unknown: the software just do that? Yes, you would think so required, David Bernstein: but it's a requirement. So we want to, you know, want to capture it Lynne Dunbrack: just to play devil's advocate. What happens they come in, they do their big, big vote. You know, they come in to give and then they go home. So do we have the ability or people just decide to go home? Well, at 10, David Bernstein: I arbitrarily wrote it down as once you check in on premises, that's it for that session. You can't go back and remotely participate, just because I wanted to make sure there wasn't some hole where somebody could end up voting twice, we could certainly relax that if we were confident in the technology, Lynne Dunbrack: yup. Well, I'm just, I'm just thinking of like parents who might be able to come in for one vote, but then need to go home because they have to really care babysitter, you know, especially if you have a meeting that goes super David Bernstein: late. So the problem is, I mean, the work devil's advocate. You know, I I'm at on I've registered on premises. I'm checked in. I leave town meeting, but I don't check out somehow, and so the system still thinks I'm there, and then I go home and vote. I don't know, but that way I'm still not voting twice, Lynne Dunbrack: yeah, unless you've given your headset, your handset and slipped out now your proxy voting with yourself. It's just an interesting thing to think about, is what happens? Because that'll be the thing is, like someone will, you know, I can see the inevitable. It's 1030 I want, I need to go home. And really, yeah, David Bernstein: yeah. We should make it as flexible as we can, so long as we maintain the integrity of the system from a voting point of view, agreed. Okay, show the article, the current articles, time remaining, and the current speakers, time remaining. That's auto you know, the bigger point here is that moderators are pretty resistant to remote participation in general. You know, when Miranda tried talking to the mass moderators Association about this, he got a lot of negative feedback. I did.
Miranda S. Jones: It was not pretty. David Bernstein: Most of it comes down to inertia. I mean, they know how to do what they're doing. Now, this threatens to make their meetings much bigger and have to deal with people who aren't physically in front of them. Miranda S. Jones: Well, I also, I don't necessarily think that it was, I don't think it was necessarily that they were afraid of more people participating. I think it was that they would have to learn how to do it differently. And that's an and I you know, the moderators are a fairly diverse group. There's about 20% of them are women. I couldn't tell you what the ages, the ages are, but there's a lot of older men. Not that that's something negative, per se, but they also, but they seem to be very and, you know, I'm one of the older ones at 61 so, so, but, but my attitude is like the Tom wants us, we got to make this happen. But I always think change is a good thing. So, I mean, that's how progress happens. Nevertheless, some of them are stuck in the sort philosophically about, but Tom meeting is supposed to be all in one place, you know, on on the town green type of thing, and which is very archaic, that thinking, but, but I would say a majority of the people who aren't in the philosophical philosophical school are the ones that are afraid of the security of the vote and getting hacked and have not listened to Dave's presentation, and therefore are afraid because they haven't sat through this PowerPoint, and so they don't realize that a number of very smart people who are in this field have have Been looking at all these issues for several years now, and have come up with ways to combat the problems as the as they're presented. So anyway, so there's a there's a we don't have their we don't have the authority to that. We don't have their recommendation or support yet. But that doesn't mean it's not going to happen. And listen, we have a few towns that want to do it, and so that's what we're going that's how we're going forward. David Bernstein: So the point I was trying to make here is that anything we can do to make things easier for the moderator will help us, because it will, it will facilitate their being willing to give it a try and. And along the same lines, the moderator needs to be able to select the motion that will be the subject of the next vote. Make that easy to do. Miranda, the more, the more I think about this stuff, the more I think that remote participation, at least in a town like Wayland, is almost always going to require an assistant moderator to do some of these tasks. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, I'm sure you, I'm sure you're probably right. You know, when we get it past Dave, then when we get the permission to be able David Bernstein: to well, and we'll be doing a ton of testing so we'll be able to see what Unknown: we're doing, yeah, David Bernstein: but you know, anyway, Miranda S. Jones: if any of you can think of who would like this job as assistant moderator, please let me know. Lynne Dunbrack: And honestly, I think some of this would help the in person people like, I think, because sometimes it is confusing when you're you know, on the gym floor or the field floor, like which, which amendment Are We Now voting for? Like voting for the first one or the second one. So, Miranda S. Jones: and that's on the moderator to be very clear as to what it is to make sure before people vote, that they know exactly what they're voting on, whether it's the main motion or one of the amendments or some ancillary motion. David Bernstein: Okay, any more comments on this slide? Any more additional requirements? Anyone's thought up while we were debating this? Okay, let's move on to Slide 29 so here, I'm not sure exactly what changed. This is the same audit table. We've already always had talked about the designated auditors. I think maybe it's this, and that's the idea that designated auditors don't Is it? Um, designated auditors don't report discrepancies by clicking the report discrepancy button the way that a non designated auditor would, they actually send a text, a text message to a moderator smartphone that's programmed to only accept messages from those designated auditors. So in security terms, it's an out of band report mechanism so that if a designated auditor sees a problem, the moderator hears about it without any Reliance or dependence on the voting system or the town meeting system at all. So it's just a technologically upgraded way of informing the moderator, because my recommendation would be, if even one designated auditor reports a discrepancy, that means we're, you know, somebody's twisting votes over the internet, and this just gives us a more reliable way of conveying that information. Any comments on that? Lynne Dunbrack: Yeah, I remember. So I was actually confused by this, mostly like, why was the that person called out for being a discrepancy? Like, I was looking at the chart going, it kind of looked like the other items. So, and maybe there's a detailed question you can answer offline. It's not, I don't want to derail I didn't David Bernstein: quite catch the question. Lynne Dunbrack: Lynn, so you go back one of the slides, I think it was, or maybe the build this one. No, no, it was the, yeah, that. So why? Why is that particular entry? I'm assuming that's called out as having a discrepancy, because it's, it's so David Bernstein: this is, this entry is highlighted because it's supposed to indicate that this the person whose shoulder we're looking over the remote participant. That's their secret voter code, yep, and they see that their vote was recorded Yes, and that's what tells them that their vote was recorded correctly. And if not, they push the report discrepancy button. Oh, Lynne Dunbrack: all right, so this is a self report by the by the meeting attendee, right? David Bernstein: And then the other thing here is that there's running totals of yeses and no's and there's, there should be a total line that shows the total yeses and no's, and the moderator announces the remote vote as well as the total vote. So everybody who's auditing, if they want to, can confirm that the arithmetic was done correctly, that what the moderators chose was the remote vote matches, which adds up at the bottom of the audit table. And since these are all running counts, it's easy to check the arithmetic,
Lynne Dunbrack: quick except for the total. Totals don't add up to all the yeses in the there's, well, David Bernstein: there's three yeses and there's four nos. And there they are, and you can see them. They're not the yes column increments every time there's a yes, and the no column increments every time there's a no, and the abstain column increments every time there's an abstain, so 341, is the total of that vote. Lynne Dunbrack: Okay, so you're not, you're not counting the the total of,
Unknown: I get it, I think I get it. Yeah. Lynne Dunbrack: So if you look at the if you're doing this as an Excel spreadsheet, you one would think. That the yes column would be the total of that which is more David Bernstein: than Oh, but we're doing it as a running count, so that people who don't have calculators in front of them can just follow along and say yep, every time there was a yes vote, every time there was a no vote, yep, the no column increased, and I can see the totals adding up to what the moderator ultimately announces, Lynne Dunbrack: I see. Okay, Don Schuler: so there's, so there's going to be a line here for every remote person or every person, yep, okay. David Bernstein: And you know, it's a scrollable table, and it's scrollable table, and I think, I think the way it will likely work is that you type in the first few letters of your voter code and that, you know, it narrows it down, and then you select it, and Lynne Dunbrack: it's going to validate that you and this, you and the code are equal, so that you couldn't just decide, I'm going to, like, fool around with This and click on anybody's David Bernstein: Well, I mean, clicking on this does nothing other than highlight the row that when you report a discrepancy, you're just reporting a discrepancy as as the owner of this remote participants device. It's not like you can report a fake a discrepancy from somebody else. If you click the Report discrepancy button, it's you who logged in here. Lynne Dunbrack: Oh, so it's highlighting you on the screen. Yes, David Bernstein: I just did that for presentation purposes. Lynne Dunbrack: Okay, so So you would, so you either only, you'd only see your own record. David Bernstein: Well, no, you'd see, because the system. You don't want the system to know who you are from a secret voter code point of view, correct. The system shows all the secret voter codes you scroll around or type in a few letters to find, to find yours, but, but that's just so you can see that your vote was correctly received. That's the only thing that does. The selection here has no impact on what happens if you click the Report discrepancy button, if you click the Report discrepancy button, if you're logged in here with the you know, the Lynn Dunbar username and password, then the discrepancy comes from Lynn Dunbar independent of what you did here. Okay, Lynne Dunbrack: and you can only report your own quote, your own discrepancy, and not all these other ones. Okay, David Bernstein: correct, correct. Don Schuler: But you said there's a limited number of auditing people, or what did they call them? Oh, designated. David Bernstein: Well, there can be as many as the moderator chooses to recruit. And I would argue that we want more rather than less, because the more of these there are the higher the fraction number of people that are auditing every single they're auditing their vote every single vote, but which means we have a better chance of detecting tamper. Unknown: But this table is not just the designated audience auditors. This is everyone who's voted right, and the designated auditors are basically, in some sense, just a minimum number of people who are going to audit it. And if everybody wants to designate themselves as being an auditor and check it, all the better, right? We David Bernstein: want many remote participants to audit their vote as possible. We want to encourage that, but we can't guarantee that they will. The designated auditors are people who the moderator knows and recruits who basically agree, yes, I will audit my vote every single time. Unknown: But the system doesn't know who they are. That's correct, and that's an important thing, because if the system knew who they were, it can make sure it doesn't screw their vote around, just everybody else's. Yep. David Bernstein: Yeah, good point. And that's how this out of band reporting system works, because the discrepancy report isn't conveyed by the by the system. It's conveyed completely independently of the of the town meeting system. Are you worried about? Say that there's 300 people remotely logged in, and everyone is is checking their vote. You know, some people could forget their vote, or something like that, and you might get a lot of people claiming there's a discrepancy, and there is, and that's another reason for having a designated auditors, there are going to be some members who will get confused and get the wrong line here or something, and we may get a few discrepancies that are noise. So that's why the distinction is a discrepancy from a designated auditor one, and we're done discrepancies from the general public in the absence of discrepancies. Here, you might, you know, be willing to tolerate a few, and testing will tell us how well this works. Unknown: But the same thing with handsets, the handset basically set, you know, at the end says you, you know, voted yes or whatever, and you're supposed to look at it and make sure it's right. And you know, you could say, well, 1000 people, 100 people, are going to say, Oh, I got it wrong. But the reality is, typically, the ones who come up and say they got it wrong are the ones, when you talk to them, who voted wrong. You know, they just did. They you said, I hit, you know, plus or whatever, and it didn't vote yes. So I don't think it's a historically, I don't think it's a problem. David Bernstein: You know, the testing will tell us, because we're going to test with high school kids, we're going to test with senior citizens, you know, before we do this live and we'll, we'll get some sense of how good are people at being able to do this, and how many bogus discrepancy reports do we get, Don Schuler: you know, with the handset, there was a couple times we did an audit, but everybody kind of trusted it after that, and nobody bothers to do what happened, you know, so, so I think it could be the same thing once, once people feel confident that it hasn't shown up, you know, after a Couple of town meetings, that they'll they'll be less checking going on once they feel right. Miranda S. Jones: That would be a mistake, though, agreed. You'd still want the designated David Bernstein: audit, no matter what these these, yeah, way as reliable auditors, but we always want some number of designated auditors. Okay? THE MODERATOR could encourage people to audit their vote. Yeah, okay. Unknown: On this slide, Larry Krakauer: I somehow this seems complicated. I mean, the or it the auditing is harder than just having your own handset and checking your vote. You've got to know how to look up your audit code. And so it takes very little to confuse people, in a way that seconds the importance of the designated auditors, right? They will know what they're doing. Most people probably will not and will just ignore this capability altogether. It's kind of confusing. David Bernstein: Well, you know, this is the heart of how we detect tampering with boats over the internet. So the good news is that it works. The bad news is that it may be too complicated for some people, and the question is, is there a better way to do it? I don't know of one. You know, if we come up with a better one, we should certainly consider it, but, but you know, to be able to have votes go over the internet and keep them private, remember, I mean, if you just have everybody's public votes were public, this would be trivial, because it would just say Dave Bernstein, yes, and everybody could see I voted yes. I could see I voted yes. But it's when you replace people's names with secret voter codes in order to maintain the privacy of the vote is what makes it, I think, more more complicated. Larry,
Larry Krakauer: yeah, yeah, I that's the importance of the designated auditors. Because, in some sense, people who are not designated auditors might not be doing this very much. So, so you need the designated I might say, I don't know whether this is any importance, but Miranda was talking about, you know, moderators, thinking about the good old days of small towns and everybody knows each other, and the traditional town meeting and so on. That you may recall, the traditional town meeting was why I was initially reluctant to consider secret votes. The traditional town meeting did not have secret votes. Stood up for what you were going to vote for, and let people see it. Miranda S. Jones: In this town,
Unknown: that's courage that you're putting on we put on other people that it's unfair. They just want to vote. They want to vote with their hearts, their minds and their pocketbooks. They don't they should not have to, quote, unquote, stand up and show their vote, because they could be harassed. David Bernstein: Larry's point, it wasn't that we should restore that. He's just pointing out that at the inception of town meeting, that's how it worked. Miranda S. Jones: Well, Dave and I raised this issue when we've we've done these presentations about Wayland was a very private vote for a long for a long time, and not all Tom meetings open. Tom meetings are like that. A lot of people do secret ballots, and we never did until electronic voting came. And then all of a sudden, we switched from a public vote to a very private vote, and the town has embraced that to the point where my first town meeting was a special town meeting when we had that one warrant article town meeting in December of 2023 and we did a secret ballot rather than going since we didn't, since the Select Board did not vote to have electronic voting, since there was just one more in Article, because it's so expensive, we had, rather than going back to the shout out vote that we used to do, we did a secret ballot, because everyone's gotten used to private voting and so, so I mean it, and that is the uniqueness of town meeting. Every town is a little bit different. How Tom meeting is done, and Wayland has changed. It has morphed over the last 14 years. With electronic voting. And this is yet another change, but the town wants it because, because it so more people can participate. Larry Krakauer: So I said clearly, it clearly is what people want. That's absolutely, yeah. David Bernstein: Any other comments on this slide? A good discussion. Alright, one, see, we're 20, so 41 so this is a point I want to make explicit here we have two pieces of legislation before the legislature, one a Home Rule petition. The other is statewide legalization. So everybody has endorsed the statewide bill. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the League of Women Voters, the mass Municipal Association, and so our position is, ideally, we'll get statewide approval. Short of statewide approval, we'd like to have at least Wayland and two other towns get approval so that we can get started on building software, because nobody's going to build the software until it's made legal. So this may be a little bit of a switch, where, in the past, we were kind of focused on our home rule petition, and then, oh yeah, there's the statewide bill as well. We're explicitly asking for the statewide bill first. Now that doesn't mean we're not going to test the hell out of this before. You know, we encourage anybody else to use it, but I just wanted to make that flip explicit here for everybody comments or questions. Okay, so 44 these are all the town that you guys know. This is all the towns we talked to. 44 is a summary of current legislation. So this is a little repetitious. 2272 is our home rule petition submitted by Representative Gentile, along with Representative Linsky, who's also a Wayland congressperson, and our senator Eldridge. HD 965, has to do with Lexington town meetings, which are representative. So it's not, has not, not relevant. 2274 is a statewide bill I was just talking about. We're now up to 10 co sponsors of that bill. The League of women's voters has jumped on this with both feet. They have run two different webinars for us, one for all league members, and a second one for all legislators, and we ended up with 100 people showing up at each one of those webinars. Nancy brumbach, who is the league's legislative director, has just been incredibly helpful, but she's put in tons of hours and tons of time and got lots of resources for us, and we have a lot to thank them for. The turning point was when they realized that our solution for conveying votes over the internet was indeed secure. That was for them. That was that was when the light bulb went on. Before that they just didn't trust it.
Something new, as of last week, Senator Barrett, who's a Senator for Concord, Weston Carlisle, has submitted a bill that is identical textually, to this statewide bill, but he submitted to the Senate. Senator Barrett is the assistant Senator Majority Leader. There's two of them, but he's one of them. So he is the first member of legislative leadership who has, in a high profile way, jumped on board of supporting what we're doing. And as best as I can figure out, it's legislative leadership that decides whether or not this committee, which is where our bill is right now, will either, you know, refer us for study, as has happened the last two legislative sessions, or will actually give us the go ahead to move move on, which would take our bill to the Ways and Means Committee, which is another story, all by itself. So this was a huge victory. I think a couple weeks ago, Miranda and I went into the state house, along with two people from Concord who we've been working with, and we presented to Senator Barrett. So he's seen this presentation we're looking at now. He reacted very positively, I think. And he has, you know, he's helping us as as much as we could ask. So I'm very happy about that these bills get into a cold, different, competing matter, and that is, they address not just town meetings, but public meetings. Public meetings are meetings governed by the Open Meeting Law. And the problem is that some of these bills want to make hybrid public meetings mandatory, and some of them want to make hybrid public meetings optional, and the League of women's voters wants them to be mandatory, and the Massachusetts Municipal Association wants them to be optional, because small towns can't necessarily afford it, and there's a debate between the House and the Senate. So we're basically done. King that set of disagreements, because the two bills we're pushing are statewide bills that only address how needed. Okay, anyway. Any comments about this or questions? Okay, so does anybody have a problem with me releasing this version of the presentation as a public document, so that it will go on our website, Towns website? So is there a motion to to make this public? Lynne Dunbrack: Any John can be moved, and I'll be second. David Bernstein: Okay. All in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed hearing nothing, the vote will be recorded as unanimous. Thank you, everybody. I know that was a lot to go through, but we had to go through it. Okay? Don Schuler: I have one question. You know, you mentioned that if it's a represent representative town meeting. They actually do have a remote participation at this point. But David Bernstein: what do they have? It sounds like they I don't know. Do they have the capability to do debating and make amendments and everything like we were going to do for our voting? At least two towns have been using a combination of zoom and a product called V voter, which is made by oti, our friends oti. So they zoom for remote speaking and listening, and they use V voter for remote voting, and it's public voting. The problem is, and I've heard this both from I've heard it from the moderator of Plymouth, and I know it's a problem in Lexington, is that the 200 or so delegates, the people, the representatives who vote, get confused, having to switch between the two. So every time I do that presentation for somebody who's had that experience, they say, this is exactly what we need, because our representatives get confused having to move to separate applications when they want to vote or speak or listen. And I've actually heard from Mark fight that he feels the same way that you know, what we've developed here, this integrated town meeting system that just leads the remote participant through the steps is exactly what everybody needs, even representative town meeting. And my guess is you're going to see Mark moving in that direction at oti. It's to the point where, in Lexington, one of the Select Board members who evidently has a software background, basically wrote a remote participation application for representative town meeting, and they're using that in Lexington, and we might want to talk to him about that, just to get a sense for what he did. But any other questions before we move on? Okay, so the next thing, the next document, is this one. Yes, this one. No. Wrong place documents. The next document is this one. So one of the challenges we face, and we don't face it directly, is that we're told that the Secretary of State, Mr. Galvin, is not comfortable with using the Internet to convey votes, and that his discomfort is the reason that during the pandemic, remote participation in representative town meeting was made legal, but remote participation in open town meeting was not there's a woman who reports to the Secretary of State. She's the director of elections. Her name is Michelle passenari. We had some interaction with her many years ago having to do with check in at town meeting with electronic voting. So she's not a stranger. So we have tried hard to convince director test scenario and Secretary of State Galvin that that we can make town meet remote participation accurate and secure. And so, with some help from Larry and John last, last, last April, we wrote up. This is basically a text version of the presentation with a few slides in there, and you can see it was done before I changed this to town meeting system, so it's an interesting thing to read. You know, it shouldn't be any different than what the presentation is. The reason for bringing it up is we've yet to hear any response from either of them, we heard indirectly that director Tom gave this document to her, quote, cybersecurity team who has questions, but all of our attempts to get to be able to engage with them, to understand their questions, or to answer their questions, or to give them a presentation, have not succeeded. So. We've asked Senator Barrett we talked about before, who's evidently good friends with Mr. Galvin, to please intercede on our behalf and arrange for us to have a conversation. Still hasn't happened. So exactly how much resistance we're getting from this? I don't know. No one's ever come to us and said, Well, we passed this, except Secretary Galvin is peeing all over it. That's not we don't know that that's happening, but my view is that any opposition is bad opposition, and so we're just trying as hard as we can to get an opportunity to understand what their concerns are and address them, Miranda S. Jones: right? But also remembering that Secretary Galvin runs, he's in charge of the elections, this is, this is something completely different than town meeting, which is the legislative body for each individual town. So, so, so you think, okay, he runs elections. This really has nothing to do with Secretary Galvin. It really doesn't. The other thing is, the legislature isn't governed by Secretary Galvin. He's an elected official. He's very He's unique. He's in the executive branch of government. The legislature is the legislative branch. So in some respects, who cares what Secretary Galvin thinks it really doesn't matter. And also, my understanding is that not that many people in the state legislature particularly respect Secretary Galvin. So in some regards, I think we focus. We should focus more of our effort on on getting the people to focusing on our bills that are pending and trying to get support within the legislature, rather than Secretary Galvin, yes, it would be nice to have His blessing, but I don't know. Michelle test Mary, clearly, is avoiding us, yeah. Well, some respects, you David Bernstein: could, I don't. I don't disagree. I'm perhaps a little more, you know, trying Miranda S. Jones: to eliminate any and all obstacles, yeah, and I understand why, David Bernstein: yeah. So we're not spending any time on this. I mean, you know, we I ping them occasionally, but we're not doing anything other than trying to get time with Miranda S. Jones: them. Yeah, no, I understand it would be great to have His blessing, but, but I wouldn't. I just want David Bernstein: to keep everybody here informed of what's understandable. Yeah, so any questions about that one, alright, let's move on to item 7c so the end of last April, Miranda and I journeyed into the state house and we met with the co chair, the house, co chair of the municipalities and regional government committee, we presented the presentation you just saw, and the chair, Jack Lewis, and his staff, were very attentive. They gave us a full hour. They asked really good questions. They didn't tip their hand or anything. But I felt like we got a fair hearing, and I was really happy that we were able to do that. So that went well. I think I already mentioned this in item D, that the League of women's voters and the Massachusetts Municipal Association have, in fact, endorsed the this bill, H, 2274 which is the statewide bill. I don't know that we need to look at that endorsement. Keep bringing up the wrong folder here. Sorry. So here's the League of women's voters endorsement, endorsing age 2274 so the endorsements great, the help we're getting from Nancy brumbach is irreplaceable. She's just incredible. And we're we've learned a ton. I should also point out that rep Gentile has an assistant, a legislative assistant named Simon. Ravi Robbie Simon, and he's been also extremely helpful. He's put a ton of time into this. He's educated us, and he's advocating for us. So really, can't be unhappy with the support we're getting, comments or questions. Here's another really good thing. In early June, Concord town meeting approved an article asking the Select Board to file a Home Rule petition along the lines of waylands, that article passed the Select Board is in the process of writing up the legislation. As we speak, I already mentioned this, which is the League of Women Voters, held a webinar for their chapters. There were 95 people who participated. There's video, if you haven't looked at it, if you want to watch what Miranda and I basically do our dog and pony show, but it was very good, and we got some really good questions that were fun to answer. A couple of weeks later, the league hosted a webinar for all state legislators and their staff. I actually have an analysis of that of the attendees, so let's see, do I have that? Yes. Okay, so this is that there were 101 people who showed up for the for the legislative webinar. 78 of them actually attended, and 19 did not. And so there were several senators who. Spoke Senator Barrett and Senator Eldridge. There are several people who endorse Dave Kaufman is a legislative director of the mass Municipal Association. They carry a ton of weight. In this process, we had 25 legislators or legislative staff members, and interestingly, we had 42 people who weren't legislators, but were town clerks, were town managers or town administrators Select Board members. So somehow or another, the news of this webinar leaked out, and a lot of town people ended up participating. So again, we got some good questions, and it was all up. You know, thanks to the League of Women Voters that we got to speak directly to a lot of people who will make can make a difference in all this. Any questions about this? Okay, let me get back to the agenda. Okay, so then I guess this was last month or late last, late in July, Miranda I Tom Fay, a number of people testified before the municipal and regional government committee. When you testify, you get three minutes, but you can submit written testimony. And I submitted written testimony as did Miranda, as did Tom, the written testimony I submitted was a version of the document we sent to Director passenari And the Secretary of State. And the only reason I want to bring it up is that a couple months ago, on Wayland social media, I asked people if they felt disenfranchised by the lack of remote participation. And two people responded. They sent me notes. One was Alexandra puglio. Another was Heather Ryan and I decided to append a section to that document I spoke of called Voices of disenfranchised Wayland voters, in which I basically quoted what they said. You know, Alexandra, it cost her $150 just to go to town meeting one night because she had to get health care or child care for her children. And Heather has multiple sclerosis. She can't attend. She wants to, and I thought the passion of both of them wanting to attend, but being unable to, would hopefully have an impact on the committee. And then my closing line, we're not asking for money, we're just asking for permission. Hopefully that will help as well. Unknown: Yeah, hmm, David Bernstein: any comments or questions about this stuff?
Okay, I feel like I'm getting a degree in civics. So item h, this is pretty cool. I asked Mark fight to submit testimony to the committee, and he did so here's his testimony, in which he basically talks about what we're doing and why we're doing it, supports it, and makes the point that nobody's going to write the software until it's made legal. And that was the key message we wanted him to send, and he sent it so very happy with that. Mark has been very helpful in doing this. Any comments or questions about that? A possible third town for a Home Rule position is Weston. Weston's moderator, guy named rip Hastings is very supportive. There's three members of their Select Board. They only have three, and one of them is gung ho on remote participation and thinks at least one of the other one is as well. So they're moving towards getting a Home Rule petition. We'll probably have to go and present to them, but that seems to be working pretty well. So that's just a status report. So that completes a rather lengthy hour and 15 minute discussion of remote participation. Are there any comments or questions about any of this?
Lynne Dunbrack: No, I think we raised them through the course of the discussion. Good, okay, for myself, I should say, David Bernstein: anybody else? All right, so let's then move on to Item eight, which is the Elvis annual report. So let me bring that up. Everybody see that? Okay, yep, okay, so Trudy already submitted her correction, which is changing FY 2024 to FY 2025 The question is, is there anything else in here that needs to change? So does anybody have any comments?
Lynne Dunbrack: No comments David Bernstein: for me. Okay, Don John, yep.
Unknown: Larry seems good. David Bernstein: Okay. Do I have a motion to submit this report as written as the FY 2025, Elvis annual report. So second? Unknown: What was the second John? Was the second John? I. Okay, okay, David Bernstein: all in favor, aye, any opposed, hearing no opposition, we'll record the vote as unanimous. Okay, so believe it or not, that is our agenda. That was the last non public item on the agenda in the wrong place. Where is the agenda? There's the agenda. So Robbie, is there any one out there who members of the public that have hands raised for public comment? Oh, I see none. Okay. Anyone here want to make closing remarks? Alan, yeah, Unknown: yes, I would love it to thank you. First, I want to say that in seeing what Elvis has done with remote participation, I'm amazed, and I compliment you all. You've taken it to a place that honestly, I didn't think where it was going to go, but you're there, and I think that you're going to close the deal. So what I wanted to say tonight was really two things. One of the just make an announcement. The other ones, I wanted to tell you a little story, but I figured I saved the best for last and do it reverse order. I just think that during because of my own life and what's going on and things that I've decided to resign from Elvis, and so I've always kind of fantasized, if I was a professor, that I would be Professor Emeritus. Okay, so I figure I must be Elvis emeritus. Maybe you could, maybe you could think of me that way. All right. So the other thing I want to tell you is is always like stories of origin. So I'm proud to tell you that 14 years ago, and Miranda just bought up the 14 years that this was after I was a select man. I was unelected, by the way, okay, and an event occurred at a town meeting where we were at an auditory at the high school. My wife and I were there, and it was an article having to do with the town center. I didn't like the article, and my wife didn't either. So when it came time to vote no, and in those days we had no electronic voting, you would stand up for the No, you'd stand up for the Yes, right? So we stood up for the No, and as we're standing there, and you know, they have to count you, so you're standing there for quite a while, like, remember that, right? They go around the audience and check you off on a sheet of paper. So there was a colleague of mine, and I'll keep names out of it, who was on the board of selectmen, all right? And he was, like, making little sounds, and I turned around, and he's making head motions to me to sit down. Like, sit down. You could just imagine that somebody with their head motioning you to sit down. So I felt kind of uncomfortable about that. And when the vote was over, and my wife and I were going home, I said to my wife, why the bleep does anybody have to know how we're voting? And then I said, Well, why the bleep does anybody have to know how anybody's voting? So a couple days later, I was watching the TV, and I saw Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the TV show. And of course, they have little clickers on them, where people they get audience participation. So I looked up the show where they did some research, and I found that the company who handled the clickers on that show was out of Orlando, Florida, and they were options technologies, interactive. So I started working with Mark fight, and was getting him to give me quotes, what it would take to buy a system. And we were up around $200,000 now I have to, I'm going to be very honest and tell and tell you that the powers to be did not want this. And it's a really simple principle, if you give people privacy, then you're giving them power and you're giving away power. So government tends not to want to give away its power. So the government of Wayland did not want us to have its power. And I don't want to go into all the stories, but it was very evident, and other people could probably support this, if they give you their stories, their versions of it. So by the end of it, I came to Mark and I said, Look, you've done dental shows, you've done Las Vegas. You've done all this other stuff, but you've never done a New England town meeting. And there's like 241 towns and cities in Massachusetts. Look at the opportunity. What I'm asking you, Mark is give us a free trial, just one. And I know that was not. Small ask that was a big ask. So he said, Let me think about it. And a few days later, he came back and he says, Yes, I'll do that. And he sends me a fax describing what he's going to do for Wayland. Now you know, you may know that once you put an article in, you're allowed to change your motion as long as the moderator think it's within scope. So everything is secret except Dave Bernstein No, and George Harris, my favorite attorney, no, because he wrote me a motion of 25 words or less that would do it legally. So I walk up to the microphone, and everybody thinks I'm about to make a motion for $200,000 and there's people on on the batters deck, ready to kill me. Okay? And all of a sudden, I do it 25 words or less, free trial next spring, costs nothing, and I hear this sound go over the audience. So Dave and I had it planned. He was going to be at the at the microphone, and I would walk to different points in the auditorium. Dave would point out that if I was right there at the front row, I'd have much more volume, and I would seem like more than one vote. And if I would walk back to this spot in the middle of the auditorium, then sound would drop over, drop off, one over. What is it r squared? Or one over R? R squared? Right? R1, over r. So the drop the sound would drop in half. And if I walk to the back of the auditorium, so we put on a little demonstration like that. No, went well. So when it came time to vote. I'm going to tell you that every person at that audience yelled yay, in favor of the free trial. Minus one, okay, because when it came to Nay, I got one no. So that was it. That was that was the how people wanted this. And the reason is, they wanted their privacy. Their government didn't want their privacy, but they wanted their privacy. So I say to you that they wanted their privacy from the beginning. They didn't have to be convinced of it. They had gone through Well, 400 years. Is that? How old this technology was of yelling at town meeting, but they had gone through at least a decade of being exposed with by their vote and feeling harassed. Well, if they work for the town of Wayland, by their jobs, if they had kids in school system, they had fear that their kids wouldn't be selected for a team or get special instructions these, I'm not making this up. These are stories that came to us. So anyway, it came in, and my theory was this, it's called the puppy dog theory. Once you take the puppy dog home from the from the store, you don't want to give the puppy dog back. All I wanted to do was get the clickers into their hands and let them feel the privacy. And they've never let it go for 14 years, not even we, when we fell flat on our faces due to Wi Fi interference or because there was people plotting to get more than one clicker for themselves to really torpedo this thing. We still stayed strong, and we rewrote the rules and made sure it wouldn't happen again. And here we are, 14 years later. And Dave tell me how many communities now? More David Bernstein: than 70. Miranda S. Jones: Yeah, might even me over 90 possibly. Unknown: Okay, so Miranda S. Jones: you started, you started a thing. Unknown: Yeah, it was a pebble in the pond, but you guys carried the ripples out to the way to the tidal wave. Okay, so here I am, Professor Elvis Emeritus, signing out. Okay, I'm sure we'll talk again. Have a nice night. All David Bernstein: right, thank you Alan. Thank you Alan. Thank you Alan. Thanks for all of it. Alan, Larry Krakauer: would not have happened without you. Yeah, thank Unknown: you. Thank you right. Bye, David Bernstein: bye. So obviously we're sad to that Alan has decided to retire, but that's his privilege. Miranda and I will start a recruiting drive to find someone who could take Alan's place. If you happen to know of anyone who would be a good candidate, please let us know, because we you know, but we will, we will go on and we will continue to carry the ball forward. So that's all I have. I think that's it for the meeting. Does anyone have any parting words? If not, thank you all for the time. This is a longer meeting than usual, hour and a half. But here we are at 857, I hereby declare the Meeting adjourned. Larry Krakauer: Do we need a motion to adjourn or not? You can make it. Larry, I. Okay, move we adjourn. David Bernstein: Second All in favor, aye, anyone opposed hearing nothing, the motion will be recorded as unanimous.
Finance Committee
6-Oct-25 - Finance Committee01:27:57
28-Aug-25 - Finance Committee01:26:39
8-Sep-25 - Finance Committee01:08:45
Phil Giudice: One may watch or
may participate remotely with
the meeting. Links that can be
found on the website to chapter
two, the acts of 2025. This
meeting will be conducted in
person, in the remote meetings.
Law meeting may be recorded and
will be made available soon as
practically, required by law,
allowed by the chair, persons
who wish to provide West
participant may be do so by
attending the meeting in person
or assessing the meeting
remotely. That's noted above,
press public be limited two
minutes. So call the meeting to
order or agenda today, after
public comments and members
responses, is to vote to approve
the minutes from our September 8
meeting, and then we'll get into
meaty topic. I think status of
budget for fiscal year 2027
Kevin, finance director will be
walking through some materials
and discussion from that we go
into a discussion on
benchmarking, following that
update on that, proposed
connections at MWRA, and we're
receiving for that work. And
then I included in the materials
provided the approved financial
policies manual, which was
approved by the Select Board.
It's been a pending document for
a while. It's and we'll talk
talk about it for actually, a
few minutes. And approximate End
of meeting is 830 with that turn
to the minutes. September. Hey,
Fay, anyone see them? Any
comments or questions?
Iris Hoxha: I see them. She sent them a while back. Okay,
Carl Barnes: apologies.
Iris Hoxha: The only thing that seems odd to me in reading these I know she's not here to explain what's going on, but she missed me in the final adjournment. She missed my vote. So she has a 500, there were six of us in attendance, and I was here until the end. Unknown: Yeah, yeah, she missed me. That's Iris Hoxha: the only thing. Pearl. Carl Barnes: Can you hear me that I will Yes, Iris Hoxha: it's on page, yes. Very last one. Carl Barnes: The rest all look correct. I
Unknown: read my quotes, and they looked Carl Barnes: okay, well, there's one in every group. I got some small changes the very beginning, in the before the list of attendees. There's an extraneous reference to mA after 7pm minutes,
Unknown: Massachusetts. Carl Barnes: There are a few places where our chair's name is misspelled, and the two substantive questions I got, or there's a sentence bill on the page two under this topic, follow up discussion on pure community benchmarking. Yeah. The end of that paragraph, it says that you consulted with the superintendent regarding practical applications of this process. Phil Giudice: Did that happen? At least probably should have described that, yeah. So I didn't happen. I could just get rid of it. Yeah. So I think we can get rid of it. I've asked the superintendent and the director or school department director of finance for examples of how they've used the benchmarking in presentations or reports, and I haven't received anything.
Carl Barnes: And then I think I would like to propose an elaboration of that discussion under the heading of follow up discussion review is September 2 joint meeting. Yeah, what I was suggesting at that meeting was that at our last meeting, was that at September 2 meetings, you know Michael McCall proposed the town help inform residents by showing the impacts on town and water bills. That's our town tax bills and water bills, depending on the allocation either all the taxes or all to water rates and. And that's actually what he didn't ask for or propose. And what I had tried to get across to this group was I thought we should try to get that information now and in and would request select board to or ask Select Board to request it. So I'd like to phrase it in that those ways. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, and then we'll talk more about that later. That's the bidding as of that day. Phil Giudice: Other comments on the minutes motion to approve as modified. Carl Barnes: So moved second, second in favor. Aye. Since we're all present here passes Phil Giudice: with that second or item on the agenda is town of Wayland, 10 year fiscal forecast. Brian, he didn't do Brian Keveny: public comment. Or did I miss that? Say that again? Did you public comment? Phil Giudice: Oh, I missed there's no one on so what do Brian Keveny: you want me to start because it's been, it's been a long four months,
Phil Giudice: and we've actually talked to prior FinCom meetings about the budget working group, and we circulated Michael's couple of memos to the Select Board when that as he's issued them. So I really think it would be helpful to walk through some portion of the PowerPoint. I'm not sure if everybody has it, probably they do on their screens. Hit some of the highlights on this Brian, and then the specific task that we have been asked for is to make a recommendation to the Select Board to potentially reclassify DEP W debt outstanding. So there's and you put together this page or two on pros and cons, and recommendation that we could consider tonight to vote on. Brian Keveny: So is everybody watched the WayCAM presentation last week? No, him was
Phil Giudice: previewed. I read Unknown: your memo that you sent out. Brian Keveny: Okay, so we were, we started meeting back in July, but you got a bunch of Fay minor, Hurley, Michael McCall, Kelsi, Kathy Steinberg, school, business manager, Superintendent school, school committee members, Carl Barnes: somebody. Brian Keveny: So we've been meeting for quite a while. What we did was we developed a forecast to project on fiscal 27 in the audience, because we know when we finished the 26 budget, fiscal 27 was going to be really time, if not impossible, but produce a budget under the top two and ADU. Iris Hoxha: I'm sorry, before we continue, when was the one? Was the PowerPoint set.
Unknown: Listen, Phil's Iris Hoxha: what is in the package? Brian Keveny: Yes, but it's also on weekend you want to go back and watch a long, one hour presentation. So so we got together, and we had thought when we did the 26 budget, the 27 budget were really difficult to bring in on a levy, but when we started to put in a lot of the numbers, the group went through a whole different series of revenue reviews, expense reviews. We went through our pension debt, the capital plan, which has the debt service. So we went through all of the different areas that make up the town budget. And we kind of figured out that if a few things happened, we would have a shot at bringing a 27 budget in under the levy, and one of them was to do this financial plan with DEP issuing bands and using advanced funding from the general fund to not pay principal in fiscal 27 for all the pending projects that we're going to borrow, we would be basically just paying the interest on the bands. So we went through this with the bank, and we went through this with the Select Board, and they agreed to support that we actually going to have a mortgage rating call tomorrow. We're going to be issuing the bond, the bands and the bonds in a couple of weeks. So they agreed that that would be good for the time to do that. One thing I forgot the saying that from the get go, we thought it would be a good idea they have a fiscal 27 budget on whether that way we tell the residents in the out years it's really impossible to do and give them a a long term structural deficit picture. So that was really the mindset behind the 27 so piece of that was the band of the bonds. The other one was an item that's been brought up numerous time in various FinCom meetings over the year, which was back in 2013 the town voted the DEP W project at the special in the town meeting in the fall, and it was not supported by the Selectmen to do excluded. Yet you can actually go back and read the minutes. I believe they were February 2013 where two of the Selectmen did not Carl Barnes: support, who was supported, Brian Keveny: and they were for really other reasons, other than really the question of excluded them. And you need a majority vote. So it was three to two. They needed four to one. So it didn't pass. It has come up numerous times in the past. You know, this size project also recommended by Moody's really should be in excluding DEP, because we knew eventually we would be dealing with this debt service as it's rubbing up against prop two and a half. So the other recommendation we did with that from the budget group to the Select Board was to consider putting this on the ballot in December, which they agreed to do. And I believe there's a lot more than going to be done. FinCom has to prepare a report. I believe by on October 20, there's a policy in place where the select the Select Board can ask the finance committee for their recommendation on this question. So that, I believe, is in rewards. So a lot of this is, is emotion. The other bucket was, in order to make a balanced budget in 27 was we would have to come up, come up with three to $500,000 in digital cuts. So it's not just these two items, it's we also have to make a cap. So we all felt this was a shot to do, and if the benefits were educating the public, starting in 28 in the out years. So like I said earlier, we went through a lot of different areas of the town, budget, school, town, unclassified. I thought it was a good light of the group. What was accomplished? We went through new rule for the assessor. The Wayland post has picked up a couple of these, the new magazine you can read up on so that what came from that was we were asked to do a presentation by Select Board, but the school committee, finance committee and board of selectmen. So if you want, we can watch one. I can briefly speak to each one of these slides, Phil Giudice: let me actually turn to questions, maybe from Con members, if you have them, or and let me add my own context of fiscal year 27 when, when I started into the budget working group process, my expectation is we're likely Going to need it work. What came up is these two levers are likely to get us just enough under it so we don't have to do an override. Bubble. Still need that, and that's the bands in the dew reclassification. We'll still need to find some efficiencies to bring the sort of the bottom up budget down enough to make it work. But there's a sense that that is could happen. It doesn't change the picture for fiscal year 28 out up to 36 and that's going to be a really very serious question about how to manage the finances of the town for that chunk of time because over rights are likely to be a part of that picture industrial funds and magical efficiencies. So that's sort of the context of what we're about here. And so the Select Board has voted, I think, on both of those to move forward right now. But they did ask, and I remember a week ago or 10 days for FinCom to make a recommendation on the DEP W debt reclassification. And so it's not, it's it's sort of parallel with we're already moving forward with doing that, but it's not like we're gonna stop it. But they wanted to know what FinCom for you. So even though they've already approved it, they wanted to come to you, it was going to be sequential, and then timing didn't work out, and just sort of made sense. It doesn't solve long term budget circumstances. It just sort of moves us further down the road without having to face it and and some of the reasons to do that now is all of the labor agreements for all the organized labor for the town schools. Everyone is up for negotiation for next year, and so going into an override process without having bargaining unit arrangements locked in did not seem like a good idea. And so that was another reason to try to William Huss: avoid it a little bit. Plus, I think it gives us more time to educate the public. Phil Giudice: It definitely is the big title. This override, this reclassification, isn't something that Select Board can just do, or we, or anyone they. What they can do is authorize a town vote. That's what the plan is, right now. That's all and that may go forward or not. So we have, you know, a couple of months, potentially. To educate the town for us to Iris Hoxha: Can I ask a question so in terms of the impact? So the impact of, to your point, the fact that does not reduce the likelihood of a need for an override in fiscal year 28 right? And does not, frankly, like, fix the long term viability of the town's finances, right? Is this a scenario where, in terms of, like, the request for overrides? Is it a scenario where, when I think of something like Medicare, the sooner you do something about it easier it is for everyone? Or is this a scenario where doesn't really matter, because, like, I'm just trying to understand, like, just kicking the can down the road actually have a negative ramification in terms of the total, yeah, in terms of incurring extra Phil Giudice: cost. So my sense, and I've had this conversation, the cost of the debt doesn't change. So the amortization schedule that's current and will be the same managerization schedule, whether it's literally just moving the DEP, yeah. And so there's Unknown: the GPW portion, that's right, yeah, there is a cost Phil Giudice: of doing the ballot initiative. I think it was like $10,000 as I understood something spirletier, so that there's that increment. Like, there's no The question, though, and sometimes people may wonder about this increases the levy capacity. So if we spend up to the levy and the levy capacity has gone up, that then sounds like we're going to be raising our costs. But that's a separate question that we, collectively in the whole town gets to weigh in on. Are we spending money that we would want to spend money Iris Hoxha: understood on that piece. What I'm what I'm trying to get at is, does it make when we ask for the override in 28 does it does it increase the override amount? Does it have any impact on if you don't ask for the override now, that means you need more money in the future? Brian Keveny: Well, if you ask for an override in 27 then the override amount should be enough to give you a balanced budget under the levy. The override amount will be calculated the prop two and a half calculation. But the way we did this is that I'm not sure if they ever got that. Well, the selectman got it where we actually define each one of the override amounts shooting out for at least 10 years in one year was dependent upon the previous year. So even though you would vote, say, a $3 million override in 28 that would just basically mean you would need a specific amount of 29 we've talked about doing multi year overrides in the committee, doing one year that that jury is still on. We don't know if that's where that's going to go, but this, this graph here, basically each one of these red lines isn't a specific amount that is dependent upon the previous year months. So we're not asking for an override and increasing the prop two and a half calculation, increasing the levy limit is basically back to zero, okay? And that's, that's how we did this, okay? Iris Hoxha: And then in terms of impact to the population, impact to the citizens, so we moved the DEP, that amount, obviously, is still coming from taxation. And then there's the increase in the levy as well. So what's the number that we end up with, like, in terms of expected rate of increase for taxes year over year? Brian Keveny: It's around, it's I have it, but it's before I get into it's based on health insurance being at 12% is based on worst case scenario. Pam Roman: But there's no tax effect to making to changing from levy debt to excluded debt, is that your question? How can that be? Because the there's you're still paying the debt. It's just how you're categorizing it. For this prop two and a half, one calculation like prop two and a half is just this calculation to see if we have room on the levy, and we're spending whatever is lacked is in the budget, right? And then there's compared against Iris Hoxha: maybe I'm like misunderstanding what we're trying to do here. Isn't this essentially saying, Take this out of this part of the calculation so we have more room here? Pam Roman: It actually no. It, it's so when you look at the prop two and a half calculation, I think Brian has it in one of the slides up front, but it's, it's last year's Levy, and then you add on to that new growth, and then two and a half percent of last year, you know, you get two and a half percent increase. So last year's two and a half percent increase off of last year new growth, and we're assuming 400,000 which, and that gives you your new levy limit, right? And then on to that, you can add excluded the cost of excluded debt, sure. Iris Hoxha: So. So if we move. This is currently in the levy, right? Pam Roman: So it's currently, yes, we're, it's currently part of the levy. So it's, it's being paid, yeah, it was within last year's tax. Iris Hoxha: So we're moving it to debt exclusion, so the annual Max levy limit in total will go up, right? So therefore we're, we're still like, but bottom line is, we're all still paying more, right? Because we have to know Unknown: we're paying the Phil Giudice: same. That's a separate conversation as to how much of budget will approve, and already right now in I mean, this is not getting Iris Hoxha: the math. I'm sorry, when Brian Keveny: you have time, look at slide 19. Pam Roman: Just slide six has the calculation, yeah. Brian Keveny: Slide 19 shows, if you remove that debt service, you can see the prop two and a half percent adjustment. Slide six is the prop two and a half percent calculation. But slide 19 actually shows you how prop two and a half changes when you move that 700,000 to exclude that.
Pam Roman: So it's really just it, I guess. Bottom line, there's no change in tax. There's $10,000 cost to bringing the question. But aside from that, there's no effect on tax. We're still paying the same for the same budget. It just just this calculation in terms of like our levy and are we? Are we exceeding our levy limit? It it gives us more room there in this, you know, it's, it's a the loving limit is a manufactured thing, sure, yeah, it's just a calculate. It's a calculation. Yep, right? Yep. So we're kind of, we're looking at the calculations. We have more room in that calculation so, so we can get by for another year without doing a levy override, but the budget will still be what the budget is, wherever, however that debt is categorized, we're still paying for it, just like we always did, correct interest expenses, correct. I think the debt is staying the same. That part's true. What I'm saying is, because you now found more money in the levy limit, there's more money there. So therefore, the total that a participant, like person, that a person's paying more Phil Giudice: now depending on how much we spent. I mean, whatever budget, you know, we had levy limits that were higher than what we spent. And you know, hopefully someday we'll do that again. So as far as the calculation goes, this doesn't affect or I Iris Hoxha: see what you're saying. We might not spend all of the total maximum allowable Levy, Pam Roman: if you like, if you absolutely used your max levy as as the governor right then, then we would have to do an override sooner in order to spend more. Or we would if it didn't go through, we'd have to cut, we'd have to cut down to that Max Levy. Iris Hoxha: Got it okay? So, so we're asking for more total maximum allowable living capacity, but we're not actually planning on using it all well. We that's they Phil Giudice: gotta figure that out how we're going to use it, okay. But, and there's still barriers, like, what is the Barnegat arrangements going to be? You know, cost of living increases. What's the healthcare costs going to be? What's the state support going to be? Especially state support now, the federal government support for changing so all of these are big variables. Iris Hoxha: They're big variables. But Brian's very smart, and Brian has given some numbers for each of those variables. And so in that when I look at this total year to year, percentage change, two and a half percent prop, two and a half increase, 2.95 is either of those numbers representative of the increase at a personal level to citizens.
Phil Giudice: Think the budget is currently looking at, was it, Brian, four and a half percent or 5% increase from 26 fiscal year? 26 to 27 Brian Keveny: No, it was cited. And so it's it's around, it's in the high fives, because the forecast has health insurance 12% last year? Yeah. When we did the fiscal 26 budget, we had the forecast at 10% Yeah, it came in at, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about that point. What happens if this gets what happens if this gets passed? All of a sudden, you got $700,000 the reality that is that the $700,000 of levy tax to fund a large capital project is putting pressure on annual repeat town services. We can't get those into the budget because you've got this big $700,000 elephant sitting right in Rome in Levi DEP last year when the real estate the. Health insurance number came in and committed to, like, less than 3% if you remember, we didn't go back to FinCom and say, Hey, we got an extra $500,000 we called it a day, and the school only brought in one FTE, or if, when these two, hopefully the levy excluded passes when we get to the end of the well, actually the well, actually the middle of February, we'll get the health insurance number. We hope that it comes in under 12. If there's some extra funds there, I see us not again, going back increasing it in the fiscal 27 forecast, we've got school payroll at five and a half percent. We've got and these are high estimates. We've got the whole school budget at five and a half percent, which is, which is on the high side of the 10 year growth rate. We've got town budgets less than, or around 3% Iris Hoxha: your so your hope is that we've overestimated, and the overestimation would probably be, if I'm going to call it a worst case, right? Like, that's our hope here, that we forecast or worsening scenario, and that really, like, shakes out to high 5% increase for citizens. And we hope that then, that we're actually able to bring a lower number, right? Brian Keveny: Because if we when you get the middle of February, you're out of time, right? So you need a little bit of room. If things weren't completely solid, the last recaps would be. We could always talk about flipping opine from taxation to free cash, sure. Or we could just go fly right back into the budget and find that differential, sure. So these two levers are important to set aside for February Iris Hoxha: understood, and I also understand the point that you made, which it sounds like it's more of a historical point, but certainly opportunity to fix it, which is, we funded a capital project using operational money, and really as a best practice, which shouldn't be doing that. And I understand why. I totally understand right? That isn't maybe the most correct way. But I think the other piece here that's hard to wrap around is it, it's sort of, for me personally, there's this push and pull of like, we obviously want to get through fiscal year 27 but it doesn't really address the underlying concerns and the underlying issues. And I think that's the part of there's the push and pull up. Are we really just kicking something sort of down the road, or are we actually doing the right thing? Because it is, in fact, the right thing to Phil Giudice: do. I think there's for me. And Dr Fleishman was particularly strong on the view that having bargaining unit locked in will help a lot when we have to start looking at any issues of overrides going William Huss: forward. Okay, I also think the additional time will increase the likelihood that the override passes because it doesn't pass, then we have a worse situation, right? Iris Hoxha: Maybe, I mean, we've got the water coming down the pipeline. I mean, we have other other things that are coming down the pipeline. So it might help. There might not, also not because there are other costs that are going to mount as well. People might be less, yeah, people might be less interested in continuing to my William Huss: assumption is that if we have more time to educate the public, that that's to the benefit, maybe the public education will go the other way. Public here is the less likely. Iris Hoxha: I mean, I'm all for public education, but I don't think we can count on that. As you know, when people are educated, they make, perhaps the choice that you might personally make, right? So, okay, anyway, I'm just trying to explain myself, explain where my questions are coming from. I was trying to make sure I really understand Phil Giudice: and appreciate, yeah, and the only thing structurally that changes in the future in my mind, I mean, hopefully we continue to find efficiencies entrepreneurs, but it's getting caught up on the unfunded pension liabilities, and that was, like, really clear, 2020, 2036, is when that's over, and all of a sudden, even at our current revenue costs picture, that's when we go back into the black. Pam Roman: Well, that's the estimate, right? Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of assumptions that go into that, but so it could be, yeah, or two off of Phil Giudice: that, yeah, but, but that's sort of, you know, we've inherited that, you know, we didn't fund fully that liability in the years or decades past, right? And so we're in catch up, Pam Roman: yeah? But that, that is actually one place where Wayland is better than is better than a lot of peers, yeah, Phil Giudice: and we're one of 14 communities that is, you know, aaa, triple A rated by movies, and hopefully will continue to Iris Hoxha: be. And may I ask a different question, since you brought it up, Brian, in terms of free cash and pre cash usage, is that an additional lever that we are considering, like, is there an opportunity to tap into a little bit of that free cash. Brian Keveny: Well, we, we've talked about that back in, I would say, 16 and 17 criticized by movies. We still maintain a triple A reading. But they, they frowned against. They criticize the town for using free cash to balance their property balance the operating but. We stopped doing it, I think 2018 Okay, so we've pretty much used free cash for capital items and articles, various articles we did talk about at the at the budget meeting. You know, if all else fails, we would be, would be, be sitting in January, in fact, we're already saying, hey, if we use $500,000 for free cash, we can get by in this budget, with the caveat that it's only a one year, right? If we used free cash to balance a 27 budget, and I'll get into one other thing in a minute, then, then just for one year, I don't think Lewis would give us a negative rate. Yeah, it takes them explaining why. Sure is. The other thing too is that, if we did do that, if we did use free cash, and then we love it, besides our normal stuff, then it would be for this most towns. And I try to have Louise Miller do this, and she actually liked it too. We could just them again, get off the ground when you're going into the collective bargaining and your contracts are not set. Historically, Wayland has put in a reserve for salary adjustment in the town budget. When that budget is not spent, it all goes to high cash in the next year you have to bring into the town budget two years of it. What most towns do is they want a separate article. In putting into a stabilization fund, they put that money so when you have one, say it's a million dollars, they'll put the million dollars into a stabilization fund. Once the storm, after the first year, it's still not selling. You're going into the second yet. Now you have to fund two under the old way you let's just assume the second year is 2 million. So now the second year you're actually appropriating 3 million following on this, as opposed to if you already had a million dollars in your Stabilization Fund. You don't need to be appropriating 2 million, right? So when you settle, you go to town meeting, and you transfer the money out of the civilization fund into the town budget funding, and it's a very high likelihood that the town budget, for the first time, will not have in the town budget. I classified the salary reserve budget group agreed, or heavily supports taking this room. If we did use free cash, it would probably be for that, because right now we have over $500,000 sitting in salary reserve for the fire department. Sure if, hypothetically, the fire department doesn't settle, then that would all go to free cash. And that's not what you want to do, right? You don't want to be reappropriating the same dollars multiple, multiple times, even though it's ending up in free cash, correct? So that you're probably going to get a budget in, you know, when we prepare with the amount of money, not in salaries, right? If the collective bargaining committee unions are not set Iris Hoxha: up, what about? And I'm gonna say something, and I know I said it last year, so you're all gonna laugh with me. What about using free cash to fund some of our other reserves, like the special education reserve fund? Have we had that conversation? So we Unknown: do that. Why would we do that? We do do that. Iris Hoxha: We do do that. What about doing more like we've done it, but like, historically, they've used all those funds, and then the gap has to get Phil Giudice: come back to, you know, for the purpose of today, we the question Is there more questions around the possibility of reclassifying DEP W DEP from FinCom books? Yeah.
Unknown: Yeah, looking for a motion for us to recommend. Please, I move Yes. Iris Hoxha: One more question. Sorry, I'm just looking at the pros and cons under con argument number three, cost of the special election and the benefits of the reclassification are not beneficial to residents. Is the is the only element here, just the $10,000 for the special election, okay? All right, we're just effectively saying there's cost. Okay. All right, thank you. Ask more. Unknown: I don't want to stifle grant. I put this together Phil Giudice: four hours ago, so we can William Huss: help me with the worrying a little bit, but I move that we recommend to the Select Board that we reclassify with DEP W debt to excluded debt.
Phil Giudice: That's the remaining debt, remaining debt, the Unknown: remaining or the remaining. DEP, a Carl Barnes: second favor. Aye.
Phil Giudice: Sec, anything else for Brian while was here, William Huss: Brian, thank you. You're going to continue to join us. I hope you're at future meetings, because I learned a lot. You're a really valuable resource, at least for a new vendor. Brian Keveny: Thank you. Know the budget meeting Wednesday, Phil Giudice: yeah, and did you see my new note? The only, Iris Hoxha: the only comment I had, and I know we've actually discussed this a little bit at our last meeting about, you know, it sounds like for fiscal year 27 fingers crossed. We won't need that override. But moving forward, we will. You know, I've been really thinking about how to help paint that picture. And I think we had talked about sort of having two budgets, one budget that is with the override, one without. I think that it would be helpful to really get at the heart of, obviously, again, I know more conversations are going to happen on the strategy for asking for multi year versus single year, but also trying to get at the heart of painting the picture of what from now through fiscal year 2036 looks like. Because this is it's going to be a long time of this. And I think helping residents understand when they're voting, it's tough, because the residents vote one year at a time, but really, every vote has ramifications on the next year and the year after that. And I think in the absence of really helping explain what's going on, I think there's a little bit of information missing. Yeah, I think, Phil Giudice: I think, I mean, my brothers is to go for a multi year override, right? And sort of lay that out, but that's just one person's perspective. I support that, but, but definitely seeing the 10 year picture, you know, as best we can determine it, I think it's going to be really important. Iris Hoxha: And I think whatever budget we put forth for fiscal year 27 I think we have to be probably really upfront and transparent that this is a one year vote, but this is what's coming down the pipeline. We present this to you with the expectation that this is what's coming, not that we present something to you and then all of a sudden catch you off guard with now you need more, but Unknown: I think the past at least two or three
William Huss: marketing is done between now and the December election. That's actually one of the points, is the one of the reasons we're doing this is to put off the old ride that we know is still coming, Phil Giudice: and the reality of a proposition two and a half is in a world where costs are going up by 4% or 45% it's just a matter of arithmetic that it catches up. But all of that has to be texting Brian. Pam Roman: I just want to ask before you leave, about the bands and what you said, Moody's you've had the conversation you said you're having. You're talking to them tomorrow, but you can talk to them before in the past, already about just using bands for kind of a longer period than we typically have done. Brian Keveny: So we talked to bond counsel in our bank Hill. Tom, okay. Moody's is indifferent. If you use bands and bonds, we're going to be issuing about eight, almost $9 million in bonds, and then we're going to be issuing bands about Carl Barnes: 1.3 million. So Modi's, Brian Keveny: they'll go through their critique about the town's finances, and we've already provided that. So they're indifferent about our financial model with the cycling, that really doesn't matter. Their concern is the town's ability to raise taxes. The town votes an override or it doesn't. There are other factors that go in the biggest the biggest issue right now with Modi's middle town is that they want every AAA town fund balance to be equal to release 20% of the revenues. And it was always they called it the general government, which is the general fund plus stabilization. That metric is now changed. They bring in enterprise funds. They take on the enterprise funds plus the general government, and they want that the total fund balance to be at least 20% of total revenues. And right now we're at 25 and the water department is heading into challenging years with the MWRA and bringing in their revenue as expected and maintaining their own fund balance. So I would think in a few years, we need to be real diligent on the use of free cash, because our free cash is probably going to be 12 million. It doesn't mean we're going to go out and spend it. We need to stop being prudent about using free cash, because it's the one metric that Munis uses to always give us the triple A. It's wealthy town. It's 20% not every town has, you know, 30% I mean, Brookline, Cambridge, maybe, but a lot of the other ones, no, they were in the 20s Phil Giudice: or and it is effectively a stabilization fund that, you know, we can address issues with that free cash as needed. Right? Brian Keveny: So you use free cash as long as you're going to replenish it, right? You don't use free cash and then not replenish it. Nobody builds a budget to have turn backs. It's just a function of what happens when you ultimately spend a lot of stuff happens during the year. You get more revenues and expenses you didn't spend as much. That's what fuels free cash. So there's a balance between use and replenishment, and it's even more important going on the out years, but from balance. So to Pam's question, when Moody's talks to us, they have what we're going to do with bands. They know what we're going to do with bonds. They've already asked their questions about what they wanted to go over. And really none of it was why we're showing bands. They're really indifferent to that. They don't they don't really concern themselves with that. Phil Giudice: And how much money we're talking about being placed. Is it $10 million Did you say into what in the bands? No, 1.3 1.31 Brian Keveny: point and then we're doing 8 million in bonds. Phil Giudice: Okay, so, but the band Pam Roman: isn't the only around nothing. $50,000 of savings or doing bands, because we're not paying back the principal on a larger chunk. Brian Keveny: 700,000 is the levy excluded the savings of doing the bands. The ones is 800,000 okay? Phil Giudice: And that's avoiding principal 800 but that's more than $1.3 million right? Brian Keveny: Yeah, but you took the interest related to the bands you're only paying. You're not paying principal principals that you just pay it back across the town Phil Giudice: is being placed in a in the bond anticipated notes. How much debt is Brian Keveny: that? One total is next week we issue 1.3 million in new bands for existing bands. So we have existing bands right now, right? You must reissue them. In other words, it can't expire in November, and then you wait six months and do it again. You have to do it sequentially. You can't, like, Phil Giudice: mentally doing the math, right? If that's 4% or 5%
interest rate, Brian Keveny: that that's, yeah, we're paying return plane a full year on right here, it seems Phil Giudice: like an Amazon value of those bond of those bands has to be over $10 million to Unknown: get the 800,000 savings, to Get $800,000 Phil Giudice: of principal savings, yes, Unknown: the total interest. Sean, the
total interest on is 91,000 on the 1.3 and the interest on the we're Brian Keveny: going to be doing vans at the end of June, 2026 for five months. The interest on that is 54,000 some total interest crisis 140, Phil Giudice: $5,000 to get the interest cost actually trying to Pam Roman: get what's, what's the what's the principle, or what's the band's issuance. You said at the end of June?
Unknown: No, it's gonna go from November to November. Pam Roman: So November, we're doing 1.3 in vans. Seems like we have to be doing more advanced, like a bigger Phil Giudice: portion in 800,000 of savings for fiscal year 27 I would think that we're much bigger number, Unknown: right? Yeah. I mean, it's you take one point 3,000,004% is 54,000 that's what we're going to pay in Phil Giudice: inches expense. I understand that part, but I'm actually trying to get a handle on how much debt are we placing, Brian Keveny: replacing, replacing place, showing 8 million in being in bond debt, which is long Pam Roman: term debt, but then we're going to be paying principal and interest on that for the water department. Unknown: Yeah, it's funded by user ARPA. Okay, so the general So,
Pam Roman: what bands are we placing whereby we're getting $800,000 of savings to fiscal year for the general fund in fiscal 27 Unknown: so if we had issued all the $16 million next in a couple weeks. That was the original, okay, so wait, what's the 16 we have? Brian Keveny: They even caught up on all this stuff walk us through. So right now we have, we could issue 60 million the plan, when we left last year, we have budgeted for our town meeting approval to issue 16. We were going to issue $60 million in long term debt, okay, bonds in November. That's a mix of general government, general fund in the water department that changed from only issuing half of that and the half of that is just the water in the wastewater projects. We're not going to be issuing long term debt on the on the general fund projects, we're going to be issuing the combination of bands in advance free funding from the general fund. So the only thing that we're adding to the town's total long term debt is the 8 million that's coming on the water side. Right? Wastewater the town. Oh. Is not picking up new principal debt in the fiscal 27 budget, because it's all going to be interest. So what happens is we're going to be issuing bans in November for four projects that we must do only Unknown: 1.3 lane, yeah, and
Brian Keveny: one what else happens. So then, in December, we have other projects that need funding. Okay, sorry, so we're going to be issuing advanced refunding. We're going to be issuing money from the general fund over to these capital projects. Yeah, it's called advancing dur allows towns to take money, as long as your free cash to certify, and the amount of money you're moving from the general fund is less than your free cash amount, you can temporarily move that into these capital projects. Okay? With the requirement that is that it must come back to the general fund. Okay? And June 30, in June, we're going to be issuing a second bid, or looks like maybe seven, eight projects a five month band. So the combination of the bands we're doing next, next couple weeks on for these projects, plus the bands that we're doing in June, the sum total of interest is 145,000 we were going to pay 947,000 principal and interest on those if we had issued everything in November. So that's the savings. Pam Roman: Okay? So it's advanced refunding and the bands, Brian Keveny: yes, it's not refunding. I said there weren't. It's advancing the general fund. Pam Roman: General Fund advance and and advance. Okay, Unknown: I'll email this file Phil Giudice: out to them. Yeah. So all told, we're not going to be issuing anywhere near the $16 million of debt. Brian Keveny: No, once we get to November 26 we will be issuing the 8 million that we didn't do in November 25 plus everything we're going to be doing at the upcoming town meeting. Yeah, and that will just control so when you issue the debt November 26 which is fiscal 27 the debt service doesn't hit until 28 and that's we factor that into our Phil Giudice: forecast. And none of this affects the projects themselves. They'll go on whatever times schedule makes sense for them to go right? Brian Keveny: Well, the important thing is the number right. Are you going to get to it? You don't want to issue debt and sit around for a period of time. Phil Giudice: So if we had issued $16 million like in November, Brian Keveny: we would have had the big principle portion of that, but we'd also have gotten investment return from wherever we invest that money, because we weren't going to be using a big chunk of that. I mean, I told the Selectmen, unless they supported both of them, we might as well just issue the 16 million, because issuing one and not the other, it's, it's, you know, you're asking us to go into a tight budget and find over a million dollars. So either issue that then we would just issue the 16 million and then just have for a 2 million plus override for 27 this is a way to just set the time the town up to prepare for all rides in future. Because, I mean, this second slide is a, really a product of minority. Yeah, did about 14 times, so we came up pretty good, yeah, but this really just shows the structural deficit of revenue. And we talked about, really, what's causing this? And, you know, Wayland is, you know, on the lowest side of new growth. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen that. Phil Giudice: Yes, we've got that the So, anything else I do, think that, you know, in prior years, when we've issued more debt than we've actually needed to spend, like we get a good return on investment in terms of Unknown: years we have, Phil Giudice: yeah, no guarantees. Unknown: You know, there were a number of years where you Phil Giudice: didn't, yeah, got it, Brian, thank you tonight. Unknown: Do you think? Yeah, next
Phil Giudice: topic is benchmarking. William Huss: Okay, we talked about a little bit last time I went back at Phil's suggestion to the database that we had discussed the 12 towns that you consider roughly comparable, and I just chose a bunch of variables that seem to be of interest and not particularly, you know, technical. And I have this on slides which I can distribute, or whatever if you're interested. But I picked 11 variables. And then I also adjusted a number of those variables for population, because sometimes you want to do it per capita. So it ends up being 18 total variables, population. Where do we stand on population, per capita income? So how wealthy are we? What is our residential tax rate? What is our total tax levy? And I also did that per capita. Capital, what is our new growth? I also did that per capita expenditures on police, fire, education and public works, also per capita total budget and our single family tax bill. So those were all kind of intuitive, and I can again, and I'll circulate this for people. And then what I did, you know, it's a pretty basic analysis. And I don't like getting too much in the weeds, but I just decided, okay, of all those variables, which quartile do we fall into? You know, first meeting, we're on the very low side. Second and third meeting, we're kind of in the middle. And fourth meeting, we're at the top. And surprisingly, of the 18 variables, 16 are more in the third or the second quartile. So like we're really in the middle. The ones that stood out as being large or small, as we just discussed, per capita new growth, well, first quartile. Now new growth for second quartile. But if you adjust for population, we are low. And surprisingly to me, at Phil Giudice: least, that's right from the first quartiles the least, the least, yes, William Huss: yes, the first quartiles that were low and the fourth quartile is that were unusually high. What was interesting in terms of neighboring towns? The only town that was below us on per capita growth was Lincoln, and the immediately one notch above us with Sudbury. It surprised me. Well, Sudbury is much higher in total population. So Sudbury, Wayland and Lincoln were the three low. First. We're all all together, Phil Giudice: and I've seen Sudbury grow so much in my years here, at least, that's my sense. But if Unknown: they're also growing in population, yeah, back out, I Phil Giudice: was surprised to see not in this but somewhere else, that Weston has much higher growth levels than Wayland. Yeah. And being, you know, an even more expensive challenge, it surprised me that they get so yeah, William Huss: they weren't particularly high, but they're higher than those, yeah. So yeah. And then the fourth quartile, the only one where we were unusually high was residential tax rate. And the towns. It actually surprised me. The two towns that we were behind were act in Sherburne, and so we were the third highest of the of the 12 towns in terms of the residential tax rate. Pam Roman: So tax rate being dollars per Unknown: house, the middles, Phil Giudice: middles, yeah. What was the, did you do tax bills? Or that was the, William Huss: yeah, we did total Single Family Tax Bill. Yeah, that's in the second quarter. So we're below the media, but we're kind of in the middle of the group. Phil Giudice: So, I mean, one William Huss: conclusion is it was surprising. I mean, you would expect in the quartile analysis, evenly distributed between the first, second, third and fourth, and we're much more skewed to the middle, yeah. Then you would randomly Single
Carl Barnes: Family Tax pills, they were in the second quarter, second quartile, and that's second from lowest, yes, so we're below the median, but we're, you know, kind of in the middle. William Huss: That's surprising, right there. Okay, now that's the dollars per household. So that's not the root of millage. You know, the millage were high, but you know, if our assessed values might be on the low side, then the total tax bill balances it out, Carl Barnes: the millage is essentially a pub number, right? William Huss: I mean, well, the millage, I mean, I'm not an expert in Unknown: this, but your assessment, so William Huss: you cannot there are two factors. There's the millage and the assessment, and they work in opposite directions. So my guess is that our assessments tend to be a little bit lower. So that tends to bring to feel that way to me. I mean, other than maybe the surrounding town, but that pushes us, I mean, we're still, you know, sort of toward the middle in terms of the total family tax bill. We might have more smaller houses here, again, it's not the assessment for Yeah, I understand the identical house in different towns, right? It means that we might have smaller houses in Wayland, even more lower income houses, for example. Phil Giudice: I think all of this is really going to be relevant in the context of Right, right, overall, right? Yeah. William Huss: I think, I mean, I guess the warning thing for us is sort of beware of our residential tax rate. Yes, that's the one thing that we are high on, and we could probably be criticized publicly. Phil Giudice: Yeah, well, it's whatever the facts are, yeah. William Huss: Now one could augment it by saying low growth, yeah, something. So that's an argument in favor. But anyway, that's the general, you know, there are, what, 62 different variables, and I chose 11 of them that were just intuitive ones. We obviously can crunch it, and we can add towns and subtract towns. Phil Giudice: And that was, you know, one point in time, basically true. You know, as you kind of looked at the data, Yeah, true. So all this data is probably a year. Old anyway. William Huss: So anyway, that was, you know, and obviously we can build on it and dig into it. It's, you know, forever, yeah, Phil Giudice: I encourage you to, you know, circulate, Unknown: yeah, I will be able to do that as we speak. Phil Giudice: And the fact that the 12 towns for the same ones that the school board has picked, that feels like a reasonable set? William Huss: Well, what stuck with me was a comment Carl made at the last meeting, was the one of the things that if we're in the middle of everything, maybe it means we have a good set of towns that those are comparable, you know, towns, because we are, in fact, in the middle of them. And I think that the other reason for I like the set of towns, I mean, I like the consistency with the schools, but those are ones that the general public can identify with. I mean, south or north shore or, you know, it's like, why you don't want the public sort of saying, why the heck did you choose this? And then we have to explain a lot of details. Yeah,
Phil Giudice: Iris, this has been a topic that you've been intrigued by. Iris Hoxha: Have been intrigued. Yes, I have been intrigued. I mean, I haven't had as much time on very frank to Luke into all of it myself. But the reality is that there are some that we come under, there's some that we're a little over, right, like and so we're sort of fake your poison, right? There's, there's some data points that we're under this. Some of them were over. I think that certainly it's good to know that we're not in aberration. That I think is comforting, and I think should be a comfort to many people of we're not alone, however you feel, however you feel, we're not alone. Pam Roman: I think we should. I mean, as we kind of discuss this, maybe on our website, have you know, decide which slides we think might be helpful for people to see and just have have that posted, but I think it's really useful information. Yeah, I agree.
Carl Barnes: Cool, Bill, so William Huss: thank you for Yeah, thank you. I will. I will get some sounds hopefully in the media. I'm just looking for everybody's email addresses. Unknown: You can send it to FinCom Wayland. I think I was
William Huss: FinCom members of Wayland, Unknown: I will say,
Iris Hoxha: I'm glad we did this. I'm glad we looked into it. I think this was necessary. We have really old information. And I think, you know, as we move forward, I think this information will be important, and I think making it the information accessible to folks in the town will help them again, for themselves, figure out what's important to them, and if they're aligned with where Wayland stands in terms of this information. Pam Roman: Were there any other I mean, so you ended up using the school comparable group? Were there any other towns that I don't know if you looked at or considered that were on the other list that are just kind of stayed with William Huss: that? No, I pretty much just, I mean, to me, the school list. Look, I'll read it off to but it looked pretty reasonable. I mean acting Bedford, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Sherburn, Sudbury, Wellesley, Weston, Wayland, you might argue, Maynard or something, but Unknown: it does seem like it
Carl Barnes: intuitively feels like the right Pam Roman: list. It does. I just if the question comes up, I mean, because there was, we did have another FinCom list, we should just have an answer, Unknown: yeah, I don't Pam Roman: think you know if they're for the for the outliers, we can explain why wait? William Huss: And at least from my uneducated point of view, because I wasn't part of the group that selected that other list is that it was really geography. I mean, some of the ones on their list didn't have a geographical connection to us, and that stood out to me. It's like, well, and there must have been a financial reason why they were comparable geographically, they'd be not close.
Phil Giudice: It had been described to me by some I don't know if they were involved or secondhand or whatever DEP they chose a FinCom list that had less well off towns, specifically, which I'm not sure was relevant to whatever. There was another goal. Yeah, there was another goal. What was described to me? I do like the idea of putting it up on the website. I haven't looked at our website in a long while, but it's pretty old. It felt like, yeah. Pam Roman: It is. And I think we've there was some stuff up there, and a lot of it got cleaned, but Unknown: on there, yeah, yeah, William Huss: I just sent me that slide, very basic. It's basically two slides. Unknown: So thank you. Thank you.
Phil Giudice: Reminds me you're just a side comment. The there is another candidate to come onto FinCom. Oh, good. Not quite done yet in terms of going through the process, but hopefully that will have you talked to them. I have
encouraged that his interest continues, so we'll see how that works out. Carl Barnes: Excellent. That won't be the new one.
Phil Giudice: And with that Carl MWRA getting clean water into our town Unknown: there, I can do this in about 30 seconds. It's not much information, but I looked at those that say list of towns, downloaded a spreadsheet from the from the state government with the results of every override. Oh yeah, that's right, since, I think since proposition two and a half was passed. And then I took guys, so, you know, got the list down to those same 12 or 13 towns and Wayland and I guess I was surprised by this, but the reality is that only two of those towns have had overrides in the last 10 years. Carl Barnes: So, and we have not either. So we were right there.
ActOn had one in 2025 past. Sudbury has had three in the last 10 years. 11 years. Most recent was in 2023 the other towns and that list of noi recently had them. Phil Giudice: Response, oh yes, it did. Sudbury. Carl Barnes: Did well. It passed. It was a three quarters of million dollars, you know, for the basically, for the school's operating budget single year, passed by a nice margin that Acton override was much larger, 6.6 million, mostly for the schools, but some for general government purposes. And they it was a 50.29% Unknown: Wow, margin, Carl Barnes: I think slow, but it passed. I did take a Phil Giudice: look, you know, kind of what was
Carl Barnes: suggested a look, you know, kind of what was suggested a minute ago. And some other towns that are nearby are kind of felt like they might be relevant, in part because looking for examples of how to present this to to and so Belmont had a very large number, right? $8.4 million two years ago, two years ago, two fiscal years ago. So 18 months or something like that, passed by a pretty good margin. I think they had the most interesting information of the towns that I had been looked at, including a letter from the Select Board, and, you know, a tax calculator so you can see exactly what object you would do to your your house or your taxes. Kind of Arlington had some pretty good materials for their their recent override. But in part, they promised this would have been fiscal 24 and they promised no further overrides for operational reasons, and at least until fiscal year 27 you know. So that was clearly going to be a three year override. It was about $7 million so, you know, there's patterns. Yeah, there are some patterns, even in that little bit. And I'm not a data analyst, but, yeah, I might have expected, just because you hear about this all the time, that would have been more William Huss: Yeah, one of the things I refresh my memory that right after our last meeting, I did an analysis, and I know it brought it with me, but my hypothesis was, if the reason for the override has to do with schools, you have a better chance of Passing. Sure looks so I looked at all of the overrides in the state of the last 10 year, whatever the database was, and like 65% if you had schools as your purpose, you had a 65% chance of passage. If you did not, you had like, a 40% chance of passage. So if you want it to pass somehow, link it to the schools, and it raises the likelihood doesn't guarantee it. The reason
Carl Barnes: I know it, that's why I know Phil Giudice: the livestock ARPA ride, which was 2016 2013 more than 10. Yeah, I do remember the. The schools was the driver of the conversation. And, you know, mobilizing the townspeople William Huss: and the Sudbury one in 2023, of the schools, Phil Giudice: yeah. But I mean, it wasn't just, you know, been, you know, the materials. It was like people took it on certain, as, you know, safe our schools Exactly, exactly, that's a huge driver.
William Huss: So again, not surprising, but I was just curious, does the data support that? And it does. Phil Giudice: And schools are, wherever it is, 70% of our spend like that, so school is going to be the driver. Good
Carl Barnes: stuff. Okay, good. Okay, so I did. I didn't actually participate in the meeting, but I did watch the WayCAM video on September 16. Board Public Works met anything to do. The headline here is that 30% design, the 30% design milestone, has been achieved. They're that far along with the consultants, and are reaching toward approaching the 60% miles. And as of the 16th, they had not not identified anything that would give them reason to think the cost was going to change. Specifically that it would not increase so so far so good. Couldn't they come Unknown: again down Well,
Carl Barnes: there was a gentleman from the mass DEP, from the State Revolving Fund there, who participated in the meeting, and he indicated, first of all, I think we know this, but the baseline is alone. For interest free loan for 20 years, there were fees and charges that bring that to about that add up to about another half a percent, a half a percent of the amount borrowed. I believe that's a one time half percent. So it's not, you know, annual fees, not 100% sure of that, but I think that's right. He also said that we could conceivably go back to 30 years on the loan. It would bear interest for the entire 30 years, not just the last 10, at somewhere between point four and point 6% so we'd have to do the math and decide which is the better alternative. But that's that's as long as we can get a certificate of useful life that would show that the project will still be operational in 30 years. That seems to be possible. And the best thing about that I heard is that we don't lock in the terms until the project is complete. We borrow the money up front, to the extent, well, you borrow the money up front period, and then we lock in the terms where the project's completed. Iris Hoxha: And that interest rate isn't like variable. There's no way it's going to change. Carl Barnes: It's a fixed rate. Iris Hoxha: Well, let me say this, the interest rate offered is locked in, right? The the interest offer is locked in. It's not like when you go to apply for a mortgage, if interest rates have gone up and you haven't locked in the rate, they're going to offer you a mortgage interest Carl Barnes: rate. It's not a bank note. But Shane, I think that they, they have a lot of history and making these loans, and I think, you know, I saw nothing at that meeting that would indicate that they're Iris Hoxha: gonna switch. Us wondering, is there other outside, external circumstances that could change that interest rate? But sounds like we don't expect that. Carl Barnes: Well, the outside, the largest risk, which, frankly, the gentleman from the DEP didn't seem to think was it was huge, is that, you know, is that the DEP uses federal funds with state matches. And you know, Washington is Washington right now, but he said that. He said that PFAS funding among places where this money comes from is still important, maybe not to Congress and maybe not to the President right now, but right now, he thinks that's not a huge risk. And he also he DEP has funds that are being repaid for other projects you know, that are in their coffers. So you know, he doesn't see, at this moment that any reason why they can't fund the full project, subject to the caveat that that could change. So and the last thing I think of relevance to us is simply that
the DEP doesn't care how we pay for this. That is to say they're indifferent between rates or through taxation, so we don't have to. Don't have to take their, their use into consideration there. So that is the update from them. Oh, actually there's one, one more of an update. When I was talking about the minutes earlier, I described the information I was going to seek to get the Select Board to ask for while I've been dithering on that, we actually got some of it. And I'll share this with you, Phil first, and then once I understand it better, I'll circulate among us. Board of Public Works seems to have put together an impact matrix on water users, if we put all of the the cost of the project into the rates. Oh, great, obviously. Well, that's, yeah, right. I think it's the more difficult half, actually. So I can't make the math work. And I've got a there was actually a circling by Tom holder. I think it's a five minute conversation with him. Just see, you know how it's supposed to work. And as soon as I have that, they will put it on the agenda for next time, but I'll circulate in the meantime as well, once, once I know what it says. Good. Phil Giudice: Okay, the engine, when you talk to Tom, could you ask him about the the alternative, the option fee. How much would it affect people's Carl Barnes: tax? Well, I can not sure. That's his bailiwick. Phil Giudice: I think the Abrams could do that. I mean, it's, I think, well, and it seems
Carl Barnes: like we, I would, that's right. I'm trying to articulate, if I were him, I'd say, You're the Finance Committee. Phil Giudice: You figure it out. We don't have staff so but I think that they're going to need to be presenting to select board as to why they don't want to put into rates. Won't they have Option A and Option B. Carl Barnes: They've already presented this slide for and recommended Phil Giudice: it. Yeah, but they don't. They need they they're going to be asked to actually make a formal presentation on this, and they haven't yet. I think McCall has directed them to read a presentation on rates versus Carl Barnes: taxes. Okay, I was honestly not aware of that,
Phil Giudice: not part of it, but that's what my understanding. Carl Barnes: Yeah, I know this information is now two weeks old, but I think that they think they're done with that. Phil Giudice: Oh, okay, I don't think I'll find out. Yeah, they're good and yeah, I think Thomas McCall will go in front of the, you know, town meeting, and if there needs to be more of a rationale for that, I think Carl Barnes: I don't disagree with you, that's what we're trying to do here. But I All I'm suggesting is I think they made their recommendation that we have to now figure out whether we Okay. Have a better idea Iris Hoxha: on that note, not to, not to change it up, but the conversation we had last time I thought, lean towards the majority of us being more in line when they Dave a mixed approach. Yeah, okay, I still feel that way. Absolutely. Phil Giudice: But seeing, Iris Hoxha: we want to see it in order to make the formal recommendation, Okay, makes sense to me. I just wanted to say, and Tom, as I Phil Giudice: reflect on it, the 15% of water that's going to come from the $20 million whatever the number is for the actual MWRA capital that could easily be DEP separate from the $18 billion that's going to be for the PFAS that's going to be used every day. Iris Hoxha: Yeah, so Yeah, makes sense, but that's Unknown: to be determined. William Huss: So what do we see is the process and where do we sort of put our input? Phil Giudice: Not sure we're it's really between Select Board and Board of Public Works. Okay, Select Board can direct us to, you know, weigh in, and I expect they may at some point, William Huss: so we will wait for the Select Board to make it involved. Yeah, okay, Iris Hoxha: you don't think we should. I mean, maybe, when you talk to Carol, like, you know, maybe we should say something to them, okay, okay, so they're aware that we have a different Phil Giudice: mind, yeah, but it's not. We don't have a formal role. Understood. That's fine. Public Works, sets rates, select board set stacks policy. So those are the two authorities. But yeah, we can definitely weigh in and expect we will at some point. Cool, so you're not going to send a letter to Carol or no. Carl Barnes: Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time drafting so Phil Giudice: okay, because I had thought I had talked to Tom in the hall after our last meeting and asked him for that. He said, No problem. So
the next agenda item is a 100 ish page, 120 page financial policy manual, which I did circulate around. I have flipped through it. Okay to me, I wrote it to be that, apparently there hasn't been a written financial policy manual. Moody's has made that noted a few times. So there was a desire to get one circulated, finalized division of local services, I think, is actually the author of it, yes, from the Department of Revenue, right? There is some typos in it and other things, but that Select Board has actually voted on it and put it in place. So wanted to just make sure FinCom had it in its circulation, and if, as you flip through it, if there's concerns or issues or something William Huss: like, what is the genesis of it? Was it written by by the thing the finance staff. It was Phil Giudice: not written by finance staff. It has been a request for multiple years that, for whatever reason, never got attended to the town as the division local services, which is part of the Department of Revenue that, okay, puts out that spreadsheet. Okay, to create one, they took it off the shelf or so. It's pretty standard. It's pretty standard. Yeah, it's not specific to Wayland. It's, I didn't see it as specific to Wayland, okay, Pam Roman: I think it, some of it has to be, because it has to agree with code. Unknown: Yeah. So yeah. And if we have any questions, because I had a couple, like, little things shape good to you, Phil Giudice: yeah, for me, they it will definitely be revised on a regular schedule, will be looked at. But if there's other things. So, yes, it's long, but it does get to things like, you know, capital should go into, you know, non operating projects go into excluded debt. So there's actually
Unknown: guidelines. Yes, spelled out.
Phil Giudice: That concludes what I was expected to put forth today, any clear topics, issues here for interesting times ahead, has the federal government potentially becomes less supportive of Massachusetts, and Massachusetts is going to have to scramble. It's going to ripple through every town, and towns that are well above income levels are probably going to have to bear more different have no idea what that is. Unknown: That a discussion point and how to and Phil Giudice: it's sources, not just kind of be aware, I think that. And then the other question that the there's a chance that I know the bargain unit conversations and the a budget and B budget is very sensitive to the people, obviously that work here, and so we should be thoughtful about that. Whatever our financial circumstances are, we got to kind of figure it out Unknown: our negotiations, they've started. Have started, Phil Giudice: not maybe negotiations, but there's been search, stage, setting meetings as to what the circumstances are. Carl Barnes: We'll see how that all goes forward. And Unknown: it does sound likely that we be looking at
Iris Hoxha: an article versus Unknown: like Brian was talking about looking at, in the past, we've always done the set aside for, oh, the reserve, for the reserve, yes, so it'd be an article versus a reserve, and that's yes still in discussion. Phil Giudice: No, I don't think that. It's sort of clear, yeah, and sort of currently there are discussions, I think, that maybe not formally, but maybe the fire department's open contracts are in front of arbitration right now, in final discussions before arbitration, and so that needs to get settled. And there's some, you know, distance between asks and what other time? Yeah, it's been a long time, and that been teased up in parallel with all the Carl Barnes: current conversations.
Iris Hoxha: Only thing I'll say is totally appreciate everyone here is doing their best. Yeah, and certainly, the questions don't at all take away from it. The questions are really just coming from a place of the fact that, you know, to my neighbors right to ask the questions and just make sure, like that we all understand, because you're right. Have times ahead for everyone, and I'm sure that, like, everyone will be asked to, you know, have to support. And I also think that there's something to be said for, I don't know. I think everyone has a limit, and I think that's something to think through to, like, where does that Phil Giudice: limit live? I think we're going to get a test on December on this diary classification as to kind of work. Iris Hoxha: And I think we have to honor that a little bit too. Of like, we can only ask so many so much from our fellow town citizens and town residents as well, right? But it doesn't at all. It does not at all the fact that we acknowledge that everyone here is doing their best and working Phil Giudice: incredibly hard Well, you know, let's no longer have any garden or, you know, start skipping grades, or 50 person classroom, something. Not that any of those proposals are on the table. No, those are kind of the hard choices, right? Iris Hoxha: There will be hard choices. I think that's the point of like, I guess part of why I asked the questions is because I acknowledge that hard choices are coming, and I almost feel like hearing what those choices are will help us, if we have time to react and think through them instead of feeling rushed. That's what I worry about, is Phil Giudice: that it's tough, though there's so many variables that we don't know, 12% is a plug number. Pam Roman: That's still healthcare. I don't know if that's extreme. I don't think that's extreme, extremely conservative either. No, but I would agree with that. I've seen other healthcare for 2026 Phil Giudice: numbers come in much lower than that. But you know, what are those circumstances? And you know the fact that we had a 3% increase last year, that was like, that was an operation, something we Iris Hoxha: should anticipate. And those are big numbers. They're big numbers. But again, I just say, you know, I don't think that there's, frankly, any world in which a classroom is 50 kids, but I do think that we're going to get significant questions and asks really appreciate and understand the trade offs, because everything is a trade off. And again, I I, I personally just, you know, look at my neighbors and friends and family and really feel this sense of making sure that I really understand what's on the table to be able to help explain the Phil Giudice: situation that wants to come. And things like benchmarking, I think it's even, William Huss: you know, it's interesting, and I think it's sort of human nature and the way things but our discussion immediately goes down to, well, if we cut costs, we're going to have big classes, and we go right to schools like, well, yes, it's a big part. It's three quarters. But there are other things one can look at and plus, there are ways of, I would think, reducing school costs, which aren't really so, but that argument tends to be effective. So I don't know whether it's entirely valid. It's basically valid points, but it's a really effective argument because that it's the fear, oh my god, we can't have class. Our children won't learn well, won't have kindergarten? Yes, I'll vote for it. Iris Hoxha: But I think our job is to provide transparent and honest information. It's not just to bend a story. Carl Barnes: Oh, great. You know, to follow up on what you know some of your hypotheticals. DEP cuts. So far, the things can change tomorrow. I've only in a year, roughly a year, only one resident in town has tried to talk to me about any of this. And it's really even that's an exaggeration. But a week ago, he ran to my wife at the at the transfer station, and and he said, please ask your husband to sharpen his pencil. And had fun about that. And I, and I, had I been there, and I might actually seek him out. I think I'd like to ask him what I should cut. I mean, not that I get the, you know, I don't the power to make the cut, but, but if somebody's telling me we don't have the budget for and we can't raise taxes. And I know that's not your thing. I want to know what what their priorities are. I think we need to know that when people talk to us about this, William Huss: yeah, I mean, as long as I mean, if you're in the five or 10% range, I think it's almost imperceptible. It's like, well, maybe there's an after school program or there, maybe there's, you know, the classes go from 30 to 32 you know, it's much smaller, and almost, you know, sort of not clear when people start to feel that impact. So it's a much more subtle discussion than I think classes will double in size. Discussion. That's why it's hard. We don't Pam Roman: provide those actual examples either. I mean, those are department Unknown: by department.
Iris Hoxha: Some some towns have so like as part of their overrides. When we get to that point, some towns have said, If you don't pass this, here's the Unknown: actual we William Huss: expect to have a week, you know, we'll look at the without override budget and say, what do we lose?
Pam Roman: I guess, like the timing. Now, if we're talking about a December vote, election, vote. If that doesn't pass, then, then we don't have a lot of time to That's right, to work on things, to get the message out. Iris Hoxha: So presumably, maybe I misunderstood. Presumably, they're being conservative. We've got some free cash we could use like, I think what I'm really hearing is we've sort of picked our path for this year in the absence of something really shocking. We're gonna try to make it work without Phil Giudice: first in the first Iris Hoxha: step is the election. The first step is the election to give us additional capacity. But even without it, we're still going, to some William Huss: extent, I think the messaging, you know, it'll be in the post there in the Wayland, you know, newspaper is what you just said. You know, general public, you can either vote for the the exclusion, or we could do an override this year. I mean, that's really what, you know, I think the message, Pam Roman: but I think you're saying that the town has figured out other ways, even if it doesn't Okay, so even
Unknown: we're
Iris Hoxha: gonna, try to find every other ADU. Phil Giudice: The other thing about overrides is, I look at these numbers, is I would like a three year override. Yes, number needs to be but that's just as I look at it. Get everyone, sort of you know up to speed on what the choices are. Unknown: You ready five years, but something, yeah, you're not going back. Anything
Phil Giudice: else for tonight. Iris Hoxha: No motion to adjourn. Phil Giudice: Second, all in favor. Thank you.
William Huss: I think I took me three tries, but yeah, thank you. Unknown: All Connected.
Iris Hoxha: I see them. She sent them a while back. Okay,
Carl Barnes: apologies.
Iris Hoxha: The only thing that seems odd to me in reading these I know she's not here to explain what's going on, but she missed me in the final adjournment. She missed my vote. So she has a 500, there were six of us in attendance, and I was here until the end. Unknown: Yeah, yeah, she missed me. That's Iris Hoxha: the only thing. Pearl. Carl Barnes: Can you hear me that I will Yes, Iris Hoxha: it's on page, yes. Very last one. Carl Barnes: The rest all look correct. I
Unknown: read my quotes, and they looked Carl Barnes: okay, well, there's one in every group. I got some small changes the very beginning, in the before the list of attendees. There's an extraneous reference to mA after 7pm minutes,
Unknown: Massachusetts. Carl Barnes: There are a few places where our chair's name is misspelled, and the two substantive questions I got, or there's a sentence bill on the page two under this topic, follow up discussion on pure community benchmarking. Yeah. The end of that paragraph, it says that you consulted with the superintendent regarding practical applications of this process. Phil Giudice: Did that happen? At least probably should have described that, yeah. So I didn't happen. I could just get rid of it. Yeah. So I think we can get rid of it. I've asked the superintendent and the director or school department director of finance for examples of how they've used the benchmarking in presentations or reports, and I haven't received anything.
Carl Barnes: And then I think I would like to propose an elaboration of that discussion under the heading of follow up discussion review is September 2 joint meeting. Yeah, what I was suggesting at that meeting was that at our last meeting, was that at September 2 meetings, you know Michael McCall proposed the town help inform residents by showing the impacts on town and water bills. That's our town tax bills and water bills, depending on the allocation either all the taxes or all to water rates and. And that's actually what he didn't ask for or propose. And what I had tried to get across to this group was I thought we should try to get that information now and in and would request select board to or ask Select Board to request it. So I'd like to phrase it in that those ways. Yeah, okay, yeah, okay, and then we'll talk more about that later. That's the bidding as of that day. Phil Giudice: Other comments on the minutes motion to approve as modified. Carl Barnes: So moved second, second in favor. Aye. Since we're all present here passes Phil Giudice: with that second or item on the agenda is town of Wayland, 10 year fiscal forecast. Brian, he didn't do Brian Keveny: public comment. Or did I miss that? Say that again? Did you public comment? Phil Giudice: Oh, I missed there's no one on so what do Brian Keveny: you want me to start because it's been, it's been a long four months,
Phil Giudice: and we've actually talked to prior FinCom meetings about the budget working group, and we circulated Michael's couple of memos to the Select Board when that as he's issued them. So I really think it would be helpful to walk through some portion of the PowerPoint. I'm not sure if everybody has it, probably they do on their screens. Hit some of the highlights on this Brian, and then the specific task that we have been asked for is to make a recommendation to the Select Board to potentially reclassify DEP W debt outstanding. So there's and you put together this page or two on pros and cons, and recommendation that we could consider tonight to vote on. Brian Keveny: So is everybody watched the WayCAM presentation last week? No, him was
Phil Giudice: previewed. I read Unknown: your memo that you sent out. Brian Keveny: Okay, so we were, we started meeting back in July, but you got a bunch of Fay minor, Hurley, Michael McCall, Kelsi, Kathy Steinberg, school, business manager, Superintendent school, school committee members, Carl Barnes: somebody. Brian Keveny: So we've been meeting for quite a while. What we did was we developed a forecast to project on fiscal 27 in the audience, because we know when we finished the 26 budget, fiscal 27 was going to be really time, if not impossible, but produce a budget under the top two and ADU. Iris Hoxha: I'm sorry, before we continue, when was the one? Was the PowerPoint set.
Unknown: Listen, Phil's Iris Hoxha: what is in the package? Brian Keveny: Yes, but it's also on weekend you want to go back and watch a long, one hour presentation. So so we got together, and we had thought when we did the 26 budget, the 27 budget were really difficult to bring in on a levy, but when we started to put in a lot of the numbers, the group went through a whole different series of revenue reviews, expense reviews. We went through our pension debt, the capital plan, which has the debt service. So we went through all of the different areas that make up the town budget. And we kind of figured out that if a few things happened, we would have a shot at bringing a 27 budget in under the levy, and one of them was to do this financial plan with DEP issuing bands and using advanced funding from the general fund to not pay principal in fiscal 27 for all the pending projects that we're going to borrow, we would be basically just paying the interest on the bands. So we went through this with the bank, and we went through this with the Select Board, and they agreed to support that we actually going to have a mortgage rating call tomorrow. We're going to be issuing the bond, the bands and the bonds in a couple of weeks. So they agreed that that would be good for the time to do that. One thing I forgot the saying that from the get go, we thought it would be a good idea they have a fiscal 27 budget on whether that way we tell the residents in the out years it's really impossible to do and give them a a long term structural deficit picture. So that was really the mindset behind the 27 so piece of that was the band of the bonds. The other one was an item that's been brought up numerous time in various FinCom meetings over the year, which was back in 2013 the town voted the DEP W project at the special in the town meeting in the fall, and it was not supported by the Selectmen to do excluded. Yet you can actually go back and read the minutes. I believe they were February 2013 where two of the Selectmen did not Carl Barnes: support, who was supported, Brian Keveny: and they were for really other reasons, other than really the question of excluded them. And you need a majority vote. So it was three to two. They needed four to one. So it didn't pass. It has come up numerous times in the past. You know, this size project also recommended by Moody's really should be in excluding DEP, because we knew eventually we would be dealing with this debt service as it's rubbing up against prop two and a half. So the other recommendation we did with that from the budget group to the Select Board was to consider putting this on the ballot in December, which they agreed to do. And I believe there's a lot more than going to be done. FinCom has to prepare a report. I believe by on October 20, there's a policy in place where the select the Select Board can ask the finance committee for their recommendation on this question. So that, I believe, is in rewards. So a lot of this is, is emotion. The other bucket was, in order to make a balanced budget in 27 was we would have to come up, come up with three to $500,000 in digital cuts. So it's not just these two items, it's we also have to make a cap. So we all felt this was a shot to do, and if the benefits were educating the public, starting in 28 in the out years. So like I said earlier, we went through a lot of different areas of the town, budget, school, town, unclassified. I thought it was a good light of the group. What was accomplished? We went through new rule for the assessor. The Wayland post has picked up a couple of these, the new magazine you can read up on so that what came from that was we were asked to do a presentation by Select Board, but the school committee, finance committee and board of selectmen. So if you want, we can watch one. I can briefly speak to each one of these slides, Phil Giudice: let me actually turn to questions, maybe from Con members, if you have them, or and let me add my own context of fiscal year 27 when, when I started into the budget working group process, my expectation is we're likely Going to need it work. What came up is these two levers are likely to get us just enough under it so we don't have to do an override. Bubble. Still need that, and that's the bands in the dew reclassification. We'll still need to find some efficiencies to bring the sort of the bottom up budget down enough to make it work. But there's a sense that that is could happen. It doesn't change the picture for fiscal year 28 out up to 36 and that's going to be a really very serious question about how to manage the finances of the town for that chunk of time because over rights are likely to be a part of that picture industrial funds and magical efficiencies. So that's sort of the context of what we're about here. And so the Select Board has voted, I think, on both of those to move forward right now. But they did ask, and I remember a week ago or 10 days for FinCom to make a recommendation on the DEP W debt reclassification. And so it's not, it's it's sort of parallel with we're already moving forward with doing that, but it's not like we're gonna stop it. But they wanted to know what FinCom for you. So even though they've already approved it, they wanted to come to you, it was going to be sequential, and then timing didn't work out, and just sort of made sense. It doesn't solve long term budget circumstances. It just sort of moves us further down the road without having to face it and and some of the reasons to do that now is all of the labor agreements for all the organized labor for the town schools. Everyone is up for negotiation for next year, and so going into an override process without having bargaining unit arrangements locked in did not seem like a good idea. And so that was another reason to try to William Huss: avoid it a little bit. Plus, I think it gives us more time to educate the public. Phil Giudice: It definitely is the big title. This override, this reclassification, isn't something that Select Board can just do, or we, or anyone they. What they can do is authorize a town vote. That's what the plan is, right now. That's all and that may go forward or not. So we have, you know, a couple of months, potentially. To educate the town for us to Iris Hoxha: Can I ask a question so in terms of the impact? So the impact of, to your point, the fact that does not reduce the likelihood of a need for an override in fiscal year 28 right? And does not, frankly, like, fix the long term viability of the town's finances, right? Is this a scenario where, in terms of, like, the request for overrides? Is it a scenario where, when I think of something like Medicare, the sooner you do something about it easier it is for everyone? Or is this a scenario where doesn't really matter, because, like, I'm just trying to understand, like, just kicking the can down the road actually have a negative ramification in terms of the total, yeah, in terms of incurring extra Phil Giudice: cost. So my sense, and I've had this conversation, the cost of the debt doesn't change. So the amortization schedule that's current and will be the same managerization schedule, whether it's literally just moving the DEP, yeah. And so there's Unknown: the GPW portion, that's right, yeah, there is a cost Phil Giudice: of doing the ballot initiative. I think it was like $10,000 as I understood something spirletier, so that there's that increment. Like, there's no The question, though, and sometimes people may wonder about this increases the levy capacity. So if we spend up to the levy and the levy capacity has gone up, that then sounds like we're going to be raising our costs. But that's a separate question that we, collectively in the whole town gets to weigh in on. Are we spending money that we would want to spend money Iris Hoxha: understood on that piece. What I'm what I'm trying to get at is, does it make when we ask for the override in 28 does it does it increase the override amount? Does it have any impact on if you don't ask for the override now, that means you need more money in the future? Brian Keveny: Well, if you ask for an override in 27 then the override amount should be enough to give you a balanced budget under the levy. The override amount will be calculated the prop two and a half calculation. But the way we did this is that I'm not sure if they ever got that. Well, the selectman got it where we actually define each one of the override amounts shooting out for at least 10 years in one year was dependent upon the previous year. So even though you would vote, say, a $3 million override in 28 that would just basically mean you would need a specific amount of 29 we've talked about doing multi year overrides in the committee, doing one year that that jury is still on. We don't know if that's where that's going to go, but this, this graph here, basically each one of these red lines isn't a specific amount that is dependent upon the previous year months. So we're not asking for an override and increasing the prop two and a half calculation, increasing the levy limit is basically back to zero, okay? And that's, that's how we did this, okay? Iris Hoxha: And then in terms of impact to the population, impact to the citizens, so we moved the DEP, that amount, obviously, is still coming from taxation. And then there's the increase in the levy as well. So what's the number that we end up with, like, in terms of expected rate of increase for taxes year over year? Brian Keveny: It's around, it's I have it, but it's before I get into it's based on health insurance being at 12% is based on worst case scenario. Pam Roman: But there's no tax effect to making to changing from levy debt to excluded debt, is that your question? How can that be? Because the there's you're still paying the debt. It's just how you're categorizing it. For this prop two and a half, one calculation like prop two and a half is just this calculation to see if we have room on the levy, and we're spending whatever is lacked is in the budget, right? And then there's compared against Iris Hoxha: maybe I'm like misunderstanding what we're trying to do here. Isn't this essentially saying, Take this out of this part of the calculation so we have more room here? Pam Roman: It actually no. It, it's so when you look at the prop two and a half calculation, I think Brian has it in one of the slides up front, but it's, it's last year's Levy, and then you add on to that new growth, and then two and a half percent of last year, you know, you get two and a half percent increase. So last year's two and a half percent increase off of last year new growth, and we're assuming 400,000 which, and that gives you your new levy limit, right? And then on to that, you can add excluded the cost of excluded debt, sure. Iris Hoxha: So. So if we move. This is currently in the levy, right? Pam Roman: So it's currently, yes, we're, it's currently part of the levy. So it's, it's being paid, yeah, it was within last year's tax. Iris Hoxha: So we're moving it to debt exclusion, so the annual Max levy limit in total will go up, right? So therefore we're, we're still like, but bottom line is, we're all still paying more, right? Because we have to know Unknown: we're paying the Phil Giudice: same. That's a separate conversation as to how much of budget will approve, and already right now in I mean, this is not getting Iris Hoxha: the math. I'm sorry, when Brian Keveny: you have time, look at slide 19. Pam Roman: Just slide six has the calculation, yeah. Brian Keveny: Slide 19 shows, if you remove that debt service, you can see the prop two and a half percent adjustment. Slide six is the prop two and a half percent calculation. But slide 19 actually shows you how prop two and a half changes when you move that 700,000 to exclude that.
Pam Roman: So it's really just it, I guess. Bottom line, there's no change in tax. There's $10,000 cost to bringing the question. But aside from that, there's no effect on tax. We're still paying the same for the same budget. It just just this calculation in terms of like our levy and are we? Are we exceeding our levy limit? It it gives us more room there in this, you know, it's, it's a the loving limit is a manufactured thing, sure, yeah, it's just a calculate. It's a calculation. Yep, right? Yep. So we're kind of, we're looking at the calculations. We have more room in that calculation so, so we can get by for another year without doing a levy override, but the budget will still be what the budget is, wherever, however that debt is categorized, we're still paying for it, just like we always did, correct interest expenses, correct. I think the debt is staying the same. That part's true. What I'm saying is, because you now found more money in the levy limit, there's more money there. So therefore, the total that a participant, like person, that a person's paying more Phil Giudice: now depending on how much we spent. I mean, whatever budget, you know, we had levy limits that were higher than what we spent. And you know, hopefully someday we'll do that again. So as far as the calculation goes, this doesn't affect or I Iris Hoxha: see what you're saying. We might not spend all of the total maximum allowable Levy, Pam Roman: if you like, if you absolutely used your max levy as as the governor right then, then we would have to do an override sooner in order to spend more. Or we would if it didn't go through, we'd have to cut, we'd have to cut down to that Max Levy. Iris Hoxha: Got it okay? So, so we're asking for more total maximum allowable living capacity, but we're not actually planning on using it all well. We that's they Phil Giudice: gotta figure that out how we're going to use it, okay. But, and there's still barriers, like, what is the Barnegat arrangements going to be? You know, cost of living increases. What's the healthcare costs going to be? What's the state support going to be? Especially state support now, the federal government support for changing so all of these are big variables. Iris Hoxha: They're big variables. But Brian's very smart, and Brian has given some numbers for each of those variables. And so in that when I look at this total year to year, percentage change, two and a half percent prop, two and a half increase, 2.95 is either of those numbers representative of the increase at a personal level to citizens.
Phil Giudice: Think the budget is currently looking at, was it, Brian, four and a half percent or 5% increase from 26 fiscal year? 26 to 27 Brian Keveny: No, it was cited. And so it's it's around, it's in the high fives, because the forecast has health insurance 12% last year? Yeah. When we did the fiscal 26 budget, we had the forecast at 10% Yeah, it came in at, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about that point. What happens if this gets what happens if this gets passed? All of a sudden, you got $700,000 the reality that is that the $700,000 of levy tax to fund a large capital project is putting pressure on annual repeat town services. We can't get those into the budget because you've got this big $700,000 elephant sitting right in Rome in Levi DEP last year when the real estate the. Health insurance number came in and committed to, like, less than 3% if you remember, we didn't go back to FinCom and say, Hey, we got an extra $500,000 we called it a day, and the school only brought in one FTE, or if, when these two, hopefully the levy excluded passes when we get to the end of the well, actually the well, actually the middle of February, we'll get the health insurance number. We hope that it comes in under 12. If there's some extra funds there, I see us not again, going back increasing it in the fiscal 27 forecast, we've got school payroll at five and a half percent. We've got and these are high estimates. We've got the whole school budget at five and a half percent, which is, which is on the high side of the 10 year growth rate. We've got town budgets less than, or around 3% Iris Hoxha: your so your hope is that we've overestimated, and the overestimation would probably be, if I'm going to call it a worst case, right? Like, that's our hope here, that we forecast or worsening scenario, and that really, like, shakes out to high 5% increase for citizens. And we hope that then, that we're actually able to bring a lower number, right? Brian Keveny: Because if we when you get the middle of February, you're out of time, right? So you need a little bit of room. If things weren't completely solid, the last recaps would be. We could always talk about flipping opine from taxation to free cash, sure. Or we could just go fly right back into the budget and find that differential, sure. So these two levers are important to set aside for February Iris Hoxha: understood, and I also understand the point that you made, which it sounds like it's more of a historical point, but certainly opportunity to fix it, which is, we funded a capital project using operational money, and really as a best practice, which shouldn't be doing that. And I understand why. I totally understand right? That isn't maybe the most correct way. But I think the other piece here that's hard to wrap around is it, it's sort of, for me personally, there's this push and pull of like, we obviously want to get through fiscal year 27 but it doesn't really address the underlying concerns and the underlying issues. And I think that's the part of there's the push and pull up. Are we really just kicking something sort of down the road, or are we actually doing the right thing? Because it is, in fact, the right thing to Phil Giudice: do. I think there's for me. And Dr Fleishman was particularly strong on the view that having bargaining unit locked in will help a lot when we have to start looking at any issues of overrides going William Huss: forward. Okay, I also think the additional time will increase the likelihood that the override passes because it doesn't pass, then we have a worse situation, right? Iris Hoxha: Maybe, I mean, we've got the water coming down the pipeline. I mean, we have other other things that are coming down the pipeline. So it might help. There might not, also not because there are other costs that are going to mount as well. People might be less, yeah, people might be less interested in continuing to my William Huss: assumption is that if we have more time to educate the public, that that's to the benefit, maybe the public education will go the other way. Public here is the less likely. Iris Hoxha: I mean, I'm all for public education, but I don't think we can count on that. As you know, when people are educated, they make, perhaps the choice that you might personally make, right? So, okay, anyway, I'm just trying to explain myself, explain where my questions are coming from. I was trying to make sure I really understand Phil Giudice: and appreciate, yeah, and the only thing structurally that changes in the future in my mind, I mean, hopefully we continue to find efficiencies entrepreneurs, but it's getting caught up on the unfunded pension liabilities, and that was, like, really clear, 2020, 2036, is when that's over, and all of a sudden, even at our current revenue costs picture, that's when we go back into the black. Pam Roman: Well, that's the estimate, right? Yeah. I mean, there are a lot of assumptions that go into that, but so it could be, yeah, or two off of Phil Giudice: that, yeah, but, but that's sort of, you know, we've inherited that, you know, we didn't fund fully that liability in the years or decades past, right? And so we're in catch up, Pam Roman: yeah? But that, that is actually one place where Wayland is better than is better than a lot of peers, yeah, Phil Giudice: and we're one of 14 communities that is, you know, aaa, triple A rated by movies, and hopefully will continue to Iris Hoxha: be. And may I ask a different question, since you brought it up, Brian, in terms of free cash and pre cash usage, is that an additional lever that we are considering, like, is there an opportunity to tap into a little bit of that free cash. Brian Keveny: Well, we, we've talked about that back in, I would say, 16 and 17 criticized by movies. We still maintain a triple A reading. But they, they frowned against. They criticize the town for using free cash to balance their property balance the operating but. We stopped doing it, I think 2018 Okay, so we've pretty much used free cash for capital items and articles, various articles we did talk about at the at the budget meeting. You know, if all else fails, we would be, would be, be sitting in January, in fact, we're already saying, hey, if we use $500,000 for free cash, we can get by in this budget, with the caveat that it's only a one year, right? If we used free cash to balance a 27 budget, and I'll get into one other thing in a minute, then, then just for one year, I don't think Lewis would give us a negative rate. Yeah, it takes them explaining why. Sure is. The other thing too is that, if we did do that, if we did use free cash, and then we love it, besides our normal stuff, then it would be for this most towns. And I try to have Louise Miller do this, and she actually liked it too. We could just them again, get off the ground when you're going into the collective bargaining and your contracts are not set. Historically, Wayland has put in a reserve for salary adjustment in the town budget. When that budget is not spent, it all goes to high cash in the next year you have to bring into the town budget two years of it. What most towns do is they want a separate article. In putting into a stabilization fund, they put that money so when you have one, say it's a million dollars, they'll put the million dollars into a stabilization fund. Once the storm, after the first year, it's still not selling. You're going into the second yet. Now you have to fund two under the old way you let's just assume the second year is 2 million. So now the second year you're actually appropriating 3 million following on this, as opposed to if you already had a million dollars in your Stabilization Fund. You don't need to be appropriating 2 million, right? So when you settle, you go to town meeting, and you transfer the money out of the civilization fund into the town budget funding, and it's a very high likelihood that the town budget, for the first time, will not have in the town budget. I classified the salary reserve budget group agreed, or heavily supports taking this room. If we did use free cash, it would probably be for that, because right now we have over $500,000 sitting in salary reserve for the fire department. Sure if, hypothetically, the fire department doesn't settle, then that would all go to free cash. And that's not what you want to do, right? You don't want to be reappropriating the same dollars multiple, multiple times, even though it's ending up in free cash, correct? So that you're probably going to get a budget in, you know, when we prepare with the amount of money, not in salaries, right? If the collective bargaining committee unions are not set Iris Hoxha: up, what about? And I'm gonna say something, and I know I said it last year, so you're all gonna laugh with me. What about using free cash to fund some of our other reserves, like the special education reserve fund? Have we had that conversation? So we Unknown: do that. Why would we do that? We do do that. Iris Hoxha: We do do that. What about doing more like we've done it, but like, historically, they've used all those funds, and then the gap has to get Phil Giudice: come back to, you know, for the purpose of today, we the question Is there more questions around the possibility of reclassifying DEP W DEP from FinCom books? Yeah.
Unknown: Yeah, looking for a motion for us to recommend. Please, I move Yes. Iris Hoxha: One more question. Sorry, I'm just looking at the pros and cons under con argument number three, cost of the special election and the benefits of the reclassification are not beneficial to residents. Is the is the only element here, just the $10,000 for the special election, okay? All right, we're just effectively saying there's cost. Okay. All right, thank you. Ask more. Unknown: I don't want to stifle grant. I put this together Phil Giudice: four hours ago, so we can William Huss: help me with the worrying a little bit, but I move that we recommend to the Select Board that we reclassify with DEP W debt to excluded debt.
Phil Giudice: That's the remaining debt, remaining debt, the Unknown: remaining or the remaining. DEP, a Carl Barnes: second favor. Aye.
Phil Giudice: Sec, anything else for Brian while was here, William Huss: Brian, thank you. You're going to continue to join us. I hope you're at future meetings, because I learned a lot. You're a really valuable resource, at least for a new vendor. Brian Keveny: Thank you. Know the budget meeting Wednesday, Phil Giudice: yeah, and did you see my new note? The only, Iris Hoxha: the only comment I had, and I know we've actually discussed this a little bit at our last meeting about, you know, it sounds like for fiscal year 27 fingers crossed. We won't need that override. But moving forward, we will. You know, I've been really thinking about how to help paint that picture. And I think we had talked about sort of having two budgets, one budget that is with the override, one without. I think that it would be helpful to really get at the heart of, obviously, again, I know more conversations are going to happen on the strategy for asking for multi year versus single year, but also trying to get at the heart of painting the picture of what from now through fiscal year 2036 looks like. Because this is it's going to be a long time of this. And I think helping residents understand when they're voting, it's tough, because the residents vote one year at a time, but really, every vote has ramifications on the next year and the year after that. And I think in the absence of really helping explain what's going on, I think there's a little bit of information missing. Yeah, I think, Phil Giudice: I think, I mean, my brothers is to go for a multi year override, right? And sort of lay that out, but that's just one person's perspective. I support that, but, but definitely seeing the 10 year picture, you know, as best we can determine it, I think it's going to be really important. Iris Hoxha: And I think whatever budget we put forth for fiscal year 27 I think we have to be probably really upfront and transparent that this is a one year vote, but this is what's coming down the pipeline. We present this to you with the expectation that this is what's coming, not that we present something to you and then all of a sudden catch you off guard with now you need more, but Unknown: I think the past at least two or three
William Huss: marketing is done between now and the December election. That's actually one of the points, is the one of the reasons we're doing this is to put off the old ride that we know is still coming, Phil Giudice: and the reality of a proposition two and a half is in a world where costs are going up by 4% or 45% it's just a matter of arithmetic that it catches up. But all of that has to be texting Brian. Pam Roman: I just want to ask before you leave, about the bands and what you said, Moody's you've had the conversation you said you're having. You're talking to them tomorrow, but you can talk to them before in the past, already about just using bands for kind of a longer period than we typically have done. Brian Keveny: So we talked to bond counsel in our bank Hill. Tom, okay. Moody's is indifferent. If you use bands and bonds, we're going to be issuing about eight, almost $9 million in bonds, and then we're going to be issuing bands about Carl Barnes: 1.3 million. So Modi's, Brian Keveny: they'll go through their critique about the town's finances, and we've already provided that. So they're indifferent about our financial model with the cycling, that really doesn't matter. Their concern is the town's ability to raise taxes. The town votes an override or it doesn't. There are other factors that go in the biggest the biggest issue right now with Modi's middle town is that they want every AAA town fund balance to be equal to release 20% of the revenues. And it was always they called it the general government, which is the general fund plus stabilization. That metric is now changed. They bring in enterprise funds. They take on the enterprise funds plus the general government, and they want that the total fund balance to be at least 20% of total revenues. And right now we're at 25 and the water department is heading into challenging years with the MWRA and bringing in their revenue as expected and maintaining their own fund balance. So I would think in a few years, we need to be real diligent on the use of free cash, because our free cash is probably going to be 12 million. It doesn't mean we're going to go out and spend it. We need to stop being prudent about using free cash, because it's the one metric that Munis uses to always give us the triple A. It's wealthy town. It's 20% not every town has, you know, 30% I mean, Brookline, Cambridge, maybe, but a lot of the other ones, no, they were in the 20s Phil Giudice: or and it is effectively a stabilization fund that, you know, we can address issues with that free cash as needed. Right? Brian Keveny: So you use free cash as long as you're going to replenish it, right? You don't use free cash and then not replenish it. Nobody builds a budget to have turn backs. It's just a function of what happens when you ultimately spend a lot of stuff happens during the year. You get more revenues and expenses you didn't spend as much. That's what fuels free cash. So there's a balance between use and replenishment, and it's even more important going on the out years, but from balance. So to Pam's question, when Moody's talks to us, they have what we're going to do with bands. They know what we're going to do with bonds. They've already asked their questions about what they wanted to go over. And really none of it was why we're showing bands. They're really indifferent to that. They don't they don't really concern themselves with that. Phil Giudice: And how much money we're talking about being placed. Is it $10 million Did you say into what in the bands? No, 1.3 1.31 Brian Keveny: point and then we're doing 8 million in bonds. Phil Giudice: Okay, so, but the band Pam Roman: isn't the only around nothing. $50,000 of savings or doing bands, because we're not paying back the principal on a larger chunk. Brian Keveny: 700,000 is the levy excluded the savings of doing the bands. The ones is 800,000 okay? Phil Giudice: And that's avoiding principal 800 but that's more than $1.3 million right? Brian Keveny: Yeah, but you took the interest related to the bands you're only paying. You're not paying principal principals that you just pay it back across the town Phil Giudice: is being placed in a in the bond anticipated notes. How much debt is Brian Keveny: that? One total is next week we issue 1.3 million in new bands for existing bands. So we have existing bands right now, right? You must reissue them. In other words, it can't expire in November, and then you wait six months and do it again. You have to do it sequentially. You can't, like, Phil Giudice: mentally doing the math, right? If that's 4% or 5%
interest rate, Brian Keveny: that that's, yeah, we're paying return plane a full year on right here, it seems Phil Giudice: like an Amazon value of those bond of those bands has to be over $10 million to Unknown: get the 800,000 savings, to Get $800,000 Phil Giudice: of principal savings, yes, Unknown: the total interest. Sean, the
total interest on is 91,000 on the 1.3 and the interest on the we're Brian Keveny: going to be doing vans at the end of June, 2026 for five months. The interest on that is 54,000 some total interest crisis 140, Phil Giudice: $5,000 to get the interest cost actually trying to Pam Roman: get what's, what's the what's the principle, or what's the band's issuance. You said at the end of June?
Unknown: No, it's gonna go from November to November. Pam Roman: So November, we're doing 1.3 in vans. Seems like we have to be doing more advanced, like a bigger Phil Giudice: portion in 800,000 of savings for fiscal year 27 I would think that we're much bigger number, Unknown: right? Yeah. I mean, it's you take one point 3,000,004% is 54,000 that's what we're going to pay in Phil Giudice: inches expense. I understand that part, but I'm actually trying to get a handle on how much debt are we placing, Brian Keveny: replacing, replacing place, showing 8 million in being in bond debt, which is long Pam Roman: term debt, but then we're going to be paying principal and interest on that for the water department. Unknown: Yeah, it's funded by user ARPA. Okay, so the general So,
Pam Roman: what bands are we placing whereby we're getting $800,000 of savings to fiscal year for the general fund in fiscal 27 Unknown: so if we had issued all the $16 million next in a couple weeks. That was the original, okay, so wait, what's the 16 we have? Brian Keveny: They even caught up on all this stuff walk us through. So right now we have, we could issue 60 million the plan, when we left last year, we have budgeted for our town meeting approval to issue 16. We were going to issue $60 million in long term debt, okay, bonds in November. That's a mix of general government, general fund in the water department that changed from only issuing half of that and the half of that is just the water in the wastewater projects. We're not going to be issuing long term debt on the on the general fund projects, we're going to be issuing the combination of bands in advance free funding from the general fund. So the only thing that we're adding to the town's total long term debt is the 8 million that's coming on the water side. Right? Wastewater the town. Oh. Is not picking up new principal debt in the fiscal 27 budget, because it's all going to be interest. So what happens is we're going to be issuing bans in November for four projects that we must do only Unknown: 1.3 lane, yeah, and
Brian Keveny: one what else happens. So then, in December, we have other projects that need funding. Okay, sorry, so we're going to be issuing advanced refunding. We're going to be issuing money from the general fund over to these capital projects. Yeah, it's called advancing dur allows towns to take money, as long as your free cash to certify, and the amount of money you're moving from the general fund is less than your free cash amount, you can temporarily move that into these capital projects. Okay? With the requirement that is that it must come back to the general fund. Okay? And June 30, in June, we're going to be issuing a second bid, or looks like maybe seven, eight projects a five month band. So the combination of the bands we're doing next, next couple weeks on for these projects, plus the bands that we're doing in June, the sum total of interest is 145,000 we were going to pay 947,000 principal and interest on those if we had issued everything in November. So that's the savings. Pam Roman: Okay? So it's advanced refunding and the bands, Brian Keveny: yes, it's not refunding. I said there weren't. It's advancing the general fund. Pam Roman: General Fund advance and and advance. Okay, Unknown: I'll email this file Phil Giudice: out to them. Yeah. So all told, we're not going to be issuing anywhere near the $16 million of debt. Brian Keveny: No, once we get to November 26 we will be issuing the 8 million that we didn't do in November 25 plus everything we're going to be doing at the upcoming town meeting. Yeah, and that will just control so when you issue the debt November 26 which is fiscal 27 the debt service doesn't hit until 28 and that's we factor that into our Phil Giudice: forecast. And none of this affects the projects themselves. They'll go on whatever times schedule makes sense for them to go right? Brian Keveny: Well, the important thing is the number right. Are you going to get to it? You don't want to issue debt and sit around for a period of time. Phil Giudice: So if we had issued $16 million like in November, Brian Keveny: we would have had the big principle portion of that, but we'd also have gotten investment return from wherever we invest that money, because we weren't going to be using a big chunk of that. I mean, I told the Selectmen, unless they supported both of them, we might as well just issue the 16 million, because issuing one and not the other, it's, it's, you know, you're asking us to go into a tight budget and find over a million dollars. So either issue that then we would just issue the 16 million and then just have for a 2 million plus override for 27 this is a way to just set the time the town up to prepare for all rides in future. Because, I mean, this second slide is a, really a product of minority. Yeah, did about 14 times, so we came up pretty good, yeah, but this really just shows the structural deficit of revenue. And we talked about, really, what's causing this? And, you know, Wayland is, you know, on the lowest side of new growth. Yeah, I'm sure you've seen that. Phil Giudice: Yes, we've got that the So, anything else I do, think that, you know, in prior years, when we've issued more debt than we've actually needed to spend, like we get a good return on investment in terms of Unknown: years we have, Phil Giudice: yeah, no guarantees. Unknown: You know, there were a number of years where you Phil Giudice: didn't, yeah, got it, Brian, thank you tonight. Unknown: Do you think? Yeah, next
Phil Giudice: topic is benchmarking. William Huss: Okay, we talked about a little bit last time I went back at Phil's suggestion to the database that we had discussed the 12 towns that you consider roughly comparable, and I just chose a bunch of variables that seem to be of interest and not particularly, you know, technical. And I have this on slides which I can distribute, or whatever if you're interested. But I picked 11 variables. And then I also adjusted a number of those variables for population, because sometimes you want to do it per capita. So it ends up being 18 total variables, population. Where do we stand on population, per capita income? So how wealthy are we? What is our residential tax rate? What is our total tax levy? And I also did that per capita. Capital, what is our new growth? I also did that per capita expenditures on police, fire, education and public works, also per capita total budget and our single family tax bill. So those were all kind of intuitive, and I can again, and I'll circulate this for people. And then what I did, you know, it's a pretty basic analysis. And I don't like getting too much in the weeds, but I just decided, okay, of all those variables, which quartile do we fall into? You know, first meeting, we're on the very low side. Second and third meeting, we're kind of in the middle. And fourth meeting, we're at the top. And surprisingly, of the 18 variables, 16 are more in the third or the second quartile. So like we're really in the middle. The ones that stood out as being large or small, as we just discussed, per capita new growth, well, first quartile. Now new growth for second quartile. But if you adjust for population, we are low. And surprisingly to me, at Phil Giudice: least, that's right from the first quartiles the least, the least, yes, William Huss: yes, the first quartiles that were low and the fourth quartile is that were unusually high. What was interesting in terms of neighboring towns? The only town that was below us on per capita growth was Lincoln, and the immediately one notch above us with Sudbury. It surprised me. Well, Sudbury is much higher in total population. So Sudbury, Wayland and Lincoln were the three low. First. We're all all together, Phil Giudice: and I've seen Sudbury grow so much in my years here, at least, that's my sense. But if Unknown: they're also growing in population, yeah, back out, I Phil Giudice: was surprised to see not in this but somewhere else, that Weston has much higher growth levels than Wayland. Yeah. And being, you know, an even more expensive challenge, it surprised me that they get so yeah, William Huss: they weren't particularly high, but they're higher than those, yeah. So yeah. And then the fourth quartile, the only one where we were unusually high was residential tax rate. And the towns. It actually surprised me. The two towns that we were behind were act in Sherburne, and so we were the third highest of the of the 12 towns in terms of the residential tax rate. Pam Roman: So tax rate being dollars per Unknown: house, the middles, Phil Giudice: middles, yeah. What was the, did you do tax bills? Or that was the, William Huss: yeah, we did total Single Family Tax Bill. Yeah, that's in the second quarter. So we're below the media, but we're kind of in the middle of the group. Phil Giudice: So, I mean, one William Huss: conclusion is it was surprising. I mean, you would expect in the quartile analysis, evenly distributed between the first, second, third and fourth, and we're much more skewed to the middle, yeah. Then you would randomly Single
Carl Barnes: Family Tax pills, they were in the second quarter, second quartile, and that's second from lowest, yes, so we're below the median, but we're, you know, kind of in the middle. William Huss: That's surprising, right there. Okay, now that's the dollars per household. So that's not the root of millage. You know, the millage were high, but you know, if our assessed values might be on the low side, then the total tax bill balances it out, Carl Barnes: the millage is essentially a pub number, right? William Huss: I mean, well, the millage, I mean, I'm not an expert in Unknown: this, but your assessment, so William Huss: you cannot there are two factors. There's the millage and the assessment, and they work in opposite directions. So my guess is that our assessments tend to be a little bit lower. So that tends to bring to feel that way to me. I mean, other than maybe the surrounding town, but that pushes us, I mean, we're still, you know, sort of toward the middle in terms of the total family tax bill. We might have more smaller houses here, again, it's not the assessment for Yeah, I understand the identical house in different towns, right? It means that we might have smaller houses in Wayland, even more lower income houses, for example. Phil Giudice: I think all of this is really going to be relevant in the context of Right, right, overall, right? Yeah. William Huss: I think, I mean, I guess the warning thing for us is sort of beware of our residential tax rate. Yes, that's the one thing that we are high on, and we could probably be criticized publicly. Phil Giudice: Yeah, well, it's whatever the facts are, yeah. William Huss: Now one could augment it by saying low growth, yeah, something. So that's an argument in favor. But anyway, that's the general, you know, there are, what, 62 different variables, and I chose 11 of them that were just intuitive ones. We obviously can crunch it, and we can add towns and subtract towns. Phil Giudice: And that was, you know, one point in time, basically true. You know, as you kind of looked at the data, Yeah, true. So all this data is probably a year. Old anyway. William Huss: So anyway, that was, you know, and obviously we can build on it and dig into it. It's, you know, forever, yeah, Phil Giudice: I encourage you to, you know, circulate, Unknown: yeah, I will be able to do that as we speak. Phil Giudice: And the fact that the 12 towns for the same ones that the school board has picked, that feels like a reasonable set? William Huss: Well, what stuck with me was a comment Carl made at the last meeting, was the one of the things that if we're in the middle of everything, maybe it means we have a good set of towns that those are comparable, you know, towns, because we are, in fact, in the middle of them. And I think that the other reason for I like the set of towns, I mean, I like the consistency with the schools, but those are ones that the general public can identify with. I mean, south or north shore or, you know, it's like, why you don't want the public sort of saying, why the heck did you choose this? And then we have to explain a lot of details. Yeah,
Phil Giudice: Iris, this has been a topic that you've been intrigued by. Iris Hoxha: Have been intrigued. Yes, I have been intrigued. I mean, I haven't had as much time on very frank to Luke into all of it myself. But the reality is that there are some that we come under, there's some that we're a little over, right, like and so we're sort of fake your poison, right? There's, there's some data points that we're under this. Some of them were over. I think that certainly it's good to know that we're not in aberration. That I think is comforting, and I think should be a comfort to many people of we're not alone, however you feel, however you feel, we're not alone. Pam Roman: I think we should. I mean, as we kind of discuss this, maybe on our website, have you know, decide which slides we think might be helpful for people to see and just have have that posted, but I think it's really useful information. Yeah, I agree.
Carl Barnes: Cool, Bill, so William Huss: thank you for Yeah, thank you. I will. I will get some sounds hopefully in the media. I'm just looking for everybody's email addresses. Unknown: You can send it to FinCom Wayland. I think I was
William Huss: FinCom members of Wayland, Unknown: I will say,
Iris Hoxha: I'm glad we did this. I'm glad we looked into it. I think this was necessary. We have really old information. And I think, you know, as we move forward, I think this information will be important, and I think making it the information accessible to folks in the town will help them again, for themselves, figure out what's important to them, and if they're aligned with where Wayland stands in terms of this information. Pam Roman: Were there any other I mean, so you ended up using the school comparable group? Were there any other towns that I don't know if you looked at or considered that were on the other list that are just kind of stayed with William Huss: that? No, I pretty much just, I mean, to me, the school list. Look, I'll read it off to but it looked pretty reasonable. I mean acting Bedford, Boxborough, Carlisle, Concord, Dover Lexington, Lincoln, Needham, Sherburn, Sudbury, Wellesley, Weston, Wayland, you might argue, Maynard or something, but Unknown: it does seem like it
Carl Barnes: intuitively feels like the right Pam Roman: list. It does. I just if the question comes up, I mean, because there was, we did have another FinCom list, we should just have an answer, Unknown: yeah, I don't Pam Roman: think you know if they're for the for the outliers, we can explain why wait? William Huss: And at least from my uneducated point of view, because I wasn't part of the group that selected that other list is that it was really geography. I mean, some of the ones on their list didn't have a geographical connection to us, and that stood out to me. It's like, well, and there must have been a financial reason why they were comparable geographically, they'd be not close.
Phil Giudice: It had been described to me by some I don't know if they were involved or secondhand or whatever DEP they chose a FinCom list that had less well off towns, specifically, which I'm not sure was relevant to whatever. There was another goal. Yeah, there was another goal. What was described to me? I do like the idea of putting it up on the website. I haven't looked at our website in a long while, but it's pretty old. It felt like, yeah. Pam Roman: It is. And I think we've there was some stuff up there, and a lot of it got cleaned, but Unknown: on there, yeah, yeah, William Huss: I just sent me that slide, very basic. It's basically two slides. Unknown: So thank you. Thank you.
Phil Giudice: Reminds me you're just a side comment. The there is another candidate to come onto FinCom. Oh, good. Not quite done yet in terms of going through the process, but hopefully that will have you talked to them. I have
encouraged that his interest continues, so we'll see how that works out. Carl Barnes: Excellent. That won't be the new one.
Phil Giudice: And with that Carl MWRA getting clean water into our town Unknown: there, I can do this in about 30 seconds. It's not much information, but I looked at those that say list of towns, downloaded a spreadsheet from the from the state government with the results of every override. Oh yeah, that's right, since, I think since proposition two and a half was passed. And then I took guys, so, you know, got the list down to those same 12 or 13 towns and Wayland and I guess I was surprised by this, but the reality is that only two of those towns have had overrides in the last 10 years. Carl Barnes: So, and we have not either. So we were right there.
ActOn had one in 2025 past. Sudbury has had three in the last 10 years. 11 years. Most recent was in 2023 the other towns and that list of noi recently had them. Phil Giudice: Response, oh yes, it did. Sudbury. Carl Barnes: Did well. It passed. It was a three quarters of million dollars, you know, for the basically, for the school's operating budget single year, passed by a nice margin that Acton override was much larger, 6.6 million, mostly for the schools, but some for general government purposes. And they it was a 50.29% Unknown: Wow, margin, Carl Barnes: I think slow, but it passed. I did take a Phil Giudice: look, you know, kind of what was
Carl Barnes: suggested a look, you know, kind of what was suggested a minute ago. And some other towns that are nearby are kind of felt like they might be relevant, in part because looking for examples of how to present this to to and so Belmont had a very large number, right? $8.4 million two years ago, two years ago, two fiscal years ago. So 18 months or something like that, passed by a pretty good margin. I think they had the most interesting information of the towns that I had been looked at, including a letter from the Select Board, and, you know, a tax calculator so you can see exactly what object you would do to your your house or your taxes. Kind of Arlington had some pretty good materials for their their recent override. But in part, they promised this would have been fiscal 24 and they promised no further overrides for operational reasons, and at least until fiscal year 27 you know. So that was clearly going to be a three year override. It was about $7 million so, you know, there's patterns. Yeah, there are some patterns, even in that little bit. And I'm not a data analyst, but, yeah, I might have expected, just because you hear about this all the time, that would have been more William Huss: Yeah, one of the things I refresh my memory that right after our last meeting, I did an analysis, and I know it brought it with me, but my hypothesis was, if the reason for the override has to do with schools, you have a better chance of Passing. Sure looks so I looked at all of the overrides in the state of the last 10 year, whatever the database was, and like 65% if you had schools as your purpose, you had a 65% chance of passage. If you did not, you had like, a 40% chance of passage. So if you want it to pass somehow, link it to the schools, and it raises the likelihood doesn't guarantee it. The reason
Carl Barnes: I know it, that's why I know Phil Giudice: the livestock ARPA ride, which was 2016 2013 more than 10. Yeah, I do remember the. The schools was the driver of the conversation. And, you know, mobilizing the townspeople William Huss: and the Sudbury one in 2023, of the schools, Phil Giudice: yeah. But I mean, it wasn't just, you know, been, you know, the materials. It was like people took it on certain, as, you know, safe our schools Exactly, exactly, that's a huge driver.
William Huss: So again, not surprising, but I was just curious, does the data support that? And it does. Phil Giudice: And schools are, wherever it is, 70% of our spend like that, so school is going to be the driver. Good
Carl Barnes: stuff. Okay, good. Okay, so I did. I didn't actually participate in the meeting, but I did watch the WayCAM video on September 16. Board Public Works met anything to do. The headline here is that 30% design, the 30% design milestone, has been achieved. They're that far along with the consultants, and are reaching toward approaching the 60% miles. And as of the 16th, they had not not identified anything that would give them reason to think the cost was going to change. Specifically that it would not increase so so far so good. Couldn't they come Unknown: again down Well,
Carl Barnes: there was a gentleman from the mass DEP, from the State Revolving Fund there, who participated in the meeting, and he indicated, first of all, I think we know this, but the baseline is alone. For interest free loan for 20 years, there were fees and charges that bring that to about that add up to about another half a percent, a half a percent of the amount borrowed. I believe that's a one time half percent. So it's not, you know, annual fees, not 100% sure of that, but I think that's right. He also said that we could conceivably go back to 30 years on the loan. It would bear interest for the entire 30 years, not just the last 10, at somewhere between point four and point 6% so we'd have to do the math and decide which is the better alternative. But that's that's as long as we can get a certificate of useful life that would show that the project will still be operational in 30 years. That seems to be possible. And the best thing about that I heard is that we don't lock in the terms until the project is complete. We borrow the money up front, to the extent, well, you borrow the money up front period, and then we lock in the terms where the project's completed. Iris Hoxha: And that interest rate isn't like variable. There's no way it's going to change. Carl Barnes: It's a fixed rate. Iris Hoxha: Well, let me say this, the interest rate offered is locked in, right? The the interest offer is locked in. It's not like when you go to apply for a mortgage, if interest rates have gone up and you haven't locked in the rate, they're going to offer you a mortgage interest Carl Barnes: rate. It's not a bank note. But Shane, I think that they, they have a lot of history and making these loans, and I think, you know, I saw nothing at that meeting that would indicate that they're Iris Hoxha: gonna switch. Us wondering, is there other outside, external circumstances that could change that interest rate? But sounds like we don't expect that. Carl Barnes: Well, the outside, the largest risk, which, frankly, the gentleman from the DEP didn't seem to think was it was huge, is that, you know, is that the DEP uses federal funds with state matches. And you know, Washington is Washington right now, but he said that. He said that PFAS funding among places where this money comes from is still important, maybe not to Congress and maybe not to the President right now, but right now, he thinks that's not a huge risk. And he also he DEP has funds that are being repaid for other projects you know, that are in their coffers. So you know, he doesn't see, at this moment that any reason why they can't fund the full project, subject to the caveat that that could change. So and the last thing I think of relevance to us is simply that
the DEP doesn't care how we pay for this. That is to say they're indifferent between rates or through taxation, so we don't have to. Don't have to take their, their use into consideration there. So that is the update from them. Oh, actually there's one, one more of an update. When I was talking about the minutes earlier, I described the information I was going to seek to get the Select Board to ask for while I've been dithering on that, we actually got some of it. And I'll share this with you, Phil first, and then once I understand it better, I'll circulate among us. Board of Public Works seems to have put together an impact matrix on water users, if we put all of the the cost of the project into the rates. Oh, great, obviously. Well, that's, yeah, right. I think it's the more difficult half, actually. So I can't make the math work. And I've got a there was actually a circling by Tom holder. I think it's a five minute conversation with him. Just see, you know how it's supposed to work. And as soon as I have that, they will put it on the agenda for next time, but I'll circulate in the meantime as well, once, once I know what it says. Good. Phil Giudice: Okay, the engine, when you talk to Tom, could you ask him about the the alternative, the option fee. How much would it affect people's Carl Barnes: tax? Well, I can not sure. That's his bailiwick. Phil Giudice: I think the Abrams could do that. I mean, it's, I think, well, and it seems
Carl Barnes: like we, I would, that's right. I'm trying to articulate, if I were him, I'd say, You're the Finance Committee. Phil Giudice: You figure it out. We don't have staff so but I think that they're going to need to be presenting to select board as to why they don't want to put into rates. Won't they have Option A and Option B. Carl Barnes: They've already presented this slide for and recommended Phil Giudice: it. Yeah, but they don't. They need they they're going to be asked to actually make a formal presentation on this, and they haven't yet. I think McCall has directed them to read a presentation on rates versus Carl Barnes: taxes. Okay, I was honestly not aware of that,
Phil Giudice: not part of it, but that's what my understanding. Carl Barnes: Yeah, I know this information is now two weeks old, but I think that they think they're done with that. Phil Giudice: Oh, okay, I don't think I'll find out. Yeah, they're good and yeah, I think Thomas McCall will go in front of the, you know, town meeting, and if there needs to be more of a rationale for that, I think Carl Barnes: I don't disagree with you, that's what we're trying to do here. But I All I'm suggesting is I think they made their recommendation that we have to now figure out whether we Okay. Have a better idea Iris Hoxha: on that note, not to, not to change it up, but the conversation we had last time I thought, lean towards the majority of us being more in line when they Dave a mixed approach. Yeah, okay, I still feel that way. Absolutely. Phil Giudice: But seeing, Iris Hoxha: we want to see it in order to make the formal recommendation, Okay, makes sense to me. I just wanted to say, and Tom, as I Phil Giudice: reflect on it, the 15% of water that's going to come from the $20 million whatever the number is for the actual MWRA capital that could easily be DEP separate from the $18 billion that's going to be for the PFAS that's going to be used every day. Iris Hoxha: Yeah, so Yeah, makes sense, but that's Unknown: to be determined. William Huss: So what do we see is the process and where do we sort of put our input? Phil Giudice: Not sure we're it's really between Select Board and Board of Public Works. Okay, Select Board can direct us to, you know, weigh in, and I expect they may at some point, William Huss: so we will wait for the Select Board to make it involved. Yeah, okay, Iris Hoxha: you don't think we should. I mean, maybe, when you talk to Carol, like, you know, maybe we should say something to them, okay, okay, so they're aware that we have a different Phil Giudice: mind, yeah, but it's not. We don't have a formal role. Understood. That's fine. Public Works, sets rates, select board set stacks policy. So those are the two authorities. But yeah, we can definitely weigh in and expect we will at some point. Cool, so you're not going to send a letter to Carol or no. Carl Barnes: Unfortunately, I spent a lot of time drafting so Phil Giudice: okay, because I had thought I had talked to Tom in the hall after our last meeting and asked him for that. He said, No problem. So
the next agenda item is a 100 ish page, 120 page financial policy manual, which I did circulate around. I have flipped through it. Okay to me, I wrote it to be that, apparently there hasn't been a written financial policy manual. Moody's has made that noted a few times. So there was a desire to get one circulated, finalized division of local services, I think, is actually the author of it, yes, from the Department of Revenue, right? There is some typos in it and other things, but that Select Board has actually voted on it and put it in place. So wanted to just make sure FinCom had it in its circulation, and if, as you flip through it, if there's concerns or issues or something William Huss: like, what is the genesis of it? Was it written by by the thing the finance staff. It was Phil Giudice: not written by finance staff. It has been a request for multiple years that, for whatever reason, never got attended to the town as the division local services, which is part of the Department of Revenue that, okay, puts out that spreadsheet. Okay, to create one, they took it off the shelf or so. It's pretty standard. It's pretty standard. Yeah, it's not specific to Wayland. It's, I didn't see it as specific to Wayland, okay, Pam Roman: I think it, some of it has to be, because it has to agree with code. Unknown: Yeah. So yeah. And if we have any questions, because I had a couple, like, little things shape good to you, Phil Giudice: yeah, for me, they it will definitely be revised on a regular schedule, will be looked at. But if there's other things. So, yes, it's long, but it does get to things like, you know, capital should go into, you know, non operating projects go into excluded debt. So there's actually
Unknown: guidelines. Yes, spelled out.
Phil Giudice: That concludes what I was expected to put forth today, any clear topics, issues here for interesting times ahead, has the federal government potentially becomes less supportive of Massachusetts, and Massachusetts is going to have to scramble. It's going to ripple through every town, and towns that are well above income levels are probably going to have to bear more different have no idea what that is. Unknown: That a discussion point and how to and Phil Giudice: it's sources, not just kind of be aware, I think that. And then the other question that the there's a chance that I know the bargain unit conversations and the a budget and B budget is very sensitive to the people, obviously that work here, and so we should be thoughtful about that. Whatever our financial circumstances are, we got to kind of figure it out Unknown: our negotiations, they've started. Have started, Phil Giudice: not maybe negotiations, but there's been search, stage, setting meetings as to what the circumstances are. Carl Barnes: We'll see how that all goes forward. And Unknown: it does sound likely that we be looking at
Iris Hoxha: an article versus Unknown: like Brian was talking about looking at, in the past, we've always done the set aside for, oh, the reserve, for the reserve, yes, so it'd be an article versus a reserve, and that's yes still in discussion. Phil Giudice: No, I don't think that. It's sort of clear, yeah, and sort of currently there are discussions, I think, that maybe not formally, but maybe the fire department's open contracts are in front of arbitration right now, in final discussions before arbitration, and so that needs to get settled. And there's some, you know, distance between asks and what other time? Yeah, it's been a long time, and that been teased up in parallel with all the Carl Barnes: current conversations.
Iris Hoxha: Only thing I'll say is totally appreciate everyone here is doing their best. Yeah, and certainly, the questions don't at all take away from it. The questions are really just coming from a place of the fact that, you know, to my neighbors right to ask the questions and just make sure, like that we all understand, because you're right. Have times ahead for everyone, and I'm sure that, like, everyone will be asked to, you know, have to support. And I also think that there's something to be said for, I don't know. I think everyone has a limit, and I think that's something to think through to, like, where does that Phil Giudice: limit live? I think we're going to get a test on December on this diary classification as to kind of work. Iris Hoxha: And I think we have to honor that a little bit too. Of like, we can only ask so many so much from our fellow town citizens and town residents as well, right? But it doesn't at all. It does not at all the fact that we acknowledge that everyone here is doing their best and working Phil Giudice: incredibly hard Well, you know, let's no longer have any garden or, you know, start skipping grades, or 50 person classroom, something. Not that any of those proposals are on the table. No, those are kind of the hard choices, right? Iris Hoxha: There will be hard choices. I think that's the point of like, I guess part of why I asked the questions is because I acknowledge that hard choices are coming, and I almost feel like hearing what those choices are will help us, if we have time to react and think through them instead of feeling rushed. That's what I worry about, is Phil Giudice: that it's tough, though there's so many variables that we don't know, 12% is a plug number. Pam Roman: That's still healthcare. I don't know if that's extreme. I don't think that's extreme, extremely conservative either. No, but I would agree with that. I've seen other healthcare for 2026 Phil Giudice: numbers come in much lower than that. But you know, what are those circumstances? And you know the fact that we had a 3% increase last year, that was like, that was an operation, something we Iris Hoxha: should anticipate. And those are big numbers. They're big numbers. But again, I just say, you know, I don't think that there's, frankly, any world in which a classroom is 50 kids, but I do think that we're going to get significant questions and asks really appreciate and understand the trade offs, because everything is a trade off. And again, I I, I personally just, you know, look at my neighbors and friends and family and really feel this sense of making sure that I really understand what's on the table to be able to help explain the Phil Giudice: situation that wants to come. And things like benchmarking, I think it's even, William Huss: you know, it's interesting, and I think it's sort of human nature and the way things but our discussion immediately goes down to, well, if we cut costs, we're going to have big classes, and we go right to schools like, well, yes, it's a big part. It's three quarters. But there are other things one can look at and plus, there are ways of, I would think, reducing school costs, which aren't really so, but that argument tends to be effective. So I don't know whether it's entirely valid. It's basically valid points, but it's a really effective argument because that it's the fear, oh my god, we can't have class. Our children won't learn well, won't have kindergarten? Yes, I'll vote for it. Iris Hoxha: But I think our job is to provide transparent and honest information. It's not just to bend a story. Carl Barnes: Oh, great. You know, to follow up on what you know some of your hypotheticals. DEP cuts. So far, the things can change tomorrow. I've only in a year, roughly a year, only one resident in town has tried to talk to me about any of this. And it's really even that's an exaggeration. But a week ago, he ran to my wife at the at the transfer station, and and he said, please ask your husband to sharpen his pencil. And had fun about that. And I, and I, had I been there, and I might actually seek him out. I think I'd like to ask him what I should cut. I mean, not that I get the, you know, I don't the power to make the cut, but, but if somebody's telling me we don't have the budget for and we can't raise taxes. And I know that's not your thing. I want to know what what their priorities are. I think we need to know that when people talk to us about this, William Huss: yeah, I mean, as long as I mean, if you're in the five or 10% range, I think it's almost imperceptible. It's like, well, maybe there's an after school program or there, maybe there's, you know, the classes go from 30 to 32 you know, it's much smaller, and almost, you know, sort of not clear when people start to feel that impact. So it's a much more subtle discussion than I think classes will double in size. Discussion. That's why it's hard. We don't Pam Roman: provide those actual examples either. I mean, those are department Unknown: by department.
Iris Hoxha: Some some towns have so like as part of their overrides. When we get to that point, some towns have said, If you don't pass this, here's the Unknown: actual we William Huss: expect to have a week, you know, we'll look at the without override budget and say, what do we lose?
Pam Roman: I guess, like the timing. Now, if we're talking about a December vote, election, vote. If that doesn't pass, then, then we don't have a lot of time to That's right, to work on things, to get the message out. Iris Hoxha: So presumably, maybe I misunderstood. Presumably, they're being conservative. We've got some free cash we could use like, I think what I'm really hearing is we've sort of picked our path for this year in the absence of something really shocking. We're gonna try to make it work without Phil Giudice: first in the first Iris Hoxha: step is the election. The first step is the election to give us additional capacity. But even without it, we're still going, to some William Huss: extent, I think the messaging, you know, it'll be in the post there in the Wayland, you know, newspaper is what you just said. You know, general public, you can either vote for the the exclusion, or we could do an override this year. I mean, that's really what, you know, I think the message, Pam Roman: but I think you're saying that the town has figured out other ways, even if it doesn't Okay, so even
Unknown: we're
Iris Hoxha: gonna, try to find every other ADU. Phil Giudice: The other thing about overrides is, I look at these numbers, is I would like a three year override. Yes, number needs to be but that's just as I look at it. Get everyone, sort of you know up to speed on what the choices are. Unknown: You ready five years, but something, yeah, you're not going back. Anything
Phil Giudice: else for tonight. Iris Hoxha: No motion to adjourn. Phil Giudice: Second, all in favor. Thank you.
William Huss: I think I took me three tries, but yeah, thank you. Unknown: All Connected.
Finance Committee Appointing Board
18-Sep-25 - Finance Committee Appointing Board
Cherry Karlson: Jailyn making is
functional. I'm going to call us
to order Thursday, September 18
of 2025, at 330 in the
afternoon, via zoom. This is a
meeting of the Finance Committee
appointing board. This meeting
will be only remote. You can
join on the town website. We
will also take public comment
that way. There is no in person
attendance. We will have public
comment, as I mentioned, and you
can access that through the town
link. Let's see the meeting is
being recorded and will be
available on WayCAM, according
to their policies. So I'm going
to quickly. Oh, and today, we
have Carol Martin, Miranda Jones
and myself. Cherry Karlson,
okay, check all those boxes. I'm
going to review the agenda for
the public. Then we will have
announcements from the board and
any public comment. We'll look
at our minutes from the last
meeting in June. We'll look at
the annual reports that we can
submit it on time by the end of
the month. We'll talk about
recruitment efforts. We'll talk
about the leadership of this
committee and vote of chair for
the remainder of this year. We
can talk about next meeting
dates and reports and concerns.
I don't have any topics not
reasonably anticipated, and then
we'll adjourn close to four
o'clock today. So are there any
announcements from the board?
Okay, seeing none. We'll move to
public comment. Is there any
public comment?
Jailyn Bratica: I see no one.
Cherry Karlson: Okay, thank you,
Jailyn. So we will move on from
public comment. Let's take a
look at the minutes from June 3.
Carol. Thank you for putting
those together.
Carol Martin: I I forgot to put
draft minutes on the top. Sorry.
Cherry Karlson: It's okay. We
the the agenda calls them as
draft, so we're good. I There's
one. I'm not seeing it now. I
thought there was one typo. Oh,
bottom of the first page only
because my computer is picking
this up. Publicizing is missing
a C under Finance Committee
recruitment.
Carol Martin: Oh, that's the next second. That's the second second page. Oh, yeah, on my just put it in. Cherry. Can I ask you to do that? Miranda Jones: No, I just fixed that. Well, it should be, it should be a CI, not a CI, right? Not a Z. Carol Martin: Oh, yeah, there's not enough letters there. Miranda Jones: Yeah, you're missing two
Cherry Karlson: funny my autocorrect wants to make it publishing, but I will work on that. So, yes, Carol Martin: I think that's fair. I suppose. What was happening with me, and I kept trying to put it back and then eventually auto correct won. Because why don't we just take Cherry Karlson: it? I'm just going to go with auto correct and make it publishing it accomplishes the same thing candidates, including publishing the recruitment statement. Yeah, okay, I didn't have anything else, Miranda, did? Miranda Jones: You know? Nope, not at all. I can make a motion to adopt as amended or approved a motion to approve as amended. Excuse me, Carol Martin: Second. Thank you, Carol,
Cherry Karlson: as amended. Any other comments? Okay, so we have a motion to approve as amended. We'll do a roll call vote. Carol, yes. Miranda, yep. Carry, yes, it's three to zero on the minutes. Do I have someone who would take minutes Miranda Jones: I am doing it right now? Sorry, I should have told you that. Cherry Karlson: No, that's okay. Thanks. Miranda, Miranda Jones: yeah, of course.
Cherry Karlson: Okay, and I'll send those in, since I just made the change to the copy that I have, so I'll send them in so that we're online. Miranda Jones: Thank you. T The Okay, great, Cherry Karlson: but yeah, so I'll take care of that. Okay, the annual report. So due by the end of the month, I drafted this sort of based on what we did last year. Did it a little bit chronologically. I can easily get it to one page if we take out the vice chair and the second secretary line, seeing as we don't have anybody, Miranda Jones: yeah, I wouldn't, yeah. So yeah, you need, okay, yeah, I would get rid of those. There's no need Cherry Karlson: with the ex officio. I'll get rid of that. Miranda Jones: Yep, great. Okay, Carol Martin: we need a capital C and chair on Select Board, seeing how we have initial caps on the Miranda Jones: Yeah, it's a title that's fine. Give it a capital C, yeah. It would, okay, yeah, I would, yeah. Cherry Karlson: That's good, no, especially because it says member capitalized, chair should be capitalized, yes, so, and that's our role on this board. So, yes, right, Carol Martin: okay, I will say there's I make a motion to approve, but I, one thought, with what I did with the Select Board, um, annual submission. It's from the chair, but you know, really, the committee does the whole work, so I've submitted it, Respectfully submitted on behalf of the board. And I don't know if you'd like if there. This is a small committee. It doesn't matter. But I just thought, this one respect this on behalf of the committee, right? That sounds Yep. And then Cherry Karlson: I was just, it just comes that as you know, it just comes that way in the template. So I have no issue with that, so I'll make that change, Carol Martin: right? That was the same with we said, but I thought, I mean, I've got five members more, all doing the work. So, all right, so I'm going to move that we approve the 2025, annual report submission as amended.
Miranda Jones: I will second discussion. Yep,
Cherry Karlson: any thing else I chose in the draft. I did not put in the names of the candidates that we interviewed. I just went with what the process was, okay. I just wanted to make certain that I called that out there Miranda Jones: in our meeting minutes with these people, exactly. Cherry Karlson: It's very easy to this is, yeah, just a report, simple report, agreed of her important work. Carol Martin: Jailyn will have her happy face on with us now. I know I got a big list yesterday who wasn't in. Cherry Karlson: Oh, I Jailyn knew that this is when we were meeting, so I know. Okay, so we have a motion and a second to amended any other discussion. No hearing, none. We'll take a vote, a roll call vote. Miranda, Miranda Jones: yes. Carol Yes. Cherry Karlson: Cherry, yes. Three to zero. Thank you guys, sure. Recruitment. Jailyn, you know, has done a couple of things for us. She got a blurb in the town newsletter that then linked through to the more complete statement, and she right after labor day of school was really getting going, she reposted the recruitment statement, and I just updated the dates at the bottom because it was a little stale after our January meeting, but I didn't make any changes To the body of it. And we do have one gentleman who is doing research with the chair and the former vice chair, and that was active last week, so I'll reach out to him following this meeting and see if he has done enough homework that if he's interested in continuing. But we do have two open seats right now. There is a piece in the packet, but it just shows that, you know, with the resignation, we now have one seat expiring in 27 and one in 28. Pam Roman has been, you know, very helpful, and is still there. But, you know, pending any other information, we do still have one seat. We have two seats to fill right now, and one active candidate. And so I would just say, if you've got other ideas, Carol, I know we had talked before about whether or not we wanted to put anything in the in the town newspaper that gets mailed to everybody, you know, I have Carol knows, I've touched base, you know, individually with other people on the Select Board, just to say that we're looking. I know the Chair of the Finance Committee is, you know, actively looking, Miranda Jones: I'm sorry. Besides, Pam, who else do Unknown: we have the we had the resignation from Michael Hoyle. Michael Hoyle, thank you. I was going to say the gentleman that that was chair, right? So, and he started a new job and needed to resign immediately. Miranda Jones: So that was, yeah, but, but he's not even listed on here. Unknown: No, once they once they resign. the way the software works, Miranda, it comes off, which, okay, fortunately, it doesn't list the open seat. But you can tell by the expiry dates that it would have been 2027, yeah, okay, a two year position and a three year position.
Carol Martin: And we are grateful Tom, I'm sorry, Miranda Jones: sorry we have, currently have two seats we need to fill. Yes, and Pam is just hanging on, hanging on until we find her replacement. Okay, we Carol Martin: are most grateful to her for that, because being an invaluable resource for the new chair who is only in a second year of the finance committee, so the institutional knowledge is just invaluable. Cherry Karlson: And when I do have candidates, I do and I handle it all in one email so they all know. But I do have them reach out to the Chair of the Finance Committee, but I also suggest they reach out to Pam, just because of the depth of her knowledge. And I figure that gives anyone a good balance, okay? And then I also share, you know, where they can find information about the Finance Committee, just in terms of, you know, the report and the warrant and the website, that type of thing,
Miranda Jones: okay? Cherry Karlson: So that's where we are. I think a. As I said, I will reach out to this gentleman and see if he wants to move forward. I think we asked Jailyn to push the statement again, yeah, like the first of October, and just see. And you know, as you speak with people mention it. Yeah. Miranda Jones: Yeah. Question for you these meetings, are they typically in person or hybrid or a combination, or does it vary from meeting meeting to meeting Carol Martin: hybrid? Miranda Jones: Okay, great, because I just there is somebody, I think she's in Europe right now, based on her Instagram post, there is somebody that I might try and recruit, see if she can do it. Carol Martin: Yeah, so I do want to add that with the since the days that Cherry and I were there, right, I believe that the workload has reduced for a number of reasons. One is with the adoption of the Town manager act. You know, the development and the responsibility for developing the budget comes through to them versus they were more involved with the second. The second thing is that and the Tom manager is also responsible for the developing the capital plan, but with the addition of the capital and planning and improvement committee, yes, I had thought I had it backwards. You know, they're going to focus, hopefully around on capital, but they are also going to now write the blurbs that go with the annual capital
Cherry Karlson: to shared responsibility, Carol Martin: yeah, well, there's, there's some more work that we're taking, you know, I'm sure they're going to be very sad to not have to do. And finally, we're having a conversation at the Select Board level, and I'm saying, Oh, this, okay, someone's watching this. You know, for recruitment, we are looking at find ways to not reduce the quality, but to streamline the annual or the warrant, we think that's gotten a little might be a little more, bigger is better. We're hoping that we can because I think when you hand someone, as I've said, 130 page nonfiction book and they got to read in two weeks, I'm not sure that we're accomplishing our goal. So one of the things is, we've had conversation with the finance committee chairs, both the former and the current, about really streamlining, for example, the report, which is another big project that they take on. And so these are things that I think should add to make being on a finance committee more Miranda Jones: palatable, Carol Martin: palatable. Iir'm just gonna say the same thing, and that's part of the reason why I think it's important that our interested candidates talk with the current chair and the former chair, because it has changed so much since we right. And I mean, they haven't quite finalized that they're going to make no but they're working. We're working in that direction. So, you know, instead of doing a 20 page report, you guys are doing like an eight, I'm making it up. Yeah, that's half the work, isn't it? Miranda Jones: So the more we reduce the volume of of stuff at town meeting, the better whatever way it takes, right? Carol Martin: Yeah, Miranda is my partner in crime. Miranda Jones: We must maintain transparency. So now I am, I'm working on it might logistically on my end about how can I cut back on my end time? Carol Martin: So, like, what has established is to try to do some streamlining on that. Miranda Jones: So, yeah, no, I think we will. We will bring more people to it. Yes, with one one night. Other towns can get done even more warrant articles than we have and get it done in one night. Town of North Andover, they often have 3000 people show up, and they still get it done in one night. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, alright. Unknown: Well, that's that's where that stands, as we have in the past, as I get candidates, I'll just let you know that we have someone you know in the pipeline, and if this gentleman is interested in going forward, I'll get dates out so that we can find a time to interview Miranda Jones: right? Super, okay, do that Cherry Karlson: sixth on the agenda is leadership. I forgot to put this on our agenda in June, but I do want to make certain that we formally elect a chair to serve for the remainder of this fiscal year. So are you running? Carol Martin: I have zero interest in this chair. Totally. Why? Since I talked to you the other day, I picked up another committee or two. I'm going to move. I move. Miranda Jones: I think. Can I tell you I'm becoming a grandmother. Okay? I think abilities coming my way. Unknown: I think we actually have a very nice balance of workload. So I Yes, I would be willing to do it. Miranda Jones: That is wonderful. Carol Martin: I move when we I move that we nominate, I guess, oh, I nominate, that's the right phrase. I nominate Cerry Karlson as the chair for FY 26 of the Finance. Committee appointing board. Miranda Jones: I second that nomination. Unknown: Thank you guys are funny. Is there any other discussion on the topic? Hearing none. Carol Martin: None. Not a word. Cherry Karlson: We'll do a roll call vote. Carol, Carol Martin: yes. Miranda, yes, yes. Unknown: Cherry, yes. Thank you guys. I appreciate Miranda Jones: a major campaign. Cherry ran. It was, you know, this is the kind, this is a good that's the right way to do it. Next on here we have determine the next meeting date. I just think that's, it's premature right now, so I will reach out to you in one of those administrative emails when we have someone to interview, yep, Carol Martin: okay, I probably will be the challenge round on that. So can you give us three or four dates? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Thank you. Cherry Karlson: Any reports and concerns from you? Nothing going on? Okay, no, look at that. We did. It's at 346
Carol Martin: I move we adjourn at 346 Miranda Jones: motion to adjourn. Cherry Karlson: Okay, we there any other discussion? I hearing? None. We'll do a roll call. Vote. Miranda, yes. Carol Martin: Carol, oh yes, yes, Cherry Karlson: three zero to adjourn at 346 thanks for getting through this agenda, and I'll keep you posted on our candidate. All right, it's great to see you both. Thanks for.
Carol Martin: Oh, that's the next second. That's the second second page. Oh, yeah, on my just put it in. Cherry. Can I ask you to do that? Miranda Jones: No, I just fixed that. Well, it should be, it should be a CI, not a CI, right? Not a Z. Carol Martin: Oh, yeah, there's not enough letters there. Miranda Jones: Yeah, you're missing two
Cherry Karlson: funny my autocorrect wants to make it publishing, but I will work on that. So, yes, Carol Martin: I think that's fair. I suppose. What was happening with me, and I kept trying to put it back and then eventually auto correct won. Because why don't we just take Cherry Karlson: it? I'm just going to go with auto correct and make it publishing it accomplishes the same thing candidates, including publishing the recruitment statement. Yeah, okay, I didn't have anything else, Miranda, did? Miranda Jones: You know? Nope, not at all. I can make a motion to adopt as amended or approved a motion to approve as amended. Excuse me, Carol Martin: Second. Thank you, Carol,
Cherry Karlson: as amended. Any other comments? Okay, so we have a motion to approve as amended. We'll do a roll call vote. Carol, yes. Miranda, yep. Carry, yes, it's three to zero on the minutes. Do I have someone who would take minutes Miranda Jones: I am doing it right now? Sorry, I should have told you that. Cherry Karlson: No, that's okay. Thanks. Miranda, Miranda Jones: yeah, of course.
Cherry Karlson: Okay, and I'll send those in, since I just made the change to the copy that I have, so I'll send them in so that we're online. Miranda Jones: Thank you. T The Okay, great, Cherry Karlson: but yeah, so I'll take care of that. Okay, the annual report. So due by the end of the month, I drafted this sort of based on what we did last year. Did it a little bit chronologically. I can easily get it to one page if we take out the vice chair and the second secretary line, seeing as we don't have anybody, Miranda Jones: yeah, I wouldn't, yeah. So yeah, you need, okay, yeah, I would get rid of those. There's no need Cherry Karlson: with the ex officio. I'll get rid of that. Miranda Jones: Yep, great. Okay, Carol Martin: we need a capital C and chair on Select Board, seeing how we have initial caps on the Miranda Jones: Yeah, it's a title that's fine. Give it a capital C, yeah. It would, okay, yeah, I would, yeah. Cherry Karlson: That's good, no, especially because it says member capitalized, chair should be capitalized, yes, so, and that's our role on this board. So, yes, right, Carol Martin: okay, I will say there's I make a motion to approve, but I, one thought, with what I did with the Select Board, um, annual submission. It's from the chair, but you know, really, the committee does the whole work, so I've submitted it, Respectfully submitted on behalf of the board. And I don't know if you'd like if there. This is a small committee. It doesn't matter. But I just thought, this one respect this on behalf of the committee, right? That sounds Yep. And then Cherry Karlson: I was just, it just comes that as you know, it just comes that way in the template. So I have no issue with that, so I'll make that change, Carol Martin: right? That was the same with we said, but I thought, I mean, I've got five members more, all doing the work. So, all right, so I'm going to move that we approve the 2025, annual report submission as amended.
Miranda Jones: I will second discussion. Yep,
Cherry Karlson: any thing else I chose in the draft. I did not put in the names of the candidates that we interviewed. I just went with what the process was, okay. I just wanted to make certain that I called that out there Miranda Jones: in our meeting minutes with these people, exactly. Cherry Karlson: It's very easy to this is, yeah, just a report, simple report, agreed of her important work. Carol Martin: Jailyn will have her happy face on with us now. I know I got a big list yesterday who wasn't in. Cherry Karlson: Oh, I Jailyn knew that this is when we were meeting, so I know. Okay, so we have a motion and a second to amended any other discussion. No hearing, none. We'll take a vote, a roll call vote. Miranda, Miranda Jones: yes. Carol Yes. Cherry Karlson: Cherry, yes. Three to zero. Thank you guys, sure. Recruitment. Jailyn, you know, has done a couple of things for us. She got a blurb in the town newsletter that then linked through to the more complete statement, and she right after labor day of school was really getting going, she reposted the recruitment statement, and I just updated the dates at the bottom because it was a little stale after our January meeting, but I didn't make any changes To the body of it. And we do have one gentleman who is doing research with the chair and the former vice chair, and that was active last week, so I'll reach out to him following this meeting and see if he has done enough homework that if he's interested in continuing. But we do have two open seats right now. There is a piece in the packet, but it just shows that, you know, with the resignation, we now have one seat expiring in 27 and one in 28. Pam Roman has been, you know, very helpful, and is still there. But, you know, pending any other information, we do still have one seat. We have two seats to fill right now, and one active candidate. And so I would just say, if you've got other ideas, Carol, I know we had talked before about whether or not we wanted to put anything in the in the town newspaper that gets mailed to everybody, you know, I have Carol knows, I've touched base, you know, individually with other people on the Select Board, just to say that we're looking. I know the Chair of the Finance Committee is, you know, actively looking, Miranda Jones: I'm sorry. Besides, Pam, who else do Unknown: we have the we had the resignation from Michael Hoyle. Michael Hoyle, thank you. I was going to say the gentleman that that was chair, right? So, and he started a new job and needed to resign immediately. Miranda Jones: So that was, yeah, but, but he's not even listed on here. Unknown: No, once they once they resign. the way the software works, Miranda, it comes off, which, okay, fortunately, it doesn't list the open seat. But you can tell by the expiry dates that it would have been 2027, yeah, okay, a two year position and a three year position.
Carol Martin: And we are grateful Tom, I'm sorry, Miranda Jones: sorry we have, currently have two seats we need to fill. Yes, and Pam is just hanging on, hanging on until we find her replacement. Okay, we Carol Martin: are most grateful to her for that, because being an invaluable resource for the new chair who is only in a second year of the finance committee, so the institutional knowledge is just invaluable. Cherry Karlson: And when I do have candidates, I do and I handle it all in one email so they all know. But I do have them reach out to the Chair of the Finance Committee, but I also suggest they reach out to Pam, just because of the depth of her knowledge. And I figure that gives anyone a good balance, okay? And then I also share, you know, where they can find information about the Finance Committee, just in terms of, you know, the report and the warrant and the website, that type of thing,
Miranda Jones: okay? Cherry Karlson: So that's where we are. I think a. As I said, I will reach out to this gentleman and see if he wants to move forward. I think we asked Jailyn to push the statement again, yeah, like the first of October, and just see. And you know, as you speak with people mention it. Yeah. Miranda Jones: Yeah. Question for you these meetings, are they typically in person or hybrid or a combination, or does it vary from meeting meeting to meeting Carol Martin: hybrid? Miranda Jones: Okay, great, because I just there is somebody, I think she's in Europe right now, based on her Instagram post, there is somebody that I might try and recruit, see if she can do it. Carol Martin: Yeah, so I do want to add that with the since the days that Cherry and I were there, right, I believe that the workload has reduced for a number of reasons. One is with the adoption of the Town manager act. You know, the development and the responsibility for developing the budget comes through to them versus they were more involved with the second. The second thing is that and the Tom manager is also responsible for the developing the capital plan, but with the addition of the capital and planning and improvement committee, yes, I had thought I had it backwards. You know, they're going to focus, hopefully around on capital, but they are also going to now write the blurbs that go with the annual capital
Cherry Karlson: to shared responsibility, Carol Martin: yeah, well, there's, there's some more work that we're taking, you know, I'm sure they're going to be very sad to not have to do. And finally, we're having a conversation at the Select Board level, and I'm saying, Oh, this, okay, someone's watching this. You know, for recruitment, we are looking at find ways to not reduce the quality, but to streamline the annual or the warrant, we think that's gotten a little might be a little more, bigger is better. We're hoping that we can because I think when you hand someone, as I've said, 130 page nonfiction book and they got to read in two weeks, I'm not sure that we're accomplishing our goal. So one of the things is, we've had conversation with the finance committee chairs, both the former and the current, about really streamlining, for example, the report, which is another big project that they take on. And so these are things that I think should add to make being on a finance committee more Miranda Jones: palatable, Carol Martin: palatable. Iir'm just gonna say the same thing, and that's part of the reason why I think it's important that our interested candidates talk with the current chair and the former chair, because it has changed so much since we right. And I mean, they haven't quite finalized that they're going to make no but they're working. We're working in that direction. So, you know, instead of doing a 20 page report, you guys are doing like an eight, I'm making it up. Yeah, that's half the work, isn't it? Miranda Jones: So the more we reduce the volume of of stuff at town meeting, the better whatever way it takes, right? Carol Martin: Yeah, Miranda is my partner in crime. Miranda Jones: We must maintain transparency. So now I am, I'm working on it might logistically on my end about how can I cut back on my end time? Carol Martin: So, like, what has established is to try to do some streamlining on that. Miranda Jones: So, yeah, no, I think we will. We will bring more people to it. Yes, with one one night. Other towns can get done even more warrant articles than we have and get it done in one night. Town of North Andover, they often have 3000 people show up, and they still get it done in one night. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, alright. Unknown: Well, that's that's where that stands, as we have in the past, as I get candidates, I'll just let you know that we have someone you know in the pipeline, and if this gentleman is interested in going forward, I'll get dates out so that we can find a time to interview Miranda Jones: right? Super, okay, do that Cherry Karlson: sixth on the agenda is leadership. I forgot to put this on our agenda in June, but I do want to make certain that we formally elect a chair to serve for the remainder of this fiscal year. So are you running? Carol Martin: I have zero interest in this chair. Totally. Why? Since I talked to you the other day, I picked up another committee or two. I'm going to move. I move. Miranda Jones: I think. Can I tell you I'm becoming a grandmother. Okay? I think abilities coming my way. Unknown: I think we actually have a very nice balance of workload. So I Yes, I would be willing to do it. Miranda Jones: That is wonderful. Carol Martin: I move when we I move that we nominate, I guess, oh, I nominate, that's the right phrase. I nominate Cerry Karlson as the chair for FY 26 of the Finance. Committee appointing board. Miranda Jones: I second that nomination. Unknown: Thank you guys are funny. Is there any other discussion on the topic? Hearing none. Carol Martin: None. Not a word. Cherry Karlson: We'll do a roll call vote. Carol, Carol Martin: yes. Miranda, yes, yes. Unknown: Cherry, yes. Thank you guys. I appreciate Miranda Jones: a major campaign. Cherry ran. It was, you know, this is the kind, this is a good that's the right way to do it. Next on here we have determine the next meeting date. I just think that's, it's premature right now, so I will reach out to you in one of those administrative emails when we have someone to interview, yep, Carol Martin: okay, I probably will be the challenge round on that. So can you give us three or four dates? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Thank you. Cherry Karlson: Any reports and concerns from you? Nothing going on? Okay, no, look at that. We did. It's at 346
Carol Martin: I move we adjourn at 346 Miranda Jones: motion to adjourn. Cherry Karlson: Okay, we there any other discussion? I hearing? None. We'll do a roll call. Vote. Miranda, yes. Carol Martin: Carol, oh yes, yes, Cherry Karlson: three zero to adjourn at 346 thanks for getting through this agenda, and I'll keep you posted on our candidate. All right, it's great to see you both. Thanks for.
Historical Commission
08-Oct-25 - Historical Commission57:07
01-Oct-25 - Historic Commission57:36
10-Sep-25 - Historical Commission02:59:06
20-Aug-25 - Historical Commission02:47:57
Unknown: All right, we're going
to call the Historical
Commission meeting to order
in pursuit of chapter two of the
acts of 2025 this meeting will
be conducted in person and by a
remote means, in accordance with
the applicable law. This meeting
may be recorded which will be
made available to the public on
WayCAM As soon as after the
meeting as a practical I don't
know that we have anybody on
this public here, so we will
skip over that and the minutes
of the last meeting, September
10, 2025 any comments or
corrections or changes?
I had a comment Well, couple at
the top on under present, the
Anne and my name has an E on the
end. Oh, I'm sorry. I would like
to have that. And then I noted
on page two in the 250th
anniversary description, second
line, middle also on April 10,
2027 2026 okay? 26 they assuming
that's history of play. Is but
it's not a performance on
Francis. Is it? Is that history
of play, right? I know it's not
the day. Is not history of play
doing it? I didn't know that's
the woman who impersonates
Francis Perkins. Oh, so it's
like and her name is
Therese Hansen.
I think it's not necessary that
we put her name in the middle. I
don't think so either. I will
correct that, but
it's a Francis Perkins 100 and
10th birthday. Yeah.
Thank you.
Some minutes on the minutes. Rick, you don't have any comments.
Rick, wonderful job, as always. Thank you. Anne, may I have a motion to accept the minutes is corrected against please. Second. Any further discussion, all those in favor? Aye, I can't. I have to do a roll call. Marianne Bryant, yes. Brad parver, yes. And Gordon, yes. Rick Connor, yes, and Kay Gordon, West back, yes. Thank you again. The display in the town building. I didn't notice if the display was still in the hallway, because I came in from the other direction, yes, yes, of the
village, the Indian village, yes of the Native American Indian village. Everybody said they would think about it from last month, and any thoughts probably to the surface. My thought was, if we cannot find a place to store it, and folks really think it's important for elementary kids to see that I looked at it, and there is a possibility that it could be, in order to carry it to the schools, it could be cut into three pieces in between the big items that are on the board, so that it would fit together like a puzzle when it goes to the school or the, you know, a day of viewing, or whatever. That's kind of the last, last choice I would do. But in order to save it, that's an option, I think
that's creative.
You'd still have to have a place to store the pieces right. It would be available to continue as a educational tool for the children in town. Sonia had said she was going to talk with Julie Sean at the community center. Do you know if she got anywhere with that? Not that I have heard their display case. I don't know if it's wide enough to hold it or not, even if we cut. It certainly not long enough, but deep enough. I don't know if it's deep enough to hold it. We'd have to measure that. It would also need some explanation along with it, because I think that's one of the big things that's missing from that display, is explaining why it's so important. Patent facilities was last I heard going to talk to library. The library has refused it. He did talk to them.
So the library is effluent if
it didn't, move someplace in the cabinet it's currently in, it really needs a Plexiglas top so that you get more light in to see the exhibit. It's very hard to see. It's especially for adults, because we're taller, but that would lighten up considerably the interior and the display.
Does anybody talk to their respective churches. We'll see if any of them would be interested in giving a corner to this display that they could bring out from time to time.
Occurred to me that I'm sorry It hadn't occurred to me to do that. Well, it seemed to me that number of churches had gotten behind the local field problem of playground in the middle of the sacred area. So I didn't know if they were, they were interested in Native American history, that they might consider that, because I'm trying to think of places that are big enough that would store.
What about the arts Wayland? That's a good suggestion,
although I imagine they use most of their area for their artists. I mean, space is tight for everyone, no matter where we are. That's right, but doesn't hurt to ask, and maybe even if they displayed it for a while, they might be interested in it
Bradford Carver: by sharing Anne's point, if do the elementary schools, I can't remember today, they must have libraries. I mean, do they have a place where you could say, if each elementary school had a place to display it display for a year in each school, Unknown: like a traveling exhibit? Bradford Carver: I just can't remember. Our son went to Claypit. I can't basically remember if there's a library that must be and leave it at each elementary school for a year at a time.
Unknown: Well, I'm glad that people are coming up with creative ideas and suggestions. I'm afraid that even if we found a place in the town building to keep it, it would just disappear. Nobody would know about it, nobody would ask for it. And those that have had kids go through the school system here in Wayland. Do any of you remember when Native Americans were? Subject was being taught in the schools? I don't remember. Bradford Carver: I'm sure they were the topic was, was raised. Unknown: I didn't know whether it was third grade or
fifth grade or something, all right?
Well, thank you for all these ideas. We will try to follow up on them. Any other comments on this topic? Otherwise, I'll move on
Wayland festival review. Let's just go around the room individually, Braddy and something nice to say. I thought the whole Bradford Carver: thing was great. You know, Anne's posters were great. Rick brother, railroad one out of the kids. Like the artifacts, the arrowheads, we had good handouts. I thought, all in all, it was great. I was surprised how big the festival was, which was That was impressive. It was fun.
Unknown: I agree, we had a lot of interest in our table, folks that came up and worried about certain. They particularly the railroad, but, you know, the stones bridge and and they were happy that that project was completed and the way it looked. And, yep, I I thought it's good day.
Well, I thought the posters and the handouts were especially great. I had brought a clipboard with some paper along, and there were four people that volunteered their names. I didn't ask anybody to sign up, but one person was from Sudbury, who is on the Sudbury Select Board and on the 250 committee for Sudbury and I passed his name along to Mary antis, but it might be nice to send out an Email to these people just briefly saying thank you for visiting our table. Here is our website. You can see our agendas and past meeting minutes. We have other information. If you're interested in a tour of our archeology lab, let us know, and please contact us if you have any questions. So those are the names of the people, just as a courtesy, or some of them are and they were interested enough to volunteer their names.
Oh, I agree with everyone. I thought it was really a great day and really nice for us to get that kind of visibility. People seem really interested, and my only regret was not having flyers for the Thursday night program at the library. That was an oversight. But I think, think we get an A plus for I do together a great table, you know, without a fun
I quite agree. I think the posters were fabulous. So thank you too. It was very eye catching. I think people stop and notice photographs and want to come over curious about them, and the flyers were fabulous. Thank you so much. And as an aside, I'd like to put your description of the three organizations into the newsletter for the Historical Society, because we too get questions about the difference. So yeah, and you guys really went out there and sold us and let people know that we're here and that we're part of the government, town government, and that they can, you know, reach out to us when necessary. So thank you all, and you all took a turn, everyone, Tanya and Amanda as well. Tanya, I mean, Amanda rushing home from New York, and then closing up, and Brad setting up and closing up, and Sherry Anne, will you bring out there at two tables? So, yeah, Rick, of course, you're always an eye catcher. In fact, I had somebody come up to me and say, How do I get hold of that guy that did the railroad? I want him to give us a talk. So all in great demand. Thank you so much for your efforts in getting everything done, and for you coming in early on. Was it Wednesday or Friday to get all the material? It was easy. Thank you and everything. So do we know if the the
artifacts are back in the lab yet? Amanda, Bradford Carver: I don't know, leave, so I don't know. Unknown: I don't know because Amanda said she lost the key to the lab, so I have no idea where they're located. At the moment, she said she was coming in Wednesday morning. I'm was this I am assuming that she's bringing it with her. Then, okay, well, I wasn't at the lab. No, I know, and I and I know Tanya was not at the lab this morning because she had that appointment. So forget this is Wednesday already, just too many deadlines again. Thank you for a wonderful day and the excitement, as everybody has alluded to, the electricity in the air. People were just happy to come out and and learn something that about an organization they didn't know anything about. I appreciate you all the efforts that went into it, and we will certainly be using the posters again and the flyers and the brochure that all come together. And hopefully we can. Continue to use, I will say, as you alluded to in the Thursday night program with the Historical Society, sent out an e blast, which you probably saw, and I've already gotten three emails asking if it's being recorded. And I foolishly said, Oh, sure, no, look on YouTube. Then I talked to Courtney last night and found out it was not being recorded, so I emailed them all again, saying I'm so sorry I was too quick in responding, but they're not being recorded. Somebody asked, you could be moved up in the week, somebody else chided me for, oh, there are so many senior citizens who watch it live then, yeah, this was his request. It's, you know, that's what I heard. It was he just feels like, if it's recorded, then he loses control of who sees it exactly. And that's what I told them, come from doing the same program and other channels, but the library is has shared the link with four or five other libraries, so there will be people from all yes, as of last night, 70 people signed up on Zoom. And I think she said around 2022, people in person. So that's shows what an interest there is in it. And it sort of follows up on the cemetery article from the post, for those people that read that, which I want to commend you on, that was a wonderful art. It was good. That was good. ARPA, I didn't know that you were planning to do that, and so this wasn't surprised. My thoughts really well done. Thank you. They They requested a column that was due on Friday, and I said, Oh, okay, but I thought, let's tie it in with the cemetery talk, and maybe people will tune in and come to that and so forth. And then the cemetery walk that will be in April for the 2/50 Yeah. Well, it was really lovely. Well, thank you.
It's tomorrow night, an occasion where we should take our little brochures that we had, I think so. So that means getting hold of Amanda so that Nick can, yes, she just, she has everything, as far as I know, right? Nobody else took anything else home. Okay? She looks closest to you. Do you think you could Oxford world? I don't know which house is hers, but what I do not know which house is hers. I don't know which house, yes, first we have to connect and see if she's available, and then we'll get her address so I call her after this meeting and before my next one. Okay, so yes, we want to use those posters over and over again, flyers as well, as I said earlier. Moving on, we're going to the house plaque reports. Okay,
Bradford Carver: I handed out the list of housebacks that have been handed out over the years. It's, it's, as far as I know, it's now complete. There are some dates on the left hand side, the application dates I in the materials I had. I just didn't have those dates. But everything else is completed. In terms of new applications. There was one for old training training field Road, which was a replacement that was I finished that last week. We have two applications pending. I sent some follow up emails this morning asking for status of the application, and one person has withdrawn their application. But as of, as of now this, as far as I know, this is an up to date list, and they The other thing is the guidelines for for obtaining a plaque, and you probably saw Anne actually redid the application. It was a handout, and it was a great idea. What she did was she took the requirements that were on the website and actually inserted them in the application, which was, I thought, a great idea. Great idea. And in terms. Of updating either the application or the requirements. I guess I only had one thought, and that is the age of the buildings as of right now. It doesn't list an age. It just says buildings that are of an advanced age and retain significant original character and design. I guess the only thing I would offer is we could just pick an arbitrary date and say buildings that are prior to 1900 and retain significant original character and design. You know, they're going to be some some types of buildings or architecture after 1900 like prairie style or Frank Lloyd Wright, or like the Gropius house, that sort of thing thereafter 1900 but, but if they're a significant architectural design, then they're going to qualify under style anyway. So I guess the only suggestion I would have is just insert or modify that one line says buildings that were built prior to 1900 and retain significant original character and design beyond that, I thought The application and requirements still still make sense.
Unknown: I think it does make sense to be more specific, because otherwise people will assume. They ask, how old is old, right? And then every application is a decision or
an opinion. You may remember, when Alisa was on the board, there was a house that had been renovated tremendously, and there were only two walls, I believe, that were still part of the original house. We did make a decision to let her, to let them put on a plaque, or we created the plaque for them with the that I had to go on the old part of the house. It couldn't go on the new, newer looking, contemporary style part of the house. And I still have been thinking about that. It's been in my mind, thinking, Did we really do the right thing on that. And so I guess, if we're talking about limitations or the goal, how much renovation can be done before, is my question. I and I don't have an answer for it, to be perfectly honest, something like a house that is renovated in the back, like 105 plane, where people don't see it from the road. It still qualifies, but had been, actually part of the front is, is an addition, but it's still seem to qualify. I don't know. Do we say limited nations, limited exterior veneration? Bradford Carver: It currently reads under age, there are advanced age and retain significant original character and design. So Unknown: I I don't have broad enough umbrella. I Bradford Carver: think I'd leave that's I think I tighten the age requirement, make that more specific, like pre 1900 or whatever date we could choose, but then retain the broader language, because it gives us discretion. And I don't think it's going to come up that offer, maybe, maybe it does, but at least that gives us some some discretion in terms of modifications to the home, because, to a degree, we want people to apply, and if there have been some modifications, but you can still tell that it's an older house. I'd rather err on the side of giving them a plaque than not. But I get that's why I said. I think the only change I would make would be to put in a date free, whatever date you choose. Unknown: I would hesitate at a specific date, like 1900 because people are going to see that and they're going to stop reading the rest of the description that might have the loophole with their house, whether it's craftsmen or whether it's mid century modern. As the years go by, a lot more styles are going to come into the range of being acceptable for a plaque, I think I would say more than at least so many years old. And then that gives you a broader spectrum within that. So if you say at least, at least 75 years old, and that gets you to 1950 and so anything before that can be considered that would, that would be my thought on that, instead of saying anything before has to be before 1900 Because we do have mid century We've got some outstanding mid century modern houses in this town now 75 years old, but that's my thought I was getting ready to apply, and it'll be 70 years. In a few years, it'll be old, but it is mid century modern, and was thinking in a specific style, Campanelli style, versus other styles of mid century modern. So I'm gonna have a Bradford Carver: problem with putting 75 years or I guess my only comment was, it's probably better to have Unknown: a specific data. Yeah, and I would say at least that for whatever number of years we might decide, at least 50, at least 75, at least 80, what, whatever, Bradford Carver: I just want to get rid of advanced age, because makes me think I'm over 70 now. Yeah, somebody said I'm advanced stage. And just want to get rid of those two words.
Unknown: How do other people feel about it? I agree with Sherry Anne.
I do too. I think 75 years is a good number, and it also means as we go through the next few years, we don't have to,
yep, no problem with that at all. Well, can I have a motion on it please? Bradford Carver: I move that we revise the application for the house plaque, as well as the website itself, to indicate that to qualify buildings must be at least 75 years old and then retain significant original character and design.
Unknown: Do I hear a second? Second comments?
I have a question. Sherry Anne brought it up, do you want a significant design and have 75 years afterwards? Rather than saying 75 years and then then saying, Oh, it's not old enough yet, or counting on their finger saying, well, it's not old enough and not realizing that they would fall under the significant design situation.
Bradford Carver: I guess an alternative would be to move age down to the bottom of the application and start with event, person style, then age, then they have to at least read down that far. I do think that if somebody, if somebody stops there, they're probably not that interested, but, but you can just put age last Unknown: well, I'm asking the question. I'm not making a decision. How do other people feel about that?
With leaving it or changing it, changing changing it. Any other comment would you like to revise your Bradford Carver: I would revise my motion to move the requirement for the age of the building to the last requirement, not the first. Unknown: Do Yes, okay, second
any no further comments. All right, let's start. Brad Carver, yes. Jailyn Bryant, yes. And Gordon, yes. Rick Connor, yes, and Kay Gardner West got Yes. All right, we sort of talked about cemetery program already. Is there any other comments that we want to talk about or here
future programs like Anne said, If we co sponsor with a library, we can ask them to put it out to other libraries. They can determine whether they charge other libraries no fee or a significant fee. In this particular case, she got $50 per library. Got five libraries to sign up. So that brings our costs down significantly, as well as theirs, as we split it, and we have to go to Jailyn and get the. Money so that we can pay dentists tomorrow. I thought the library, Oh, that's right, you're right. I'm sorry, I forgot they paid and then they sent in the bill and to take it out of our funds, right? You're right. I'm sorry I forgot that, so we don't have to worry about it, because it is such a hassle to do. I you any other comments about the cemetery program? Okay, super so cemetery activity from the grant, we have an update on that we do this. I'm sorry I didn't let you know as chair prior to this meeting, but we literally just got an email early earlier today from Epic Brad and I had a meeting scheduled with them this evening just to talk about where we are and how we're going to go forward. But meanwhile, we got an email from Rachel this morning saying that regarding the meeting that Josh was he's not feeling well and can't be at tonight's meeting, and did we want to reschedule? But more to the point, I'll read to you, and I'll forward this to all of you, if you goodbye. I
Joseph is still working away. This is the person they hired for the summer work, and he's been doing the priority three stones, the cleanings, just straightening the stones. Or what is priority three? Priority three is just, is cleaning? Oh, cleaning. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. Yeah, thank you. She says we may need to make a hard decision at the end of the season about the contract part from the health issues Josh is facing. We are discovering more and more that inflation has made it so our original estimate from a few years ago is putting us at a loss with some of the work. We may want to at the end of the season, recalculate the original estimate and also help you prioritize what work is left so you have a reasonable timeline, so you can put it out for bid at an amended amount we need the dust to settle to know what we are going to be able to do. We also discovered with a recent repair that it was far worse than we originally anticipated. There needs to be a plan for when a repair ends up taking substantially more time and material. I don't know the logistics on your end. We can discuss this further. So we have a good plan for your cemeteries moving forward. We want to end the season at a good stopping place with a good plan for you in the cemeteries and path forward that you can act on. Thank you for your understanding. So Brad and I have talked about this a lot in the last couple months, that it just it didn't seem possible that they could carry on and carry out the terms of the contract. So I have asked Kelsi to advise us on what happens now, she I just spoke to her quickly before our meeting. She said she'll look at the contract, and then we'll set up a meeting with her and find out how it how it all needs to work, what happens to the funding that hasn't yet been spent. There's a lot of questions. And to
Bradford Carver: put it in context there, there as of the last payment application, I believe they're about 33% done overall. I'm not sure the breakdown between priorities one, two and three, but it's about 30% total, which is that that's after two years. Unknown: Yeah, I have the breakdown. I was able to pull this together just before coming over here. Of the priority one stones which Priority One is, of course, the highest priority those the ones that really need immediate attention and repair. They are 69% complete on priority 160, or 5069,
69 right. Six. Nine, yeah. Priority two, stones. These are stones that need a good cleaning, but also may have a crack or chip or they're leaning and and so priority to they have not focused on virtually at all. So priority two stones, they are point oh, 6% complete. There are 170 priority two stones on the list that need attention. They have completed 11. So it completed 11 out of 170 so that's the biggest category that is on Done. Priority three. This is cleaning. They are 36% complete. Only 36 there are 639 priority three stones, I think one of the things, and this is from another discussion, another time, but, you know, I think we may want to look at what's the best way to oversee this kind of work. This may have been too big a project, you know, we may want to, in the future, just do one cemetery at a time, or find 639 stones that need to be cleaned. It's a lot, and that doesn't even include the ones that really need more time and attention. Now she mentioned in her email about this, the repair that Josh was working on that turned out to be a bigger project than they anticipated, and I happened to see him last weekend. I went up to North cemetery to check on the work that was in their most recent invoice. And there was Josh working on this repair stone. In fact, I took a picture and then put it in the brochure because it was a stone that was in pieces, and it had, you know, he had built a wooden frame, and I thought it really demonstrated, you know, some of the work that we're overseeing. But he mentioned to me then that it turned out to be a much bigger problem and a bigger repair than they originally anticipated. So, you know, my heart goes out to them, I think that, you know, they've done the best they could under the circumstances, given Josh's health, given, I think a small business, and
it's unfortunate for us and for them, but I think term it being the contract is the best thing to do. And then, you know, that leaves us with a lot of questions about what we do next. Well, I think before we even talk about terminating contract, we have to hear back from the town as to the responsibilities, how it's done, things like that, what's expected. And then, of course, that means we have to do another ARPA out and see who responds. Bradford Carver: Those are all the questions. And I talked about that. Those are the questions that I have. My main concern is to make sure we retain the funding, and that because we terminate one way or another, that we don't lose the funding. So I think that's, I think that's critically important. Unknown: Well, you won't lose the funding, per se, because you still have the funding from this is CPA funding, right? Yes, well, that I Bradford Carver: wasn't aware, so that's good. And then the question I had, and again, we'll talk to Kelsi, is, we're not the bid once before, do we need to Revit it? Or can we go to the other second bidder? We might be, might be able to Unknown: assuming that these other bidders are still interested, correct, correct. And that would be Ludlow, because the the third bidder was quite a bit higher, quite a lot higher.
Well, it it is unfortunate, and I understand, but a comment that you had made at the last meeting has stuck with me. Is that on Facebook that they're showing they're working in other cemeteries that are paying them more than we are, but yet, that's what the contract was signed for. That was what they did. It wasn't our setting the price at this it was what they set the price. And it seems to me that they needed to finish our contract before they started working on other contracts. And therefore, as much as I. Feel badly that they're going through this troubled time. We have to be loyal to the town and how the money is spent. And the other thing is, there a clause in the contract that says, if you do not complete it, there's a penalty. Okay, see, I don't know. We may want to consider that for future contracts. Yeah, right. But obviously, if there, he's feeling well enough to work in other cemeteries, then he's made the decision that, you know, he could have been honoring his contract here, but he chose to go someplace else, and that kind of bothers me up, that that's what happened. And so that should be part of your discussion. When you talk to them about it, that it's a concern. Yeah, I agree. It's been disappointing. I'm pretty confident it's an economic decision on their part. I think they are really they operate really close to the I bet they do. I bet they do. They just had to go where the money was, and it's not a good business practice, and it's not fair to us, but it's what they felt they had to do. So I think, you know, ending the relationship is better for everyone at this point. Do we know? You know, it's the most recent requisitions paid. I don't know if it's been changed. I know. I know Kelsi submitted it.
If we should pause that
for work done, you're saying pause paying for work already done. And why would you what would be the logic of pausing work that's already been completed? Oh, Bradford Carver: it's technically what they're saying is we're going to breach the contract, and if you breach a contract, you're not entitled to any further benefits of the contract, including work performed. So I think that I'm quite confident in saying that if we chose to withhold the payment, we we have a right to do that, whether, whether we want to do that is a different question, because, you know, they've, because of all the things we talked about, they've done the work and we understand John situation. Yes, I'm just saying strictly the legal matter. I think we could withhold the payment to basically send us an email saying she's not going to complete, Unknown: right? Well, yeah, let's talk to Kelsi then, and see what the town advises. Bradford Carver: Man, that's kind of a harsh thing to do, but it's it is you Unknown: would have the right to do that, right? Well, we're going to be at a significant disadvantage financially, because there's no way we're going to complete the same amount of work for the same amount of money we have left. So we're going to have to make decisions about either to apply for more funding or scale back the project.
Let's make a I'm making a suggestion that you hold any more bill paying doesn't mean that we won't pay the bill, but we just hold it till discussions are completed. Bradford Carver: Yeah, I mean, I I know the advice I would give if I were a lawyer advising the group, but that's not my calling. Kelsi or Michael doesn't have to make that Unknown: call. Well, what I'm saying is you should meet with Kelsi and pull the fund the payments until all all parties involved, the town and us and the and the cemetery workers all come to some of more agreement. And because, as I said, our responsibility is to the Tom as much as we may, like the people we're working with and and are sorry that there are problems.
Does anybody feel that says to be voted on, or what would to hold payment until discussions are finished? I don't think we should. I don't think we should get advice from the town's legal right pipeline, okay, see how they like to do these things. Well, I would like to make a motion that the Historical Commission would allow holding the payment after discussion with the town, if they so, if they feel it's necessary. In other words, you already have our vote to hold payment if, after discussion with Kelsi, that seems the next step to do. Bradford Carver: I think I would rather get the advice first before we hold any kind of Unknown: vote. Well, I just want to give you the right to make that decision without having to come back to the board, is what I'm trying to do. Bradford Carver: Well, yeah, I'm just not sure that we should be having a vote on that without first getting some advice. Okay, Unknown: also, I'm not, I'm not well, I don't know. You're a lawyer, so you have way more familiarity. But that almost feels like it's not our decision. That is the town's decision, how they want to handle the contract and the payment, and then they they just need to tell us how. Okay by that, yes, and okay, alrighty, anything else? Okay, Rick, do you have anything to say about the archeology?
Not really. I've been out of the lab for the past few weeks to travels the lab this morning, and Tanya, in her phone message to me, said that she didn't really have anything to report out the lab, that they hadn't been meeting, as you say, and so accomplishments has slowed down now to the railroad and the Rail Trail.
Well, we met with the Select Board on September 15 about the DEP CR reducing the number of signs, and let's see Anne and Fay and Sherry. Anne were there. Who else was there? Amanda, yes, so Kate and Bonnie gossels made the presentation to the Select Board. K Do you want to discuss that? Well, what Bonnie gossels had suggested to the board was they had made a legal agreement to the sign makers and to the sign designer for 13 signs, and because
it was decided that we could only have 11 signs. One sign is a repeat. So there, as far as the designer was concerned, there was just one sign to make, because it was going to be repeated at both ends. Therefore, since we had signed a contract for that number, and we would have to pay that whether or not we use all that number. She suggested that the Historical Commission, who has two signs for Dudley woods and one sign for castle gate, be used in place of those signs that were not being made for the Rail Trail and the Select Board agreed to that. My understanding that it is coming back to the Select Board, and there is a slight possibility that they may change their mind on it. In the meantime, I've heard that facilities wants to put a sign at the stones bridge, and they will be bidding for that extra signage and design work. I have not heard of the date. I've not seen an agenda that it's when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen, and I don't know why they're re voting it, but apparently Carol Martin felt that it needed to be re voted when there were more Select Board people in attendance, I think they just had a quorum. So I've not heard anything further on it or date, if it happened or it may not come up, I don't know. I just heard to break mine. That's all I know. As I recall with that meeting, they the Select Board did not vote. They were in agreement. So it may be, they feel they have to know a vote, because it involves monies. I thought they had voted. I thought she had called off each name and they had voted, but apparently not. So I remember rather, I think they decided not to vote. Yeah, election, let's be an agreement. It's. Voted not to vote,
decided not to vote. That may be why it's coming up again.
On Monday, I received a email from Bonnie castles sending revised text for the rail trail signs to Carol Hol So Bonnie has reduced the word count. I I'm reviewing those revisions. I might have a few minor revision was that this past Monday, yes, I don't think I gotta send a copy to you and to Scarlet. At least it was sent to Catherine too, and sent what Catherine two. That's all it said for an email address. So if you didn't receive it, let me know, and I can forward it to one of your other email addresses. It was Monday, October six. Okay, go ahead. It was sent to my town email address, but I don't know whether Catherine two is one of your own email addresses. No, it's not. There is a you do have an address that comes through my email list as Catherine too. It's not the address, but it's the name. I get email from you, from like, several different accounts. What's a firecracker? Water Town? Oh, yeah. There are a lot of accounts. I have a lot of different things going on, and it makes it hard for me to search. When I'm trying to find an email from you, all you have to do is search into Catherine, pull them all up.
I will send you that. Forward that email to you, Fay, if you can't find it, okay. Thank you. I know that she sent it, but I didn't think. I thought she had sent it after the town Select Board meeting, but it's sounding vaguely familiar. I'm sure it must be in there. It just came when there were too many other deadlines for me to stop and look at it. Let me just the only other thing I have to report is that I spoke briefly with Aida Janice at the Wayland festival about the library work, which is kind of complete. And she mentioned when passing that they might be possibly looking at the freight house for possible future use. But it's, I gather, it's only something that's at the idea stage right now, nothing definitely. Who is this? This Aida gems. Oh, are you the chair of the Library Board of Trustees? The free house is under whose this look board is not, doesn't it's not under the library. It's because it's used by the DEP W and the Historical Society and the library for storage.
So that's all. I
I too, have heard that the library is has plans for the break house without any idea what what it is.
Bon, I'm sorry, so we move on. Are you done? Okay, sorry, I was trying to find something on the
what Bonnie sent out.
Any other comments that we didn't know about 48 hours in advance,
look at the calendar for the next meeting, I have it as November 5. I believe that's correct. I just wanted to clarify it with everybody.
Bradford Carver: I may or may not be able to make that meeting leave. I'm flying out the next day.
Unknown: Wait a minute, you have when November? What fifth? Yes, that's right, that first Wednesday, the month, right? You
so anyone else have any other problems with November 5?
We can keep it November 5. You can zoom in. Yeah, I'll let you know. Yep, if that's more convenient for you. Thank you all for being such a wonderful team for Wayland festival and continuing to work as a wonderful team here in our meetings and all our discussions, if there's no other information needed, perhaps a motion to close. So moved second. Any discussion. All right, let's start with Brad Carver, hi and Gordon, yes.
Yes, thank you all. Thank.
Some minutes on the minutes. Rick, you don't have any comments.
Rick, wonderful job, as always. Thank you. Anne, may I have a motion to accept the minutes is corrected against please. Second. Any further discussion, all those in favor? Aye, I can't. I have to do a roll call. Marianne Bryant, yes. Brad parver, yes. And Gordon, yes. Rick Connor, yes, and Kay Gordon, West back, yes. Thank you again. The display in the town building. I didn't notice if the display was still in the hallway, because I came in from the other direction, yes, yes, of the
village, the Indian village, yes of the Native American Indian village. Everybody said they would think about it from last month, and any thoughts probably to the surface. My thought was, if we cannot find a place to store it, and folks really think it's important for elementary kids to see that I looked at it, and there is a possibility that it could be, in order to carry it to the schools, it could be cut into three pieces in between the big items that are on the board, so that it would fit together like a puzzle when it goes to the school or the, you know, a day of viewing, or whatever. That's kind of the last, last choice I would do. But in order to save it, that's an option, I think
that's creative.
You'd still have to have a place to store the pieces right. It would be available to continue as a educational tool for the children in town. Sonia had said she was going to talk with Julie Sean at the community center. Do you know if she got anywhere with that? Not that I have heard their display case. I don't know if it's wide enough to hold it or not, even if we cut. It certainly not long enough, but deep enough. I don't know if it's deep enough to hold it. We'd have to measure that. It would also need some explanation along with it, because I think that's one of the big things that's missing from that display, is explaining why it's so important. Patent facilities was last I heard going to talk to library. The library has refused it. He did talk to them.
So the library is effluent if
it didn't, move someplace in the cabinet it's currently in, it really needs a Plexiglas top so that you get more light in to see the exhibit. It's very hard to see. It's especially for adults, because we're taller, but that would lighten up considerably the interior and the display.
Does anybody talk to their respective churches. We'll see if any of them would be interested in giving a corner to this display that they could bring out from time to time.
Occurred to me that I'm sorry It hadn't occurred to me to do that. Well, it seemed to me that number of churches had gotten behind the local field problem of playground in the middle of the sacred area. So I didn't know if they were, they were interested in Native American history, that they might consider that, because I'm trying to think of places that are big enough that would store.
What about the arts Wayland? That's a good suggestion,
although I imagine they use most of their area for their artists. I mean, space is tight for everyone, no matter where we are. That's right, but doesn't hurt to ask, and maybe even if they displayed it for a while, they might be interested in it
Bradford Carver: by sharing Anne's point, if do the elementary schools, I can't remember today, they must have libraries. I mean, do they have a place where you could say, if each elementary school had a place to display it display for a year in each school, Unknown: like a traveling exhibit? Bradford Carver: I just can't remember. Our son went to Claypit. I can't basically remember if there's a library that must be and leave it at each elementary school for a year at a time.
Unknown: Well, I'm glad that people are coming up with creative ideas and suggestions. I'm afraid that even if we found a place in the town building to keep it, it would just disappear. Nobody would know about it, nobody would ask for it. And those that have had kids go through the school system here in Wayland. Do any of you remember when Native Americans were? Subject was being taught in the schools? I don't remember. Bradford Carver: I'm sure they were the topic was, was raised. Unknown: I didn't know whether it was third grade or
fifth grade or something, all right?
Well, thank you for all these ideas. We will try to follow up on them. Any other comments on this topic? Otherwise, I'll move on
Wayland festival review. Let's just go around the room individually, Braddy and something nice to say. I thought the whole Bradford Carver: thing was great. You know, Anne's posters were great. Rick brother, railroad one out of the kids. Like the artifacts, the arrowheads, we had good handouts. I thought, all in all, it was great. I was surprised how big the festival was, which was That was impressive. It was fun.
Unknown: I agree, we had a lot of interest in our table, folks that came up and worried about certain. They particularly the railroad, but, you know, the stones bridge and and they were happy that that project was completed and the way it looked. And, yep, I I thought it's good day.
Well, I thought the posters and the handouts were especially great. I had brought a clipboard with some paper along, and there were four people that volunteered their names. I didn't ask anybody to sign up, but one person was from Sudbury, who is on the Sudbury Select Board and on the 250 committee for Sudbury and I passed his name along to Mary antis, but it might be nice to send out an Email to these people just briefly saying thank you for visiting our table. Here is our website. You can see our agendas and past meeting minutes. We have other information. If you're interested in a tour of our archeology lab, let us know, and please contact us if you have any questions. So those are the names of the people, just as a courtesy, or some of them are and they were interested enough to volunteer their names.
Oh, I agree with everyone. I thought it was really a great day and really nice for us to get that kind of visibility. People seem really interested, and my only regret was not having flyers for the Thursday night program at the library. That was an oversight. But I think, think we get an A plus for I do together a great table, you know, without a fun
I quite agree. I think the posters were fabulous. So thank you too. It was very eye catching. I think people stop and notice photographs and want to come over curious about them, and the flyers were fabulous. Thank you so much. And as an aside, I'd like to put your description of the three organizations into the newsletter for the Historical Society, because we too get questions about the difference. So yeah, and you guys really went out there and sold us and let people know that we're here and that we're part of the government, town government, and that they can, you know, reach out to us when necessary. So thank you all, and you all took a turn, everyone, Tanya and Amanda as well. Tanya, I mean, Amanda rushing home from New York, and then closing up, and Brad setting up and closing up, and Sherry Anne, will you bring out there at two tables? So, yeah, Rick, of course, you're always an eye catcher. In fact, I had somebody come up to me and say, How do I get hold of that guy that did the railroad? I want him to give us a talk. So all in great demand. Thank you so much for your efforts in getting everything done, and for you coming in early on. Was it Wednesday or Friday to get all the material? It was easy. Thank you and everything. So do we know if the the
artifacts are back in the lab yet? Amanda, Bradford Carver: I don't know, leave, so I don't know. Unknown: I don't know because Amanda said she lost the key to the lab, so I have no idea where they're located. At the moment, she said she was coming in Wednesday morning. I'm was this I am assuming that she's bringing it with her. Then, okay, well, I wasn't at the lab. No, I know, and I and I know Tanya was not at the lab this morning because she had that appointment. So forget this is Wednesday already, just too many deadlines again. Thank you for a wonderful day and the excitement, as everybody has alluded to, the electricity in the air. People were just happy to come out and and learn something that about an organization they didn't know anything about. I appreciate you all the efforts that went into it, and we will certainly be using the posters again and the flyers and the brochure that all come together. And hopefully we can. Continue to use, I will say, as you alluded to in the Thursday night program with the Historical Society, sent out an e blast, which you probably saw, and I've already gotten three emails asking if it's being recorded. And I foolishly said, Oh, sure, no, look on YouTube. Then I talked to Courtney last night and found out it was not being recorded, so I emailed them all again, saying I'm so sorry I was too quick in responding, but they're not being recorded. Somebody asked, you could be moved up in the week, somebody else chided me for, oh, there are so many senior citizens who watch it live then, yeah, this was his request. It's, you know, that's what I heard. It was he just feels like, if it's recorded, then he loses control of who sees it exactly. And that's what I told them, come from doing the same program and other channels, but the library is has shared the link with four or five other libraries, so there will be people from all yes, as of last night, 70 people signed up on Zoom. And I think she said around 2022, people in person. So that's shows what an interest there is in it. And it sort of follows up on the cemetery article from the post, for those people that read that, which I want to commend you on, that was a wonderful art. It was good. That was good. ARPA, I didn't know that you were planning to do that, and so this wasn't surprised. My thoughts really well done. Thank you. They They requested a column that was due on Friday, and I said, Oh, okay, but I thought, let's tie it in with the cemetery talk, and maybe people will tune in and come to that and so forth. And then the cemetery walk that will be in April for the 2/50 Yeah. Well, it was really lovely. Well, thank you.
It's tomorrow night, an occasion where we should take our little brochures that we had, I think so. So that means getting hold of Amanda so that Nick can, yes, she just, she has everything, as far as I know, right? Nobody else took anything else home. Okay? She looks closest to you. Do you think you could Oxford world? I don't know which house is hers, but what I do not know which house is hers. I don't know which house, yes, first we have to connect and see if she's available, and then we'll get her address so I call her after this meeting and before my next one. Okay, so yes, we want to use those posters over and over again, flyers as well, as I said earlier. Moving on, we're going to the house plaque reports. Okay,
Bradford Carver: I handed out the list of housebacks that have been handed out over the years. It's, it's, as far as I know, it's now complete. There are some dates on the left hand side, the application dates I in the materials I had. I just didn't have those dates. But everything else is completed. In terms of new applications. There was one for old training training field Road, which was a replacement that was I finished that last week. We have two applications pending. I sent some follow up emails this morning asking for status of the application, and one person has withdrawn their application. But as of, as of now this, as far as I know, this is an up to date list, and they The other thing is the guidelines for for obtaining a plaque, and you probably saw Anne actually redid the application. It was a handout, and it was a great idea. What she did was she took the requirements that were on the website and actually inserted them in the application, which was, I thought, a great idea. Great idea. And in terms. Of updating either the application or the requirements. I guess I only had one thought, and that is the age of the buildings as of right now. It doesn't list an age. It just says buildings that are of an advanced age and retain significant original character and design. I guess the only thing I would offer is we could just pick an arbitrary date and say buildings that are prior to 1900 and retain significant original character and design. You know, they're going to be some some types of buildings or architecture after 1900 like prairie style or Frank Lloyd Wright, or like the Gropius house, that sort of thing thereafter 1900 but, but if they're a significant architectural design, then they're going to qualify under style anyway. So I guess the only suggestion I would have is just insert or modify that one line says buildings that were built prior to 1900 and retain significant original character and design beyond that, I thought The application and requirements still still make sense.
Unknown: I think it does make sense to be more specific, because otherwise people will assume. They ask, how old is old, right? And then every application is a decision or
an opinion. You may remember, when Alisa was on the board, there was a house that had been renovated tremendously, and there were only two walls, I believe, that were still part of the original house. We did make a decision to let her, to let them put on a plaque, or we created the plaque for them with the that I had to go on the old part of the house. It couldn't go on the new, newer looking, contemporary style part of the house. And I still have been thinking about that. It's been in my mind, thinking, Did we really do the right thing on that. And so I guess, if we're talking about limitations or the goal, how much renovation can be done before, is my question. I and I don't have an answer for it, to be perfectly honest, something like a house that is renovated in the back, like 105 plane, where people don't see it from the road. It still qualifies, but had been, actually part of the front is, is an addition, but it's still seem to qualify. I don't know. Do we say limited nations, limited exterior veneration? Bradford Carver: It currently reads under age, there are advanced age and retain significant original character and design. So Unknown: I I don't have broad enough umbrella. I Bradford Carver: think I'd leave that's I think I tighten the age requirement, make that more specific, like pre 1900 or whatever date we could choose, but then retain the broader language, because it gives us discretion. And I don't think it's going to come up that offer, maybe, maybe it does, but at least that gives us some some discretion in terms of modifications to the home, because, to a degree, we want people to apply, and if there have been some modifications, but you can still tell that it's an older house. I'd rather err on the side of giving them a plaque than not. But I get that's why I said. I think the only change I would make would be to put in a date free, whatever date you choose. Unknown: I would hesitate at a specific date, like 1900 because people are going to see that and they're going to stop reading the rest of the description that might have the loophole with their house, whether it's craftsmen or whether it's mid century modern. As the years go by, a lot more styles are going to come into the range of being acceptable for a plaque, I think I would say more than at least so many years old. And then that gives you a broader spectrum within that. So if you say at least, at least 75 years old, and that gets you to 1950 and so anything before that can be considered that would, that would be my thought on that, instead of saying anything before has to be before 1900 Because we do have mid century We've got some outstanding mid century modern houses in this town now 75 years old, but that's my thought I was getting ready to apply, and it'll be 70 years. In a few years, it'll be old, but it is mid century modern, and was thinking in a specific style, Campanelli style, versus other styles of mid century modern. So I'm gonna have a Bradford Carver: problem with putting 75 years or I guess my only comment was, it's probably better to have Unknown: a specific data. Yeah, and I would say at least that for whatever number of years we might decide, at least 50, at least 75, at least 80, what, whatever, Bradford Carver: I just want to get rid of advanced age, because makes me think I'm over 70 now. Yeah, somebody said I'm advanced stage. And just want to get rid of those two words.
Unknown: How do other people feel about it? I agree with Sherry Anne.
I do too. I think 75 years is a good number, and it also means as we go through the next few years, we don't have to,
yep, no problem with that at all. Well, can I have a motion on it please? Bradford Carver: I move that we revise the application for the house plaque, as well as the website itself, to indicate that to qualify buildings must be at least 75 years old and then retain significant original character and design.
Unknown: Do I hear a second? Second comments?
I have a question. Sherry Anne brought it up, do you want a significant design and have 75 years afterwards? Rather than saying 75 years and then then saying, Oh, it's not old enough yet, or counting on their finger saying, well, it's not old enough and not realizing that they would fall under the significant design situation.
Bradford Carver: I guess an alternative would be to move age down to the bottom of the application and start with event, person style, then age, then they have to at least read down that far. I do think that if somebody, if somebody stops there, they're probably not that interested, but, but you can just put age last Unknown: well, I'm asking the question. I'm not making a decision. How do other people feel about that?
With leaving it or changing it, changing changing it. Any other comment would you like to revise your Bradford Carver: I would revise my motion to move the requirement for the age of the building to the last requirement, not the first. Unknown: Do Yes, okay, second
any no further comments. All right, let's start. Brad Carver, yes. Jailyn Bryant, yes. And Gordon, yes. Rick Connor, yes, and Kay Gardner West got Yes. All right, we sort of talked about cemetery program already. Is there any other comments that we want to talk about or here
future programs like Anne said, If we co sponsor with a library, we can ask them to put it out to other libraries. They can determine whether they charge other libraries no fee or a significant fee. In this particular case, she got $50 per library. Got five libraries to sign up. So that brings our costs down significantly, as well as theirs, as we split it, and we have to go to Jailyn and get the. Money so that we can pay dentists tomorrow. I thought the library, Oh, that's right, you're right. I'm sorry, I forgot they paid and then they sent in the bill and to take it out of our funds, right? You're right. I'm sorry I forgot that, so we don't have to worry about it, because it is such a hassle to do. I you any other comments about the cemetery program? Okay, super so cemetery activity from the grant, we have an update on that we do this. I'm sorry I didn't let you know as chair prior to this meeting, but we literally just got an email early earlier today from Epic Brad and I had a meeting scheduled with them this evening just to talk about where we are and how we're going to go forward. But meanwhile, we got an email from Rachel this morning saying that regarding the meeting that Josh was he's not feeling well and can't be at tonight's meeting, and did we want to reschedule? But more to the point, I'll read to you, and I'll forward this to all of you, if you goodbye. I
Joseph is still working away. This is the person they hired for the summer work, and he's been doing the priority three stones, the cleanings, just straightening the stones. Or what is priority three? Priority three is just, is cleaning? Oh, cleaning. I'm sorry I didn't hear you. Yeah, thank you. She says we may need to make a hard decision at the end of the season about the contract part from the health issues Josh is facing. We are discovering more and more that inflation has made it so our original estimate from a few years ago is putting us at a loss with some of the work. We may want to at the end of the season, recalculate the original estimate and also help you prioritize what work is left so you have a reasonable timeline, so you can put it out for bid at an amended amount we need the dust to settle to know what we are going to be able to do. We also discovered with a recent repair that it was far worse than we originally anticipated. There needs to be a plan for when a repair ends up taking substantially more time and material. I don't know the logistics on your end. We can discuss this further. So we have a good plan for your cemeteries moving forward. We want to end the season at a good stopping place with a good plan for you in the cemeteries and path forward that you can act on. Thank you for your understanding. So Brad and I have talked about this a lot in the last couple months, that it just it didn't seem possible that they could carry on and carry out the terms of the contract. So I have asked Kelsi to advise us on what happens now, she I just spoke to her quickly before our meeting. She said she'll look at the contract, and then we'll set up a meeting with her and find out how it how it all needs to work, what happens to the funding that hasn't yet been spent. There's a lot of questions. And to
Bradford Carver: put it in context there, there as of the last payment application, I believe they're about 33% done overall. I'm not sure the breakdown between priorities one, two and three, but it's about 30% total, which is that that's after two years. Unknown: Yeah, I have the breakdown. I was able to pull this together just before coming over here. Of the priority one stones which Priority One is, of course, the highest priority those the ones that really need immediate attention and repair. They are 69% complete on priority 160, or 5069,
69 right. Six. Nine, yeah. Priority two, stones. These are stones that need a good cleaning, but also may have a crack or chip or they're leaning and and so priority to they have not focused on virtually at all. So priority two stones, they are point oh, 6% complete. There are 170 priority two stones on the list that need attention. They have completed 11. So it completed 11 out of 170 so that's the biggest category that is on Done. Priority three. This is cleaning. They are 36% complete. Only 36 there are 639 priority three stones, I think one of the things, and this is from another discussion, another time, but, you know, I think we may want to look at what's the best way to oversee this kind of work. This may have been too big a project, you know, we may want to, in the future, just do one cemetery at a time, or find 639 stones that need to be cleaned. It's a lot, and that doesn't even include the ones that really need more time and attention. Now she mentioned in her email about this, the repair that Josh was working on that turned out to be a bigger project than they anticipated, and I happened to see him last weekend. I went up to North cemetery to check on the work that was in their most recent invoice. And there was Josh working on this repair stone. In fact, I took a picture and then put it in the brochure because it was a stone that was in pieces, and it had, you know, he had built a wooden frame, and I thought it really demonstrated, you know, some of the work that we're overseeing. But he mentioned to me then that it turned out to be a much bigger problem and a bigger repair than they originally anticipated. So, you know, my heart goes out to them, I think that, you know, they've done the best they could under the circumstances, given Josh's health, given, I think a small business, and
it's unfortunate for us and for them, but I think term it being the contract is the best thing to do. And then, you know, that leaves us with a lot of questions about what we do next. Well, I think before we even talk about terminating contract, we have to hear back from the town as to the responsibilities, how it's done, things like that, what's expected. And then, of course, that means we have to do another ARPA out and see who responds. Bradford Carver: Those are all the questions. And I talked about that. Those are the questions that I have. My main concern is to make sure we retain the funding, and that because we terminate one way or another, that we don't lose the funding. So I think that's, I think that's critically important. Unknown: Well, you won't lose the funding, per se, because you still have the funding from this is CPA funding, right? Yes, well, that I Bradford Carver: wasn't aware, so that's good. And then the question I had, and again, we'll talk to Kelsi, is, we're not the bid once before, do we need to Revit it? Or can we go to the other second bidder? We might be, might be able to Unknown: assuming that these other bidders are still interested, correct, correct. And that would be Ludlow, because the the third bidder was quite a bit higher, quite a lot higher.
Well, it it is unfortunate, and I understand, but a comment that you had made at the last meeting has stuck with me. Is that on Facebook that they're showing they're working in other cemeteries that are paying them more than we are, but yet, that's what the contract was signed for. That was what they did. It wasn't our setting the price at this it was what they set the price. And it seems to me that they needed to finish our contract before they started working on other contracts. And therefore, as much as I. Feel badly that they're going through this troubled time. We have to be loyal to the town and how the money is spent. And the other thing is, there a clause in the contract that says, if you do not complete it, there's a penalty. Okay, see, I don't know. We may want to consider that for future contracts. Yeah, right. But obviously, if there, he's feeling well enough to work in other cemeteries, then he's made the decision that, you know, he could have been honoring his contract here, but he chose to go someplace else, and that kind of bothers me up, that that's what happened. And so that should be part of your discussion. When you talk to them about it, that it's a concern. Yeah, I agree. It's been disappointing. I'm pretty confident it's an economic decision on their part. I think they are really they operate really close to the I bet they do. I bet they do. They just had to go where the money was, and it's not a good business practice, and it's not fair to us, but it's what they felt they had to do. So I think, you know, ending the relationship is better for everyone at this point. Do we know? You know, it's the most recent requisitions paid. I don't know if it's been changed. I know. I know Kelsi submitted it.
If we should pause that
for work done, you're saying pause paying for work already done. And why would you what would be the logic of pausing work that's already been completed? Oh, Bradford Carver: it's technically what they're saying is we're going to breach the contract, and if you breach a contract, you're not entitled to any further benefits of the contract, including work performed. So I think that I'm quite confident in saying that if we chose to withhold the payment, we we have a right to do that, whether, whether we want to do that is a different question, because, you know, they've, because of all the things we talked about, they've done the work and we understand John situation. Yes, I'm just saying strictly the legal matter. I think we could withhold the payment to basically send us an email saying she's not going to complete, Unknown: right? Well, yeah, let's talk to Kelsi then, and see what the town advises. Bradford Carver: Man, that's kind of a harsh thing to do, but it's it is you Unknown: would have the right to do that, right? Well, we're going to be at a significant disadvantage financially, because there's no way we're going to complete the same amount of work for the same amount of money we have left. So we're going to have to make decisions about either to apply for more funding or scale back the project.
Let's make a I'm making a suggestion that you hold any more bill paying doesn't mean that we won't pay the bill, but we just hold it till discussions are completed. Bradford Carver: Yeah, I mean, I I know the advice I would give if I were a lawyer advising the group, but that's not my calling. Kelsi or Michael doesn't have to make that Unknown: call. Well, what I'm saying is you should meet with Kelsi and pull the fund the payments until all all parties involved, the town and us and the and the cemetery workers all come to some of more agreement. And because, as I said, our responsibility is to the Tom as much as we may, like the people we're working with and and are sorry that there are problems.
Does anybody feel that says to be voted on, or what would to hold payment until discussions are finished? I don't think we should. I don't think we should get advice from the town's legal right pipeline, okay, see how they like to do these things. Well, I would like to make a motion that the Historical Commission would allow holding the payment after discussion with the town, if they so, if they feel it's necessary. In other words, you already have our vote to hold payment if, after discussion with Kelsi, that seems the next step to do. Bradford Carver: I think I would rather get the advice first before we hold any kind of Unknown: vote. Well, I just want to give you the right to make that decision without having to come back to the board, is what I'm trying to do. Bradford Carver: Well, yeah, I'm just not sure that we should be having a vote on that without first getting some advice. Okay, Unknown: also, I'm not, I'm not well, I don't know. You're a lawyer, so you have way more familiarity. But that almost feels like it's not our decision. That is the town's decision, how they want to handle the contract and the payment, and then they they just need to tell us how. Okay by that, yes, and okay, alrighty, anything else? Okay, Rick, do you have anything to say about the archeology?
Not really. I've been out of the lab for the past few weeks to travels the lab this morning, and Tanya, in her phone message to me, said that she didn't really have anything to report out the lab, that they hadn't been meeting, as you say, and so accomplishments has slowed down now to the railroad and the Rail Trail.
Well, we met with the Select Board on September 15 about the DEP CR reducing the number of signs, and let's see Anne and Fay and Sherry. Anne were there. Who else was there? Amanda, yes, so Kate and Bonnie gossels made the presentation to the Select Board. K Do you want to discuss that? Well, what Bonnie gossels had suggested to the board was they had made a legal agreement to the sign makers and to the sign designer for 13 signs, and because
it was decided that we could only have 11 signs. One sign is a repeat. So there, as far as the designer was concerned, there was just one sign to make, because it was going to be repeated at both ends. Therefore, since we had signed a contract for that number, and we would have to pay that whether or not we use all that number. She suggested that the Historical Commission, who has two signs for Dudley woods and one sign for castle gate, be used in place of those signs that were not being made for the Rail Trail and the Select Board agreed to that. My understanding that it is coming back to the Select Board, and there is a slight possibility that they may change their mind on it. In the meantime, I've heard that facilities wants to put a sign at the stones bridge, and they will be bidding for that extra signage and design work. I have not heard of the date. I've not seen an agenda that it's when it's going to happen, if it's going to happen, and I don't know why they're re voting it, but apparently Carol Martin felt that it needed to be re voted when there were more Select Board people in attendance, I think they just had a quorum. So I've not heard anything further on it or date, if it happened or it may not come up, I don't know. I just heard to break mine. That's all I know. As I recall with that meeting, they the Select Board did not vote. They were in agreement. So it may be, they feel they have to know a vote, because it involves monies. I thought they had voted. I thought she had called off each name and they had voted, but apparently not. So I remember rather, I think they decided not to vote. Yeah, election, let's be an agreement. It's. Voted not to vote,
decided not to vote. That may be why it's coming up again.
On Monday, I received a email from Bonnie castles sending revised text for the rail trail signs to Carol Hol So Bonnie has reduced the word count. I I'm reviewing those revisions. I might have a few minor revision was that this past Monday, yes, I don't think I gotta send a copy to you and to Scarlet. At least it was sent to Catherine too, and sent what Catherine two. That's all it said for an email address. So if you didn't receive it, let me know, and I can forward it to one of your other email addresses. It was Monday, October six. Okay, go ahead. It was sent to my town email address, but I don't know whether Catherine two is one of your own email addresses. No, it's not. There is a you do have an address that comes through my email list as Catherine too. It's not the address, but it's the name. I get email from you, from like, several different accounts. What's a firecracker? Water Town? Oh, yeah. There are a lot of accounts. I have a lot of different things going on, and it makes it hard for me to search. When I'm trying to find an email from you, all you have to do is search into Catherine, pull them all up.
I will send you that. Forward that email to you, Fay, if you can't find it, okay. Thank you. I know that she sent it, but I didn't think. I thought she had sent it after the town Select Board meeting, but it's sounding vaguely familiar. I'm sure it must be in there. It just came when there were too many other deadlines for me to stop and look at it. Let me just the only other thing I have to report is that I spoke briefly with Aida Janice at the Wayland festival about the library work, which is kind of complete. And she mentioned when passing that they might be possibly looking at the freight house for possible future use. But it's, I gather, it's only something that's at the idea stage right now, nothing definitely. Who is this? This Aida gems. Oh, are you the chair of the Library Board of Trustees? The free house is under whose this look board is not, doesn't it's not under the library. It's because it's used by the DEP W and the Historical Society and the library for storage.
So that's all. I
I too, have heard that the library is has plans for the break house without any idea what what it is.
Bon, I'm sorry, so we move on. Are you done? Okay, sorry, I was trying to find something on the
what Bonnie sent out.
Any other comments that we didn't know about 48 hours in advance,
look at the calendar for the next meeting, I have it as November 5. I believe that's correct. I just wanted to clarify it with everybody.
Bradford Carver: I may or may not be able to make that meeting leave. I'm flying out the next day.
Unknown: Wait a minute, you have when November? What fifth? Yes, that's right, that first Wednesday, the month, right? You
so anyone else have any other problems with November 5?
We can keep it November 5. You can zoom in. Yeah, I'll let you know. Yep, if that's more convenient for you. Thank you all for being such a wonderful team for Wayland festival and continuing to work as a wonderful team here in our meetings and all our discussions, if there's no other information needed, perhaps a motion to close. So moved second. Any discussion. All right, let's start with Brad Carver, hi and Gordon, yes.
Yes, thank you all. Thank.
Housing Partnership
Mary Antes: Well before being
taken so on may watch, I'll
participate remotely in the
meeting. Link that can be found
meeting
and soon after the meeting. This is practical. So participating Jackie Espiritusanto-Vega I messed it up every time. I can spell it. You can just do data if that's what I would work Jim Grumbach and the meeting Unknown: There does not appear to be any public comment. Thank you for taking the minutes. Jim Grumbach: You're welcome. You know, look, I haven't done it for a while. so I think you guys have been very Rachel Bratt: quickly so you can do it next time. Jim Grumbach: I'm not going Mary Antes: review the minutes of the last meeting. August 13. Jim has sent his corrections, any others or can go through and tell you what Jim did, if you don't have it, whatever. Unknown: They was nothing. was. It was all minor. Mary Antes: So, yeah, an apostrophe there. Rachel Bratt: I just, since I wasn't at the last meeting, I did not notice Cascade was doing 16 ownership
Mary Antes: House meeting that Robert home, Unknown: also, they're back to ownership from and they've increased the number of bedrooms from the original class. Okay, they were originally at 89 or something, and now they're somewhere over 90. That was part of when they went back, when they appealed our ruling, our the zoning board's ruling, which, which granted the special permit, but with conditions, they appealed it to. It was then eocd, and as a settlement, they agreed to put in a their own wastewater plant, and they also went from own units to rental units. So apparently, Rachel Bratt: they've gone back to which means I assume that it's 40 B only 25% discount for your subs has an industry inventory, and that the rest will be market rate, presumably compass. Unknown: Okay, and this is the old, actually, this is Mary Antes: the former Mahoney's. Thank you. Jackie, Jackie, I Rachel Bratt: said, Jackie, motion Unknown: then to I Mary Antes: move to approve amendment and I second it all right, all in favor of Jackie, yes. Kathy, yes. Rachel, yes. Okay. Updates, I know I had an email from Catherine today saying she missed the last meeting and that Jean would be able to tell us more 212
If she's here, Rachel Bratt: I have no right. You can have Katherine's online.
I think Jean had said she couldn't come. Jean over a light tickets are right, and I you haven't heard Mary Antes: I heard from Katherine today. She did not say she would not be here. we talked about some other things, including saying that Jean would probably have more information on she would. But I meant. Mentioned that at the Housing Trust meeting last night, Mike Staiti, who has been on the 212 Committee, said that he really doesn't have expertise in group homes and the people who take care of them, or anything like that. His expertise is in construction and permitting and all of that. So he resigned. The Trust has nominated Brian Boucher. Jim Grumbach: He resigned from Mary Antes: the 212 Jim Grumbach: oh, I see okay. Mary Antes: And we were recommending Brian be in his place. Janot Mendler de Suarez: And so Brian and Katherine will be on the 212 committee.
Mary Antes: And that asked about Mike would make himself available whenever they needed his kind of expertise, which is a good thing, because he's heard he's a contractor and was very knowledgeable of that stuff. But Shepherd, Rachel Bratt: well, Ah, man, I don't really know what to say. It seems like things are just dragging. As Mary knows, I've gotten some information back from the developer of the Good Shepherd Parish, and is the Planning Office of Urban Affairs. It's a nonprofit arm of the Archdiocese of lost a approval power, and they do all the development for archdiocese. They've been very, very into it. They've been very thorough. It seems like there is a hang up at our conservation commission, and I, honestly, I got as far today as trying to print out the stuff that he sent me, because he sent me five documents. He meeting the man at Hope. Philip is his name. He sent me these five documents, trying to get through them, looking at what the orders of conditions are that they're requesting from the state. The state and the Conservation Commission, apparently have not come to an understanding yet, and I just I can read to you what Philip wrote. I don't fully understand all of this stuff. Unknown: Well, maybe, maybe we could help you, but no guarantee. Rachel Bratt: Thank you for so I'm just gonna read my note to Philip yesterday, which is what I typically do when I'm supposed to give an update as I write to the person who's physically going to do that. And I said, that doesn't matter what I said. I said, what's happening? Hi Rachel, we met EO. EOHLC, that's the Executive Office of Housing and political communities and mass housing, to figure out where St Anne's slots into the future funding to EOL. EOLHC was hesitant as to a ballpark time frame as they wanted more clarity regarding the appeal of DEP is superseding order of conditions from the Conservation Commission. So again, this is the Department of Environmental Protection at the state, I guess, assessing the Conservation Commissions, superseding order of conditions. I hope these just enough. Jim Grumbach: My understanding is when the State wetlands, I think that's what it is, the state wetlands bylaws, as opposed to the town bylaws, when there are certain times when the state comes into play and it may override the town, and it sounds to me like they did, and then has the right, automatic right to appeal. Rachel Bratt: So helpful. Jim Grumbach: I think procedurally, that's that's kind of, yes, it's sort of a preemption argument where the state Rachel Bratt: until it's resolved, eohl isn't going to give us a date, but our target construction start is Q1, of Qt versus second quarter of 2026 otherwise we're doing what we can to be ready to move to construction once we have a better understanding of when we can close on construction loan. And then here's some background on the conservation issue. Maybe this is also illuminating. We spent over a year with ConCom, though most of the time was related to coordination with the peer reviewer, between between ConCom and both Board of Health. The order of conditions was issued in November included several unexpected and problematic conditions, which led us to file an appeal. We had made clear to conservation and Town Manager our intent to withdraw the appeal once an amendment order of conditions was drafted, but conservation never acted. The appeal concluded that DEP issued a more favorable superseding Order, order of conditions, after which conservation voted to appeal further. They've since indicated a willingness to discuss settlement, and we're hopeful this could be resolved in the coming weeks. And
Unknown: then so now it's between the DEP and ConCom not EOHLC. Rachel Bratt: I think that's right, okay. And then I think the other thing that I had gotten from him in some other email was we've been approved for the federal tax credits, which is the main subsudy that happened quite a few months ago, I don't think. But there's also an issue of getting state bonds from Mass Housing, because the bonds that we get from Mass Housing also help to reduce the cost of construction. And I think in another email that I had gotten from him, he said that EOL was reluctant to give us a timeline on that until everything else was so but you know, we're in the queue for everything. And you know, these guys are so capable and competent and patient, but it's just taking Jim Grumbach: well, isn't, isn't Jean over now on ConCom, Unknown: or no, she, we are hoping that she, that ConCom will appoint her to this committee Jim Grumbach: but she's not. Oh, I see So, so she's not a member of ConCom. Okay, it would be helpful to know somebody. I don't even know, who's that, who's the Chair of ConCom? used to be Sherre Greenbaum Mary Antes: It's Sean Fair, Rachel Bratt: fair, okay, I mean, Linda Hanson is obviously the one person who writes all of the superseding order of conditions. I mean, I've got all these documents here that she has signed, but it's
Unknown: I could try. Paul Sean, I mean, I sat with him on the zoning board for a year or two. I mean, that was decades. Rachel Bratt: Anyway, you know, whatever's going on seems to be at our end, local level, local problem the state. You know federal credits are lined up. The state knows we need to be in the queue for the mass housing, not the Unknown: state either. More favorable ruling is that you said Rachel Bratt: yes. That sounds Unknown: like another local issue with ConCom. Yeah. Rachel Bratt: And I did try to figure out what it was with the sticking points, but I didn't have time to go through this, and it's pretty dense. And, you know, we have two lawyers here. Unknown: This is, well, Tom, if you're, if you're giving up on it and you want to give it to me, I'll take it. Rachel Bratt: But otherwise, I think we don't have to honestly. I wanted to know I wanted to know more about it. I got as far as trying to print this stuff. I think what Philip has written to us probably suffices for our Unknown: minutes. Well, be nice to know from ConCom, what's the Rachel Bratt: sticking point? If you're okay, that would be great if we can get more information or lean on him a little bit. But
it just would be nice to get this resolved and to break ground by the first or second quarter of 2026 somebody from the church said this was was asking me about it from good shepherd. And she said, Well, she wasn't sure the current priest is quite as supportive as our friend David holiday. And I said it really was out of the church's hands at this point that the archia, since had approved it, the developers would name. I sound true to go along with it, but it is not in his camp at this point, either for or against. He's just kind of inherited. So I don't know anything about that. It's just hearsay a member of the church.
Mary Antes: It's whatever you find out from Tom Tom, if there's something we should do, Unknown: like write a letter, Jim Grumbach: yeah, I will notify you, Rachel Bratt: and then we'll let you decide
Unknown: we must know a different Jim Brownback, I'm looking to delegate Rachel Bratt: tonight. The big item is ADU.
Unknown: Forum.
Rachel Bratt: Kathy, why don't you start?
Unknown: So I think Rachel sent out a second on the final,
Rachel Bratt: third draft proposed. Unknown: This is where we basically went to Planning Board to get their tie in and collaborate Rachel Bratt: a couple of copies, if anybody
Mary Antes: needs it. Part of the comments Unknown: on that. This is the, this is the, this is the blown up version, yeah, unless you Well, this is clean. Rachel Bratt: Oh, I think you Unknown: somehow differently. So,
yeah, the final one in March is date 16 that's covered. Rachel, can I have a problem? Please?
Yes. Anyway, as a result of that, in that prior meeting, we talked about meeting with Anette, informally. And then we went back to Anette with, you know, responding to her concerns, and Robin and we went to the planning board meeting, and, oh, you were both there, I think Jim and Mary. Jim Grumbach: And who's Robin for yourself? Sorry, I think she's Unknown: a chair now Jim Grumbach: she Oh, Rachel Bratt: she's the chair, I think. And I think that I could be wrong
attorney, and she is now the representative. Unknown: She's definitely been delegated on this issue. Rachel Bratt: She had also sponsored. Haven't she been the one to speak a town meeting on the ADU bylaw? Unknown: Do we recall that? No, that is correct. She presented it so she Rachel Bratt: then, kind of now has inherited on the planning board being their spokesperson. Unknown: Okay. Thank so anyway, I mean, I'm not sure that there's so many generations we went back and forth with, we made a very concerted effort to address their concerns. And we, you know, a lot of it, I think, was wordsmithing. I think a lot of it was says to me, it was taking things too literally and getting feeling like we're putting them in a box where I don't think we were, but, you know, again, Rachel been bad with and we made lots of concessions, and it was fine. I mean, it was an agreeable kind of process. I think whenever you're Rachel Bratt: dealing with multiple committees trying to write a document, it's gets difficult, and what came out of it, I think, is fine and clear and satisfactory to go forward now. Unknown: And we gave them things, as far as you know, we gave them the order, we changed the order we had originally. I think what we used previously was, you know, I think seen a document where we, think we shared this before, where we essentially were talking about, you know, the introduction, the overview of the legal product regulations, and then we were going to talk about construction and identifying personnel and that, I think, did react, there was some reaction to that. They didn't want anybody identified who would, in fact, be somebody working for Wayland, or from Wayland who would be a contractor. And I don't know that that's cast in stone, but this is the days of the issue. We had raised DEP sacred name, and a name. And I think Jimmy would mention before when melody, and we didn't even put wind forward as a name at this point, and and basically they didn't want names identified, which was okay, so. So we essentially Rachel Bratt: potential contractors and private business people. And there's Unknown: no reason these people can't participate in the forum, but they won't be identified, as I understand it, as people on the panel, person Rachel Bratt: right, and they can, essentially, they pitch for their product, or they pitch for their right. So that Unknown: we understood that. We haven't Rachel Bratt: sanitized that, yeah. Unknown: And then the now, the septic issues were obviously a concern to the planning board and Title Five, no, we realize it's going to be addressed, that it's an issue. And then we basically took what I think we talked about at our last meeting, which was the brainstorming idea of how to promote affordable ADUs, and we put it as the last panel in part. I mean, I think our pitch to what was talking to with Rachel was the idea that we would gain on a advocacy note, a positive note, a strategy for action. And people leave because we can't get everything done and now, so what the people who will stay will be the people who perhaps are committed to this, or have an interest in this and whatever. But instead of talking about seeing who's gonna end
Rachel Bratt: up front, and that will take most of the hour and a half, presumably, and then the next steps of a ad use when we get to it, or we'll defer to another meeting. So, so what would the next step of where we are is Kathy and I would start, should start contacting the various other people who are supposed to be part of this little planning group. So right now, the planning group for the forum it consists of Kathy Lee and Robin, but we want to start recruiting now. Building Board of Health assess, the conservation Housing Trust, Housing Authority, DEP, new human rights. We'll be looking for as many of these folks as possible to co sponsor this kind of Tom, when it gets advertised, they would all be listed along with the planning board in the house of partnership as co sponsors of the forum. So I think the next step is for us to call email each of those people on that list, and you know, we're now in a position where we can send this to them and describe what we're doing. The date is tentatively set to November 12. Does that work for us?
Mary Antes: Somehow, the 12th is in the back of my mind as a 2/50 event,
Rachel Bratt: then it turns out, for me, the fifth would be better. The fifth would be better for various reasons that the planning board had come up with the 12th because that was a regularly scheduled meeting of theirs. But as for me, I would love to make it the fifth. The things we need to do are, obviously get the co sponsors and line up people for the panels. Unknown: And I think when we're talking about co sponsors, we're not talking about this. This is a done deal at this point. We're not going back right to do what we did with Rachel Bratt: this was the planning board and Robert humble, who waited today, basically, I couldn't move this document into the planning board, and Robert had given me okay. It's been done for I don't know my first draft was two weeks ago, probably yes, but Robert was on vacation, and it just took time, and you just have to kind of wait it Unknown: out. So are the co sponsors of people that are Rachel Bratt: mentioned, yes, bullet, those are the people that we will be recruiting to be co Unknown: sponsors. So that's the boh, the building department, the assessor, Housing Authority, obviously, Katherine, I don't think there's much question with the Housing Authority and the Housing Trust. St Mary works pretty regularly with Mike, that's not a problem. Rachel Bratt: I don't know whether we didn't put the select Word down on this. Should they be just actually sponsored? Unknown: I think they should and and you know what I can do. I can I can contact when I contact Sean Fay, I can, I can ask him to be a co sponsor. They mentioned Rachel Bratt: Tom Okay. Who did we have down? Unknown: We have Linda Hanson, okay, and I don't know her. I, I can always ask him. That contact. Rachel Bratt: I guess I didn't put, I didn't even think to put a select board down, but maybe we should make an overture and see if they're interested. Jim Grumbach: I think, I think we should. Rachel Bratt: So I think the next you're going to contact Sean Fay Unknown: and ConCom on the palette issue. But I can Rachel Bratt: also solicit Jim Grumbach: his interest if he Rachel Bratt: says, Dr Linda, of course we also need a representative on ConCom for one of the panels. Is that not listed? Maybe it's not listed. Just be. So it's just, it's just asking for his endorsement, you know, the endorsement of conservation. Because, yes, there, there are wetlands issues, there are possible issues involved with ConCom. So they're not going to be a panelist, I guess, but it's like appropriate to have them on board. Mary Antes: Maybe
Rachel Bratt: some other things expect attorney brought Unknown: back to Well, I think the other thing we could do, if we wanted, is we could say we've planned out the meeting and we have some panels. Would anybody from these boards be interested? Rachel Bratt: Well, I think you have to do much, yes, too much, because the panels can't be that big. Jim Grumbach: Okay, so I'm not gonna, you're not Rachel Bratt: asking them. You're just, I'm not Jim Grumbach: gonna ask them. I'll just add some notes. You know, if you Mary Antes: have two or three that you could ask about opponent, Jean, Rachel Bratt: oh, there you go. Another another task. You appointing gene to as a representative. So you've got three things. It sounds like, okay, so I have to.
Unknown: So one is power. Two is sponsor, Rachel Bratt: sponsored, co sponsor, along with many other town boards, co sponsor Unknown: the forum. And the third is appoint gene Rachel Bratt: as as a ConCom.
Mary Antes: I have talked with Linda about this. I've sent her several reminders so it's not new to her. I don't know Jim Grumbach: this is a representative to this committee. Yes,
Mary Antes: we haven't had a representative from the conservation for two years, three years.
Jim Grumbach: Okay, Rachel Bratt: okay, so thank you for being patient. Thank you. Thank you for doing so. We do need to contact now, Mary, you're gonna, did you say would contact the Select Board Mary Antes: again and Rachel Bratt: let them know about this? Why don't you just say, I haven't checked the date of November 5 with the planning board, their tentative date was the 12th. Yeah, that's what I have in mind. But maybe if you can open up the fifth or the 12th and see what what their availability is, and you're going to double check if there's something on the 2/50 that would be a deal. Perfect. The 19th gets too close to Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving, it's not a good time with Christmas. The holidays. Nobody wants to plan December. So if we didn't make it in November, we'd having to push it into January, which would be what we would do. Would be what it's what we would do. It's what we'd have to be the 12th of January. You know, early in January. But okay, so can we actually go through this Cathy just quickly? Who's going to call whom we've got the ConCom set? So Jim is going to do that. Select the word is married
Unknown: sport of health, building, building, what do you Rachel Bratt: want to do? Who do you want to call that? I think I had Unknown: Juliet and Rachel Bratt: Nathan, so Board of Health and Nathan and Kathy and the assessor is doing that. Am I doing that? Okay, so we have that assessor and DPW all do actually Jackie's on the Housing Trust. I'll. Local Chair of the House interest you
Unknown: think Mike's gonna wanna? You think Mike's gonna want to do that?
I mean, they don't have to do anything. It's certainly Rachel Bratt: a matter of at your next meeting. By saying, this is a document that's being put out by the planning board and the house of partnership for the forum, you've been asked to co sponsor this.
Unknown: Can we give them this draft? Rachel Bratt: This draft is now public, so Jackie, you can take care of do Unknown: I have an electronic copy of this? How? Do I have electronic copy of this? I can take the document, get rid of the oh, if you order Rachel Bratt: anything, so you make a PDF and send Unknown: it around. Rachel Bratt: I didn't send this out. You might have noticed, six o'clock tonight. What you said, I have the green light.
Jim Grumbach: I did notice you sending it, Rachel Bratt: so I did, and I was trying to get dinner, and I didn't convert it into a PDF. But if you do that and send that around, and then Jackie at your next meeting, if you would propose that, that Unknown: would be great. So it's no work in there, but it's literally the DPW. I think we haven't Rachel Bratt: gotten to them yet,
Jim Grumbach: unless I missed it.
Do you mind Rachel Bratt: if you know Tom, that would be great. Larry and I'll do the assessing, I guess. Unknown: Okay, and that leaves, I got caught on human rights. Dei, that's Jeanette, I'm assuming. Rachel Bratt: So, so we asked her notes that actually I Mary Antes: think Karen Rosen thought, well Rachel Bratt: is on the committee. She can ask the committee Mary Antes: now she has sort of pulled back from the 2/50 so Karen has no man that and the lad, no man, that name yesterday or something, said she was in Argentina, so you may not get her full. Why don't? Rachel Bratt: Who's the chair of the DEI? Mary Antes: Karen,
Rachel Bratt: okay, thank you. So let me go through the list.
Select Board is Mary, building and health are Kathy. Rachel is assessor. Jim is conservation. Jack is Housing Trust. Rachel is housing authority. Mary is DTP, W and Rachel is human rights.
Jim Grumbach: Great. Thank you. Rachel Bratt: So again. Oh, and then we should not only solicit their support, but some of these people also have to be specifically asked if they'll participate. Unknown: So let's go through okay, now I think we should do that after you and I go through the stuff, so we now know what we've go ahead so we have one more conversation. Okay? In theory, though, we might want to have that discussion before we contact those people. No, I think we should. Rachel Bratt: Let's just get their support. I think get their support and also mention, actually Mary. I think the first order of reasons is to find out the 12th and then let us know is the 12th arrival date. And if not, then you have to check with the planning board about the fifth, and if not, you have to look at January. I assume everybody believes that once Thanksgiving, I agree. It's not a point running a forum in December, Unknown: because we don't actually have a lot of buy in already, because we have, by the Board of Health, they were pretty open that night. Rachel Bratt: Yeah, I think this is that performance, Unknown: and Julia also, and whether she's the one who participates on the panel or somebody Rachel Bratt: else, there's a lot of support for this, yeah, and I haven't seen anything further from Robert's website. Whether you know that the Robert and it's, I think it's on the building department website, right? But that's going to be something we want to make sure in. Is clear, and we work with them to make sure that people can pull up the checklist of what do I need to do Unknown: to they had started, and I don't know that we would think it was complete. Rachel Bratt: So I was very clear that we want to be involved in that website, making sure that it is an easy flow of information. They've got to ask you want to put up an ADU? What I have to do? Internal, external reconfiguration.
So that is our that's our update. Is there anything else? Unknown: Kathy, well, I would say on penalty. I think that is where this group can participate in terms of thinking about ideas, strategies, you know, being on the panel, and Rachel Bratt: so let's put that on the agenda for next time when we hope that we have new members where we can put it maybe that, maybe we even own that. Unknown: I think it is our panel, and I agree. We even said it. We said it to them so they start members of whp, yeah, we call the time. We have time to throw our ideas and to sort of dig into them. I think, identify resources. And I think a lot of this is going to be resources and links and websites and that type of information. Well, you now have the building department and the assessor. You think they won't be part of that, not Well, that would be a part of other ones. I suspect they won't be on penalty because they were not interested for you. DEP, absolutely,
Jim Grumbach: my apologies Unknown: are not working, okay,
Rachel Bratt: I mean, and basically, yeah, that's all you need on the panel. And maybe Robert as well. You know, part maybe Robert is participating in a lot of these panels, since he's hotel, Mary Antes: so we're not having like Doug or when, right? That's probably we should be sure to invite them correct to come, because they will Rachel Bratt: have, they can come, they can participate. They can from the floor. They can offer. If somebody says, Does anybody have ideas about costs? The issue was we, there was no sense that we wanted this to be an opportunity for people to promote their own but if somebody, a participant, wants to say, Well, I've done, you know, three ADU of under 900 square feet and like it cost one family physicals another, Unknown: and the planning board meeting that we did attend, I mean, Sackler was driving back from Maine or someplace, and he indicated that he was willing to share information that he had, I'm sorry, the architect, in terms of costs, all we wanted he could do that from the floor, Rachel Bratt: so he's not being validated us or given A Unknown: special podium, like putting the panel, the planning board, in a position that they Yeah, Mary Antes: but, but I think we should Yes, specifically, anybody know, Oh, absolutely, Rachel Bratt: that he's welcome to participate, yeah, but not, but not that he's not being officially sanctioned. Like, like the town to present this information, yeah, because, I mean, I think those were all important points. And I mean, Robert keeps reminding us, appropriately, that every case is different. There's no cookie cutter for this at all, even, you know, one yard versus another yard, and ADU and one yard will require this amount of work. And ad, you know, reconfiguring interior spaces, it's all Unknown: but I think one, one thing we bring to the table is we are sort of free flowing and creative. We we don't have a lot of rules. We're, we're not a formal committee. The Planning Board had is a formal town committee. They have a, you know, they have to bylaws. They've got to fit it into boxes. We don't have to fit into boxes. And I think that's an important part of this that we should take advantage of. Mary Antes: Now, you had a neighbor who was trying to build them. Unknown: Well, they they built it and it was not sanctioned because of all the all issues with the building department.
Rachel Bratt: So yeah, Unknown: and I'm sure, I'm sure there are a lot of people like that. They, you know, they've tried, and it's very frustrating when, when you know you can't fit into the exact things. And, you know, I so I can, I can talk about the fact that there are people in town who have essentially done this, but not with blessing of the town, because it's been so difficult to dig into the bylaws and regulations. But here, with this new statute and the revised by law, what we're trying to do is make it less difficult and more cost efficient and easier, so that people don't want to run away from it, but they want to embrace it, because then it will be formalized, and then it may enhance your property value more, rather than leaving you in this gray zone. It would be wonderful Rachel Bratt: if we can get a little bit of movement. I mean, we don't know how much, Unknown: but there is resources out there. This is from 2018 and this is from basically California, which is where Gene was actually talking about before twice. This guy's name is Cole Peterson, and he's got all sorts of material on the internet. And it's just used from Amazon. It's already mocked up. Anybody's Welcome Rachel Bratt: to when it's that easy to use. It's totally on. Unknown: It's called back to a revolution, the definitive guide to ADU development, and it's basically there was a section on affordable ADU and promoting affordable ADU. What's back to a revolution. Rachel Bratt: You got it used on Amazon? Yep.
Unknown: Guys called Kol Peterson,
Rachel Bratt: sounds like a good read. Yeah, Sen or
Unknown: thank you for finding that. And when did you say that was 2000 18,018?
And so it's giving a lot of examples from what they're doing in different places, basically from the West Coast, Oregon, Portland and also Austin, Texas. And can they go? Okay, more progressive cities, okay, but it is interesting, and it's again, promoting strategies for change, for things that actually could work and how to do it, and talking about an advocacy role, and talking about holding phones, very exciting support and stuff like that. It's pretty much what we've Rachel Bratt: been doing. The one thing that we're not dealing with, which is not fun. I wish they were a way to have some kind of low interest fund so that somebody could, let's say, borrow $5,000 or $10,000 to try to, you know, jump start their project with, you know, a below market, you know, 2% interest rate, 3% interest rate, so that I don't know if you know, I don't know if the trust would do anything like that. It gets complicated. Mary Antes: I mean, we do repair and something else, right? We've never talked about them. They do have home improvement. But it's really, Rachel Bratt: I mean, when you're
Unknown: trying to do, I mean,
Rachel Bratt: again, if you're trying to get a union built, and somebody says, Well, this is going to cost me 10s of $1,000 but if I got a really low interest loan for a third of it, let's say that might be the sweetener interest rates with that quarter Today, that is going to make a big difference. Unknown: But, yeah, I was actually looking this small this morning in terms of the capital cost being the major hurdle was ultimately out there talked about and the incentives to building, trying to overcome how to reduce capital cost development, how to market ADU is locally through earned media, in creating a sense of urgency by placing deadlines on incentives. The key is, what are the incentives and then building trust in the ADU permitting process? And I think that is something if there was when we talked about description of the group. That's what we were trying to get at when they I think they get a little caught up in it. But it was the idea that this permitting process, it would be clear, they're clear guidelines that they would be we talked about pre approved. They didn't like that term to be able to like they would take it too literally. But the idea. Was that there is a process, and that process applies to everybody. You can oh no, and there's a checklist that you know is gonna apply to you. It's gonna apply to me, and it's not gonna worry about whether, yes, every unit may be different, but you know what, I can still come with that you and I are basically gonna have the same criteria, and that's what people need to know, so they're not gonna feel like they're gonna get screwed. Rachel Bratt: I mean, I think the conversation of incentives, financial incentives, that is another conversation whether, and I don't know where we would have, it would be with the housing trust or the CPA, but I mean, those are our sources of kind of just earmarked for housing, kind of discussions and CPA Community Preservation Act, you know that, Unknown: right? Okay, this money from all the real estate transfers? Rachel Bratt: No, it's actually a surcharge from our property, right? Okay, so if you look at your property tax bill, which I know Unknown: we all love to look at, Rachel Bratt: there's a line item that says CPA on it so this, and that is, I think, one and a half percent of the tax obligation every town could choose either not to participate or to go up to 3% and we chose one and a half percent. And the idea was, early on, the state was going to matching funds. So if Wayland raised, let's say, a million dollars in CPA funds, that we were supposed to get a million from the state, that ratio has changed. And I don't know what I don't know what the matching is. Now, it might be very little at this point, I think, anyway that gets into the means of the statute. But the point was, the incentive for the cities and towns to levy this extra tax was that there would be some state money and and it had to go to one of three activities, at least 10% each year had to be allocated for housing, historic preservation or open space. So those were the three activities. And each year you have to set aside at least 10% each of them, but you can go out, and that's where the trust gets its manual contribution. Mary Antes: Every every year, we get that 10% Rachel Bratt: and you can get more for housing if you apply for right? So it's not it's not a maximum, it's a minimum, but it's an assurance that each of those activities get at least 10% Unknown: and is that, are those the only three types of activities? I mean, Mary Antes: open creation is, Rachel Bratt: yeah, open space slash recreation is what kind of it ended up being. And there were, there were debates about, can you use that money to redo the track field at the school trip. Yeah, so is that open space? Is that? You know, where does that fit in? But it was, it was open space. It was not in the statute of recreation. Okay? At recreation, somehow, I
Mary Antes: mentioned that there is a group. Metropolitan Area Planning Committee has started gathering representatives of housing trusts. They've had two meetings so far. The third one is tomorrow. At the second meeting, they talked about the real estate transfer, and Carmen and Gentile is has a bill, and of course, they're looking for people to support it. This would be a Rachel Bratt: transfer tax. Might be Mary Antes: similar. It would be similar to CPA, and would be a percentage. And there's all sorts of flexibility in the amount and what it goes for all afford for affordable housing, but Rachel Bratt: was there was this for all property transfers, or just certain properties like over? Mary Antes: Well, I think it's the it's very flexible. They're giving us an update tomorrow on where that is. We really can't say when you support it, because, you know, we're a town valley, but I would like at some point for some discussion of the trans of that, and see if, if there's interests. Rachel Bratt: Yes, well, I mean, the transfer tax has been used in a number of municipalities, including, I believe the cape, I believe Nantucket, maybe northeast Indian also, I don't remember, but I believe they've got the transfer tax. And I know transfer taxes exist elsewhere. I just, I don't know where Mary Antes: and how much and the bill is to make it available to anybody like the CPA right now, if I want to do it, you have to
pass it at town meeting and then give it to the your representative and hope that it'll go through and it doesn't always. So this is, as I understand it is, to make it an easier process. Unknown: So would be done on town wide basis. Wouldn't be a state mandate. Rachel Bratt: It sounds like a stay in a statute, and I mean, unlike it's not clear what the incentive would be from the state with CPA, there was a cash incentive that made sweetened the deal for towns to adopt this, I Unknown: don't know, and especially now With the uncertainty of health care and everyone else, education. I don't know what people are going to be Mary Antes: willing to when I mentioned it to Brian, he said, Oh, no, not another task. And of course, he's very much in favor of affordable housing. So, you know, it may not go anywhere. But I think it's worth a discussion. They talked about, you know, like we could get a million dollars.
Rachel Bratt: Well, sure. I mean, depending what you know, let's say all homes over a million dollars, most find many homes that are under all homes under million dollars, pay 1% whatever. Anyway, you know, then you come back to the question of, okay, we've got this money. Where do we build it? I mean, that becomes our age old. Problem is, even if we have the money, you have to find land, you have to have, Mary Antes: but I wonder if it could be used for ADU. I think, I think we know
Rachel Bratt: things are going to get a lot to get a lot worse before they get better. So whatever we can do to soften the blows of whatever's coming, yes, what we're trying to do.
Unknown: And then one of the other things remember that the planning would be, that was Anette brought it up, the idea of the condo conversion, using that as a mechanism. Rachel Bratt: If you've got a primary unit out of ADU, they would each become their own freestanding condo, right? Unknown: So you wouldn't be as it would be an incentive to de restriction. It wouldn't be the disincentive for de restriction, as opposed to like there currently is, in terms of people fearful of acting on their property. Rachel Bratt: Somehow, I feel like that's such a long shot. I mean, as Unknown: I don't know any general opinions that is exerted to encourage town, there's a case already.
Rachel Bratt: Georgetown, Massachusetts as a homeowner, wanting to go from having full independence on your property to constraining it by being in a quote Congo association with another family, I don't know. It doesn't strike me as, oh, that's a great idea. Let's everybody jump on Mary Antes: I don't Unknown: know if you, especially if you're thinking in terms of a way for an income property, in a way to Anette was telling but she didn't see the point if the property was used to have a sort of number of square feet, and that you thought it would be a reason for subdivided property, as opposed to Congo conversion. But for people who aren't going to subdivide, but who basically would be, there's a lot of people who are oversized or large homes, and you can imagine them, well, it's worth the conversation, is what it is. And get or give people options. In other words, there's nobody to be in business. They write what they want if it's allowed. And that's the question is, is it allowed? Is it authorized? This case, I think suggests that the state is open to it. But in any event, I've been looking at the attorney general opinion, that's how they're coming down. Is this is. Relative to dealing with the ADU Rachel Bratt: housing person Unknown: dealing with the ADU and interpretations, so I've been just looking at them to see what they're doing. Rachel Bratt: So I think that probably concludes the conversation about planning for Mary Antes: the ADU. The only other thing on the agenda is the annual report. Thank you for taking
Jim Grumbach: care of the
annual report. No, it looks Rachel Bratt: good to me. Unknown: I were you looking for changes? I thought it was.
Rachel Bratt: I've been
Jim Grumbach: writing on the back of it for Unknown: my minutes here, there's only one, and I'm not, at one point, it refers to promoting the use of the law. And I think, I don't think it's promoting the use of the law. I think it's promoting the development of ADU through the law, the new law, that's all. Comment, please.
Rachel Bratt: Okay, it's it's sort of the bottom. It's the first full paragraph on the summary. Town Meeting approved the proposed bylaw by a largeman majority. The whp is planning a town forum to promote the use of the new bylaw. And how quick Would you like that to Unknown: say, Well, I would say to promote development of ADUs through the new by law,
Rachel Bratt: to promote development Unknown: ad use.
Rachel Bratt: That's very nice.
Well, I I move that we accept a sound report with the revision. Jim Grumbach: Mention second.
Mary Antes: Jackie, yes. Kathy,
Unknown: yes. Maybe tonight, this may have already been picked up. This is just, this is not a substantive shame. It's on the last paragraph on the second page, Committee continues,
including the two local developers. I think it's interested in building. Jim Grumbach: I'm sorry this
Unknown: is Oh, yeah, interesting.
It requires a new boat. Beautiful. It was really nicely done. Excellent job.
Mary Antes: Sent you an email about do HLC having ADU presentations on the 30th of September and second of November, in case anybody,
Unknown: and by the way, Anette Lewis forwarded something to us.
Cost 75
Rachel Bratt: so Mary, remind me you sent me. You sent emails about the OHC on 18 Mary Antes: years, yeah, ADU to ADU presentations, Rachel Bratt: and that's an email from me. Mary Antes: Well, I forwarded it. Okay, I think Unknown: I like to make one revision. We've now approved the Annual Report with two edits instead of one, same motion, same five, zero vote. Rachel Bratt: Everybody's comfortable. Thank you. Okay, got it. Mary Antes: Thank you. The next
Rachel Bratt: meeting, let me just say one other thing I know. In the meeting before last, we talked about Catherine, and I doing kind of some overviews of housing issues, and I think we're prepared to do it. But given the ad, you know, and get a bunch of topics that people want. More background, and since we have some new memories, but I think we should just put that all through that Catherine and I were in touch and came up with the mini agenda, but that got shelved with the ADU stuff, and I wasn't at the last meeting. So I just want to say I haven't forgotten about it. I love talking about this stuff, so I'll be happy to go through some of the housing issues history programs, but right now, I think we've got to focus on the ATD forum getting all that done, but it's in the back Jim Grumbach: room. I guess that's good point. Rachel Bratt: So we don't have
Unknown: to vote on the consensus is to Rachel Bratt: postpone. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just offering to postponement Jim Grumbach: until after the ADU Mary Antes: form. Yeah.
Unknown: I Okay, so the next meeting we're talking about mid October, and are we going to stay on Wednesday Rachel Bratt: nights? Wednesday, Mary Antes: my niece is coming on the 15th, which I think is a Wednesday 22nd and my daughter is coming on the 23rd which I think is Thursday, Thursday. So 22nd to 22nd 22nd Unknown: is good. I actually had a trial which is scheduled to end on the 22nd so the 15th, so let's say October, 22 at seven o'clock Mary Antes: in person again. Or Unknown: how do you guys feel about getting out tonight? It actually was fine. Rachel Bratt: I was tired when I left my house. I feel Jim Grumbach: this time it's nice to see guys face. What do
Rachel Bratt: you feel Jack? I'm up for it
Mary Antes: in person or Zoom Unknown: probably easier? Rachel Bratt: Well, no, it's easy
Unknown: to be in person because I don't have a problem with being a guardian for whatever reason, nobody can hear me. Yeah, you know the problem with Zoom is there are times that somebody's computer perhaps out, or they don't get invited. We've had enough time so Rachel Bratt: you want in person? Yeah, we'll do it Mary Antes: in person. Maybe in the winter. We'll go back to zoom or something if we have a winter. So now I
Unknown: so in favor.
and soon after the meeting. This is practical. So participating Jackie Espiritusanto-Vega I messed it up every time. I can spell it. You can just do data if that's what I would work Jim Grumbach and the meeting Unknown: There does not appear to be any public comment. Thank you for taking the minutes. Jim Grumbach: You're welcome. You know, look, I haven't done it for a while. so I think you guys have been very Rachel Bratt: quickly so you can do it next time. Jim Grumbach: I'm not going Mary Antes: review the minutes of the last meeting. August 13. Jim has sent his corrections, any others or can go through and tell you what Jim did, if you don't have it, whatever. Unknown: They was nothing. was. It was all minor. Mary Antes: So, yeah, an apostrophe there. Rachel Bratt: I just, since I wasn't at the last meeting, I did not notice Cascade was doing 16 ownership
Mary Antes: House meeting that Robert home, Unknown: also, they're back to ownership from and they've increased the number of bedrooms from the original class. Okay, they were originally at 89 or something, and now they're somewhere over 90. That was part of when they went back, when they appealed our ruling, our the zoning board's ruling, which, which granted the special permit, but with conditions, they appealed it to. It was then eocd, and as a settlement, they agreed to put in a their own wastewater plant, and they also went from own units to rental units. So apparently, Rachel Bratt: they've gone back to which means I assume that it's 40 B only 25% discount for your subs has an industry inventory, and that the rest will be market rate, presumably compass. Unknown: Okay, and this is the old, actually, this is Mary Antes: the former Mahoney's. Thank you. Jackie, Jackie, I Rachel Bratt: said, Jackie, motion Unknown: then to I Mary Antes: move to approve amendment and I second it all right, all in favor of Jackie, yes. Kathy, yes. Rachel, yes. Okay. Updates, I know I had an email from Catherine today saying she missed the last meeting and that Jean would be able to tell us more 212
If she's here, Rachel Bratt: I have no right. You can have Katherine's online.
I think Jean had said she couldn't come. Jean over a light tickets are right, and I you haven't heard Mary Antes: I heard from Katherine today. She did not say she would not be here. we talked about some other things, including saying that Jean would probably have more information on she would. But I meant. Mentioned that at the Housing Trust meeting last night, Mike Staiti, who has been on the 212 Committee, said that he really doesn't have expertise in group homes and the people who take care of them, or anything like that. His expertise is in construction and permitting and all of that. So he resigned. The Trust has nominated Brian Boucher. Jim Grumbach: He resigned from Mary Antes: the 212 Jim Grumbach: oh, I see okay. Mary Antes: And we were recommending Brian be in his place. Janot Mendler de Suarez: And so Brian and Katherine will be on the 212 committee.
Mary Antes: And that asked about Mike would make himself available whenever they needed his kind of expertise, which is a good thing, because he's heard he's a contractor and was very knowledgeable of that stuff. But Shepherd, Rachel Bratt: well, Ah, man, I don't really know what to say. It seems like things are just dragging. As Mary knows, I've gotten some information back from the developer of the Good Shepherd Parish, and is the Planning Office of Urban Affairs. It's a nonprofit arm of the Archdiocese of lost a approval power, and they do all the development for archdiocese. They've been very, very into it. They've been very thorough. It seems like there is a hang up at our conservation commission, and I, honestly, I got as far today as trying to print out the stuff that he sent me, because he sent me five documents. He meeting the man at Hope. Philip is his name. He sent me these five documents, trying to get through them, looking at what the orders of conditions are that they're requesting from the state. The state and the Conservation Commission, apparently have not come to an understanding yet, and I just I can read to you what Philip wrote. I don't fully understand all of this stuff. Unknown: Well, maybe, maybe we could help you, but no guarantee. Rachel Bratt: Thank you for so I'm just gonna read my note to Philip yesterday, which is what I typically do when I'm supposed to give an update as I write to the person who's physically going to do that. And I said, that doesn't matter what I said. I said, what's happening? Hi Rachel, we met EO. EOHLC, that's the Executive Office of Housing and political communities and mass housing, to figure out where St Anne's slots into the future funding to EOL. EOLHC was hesitant as to a ballpark time frame as they wanted more clarity regarding the appeal of DEP is superseding order of conditions from the Conservation Commission. So again, this is the Department of Environmental Protection at the state, I guess, assessing the Conservation Commissions, superseding order of conditions. I hope these just enough. Jim Grumbach: My understanding is when the State wetlands, I think that's what it is, the state wetlands bylaws, as opposed to the town bylaws, when there are certain times when the state comes into play and it may override the town, and it sounds to me like they did, and then has the right, automatic right to appeal. Rachel Bratt: So helpful. Jim Grumbach: I think procedurally, that's that's kind of, yes, it's sort of a preemption argument where the state Rachel Bratt: until it's resolved, eohl isn't going to give us a date, but our target construction start is Q1, of Qt versus second quarter of 2026 otherwise we're doing what we can to be ready to move to construction once we have a better understanding of when we can close on construction loan. And then here's some background on the conservation issue. Maybe this is also illuminating. We spent over a year with ConCom, though most of the time was related to coordination with the peer reviewer, between between ConCom and both Board of Health. The order of conditions was issued in November included several unexpected and problematic conditions, which led us to file an appeal. We had made clear to conservation and Town Manager our intent to withdraw the appeal once an amendment order of conditions was drafted, but conservation never acted. The appeal concluded that DEP issued a more favorable superseding Order, order of conditions, after which conservation voted to appeal further. They've since indicated a willingness to discuss settlement, and we're hopeful this could be resolved in the coming weeks. And
Unknown: then so now it's between the DEP and ConCom not EOHLC. Rachel Bratt: I think that's right, okay. And then I think the other thing that I had gotten from him in some other email was we've been approved for the federal tax credits, which is the main subsudy that happened quite a few months ago, I don't think. But there's also an issue of getting state bonds from Mass Housing, because the bonds that we get from Mass Housing also help to reduce the cost of construction. And I think in another email that I had gotten from him, he said that EOL was reluctant to give us a timeline on that until everything else was so but you know, we're in the queue for everything. And you know, these guys are so capable and competent and patient, but it's just taking Jim Grumbach: well, isn't, isn't Jean over now on ConCom, Unknown: or no, she, we are hoping that she, that ConCom will appoint her to this committee Jim Grumbach: but she's not. Oh, I see So, so she's not a member of ConCom. Okay, it would be helpful to know somebody. I don't even know, who's that, who's the Chair of ConCom? used to be Sherre Greenbaum Mary Antes: It's Sean Fair, Rachel Bratt: fair, okay, I mean, Linda Hanson is obviously the one person who writes all of the superseding order of conditions. I mean, I've got all these documents here that she has signed, but it's
Unknown: I could try. Paul Sean, I mean, I sat with him on the zoning board for a year or two. I mean, that was decades. Rachel Bratt: Anyway, you know, whatever's going on seems to be at our end, local level, local problem the state. You know federal credits are lined up. The state knows we need to be in the queue for the mass housing, not the Unknown: state either. More favorable ruling is that you said Rachel Bratt: yes. That sounds Unknown: like another local issue with ConCom. Yeah. Rachel Bratt: And I did try to figure out what it was with the sticking points, but I didn't have time to go through this, and it's pretty dense. And, you know, we have two lawyers here. Unknown: This is, well, Tom, if you're, if you're giving up on it and you want to give it to me, I'll take it. Rachel Bratt: But otherwise, I think we don't have to honestly. I wanted to know I wanted to know more about it. I got as far as trying to print this stuff. I think what Philip has written to us probably suffices for our Unknown: minutes. Well, be nice to know from ConCom, what's the Rachel Bratt: sticking point? If you're okay, that would be great if we can get more information or lean on him a little bit. But
it just would be nice to get this resolved and to break ground by the first or second quarter of 2026 somebody from the church said this was was asking me about it from good shepherd. And she said, Well, she wasn't sure the current priest is quite as supportive as our friend David holiday. And I said it really was out of the church's hands at this point that the archia, since had approved it, the developers would name. I sound true to go along with it, but it is not in his camp at this point, either for or against. He's just kind of inherited. So I don't know anything about that. It's just hearsay a member of the church.
Mary Antes: It's whatever you find out from Tom Tom, if there's something we should do, Unknown: like write a letter, Jim Grumbach: yeah, I will notify you, Rachel Bratt: and then we'll let you decide
Unknown: we must know a different Jim Brownback, I'm looking to delegate Rachel Bratt: tonight. The big item is ADU.
Unknown: Forum.
Rachel Bratt: Kathy, why don't you start?
Unknown: So I think Rachel sent out a second on the final,
Rachel Bratt: third draft proposed. Unknown: This is where we basically went to Planning Board to get their tie in and collaborate Rachel Bratt: a couple of copies, if anybody
Mary Antes: needs it. Part of the comments Unknown: on that. This is the, this is the, this is the blown up version, yeah, unless you Well, this is clean. Rachel Bratt: Oh, I think you Unknown: somehow differently. So,
yeah, the final one in March is date 16 that's covered. Rachel, can I have a problem? Please?
Yes. Anyway, as a result of that, in that prior meeting, we talked about meeting with Anette, informally. And then we went back to Anette with, you know, responding to her concerns, and Robin and we went to the planning board meeting, and, oh, you were both there, I think Jim and Mary. Jim Grumbach: And who's Robin for yourself? Sorry, I think she's Unknown: a chair now Jim Grumbach: she Oh, Rachel Bratt: she's the chair, I think. And I think that I could be wrong
attorney, and she is now the representative. Unknown: She's definitely been delegated on this issue. Rachel Bratt: She had also sponsored. Haven't she been the one to speak a town meeting on the ADU bylaw? Unknown: Do we recall that? No, that is correct. She presented it so she Rachel Bratt: then, kind of now has inherited on the planning board being their spokesperson. Unknown: Okay. Thank so anyway, I mean, I'm not sure that there's so many generations we went back and forth with, we made a very concerted effort to address their concerns. And we, you know, a lot of it, I think, was wordsmithing. I think a lot of it was says to me, it was taking things too literally and getting feeling like we're putting them in a box where I don't think we were, but, you know, again, Rachel been bad with and we made lots of concessions, and it was fine. I mean, it was an agreeable kind of process. I think whenever you're Rachel Bratt: dealing with multiple committees trying to write a document, it's gets difficult, and what came out of it, I think, is fine and clear and satisfactory to go forward now. Unknown: And we gave them things, as far as you know, we gave them the order, we changed the order we had originally. I think what we used previously was, you know, I think seen a document where we, think we shared this before, where we essentially were talking about, you know, the introduction, the overview of the legal product regulations, and then we were going to talk about construction and identifying personnel and that, I think, did react, there was some reaction to that. They didn't want anybody identified who would, in fact, be somebody working for Wayland, or from Wayland who would be a contractor. And I don't know that that's cast in stone, but this is the days of the issue. We had raised DEP sacred name, and a name. And I think Jimmy would mention before when melody, and we didn't even put wind forward as a name at this point, and and basically they didn't want names identified, which was okay, so. So we essentially Rachel Bratt: potential contractors and private business people. And there's Unknown: no reason these people can't participate in the forum, but they won't be identified, as I understand it, as people on the panel, person Rachel Bratt: right, and they can, essentially, they pitch for their product, or they pitch for their right. So that Unknown: we understood that. We haven't Rachel Bratt: sanitized that, yeah. Unknown: And then the now, the septic issues were obviously a concern to the planning board and Title Five, no, we realize it's going to be addressed, that it's an issue. And then we basically took what I think we talked about at our last meeting, which was the brainstorming idea of how to promote affordable ADUs, and we put it as the last panel in part. I mean, I think our pitch to what was talking to with Rachel was the idea that we would gain on a advocacy note, a positive note, a strategy for action. And people leave because we can't get everything done and now, so what the people who will stay will be the people who perhaps are committed to this, or have an interest in this and whatever. But instead of talking about seeing who's gonna end
Rachel Bratt: up front, and that will take most of the hour and a half, presumably, and then the next steps of a ad use when we get to it, or we'll defer to another meeting. So, so what would the next step of where we are is Kathy and I would start, should start contacting the various other people who are supposed to be part of this little planning group. So right now, the planning group for the forum it consists of Kathy Lee and Robin, but we want to start recruiting now. Building Board of Health assess, the conservation Housing Trust, Housing Authority, DEP, new human rights. We'll be looking for as many of these folks as possible to co sponsor this kind of Tom, when it gets advertised, they would all be listed along with the planning board in the house of partnership as co sponsors of the forum. So I think the next step is for us to call email each of those people on that list, and you know, we're now in a position where we can send this to them and describe what we're doing. The date is tentatively set to November 12. Does that work for us?
Mary Antes: Somehow, the 12th is in the back of my mind as a 2/50 event,
Rachel Bratt: then it turns out, for me, the fifth would be better. The fifth would be better for various reasons that the planning board had come up with the 12th because that was a regularly scheduled meeting of theirs. But as for me, I would love to make it the fifth. The things we need to do are, obviously get the co sponsors and line up people for the panels. Unknown: And I think when we're talking about co sponsors, we're not talking about this. This is a done deal at this point. We're not going back right to do what we did with Rachel Bratt: this was the planning board and Robert humble, who waited today, basically, I couldn't move this document into the planning board, and Robert had given me okay. It's been done for I don't know my first draft was two weeks ago, probably yes, but Robert was on vacation, and it just took time, and you just have to kind of wait it Unknown: out. So are the co sponsors of people that are Rachel Bratt: mentioned, yes, bullet, those are the people that we will be recruiting to be co Unknown: sponsors. So that's the boh, the building department, the assessor, Housing Authority, obviously, Katherine, I don't think there's much question with the Housing Authority and the Housing Trust. St Mary works pretty regularly with Mike, that's not a problem. Rachel Bratt: I don't know whether we didn't put the select Word down on this. Should they be just actually sponsored? Unknown: I think they should and and you know what I can do. I can I can contact when I contact Sean Fay, I can, I can ask him to be a co sponsor. They mentioned Rachel Bratt: Tom Okay. Who did we have down? Unknown: We have Linda Hanson, okay, and I don't know her. I, I can always ask him. That contact. Rachel Bratt: I guess I didn't put, I didn't even think to put a select board down, but maybe we should make an overture and see if they're interested. Jim Grumbach: I think, I think we should. Rachel Bratt: So I think the next you're going to contact Sean Fay Unknown: and ConCom on the palette issue. But I can Rachel Bratt: also solicit Jim Grumbach: his interest if he Rachel Bratt: says, Dr Linda, of course we also need a representative on ConCom for one of the panels. Is that not listed? Maybe it's not listed. Just be. So it's just, it's just asking for his endorsement, you know, the endorsement of conservation. Because, yes, there, there are wetlands issues, there are possible issues involved with ConCom. So they're not going to be a panelist, I guess, but it's like appropriate to have them on board. Mary Antes: Maybe
Rachel Bratt: some other things expect attorney brought Unknown: back to Well, I think the other thing we could do, if we wanted, is we could say we've planned out the meeting and we have some panels. Would anybody from these boards be interested? Rachel Bratt: Well, I think you have to do much, yes, too much, because the panels can't be that big. Jim Grumbach: Okay, so I'm not gonna, you're not Rachel Bratt: asking them. You're just, I'm not Jim Grumbach: gonna ask them. I'll just add some notes. You know, if you Mary Antes: have two or three that you could ask about opponent, Jean, Rachel Bratt: oh, there you go. Another another task. You appointing gene to as a representative. So you've got three things. It sounds like, okay, so I have to.
Unknown: So one is power. Two is sponsor, Rachel Bratt: sponsored, co sponsor, along with many other town boards, co sponsor Unknown: the forum. And the third is appoint gene Rachel Bratt: as as a ConCom.
Mary Antes: I have talked with Linda about this. I've sent her several reminders so it's not new to her. I don't know Jim Grumbach: this is a representative to this committee. Yes,
Mary Antes: we haven't had a representative from the conservation for two years, three years.
Jim Grumbach: Okay, Rachel Bratt: okay, so thank you for being patient. Thank you. Thank you for doing so. We do need to contact now, Mary, you're gonna, did you say would contact the Select Board Mary Antes: again and Rachel Bratt: let them know about this? Why don't you just say, I haven't checked the date of November 5 with the planning board, their tentative date was the 12th. Yeah, that's what I have in mind. But maybe if you can open up the fifth or the 12th and see what what their availability is, and you're going to double check if there's something on the 2/50 that would be a deal. Perfect. The 19th gets too close to Thanksgiving, and then after Thanksgiving, it's not a good time with Christmas. The holidays. Nobody wants to plan December. So if we didn't make it in November, we'd having to push it into January, which would be what we would do. Would be what it's what we would do. It's what we'd have to be the 12th of January. You know, early in January. But okay, so can we actually go through this Cathy just quickly? Who's going to call whom we've got the ConCom set? So Jim is going to do that. Select the word is married
Unknown: sport of health, building, building, what do you Rachel Bratt: want to do? Who do you want to call that? I think I had Unknown: Juliet and Rachel Bratt: Nathan, so Board of Health and Nathan and Kathy and the assessor is doing that. Am I doing that? Okay, so we have that assessor and DPW all do actually Jackie's on the Housing Trust. I'll. Local Chair of the House interest you
Unknown: think Mike's gonna wanna? You think Mike's gonna want to do that?
I mean, they don't have to do anything. It's certainly Rachel Bratt: a matter of at your next meeting. By saying, this is a document that's being put out by the planning board and the house of partnership for the forum, you've been asked to co sponsor this.
Unknown: Can we give them this draft? Rachel Bratt: This draft is now public, so Jackie, you can take care of do Unknown: I have an electronic copy of this? How? Do I have electronic copy of this? I can take the document, get rid of the oh, if you order Rachel Bratt: anything, so you make a PDF and send Unknown: it around. Rachel Bratt: I didn't send this out. You might have noticed, six o'clock tonight. What you said, I have the green light.
Jim Grumbach: I did notice you sending it, Rachel Bratt: so I did, and I was trying to get dinner, and I didn't convert it into a PDF. But if you do that and send that around, and then Jackie at your next meeting, if you would propose that, that Unknown: would be great. So it's no work in there, but it's literally the DPW. I think we haven't Rachel Bratt: gotten to them yet,
Jim Grumbach: unless I missed it.
Do you mind Rachel Bratt: if you know Tom, that would be great. Larry and I'll do the assessing, I guess. Unknown: Okay, and that leaves, I got caught on human rights. Dei, that's Jeanette, I'm assuming. Rachel Bratt: So, so we asked her notes that actually I Mary Antes: think Karen Rosen thought, well Rachel Bratt: is on the committee. She can ask the committee Mary Antes: now she has sort of pulled back from the 2/50 so Karen has no man that and the lad, no man, that name yesterday or something, said she was in Argentina, so you may not get her full. Why don't? Rachel Bratt: Who's the chair of the DEI? Mary Antes: Karen,
Rachel Bratt: okay, thank you. So let me go through the list.
Select Board is Mary, building and health are Kathy. Rachel is assessor. Jim is conservation. Jack is Housing Trust. Rachel is housing authority. Mary is DTP, W and Rachel is human rights.
Jim Grumbach: Great. Thank you. Rachel Bratt: So again. Oh, and then we should not only solicit their support, but some of these people also have to be specifically asked if they'll participate. Unknown: So let's go through okay, now I think we should do that after you and I go through the stuff, so we now know what we've go ahead so we have one more conversation. Okay? In theory, though, we might want to have that discussion before we contact those people. No, I think we should. Rachel Bratt: Let's just get their support. I think get their support and also mention, actually Mary. I think the first order of reasons is to find out the 12th and then let us know is the 12th arrival date. And if not, then you have to check with the planning board about the fifth, and if not, you have to look at January. I assume everybody believes that once Thanksgiving, I agree. It's not a point running a forum in December, Unknown: because we don't actually have a lot of buy in already, because we have, by the Board of Health, they were pretty open that night. Rachel Bratt: Yeah, I think this is that performance, Unknown: and Julia also, and whether she's the one who participates on the panel or somebody Rachel Bratt: else, there's a lot of support for this, yeah, and I haven't seen anything further from Robert's website. Whether you know that the Robert and it's, I think it's on the building department website, right? But that's going to be something we want to make sure in. Is clear, and we work with them to make sure that people can pull up the checklist of what do I need to do Unknown: to they had started, and I don't know that we would think it was complete. Rachel Bratt: So I was very clear that we want to be involved in that website, making sure that it is an easy flow of information. They've got to ask you want to put up an ADU? What I have to do? Internal, external reconfiguration.
So that is our that's our update. Is there anything else? Unknown: Kathy, well, I would say on penalty. I think that is where this group can participate in terms of thinking about ideas, strategies, you know, being on the panel, and Rachel Bratt: so let's put that on the agenda for next time when we hope that we have new members where we can put it maybe that, maybe we even own that. Unknown: I think it is our panel, and I agree. We even said it. We said it to them so they start members of whp, yeah, we call the time. We have time to throw our ideas and to sort of dig into them. I think, identify resources. And I think a lot of this is going to be resources and links and websites and that type of information. Well, you now have the building department and the assessor. You think they won't be part of that, not Well, that would be a part of other ones. I suspect they won't be on penalty because they were not interested for you. DEP, absolutely,
Jim Grumbach: my apologies Unknown: are not working, okay,
Rachel Bratt: I mean, and basically, yeah, that's all you need on the panel. And maybe Robert as well. You know, part maybe Robert is participating in a lot of these panels, since he's hotel, Mary Antes: so we're not having like Doug or when, right? That's probably we should be sure to invite them correct to come, because they will Rachel Bratt: have, they can come, they can participate. They can from the floor. They can offer. If somebody says, Does anybody have ideas about costs? The issue was we, there was no sense that we wanted this to be an opportunity for people to promote their own but if somebody, a participant, wants to say, Well, I've done, you know, three ADU of under 900 square feet and like it cost one family physicals another, Unknown: and the planning board meeting that we did attend, I mean, Sackler was driving back from Maine or someplace, and he indicated that he was willing to share information that he had, I'm sorry, the architect, in terms of costs, all we wanted he could do that from the floor, Rachel Bratt: so he's not being validated us or given A Unknown: special podium, like putting the panel, the planning board, in a position that they Yeah, Mary Antes: but, but I think we should Yes, specifically, anybody know, Oh, absolutely, Rachel Bratt: that he's welcome to participate, yeah, but not, but not that he's not being officially sanctioned. Like, like the town to present this information, yeah, because, I mean, I think those were all important points. And I mean, Robert keeps reminding us, appropriately, that every case is different. There's no cookie cutter for this at all, even, you know, one yard versus another yard, and ADU and one yard will require this amount of work. And ad, you know, reconfiguring interior spaces, it's all Unknown: but I think one, one thing we bring to the table is we are sort of free flowing and creative. We we don't have a lot of rules. We're, we're not a formal committee. The Planning Board had is a formal town committee. They have a, you know, they have to bylaws. They've got to fit it into boxes. We don't have to fit into boxes. And I think that's an important part of this that we should take advantage of. Mary Antes: Now, you had a neighbor who was trying to build them. Unknown: Well, they they built it and it was not sanctioned because of all the all issues with the building department.
Rachel Bratt: So yeah, Unknown: and I'm sure, I'm sure there are a lot of people like that. They, you know, they've tried, and it's very frustrating when, when you know you can't fit into the exact things. And, you know, I so I can, I can talk about the fact that there are people in town who have essentially done this, but not with blessing of the town, because it's been so difficult to dig into the bylaws and regulations. But here, with this new statute and the revised by law, what we're trying to do is make it less difficult and more cost efficient and easier, so that people don't want to run away from it, but they want to embrace it, because then it will be formalized, and then it may enhance your property value more, rather than leaving you in this gray zone. It would be wonderful Rachel Bratt: if we can get a little bit of movement. I mean, we don't know how much, Unknown: but there is resources out there. This is from 2018 and this is from basically California, which is where Gene was actually talking about before twice. This guy's name is Cole Peterson, and he's got all sorts of material on the internet. And it's just used from Amazon. It's already mocked up. Anybody's Welcome Rachel Bratt: to when it's that easy to use. It's totally on. Unknown: It's called back to a revolution, the definitive guide to ADU development, and it's basically there was a section on affordable ADU and promoting affordable ADU. What's back to a revolution. Rachel Bratt: You got it used on Amazon? Yep.
Unknown: Guys called Kol Peterson,
Rachel Bratt: sounds like a good read. Yeah, Sen or
Unknown: thank you for finding that. And when did you say that was 2000 18,018?
And so it's giving a lot of examples from what they're doing in different places, basically from the West Coast, Oregon, Portland and also Austin, Texas. And can they go? Okay, more progressive cities, okay, but it is interesting, and it's again, promoting strategies for change, for things that actually could work and how to do it, and talking about an advocacy role, and talking about holding phones, very exciting support and stuff like that. It's pretty much what we've Rachel Bratt: been doing. The one thing that we're not dealing with, which is not fun. I wish they were a way to have some kind of low interest fund so that somebody could, let's say, borrow $5,000 or $10,000 to try to, you know, jump start their project with, you know, a below market, you know, 2% interest rate, 3% interest rate, so that I don't know if you know, I don't know if the trust would do anything like that. It gets complicated. Mary Antes: I mean, we do repair and something else, right? We've never talked about them. They do have home improvement. But it's really, Rachel Bratt: I mean, when you're
Unknown: trying to do, I mean,
Rachel Bratt: again, if you're trying to get a union built, and somebody says, Well, this is going to cost me 10s of $1,000 but if I got a really low interest loan for a third of it, let's say that might be the sweetener interest rates with that quarter Today, that is going to make a big difference. Unknown: But, yeah, I was actually looking this small this morning in terms of the capital cost being the major hurdle was ultimately out there talked about and the incentives to building, trying to overcome how to reduce capital cost development, how to market ADU is locally through earned media, in creating a sense of urgency by placing deadlines on incentives. The key is, what are the incentives and then building trust in the ADU permitting process? And I think that is something if there was when we talked about description of the group. That's what we were trying to get at when they I think they get a little caught up in it. But it was the idea that this permitting process, it would be clear, they're clear guidelines that they would be we talked about pre approved. They didn't like that term to be able to like they would take it too literally. But the idea. Was that there is a process, and that process applies to everybody. You can oh no, and there's a checklist that you know is gonna apply to you. It's gonna apply to me, and it's not gonna worry about whether, yes, every unit may be different, but you know what, I can still come with that you and I are basically gonna have the same criteria, and that's what people need to know, so they're not gonna feel like they're gonna get screwed. Rachel Bratt: I mean, I think the conversation of incentives, financial incentives, that is another conversation whether, and I don't know where we would have, it would be with the housing trust or the CPA, but I mean, those are our sources of kind of just earmarked for housing, kind of discussions and CPA Community Preservation Act, you know that, Unknown: right? Okay, this money from all the real estate transfers? Rachel Bratt: No, it's actually a surcharge from our property, right? Okay, so if you look at your property tax bill, which I know Unknown: we all love to look at, Rachel Bratt: there's a line item that says CPA on it so this, and that is, I think, one and a half percent of the tax obligation every town could choose either not to participate or to go up to 3% and we chose one and a half percent. And the idea was, early on, the state was going to matching funds. So if Wayland raised, let's say, a million dollars in CPA funds, that we were supposed to get a million from the state, that ratio has changed. And I don't know what I don't know what the matching is. Now, it might be very little at this point, I think, anyway that gets into the means of the statute. But the point was, the incentive for the cities and towns to levy this extra tax was that there would be some state money and and it had to go to one of three activities, at least 10% each year had to be allocated for housing, historic preservation or open space. So those were the three activities. And each year you have to set aside at least 10% each of them, but you can go out, and that's where the trust gets its manual contribution. Mary Antes: Every every year, we get that 10% Rachel Bratt: and you can get more for housing if you apply for right? So it's not it's not a maximum, it's a minimum, but it's an assurance that each of those activities get at least 10% Unknown: and is that, are those the only three types of activities? I mean, Mary Antes: open creation is, Rachel Bratt: yeah, open space slash recreation is what kind of it ended up being. And there were, there were debates about, can you use that money to redo the track field at the school trip. Yeah, so is that open space? Is that? You know, where does that fit in? But it was, it was open space. It was not in the statute of recreation. Okay? At recreation, somehow, I
Mary Antes: mentioned that there is a group. Metropolitan Area Planning Committee has started gathering representatives of housing trusts. They've had two meetings so far. The third one is tomorrow. At the second meeting, they talked about the real estate transfer, and Carmen and Gentile is has a bill, and of course, they're looking for people to support it. This would be a Rachel Bratt: transfer tax. Might be Mary Antes: similar. It would be similar to CPA, and would be a percentage. And there's all sorts of flexibility in the amount and what it goes for all afford for affordable housing, but Rachel Bratt: was there was this for all property transfers, or just certain properties like over? Mary Antes: Well, I think it's the it's very flexible. They're giving us an update tomorrow on where that is. We really can't say when you support it, because, you know, we're a town valley, but I would like at some point for some discussion of the trans of that, and see if, if there's interests. Rachel Bratt: Yes, well, I mean, the transfer tax has been used in a number of municipalities, including, I believe the cape, I believe Nantucket, maybe northeast Indian also, I don't remember, but I believe they've got the transfer tax. And I know transfer taxes exist elsewhere. I just, I don't know where Mary Antes: and how much and the bill is to make it available to anybody like the CPA right now, if I want to do it, you have to
pass it at town meeting and then give it to the your representative and hope that it'll go through and it doesn't always. So this is, as I understand it is, to make it an easier process. Unknown: So would be done on town wide basis. Wouldn't be a state mandate. Rachel Bratt: It sounds like a stay in a statute, and I mean, unlike it's not clear what the incentive would be from the state with CPA, there was a cash incentive that made sweetened the deal for towns to adopt this, I Unknown: don't know, and especially now With the uncertainty of health care and everyone else, education. I don't know what people are going to be Mary Antes: willing to when I mentioned it to Brian, he said, Oh, no, not another task. And of course, he's very much in favor of affordable housing. So, you know, it may not go anywhere. But I think it's worth a discussion. They talked about, you know, like we could get a million dollars.
Rachel Bratt: Well, sure. I mean, depending what you know, let's say all homes over a million dollars, most find many homes that are under all homes under million dollars, pay 1% whatever. Anyway, you know, then you come back to the question of, okay, we've got this money. Where do we build it? I mean, that becomes our age old. Problem is, even if we have the money, you have to find land, you have to have, Mary Antes: but I wonder if it could be used for ADU. I think, I think we know
Rachel Bratt: things are going to get a lot to get a lot worse before they get better. So whatever we can do to soften the blows of whatever's coming, yes, what we're trying to do.
Unknown: And then one of the other things remember that the planning would be, that was Anette brought it up, the idea of the condo conversion, using that as a mechanism. Rachel Bratt: If you've got a primary unit out of ADU, they would each become their own freestanding condo, right? Unknown: So you wouldn't be as it would be an incentive to de restriction. It wouldn't be the disincentive for de restriction, as opposed to like there currently is, in terms of people fearful of acting on their property. Rachel Bratt: Somehow, I feel like that's such a long shot. I mean, as Unknown: I don't know any general opinions that is exerted to encourage town, there's a case already.
Rachel Bratt: Georgetown, Massachusetts as a homeowner, wanting to go from having full independence on your property to constraining it by being in a quote Congo association with another family, I don't know. It doesn't strike me as, oh, that's a great idea. Let's everybody jump on Mary Antes: I don't Unknown: know if you, especially if you're thinking in terms of a way for an income property, in a way to Anette was telling but she didn't see the point if the property was used to have a sort of number of square feet, and that you thought it would be a reason for subdivided property, as opposed to Congo conversion. But for people who aren't going to subdivide, but who basically would be, there's a lot of people who are oversized or large homes, and you can imagine them, well, it's worth the conversation, is what it is. And get or give people options. In other words, there's nobody to be in business. They write what they want if it's allowed. And that's the question is, is it allowed? Is it authorized? This case, I think suggests that the state is open to it. But in any event, I've been looking at the attorney general opinion, that's how they're coming down. Is this is. Relative to dealing with the ADU Rachel Bratt: housing person Unknown: dealing with the ADU and interpretations, so I've been just looking at them to see what they're doing. Rachel Bratt: So I think that probably concludes the conversation about planning for Mary Antes: the ADU. The only other thing on the agenda is the annual report. Thank you for taking
Jim Grumbach: care of the
annual report. No, it looks Rachel Bratt: good to me. Unknown: I were you looking for changes? I thought it was.
Rachel Bratt: I've been
Jim Grumbach: writing on the back of it for Unknown: my minutes here, there's only one, and I'm not, at one point, it refers to promoting the use of the law. And I think, I don't think it's promoting the use of the law. I think it's promoting the development of ADU through the law, the new law, that's all. Comment, please.
Rachel Bratt: Okay, it's it's sort of the bottom. It's the first full paragraph on the summary. Town Meeting approved the proposed bylaw by a largeman majority. The whp is planning a town forum to promote the use of the new bylaw. And how quick Would you like that to Unknown: say, Well, I would say to promote development of ADUs through the new by law,
Rachel Bratt: to promote development Unknown: ad use.
Rachel Bratt: That's very nice.
Well, I I move that we accept a sound report with the revision. Jim Grumbach: Mention second.
Mary Antes: Jackie, yes. Kathy,
Unknown: yes. Maybe tonight, this may have already been picked up. This is just, this is not a substantive shame. It's on the last paragraph on the second page, Committee continues,
including the two local developers. I think it's interested in building. Jim Grumbach: I'm sorry this
Unknown: is Oh, yeah, interesting.
It requires a new boat. Beautiful. It was really nicely done. Excellent job.
Mary Antes: Sent you an email about do HLC having ADU presentations on the 30th of September and second of November, in case anybody,
Unknown: and by the way, Anette Lewis forwarded something to us.
Cost 75
Rachel Bratt: so Mary, remind me you sent me. You sent emails about the OHC on 18 Mary Antes: years, yeah, ADU to ADU presentations, Rachel Bratt: and that's an email from me. Mary Antes: Well, I forwarded it. Okay, I think Unknown: I like to make one revision. We've now approved the Annual Report with two edits instead of one, same motion, same five, zero vote. Rachel Bratt: Everybody's comfortable. Thank you. Okay, got it. Mary Antes: Thank you. The next
Rachel Bratt: meeting, let me just say one other thing I know. In the meeting before last, we talked about Catherine, and I doing kind of some overviews of housing issues, and I think we're prepared to do it. But given the ad, you know, and get a bunch of topics that people want. More background, and since we have some new memories, but I think we should just put that all through that Catherine and I were in touch and came up with the mini agenda, but that got shelved with the ADU stuff, and I wasn't at the last meeting. So I just want to say I haven't forgotten about it. I love talking about this stuff, so I'll be happy to go through some of the housing issues history programs, but right now, I think we've got to focus on the ATD forum getting all that done, but it's in the back Jim Grumbach: room. I guess that's good point. Rachel Bratt: So we don't have
Unknown: to vote on the consensus is to Rachel Bratt: postpone. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just offering to postponement Jim Grumbach: until after the ADU Mary Antes: form. Yeah.
Unknown: I Okay, so the next meeting we're talking about mid October, and are we going to stay on Wednesday Rachel Bratt: nights? Wednesday, Mary Antes: my niece is coming on the 15th, which I think is a Wednesday 22nd and my daughter is coming on the 23rd which I think is Thursday, Thursday. So 22nd to 22nd 22nd Unknown: is good. I actually had a trial which is scheduled to end on the 22nd so the 15th, so let's say October, 22 at seven o'clock Mary Antes: in person again. Or Unknown: how do you guys feel about getting out tonight? It actually was fine. Rachel Bratt: I was tired when I left my house. I feel Jim Grumbach: this time it's nice to see guys face. What do
Rachel Bratt: you feel Jack? I'm up for it
Mary Antes: in person or Zoom Unknown: probably easier? Rachel Bratt: Well, no, it's easy
Unknown: to be in person because I don't have a problem with being a guardian for whatever reason, nobody can hear me. Yeah, you know the problem with Zoom is there are times that somebody's computer perhaps out, or they don't get invited. We've had enough time so Rachel Bratt: you want in person? Yeah, we'll do it Mary Antes: in person. Maybe in the winter. We'll go back to zoom or something if we have a winter. So now I
Unknown: so in favor.
HRDEI Committee
Heather Pineault: So this is the
human rights. diversity. equity
inclusion committee from
Wayland. It is September 16.
2025. and I'm Heather Pineault.
the vice chair and calling the
meeting to order at 6:05pm.
Let's begin with a roll call
vote. Please a roll call for who
is present. and we'll start
online. Asma. please state your
first and last name.
Asma Khan: Asma Khan. present.
Heather Pineault: Sarah. Sarah Shtutin: Sarah Shtutin present.
Unknown: yes. Mary Ann Borkowski: Mary Ann Borkowski. present. Kevin Goodwin: Kevin Goodwin present.
Heather Pineault: Yauwu. Yauwu Tang: Yauwu Tang Heather Pineault: Heather Pino present. And we also have Robbie here running our equipment and as an observer today. we have Sophie Chen. very exciting news as our new one of our new student members was appointed last night by the Select Board. but needs to still be officially sworn in and talented. so she will be joining us. but thank you for for watching us tonight. Welcome. and I will begin with the statement one may watch this meeting with the link that is found on WayCAM website. Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means. in ordinance with applicable law. this meeting may be recorded which will be made available to the public on WayCAM as soon after the meeting as is practical. when required by law or allowed by the chair. persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so by in person attendance or by accessing the meeting remotely. As noted above. we request public comment be limited to two minutes per person. and I misspoke at the beginning. the meeting link is found online on our agenda on the town of Wayland website. the indigenous land acknowledgement today. as we begin. we would like to acknowledge the following indigenous peoples on whose traditional homelands we live were gathered today. the Massachusett. the Nipmuc. the Wampanoag and the Pacheco. We acknowledge their ancestors. particularly carto of the Massachusett tribe. who was steward of much of the land now encompassing Sudbury and Wayland. When European settlers arrived to colonize this place in 1638. we seek to understand. acknowledge and remember the painful. ongoing history of war. genocide and forced removal of indigenous peoples by European settlers. And we offer a living celebration of the indigenous communities who are not just part of the past. but who can continue to live and make new history here today. may we all commit to deepening our relationships with indigenous communities and to being their allies and working for justice.
We will now see. Is there any public comment? Robbie Bullard: No one online Heather Pineault: No public comment. we're going to begin tonight with our discussion and possible vote to approve the August 19. 2025. meeting minutes. Does anybody have any changes. I have a few. oh. that I've received. but I just want to give everybody a chance first. Anybody else. Asma. I'll just so you don't have to try to get these in real time. I will send you the changes. There's only one that's substantial. Is that? Okay? Perfect. So Karen had a few things she noticed so on the number five conversations for change. This should read the committee discussed co sponsoring because we weren't developing it. So the committee discussed co sponsoring a facilitated community. community conversation series. That's all part of what's written there. Members express strong interest in CO sponsoring the series. with which is being organized by the Wayland library and the Wayland historical and society with professional facilitation. So the point of the change in that is just to clarify and make it clear that we're not actually running it. We're co sponsoring it. Number seven. if you're. Following along. We just are striking the word initial the initial findings. because the report is now complete. so it's not they're no longer initial findings. And on number 10. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't catch this was a typo. publicizing the events. we forgot a T and in the documents. reviewed the community life and executive engagement report the and ended up in the wrong place there. I had a question about number nine. did Karen and yeah. when we left the meeting. was the intent that Karen and yeah. we would draft the report. Yeah. well. were you going to help Karen on the the annual report? I think so. I think that's fine. because that was the plan. and then Karen ended up being able to do it. But as of the meeting time. that's what we've discussed. So the only substantial change was to the community the conversations for change and making it clear that we weren't developing it. we were co sponsoring the program. Does that make sense? Does anybody have any questions?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I think we can vote on it. Heather Pineault: if you are comfortable voting on it as amended. I would love to have a motion. Mary Ann Borkowski: I move that we approve the August 19. 2025. meeting minutes as amended. Heather Pineault: Awesome. Is there a second?
Sarah Shtutin: I'll second. Heather Pineault: Was that you? Sarah. yes. Asma Khan: thank you. Heather Pineault: Any any discussion on the motion? Okay. we'll do a roll call vote. We'll start with you. Mary Ann. please. Mary Ann Borkowski: Mary Ann. yes. Unknown: I don't Oh. you're Oh. yeah. you no. well. Kevin Goodwin: was I here? Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. yeah. I picked you up. Heather Pineault: No. no. Kevin was absent. You're right Mary Ann Borkowski: that's right. yeah. right. Another meeting. Kevin Goodwin: right. So I'm abstaining. Heather Pineault: Okay. Kevin is abstaining. Yauwu. Yauwu Tang: yes Heather Pineault: Yauwu. yes. Sarah
Asma. Asma Khan: yes. Heather Pineault: And Maya. I'm not sure if you were here to catch that or not. It's up to you whether you're comfortable voting on it. Maya Raj: Yeah. I did not hear what you said. I'm sorry. Heather Pineault: Okay. so why don't we leave you and Kevin is abstaining just from the vote because we made some changes to the minutes. but the motion carries with the exception of Kevin and Maya abstaining. And welcome Maya. nice to have you.
Maya Raj: Thank you. Heather Pineault: You're welcome. All right. moving on. Number four item number four review of the annual town report due September 30. with a possible vote to accept in your packet. You found our draft report. and it's the same format that we've used in previous years. Mary Ann went through minutes from throughout the year and put them into sort of the template we have. We do have a word limit. or a character limit. I can't remember which it is that we are. We're at that being said. if there are things that are missing and we need to go back. we can work on it. They are due September 30. So we need to finalize what we're looking for tonight. Does anybody have anything to add or comments on the annual report
that? All right? Yes. we're moving right along. because we have a lot to do tonight. Would anybody like to make a motion to
what would we do. approve the our annual report to submit. to accept Mary Ann Borkowski: accept Sarah Shtutin: Sorry. I just have a I just have a quick question. Yes. of course. Thank you. Since I'm a new member for 2526 My name is not on the report. which I understand. so do I vote? Or
Heather Pineault: Great question. yes. yes. because you're on the committee now. so you're either approving for it to go forward or not. It's not like the minutes. even though it does represent what we did. or if you don't feel comfortable. you are also welcome to abstain. but because you Sarah Shtutin: I don't feel comfortable. just I wasn't there for all of these amazing things that you guys did that. Heather Pineault: oh. that's totally fine. And I think that. like you said. that's reflected in that you weren't a committee member at the time. Yeah. totally up to you and your comfort level of voting. but you're welcome to Would anybody like to make a motion to accept the annual report? Kevin Goodwin: I make a motion that we accept the annual report
Heather Pineault: due to September 30 to Kevin Goodwin: September 30 2025 to accept it. Heather Pineault: Thank you. And do we have a second for that motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: I second it. Heather Pineault: Thank you. So we have a motion by Kevin and a second by Mary Ann to accept the annual report for the hrdic due to the town on September 30. 2025 and this will be the 2025 annual report. All in favor. Let's start on zoom this time. Maya.
Maya Raj: yes. I'm in favor. Heather Pineault: Asma. Asma Khan: yes. Maryam Libdi: Sarah. Sarah Shtutin: yes. Heather Pineault: Yauwu Yauwu Tang: yes. Heather Pineault: Kevin. Kevin Goodwin: yes. Heather Pineault: And Mary Ann Mary Ann Borkowski: Yes. Heather Pineault: and Heather. yes. So we have a unanimous vote to accept the town report with thanks to Karen for all her work in pulling this together. We're on Agenda Item number five. fall statements. update Mary Ann not to put you on the spot. Is there Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. no. unfortunately. I did not get to it. Heather Pineault: Yeah. I My understanding or my memory and correct me if I'm wrong. Was we were also going to talk about like. seeing if anybody would like to help you find representatives who are representatives of the community for whom we are making these statements. Help revise that Karen offered. But if anybody else would like to work with Mary ann. it would be great to not just have Mary Ann have to do this by yourself. It's a lot Mary Ann Borkowski: well. it's well. I mean to all the statements. huh? All the fall statements. Yeah. yeah. Heather Pineault: And we're already up to September. Kevin Goodwin: Do we mean when you say fall statements. do we have statements for winter? Statements for summer? Heather Pineault: Would you like to clarify? Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. it's there on a monthly and actually this the. I think it's Hispanic heritage. and it is actually starts September 15 and and then we have a domestic abuse month and indigenous. indigenous capital day and month. Heather Pineault: So when we say the fall statements. it's only because they they're coming up right now. Kevin Goodwin: okay. all right. Mary Ann Borkowski: and doesn't obligate us to look at all of them at the same time. that's for sure. Heather Pineault: But we did talk last time about wanting to update them a little bit and get some fresh eyes from community members. So Karen is happy to help you. unless somebody else is interested in working on that. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. it might. you know. I think we'll reach out beyond the group to see if we can find some representatives of those identity groups so that we can. you know. feel that we've gotten some perspectives that are are from that community. that the statement is about. So and I'll work on that harder next time. Heather Pineault: And yes. thank you very much. And also. Karen's will help you with that as well. Great. Does anybody have any questions about the so called false statements?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I think maybe you know it might be kind of convenient and think about students too. particularly because. because. you know. there's a whole group of students in the in the high school. and we might be able to involve the high. How hard would it Maya for you to reach out To the students. like for the Hispanic statement. or indigenous statement. Maya Raj: Um. not too hard. but it does. like. depend on what you want to do regarding it. Like. if it's just a simple email. then it's super easy to do. Mary Ann Borkowski: And what did you say? Well. what I wanted to do was like. you know. take. take a look at it and see how they felt about it. Maya Raj: Oh. Okayy Mary Ann Borkowski: chance to rewrite it to see you know how language changes relative to certain issues. social issues in particular. And we want to make sure that our language is sensitive and is is what is the the current thought on these particular issues. so Well. maybe we'll reach out to you after. Maya Raj: okay. Heather Pineault: yeah. if you. if you're willing. we have statements already written. So it's not rewrite. it's not writing a statement from scratch. It's taking a look at what we've had in the past and giving feedback. Mary Ann Borkowski: right so that we need to change it. Heather Pineault: So Mary Ann will reach out to Maya. Thank you. That's great. Okay. moving on to our agenda. Item number six. discussion of the Wayland festival planning updates. including a possible vote to authorize payment to arts Wayland in the amount up to $9.500 for expenses related to the festival. And I won't go into all the details of that quite yet. Why don't we start with any updates about the festival before we get to the vote on the budget. Yauwu Tang: We just had a meeting a moment ago so sorry I was late. It's moving on very well. Performance stuff is online now. the interface we step away the schedule with three months in the final stage. we have 52 tables doing great job. and most is Mary Ann's PR. PR side. Bravo for lot of human cut in. rather everything. Heather Pineault: Oh. wait. say something Mary Ann? So it swings around and it takes a picture. You gotta talk so that I will just say Hi. Tom. hello. owl. Mary Ann Borkowski: owl. owl. well. I'll be talking in a minute because I needed to ask rotate to
Yauwu Tang: not that A frame of the banner.
Heather Pineault: Here we go with our new
it's it found me. Yeah. oh. I did see it. Am I can you guys see this? Oh. there we go. If I Talk so this is the sign. Mary Ann Borkowski: a yard sign. Heather Pineault: and the yard sign. And do you need places to put it? People to volunteer? Are you set? Mary Ann Borkowski: If I did want to ask anybody who's on a major road? Yauwu has one in front of his place. I don't know. Heather. I think we put one last year at the last multicultural festival. So if you want to take one. okay. and Asma Khan: I can take one up on Concord. Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. okay. that'd be great. So what shall where can I leave it? Kevin Goodwin: Does anybody know if the Wayland Post will be covering the Wayland festival? Mary Ann Borkowski: I don't know. I they're supposed to be writing an article for the next edition. But Asma. how can I get to this to you. or I could drop it off. Asma Khan: Yeah. we can coordinate something offline. Mary Ann Borkowski: Okay. what's Heather Pineault: your address? Oh. you don't have to say that online if you don't want okay. yeah. I'll text you. Mary Ann. okay. Mary Ann Borkowski: so what I did want to say. we are also having a table at the festival. So now what I'm planning for the table. not dissimilar to other table. The other table we had. we were going to have a couple of books on with our statements. So they're kind of like this. you know. kind of a listed our statements. It did have some of our events. I think I'm thinking of changing it to the annual the annual reports. We have three annual reports. and I'm not sure who really. you know. I'm not going to tell you. anyone looked through them. but I think. you know. we should. we had. should have something about what we've done. so that if people come by. we're going to have pens. These are the pens from the Wayland Spirit of Community Workshop we had. So we have some left over. So we're going to be giving those out. We're going to have some sort of activity. I got friendship bracelets for to give away. I wanted to have our immigration resources list. List there. And obviously people can go to the Resources page. I'll tell people where they can find it. and we have that community conversation with the Middlesex DA. so either I'm making a flyer or they will make a flyer. Anyhow. we'll have a flyer and we'll have a QR code. QR code has. you know. so that people can just so that's what I'm Oh. but I'm looking also so for tents. checking to see if anybody has a tent. Kevin Goodwin: Sarah has her hand raised. Mary Ann Borkowski: Sarah. you have a tent? Oh. thank you. Would you? Could we borrow it? Sarah Shtutin: Oh. no. I do not. No. no. I do not have a tent. That was before my hand was raised on whether we want to put a sign out in front of Happy Hollow. Mary Ann Borkowski: Um. yes. there we are scheduled to put an a frame in front of Happy Hollow. Okay. so a recreation has them. and I'm hoping they'll I'm going to be showing up and offered my services to bring it over. Okay. because I'd like them out. Because. yeah. we just got them yesterday. so now we're trying to get them around. So an Sarah Shtutin: A frame is like a sandwich board? Heather Pineault: yes. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. and we put it by the driveway. all the schools are putting them by all the schools so. and the banners go up next Monday. and then we get to have two banners. and for two weeks. and the other two areas that we can't have a banner. we'll have a sandwich sign. like What I showed you. what Heather showed you so and now actually. if it. even if you don't have a house that's on a main street. if you have a friend. another friend who's is has a house on a main street. if you want to ask me. or ask them. and then tell me and I can drop one off at their house so that they could Have one. like I'm asking someone from my church. she did it last time. So I'm. you know. she lives on Route 20 So. or business. if you're a frequent business person. like. Stop and Shop is letting us put these yard signs Mels we did last last year. So I'm going to stop by and ask them if we can do it again. and so. but you know. so there. you know. you're here. Fortunately. my hair isn't done here in town. So. but anyhow. so if the So. just reach out to me if. if you have another location that we could put one. Unknown: So are you putting this at. like. major intersections? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I'm the sign boards on the 22nd we need permission. So the 22nd we're going to be putting up for two weeks. We have two of them reserved. and the ones that we can only reserve two at a time. So we are putting a yard sign at the other two that we could not reserve. And so there'll be something there for two two weeks. starting next Monday. Heather Pineault: Great. Thank you so much. And in what do you need from us? What are your hopes from committee members. in terms of support? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that's the other one. Well. we have a table. We're there 10 till six. We need some bodies at the table. I'm going to be at the Freedom Team table right next to you. I hope we're right next to each other anyhow. so I can be there some I can. but I can't be at two tables at once. So we need people who will be able to spend an hour or so during this. unfortunately eight hour period. I'm not sure how. late in the afternoon. Yauwu Tang: six hours from 10 to four. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. 10 to Fay. I agree 10 to Yauwu Tang: five to four. You can enjoy the professional music. right? Mary Ann Borkowski: So. anyhow. so if you can anybody here able to commit right now? Yes. Heather. yes. What time can you be there? I'm open and flexible. Okay. 10 till spot. Yauwu Tang: I can fill gaps Heather Pineault: I can fill gaps. I know Karen. I believe she'll be there. Will anybody else be there who could sit at the table for a little bit. take an hour shift. or anything?
Mary Ann Borkowski: You'll come by. You're going to be at another table. Heather Pineault: Yauwu. will be at another table. Yeah. So please think about that. It's a long day. and the more people. the better. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. right. And we want to be present. just because that's part of our message. Is not just the work we do. but that the fact that we exist at all. Yauwu Tang: Also. we want to recruit members so we can have a sign up seats for people in. Was the Mary Ann Borkowski: we last time we did have. well. I had. I don't know if we have a how to join. but yep. join their HR join. but maybe we could have something they could take. Unknown: Yeah. so Mary Ann Borkowski: it's in here. but we should have it not buried in here. We'll put it something out on the table. maybe something they could take. Heather Pineault: So Sounds good. All right. Thank you. everybody. yes. So I suppose the second part yes is there. are there any more? Just Hang on one sec before we move into the possible vote to approve monies being given to arts Wayland. Does anybody else have any sort of more general questions about the festival or anything.
Mary Ann Borkowski: for those of you who may not know. so HRDEIC created a had two multicultural festivals in the past three years. and this year. we decided to join with two other entities that have big events in town. One is touch a truck that is the Wayland recreation department and ArtsWayland would have an Arts Expo with artists selling their pictures and art and performers. And so we thought that that was something we could all do together and have it kind of like be a bigger day. especially since there's. you know. we're doing performances. Our Expo is doing performances. And so anyhow. that's how we got together and and created this one big event just to see how it works out. So we have our tables. whichever displays. and our activities. and. you know. so some of the you know. our multicultural aspects will be there. and our performances. And so that's and this year there's a parade. because it's a 250th anniversary of our country. And actually. you know. how often do we have a parade? Actually. it's going to go down. I don't know how. You know. we must all shop at the town center. but the town center has the most. most center like street. and we're going to this parade is going to go down the center of the street. So it's going to look like the old fashioned parade that go down Main Street. So anyhow. so I just want yeah and Heather Pineault: so to add on to that. thank you. We will also be revisiting. as you know. said after the festival. to see. does this work for for our committee. doing it as one huge festival. or do we want to go back and do a separate one? So that will be a later conversation after we after it's over. So the second part. as you saw. was a possible vote to authorize payment to arts Wayland. A little bit of history here we have money appropriated to us from the Select Board for $9.500. this committee made a presentation. Select Board approved that amount based on preliminary budget numbers. and it is now our job to approve that amount to go to ArtsWayland. One of the benefits of working with ArtsWayland is that the performers and well everybody. will be able to be paid more quickly. because they don't have to go through the same process with multiple votes by us and then by the Select Board for payments directly from the town. I received information from Kelsi. the assistant town manager with this language. So this language has already been approved. and she had some examples of the expenses from Chris Reynolds. who is also working on on the festival. and they account for well over 9.500 for the whole festival. And specifically some of the items. when one in the motion. it says with sound stage 10 festival performance. publicity. food. all of that's well over 9.500 if we want to think more specifically. he broke out $2.000 for sound equipment. sound engineer. sound technician. $3.500 for portable stage. These are estimates. and 4.000 for tents. He also sent me some backup invoice. not invoices. because they haven't paid yet. Estimates if we need more data. But that's sort of that is where the support for our moving $9.500 comes from.
Kevin Goodwin: I move approval that we approve. I move approval that we give 9.000 Heather Pineault: what was it? 9.000 we authorized $9.500 Kevin Goodwin: to ArtsWayland for their work on the wellness festival. Heather Pineault: And I'll just. can I add a little more of the technical language that Kelsi absolutely up to the amount of 9.500 for expenses related to the 2025. Wayland festival. including. but not limited to cost associated with sound. stage. tent. which I just enumerated. festival performances. publicity. food. beverage and other related expenses. So that's the exact language note takers. It's it's what we have written in the agenda. Hang on one sec. Is there a second to the motion? Kevin Goodwin: Second. Heather Pineault: Well. you made the motion to you. You own the motion. It's yours. Okay. Way to go. Um. do we have a second? You try? Good. Try. We'll. we'll discuss it. Hang on one sec. please. Do we have a second for the motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. I'll second it so we can get on to our discussion. Heather Pineault: Okay. second by Mary Ann. Now. are there. is there any discussion on the motion? It's Yauwu Sarah Shtutin: well. yeah. I. I just discussed the budget with Chris as waiting. Actually. this the first time I have the chance to discuss the budget. So at this time. we don't have other community who is going to control or approve any cost. So I. I feel it's premature at this time to have this work. especially mostly bill or discussion is done between Janot and Chris. so she's not here. and I don't feel comfortable to vote this time. so I propose this Tom. and there's no urgent money to be paid this time. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I would just ask. is there. you know. are there some deposits that have to be made for sound and stage? I mean. those were things that were in the budget that we had given to the Select Board. the Select board so that we. and they're very specific. and they're large. and we could allocate. Sarah Shtutin: you know specific items we need to do it. We can approve the line items but us first for the to give Asma proof
Asma Khan: note taker. Maryam joined at 638 she signed on with a link from me. So it's coming up as Asma Khan. but it's Maryam Heather Pineault: just Oh. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know. Maryam joined us at 638 I was wondering. I was wondering how there was another Asma. Thank you. Thanks for letting us know. Welcome. So I'm hearing ya woo has concerns about giving a check without having specific invoices that we're paying tied to it. Mary Ann made the point that there are. are deposits that need to be made. This is coming up soon. and this was all part of the budget that we presented and discussed with the Select Board when they approve the 9.500 Are there any other comments or questions?
Mary Ann Borkowski: It can be amended? Can Can we? Does it make it makes? Is it okay to say. you know that we're willing to. you know. pay half the sound. half the stage at this point to so that we give them some operating money. and we're not going to have another meeting until after this event. Heather Pineault: That's my concern. Is timing wise. we don't meet until October 21 which is right. yes. after the event. which is on the fourth. And people like to be paid. and if they. you know. part of the purpose of doing this was because ArtsWayland. then could pay people more timely. But we won't meet until October 21 after we meet. whatever we approve. has to go to the Select Board for approval and then. So it takes a it won't happen immediately. It will take couple. I think they said usually two to three more weeks. Yauwu Tang: But at this time. we don't even know we're doing. Is already always decided. please. So at this time. we're giving that to another organizations. and we just don't have any control. or we spend our money. I just don't feel that's responsible thing for us to do. Mary Ann Borkowski: us to do. But by not doing that. we are we're relying on these other organizations to handle whatever those budget issues are. And. for example. we're supposed to make some sort of payment to the performers. if you know and the performers are going to want someone's going to be paying them right away. So if ArtsWayland has money. and they're using money. and they're I just don't know how that will happen.
Yauwu Tang: How much we just do Mary Ann Borkowski: it. yes. but there these other bills are going to be due at the same time. or the sound and the stage. We're on the hook for some of this. Heather Pineault: We. I think I hear and understand your concern. and in the past. so everybody knows we usually would get a specific item. it would say we were approving a $500 payment to for the services. very specific. Mary Ann Borkowski: and it took 30 days. and that was took a while to actually get that check cut. Heather Pineault: to go through that whole process. takes a few weeks. and but that's when Yauwu was saying we had very specific we knew exactly what we Were paying to whom and for what. That is true when we had total state control. for lack of a better word. we ran the festival. we were responsible for it all. and so I totally respect and understand what you're saying. and I think we already spoke to the Select Board about this money being used together with other town monies. Park and Rec is is supporting the touch of truck. and then arts Wayland is involved. I My understanding is they knew. and they saw a budget that the whole budget for the whole festival. even our festival. was a lot more than this last year. So we know the expenses are there. and they have. We've already said we would. we've already committed to the $9.500 and so my concern is that this will hold up people getting paid. which was part of why we thought this was a good way to go. Yauwu Tang: but without any last convention. or for us to control. to decide all the money spent you. just for me. if you give up. you just ask willing to decide what's going to how it's going to spend. Just what we want to do. I agree with certain things. Collaborate together. We need to have meditation. which is still to be seen. because so far. every communication between Chris and me. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. so you wouldn't feel comfortable. It's and I don't even know if it might make sense. so you wouldn't feel comfortable. Feel comfortable knowing that the sound stage has to be done. The sound Yauwu Tang: I'm comfortable to do things that we know that were part of the agreement and were approved. Heather Pineault: I can. I can give you some examples Yauwu Tang: For example of dispatches. Budget. I still see the people here. but I haven't seen the budget. I even didn't receive a new budget. We so I took a camera and put this kind of environment. yeah. I totally received Heather Pineault: and that I can't speak to that I know there was a budget at the beginning of the whole process. and I think you you started it right on a spreadsheet. and that's how we got approved. So we know those monies are going to be expended. real expenses. Okay. so we have seen a budget. and we and. and I think it was your spreadsheet that you shared with the budget. and so we know. and we have committed that we would pay the 9500 that the Select Board gave to us. I guess I understand you're wanting to have more information. but I'm trying to understand your concern. Are you worried that people aren't going to be paid. We're only two. three weeks out from the festival now and and so I'm assuming that that this has been figured out a little bit. and I'm sorry you it sounds like you're not getting the information from the festival committee. Um. That you would like. and I understand that. and that sounds extremely frustrating. because you've been such a key Yauwu Tang: we have no input on how to manage spend. Yeah. okay. hold on. The channel was much cheaper devices. so there's no discussion. Okay. okay. I cannot do it . I just cannot come back next month. Come back this folder. Okay. we are not seeing convenient. but we need to do that Mary Ann Borkowski: so you can't see any partial payment. Yauwu Tang: A partial payment? Are you voting? It's
Mary Ann Borkowski: no. your answer is no. Yauwu Tang: I will do it. I will say. but I don't see say. Okay.
Well. $1.000 I think Heather Pineault: I understand. I think what I'm struggling a bit with is when we decided to do this with other organizations. part of that meant that we were giving up some control. because it's not ours. right? It's not just us. so we don't have complete control of this. and part of that was then when we presented the budget to the Select Board and they approved the 9500 was for me anyway. is knowing and trusting that it's part of this group effort. and now that the payments we know are going through arts Wayland. and we also know that the payments total more than the 9500 that we're contributing. because they are also contributing. And so I feel a sense of responsibility to to move the money to them so that we can't so that they can make the payments in a timely fashion. realistically. if we have to wait till our next meeting on October 21 and then it's a few more weeks after that before we get approval from the Select Board to and the checks are cut. or the check is cut. it's just then going to be a good month after the festival before people will be able to be paid. Yauwu Tang: I agree that we have to give up something. we have to discuss things. but I do not agree that we give up 100% and that if you get a budget even rather not being informed. I think that is very. very unusual collaboration. Yes. if you want me to say yes. I really couldn't. I'm sorry. Heather Pineault: No. I understand. And I guess what I'm struggling now with is. do we take a vote on the total amount and understanding that you can't support it. or do you want to make a motion to amend? And we can do it as a two step process and see if people want to do an amended mount. or if people want to do a full amount. Yauwu Tang: okay. I will go.
Heather Pineault: So are you making a are you making an amendment to the motion? Yauwu Tang: Yeah. 4500
Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. Why'd you make it specific to. I mean. I actually. actually the money is the best. Okay. so just half Heather Pineault: and. okay. so there's an amendment on the floor to Yahoo's motion. to Kevin's motion for 9500 that Yahoo is making. that we distribute. How much $4.500 is there any discussion about the amendment to the motion? Does anybody want to give feedback? Folks on Zoom. I'm sorry I feel like we haven't engaged you. or I haven't done a good job engaging you in this conversation. Does anybody have any thoughts. because our first vote will be on whether we approve the motion. the amendment to the motion for $4.500 if that passes. we would just be giving arts Wayland $4.500 if it fails. we would then vote on the motion for $9.000
Kevin Goodwin: or 95 Heather Pineault: sorry. 9500 Thank you. I was just seeing if you were paying attention. Good job. For. That's what I tell my kids at school. Sarah Shtutin: So sorry. Maybe I'm just confused. Is the issue that we don't have specific invoices and we're just writing them like a blank check. and yeah. we don't want to do that for the full amount. even though we promised it to them. Heather Pineault: That is that that's my understanding of Yauwu's concern. And it's. it's not like totally a blank check. but it does. you know. we list. we enumerate on on number six on the agenda. the types of expenses up to $9.500 Sarah Shtutin: but they can't provide us with the invoices from the people that we're paying from the staging and the artists like. that's not possible. Heather Pineault: They don't have all the invoices yet. because they are still negotiating. is my understanding from an email today. I have some examples. and a lot of the folks didn't invoice us like last year. We would get them. we knew what we owed them at the festival. and we'd get that at the festival. as opposed to in advance. So for example. I have one invoice or one quote here for $4.348 for temps. I have another quote for the stage alone. for 3600 and then another quote for the stage and lighting cables and some other things that I don't understand. And that's 5700 so those invoice. those quotes that are coming in are of the magnitude of $9.500 if we just wanted to pick a few big items. and I think that was the intent. was to say HRD. I see here are a few big items that add up to around $9.500 plus we know they're all the performers to be paid and all the other expenses as well. So that's. does that does that help? Sarah Shtutin: Sarah. in the end. yes. but in the end will be get receipts for where the money went. Will there be documentation? Heather Pineault: in the end. for ArtsWayland. they Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. they have to document. They have to document it. There are 501 c3 they're not a Tom and 5013 state. Thank you. Heather Pineault: So so they have to document and they will get invoices that they're paying.
Sarah Shtutin: So we will have in the end. proof of kind of where our funds went. Heather Pineault: We could certainly request that. And as you've seen. we have folks on the committee. And unfortunately. Janot is not able to be here tonight because she may have more information. But yes. we certainly can request that. Mary Ann Borkowski: And we know some of the. I mean. we know we're going to spend all of it and the so to to be our fiduciaries. But we. but if we know. we could give. you know. 1500 for the stage and to that. or at 1000 for the sound. and 2500 for the stage. And do you know. whatever adds up to what our amount is. and then it could go to that. because we know you're going to buy a stage. Kevin Goodwin: yeah. and the test. I have a question that. Yauwu. I mean. I mean. I know you were saying we we had removed the motion for 9500 which was It was no motion. But my question becomes. if we give 40. if we pay 4500 ourselves. what happens to the other 40 50. 5.000 we who? Who does that go to? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that we just have to vote it at a different time? Heather Pineault: Well. I think the question is someone might. either someone's not going to get paid while they're waiting to get it. or I don't. I don't know what ArtsWayland budget is. I'm not sure they have 5000 extra dollars they could front to float while they're waiting. So most likely. it means somebody will wait to get paid until Mary Ann Borkowski: and or we have an emergency meeting with a quorum to try to pass some of these. Heather Pineault: Yep. we could. That's what we could do. is try to get an emergency meeting. We'd need to have at least five voting members at it. So are there any other questions on the motion to amend which. yeah. yeah. Well. made.
Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess I would. I would say. you know. I mean. we have a relationship here. I mean. how does that hurt? Will that hurt our relationship? Kevin Goodwin: I mean. would you say. Say. leave it at 9500 or pay 4500 and somebody. Or. would you say. just. would you say. leave it at for 9500 for us. because we were. we were the ones that were given the 9500 or cut it to 4500 and then somebody ends up in. yeah.
Mary Ann Borkowski: well. I don't you know how. um. how? You know. a lot of things get invoiced to a town that they have to wait. That's not really that unusual. And so that's why I focus on the things that we know. Well. actually focusing on things that we the only things we have listed are the things that that I suspect they could actually wait. you know. it's the payment to the performers and some other expenses that is kind of more immediate. but that it also. you know. we don't have a logical over we don't have a lot of oversight over that. And we could. if Heather Pineault: they don't have the money. we don't have control over who they choose to pay first. right? Mary Ann Borkowski: But. well. I mean. you could give them money that has to go to the stage. I mean. you could say Heather Pineault: that like we could limit it. Well. I the language we have here is a language the assistant town manager requested that we use. Kevin Goodwin: Okay. let me ask you. okay. I'm going to throw in another question. What don't we in this 9500 or 4500 or whatever we choose to pay. Let's say it's 9500 either that night. 9500 for everything. What don't we have control over? Here's my question.
I'm not I'm not worried about the money. I'm asking the question. what in everything that has to be paid for? What don't we have control over? What? What parts of the festival Do we not have control over payment? Heather Pineault: The touch of truck part is my understanding. the park. and rest is doing touch a truck. So the payments associated with that part of the day or touch a truck. I don't know if the Wayland 250 committee has a part. but all of the other things listed. Kevin Goodwin: So touch a truck is not us. Is not us. Okay? So then how? Okay. let me how much is the touchy truck? Heather Pineault: I don't know. because it's not us. okay? It's totally it's part. On the other hand. Mary Ann Borkowski: they did make they paid for these. Oh. that was nice. Okay. this is their budget. which would have gone for touch a truck. Yauwu Tang: They didn't give budget for us. We did not get the budget of ArtsWayland. too many Heather Pineault: Okay. so folks. we have a lot still on our agenda tonight. so I'm going to ask. I neglected. I think I made a mistake procedurally. We had a motion to amend. Was there a second to the motion to amend. We actually need a second to the motion to amend as well.
Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess we can't vote and we have to. oh. I suppose we wouldn't have to vote if we never got Heather Pineault: correct. If we don't have a second to the motion to amend. then we don't have a motion to amend. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I'm just not clear about. you know whether. Kevin Goodwin: if. if. okay. let me ask you this. if we don't have a motion to amend. does it go back to the main vote? Which I think it does. Yes. Heather Pineault: Yes. correct. So is. Would anybody like to second the motion to amend?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I will second the motion to amend so we can vote on it and even further discuss it. Kevin Goodwin: It's for $4.500
Mary Ann Borkowski: so. you know. we never said. We never said. what. how this was going to happen. So we. we didn't really know when. you know when this would happen. right? Other than Kelsi gave you this language which kind of covers everything. Heather Pineault: Well. there's two things. The other thing that I know. if we're concerned about it covering us. a. yes. A. we got the language specifically from Kelsi. but B. the Select Board still needs to vote. So if the Select Board is not happy with the language. the Select Board also could say. Nope. we're sending it back because we want X. Y or Z. and we want more. So it could there. There are two there are two options that there are two possibilities. Is there any more discussion on the motion to amend? Does anyone have any new thoughts that. We have not discussed thus far.
Sarah Shtutin: I will. I'm sorry if I missed this. but if we don't give them the full money is back. enough potentially affect the quality of the you know. if they can't pay people. are they going to show up?
Heather Pineault: I don't have that answer usually. Well. I know from when we ran it the past couple years. we the payments were after the performance. They didn't get paid to perform in advance. At least the people that we were hiring. Mary Ann Borkowski: I know. but that. but some of them did get paid for 30 days. But then some of them didn't Heather Pineault: get paid for quite a while Yauwu Tang: it would pass. probably nobody will.
Heather Pineault: We already have performers lined up. and we have an agreement with arts Wayland. about covering all these costs so youth. So I now. I'm I'm concerned. It sounds like your concern is that if we release this money. that we won't have any of our performers. Yauwu Tang: We can go the time itself is going to support probably close to myself. Heather Pineault: the 10th the estimate for the tent on that was. what did I say. folks. I just said that a minute ago. I have the tent estimate. And I think maybe it was when you stepped out. The tent estimate is $4.000
Yauwu Tang: the stages. Heather Pineault: and the stage is 5000 right? And then that's just a portion art Wayland already committed at the Select Board meeting when. when we talked about about doing this together. our Wayland committed to pay money too. Yauwu Tang: So. but can they use the money?
Heather Pineault: They could use the money to pay these things. but then they don't have the money to pay for the performers. Sarah Shtutin: So
Heather Pineault: that's so that's why I feel like we need to release the money to them so that they can pay everybody. They can pay the performers. and they can pay they can pay all their all the fees associated with the Yauwu Tang: festival. you would have a conversation. yes. but I don't have Any conversation about right? I just got this.
Heather Pineault: I'm sorry. Can I? Can I show you these? I literally just got them this Yauwu Tang: afternoon.
Heather Pineault: because I just got them. and I think. oh. yeah. yes. I don't know. and I'm sorry. that's why Yauwu Tang: I have concerns. not because I want to credit this. I feel I'm not responsible for the HR. Okay. go ahead. Unknown: Yeah. no. I understand them. Hi. This is Mariam. I can understand you. I was concerned. especially that I wasn't around when this agreement was made. Is there a way to if we decide to vote on release of the full amount? Is there a way to release with a guarantee of receiving invoices. I think. as an initial step that may ease concerns and help us preserve that relation by releasing the full amount. Now maybe. yes. that's what I think that was. well. we. Heather Pineault: yeah. that was Sarah's question. It's not. I mean. I. I'm wondering if. rather than doing the amendment to 4500 What if we added language with the understanding or with the agreement that we will receive invoices. or the agreement that performers will be paid with the agreement that we'll receive invoices Unknown: and then set that standard for future partnerships. Kevin Goodwin: Yeah. okay. my question is this. well. here. you know you were saying. Now I completely forgot what I was going to say. I was going back to Miriam. Miriam. what was your question. if we released the complete 9500 what? What. where? What issue were you having Unknown: so we are now. At a moment when this agreement has been made. and preserving the partnership with this other organization is a priority in such a small town. I was suggesting. if we decide to release the full amount. but then have some language that would guarantee that we will know what that money was used for. and then in the future. that will Kevin Goodwin: be. I know. I know what my issue was. You know what? Let me ask you this on the invoices wouldn't. wouldn't the book. wouldn't the Selectmen office have copies of or. the Select Board Office. would they have copies of the invoices? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that's why we're giving it to arts. Wayland is so well that it doesn't Kevin Goodwin: have. well. let me put it to you this way. either way. somebody's going to have any invoices. right. whether it be the Select Board Office. or that's Wayland. yeah. either one of the I mean. yeah. oh. I know you were concerned about the invoice. And then I think you were. either way. somebody's going to have the invoices regardless. Heather Pineault: So what if we add to the motion after the motion? Kevin Goodwin: My point is. why don't we issue them? Why don't we just. why don't we? Why don't we? I mean. we've already approved the 9500 let's leave it at that.
Heather Pineault: Well. I'm wondering. we haven't actually voted yet. We. we. we got approval from the Select Board that we have that that money we haven't voted to. we haven't
voted to authorize the payment to arts Wayland. But I'm wondering if we added on after the language that's in the agenda. with the understanding that arts Wayland will provide receipts totaling set amount. Unknown: would that
Yauwu Tang: still cost? Heather Pineault: Yes. and I feel like that's part of the deal we entered into when we did this. That part of the agreement was we would. we put the budget together that we thought for the whole event and how much we requested for our portion from the Select Board. with the agreement that we would then give it to arts Wayland to make. to make payments. So I was trying to Tom's point. add in a little bit of language that would say. with the understanding that our Wayland would give us a receipt. Kevin Goodwin: So let me ask you this at the Select Board Office. I mean. at the selectman beam. they asked or. or. I would assume EHR DIC asked or a set amount which they gave to us? No. was ours? Well. in there at the time.
Mary Ann Borkowski: um. this was part of that discussion. Heather Pineault: I Okay. I wasn't at that meeting. but. but it was our Mary Ann Borkowski: budget. but it was. but we were asking Kevin Goodwin: for it. But. but who do we got the money? We got it or. I mean. let me ask you this. Then does the then did the gorgeous elect man turn around and say. you have the authority to give so much to arc Wayland. they didn't give the authority to do that. and we're on the hook for that. We're on the hook for the 9500 which is. which is what we were given.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. but Kelsi. I mean. that everybody knew what the intention was. and that's why Kelsi gave us this language. so that Heather Pineault: and the Select Board will have to vote one more time. once they once we authorize it. I have to tell Kelsi that we voted. and then that has to go before the Select board so that the town has permission to cut a check. is my understanding. Kevin Goodwin: Um. which I see no problem with. But okay. apparently. Heather Pineault: yeah. I hear. I totally I hear the concerns all around and I understand the discomfort with how we're doing it and how it's different than we've done it before. and this does require a level of trust with a town organization that we've been working with.
Yauwu Tang: yes or. Challenges do you have Heather Pineault: to I do not have the wording from the Select Board. I'm going by Kelsi. who is the Assistant town manager's wording based on what we were allowed to do with the with the Mary Ann Borkowski: fund. the language
Heather Pineault: that's in our on our agenda here. this is exactly what Kelsi said we were authorized to do and what we needed to ask for. So that comes from the town manager's office or the assistant Tom manager's office. So I'm trusting I didn't go back and try. I didn't watch the Select Board meeting. So I'm trusting that this is what the Select Board needs in order to make the payment to arts Wayland.
yes. well. I can't. I don't know that for sure. but that's my understanding. given the language that we Were asked to approve by the town. So at this point. does anybody have something noi that day. Kevin Goodwin: So in other words. the language you're holding in your hand. we have. we're authorized to approve Heather Pineault: that from Kelsi. the assistant Tom manager gave me this language for us to vote on. So I think Kevin Goodwin: we. I think it would be a wise and prudent idea just to be on the safe side to approve that language. Heather Pineault: Okay. so we have an emotion to amend on the floor. So we have two votes to do. I just want to be clear. our first vote is going to be on the motion to amend the amount that we authorize payment to our Wayland to $4.500 instead of the original amount. which was 9000 to be clear on the procedure. we vote on the motion to amend. If that passes. then the amount is $4.500 instead of $9.000 Kevin Goodwin: or the motion 9500 Heather Pineault: My apologies. if the motion fails to amend the amount. then we vote on the motion for $9.000 unless we want to amend it again. unless we want to amend it again. then I'll be just Like Tom meeting. We can do Kevin Goodwin: that road. Heather Pineault: So we have a motion to amend the amount from 9000 to 4500 and I'd like to take a vote on that so that we can move along. I think we've all shared our opinions on this. Does anybody have anything new that they would like to add to the conversation?
Kevin Goodwin: Okay. Heather Pineault: let's start on online. Please. Asma. your vote on the motion to amend. Instead of 9000 down to $4.500
Asma Khan: yes. Heather Pineault: you agree with the motion to amend? Did I hear that? Right? Sorry. I'm having trouble hearing you.
Asma Khan: Yeah. sorry. going down from 95 to four to 4500 got it? Unknown: I'm going to go with no. Sarah. no.
Mariam. can I abstain? Heather Pineault: Abstain? Maya. Asma Khan: I'm going to abstain. Heather Pineault: Marianne. we're gonna go now. staying and staying. Marianne. no. Kevin. no. ya Woo. yes. and Heather is a no. Sarah Shtutin: You brush your teeth. You went to the bathroom. Okay? It's lane. Okay. okay. so sorry. My kids are going to bed. Heather Pineault: No worries. The motion to amend does not pass with 1234. I'm sorry. 12345. votes for No. two abstentions and the I will one vote yes. so the motion to amend is not carry. which takes us back to the original motion for that Kevin made for $9.500 as is written in the agenda. yes.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. subject to.
Heather Pineault: To agreement of expenses by arts. Wayland and HDR hrdic. Does any is there a second on that motion? Unknown: Can select board? Can the Select Board vote on that.
Heather Pineault: It doesn't matter. it's our Mary Ann Borkowski: motion. I know. but they have to approve something like this. Heather Pineault: They have to prove the expenditure. I That's a great question. I'm not sure we can put a well. is there a second to this motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: I mean. what we're doing. we need it Heather Pineault: really hard. Yeah. this is really hard. and I don't know. but do we have a second to the motion to make the the payments agreement subject to agreements of arts. Wayland. HR. DIC. together. Yauwu Tang: yes. is this motion required? Required by the by the circle one. Kevin Goodwin: we don't the 9500 Heather Pineault: of this motion? Which motion the Yauwu Tang: one to give money to us? Heather Pineault: Directions we have the wording is from Kelsi. who's in the assistant who's the Assistant town manager. We have to take this vote in order to have the money be given to our Wayland. Yauwu Tang: but I understand people want to get money. We. okay. we I think Heather Pineault: we're that's our discussion right now. I think we have to. because we agreed to and I so I want to get back to your motion to amend. Is there a second to this motion to amend? Because if. if there is a second. we need to discuss it and then vote again. and if there's not a second. then we don't have the motion.
Okay. hearing no second. we are going to go back and vote on the motion that Kevin made. I will read it in its entirety so that we're clear. Kevin moved to authorize payment to arts Wayland up to the amount of $9.500 for expenses related to the 2025 Wayland festival. including. but not limited to cost associated with the sound stage 10 festival performances. publicity. food and beverage and other related expenses we will do. I'm sorry. Sarah Shtutin: I'm sorry. Yes. I know. I know this has been a long process. but I do think there's been several people who've asked if we can amend the language to then have them provide us with documentation or invoices or some kind of accounting of how the money was spent. Okay. does that need a separate motion? Heather Pineault: It needs a motion to amend. Are you would you like to make a motion? Kevin Goodwin: Heather. I think we already discussed this. Heather Pineault: So Sarah. what would you be your what's your amendment? Then to our motion. Sarah Shtutin: my amendment is to have the exact language as Kevin wrote it and you just read it. but to have a line in there that after the festival. we would like an accounting with documentation of how the $9.500 was spent.
Kevin Goodwin: Okay. that I don't have a problem. okay. Heather Pineault: all right. Like documentation. is there a second for the amendment? The motion to amend.
Maryam Libdi: And yeah. we'll second. I second that. Oh. Heather Pineault: yeah. One Miriam. yeah. we'll got in there. Okay. after the festival. we would like documentation as to how the funds were expended. Is. did I get that correctly? Okay? Is there any discussion on the motion to amend?
Yauwu Tang: We still need to aware that we have. we have no control in mind. Heather Pineault: And I think that will be a great discussion point for what we do moving forward afterwards. okay. and whether we're going to do I think we need to bring this to the table as part of the conversation about how this had worked in this joint venture. whether we want to continue doing this. Do we need. More guidelines going forward next time I am not in any way trying to lessen your concerns. just wondering about the timing. I feel like the train already left. and we have a responsibility. We can add this amendment in which will then get us some documentation. which I think is very important. and I'm hearing several people talk about and we will put this on the agenda to discuss at the October meeting about going forward what we want to do. Does that make sense? Unknown: Okay? October. Okay. Heather Pineault: Is there any more conversation on the motion to amend. So once again. we have to do two votes. The first. the first is to amend the original motion by adding. after the festival. we would like documentation as how to the funds were expended. So I will start with a vote here. Ya Woo. Ya Woo. Yes. yes on the amendment. yeah. Kevin.
Kevin Goodwin: I'd say no. okay. Marianne. yes. Maryam Libdi: Sarah. yes. Heather Pineault: Asma. yes. Unknown: Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Heather Pineault: And Heather. I vote yes. Um. that brings us now to the whole motion. um. as is stated in the agenda item number six. plus the amendment. including that after the festival. we would like documentation as to how the funds were expended. So let's do a vote on the total motion as amended. So for the notes it we were voting on the motion as amended. and I'll go back online. Maya. yes. Maryam. yes. Asma. yes. Sarah. yes. ya wo Yes. Mary Ann. yes. Kevin. yes. and Heather. yes. All right. Thank you very much. everybody. I know that was a challenging conversation. and I think it's also really important that we talked about all of that and we were able to figure out something and got a unanimous vote. So thank you everybody for listening to each other together. Unknown: Can we please add to a future agenda to discuss. you know. having policies so we don't want into this again? Heather Pineault: Yep. I put it on the on in my notes for the October meeting as part of the follow up about the festival. Like. Are there guidelines? You know. they're going to be a lot of things we're discussing. Like. do we want to continue to do something jointly as a big town celebration? Do we want to return to our having total control and running a separate festival if we do it jointly? What policies would we want in place? What did we learn from this experience? So absolutely?
Yeah. thank you. Okay. Wow. Say So folks. I need to make some decisions. because I want to respect our time and and I want to respect the importance Agenda Item number seven. I would like to suggest that we come back to that in October. because I don't feel like we can really do it justice and get through the other kind of business items that we have to do. There was a this was presented to the Select Board. I'm talking about the discussion of the Wayland community life and engagement executive report we were going to review theme one. strength and foundations of action. belonging and shared values. But I would like us to be able to spend more than about 10 minutes on it. And I feel like at this point. it's it we. we won't be able to do it justice. Along with that. I would one once. if you have the time before October to check out the September 2 Select Board meeting. Dr even a Hayes and Karen were at that meeting when the committee talked about this entire report. and it was on their agenda for 10 minutes. So it's it would be valuable. in my opinion. if you're able to go on WayCAM and watch that. it might give us. it's giving me thoughts about what recommendations we could make. And I would just suggest. if you're able to watch that. it's about. Want to say two and a half hours into the meeting. approximately. okay. so we are going to put that on hold. I would like to do number eight. Kevin Goodwin: Oh. sorry. I would. I would. I know you should put it on hold. I put it table. It Tova. thank Heather Pineault: you. Yes. Thank you much. Better choice of words. Thanks. Kevin table. Mary Ann Borkowski: with this. is there any value in having someone like lead that discussion. one of us Unknown: lead which discussion? Seven Mary Ann Borkowski: that that each of these as we move our way through doing that so that it will not just like Heather Pineault: you mean the other than the chair. you mean someone in the group would take it on? Yeah. Oh. well. speaking for myself as vice chair. and on behalf of Karen. I'm sure if somebody would like to. we were going to break it up into each of the sections to discuss. If somebody is interested in leading the discussion on any part. please reach out to me or Karen. or to Karen. But that would be. that's a great idea. Asma. Are you able to do the discussion and possible vote on the Know Your Rights? Flyer? Yes. something we would Asma Khan: love to have. Do you want to share the flyer on my end? Heather Pineault: Can Asma share her screen? Can you share your screen? Do you see the green button? Share Screen? Unknown: Yeah. I can. Awesome. This is Heather Pineault: an updated version of what was in your packet. Oh. it's updated from well. updated only in that the QR code. so you wouldn't really see a difference. okay. but. okay. Unknown: do you guys see that? Sarah Shtutin: No. no.
Heather Pineault: no. are you sharing your screen? Yeah.
Kevin Goodwin: we're not seeing anything. I can hold Heather Pineault: up. I can hold up a picture of what. Here we go. Mary Ann Borkowski: There we go. you know. Asma Khan: Yeah. great. Thank you. Okay. all right. perfect. So from Karen's suggestion of getting at least something out there for Know Your Rights. because we weren't able to do an event. we decided to make a very generic flyer of inclusivity. So the idea is we have this flyer that we're able to put up in restaurants storefronts around town. and have this QR code that links over to our website that include different Know Your Rights for groups. And so there's immigration. LGBTQ. domestic violence. and so that's all listed on our our web page. Let me see if I have it up here. Yeah. this one right here. So that QR code links to all of these different links. and so it kind of leaves it open to the reader of how they want to take that message. But I think it's powerful to be able to have up in different storefronts around town just to have that support.
Heather Pineault: So what a we would need to approve that we would like to do this. Thank you very much. I think. personally. I think this is a great idea and something actionable that we can do. Does anybody have any questions about the flyer itself. or what Asma shared with us? Mary Ann Borkowski: So my experience. at least in the town center was and when I look at it. there aren't any flyers on anybody's windows. And I don't know if there's a requirement. but. you know. it makes me think of the you know. things that you know. like domestic violence being in bathrooms and our card. I don't know I we could run but. you know. it's maybe I shouldn't. I shouldn't presume that someone wouldn't. I have no idea. Well. it used to be people used to put up flyers all the time in years past. but. you know. I don't see them doing that now. and I didn't get a good response. Heather Pineault: So and bathrooms may still also work. I've seen these in some similar bathrooms. I do. Did you have any thoughts. or more information about distribution Asma? Asma Khan: I think the idea is to have a few of us go around to different restaurants and stores and see if they would be willing to have it in their like front window display.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. and if we get. as we get feedback. we can adjust. Yeah. I would also say that. you know. there is a Wayland West End or west. And Wayland Rotary. it might be worth it to plan a presentation with them. Val Abbasi from the Village Bank. He belongs there. He could invite us to make a presentation about this and have it available that people might take it. So thank you. Heather Pineault: Does anybody have any folks on on Zoom when we're in share mode like this. I can't see you individually. so feel free to just jump in. because I'm sharing. Sorry. No. no. no. it's great to share. No. no. no. no problem at all. I just can't I just want to make sure people jumped in. Does anybody? Would anybody like to make a motion that we vote on sharing. just trying to distribute. on sharing this flyer. or distributing this flyer around town? Kevin Goodwin: I make a motion that we share or distribute the Wayland with flyer. the Wayland flyer Heather Pineault: the Wayland Know Your Rights. Flyer. Kevin Goodwin: yes. around town. Sarah Shtutin: Okay. second
Maya Raj: I. second that Kevin Goodwin: I. oh. I Heather Pineault: Yeah. Kevin made the motion. I heard Mary Ann second it I think. um. yes. Is there any. okay. is there any uh. discussion on the motion? No.
Maryam Libdi: I'm sorry. I think this is an urgent matter we can there's so many ways we can change this up or discuss further. but I feel like this issue is urgent and needs to be put out in any shape or form. Heather Pineault: Yes. I agree. Maya Raj: I have a question. Yeah. Who seconded? Because I'm taking notes. I'm not sure if it was Maryam or if it was Maryam. Heather Pineault: Okay. so can we take a vote. please? Marianne. yes. Kevin. yes. yeah. Woo. Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Asma. yes. Sarah. yes. Great. Asma. thank you so much. And Heather. you didn't vote Heather. I voted yes. Thank you. Thanks for the reminder. Mary Ann Borkowski: I'm going to add it to our table. Heather Pineault: Yes. that's what I was thinking when you said that at the table. Yeah. no. you're right. So we can have this certainly at the festival and Asma. Do you want to let us know. or send us all a final copy? Or what are you thinking in terms of printing so we get them in color? Or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah. Asma Khan: I mean. I think right now we're probably. I was thinking to just print out 20 at home and then see where it goes from there. if we need more or less. Mary Ann Borkowski: But if you send me. if you send Mary Ann. the your PDF. I would go and get. you know. 50 for my table. Okay. hoping that maybe some people would take them. Maybe some business people would take them. Maya Raj: I feel like Mary Ann. if you're having it at the table. people being able to scan that QR code should be enough. I think having a fire posted. We're hoping that businesses. people who are. oh. I see okay. have a business that they would take this flyer to. just perfect. right? And. you know. I just go to Staples and and get those made up for myself. Heather Pineault: And we could have a little note saying. scan for more information or take a flyer Mary Ann Borkowski: for your it's probably. you know. we'll be there discussing that. Heather Pineault: We'll be talking all right. Thank you so much for your work on this. and it's a clear. actionable step. something we can do. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. thank you Heather Pineault: so Agenda Item number nine. we don't. we weren't really going to discuss it a whole lot tonight. In your packet. there were two documents that were a bit. you know. from criteria we've used in the past about this guy deciding whether or not to issue an HR dei statement. as well as guidelines for selecting programs. And what we are wondering is there. is there anybody who'd like to take a stab at just drafting using what we have already drafting guidelines with Karen for posting on our Facebook page.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Sign up right away. Yeah. Heather Pineault: don't all talk at once. Um. Um. we have two documents to work from. so we wouldn't be starting from scratch. and the goal would be to bring an example using the two guidelines for us to discuss at our next meeting.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. I can work with Karen on that. Heather Pineault: Thanks very much. Marion. that's great. I appreciate it. Maryam. with Karen. Facebook guidelines. and what we'll do is if. if you both come up with some sort of draft and distribute it to us before our next meeting. then we can talk about it at the next meeting. Thank you. Agenda Item Number 10 is really quick. We saw that there was an announcement. and just wanted to share publicly that the schools had received the hate crime prevention grant. so they're going to be doing specific work around preventing hate in schools. And one thought that was in the Wayland post. There was an article about it. and maybe that's something we could hear from the schools directly at some point down the road. but we just wanted to put it on your radar screens in terms of ongoing business. Maryam Libdi: Oh. sorry. I have a question about what you mentioned. Yes. sorry. was someone else talking? Sorry. No. go ahead. please. I'm just wondering what we know about that grant. like. what's the extent of the information we have about what's happening? Heather Pineault: All that I know about it is what was in your packet. and that was from the Wayland Post article. So we certainly could reach out to the schools and learn more about it and what they're doing. We have invited the leadership from the district to one or two meetings like over the years to kind of share what they're doing. and we could do that again with would that be helpful? Asma Khan: I think that's a good idea. Mary Ann Borkowski: And I think it's a good way to to. you know. Maryam Libdi: collaborate. yeah. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. have a relationship. Thanks. Heather Pineault: Thank you for bringing that up. noted for getting on a future agenda. Any other comments or or questions?
All right. in terms of ongoing business. I have some updates regarding the community conversation with district attorney Marion Ryan. and here we go. The flyer is almost done. so you don't have to worry about the flyer. Mary Ann. Mary Ann Borkowski: other than I want it. Heather Pineault: other than you want it. Yes. I understand that they're getting a QR code for registration. The program will be held hybrid. Ed Berman will work on that with Jailyn. and we'll hopefully have an owl to use this.
Kevin Goodwin: So there won't be a like. an in person meeting. Heather Pineault: It will be hybrid. So it will be both. People can sign up and come to the event online or via zoom or in person. A WayCAM will record the presentation. but they don't have the capacity to live stream from the Council on Aging So. but they will be able to record. DA Ryan will take questions in person or in writing. So either way. we will be using a regular zoom format. because of the district attorney prefers to use that rather than the webinar. where it's just one way and Marianne. not Mary Anne. sorry. Karen is working on a registration form. So that is. that's the update on that program. which will be on November 10. The hrdic in your package. You have the meeting dates. Please note the date at the top should say 2025. 26 Mary Ann Borkowski: that's the dates in the years. Heather Pineault: the years. yes. sorry about that. That is 2526 good neighbors day. So Courtney from the library. we had agreed to co sponsor and be involved with us from 10 to she's wondering about help from 10 to one. It's running from 10 to one on September 22 September 27 help with setup. breakdown. hospitality. running activities. So if any of us can be there. either maybe in a hour or 10 to 12 or 11 to one capacity. that would be great. And it is on September 27 is there anybody who can that knows right now? They can be there for summer. part of it. Mary Ann Borkowski: that's a Saturday too. right? Yeah.
Asma Khan: I can probably volunteer from 11 to 12. Okay? Heather Pineault: Thank you. Anybody else able to do an hour at some point? I will. I can be there. And I'm guessing Karen. if anybody else can come at some point. that would be great. Mary Ann Borkowski: When we send out the notes. why don't you highlight or. or. I don't know. we don't actually usually send out the notes. We won't get the notes before next meeting. I would. I would send out Heather Pineault: an email. Okay? We will send a reminder or ask for names. Yes. sign up. Um. indigenous people's day. just a little bit of an update ahead of that. this regarding the state flag and seal Karen sent an email to everybody it's it's in your your email box about movement that the state committee is taking feedback on proposed state flag and seal options. I looked yesterday to see it was supposed to be coming up like. like. now and still on the state website. I didn't see dates. but they are supposed to be running listening sessions. and you could also email any feedback you have. I think this is important just to mention. because this is something we have. actually. we've taken action on over the last couple of years. Last year. the HRDEI supported the petitioners article endorsing changing the state flag in the seal. Prior to that. we did a program at the library together with the library. So it is an example of something that's actionable. that we can do to help make a difference. and it's something that we can all do individually. So please check out the email or go online. If you look up the Mass State Seal. the mass state flag. you can find it online as well. Yes. I Mary Ann Borkowski: would also say that. you know. it's the pressure that's been coming from the towns have brought the state to do this. I mean. the state had kind of thought about it. They weren't. you know. the Attorney General wasn't. all right. I don't who's responsible. They just weren't getting this group together. So. you know. this is. it's taken a few years. but it's. there's been some movement here. That's the only reason this is on our on the schedule that the state is doing this is because people towns have passed resolutions like we did. and have been saying that this is important. They want to see this so. Maryam Libdi: So what other collective action can come out of our group? Heather Pineault: So as a whole group. I don't know that there's anything as a group. but we they are hosting listening sessions. I couldn't find them when I looked online for the state. so I'm not sure they've been scheduled yet. So again. I was on the mass.gov It's there on the round three selections. and they've got 1.2.3. 3. flags. 3 seal and three flag submissions that are online as well as model submissions. And I think we just need to continue to put the pressure on to move forward and and even ask when it when is this happening? This. It was reported that these listening sessions would be going on. I believe in September and October. So our participation. individually. I don't know. Do you if we as a committee would want to do anything? Did you have anything in mind? Maryam Libdi: I'm not sure what's been done in the past. but I understand our role as communicating these issues to the general public in our town. So I don't know if a statement has been issued about this from our group. but I think something like that. with a call to action for people to maybe join those hearings or something would be. you know. proactive thing to do. Heather Pineault: Maybe a news and announcement. yeah. a news and announcement. maybe on a Facebook post and a Facebook just because it's no. you know. in town. when the petitioners article came forward endorsing the change. that was one thing that we acted on. and we voted it. We voted to support that. So this could be a logical follow up. Mary Anne. can you Mary Ann Borkowski: do something about Heather Pineault: Yeah. and the link. there is a link on mass.gov that I Well. if you do that. but it does. Give any dates yet. right? But. yeah. Maryam. that's great. Thank you. I Are you okay? Working on that? Mary Ann. and then whatever you find. can we share to get on the Facebook? Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess I kind of. you know. I've been playing with the idea about. you know. what Wayland Post does. and i i miss. you know. So. you know. we're looking at a couple of things here that it's almost like an important things that we want the community to know. And I'm thinking of drafting. you know. just like some announcements or something. even if it's referring them to the to our website. but to kind of give them a heads up. because this is an opportunity. you know. because they have the opportunity and obligation as citizens to respond about this. And you know. we know about it. and lots of people don't know about it because they. you know. haven't seen our notices. So. and it'd be nice if it we put it in the Wayland post. So I will. I'll play with that idea Heather Pineault: some sort of announcement that Mary Ann Borkowski: was innocuous not a lot of you know. because I don't feel like I want to add language to it. I just want to make sure that we've shared so that people know that they could. they could have. they could have their voice heard. Heather Pineault: I thought I found a place to vote. but I think it's just online. boss. It doesn't go to the state. I think it's like a Boston news site saying. how would you vote? And it shows all the pictures. which. but I don't think that's official. so that would be great if. Mary Ann Borkowski: Okay. Mary. to their committee. to our committee. No to Kevin Goodwin: to. oh. news and Heather Pineault: announcement in your our website. website. so on our public website. news and announcements. I Mary Ann Borkowski: mean something for Wayland Post and then trying to get an idea about whether they would ever have us be like. in a column like. you know. this is what I mean. we're kind of a unique town committee where. you know. we would have things to say to the greater community about. you know. that we would want to share well. Heather Pineault: And the other question would be. just for the Wayland Post. This is news in the past just few weeks. like it's it's all come up since. like August 28 would be just even? Would they be able to? Would they be willing to? You could even connect it to the fact that the petitioners article last year endorsed this we voted on at a town meeting. right? And could they connect it to the fact that this is coming out. so maybe just flagging it for them will be enough for sorry to do an article. right? Okay. thank you. Mary Ann and Thank you Mariam for always reminding us to do actionable things. Does anybody else have any thoughts on that or any questions?
Okay. does anybody have we're on an agenda item. agenda item number 12 announcements and topics not anticipated in 48 hours in advance. Does anybody have anything?
Maryam Libdi: I have a question. yes. but I'm not very sure if this is the right committee for it. So during my discussion with several parents in town. whether in schools or in soccer. there's this issue of like. you know. sidewalks or like. proper signals along the crossings of the trail. And I know this may fall. it may seem like it falls under another committee. but I'm looking at it from. you know. child protection slash disability lens. and I don't know if there's something we can do to help push some of those changes.
Mary Ann Borkowski: What is the issue? I don't. I don't know the issue. Unknown: So the generally. the the roads in Wayland are not considered very safe just because of how they're geographically constructed. There's lots of places with no sidewalks along the rail trail that we have. There's so many crossings that could be risky for someone older or someone who is challenged. And I feel like. like from a human rights perspective. we should be able to champion specific changes that people want to see
Mary Ann Borkowski: you mean just at anywhere Heather Pineault: it's safety. So it's a long standing complaint or concern. yes. especially with families lack of sidewalks along road. So roads. Mary Ann Borkowski: you mean our rural character? Heather Pineault: Yes. a rural character means a lot of the roads aren't safe. and it's a long standing discussion that's been going on as long as I. Been in this community. and I've noticed it too at several places where. like the rail trail crosses or the aqueduct crosses a major road. Is there a better way to have. you know. better lights or something. or. you know. the flashers that go on for crossing? Is that DPW. why don't we work on Mayor Karen. and I will find out more about who we would talk to about that
Maryam Libdi: perfect thank you. Sarah Shtutin: I know some people who have been working on this. and I completely understand the point and agree. but it's just very. very hard. And we've talked to the police. you know. police department to say these. this is unsafe for our kids. and it's just it's very hard. Heather Pineault: It runs. it tends to run against. like Marion said. the semi rural feel. And not everybody is in agreement about wanting sidewalks or how many. Mary Ann Borkowski: but I lived on Draper Hill Road and or Draper road. and it was the kids could not walk down that road. You couldn't do Halloween on that road. You could Heather Pineault: not use that road. It was scared walking to school alone or anything? Yeah. no. Unknown: So I understand there's a long history with this that I have no clue about. but honestly. the bare minimum is signaling. you know. signals with lights. things like that. That may be a middle way between people who want full blown. you know. sidewalks. and people who don't want to change the rule of views.
Heather Pineault: Sarah. do you have more information about who to talk to or who to connect with?
Sarah Shtutin: Not off the top of my head. I just know a friend of mine whose son is hard of hearing. so she. you know. is constantly concerned that there's going to be a car that he's not going to hear. that he's going to be no not quite at the side of the road. And she tried to get sidewalks on her street near the Cochituate. And she. like I said. talk to the police chief. talked to DPW. and it's just she wasn't able to do it. I mean. it also takes property away from all of the neighbors that are on that road. at least on one side or the other. which technically the town can do. because it's eminent domain. but a lot of people would push back. So she was not looking at it from a human rights perspective. She was looking at it more from a safety perspective for her child. And I think if there were more families that rallied together. potentially. this is something that that could be raised. but there's just as many people who rally against their land being encroached upon.
Mary Ann Borkowski: So I would share that article five of well. when you think Tom meeting. forget about the Article Five. but that there's we could write an article. you know. for Tom meeting on this topic. if a group of people got together. and. you know. did some work on that. and. you know. for consideration. So. you know. we really. this. really could be brought. you know. instead of going and saying. I want a sidewalk on mine that. you know. that we could look into the safety issue. I don't know. but you know. we should. Heather Pineault: yeah. let me since. since it's not on the agenda for full discussion. let me talk to Karen and see about putting it on Agenda for a future and continuing the conversation. even if we well. we don't know what we can get without asking. but at a minimum. there's there's disability rights and access in some places. and then there's clearly safety as well. And if they don't want to go as far as taking property. perhaps that the just lights for making Safe. safe places to cross the street. at least. But I will talk about getting on an agenda for the future. Does anybody have anything else that was unanticipated. and for folks who joined us a little bit later. I just want to say we did have great news last night. and I don't know if Sophie is still on. but Sophie Chen is our new student who will be joining Maya. and she was just appointed last night. so she was not able to get sworn in today. but will be joining us in October. So that's exciting news. and thank you. Any other announcements? Uh. do we have a motion to adjourn? Kevin Goodwin: I motion. I motion that we our I make a motion that we adjourn at 755. Heather Pineault: 755. Kevin made a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Yes. Marianne seconded the emotion. and let's do roll call. SARAH Yes. Asma. yes. Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Mary. Ann. yes. Kevin. yes. yeah. well. and I vote yes as well. Thank you very much. everybody. I appreciate that.
Heather Pineault: Sarah. Sarah Shtutin: Sarah Shtutin present.
Unknown: yes. Mary Ann Borkowski: Mary Ann Borkowski. present. Kevin Goodwin: Kevin Goodwin present.
Heather Pineault: Yauwu. Yauwu Tang: Yauwu Tang Heather Pineault: Heather Pino present. And we also have Robbie here running our equipment and as an observer today. we have Sophie Chen. very exciting news as our new one of our new student members was appointed last night by the Select Board. but needs to still be officially sworn in and talented. so she will be joining us. but thank you for for watching us tonight. Welcome. and I will begin with the statement one may watch this meeting with the link that is found on WayCAM website. Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means. in ordinance with applicable law. this meeting may be recorded which will be made available to the public on WayCAM as soon after the meeting as is practical. when required by law or allowed by the chair. persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so by in person attendance or by accessing the meeting remotely. As noted above. we request public comment be limited to two minutes per person. and I misspoke at the beginning. the meeting link is found online on our agenda on the town of Wayland website. the indigenous land acknowledgement today. as we begin. we would like to acknowledge the following indigenous peoples on whose traditional homelands we live were gathered today. the Massachusett. the Nipmuc. the Wampanoag and the Pacheco. We acknowledge their ancestors. particularly carto of the Massachusett tribe. who was steward of much of the land now encompassing Sudbury and Wayland. When European settlers arrived to colonize this place in 1638. we seek to understand. acknowledge and remember the painful. ongoing history of war. genocide and forced removal of indigenous peoples by European settlers. And we offer a living celebration of the indigenous communities who are not just part of the past. but who can continue to live and make new history here today. may we all commit to deepening our relationships with indigenous communities and to being their allies and working for justice.
We will now see. Is there any public comment? Robbie Bullard: No one online Heather Pineault: No public comment. we're going to begin tonight with our discussion and possible vote to approve the August 19. 2025. meeting minutes. Does anybody have any changes. I have a few. oh. that I've received. but I just want to give everybody a chance first. Anybody else. Asma. I'll just so you don't have to try to get these in real time. I will send you the changes. There's only one that's substantial. Is that? Okay? Perfect. So Karen had a few things she noticed so on the number five conversations for change. This should read the committee discussed co sponsoring because we weren't developing it. So the committee discussed co sponsoring a facilitated community. community conversation series. That's all part of what's written there. Members express strong interest in CO sponsoring the series. with which is being organized by the Wayland library and the Wayland historical and society with professional facilitation. So the point of the change in that is just to clarify and make it clear that we're not actually running it. We're co sponsoring it. Number seven. if you're. Following along. We just are striking the word initial the initial findings. because the report is now complete. so it's not they're no longer initial findings. And on number 10. I'm embarrassed to say I didn't catch this was a typo. publicizing the events. we forgot a T and in the documents. reviewed the community life and executive engagement report the and ended up in the wrong place there. I had a question about number nine. did Karen and yeah. when we left the meeting. was the intent that Karen and yeah. we would draft the report. Yeah. well. were you going to help Karen on the the annual report? I think so. I think that's fine. because that was the plan. and then Karen ended up being able to do it. But as of the meeting time. that's what we've discussed. So the only substantial change was to the community the conversations for change and making it clear that we weren't developing it. we were co sponsoring the program. Does that make sense? Does anybody have any questions?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I think we can vote on it. Heather Pineault: if you are comfortable voting on it as amended. I would love to have a motion. Mary Ann Borkowski: I move that we approve the August 19. 2025. meeting minutes as amended. Heather Pineault: Awesome. Is there a second?
Sarah Shtutin: I'll second. Heather Pineault: Was that you? Sarah. yes. Asma Khan: thank you. Heather Pineault: Any any discussion on the motion? Okay. we'll do a roll call vote. We'll start with you. Mary Ann. please. Mary Ann Borkowski: Mary Ann. yes. Unknown: I don't Oh. you're Oh. yeah. you no. well. Kevin Goodwin: was I here? Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. yeah. I picked you up. Heather Pineault: No. no. Kevin was absent. You're right Mary Ann Borkowski: that's right. yeah. right. Another meeting. Kevin Goodwin: right. So I'm abstaining. Heather Pineault: Okay. Kevin is abstaining. Yauwu. Yauwu Tang: yes Heather Pineault: Yauwu. yes. Sarah
Asma. Asma Khan: yes. Heather Pineault: And Maya. I'm not sure if you were here to catch that or not. It's up to you whether you're comfortable voting on it. Maya Raj: Yeah. I did not hear what you said. I'm sorry. Heather Pineault: Okay. so why don't we leave you and Kevin is abstaining just from the vote because we made some changes to the minutes. but the motion carries with the exception of Kevin and Maya abstaining. And welcome Maya. nice to have you.
Maya Raj: Thank you. Heather Pineault: You're welcome. All right. moving on. Number four item number four review of the annual town report due September 30. with a possible vote to accept in your packet. You found our draft report. and it's the same format that we've used in previous years. Mary Ann went through minutes from throughout the year and put them into sort of the template we have. We do have a word limit. or a character limit. I can't remember which it is that we are. We're at that being said. if there are things that are missing and we need to go back. we can work on it. They are due September 30. So we need to finalize what we're looking for tonight. Does anybody have anything to add or comments on the annual report
that? All right? Yes. we're moving right along. because we have a lot to do tonight. Would anybody like to make a motion to
what would we do. approve the our annual report to submit. to accept Mary Ann Borkowski: accept Sarah Shtutin: Sorry. I just have a I just have a quick question. Yes. of course. Thank you. Since I'm a new member for 2526 My name is not on the report. which I understand. so do I vote? Or
Heather Pineault: Great question. yes. yes. because you're on the committee now. so you're either approving for it to go forward or not. It's not like the minutes. even though it does represent what we did. or if you don't feel comfortable. you are also welcome to abstain. but because you Sarah Shtutin: I don't feel comfortable. just I wasn't there for all of these amazing things that you guys did that. Heather Pineault: oh. that's totally fine. And I think that. like you said. that's reflected in that you weren't a committee member at the time. Yeah. totally up to you and your comfort level of voting. but you're welcome to Would anybody like to make a motion to accept the annual report? Kevin Goodwin: I make a motion that we accept the annual report
Heather Pineault: due to September 30 to Kevin Goodwin: September 30 2025 to accept it. Heather Pineault: Thank you. And do we have a second for that motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: I second it. Heather Pineault: Thank you. So we have a motion by Kevin and a second by Mary Ann to accept the annual report for the hrdic due to the town on September 30. 2025 and this will be the 2025 annual report. All in favor. Let's start on zoom this time. Maya.
Maya Raj: yes. I'm in favor. Heather Pineault: Asma. Asma Khan: yes. Maryam Libdi: Sarah. Sarah Shtutin: yes. Heather Pineault: Yauwu Yauwu Tang: yes. Heather Pineault: Kevin. Kevin Goodwin: yes. Heather Pineault: And Mary Ann Mary Ann Borkowski: Yes. Heather Pineault: and Heather. yes. So we have a unanimous vote to accept the town report with thanks to Karen for all her work in pulling this together. We're on Agenda Item number five. fall statements. update Mary Ann not to put you on the spot. Is there Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. no. unfortunately. I did not get to it. Heather Pineault: Yeah. I My understanding or my memory and correct me if I'm wrong. Was we were also going to talk about like. seeing if anybody would like to help you find representatives who are representatives of the community for whom we are making these statements. Help revise that Karen offered. But if anybody else would like to work with Mary ann. it would be great to not just have Mary Ann have to do this by yourself. It's a lot Mary Ann Borkowski: well. it's well. I mean to all the statements. huh? All the fall statements. Yeah. yeah. Heather Pineault: And we're already up to September. Kevin Goodwin: Do we mean when you say fall statements. do we have statements for winter? Statements for summer? Heather Pineault: Would you like to clarify? Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. it's there on a monthly and actually this the. I think it's Hispanic heritage. and it is actually starts September 15 and and then we have a domestic abuse month and indigenous. indigenous capital day and month. Heather Pineault: So when we say the fall statements. it's only because they they're coming up right now. Kevin Goodwin: okay. all right. Mary Ann Borkowski: and doesn't obligate us to look at all of them at the same time. that's for sure. Heather Pineault: But we did talk last time about wanting to update them a little bit and get some fresh eyes from community members. So Karen is happy to help you. unless somebody else is interested in working on that. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. it might. you know. I think we'll reach out beyond the group to see if we can find some representatives of those identity groups so that we can. you know. feel that we've gotten some perspectives that are are from that community. that the statement is about. So and I'll work on that harder next time. Heather Pineault: And yes. thank you very much. And also. Karen's will help you with that as well. Great. Does anybody have any questions about the so called false statements?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I think maybe you know it might be kind of convenient and think about students too. particularly because. because. you know. there's a whole group of students in the in the high school. and we might be able to involve the high. How hard would it Maya for you to reach out To the students. like for the Hispanic statement. or indigenous statement. Maya Raj: Um. not too hard. but it does. like. depend on what you want to do regarding it. Like. if it's just a simple email. then it's super easy to do. Mary Ann Borkowski: And what did you say? Well. what I wanted to do was like. you know. take. take a look at it and see how they felt about it. Maya Raj: Oh. Okayy Mary Ann Borkowski: chance to rewrite it to see you know how language changes relative to certain issues. social issues in particular. And we want to make sure that our language is sensitive and is is what is the the current thought on these particular issues. so Well. maybe we'll reach out to you after. Maya Raj: okay. Heather Pineault: yeah. if you. if you're willing. we have statements already written. So it's not rewrite. it's not writing a statement from scratch. It's taking a look at what we've had in the past and giving feedback. Mary Ann Borkowski: right so that we need to change it. Heather Pineault: So Mary Ann will reach out to Maya. Thank you. That's great. Okay. moving on to our agenda. Item number six. discussion of the Wayland festival planning updates. including a possible vote to authorize payment to arts Wayland in the amount up to $9.500 for expenses related to the festival. And I won't go into all the details of that quite yet. Why don't we start with any updates about the festival before we get to the vote on the budget. Yauwu Tang: We just had a meeting a moment ago so sorry I was late. It's moving on very well. Performance stuff is online now. the interface we step away the schedule with three months in the final stage. we have 52 tables doing great job. and most is Mary Ann's PR. PR side. Bravo for lot of human cut in. rather everything. Heather Pineault: Oh. wait. say something Mary Ann? So it swings around and it takes a picture. You gotta talk so that I will just say Hi. Tom. hello. owl. Mary Ann Borkowski: owl. owl. well. I'll be talking in a minute because I needed to ask rotate to
Yauwu Tang: not that A frame of the banner.
Heather Pineault: Here we go with our new
it's it found me. Yeah. oh. I did see it. Am I can you guys see this? Oh. there we go. If I Talk so this is the sign. Mary Ann Borkowski: a yard sign. Heather Pineault: and the yard sign. And do you need places to put it? People to volunteer? Are you set? Mary Ann Borkowski: If I did want to ask anybody who's on a major road? Yauwu has one in front of his place. I don't know. Heather. I think we put one last year at the last multicultural festival. So if you want to take one. okay. and Asma Khan: I can take one up on Concord. Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. okay. that'd be great. So what shall where can I leave it? Kevin Goodwin: Does anybody know if the Wayland Post will be covering the Wayland festival? Mary Ann Borkowski: I don't know. I they're supposed to be writing an article for the next edition. But Asma. how can I get to this to you. or I could drop it off. Asma Khan: Yeah. we can coordinate something offline. Mary Ann Borkowski: Okay. what's Heather Pineault: your address? Oh. you don't have to say that online if you don't want okay. yeah. I'll text you. Mary Ann. okay. Mary Ann Borkowski: so what I did want to say. we are also having a table at the festival. So now what I'm planning for the table. not dissimilar to other table. The other table we had. we were going to have a couple of books on with our statements. So they're kind of like this. you know. kind of a listed our statements. It did have some of our events. I think I'm thinking of changing it to the annual the annual reports. We have three annual reports. and I'm not sure who really. you know. I'm not going to tell you. anyone looked through them. but I think. you know. we should. we had. should have something about what we've done. so that if people come by. we're going to have pens. These are the pens from the Wayland Spirit of Community Workshop we had. So we have some left over. So we're going to be giving those out. We're going to have some sort of activity. I got friendship bracelets for to give away. I wanted to have our immigration resources list. List there. And obviously people can go to the Resources page. I'll tell people where they can find it. and we have that community conversation with the Middlesex DA. so either I'm making a flyer or they will make a flyer. Anyhow. we'll have a flyer and we'll have a QR code. QR code has. you know. so that people can just so that's what I'm Oh. but I'm looking also so for tents. checking to see if anybody has a tent. Kevin Goodwin: Sarah has her hand raised. Mary Ann Borkowski: Sarah. you have a tent? Oh. thank you. Would you? Could we borrow it? Sarah Shtutin: Oh. no. I do not. No. no. I do not have a tent. That was before my hand was raised on whether we want to put a sign out in front of Happy Hollow. Mary Ann Borkowski: Um. yes. there we are scheduled to put an a frame in front of Happy Hollow. Okay. so a recreation has them. and I'm hoping they'll I'm going to be showing up and offered my services to bring it over. Okay. because I'd like them out. Because. yeah. we just got them yesterday. so now we're trying to get them around. So an Sarah Shtutin: A frame is like a sandwich board? Heather Pineault: yes. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. and we put it by the driveway. all the schools are putting them by all the schools so. and the banners go up next Monday. and then we get to have two banners. and for two weeks. and the other two areas that we can't have a banner. we'll have a sandwich sign. like What I showed you. what Heather showed you so and now actually. if it. even if you don't have a house that's on a main street. if you have a friend. another friend who's is has a house on a main street. if you want to ask me. or ask them. and then tell me and I can drop one off at their house so that they could Have one. like I'm asking someone from my church. she did it last time. So I'm. you know. she lives on Route 20 So. or business. if you're a frequent business person. like. Stop and Shop is letting us put these yard signs Mels we did last last year. So I'm going to stop by and ask them if we can do it again. and so. but you know. so there. you know. you're here. Fortunately. my hair isn't done here in town. So. but anyhow. so if the So. just reach out to me if. if you have another location that we could put one. Unknown: So are you putting this at. like. major intersections? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I'm the sign boards on the 22nd we need permission. So the 22nd we're going to be putting up for two weeks. We have two of them reserved. and the ones that we can only reserve two at a time. So we are putting a yard sign at the other two that we could not reserve. And so there'll be something there for two two weeks. starting next Monday. Heather Pineault: Great. Thank you so much. And in what do you need from us? What are your hopes from committee members. in terms of support? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that's the other one. Well. we have a table. We're there 10 till six. We need some bodies at the table. I'm going to be at the Freedom Team table right next to you. I hope we're right next to each other anyhow. so I can be there some I can. but I can't be at two tables at once. So we need people who will be able to spend an hour or so during this. unfortunately eight hour period. I'm not sure how. late in the afternoon. Yauwu Tang: six hours from 10 to four. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. 10 to Fay. I agree 10 to Yauwu Tang: five to four. You can enjoy the professional music. right? Mary Ann Borkowski: So. anyhow. so if you can anybody here able to commit right now? Yes. Heather. yes. What time can you be there? I'm open and flexible. Okay. 10 till spot. Yauwu Tang: I can fill gaps Heather Pineault: I can fill gaps. I know Karen. I believe she'll be there. Will anybody else be there who could sit at the table for a little bit. take an hour shift. or anything?
Mary Ann Borkowski: You'll come by. You're going to be at another table. Heather Pineault: Yauwu. will be at another table. Yeah. So please think about that. It's a long day. and the more people. the better. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. right. And we want to be present. just because that's part of our message. Is not just the work we do. but that the fact that we exist at all. Yauwu Tang: Also. we want to recruit members so we can have a sign up seats for people in. Was the Mary Ann Borkowski: we last time we did have. well. I had. I don't know if we have a how to join. but yep. join their HR join. but maybe we could have something they could take. Unknown: Yeah. so Mary Ann Borkowski: it's in here. but we should have it not buried in here. We'll put it something out on the table. maybe something they could take. Heather Pineault: So Sounds good. All right. Thank you. everybody. yes. So I suppose the second part yes is there. are there any more? Just Hang on one sec before we move into the possible vote to approve monies being given to arts Wayland. Does anybody else have any sort of more general questions about the festival or anything.
Mary Ann Borkowski: for those of you who may not know. so HRDEIC created a had two multicultural festivals in the past three years. and this year. we decided to join with two other entities that have big events in town. One is touch a truck that is the Wayland recreation department and ArtsWayland would have an Arts Expo with artists selling their pictures and art and performers. And so we thought that that was something we could all do together and have it kind of like be a bigger day. especially since there's. you know. we're doing performances. Our Expo is doing performances. And so anyhow. that's how we got together and and created this one big event just to see how it works out. So we have our tables. whichever displays. and our activities. and. you know. so some of the you know. our multicultural aspects will be there. and our performances. And so that's and this year there's a parade. because it's a 250th anniversary of our country. And actually. you know. how often do we have a parade? Actually. it's going to go down. I don't know how. You know. we must all shop at the town center. but the town center has the most. most center like street. and we're going to this parade is going to go down the center of the street. So it's going to look like the old fashioned parade that go down Main Street. So anyhow. so I just want yeah and Heather Pineault: so to add on to that. thank you. We will also be revisiting. as you know. said after the festival. to see. does this work for for our committee. doing it as one huge festival. or do we want to go back and do a separate one? So that will be a later conversation after we after it's over. So the second part. as you saw. was a possible vote to authorize payment to arts Wayland. A little bit of history here we have money appropriated to us from the Select Board for $9.500. this committee made a presentation. Select Board approved that amount based on preliminary budget numbers. and it is now our job to approve that amount to go to ArtsWayland. One of the benefits of working with ArtsWayland is that the performers and well everybody. will be able to be paid more quickly. because they don't have to go through the same process with multiple votes by us and then by the Select Board for payments directly from the town. I received information from Kelsi. the assistant town manager with this language. So this language has already been approved. and she had some examples of the expenses from Chris Reynolds. who is also working on on the festival. and they account for well over 9.500 for the whole festival. And specifically some of the items. when one in the motion. it says with sound stage 10 festival performance. publicity. food. all of that's well over 9.500 if we want to think more specifically. he broke out $2.000 for sound equipment. sound engineer. sound technician. $3.500 for portable stage. These are estimates. and 4.000 for tents. He also sent me some backup invoice. not invoices. because they haven't paid yet. Estimates if we need more data. But that's sort of that is where the support for our moving $9.500 comes from.
Kevin Goodwin: I move approval that we approve. I move approval that we give 9.000 Heather Pineault: what was it? 9.000 we authorized $9.500 Kevin Goodwin: to ArtsWayland for their work on the wellness festival. Heather Pineault: And I'll just. can I add a little more of the technical language that Kelsi absolutely up to the amount of 9.500 for expenses related to the 2025. Wayland festival. including. but not limited to cost associated with sound. stage. tent. which I just enumerated. festival performances. publicity. food. beverage and other related expenses. So that's the exact language note takers. It's it's what we have written in the agenda. Hang on one sec. Is there a second to the motion? Kevin Goodwin: Second. Heather Pineault: Well. you made the motion to you. You own the motion. It's yours. Okay. Way to go. Um. do we have a second? You try? Good. Try. We'll. we'll discuss it. Hang on one sec. please. Do we have a second for the motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. I'll second it so we can get on to our discussion. Heather Pineault: Okay. second by Mary Ann. Now. are there. is there any discussion on the motion? It's Yauwu Sarah Shtutin: well. yeah. I. I just discussed the budget with Chris as waiting. Actually. this the first time I have the chance to discuss the budget. So at this time. we don't have other community who is going to control or approve any cost. So I. I feel it's premature at this time to have this work. especially mostly bill or discussion is done between Janot and Chris. so she's not here. and I don't feel comfortable to vote this time. so I propose this Tom. and there's no urgent money to be paid this time. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I would just ask. is there. you know. are there some deposits that have to be made for sound and stage? I mean. those were things that were in the budget that we had given to the Select Board. the Select board so that we. and they're very specific. and they're large. and we could allocate. Sarah Shtutin: you know specific items we need to do it. We can approve the line items but us first for the to give Asma proof
Asma Khan: note taker. Maryam joined at 638 she signed on with a link from me. So it's coming up as Asma Khan. but it's Maryam Heather Pineault: just Oh. Thank you. Thank you for letting us know. Maryam joined us at 638 I was wondering. I was wondering how there was another Asma. Thank you. Thanks for letting us know. Welcome. So I'm hearing ya woo has concerns about giving a check without having specific invoices that we're paying tied to it. Mary Ann made the point that there are. are deposits that need to be made. This is coming up soon. and this was all part of the budget that we presented and discussed with the Select Board when they approve the 9.500 Are there any other comments or questions?
Mary Ann Borkowski: It can be amended? Can Can we? Does it make it makes? Is it okay to say. you know that we're willing to. you know. pay half the sound. half the stage at this point to so that we give them some operating money. and we're not going to have another meeting until after this event. Heather Pineault: That's my concern. Is timing wise. we don't meet until October 21 which is right. yes. after the event. which is on the fourth. And people like to be paid. and if they. you know. part of the purpose of doing this was because ArtsWayland. then could pay people more timely. But we won't meet until October 21 after we meet. whatever we approve. has to go to the Select Board for approval and then. So it takes a it won't happen immediately. It will take couple. I think they said usually two to three more weeks. Yauwu Tang: But at this time. we don't even know we're doing. Is already always decided. please. So at this time. we're giving that to another organizations. and we just don't have any control. or we spend our money. I just don't feel that's responsible thing for us to do. Mary Ann Borkowski: us to do. But by not doing that. we are we're relying on these other organizations to handle whatever those budget issues are. And. for example. we're supposed to make some sort of payment to the performers. if you know and the performers are going to want someone's going to be paying them right away. So if ArtsWayland has money. and they're using money. and they're I just don't know how that will happen.
Yauwu Tang: How much we just do Mary Ann Borkowski: it. yes. but there these other bills are going to be due at the same time. or the sound and the stage. We're on the hook for some of this. Heather Pineault: We. I think I hear and understand your concern. and in the past. so everybody knows we usually would get a specific item. it would say we were approving a $500 payment to for the services. very specific. Mary Ann Borkowski: and it took 30 days. and that was took a while to actually get that check cut. Heather Pineault: to go through that whole process. takes a few weeks. and but that's when Yauwu was saying we had very specific we knew exactly what we Were paying to whom and for what. That is true when we had total state control. for lack of a better word. we ran the festival. we were responsible for it all. and so I totally respect and understand what you're saying. and I think we already spoke to the Select Board about this money being used together with other town monies. Park and Rec is is supporting the touch of truck. and then arts Wayland is involved. I My understanding is they knew. and they saw a budget that the whole budget for the whole festival. even our festival. was a lot more than this last year. So we know the expenses are there. and they have. We've already said we would. we've already committed to the $9.500 and so my concern is that this will hold up people getting paid. which was part of why we thought this was a good way to go. Yauwu Tang: but without any last convention. or for us to control. to decide all the money spent you. just for me. if you give up. you just ask willing to decide what's going to how it's going to spend. Just what we want to do. I agree with certain things. Collaborate together. We need to have meditation. which is still to be seen. because so far. every communication between Chris and me. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. so you wouldn't feel comfortable. It's and I don't even know if it might make sense. so you wouldn't feel comfortable. Feel comfortable knowing that the sound stage has to be done. The sound Yauwu Tang: I'm comfortable to do things that we know that were part of the agreement and were approved. Heather Pineault: I can. I can give you some examples Yauwu Tang: For example of dispatches. Budget. I still see the people here. but I haven't seen the budget. I even didn't receive a new budget. We so I took a camera and put this kind of environment. yeah. I totally received Heather Pineault: and that I can't speak to that I know there was a budget at the beginning of the whole process. and I think you you started it right on a spreadsheet. and that's how we got approved. So we know those monies are going to be expended. real expenses. Okay. so we have seen a budget. and we and. and I think it was your spreadsheet that you shared with the budget. and so we know. and we have committed that we would pay the 9500 that the Select Board gave to us. I guess I understand you're wanting to have more information. but I'm trying to understand your concern. Are you worried that people aren't going to be paid. We're only two. three weeks out from the festival now and and so I'm assuming that that this has been figured out a little bit. and I'm sorry you it sounds like you're not getting the information from the festival committee. Um. That you would like. and I understand that. and that sounds extremely frustrating. because you've been such a key Yauwu Tang: we have no input on how to manage spend. Yeah. okay. hold on. The channel was much cheaper devices. so there's no discussion. Okay. okay. I cannot do it . I just cannot come back next month. Come back this folder. Okay. we are not seeing convenient. but we need to do that Mary Ann Borkowski: so you can't see any partial payment. Yauwu Tang: A partial payment? Are you voting? It's
Mary Ann Borkowski: no. your answer is no. Yauwu Tang: I will do it. I will say. but I don't see say. Okay.
Well. $1.000 I think Heather Pineault: I understand. I think what I'm struggling a bit with is when we decided to do this with other organizations. part of that meant that we were giving up some control. because it's not ours. right? It's not just us. so we don't have complete control of this. and part of that was then when we presented the budget to the Select Board and they approved the 9500 was for me anyway. is knowing and trusting that it's part of this group effort. and now that the payments we know are going through arts Wayland. and we also know that the payments total more than the 9500 that we're contributing. because they are also contributing. And so I feel a sense of responsibility to to move the money to them so that we can't so that they can make the payments in a timely fashion. realistically. if we have to wait till our next meeting on October 21 and then it's a few more weeks after that before we get approval from the Select Board to and the checks are cut. or the check is cut. it's just then going to be a good month after the festival before people will be able to be paid. Yauwu Tang: I agree that we have to give up something. we have to discuss things. but I do not agree that we give up 100% and that if you get a budget even rather not being informed. I think that is very. very unusual collaboration. Yes. if you want me to say yes. I really couldn't. I'm sorry. Heather Pineault: No. I understand. And I guess what I'm struggling now with is. do we take a vote on the total amount and understanding that you can't support it. or do you want to make a motion to amend? And we can do it as a two step process and see if people want to do an amended mount. or if people want to do a full amount. Yauwu Tang: okay. I will go.
Heather Pineault: So are you making a are you making an amendment to the motion? Yauwu Tang: Yeah. 4500
Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. Why'd you make it specific to. I mean. I actually. actually the money is the best. Okay. so just half Heather Pineault: and. okay. so there's an amendment on the floor to Yahoo's motion. to Kevin's motion for 9500 that Yahoo is making. that we distribute. How much $4.500 is there any discussion about the amendment to the motion? Does anybody want to give feedback? Folks on Zoom. I'm sorry I feel like we haven't engaged you. or I haven't done a good job engaging you in this conversation. Does anybody have any thoughts. because our first vote will be on whether we approve the motion. the amendment to the motion for $4.500 if that passes. we would just be giving arts Wayland $4.500 if it fails. we would then vote on the motion for $9.000
Kevin Goodwin: or 95 Heather Pineault: sorry. 9500 Thank you. I was just seeing if you were paying attention. Good job. For. That's what I tell my kids at school. Sarah Shtutin: So sorry. Maybe I'm just confused. Is the issue that we don't have specific invoices and we're just writing them like a blank check. and yeah. we don't want to do that for the full amount. even though we promised it to them. Heather Pineault: That is that that's my understanding of Yauwu's concern. And it's. it's not like totally a blank check. but it does. you know. we list. we enumerate on on number six on the agenda. the types of expenses up to $9.500 Sarah Shtutin: but they can't provide us with the invoices from the people that we're paying from the staging and the artists like. that's not possible. Heather Pineault: They don't have all the invoices yet. because they are still negotiating. is my understanding from an email today. I have some examples. and a lot of the folks didn't invoice us like last year. We would get them. we knew what we owed them at the festival. and we'd get that at the festival. as opposed to in advance. So for example. I have one invoice or one quote here for $4.348 for temps. I have another quote for the stage alone. for 3600 and then another quote for the stage and lighting cables and some other things that I don't understand. And that's 5700 so those invoice. those quotes that are coming in are of the magnitude of $9.500 if we just wanted to pick a few big items. and I think that was the intent. was to say HRD. I see here are a few big items that add up to around $9.500 plus we know they're all the performers to be paid and all the other expenses as well. So that's. does that does that help? Sarah Shtutin: Sarah. in the end. yes. but in the end will be get receipts for where the money went. Will there be documentation? Heather Pineault: in the end. for ArtsWayland. they Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. they have to document. They have to document it. There are 501 c3 they're not a Tom and 5013 state. Thank you. Heather Pineault: So so they have to document and they will get invoices that they're paying.
Sarah Shtutin: So we will have in the end. proof of kind of where our funds went. Heather Pineault: We could certainly request that. And as you've seen. we have folks on the committee. And unfortunately. Janot is not able to be here tonight because she may have more information. But yes. we certainly can request that. Mary Ann Borkowski: And we know some of the. I mean. we know we're going to spend all of it and the so to to be our fiduciaries. But we. but if we know. we could give. you know. 1500 for the stage and to that. or at 1000 for the sound. and 2500 for the stage. And do you know. whatever adds up to what our amount is. and then it could go to that. because we know you're going to buy a stage. Kevin Goodwin: yeah. and the test. I have a question that. Yauwu. I mean. I mean. I know you were saying we we had removed the motion for 9500 which was It was no motion. But my question becomes. if we give 40. if we pay 4500 ourselves. what happens to the other 40 50. 5.000 we who? Who does that go to? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that we just have to vote it at a different time? Heather Pineault: Well. I think the question is someone might. either someone's not going to get paid while they're waiting to get it. or I don't. I don't know what ArtsWayland budget is. I'm not sure they have 5000 extra dollars they could front to float while they're waiting. So most likely. it means somebody will wait to get paid until Mary Ann Borkowski: and or we have an emergency meeting with a quorum to try to pass some of these. Heather Pineault: Yep. we could. That's what we could do. is try to get an emergency meeting. We'd need to have at least five voting members at it. So are there any other questions on the motion to amend which. yeah. yeah. Well. made.
Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess I would. I would say. you know. I mean. we have a relationship here. I mean. how does that hurt? Will that hurt our relationship? Kevin Goodwin: I mean. would you say. Say. leave it at 9500 or pay 4500 and somebody. Or. would you say. just. would you say. leave it at for 9500 for us. because we were. we were the ones that were given the 9500 or cut it to 4500 and then somebody ends up in. yeah.
Mary Ann Borkowski: well. I don't you know how. um. how? You know. a lot of things get invoiced to a town that they have to wait. That's not really that unusual. And so that's why I focus on the things that we know. Well. actually focusing on things that we the only things we have listed are the things that that I suspect they could actually wait. you know. it's the payment to the performers and some other expenses that is kind of more immediate. but that it also. you know. we don't have a logical over we don't have a lot of oversight over that. And we could. if Heather Pineault: they don't have the money. we don't have control over who they choose to pay first. right? Mary Ann Borkowski: But. well. I mean. you could give them money that has to go to the stage. I mean. you could say Heather Pineault: that like we could limit it. Well. I the language we have here is a language the assistant town manager requested that we use. Kevin Goodwin: Okay. let me ask you. okay. I'm going to throw in another question. What don't we in this 9500 or 4500 or whatever we choose to pay. Let's say it's 9500 either that night. 9500 for everything. What don't we have control over? Here's my question.
I'm not I'm not worried about the money. I'm asking the question. what in everything that has to be paid for? What don't we have control over? What? What parts of the festival Do we not have control over payment? Heather Pineault: The touch of truck part is my understanding. the park. and rest is doing touch a truck. So the payments associated with that part of the day or touch a truck. I don't know if the Wayland 250 committee has a part. but all of the other things listed. Kevin Goodwin: So touch a truck is not us. Is not us. Okay? So then how? Okay. let me how much is the touchy truck? Heather Pineault: I don't know. because it's not us. okay? It's totally it's part. On the other hand. Mary Ann Borkowski: they did make they paid for these. Oh. that was nice. Okay. this is their budget. which would have gone for touch a truck. Yauwu Tang: They didn't give budget for us. We did not get the budget of ArtsWayland. too many Heather Pineault: Okay. so folks. we have a lot still on our agenda tonight. so I'm going to ask. I neglected. I think I made a mistake procedurally. We had a motion to amend. Was there a second to the motion to amend. We actually need a second to the motion to amend as well.
Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess we can't vote and we have to. oh. I suppose we wouldn't have to vote if we never got Heather Pineault: correct. If we don't have a second to the motion to amend. then we don't have a motion to amend. Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. I'm just not clear about. you know whether. Kevin Goodwin: if. if. okay. let me ask you this. if we don't have a motion to amend. does it go back to the main vote? Which I think it does. Yes. Heather Pineault: Yes. correct. So is. Would anybody like to second the motion to amend?
Mary Ann Borkowski: I will second the motion to amend so we can vote on it and even further discuss it. Kevin Goodwin: It's for $4.500
Mary Ann Borkowski: so. you know. we never said. We never said. what. how this was going to happen. So we. we didn't really know when. you know when this would happen. right? Other than Kelsi gave you this language which kind of covers everything. Heather Pineault: Well. there's two things. The other thing that I know. if we're concerned about it covering us. a. yes. A. we got the language specifically from Kelsi. but B. the Select Board still needs to vote. So if the Select Board is not happy with the language. the Select Board also could say. Nope. we're sending it back because we want X. Y or Z. and we want more. So it could there. There are two there are two options that there are two possibilities. Is there any more discussion on the motion to amend? Does anyone have any new thoughts that. We have not discussed thus far.
Sarah Shtutin: I will. I'm sorry if I missed this. but if we don't give them the full money is back. enough potentially affect the quality of the you know. if they can't pay people. are they going to show up?
Heather Pineault: I don't have that answer usually. Well. I know from when we ran it the past couple years. we the payments were after the performance. They didn't get paid to perform in advance. At least the people that we were hiring. Mary Ann Borkowski: I know. but that. but some of them did get paid for 30 days. But then some of them didn't Heather Pineault: get paid for quite a while Yauwu Tang: it would pass. probably nobody will.
Heather Pineault: We already have performers lined up. and we have an agreement with arts Wayland. about covering all these costs so youth. So I now. I'm I'm concerned. It sounds like your concern is that if we release this money. that we won't have any of our performers. Yauwu Tang: We can go the time itself is going to support probably close to myself. Heather Pineault: the 10th the estimate for the tent on that was. what did I say. folks. I just said that a minute ago. I have the tent estimate. And I think maybe it was when you stepped out. The tent estimate is $4.000
Yauwu Tang: the stages. Heather Pineault: and the stage is 5000 right? And then that's just a portion art Wayland already committed at the Select Board meeting when. when we talked about about doing this together. our Wayland committed to pay money too. Yauwu Tang: So. but can they use the money?
Heather Pineault: They could use the money to pay these things. but then they don't have the money to pay for the performers. Sarah Shtutin: So
Heather Pineault: that's so that's why I feel like we need to release the money to them so that they can pay everybody. They can pay the performers. and they can pay they can pay all their all the fees associated with the Yauwu Tang: festival. you would have a conversation. yes. but I don't have Any conversation about right? I just got this.
Heather Pineault: I'm sorry. Can I? Can I show you these? I literally just got them this Yauwu Tang: afternoon.
Heather Pineault: because I just got them. and I think. oh. yeah. yes. I don't know. and I'm sorry. that's why Yauwu Tang: I have concerns. not because I want to credit this. I feel I'm not responsible for the HR. Okay. go ahead. Unknown: Yeah. no. I understand them. Hi. This is Mariam. I can understand you. I was concerned. especially that I wasn't around when this agreement was made. Is there a way to if we decide to vote on release of the full amount? Is there a way to release with a guarantee of receiving invoices. I think. as an initial step that may ease concerns and help us preserve that relation by releasing the full amount. Now maybe. yes. that's what I think that was. well. we. Heather Pineault: yeah. that was Sarah's question. It's not. I mean. I. I'm wondering if. rather than doing the amendment to 4500 What if we added language with the understanding or with the agreement that we will receive invoices. or the agreement that performers will be paid with the agreement that we'll receive invoices Unknown: and then set that standard for future partnerships. Kevin Goodwin: Yeah. okay. my question is this. well. here. you know you were saying. Now I completely forgot what I was going to say. I was going back to Miriam. Miriam. what was your question. if we released the complete 9500 what? What. where? What issue were you having Unknown: so we are now. At a moment when this agreement has been made. and preserving the partnership with this other organization is a priority in such a small town. I was suggesting. if we decide to release the full amount. but then have some language that would guarantee that we will know what that money was used for. and then in the future. that will Kevin Goodwin: be. I know. I know what my issue was. You know what? Let me ask you this on the invoices wouldn't. wouldn't the book. wouldn't the Selectmen office have copies of or. the Select Board Office. would they have copies of the invoices? Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. that's why we're giving it to arts. Wayland is so well that it doesn't Kevin Goodwin: have. well. let me put it to you this way. either way. somebody's going to have any invoices. right. whether it be the Select Board Office. or that's Wayland. yeah. either one of the I mean. yeah. oh. I know you were concerned about the invoice. And then I think you were. either way. somebody's going to have the invoices regardless. Heather Pineault: So what if we add to the motion after the motion? Kevin Goodwin: My point is. why don't we issue them? Why don't we just. why don't we? Why don't we? I mean. we've already approved the 9500 let's leave it at that.
Heather Pineault: Well. I'm wondering. we haven't actually voted yet. We. we. we got approval from the Select Board that we have that that money we haven't voted to. we haven't
voted to authorize the payment to arts Wayland. But I'm wondering if we added on after the language that's in the agenda. with the understanding that arts Wayland will provide receipts totaling set amount. Unknown: would that
Yauwu Tang: still cost? Heather Pineault: Yes. and I feel like that's part of the deal we entered into when we did this. That part of the agreement was we would. we put the budget together that we thought for the whole event and how much we requested for our portion from the Select Board. with the agreement that we would then give it to arts Wayland to make. to make payments. So I was trying to Tom's point. add in a little bit of language that would say. with the understanding that our Wayland would give us a receipt. Kevin Goodwin: So let me ask you this at the Select Board Office. I mean. at the selectman beam. they asked or. or. I would assume EHR DIC asked or a set amount which they gave to us? No. was ours? Well. in there at the time.
Mary Ann Borkowski: um. this was part of that discussion. Heather Pineault: I Okay. I wasn't at that meeting. but. but it was our Mary Ann Borkowski: budget. but it was. but we were asking Kevin Goodwin: for it. But. but who do we got the money? We got it or. I mean. let me ask you this. Then does the then did the gorgeous elect man turn around and say. you have the authority to give so much to arc Wayland. they didn't give the authority to do that. and we're on the hook for that. We're on the hook for the 9500 which is. which is what we were given.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Well. but Kelsi. I mean. that everybody knew what the intention was. and that's why Kelsi gave us this language. so that Heather Pineault: and the Select Board will have to vote one more time. once they once we authorize it. I have to tell Kelsi that we voted. and then that has to go before the Select board so that the town has permission to cut a check. is my understanding. Kevin Goodwin: Um. which I see no problem with. But okay. apparently. Heather Pineault: yeah. I hear. I totally I hear the concerns all around and I understand the discomfort with how we're doing it and how it's different than we've done it before. and this does require a level of trust with a town organization that we've been working with.
Yauwu Tang: yes or. Challenges do you have Heather Pineault: to I do not have the wording from the Select Board. I'm going by Kelsi. who is the Assistant town manager's wording based on what we were allowed to do with the with the Mary Ann Borkowski: fund. the language
Heather Pineault: that's in our on our agenda here. this is exactly what Kelsi said we were authorized to do and what we needed to ask for. So that comes from the town manager's office or the assistant Tom manager's office. So I'm trusting I didn't go back and try. I didn't watch the Select Board meeting. So I'm trusting that this is what the Select Board needs in order to make the payment to arts Wayland.
yes. well. I can't. I don't know that for sure. but that's my understanding. given the language that we Were asked to approve by the town. So at this point. does anybody have something noi that day. Kevin Goodwin: So in other words. the language you're holding in your hand. we have. we're authorized to approve Heather Pineault: that from Kelsi. the assistant Tom manager gave me this language for us to vote on. So I think Kevin Goodwin: we. I think it would be a wise and prudent idea just to be on the safe side to approve that language. Heather Pineault: Okay. so we have an emotion to amend on the floor. So we have two votes to do. I just want to be clear. our first vote is going to be on the motion to amend the amount that we authorize payment to our Wayland to $4.500 instead of the original amount. which was 9000 to be clear on the procedure. we vote on the motion to amend. If that passes. then the amount is $4.500 instead of $9.000 Kevin Goodwin: or the motion 9500 Heather Pineault: My apologies. if the motion fails to amend the amount. then we vote on the motion for $9.000 unless we want to amend it again. unless we want to amend it again. then I'll be just Like Tom meeting. We can do Kevin Goodwin: that road. Heather Pineault: So we have a motion to amend the amount from 9000 to 4500 and I'd like to take a vote on that so that we can move along. I think we've all shared our opinions on this. Does anybody have anything new that they would like to add to the conversation?
Kevin Goodwin: Okay. Heather Pineault: let's start on online. Please. Asma. your vote on the motion to amend. Instead of 9000 down to $4.500
Asma Khan: yes. Heather Pineault: you agree with the motion to amend? Did I hear that? Right? Sorry. I'm having trouble hearing you.
Asma Khan: Yeah. sorry. going down from 95 to four to 4500 got it? Unknown: I'm going to go with no. Sarah. no.
Mariam. can I abstain? Heather Pineault: Abstain? Maya. Asma Khan: I'm going to abstain. Heather Pineault: Marianne. we're gonna go now. staying and staying. Marianne. no. Kevin. no. ya Woo. yes. and Heather is a no. Sarah Shtutin: You brush your teeth. You went to the bathroom. Okay? It's lane. Okay. okay. so sorry. My kids are going to bed. Heather Pineault: No worries. The motion to amend does not pass with 1234. I'm sorry. 12345. votes for No. two abstentions and the I will one vote yes. so the motion to amend is not carry. which takes us back to the original motion for that Kevin made for $9.500 as is written in the agenda. yes.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. subject to.
Heather Pineault: To agreement of expenses by arts. Wayland and HDR hrdic. Does any is there a second on that motion? Unknown: Can select board? Can the Select Board vote on that.
Heather Pineault: It doesn't matter. it's our Mary Ann Borkowski: motion. I know. but they have to approve something like this. Heather Pineault: They have to prove the expenditure. I That's a great question. I'm not sure we can put a well. is there a second to this motion? Mary Ann Borkowski: I mean. what we're doing. we need it Heather Pineault: really hard. Yeah. this is really hard. and I don't know. but do we have a second to the motion to make the the payments agreement subject to agreements of arts. Wayland. HR. DIC. together. Yauwu Tang: yes. is this motion required? Required by the by the circle one. Kevin Goodwin: we don't the 9500 Heather Pineault: of this motion? Which motion the Yauwu Tang: one to give money to us? Heather Pineault: Directions we have the wording is from Kelsi. who's in the assistant who's the Assistant town manager. We have to take this vote in order to have the money be given to our Wayland. Yauwu Tang: but I understand people want to get money. We. okay. we I think Heather Pineault: we're that's our discussion right now. I think we have to. because we agreed to and I so I want to get back to your motion to amend. Is there a second to this motion to amend? Because if. if there is a second. we need to discuss it and then vote again. and if there's not a second. then we don't have the motion.
Okay. hearing no second. we are going to go back and vote on the motion that Kevin made. I will read it in its entirety so that we're clear. Kevin moved to authorize payment to arts Wayland up to the amount of $9.500 for expenses related to the 2025 Wayland festival. including. but not limited to cost associated with the sound stage 10 festival performances. publicity. food and beverage and other related expenses we will do. I'm sorry. Sarah Shtutin: I'm sorry. Yes. I know. I know this has been a long process. but I do think there's been several people who've asked if we can amend the language to then have them provide us with documentation or invoices or some kind of accounting of how the money was spent. Okay. does that need a separate motion? Heather Pineault: It needs a motion to amend. Are you would you like to make a motion? Kevin Goodwin: Heather. I think we already discussed this. Heather Pineault: So Sarah. what would you be your what's your amendment? Then to our motion. Sarah Shtutin: my amendment is to have the exact language as Kevin wrote it and you just read it. but to have a line in there that after the festival. we would like an accounting with documentation of how the $9.500 was spent.
Kevin Goodwin: Okay. that I don't have a problem. okay. Heather Pineault: all right. Like documentation. is there a second for the amendment? The motion to amend.
Maryam Libdi: And yeah. we'll second. I second that. Oh. Heather Pineault: yeah. One Miriam. yeah. we'll got in there. Okay. after the festival. we would like documentation as to how the funds were expended. Is. did I get that correctly? Okay? Is there any discussion on the motion to amend?
Yauwu Tang: We still need to aware that we have. we have no control in mind. Heather Pineault: And I think that will be a great discussion point for what we do moving forward afterwards. okay. and whether we're going to do I think we need to bring this to the table as part of the conversation about how this had worked in this joint venture. whether we want to continue doing this. Do we need. More guidelines going forward next time I am not in any way trying to lessen your concerns. just wondering about the timing. I feel like the train already left. and we have a responsibility. We can add this amendment in which will then get us some documentation. which I think is very important. and I'm hearing several people talk about and we will put this on the agenda to discuss at the October meeting about going forward what we want to do. Does that make sense? Unknown: Okay? October. Okay. Heather Pineault: Is there any more conversation on the motion to amend. So once again. we have to do two votes. The first. the first is to amend the original motion by adding. after the festival. we would like documentation as how to the funds were expended. So I will start with a vote here. Ya Woo. Ya Woo. Yes. yes on the amendment. yeah. Kevin.
Kevin Goodwin: I'd say no. okay. Marianne. yes. Maryam Libdi: Sarah. yes. Heather Pineault: Asma. yes. Unknown: Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Heather Pineault: And Heather. I vote yes. Um. that brings us now to the whole motion. um. as is stated in the agenda item number six. plus the amendment. including that after the festival. we would like documentation as to how the funds were expended. So let's do a vote on the total motion as amended. So for the notes it we were voting on the motion as amended. and I'll go back online. Maya. yes. Maryam. yes. Asma. yes. Sarah. yes. ya wo Yes. Mary Ann. yes. Kevin. yes. and Heather. yes. All right. Thank you very much. everybody. I know that was a challenging conversation. and I think it's also really important that we talked about all of that and we were able to figure out something and got a unanimous vote. So thank you everybody for listening to each other together. Unknown: Can we please add to a future agenda to discuss. you know. having policies so we don't want into this again? Heather Pineault: Yep. I put it on the on in my notes for the October meeting as part of the follow up about the festival. Like. Are there guidelines? You know. they're going to be a lot of things we're discussing. Like. do we want to continue to do something jointly as a big town celebration? Do we want to return to our having total control and running a separate festival if we do it jointly? What policies would we want in place? What did we learn from this experience? So absolutely?
Yeah. thank you. Okay. Wow. Say So folks. I need to make some decisions. because I want to respect our time and and I want to respect the importance Agenda Item number seven. I would like to suggest that we come back to that in October. because I don't feel like we can really do it justice and get through the other kind of business items that we have to do. There was a this was presented to the Select Board. I'm talking about the discussion of the Wayland community life and engagement executive report we were going to review theme one. strength and foundations of action. belonging and shared values. But I would like us to be able to spend more than about 10 minutes on it. And I feel like at this point. it's it we. we won't be able to do it justice. Along with that. I would one once. if you have the time before October to check out the September 2 Select Board meeting. Dr even a Hayes and Karen were at that meeting when the committee talked about this entire report. and it was on their agenda for 10 minutes. So it's it would be valuable. in my opinion. if you're able to go on WayCAM and watch that. it might give us. it's giving me thoughts about what recommendations we could make. And I would just suggest. if you're able to watch that. it's about. Want to say two and a half hours into the meeting. approximately. okay. so we are going to put that on hold. I would like to do number eight. Kevin Goodwin: Oh. sorry. I would. I would. I know you should put it on hold. I put it table. It Tova. thank Heather Pineault: you. Yes. Thank you much. Better choice of words. Thanks. Kevin table. Mary Ann Borkowski: with this. is there any value in having someone like lead that discussion. one of us Unknown: lead which discussion? Seven Mary Ann Borkowski: that that each of these as we move our way through doing that so that it will not just like Heather Pineault: you mean the other than the chair. you mean someone in the group would take it on? Yeah. Oh. well. speaking for myself as vice chair. and on behalf of Karen. I'm sure if somebody would like to. we were going to break it up into each of the sections to discuss. If somebody is interested in leading the discussion on any part. please reach out to me or Karen. or to Karen. But that would be. that's a great idea. Asma. Are you able to do the discussion and possible vote on the Know Your Rights? Flyer? Yes. something we would Asma Khan: love to have. Do you want to share the flyer on my end? Heather Pineault: Can Asma share her screen? Can you share your screen? Do you see the green button? Share Screen? Unknown: Yeah. I can. Awesome. This is Heather Pineault: an updated version of what was in your packet. Oh. it's updated from well. updated only in that the QR code. so you wouldn't really see a difference. okay. but. okay. Unknown: do you guys see that? Sarah Shtutin: No. no.
Heather Pineault: no. are you sharing your screen? Yeah.
Kevin Goodwin: we're not seeing anything. I can hold Heather Pineault: up. I can hold up a picture of what. Here we go. Mary Ann Borkowski: There we go. you know. Asma Khan: Yeah. great. Thank you. Okay. all right. perfect. So from Karen's suggestion of getting at least something out there for Know Your Rights. because we weren't able to do an event. we decided to make a very generic flyer of inclusivity. So the idea is we have this flyer that we're able to put up in restaurants storefronts around town. and have this QR code that links over to our website that include different Know Your Rights for groups. And so there's immigration. LGBTQ. domestic violence. and so that's all listed on our our web page. Let me see if I have it up here. Yeah. this one right here. So that QR code links to all of these different links. and so it kind of leaves it open to the reader of how they want to take that message. But I think it's powerful to be able to have up in different storefronts around town just to have that support.
Heather Pineault: So what a we would need to approve that we would like to do this. Thank you very much. I think. personally. I think this is a great idea and something actionable that we can do. Does anybody have any questions about the flyer itself. or what Asma shared with us? Mary Ann Borkowski: So my experience. at least in the town center was and when I look at it. there aren't any flyers on anybody's windows. And I don't know if there's a requirement. but. you know. it makes me think of the you know. things that you know. like domestic violence being in bathrooms and our card. I don't know I we could run but. you know. it's maybe I shouldn't. I shouldn't presume that someone wouldn't. I have no idea. Well. it used to be people used to put up flyers all the time in years past. but. you know. I don't see them doing that now. and I didn't get a good response. Heather Pineault: So and bathrooms may still also work. I've seen these in some similar bathrooms. I do. Did you have any thoughts. or more information about distribution Asma? Asma Khan: I think the idea is to have a few of us go around to different restaurants and stores and see if they would be willing to have it in their like front window display.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Oh. and if we get. as we get feedback. we can adjust. Yeah. I would also say that. you know. there is a Wayland West End or west. And Wayland Rotary. it might be worth it to plan a presentation with them. Val Abbasi from the Village Bank. He belongs there. He could invite us to make a presentation about this and have it available that people might take it. So thank you. Heather Pineault: Does anybody have any folks on on Zoom when we're in share mode like this. I can't see you individually. so feel free to just jump in. because I'm sharing. Sorry. No. no. no. it's great to share. No. no. no. no problem at all. I just can't I just want to make sure people jumped in. Does anybody? Would anybody like to make a motion that we vote on sharing. just trying to distribute. on sharing this flyer. or distributing this flyer around town? Kevin Goodwin: I make a motion that we share or distribute the Wayland with flyer. the Wayland flyer Heather Pineault: the Wayland Know Your Rights. Flyer. Kevin Goodwin: yes. around town. Sarah Shtutin: Okay. second
Maya Raj: I. second that Kevin Goodwin: I. oh. I Heather Pineault: Yeah. Kevin made the motion. I heard Mary Ann second it I think. um. yes. Is there any. okay. is there any uh. discussion on the motion? No.
Maryam Libdi: I'm sorry. I think this is an urgent matter we can there's so many ways we can change this up or discuss further. but I feel like this issue is urgent and needs to be put out in any shape or form. Heather Pineault: Yes. I agree. Maya Raj: I have a question. Yeah. Who seconded? Because I'm taking notes. I'm not sure if it was Maryam or if it was Maryam. Heather Pineault: Okay. so can we take a vote. please? Marianne. yes. Kevin. yes. yeah. Woo. Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Asma. yes. Sarah. yes. Great. Asma. thank you so much. And Heather. you didn't vote Heather. I voted yes. Thank you. Thanks for the reminder. Mary Ann Borkowski: I'm going to add it to our table. Heather Pineault: Yes. that's what I was thinking when you said that at the table. Yeah. no. you're right. So we can have this certainly at the festival and Asma. Do you want to let us know. or send us all a final copy? Or what are you thinking in terms of printing so we get them in color? Or what are your thoughts on that? Yeah. Asma Khan: I mean. I think right now we're probably. I was thinking to just print out 20 at home and then see where it goes from there. if we need more or less. Mary Ann Borkowski: But if you send me. if you send Mary Ann. the your PDF. I would go and get. you know. 50 for my table. Okay. hoping that maybe some people would take them. Maybe some business people would take them. Maya Raj: I feel like Mary Ann. if you're having it at the table. people being able to scan that QR code should be enough. I think having a fire posted. We're hoping that businesses. people who are. oh. I see okay. have a business that they would take this flyer to. just perfect. right? And. you know. I just go to Staples and and get those made up for myself. Heather Pineault: And we could have a little note saying. scan for more information or take a flyer Mary Ann Borkowski: for your it's probably. you know. we'll be there discussing that. Heather Pineault: We'll be talking all right. Thank you so much for your work on this. and it's a clear. actionable step. something we can do. Mary Ann Borkowski: Yeah. thank you Heather Pineault: so Agenda Item number nine. we don't. we weren't really going to discuss it a whole lot tonight. In your packet. there were two documents that were a bit. you know. from criteria we've used in the past about this guy deciding whether or not to issue an HR dei statement. as well as guidelines for selecting programs. And what we are wondering is there. is there anybody who'd like to take a stab at just drafting using what we have already drafting guidelines with Karen for posting on our Facebook page.
Mary Ann Borkowski: Sign up right away. Yeah. Heather Pineault: don't all talk at once. Um. Um. we have two documents to work from. so we wouldn't be starting from scratch. and the goal would be to bring an example using the two guidelines for us to discuss at our next meeting.
Maryam Libdi: Okay. I can work with Karen on that. Heather Pineault: Thanks very much. Marion. that's great. I appreciate it. Maryam. with Karen. Facebook guidelines. and what we'll do is if. if you both come up with some sort of draft and distribute it to us before our next meeting. then we can talk about it at the next meeting. Thank you. Agenda Item Number 10 is really quick. We saw that there was an announcement. and just wanted to share publicly that the schools had received the hate crime prevention grant. so they're going to be doing specific work around preventing hate in schools. And one thought that was in the Wayland post. There was an article about it. and maybe that's something we could hear from the schools directly at some point down the road. but we just wanted to put it on your radar screens in terms of ongoing business. Maryam Libdi: Oh. sorry. I have a question about what you mentioned. Yes. sorry. was someone else talking? Sorry. No. go ahead. please. I'm just wondering what we know about that grant. like. what's the extent of the information we have about what's happening? Heather Pineault: All that I know about it is what was in your packet. and that was from the Wayland Post article. So we certainly could reach out to the schools and learn more about it and what they're doing. We have invited the leadership from the district to one or two meetings like over the years to kind of share what they're doing. and we could do that again with would that be helpful? Asma Khan: I think that's a good idea. Mary Ann Borkowski: And I think it's a good way to to. you know. Maryam Libdi: collaborate. yeah. Mary Ann Borkowski: okay. have a relationship. Thanks. Heather Pineault: Thank you for bringing that up. noted for getting on a future agenda. Any other comments or or questions?
All right. in terms of ongoing business. I have some updates regarding the community conversation with district attorney Marion Ryan. and here we go. The flyer is almost done. so you don't have to worry about the flyer. Mary Ann. Mary Ann Borkowski: other than I want it. Heather Pineault: other than you want it. Yes. I understand that they're getting a QR code for registration. The program will be held hybrid. Ed Berman will work on that with Jailyn. and we'll hopefully have an owl to use this.
Kevin Goodwin: So there won't be a like. an in person meeting. Heather Pineault: It will be hybrid. So it will be both. People can sign up and come to the event online or via zoom or in person. A WayCAM will record the presentation. but they don't have the capacity to live stream from the Council on Aging So. but they will be able to record. DA Ryan will take questions in person or in writing. So either way. we will be using a regular zoom format. because of the district attorney prefers to use that rather than the webinar. where it's just one way and Marianne. not Mary Anne. sorry. Karen is working on a registration form. So that is. that's the update on that program. which will be on November 10. The hrdic in your package. You have the meeting dates. Please note the date at the top should say 2025. 26 Mary Ann Borkowski: that's the dates in the years. Heather Pineault: the years. yes. sorry about that. That is 2526 good neighbors day. So Courtney from the library. we had agreed to co sponsor and be involved with us from 10 to she's wondering about help from 10 to one. It's running from 10 to one on September 22 September 27 help with setup. breakdown. hospitality. running activities. So if any of us can be there. either maybe in a hour or 10 to 12 or 11 to one capacity. that would be great. And it is on September 27 is there anybody who can that knows right now? They can be there for summer. part of it. Mary Ann Borkowski: that's a Saturday too. right? Yeah.
Asma Khan: I can probably volunteer from 11 to 12. Okay? Heather Pineault: Thank you. Anybody else able to do an hour at some point? I will. I can be there. And I'm guessing Karen. if anybody else can come at some point. that would be great. Mary Ann Borkowski: When we send out the notes. why don't you highlight or. or. I don't know. we don't actually usually send out the notes. We won't get the notes before next meeting. I would. I would send out Heather Pineault: an email. Okay? We will send a reminder or ask for names. Yes. sign up. Um. indigenous people's day. just a little bit of an update ahead of that. this regarding the state flag and seal Karen sent an email to everybody it's it's in your your email box about movement that the state committee is taking feedback on proposed state flag and seal options. I looked yesterday to see it was supposed to be coming up like. like. now and still on the state website. I didn't see dates. but they are supposed to be running listening sessions. and you could also email any feedback you have. I think this is important just to mention. because this is something we have. actually. we've taken action on over the last couple of years. Last year. the HRDEI supported the petitioners article endorsing changing the state flag in the seal. Prior to that. we did a program at the library together with the library. So it is an example of something that's actionable. that we can do to help make a difference. and it's something that we can all do individually. So please check out the email or go online. If you look up the Mass State Seal. the mass state flag. you can find it online as well. Yes. I Mary Ann Borkowski: would also say that. you know. it's the pressure that's been coming from the towns have brought the state to do this. I mean. the state had kind of thought about it. They weren't. you know. the Attorney General wasn't. all right. I don't who's responsible. They just weren't getting this group together. So. you know. this is. it's taken a few years. but it's. there's been some movement here. That's the only reason this is on our on the schedule that the state is doing this is because people towns have passed resolutions like we did. and have been saying that this is important. They want to see this so. Maryam Libdi: So what other collective action can come out of our group? Heather Pineault: So as a whole group. I don't know that there's anything as a group. but we they are hosting listening sessions. I couldn't find them when I looked online for the state. so I'm not sure they've been scheduled yet. So again. I was on the mass.gov It's there on the round three selections. and they've got 1.2.3. 3. flags. 3 seal and three flag submissions that are online as well as model submissions. And I think we just need to continue to put the pressure on to move forward and and even ask when it when is this happening? This. It was reported that these listening sessions would be going on. I believe in September and October. So our participation. individually. I don't know. Do you if we as a committee would want to do anything? Did you have anything in mind? Maryam Libdi: I'm not sure what's been done in the past. but I understand our role as communicating these issues to the general public in our town. So I don't know if a statement has been issued about this from our group. but I think something like that. with a call to action for people to maybe join those hearings or something would be. you know. proactive thing to do. Heather Pineault: Maybe a news and announcement. yeah. a news and announcement. maybe on a Facebook post and a Facebook just because it's no. you know. in town. when the petitioners article came forward endorsing the change. that was one thing that we acted on. and we voted it. We voted to support that. So this could be a logical follow up. Mary Anne. can you Mary Ann Borkowski: do something about Heather Pineault: Yeah. and the link. there is a link on mass.gov that I Well. if you do that. but it does. Give any dates yet. right? But. yeah. Maryam. that's great. Thank you. I Are you okay? Working on that? Mary Ann. and then whatever you find. can we share to get on the Facebook? Mary Ann Borkowski: I guess I kind of. you know. I've been playing with the idea about. you know. what Wayland Post does. and i i miss. you know. So. you know. we're looking at a couple of things here that it's almost like an important things that we want the community to know. And I'm thinking of drafting. you know. just like some announcements or something. even if it's referring them to the to our website. but to kind of give them a heads up. because this is an opportunity. you know. because they have the opportunity and obligation as citizens to respond about this. And you know. we know about it. and lots of people don't know about it because they. you know. haven't seen our notices. So. and it'd be nice if it we put it in the Wayland post. So I will. I'll play with that idea Heather Pineault: some sort of announcement that Mary Ann Borkowski: was innocuous not a lot of you know. because I don't feel like I want to add language to it. I just want to make sure that we've shared so that people know that they could. they could have. they could have their voice heard. Heather Pineault: I thought I found a place to vote. but I think it's just online. boss. It doesn't go to the state. I think it's like a Boston news site saying. how would you vote? And it shows all the pictures. which. but I don't think that's official. so that would be great if. Mary Ann Borkowski: Okay. Mary. to their committee. to our committee. No to Kevin Goodwin: to. oh. news and Heather Pineault: announcement in your our website. website. so on our public website. news and announcements. I Mary Ann Borkowski: mean something for Wayland Post and then trying to get an idea about whether they would ever have us be like. in a column like. you know. this is what I mean. we're kind of a unique town committee where. you know. we would have things to say to the greater community about. you know. that we would want to share well. Heather Pineault: And the other question would be. just for the Wayland Post. This is news in the past just few weeks. like it's it's all come up since. like August 28 would be just even? Would they be able to? Would they be willing to? You could even connect it to the fact that the petitioners article last year endorsed this we voted on at a town meeting. right? And could they connect it to the fact that this is coming out. so maybe just flagging it for them will be enough for sorry to do an article. right? Okay. thank you. Mary Ann and Thank you Mariam for always reminding us to do actionable things. Does anybody else have any thoughts on that or any questions?
Okay. does anybody have we're on an agenda item. agenda item number 12 announcements and topics not anticipated in 48 hours in advance. Does anybody have anything?
Maryam Libdi: I have a question. yes. but I'm not very sure if this is the right committee for it. So during my discussion with several parents in town. whether in schools or in soccer. there's this issue of like. you know. sidewalks or like. proper signals along the crossings of the trail. And I know this may fall. it may seem like it falls under another committee. but I'm looking at it from. you know. child protection slash disability lens. and I don't know if there's something we can do to help push some of those changes.
Mary Ann Borkowski: What is the issue? I don't. I don't know the issue. Unknown: So the generally. the the roads in Wayland are not considered very safe just because of how they're geographically constructed. There's lots of places with no sidewalks along the rail trail that we have. There's so many crossings that could be risky for someone older or someone who is challenged. And I feel like. like from a human rights perspective. we should be able to champion specific changes that people want to see
Mary Ann Borkowski: you mean just at anywhere Heather Pineault: it's safety. So it's a long standing complaint or concern. yes. especially with families lack of sidewalks along road. So roads. Mary Ann Borkowski: you mean our rural character? Heather Pineault: Yes. a rural character means a lot of the roads aren't safe. and it's a long standing discussion that's been going on as long as I. Been in this community. and I've noticed it too at several places where. like the rail trail crosses or the aqueduct crosses a major road. Is there a better way to have. you know. better lights or something. or. you know. the flashers that go on for crossing? Is that DPW. why don't we work on Mayor Karen. and I will find out more about who we would talk to about that
Maryam Libdi: perfect thank you. Sarah Shtutin: I know some people who have been working on this. and I completely understand the point and agree. but it's just very. very hard. And we've talked to the police. you know. police department to say these. this is unsafe for our kids. and it's just it's very hard. Heather Pineault: It runs. it tends to run against. like Marion said. the semi rural feel. And not everybody is in agreement about wanting sidewalks or how many. Mary Ann Borkowski: but I lived on Draper Hill Road and or Draper road. and it was the kids could not walk down that road. You couldn't do Halloween on that road. You could Heather Pineault: not use that road. It was scared walking to school alone or anything? Yeah. no. Unknown: So I understand there's a long history with this that I have no clue about. but honestly. the bare minimum is signaling. you know. signals with lights. things like that. That may be a middle way between people who want full blown. you know. sidewalks. and people who don't want to change the rule of views.
Heather Pineault: Sarah. do you have more information about who to talk to or who to connect with?
Sarah Shtutin: Not off the top of my head. I just know a friend of mine whose son is hard of hearing. so she. you know. is constantly concerned that there's going to be a car that he's not going to hear. that he's going to be no not quite at the side of the road. And she tried to get sidewalks on her street near the Cochituate. And she. like I said. talk to the police chief. talked to DPW. and it's just she wasn't able to do it. I mean. it also takes property away from all of the neighbors that are on that road. at least on one side or the other. which technically the town can do. because it's eminent domain. but a lot of people would push back. So she was not looking at it from a human rights perspective. She was looking at it more from a safety perspective for her child. And I think if there were more families that rallied together. potentially. this is something that that could be raised. but there's just as many people who rally against their land being encroached upon.
Mary Ann Borkowski: So I would share that article five of well. when you think Tom meeting. forget about the Article Five. but that there's we could write an article. you know. for Tom meeting on this topic. if a group of people got together. and. you know. did some work on that. and. you know. for consideration. So. you know. we really. this. really could be brought. you know. instead of going and saying. I want a sidewalk on mine that. you know. that we could look into the safety issue. I don't know. but you know. we should. Heather Pineault: yeah. let me since. since it's not on the agenda for full discussion. let me talk to Karen and see about putting it on Agenda for a future and continuing the conversation. even if we well. we don't know what we can get without asking. but at a minimum. there's there's disability rights and access in some places. and then there's clearly safety as well. And if they don't want to go as far as taking property. perhaps that the just lights for making Safe. safe places to cross the street. at least. But I will talk about getting on an agenda for the future. Does anybody have anything else that was unanticipated. and for folks who joined us a little bit later. I just want to say we did have great news last night. and I don't know if Sophie is still on. but Sophie Chen is our new student who will be joining Maya. and she was just appointed last night. so she was not able to get sworn in today. but will be joining us in October. So that's exciting news. and thank you. Any other announcements? Uh. do we have a motion to adjourn? Kevin Goodwin: I motion. I motion that we our I make a motion that we adjourn at 755. Heather Pineault: 755. Kevin made a motion to adjourn. Is there a second? Yes. Marianne seconded the emotion. and let's do roll call. SARAH Yes. Asma. yes. Mariam. yes. Maya. yes. Mary. Ann. yes. Kevin. yes. yeah. well. and I vote yes as well. Thank you very much. everybody. I appreciate that.
Municipal Affordable Housing Trust
16-Sep-25 - Municipal Affordable Housing Trust23:34
2-Sep-25 - Municipal Affordable Housing Trust33:50
Michael Staiti: Uh Calling to
order the September 16 meeting
of the Wayland municipal
Affordable Housing Trust. One
may watch and participate
remotely with the link that can
be found at the wayland.mass.us
website. Pursuant to chapter two
of the acts of 2025 this meeting
will be conducted via remote
means in accordance with the
applicable law. This meeting may
be recorded. with which will be
made available to the public on
WayCAM as soon after the meeting
as this practical. In attendance
is Susan Weinstein. Jaclyn Vega.
Marie antes and Mike stady. open
meeting and consider public
comment. Seeing no public
comment. gonna move to reviewing
and approving the minutes from
the July 8 and the September 2
meeting. My only comment was on
the July 8 meeting minutes. they
were labeled September 2. Mary
says she's already corrected
that she'd already picked up on
that. on that they look good to
me.
Susan Weinstein: On updates.
Paragraph two. or whatever.
number two on the third line. I
think we need a D on Hammond.
yep. okay. and at the top of the
next page. with the 44 802. I
think that there were $2 signs.
But content wise. I thought it
was great. So with those
amendments. I move approval.
Michael Staiti: I'll second
you're moving approval of both
of them.
Unknown: Oh. do Sorry. I could
do the other one.
Susan Weinstein: I On the September 2 one. If you scroll down. can't even tell what page Am I on. Page two. there's 212 Cochituate road. For the last sentence. I would like us to insert at the request of the trustees. and then he will continue to push. So at the request of the trustees. comma he will continue to Michael Staiti: push. I like that. Edit. I thank you. Susan Weinstein: And then in number three. consider purchase of 14 West plain. The last sentence says that they'll hold a hearing. I don't remember whether it was a hearing or just a meeting. so I'd probably just put meeting. Boy. Anybody have
anything else with this? Nope. not me. in which case I will move approval of the minutes of July 8. 2025. and September 2. 2025. as amended. Michael Staiti: Great. Do I have a second? Second? Okay? Roll call vote. Susan. yep. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. And Mike. yes. Unknown: thank you. Mary. great.
Michael Staiti: So next item is review and approve bills of all cock markets for $3.232 that's actually the approval is for. I know the bill shows a total of 3022 32 but we already approved most of that. The new bill is like $322 and it was for filing fees and cost of de registering the land from land court. So like Tom. there's no questions like some of you move to approve that the bill. Unknown: Is it the 367 50 Michael Staiti: zero to 30 days? Like. yes. that's the amount. So if you can move the approval of that. Jackie. we could vote on that Unknown: move to approve the 367 50 cents to all caught and Marcus LLC. Michael Staiti: second. okay. Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. And then the Wayland housing authority bill for $12.870 before we vote on that one. I just Susan Weinstein: Oh. you know what? Sorry. we need to go back for that one that we just did and specify the funding source as CPA funds. Michael Staiti: Funny source. CPA funds. Unknown: I still say yes. Michael Staiti: We need to vote again. Unknown: I would just to
Michael Staiti: Okay. Jackie. did you move that? Yes. Jackie. moved it. Susan. second. all right. Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. All right. Susan. would you please speak to the document that Brian Hurley sent over to us in. I'm hoping you reviewed it. I don't know if everybody else has reviewed it. I believe it says. like we can pay shortcomings. but they got to pay us back in the future.
Susan Weinstein: That was the agreement that we made. Was that the that the housing authority would pay back any advances that we did. and if the balance of reserves reaches 250 then it would be replenished. Michael Staiti: right? Ever actually funded that reserve? That'd be the first question. But regardless. they had a shortfall. They they showed us that I we voted to approve the shortfall. But I think. you know. we should let Brian Bojan know that in accordance with the lease agreement. as their surpluses going forward. they need to repay that if Susan Weinstein: we want to enforce that. I mean. just because. just because it's a term in the lease. doesn't mean we have to. I mean it for if it was a an obligation of ours. then yes. we would have to. but Right. if it's a benefit to us. we don't necessarily have to.
Michael Staiti: All right. so I don't think that changes our approval. I agree. I do think that we let Brian know that in the course of the least we have the right we may or may not ever come after that money. But just wanted to make sure he is aware of the lease terms. So if the committee is fine with that. I will send him a lead email. I did. Oh. you did already. so he's aware of it. Susan Weinstein: Great. So yeah. and I. and I. I think we want to make sure that we don't cut into money that the housing authority should be paid in order to do the work. So that's concerned about the repayment thing. about taking it off the Housing Authority share Michael Staiti: no right. I mean. and Brian's. they've done a great job for us and furthering the cause for the town. So I don't see it happening. But can I have a motion to approve the payment of that amount? Susan Weinstein: I move that we pay the invoice from the housing authority for $12.870 from the Community Preservation funds. Michael Staiti: Great. Very second. I'll second roll call vote. Unknown: Susan. sorry. I'm just thinking yes. Michael Staiti: Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. and Mike. yes. All right. Next item review the annual report. Thank you. Susan. thought it looked Excellent. Susan Weinstein: Oh. there was something that I just saw the 400.000 for habitat. We didn't approve that last fiscal year. I don't think I looked through all the minutes and didn't see it. Michael Staiti: It's it's kind of a misnomer. because we approve funding for it. I mean. it was part of the whole RFP that we put out. But we. when they sell it. we get paid back.
Unknown: So it's an advance or something. proceeds Michael Staiti: of the sale. right? So based on the expected value of the sale price. based on the whole calculation for our income for our area. we're projected to get a lot of that back. So it Susan Weinstein: was just that I had articulated the expenses that we had approved. even though not all of them were paid in that year. and I just wasn't sure whether to put that 400 in there. Michael Staiti: right. and if we got to put it in there. I think we clarify that it's you know in advance for the construction. and that you know upon the sale. will be reimbursed the pros the proceeds from the sale. Susan Weinstein: Maybe I'll just put it in the 2026 because it's not like officially approved until we sign the purchase and sale. right. or until we until we execute that. Michael Staiti: Yeah. I'm fine with that.
Susan Weinstein: and I did. I did get a thing from Melanie in the finance department that said we only had two expenses. Okay. two seconds.
Mary Antes: I'm sorry the second bullet isn't the same set. Is as the first Susan Weinstein: bullet. if you care. one of these bullets is not the same. yeah. you know. I think I noticed that. and I I
couldn't necessarily think of how to do it. Mary Antes: You can let the town worry about it.
Susan Weinstein: but I was very pleased with myself that I figured out the financial stuff. Yeah. can't teach an old dog new tricks. I guess he Mary Antes: volunteered for to do it for next year.
Michael Staiti: Did you already maybe I just missed this. But did you correct that it's goals for fiscal year. 2026 not 25 on page two. got it?
Okay. Nobody else has any other comments. Can I Unknown: have? Do we agree with those goals? Michael Staiti: Yeah. absolutely. That'd be awesome if we did all that next year use up that money.
Mary Antes: All right. approval as amended. Unknown: I'll second that. Michael Staiti: All right. Mary. motion second from Susan. roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. The mic. yes. Fantastic. Moving right along. Unknown: So I will submit that. Thank you. Michael Staiti: The second point for 615 we've already discussed. so we're going to skip over that topics not recently anticipated by the chair. 48 hours advance. steal Mary's thunder. and Mary. without having to say a word. got our zoning board approval last week while I was out of the country. So thank you very much. Mary Antes: Mary got our what very easy. Michael Staiti: We had to get a amended zoning board approval for the new footprint that habitat requested. So I will follow up when the amendment is written and make sure it's recorded. and get all the recording information to habitat that well. that's going to be the next thing we're going to talk about is the habitat master deed. But Mary. thanks for covering Unknown: for me. Yay. Mary. Michael Staiti: So over the last month or so. I've been talking. Susan had reviewed the master deed prior over the summer. habitat. commented back. reached out. we had a conversation few weeks ago. and they returned it. Cleaned up master deed to me last week. which I only just forwarded to Susan today. so I doubt she's had a chance to review it. But basically. everything's been agreed on. There's just a couple of questions that Susan had raised about technical things with housing vouchers. and that I'm not sure they need to be addressed in the master deed. but I wanted Susan's feedback on that before I give the final approval to habitat. So Susan. that doesn't have to be tonight. You can email Susan Weinstein: me. I mean. I don't know the answer. I don't think it matters that much. Michael Staiti: Yeah. it didn't seem to impact the deed or the construction of the house. It was more related to the rental. I think. But So if. Susan. if you're okay with that. then the master deed is done. and I will let habitat know that we're ready to move forward and see now. with the zoning board approval. I think that they're ready to move towards closing.
and I hopefully will be able to report that at the next meeting. Susan Weinstein: Yeah. there was something I'm sorry. Mary Antes: What I was we've already voted to give him. give Mike authority to sign it so correct. Where else it should be all set. Susan Weinstein: Their attorney had proposed some language with regard to and that's fine with me. to incorporate. And.
yeah. I don't know the answer on the housing voucher thing. I would guess that. I would guess that maybe if we just said
subject to state and federal law. but that's probably implicit. The issue is whether. whether we can evict someone. or whether. you know. the trustees of the condo can evict someone. And I just wanted to make. Sure that. that we knew we had to comply with whatever laws apply to whoever's living in there. Michael Staiti: We can't evict the person that buys the house. You know. the condo laws provide for rules if they don't pay their HOA fees. you can attach liens. That's all covered in standard mass condo law.
Susan Weinstein: yeah. this is if they rent it out. So it would be our unit. because we'd probably rent to someone who has a voucher. Michael Staiti: So you're saying the person that buys the affordable house. can they then go rent it out? Susan Weinstein: No. I think I'm talking about our unit.
Unknown: Okay? I was gonna say. because
Susan Weinstein: there's this whole thing that's about leasing it out and what the restrictions are on leasing. we'll just assume that we have to comply with federal and state law. I think it's implicit. okay.
Michael Staiti: okay. well. hopefully I'll have something to report back from them at our next meeting. Also. I wanted to talk about 212 Cochituate. so I'm having trouble. I missed one meeting just because it was way and it was attended last week's meeting. For a while. I'm finding that I don't have the time or bandwidth. and frankly. the meetings are more focused. or almost entirely focused. on the group homes. what's the appropriate type of group home. and not on my specialty around development permitting and construction. So I'm not going to be able to be on that board anymore. I'm just not. I don't have the time being with or the interest on that particular subject. So I'm going to tell Tom Fay that I'm available as a consultant for anything they want. on consulting. pricing. estimating. testing. engineering. the things I can help with. I'm hoping there's somebody else from this board that's more knowledgeable and interested in the group home aspect of things. which is really the focus of that committee. It's not in they can't get a read on whether they're trying to create money for the town through selling one for market rate or but the focus is primarily on the group home. How big? What? What group? What? What? You know. restricted away the residents. etc. etc. So if there's anybody else that would like to step up. Great otherwise. I'm going to resign from that committee and let them know I'm available as a consultant on technical things. but I just can't. just not add any value. and I don't have the time to to do that. So my apologies. but Susan Weinstein: I am entirely not available. I I'm heading into Community Preservation season. My job has changed. What About Brian Boja? Yeah. Is it in. in composing the committee or comprised? Did they specify someone from the trust? Does that be someone from the trust or someone representing the trust? I don't know. Well. I would say that if it can be someone representing the trust. then if Brian Bose is willing to represent us. and he's not representing anyone else. then that would be good with me. Yes. he's Michael Staiti: already pretty busy with it. and then Housing Authority meetings. isn't he.
I don't know. We can ask him. Mary Antes: What was your question. Mike. if Michael Staiti: Brian's gonna have the bandwidth to do it either. but I guess we can ask him. and he can say. No. Susan Weinstein: I mean. we meet. It's something that he's continually expressed interest in. you know. the project. and He usually comes to our meetings. so we would be able to give him direction and appreciation and and I think that. I think that he's consistent with what it is that we want. But Jackie. if you want to do it.
Unknown: I know nothing about cool phones. and I thought Catherine was on that one too. on the 212 No. Mary Antes: yes. but she's representing the Housing Partnership. and John Thomas is representing the Housing Authority. If we wanted. we could switch the two. And. Let Brian do the housing authority and and John be our
representative.
Susan Weinstein: Let's see if he'll do for us. We'll let John have you know. represent the commissioners of the housing authority.
Mary Antes: We need to vote assuming that he will Susan Weinstein: accept. sure if. if he's willing to serve. I would nominate Brian Boja to represent the housing trust in the discussions regarding 212 Cochituate. Sorry. on the committee for 212 Cochituate. Mary Antes: I'll second it. Okay. Michael Staiti: Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. okay. I will let Tom know what we're doing. what we're hoping Brian will do. Susan. can you reach out to Brian and ask him if he can represent us? Alrighty. anybody else? Have anything else Mary Antes: we are supposed to have an annual meeting. So the next. our next meeting should have
Michael Staiti: let's look out in mid to late October. Does that sound good to everybody? Yeah. so eighth or 22nd anybody have any preferences? Susan Weinstein: I'm not going to be here the 15th. Unknown: all right. 22nd work? Susan Weinstein: No. I'm trying to think I might be able to call in on the 15th. Michael Staiti: What about the 14th? Are you out of town? I Susan Weinstein: will be out of town on the 15th. I'll be home on the 14th. I think.
Michael Staiti: Monday's nights don't work. Oh. my sorry. 14th is a Tuesday. right? Yeah. sorry. I meant to say the 14th. It's 14th. Work for anybody with me.
Susan Weinstein: what's that? I can do it Unknown: great. Fine with 14th at six o'clock.
Michael Staiti: I don't have anything from habitat or zba or anything that came in. Moving forward. I'm going to cancel it because don't have anything else going on other than paying that one small bill. and they waited seven months for the bigger bills.
Susan Weinstein: All right. Well. then would you like me to say it's 623 and I move we adjourn? I would okay. it's 623 I
Michael Staiti: have a second. I'll second roll call. Jackie Yes. Susan. yes. Mary and Mike. yes. Thank you all very much. Everybody.
Susan Weinstein: I On the September 2 one. If you scroll down. can't even tell what page Am I on. Page two. there's 212 Cochituate road. For the last sentence. I would like us to insert at the request of the trustees. and then he will continue to push. So at the request of the trustees. comma he will continue to Michael Staiti: push. I like that. Edit. I thank you. Susan Weinstein: And then in number three. consider purchase of 14 West plain. The last sentence says that they'll hold a hearing. I don't remember whether it was a hearing or just a meeting. so I'd probably just put meeting. Boy. Anybody have
anything else with this? Nope. not me. in which case I will move approval of the minutes of July 8. 2025. and September 2. 2025. as amended. Michael Staiti: Great. Do I have a second? Second? Okay? Roll call vote. Susan. yep. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. And Mike. yes. Unknown: thank you. Mary. great.
Michael Staiti: So next item is review and approve bills of all cock markets for $3.232 that's actually the approval is for. I know the bill shows a total of 3022 32 but we already approved most of that. The new bill is like $322 and it was for filing fees and cost of de registering the land from land court. So like Tom. there's no questions like some of you move to approve that the bill. Unknown: Is it the 367 50 Michael Staiti: zero to 30 days? Like. yes. that's the amount. So if you can move the approval of that. Jackie. we could vote on that Unknown: move to approve the 367 50 cents to all caught and Marcus LLC. Michael Staiti: second. okay. Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. And then the Wayland housing authority bill for $12.870 before we vote on that one. I just Susan Weinstein: Oh. you know what? Sorry. we need to go back for that one that we just did and specify the funding source as CPA funds. Michael Staiti: Funny source. CPA funds. Unknown: I still say yes. Michael Staiti: We need to vote again. Unknown: I would just to
Michael Staiti: Okay. Jackie. did you move that? Yes. Jackie. moved it. Susan. second. all right. Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. All right. Susan. would you please speak to the document that Brian Hurley sent over to us in. I'm hoping you reviewed it. I don't know if everybody else has reviewed it. I believe it says. like we can pay shortcomings. but they got to pay us back in the future.
Susan Weinstein: That was the agreement that we made. Was that the that the housing authority would pay back any advances that we did. and if the balance of reserves reaches 250 then it would be replenished. Michael Staiti: right? Ever actually funded that reserve? That'd be the first question. But regardless. they had a shortfall. They they showed us that I we voted to approve the shortfall. But I think. you know. we should let Brian Bojan know that in accordance with the lease agreement. as their surpluses going forward. they need to repay that if Susan Weinstein: we want to enforce that. I mean. just because. just because it's a term in the lease. doesn't mean we have to. I mean it for if it was a an obligation of ours. then yes. we would have to. but Right. if it's a benefit to us. we don't necessarily have to.
Michael Staiti: All right. so I don't think that changes our approval. I agree. I do think that we let Brian know that in the course of the least we have the right we may or may not ever come after that money. But just wanted to make sure he is aware of the lease terms. So if the committee is fine with that. I will send him a lead email. I did. Oh. you did already. so he's aware of it. Susan Weinstein: Great. So yeah. and I. and I. I think we want to make sure that we don't cut into money that the housing authority should be paid in order to do the work. So that's concerned about the repayment thing. about taking it off the Housing Authority share Michael Staiti: no right. I mean. and Brian's. they've done a great job for us and furthering the cause for the town. So I don't see it happening. But can I have a motion to approve the payment of that amount? Susan Weinstein: I move that we pay the invoice from the housing authority for $12.870 from the Community Preservation funds. Michael Staiti: Great. Very second. I'll second roll call vote. Unknown: Susan. sorry. I'm just thinking yes. Michael Staiti: Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. and Mike. yes. All right. Next item review the annual report. Thank you. Susan. thought it looked Excellent. Susan Weinstein: Oh. there was something that I just saw the 400.000 for habitat. We didn't approve that last fiscal year. I don't think I looked through all the minutes and didn't see it. Michael Staiti: It's it's kind of a misnomer. because we approve funding for it. I mean. it was part of the whole RFP that we put out. But we. when they sell it. we get paid back.
Unknown: So it's an advance or something. proceeds Michael Staiti: of the sale. right? So based on the expected value of the sale price. based on the whole calculation for our income for our area. we're projected to get a lot of that back. So it Susan Weinstein: was just that I had articulated the expenses that we had approved. even though not all of them were paid in that year. and I just wasn't sure whether to put that 400 in there. Michael Staiti: right. and if we got to put it in there. I think we clarify that it's you know in advance for the construction. and that you know upon the sale. will be reimbursed the pros the proceeds from the sale. Susan Weinstein: Maybe I'll just put it in the 2026 because it's not like officially approved until we sign the purchase and sale. right. or until we until we execute that. Michael Staiti: Yeah. I'm fine with that.
Susan Weinstein: and I did. I did get a thing from Melanie in the finance department that said we only had two expenses. Okay. two seconds.
Mary Antes: I'm sorry the second bullet isn't the same set. Is as the first Susan Weinstein: bullet. if you care. one of these bullets is not the same. yeah. you know. I think I noticed that. and I I
couldn't necessarily think of how to do it. Mary Antes: You can let the town worry about it.
Susan Weinstein: but I was very pleased with myself that I figured out the financial stuff. Yeah. can't teach an old dog new tricks. I guess he Mary Antes: volunteered for to do it for next year.
Michael Staiti: Did you already maybe I just missed this. But did you correct that it's goals for fiscal year. 2026 not 25 on page two. got it?
Okay. Nobody else has any other comments. Can I Unknown: have? Do we agree with those goals? Michael Staiti: Yeah. absolutely. That'd be awesome if we did all that next year use up that money.
Mary Antes: All right. approval as amended. Unknown: I'll second that. Michael Staiti: All right. Mary. motion second from Susan. roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. The mic. yes. Fantastic. Moving right along. Unknown: So I will submit that. Thank you. Michael Staiti: The second point for 615 we've already discussed. so we're going to skip over that topics not recently anticipated by the chair. 48 hours advance. steal Mary's thunder. and Mary. without having to say a word. got our zoning board approval last week while I was out of the country. So thank you very much. Mary Antes: Mary got our what very easy. Michael Staiti: We had to get a amended zoning board approval for the new footprint that habitat requested. So I will follow up when the amendment is written and make sure it's recorded. and get all the recording information to habitat that well. that's going to be the next thing we're going to talk about is the habitat master deed. But Mary. thanks for covering Unknown: for me. Yay. Mary. Michael Staiti: So over the last month or so. I've been talking. Susan had reviewed the master deed prior over the summer. habitat. commented back. reached out. we had a conversation few weeks ago. and they returned it. Cleaned up master deed to me last week. which I only just forwarded to Susan today. so I doubt she's had a chance to review it. But basically. everything's been agreed on. There's just a couple of questions that Susan had raised about technical things with housing vouchers. and that I'm not sure they need to be addressed in the master deed. but I wanted Susan's feedback on that before I give the final approval to habitat. So Susan. that doesn't have to be tonight. You can email Susan Weinstein: me. I mean. I don't know the answer. I don't think it matters that much. Michael Staiti: Yeah. it didn't seem to impact the deed or the construction of the house. It was more related to the rental. I think. But So if. Susan. if you're okay with that. then the master deed is done. and I will let habitat know that we're ready to move forward and see now. with the zoning board approval. I think that they're ready to move towards closing.
and I hopefully will be able to report that at the next meeting. Susan Weinstein: Yeah. there was something I'm sorry. Mary Antes: What I was we've already voted to give him. give Mike authority to sign it so correct. Where else it should be all set. Susan Weinstein: Their attorney had proposed some language with regard to and that's fine with me. to incorporate. And.
yeah. I don't know the answer on the housing voucher thing. I would guess that. I would guess that maybe if we just said
subject to state and federal law. but that's probably implicit. The issue is whether. whether we can evict someone. or whether. you know. the trustees of the condo can evict someone. And I just wanted to make. Sure that. that we knew we had to comply with whatever laws apply to whoever's living in there. Michael Staiti: We can't evict the person that buys the house. You know. the condo laws provide for rules if they don't pay their HOA fees. you can attach liens. That's all covered in standard mass condo law.
Susan Weinstein: yeah. this is if they rent it out. So it would be our unit. because we'd probably rent to someone who has a voucher. Michael Staiti: So you're saying the person that buys the affordable house. can they then go rent it out? Susan Weinstein: No. I think I'm talking about our unit.
Unknown: Okay? I was gonna say. because
Susan Weinstein: there's this whole thing that's about leasing it out and what the restrictions are on leasing. we'll just assume that we have to comply with federal and state law. I think it's implicit. okay.
Michael Staiti: okay. well. hopefully I'll have something to report back from them at our next meeting. Also. I wanted to talk about 212 Cochituate. so I'm having trouble. I missed one meeting just because it was way and it was attended last week's meeting. For a while. I'm finding that I don't have the time or bandwidth. and frankly. the meetings are more focused. or almost entirely focused. on the group homes. what's the appropriate type of group home. and not on my specialty around development permitting and construction. So I'm not going to be able to be on that board anymore. I'm just not. I don't have the time being with or the interest on that particular subject. So I'm going to tell Tom Fay that I'm available as a consultant for anything they want. on consulting. pricing. estimating. testing. engineering. the things I can help with. I'm hoping there's somebody else from this board that's more knowledgeable and interested in the group home aspect of things. which is really the focus of that committee. It's not in they can't get a read on whether they're trying to create money for the town through selling one for market rate or but the focus is primarily on the group home. How big? What? What group? What? What? You know. restricted away the residents. etc. etc. So if there's anybody else that would like to step up. Great otherwise. I'm going to resign from that committee and let them know I'm available as a consultant on technical things. but I just can't. just not add any value. and I don't have the time to to do that. So my apologies. but Susan Weinstein: I am entirely not available. I I'm heading into Community Preservation season. My job has changed. What About Brian Boja? Yeah. Is it in. in composing the committee or comprised? Did they specify someone from the trust? Does that be someone from the trust or someone representing the trust? I don't know. Well. I would say that if it can be someone representing the trust. then if Brian Bose is willing to represent us. and he's not representing anyone else. then that would be good with me. Yes. he's Michael Staiti: already pretty busy with it. and then Housing Authority meetings. isn't he.
I don't know. We can ask him. Mary Antes: What was your question. Mike. if Michael Staiti: Brian's gonna have the bandwidth to do it either. but I guess we can ask him. and he can say. No. Susan Weinstein: I mean. we meet. It's something that he's continually expressed interest in. you know. the project. and He usually comes to our meetings. so we would be able to give him direction and appreciation and and I think that. I think that he's consistent with what it is that we want. But Jackie. if you want to do it.
Unknown: I know nothing about cool phones. and I thought Catherine was on that one too. on the 212 No. Mary Antes: yes. but she's representing the Housing Partnership. and John Thomas is representing the Housing Authority. If we wanted. we could switch the two. And. Let Brian do the housing authority and and John be our
representative.
Susan Weinstein: Let's see if he'll do for us. We'll let John have you know. represent the commissioners of the housing authority.
Mary Antes: We need to vote assuming that he will Susan Weinstein: accept. sure if. if he's willing to serve. I would nominate Brian Boja to represent the housing trust in the discussions regarding 212 Cochituate. Sorry. on the committee for 212 Cochituate. Mary Antes: I'll second it. Okay. Michael Staiti: Roll call vote. Susan. yes. Jackie. yes. Mary. yes. Mike. yes. okay. I will let Tom know what we're doing. what we're hoping Brian will do. Susan. can you reach out to Brian and ask him if he can represent us? Alrighty. anybody else? Have anything else Mary Antes: we are supposed to have an annual meeting. So the next. our next meeting should have
Michael Staiti: let's look out in mid to late October. Does that sound good to everybody? Yeah. so eighth or 22nd anybody have any preferences? Susan Weinstein: I'm not going to be here the 15th. Unknown: all right. 22nd work? Susan Weinstein: No. I'm trying to think I might be able to call in on the 15th. Michael Staiti: What about the 14th? Are you out of town? I Susan Weinstein: will be out of town on the 15th. I'll be home on the 14th. I think.
Michael Staiti: Monday's nights don't work. Oh. my sorry. 14th is a Tuesday. right? Yeah. sorry. I meant to say the 14th. It's 14th. Work for anybody with me.
Susan Weinstein: what's that? I can do it Unknown: great. Fine with 14th at six o'clock.
Michael Staiti: I don't have anything from habitat or zba or anything that came in. Moving forward. I'm going to cancel it because don't have anything else going on other than paying that one small bill. and they waited seven months for the bigger bills.
Susan Weinstein: All right. Well. then would you like me to say it's 623 and I move we adjourn? I would okay. it's 623 I
Michael Staiti: have a second. I'll second roll call. Jackie Yes. Susan. yes. Mary and Mike. yes. Thank you all very much. Everybody.
Personnel Board
Unknown: Right? So everyone is
here, and I will call the
October 8 meeting of the
personnel board to order the
time is, I think it was 4:06pm,
we have in the room. We have myself, Mary Anne Peabody chair. We have the town HR manager Kate Orion, and we have the town manager Michael McCall and on Zoom, we have the members of the personnel board. We have Mary Ellen Castagno. We have Jill Superman, and we have Paul Morin Berg.
And in that's the end our our zoom manager is Robbie Bullard, and I will call the meeting to order, and the minutes are being taken by Paul Morin Berg, Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Paul.
First thing is call to order. Review agenda for the public. One may watch or may participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at https. Colon slash, slash, www.wayland.ma.us/public-body-meeting-information-virtual-in,
person, dash and dash hybrid. Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means, in accordance with applicable law. The meeting will be recorded and will may be made available to the public on WayCAM as soon as possible, as soon after the meeting as is practicable. I'll read the agenda. The agenda is called to order review agenda for public first announcement and public comment, and then we will enter into an executive session pursuant to Mass General Laws, chapter 30, a section 21 to discuss strategy well to to have a a meeting with regard to the for the purpose of the meeting for grievance at step two, pursuant To the collective bargaining agreement between the town of Wayland and the International Association of Firefighters, AFL CIO local 1978 pursuant to Mass General Laws, will also review and approve the personnel board executive session minutes from five, 625, with the intent to hold said minutes, and then we will return approximately an hour after we begin to open session. And then after that, we will have a discussion of proposed amendment to personnel policy and for Dash 4.1 sick leave non union employees. And then a discussion and approval of Open Session meetings, minute meetings for five, 625, which we have, and 611, if available. And we do not have those available, but we will have those for our next meeting. We will then have personnel board members, reports and concerns topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance, if any, we have a next meeting date, and then we will, we will adjourn. The first order of business is announcement and public comment. The only announcement I was going to make, and I'm glad Michael is here, because maybe he could answer it is I heard on the Select Board meeting the other night that the there will be in the future, the building will close at 4pm and be locked until evening meetings start. So I just would ask, what's going to happen if we have a four o'clock meeting and some people are late trying to get in, can we make some accommodation?
Thank you, Madam Chair, we are going to work through this and come up with a communications plan to share with everybody how will intend to do this. I've done it in some of my prior communities. We just want to ensure that there's a safe working environment for the people in conducting the meeting, same staff that they go after hours, especially on the nights when we don't have meetings. We want to make sure the building's a lot building is locked so that staff aren't startled. That's after one on one occasion where we have people working late and they encounter somebody and you're here alone, we don't want those types of incidents. If we know there's going to be a meeting, there will be personnel here. So you know, Robbie would be here for the zoom, a lot of staff would be here. We usually have a custodian in the building. We can make sure that the doors are open in advance. My plan would, as I mentioned the other day, would be to open the building 15 minutes before the meeting starts. And since you start at four o'clock, we wouldn't close at all, but we would close immediately once your meeting is complete. And if it was later in the evening, obviously we'd start a few minutes earlier, and we'll we'll work through it and how we do the the doors opening and closing. We are putting in new security on the doors so that facilities can lock all the doors down and we could selectively open them up with an electronic key stroke. Okay, great. We have a device. I just want to put them on them being Select Board and the public on notice that we're going to start doing that. And there's a benefits, as I say, not only to the staff and anybody who's utilizing the building for safety purposes, but if we start pushing people more over to the coacc, which is our new council on aging community center, when we talk about having meetings, we could actually start turning down the AC heat and lights in this building there on a timer to go off at about 11 o'clock at night, start bringing that down to about five o'clock at night, and start realizing some minor savings and be consistent with a reference under the climate act, mobilization, climate action, mobilization plan, and just in general, as we're trying to move forward the next year's budget. So there's safety reasons, financial reasons and just efficiency reasons. Great. Thank you. Public comment. Robbie, is there any public comment? No. See no public comment. Okay, so then the chair moves to enter executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General law 30 a section, 21 a three, for the purpose of meeting for a grievance at step two, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement between the town of Wayland and the International Association of Firefighters, affl cio local 1978 because to do so in open session would have a detrimental effect on the collective bargaining position of the town. So declares the chair. May I have a second so moved. Who is that? Mary Ellen, it is yes. I will take a roll call vote. Mary Ellen, yes. Paul Morenberg: Paul, yes. Unknown: Jill, yeah, me. Mary Anne, okay, so I will invite Taylor Ziegler Miller, president of the Wayland firefighters union, Lindsay Byrne Wayland, firefighter, I don't know if anyone else is going to be there from the union. Do we know yet? Lindsay burn No, that's it. That's it. Okay. And Michael McCall, Wayland, Town Manager, Kate Ryan. Wayland, personnel manager, fire chief Neil McPherson and Richard Ripley, Assistant Fire Chief. We will then review the after the the meeting. We will then review the executive executive session minutes from May 6, 2025 with the anticipation of releasing them. I anticipate that we might be an executive session for approximately one hour, and then we will reconvene in open session. I invite the public interested in amending the remainder of in attending, I'm sorry the remainder of the meeting to begin checking in. At around that time, I'll ask the personnel board members if there's anyone who thinks they have a conflict of interest in attending this session to declare. So now we are moving into executive session at 4:15pm, and do they have a separate link for that? Yes, I'm sorry, okay, and we will well, and then we'll be back in open session and we'll we will leave from open session. Adjourn from open session. Sorry, okay, thank you. We are returning to open session at 538, the camera needs to be adjusted, please. Well, hello. Is that us? That us? I don't know what happened. Oh, wow, that's really there we go, then turn it down. Thank you. Thank you Jill for noticing that. Okay, so we're missing Paul still. Okay.
Paul took his models and went home.
ADU is for. If you're thinking,
Oh, period, this is me. I think I have a letter. I'm sorry. Okay, this might be my fault. Sorry. It's going to fix it right now. Thank you. Oh, no,
sorry, yeah, you got it. Oh, you have to admit everybody huh, noi to panelists. Everybody else got in on their own, but I don't know why he did wait. Is it working? Yeah, yeah, there he is. He should be able to to work now. He should be on. Oh, great. Thank you. There you are. But that was my fault, Paul.
So we are returning to open session at 540 we have a discussion of proposed amendment personnel policy for M for Dash, 4.1 sick leave non union policy. And I think you all got an email from me this week, but I didn't know about any issue with this policy, and it was on the Select board agenda. And I did send, try to send out some information ahead of time. I sent it to Kate and Michael ahead of time, earlier that day, I sent it to you that that evening, after other people in the public had seen it and had some concerns about it. So Kate, why don't you bring us up to where you are with it? Now? Sure. So part of why this went to the Select Board to begin with is that we had two non union employees who were just retiring. So we didn't this had to come up before just now. So in 2016 the bylaw was amended to basically put in this new language for the sick. Buy back when you when the town Union voted in 2024 it actually removed all of that policy language, and it put the new we can't hear you, Paul, I'm sorry you're muted. You muted. Okay, so in 2024 new by law in place all the policy language was removed. When I went to go process the payment for this retiring employee, I noticed that our policy, at least on the website, was from 2000 I did a pretty exhaustive search. I couldn't find any other versions that had been modified between then and now, other than that 2016 bylaw, which is no longer valid, so I brought this to Michael. He talked to council about that. They recommended taking this to the Select board just to fix this one piece so that we could then move forward and pay this to basically grandfather these two employees in. I would just appreciate in the future, Fay, if, if there's something coming up, there's something that we've been working on or might have some knowledge of, to just give me a heads up, because I knew we had, we had done that same policy in 2005 in 2016 and I was not, and I was not, I was able to find the policy because it was in the bylaw and it was voted on. And I found our notes from when we voted on it, and that was 2016 we had done an earlier update in 2005 and I found my notes of back and forth between the FinCom Johnson and I, but there are no minutes for the personnel board filed on the website in 2005 we can still find them, but it's a more point because it was amended in 2016 so I would just ask that you call it an amendment of the 2016 version, and make sure when, when, when, when, when amending 2001 it was very old. It was not, it was not even one, and the wording was fixed. After that. Policy was that was a looked like a work in progress, and I don't know who posted it. And we, we had several years after John left that things got lost and missing, and we've had to recreate our minutes for many of those years. We had to recreate them from 2017 to 2019 and it was a matter of the people that were supposedly caring for the documents that we. Had so but I think in in doing that policy, there were some things that were left out that were in the 2016 policy. So in a way, I'm glad it happened, because it means we have to check everything from 2016 I have some updates from other policies. I think I sent them to you when I became chair and check and if you don't have the updates, we did very few, but we did some in those 2017 1819, years, I found those as well. But we're responsible for keeping records for our Tom employees and keeping good files. That's what a municipality does. I just want to say that I actually went back through all of their meeting minutes for 220 16, because that's when this was originally passed at no meeting, and I didn't find any. All I saw was a vote on the bylaw itself. Not so the minutes that was from 2015 it was probably, wait a minute. No, it's February 2016 of the minutes I have them here, February 11, 2016 well, and it's in here, yeah. So, so what we need to do now is look at what you have and make sure that we didn't inadvertently leave out something that was in the policy in 2016 I would have just reaffirmed the 2016 policy because it's easier, but you've taken the time to work on it, so let's just make sure we have those. Those updates, let me find the one on 2016 because there were some that, some things that were left out. I also have a question. It still says, like permanent non union employee, right? So the distinction at the time in between permanent and regular employee in municipal municipalities was because it was a civil service. We were under civil service, and permanent meant a civil servant, employee, but regular meant you know somebody that was an employee of the town, so maybe we don't even need to put Herman into regular maybe we just say each non union employee who works a minimum of 20 hours. The other thing I noticed is that it goes from, are we writing it in the third person or the first person or the second person? Because some of it is talking about the employee, and then it says, when you are out sick, that's second person. If we write in the third person, we'd be saying the employee is so that language I I appreciated that the language is less stiff in the rewrite that you were doing, but there were some things that were left out. Let me see if I can find where can I just ask a question while you're looking at it? I'm just a little confused, what it historically, what has been the process for this? Because Mary Anne does have the history behind you know the policies here and when they were changed, and I know that she wanted the heads up, but would it come to the personnel board first to see what the changes were, if they were different, because I know that this went to the Select Board before it came to the personnel board. Yeah. So the reason they went to the Select Board that was Council. Town council advised us to do that under the town manager act the slack board is now the policy setting bio for the town, and they felt that we should take it directly to them first, just to fix this one piece so that we can move forward with these two employees that was really all trying to do, and then we could bring it back to the personnel board to fix any other language that needs to be modified. I think they think they thought they had an emergency situation. But if they had looked at the 2016 policy, they would have seen that they were covered. It was, it was the policy that had been approved in 2016 and been operational up until today. I mean, we no one's revised it, so it still is in effect. That's my position. I don't know about you guys, but that's the way I see it. The unfortunate thing is that usually, the personal policies were either kept in. And back and forth from being on the on the website and on the, well, we didn't have a website before 2005 we didn't have a website. I think we began to have a website in about 2008 so personnel policies were written, and they were and they were on paper. And so when you made a change, you had to do the change on paper. And when there was a when there was a rewrite, it got taken to town that there were some town council who said, you don't need to bring them before town meeting. You can make the personnel policies. And then some town council said, Well, you should put it in the bylaw. And so it went back and forth, adding to why there might be confusion. But generally, if it went before town meeting, it was put as a policy, a written policy, in the policies and procedure section where we got it. When we got a Tom website, someone was charged with moving them over and didn't move them over properly, had only old policies up, and we still have that situation.
Paul Morenberg: I'm not sure I understand what we're doing here. I mean, are we looking at the policy, or we just talked, sort of talking about the this all, it seems like it's all background about, oh, Unknown: so the Select Board made a revision, but they didn't review the policy. They didn't read it. They just said, and Michael McCall explained the situation, explained that he had gotten information that identified the 2016 policy that was, in fact, in effect and the and the language, and said that they would get something back In writing and the and, and we now have. Kate had revised the 2001 and felt that it had to go to the Select Board. The Select Board do have policy authority, but are they going to want to read policies? We're supposed to work with HR and and the town manager to work on policies and review them. Because what I think the question is like, right now, what are we doing? Right? I think we want to look at that policy that's in our packet and compare it with the 2016 policy so that we can make sure there's nothing missing. Can I interject for a moment? Be a better use of your time. If I've worked with Marianne to make sure we go through both of those policies and combine it into a red line version, so that you can review it and maybe move forward next time would that be? That would be a great idea. That would be fine. That would be fine, yeah, because I found two areas. But, yeah, okay, um,
well, that's so bad. Well, at least we know, we know we have a Paul. Well, we know we have a policy. And no, no, I follow you, Mary. And I don't mean to interrupt you. I follow you. But what I'm also hearing you say, or maybe, is that it would have been helpful to have this up front, to do it up front before it went anywhere. And then we wouldn't have Paul, we wouldn't have to have this discussion here, right? But, I mean, I think Mary Anne's making a point to the public what's going on, and I think that that's important, but I do understand, you know, how hard, you know, difficult it may be to follow, but I will. I think that, you know, I think that the the issue of not knowing, and the Select Board of not having any experience with policies, they didn't, they didn't vote on it, but they made a revision to get the thing fixed that they needed fixed, and that's what we're about to do, but it, but who knows if there's more fixing to be done because we don't have the correct Well, that's what I think with our other policies. We worked on one, I think it was vacation time or or sick leave in the we haven't worked on a lot since then, Marianne and then we worked on the old one, because the newer version, in 2005 let people take it for two hours as opposed to four hours. So we need to go back and look. And each time we take out a policy, make sure that we have the most updated policy correct.
Paul Morenberg: Let's table this and move on. I mean, Unknown: okay, okay, open session minutes of, oh, we forgot to do, we forgot to do the executive session minutes in our executive session meeting, but I can tell you that the the second. State Attorney General's office told me I can decide if they can be done in open session, and because they are, they are minutes that are just voting to voting on minutes that would be something we can do in open session and release some type of thing. I think we can. So let's look at the minutes from May 6, right? Because then they have to leave, so that will give us enough time to look at the minutes. Okay,
anything on page one? I'm sorry I didn't number these. It was very hard. I had to take it from a PDF, and the numbers don't show up. I don't see anything. Anybody see anything? Okay? So page two starts with discussion and review of several personnel policies for non union employees. I see one error myself on annual leave. Paul Morenberg: Is this in the packet or not? Unknown: Yeah, yes, it's in the packet. Paul Morenberg: What page you on? Unknown: It's page 2624 of 28 Thank you, Jill, I don't have I just have the policy. It's the third policy down, annual leave, and that's the one Kate that we did from the old we updated that from the old one, and not the more recent, 2005 one doesn't matter, because it's now been 16. What's the version we use? Oh, okay. Was it okay? 2016, in the 123, 4/5, line. I said, Paul morn Berg questioned how the annual leave policy. It was merely Mary Ellen, because I went back and I watched the the meeting. So that was one era. Anybody else see anyone? Anything else in there? No.
No, are we frozen? Are we still on? No, we're still on. So go to the next page, which is starts with same towns on the median household scale. After that, the word consultant. I then asked, so I have MP asked if consultant would provide a tool for the HR manager to use when adding a new position, and KR said they will, so I'd like to add that part in there. Okay, and I had a question at the bottom, which is in red, because I had a question and I couldn't find the documentation, but I Kate sent me a download or a link to the meeting, which is not up yet, on on WayCAM, and it and it said, she said the information is available through open the books and on the town clerk's website, under public records link request Freedom of Information Act okay. Like to add that anybody else see anything else on that page? Nope. The next page, discussion and approval of open session. Meeting Minutes, 1210, 2024, anything on that page?
No, okay, and then the end is the last page. I don't have anything on those, so I will make those corrections and get them to to Kate. Kate, when will they be posted?
Okay, good. We have to vote to approve them, right? Or do we already? I will I, I will take, can someone make a motion? I make a motion that we approve the minutes with the suggested amendments seconded. That was too quick. Jill, that was scary. I'm on it. Mary Ellen, yes. Jill, yes. Paul, yes. And then I'm going to excuse myself and so, and we still have, we still have a quorum for anything else. Okay, right? So thank you all, and I will see you on the at the next meeting. Thanks. Mary Ellen, okay, bye, bye. Paul Morenberg: Do we really have to do anything else today? We've been here for two hours, and Unknown: this is, I know I just want to go through that. No, no. Not much more. I just wanted to remind people ask if there are any personnel board members, reports and concerns. Paul Morenberg: No. Well, yeah. I mean, I will not to pull up, you know, to be label this. I do. I think it'd be helpful to have have both open and executive session zoom links in a single email, because it's call to kind of go search around for the right zoom link. Unknown: Yeah, that's it. That's a good suggestion. Paul, thank you. I also would like to remind people, if you had minutes that were approved, did everyone get their minutes to you? Okay? Because I had minutes from that I got to you in August from the January 7 minutes, and they're not posted yet. So if you could catch up on posting on minutes that would be appreciated,
topics not reasonably anticipated, 48 hours in advance, if any, none, I have none. Next meeting. Is we scheduled it for November, the first Wednesday in November, November five. And is that everybody okay with that? I'd like to make that one a Zoom meeting, unless somebody wants to come in and hold it here. Is it okay for a Zoom meeting?
Okay? Paul Morenberg: What? What date are we talking about? Unknown: November 5. November 5, which is our next meeting, and so hopefully, Kate and I will have that policy fixed and Paul Morenberg: done by them. Was that a date we agreed on before? Or that's our standing date, right? The first Unknown: Wednesday? Yeah, the standing one, we thought it would be easier if we made a standard one, is that okay? Paul, yeah, Paul Morenberg: I may have, I may have a conflict that day, but I could have a quorum without me, right? Let me, I don't know, and I don't know for sure yet, so I would just keep a date for this as is, okay, yeah, Unknown: because we're, we're finding if we if we had to change the date, then it was a long time before we could get back and and so it was best to just try and see if we could have a, you know, the same date each month, same day of the week, and people agreed on that one, and if it's a problem, I mean, I don't love that date this time, but that's okay. I think we'll try and stick with it. And if we can't, we can't, so hopefully we'll have a quorum if, if we need you for a quorum, would you be available? Paul Morenberg: Well, right now I have a work, work conflict, but it's one of these things where I don't know for sure if it's if the event is going forward or not. Okay. Unknown: Do we want to change the meeting date? Mary owns off, but Paul Morenberg: let's hold let's hop off for now, let me talk to you. I should I show the better sense and in about a week? Unknown: Okay, okay, that will give us enough time to if we have to switch it, to switch it. Thank you. Can I have a motion to adjourn seconded? And what time are we adjourning? We are adjourning at 603. Okay, so three, okay, roll call, vote. Jill, yes. Paul, yes. Mary Anne, yes. And do we know what what time did before we turn it off? What time did Mary Ellen leave? For the minutes? Do we have that? Paul Morenberg: When did she leave? She I mean, I think she logged off at like six o'clock, Unknown: yeah, okay, Paul Morenberg: or 558 or something. Unknown: I was gonna say 558 558 Okay, let's go with that.
Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Good night, everybody. Bye.
we have in the room. We have myself, Mary Anne Peabody chair. We have the town HR manager Kate Orion, and we have the town manager Michael McCall and on Zoom, we have the members of the personnel board. We have Mary Ellen Castagno. We have Jill Superman, and we have Paul Morin Berg.
And in that's the end our our zoom manager is Robbie Bullard, and I will call the meeting to order, and the minutes are being taken by Paul Morin Berg, Thank you, Paul. Thank you, Paul.
First thing is call to order. Review agenda for the public. One may watch or may participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at https. Colon slash, slash, www.wayland.ma.us/public-body-meeting-information-virtual-in,
person, dash and dash hybrid. Pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote means, in accordance with applicable law. The meeting will be recorded and will may be made available to the public on WayCAM as soon as possible, as soon after the meeting as is practicable. I'll read the agenda. The agenda is called to order review agenda for public first announcement and public comment, and then we will enter into an executive session pursuant to Mass General Laws, chapter 30, a section 21 to discuss strategy well to to have a a meeting with regard to the for the purpose of the meeting for grievance at step two, pursuant To the collective bargaining agreement between the town of Wayland and the International Association of Firefighters, AFL CIO local 1978 pursuant to Mass General Laws, will also review and approve the personnel board executive session minutes from five, 625, with the intent to hold said minutes, and then we will return approximately an hour after we begin to open session. And then after that, we will have a discussion of proposed amendment to personnel policy and for Dash 4.1 sick leave non union employees. And then a discussion and approval of Open Session meetings, minute meetings for five, 625, which we have, and 611, if available. And we do not have those available, but we will have those for our next meeting. We will then have personnel board members, reports and concerns topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance, if any, we have a next meeting date, and then we will, we will adjourn. The first order of business is announcement and public comment. The only announcement I was going to make, and I'm glad Michael is here, because maybe he could answer it is I heard on the Select Board meeting the other night that the there will be in the future, the building will close at 4pm and be locked until evening meetings start. So I just would ask, what's going to happen if we have a four o'clock meeting and some people are late trying to get in, can we make some accommodation?
Thank you, Madam Chair, we are going to work through this and come up with a communications plan to share with everybody how will intend to do this. I've done it in some of my prior communities. We just want to ensure that there's a safe working environment for the people in conducting the meeting, same staff that they go after hours, especially on the nights when we don't have meetings. We want to make sure the building's a lot building is locked so that staff aren't startled. That's after one on one occasion where we have people working late and they encounter somebody and you're here alone, we don't want those types of incidents. If we know there's going to be a meeting, there will be personnel here. So you know, Robbie would be here for the zoom, a lot of staff would be here. We usually have a custodian in the building. We can make sure that the doors are open in advance. My plan would, as I mentioned the other day, would be to open the building 15 minutes before the meeting starts. And since you start at four o'clock, we wouldn't close at all, but we would close immediately once your meeting is complete. And if it was later in the evening, obviously we'd start a few minutes earlier, and we'll we'll work through it and how we do the the doors opening and closing. We are putting in new security on the doors so that facilities can lock all the doors down and we could selectively open them up with an electronic key stroke. Okay, great. We have a device. I just want to put them on them being Select Board and the public on notice that we're going to start doing that. And there's a benefits, as I say, not only to the staff and anybody who's utilizing the building for safety purposes, but if we start pushing people more over to the coacc, which is our new council on aging community center, when we talk about having meetings, we could actually start turning down the AC heat and lights in this building there on a timer to go off at about 11 o'clock at night, start bringing that down to about five o'clock at night, and start realizing some minor savings and be consistent with a reference under the climate act, mobilization, climate action, mobilization plan, and just in general, as we're trying to move forward the next year's budget. So there's safety reasons, financial reasons and just efficiency reasons. Great. Thank you. Public comment. Robbie, is there any public comment? No. See no public comment. Okay, so then the chair moves to enter executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General law 30 a section, 21 a three, for the purpose of meeting for a grievance at step two, pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement between the town of Wayland and the International Association of Firefighters, affl cio local 1978 because to do so in open session would have a detrimental effect on the collective bargaining position of the town. So declares the chair. May I have a second so moved. Who is that? Mary Ellen, it is yes. I will take a roll call vote. Mary Ellen, yes. Paul Morenberg: Paul, yes. Unknown: Jill, yeah, me. Mary Anne, okay, so I will invite Taylor Ziegler Miller, president of the Wayland firefighters union, Lindsay Byrne Wayland, firefighter, I don't know if anyone else is going to be there from the union. Do we know yet? Lindsay burn No, that's it. That's it. Okay. And Michael McCall, Wayland, Town Manager, Kate Ryan. Wayland, personnel manager, fire chief Neil McPherson and Richard Ripley, Assistant Fire Chief. We will then review the after the the meeting. We will then review the executive executive session minutes from May 6, 2025 with the anticipation of releasing them. I anticipate that we might be an executive session for approximately one hour, and then we will reconvene in open session. I invite the public interested in amending the remainder of in attending, I'm sorry the remainder of the meeting to begin checking in. At around that time, I'll ask the personnel board members if there's anyone who thinks they have a conflict of interest in attending this session to declare. So now we are moving into executive session at 4:15pm, and do they have a separate link for that? Yes, I'm sorry, okay, and we will well, and then we'll be back in open session and we'll we will leave from open session. Adjourn from open session. Sorry, okay, thank you. We are returning to open session at 538, the camera needs to be adjusted, please. Well, hello. Is that us? That us? I don't know what happened. Oh, wow, that's really there we go, then turn it down. Thank you. Thank you Jill for noticing that. Okay, so we're missing Paul still. Okay.
Paul took his models and went home.
ADU is for. If you're thinking,
Oh, period, this is me. I think I have a letter. I'm sorry. Okay, this might be my fault. Sorry. It's going to fix it right now. Thank you. Oh, no,
sorry, yeah, you got it. Oh, you have to admit everybody huh, noi to panelists. Everybody else got in on their own, but I don't know why he did wait. Is it working? Yeah, yeah, there he is. He should be able to to work now. He should be on. Oh, great. Thank you. There you are. But that was my fault, Paul.
So we are returning to open session at 540 we have a discussion of proposed amendment personnel policy for M for Dash, 4.1 sick leave non union policy. And I think you all got an email from me this week, but I didn't know about any issue with this policy, and it was on the Select board agenda. And I did send, try to send out some information ahead of time. I sent it to Kate and Michael ahead of time, earlier that day, I sent it to you that that evening, after other people in the public had seen it and had some concerns about it. So Kate, why don't you bring us up to where you are with it? Now? Sure. So part of why this went to the Select Board to begin with is that we had two non union employees who were just retiring. So we didn't this had to come up before just now. So in 2016 the bylaw was amended to basically put in this new language for the sick. Buy back when you when the town Union voted in 2024 it actually removed all of that policy language, and it put the new we can't hear you, Paul, I'm sorry you're muted. You muted. Okay, so in 2024 new by law in place all the policy language was removed. When I went to go process the payment for this retiring employee, I noticed that our policy, at least on the website, was from 2000 I did a pretty exhaustive search. I couldn't find any other versions that had been modified between then and now, other than that 2016 bylaw, which is no longer valid, so I brought this to Michael. He talked to council about that. They recommended taking this to the Select board just to fix this one piece so that we could then move forward and pay this to basically grandfather these two employees in. I would just appreciate in the future, Fay, if, if there's something coming up, there's something that we've been working on or might have some knowledge of, to just give me a heads up, because I knew we had, we had done that same policy in 2005 in 2016 and I was not, and I was not, I was able to find the policy because it was in the bylaw and it was voted on. And I found our notes from when we voted on it, and that was 2016 we had done an earlier update in 2005 and I found my notes of back and forth between the FinCom Johnson and I, but there are no minutes for the personnel board filed on the website in 2005 we can still find them, but it's a more point because it was amended in 2016 so I would just ask that you call it an amendment of the 2016 version, and make sure when, when, when, when, when amending 2001 it was very old. It was not, it was not even one, and the wording was fixed. After that. Policy was that was a looked like a work in progress, and I don't know who posted it. And we, we had several years after John left that things got lost and missing, and we've had to recreate our minutes for many of those years. We had to recreate them from 2017 to 2019 and it was a matter of the people that were supposedly caring for the documents that we. Had so but I think in in doing that policy, there were some things that were left out that were in the 2016 policy. So in a way, I'm glad it happened, because it means we have to check everything from 2016 I have some updates from other policies. I think I sent them to you when I became chair and check and if you don't have the updates, we did very few, but we did some in those 2017 1819, years, I found those as well. But we're responsible for keeping records for our Tom employees and keeping good files. That's what a municipality does. I just want to say that I actually went back through all of their meeting minutes for 220 16, because that's when this was originally passed at no meeting, and I didn't find any. All I saw was a vote on the bylaw itself. Not so the minutes that was from 2015 it was probably, wait a minute. No, it's February 2016 of the minutes I have them here, February 11, 2016 well, and it's in here, yeah. So, so what we need to do now is look at what you have and make sure that we didn't inadvertently leave out something that was in the policy in 2016 I would have just reaffirmed the 2016 policy because it's easier, but you've taken the time to work on it, so let's just make sure we have those. Those updates, let me find the one on 2016 because there were some that, some things that were left out. I also have a question. It still says, like permanent non union employee, right? So the distinction at the time in between permanent and regular employee in municipal municipalities was because it was a civil service. We were under civil service, and permanent meant a civil servant, employee, but regular meant you know somebody that was an employee of the town, so maybe we don't even need to put Herman into regular maybe we just say each non union employee who works a minimum of 20 hours. The other thing I noticed is that it goes from, are we writing it in the third person or the first person or the second person? Because some of it is talking about the employee, and then it says, when you are out sick, that's second person. If we write in the third person, we'd be saying the employee is so that language I I appreciated that the language is less stiff in the rewrite that you were doing, but there were some things that were left out. Let me see if I can find where can I just ask a question while you're looking at it? I'm just a little confused, what it historically, what has been the process for this? Because Mary Anne does have the history behind you know the policies here and when they were changed, and I know that she wanted the heads up, but would it come to the personnel board first to see what the changes were, if they were different, because I know that this went to the Select Board before it came to the personnel board. Yeah. So the reason they went to the Select Board that was Council. Town council advised us to do that under the town manager act the slack board is now the policy setting bio for the town, and they felt that we should take it directly to them first, just to fix this one piece so that we can move forward with these two employees that was really all trying to do, and then we could bring it back to the personnel board to fix any other language that needs to be modified. I think they think they thought they had an emergency situation. But if they had looked at the 2016 policy, they would have seen that they were covered. It was, it was the policy that had been approved in 2016 and been operational up until today. I mean, we no one's revised it, so it still is in effect. That's my position. I don't know about you guys, but that's the way I see it. The unfortunate thing is that usually, the personal policies were either kept in. And back and forth from being on the on the website and on the, well, we didn't have a website before 2005 we didn't have a website. I think we began to have a website in about 2008 so personnel policies were written, and they were and they were on paper. And so when you made a change, you had to do the change on paper. And when there was a when there was a rewrite, it got taken to town that there were some town council who said, you don't need to bring them before town meeting. You can make the personnel policies. And then some town council said, Well, you should put it in the bylaw. And so it went back and forth, adding to why there might be confusion. But generally, if it went before town meeting, it was put as a policy, a written policy, in the policies and procedure section where we got it. When we got a Tom website, someone was charged with moving them over and didn't move them over properly, had only old policies up, and we still have that situation.
Paul Morenberg: I'm not sure I understand what we're doing here. I mean, are we looking at the policy, or we just talked, sort of talking about the this all, it seems like it's all background about, oh, Unknown: so the Select Board made a revision, but they didn't review the policy. They didn't read it. They just said, and Michael McCall explained the situation, explained that he had gotten information that identified the 2016 policy that was, in fact, in effect and the and the language, and said that they would get something back In writing and the and, and we now have. Kate had revised the 2001 and felt that it had to go to the Select Board. The Select Board do have policy authority, but are they going to want to read policies? We're supposed to work with HR and and the town manager to work on policies and review them. Because what I think the question is like, right now, what are we doing? Right? I think we want to look at that policy that's in our packet and compare it with the 2016 policy so that we can make sure there's nothing missing. Can I interject for a moment? Be a better use of your time. If I've worked with Marianne to make sure we go through both of those policies and combine it into a red line version, so that you can review it and maybe move forward next time would that be? That would be a great idea. That would be fine. That would be fine, yeah, because I found two areas. But, yeah, okay, um,
well, that's so bad. Well, at least we know, we know we have a Paul. Well, we know we have a policy. And no, no, I follow you, Mary. And I don't mean to interrupt you. I follow you. But what I'm also hearing you say, or maybe, is that it would have been helpful to have this up front, to do it up front before it went anywhere. And then we wouldn't have Paul, we wouldn't have to have this discussion here, right? But, I mean, I think Mary Anne's making a point to the public what's going on, and I think that that's important, but I do understand, you know, how hard, you know, difficult it may be to follow, but I will. I think that, you know, I think that the the issue of not knowing, and the Select Board of not having any experience with policies, they didn't, they didn't vote on it, but they made a revision to get the thing fixed that they needed fixed, and that's what we're about to do, but it, but who knows if there's more fixing to be done because we don't have the correct Well, that's what I think with our other policies. We worked on one, I think it was vacation time or or sick leave in the we haven't worked on a lot since then, Marianne and then we worked on the old one, because the newer version, in 2005 let people take it for two hours as opposed to four hours. So we need to go back and look. And each time we take out a policy, make sure that we have the most updated policy correct.
Paul Morenberg: Let's table this and move on. I mean, Unknown: okay, okay, open session minutes of, oh, we forgot to do, we forgot to do the executive session minutes in our executive session meeting, but I can tell you that the the second. State Attorney General's office told me I can decide if they can be done in open session, and because they are, they are minutes that are just voting to voting on minutes that would be something we can do in open session and release some type of thing. I think we can. So let's look at the minutes from May 6, right? Because then they have to leave, so that will give us enough time to look at the minutes. Okay,
anything on page one? I'm sorry I didn't number these. It was very hard. I had to take it from a PDF, and the numbers don't show up. I don't see anything. Anybody see anything? Okay? So page two starts with discussion and review of several personnel policies for non union employees. I see one error myself on annual leave. Paul Morenberg: Is this in the packet or not? Unknown: Yeah, yes, it's in the packet. Paul Morenberg: What page you on? Unknown: It's page 2624 of 28 Thank you, Jill, I don't have I just have the policy. It's the third policy down, annual leave, and that's the one Kate that we did from the old we updated that from the old one, and not the more recent, 2005 one doesn't matter, because it's now been 16. What's the version we use? Oh, okay. Was it okay? 2016, in the 123, 4/5, line. I said, Paul morn Berg questioned how the annual leave policy. It was merely Mary Ellen, because I went back and I watched the the meeting. So that was one era. Anybody else see anyone? Anything else in there? No.
No, are we frozen? Are we still on? No, we're still on. So go to the next page, which is starts with same towns on the median household scale. After that, the word consultant. I then asked, so I have MP asked if consultant would provide a tool for the HR manager to use when adding a new position, and KR said they will, so I'd like to add that part in there. Okay, and I had a question at the bottom, which is in red, because I had a question and I couldn't find the documentation, but I Kate sent me a download or a link to the meeting, which is not up yet, on on WayCAM, and it and it said, she said the information is available through open the books and on the town clerk's website, under public records link request Freedom of Information Act okay. Like to add that anybody else see anything else on that page? Nope. The next page, discussion and approval of open session. Meeting Minutes, 1210, 2024, anything on that page?
No, okay, and then the end is the last page. I don't have anything on those, so I will make those corrections and get them to to Kate. Kate, when will they be posted?
Okay, good. We have to vote to approve them, right? Or do we already? I will I, I will take, can someone make a motion? I make a motion that we approve the minutes with the suggested amendments seconded. That was too quick. Jill, that was scary. I'm on it. Mary Ellen, yes. Jill, yes. Paul, yes. And then I'm going to excuse myself and so, and we still have, we still have a quorum for anything else. Okay, right? So thank you all, and I will see you on the at the next meeting. Thanks. Mary Ellen, okay, bye, bye. Paul Morenberg: Do we really have to do anything else today? We've been here for two hours, and Unknown: this is, I know I just want to go through that. No, no. Not much more. I just wanted to remind people ask if there are any personnel board members, reports and concerns. Paul Morenberg: No. Well, yeah. I mean, I will not to pull up, you know, to be label this. I do. I think it'd be helpful to have have both open and executive session zoom links in a single email, because it's call to kind of go search around for the right zoom link. Unknown: Yeah, that's it. That's a good suggestion. Paul, thank you. I also would like to remind people, if you had minutes that were approved, did everyone get their minutes to you? Okay? Because I had minutes from that I got to you in August from the January 7 minutes, and they're not posted yet. So if you could catch up on posting on minutes that would be appreciated,
topics not reasonably anticipated, 48 hours in advance, if any, none, I have none. Next meeting. Is we scheduled it for November, the first Wednesday in November, November five. And is that everybody okay with that? I'd like to make that one a Zoom meeting, unless somebody wants to come in and hold it here. Is it okay for a Zoom meeting?
Okay? Paul Morenberg: What? What date are we talking about? Unknown: November 5. November 5, which is our next meeting, and so hopefully, Kate and I will have that policy fixed and Paul Morenberg: done by them. Was that a date we agreed on before? Or that's our standing date, right? The first Unknown: Wednesday? Yeah, the standing one, we thought it would be easier if we made a standard one, is that okay? Paul, yeah, Paul Morenberg: I may have, I may have a conflict that day, but I could have a quorum without me, right? Let me, I don't know, and I don't know for sure yet, so I would just keep a date for this as is, okay, yeah, Unknown: because we're, we're finding if we if we had to change the date, then it was a long time before we could get back and and so it was best to just try and see if we could have a, you know, the same date each month, same day of the week, and people agreed on that one, and if it's a problem, I mean, I don't love that date this time, but that's okay. I think we'll try and stick with it. And if we can't, we can't, so hopefully we'll have a quorum if, if we need you for a quorum, would you be available? Paul Morenberg: Well, right now I have a work, work conflict, but it's one of these things where I don't know for sure if it's if the event is going forward or not. Okay. Unknown: Do we want to change the meeting date? Mary owns off, but Paul Morenberg: let's hold let's hop off for now, let me talk to you. I should I show the better sense and in about a week? Unknown: Okay, okay, that will give us enough time to if we have to switch it, to switch it. Thank you. Can I have a motion to adjourn seconded? And what time are we adjourning? We are adjourning at 603. Okay, so three, okay, roll call, vote. Jill, yes. Paul, yes. Mary Anne, yes. And do we know what what time did before we turn it off? What time did Mary Ellen leave? For the minutes? Do we have that? Paul Morenberg: When did she leave? She I mean, I think she logged off at like six o'clock, Unknown: yeah, okay, Paul Morenberg: or 558 or something. Unknown: I was gonna say 558 558 Okay, let's go with that.
Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Good night, everybody. Bye.
Planning Board
10-15-25 - Planning Board03:36:09
17-Sep-25 - Planning Board02:05:07
10-Sep-25 - Planning Board01:42:45
27-Aug-25 - Planning Board02:27:46
13-Aug-25 - Planning Board02:31:01
Anette Lewis: This. This is
Wednesday. September the 17th.
2025 this is a meeting of the
Wayland planning board at seven
o'clock. and the meeting is
being held via zoom. I will call
them well. I'll call the meeting
to order and then do a rundown
of what's on the agenda. for
attendance. Oh. okay. I'd like
to Ira Montague.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I am
here.
Anette Lewis: Jesse Newberry
Jesse Newberry: here.
Anette Lewis: Robin Borgestedt.
Robin Borgestedt: Here.
Anette Lewis: Anette Lewis here.
Larry Kiernan is not here.
Okay. I'm surprised to see Nate in. but that's fine. I thought we were just having people show up in the panel. in the attendees. and then we were going to elevate them. Robert. Robert Hummel: yes. I only said I send invites to only three will to Nate. Tom White of the ZBA and Bill Sterling. and that's it. Anette Lewis: Invites for a panelist. or invites for. Robert Hummel: a panelist. Anette Lewis: Okay. that's not what I wrote to them. and that's not what I was expecting. but that's fine. Robert Hummel: Well. especially for Bill. certainly he gets a little confused. so sometimes it's helpful for him to get the complete invite so he can actually log in. Anette Lewis: yeah. except that sometimes we're gonna want him not to necessarily be sitting on the panel. For the whole meeting. Larry Kiernan. are you here now? Larry Kiernan: I am now in the correct meeting. Robin Borgestedt: Okay. good
Anette Lewis: for the agenda this evening. We don't have any draft minutes to approve. We have a discussion of possible amendments to zoning bylaws with representatives. I expect. of the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Design Review Advisory board. The whole boards were invited to participate. but they We only heard back from the two chairs. and we're going to be talking especially about the signage by law 198. Dash 501 and 502 site plan approval by law. maybe section 198. 601 and following housekeeping. cleanup. things that Robert has been keeping track of that we need to deal with. and ground mounted solar and battery. battery. energy storage systems. which would be a new bylaw that Jesse Newberry has been working on. Then updates from the town planner with a brief overview of the Dover amendment parameters for exempt uses under the state law and our bylaw. and status of current peer reviews for the upcoming site plan reviews. then board comments and concerns. And I'm not aware of any matters that I didn't know about 48 hours in advance and then adjourn.
Okay. Bill Sterling is here and well. we have a few minutes before everyone is here. Robert. what is the status of the peer reviews? Robert Hummel: Sure. So I discussed this with Aneri before I went on vacation. and I came back on vacation. and she has officially resigned from the town. and she's given a two week notice. Is noted in. I believe. noted in the last Planning board meeting. I think that Nia mentioned that as one of the updates. and she has not been in since I started back on Monday. So I have the information-from so there's two projects we have. We'll look at the church. and then the Carroll School. So for the church. I we had three scope of works. and I think we have three. Pardon me. you have three. What we have through two projects that we're talking about? Yes. So we have the church the Coptic. the Coptic Church. and then we have the Carroll school. the education use. so for the for the Coptic Church. we have three peer review score works that we received back. And I think Believe. believe that me and Linda have agreed upon one of them. And then for the Carroll School. I have not received anything yet for that. Anette Lewis: have the RFPs has gone out? Robert Hummel: the RFP the RFP is also different. you mean the RFQ. whatever I believe so. but I would have to follow up with Aneri. when she gets back. Anette Lewis: she has somebody check her email to see ? Robert Hummel: she should be back tomorrow. Hopefully. okay. so we've been kind of itching to follow up with her on that. And then for. I believe that the board wanted transportation. traffic engine peer review. Is that correct for both of them? Anette Lewis: Not necessarily. the you need to make that determination under the Dover amendment. certainly for the parking and the circulation on site.
Robert Hummel: So did the board want peer reviews for that too. Anette Lewis: for what two? Robert Hummel: the two projects for a traffic engineer to that's what Anette Lewis: I just said. certainly for the on site traffic movement. And I you can do some on the approach way. but you have to be careful because of the requirements of the Dover amendment. as you'll recall from the Veritas project. Robert Hummel: So circulation and what was the other?
Anette Lewis: circulation and driveway approach. I mean. they can. I don't know. mmyou have to talk to the applicant about what they're willing to pay for. those things they would have to pay for. but for traffic review. didn't one of them send in a traffic review. They both did okay. So you could have somebody look at them. I guess. But I don't think we can do a major. major. do on those. Robert Hummel: I have. just today. because it wasn't. wasn't. I'm sure where near he was with we've seen those out. So I send. send them out for both of them. Anette Lewis: So okay Robert Hummel: but I've not received anything back. No scoreboard back yet for the writers. And I've not received anything yet back for the Carroll School for 503g but my understanding is probably in Aneri's mailbox. So if she's not tomorrow. then I will. I will request IT to take a look at their dept email box. because I we need. I need to move on this. Anette Lewis: Yeah. no. we do. And it would be good to have the peer at least preliminary peer review done before the October Robert Hummel: Yeah. that would be the goal. But I think this. 15 hearing.
this change in in uh. staffing. and her absence has had made. made a little harder to get this done. especially when I don't have all the information. And it also Anita us out so I don't have Anita was. I think she was an emailed on some of those emails. so she's also not there too. so I can't see what's going on. Anette Lewis: Yeah. she didn't have them either when I talked to her. Robert Hummel: So that's what we have now been trying to put pieces together since I since I was out on vacation for a week. Anette Lewis: Okay? So for the things that have gone out. it'll be consolidated with Board of Health. Planning board and Conservation. Robert Hummel: yep. So for the Board of Health. for people about the ground mounding analysis. That's what the Board of Health would like to see. Can think a lot of stuff septic is a little early for that stuff. but so mostly be ground mounding. But their stuff would be the chapter 193. I think of chapter 193 of storm warning. Anette Lewis: I just want to mention that the notice went out for the in the newspaper for both of those hearings. I didn't see it in advance. and it just said that it was going to be a Zoom meeting. So for the first meeting that we have for each of the hearings. they're going to be zoom. They're not going to be in person. as we discussed. but for those thereafter. they're going to be in zoom and in person. Robert Hummel: Yeah. I think it's. I think it's. it's easier for me to set up the first hearing. if it's just zoom. and then we can. we can go to a better Tran better to hybrid into next meeting. Anette Lewis: Okay. wait. I mean the reason that I'd like to have all the peer review guys lined up. is I'd like to be able to schedule hearings so that people know what the subject matter is that we're going to be dealing with at each of the hearings. And perhaps be able to consolidate then. when we're talking about storm water. perhaps be able to meet with the Conservation Commission at the same time so that it's not as disruptive for the applicant and for the residents. Yeah. so let's think about that. Thank you. Robert Hummel: And when was it that. when was a decision that you wanted to be hybrid was that? Was that last week's meeting? Yeah? Yeah. right. So good idea everything. I get everything done before they lost me. me because. no. Anette Lewis: well. and Anina thought that she could add it afterward. And I explained to her that she couldn't. because it was a legal notice. She thought that we could add the in person afterward. Robert Hummel: Yeah. it's fine. but we can just change it. We'll just move it to hybrid at the next main. yeah. Anette Lewis: okay. Robert Hummel: not big deal Anette Lewis: um. I don't see Tom here. Tom White Unknown: act. There's an ACTWO. I don't know who that is. Anette Lewis: unless somebody else came in. Robert Hummel: someone has a hand up in the in the audience. Anette Lewis: I just okay. that might be Tom. Robert Hummel: it's. don't recgonize the name. Thomas White: Sorry. That's me. That's my Anette Lewis: Oh. good. Thomas White: ACTWO. that's my company's name. Unknown: Terrific. Anette Lewis: So we have Bill Sterling. who I can't see. Bill. are you here? Robbie Bullard: I'll bring him over. Anette Lewis: Okay. I thought he was brought over already.
So this evening. we have Tom White Chair of the zoning board. Nate Maltinsky who is our zoning Commissioner. and not Susan Westerling. she's not to be brought over. She's the public. Bill Sterling got it. And Bill Sterling. who's the Chair of the Design Review Board. so I'm assuming for you. Tom and you. Bill. that you've discussed what we're going to be discussing tonight with your board. and you've got the authority to speak for each of your boards. because they're not posted. And Thomas White: yes. for me. that is. that is the case. Anette Lewis: Can't hear you. Bill. you're you're muted. William Sterling: I assumed our entire board would be invited to this meeting. Unknown: They were. but you're not posted. so that's okay. as long as you can represent. William Sterling: I assume that Robert knew that we were going to be having to post it. I don't know. Anette Lewis: Uh. um. I don't think he posts. I don't. You'll have to work that out with him. Robert Hummel: I don't make any assumptions. Do you need? If you need a postage just ask I I'm not. I just got back from vacation. so been trying to catch up so not was not paying for everything. Who posted what Anette Lewis: did the invitation out to everybody on your on your board. William Sterling: Oh. do you want me to sign off then? Anette Lewis: No. Robert. to start off.
Robert. have you spoken with these guys before you prepared the sign? Unknown: I did not. Anette Lewis: You did not. Okay. Robert Hummel: see. these are some ideas that have came from Well. in general. yes. So I have had talks with. with Bill Sterling about some part of the signage by law. about how we have one example be the Jersey Mike sign. how that's it's technically not allowed the back lit signs. and that'd be something we could potentially put into a zoning amendment. But in general. these are the things that I've picked up that we don't have today. and that would be kind of be cleaned up a little bit. and some of it is pretty much basic I can put on. I don't know if how you want to run this back and put on what I have so far? Anette Lewis: No. not yet. I don't think so. Let's hear. I don't know Who should go first. You Tom and Bill decide who wants. I assume the two of you have talked. right? Thomas White: Yeah. we've we've talked. We had a we had a discussion a couple weeks ago. in general. So I can just only. I can really only comment from our perspective. on the zoning board. right? Because we actually have to hear of the sign. the applications for signs and every single application. someone always wants to there's always a special reason why they need to do something slightly different from the bylaw. The most recent example was a pediatric clinic on old Connecticut path. right kind of in the center of town like to comply technically with this the bylaw like they wouldn't have been able to put a small sign on the rear of the building. sort of facing the parking lot. sort of advertising the doctors names. right? Because the sign on the front. when you combine it with all the other signs in the building. kind of exceeded the. The 30 square foot rule. right? So there hasn't been a single sign application that we get on the zoning board where there doesn't have to be some. I don't want to call it waiving. but some. some requests to somehow tweak something in the regulations. because they need for this reason. and they're usually always benign reasons. right? But I can my observation as an architect when working in other communities is I've seen other sign bylaws that I don't have any examples to share because I wasn't that well prepared for tonight. but I've seen examples where other communities have a bylaw that has different requirements for different districts. Now. maybe this is appropriate for Wayland. Maybe it's not. but I'll use the example of Waltham. Wait in Waltham. there are some districts where the signs are much larger because they're viewed from the highway. Maybe not appropriate for Wayland. right? Because we don't have a highway. but as a case of as an example. right? Certain buildings are allowed to have much larger signs. because the primary audience for the sign is vehicle traffic moving at 60 miles an hour. Other districts where it's more residential the signs. signs are sort of designed to be in keeping with that more residential district. So a possibility when thinking about how to consider revising the ordinance is that there could be slightly different requirements for different districts. right? And I'm coming at this from the perception that I'm hearing that in general. people are unhappy with the signs because we don't have a super strict way on the Zoning Board of Appeals. of interpreting the esthetic criteria of the signs. right? We had can only go by the by law. We might have personal opinions and say This sign is unattractive. like. I really don't like that. The blue color. I think the red lettering is tacky. We can't that can't be part of our hearing process. So we do get advisory opinions from the design review review board that can weigh in on the kind of quality level of the sign and sort of their compliance with the bylaw. But because of the structure of the Design Review Board and the way it is set up in the bylaw. these are kind of only advisory opinions. and a applicant with a strong legal case for why a sign needs to be larger. needs to be split into three parts. needs to have a certain geometry. Can easily say. well. like. you know. you have a signage by law. it consists of these five paragraphs. And there's. there's nothing in these five paragraphs. No one has said this to me. but there's nothing in those five paragraphs that says. like. you can kind of legislate or sign approval on do you think it's ugly? You think it's architecturally appropriate. etc? We can't do that anyway. really. no. so. so it's but other communities have done this. There are other communities you can see. I think people use um. Freeport Maine as an example. Like their signage ordinance in the center district. like all the signs are made out of wood. they've stipulated the material. They've stipulated the size. Can we stipulated the color? I don't know. in Unknown: Massachusetts that. I Robert Hummel: don't know you can do it depict historic districts. Anette Lewis: In a historic district. yes. and Nantucket. you can. but that's got special legislation for Nantucket. Thomas White: correct? You know. this is so I'm only I. again. as an architect. not a lawyer. I don't necessarily. I'm not great legal expert on what is permitted and not. I'm just sort of. you know. giving you examples of things that I both I think of. like the challenges we have on the zba right. enforcing the by law that we have right. and the fact that. you know. in crafting any bylaw right. you don't want to be so specific. because you then constrain options. and you might accidentally make something much worse. because you can't if you're too specific. you can't think of every instance that you want to legislate. So you've got to create something that that is the great balance between. you know. control and maximum flexibility. right? But hearing that people have been generally not pleased with the signs that that we wind up approving on the zba. we're sort of. we're happy if there is some. some way that we can either get a little more authority. kind of. architecturally. to to shape these signs within the bounds of. you know. Mass General zoning laws. or is there some other vehicle can can the Design Review Boards comments sort of include more kind of architectural critiques that we can kind of bring in to our hearing? Unknown: Systems and and sort of Thomas White: opine on. you know. within the context of of the by law. Anette Lewis: the way that the by law is written currently is relatively generic. It's 40 square feet. essentially. you know. you can figure out where you want to put it. how you want to put it. but it's 40 square feet. So that's and there are provisions. I think. in the by law. which you know about. that give you the ability to Unknown: make them bigger. Anette Lewis: Yes. the idea of having different districts becomes. this is just me speaking problematic. because we don't have that many different No. you don't. you know. yeah. and residential isn't supposed to have them at all. true. And the town center has its own zoning stuff under that. so it doesn't leave lots. no. Unknown: So if you could give us specific things Anette Lewis: that that we can try and work with that would help. I mean. it's 40 square feet too small. Does it need to be bigger? You know. on the lit dental building. that sign seems really large. I don't know. Thomas White: it seems like it's large. but it's not. It's like. because we. that was a that one we went through for a lot. and I mean. they did ask for. they did ask for an increase. but I want to say it's within 15% so I would say every universally. we are asked for increases. A lot of times it's because people want more than one sign. The most recent one was the approval for the Dunkin Donuts Jimmy John's facility that's going in where the um. Unknown: former Bank of America was like Thomas White: when you added this. I believe. and I could be mistaken. but I believe when you add they and they made the case. and when you added the square footage of the signs. I think it was four square feet or five square feet over. or something like that. It was a trivial amount. But again. the case was made. There needs to be signs on two faces. and they probably should be of equal scale. So for the most part. the request is to is to allow us to increase it. Which the bylaw. I don't know that necessarily need to change. We have the ability to increase it. I would. I would say that it's doesn't seem very well worded. It's horrendous. because when I read it. I and again. I'm not a lawyer. but I could read the sentence to I could read the ability for us to increase the signage size two different ways. So if I can do that. I can imagine someone who's a really skilled little gate would have a different opinion. So I it would probably be nice if it was maybe there was something a little more legally Anette Lewis: precise. Yeah. it would be nice if the whole thing were more legally there's a lot Thomas White: of ambiguity in the number of Anette Lewis: years ago. I was tasked with Susan Kaufman. who was a member of the zoning board. to come up with a news sign by law. and we worked for a week and came up with it and took it to the planning board. and the planning board then said. Oh. that's nice. And then put it aside. and maybe we can look at it again. And also. I mean. I understand what you're saying. and maybe it should say something like for two street facing sides of a building. or street facing and parking lot facing sides of a building. you can have a sign or something like that. Thomas White: Yeah. that wouldn't be that wouldn't necessarily be bad.
Anette Lewis: But aside from that. are there other things other than the faces that it needs to be on in the saw and for 40 square feet? Is that a bad number. or is that an okay one?
Thomas White: I think it's a reasonable number. I actually. you know. not withstanding all the things we're talking about. Unknown: The fact that you have Thomas White: a body in town that does have the ability to look at it and regulate it. that that does give us the ability to say what you're proposing is too large. right? So. like. I would be hesitant to say. you know. make it 60 square feet. Because I think if people's perceptions are the signs that we have now are on the large side. I wouldn't advocate increasing it. We have the ability to kind of constrain them to. you know. again. because we have the ability to allow the 40 square feet to be exceeded. It gives us the ability to make a determination of. What we think is reasonable. but this is where. this is where it becomes challenging. because I Unknown: think of an example like Thomas White: if someone asked for a 100 square foot sign on the face of a building the size of Stop and Shop. that's architecturally reasonable. because that might be proportional to the size of the building. but if someone asked for a 100 square foot sign on the lit dental building. it would be too large. So is there a way for us to bring in. in the bylaw. a discussion about sort of the architectural character of a sign and why it may be appropriate to allow for a larger one versus not. I think that would be the P that's. in a way. in my mind. the missing piece by just saying we can only go by the sentences in the bylaw. it implies that the zoning board doesn't have the ability to talk about the actual design merits of a sign. and yet. I mean. someone is coming to us to approve it. and this is why it's a little difficult Anette Lewis: a special permit. I think that you have that ability. I think we'd have to ask town council if we can bring in the architectural elements. I would say we probably can't. because we're supposed to be pretty much cut and dry. Yeah. the architectural elements are very subjective. Unknown: But could Robin Borgestedt: you tie the if they're coming for a special permit for a larger size? Could you tie an absolute maximum to the percentage of the face of the building that the sign is going to be on. you know. 40 square feet. but under no circumstances can a special permit be allowed that would permit the sign to take up more than. you know. 20% of the face of the building. Thomas White: And so I appreciate. I appreciate the idea there. I think it might be hard to do just because there are not a huge amount. but there are. there are enough buildings of differing sizes in town where it might be. might be hard to do. because what could look good at 20% on some building. might look better at 35% on another building. So it might be hard. I like the idea. but it might be difficult to actually implement something that tricky. Anette Lewis: also on the face of a building. depending on how the building is constructed. the top part might be smaller than the bottom part. And how do you know what the face is that you're counting Robin Borgestedt: from? Right? But is there some. you know. is there some similar way. some other measurement that you can take. that you can say there's a hard stop at this percentage. even for a special permit.
Thomas White: Right now. there's not. it just is up to us on the zoning board to say we don't. we don't agree that this is appropriate. And. you know. we have to. we have to find the language to say that it's not appropriate within the sentences of the signage. Anette Lewis: By law. no. you can also use the special permit. We can use Thomas White: a special permit language that it's. like. it's. it would derogate from the character. yeah. okay. Then. then we probably have enough. I mean. we haven't been presented with something like that. so it's it hasn't been an issue so far. But you know. if we're looking at understanding this. it's a possibility that Unknown: it could be so if there are other Anette Lewis: things that you think of. even as we're talking tonight. and even in other parts of our by law. I know that you've given us stuff over the years and never done anything with it. We're starting to try and and fix the so just pipe up. Bill. Do you want to talk? Unknown: Sure. I.
William Sterling: I looked at this from and I agree with all of Tom's concerns. having been on the zoning board myself for over 10 years. I do feel though that in those 10 years. even though it was frustrating. we did manage to get through coping with some very. you know. cryptic notes in the zoning by law about signage. I You may and I agree with Tom on this too. that you may regret getting more detailed about what you are going to require. because that will just make the zoning board's job probably more difficult. I think that let me get get into what I was thinking about. though. Robert Hummel: when we did the guidelines back in 2011
William Sterling: our committee. our working group. I believe we looked. At the Newton. city of Newton signage bylaws as an example. at the time. as a as a good example of signage
guideline. And we also looked at some others. several others. So this past week. when we were invited to join this meeting. I thought about what where we are today. and it appears that there's still a sentiment in Wayland Unknown: that that our town William Sterling: look to the town of Concord as an example of a town we'd like to look like. Anette Lewis: and I think that William Sterling: the first thing I did then was to check their bylaws out. They they rewrote their bylaws in 2020 and that date was encouraging to me. thinking that. well. they've fixed all the kind of problems that we may have faced. But as I scan through the signage
Robert Hummel: miles. I it was William Sterling: surprising to me that they actually allow signs that we would never want in Wayland. So what I wanted to do next was Robin and I talked about having the Design Review Board look at different towns. I was going to drive around Concord and and get a better idea of what the how the signage fits with their buildings and fits with the character of the town. It may not be as consistent as you were mentioning a historic district where you say all signs have to be wood. which I think they do in places like Beacon Hill. I think that it does. It may end up that we can use their recent sign by laws as a guide of how to organize the information. but we may not agree with all the decisions they made about what would be required. Unknown: That's where I am on that. Okay. Nate. do you want to weigh in? Well. Mr. White stole the show. So that was well. well. put together. Thomas White: Tom. I don't know Unknown: about that. No. no. really. you covered all the bases. I believe that maybe the style of lights that is more prevalent now. like the ones that were permitted for Jersey mics. where it's a it's got a rare illumination that's not obtrusive to to anyone is not glaring. I think we have to look at new styles of lighting that we can permit. that that is tasteful. that there's there's a lot of new designs. a lot of new technology that's out there that can be utilized. that I think we have to look at and address in the future here. I don't know if you've gone by Jersey Mike's at night. but it's. it's a well done light. And is there? Is there marquee is what they use for all their stores. And I I think that the zoning board has done a great job of adhering to the needs of the applicants and working with them to make the signage work. and nothing has been in my tenure so far that nothing's been out of control and within reason. So there are. there is some good language. and I did look at a few other towns. but I would like to see your. your work that you've done previously. Anette. that you presented to the planning board years ago. Okay. I'll look for it. Anette Lewis: So with a jersey Mike sign. What kind of lighting would you call that if we were going to draft something for that? Unknown: It is a low illumination. rare lighting. and it's more of the like a halo. It's a halo lighting. and William Sterling: as opposed to internally illuminated. That's that's not allowed. that's correct. and that's why we were material. then a backlight will shine through the sign material. and that's not allowed. yeah. Thomas White: And that's why we didn't flag this as a concern. because it seems to. it seems to not meet the requirement for the. you know. backlit right component. even though it is illuminated and it's got a halo effect. So this is an instance where I don't. I don't think they designed this to skirt the language of the bylaw. I think it's their it's their brand. But this is an unintended consequence of the. About the way the by law is worded. And I don't think anyone would have anticipated trying to come up with a definition of that style of sign lighting. because it's not it. Probably it's not very common. It's done more now. but it's not something that I think would have been anticipated. Anette Lewis: So when in our bylaws. we have that signs can't oscillate. They can't. I believe it says somewhere that they can't be neon signs and they can't be internally lit. Is my recollection. Is basically the three criteria. Unknown: Are they problematic for you to have those criteria? No. I don't think so. I would keep them too. Okay. they're fine.
Anette Lewis: So Robert has gone through and made some suggestions for us. Doesn't cover all of the things you're talking about. and I've read through them. and our bylaws are really confusing. I mean. I was even though he marked them up. they're still confusing. And I think that they need some assistance. Robert. do you want to put them up and take us through so that we can all see the kinds of things you're talking about and tell us. in an overview. what kinds of changes you were thinking that we should do. Robert Hummel: Yeah. so for the first paragraph. just really make it very easy to understand who has the Fay to approve signs and what. what can the zba or which special. special permit granted for you can do so first. Section five. oh. 1.11 is just cleaning it up. but it also takes away the lines that provided. However. the signs with moving parts or internal limited are prohibited to allow that internal lighting in limited signs like Jersey makes. And then another thing that that the pilot doesn't touch about is that is Dover amendment signs. So putting a section in that under five. oh. 1.2 to cover non profit. educational. our cultural. religious or child care uses says something that'd be something new. because we don't have a category for that today. Point three. oh. I skipped over this. Also adding three new definitions display area. sign and temporary sign. So actually given information. so setting. what does mean in in Section 104. and what display area means? Because that is also a discussion that people have. is. how you do. how do you actually measure display area? Is it the whole box? Is a drawing a box around it. or is just. you know. each. each one you have so be drawing a giant box around the sign. And that's that. that it will be the display area. so that would be not a a Unknown: just a disagreement. Robert Hummel: And then format to 550. 1.3 adding the word signs when you know upper casing it also adding a section about science cannot be illuminated longer than 30 minutes after before. before or after closing any signs just to kind of loosen. you know. close then close that there. One of the issues we're finding in this town. I've noticed. is people will just put up temporary signs up in it. We don't have. we don't have a section today about temporary signs. So a new company comes in. let's say. you know. Mike's clock. You know Clock Company. They come into town and they got. you know. a permit from the zba. and then they probably signs up. We have. it's. it's. it's our job is staff to enforce that. So one ideas would be to allow them to put up temporary signs for the. you know. the first 30 days. while they open up. and then for them to. you know. take that down once the 30 days is over. just so they can get that the new business in. But they're not about to give it a long term. because we've had that in the past where new businesses get their special. you know. their special power. For the zba. they put up the signs. and then they put up these. a phrase signs for up. and then we don't have. we don't have a section in a bylaw. And this is something I've discussed with needs. It's just giving them the grace period for 30 days. But one idea would be to allow for temporary sign. Allowed them to apply for a temporary sign with this with the building Commissioner. and then for them take it down after 30 days is over. just so they can get the new business in and people can find them. but then also give them the opportunity to actually Unknown: advertise. so that. Robert Hummel: I have to right now. I also wrote down.
potentially adding something into the first section about allowing signs on two faces of the wall. kind of we talked about the young donuts and Jimmy John about how they have a sign on the front of the building. and then they want to decide. and potentially allowing that. if it. if it's within the 40 square feet. and making. maybe being making that by right. so that businesses have to come in if they comply with the bylaw with 40 square feet. but they just have two signs because they. you know. are ones on the part driveway and one is on the road. That is a potential idea we could. we could add in there. So. but I do agree this time bar is Unknown: very small. but also there's Robert Hummel: places in this bylaw where it's very confusing. and I think it'd be helpful to clean that up at the same time. Anette Lewis: So when you talk about the faces of a building. this is for everybody. all of us that we've been talking about. One could say two faces. One could say faces facing on public areas. There's some buildings that might need three because of the way that they face. How would it be easiest for the zoning board? Thomas White: I guess if it was instead of. instead of specifying a number. you could say. you know. signs could be permitted on multiple faces. you know.
Unknown: with appropriate Thomas White: reviews. or something like that. Because if you say two faces. I think Anette makes an excellent point. Maybe there's a building that's an octagon at a corner that needs signs on three sides. So I wouldn't want to say only two. I like Robert's point that if there's a way to streamline this so someone. someone who has the need for something that's a little bit unusual. signs on two sides. but they're under the 40 square feet. maybe they could just be approved. you know. by the building Commissioner as of right? And it doesn't require a permit. That's an interesting idea as well. So I think you could say signs could be permitted on multiple phases. you know. subject to review. or some language like that Anette Lewis: when you're reviewing a project that clearly is going to need a sign. from my point of view. you should be approving the sign at the same time you shouldn't. They should not be walking away without having at least the size of the sign and the location of the sign approved and then come back for. you know. the final sign when they when they get it. because we have people who have done buildings with no signage. and they should have had a special permit for the building to begin with. And then they don't. they walk away with no sign permit. permit. and then they go back to you for the sign permit. It just doesn't seem Unknown: efficient. I Thomas White: Yes. So the last two restaurants. we actually we approved the signage permit and the restaurant use special permit at the same time. That is a little unusual. Most people bifurcate the process. I don't know why. and give us a sign. They come up. they say. this is. we're going to come back later with a signed permit. William Sterling: That's been my experience. too. It's. I'm not quite sure why. you know. Thomas White: So we combine them. William Sterling: They're building a building on spec. Yeah. they don't know Jesse Newberry: who's gonna Yeah. that could be so
Thomas White: we don't necessarily have a problem with it. but as I said. Where. where we can we like to streamline it and write one decision with both permits. So as I said. the last two. last two restaurants. we were able to do that and combine them. Robert Hummel: An interesting case is the terrain project. I believe that they came in front of the Zion view board already about for their signage plan and their science plan is is. of course. over 40 square feet. But when we. when me and Bill. looked at together. um. based on how many tenants I used to have in that Plaza. the number of signage was the number of proposed signage square footage was under the number of tenants that he if you took each tenant and occupied by 40 square feet. or it was a number. But I don't they don't believe they have applied Thomas White: for the zba yet. They have not applied to the zba for that the signage. they Robert Hummel: haven't closed in a property too. So they're not gonna apply for the sign. They're not gonna zba until they close on a property. Yeah. you haven't closed or the the property manager has not closed in property yet. so they haven't applied for it. So there are some scenarios where. yeah. would have been nice to rank him in. With their plan and approved it. but they also have to make sure that they're not wasting anybody's time and money by submitting a plan. And then it's me happening. Anette Lewis: So one of the areas that needs to be changed in the bylaw is it talks about per lot. and sometimes you will have three lots combined for one project. And sometimes you'll have one lot with. as you said before. five tenants. So we need to figure out probably more on. well. depending. I was going to say probably more on a per tenants. size per tenant. number of signs. the problem then becomes as and I don't know if these are all approved signs. but if you look at the office building at the corner of Boston Post Road and Pelham Island. there are signs that are showing up. I'm sure they're way over. They're 40. I don't know if those are even approved. Unknown: Does anyone know Thomas White: they haven't? We haven't seen any applications for Unknown: anything else
William Sterling: we when we were on it. Anette. a number of times. the zoning board. when I was in the zoning board. a number of times we basically. and it wasn't written in the bylaws. We basically had to wing it and say. Well. this is a multi tenant complex. You take what used to be donlins complex. and it had many tenants and many signs. and we basically just had to use our own judgment on how many you know. if you have at least one sign per tenant and send this. I know we have two entrances. one in the front and one in the back. so you have to use your judgment. And I think it would be hard to legis. you know. to get legislative about it. and to find every condition that you're going to face. but you may want to put some language in there that gives the zoning board level of comfort that they can do this make right value Unknown: judgment. Yeah. that makes sense. Thomas White: and that's as simple as you know. confirming with town council that we can use not only the signage by law. but every bit of the language in the 4201. for a special permits.
because typically. we've been given the guidance. whether it's correct or not. that we need to refrain from making kind of specific design you know. design comments you know. which are usually more for the planning board or the Design Review Board. But given the unusual circumstance we have here where we're in charge of enforcing this like. you know. I just want it would be great to just have confirmation that we have perhaps maybe more leeway than we have traditionally been thinking Robin Borgestedt: Roberts. Roberts draft that's on the screen does provide some language. right? The very first sort of section in that big paragraph. yeah. each business on a lot is entitled to one wall sign. and each lot is entitled to one freestanding sign to display all the businesses. So. you know. kind of taking that and maybe beefing that up and making it. you know. little more clear. The difficult situation is when each business also has. you know. a roadway facing facade. and. you know. their main entrance is on a different facade. kind of thing. William Sterling: Yeah. Donald's is another example of that. you know. they have a major road entrance from two different roads. So they need two kiosks with multi signs. maybe the third one on the intersection with the corner. you know. So they have multiple needs there.
Anette Lewis: Also talking about businesses. Sometimes we have not businesses. We have churches. we have social clubs. so we have to figure out how to word that kind of stuff. Thomas White: Well. that would be. there are provisions in the Dover amendment about religious uses. so that may be difficult to
Unknown: develop. or at least a little more challenging.
Robert Hummel: Are we? How do you feel about putting a provision about for free. saying sign to add Unknown: landscaping? I
Thomas White: think it's a good idea. I think it's hard. It's hard to enforce. because. say. they would put us in on the zoning board. in the position of telling them what they have to landscape with which we're happy to do. But like. you know. it's like you don't. you know. probably don't want us saying you have to use these kinds of shrubs. like. at this density. this. Right? I mean. that would be difficult for us to do from a design perspective. Robert Hummel: A good. a good zoning by law for signage is. is actually the town of Acton. And I worked at Town Acton for six years in the past. And they were. we were very. they had a very. very. very detail Zoning Bylaw. section by section. village districts. non village districts. and it is one section and about. they have to have landscaping for free. saying sign and space still not a landscaping is based on the height of the sign. So if you. if your height is the size six feet. you would multiply by it by two. and then you would square that so be 144 square feet of landscaping. And it just says that landscaping must be planted and maintained with suitable vegetation. shrubs and flower. It didn't say what kind of things. Okay. so there is provisions. I. I didn't put in this draft. But we. if you. if you want to beautify signage in the future. you could require landscaping. And that was also one of the things that the smart could go to the planning board of zba for in time of acting too. is if you wanted to reduce your landscaping. So if you had to put 144 but you. you came in. you're like. I can only put in 50 square feet. You can go to zba or planning board for for relief for that too. So there's a. if you look at that by law. there's a few other things you could. we could potentially do. I am not advocating for different sides of different districts. because we. we don't truly have. like. a real village district. like the town of acting does they have real districts that have a real village feel to it. Thomas White: But yeah. I agree. I think it's like. it's. I used it as an example. but yeah. it's. you're hard pressed to sort of make a case that Wayland has these kind of unique. unique districts that would require it. maybe. Robert Hummel: But the town of Acton had it had a very. very detailed temporary sign program too. where for getting new businesses. you if you want to advertise your business. you would apply for up to 45 days a year where you put up a temporary sign. So if you're doing like. you know. sales and stuff. you could you would pick your days. what days you want to do. But that's really. getting really detail into this by law. But I think the whole point of this was to make this simple. but also allow for. honestly. a lot for temporary science. because people are just putting up temporary science for new businesses. And it's hard to. it's really hard to. we don't have the staffing to police them all the time. or to bug them all time. to take down the science. So I think internally right now. we're just like allowing it for the first three days. just because we know them. that they are new. and they want to attract new businesses and new. you know. to the to the location. But we gotta figure a way to govern that so that people can. we can kind of administrate that in the future. Anette Lewis: Robert. in what you have in five. oh. 2.4 with temporary signs no bigger than 10 square feet in display area. and the sign. any sign that moves or a banner. is prohibited. So the kinds of things that we've been seeing are essentially banners. They're like flag things. Robin Borgestedt: flappy things Robert Hummel: we don't want. We want. we don't want the any moves. So I'm thinking more of like a sandwich board. a five by two sandwich board. or a one of the signs you kind of push into the ground Anette Lewis: right with the sandwich board. And I can't remember where I read it in here. but you talk. Okay. it's right underneath it. a temporary sign. shall neither be erected on a sidewalk. walkway or driveway. nor within five feet from the sideline of a street or right of way customarily used by the general public. The sideline of the street. to most people. is where the pavement ends. and it's really the lot line. because they can't put their signs on the public way. you know. in the unpaved right of way? Unknown: Yep. correct.
Robin Borgestedt: It seems like we have a lot of those flapping signs that are more or less permanent in town right now. Unknown: Yeah. agree.
Where do you have those? I
Robin Borgestedt: think the landscaper in the center of town has had one up and somewhere else maybe. is it this the convenience store somebody else has one up also further along on route 20.
Anette Lewis: Is that something that you please snake. Or does somebody have to tell you about it? Or how does it work? If we Unknown: see it. we will take care of the situation. And then we receive phone calls occasionally. okay? And we go out and enforce that and pull signs or ask the Ask the individuals to remove them if they don't. We take it upon ourselves. The last one was at 27 in old con up on the hill. up in the granite landscaper. he did not remove it. so I climbed the wall and took it down.
So we will have quite a few signs. So. 112 112 to 116 Main Street is going to be all new signs coming up here soon. I know terrain is going to be applying soon for signage. Josh Fox did come in last week and had mentioned that are actually got some paperwork to for their signage. so we'll have some things to consider here in the near future. And for your purposes. Anette Lewis: aside from the things that we've already talked about. are there other things that would make your life easier? Unknown: I think that if it helps that. like Tom alluded to. that most of your national or your well put together organizations have their signage in place when they present their plans. and that's very helpful. So you get a full imagery of what they're presenting. and they have design teams. you know to present that. so that's very helpful. and then your smaller venues typically don't. and that's okay. because that's what makes the world go round. So I think that if someone's presenting a project or remodel for a building that they we should ask them to have the signage as part of the package
so we can see the full concept of what's going on. Anette Lewis: So would that be in the by law that we would say that? Or would that be in the zoning boards regulations? Unknown: I think you could put the bylaw sounds reasonable. Thomas White: You also might be able to. you also might be able to put it in the zoning application. Like. when someone comes in for a business use. like a business use special permit. it should be. like. automatic and where's your sign application as well. Like. because that way we could. you can hear them in in the same case. I don't know if that has to be in the by law. or if that could be. maybe it could be in the zba regulations. because that could be easy. That's easier to change. And then. you know. you could just accept those as as permit applications. I would say Robert Hummel: regulations. I would say you because you can't. you can't require someone to to in the pilot. to to that. So I think regulations would be easy to to know to Anette Lewis: do that. Yeah. even if they don't have the full color or the full font. knowing the approximate size is kind of helpful. I think. Unknown: yeah. I would agree. Ira. Larry. Jesse. Larry Kiernan: I have two questions. One is Tom or Nate. how do you think our signs compare to neighboring towns? I honestly don't have an opinion on that. The other question is.
have you gotten feedback that is harder or easier or difficult to get signs in Wayland versus other towns. Any feedback Unknown: from folks?
Thomas White: I haven't received any feedback on the zba that there are problems or complaints with the delays or challenges getting signed permits. Larry Kiernan: normally one or two meetings. Thomas White: It's normally one meeting. We've very rarely had someone come back with a second permit. You know. really send someone away with a continuance to come up with a revised design? Yeah. I think qualitatively. No. when I drive around. I mean. I don't study this. but when I drive through Sudbury. like or Natick or Wellesley. I don't think the signs that I see in businesses there are. like. you know. being necessarily better than the ones in Wayland. They don't seem. they don't really seem all that different. you know. because these kinds of communities generally have the same types of businesses. you know. supermarkets. small strip shopping centers with. you know. multi tenants. You know.
Unknown: in my opinion. I think that the. The predecessors in Wayland have done a good job. as far as review of signs and what's been in place. and it's. I don't see really anything as obtrusive. As far as signage. um. there's a couple that has slipped through the cracks that have just done new signs. Um. but for the most part. I think it's. I think Wayland is very tasteful. and there's nothing that really sticks out that I would say. you know. I don't like that. I mean. there's a couple on route 20 that I noticed. But for the most part. I think that everyone's done a good job. and. you know. can only make it a little bit better and and more fluid transition to to get his new sign. I have a couple questions. Larry. you done? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Yeah. Unless I'm missing something here. all we seem to be talking about is that size of the sign. or how many signs there can be on the building. What I'm missing is is. how do you approve the design if there aren't specific design criteria. like size. font size. you know. what? A palette of background color. you know. we have the lighting. I don't hear any how. And some of you say. with an application comes in. of course. you take the tape measure to it. That's okay. but you're also talking about approving. It sounds like you're talking about the esthetics of does this sign fit into the community and yet. who's to guide them. except for their own personal taste.
Thomas White: that's challenging. For example. if Jersey Mike's has a standard sign that is. that is the same that every one of their locations. we can't. as a community. say. you know. you you can't. You have to use. like. our predetermined background colors. font size. etc. because the sign is part of the corporate brand. So I think that would be a very unfriendly way to proceed Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: with it. Maybe so. But I know on the cape. and in other situations. McDonald's. for example. they have not allowed them to use the arches with their. you know. backlit that they've required. You know. I if I remember the logos there. the typeface is there. but it's either. you know. Thomas White: I again. not an expert in it. but I believe I'm familiar with places that have done that. I believe. though those are specific kind of already legislated historic districts. you know. where I think that that. I think there has to be some other underlying legal structure in place that I think would allow that type of Unknown: regulation. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: We should look into that. because I don't remember them that way. I remember them more like
strip mall. Of course not. But. you know. a number of different stores lined together that were in. what a more rural. or more. you know. I remember them being down on the Cape. where you kind of have these little. semi little malls. and they've required them to have all of those signs unified. but Robin Borgestedt: they could be roads that are designated scenic or something like that. They don't seem scenic anymore. but they may have been scenic roads or something Robert Hummel: possibly I still. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I know we had a conversation about the Dunkin Donuts at one point. and we had talked about somehow making them or suggesting to them that they don't use that logo. I mean. I think that's Anette Lewis: I agree. Again. I'm just looking at our bylaw for special permits. and it's taken exactly from the state bylaw. And at 198 203. it says. For a special permit. the applicant shall show to the satisfaction of the special permit granting authority that the use building or structure for which the application is made shall not be against the public interest. shall not derogate from the character of the neighborhood in which such use building or structure is to occur and shall not be detrimental or offensive because of noise. vibration. smoke. gas. fumes. odor. dust or other objectionable features. and that such use building or structure shall not otherwise be injurious to the inhabitants of the town or their property. or dangerous to the public health or safety. and I don't know for a fact. but I think that that's what they're using. because there are many places that won't let you use your corporate Unknown: logo kind of thing. right? Yeah.
William Sterling: Yeah. one in free Point Main a McDonald's is famous because they. McDonald's tried to sue them and lost. McDonald's has this little. teeny little. you know. McDonald's name on the side of the building. and that's all you got. Robert Hummel: Yeah. there's a really. there's a really cool one McDonald's. and I believe. is Arizona. It's. instead of a yellow local. is a turquoise blue. and it blends in with it. It blends in with the rest of the year in Arizona. It's really. really unique. But those. I mean. those are very extreme cases where there's very unusual cases. This thing like design islands already built in. and then Madonna's comes in and wants to do it so but Robin Borgestedt: sort of. that's one of my concerns. If we take out the prohibition on backlighting. because there are. there are backlight backlit signs that are offensive. and that would derogate the character. and maybe the jersey Mike sign is less. less of an affront. but William Sterling: I agree with you. Robin. yeah. the backlighting is fine. I think internally illuminated plastic signs. though. are still objectionable. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. so we have some language to to define that if we're going to take out the prohibition on internal lighting. You know. internal lighting. it doesn't shine through. How do we how do we say that? William Sterling: That's how I said it to them. I said. if it's the material is translucent. then it's not allowed. If it's opaque. then it's basically you're backlighting it.
Unknown: We could talk about backlighting. That's it. William Sterling: That's a sentence you need right there. Thomas White: Yeah. it could be the sentence an Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: example. Bill of what you're talking about.
William Sterling: An example of what I'm talking about would be. well. you were just talking about the one that just. is it? Duncan is putting in backlighting signage for their
Unknown: for their signs. and they allot it right. Tom. yeah. William Sterling: and the an example of an internally illuminated plastic sign. jeez. Anette Lewis: Lim. but like a mobile gas station sign. yeah. those William Sterling: are classic. That's a clean thing. and that's a very good example. The logo itself is a big plastic glob of blowing up. Yeah.
Thomas White: I am going to run out of time. I've got a gonna have to sign off in just a couple of minutes. But this has been a great discussion. We should probably aim to have a. you know. maybe set up something like this on a quarterly basis to kind of go through it doesn't necessarily just have to be on the signs. because there are a couple of other there's always some inconsistencies that we encounter in the by law. I would just say that that. if this group is looking at it. we've had several challenges recently with garages and side yards and sheds. there are some extremely conflicting languages in contained in the yards component of the by law one that we actually had to escalate up to town council for an application that we had. and she She gave us some great feedback and pointed out that. yes. there are some glaring like. legal inconsistencies. Anette Lewis: Can you share that with Robert and he can share it with Thomas White: Yes. I actually. I think. I think I had shared this one with Nathan and with Michael McCall. But yes. like. I can forward the email exchange with. with Carolyn Murray on. on some specific quirky problems we had with interplay between 401 point 1.2 and I think 703 on the yards. so. And. you know. there's always come up. you know. because people only come to the zba because they need to do something unusual. right? So I recognize that. like. we're the venue for the unusual projects. like no matter what. so it can't all be standard. So and then we're comfortable with that. We're that's what we're used to. But when. when we have when the bottom points us in two different directions. we sometimes struggle to accommodate what people are looking to do. And generally. most of the applications we get right. Are homeowners looking to do something like. I need to move my garage a foot closer. I need to do a screen porch. And. you know. we want to help these people. but sometimes the bylaw points us in kind of differing directions. And I think just some simple sentences could be cleaned up. but yeah. I'll. I can share that with Robert the. The exchange that I had with with Copeland and page several months ago. Anette Lewis: And if you want to set up sometimes and work it out with your board. yeah. we can just put it in the agenda. And I think that would be great idea. Thomas White: Yeah. I think it'd be. I think it'd be a wonderful idea. Because. as I said. we have some. we always have some quirky stuff. Anette Lewis: Can while you're here. though. can I just ask you a question? Um. I personally have had trouble reading the site plan. regular bylaw. Have you guys had issues with it? Unknown: Um. only. in as much as it's not. Thomas White: it's kind of worded. very convoluted as to who has the who is supposed to approve it. Sometimes we literally will spend 10 minutes in the meeting. I don't think you need to be here. I think you're supposed to be at the planning board. Because if this. if that. if this. if that. Anette Lewis: but also that whole first section about if you're this size. you're this. if you're that. so you're this. if you're this. and then if you've got parking. you're this. and it's very confusing. Thomas White: Yeah. I would agree. You know. yeah. it is. it is. It can be challenging just to figure all we're looking for is to make sure they're in the right regulatory venue and we're not accidentally taking on a case that we either shouldn't. we don't have the authority to. or we're sort of applying like the wrong provision of the bylaw. because the venue is not not the exact right Unknown: one. right? Okay. well. on that too. Thank you and Bill. do you want? Do you want to thanks. thanks. Thanks. Anette Lewis: You have other things that you want to talk about. William Sterling: Well. of course. I can tear up all your night with all kinds of things. but no. I think that we've discussed enough for one sitting. and I'm sure you have other things you need to get on to. Unknown: So Okay. terrific. Anette Lewis: Thank you so much. Anyone else have questions for Bill? Thank you for coming and thank you Nate very much for Unknown: joining as my first Planning Board meeting. It's been very. very fun. Anette Lewis: Well. you can come anytime.
Larry Kiernan: Thank you. All right. Good evening. Unknown: Thank you. In the signage Anette Lewis: bylaw. Robert. I have like. a gazillion comments. not just because of the changes you've made. but things that I see that have been in place forever. that are just Unknown: weird and hard to read. Anette Lewis: What do you think the best way and maybe others do too. I don't know. Do you guys have specific comments on what Robert shared with us? Robin Borgestedt: I was sort of waiting till tonight. Okay. no. that's fine. Unknown: I think you should pull up the commented version. Maybe we give it a look. Robin Borgestedt: Or do we circulate it now that we've listened to them and heard what they have? Jesse Newberry: Yeah. that's actually that's probably a better idea. Robin. Robert Hummel: yeah. just. I would just send the comments to me. and I can make a master list Unknown: of of it. Okay? Robert Hummel: I think. I think I worked on this a few months ago. So this is not the dates in my since September 4. but I because there's the more July. July main main notes to Anette Lewis: this. right? And some of the comments aren't really with your changes. They're with what's there already. yeah. Robert Hummel: in place. in one round of comments and and there wasn't. didn't like. keep digging into it. Anette Lewis: right? And for in one place you talked about commercial businesses. I wasn't sure if that was I don't think it's a defined term. and I wasn't sure if it was necessarily appropriate just for businesses. And there's another place where the bylaw. as written. refers to a state law that makes absolutely no sense. It refers to mgL 180 sections two and four. And 180 is creation of charitable and other corporations. and two is definitions. and four just lists. Who can be that kind of a court? What you can do if you're a corporation? So I'm not sure what they're trying to do. I can try and guess. but I don't think that we should leave something like that.
Unknown: It's in our section. pardon me. Anette Lewis: yeah. it's in your 501. Point. New three. Unknown: It's the very last line.
Anette Lewis: it says that you can have signs for any purposes that are set forth in the corporate section. And that's sort of weird. because. if not purposes there. what they're saying is you can create a corporation to do a B. C. D. E.
Unknown: So what they were trying to Robert Hummel: say was. Texas. it's in the existing today. Anette Lewis: yeah. I guess in the existing today. Oh. the Is this the Robert Hummel: NGO 180 Yeah. Robin Borgestedt: more sort of tacked on a sentence about religious celebration. signs. weird or devices that have been installed or erected pursuant to a special permit. Yeah. I
Robert Hummel: didn't know. I didn't really look into it. but yeah. that should probably be deleted. It's weird.
Anette Lewis: Um. okay. so we can get um comments to you. I'll send you mine in track changes. and they'll be mostly questions. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I think. Anette Lewis: And again. it's not your stuff. It's what's there already? Robert Hummel: No. it's this pilot is. should I retrieve and fix like years ago? Anette Lewis: Yeah. and I'll look at the one that we came up with a number of years ago and see if Unknown: it looks useful.
Anette Lewis: Has anybody looked at the site plan approval by Unknown: law. the little Jesse Newberry: bit in my ground mounted solar research. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: revise that a number of years ago.
Unknown: no site approval. Anette Lewis: We just added a section that makes it even more confusing. We added.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: then let's change and take that out. We're done no Anette Lewis: that one made sense in the context that we did it in. It's just when you start reading. are you subject to site plan approval? Unknown: There are Anette Lewis: essentially. I think. three different places that you have to go to to see if you're subject to site plan approval. One of the first is.
Unknown: let's see.
Anette Lewis: you have to fit into different size categories. That's one thing. Then there's a thing that talks about number of parking spaces. and you have to answer yes and no and no and yes. and then you wind up with this thing at the end. and it seems like you shouldn't have had to go through all that. You should have been able to just say. Yep. I'm going to be subject to Site Plan Review. rather than having this four pages of back and forth and back and forth and back and forth when it probably can be condensed into something more easily understandable. and then you would know which board you had to go to. whether it was the planning board or the zoning board. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. you've got. like. an applicability section and then a Administration section.
Anette Lewis: But even the applicability section is pretty tough using Yeah. I had to do it with the salt shed when I was a road Commissioner. and we were doing the salt shed. and I had to read this. and I just went. Holy cow. And it took me forever. because I had to go through all the steps. even though some of them really weren't even applicable. yeah. Unknown: And then you've got. like. a communication section. or. like. how to how to interact with the town. And then you get into the actual application itself. right. who it needs to go to. and then another on what you need to put in there. And then another on the planning board. Procedures separately. Anette Lewis: yeah. and we have. I think. also regulations for site plan. So I don't know if we're ready to tackle it this year. but I would hope that people will think about it and think about how we might try and simplify it.
Unknown: all of us. including Robert.
Anette Lewis: Robert. do you want to do the ground mounted next or the housekeeping? Robert Hummel: Let's do housekeeping. because I can quickly discuss it. but it's not like a lot of the house giving. So I started off with housekeeping on the page. I started housekeeping. There's things I noticed that need be fixed. And then we got a me Anette got a humongous packet of information from town council. from E code. saying. These are the things that areas that the town should look at in the next few years to change or or modify or make no changes. So they just kind of from the town clerk. right? Not from Clark. but it came from E code. E code came of it so. but some are are valid. like some say. D. H. D. So on the first page. It should be changed to elocative Office of Housing liberal communities. So like how to go a whole about each change based on that and when. for all the changes. what we tackle this year and what changes. when can we tackle another year? And site plan was part of that. that one of those suggested changes. but it's too much to change right now. but then also. some of it has to do with zba too. and the first page with
Unknown: clarifying what Robert Hummel: variances and what what you can get a variance for. So there are other scenarios in this. in this nine page document. But a lot of the changes proposed changes have to do changes that were suggested. It is I did spend a lot of time. like. just some silly by the code people. Yeah. So. like. a lot of changes are just very silly changes. like changing the unlike wireless communication system changing into electric transmissions towers. like just some really. really silly changes. They're like. it just
Anette Lewis: need to be made because they conform to the other definitions and things. yeah. yeah. Robert Hummel: And just like. delete definitions that. like. were like. we don't in some sections already had the definition for his town and zba. like. you don't need to repeat it over again. That's it. It kind of felt like someone added definitions in and then didn't. Can cross reference over the years to make sure. like. oh. I don't have to use word DEP. They don't define zba in this section. It's already defined in the original definition section. It's just. like. Unknown: a lot of just overkill. but Robert Hummel: it and like mass housing. like things that just change over time. Eloc and just a lot is just just silly changes that are just Unknown: very silly. Robert Hummel: And then the things were like. we have the section where in the mixes overlay. where the underlying zoning district never went away. and we never bothered it to modify that. So like just getting rid of the underlying limited commercial district and and getting rid of it once for all. so it's over. So I don't want to burden you by going through this one by one. I think better if members of the board just kind of go for and if they have any comments on this. but I'll. you know. some of its marijuana was spelled wrong. like just. Ma. just fixing silly mistakes. And I keep saying it's. it's. and we don't. We can tackle some of this this year. We can say. you know. we said. oh. let's just do on all of this. But let's get. let's get the silly ones other way. E lock in and fix those. You know this. this document can be things can be taken out and put into another document for years in the future. like it doesn't have everything has to be done today. this this year. if you don't want Anette Lewis: to. but we should probably do the most important and then lump things together that are of a similar nature. maybe. Robert Hummel: yeah. I mean. I just said. sort of by by Article One to article right? Whatever it is. this is just the way it is easy to display. right? Anette Lewis: A suggestion on. how about you know. what should go first and. and. is there like a theme that we can use this theme next year? Robin Borgestedt: I wonder if it helps. If Robert goes through and sort of color codes them with highlighting. you know. the the green ones are the ones that we really need to do. and they should be simple. The yellow ones are things that. you know it would be helpful to do. and the red ones are ones that we can defer. or the opposite way around. if we can color code kind of what has to get done. what would be nice and what we should look at and think about in the future. I don't know. Robert Hummel: Yeah. I do you let me do I can go back and just and we kind of recover them and then send it back out. Green. Green is like no brainers. yellows. maybe about this. and then red. like you Anette Lewis: don't have to do it right now. Why don't you wait? Oh no. not right now. But I'll send it Unknown: out. and we give you comments. yeah. yeah. Robert Hummel: I'll send it out. I'll color it and reset it out. And so it's a little easier to understand.
Unknown: So that's housekeeping. I mean. Robert Hummel: it started out as like. two pages. three pages. and then it went down to. like. now nine. because we've always potential changes Unknown: that need to be done so.
Robert Hummel: and I believe Jesse worked on the ground mounting. So I. And for that on the on that page for him. if you like. Unknown: Yep. that sounds great. Yeah. So. I mean. Jesse Newberry: this is all new. right? And Robin sent a version over that has a bunch of comments on it that I think are all really good comments. I don't know if anybody else has comments since they had a chance to review it after last week's meeting.
Robert Hummel: I don't think I got a copy of that. that email and document. Robin Borgestedt: No. I meant to send it to you. and somehow it only went to Jesse. I meant to send it only to you. but it was just so that he'd have my comments after the meeting today. because I figured we'll discuss them all. so Larry Kiernan: I didn't review them. but I did watch a bunch of videos on how to set up your own 10 kilowatt solar system and 250 watts. So awesome. I need pictures and you know. a little explanation. It was quite interesting. Jesse Newberry: So how like? So when you were watching that. how big were the 10 kilowatt ones? Because. I mean. we Larry Kiernan: have 10 kilowatt is like the ones you see around town. The one I saw was 8.8 Unknown: but it's probably
Larry Kiernan: 30 feet by 10 feet. or 40 feet by 10 feet. could be in MA two slaps. but yeah. it was not trivial. kind of like a big shed in your backyard. What was interesting was. when you connected to your house. he had batteries. He was trying to be able to run his house on it. Explain very detailed. that you can't run a typical house on 10 kilowatts. you gotta really conserve what you use. But he had a room set up for the battery and the converter like its own shed. and he air conditioned the shed. Jesse Newberry: and defeats the purpose of the solar panels
wild. Larry Kiernan: It made me wonder what heat is being generated by he bought computers Jesse Newberry: from the batteries in the inverter. Maybe the Larry Kiernan: there was the batteries. the converter. and there was two computers that he. I call them computers that he used to manage the payload.
Unknown: So maybe Larry Kiernan: that's more complicated than normal. But anyway. so and 250 kilowatts is huge. huge. Jesse Newberry: yeah. gigantic. yeah. it's huge. yeah. yeah. Larry Kiernan: it's a Jesse Newberry: farm. yeah. yeah. yeah. yeah. And then that's why I kind of did that. that way. with the small. medium. large in that divided up by. like. you know. the kilowatt capacity. Larry Kiernan: And he did the 8.8 kilowatts himself. Unknown: It's 20 grand. Yeah. Anette Lewis: so Jesse with these numbers. if were we able to check those with the energy people or Unknown: No. not yet. Jesse Newberry: not yet. I didn't get a chance to do that. Okay? I did end up sending to Abigail. but of course. I didn't hear back. Unknown: Yeah. I can shakes. Robert Hummel: And you do know that she's that she's losing. yeah? Jesse Newberry: We heard that last meeting. Yes. So yeah. Robert. do you have another contact yet? Robert Hummel: I send you. I send you Olivia's contact information. Jesse Newberry: Okay. I was curious what that was. Yeah. I was gonna ask you Robert Hummel: about that. Thank you. Oh. that was. yeah. I thought that. yeah. Jesse Newberry: I didn't get the context. But Unknown: I was watching. I was watching a Robert Hummel: tape. and since it says Robert. we'll send. we'll send Jesse the information. Unknown: Okay. thank you. Thank you. So. yeah. I'll. I'll. I'll reach out. Jesse Newberry: And then I think. in the meantime. if everybody's got this doc. you know. go. go through it and add your thoughts. please. And then we'll. um. we'll come back with a version with everyone's comments in it and kind of talk it through. Robin Borgestedt: Do you have any questions about my comments? Jessa. no. Jesse Newberry: I think they were all like you pointed out some really good things. Robin. and things that I think we need to define a little bit better. For sure. Anette Lewis: you want to share those with us so that we have them in our heads as we're doing our own comments. Unknown: Yes. yep. So Robin Borgestedt: I'm just going to run through them quickly from the top to the bottom. In the very the first definition of ground mounted solar. it says ancillary equipment. And I added in other than the battery. energy storage system. because that has its own definition section with respect to the canopy and carport in the definition and elsewhere in the bylaw. we have to find a way to if canopies and carports are not allowed. I mean. well. they are allowed. but not as ground mounted solar. They have their own different right. So we have to find a way to differentiate that. Because if you can have this thing 12 feet high. you could park your car under it. or you could put a picnic table under it. And so then. when is it a carport? And when is it not a carport? When is it a canopy and not a canopy? You know. are you not allowed to park a car underneath it? So. yeah. so that I think isn't it Anette Lewis: is. does the state one deal with that? Jesse. do you know? Unknown: I will look this up now. Okay. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: But if one is regulated one way. and one's regulated another way. that we have to define where that line is in the definition section. Do we need to define what a kilowatt is and the AC? Because for a homeowner. they may not know exactly what that is if they're just starting to research this. So maybe we have to put a definition in. But then also. who gets to define if you're under 10 or if you're over 250 is it just. you know. the manufacturer's specifications. or Jesse Newberry: that's what I was thinking it would be. because. right. they're all going to get more efficient over time. So it's. it's. yeah. should be with the manufacturer. Robin Borgestedt: So we might need to specify who gets to say whether you're under 10 or over 250. or where you are on that
then on the article seven. going down number four. it says. after the adoption of this chapter. I think it should say by law. And then once you've put battery. energy storage system. and put the abbreviation best. You don't need to keep saying it. Jesse Newberry: yeah. thank you.
Robin Borgestedt: In the next session. the zoning district and use representations. One place you said and best. and the other one said it was and their best. So I just they should be the same. and then prohibited area. Should say all solar Institute installations and best are prohibited within the wetlands resources. again. the next thing. dimensional standards. that height thing just running into that canopy. carport thing
in setbacks. I think we should make it clear that all applicants have to meet all set back standards. regardless of the size and permit type. It's not something you get a variance on. It's not something you get waived. You have to be outside of the setback area. Don't even ask. I don't know. that's what I think. but maybe other people agree. Unknown: Disagree. Yep. Robin Borgestedt: And then in terms of the lot coverage section. it says they may cover up to 40% of the lot area. The applicant must demonstrate adequate previous surface blah. blah. blah for the medium and the large scale installations. I think they should have to demonstrate through expert analysis. We should be specific about how they demonstrate that. For smalls. it's not it's not that language isn't in there. but both medium and large say they have to demonstrate something. and we should require that it be through expert analysis. vegetative buffering. It's 10 feet wide. We discussed this at the last meeting. yeah. To me. wide means. you know. if you're looking at a fence. it's the width of the fence from as you're facing it. And I think we're really talking about the depth of the buffer. Yeah. So I don't know if there's a different word for that. but to me it seems like depth. I think Anette Lewis: something in the the
Unknown: MBTA zoning Anette Lewis: dealing with that kind of a buffer. there might be language in there. Unknown: Okay. yeah. I'll give that Larry Kiernan: a look. Question on the coverage. so is that corner to corner? So if you've got four of these things up. it's the furthest corner to the furthest corner. or is it literally looking down at it saying because these are all tilted right. so they may move. Fly. but it may be six feet of coverage as an example. Robin Borgestedt: right? So is it as the bird flies. right? Some Unknown: of them do move. so Anette Lewis: you would have to explain it. It's full. Unknown: yeah. horizontal depth or vertical. yeah? Larry Kiernan: They don't go beyond a certain angle. So I think we talked about this before. Is it the furthest corner of the whole thing? Because I'm a fine with the small but with the medium and large. I assume people doing these are hovering just through. just installing these things. I mean. you're not put in an apple orchard or something. So 40% may turn folks away. Why Why can't I do 100% within boundaries?
Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I think we say special permit on the large ones. but we don't say it on the on the medium scale.
Unknown: right? I Robin Borgestedt: think for the medium. we're assuming it's on a residential lot with a house there. And because if it weren't. you would do large scale. I would think so. Unknown: I don't know. 250 is huge. Yeah. yep. that have Larry Kiernan: to be seven. eight acres. You know. you've got your house. your driveway and your but 40% came from where Jesse. I think. Unknown: was borrowed from one of the other towns. Larry Kiernan: I assume we define the coverage
Jesse Newberry: area. yeah. so that's up further up top. It's between. so it's between one acre and five less than five acres
Unknown: page. and then large is anything over five acres. yeah. but Larry Kiernan: I'm sorry I'm missing the coverage. If I have a house and it's got 20 by 20. I know that's 400 square feet of you know that needs to be managed for water. How does it work with a 20 by 20 solar panel Anette Lewis: if you're doing it on a residential lot and there's a house there already. I haven't I haven't thought it through in reading what Jesse has. but I would think that it would be the lot coverage for structures. and that's. I believe. 20% of the lot. and you can't have more than 20% of the lot covered. Larry Kiernan: I'm wondering. do we count that as 400 square feet or something less. because they're tilted.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I I think you're going to go crazy with this tilted thing. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I'm thinking. you want to do it more footprint. if you could. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: If you're talking about tilted. I would almost say that it's the footprint. like. let's say the going straight up. You know. what is? It's almost like. what is the shade of that whole unit? And call that the measurement of it. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. but you can't call that the footprint. because the footprint may be just the concrete right pad that has a leg on it. because they're generally a small ones on. like. a big on a post kind of thing. right? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: So. so would you have it like. if it was completely vertical. and then. like a TV set. and then Robert Hummel: measure that. So the height should probably Jesse Newberry: be vertical at the highest point. yeah. yeah. yeah. And then the footprint should probably be measured with it. you know. horizontal. Unknown: yeah. not the footprint. Anette Lewis: but the span Robin Borgestedt: area. the area of the panel area. yeah. right. right. Well. that's kind of regardless of the angle it's at. Unknown: yeah. Jesse Newberry: I think we can make that come across in the language here. Yep.
Unknown: should I keep going? Yeah. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: you should. So performance standards. we've got glare and noise and and talking about needing to do analysis. and we had talked at the last meeting about trying to make this less intrusive for a small applicant. So do we want to have different standards for what that analysis looks Yeah. when it's a small person. a small applicant. can they use the manufacturer specifications and medium and large requires expert analysis? Jesse Newberry: Yeah. Yeah. I think. I think I got that in the stuff further down. but not necessarily for this one. Yeah. a little easier for the small Yep. So. yeah. we can. we can address that too. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. And number three and number five. which are trails and wildlife and vegetation and pollinators. You know. who decides that is it? Is it the planning board. or is it ConCom? Because it's really a little outside of our wheelhouse. so it should have to go to ConCom for both of those when. when it's invoked. Jesse Newberry: I suppose we should talk to ConCom about that first before we try to put that in here. Anette Lewis: Herbicides are already prohibited under our bylaw. I believe we have a bylaw on herbicides. and probably look at that. and even with saying that we can't put it in wetlands. Unknown: is that our bailiwick to say that Anette Lewis: isn't that really more up to conservation if somebody for utilities. for example. you can do lots of work in wetlands. and you have to put down. What do you call it? Not raffia. but there's a woven mat. barrier material. not even a barrier. woven mat that you put down. and then you can ride across it and do what you need to do. And and somebody could claim that this is a utility.
Jesse Newberry: I think. I think I do think just having ConCom look at the whole thing is probably great idea. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. and number four. that drainage and stormwater management again. do we want to create a different standard for small versus medium and large. and then seven. oh. 7.5 which is the application requirements. And it says right in this sort of subheading. applicants. applications for site plan review or special permits. And then number one. three and five all have sections that are about small scale. So small scale is by right. and so they they shouldn't be in here for in this section about site plan reviews and special permits. they should have their own section for applications. so that it's more clear and they're separated out.
Unknown: And then Robin Borgestedt: number four talks about cessation. there should be some provision that the the owner has to notify the town when they've when they've ceased operation of this array.
then the battery storage systems talking about when it's active and on site. Blah. blah We have. it has to comply with fire codes. It should probably also have say building codes. because some of these are actually in a structure Jesse Newberry: to Larry's point with air conditioning. right? So. Robin Borgestedt: And then number four there talks about a typical utility infrastructure. And again. how is typical defined? How is it measured. and how is it certified? So and then in that last site plan review and permit findings. there's some language there about disturbance of wetlands. wildlife habitat. again and again. yeah. we have to see what. how we're going to do that. So those were my comments. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. no. they were all good. I guess. um. for the site plan section. Do we think. like. I should address the small installations above that in like. its own little spot for buy right applications? Yeah? Or do I just take it out. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. I think it should have its own section for buy. right. so that the building department has their marching orders as well. Yeah. okay. Jesse Newberry: all right. that's what I'll that's what I'll Anette Lewis: try to do there. Jesse in seven. Oh. 7.4 number one. the noise standard. Yeah. what? What is 130? Unknown: 9.2 what's Jesse Newberry: the it's basically just like. don't make too much noise in your yard. right? Robin Borgestedt: I thought you were gonna ask him to demonstrate with a yellow Anette Lewis: I think it's 198 then dash. But Jesse Newberry: I went looking for anything that talked about noise in a yard. And that's. that's right. Anette Lewis: And our state standards at the DEP on noise regulations. and I believe it says 55 dB at the boundary. So you might look at those and incorporate at least that reference to that section. or as as provided by the DEP. or something like that makes sense. Yeah. we don't for noise. We don't have good bylaw. Unknown: And every time we tried to do it. people have found that out. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: with one question. one issue with doing 55 decibels at the boundary for small applicants. that would be very difficult for them. To know if they're just using manufacturer specifications. So we may. Anette Lewis: yeah. it would be illegal anyway. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: law. right. So. but the small ones. if we do have a guideline. it could just say according to the manufacturer specifications. Anette Lewis: and DEP is requirement. because. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. well. we can use DEP is requirement. but instead of having them measure it at the boundary. they can measure it at the machinery where it's according to manufacturer specifications. Anette Lewis: no standard. Is the state standard. Robin Borgestedt: Okay? So that'll be difficult for a homeowner to assess what the noise level is at the boundary. Anette Lewis: If it's small. it shouldn't even get. yeah. I Jesse Newberry: mean. maybe it. maybe it should have a separate. Unknown: yeah. separate item for small. Jesse Newberry: What we're really Anette Lewis: concerned with 55 is. is high. okay? I mean. it's not insignificant. Unknown: yep. What is the set? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: What is the noise you're talking about. the buzzing of the transformer someplace. Anette Lewis: It could be buzzing. Could be inverter arms. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: Could be the noise of the panels moving. you know. a motor like that. Anette Lewis: Okay. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I'm stuck on the size thing. If we can go back two seconds. what. what size. and if you're going to buy one of these things. does the manufacturer describe and do they say anything? You know. five by seven as measured by that kind of a thing or not? Jesse Newberry: It's really varied. IRA. unfortunately. I'm Robin Borgestedt: sure they provide a surface area of the panel. though. it Jesse Newberry: because a lot of it depends on. like. how efficient the panels are and what the and what the installation is going to give you. So. like. you can spend a ton of money and have a real small area and generate 10 kilowatts. or you can spend less money and have a larger area and still get 10 kilowatts.
Anette Lewis: And it depends on whether there are trees around or not trees. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. a lot of variables. right? And so that's why these towns haven't they. like. some of them haven't defined square footage or anything like that. They're just doing it like this. where. like. if you're less than an acre of land and your capacity is less than 10 kilowatts. here's your guidelines. Robin Borgestedt: Oh. but we have to have size. A way to measure size for our surface area requirements. right? And that's just the surface area of the panel it sounds like. Jesse Newberry: And that gets into the the Unknown: yard section below that. Jesse Newberry: And like I said before. I think we can do a better job of defining what the what the actual. like measured area should be. Unknown: So I'll try to get that in there too. This is great. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Jesse. yeah. it is really great. I'm just wondering. is there a peer review in the sense that someone who has. who installs these things that might have Jesse Newberry: an I would really like that. Ira.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: you're falling short of the one the work you've done. What's the wrong way he Anette Lewis: keeps trying to get the person who knows the most about this involved. and she's leaving so she's not getting involved. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I mean. if we have to escalate up. or if we wanted to get somebody. even at the state level. to look at this from like. you know. DEP. or whoever. or energy. I should say we could probably do that too. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I'm just saying. And even thinking about a company that installs this stuff to have them come in for. you know. a quick overview. And so what kind of things do you run into. and that kind of stuff. that's all. Jesse Newberry: yeah. not a it's not a bad idea. Anette Lewis: And the Energy Committee has that kind of contact. and there are people on the Energy Committee who do this kind of installation. Unknown: Oh. great. perfect. Yeah. I think we should do that. See. do you want to reach out to them? Jesse Newberry: Jesse. yeah. by no means. Am I an expert in this area. but I would love their. yeah. expert opinion anyway. So. yeah. I'll reach out. Great.
Anette Lewis: Ira and not Ira Larry and Robert for this year. Do we have to do anything for the flood plain stuff Unknown: with the Conservation Commission? Larry Kiernan: I have not heard back from them from our last discussion. Robert. have you heard anything on I haven't Robert Hummel: heard of any changes at this time. Unknown: I think that. Anette Lewis: I think that the two of you somehow need to. Follow up and get specific instructions from Linda of what we have to do. Because my understanding was. and this isn't dealing with the 193 necessarily regulations. It's dealing with the federal flood plain stuff they made. They did something. Maybe it was in the 193 regulations. I can't remember where they did it. and they just put stuff in. And we had seen from somebody at the state what we had to have in a bylaw. and some of the stuff that they said is already in our bylaws. just not in one place. because we would do definitions in one place in our bylaw. and then we would have a separate section that dealt with the implementation. and they had all this stuff crammed together. So if we need to figure out what we have to do. then we should so that we don't wind up losing the ability to have homeowners get the flood plain insurance. I'll double check. Yeah. you're going to need to push to make sure that we really understand exactly what we have to do. And then. between you and Larry. if you could work on it. that would be great. Unknown: Yep. yeah.
Anette Lewis: Is there anything else that anyone wants to talk about of a zoning
as we work our way through these when we're doing projects. you will find places where you can't understand what the by law says. So write them down. make sure we all talk about them. But I don't think we're technically able to do a total rewrite. because I don't think people would accept it. We did do a sort of rewrite a few years ago. but it wasn't. It actually created some more problems that I've come across that don't make sense. And somehow. maybe section by section. over time. we can get it into something that you could read easily. that the public could handle and not make it so difficult for people.
Unknown: Okay? Robert. updates. You want me to explain over amendment Robert Hummel: stuff? Yeah. So you have two applications. Next actually. next meeting. next month. tomorrow. 15. So buckle in. because it's me. It's me. A really fun meeting. You take that right now. just based on now the comments are getting in. So a refresher. the Dover Moon we're talking about. the board can can reasonably regulate the bulk the height of the structures. the yard size. lot of area setbacks. open space. parking and building coverage. So we just would remember. we're just talking about the things that we can regular. reasonably regulate. We're not talking about the use. We're not talking about. does it fit in neighborhood? All that stuff that doesn't. that doesn't play a part in here. So under Section 63 there's it talks about the areas where we can look at so we can look at the bulk and the height of the proposed structures and session accessory structures. the open space. the building coverage. the site. the yard size. the physical layout. the structures. driveway. parking areas. utilities and other infrastructure. and then the accuracy of the original parking loading area relations to the proposed use Unknown: on the site. So I will Robert Hummel: most likely do refresher that again at the meeting. and I will put that into both memos for both projects for the 15th. and I'm still going through the both applications and reviewing them with a fine call and trying to explain or get more answers done before the 15th occurs Unknown: from the applicant. For the applicant. Robin Borgestedt: yes. with with regard to height. Can Can you explain how you know. we can review height. But how does that? How does the Belmont case
Unknown: change that Robert Hummel: on. I think that case. they allowed it because. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. so the town was not allowed to limit the height of the steeple. But is it? Does it depend on whether there's sort of occupancy dirt in that area where the height is. or does it not. or Unknown: doesn't that? We have to go back. shaking your head. Can you tell us? Anette noi. Something. Anette Lewis: I can tell you what I thought the decision said. but I think it's a little different than what I thought. My recollection at the time that it happened was Unknown: that you can't limit the height Anette Lewis: just to match what you've got in your bylaw. They can go higher than that as long as. and this is the part that I'm not sure is correct. I thought it was as long as there was really a religious type of reason that you needed to reach up to the sky. You needed whatever. Unknown: if. for example. Anette Lewis: you needed fire suppression and you couldn't do it because it was too high and you did no way of getting at it. I think that's a reasonable regulation. Okay. so it's not that we're totally prohibited. but we have to be reasonable. and it has to be not conflicting with their religious practices. okay? Robin Borgestedt: Because I know from the Design Review Board meeting that we had that that's an area where we should be prepared to.
Unknown: I don't know. address questions. and we should be prepared to. yeah. do many questions? Yeah. at some point. is it worth Robin Borgestedt: maybe not now. but at some point. is it worth the board having preparing comments or an article to go in the newspaper about what the Dover amendment does and doesn't allow us to do Anette Lewis: I don't think we need to do that. I think the newspaper will do it. yeah. and we will begin the first hearing with an explanation of what the Dover amendment is under state law. what we have in our bylaws. Then my proposal would be to open it up to the applicant to do the presentation. because we have two of these on the same night. then board questions and then public questions. okay. Unknown: but I mean. What I did for the Anette Lewis: Veritas was at each meeting. I said. this is what we can control this just so that it's out there each time. right? And Robert. when he puts together the document for us. he's going to have the language of the statute. the language of the bylaw. And then for each of the things that we're able to regulate. he's going to have them on the chart. And then what our standards are in the bylaw. so that at least we have a good match. And then what. what the applicant is proposing is it doesn't meet it. Does it not meet it. so that we have something clear in front of us as we're trying to make the decisions. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. I just feel like it would be helpful in terms of. I don't want to say. reigning in. but focusing public comment if we do see something in the in the in the Wayland post. that will help Unknown: understand Anette Lewis: what I can call the Wayland post. If they do it. I'm sure they're following Robin Borgestedt: it. yeah. and make sure they attend the meeting. And they can ask for the minutes afterwards. or the. you know. watch the recording and make sure that they are Unknown: just my sense. okay. yeah. no. I think so too.
Anette Lewis: Um. and we did the peer review stuff. um. are there any comments and concerns of the board?
Unknown: Okay. anything else Anette Lewis: at our next meeting. we've got the the two applications. the Coptic Orthodox Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and the Carroll School. and hopefully Two sets of minutes for 910. Unknown: and right and 917. 17.
Larry Kiernan: Number one. you think we'll get the applications? We have them. Unknown: They're online. online. Robert Hummel: If you want. please take heart. If you want any Harcourt plants. please take them. Yeah. they have copies. Anette Lewis: I picked up my own so that I could read. Larry Kiernan: All right. they're in your office. Unknown: yeah. for the hard and otherwise. they're available online. yeah. How many extras Have you got? I think one for everyone. Regulations say. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: Is there a particular? A time. Robert. when it's not good to come to the office and when. like you're. you're out to lunch every single day. or Robert Hummel: I'll be. I'll be in the office tomorrow. and I'll be back on next week too. I mean. right now it's just me in the office. because it kind of need us on vacation for two weeks. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: but. but. but the book is right there. right? You could see the pile and just grab it. Unknown: Well. the door is locked. Robert Hummel: Well. if you I also know if you're. if I know you're coming by. I can also put in the put outside the door. Robin Borgestedt: Okay. I'll see what my time looks like. Robert Hummel: Just email me. I'll let you know if I'm. if it's easier. that way they're valuable. you know. yeah. but yeah. they give me like 10 copies of each so it's. Unknown: it's a lot of. it's a lot of. there's a lot paper so Anette Lewis: and we also got an email today that said that there was a proposal from one of the consulting firms. but I think it's a virus. I'm not sure Robert Hummel: you should have received a following email. I got one as a follow up email from it saying. just to lead it. Anette Lewis: Oh. no. I didn't get one. Oh. is it from? I'm sorry it. oh. it was from MetroWest. Oh. the person. the person's name. was on Unknown: it. Don't click it. yeah. don't click it. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Went to the entire board. Yeah. It went to the planning Anette Lewis: board. We have issues. Ira. with things going through Unknown: to you. yeah. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: a lot of a lot of places selling things that. you know we have nothing to do with. you know. like you can get Robert Hummel: rubber strips. Oh. yeah. those my spam. I always see my spam I see this all time my spam
Robin Borgestedt: email came in. The email came in at three o'clock today from Patrick Arno. so just don't Larry Kiernan: open it. My office. They email us regularly with phishing emails. and if you open it. they kind of wrap you on and they Robin Borgestedt: do that with us. Big Larry Kiernan: thumbs up.
Robert Hummel: They did that a few they did a year ago in Wayland. Only the IT director knew that MIMO was going out and didn't tell his staff. and he just he put it out on purpose as a phishing email to see what. just to test the water. to see how it was. I'm assuming he meant town manager knew that's it. Now that was when people who knew that the fishing email was going out. so I obviously caught it instead of Taiji. right away. like I could tell which when they're fishing. it's very Larry Kiernan: fun though you're now you're looking for not to get the thumbs down.
Anette Lewis: Okay.
Robert Hummel: I did the question for you. Anette. I had someone coming in my office. I'm asking about a subdivision. and they had a few questions. and they I suggested to me to talk to you about the potential of a subdivision and and if these. if these waivers. we could be granted. potentially. if Unknown: a waiver could be granted. yes. Robert Hummel: so she's gonna send me an email of the the of the subdivision. She is trying to list a piece of property. and she just wants to know. like. is it likely that a subject could be built or not? Just because they need. they need some a lot of waivers. It's not a developer. or she's not looking to build it. She's trying to list the property. but she also wants to do a little research to know how. how to less Anette Lewis: we go so far. though. because we would have to be approving it. I mean. she should really just hire somebody and. Robert Hummel: well. I don't think she they want sending money. I think this one now it really has to go down to like. one to two waivers that I think be pointed just Fay to you. to personally waving is. do you think it's likely or not? Unknown: You couldn't answer it for her. It's kind of gray. Anette Lewis: That's why. Okay. why don't you? And I talk about what's gray and what's not and then you can talk to her rather than Unknown: me talking to her
Anette Lewis: better. because I it'd be uncomfortable if we had to then make A decision on her application. Unknown: Yeah. it's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. all right. everybody. it's been fun. May I have I'm sure. Jesse Newberry: yeah. we did good. Unknown: I may have to adjourn. Okay. second All in favor. Ira Montague. yes. Jesse Newbury. yes. Robin Borg stead. yes. Larry Kiernan. yes. Anette Lewis. yes.
Okay. I'm surprised to see Nate in. but that's fine. I thought we were just having people show up in the panel. in the attendees. and then we were going to elevate them. Robert. Robert Hummel: yes. I only said I send invites to only three will to Nate. Tom White of the ZBA and Bill Sterling. and that's it. Anette Lewis: Invites for a panelist. or invites for. Robert Hummel: a panelist. Anette Lewis: Okay. that's not what I wrote to them. and that's not what I was expecting. but that's fine. Robert Hummel: Well. especially for Bill. certainly he gets a little confused. so sometimes it's helpful for him to get the complete invite so he can actually log in. Anette Lewis: yeah. except that sometimes we're gonna want him not to necessarily be sitting on the panel. For the whole meeting. Larry Kiernan. are you here now? Larry Kiernan: I am now in the correct meeting. Robin Borgestedt: Okay. good
Anette Lewis: for the agenda this evening. We don't have any draft minutes to approve. We have a discussion of possible amendments to zoning bylaws with representatives. I expect. of the Zoning Board of Appeals and the Design Review Advisory board. The whole boards were invited to participate. but they We only heard back from the two chairs. and we're going to be talking especially about the signage by law 198. Dash 501 and 502 site plan approval by law. maybe section 198. 601 and following housekeeping. cleanup. things that Robert has been keeping track of that we need to deal with. and ground mounted solar and battery. battery. energy storage systems. which would be a new bylaw that Jesse Newberry has been working on. Then updates from the town planner with a brief overview of the Dover amendment parameters for exempt uses under the state law and our bylaw. and status of current peer reviews for the upcoming site plan reviews. then board comments and concerns. And I'm not aware of any matters that I didn't know about 48 hours in advance and then adjourn.
Okay. Bill Sterling is here and well. we have a few minutes before everyone is here. Robert. what is the status of the peer reviews? Robert Hummel: Sure. So I discussed this with Aneri before I went on vacation. and I came back on vacation. and she has officially resigned from the town. and she's given a two week notice. Is noted in. I believe. noted in the last Planning board meeting. I think that Nia mentioned that as one of the updates. and she has not been in since I started back on Monday. So I have the information-from so there's two projects we have. We'll look at the church. and then the Carroll School. So for the church. I we had three scope of works. and I think we have three. Pardon me. you have three. What we have through two projects that we're talking about? Yes. So we have the church the Coptic. the Coptic Church. and then we have the Carroll school. the education use. so for the for the Coptic Church. we have three peer review score works that we received back. And I think Believe. believe that me and Linda have agreed upon one of them. And then for the Carroll School. I have not received anything yet for that. Anette Lewis: have the RFPs has gone out? Robert Hummel: the RFP the RFP is also different. you mean the RFQ. whatever I believe so. but I would have to follow up with Aneri. when she gets back. Anette Lewis: she has somebody check her email to see ? Robert Hummel: she should be back tomorrow. Hopefully. okay. so we've been kind of itching to follow up with her on that. And then for. I believe that the board wanted transportation. traffic engine peer review. Is that correct for both of them? Anette Lewis: Not necessarily. the you need to make that determination under the Dover amendment. certainly for the parking and the circulation on site.
Robert Hummel: So did the board want peer reviews for that too. Anette Lewis: for what two? Robert Hummel: the two projects for a traffic engineer to that's what Anette Lewis: I just said. certainly for the on site traffic movement. And I you can do some on the approach way. but you have to be careful because of the requirements of the Dover amendment. as you'll recall from the Veritas project. Robert Hummel: So circulation and what was the other?
Anette Lewis: circulation and driveway approach. I mean. they can. I don't know. mmyou have to talk to the applicant about what they're willing to pay for. those things they would have to pay for. but for traffic review. didn't one of them send in a traffic review. They both did okay. So you could have somebody look at them. I guess. But I don't think we can do a major. major. do on those. Robert Hummel: I have. just today. because it wasn't. wasn't. I'm sure where near he was with we've seen those out. So I send. send them out for both of them. Anette Lewis: So okay Robert Hummel: but I've not received anything back. No scoreboard back yet for the writers. And I've not received anything yet back for the Carroll School for 503g but my understanding is probably in Aneri's mailbox. So if she's not tomorrow. then I will. I will request IT to take a look at their dept email box. because I we need. I need to move on this. Anette Lewis: Yeah. no. we do. And it would be good to have the peer at least preliminary peer review done before the October Robert Hummel: Yeah. that would be the goal. But I think this. 15 hearing.
this change in in uh. staffing. and her absence has had made. made a little harder to get this done. especially when I don't have all the information. And it also Anita us out so I don't have Anita was. I think she was an emailed on some of those emails. so she's also not there too. so I can't see what's going on. Anette Lewis: Yeah. she didn't have them either when I talked to her. Robert Hummel: So that's what we have now been trying to put pieces together since I since I was out on vacation for a week. Anette Lewis: Okay? So for the things that have gone out. it'll be consolidated with Board of Health. Planning board and Conservation. Robert Hummel: yep. So for the Board of Health. for people about the ground mounding analysis. That's what the Board of Health would like to see. Can think a lot of stuff septic is a little early for that stuff. but so mostly be ground mounding. But their stuff would be the chapter 193. I think of chapter 193 of storm warning. Anette Lewis: I just want to mention that the notice went out for the in the newspaper for both of those hearings. I didn't see it in advance. and it just said that it was going to be a Zoom meeting. So for the first meeting that we have for each of the hearings. they're going to be zoom. They're not going to be in person. as we discussed. but for those thereafter. they're going to be in zoom and in person. Robert Hummel: Yeah. I think it's. I think it's. it's easier for me to set up the first hearing. if it's just zoom. and then we can. we can go to a better Tran better to hybrid into next meeting. Anette Lewis: Okay. wait. I mean the reason that I'd like to have all the peer review guys lined up. is I'd like to be able to schedule hearings so that people know what the subject matter is that we're going to be dealing with at each of the hearings. And perhaps be able to consolidate then. when we're talking about storm water. perhaps be able to meet with the Conservation Commission at the same time so that it's not as disruptive for the applicant and for the residents. Yeah. so let's think about that. Thank you. Robert Hummel: And when was it that. when was a decision that you wanted to be hybrid was that? Was that last week's meeting? Yeah? Yeah. right. So good idea everything. I get everything done before they lost me. me because. no. Anette Lewis: well. and Anina thought that she could add it afterward. And I explained to her that she couldn't. because it was a legal notice. She thought that we could add the in person afterward. Robert Hummel: Yeah. it's fine. but we can just change it. We'll just move it to hybrid at the next main. yeah. Anette Lewis: okay. Robert Hummel: not big deal Anette Lewis: um. I don't see Tom here. Tom White Unknown: act. There's an ACTWO. I don't know who that is. Anette Lewis: unless somebody else came in. Robert Hummel: someone has a hand up in the in the audience. Anette Lewis: I just okay. that might be Tom. Robert Hummel: it's. don't recgonize the name. Thomas White: Sorry. That's me. That's my Anette Lewis: Oh. good. Thomas White: ACTWO. that's my company's name. Unknown: Terrific. Anette Lewis: So we have Bill Sterling. who I can't see. Bill. are you here? Robbie Bullard: I'll bring him over. Anette Lewis: Okay. I thought he was brought over already.
So this evening. we have Tom White Chair of the zoning board. Nate Maltinsky who is our zoning Commissioner. and not Susan Westerling. she's not to be brought over. She's the public. Bill Sterling got it. And Bill Sterling. who's the Chair of the Design Review Board. so I'm assuming for you. Tom and you. Bill. that you've discussed what we're going to be discussing tonight with your board. and you've got the authority to speak for each of your boards. because they're not posted. And Thomas White: yes. for me. that is. that is the case. Anette Lewis: Can't hear you. Bill. you're you're muted. William Sterling: I assumed our entire board would be invited to this meeting. Unknown: They were. but you're not posted. so that's okay. as long as you can represent. William Sterling: I assume that Robert knew that we were going to be having to post it. I don't know. Anette Lewis: Uh. um. I don't think he posts. I don't. You'll have to work that out with him. Robert Hummel: I don't make any assumptions. Do you need? If you need a postage just ask I I'm not. I just got back from vacation. so been trying to catch up so not was not paying for everything. Who posted what Anette Lewis: did the invitation out to everybody on your on your board. William Sterling: Oh. do you want me to sign off then? Anette Lewis: No. Robert. to start off.
Robert. have you spoken with these guys before you prepared the sign? Unknown: I did not. Anette Lewis: You did not. Okay. Robert Hummel: see. these are some ideas that have came from Well. in general. yes. So I have had talks with. with Bill Sterling about some part of the signage by law. about how we have one example be the Jersey Mike sign. how that's it's technically not allowed the back lit signs. and that'd be something we could potentially put into a zoning amendment. But in general. these are the things that I've picked up that we don't have today. and that would be kind of be cleaned up a little bit. and some of it is pretty much basic I can put on. I don't know if how you want to run this back and put on what I have so far? Anette Lewis: No. not yet. I don't think so. Let's hear. I don't know Who should go first. You Tom and Bill decide who wants. I assume the two of you have talked. right? Thomas White: Yeah. we've we've talked. We had a we had a discussion a couple weeks ago. in general. So I can just only. I can really only comment from our perspective. on the zoning board. right? Because we actually have to hear of the sign. the applications for signs and every single application. someone always wants to there's always a special reason why they need to do something slightly different from the bylaw. The most recent example was a pediatric clinic on old Connecticut path. right kind of in the center of town like to comply technically with this the bylaw like they wouldn't have been able to put a small sign on the rear of the building. sort of facing the parking lot. sort of advertising the doctors names. right? Because the sign on the front. when you combine it with all the other signs in the building. kind of exceeded the. The 30 square foot rule. right? So there hasn't been a single sign application that we get on the zoning board where there doesn't have to be some. I don't want to call it waiving. but some. some requests to somehow tweak something in the regulations. because they need for this reason. and they're usually always benign reasons. right? But I can my observation as an architect when working in other communities is I've seen other sign bylaws that I don't have any examples to share because I wasn't that well prepared for tonight. but I've seen examples where other communities have a bylaw that has different requirements for different districts. Now. maybe this is appropriate for Wayland. Maybe it's not. but I'll use the example of Waltham. Wait in Waltham. there are some districts where the signs are much larger because they're viewed from the highway. Maybe not appropriate for Wayland. right? Because we don't have a highway. but as a case of as an example. right? Certain buildings are allowed to have much larger signs. because the primary audience for the sign is vehicle traffic moving at 60 miles an hour. Other districts where it's more residential the signs. signs are sort of designed to be in keeping with that more residential district. So a possibility when thinking about how to consider revising the ordinance is that there could be slightly different requirements for different districts. right? And I'm coming at this from the perception that I'm hearing that in general. people are unhappy with the signs because we don't have a super strict way on the Zoning Board of Appeals. of interpreting the esthetic criteria of the signs. right? We had can only go by the by law. We might have personal opinions and say This sign is unattractive. like. I really don't like that. The blue color. I think the red lettering is tacky. We can't that can't be part of our hearing process. So we do get advisory opinions from the design review review board that can weigh in on the kind of quality level of the sign and sort of their compliance with the bylaw. But because of the structure of the Design Review Board and the way it is set up in the bylaw. these are kind of only advisory opinions. and a applicant with a strong legal case for why a sign needs to be larger. needs to be split into three parts. needs to have a certain geometry. Can easily say. well. like. you know. you have a signage by law. it consists of these five paragraphs. And there's. there's nothing in these five paragraphs. No one has said this to me. but there's nothing in those five paragraphs that says. like. you can kind of legislate or sign approval on do you think it's ugly? You think it's architecturally appropriate. etc? We can't do that anyway. really. no. so. so it's but other communities have done this. There are other communities you can see. I think people use um. Freeport Maine as an example. Like their signage ordinance in the center district. like all the signs are made out of wood. they've stipulated the material. They've stipulated the size. Can we stipulated the color? I don't know. in Unknown: Massachusetts that. I Robert Hummel: don't know you can do it depict historic districts. Anette Lewis: In a historic district. yes. and Nantucket. you can. but that's got special legislation for Nantucket. Thomas White: correct? You know. this is so I'm only I. again. as an architect. not a lawyer. I don't necessarily. I'm not great legal expert on what is permitted and not. I'm just sort of. you know. giving you examples of things that I both I think of. like the challenges we have on the zba right. enforcing the by law that we have right. and the fact that. you know. in crafting any bylaw right. you don't want to be so specific. because you then constrain options. and you might accidentally make something much worse. because you can't if you're too specific. you can't think of every instance that you want to legislate. So you've got to create something that that is the great balance between. you know. control and maximum flexibility. right? But hearing that people have been generally not pleased with the signs that that we wind up approving on the zba. we're sort of. we're happy if there is some. some way that we can either get a little more authority. kind of. architecturally. to to shape these signs within the bounds of. you know. Mass General zoning laws. or is there some other vehicle can can the Design Review Boards comments sort of include more kind of architectural critiques that we can kind of bring in to our hearing? Unknown: Systems and and sort of Thomas White: opine on. you know. within the context of of the by law. Anette Lewis: the way that the by law is written currently is relatively generic. It's 40 square feet. essentially. you know. you can figure out where you want to put it. how you want to put it. but it's 40 square feet. So that's and there are provisions. I think. in the by law. which you know about. that give you the ability to Unknown: make them bigger. Anette Lewis: Yes. the idea of having different districts becomes. this is just me speaking problematic. because we don't have that many different No. you don't. you know. yeah. and residential isn't supposed to have them at all. true. And the town center has its own zoning stuff under that. so it doesn't leave lots. no. Unknown: So if you could give us specific things Anette Lewis: that that we can try and work with that would help. I mean. it's 40 square feet too small. Does it need to be bigger? You know. on the lit dental building. that sign seems really large. I don't know. Thomas White: it seems like it's large. but it's not. It's like. because we. that was a that one we went through for a lot. and I mean. they did ask for. they did ask for an increase. but I want to say it's within 15% so I would say every universally. we are asked for increases. A lot of times it's because people want more than one sign. The most recent one was the approval for the Dunkin Donuts Jimmy John's facility that's going in where the um. Unknown: former Bank of America was like Thomas White: when you added this. I believe. and I could be mistaken. but I believe when you add they and they made the case. and when you added the square footage of the signs. I think it was four square feet or five square feet over. or something like that. It was a trivial amount. But again. the case was made. There needs to be signs on two faces. and they probably should be of equal scale. So for the most part. the request is to is to allow us to increase it. Which the bylaw. I don't know that necessarily need to change. We have the ability to increase it. I would. I would say that it's doesn't seem very well worded. It's horrendous. because when I read it. I and again. I'm not a lawyer. but I could read the sentence to I could read the ability for us to increase the signage size two different ways. So if I can do that. I can imagine someone who's a really skilled little gate would have a different opinion. So I it would probably be nice if it was maybe there was something a little more legally Anette Lewis: precise. Yeah. it would be nice if the whole thing were more legally there's a lot Thomas White: of ambiguity in the number of Anette Lewis: years ago. I was tasked with Susan Kaufman. who was a member of the zoning board. to come up with a news sign by law. and we worked for a week and came up with it and took it to the planning board. and the planning board then said. Oh. that's nice. And then put it aside. and maybe we can look at it again. And also. I mean. I understand what you're saying. and maybe it should say something like for two street facing sides of a building. or street facing and parking lot facing sides of a building. you can have a sign or something like that. Thomas White: Yeah. that wouldn't be that wouldn't necessarily be bad.
Anette Lewis: But aside from that. are there other things other than the faces that it needs to be on in the saw and for 40 square feet? Is that a bad number. or is that an okay one?
Thomas White: I think it's a reasonable number. I actually. you know. not withstanding all the things we're talking about. Unknown: The fact that you have Thomas White: a body in town that does have the ability to look at it and regulate it. that that does give us the ability to say what you're proposing is too large. right? So. like. I would be hesitant to say. you know. make it 60 square feet. Because I think if people's perceptions are the signs that we have now are on the large side. I wouldn't advocate increasing it. We have the ability to kind of constrain them to. you know. again. because we have the ability to allow the 40 square feet to be exceeded. It gives us the ability to make a determination of. What we think is reasonable. but this is where. this is where it becomes challenging. because I Unknown: think of an example like Thomas White: if someone asked for a 100 square foot sign on the face of a building the size of Stop and Shop. that's architecturally reasonable. because that might be proportional to the size of the building. but if someone asked for a 100 square foot sign on the lit dental building. it would be too large. So is there a way for us to bring in. in the bylaw. a discussion about sort of the architectural character of a sign and why it may be appropriate to allow for a larger one versus not. I think that would be the P that's. in a way. in my mind. the missing piece by just saying we can only go by the sentences in the bylaw. it implies that the zoning board doesn't have the ability to talk about the actual design merits of a sign. and yet. I mean. someone is coming to us to approve it. and this is why it's a little difficult Anette Lewis: a special permit. I think that you have that ability. I think we'd have to ask town council if we can bring in the architectural elements. I would say we probably can't. because we're supposed to be pretty much cut and dry. Yeah. the architectural elements are very subjective. Unknown: But could Robin Borgestedt: you tie the if they're coming for a special permit for a larger size? Could you tie an absolute maximum to the percentage of the face of the building that the sign is going to be on. you know. 40 square feet. but under no circumstances can a special permit be allowed that would permit the sign to take up more than. you know. 20% of the face of the building. Thomas White: And so I appreciate. I appreciate the idea there. I think it might be hard to do just because there are not a huge amount. but there are. there are enough buildings of differing sizes in town where it might be. might be hard to do. because what could look good at 20% on some building. might look better at 35% on another building. So it might be hard. I like the idea. but it might be difficult to actually implement something that tricky. Anette Lewis: also on the face of a building. depending on how the building is constructed. the top part might be smaller than the bottom part. And how do you know what the face is that you're counting Robin Borgestedt: from? Right? But is there some. you know. is there some similar way. some other measurement that you can take. that you can say there's a hard stop at this percentage. even for a special permit.
Thomas White: Right now. there's not. it just is up to us on the zoning board to say we don't. we don't agree that this is appropriate. And. you know. we have to. we have to find the language to say that it's not appropriate within the sentences of the signage. Anette Lewis: By law. no. you can also use the special permit. We can use Thomas White: a special permit language that it's. like. it's. it would derogate from the character. yeah. okay. Then. then we probably have enough. I mean. we haven't been presented with something like that. so it's it hasn't been an issue so far. But you know. if we're looking at understanding this. it's a possibility that Unknown: it could be so if there are other Anette Lewis: things that you think of. even as we're talking tonight. and even in other parts of our by law. I know that you've given us stuff over the years and never done anything with it. We're starting to try and and fix the so just pipe up. Bill. Do you want to talk? Unknown: Sure. I.
William Sterling: I looked at this from and I agree with all of Tom's concerns. having been on the zoning board myself for over 10 years. I do feel though that in those 10 years. even though it was frustrating. we did manage to get through coping with some very. you know. cryptic notes in the zoning by law about signage. I You may and I agree with Tom on this too. that you may regret getting more detailed about what you are going to require. because that will just make the zoning board's job probably more difficult. I think that let me get get into what I was thinking about. though. Robert Hummel: when we did the guidelines back in 2011
William Sterling: our committee. our working group. I believe we looked. At the Newton. city of Newton signage bylaws as an example. at the time. as a as a good example of signage
guideline. And we also looked at some others. several others. So this past week. when we were invited to join this meeting. I thought about what where we are today. and it appears that there's still a sentiment in Wayland Unknown: that that our town William Sterling: look to the town of Concord as an example of a town we'd like to look like. Anette Lewis: and I think that William Sterling: the first thing I did then was to check their bylaws out. They they rewrote their bylaws in 2020 and that date was encouraging to me. thinking that. well. they've fixed all the kind of problems that we may have faced. But as I scan through the signage
Robert Hummel: miles. I it was William Sterling: surprising to me that they actually allow signs that we would never want in Wayland. So what I wanted to do next was Robin and I talked about having the Design Review Board look at different towns. I was going to drive around Concord and and get a better idea of what the how the signage fits with their buildings and fits with the character of the town. It may not be as consistent as you were mentioning a historic district where you say all signs have to be wood. which I think they do in places like Beacon Hill. I think that it does. It may end up that we can use their recent sign by laws as a guide of how to organize the information. but we may not agree with all the decisions they made about what would be required. Unknown: That's where I am on that. Okay. Nate. do you want to weigh in? Well. Mr. White stole the show. So that was well. well. put together. Thomas White: Tom. I don't know Unknown: about that. No. no. really. you covered all the bases. I believe that maybe the style of lights that is more prevalent now. like the ones that were permitted for Jersey mics. where it's a it's got a rare illumination that's not obtrusive to to anyone is not glaring. I think we have to look at new styles of lighting that we can permit. that that is tasteful. that there's there's a lot of new designs. a lot of new technology that's out there that can be utilized. that I think we have to look at and address in the future here. I don't know if you've gone by Jersey Mike's at night. but it's. it's a well done light. And is there? Is there marquee is what they use for all their stores. And I I think that the zoning board has done a great job of adhering to the needs of the applicants and working with them to make the signage work. and nothing has been in my tenure so far that nothing's been out of control and within reason. So there are. there is some good language. and I did look at a few other towns. but I would like to see your. your work that you've done previously. Anette. that you presented to the planning board years ago. Okay. I'll look for it. Anette Lewis: So with a jersey Mike sign. What kind of lighting would you call that if we were going to draft something for that? Unknown: It is a low illumination. rare lighting. and it's more of the like a halo. It's a halo lighting. and William Sterling: as opposed to internally illuminated. That's that's not allowed. that's correct. and that's why we were material. then a backlight will shine through the sign material. and that's not allowed. yeah. Thomas White: And that's why we didn't flag this as a concern. because it seems to. it seems to not meet the requirement for the. you know. backlit right component. even though it is illuminated and it's got a halo effect. So this is an instance where I don't. I don't think they designed this to skirt the language of the bylaw. I think it's their it's their brand. But this is an unintended consequence of the. About the way the by law is worded. And I don't think anyone would have anticipated trying to come up with a definition of that style of sign lighting. because it's not it. Probably it's not very common. It's done more now. but it's not something that I think would have been anticipated. Anette Lewis: So when in our bylaws. we have that signs can't oscillate. They can't. I believe it says somewhere that they can't be neon signs and they can't be internally lit. Is my recollection. Is basically the three criteria. Unknown: Are they problematic for you to have those criteria? No. I don't think so. I would keep them too. Okay. they're fine.
Anette Lewis: So Robert has gone through and made some suggestions for us. Doesn't cover all of the things you're talking about. and I've read through them. and our bylaws are really confusing. I mean. I was even though he marked them up. they're still confusing. And I think that they need some assistance. Robert. do you want to put them up and take us through so that we can all see the kinds of things you're talking about and tell us. in an overview. what kinds of changes you were thinking that we should do. Robert Hummel: Yeah. so for the first paragraph. just really make it very easy to understand who has the Fay to approve signs and what. what can the zba or which special. special permit granted for you can do so first. Section five. oh. 1.11 is just cleaning it up. but it also takes away the lines that provided. However. the signs with moving parts or internal limited are prohibited to allow that internal lighting in limited signs like Jersey makes. And then another thing that that the pilot doesn't touch about is that is Dover amendment signs. So putting a section in that under five. oh. 1.2 to cover non profit. educational. our cultural. religious or child care uses says something that'd be something new. because we don't have a category for that today. Point three. oh. I skipped over this. Also adding three new definitions display area. sign and temporary sign. So actually given information. so setting. what does mean in in Section 104. and what display area means? Because that is also a discussion that people have. is. how you do. how do you actually measure display area? Is it the whole box? Is a drawing a box around it. or is just. you know. each. each one you have so be drawing a giant box around the sign. And that's that. that it will be the display area. so that would be not a a Unknown: just a disagreement. Robert Hummel: And then format to 550. 1.3 adding the word signs when you know upper casing it also adding a section about science cannot be illuminated longer than 30 minutes after before. before or after closing any signs just to kind of loosen. you know. close then close that there. One of the issues we're finding in this town. I've noticed. is people will just put up temporary signs up in it. We don't have. we don't have a section today about temporary signs. So a new company comes in. let's say. you know. Mike's clock. You know Clock Company. They come into town and they got. you know. a permit from the zba. and then they probably signs up. We have. it's. it's. it's our job is staff to enforce that. So one ideas would be to allow them to put up temporary signs for the. you know. the first 30 days. while they open up. and then for them to. you know. take that down once the 30 days is over. just so they can get that the new business in. But they're not about to give it a long term. because we've had that in the past where new businesses get their special. you know. their special power. For the zba. they put up the signs. and then they put up these. a phrase signs for up. and then we don't have. we don't have a section in a bylaw. And this is something I've discussed with needs. It's just giving them the grace period for 30 days. But one idea would be to allow for temporary sign. Allowed them to apply for a temporary sign with this with the building Commissioner. and then for them take it down after 30 days is over. just so they can get the new business in and people can find them. but then also give them the opportunity to actually Unknown: advertise. so that. Robert Hummel: I have to right now. I also wrote down.
potentially adding something into the first section about allowing signs on two faces of the wall. kind of we talked about the young donuts and Jimmy John about how they have a sign on the front of the building. and then they want to decide. and potentially allowing that. if it. if it's within the 40 square feet. and making. maybe being making that by right. so that businesses have to come in if they comply with the bylaw with 40 square feet. but they just have two signs because they. you know. are ones on the part driveway and one is on the road. That is a potential idea we could. we could add in there. So. but I do agree this time bar is Unknown: very small. but also there's Robert Hummel: places in this bylaw where it's very confusing. and I think it'd be helpful to clean that up at the same time. Anette Lewis: So when you talk about the faces of a building. this is for everybody. all of us that we've been talking about. One could say two faces. One could say faces facing on public areas. There's some buildings that might need three because of the way that they face. How would it be easiest for the zoning board? Thomas White: I guess if it was instead of. instead of specifying a number. you could say. you know. signs could be permitted on multiple faces. you know.
Unknown: with appropriate Thomas White: reviews. or something like that. Because if you say two faces. I think Anette makes an excellent point. Maybe there's a building that's an octagon at a corner that needs signs on three sides. So I wouldn't want to say only two. I like Robert's point that if there's a way to streamline this so someone. someone who has the need for something that's a little bit unusual. signs on two sides. but they're under the 40 square feet. maybe they could just be approved. you know. by the building Commissioner as of right? And it doesn't require a permit. That's an interesting idea as well. So I think you could say signs could be permitted on multiple phases. you know. subject to review. or some language like that Anette Lewis: when you're reviewing a project that clearly is going to need a sign. from my point of view. you should be approving the sign at the same time you shouldn't. They should not be walking away without having at least the size of the sign and the location of the sign approved and then come back for. you know. the final sign when they when they get it. because we have people who have done buildings with no signage. and they should have had a special permit for the building to begin with. And then they don't. they walk away with no sign permit. permit. and then they go back to you for the sign permit. It just doesn't seem Unknown: efficient. I Thomas White: Yes. So the last two restaurants. we actually we approved the signage permit and the restaurant use special permit at the same time. That is a little unusual. Most people bifurcate the process. I don't know why. and give us a sign. They come up. they say. this is. we're going to come back later with a signed permit. William Sterling: That's been my experience. too. It's. I'm not quite sure why. you know. Thomas White: So we combine them. William Sterling: They're building a building on spec. Yeah. they don't know Jesse Newberry: who's gonna Yeah. that could be so
Thomas White: we don't necessarily have a problem with it. but as I said. Where. where we can we like to streamline it and write one decision with both permits. So as I said. the last two. last two restaurants. we were able to do that and combine them. Robert Hummel: An interesting case is the terrain project. I believe that they came in front of the Zion view board already about for their signage plan and their science plan is is. of course. over 40 square feet. But when we. when me and Bill. looked at together. um. based on how many tenants I used to have in that Plaza. the number of signage was the number of proposed signage square footage was under the number of tenants that he if you took each tenant and occupied by 40 square feet. or it was a number. But I don't they don't believe they have applied Thomas White: for the zba yet. They have not applied to the zba for that the signage. they Robert Hummel: haven't closed in a property too. So they're not gonna apply for the sign. They're not gonna zba until they close on a property. Yeah. you haven't closed or the the property manager has not closed in property yet. so they haven't applied for it. So there are some scenarios where. yeah. would have been nice to rank him in. With their plan and approved it. but they also have to make sure that they're not wasting anybody's time and money by submitting a plan. And then it's me happening. Anette Lewis: So one of the areas that needs to be changed in the bylaw is it talks about per lot. and sometimes you will have three lots combined for one project. And sometimes you'll have one lot with. as you said before. five tenants. So we need to figure out probably more on. well. depending. I was going to say probably more on a per tenants. size per tenant. number of signs. the problem then becomes as and I don't know if these are all approved signs. but if you look at the office building at the corner of Boston Post Road and Pelham Island. there are signs that are showing up. I'm sure they're way over. They're 40. I don't know if those are even approved. Unknown: Does anyone know Thomas White: they haven't? We haven't seen any applications for Unknown: anything else
William Sterling: we when we were on it. Anette. a number of times. the zoning board. when I was in the zoning board. a number of times we basically. and it wasn't written in the bylaws. We basically had to wing it and say. Well. this is a multi tenant complex. You take what used to be donlins complex. and it had many tenants and many signs. and we basically just had to use our own judgment on how many you know. if you have at least one sign per tenant and send this. I know we have two entrances. one in the front and one in the back. so you have to use your judgment. And I think it would be hard to legis. you know. to get legislative about it. and to find every condition that you're going to face. but you may want to put some language in there that gives the zoning board level of comfort that they can do this make right value Unknown: judgment. Yeah. that makes sense. Thomas White: and that's as simple as you know. confirming with town council that we can use not only the signage by law. but every bit of the language in the 4201. for a special permits.
because typically. we've been given the guidance. whether it's correct or not. that we need to refrain from making kind of specific design you know. design comments you know. which are usually more for the planning board or the Design Review Board. But given the unusual circumstance we have here where we're in charge of enforcing this like. you know. I just want it would be great to just have confirmation that we have perhaps maybe more leeway than we have traditionally been thinking Robin Borgestedt: Roberts. Roberts draft that's on the screen does provide some language. right? The very first sort of section in that big paragraph. yeah. each business on a lot is entitled to one wall sign. and each lot is entitled to one freestanding sign to display all the businesses. So. you know. kind of taking that and maybe beefing that up and making it. you know. little more clear. The difficult situation is when each business also has. you know. a roadway facing facade. and. you know. their main entrance is on a different facade. kind of thing. William Sterling: Yeah. Donald's is another example of that. you know. they have a major road entrance from two different roads. So they need two kiosks with multi signs. maybe the third one on the intersection with the corner. you know. So they have multiple needs there.
Anette Lewis: Also talking about businesses. Sometimes we have not businesses. We have churches. we have social clubs. so we have to figure out how to word that kind of stuff. Thomas White: Well. that would be. there are provisions in the Dover amendment about religious uses. so that may be difficult to
Unknown: develop. or at least a little more challenging.
Robert Hummel: Are we? How do you feel about putting a provision about for free. saying sign to add Unknown: landscaping? I
Thomas White: think it's a good idea. I think it's hard. It's hard to enforce. because. say. they would put us in on the zoning board. in the position of telling them what they have to landscape with which we're happy to do. But like. you know. it's like you don't. you know. probably don't want us saying you have to use these kinds of shrubs. like. at this density. this. Right? I mean. that would be difficult for us to do from a design perspective. Robert Hummel: A good. a good zoning by law for signage is. is actually the town of Acton. And I worked at Town Acton for six years in the past. And they were. we were very. they had a very. very. very detail Zoning Bylaw. section by section. village districts. non village districts. and it is one section and about. they have to have landscaping for free. saying sign and space still not a landscaping is based on the height of the sign. So if you. if your height is the size six feet. you would multiply by it by two. and then you would square that so be 144 square feet of landscaping. And it just says that landscaping must be planted and maintained with suitable vegetation. shrubs and flower. It didn't say what kind of things. Okay. so there is provisions. I. I didn't put in this draft. But we. if you. if you want to beautify signage in the future. you could require landscaping. And that was also one of the things that the smart could go to the planning board of zba for in time of acting too. is if you wanted to reduce your landscaping. So if you had to put 144 but you. you came in. you're like. I can only put in 50 square feet. You can go to zba or planning board for for relief for that too. So there's a. if you look at that by law. there's a few other things you could. we could potentially do. I am not advocating for different sides of different districts. because we. we don't truly have. like. a real village district. like the town of acting does they have real districts that have a real village feel to it. Thomas White: But yeah. I agree. I think it's like. it's. I used it as an example. but yeah. it's. you're hard pressed to sort of make a case that Wayland has these kind of unique. unique districts that would require it. maybe. Robert Hummel: But the town of Acton had it had a very. very detailed temporary sign program too. where for getting new businesses. you if you want to advertise your business. you would apply for up to 45 days a year where you put up a temporary sign. So if you're doing like. you know. sales and stuff. you could you would pick your days. what days you want to do. But that's really. getting really detail into this by law. But I think the whole point of this was to make this simple. but also allow for. honestly. a lot for temporary science. because people are just putting up temporary science for new businesses. And it's hard to. it's really hard to. we don't have the staffing to police them all the time. or to bug them all time. to take down the science. So I think internally right now. we're just like allowing it for the first three days. just because we know them. that they are new. and they want to attract new businesses and new. you know. to the to the location. But we gotta figure a way to govern that so that people can. we can kind of administrate that in the future. Anette Lewis: Robert. in what you have in five. oh. 2.4 with temporary signs no bigger than 10 square feet in display area. and the sign. any sign that moves or a banner. is prohibited. So the kinds of things that we've been seeing are essentially banners. They're like flag things. Robin Borgestedt: flappy things Robert Hummel: we don't want. We want. we don't want the any moves. So I'm thinking more of like a sandwich board. a five by two sandwich board. or a one of the signs you kind of push into the ground Anette Lewis: right with the sandwich board. And I can't remember where I read it in here. but you talk. Okay. it's right underneath it. a temporary sign. shall neither be erected on a sidewalk. walkway or driveway. nor within five feet from the sideline of a street or right of way customarily used by the general public. The sideline of the street. to most people. is where the pavement ends. and it's really the lot line. because they can't put their signs on the public way. you know. in the unpaved right of way? Unknown: Yep. correct.
Robin Borgestedt: It seems like we have a lot of those flapping signs that are more or less permanent in town right now. Unknown: Yeah. agree.
Where do you have those? I
Robin Borgestedt: think the landscaper in the center of town has had one up and somewhere else maybe. is it this the convenience store somebody else has one up also further along on route 20.
Anette Lewis: Is that something that you please snake. Or does somebody have to tell you about it? Or how does it work? If we Unknown: see it. we will take care of the situation. And then we receive phone calls occasionally. okay? And we go out and enforce that and pull signs or ask the Ask the individuals to remove them if they don't. We take it upon ourselves. The last one was at 27 in old con up on the hill. up in the granite landscaper. he did not remove it. so I climbed the wall and took it down.
So we will have quite a few signs. So. 112 112 to 116 Main Street is going to be all new signs coming up here soon. I know terrain is going to be applying soon for signage. Josh Fox did come in last week and had mentioned that are actually got some paperwork to for their signage. so we'll have some things to consider here in the near future. And for your purposes. Anette Lewis: aside from the things that we've already talked about. are there other things that would make your life easier? Unknown: I think that if it helps that. like Tom alluded to. that most of your national or your well put together organizations have their signage in place when they present their plans. and that's very helpful. So you get a full imagery of what they're presenting. and they have design teams. you know to present that. so that's very helpful. and then your smaller venues typically don't. and that's okay. because that's what makes the world go round. So I think that if someone's presenting a project or remodel for a building that they we should ask them to have the signage as part of the package
so we can see the full concept of what's going on. Anette Lewis: So would that be in the by law that we would say that? Or would that be in the zoning boards regulations? Unknown: I think you could put the bylaw sounds reasonable. Thomas White: You also might be able to. you also might be able to put it in the zoning application. Like. when someone comes in for a business use. like a business use special permit. it should be. like. automatic and where's your sign application as well. Like. because that way we could. you can hear them in in the same case. I don't know if that has to be in the by law. or if that could be. maybe it could be in the zba regulations. because that could be easy. That's easier to change. And then. you know. you could just accept those as as permit applications. I would say Robert Hummel: regulations. I would say you because you can't. you can't require someone to to in the pilot. to to that. So I think regulations would be easy to to know to Anette Lewis: do that. Yeah. even if they don't have the full color or the full font. knowing the approximate size is kind of helpful. I think. Unknown: yeah. I would agree. Ira. Larry. Jesse. Larry Kiernan: I have two questions. One is Tom or Nate. how do you think our signs compare to neighboring towns? I honestly don't have an opinion on that. The other question is.
have you gotten feedback that is harder or easier or difficult to get signs in Wayland versus other towns. Any feedback Unknown: from folks?
Thomas White: I haven't received any feedback on the zba that there are problems or complaints with the delays or challenges getting signed permits. Larry Kiernan: normally one or two meetings. Thomas White: It's normally one meeting. We've very rarely had someone come back with a second permit. You know. really send someone away with a continuance to come up with a revised design? Yeah. I think qualitatively. No. when I drive around. I mean. I don't study this. but when I drive through Sudbury. like or Natick or Wellesley. I don't think the signs that I see in businesses there are. like. you know. being necessarily better than the ones in Wayland. They don't seem. they don't really seem all that different. you know. because these kinds of communities generally have the same types of businesses. you know. supermarkets. small strip shopping centers with. you know. multi tenants. You know.
Unknown: in my opinion. I think that the. The predecessors in Wayland have done a good job. as far as review of signs and what's been in place. and it's. I don't see really anything as obtrusive. As far as signage. um. there's a couple that has slipped through the cracks that have just done new signs. Um. but for the most part. I think it's. I think Wayland is very tasteful. and there's nothing that really sticks out that I would say. you know. I don't like that. I mean. there's a couple on route 20 that I noticed. But for the most part. I think that everyone's done a good job. and. you know. can only make it a little bit better and and more fluid transition to to get his new sign. I have a couple questions. Larry. you done? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Yeah. Unless I'm missing something here. all we seem to be talking about is that size of the sign. or how many signs there can be on the building. What I'm missing is is. how do you approve the design if there aren't specific design criteria. like size. font size. you know. what? A palette of background color. you know. we have the lighting. I don't hear any how. And some of you say. with an application comes in. of course. you take the tape measure to it. That's okay. but you're also talking about approving. It sounds like you're talking about the esthetics of does this sign fit into the community and yet. who's to guide them. except for their own personal taste.
Thomas White: that's challenging. For example. if Jersey Mike's has a standard sign that is. that is the same that every one of their locations. we can't. as a community. say. you know. you you can't. You have to use. like. our predetermined background colors. font size. etc. because the sign is part of the corporate brand. So I think that would be a very unfriendly way to proceed Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: with it. Maybe so. But I know on the cape. and in other situations. McDonald's. for example. they have not allowed them to use the arches with their. you know. backlit that they've required. You know. I if I remember the logos there. the typeface is there. but it's either. you know. Thomas White: I again. not an expert in it. but I believe I'm familiar with places that have done that. I believe. though those are specific kind of already legislated historic districts. you know. where I think that that. I think there has to be some other underlying legal structure in place that I think would allow that type of Unknown: regulation. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: We should look into that. because I don't remember them that way. I remember them more like
strip mall. Of course not. But. you know. a number of different stores lined together that were in. what a more rural. or more. you know. I remember them being down on the Cape. where you kind of have these little. semi little malls. and they've required them to have all of those signs unified. but Robin Borgestedt: they could be roads that are designated scenic or something like that. They don't seem scenic anymore. but they may have been scenic roads or something Robert Hummel: possibly I still. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I know we had a conversation about the Dunkin Donuts at one point. and we had talked about somehow making them or suggesting to them that they don't use that logo. I mean. I think that's Anette Lewis: I agree. Again. I'm just looking at our bylaw for special permits. and it's taken exactly from the state bylaw. And at 198 203. it says. For a special permit. the applicant shall show to the satisfaction of the special permit granting authority that the use building or structure for which the application is made shall not be against the public interest. shall not derogate from the character of the neighborhood in which such use building or structure is to occur and shall not be detrimental or offensive because of noise. vibration. smoke. gas. fumes. odor. dust or other objectionable features. and that such use building or structure shall not otherwise be injurious to the inhabitants of the town or their property. or dangerous to the public health or safety. and I don't know for a fact. but I think that that's what they're using. because there are many places that won't let you use your corporate Unknown: logo kind of thing. right? Yeah.
William Sterling: Yeah. one in free Point Main a McDonald's is famous because they. McDonald's tried to sue them and lost. McDonald's has this little. teeny little. you know. McDonald's name on the side of the building. and that's all you got. Robert Hummel: Yeah. there's a really. there's a really cool one McDonald's. and I believe. is Arizona. It's. instead of a yellow local. is a turquoise blue. and it blends in with it. It blends in with the rest of the year in Arizona. It's really. really unique. But those. I mean. those are very extreme cases where there's very unusual cases. This thing like design islands already built in. and then Madonna's comes in and wants to do it so but Robin Borgestedt: sort of. that's one of my concerns. If we take out the prohibition on backlighting. because there are. there are backlight backlit signs that are offensive. and that would derogate the character. and maybe the jersey Mike sign is less. less of an affront. but William Sterling: I agree with you. Robin. yeah. the backlighting is fine. I think internally illuminated plastic signs. though. are still objectionable. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. so we have some language to to define that if we're going to take out the prohibition on internal lighting. You know. internal lighting. it doesn't shine through. How do we how do we say that? William Sterling: That's how I said it to them. I said. if it's the material is translucent. then it's not allowed. If it's opaque. then it's basically you're backlighting it.
Unknown: We could talk about backlighting. That's it. William Sterling: That's a sentence you need right there. Thomas White: Yeah. it could be the sentence an Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: example. Bill of what you're talking about.
William Sterling: An example of what I'm talking about would be. well. you were just talking about the one that just. is it? Duncan is putting in backlighting signage for their
Unknown: for their signs. and they allot it right. Tom. yeah. William Sterling: and the an example of an internally illuminated plastic sign. jeez. Anette Lewis: Lim. but like a mobile gas station sign. yeah. those William Sterling: are classic. That's a clean thing. and that's a very good example. The logo itself is a big plastic glob of blowing up. Yeah.
Thomas White: I am going to run out of time. I've got a gonna have to sign off in just a couple of minutes. But this has been a great discussion. We should probably aim to have a. you know. maybe set up something like this on a quarterly basis to kind of go through it doesn't necessarily just have to be on the signs. because there are a couple of other there's always some inconsistencies that we encounter in the by law. I would just say that that. if this group is looking at it. we've had several challenges recently with garages and side yards and sheds. there are some extremely conflicting languages in contained in the yards component of the by law one that we actually had to escalate up to town council for an application that we had. and she She gave us some great feedback and pointed out that. yes. there are some glaring like. legal inconsistencies. Anette Lewis: Can you share that with Robert and he can share it with Thomas White: Yes. I actually. I think. I think I had shared this one with Nathan and with Michael McCall. But yes. like. I can forward the email exchange with. with Carolyn Murray on. on some specific quirky problems we had with interplay between 401 point 1.2 and I think 703 on the yards. so. And. you know. there's always come up. you know. because people only come to the zba because they need to do something unusual. right? So I recognize that. like. we're the venue for the unusual projects. like no matter what. so it can't all be standard. So and then we're comfortable with that. We're that's what we're used to. But when. when we have when the bottom points us in two different directions. we sometimes struggle to accommodate what people are looking to do. And generally. most of the applications we get right. Are homeowners looking to do something like. I need to move my garage a foot closer. I need to do a screen porch. And. you know. we want to help these people. but sometimes the bylaw points us in kind of differing directions. And I think just some simple sentences could be cleaned up. but yeah. I'll. I can share that with Robert the. The exchange that I had with with Copeland and page several months ago. Anette Lewis: And if you want to set up sometimes and work it out with your board. yeah. we can just put it in the agenda. And I think that would be great idea. Thomas White: Yeah. I think it'd be. I think it'd be a wonderful idea. Because. as I said. we have some. we always have some quirky stuff. Anette Lewis: Can while you're here. though. can I just ask you a question? Um. I personally have had trouble reading the site plan. regular bylaw. Have you guys had issues with it? Unknown: Um. only. in as much as it's not. Thomas White: it's kind of worded. very convoluted as to who has the who is supposed to approve it. Sometimes we literally will spend 10 minutes in the meeting. I don't think you need to be here. I think you're supposed to be at the planning board. Because if this. if that. if this. if that. Anette Lewis: but also that whole first section about if you're this size. you're this. if you're that. so you're this. if you're this. and then if you've got parking. you're this. and it's very confusing. Thomas White: Yeah. I would agree. You know. yeah. it is. it is. It can be challenging just to figure all we're looking for is to make sure they're in the right regulatory venue and we're not accidentally taking on a case that we either shouldn't. we don't have the authority to. or we're sort of applying like the wrong provision of the bylaw. because the venue is not not the exact right Unknown: one. right? Okay. well. on that too. Thank you and Bill. do you want? Do you want to thanks. thanks. Thanks. Anette Lewis: You have other things that you want to talk about. William Sterling: Well. of course. I can tear up all your night with all kinds of things. but no. I think that we've discussed enough for one sitting. and I'm sure you have other things you need to get on to. Unknown: So Okay. terrific. Anette Lewis: Thank you so much. Anyone else have questions for Bill? Thank you for coming and thank you Nate very much for Unknown: joining as my first Planning Board meeting. It's been very. very fun. Anette Lewis: Well. you can come anytime.
Larry Kiernan: Thank you. All right. Good evening. Unknown: Thank you. In the signage Anette Lewis: bylaw. Robert. I have like. a gazillion comments. not just because of the changes you've made. but things that I see that have been in place forever. that are just Unknown: weird and hard to read. Anette Lewis: What do you think the best way and maybe others do too. I don't know. Do you guys have specific comments on what Robert shared with us? Robin Borgestedt: I was sort of waiting till tonight. Okay. no. that's fine. Unknown: I think you should pull up the commented version. Maybe we give it a look. Robin Borgestedt: Or do we circulate it now that we've listened to them and heard what they have? Jesse Newberry: Yeah. that's actually that's probably a better idea. Robin. Robert Hummel: yeah. just. I would just send the comments to me. and I can make a master list Unknown: of of it. Okay? Robert Hummel: I think. I think I worked on this a few months ago. So this is not the dates in my since September 4. but I because there's the more July. July main main notes to Anette Lewis: this. right? And some of the comments aren't really with your changes. They're with what's there already. yeah. Robert Hummel: in place. in one round of comments and and there wasn't. didn't like. keep digging into it. Anette Lewis: right? And for in one place you talked about commercial businesses. I wasn't sure if that was I don't think it's a defined term. and I wasn't sure if it was necessarily appropriate just for businesses. And there's another place where the bylaw. as written. refers to a state law that makes absolutely no sense. It refers to mgL 180 sections two and four. And 180 is creation of charitable and other corporations. and two is definitions. and four just lists. Who can be that kind of a court? What you can do if you're a corporation? So I'm not sure what they're trying to do. I can try and guess. but I don't think that we should leave something like that.
Unknown: It's in our section. pardon me. Anette Lewis: yeah. it's in your 501. Point. New three. Unknown: It's the very last line.
Anette Lewis: it says that you can have signs for any purposes that are set forth in the corporate section. And that's sort of weird. because. if not purposes there. what they're saying is you can create a corporation to do a B. C. D. E.
Unknown: So what they were trying to Robert Hummel: say was. Texas. it's in the existing today. Anette Lewis: yeah. I guess in the existing today. Oh. the Is this the Robert Hummel: NGO 180 Yeah. Robin Borgestedt: more sort of tacked on a sentence about religious celebration. signs. weird or devices that have been installed or erected pursuant to a special permit. Yeah. I
Robert Hummel: didn't know. I didn't really look into it. but yeah. that should probably be deleted. It's weird.
Anette Lewis: Um. okay. so we can get um comments to you. I'll send you mine in track changes. and they'll be mostly questions. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I think. Anette Lewis: And again. it's not your stuff. It's what's there already? Robert Hummel: No. it's this pilot is. should I retrieve and fix like years ago? Anette Lewis: Yeah. and I'll look at the one that we came up with a number of years ago and see if Unknown: it looks useful.
Anette Lewis: Has anybody looked at the site plan approval by Unknown: law. the little Jesse Newberry: bit in my ground mounted solar research. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: revise that a number of years ago.
Unknown: no site approval. Anette Lewis: We just added a section that makes it even more confusing. We added.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: then let's change and take that out. We're done no Anette Lewis: that one made sense in the context that we did it in. It's just when you start reading. are you subject to site plan approval? Unknown: There are Anette Lewis: essentially. I think. three different places that you have to go to to see if you're subject to site plan approval. One of the first is.
Unknown: let's see.
Anette Lewis: you have to fit into different size categories. That's one thing. Then there's a thing that talks about number of parking spaces. and you have to answer yes and no and no and yes. and then you wind up with this thing at the end. and it seems like you shouldn't have had to go through all that. You should have been able to just say. Yep. I'm going to be subject to Site Plan Review. rather than having this four pages of back and forth and back and forth and back and forth when it probably can be condensed into something more easily understandable. and then you would know which board you had to go to. whether it was the planning board or the zoning board. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. you've got. like. an applicability section and then a Administration section.
Anette Lewis: But even the applicability section is pretty tough using Yeah. I had to do it with the salt shed when I was a road Commissioner. and we were doing the salt shed. and I had to read this. and I just went. Holy cow. And it took me forever. because I had to go through all the steps. even though some of them really weren't even applicable. yeah. Unknown: And then you've got. like. a communication section. or. like. how to how to interact with the town. And then you get into the actual application itself. right. who it needs to go to. and then another on what you need to put in there. And then another on the planning board. Procedures separately. Anette Lewis: yeah. and we have. I think. also regulations for site plan. So I don't know if we're ready to tackle it this year. but I would hope that people will think about it and think about how we might try and simplify it.
Unknown: all of us. including Robert.
Anette Lewis: Robert. do you want to do the ground mounted next or the housekeeping? Robert Hummel: Let's do housekeeping. because I can quickly discuss it. but it's not like a lot of the house giving. So I started off with housekeeping on the page. I started housekeeping. There's things I noticed that need be fixed. And then we got a me Anette got a humongous packet of information from town council. from E code. saying. These are the things that areas that the town should look at in the next few years to change or or modify or make no changes. So they just kind of from the town clerk. right? Not from Clark. but it came from E code. E code came of it so. but some are are valid. like some say. D. H. D. So on the first page. It should be changed to elocative Office of Housing liberal communities. So like how to go a whole about each change based on that and when. for all the changes. what we tackle this year and what changes. when can we tackle another year? And site plan was part of that. that one of those suggested changes. but it's too much to change right now. but then also. some of it has to do with zba too. and the first page with
Unknown: clarifying what Robert Hummel: variances and what what you can get a variance for. So there are other scenarios in this. in this nine page document. But a lot of the changes proposed changes have to do changes that were suggested. It is I did spend a lot of time. like. just some silly by the code people. Yeah. So. like. a lot of changes are just very silly changes. like changing the unlike wireless communication system changing into electric transmissions towers. like just some really. really silly changes. They're like. it just
Anette Lewis: need to be made because they conform to the other definitions and things. yeah. yeah. Robert Hummel: And just like. delete definitions that. like. were like. we don't in some sections already had the definition for his town and zba. like. you don't need to repeat it over again. That's it. It kind of felt like someone added definitions in and then didn't. Can cross reference over the years to make sure. like. oh. I don't have to use word DEP. They don't define zba in this section. It's already defined in the original definition section. It's just. like. Unknown: a lot of just overkill. but Robert Hummel: it and like mass housing. like things that just change over time. Eloc and just a lot is just just silly changes that are just Unknown: very silly. Robert Hummel: And then the things were like. we have the section where in the mixes overlay. where the underlying zoning district never went away. and we never bothered it to modify that. So like just getting rid of the underlying limited commercial district and and getting rid of it once for all. so it's over. So I don't want to burden you by going through this one by one. I think better if members of the board just kind of go for and if they have any comments on this. but I'll. you know. some of its marijuana was spelled wrong. like just. Ma. just fixing silly mistakes. And I keep saying it's. it's. and we don't. We can tackle some of this this year. We can say. you know. we said. oh. let's just do on all of this. But let's get. let's get the silly ones other way. E lock in and fix those. You know this. this document can be things can be taken out and put into another document for years in the future. like it doesn't have everything has to be done today. this this year. if you don't want Anette Lewis: to. but we should probably do the most important and then lump things together that are of a similar nature. maybe. Robert Hummel: yeah. I mean. I just said. sort of by by Article One to article right? Whatever it is. this is just the way it is easy to display. right? Anette Lewis: A suggestion on. how about you know. what should go first and. and. is there like a theme that we can use this theme next year? Robin Borgestedt: I wonder if it helps. If Robert goes through and sort of color codes them with highlighting. you know. the the green ones are the ones that we really need to do. and they should be simple. The yellow ones are things that. you know it would be helpful to do. and the red ones are ones that we can defer. or the opposite way around. if we can color code kind of what has to get done. what would be nice and what we should look at and think about in the future. I don't know. Robert Hummel: Yeah. I do you let me do I can go back and just and we kind of recover them and then send it back out. Green. Green is like no brainers. yellows. maybe about this. and then red. like you Anette Lewis: don't have to do it right now. Why don't you wait? Oh no. not right now. But I'll send it Unknown: out. and we give you comments. yeah. yeah. Robert Hummel: I'll send it out. I'll color it and reset it out. And so it's a little easier to understand.
Unknown: So that's housekeeping. I mean. Robert Hummel: it started out as like. two pages. three pages. and then it went down to. like. now nine. because we've always potential changes Unknown: that need to be done so.
Robert Hummel: and I believe Jesse worked on the ground mounting. So I. And for that on the on that page for him. if you like. Unknown: Yep. that sounds great. Yeah. So. I mean. Jesse Newberry: this is all new. right? And Robin sent a version over that has a bunch of comments on it that I think are all really good comments. I don't know if anybody else has comments since they had a chance to review it after last week's meeting.
Robert Hummel: I don't think I got a copy of that. that email and document. Robin Borgestedt: No. I meant to send it to you. and somehow it only went to Jesse. I meant to send it only to you. but it was just so that he'd have my comments after the meeting today. because I figured we'll discuss them all. so Larry Kiernan: I didn't review them. but I did watch a bunch of videos on how to set up your own 10 kilowatt solar system and 250 watts. So awesome. I need pictures and you know. a little explanation. It was quite interesting. Jesse Newberry: So how like? So when you were watching that. how big were the 10 kilowatt ones? Because. I mean. we Larry Kiernan: have 10 kilowatt is like the ones you see around town. The one I saw was 8.8 Unknown: but it's probably
Larry Kiernan: 30 feet by 10 feet. or 40 feet by 10 feet. could be in MA two slaps. but yeah. it was not trivial. kind of like a big shed in your backyard. What was interesting was. when you connected to your house. he had batteries. He was trying to be able to run his house on it. Explain very detailed. that you can't run a typical house on 10 kilowatts. you gotta really conserve what you use. But he had a room set up for the battery and the converter like its own shed. and he air conditioned the shed. Jesse Newberry: and defeats the purpose of the solar panels
wild. Larry Kiernan: It made me wonder what heat is being generated by he bought computers Jesse Newberry: from the batteries in the inverter. Maybe the Larry Kiernan: there was the batteries. the converter. and there was two computers that he. I call them computers that he used to manage the payload.
Unknown: So maybe Larry Kiernan: that's more complicated than normal. But anyway. so and 250 kilowatts is huge. huge. Jesse Newberry: yeah. gigantic. yeah. it's huge. yeah. yeah. Larry Kiernan: it's a Jesse Newberry: farm. yeah. yeah. yeah. yeah. And then that's why I kind of did that. that way. with the small. medium. large in that divided up by. like. you know. the kilowatt capacity. Larry Kiernan: And he did the 8.8 kilowatts himself. Unknown: It's 20 grand. Yeah. Anette Lewis: so Jesse with these numbers. if were we able to check those with the energy people or Unknown: No. not yet. Jesse Newberry: not yet. I didn't get a chance to do that. Okay? I did end up sending to Abigail. but of course. I didn't hear back. Unknown: Yeah. I can shakes. Robert Hummel: And you do know that she's that she's losing. yeah? Jesse Newberry: We heard that last meeting. Yes. So yeah. Robert. do you have another contact yet? Robert Hummel: I send you. I send you Olivia's contact information. Jesse Newberry: Okay. I was curious what that was. Yeah. I was gonna ask you Robert Hummel: about that. Thank you. Oh. that was. yeah. I thought that. yeah. Jesse Newberry: I didn't get the context. But Unknown: I was watching. I was watching a Robert Hummel: tape. and since it says Robert. we'll send. we'll send Jesse the information. Unknown: Okay. thank you. Thank you. So. yeah. I'll. I'll. I'll reach out. Jesse Newberry: And then I think. in the meantime. if everybody's got this doc. you know. go. go through it and add your thoughts. please. And then we'll. um. we'll come back with a version with everyone's comments in it and kind of talk it through. Robin Borgestedt: Do you have any questions about my comments? Jessa. no. Jesse Newberry: I think they were all like you pointed out some really good things. Robin. and things that I think we need to define a little bit better. For sure. Anette Lewis: you want to share those with us so that we have them in our heads as we're doing our own comments. Unknown: Yes. yep. So Robin Borgestedt: I'm just going to run through them quickly from the top to the bottom. In the very the first definition of ground mounted solar. it says ancillary equipment. And I added in other than the battery. energy storage system. because that has its own definition section with respect to the canopy and carport in the definition and elsewhere in the bylaw. we have to find a way to if canopies and carports are not allowed. I mean. well. they are allowed. but not as ground mounted solar. They have their own different right. So we have to find a way to differentiate that. Because if you can have this thing 12 feet high. you could park your car under it. or you could put a picnic table under it. And so then. when is it a carport? And when is it not a carport? When is it a canopy and not a canopy? You know. are you not allowed to park a car underneath it? So. yeah. so that I think isn't it Anette Lewis: is. does the state one deal with that? Jesse. do you know? Unknown: I will look this up now. Okay. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: But if one is regulated one way. and one's regulated another way. that we have to define where that line is in the definition section. Do we need to define what a kilowatt is and the AC? Because for a homeowner. they may not know exactly what that is if they're just starting to research this. So maybe we have to put a definition in. But then also. who gets to define if you're under 10 or if you're over 250 is it just. you know. the manufacturer's specifications. or Jesse Newberry: that's what I was thinking it would be. because. right. they're all going to get more efficient over time. So it's. it's. yeah. should be with the manufacturer. Robin Borgestedt: So we might need to specify who gets to say whether you're under 10 or over 250. or where you are on that
then on the article seven. going down number four. it says. after the adoption of this chapter. I think it should say by law. And then once you've put battery. energy storage system. and put the abbreviation best. You don't need to keep saying it. Jesse Newberry: yeah. thank you.
Robin Borgestedt: In the next session. the zoning district and use representations. One place you said and best. and the other one said it was and their best. So I just they should be the same. and then prohibited area. Should say all solar Institute installations and best are prohibited within the wetlands resources. again. the next thing. dimensional standards. that height thing just running into that canopy. carport thing
in setbacks. I think we should make it clear that all applicants have to meet all set back standards. regardless of the size and permit type. It's not something you get a variance on. It's not something you get waived. You have to be outside of the setback area. Don't even ask. I don't know. that's what I think. but maybe other people agree. Unknown: Disagree. Yep. Robin Borgestedt: And then in terms of the lot coverage section. it says they may cover up to 40% of the lot area. The applicant must demonstrate adequate previous surface blah. blah. blah for the medium and the large scale installations. I think they should have to demonstrate through expert analysis. We should be specific about how they demonstrate that. For smalls. it's not it's not that language isn't in there. but both medium and large say they have to demonstrate something. and we should require that it be through expert analysis. vegetative buffering. It's 10 feet wide. We discussed this at the last meeting. yeah. To me. wide means. you know. if you're looking at a fence. it's the width of the fence from as you're facing it. And I think we're really talking about the depth of the buffer. Yeah. So I don't know if there's a different word for that. but to me it seems like depth. I think Anette Lewis: something in the the
Unknown: MBTA zoning Anette Lewis: dealing with that kind of a buffer. there might be language in there. Unknown: Okay. yeah. I'll give that Larry Kiernan: a look. Question on the coverage. so is that corner to corner? So if you've got four of these things up. it's the furthest corner to the furthest corner. or is it literally looking down at it saying because these are all tilted right. so they may move. Fly. but it may be six feet of coverage as an example. Robin Borgestedt: right? So is it as the bird flies. right? Some Unknown: of them do move. so Anette Lewis: you would have to explain it. It's full. Unknown: yeah. horizontal depth or vertical. yeah? Larry Kiernan: They don't go beyond a certain angle. So I think we talked about this before. Is it the furthest corner of the whole thing? Because I'm a fine with the small but with the medium and large. I assume people doing these are hovering just through. just installing these things. I mean. you're not put in an apple orchard or something. So 40% may turn folks away. Why Why can't I do 100% within boundaries?
Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I think we say special permit on the large ones. but we don't say it on the on the medium scale.
Unknown: right? I Robin Borgestedt: think for the medium. we're assuming it's on a residential lot with a house there. And because if it weren't. you would do large scale. I would think so. Unknown: I don't know. 250 is huge. Yeah. yep. that have Larry Kiernan: to be seven. eight acres. You know. you've got your house. your driveway and your but 40% came from where Jesse. I think. Unknown: was borrowed from one of the other towns. Larry Kiernan: I assume we define the coverage
Jesse Newberry: area. yeah. so that's up further up top. It's between. so it's between one acre and five less than five acres
Unknown: page. and then large is anything over five acres. yeah. but Larry Kiernan: I'm sorry I'm missing the coverage. If I have a house and it's got 20 by 20. I know that's 400 square feet of you know that needs to be managed for water. How does it work with a 20 by 20 solar panel Anette Lewis: if you're doing it on a residential lot and there's a house there already. I haven't I haven't thought it through in reading what Jesse has. but I would think that it would be the lot coverage for structures. and that's. I believe. 20% of the lot. and you can't have more than 20% of the lot covered. Larry Kiernan: I'm wondering. do we count that as 400 square feet or something less. because they're tilted.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I I think you're going to go crazy with this tilted thing. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I'm thinking. you want to do it more footprint. if you could. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: If you're talking about tilted. I would almost say that it's the footprint. like. let's say the going straight up. You know. what is? It's almost like. what is the shade of that whole unit? And call that the measurement of it. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. but you can't call that the footprint. because the footprint may be just the concrete right pad that has a leg on it. because they're generally a small ones on. like. a big on a post kind of thing. right? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: So. so would you have it like. if it was completely vertical. and then. like a TV set. and then Robert Hummel: measure that. So the height should probably Jesse Newberry: be vertical at the highest point. yeah. yeah. yeah. And then the footprint should probably be measured with it. you know. horizontal. Unknown: yeah. not the footprint. Anette Lewis: but the span Robin Borgestedt: area. the area of the panel area. yeah. right. right. Well. that's kind of regardless of the angle it's at. Unknown: yeah. Jesse Newberry: I think we can make that come across in the language here. Yep.
Unknown: should I keep going? Yeah. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: you should. So performance standards. we've got glare and noise and and talking about needing to do analysis. and we had talked at the last meeting about trying to make this less intrusive for a small applicant. So do we want to have different standards for what that analysis looks Yeah. when it's a small person. a small applicant. can they use the manufacturer specifications and medium and large requires expert analysis? Jesse Newberry: Yeah. Yeah. I think. I think I got that in the stuff further down. but not necessarily for this one. Yeah. a little easier for the small Yep. So. yeah. we can. we can address that too. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. And number three and number five. which are trails and wildlife and vegetation and pollinators. You know. who decides that is it? Is it the planning board. or is it ConCom? Because it's really a little outside of our wheelhouse. so it should have to go to ConCom for both of those when. when it's invoked. Jesse Newberry: I suppose we should talk to ConCom about that first before we try to put that in here. Anette Lewis: Herbicides are already prohibited under our bylaw. I believe we have a bylaw on herbicides. and probably look at that. and even with saying that we can't put it in wetlands. Unknown: is that our bailiwick to say that Anette Lewis: isn't that really more up to conservation if somebody for utilities. for example. you can do lots of work in wetlands. and you have to put down. What do you call it? Not raffia. but there's a woven mat. barrier material. not even a barrier. woven mat that you put down. and then you can ride across it and do what you need to do. And and somebody could claim that this is a utility.
Jesse Newberry: I think. I think I do think just having ConCom look at the whole thing is probably great idea. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. and number four. that drainage and stormwater management again. do we want to create a different standard for small versus medium and large. and then seven. oh. 7.5 which is the application requirements. And it says right in this sort of subheading. applicants. applications for site plan review or special permits. And then number one. three and five all have sections that are about small scale. So small scale is by right. and so they they shouldn't be in here for in this section about site plan reviews and special permits. they should have their own section for applications. so that it's more clear and they're separated out.
Unknown: And then Robin Borgestedt: number four talks about cessation. there should be some provision that the the owner has to notify the town when they've when they've ceased operation of this array.
then the battery storage systems talking about when it's active and on site. Blah. blah We have. it has to comply with fire codes. It should probably also have say building codes. because some of these are actually in a structure Jesse Newberry: to Larry's point with air conditioning. right? So. Robin Borgestedt: And then number four there talks about a typical utility infrastructure. And again. how is typical defined? How is it measured. and how is it certified? So and then in that last site plan review and permit findings. there's some language there about disturbance of wetlands. wildlife habitat. again and again. yeah. we have to see what. how we're going to do that. So those were my comments. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. no. they were all good. I guess. um. for the site plan section. Do we think. like. I should address the small installations above that in like. its own little spot for buy right applications? Yeah? Or do I just take it out. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. I think it should have its own section for buy. right. so that the building department has their marching orders as well. Yeah. okay. Jesse Newberry: all right. that's what I'll that's what I'll Anette Lewis: try to do there. Jesse in seven. Oh. 7.4 number one. the noise standard. Yeah. what? What is 130? Unknown: 9.2 what's Jesse Newberry: the it's basically just like. don't make too much noise in your yard. right? Robin Borgestedt: I thought you were gonna ask him to demonstrate with a yellow Anette Lewis: I think it's 198 then dash. But Jesse Newberry: I went looking for anything that talked about noise in a yard. And that's. that's right. Anette Lewis: And our state standards at the DEP on noise regulations. and I believe it says 55 dB at the boundary. So you might look at those and incorporate at least that reference to that section. or as as provided by the DEP. or something like that makes sense. Yeah. we don't for noise. We don't have good bylaw. Unknown: And every time we tried to do it. people have found that out. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: with one question. one issue with doing 55 decibels at the boundary for small applicants. that would be very difficult for them. To know if they're just using manufacturer specifications. So we may. Anette Lewis: yeah. it would be illegal anyway. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: law. right. So. but the small ones. if we do have a guideline. it could just say according to the manufacturer specifications. Anette Lewis: and DEP is requirement. because. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. well. we can use DEP is requirement. but instead of having them measure it at the boundary. they can measure it at the machinery where it's according to manufacturer specifications. Anette Lewis: no standard. Is the state standard. Robin Borgestedt: Okay? So that'll be difficult for a homeowner to assess what the noise level is at the boundary. Anette Lewis: If it's small. it shouldn't even get. yeah. I Jesse Newberry: mean. maybe it. maybe it should have a separate. Unknown: yeah. separate item for small. Jesse Newberry: What we're really Anette Lewis: concerned with 55 is. is high. okay? I mean. it's not insignificant. Unknown: yep. What is the set? Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: What is the noise you're talking about. the buzzing of the transformer someplace. Anette Lewis: It could be buzzing. Could be inverter arms. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: Could be the noise of the panels moving. you know. a motor like that. Anette Lewis: Okay. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I'm stuck on the size thing. If we can go back two seconds. what. what size. and if you're going to buy one of these things. does the manufacturer describe and do they say anything? You know. five by seven as measured by that kind of a thing or not? Jesse Newberry: It's really varied. IRA. unfortunately. I'm Robin Borgestedt: sure they provide a surface area of the panel. though. it Jesse Newberry: because a lot of it depends on. like. how efficient the panels are and what the and what the installation is going to give you. So. like. you can spend a ton of money and have a real small area and generate 10 kilowatts. or you can spend less money and have a larger area and still get 10 kilowatts.
Anette Lewis: And it depends on whether there are trees around or not trees. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. a lot of variables. right? And so that's why these towns haven't they. like. some of them haven't defined square footage or anything like that. They're just doing it like this. where. like. if you're less than an acre of land and your capacity is less than 10 kilowatts. here's your guidelines. Robin Borgestedt: Oh. but we have to have size. A way to measure size for our surface area requirements. right? And that's just the surface area of the panel it sounds like. Jesse Newberry: And that gets into the the Unknown: yard section below that. Jesse Newberry: And like I said before. I think we can do a better job of defining what the what the actual. like measured area should be. Unknown: So I'll try to get that in there too. This is great. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Jesse. yeah. it is really great. I'm just wondering. is there a peer review in the sense that someone who has. who installs these things that might have Jesse Newberry: an I would really like that. Ira.
Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: you're falling short of the one the work you've done. What's the wrong way he Anette Lewis: keeps trying to get the person who knows the most about this involved. and she's leaving so she's not getting involved. Jesse Newberry: Yeah. I mean. if we have to escalate up. or if we wanted to get somebody. even at the state level. to look at this from like. you know. DEP. or whoever. or energy. I should say we could probably do that too. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: I'm just saying. And even thinking about a company that installs this stuff to have them come in for. you know. a quick overview. And so what kind of things do you run into. and that kind of stuff. that's all. Jesse Newberry: yeah. not a it's not a bad idea. Anette Lewis: And the Energy Committee has that kind of contact. and there are people on the Energy Committee who do this kind of installation. Unknown: Oh. great. perfect. Yeah. I think we should do that. See. do you want to reach out to them? Jesse Newberry: Jesse. yeah. by no means. Am I an expert in this area. but I would love their. yeah. expert opinion anyway. So. yeah. I'll reach out. Great.
Anette Lewis: Ira and not Ira Larry and Robert for this year. Do we have to do anything for the flood plain stuff Unknown: with the Conservation Commission? Larry Kiernan: I have not heard back from them from our last discussion. Robert. have you heard anything on I haven't Robert Hummel: heard of any changes at this time. Unknown: I think that. Anette Lewis: I think that the two of you somehow need to. Follow up and get specific instructions from Linda of what we have to do. Because my understanding was. and this isn't dealing with the 193 necessarily regulations. It's dealing with the federal flood plain stuff they made. They did something. Maybe it was in the 193 regulations. I can't remember where they did it. and they just put stuff in. And we had seen from somebody at the state what we had to have in a bylaw. and some of the stuff that they said is already in our bylaws. just not in one place. because we would do definitions in one place in our bylaw. and then we would have a separate section that dealt with the implementation. and they had all this stuff crammed together. So if we need to figure out what we have to do. then we should so that we don't wind up losing the ability to have homeowners get the flood plain insurance. I'll double check. Yeah. you're going to need to push to make sure that we really understand exactly what we have to do. And then. between you and Larry. if you could work on it. that would be great. Unknown: Yep. yeah.
Anette Lewis: Is there anything else that anyone wants to talk about of a zoning
as we work our way through these when we're doing projects. you will find places where you can't understand what the by law says. So write them down. make sure we all talk about them. But I don't think we're technically able to do a total rewrite. because I don't think people would accept it. We did do a sort of rewrite a few years ago. but it wasn't. It actually created some more problems that I've come across that don't make sense. And somehow. maybe section by section. over time. we can get it into something that you could read easily. that the public could handle and not make it so difficult for people.
Unknown: Okay? Robert. updates. You want me to explain over amendment Robert Hummel: stuff? Yeah. So you have two applications. Next actually. next meeting. next month. tomorrow. 15. So buckle in. because it's me. It's me. A really fun meeting. You take that right now. just based on now the comments are getting in. So a refresher. the Dover Moon we're talking about. the board can can reasonably regulate the bulk the height of the structures. the yard size. lot of area setbacks. open space. parking and building coverage. So we just would remember. we're just talking about the things that we can regular. reasonably regulate. We're not talking about the use. We're not talking about. does it fit in neighborhood? All that stuff that doesn't. that doesn't play a part in here. So under Section 63 there's it talks about the areas where we can look at so we can look at the bulk and the height of the proposed structures and session accessory structures. the open space. the building coverage. the site. the yard size. the physical layout. the structures. driveway. parking areas. utilities and other infrastructure. and then the accuracy of the original parking loading area relations to the proposed use Unknown: on the site. So I will Robert Hummel: most likely do refresher that again at the meeting. and I will put that into both memos for both projects for the 15th. and I'm still going through the both applications and reviewing them with a fine call and trying to explain or get more answers done before the 15th occurs Unknown: from the applicant. For the applicant. Robin Borgestedt: yes. with with regard to height. Can Can you explain how you know. we can review height. But how does that? How does the Belmont case
Unknown: change that Robert Hummel: on. I think that case. they allowed it because. Robin Borgestedt: yeah. so the town was not allowed to limit the height of the steeple. But is it? Does it depend on whether there's sort of occupancy dirt in that area where the height is. or does it not. or Unknown: doesn't that? We have to go back. shaking your head. Can you tell us? Anette noi. Something. Anette Lewis: I can tell you what I thought the decision said. but I think it's a little different than what I thought. My recollection at the time that it happened was Unknown: that you can't limit the height Anette Lewis: just to match what you've got in your bylaw. They can go higher than that as long as. and this is the part that I'm not sure is correct. I thought it was as long as there was really a religious type of reason that you needed to reach up to the sky. You needed whatever. Unknown: if. for example. Anette Lewis: you needed fire suppression and you couldn't do it because it was too high and you did no way of getting at it. I think that's a reasonable regulation. Okay. so it's not that we're totally prohibited. but we have to be reasonable. and it has to be not conflicting with their religious practices. okay? Robin Borgestedt: Because I know from the Design Review Board meeting that we had that that's an area where we should be prepared to.
Unknown: I don't know. address questions. and we should be prepared to. yeah. do many questions? Yeah. at some point. is it worth Robin Borgestedt: maybe not now. but at some point. is it worth the board having preparing comments or an article to go in the newspaper about what the Dover amendment does and doesn't allow us to do Anette Lewis: I don't think we need to do that. I think the newspaper will do it. yeah. and we will begin the first hearing with an explanation of what the Dover amendment is under state law. what we have in our bylaws. Then my proposal would be to open it up to the applicant to do the presentation. because we have two of these on the same night. then board questions and then public questions. okay. Unknown: but I mean. What I did for the Anette Lewis: Veritas was at each meeting. I said. this is what we can control this just so that it's out there each time. right? And Robert. when he puts together the document for us. he's going to have the language of the statute. the language of the bylaw. And then for each of the things that we're able to regulate. he's going to have them on the chart. And then what our standards are in the bylaw. so that at least we have a good match. And then what. what the applicant is proposing is it doesn't meet it. Does it not meet it. so that we have something clear in front of us as we're trying to make the decisions. Robin Borgestedt: Yeah. I just feel like it would be helpful in terms of. I don't want to say. reigning in. but focusing public comment if we do see something in the in the in the Wayland post. that will help Unknown: understand Anette Lewis: what I can call the Wayland post. If they do it. I'm sure they're following Robin Borgestedt: it. yeah. and make sure they attend the meeting. And they can ask for the minutes afterwards. or the. you know. watch the recording and make sure that they are Unknown: just my sense. okay. yeah. no. I think so too.
Anette Lewis: Um. and we did the peer review stuff. um. are there any comments and concerns of the board?
Unknown: Okay. anything else Anette Lewis: at our next meeting. we've got the the two applications. the Coptic Orthodox Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church and the Carroll School. and hopefully Two sets of minutes for 910. Unknown: and right and 917. 17.
Larry Kiernan: Number one. you think we'll get the applications? We have them. Unknown: They're online. online. Robert Hummel: If you want. please take heart. If you want any Harcourt plants. please take them. Yeah. they have copies. Anette Lewis: I picked up my own so that I could read. Larry Kiernan: All right. they're in your office. Unknown: yeah. for the hard and otherwise. they're available online. yeah. How many extras Have you got? I think one for everyone. Regulations say. yeah. Robin Borgestedt: Is there a particular? A time. Robert. when it's not good to come to the office and when. like you're. you're out to lunch every single day. or Robert Hummel: I'll be. I'll be in the office tomorrow. and I'll be back on next week too. I mean. right now it's just me in the office. because it kind of need us on vacation for two weeks. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: but. but. but the book is right there. right? You could see the pile and just grab it. Unknown: Well. the door is locked. Robert Hummel: Well. if you I also know if you're. if I know you're coming by. I can also put in the put outside the door. Robin Borgestedt: Okay. I'll see what my time looks like. Robert Hummel: Just email me. I'll let you know if I'm. if it's easier. that way they're valuable. you know. yeah. but yeah. they give me like 10 copies of each so it's. Unknown: it's a lot of. it's a lot of. there's a lot paper so Anette Lewis: and we also got an email today that said that there was a proposal from one of the consulting firms. but I think it's a virus. I'm not sure Robert Hummel: you should have received a following email. I got one as a follow up email from it saying. just to lead it. Anette Lewis: Oh. no. I didn't get one. Oh. is it from? I'm sorry it. oh. it was from MetroWest. Oh. the person. the person's name. was on Unknown: it. Don't click it. yeah. don't click it. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: Went to the entire board. Yeah. It went to the planning Anette Lewis: board. We have issues. Ira. with things going through Unknown: to you. yeah. Albert Ira Montague. Jr.: a lot of a lot of places selling things that. you know we have nothing to do with. you know. like you can get Robert Hummel: rubber strips. Oh. yeah. those my spam. I always see my spam I see this all time my spam
Robin Borgestedt: email came in. The email came in at three o'clock today from Patrick Arno. so just don't Larry Kiernan: open it. My office. They email us regularly with phishing emails. and if you open it. they kind of wrap you on and they Robin Borgestedt: do that with us. Big Larry Kiernan: thumbs up.
Robert Hummel: They did that a few they did a year ago in Wayland. Only the IT director knew that MIMO was going out and didn't tell his staff. and he just he put it out on purpose as a phishing email to see what. just to test the water. to see how it was. I'm assuming he meant town manager knew that's it. Now that was when people who knew that the fishing email was going out. so I obviously caught it instead of Taiji. right away. like I could tell which when they're fishing. it's very Larry Kiernan: fun though you're now you're looking for not to get the thumbs down.
Anette Lewis: Okay.
Robert Hummel: I did the question for you. Anette. I had someone coming in my office. I'm asking about a subdivision. and they had a few questions. and they I suggested to me to talk to you about the potential of a subdivision and and if these. if these waivers. we could be granted. potentially. if Unknown: a waiver could be granted. yes. Robert Hummel: so she's gonna send me an email of the the of the subdivision. She is trying to list a piece of property. and she just wants to know. like. is it likely that a subject could be built or not? Just because they need. they need some a lot of waivers. It's not a developer. or she's not looking to build it. She's trying to list the property. but she also wants to do a little research to know how. how to less Anette Lewis: we go so far. though. because we would have to be approving it. I mean. she should really just hire somebody and. Robert Hummel: well. I don't think she they want sending money. I think this one now it really has to go down to like. one to two waivers that I think be pointed just Fay to you. to personally waving is. do you think it's likely or not? Unknown: You couldn't answer it for her. It's kind of gray. Anette Lewis: That's why. Okay. why don't you? And I talk about what's gray and what's not and then you can talk to her rather than Unknown: me talking to her
Anette Lewis: better. because I it'd be uncomfortable if we had to then make A decision on her application. Unknown: Yeah. it's fine. Okay. Okay. Okay. all right. everybody. it's been fun. May I have I'm sure. Jesse Newberry: yeah. we did good. Unknown: I may have to adjourn. Okay. second All in favor. Ira Montague. yes. Jesse Newbury. yes. Robin Borg stead. yes. Larry Kiernan. yes. Anette Lewis. yes.
Recreation Commission
Unknown: Hey. let's call this
meeting Recreation Commission to
order Tuesday. September 16.
2025 and 20 am. It's a hybrid
Zoom meeting and the in person
in his main development.
Wayland. town building Road.
Wayland. Massachusetts. the
three. the hybrid viewer and
participate in hydro mean at
reserve. the chapter two. with the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in persons. and the quote is going to applicable law. This means even recorded which we made. as well cam as soon after meeting. as is travel required by law or allowed by the chair person's wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in a meeting. to do so by in person tenants. or by accessing a meeting remotely as noted request. public comments. two minutes per person. these times. approximately. items will not be discussed. and you are listed for a specific. specific time estimate. All this. the topics may be separate to deliberation and work. The agenda is a call of order. Include public comment. three minutes review and approve. Next is available on our August 19. 3025 meeting. FY. 26 goals continue discussion of commission. department goals and vision. budget request for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year two through fiscal year 2030 the gospel vote the darkness. second at the last meeting. In report. the new discretion improved the fiscal year 2025 annual report due September 30. pursuant to town village. chapter 53. dash one. available do correspondence. if any one from the economic development committee regarding Town Center two. East Coast Sherman. Sherman Ridge Road and three DPW. regarding field maintenance. Commissioner. announcements. dash. slash. reports and concerns. Recreation directors. report. schedule our next meeting. date. potential agenda items. 310. topics not increasingly anticipated by the chair. 48. hours in advance of the meeting for him and number 11 adjourned in attendance today regarding Lisa Foster. stewards. my plan And the captain. our recreation there. So the public comment. We'll move right on three minutes review and approve. Minutes are available at August 19. 2025 they just came in. They're in their packets.
Look at please. Come on. agent. thank you.
I just have a question on the goals about the identifying Tom lane that we was suitable for dog park. I don't know if our goal would be better described as. you know. in support of the dog park committee is as needed by our patients. I don't particularly want to identify be the one pursuing the concept more in support of these other committees. I agree. I don't think it's in our purview be supportive of selective
up. support. committee. advocacy. yeah.
Yeah. something else. if
and you want
that reason absolutely
what I Say. I motion to approve the your second. second Second. Any discussion? Seeing? None. All in favor. All
um for fiscal year goals. discussion Commission. Department goals and related budget requests for school year 2026 the fiscal year. 2030 possible vote. They got this presented at the last meeting. So you look at the roller motion. Katherine Brenna: So I prepared a list that's in the packet with the goals. And you can see there's only four there. but the minutes reflect kind of a more comprehensive list. So I don't know which list you want to go on top of that. but I think it would be good to just finalize a list of goals. Well. see that. like in the minutes. there's a couple of other goals that weren't and it might just be my error. When I prepared this document in the packet. I took the list we used last time. and we had stricken a bunch. and so I left before that we're not stricken at on top. but then it. but it looks like these ones that. and I didn't go back and look at the tape when I was making this. So these ones kind of moved up additional suggested commission will be done into that. Unknown: So we look at these goals. one through four and then 14 through 18. We will have discussion in terms of which direction they want to go in terms of four plus five years be effectively the goals we have for this year.
Any comment on that.
Question is. do you do we as a group. look at these at least nine and say that's too many pursue. And
I don't think that in terms of looking at these goals. I don't think there's these goals are not. in my estimation. in in order of. I think it may be well. it may well be things that We deal with. first. second. third. not. not necessarily. I and Katherine Brenna: I just add that I think if we look into FY 27 when some of these might be accomplished and there is a need for a budget to support into those goals. then that budget would be submitted this fall. like between now and January. so that we would it.
Unknown: I know you've answered this before. and I'm sorry I don't remember. Why is it that the middle school is not part of our rotating playground?
Dr. keen. the playground? Yeah. there isn't. Why isn't the middle school field considered part of the fields that were Oh. it Katherine Brenna: is. it is. It's just a shared asset with the schools. obviously. And so it falls under the MOU where DEP W and the Board of Public Works correct department recognition. And the school committee and school department kind of share that space. It was in my time here. It was slated for complete renovation. probably around this time it moved in the capital plan for. I mean. the town is kind of played with some interesting capital planning strategies. We do have a new capital planning committee that has been established that will hopefully prioritize the needs of the field with needs of the entire town. But in general. like I submit a capital plan in the last two years. it was submitted either to DEP or facilities. and a lot of just doesn't make the cut. And so Middle School is not currently in the five year capital plan. but I do think it's in like six or seven. right the out here. six or seven. which would be 30 FY. 30 or 30. Unknown: So it's in someone's list. Katherine Brenna: It's on the radar. for sure. It is in disrepair. And I think that. you know. like we're renovating Alpine right now. and I think it would. it is the next motion needed field that needs. like. take it offline. But obviously we cannot take the middle school offline without assuming bull back. And so right now that
Unknown: doesn't exist that it Katherine Brenna: will help the Alpine. Can't replace the middle school entirely. because the Alpine is a single rectangular footprint. and the middle school has a baseball field and softball field.
Jeff Bergeron: And he says. like. could you do this like left side of the school where like baseball field is. and taking a bit like that hard and then take a red cyber Yeah. is there 600 years of not changing that seems like too long. and it's only gonna get worse? Yeah? Katherine Brenna: I mean. one year is too long. Yeah. there's budget constraints. and there's it's not just reps properties. full property. It's not right. Unknown: Is there like a comprehensive plan that actually lays that opposite like your outline. is number one. right now. This field is number two. This field's number three. like going like so 2027 or 2026 will be this field. Katherine Brenna: 2027 will be the rec department prepares annually a capital plan. and that plan prioritizes all 64 different field sites that have the 12 flag rounds priorities and. you know. sketches them out in the capital plan. It's a massive Excel document that I'm having to share with this group. I use portions of that to submit to the capital plan every year. And that's what I was talking about. that we submit our needs to the capital plan. They don't always make it. And so historically. in the last four or five years that I've been here. the budgets have been. you know. pretty capped at a level service budget. And very few big ticket capital projects have gone in since the lower project or the high school saving project. So like I said. they are in the out years at this point. because they just keep Unknown: getting down the road. but Katherine Brenna: the town is recognizing this is an issue. and that there are kind of family facilities across the board. and has since the last time meeting. established the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. which had its first meeting last week. Unknown: Right? So there's a
Katherine Brenna: group of talents. kind of tasks. like. do we want to spend $1.5 million on 14 West lane? There's a better student to spend it at the middle school? And kind of prioritize those plans. But we Yes. the rec department has a plan that is based on the condition of the field and Unknown: bouncers. Do you sit in on the capital planning committee meetings? Does anybody on the recognition? Katherine Brenna: No should we? There was a discussion. There was a task force that I sat on ahead of that capital planning committee. where different board members. their school committee reps. ConCom Select Board. There were probably the 12 people were all parties were represented. It was decided among the group that staff would not be on the committee. as it is subject to over Meeting Law. And it was requested that recognition beyond that group. And ultimately decided that. I Unknown: think if you put Katherine Brenna: a recognition member. then you also need a portal. The board of reports in the library. and then they get right. So one of the rules is. actually the people in this committee cannot be members of any other committee. And that was a Tom meeting. again. wasn't approved last year. Okay? So. like two at large members that can be assigned by the Select Board. So it's like recognition has somebody that felt like there would represent recreations interest. they could put that person up to the Select Board to be appointed Unknown: to them. So who's on? No. I don't know. I know. I believe Kelly lane. who's former Chair of the Finance Committee. is element and. Katherine Brenna: You obviously made me feel overly he also from the finance committee. I don't know it's really new. and it's kind of those seats are being filled pretty quickly. So this is something that we can attend. and just it's a public meeting. So the same way that we are subject to opine law with public meetings. and Unknown: so is it similar to the game? Similar to the ABC that the folks are appointed by?
Yeah. could we recommend a name to the Select Board to absolutely serves on it? Yeah. I think by the week they're filling receipts now. could we possibly recommend someone like Broadway?
Yeah. I mean. that
is important. Yeah. I mean. that is. yeah.
I don't even know if there are open seats right now. but it's
Mark Norton: working crazy call Brother. if we have an open seat.
Unknown: I think
maybe as a board. you know. the middle school question that I brought up was captured under the DEP W field maintenance. and then also increased awareness by recreation of sideboards that are serving on our behalf. So this new group. so maybe the goal could be our increased presence. Katherine Brenna: I don't know. I'm happy to share that. Like. what our internal plan is that we submit through the channels here. but in the last few years. those submissions don't actually make for whatever reason. and sometimes the CPC is part of that as well. because of capital projects that through the CPC. And I think there is movement now to get those CPC projects also in front of this other capital planning committee. so that they can be balanced with Unknown: the overall capital.
Katherine Brenna: But I think that something like the middle school. it's bigger than that. right? It involves school uses it as far as part of the curriculum. the PD and different uses there. So you can't just hold it. I'll take it offline and do a repair without a solid Unknown: so this. this. this meeting is controlled by select board next to me. so I can reach out to our representatives. what's the procedure? Katherine Brenna: Yeah. and periodically. the Select Board issues over the scenes that are available for LinkedIn. And I believe there's exercise.
Mark Norton: So my only critique with the goals is that we should have a metric to show achievement. So. collaborating with the DEP W on field maintenance. What is that? What a successful collaboration? Is it we as a group are able make sure that we're having somebody present at some functional work. What is that? I think. just going through the list. they're like. supporting the doc projects. our projects. I think we did that last session. right? Yeah.
Unknown: Right. Without support? Mark Norton: Yeah. but is there anything else we need to do to show achievement of that goal? So if we look back a year from now. Unknown: like. well. Jeff Bergeron: do we need to. like. email that and saying. like. as part of our permission. I'm part of the discussion and after your presentation. you have to support directly to be able to proceed whatever process you have. And then we can take this goal and mark it as complete. and it shows completion. Unknown: So I think we're done with our goals. Yeah. Number two. is it completed? If there is no ballpark. yeah. Jeff Bergeron: I mean. I think our goal is to support the dog project. and we've shown our support. we've been able to offer that. We've. you know. put it in writing as part of. like. you know. our pleasure. and that's one of the things that we do want to encourage. And if there's a follow up. we can add that to the future agenda. But I think that I agree with Mark. and we need to be able to have there be some type of natural critique is 12 and ones are redundant. so continue to borrow members to better maintain fields and collaborate with de W. I'm feeling they can stand while you MOU is pretty much the same joy. Feel like 12 could 12 the middle are Katherine Brenna: kind of our department mental. and so a lot of times they do dovetail or kind of overlap in that way. And I think that they should. but we do a lot of coordination with the PW in house to make what happens happens. And so I wouldn't strike it on the right department. because it is alright too. But I do think it is a real to be aware of that. because I know that the commission that doesn't stand it has a feelings about the different fields out there. like whether middle school or Alpine. and that we managed to have a say the capital plan that goes through the channels. you know. and it's especially with the middle school. It's a collaboration with the school committee. the work of the works. and now the plan can planning committee. so that. I think you all should have a Mark Norton: secret so in the collaborating. I mean. would we change that to really. what we want To have is Unknown: clarity Mark Norton: as to what's happening in those school field right? What needs to be done to get there. and kind of each as we think about all these different fields that things. programs that were supported. what are we doing? I think just clarity that people want. right? Like you go to middle school field. you're not happy with it. It'd be excellent for us today. 2028 it's in the program to be funded by this. and if you need to go to town meeting to support that. we can also say it's in the book for 28 but you need to make sure you're there for 27 to go for it. It's not a gift. or maybe it is. again. I don't know. but that makes Unknown: sense. Yeah. Jeff Bergeron: way to get any type of like. I guess. progress report for fields from DEP W of priorities. Katherine Brenna: they recently sent out. It's in the package there. you know. they said that. a press release essentially on what they're working on right now. which is in line with our capital planning internally. What we came to an agreement on is the renovation of alpine field. high school girls softball. varsity baseball and played adding irrigation five and six. And so those projects are all in the works for this fiscal year. which is great. but then. yeah. like in the out years. And so the capital plan is published in the Lawrence that gets the literature rooms now. So you can the average resident. if they're not sure where the middle school could be renovated. could look at the capital plan and see where that shakes out. But I believe. like I said. we've been putting before capital planning for a while. The town has historically just planned for the next fiscal year. you know. loosely planned out of the out years. Yeah. they are getting better at that. and so that. yeah. a five year plan would definitely help the community understand. so when they get that would be able to disrepair. they understand where it is in the pipeline. and that maybe that's not the worst. you know. yeah. Unknown: is the five year plan in your estimation going to be sort of desperate. based on What we currently remember. with
respect to the mwrase Defendant? What's going to happen. and then taking those out years will be more accurately. which Katherine Brenna: way I would say. as we sit here today. there's the out years probably aren't. Will be accurate. but I think with the work of this capital improvement plan. they are tasked to firm up the fire. So this year we should see one that's probably more reliable than being asked. which is great. absolutely. But there are. there is like a compliments of financial expenses coming out of town. WRA and there's there was a push. I know you've known for a while to build an indoor facility at 195 main street. which has triggered a lot of environmental work that's happening now. and some of it is expensive. the remediation that needs to happen at 195 The town is challenged to Unknown: find ways to pay for Yeah. I don't know anybody else Commission has any conversation with anybody quiet.
Katherine Brenna: I think there's an LSP task of looking at how to remediate that within the time frame the DEP requires and how to fund it. And so I think there was just waiting to see what that
Unknown: shit that's your proposition. right? Katherine Brenna: And so that. and that is honestly why some of our field projects get pushed out into the outward years. There are priorities. and I would say drinking water. there's a big one that's going to outweigh any kind of grass field projects. Now is Unknown: discussion with DPW for enough along to understand how they're approaching over Katherine Brenna: Yes. they have a plan to look for. They had it assessed by some soil experts. and they have prescribed a maintenance plan. And they respond that maintenance plan. it does take time. PH. in the soil. And. you know. pH. changing the pH in the soil takes years. and so. I mean. it's vital right now. we have groups out there using it. It's. you know. it's not the best field in town. and it should be. but there were Unknown: expenses of mine in
Katherine Brenna: order to maintain that. yeah. yeah. they're being covered by
Unknown: do we add the DEP W deal meetings as a repeating item in our agenda? Maybe we have someone go to each meeting so we can kind of report and share that information internally. so we all know what's happening. How do we how do we make this an item we can feel good achieving at the end of the game? Well. I think that the cabinet has has regular contact and interaction.
probably more than she would like. Maybe. What did you
Jeff Bergeron: visit the thing that came out on the third which was great to be able to see what progress is. That's something that it's actually like part of the review. we're part of the discussion. I think that would be great. I mean. just looking at it. it's like. I remember. I mean. I had a conversation with Jennifer said about high school girls softball field. and that was the first that I heard that they had something that was already in work. So this company was. I mean. within a week. irrigation was already installed. and it was great. But not knowing that. I think. creates a lot more questions. where it would be great to see. not only like. what's the worst. but also what's coming up. I also like. and then also. if there's a way for us to get to have any sort of input. just looking at like fields. five and six for clay fit as being improvements in irrigation. But even though those are probably the most played on fields. I also feel those are probably the two of the best fields of all. So why did we decide to do five and six as opposed to leveling eight for cleaning up nine and 10 or like. 11. Like. why we're. why was that decided Katherine Brenna: that's like that. That was the easiest way. and on short money and short labor be able to provide irrigation for five and six. We're. like. completely renovating a. a is more disruptive. but B. it was a. there were logistical challenges. especially because of the school that's operating. that's behind the school. So there are reasons. and I think sometimes the general consensus from the community. I think. is that that generally DEP does have a plan. and there are reasons behind their plan. but nobody knows they are and so people are and so people are standing out to feel kind of scratching. Why is this this way? And then. like I said. After a quick conversation with DEP W that you get your answers. but it would be easier if those answers were more readily available. Jeff Bergeron: Here's what's in progress. here's what's coming up. And then we discussed. Unknown: what. if? What if we made the DPW real situation. a standing agenda and and that we would get some type of report from the DPW. especially. what's been accomplished since this July. I think. yeah. and I think their plan is to Katherine Brenna: regularly provide incentive updates. And maybe that's all we. maybe. maybe we. I don't know. How you want to get those reports? Unknown: It could be from directly. I can find out from them and compare something. whatever. whatever. whatever is most effective and easiest. Because you guys. you meet with them regularly. numerous times. So in preparation for. I mean. we have something before. I
think
it's our biggest visibility item for the town. You know. there's another Tom meeting. They're going to want us to speak on it. and we really have to be up today.
Katherine Brenna: Another avenue that would help keep you performed is potentially this commission participating in the capital planning that happens. or even just like a review of it. which hasn't historically happened at these meetings. but like having to share like
Unknown: that. yeah. And. you know. we're all kind of. I'm new on this board. and I've just kind of learned. okay. which lists are starting to be on and Okay. which part of which meeting do I need to attend? And I think. you know. I think we're really getting there as a group. and maybe right now more fostering their foot how we can spread out and figure this out. I
Jeff Bergeron: think that we. I agree with this. I think that we add a standing agenda item that is. you know. discussing. you know. field maintenance and DTW updates and MOU updates. and either what's in progress and what's planned stuff. and if there's a way to be able to provide any input. you know. we can discuss at that point. And then additionally. I think that having the Capital Planning Committee. having there be some type of person that passes the liaison between. you know. possibly them. I think. would be very Unknown: helpful in terms of that. all that. and then he wants.
I think. probably yes. Okay. so we all screwed away. Oh. I think maybe we had a little rerun in terms of what went on last night at 14 West Windsor So. Leslie and I were both there. and I think that the number of folks in chatting. and there are a number of folks who spoke very much in favor of what we're doing. as far as asking with another woman whose name I did not get you also.
no. well. Chris Reynolds is speaking as a practice. yeah. and the other woman was speaking As a looking at it from the perspective it's an opportunity to purchase your property that has a lot of attributes that could be used by a lot of different ways. And I was advocating for recreation relocated there recreation needs. They were saying that it was something like $200 per square feet to take over this property that currently existed. versus the $800 per square foot to find new Oh. yeah. Well. that goes to costly communist. So this. this property is. and I don't know whether any of you folks had an opportunity to have a tour so. but when you do. it was done. saying. literally. in very good condition. Uh. does not need much in terms of upgrades. Um. handicapped accessible and well. it doesn't have an elevator. There are ramps that allow folks with disability to access all especially building. This is everything the library was interested in offering new services and collaboration with recreation the library and we. we can make this happen at the library and recreation tenants in that building. we can. Know in the library at all. We were here this morning. discussed this. and then we could move forward with further discussion. And then it really is having a select board said that they were going to make a decision in terms of what they want to do. pursuing the property by the end of the month. So that's Yeah. and I just want to add in the people who were against the acquisition were saying that the it would take the property out of a commercial zone and into a municipal zone. and the last and you come to the town. would be considerable. It doesn't make any
difference. plus the staffing cost to. you know. upkeep trash and clean bathrooms and sure and all this. bits and pieces that
position but I don't know whether you would address this. whether we would have an opportunity go and Take a look.
Take a look at the building. We
Is
Jeff Bergeron: there any commercial interest in the building? Unknown: Right now. the building is on market. Along the building. at this particular one time. would be willing to wait to recognize the briefer to do anything about this building the approach Tom me through the town again. because. because it deals with funding. and so April that when we decision would be made. and then that would be contingent upon it going forward. So forward. so there's plenty of time to figure out what we what we would like to do. but I think for sooner that we can get in there and see what's available to us for collaboration with the library. I think that would go a long way to determine
my concern was. you know. what happens when depression. if the rec department itself moves to this building? How would it be detrimental to that department to sever. you know. proximity of being in the town building and amongst other Tom employees. and being down the call from the town manager. Will that be an issue. but. but maybe it's the one department. it wouldn't hurt as much as other departments. And then also vacating the space. you know. Council of aging just vacated record. Then be vacated? What? How would that space be used? And does that make sense? My opinion. the reason the consular region left the region recreation. Jeff Bergeron: I know Weston has that whole separate they have their Yeah. it's amazing.
I mean. I would definitely be available to walk in and see. would the party owners be able to. like. maintain it until. like. it's town meeting and it's nothing. nothing can happen until July. Are they willing to. like. maintain the building. or the next nine months. they're still living there. So it looks like it was actually driving by. So I wasn't sure that I thought they left the building. I just want to make Unknown: sure that there's some segments there for eight months. Yeah. Jeff Bergeron: occupying it right now? Yeah. Okay. Unknown: so my question regarding commercial basket. Jeff Bergeron: like interest is like only because I know that I don't know what that what goes into that space. right? That's right next to that gas station has been empty and for at least for 10 plus years. and I would hate for Super. you know. anything to pass and have it be an additional eyesore that's on that corner just sitting there. So. yeah. yeah. Unknown: exactly. Jeff Bergeron: Or what was better for CBS? I mean. it was like. there's so many things that just sit there and get over grown. I would hate for this to be another one. Unknown: Because addition of this particular. I think. Captain. if you could. if you could reach out and see if we can get An update for us. Um.
good.
So
looking at this agenda. whether you want to cover anything twice Main Street.
Katherine Brenna: So it was listed as an additional suggested goal. and I think that was from prior years and interest in the property. Like I said. I think we are in a waiting game the some of the remediation needs to be completed by this November for mass DEP. But like I said. the town is looking at fun the remediation that has to happen there. There's pink bass. there's soil contamination. There's groundwater contamination. They're not saying that developing that land is impossible. so it's. you know. it is possible. but the price tag is potentially an issue. It's also not broken lane. It is causes. Unknown: Well. actually. it was. historically. it was dpwr Lane. And then if. when that whole issue was suggesting they move to the new facility. DPW stated. they'll be more than happy to relinquish their responsibility. So if recreation. the schools and a library become your agreement in terms of how the facility that property of youth. and actually we did. but then the library get turned down. The library get turned down after this August. into a state of trust. So I now is now.
Mark Norton: I think what's important 195 days relates to this group. is the RFP that the Select Board will put out for whoever will develop that site for that athletic facility. And I do think it's important that this group participate in that evaluation. so that the ARPA accurately reflects the needs of the community. rather than just. you know. being financial in nature. So addressing. you know. all age groups. multi generational access. all those items. So if we have a goal. I want to make sure that if you're talking to Doug anyway. understanding where they are in that process of RFP development and how rec can be involved in the development of the architect. I think it's
Jeff Bergeron: definitely a goal that stays on here. It may just be one of those that doesn't happen in 26 it stays on here. So that Unknown: way it's constantly discussing much more definitively. Well. for the mediation cost side. yeah. and then whether we move forward the remediation consensus. billions of dollars. with all the other fiscal aspects of their community of that currently. yeah. yeah. yeah. because there's no one. no. no one is going to want to come in here and and operate that facility. It's going to cost them million dollars up front. I think that's nothing. Yeah. yeah. but thanks.
Anything else in terms of goals. so I have so far that we said number one that. Collaborating DPW. we touched on that. supporting the dog park. but we land on any
Jeff Bergeron: actual tangible goals. on how we might be able to do that. So we're not going to identify the land. but once. once they do. what can we do. other than. you know. maybe send a letter somewhere saying Unknown: that. from my perspective. that would be what we can do. We could throw our support as a commissioner. We could throw our support behind it. But I don't think that we have any other
Jeff Bergeron: I think I think we just I think we get needed. We can either let them. we allow whoever is on that committee to be able to say that they have the support of the recognition as part of their process. If they need something in writing. you know. I have no problem sending an email saying. you know. just so that way you have it. You know. we discussed this where it's worth it. but I think that that's one of those necessarily need to be involved at this point I was showing support. We can do that. We can sort of loop it as a. you know. in progress or near completion Unknown: task. and also thinking what would happen. I think it would be an article next year. So I think we can certainly support as part. as part of the opportunity. Yeah.
we keep in three and four. I thought those dropped off the list from the last meeting. but I think I suggested the global opportunities. I don't I think the big ball community is pretty content. and until they reach out and think it's something different strike that
Jeff Bergeron: doing. I was. I wasn't sure if that included like. you. type like. encourage. not like. doing any type of like. rep. type of all like. yeah. like. youth opportunity. especially if. like. if field off. you Were going to a private Is that something that sort of fills that athletic void of field coffee is there. you know. becomes like a rec program or something like that? Katherine Brenna: I think that we can capture the goals of this item within rec department goals. So. like just your normal program assessments. I don't necessarily think it needs to be a priority. Unknown: And Lauren is happy to talk. if necessary. my wife about erase that after our last meeting. she's happy to if that would be helpful.
Thank and now bottom this. 1415. 1617. 18.
Well. Wesley started working on number 14. which is great. She provided some documents that voted this morning. That Katherine Brenna: on the agenda for next meeting. If the commission is an agreement that this could be a goal. Unknown: I think that's actually Jeff Bergeron: that would be one of the priority goals. There's a lot Unknown: discussion about evaluating fuel costs and fee schedule that I think is an ongoing. ongoing issue.
Yeah. we just need to be apprised and aware of what your recommendations are and how we do. Katherine Brenna: And I think once we once the commission voted the new policy and we rolled it out. there were some pickups and some groups that couldn't understand how they fit in. but I think we've ironed out a lot of those issues. So I don't necessarily think it's necessary to go back and change any way that it was building. but as we continue to use it and learn new things. we might have amendments the next time we look at it. but I would say we should look at it manually. Mark Norton: Yeah. So I. I agree with that. ideally. and CPC as well. I think this board would probably be aware of what is going forward there. What's the scheduler that works best for you on both the field fees. the timing got kind of like tricky last year. So what are we best in the year? Just to address it for you on both of those fronts. Katherine Brenna: So for the field policies. I think it's best to do in the office. You don't want to feel the clothes. So closed. so in January and to go into effect either that following spring. or do I want this year. just so people can budget and all that. I think that a general review of the capital planning. During the budget season. which is when the fall is best. So that potentially our fall right meetings would have some kind of review to the capital planning. which should include CDC projects submitted by the commission. But I know at some point the CPC also looks to the recognition. to look to opine on applications that are not presenting. and that happens again in the fall of December. We could swap that into the agenda October. and then a few of ones in December. Unknown: Okay. yeah. I think submissions. And mid November. I think December. So it is Katherine Brenna: in line with kind of the capital clinic in general. and so we could take a review of the entire department's capital plan as we submit it through channels. and potentially identify projects that would be suitable for students.
Unknown: I think we really need to carve out some time and see if we see this here. because I felt like that was over. Was rushed through. I was new to it. I didn't understand and we yeah. we need to really review each item.
priorities. review each other. Priorities. submitted and
then become familiar with the Open Meeting. I don't know how many open meeting rock training. so being historically in this town has been a real issue. not for recreation. There's been a real issue for other doors. and we call on traffic numerous times and as board members and town for over so in our best interest that everybody takes a look at The over mer thing and just complete it. So we've done our due diligence as far as that's concerned. and understand where we are with respect to having open gates. one of the biggest areas that we need. And I don't think. I don't think anybody is looking at the Recreation Commission as consistent violators of the opening. and I don't think they're looking at us. Well. we can. we can make points by your email. For beneficial for us to make sure we don't fall so it takes probably half an hour. 45 minutes in the country with and one of the biggest violations that we do have is answering emails they can't. Can't answer emails for the entire board they haven't posted. then your family having that.
absolutely you do a very good job and you Always have to carry out. Please don't respond to all that's Katherine Brenna: the other big one that I think is getting hit with is discussing or acting on items that aren't specifically if you kind of get outside of the scope of the agenda item. So this board hasn't been other boards. So yes. just remind you want to really talk about something in a meeting. or even because you vote on it. just shoot us an email. Unknown: yeah. or for something you just come up with last minute talking to it's easy to list Katherine Brenna: something as a vote and not be ready for the novice.
Unknown: Okay? So. yeah. Steve Calvin. Are good. but yeah so.
okay. annual report. review. discussion and approval of the fiscal year. 2025 annual course through September 30. pursuant to town flow. Chapter 53. one. if available. and they are relatively known about it. And I feel like
I did not go back to make the ends. I don't remember. Just Well. so do you want me to say like
so it says in the CBC commission that committee the last line fiscal year 2025 CBC and Tom voters funded improvements to Cochituate ballpark. That was fiscal year 2024 and last year in 2025 sorry. we did the York Road trail on the Tom building the ground so we had 400.000 to the town building playground. and something like 33.000 to the York Road trail. the last 70. like the last time. I'm not sure if that's 126 so then if it's FY 26 then I feel like that should not list me. because that's not my turn. That would have been have been Kelly. That was just like. so you're understanding ground up. I'm just beginning. and so I put
25 of your birth right? Yeah. maybe I'm wrong. but no.
what does FY 25 end? 26 begin? FY 26 begin on July 1.
So maybe I was present for that. That
would have been July 24 to.
Yeah. Things you're talking about Yeah. so. so this was. I looked this morning. and it was on the annual Tom meeting 2024 list. the 154.000 to constituent ball fields and softball fields. and then the 296 in the DEP with people. Katherine Brenna: So you're saying you weren't on the CPC when that was okay. Unknown: that was at the 2024. annual time meeting. But I'm not sure if that's considered. I think that's considered.
I will go back and get this very
so it should on July 120. 25 we voted in favor of reappointing Leslie ending. June 30. 2026.
right. that's FY 26 this is the FY 25 report. Katherine Brenna: So. so on my first 24 we had a meeting. and what would you do to be the CPC back? Right? So that is the entire duration of FY 25 but. yeah. So that's sentences. true. but you're it is unrelated to the FY 25 approval that happened to Tom made that Unknown: year. right? Because it was supplier term. But okay. so we Katherine Brenna: could restructure it just so it like the first sentence true. yeah. and the last sentence was true. but they were not related. right? So we could say maybe something like in. in the prior term. yeah. the CPC before these projects. Because if Unknown: you're going to list my term there. I think you would list the North Road Trail and the Tom building playground.
correct my 25
All right? Thank you.
Grammatical. yeah. I
hope that's up. Would someone make a motion for two the annual reports in September of
25? Assume the town called chapter 53 dash one. and with with
the amendments to the CPC recession. my second. Are there?
Commissioners. announcements and reports and concerns
and I would like to say that the CDC committee is meeting tomorrow. and unfortunately I'm unable to attend. And I was wondering if anybody from this committee would be able to attend to my place tomorrow at 630 I plan to submit a summary of the recreation CPC funds what's been completed. but I Just don't love that there's totally out of space. without recreation mind. just it's usually very formal. So where the first meeting. they're just kind of setting things. but I don't know Katherine Brenna: if it's appropriate. or someone could go in your seat. just from an informative standpoint. So it kind of. I don't think that they could participate in the conversation. or both. Unknown: They can't go. Yeah. but it's more just as a placeholder to remind them. uh. recreation and care to help.
Hello. you're I think it's a very. very short meeting. I remember the last time our first meeting. we didn't have enough time to pass the cookies all the way around the table. so
it worked.
Mark Norton: No no. we're hosting for people that are in town. so I can't really.
Unknown: yeah. no. I'll provide a written summary of our progress to you. And Susan. yeah. nice. yeah. yeah. it has been
consistent Wayland town building that I see right now.
A lot more
i The other thing I just wanted to say is. I did look at a few sites with the dog park committee. and their number one priority is. I'm not sure if it's changed from their website. but they they really liked that small plot of land right behind Ace Hardware. which was previously offered to the town from for $100 but that. I think that Tom meeting. we didn't accept the land. So I'm not sure if there's any. they have any right to that land. It's just. it's where the the the of the touch of chocolate. That was how there's a little pasture right there. a little green space that's. you know. under used. and would be just so that plastic. if it was improved.
Okay. they don't need very much. I mean. they're. they're not looking for much. Well. we're looking at recreation. They're looking for two spaces. Yeah. they. they saw that little field and thought that would. yeah. that side for both if they could manage that. which is that. Jeff Bergeron: The two spaces aren't necessarily in two separate areas. It's just like. maybe. like an offense that would divide so that we have an area so. but it
Unknown: would be they could be all in one area. Yeah. they're really interested in that too. And. yeah.
so I encourage them to attend those meetings.
I went to see the Sherman bridge. road bridge. I took 10 minutes last Friday. It's absolutely stunning. Anybody should go there and improve your day. It's so peaceful. so beautiful. The bridge itself is really lovely. The wood. it's just. it's. it's calming. And there. you know. there is a boat ramp. the twos. and who are fishing there? When I went. there were two or three fire crews there when I went. which is some amazing thing to happen in 10 minutes. the mass.is has a proposal to improve the bridge By structurally silver.
So we are state of disrepair. Yeah. it needs some repair. It's very clear that they want to repair it by making it suitable for cars. not so much suitable for the in. you know. the environment that it's in. So they want as many cars as possible to be able to go as heavily and fast as possible. So they want to do is.
Is called the name. so I got it. It's blue Lane plus asphalt combo. So it's like a petrified wood that looks pretty on the outside. but the asphalt combo is just like putting the idle right on top. so that that like pleasing sound of a car kind of going over the nice bridge like that's all lost. and it's gonna happen. if you can just tell that Mass DOT wants to change it for their purposes. not for environmental purposes. And I think. I think a lot will be lost if they do do that. civil and original. or heavy trucks to take that route. which some trucks might avoid it because of the wood bridge. it's going to encourage people to go faster. I think it would be nice to have some sort of speed tempering measures in the neighborhood. or bridge. You know. lower speeds encourage lower league vehicles. But I don't know. I'd just be interested to see what comes up at but. Katherine Brenna: yeah. no. it's and Doug stops. Is he still. I think so. Yeah. he wrote a letter to this commission asking for recreation permission support in this so potentially not to go back to reopen the goals. But if the submission is interested in supporting that. then maybe it should be wonderful. Building.
Unknown: I don't know. I wasn't sure how much of it was recreation. I mean. I know bikers go over it and bikers use it. but like. what sort of space to control and that? Katherine Brenna: Yeah. I don't think it's any of those actually wrap land. But he doesn't make an argument that it is a recreational aspect and that the recognition should take. I The Jeff Bergeron: recognition should take that very quick. That looks like it was approved for Community Preservation Act funds anything ever come from that. Unknown: Not that I know about it was in Jeff Bergeron: town meeting time. meeting in 2022 when voters approved to use the Community Preservation Act. So they purchased that area. Oh. and now it needs more to be able to get Unknown: So apparently there's a. like. a goat shed. There's a small house that's right there. I was speaking to conservation about. you know. the Tom when they need some goats to get rid of the poison ivy. And she's like. Oh. we approach it. and we just bought that. and then we just get somebody to mind the goats in the weekend. So not our problem for now. yeah. But I'm not sure if it's the same or. yeah. Jeff Bergeron: I think that's like. a separate car than. like. just outside the acre? Unknown: Think so. I'm not sure. though. but yeah. I think it's a watch the space.
Did anybody respond to the dep.no one responded. No. Oh. I. I told Doug that I would take a lot. Okay. yeah. so. yes. yes. I did acknowledge Doug in that way. but not officially. That's part of it.
Mark Norton: Sorry. I agree with supporting it again to give some good follow up progress perspective. How do we engage in what can we do with it's a mass got problems.
Unknown: Oh. I think it's whether the road launch is in Katherine Brenna: our purview or and whether a biker's right of Unknown: way is something that a person's right to natural beauty. I don't know. Mark Norton: Yeah. I appreciate. and I know. I know it's fine.
Unknown: and I agree with him. I just want to be able. in our capacity. to do something
to be discussed.
and we could add Katherine Brenna: Amber work. like I said. potentially it's
relevant. Sure. I think the Unknown: meeting about this on October 1. Mary select quarters. have I made full arm? Is that right? A full run.
is that right? Katherine Brenna: I haven't heard October 1. It could be Doug wrote us all an email on August 27 that said it was two weeks ago. So as of two weeks ago. it had been scheduled. but I
Unknown: you want to
Katherine Brenna: a summer. there's a nice write up with everything we did in the right. right up in the way we post the record permit. that's about the beach and the camps and fields and all fun stuff to hit the summer of letting me down in here on time. our fall program registration open end in August for pretty good numbers we have we two years ago. we created direct task program to help support the wait list of The base programs. The base program has since resolved its weightless issue. which has pretty much eliminated the need for us to provide after school program that would be also running Wednesdays. which is early Wednesday and super Wednesdays. so that we're starting to roll out programs in the community center. We have chess lessons happening over there. some babies in courses. We had our coaches meeting for the field hockey parents out up there. Really cool space. and we're excited about it right now. In September. we're all working towards this swim festival on fourth it's going to be a really. cool event. It's historically. we've done touch and truck. which is extract some cool community partners that put on an event that this year we're partnering with the hrda. who's putting on a multicultural pavilion on artist marketplace. Wayland Arts is coordinating some live music on stage. which is going to be pretty awesome. And the red 250 committee is also planning a parade that will kick off in the morning ahead of touch drop. It's pretty cool. There's going to be food trucks here. beer garden. kids activities. something like that. It's going to be big. We got some data from our last touch truck was through about 3200 visitors to the events. and so we anticipate that this one will be much bigger. Um. I believe they're working on that. I don't know. I haven't seen that. Unknown: Um. On. We already Katherine Brenna: talked about the analysis. We're working very closely with DEP W to get fields in better condition and stretched appropriately and ready for games each weekend. The beach is obviously closing the season. but we're doing some of our all prep stuff to get the building ready for next season. and closing off season. we do still have a handful of events that happen in the fall. Our crew is planning a series of new school fun nights. as they call them. or youth nights. with plan police and the family services. The first one is actually coming up at the end of this month. It's going to be for sixth graders Middle School. It's kind of a social night. And then there's a couple of trips planned after that. which is
Unknown: really exciting. The Katherine Brenna: ones. the one on the winter will be to me show the valley. I think they're talking in October buffalo. which is in some kind of Halloween inspired event. middle school students.
26 annual fishing derby that happened this past spring. and volunteer that has made that happened. That event happened for 26 years. Tom Antonella said. decided to. we'll call it retired from that event. And so we're working with our teams. Team are kind of working to see there's a way to keep going to Wakeland. because it is a very popular event. Helen says. going on for a long time. Unknown: Um. so we hope. we hope to keep that alive with TBD. Um. we are working Katherine Brenna: with the playground designer on the children's way playground. which should go to bed this fall. We're working with the associates on the design working through ballpark. varsity baseball. Now. find her underway. and then we have been involved some of these 14 plain street conversation. Not all we have the balls that are in the air right now. just just for general programming. it was you. Unknown: Question actually. because for the CPC meeting coming up. they're going to want to know if we have used all the funds have been allocated to us in the last three years. Katherine Brenna: So to some degree. yes. For example. the two years ago. they appropriated money for the town beach entry way and playground is completed in our use. and we installed 80 cents of that appropriation
and the beach entry project. Most of that work is done. but there is still some work to do there. So we do expect some expenditures to happen. but also that there will be a turn back to the CPC. So the bid for the fence actually came in way after that. we will be Unknown: able to turn some money back there
Katherine Brenna: and the CPC funded the town. Yes. this town. which. like I said. should go to bid this fall. and once it's been the construction is like a six to eight process. So by the time CPC goes to the next round of voting. but that should be
Unknown: resolved. We Katherine Brenna: have to coordinate this preschool that is housed in this building uses that as part of their curriculum even in the winter. So we need to kind of work around your schedule. So we have to work. There's no good times to figure
Unknown: out the it out. But hopefully Katherine Brenna: this this one a little bit challenging because it's in the weapons and there's some other factors that go into it. but we're working Unknown: through Saturday
or Yeah. there was money for the payments. Does that mean. Katherine Brenna: oh. the spending of the money? Yeah. we spent some portion of the money that has been allocated to ball car for design or a mass plan for the site. I want to say 18 or 20.000 of the appropriation we're developing the timeline for when the rest of it would be spent. Three years ago. CPC appropriated about $150.000 to renew the basketball court. and we kind of put that on ice until this master plan is done. So there is a plan to spend it. Of it's. I would say. three or more years older. but I'm not ready to Unknown: give it back. I hope they don't. I'm ready. Okay.
I'm just
okay. sorry. that's all. I never really
Katherine Brenna: the fall is supposed to be quieter than the summer so far. So
Unknown: anything else. schedule our next meeting.
What works for the
and this time and during the interview is good.
It's not occurring that it's making that means
Katherine Brenna: agenda items and all documents should be ready. please.
Unknown: We talked about here today. Jeff Bergeron: the only we were to look at 14 West lane. Do we go like we need a day to do that? Unknown: Now. I think that's going to be what we're allowed to do that. okay. but. but prior to our next meeting. that'll
be okay. Should we recommend Tuesday. at this Jeff Bergeron: time or as possible. to actually do it as like a immediately after or before here we meet there at 930 on the 21st and then sort of do it all at once. Unknown: You ask for that. Yeah.
Another branch conversation or potential public forum
and potential review.
Katherine Brenna: Maybe. I guess. we find high school Yes. yeah. yes. like when you said. Anthony.
Unknown: yeah. motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to return a second. All in favor. Thank you all for coming.
reserve. the chapter two. with the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in persons. and the quote is going to applicable law. This means even recorded which we made. as well cam as soon after meeting. as is travel required by law or allowed by the chair person's wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in a meeting. to do so by in person tenants. or by accessing a meeting remotely as noted request. public comments. two minutes per person. these times. approximately. items will not be discussed. and you are listed for a specific. specific time estimate. All this. the topics may be separate to deliberation and work. The agenda is a call of order. Include public comment. three minutes review and approve. Next is available on our August 19. 3025 meeting. FY. 26 goals continue discussion of commission. department goals and vision. budget request for fiscal year 2026 and fiscal year two through fiscal year 2030 the gospel vote the darkness. second at the last meeting. In report. the new discretion improved the fiscal year 2025 annual report due September 30. pursuant to town village. chapter 53. dash one. available do correspondence. if any one from the economic development committee regarding Town Center two. East Coast Sherman. Sherman Ridge Road and three DPW. regarding field maintenance. Commissioner. announcements. dash. slash. reports and concerns. Recreation directors. report. schedule our next meeting. date. potential agenda items. 310. topics not increasingly anticipated by the chair. 48. hours in advance of the meeting for him and number 11 adjourned in attendance today regarding Lisa Foster. stewards. my plan And the captain. our recreation there. So the public comment. We'll move right on three minutes review and approve. Minutes are available at August 19. 2025 they just came in. They're in their packets.
Look at please. Come on. agent. thank you.
I just have a question on the goals about the identifying Tom lane that we was suitable for dog park. I don't know if our goal would be better described as. you know. in support of the dog park committee is as needed by our patients. I don't particularly want to identify be the one pursuing the concept more in support of these other committees. I agree. I don't think it's in our purview be supportive of selective
up. support. committee. advocacy. yeah.
Yeah. something else. if
and you want
that reason absolutely
what I Say. I motion to approve the your second. second Second. Any discussion? Seeing? None. All in favor. All
um for fiscal year goals. discussion Commission. Department goals and related budget requests for school year 2026 the fiscal year. 2030 possible vote. They got this presented at the last meeting. So you look at the roller motion. Katherine Brenna: So I prepared a list that's in the packet with the goals. And you can see there's only four there. but the minutes reflect kind of a more comprehensive list. So I don't know which list you want to go on top of that. but I think it would be good to just finalize a list of goals. Well. see that. like in the minutes. there's a couple of other goals that weren't and it might just be my error. When I prepared this document in the packet. I took the list we used last time. and we had stricken a bunch. and so I left before that we're not stricken at on top. but then it. but it looks like these ones that. and I didn't go back and look at the tape when I was making this. So these ones kind of moved up additional suggested commission will be done into that. Unknown: So we look at these goals. one through four and then 14 through 18. We will have discussion in terms of which direction they want to go in terms of four plus five years be effectively the goals we have for this year.
Any comment on that.
Question is. do you do we as a group. look at these at least nine and say that's too many pursue. And
I don't think that in terms of looking at these goals. I don't think there's these goals are not. in my estimation. in in order of. I think it may be well. it may well be things that We deal with. first. second. third. not. not necessarily. I and Katherine Brenna: I just add that I think if we look into FY 27 when some of these might be accomplished and there is a need for a budget to support into those goals. then that budget would be submitted this fall. like between now and January. so that we would it.
Unknown: I know you've answered this before. and I'm sorry I don't remember. Why is it that the middle school is not part of our rotating playground?
Dr. keen. the playground? Yeah. there isn't. Why isn't the middle school field considered part of the fields that were Oh. it Katherine Brenna: is. it is. It's just a shared asset with the schools. obviously. And so it falls under the MOU where DEP W and the Board of Public Works correct department recognition. And the school committee and school department kind of share that space. It was in my time here. It was slated for complete renovation. probably around this time it moved in the capital plan for. I mean. the town is kind of played with some interesting capital planning strategies. We do have a new capital planning committee that has been established that will hopefully prioritize the needs of the field with needs of the entire town. But in general. like I submit a capital plan in the last two years. it was submitted either to DEP or facilities. and a lot of just doesn't make the cut. And so Middle School is not currently in the five year capital plan. but I do think it's in like six or seven. right the out here. six or seven. which would be 30 FY. 30 or 30. Unknown: So it's in someone's list. Katherine Brenna: It's on the radar. for sure. It is in disrepair. And I think that. you know. like we're renovating Alpine right now. and I think it would. it is the next motion needed field that needs. like. take it offline. But obviously we cannot take the middle school offline without assuming bull back. And so right now that
Unknown: doesn't exist that it Katherine Brenna: will help the Alpine. Can't replace the middle school entirely. because the Alpine is a single rectangular footprint. and the middle school has a baseball field and softball field.
Jeff Bergeron: And he says. like. could you do this like left side of the school where like baseball field is. and taking a bit like that hard and then take a red cyber Yeah. is there 600 years of not changing that seems like too long. and it's only gonna get worse? Yeah? Katherine Brenna: I mean. one year is too long. Yeah. there's budget constraints. and there's it's not just reps properties. full property. It's not right. Unknown: Is there like a comprehensive plan that actually lays that opposite like your outline. is number one. right now. This field is number two. This field's number three. like going like so 2027 or 2026 will be this field. Katherine Brenna: 2027 will be the rec department prepares annually a capital plan. and that plan prioritizes all 64 different field sites that have the 12 flag rounds priorities and. you know. sketches them out in the capital plan. It's a massive Excel document that I'm having to share with this group. I use portions of that to submit to the capital plan every year. And that's what I was talking about. that we submit our needs to the capital plan. They don't always make it. And so historically. in the last four or five years that I've been here. the budgets have been. you know. pretty capped at a level service budget. And very few big ticket capital projects have gone in since the lower project or the high school saving project. So like I said. they are in the out years at this point. because they just keep Unknown: getting down the road. but Katherine Brenna: the town is recognizing this is an issue. and that there are kind of family facilities across the board. and has since the last time meeting. established the Capital Improvement Planning Committee. which had its first meeting last week. Unknown: Right? So there's a
Katherine Brenna: group of talents. kind of tasks. like. do we want to spend $1.5 million on 14 West lane? There's a better student to spend it at the middle school? And kind of prioritize those plans. But we Yes. the rec department has a plan that is based on the condition of the field and Unknown: bouncers. Do you sit in on the capital planning committee meetings? Does anybody on the recognition? Katherine Brenna: No should we? There was a discussion. There was a task force that I sat on ahead of that capital planning committee. where different board members. their school committee reps. ConCom Select Board. There were probably the 12 people were all parties were represented. It was decided among the group that staff would not be on the committee. as it is subject to over Meeting Law. And it was requested that recognition beyond that group. And ultimately decided that. I Unknown: think if you put Katherine Brenna: a recognition member. then you also need a portal. The board of reports in the library. and then they get right. So one of the rules is. actually the people in this committee cannot be members of any other committee. And that was a Tom meeting. again. wasn't approved last year. Okay? So. like two at large members that can be assigned by the Select Board. So it's like recognition has somebody that felt like there would represent recreations interest. they could put that person up to the Select Board to be appointed Unknown: to them. So who's on? No. I don't know. I know. I believe Kelly lane. who's former Chair of the Finance Committee. is element and. Katherine Brenna: You obviously made me feel overly he also from the finance committee. I don't know it's really new. and it's kind of those seats are being filled pretty quickly. So this is something that we can attend. and just it's a public meeting. So the same way that we are subject to opine law with public meetings. and Unknown: so is it similar to the game? Similar to the ABC that the folks are appointed by?
Yeah. could we recommend a name to the Select Board to absolutely serves on it? Yeah. I think by the week they're filling receipts now. could we possibly recommend someone like Broadway?
Yeah. I mean. that
is important. Yeah. I mean. that is. yeah.
I don't even know if there are open seats right now. but it's
Mark Norton: working crazy call Brother. if we have an open seat.
Unknown: I think
maybe as a board. you know. the middle school question that I brought up was captured under the DEP W field maintenance. and then also increased awareness by recreation of sideboards that are serving on our behalf. So this new group. so maybe the goal could be our increased presence. Katherine Brenna: I don't know. I'm happy to share that. Like. what our internal plan is that we submit through the channels here. but in the last few years. those submissions don't actually make for whatever reason. and sometimes the CPC is part of that as well. because of capital projects that through the CPC. And I think there is movement now to get those CPC projects also in front of this other capital planning committee. so that they can be balanced with Unknown: the overall capital.
Katherine Brenna: But I think that something like the middle school. it's bigger than that. right? It involves school uses it as far as part of the curriculum. the PD and different uses there. So you can't just hold it. I'll take it offline and do a repair without a solid Unknown: so this. this. this meeting is controlled by select board next to me. so I can reach out to our representatives. what's the procedure? Katherine Brenna: Yeah. and periodically. the Select Board issues over the scenes that are available for LinkedIn. And I believe there's exercise.
Mark Norton: So my only critique with the goals is that we should have a metric to show achievement. So. collaborating with the DEP W on field maintenance. What is that? What a successful collaboration? Is it we as a group are able make sure that we're having somebody present at some functional work. What is that? I think. just going through the list. they're like. supporting the doc projects. our projects. I think we did that last session. right? Yeah.
Unknown: Right. Without support? Mark Norton: Yeah. but is there anything else we need to do to show achievement of that goal? So if we look back a year from now. Unknown: like. well. Jeff Bergeron: do we need to. like. email that and saying. like. as part of our permission. I'm part of the discussion and after your presentation. you have to support directly to be able to proceed whatever process you have. And then we can take this goal and mark it as complete. and it shows completion. Unknown: So I think we're done with our goals. Yeah. Number two. is it completed? If there is no ballpark. yeah. Jeff Bergeron: I mean. I think our goal is to support the dog project. and we've shown our support. we've been able to offer that. We've. you know. put it in writing as part of. like. you know. our pleasure. and that's one of the things that we do want to encourage. And if there's a follow up. we can add that to the future agenda. But I think that I agree with Mark. and we need to be able to have there be some type of natural critique is 12 and ones are redundant. so continue to borrow members to better maintain fields and collaborate with de W. I'm feeling they can stand while you MOU is pretty much the same joy. Feel like 12 could 12 the middle are Katherine Brenna: kind of our department mental. and so a lot of times they do dovetail or kind of overlap in that way. And I think that they should. but we do a lot of coordination with the PW in house to make what happens happens. And so I wouldn't strike it on the right department. because it is alright too. But I do think it is a real to be aware of that. because I know that the commission that doesn't stand it has a feelings about the different fields out there. like whether middle school or Alpine. and that we managed to have a say the capital plan that goes through the channels. you know. and it's especially with the middle school. It's a collaboration with the school committee. the work of the works. and now the plan can planning committee. so that. I think you all should have a Mark Norton: secret so in the collaborating. I mean. would we change that to really. what we want To have is Unknown: clarity Mark Norton: as to what's happening in those school field right? What needs to be done to get there. and kind of each as we think about all these different fields that things. programs that were supported. what are we doing? I think just clarity that people want. right? Like you go to middle school field. you're not happy with it. It'd be excellent for us today. 2028 it's in the program to be funded by this. and if you need to go to town meeting to support that. we can also say it's in the book for 28 but you need to make sure you're there for 27 to go for it. It's not a gift. or maybe it is. again. I don't know. but that makes Unknown: sense. Yeah. Jeff Bergeron: way to get any type of like. I guess. progress report for fields from DEP W of priorities. Katherine Brenna: they recently sent out. It's in the package there. you know. they said that. a press release essentially on what they're working on right now. which is in line with our capital planning internally. What we came to an agreement on is the renovation of alpine field. high school girls softball. varsity baseball and played adding irrigation five and six. And so those projects are all in the works for this fiscal year. which is great. but then. yeah. like in the out years. And so the capital plan is published in the Lawrence that gets the literature rooms now. So you can the average resident. if they're not sure where the middle school could be renovated. could look at the capital plan and see where that shakes out. But I believe. like I said. we've been putting before capital planning for a while. The town has historically just planned for the next fiscal year. you know. loosely planned out of the out years. Yeah. they are getting better at that. and so that. yeah. a five year plan would definitely help the community understand. so when they get that would be able to disrepair. they understand where it is in the pipeline. and that maybe that's not the worst. you know. yeah. Unknown: is the five year plan in your estimation going to be sort of desperate. based on What we currently remember. with
respect to the mwrase Defendant? What's going to happen. and then taking those out years will be more accurately. which Katherine Brenna: way I would say. as we sit here today. there's the out years probably aren't. Will be accurate. but I think with the work of this capital improvement plan. they are tasked to firm up the fire. So this year we should see one that's probably more reliable than being asked. which is great. absolutely. But there are. there is like a compliments of financial expenses coming out of town. WRA and there's there was a push. I know you've known for a while to build an indoor facility at 195 main street. which has triggered a lot of environmental work that's happening now. and some of it is expensive. the remediation that needs to happen at 195 The town is challenged to Unknown: find ways to pay for Yeah. I don't know anybody else Commission has any conversation with anybody quiet.
Katherine Brenna: I think there's an LSP task of looking at how to remediate that within the time frame the DEP requires and how to fund it. And so I think there was just waiting to see what that
Unknown: shit that's your proposition. right? Katherine Brenna: And so that. and that is honestly why some of our field projects get pushed out into the outward years. There are priorities. and I would say drinking water. there's a big one that's going to outweigh any kind of grass field projects. Now is Unknown: discussion with DPW for enough along to understand how they're approaching over Katherine Brenna: Yes. they have a plan to look for. They had it assessed by some soil experts. and they have prescribed a maintenance plan. And they respond that maintenance plan. it does take time. PH. in the soil. And. you know. pH. changing the pH in the soil takes years. and so. I mean. it's vital right now. we have groups out there using it. It's. you know. it's not the best field in town. and it should be. but there were Unknown: expenses of mine in
Katherine Brenna: order to maintain that. yeah. yeah. they're being covered by
Unknown: do we add the DEP W deal meetings as a repeating item in our agenda? Maybe we have someone go to each meeting so we can kind of report and share that information internally. so we all know what's happening. How do we how do we make this an item we can feel good achieving at the end of the game? Well. I think that the cabinet has has regular contact and interaction.
probably more than she would like. Maybe. What did you
Jeff Bergeron: visit the thing that came out on the third which was great to be able to see what progress is. That's something that it's actually like part of the review. we're part of the discussion. I think that would be great. I mean. just looking at it. it's like. I remember. I mean. I had a conversation with Jennifer said about high school girls softball field. and that was the first that I heard that they had something that was already in work. So this company was. I mean. within a week. irrigation was already installed. and it was great. But not knowing that. I think. creates a lot more questions. where it would be great to see. not only like. what's the worst. but also what's coming up. I also like. and then also. if there's a way for us to get to have any sort of input. just looking at like fields. five and six for clay fit as being improvements in irrigation. But even though those are probably the most played on fields. I also feel those are probably the two of the best fields of all. So why did we decide to do five and six as opposed to leveling eight for cleaning up nine and 10 or like. 11. Like. why we're. why was that decided Katherine Brenna: that's like that. That was the easiest way. and on short money and short labor be able to provide irrigation for five and six. We're. like. completely renovating a. a is more disruptive. but B. it was a. there were logistical challenges. especially because of the school that's operating. that's behind the school. So there are reasons. and I think sometimes the general consensus from the community. I think. is that that generally DEP does have a plan. and there are reasons behind their plan. but nobody knows they are and so people are and so people are standing out to feel kind of scratching. Why is this this way? And then. like I said. After a quick conversation with DEP W that you get your answers. but it would be easier if those answers were more readily available. Jeff Bergeron: Here's what's in progress. here's what's coming up. And then we discussed. Unknown: what. if? What if we made the DPW real situation. a standing agenda and and that we would get some type of report from the DPW. especially. what's been accomplished since this July. I think. yeah. and I think their plan is to Katherine Brenna: regularly provide incentive updates. And maybe that's all we. maybe. maybe we. I don't know. How you want to get those reports? Unknown: It could be from directly. I can find out from them and compare something. whatever. whatever. whatever is most effective and easiest. Because you guys. you meet with them regularly. numerous times. So in preparation for. I mean. we have something before. I
think
it's our biggest visibility item for the town. You know. there's another Tom meeting. They're going to want us to speak on it. and we really have to be up today.
Katherine Brenna: Another avenue that would help keep you performed is potentially this commission participating in the capital planning that happens. or even just like a review of it. which hasn't historically happened at these meetings. but like having to share like
Unknown: that. yeah. And. you know. we're all kind of. I'm new on this board. and I've just kind of learned. okay. which lists are starting to be on and Okay. which part of which meeting do I need to attend? And I think. you know. I think we're really getting there as a group. and maybe right now more fostering their foot how we can spread out and figure this out. I
Jeff Bergeron: think that we. I agree with this. I think that we add a standing agenda item that is. you know. discussing. you know. field maintenance and DTW updates and MOU updates. and either what's in progress and what's planned stuff. and if there's a way to be able to provide any input. you know. we can discuss at that point. And then additionally. I think that having the Capital Planning Committee. having there be some type of person that passes the liaison between. you know. possibly them. I think. would be very Unknown: helpful in terms of that. all that. and then he wants.
I think. probably yes. Okay. so we all screwed away. Oh. I think maybe we had a little rerun in terms of what went on last night at 14 West Windsor So. Leslie and I were both there. and I think that the number of folks in chatting. and there are a number of folks who spoke very much in favor of what we're doing. as far as asking with another woman whose name I did not get you also.
no. well. Chris Reynolds is speaking as a practice. yeah. and the other woman was speaking As a looking at it from the perspective it's an opportunity to purchase your property that has a lot of attributes that could be used by a lot of different ways. And I was advocating for recreation relocated there recreation needs. They were saying that it was something like $200 per square feet to take over this property that currently existed. versus the $800 per square foot to find new Oh. yeah. Well. that goes to costly communist. So this. this property is. and I don't know whether any of you folks had an opportunity to have a tour so. but when you do. it was done. saying. literally. in very good condition. Uh. does not need much in terms of upgrades. Um. handicapped accessible and well. it doesn't have an elevator. There are ramps that allow folks with disability to access all especially building. This is everything the library was interested in offering new services and collaboration with recreation the library and we. we can make this happen at the library and recreation tenants in that building. we can. Know in the library at all. We were here this morning. discussed this. and then we could move forward with further discussion. And then it really is having a select board said that they were going to make a decision in terms of what they want to do. pursuing the property by the end of the month. So that's Yeah. and I just want to add in the people who were against the acquisition were saying that the it would take the property out of a commercial zone and into a municipal zone. and the last and you come to the town. would be considerable. It doesn't make any
difference. plus the staffing cost to. you know. upkeep trash and clean bathrooms and sure and all this. bits and pieces that
position but I don't know whether you would address this. whether we would have an opportunity go and Take a look.
Take a look at the building. We
Is
Jeff Bergeron: there any commercial interest in the building? Unknown: Right now. the building is on market. Along the building. at this particular one time. would be willing to wait to recognize the briefer to do anything about this building the approach Tom me through the town again. because. because it deals with funding. and so April that when we decision would be made. and then that would be contingent upon it going forward. So forward. so there's plenty of time to figure out what we what we would like to do. but I think for sooner that we can get in there and see what's available to us for collaboration with the library. I think that would go a long way to determine
my concern was. you know. what happens when depression. if the rec department itself moves to this building? How would it be detrimental to that department to sever. you know. proximity of being in the town building and amongst other Tom employees. and being down the call from the town manager. Will that be an issue. but. but maybe it's the one department. it wouldn't hurt as much as other departments. And then also vacating the space. you know. Council of aging just vacated record. Then be vacated? What? How would that space be used? And does that make sense? My opinion. the reason the consular region left the region recreation. Jeff Bergeron: I know Weston has that whole separate they have their Yeah. it's amazing.
I mean. I would definitely be available to walk in and see. would the party owners be able to. like. maintain it until. like. it's town meeting and it's nothing. nothing can happen until July. Are they willing to. like. maintain the building. or the next nine months. they're still living there. So it looks like it was actually driving by. So I wasn't sure that I thought they left the building. I just want to make Unknown: sure that there's some segments there for eight months. Yeah. Jeff Bergeron: occupying it right now? Yeah. Okay. Unknown: so my question regarding commercial basket. Jeff Bergeron: like interest is like only because I know that I don't know what that what goes into that space. right? That's right next to that gas station has been empty and for at least for 10 plus years. and I would hate for Super. you know. anything to pass and have it be an additional eyesore that's on that corner just sitting there. So. yeah. yeah. Unknown: exactly. Jeff Bergeron: Or what was better for CBS? I mean. it was like. there's so many things that just sit there and get over grown. I would hate for this to be another one. Unknown: Because addition of this particular. I think. Captain. if you could. if you could reach out and see if we can get An update for us. Um.
good.
So
looking at this agenda. whether you want to cover anything twice Main Street.
Katherine Brenna: So it was listed as an additional suggested goal. and I think that was from prior years and interest in the property. Like I said. I think we are in a waiting game the some of the remediation needs to be completed by this November for mass DEP. But like I said. the town is looking at fun the remediation that has to happen there. There's pink bass. there's soil contamination. There's groundwater contamination. They're not saying that developing that land is impossible. so it's. you know. it is possible. but the price tag is potentially an issue. It's also not broken lane. It is causes. Unknown: Well. actually. it was. historically. it was dpwr Lane. And then if. when that whole issue was suggesting they move to the new facility. DPW stated. they'll be more than happy to relinquish their responsibility. So if recreation. the schools and a library become your agreement in terms of how the facility that property of youth. and actually we did. but then the library get turned down. The library get turned down after this August. into a state of trust. So I now is now.
Mark Norton: I think what's important 195 days relates to this group. is the RFP that the Select Board will put out for whoever will develop that site for that athletic facility. And I do think it's important that this group participate in that evaluation. so that the ARPA accurately reflects the needs of the community. rather than just. you know. being financial in nature. So addressing. you know. all age groups. multi generational access. all those items. So if we have a goal. I want to make sure that if you're talking to Doug anyway. understanding where they are in that process of RFP development and how rec can be involved in the development of the architect. I think it's
Jeff Bergeron: definitely a goal that stays on here. It may just be one of those that doesn't happen in 26 it stays on here. So that Unknown: way it's constantly discussing much more definitively. Well. for the mediation cost side. yeah. and then whether we move forward the remediation consensus. billions of dollars. with all the other fiscal aspects of their community of that currently. yeah. yeah. yeah. because there's no one. no. no one is going to want to come in here and and operate that facility. It's going to cost them million dollars up front. I think that's nothing. Yeah. yeah. but thanks.
Anything else in terms of goals. so I have so far that we said number one that. Collaborating DPW. we touched on that. supporting the dog park. but we land on any
Jeff Bergeron: actual tangible goals. on how we might be able to do that. So we're not going to identify the land. but once. once they do. what can we do. other than. you know. maybe send a letter somewhere saying Unknown: that. from my perspective. that would be what we can do. We could throw our support as a commissioner. We could throw our support behind it. But I don't think that we have any other
Jeff Bergeron: I think I think we just I think we get needed. We can either let them. we allow whoever is on that committee to be able to say that they have the support of the recognition as part of their process. If they need something in writing. you know. I have no problem sending an email saying. you know. just so that way you have it. You know. we discussed this where it's worth it. but I think that that's one of those necessarily need to be involved at this point I was showing support. We can do that. We can sort of loop it as a. you know. in progress or near completion Unknown: task. and also thinking what would happen. I think it would be an article next year. So I think we can certainly support as part. as part of the opportunity. Yeah.
we keep in three and four. I thought those dropped off the list from the last meeting. but I think I suggested the global opportunities. I don't I think the big ball community is pretty content. and until they reach out and think it's something different strike that
Jeff Bergeron: doing. I was. I wasn't sure if that included like. you. type like. encourage. not like. doing any type of like. rep. type of all like. yeah. like. youth opportunity. especially if. like. if field off. you Were going to a private Is that something that sort of fills that athletic void of field coffee is there. you know. becomes like a rec program or something like that? Katherine Brenna: I think that we can capture the goals of this item within rec department goals. So. like just your normal program assessments. I don't necessarily think it needs to be a priority. Unknown: And Lauren is happy to talk. if necessary. my wife about erase that after our last meeting. she's happy to if that would be helpful.
Thank and now bottom this. 1415. 1617. 18.
Well. Wesley started working on number 14. which is great. She provided some documents that voted this morning. That Katherine Brenna: on the agenda for next meeting. If the commission is an agreement that this could be a goal. Unknown: I think that's actually Jeff Bergeron: that would be one of the priority goals. There's a lot Unknown: discussion about evaluating fuel costs and fee schedule that I think is an ongoing. ongoing issue.
Yeah. we just need to be apprised and aware of what your recommendations are and how we do. Katherine Brenna: And I think once we once the commission voted the new policy and we rolled it out. there were some pickups and some groups that couldn't understand how they fit in. but I think we've ironed out a lot of those issues. So I don't necessarily think it's necessary to go back and change any way that it was building. but as we continue to use it and learn new things. we might have amendments the next time we look at it. but I would say we should look at it manually. Mark Norton: Yeah. So I. I agree with that. ideally. and CPC as well. I think this board would probably be aware of what is going forward there. What's the scheduler that works best for you on both the field fees. the timing got kind of like tricky last year. So what are we best in the year? Just to address it for you on both of those fronts. Katherine Brenna: So for the field policies. I think it's best to do in the office. You don't want to feel the clothes. So closed. so in January and to go into effect either that following spring. or do I want this year. just so people can budget and all that. I think that a general review of the capital planning. During the budget season. which is when the fall is best. So that potentially our fall right meetings would have some kind of review to the capital planning. which should include CDC projects submitted by the commission. But I know at some point the CPC also looks to the recognition. to look to opine on applications that are not presenting. and that happens again in the fall of December. We could swap that into the agenda October. and then a few of ones in December. Unknown: Okay. yeah. I think submissions. And mid November. I think December. So it is Katherine Brenna: in line with kind of the capital clinic in general. and so we could take a review of the entire department's capital plan as we submit it through channels. and potentially identify projects that would be suitable for students.
Unknown: I think we really need to carve out some time and see if we see this here. because I felt like that was over. Was rushed through. I was new to it. I didn't understand and we yeah. we need to really review each item.
priorities. review each other. Priorities. submitted and
then become familiar with the Open Meeting. I don't know how many open meeting rock training. so being historically in this town has been a real issue. not for recreation. There's been a real issue for other doors. and we call on traffic numerous times and as board members and town for over so in our best interest that everybody takes a look at The over mer thing and just complete it. So we've done our due diligence as far as that's concerned. and understand where we are with respect to having open gates. one of the biggest areas that we need. And I don't think. I don't think anybody is looking at the Recreation Commission as consistent violators of the opening. and I don't think they're looking at us. Well. we can. we can make points by your email. For beneficial for us to make sure we don't fall so it takes probably half an hour. 45 minutes in the country with and one of the biggest violations that we do have is answering emails they can't. Can't answer emails for the entire board they haven't posted. then your family having that.
absolutely you do a very good job and you Always have to carry out. Please don't respond to all that's Katherine Brenna: the other big one that I think is getting hit with is discussing or acting on items that aren't specifically if you kind of get outside of the scope of the agenda item. So this board hasn't been other boards. So yes. just remind you want to really talk about something in a meeting. or even because you vote on it. just shoot us an email. Unknown: yeah. or for something you just come up with last minute talking to it's easy to list Katherine Brenna: something as a vote and not be ready for the novice.
Unknown: Okay? So. yeah. Steve Calvin. Are good. but yeah so.
okay. annual report. review. discussion and approval of the fiscal year. 2025 annual course through September 30. pursuant to town flow. Chapter 53. one. if available. and they are relatively known about it. And I feel like
I did not go back to make the ends. I don't remember. Just Well. so do you want me to say like
so it says in the CBC commission that committee the last line fiscal year 2025 CBC and Tom voters funded improvements to Cochituate ballpark. That was fiscal year 2024 and last year in 2025 sorry. we did the York Road trail on the Tom building the ground so we had 400.000 to the town building playground. and something like 33.000 to the York Road trail. the last 70. like the last time. I'm not sure if that's 126 so then if it's FY 26 then I feel like that should not list me. because that's not my turn. That would have been have been Kelly. That was just like. so you're understanding ground up. I'm just beginning. and so I put
25 of your birth right? Yeah. maybe I'm wrong. but no.
what does FY 25 end? 26 begin? FY 26 begin on July 1.
So maybe I was present for that. That
would have been July 24 to.
Yeah. Things you're talking about Yeah. so. so this was. I looked this morning. and it was on the annual Tom meeting 2024 list. the 154.000 to constituent ball fields and softball fields. and then the 296 in the DEP with people. Katherine Brenna: So you're saying you weren't on the CPC when that was okay. Unknown: that was at the 2024. annual time meeting. But I'm not sure if that's considered. I think that's considered.
I will go back and get this very
so it should on July 120. 25 we voted in favor of reappointing Leslie ending. June 30. 2026.
right. that's FY 26 this is the FY 25 report. Katherine Brenna: So. so on my first 24 we had a meeting. and what would you do to be the CPC back? Right? So that is the entire duration of FY 25 but. yeah. So that's sentences. true. but you're it is unrelated to the FY 25 approval that happened to Tom made that Unknown: year. right? Because it was supplier term. But okay. so we Katherine Brenna: could restructure it just so it like the first sentence true. yeah. and the last sentence was true. but they were not related. right? So we could say maybe something like in. in the prior term. yeah. the CPC before these projects. Because if Unknown: you're going to list my term there. I think you would list the North Road Trail and the Tom building playground.
correct my 25
All right? Thank you.
Grammatical. yeah. I
hope that's up. Would someone make a motion for two the annual reports in September of
25? Assume the town called chapter 53 dash one. and with with
the amendments to the CPC recession. my second. Are there?
Commissioners. announcements and reports and concerns
and I would like to say that the CDC committee is meeting tomorrow. and unfortunately I'm unable to attend. And I was wondering if anybody from this committee would be able to attend to my place tomorrow at 630 I plan to submit a summary of the recreation CPC funds what's been completed. but I Just don't love that there's totally out of space. without recreation mind. just it's usually very formal. So where the first meeting. they're just kind of setting things. but I don't know Katherine Brenna: if it's appropriate. or someone could go in your seat. just from an informative standpoint. So it kind of. I don't think that they could participate in the conversation. or both. Unknown: They can't go. Yeah. but it's more just as a placeholder to remind them. uh. recreation and care to help.
Hello. you're I think it's a very. very short meeting. I remember the last time our first meeting. we didn't have enough time to pass the cookies all the way around the table. so
it worked.
Mark Norton: No no. we're hosting for people that are in town. so I can't really.
Unknown: yeah. no. I'll provide a written summary of our progress to you. And Susan. yeah. nice. yeah. yeah. it has been
consistent Wayland town building that I see right now.
A lot more
i The other thing I just wanted to say is. I did look at a few sites with the dog park committee. and their number one priority is. I'm not sure if it's changed from their website. but they they really liked that small plot of land right behind Ace Hardware. which was previously offered to the town from for $100 but that. I think that Tom meeting. we didn't accept the land. So I'm not sure if there's any. they have any right to that land. It's just. it's where the the the of the touch of chocolate. That was how there's a little pasture right there. a little green space that's. you know. under used. and would be just so that plastic. if it was improved.
Okay. they don't need very much. I mean. they're. they're not looking for much. Well. we're looking at recreation. They're looking for two spaces. Yeah. they. they saw that little field and thought that would. yeah. that side for both if they could manage that. which is that. Jeff Bergeron: The two spaces aren't necessarily in two separate areas. It's just like. maybe. like an offense that would divide so that we have an area so. but it
Unknown: would be they could be all in one area. Yeah. they're really interested in that too. And. yeah.
so I encourage them to attend those meetings.
I went to see the Sherman bridge. road bridge. I took 10 minutes last Friday. It's absolutely stunning. Anybody should go there and improve your day. It's so peaceful. so beautiful. The bridge itself is really lovely. The wood. it's just. it's. it's calming. And there. you know. there is a boat ramp. the twos. and who are fishing there? When I went. there were two or three fire crews there when I went. which is some amazing thing to happen in 10 minutes. the mass.is has a proposal to improve the bridge By structurally silver.
So we are state of disrepair. Yeah. it needs some repair. It's very clear that they want to repair it by making it suitable for cars. not so much suitable for the in. you know. the environment that it's in. So they want as many cars as possible to be able to go as heavily and fast as possible. So they want to do is.
Is called the name. so I got it. It's blue Lane plus asphalt combo. So it's like a petrified wood that looks pretty on the outside. but the asphalt combo is just like putting the idle right on top. so that that like pleasing sound of a car kind of going over the nice bridge like that's all lost. and it's gonna happen. if you can just tell that Mass DOT wants to change it for their purposes. not for environmental purposes. And I think. I think a lot will be lost if they do do that. civil and original. or heavy trucks to take that route. which some trucks might avoid it because of the wood bridge. it's going to encourage people to go faster. I think it would be nice to have some sort of speed tempering measures in the neighborhood. or bridge. You know. lower speeds encourage lower league vehicles. But I don't know. I'd just be interested to see what comes up at but. Katherine Brenna: yeah. no. it's and Doug stops. Is he still. I think so. Yeah. he wrote a letter to this commission asking for recreation permission support in this so potentially not to go back to reopen the goals. But if the submission is interested in supporting that. then maybe it should be wonderful. Building.
Unknown: I don't know. I wasn't sure how much of it was recreation. I mean. I know bikers go over it and bikers use it. but like. what sort of space to control and that? Katherine Brenna: Yeah. I don't think it's any of those actually wrap land. But he doesn't make an argument that it is a recreational aspect and that the recognition should take. I The Jeff Bergeron: recognition should take that very quick. That looks like it was approved for Community Preservation Act funds anything ever come from that. Unknown: Not that I know about it was in Jeff Bergeron: town meeting time. meeting in 2022 when voters approved to use the Community Preservation Act. So they purchased that area. Oh. and now it needs more to be able to get Unknown: So apparently there's a. like. a goat shed. There's a small house that's right there. I was speaking to conservation about. you know. the Tom when they need some goats to get rid of the poison ivy. And she's like. Oh. we approach it. and we just bought that. and then we just get somebody to mind the goats in the weekend. So not our problem for now. yeah. But I'm not sure if it's the same or. yeah. Jeff Bergeron: I think that's like. a separate car than. like. just outside the acre? Unknown: Think so. I'm not sure. though. but yeah. I think it's a watch the space.
Did anybody respond to the dep.no one responded. No. Oh. I. I told Doug that I would take a lot. Okay. yeah. so. yes. yes. I did acknowledge Doug in that way. but not officially. That's part of it.
Mark Norton: Sorry. I agree with supporting it again to give some good follow up progress perspective. How do we engage in what can we do with it's a mass got problems.
Unknown: Oh. I think it's whether the road launch is in Katherine Brenna: our purview or and whether a biker's right of Unknown: way is something that a person's right to natural beauty. I don't know. Mark Norton: Yeah. I appreciate. and I know. I know it's fine.
Unknown: and I agree with him. I just want to be able. in our capacity. to do something
to be discussed.
and we could add Katherine Brenna: Amber work. like I said. potentially it's
relevant. Sure. I think the Unknown: meeting about this on October 1. Mary select quarters. have I made full arm? Is that right? A full run.
is that right? Katherine Brenna: I haven't heard October 1. It could be Doug wrote us all an email on August 27 that said it was two weeks ago. So as of two weeks ago. it had been scheduled. but I
Unknown: you want to
Katherine Brenna: a summer. there's a nice write up with everything we did in the right. right up in the way we post the record permit. that's about the beach and the camps and fields and all fun stuff to hit the summer of letting me down in here on time. our fall program registration open end in August for pretty good numbers we have we two years ago. we created direct task program to help support the wait list of The base programs. The base program has since resolved its weightless issue. which has pretty much eliminated the need for us to provide after school program that would be also running Wednesdays. which is early Wednesday and super Wednesdays. so that we're starting to roll out programs in the community center. We have chess lessons happening over there. some babies in courses. We had our coaches meeting for the field hockey parents out up there. Really cool space. and we're excited about it right now. In September. we're all working towards this swim festival on fourth it's going to be a really. cool event. It's historically. we've done touch and truck. which is extract some cool community partners that put on an event that this year we're partnering with the hrda. who's putting on a multicultural pavilion on artist marketplace. Wayland Arts is coordinating some live music on stage. which is going to be pretty awesome. And the red 250 committee is also planning a parade that will kick off in the morning ahead of touch drop. It's pretty cool. There's going to be food trucks here. beer garden. kids activities. something like that. It's going to be big. We got some data from our last touch truck was through about 3200 visitors to the events. and so we anticipate that this one will be much bigger. Um. I believe they're working on that. I don't know. I haven't seen that. Unknown: Um. On. We already Katherine Brenna: talked about the analysis. We're working very closely with DEP W to get fields in better condition and stretched appropriately and ready for games each weekend. The beach is obviously closing the season. but we're doing some of our all prep stuff to get the building ready for next season. and closing off season. we do still have a handful of events that happen in the fall. Our crew is planning a series of new school fun nights. as they call them. or youth nights. with plan police and the family services. The first one is actually coming up at the end of this month. It's going to be for sixth graders Middle School. It's kind of a social night. And then there's a couple of trips planned after that. which is
Unknown: really exciting. The Katherine Brenna: ones. the one on the winter will be to me show the valley. I think they're talking in October buffalo. which is in some kind of Halloween inspired event. middle school students.
26 annual fishing derby that happened this past spring. and volunteer that has made that happened. That event happened for 26 years. Tom Antonella said. decided to. we'll call it retired from that event. And so we're working with our teams. Team are kind of working to see there's a way to keep going to Wakeland. because it is a very popular event. Helen says. going on for a long time. Unknown: Um. so we hope. we hope to keep that alive with TBD. Um. we are working Katherine Brenna: with the playground designer on the children's way playground. which should go to bed this fall. We're working with the associates on the design working through ballpark. varsity baseball. Now. find her underway. and then we have been involved some of these 14 plain street conversation. Not all we have the balls that are in the air right now. just just for general programming. it was you. Unknown: Question actually. because for the CPC meeting coming up. they're going to want to know if we have used all the funds have been allocated to us in the last three years. Katherine Brenna: So to some degree. yes. For example. the two years ago. they appropriated money for the town beach entry way and playground is completed in our use. and we installed 80 cents of that appropriation
and the beach entry project. Most of that work is done. but there is still some work to do there. So we do expect some expenditures to happen. but also that there will be a turn back to the CPC. So the bid for the fence actually came in way after that. we will be Unknown: able to turn some money back there
Katherine Brenna: and the CPC funded the town. Yes. this town. which. like I said. should go to bid this fall. and once it's been the construction is like a six to eight process. So by the time CPC goes to the next round of voting. but that should be
Unknown: resolved. We Katherine Brenna: have to coordinate this preschool that is housed in this building uses that as part of their curriculum even in the winter. So we need to kind of work around your schedule. So we have to work. There's no good times to figure
Unknown: out the it out. But hopefully Katherine Brenna: this this one a little bit challenging because it's in the weapons and there's some other factors that go into it. but we're working Unknown: through Saturday
or Yeah. there was money for the payments. Does that mean. Katherine Brenna: oh. the spending of the money? Yeah. we spent some portion of the money that has been allocated to ball car for design or a mass plan for the site. I want to say 18 or 20.000 of the appropriation we're developing the timeline for when the rest of it would be spent. Three years ago. CPC appropriated about $150.000 to renew the basketball court. and we kind of put that on ice until this master plan is done. So there is a plan to spend it. Of it's. I would say. three or more years older. but I'm not ready to Unknown: give it back. I hope they don't. I'm ready. Okay.
I'm just
okay. sorry. that's all. I never really
Katherine Brenna: the fall is supposed to be quieter than the summer so far. So
Unknown: anything else. schedule our next meeting.
What works for the
and this time and during the interview is good.
It's not occurring that it's making that means
Katherine Brenna: agenda items and all documents should be ready. please.
Unknown: We talked about here today. Jeff Bergeron: the only we were to look at 14 West lane. Do we go like we need a day to do that? Unknown: Now. I think that's going to be what we're allowed to do that. okay. but. but prior to our next meeting. that'll
be okay. Should we recommend Tuesday. at this Jeff Bergeron: time or as possible. to actually do it as like a immediately after or before here we meet there at 930 on the 21st and then sort of do it all at once. Unknown: You ask for that. Yeah.
Another branch conversation or potential public forum
and potential review.
Katherine Brenna: Maybe. I guess. we find high school Yes. yeah. yes. like when you said. Anthony.
Unknown: yeah. motion to adjourn. I'll make a motion to return a second. All in favor. Thank you all for coming.
School Committee
8-Oct-25 - School Committee01:12:40
24-Sep-25 - School Committee52:45
10-Sep-25 - School Committee01:57:59
18-Aug-25 - School Committee02:39:05
Erin Gibbons: welcome to the
Wayland school committee
meeting. It is the 10th of
September. It is 6:13pm.and we
are being recorded by WayCAM. We
have all of our school committee
members present in person. and
our administrators are here our
superintendent. our assistant
superintendent. our Director of
Student Services and our
Director of Finance and
Operations.
right? Yes. Um. okay. Is anybody
here for public comment?
No. no. okay. all right. David. do you want to start on 3.1 David Fleishman: Yes. As you all know. we are underway for the 25-26 school year. even though Labor Day was just last week. it feels like we've been in school for a while. and I think that's because we started before Labor Day. and that was the change that Wayland has not done for a while. And so we had a really nice welcome back for our educators. I know several things before we started. It was wonderful here from our new president of our union. Danielle Barron. Erin. welcomed our students. with terrific music from our summer orchestra program. And we were underway.and it's going smoothly. I always say that the first couple of weeks of school are always as long as you do the summer. planning pretty smooth. And then we have new opportunities and challenges every day. One of the challenges of starting earlier. I will say. is that attendance data was was not attendance was not as high as it would be typically in the first two days of school. and that's just something to think about. Whether folks were so used to starting a Tuesday after Labor Day. as some districts have a standard start date versus perhaps a variable start date. but we did have some lower attendance across the board in the first couple of days of school. just something to be aware of and reflect upon since then. I would say one of the pluses. even though we started early. it's been very good school weather in schools without air conditioning. That's been a positive. And the hot weather. the worst the meteorologists are saving for the weekends. like last Saturday. which was really good. that was a it was a non school day. So that's been that's been smooth. We'll have our enrollment numbers. of course. after October 1. we have slightly over projection in kindergarten. a little other under in some areas over. you know. in one grade levels is a little higher. Third grade at Happy Hollow than we projected. But we're we're excited. and it's been positive. and later on. we'll talk about the goals for the year and presentations. We had a chance to visit a couple of co-taught classes I was in off to a positive start. and you'll hear more about that as we as we go. So I will stop there. because tonight. we're going to kind of begin with our summer programming. give you an update on that. and then we update and revise our goals based on our last meeting. We'll talk have a student attendance update from last year with some important data. and then. as I said earlier. we'll go through our meetings because we thought would be really good at this first meeting of the school year. Have a really good plan for the year. and of course. get your feedback. So with that. Betsy. you're kinda going to facilitate. and Ny is here as well. We have a team effort tonight. Betsy Gavron: Yes. and so while school was certainly out over the summer. there was lots going on here in the district. and we're going to share with you a little bit about what happened. So we'll talk about the extended school year program. Ronnie will will take us through that Pegasus and STEAM Explorers. Nye is here to talk a little bit about that. I'll talk a little bit about the Metco transitions program that happened and some of the adult learning that went on over the course of the summer. Ronnie. Ronnie Kessler: so this is just kind of an overview of what ESI is. ESI stands for Extended School Year. extended school year services. So ESI. why at every initial review. annual review. reevaluation. the team. the Special Education team. including parents. one of the questions on the IEP is. does this? Does the student require an extended school year in order to prevent regression? And that's an area that needs to be addressed every year on the IEP. and actually on the new IEP. there's a specific service delivery grid just for summer services. which is nice. So decisions based on are based on evidence of regression. So we look at after December. February and April breaks. we look at summer. so we have data from June. and then teachers are taking data now. so we can really see if there's been regression. That's our biggest data point. especially for kids who did attend. We like to measure that for kids who it was recommended. who did not attend. That's an important part. And then also. just for all kids. it's good to see that regression. So this is a really important data gathering time. In addition to regression. it's also about the rate of recoupment of those skills. So if we expect all kids to lose some amount of. you know. over the summer. have some summer slide. some regression. but if it's going to take a student double the amount of time to recoup those skills. then that's also evidence that they require summer ESI programming. And I kind of went into my I already said this ahead of myself. but it's that. you know. all students regress to some extent. but it's really about like. if you have that break in service. what is that timeframe to get back to where you were before that break? So this is just an overview of the programs that we offered this year. We had tutoring and related services. So that was at Loker and Boston. And actually. I should have also put it was virtual. We had try to really make it work. I know it's hard. So we tried to offer as many options as possible. Parents would reach out and ask for specific time. You know. can I have first thing in the morning or and I would do my best. It's a jigsaw puzzle. so it's hard. but I would do my best. but some. we were able to accommodate some through virtual which is helpful. Our language based programming was at Loker. We had a Learning Academy again at Loker. Milestones and Achieve and TCW were at Luke are and then we had our high school program. which was at the high school. but they also did a lot of off site work. actually volunteering at Pegasus as part of that. which was great. So they were kind of at Loker too.
So just some of our we had tutorials and itinerant therapy. so some kids just come for OT or PT or speech. We had 14 students we attend. students in our preschool. 10 students in Milestones and Achieve. 12 students in our LBC. 10 students in Learning Academy. four students in life skills. Then we partnered with Pegasus a bit more this year. so I'll talk a little bit about that. And then we also had tutoring in Boston. And in it last year we supported the Metco has a program in Boston that runs for four weeks. nine to three o'clock. and we support some students going to that and we send tutors to that program. So we had an SLP and a teacher who went to the Metco program and provided services. I just keep getting ahead of myself. Erin Gibbons: have we. have we always done that Ronnie? Ronnie Kessler: . so when I got here. it was kind of we were just kind of still getting off of covid and everything kind of was virtual. and I was trying to figure out. I worked closely with Latoya around the best way for us to provide services for students. for our Boston resident students. because I want students spending more time on a bus than they are in the program. But we also want to make sure. so I've actually also. I meet with West and Wellesley. Sudbury. Natick around like what they do for programming. And we talked. We didn't end up sharing this year. but last year we ended up sharing a little bit. But I reach out to our Boston resident. students. parents. kind of via survey to find out what you know. what time frame they're looking for. What do they want to virtual? Would they like to come to Luke? Or some they have the option to come to Luke. or would they like it in Boston? And then we kind of work what their needs are and what their availability is and what we can provide. So this is the second year of funding kids at the Metco program. and that's been successful. They're a really nice partner. And then some parents opted for virtual and then Latoya also coordinates some tutoring at I'm going to say it's it's not Hans Christian. it's like there's a Learning Center in Boston Hans Christensen. thank you. I always say. like Hans Christian Anderson Unknown: and the red shoes. yeah. Ronnie Kessler: also. we try to use whatever means possible to help. to give the support to students
our staffing. We had a BCBA. CODA is our certified occupational therapy assistant. And when we have a coda assistant. we also need an occupational therapist to oversee that person so that we contract out for our physical therapist with Easter Seals. Jerry. He's been doing it since before I was here. He's great. He comes back every summer. Kids love him. He loves our kids. So that's nice. We had two speech pathologists. seven program teachers. three tutors and 18 assistants.
Changes that we made for 2025. I did send communication about is why out four weeks earlier? So in the past. it had gone out beginning of April. I sent it out beginning of March. hoping that that was helpful. It was still. I get it. I signed my kids up for camp in like a couple weeks. I mean. it's crazy. so I get it. but I'm trying to send out as much communication as possible. early as possible. Nay. I worked really close. Nay. I worked really closely. This year we were able to do some coordination between Pegasus and our programming. which was really nice. So that was that was great. And then I did send out some surveys this year. like I said. for their Boston resident students. and then for our students who get tutoring. I sent out surveys like asking beforehand. like. what is your availability? Or what would you prefer for timing? Do you want virtual? Do you know. just to get a sense before I schedule everything and then nobody can make it. So I kind of tried to work the other way. So those things seem to help. Definitely. having it at Loker with Pegasus was great. We have a lot of kids who leave Pegasus. you know. just to come for a half hour for speech or. you know. tutoring. And then we have a lot of kids who leave at 11:30 and then go right to Pegasus. So that's great too. And that's all I have. Another successful year Betsy Gavron: transitioning. and speaking of a good partnership with Pegasus. we have Nay. right here. Nayagara Viera: Yeah. I actually liked to mention. not just Pegasus. and put. like. these STEAM Explorers as well. because was the first year we're trying with middle school. And we want. like to have a brand as well. like the middle school. because we saw that Pegasus is a very nice brand. But for the middle school. they're already cool and older enough needed to be a catch name. and we put it like pegs. as a team explorers. and the core values is the same. But I think the focus and even the training of the staff in the beginning was for to include all the students. that all of them can try if you have the right support. and I collaborate a lot with Ronnie and her team. to include all the students in our field trips and our offerings and and the goal for Pegasus and Steam explorers is still like for them to engage and help them to thrive and have problem solving. resilience and teamwork. And we are proud that we extended offering to preschool now to grade 12. And I will talk a little bit more. What was those items that we often had received some feedback throughout the year. we change on our summer program
Pegasus by the numbers. we had 134 kids from preschool to fifth grade. We had 19 middle schoolers. six high schoolers doing the CIT program. We still run as two. three week sections. and with collaboration with ESI we couldn't lower our ratio to five to one. because we appointed also some staff when we need. like. a one on one. or we need some teacher assistant. we share the staff. and we will be able to across all the groups have the support that kids needed on the group they were on the grade. if you can pass. please. And what was new this year. we extend our enrollment for until almost the end of May. and parents. of course. They reach out later. and we have availability. We add them to our program. We had 29 days. was very quickly for us to do the training and set up. We basically have a whole school and low care because we have a huge trailer that we need to set up everything for us to be successful in our program. but we were able to do 29 days this year. We continue to offer the flex scheduling that is very helpful for the kids. Also that do we ask why we have into one. into three. 3:30. now this year. we extend. like. 30 minutes make a little bit difference on the selection in the afternoon as well. and also not to hit traffic. That was very good. We saw even for the parents come in at 3:30 we have a lot of parents coming 3:30 before we have. like. still at three was hard for them to come from the pool and have the time to decompress and prep to leave. and that was a good extending hour. And we'll continue. We extend the range for the Middle school. as I mentioned. and we are calling STEAM explorers and another piece as well. we start the enrollment in January. but we extended to May. and we inform the parents all what we would be offered this year ahead of time. because for them to know what is the field trips and what is the events for if they planning vacation For the kids not to lose any of the offering. And I also collaborate with Ronnie for the ESI students. the service for them not to meet to miss. like the musician or miss something that's exciting happening as well. That was very good. Collaboration with our inclusion specialist that we had to that was Renee. called a little. helped a lot. and they are amazing. if you can pass the CIT program. What was kind of new this year? We collaborated. I did an interview with all of them. and what was the goal for them to do? And I was so exciting to know that even if they don't want teaching. they still want communication. leadership. And with that. I could build the CITs throughout the summer where they could give back to the kids in a way. they are leading some of the activities and some of the events. and they could collaborate as a team. And you couldn't see like senior collaborating with like. almost a freshman. because it's 14 to seniors. and this was a good collaboration for them. And also we discussed with Alison if they could get community service hours. and the hours that they worked. They were able to do the community service hours. and I couldn't sign the form for them. And they participate in all our training. staff training as well. and their online training that they were kept to lead the some of the activities. Here are some pictures just to show what happened. And was very funny. And took. like a while for me to select what is the best pictures. because we had so many good pictures and we did so many things. And if you can. and I just go very quickly in the highlight of the activities every day. we had a specialty. this way. like all the kids couldn't go through all the specialties that we had. We had arts and crafts. science.
theater kind of movement. Drama. Sports. in a way that we select a staff that love the area and want to learn and tied to the team of the week. This way we couldn't go into work if they're learning for dinosaur and they can do different ways of the learning and they in the whole setup of the whole week was about the team that we had select before and in the afternoons this year also was new was the STEAM creating lab. The parents could choose if the kids went to go to the pool or stay to the creation lab. And in there we have. like. every week. Shark Tank edition with right brain curriculum. I think adding them should add it. We have. like a store. and the kids got like fake Texas dollars. and it was the sensations. because they collected the dollars throughout the week. being like a good camper and also participating in the activities and the Shark Tank. They created their own project and pitch their own inventions and other all the things like they. they staff was very creative. And it was amazing how creative they got. And a point that once. like. this staff was like. Oh. you're going not to believe I kind of gave. like the kids. like. $100 should not and I was like. that's fine. They and they were saving. They were learning how to save the money to buy the toys. That was. like. more expensive. And then we needed to. of course. put inflation in our store. to be like. Oh. my God. these kids. they'll work for the money. But this part was very good. And we had. like. also. like. some nice community partners coming if you can pass. We had the fire department and the police department coming. It was amazing. They came with all the cars and kids scooter on the Professional Edition week learned about our field trips. We did so many. nice few trips. We went to Harvard Museum. we went to Anette medical organic farm. and the kids could learn how to be a farmer and do some chores and pet some chickens. it was nice. could you pass please? And they enhance topics. We kind of tried to separate and three main goals for them. for even for the teachers to develop the curriculum for this summer was like a team focused activities where we had. like. hands on projects. and they couldn't do problem solving and teamwork. And want to highlight was the day that the CIT labs. being scientists of the day. they all dressed up as a scientist with lab coat and glasses. Was so much fun. and they were running science experiment. I'm sorry. I'm have a science background. I'm crazy about it. and we developed the CIT like the science experience that the kids could do. And even a mini microscope. we had it as well. Was was nice and arts and crafts as well. We have karaoke. We have a photo booth that they could like do. like infusion of the creativity as well. and dress up and work as a team. And every week was they how it was very crazy in the beginning. because everybody wanted to know what it was like. They the inflatables of the week and the animals in the dinosaur was the sensational. because they have like those for them to take pictures and learn. And always was infused these animals or the team throughout the activities in the week too. And of course. our indoor. outdoor work activities. we have a carnival week. We do like scavenger hunt. and we infuse the math literacy on the Pegasus dollars and they couldn't also learn math and save and do. like. some real financing in banking. even deposit the money with the teacher and redraw after the next week. Was very interesting. This part. Yeah. that was everything. Betsy Gavron: Good Time was half by all of Pegasus. David Fleishman: I just want to say one of the long time Pegasus staff members stopped both of us a matter of fact. just to say what a terrific job Nay did in terms of her innovative programming and her leadership. So I want to publicly recognize you and thank you. You're also modest when you say you have a science background in addition to being an excellent program director. Nye is a dentist. Erin Gibbons: That's what I thought when she said David Fleishman: she really you could introduce a lot into a summer program. So yes. she does it all during the summer. So thank you. Nye. for doing such a great job. Thank you. Christina Rodrigo: Thank you. I heard some feedback about the middle school program. how there was a student there. whose is very hard to please. and loved it. Really really liked it.So that's saying a lot. Nayagara Viera: .Yeah. it was. was nice. We were trying. like to. the hardest part was to bring them back to elementary school. how we're going to do that. and we put them in the second floor. they have. like. a special t shirt. and what we were trying like to make them feel welcome. even though was like instilling in middle school. But what was successful. and we couldn't also expand for some of the students that Ronnie needed to place on ESI. and they weren't able now to continue in Pegasus. because now we have a middle school program. Betsy Gavron: Thank you Nay. So the Metco program also offered a couple different programs this year. the middle school Transitions Program and the Summer Enrichment Program. So the goals for the summer transitions the transitions program was to help middle schools begin to develop those student skills. It was held right at the middle school. They got to get a feel for the building. I was in one day. and you know. there were already seemed very comfortable. sort of moving through the hallways and getting getting their way around the building. Also. that helps them get ready to come back to school and to come back with confidence. One of the beautiful pieces about it. is really to build that cohort from the three different elementary schools. the kids coming together. and make them. you know. a little bit less anxious about that transition to middle school. Which is which. as you know. as many of you know. is a big is a big transition. So the focus of the program. there was some academic pieces. They there was a some science work. math. work. music. Bernadette had was in with the with drumming. They did a lot of drumming there. Jen Judkins came by and did tech talks with the kids and taught them some got them familiar with some of the platforms that they would be using once they were at the middle school. And they also built their student skills. I know the rocket. Rocket work was a big hit while they were there. Additionally. we continued with the Building Community through the circle practices. And they would do daily circle practices talking about some you know. key topics to help them be successful when they're in the middle school. that notion of being an upstander. of having integrity. of when you give your word to somebody in you know. what does that mean? And really think about that core. core values in a community. So that was an exciting. exciting component. You can see the kids all with their their T shirts on when they were getting ready. ready for their field trips as well. There's also a summer enrichment program that happened in Boston again. also to help summer aggression and prepare some of our youngest students. the incoming K students. for the full day K helping increase their confidence and additionally provide some child care options for families during the summer. also to have them less anxious about making that transition. you know. all the way to out there. to elementary school. So they the Metco summer school that took place in Boston. really offered an academic based set of learning experiences for folks. also including math. science. reading. writing. research skills. social studies. probably fewer research skills than the kindergarten kids. but certainly doing that. and there were enrichment classes and field trips as well. So there were 12 kids who were served by this program this summer. Betsy Cullen: Is that in K through five. Betsy. that's k to five. Yes.
Betsy Gavron: in addition to the kids these the adult learning that goes on the summer is fairly comprehensive as well. So David mentioned. I think last. last time we were together about our administrative retreat. you can see some photos of us Learning in Action. What you see there is. we had just gone through some scarf threat. teaching and working with and there is a simulation going on right there. In that right hand picture. there's a group of folks who are acting as a faculty. and you can't see Brian Jones. sort of leading a meeting in there. and the folks in the audience here are identifying what. what of the different SCARF threats are they seeing coming through? So which stands for Just different ways people can be activated. around. around things. when. when. particularly when change is happening. What? What gets triggered for folks? So that was a very active and engaging. engaging time that we had in terms of adult learning. there were also. as we mentioned. more restorative justice training that happened this summer. Last year we history in the fifth grade. They've been piloting it that trained two groups in in tier one training. and this year we trained another tier one training set and a tier two two set. so a little bit more advanced for problem solving. circles. those kind of pieces. So a number of us engaged in that. Caroline ran a culturally responsive teaching in the brain. You may recall that all staff in their first three years are required to do some culturally proficiency work with us. and one of the options is through the course that Caroline teaches. I just found out some offerings today through ideas. We have a membership of ideas that were is another opportunity for folks to learn. 44 folks engaged in co teaching training and work together. All of the partnerships spent two days together doing some of that work. And there's also a course offered by Bethann Monahan and Jake Montway at the middle school about exploring the possibilities of planning with AI. And we get some great feedback about folks who had gone. gone there. alright. And as always. there's summer work that happens that is funded through our operating budget.
last year in a couple of classrooms. and now the whole fifth grade will be be using that new curriculum. The there's some more foundation. scope and sequence work. really doing some alignment of the instruction. Assess. an assessment. The Sexual Abuse Awareness curriculum was updated by a team this summer at the middle school level. there was some writing and math skills curriculum work with our special educators who are focusing on more skill based classes there. There was work with the writing center. You may recall that we were shifting some of the people who would be in the Writing Center were more content areas teachers. So there was some real training there and really thinking through what that might look like and work. Quite a bit of Spanish Immersion curriculum development happened this this summer as well. both in revising in sixth grade and seventh grade work. So the partner teachers got together and did a lot of that work. Some some highlights. At the high school. we had a ninth grade ELA team book feast. where there's a number of titles read by a bunch of teachers. and they made some plans for adopting some new titles in in some small group work. and some may. may become whole class work. There. there's some updating the high school statistics. data sets and problems to really pull some relevant data that would be engaging for kids. There's some really interesting data that they pulled the unified wellness work that we talked about earlier in the spring. Much of that was time was dedicated to planning that new strand that we have. And then there's always some nice work across districts. So K through 12 work. again. on the wellness curriculum development. Scott talked about. right at the I think. our last meeting. our second to last meeting. about how some over the summer. they continue that work with developing curriculum and alignment. And same with the El work. the scope and sequence is really looking at what that the work looks like at the different WIDA levels. which just means that. you know. some kids come in with very little English. until they're almost proficient. So what does that look like across the levels? So that's just a few of the highlights. The the image that you see there was. was actually from some summer work that had to do with Sarah Ward's book series. They had digested them all and created some lessons that are going to be used across. across the grades there. So some of the clock knowledge is really important skills. So that is a summary of some of the things that happened here this summer. David Fleishman: Excellent. Thank you. Now we're going to shift from the summer to the school year. so at our last meeting on August 18. we talked about goals. and that's excellent feedback. So we adjusted some measurements in the goals. We also added. I know Erin. you had talked about facilities in particular a goal. and we worked with kirsteen. you know. as a really strong background on operations. we have a new ticketing system and operations that will monitor carefully and monitor consistency. So that is an additional strategic action in our operations section. along with. you know. all the refinements you suggested. mostly around measuring some around academic achievement in particular.
Unknown: we don't have that's we we don't set a goal. Erin Mueller: We have them from last meeting. but. Erin Gibbons: yeah. we don't know. Erin Mueller: We don't have the new ones. Betsy Gavron: Okay. okay. I'll pull them up. Betsy Cullen: No. I think what we had last time was a PDF. So it won't be the last Betsy Gavron: I thought it was a live talk. so I thought it was already updated for you. My apologies. David Fleishman: Okay. all right. we will pull it up. Christina Rodrigo: While you're pulling it up. I just want to go back like 10 seconds and just acknowledge all the work that ESI did. it was an awesome summer. My family. you know. loved it. It was for. Really helpful for my children. So thank you to you guys and all the staff that worked through the summer. Ronnie Kessler: Yeah. it really was. once the first couple days are always like running around. But it was. it was made a lot of returning staff. which was nice. and a lot of the programming was pretty seamless. so thanks. David Fleishman: we will My apologies.
Unknown: Oh. good. I'm glad my No. Betsy do you have it. right? David Fleishman: I can try Betsy Gavron: I haven't it just umm.
Betsy Gavron: to. yeah. I did. maybe just carry over.
Betsy Gavron: I did could we make copies for people. real Erin Mueller: No.
quick. what would be Erin Gibbons: if you just do Betsy Gavron: have it. I have it here. Unknown: I mean. I mean. Erin's gonna be nice David Fleishman: We want to show you one particular. you know. the one I mentioned. Erin Gibbons: can you share it with the folder. and then I can pull it up. and you can pull it up. Betsy Gavron: Diane. you have the document. Can you pop it in the folder? I just don't know how to do you do it on that computer. Erin Gibbons: Okay. let's if you share it with me. I can put in the folder. perfect. David Fleishman: Okay. Erin Gibbons: and that way. Betsy Gavron: The computer is just not very happy right now. Maybe. it's just spinning. spinning. spinning. David Fleishman: I can I can share it. You want to share exactly? Erin Gibbons: Yeah. that would be great. Yeah. if they're the revised ones. yes. Betsy Gavron: it's just stuck. Unknown: I do that. Dave. I'm going to just do a quick restart of my computer. David Fleishman: Here's mine. All right. Erin. I'm going to Erin Gibbons: okay. and then I can just put in the folder. if just share with you. David Fleishman: All right. okay. you should have it that's easier. Betsy Gavron: sorry. Sharing is unavailable at this time. Please try later. David Fleishman: You should have Unknown: my favorite message.
Erin Gibbons: Are you gonna pull it up on the screen? Betsy. no. Erin Gibbons: I got it I can. Unknown: I
you can't. right. gav: As soon as this restarts. it's okay. Erin Gibbons: No worries. Okay. Unknown: And For some reason i i movement Tom work From my right to my left. Are you? Erin Gibbons: I'm sending it to them. Let me put it in the folder. David Fleishman: Do you want me to share with everybody individually? Erin Gibbons: I just did it. Okay. All good. Unknown: So the. in addition to refining. as I mentioned. the it educational goals. we added an operational piece around development. strengthening the partnership to do town and school facilities teams. I. I see develop a plan to approve existing buildings to provide sustainable and up to date learning environment. just the last piece under additional rules on the first page. Erin Gibbons: Got it I got it is that the only update from the one that we reviewed at our last meeting. David Fleishman: We have updates. I'll give you an example of other updates. The other updates are around. Let me go to the Town. There was nothing more in community. nothing on students services. There was an additional you had asked about the Middle School.
One thing we had was about executive functioning. was establishing baseline skills relative to developmental expectations and establishing targets for improvement. We've talked about how to measure some of the work around executive functioning. Actually talked about that in opening day in terms of as a critical priority. and so that was one is really getting some baseline skills. because this is kind of year one of an initiative we also updated. Let me go down you had questions about the middle school and accountable talk. which.
Erin Gibbons: yeah. kind of fleshing that out and giving it sort of like a rename or right.not rename. but you know what I mean? David Fleishman: Yep. that is right. Unknown: Last bullet three. I'm on page three. Yeah. that's on page three. Let me find it
right. I want Erin Gibbons: Oh. but I don't see it as Erin Mueller: I just used versioning history. right? Erin Gibbons: Which one did where? So.
David Fleishman: yeah. okay. we double check on that one. Hang on a second. Let me go to that one for one second. Unknown: We mean it one double check of run for the Star. Check
I picked
Erin Mueller: I just don't restore it. I
Erin Gibbons: Can I ask a question so Kirstine specific to the additional new goal. the collaborate or piece to the goal. operational goal. collaborate with town facilities to have a cohesive line of communication with regard to custodial expectations and results. and then utilize a work order system that prioritizes urgent requests.
I think. will that. So I think one piece that confuses me about this is that the custodians have. like a dual report structure. right between like you and Michael Faia. right? Like. Kirsteen Patterson: not really. Erin Gibbons: No. have you clarified that Kirsteen Patterson: Yes Erin Gibbons: So maybe that's fixing the problem. Okay? And so the system will be utilized by school personnel only to input a ticket. Is that the idea. Kirsteen Patterson: yes. Erin Gibbons: okay. Kirsteen Patterson: And it's really specific to Building Principles. Erin Gibbons: Okay Kirsteen Patterson: Assistant Principals and I have capability oversight for any building so I can. I can do a ticket on behalf of. Erin Gibbons: okay. Kirsteen Patterson: and have all of them attached to it so that they can see that it's been entered. and any status updates that we get as things are being addressed. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Kirsteen Patterson: And I will track all of them. And it also has a delineation that we can identify the ranking of urgent at a later time. you know. And so it really gives you some drill down data to look at what types of work orders. what types of things are being entered in. and to be able to have some accountability with facilities team as well. and to be able to show what has been done Erin Gibbons: Okay Kirsteen Patterson: versus also still. what still needs to be done. So I think that's a piece that we really want to be able to communicate and show that. yes. there's. there's a lot of things that still need to happen and take place. and there is a lot of efforts being made. And look at everything that has already been accomplished and checked off of that list from the work orders that have come through. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Kirsteen Patterson: so we're really trying to establish a good communication pipe so that we're not just tagging a custodian in the moment. that we really document something and that it is. that is then sent to Mike Faia. so he he really is going to be the person that communicates with custodial team and is able to manage and mobilize who what. building what needs to be done. and really kind of orchestrate that so that things are done quickly. promptly and based on what true emergency requests are versus just my blinds are broken. and I really would like that fixed right now. but there's a pipe leaking in another building. so it gives that ability to really mobilize the fleet that we have and to prioritize our resources in that capacity. Erin Gibbons: Okay? And so when I read this. I look at it as like. things that you may not have been expecting would be put through that. like work order. ticket system. like a roofie leak. A roofie leak. a leaky roof. or a leaking pipe. versus. also. it sounds like. or it reads to me like. coupled with that. you're looking to kind of have. like a standard of care for each building. of regular things that should be happening. and then maybe potentially. like. say. getting water turned on for a garden at a school that maybe that's like on the regular schedule of like between. you know. mid March and end of April. like you're. you're turning the water on at all the schools. or whatever it is like. that's just an easy example for me to pull it up. Kirsteen Patterson: And so it's not just like a standard of care. but standard of communication. because we want our I want our small custodial maintenance team to be able to do what they have already and not be addressed by everybody walking through the hallway and sees them on their path to the next location or the next job that they've already got identified. So we want to really try to mobilize the communication. the style. how it's recorded and reported. so that we have that ability to look back and say. Well. gee. we have all these open tickets at the middle school. Why aren't any of these being addressed? And the answer is. because he's getting all these sticky notes from everybody. giving him 12.000 other things. So we want to eliminate the sticky note. and we want everything to be addressed and again. prioritizing through the building principles. As to. is this really rising to the work order. ticket necessity. or is this something that okay? You know. we'll have a conversation down the road. but we really want to make this a tightened up process so that we have better accountability. So we should just have them wear shirts that have. like a QR code on the front and back that people can just scan. direct you to here. This is my ticket. Yes. okay. that's a that's great. Betsy Cullen: Maybe hats. Kate Sambuco: The shirt will say don't. don't stop me. Erin Gibbons: Please don't stop me. Christina Rodrigo: Submit a ticket to my next job. Erin Mueller: I want one of those. Erin Gibbons: Don't talk to me about it. Now. scan the QR code. Gotta have a ticket. Unknown: Start saying that work. Christina Rodrigo: Cute. Erin Gibbons: Okay. so. and I remember there being and. sorry. I don't mean to take this over. I remember there being question. Questions about implementing like benchmarks to show progress. completion. and so were those things. David Fleishman: for example. we like if you look at if you look at Sarah Ward and executive function. if we go to that one. that's the up there. you'll first place. yeah. the first place you see. you'll see there. establish baseline skills relative to developmental expectations. establish target goals for improvement. That's kind of the benchmark baseline skills right there. That's what we talked about. You know. specifically. executive function was one. Betsy Gavron: And I know that the executive function work they did this year was to pull together a whole bunch of resources so they have the age. at each age span what kids should be able to do. So we want to compare what kids are actually doing to that. and then. based on the deficits we saw are to be focusing lessons in services. Erin Gibbons: And that was something we talked about with you. right. Ronnie. about the group that you work with to like what kids really should be doing. Betsy Gavron: And they did that work this summer. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. it was okay. So I remember talking about. David Fleishman: I mentioned that even in my note about executive functioning with one of the focus is some of the some of the summer work. yeah. y Betsy Cullen: eah. maybe something our families would welcome seeing. if it's digestible totally parents have would benefit maybe from a little understanding. Erin Gibbons: off expectations. I'm sure I have off expectations. Ronnie Kessler: When I talked to. met with SEPAC. mean. I know it's bigger than a special ed issue. but we did talk about maybe devoting a meeting to that. So then maybe we can coordinate with PTO and open it up to. you know. beyond just the SEPAC meeting. but just to kind of present. like. here's all of the information and then just some tips and tools. Erin Gibbons: yeah. Like an I think tips and tools David Fleishman: teachers are learning this is what students are going to be exposed to in school based on our teachers are learning as a result here. we can talk about how to do that. That would be nice follow up. Erin Gibbons: yeah. because it's also not just the tips and tools. but understanding. like right sizing your expectations of your kid. like my nine year old shouldn't be doing her own Betsy Gavron: okay. got it right? laundry. Erin Mueller: But she can. Unknown: but it's a nice. you know. yeah. Christina Rodrigo: We could make it more inclusive and kind of cross pollination into the SEPAC. which. you know. only SEPAC people go to SEPAC. right. yeah. right. We were going to open draw a bigger circle. right? David Fleishman: And general ed. Ronnie Kessler: right. yeah. And K through 12. Erin Gibbons: totally. right. totally. Christina Rodrigo: all grades and Betsy Cullen: or K through retirement. who knows?
Ronnie Kessler: yeah. So I did. We did talk about that at our meeting. so get a date on the books for that and David Fleishman: talk to principals about how to kind of make this a topic. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. it's like that crossover of and I'm probably beating a dead horse. but you know the language that's used in the schools and and being able to to understand it at home. potentially mirrored at home. reuse it at home. reinforce at home. It's that same type of idea. you know. if. if everyone's kind of living the same expectations and knowing Erin Gibbons: Limit. exactly that's what I mean Betsy Cullen: some of RCL. right? Betsy Cullen: like language. emotions. Erin Gibbons: yeah 100% Betsy Cullen: . mindfulness. you know. Erin Gibbons: red zone. I live in the red zone. Sorry. David Fleishman: not just football. but you're the red zone. Betsy Cullen: No other meeting in Wayland public school. Unknown: Yeah. you know. yeah. no i. I agree. yeah. Erin Gibbons: And fro some of it's also like being able to know when you should be pushing your kid on an expectation of something that they should be doing right. like. if it's even just taking more agency for themselves and advocating for themselves. like what level that sort of falls at. that's all really helpful. David Fleishman: You know. as we think about our focus for community engagement. this year. you know. later on. a three portrait of a learner. and we're going to do something later on about our master facilities plan. But I think we can weave this in as a third piece on the executive function around. like an instructional goal. around community engagement. So we will talk about how to do that at each level. because. obviously it's different developmentally. but I think people are really interested in that. Christina Rodrigo: It's also nice to have meetings about stuff that's not like a problem to be solved. right? It's just like pro-act here to like. learn stuff. These are proactive. Erin Mueller: embracing. embracing. Ronnie Kessler: It's really strategies Erin Mueller: right Christina Rodrigo: and that go beyond school. Betsy Cullen: Life skills Unknown: life. yeah. Erin Mueller: Is there a great book on this? Could you do a community talk on this? Unknown: are. yeah. there are some. David Fleishman: There are some. certainly some good ones we can. Ronnie Kessler: or at least have. we could have them available. like Betsy Cullen: I heard it. the committee asked for homework. David Fleishman: Don't want to give too much reading. but we Erin Gibbons: I didn't ask for homework. Ronnie Kessler: Just a recommendation.
Erin Gibbons: Just give me the FAQ sheet. please.at each of my child's age grade level. No. like they sent me home with their physicals .from seven to eight. your child. she should be doing this. right? Is she using the pincer grasp? She got it.
Erin Mueller: I know that wasn't really that they were really little. That was extremely helpful. Erin Gibbons: right Erin Mueller: We have a lot of these talks in our house now. What is age appropriate? Erin Gibbons: This? Anyone who knows Brynn will really get a kick out of this. She was two. she. like. didn't say a word. And I brought early intervention. And I was like. Yeah. something's wrong because Taylor. like. said full sentences at like. you know. nine months or something. not seriously. but. and so I brought them in. and they're like. so once this kid starts. you're gonna want her to stop. because she's getting all of her needs met. and because she's. she's communicating with you. It's just not verbally. like in the words or whatever. And they were right. She started. and now I can't get her to stop. But that was like. my expectation was only on my first kid. so on my second. I was like. she's so behind. What's going on? They were like. no. no. yes. she's good. Kate Sambuco: Older siblings talk for them Erin Gibbons: . yeah. yeah. And there's that piece. and so. yeah. you know. okay.
some of these evidence data under the outcomes and measurements where you have surveys. will you share the educator survey data? I'm not asking for. like. it can be blind. but just. will you share that with us. even if it's not necessarily at the table? You know? David Fleishman: Yeah. no. We could. to survey even you saw even this summer. I know. I know we forwarded you. like our surveys from our summer retreat. Yeah. yeah. We do them regularly. It's really helpful to us to figure out how we can adjust and improve and and do that. absolutely.
Erin Mueller: And I guess my question in general. is part of the work of the year. determining and developing how you'll demonstrate and how you'll show the analytics and the data. that's that's part of what we're doing. like you're setting out the goal to do that. and then over the course of the year. you determine how. okay. David Fleishman: some of it's new as kind of baseline data. or. in the case of. you know. things like reading or some of the math. that's kind of ongoing assessments in the range. And some is taking a look at kind of assessing as we have. like co-teaching. If you go to the co-teaching goal for a second. For example.
there is so. you know. Erin. this is one where it's like multiple it's looking at kind of some of the achievement data right over time. but it's also some surveys from different stakeholders to get a sense of how people perceive it's going. So that's like on a multiple level.
Erin Gibbons: in my little lawyer hat that I wear. not at this table. I uh. your language makes me a little bit nervous
-with indicates satisfaction. I guess. like overall satisfaction. because some families may not love co teaching. but the results may reflect.
yeah. you know what I mean? David Fleishman: Yes. Erin Gibbons: I got you. David Fleishman: That is true. I. Thank you for that.
Erin Gibbons: and I may change it to co-teaching models versus partnerships. Co- teaching model. David Fleishman: yeah. Betsy Cullen: or classroom or something. I Erin Gibbons: right? Because sometimes. like. maybe it's not the right fit for these teachers. but the teachers in general are like. Yes. this is good. We're going to do some swapping or something like that. Anyway.
Are there any other specific things that people remember that they wanted to look at or talk about.
Erin Mueller: No. I looked at the language already of some of the changes that we asked for. and Unknown: it looks like Erin Mueller: it felt like it was covered. Unknown: Yeah.
cullen: the measurement and goals are more concrete in areas where we talked about it last time. Thank you for that David Fleishman: feedback. and we'll certainly talk about them. Actually. this leads nicely into our final topic. after student attendance. which is how we report out to you on this over the course of the year.So can we do student attendance and then get to or do you want to in terms of our next two topics? Erin Gibbons: I was going to ask if you wanted us to vote to approve. David Fleishman: That would be great perfect Yes. before we do that. Thank you.
Erin Gibbons: Does anybody want to make a motion?
We rephrase that. the chair would entertain a motion.
Erin Mueller: I will make a motion to approve the 2025. 2026. district goals as presented. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Do we have a second? Unknown: Second. Erin Gibbons: All in favor? Aye. Any opposed. I said. Okay. great. Thank you forreally working hard on these. but also like acknowledging our feedback and working on David Fleishman: appreciate we appreciate the feedback. Now we're going to shift to student attendance Unknown: from over here. David Fleishman: looking at our data from last year. you'll remember that DESE's motto at the start of last year was -Your presence is power. I definitely Betsy Gavron: I definitely was. and we had a particular challenge with our with our data last year. So So tonight. we'll be talking about sort of. what was the context of the goal. and why did we set it? What was that district goal? What if the efforts been since then and then. what is the date and results of our of our work last year. So why are we focusing on attendance. the so as you may recall. we were seeing spikes in anxiety and mental health leading up to the pandemic. and then certainly exacerbated by the pandemic itself. And coming out of the pandemic. we were seeing a huge increase in family travel during the school year. Part of that was because I believe. you know. people couldn't see their family for so long. there was just a big increase in folks who hadn't seen family from abroad. And so folks were taking advantage of every opportunity they could. I think people also. you know. got used to living in some other places for times. So so there's a real kind of shift back to and so we had a significant increase in our chronic absenteeism. which is defined as when you're absent for 10% or more of the school year. So that's 18 or more days. And we saw this particularly with particular subgroups. If you. some of you are here. when we developed our Student Opportunity Act plan. which really looked at the combination between student attendance and achievement. particularly for those subgroups who were doing significantly. not as well as their as their peers. So here is a look at that grim data. From there. we had 17.9% of all students in our entire district were were chronically absent. which is a lot of kids really out a lot of the school year. And you can see that was almost double. or exactly double. for our Black and African American students. Our English learners. who are not part of our SOA target group when we created the SOA plan. because their achievement was actually some of the highest in the state. So despite. despite their their lower attendance. they were still performing strong. but we have kept a close. closer eye on their attendance because of this data. our low income students were significantly more than double our other population. and our students with disabilities were more than 10% higher than the population overall. We get zero out of four points in our one for district accountability and at all the schools when we're kind of looking at our overall. how we're how we're looked at across this row. So so that 23-24 data in particular was completely problematic. Christina Rodrigo: That's the difference between high needs and students with disabilities. Betsy Gavron: So it's. it's. it's actually often a combination of of subgroups. so you have multiple. multiple areas. So it's. it can be. you know. students with disabilities that are also. that also may be low income. So it's typically. your kids in high needs are a cross section of multiple. Christina Rodrigo: okay Betsy Gavron: areas. So it's not those plus those. it's those are encompassed by. if that makes sense. Betsy Cullen: So there's overlap in that inter Betsy Gavron: intersectionality between those. So our district goal. Ronnie. you if you memorized our district goals from earlier. We talked about really having a need for that consistent. proactive set of attendance strategies. particularly for those students who were were missing school due to mental health reasons. So we were focused on creating and and playing out a vertically consistent. research based set of strategies to prevent patterns of school refusal and really trying to align our practices across the district. So you can see the list of outcomes and measurements we were shooting for you go to the next slide. Ronnie.
we took a three prong approach to this. So we developed school based attendance teams. not like these didn't exist before. but really with consistent sort of protocols around what was happening and how often it was happening. So those school based teams. which typically included an administrator. the school nurse. your counseling teams. So they met at least every three weeks. specifically to focus on the weekly attendance reports and use that to tier their intervention around who needs what. Additionally. we had two district groups. a an attendance working group and an attendance team. The working group. we met five times over the course of the year. we spent our time really researching best practices. looking at kind of the legal requirements as well. and used that to develop communication and communications that we sent out consistently and different tools to try. the Attendance Team had a slightly different focus. They were really looking at the data holistically. So were there patterns across families? Were there places in particular areas? And we had folks on that team that include people like Jay Verhoosky from Wayland Youth and Family Services. Heather Yates the head of Nursing. Ronnie's part of that team. La Toya is a part of that team. And then we had a an administrator from every building that came together and and we problem solved and troubleshooted and and tried to make make some headway. So the areas of focus you may recall. David did some real early messaging around the importance of attendance. Every school principal also sent their own message. messaging around why strong attendance is important. We were pulling different infographics to use to try to really convey the importance of this. The working group developed different emails and letters that came out. and in those early messages. we let people know that we would be sending regular attendance information out. because one of the things we know about school attendance is oftentimes. families. kids. adults. underestimate the number of days that are missed. So that's a very strong in the research. so that the updating families around how often their children have missed. You know that can be tricky. too. You know. you know that the child was out with with covid for a week or with strep throat for a week. and we're still sending the letters just. just. just so you know the numbers and we realize why they were out. but just to to kind of follow through with the consistency around the communication. we also looked at some shared truancy and attendance information that families just might not know. like some families don't know that they are legally required to get their children to school. that that there's. you know. they can be held accountable for not child to school on a regular basis. Yes. Betsy. can I ask a question on that the communication that was sent out? Was it general or Or was it specific to the individual? Unknown: Like. specific to the individual. okay. but I guess. like the context of it. like the I understand the number would be specific. but the messaging in general. like. we understand your child was out sick. However. something Betsy Gavron: galike it was sort of like a something that went to everybody. okay. we say. and we know you. we know why you were out and why did you know this and this number. but okay. and the reasons why the intended is so important was communicated in so the group crafted letters that were sent at four days and eight days at the high school. just because of the way their crediting system works. and and at the other buildings. it was five or 10 days. and then there was a 15 day letter as well. We also made a decision. once we were deeper into the year. like two thirds of the way through the year. you weren't sending like a four day letter. because that's nowhere near chronic absenteeism. So we adjusted as we went through the year.
Another thing that we did was to really align our intervention planning. So we had an aligned intervention monitoring spreadsheets that we were using. We came up with some attendance intervention plans that were used across the board with particular things to try. We created a counselor information gathering form that would be an interview that folks could do withwith families. kind of to try to troubleshoot what's what's at the heart of why the child's not coming to school. as well as a student interview form that we created so so we could get information directly from kids. even younger kids. and we spent some time really focused on celebrating improvement. too. So if you click to the next slide Ron. you can see. So here's an example of a couple pages from the interview for students asking kids. you know. to be able to feel about how they feel about coming to school. what's hard about school. to try to identify some of those things when I'm at school. what are the things that are true for you? And based on that. that can help inform what intervention. you know. if you think a child's coming. you know. not coming to school because they're having some challenges with friendships. then you work on the friendship area. If they're having. you know. just feeling worried in general. what are some coping strategies? So. so these can help really inform what the intervention looks like. So was the interview done on a like situational basis. if it was a student who was trending to more absenteeism. or was it done to generally. to students we were piloting it last year? So I think it Jen in general to sort of because sometimes we may have a whole hypothesis that may not be true. and so you want to get the information from the from the kids. Here a couple. You can see there was a we created a big congratulation banner that could go at a top of an email to. you know. students who had made improvements. So maybe they were really struggling for a semester. and we noticed. we wanted to just really indicate. like we see you. we see that you're trying at this. And then there's the elementary version. where we put the child's picture in them. That's not one of our students. That's just a mock up. but where we put the pictures in and sent those out. we got some positive feedback about that as well. So what were the results of these efforts? So if you recall. before we were at almost 18% we were down to 10.3% last March. this is what's posted on the website. When it's fully updated. will be down to 10.2% by the end of the year. and all of our other numbers have dropped considerably. So if you can go to the next slide. Ronnie. Christina Rodrigo: this is really remarkable. I just want to pause. I mean. the average number of absences went down almost by 10 days! Betsy Cullen: Well. this is as of March. though Betsy Gavron: there was still percentage wise as of Betsy Cullen: the percentage held true. but the number of days were still missing April through June. Betsy Gavron: yes. but we were down. So we were 10.3% of our students were chronic absenteeism on headed for that in March. and we were down to 10.2% by the end of the year. so that you know there was a real significant drop. You can see our attendance trends over time too. We're not quite back to the pre pandemic. but we're back. We're actually below where kind of we were right after the pandemic. Erin Gibbons: and we dropped Covid absence requirements quite significantly last year. So Betsy Gavron: you go to the next slide. you can see these were our three subgroups from our SOA group. We went. you know. there's. there's still more work to do. You know. we have significant improvement. and having almost a quarter of our students who are Black and African American. absent for 18 days is still a lot. but but dropping 10% or more across all of our subgroups was. was. was progress that we felt really good about. Erin Mueller: It's really exciting. Christina Rodrigo: Thank you. Betsy Gavron: This is very hard at it. So. I mean. really. Ronnie was at all the meetings. You know. we had lots of people coming together. thinking really hard doing significant outreach. principles. reaching out over the summer to families who had been behind like. we really want your child to have a strong start. So a lot of relationship building. you know. really thinking about who are the trusted adults for kids. We want kids to want to be at school. So and. you know. some some harder conversations with some families to it. And still. you know. we say. Please. please. please. don't take that trip now. And some families are still making those choices for probably really good reasons. for David Fleishman: even the first two days. you know. I was worried about the first two days of school. and we'll get the final numbers for you. just because. you know. I thought if the kids were missing the first two series of school. or some of the same students were missing on this list. That's not a good way to start the year. Erin Gibbons: So just 1/3 of my kids missed the second day of school.
Erin Mueller: Its tough coming back that early. Unknown: Yeah. I did that Erin Gibbons: a good idea at the end of the like. yeah. there's a lot of people that start starting before Labor Day this year. a lot. It's not like we were an outlier. yeah. David Fleishman: no. I think. I think what I've learned is that it's very important to have a consistent. if possible. have a consistent time you start every year because routines and prudent predictability matter. That's like. kind of my advice. Betsy Cullen: It's like building a habit. David Fleishman: kind of habit Exactly. Ronnie Kessler: A lot of districts start Wednesday and do Wednesday. Thursday. and then have Friday. right? And
Ronnie Kessler: late school at it that way. And I was like. and Betsy Cullen: Huge. Thank you to everybody who worked on these initiatives this year. I mean. it's really powerful to see then I was like. oh. yeah. it might. that might help. you're trying something. and to be able to measure it and see. wow. it actually happened. David Fleishman: It's really one of those things that you experiment with. And I think. you know. one of the challenges also. is some of the communication isn't always received initially. because it is such a shift. But in terms of looking at the research about the intense communication with families. I mean. that's really what the research says. So it's important to follow that research. Erin Mueller: And I had heard. I think that was the reason for my question. I had heard that the personalization of messaging and reaching out to families and and letting them know we miss your student. we want your student to come back. I think felt really good to some families. It makes people like as Caroline Han says. it makes the invisible visible. It reminds them that we care about you. We want you back in school without you. It's not the same without you. So I know from many people that that was really well received. Betsy Gavron: It's always hard to figure out how that's it's I really have to commend the principal. It was super time consuming. consuming. Kate Sambuco: I'm sure it feels like a very heavy lift. but it had such a significant Betsy Gavron: and people were really committed to it. It was a very dedicated group. Erin Gibbons: I have a question. Is there any split of Metco that we can pull out of this? And I'm asking because I really wonder if the like ability to get out here and if you miss your bus. Unknown: you're out of luck Erin Gibbons: you're not going to school that day. And I don't know if there's an answer to fix it. but I just is. do we have data on that? Betsy Gavron: I know anecdotally that that that is the case. yeah. for some Yeah. families. yes. yeah. Erin Gibbons: That was just. you know. and I don't because is it one bus for elementary. middle and high altogether. or it is two Betsy Gavron: there two busses at the middle school. In the high school. there's. there's two stops and two or two main hubs. They're different routes. but there's two different busses. the middle and high school for the elementaries. but they're all the same. like the middle school busses all one time. even if you're on a or No. Erin Mueller: are you saying could they race to another bus? Erin Gibbons: in the morning. morning like they can't get to another bus? Right? Unknown: Correct. Erin Gibbons: The only way we could fix that is potentially. if elementary could then get on a middle and a high. which we don't typically mix those age groups. Betsy Gavron: We've done a little. We've played with that a little bit on the going home end. for example. we had some kids that were staying for the what's the name of the drama program? I was just thinking. Unknown: Oh. Broadway that Betsy Gavron: was meeting on Wednesdays. and they were staying here really long days. And. you know. we met with the family. we talked through the pros and cons of it. And there's not a ton of kids that go home on that fairly late bus. And it worked out in this particular case. but not every family would feel comfortable with their their child going going home with. you know. juniors and seniors in high school Erin Gibbons: totally understand. I was just thinking that would be only one way that they could catch something like you missed it for elementary Betsy Gavron: you could not. Erin Gibbons: They're not close. They're not Kirsteen Patterson: based on kind of what collective location of right the resident. the students in that age group are and they differ between the elementary. middle and high school locations. Okay. Betsy Gavron: okay. so in terms of next steps. we we just calendared all the meetings for the year. I just sent out all those invites yesterday. people inboxes were full of invites from me. So we'll continue both the work with both teams. and we're also adding adding focus on on staff attendance. and obviously working through some strategies for any other questions. I Unknown: I know. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all data. I Christina Rodrigo: I can't wait to see next year's data as well. to just see it like continue to carry book vacations. you know. a long time in the future. right? Betsy Gavron: We only have 180 days for them. We have 185 other days to choose from. So that's always my hope. All right. the last thing is. David Fleishman: the last thing is our proposed we thought to have a calendar of meetings is very helpful to us. Help for you in terms of knowing what's ahead. So we'll talk a little bit about what we're thinking in terms of timing. I should also say that while we're calling up the budget calendar. there's some TBAs there. You know. for us. it was a little bit later last year. and later is better for us in terms of budget. because we have more accurate information. We know there are some town bylaws that compete. but the later we go is. the better we don't always know. Of course. things like health insurance until the end of January. state aid.
recommendation with the governor. you we get that. But of course. it's the legislature who makes the final call on that. So here I let me just open up my computer. and then we'll get it up. That's okay. I'll grab it.
and then we'll get there. It is save screen now. so tonight. you saw our agenda. We are going to have at our next meeting. my own goals and update on our facilities master plan. We have an excellent subcommittee for our Facilities Master Plan. who's been interviewing finalists for our master Facilities Master Plan firm over the last two days. Betsy has joined us. We have a really good team. and we're looking forward to talking more about that at our next meeting. We're also looking forward to talking about the Yonder implementation plan.
So at the meeting after that. we thought a shorter meeting to hear a little bit about parents square and our new ISS. We'll have a shorter meeting because we're doing some planning that night in Executive Session. So shorter meeting. we thought it'd be good the second meeting October to have a Spanish Immersion update. also our financial end of year report. That's that's an important document. and obviously Kirsten has just started. so it's a lot of work among other projects. but it's really important for you to know whether we finished the year with like $20 left or $600 you know what I mean? You know it was close. Erin Gibbons: If you finish it in black. I'll be impressed.
Plus. one is where we're at. David Fleishman: So then we will head to Boston on our first meeting in November. And we thought about having a student panel. which is a different. you know. we want to mix it up in terms of presentations for you. we expect we're going to sit down again and obviously have regular facility master plan updates. and we'll finalize that. But we thought there could be another one at that time. even inviting the firm we saw. Like in that night for an overview for you. we'll also have an MCAS update. And then we thought. as we work towards our goals in early December. that could be a nice time to hear from both our elementary principals. the first meeting. the secondary school principals. the second meeting. including. we put in parentheses cell phones. because that's certainly one of the district goals. And the goal here is make sure you hear about all our different goals. We're going to check. I don't know that we'll need four meetings in January. We might get into February. We've got to time that out. So those. those are all those are all kind of tentative. Those are just on the calendar. but we'll. we'll get a more up to date schedule. We thought in February a Tech Update. There's a lot of work in the technology area. both on the operational side and the instructional side. Here a little bit some of the work. the PD with AI. our portrait of a learner work. we have a meeting. actually a planning meeting in a couple of weeks. Be nice to get an update to you. Then I'm sure we'll do some kind of update beforehand. Deborah the middle school curriculum leaders. talk about the accountable. talk workand how that is going. We thought we would have after that. we'll do a double Ronnie. both on executive function and the work from Sarah Ward on the Gen Ed side. and then have a student services update after that. Actually. Ronnie. it's a trifecta for you. Actually. I don't know why. I don't know why we did this. There's a reason we did this. and I can't figure out because co teaching. We'll have some co teachers talk after. we can't we need some time. of course. to do that. That's why we did. yeah. maybe. yeah. that that's a lot. That's all right. We may flip one. I realized that co teaching as Ronnie. but we'll have some some teachers be involved in front of you to hear from some teaching pairs. and then a diversity. equity and belonging update. maybe Caroline with with some of her DEP lead teachers. At the end of May. we'll have to have a final decision. of course. one of our goals in terms of a literacy curriculum. There's a working all year. doing some work and some piloting. I didn't know. did Betsy Gavron: you mentioned the Prism grant last time. The Prism grant so we get some money to help support the literacy curriculum. can't remember if we
David Fleishman: Yeah. no. that's Erin Gibbons: I don't think we did. Erin Mueller: I don't think you did either David Fleishman: . just for the principal then. Yeah. we've been got in. That's good. Betsy Gavron: Yes. we got a significant grant for to support the piloting work and education around the different programs and the why the need for the different programs. as well as some of the partial funding for K to two reading curriculum for next year. So it's a like a multi $100.000 grant. So it's. it was great. Fantastic. Yes. David Fleishman: that is from our State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. which is still giving grants. Our federal government is now allocating the money that was appropriated as well for the most part.
So which is kind of. what. how it's supposed to work. from a legal or you're all lawyers. you know. that's the way it's supposed to work. And then our Portrait of a Learner recommendation. we expect to finish that in early June. So some of the initiatives. like. for example. Portrait of a Learner. and our work around Master Facilities Plan. we expect to have multiple updates. We put those in as placeholders. Those may shift as the work. but we want to let you know thatyou can expect regular updates. Betsy Cullen: We probably need to add another one in the spring for the master facilities. for the actual readout of options. David Fleishman: exactly. So we'll David Fleishman: do some of that as well. We will definitely do that once. once we have the firm. will really sit down and Betsy Cullen: do that in like April map it out more. We expect to have the firm by the end of the month at the latest. Erin Gibbons: I'd love to get a Bridges curriculum update. Math Achievement discussion on there. Betsy Gavron: See. it's some of that when we do the MCAS data. but we can certainly what in particular would be of the most interest. Erin Gibbons: Well. this is what you're kind of iReady data or but is it your Betsy Gavron: we so we're this is first. this is the will be the third Erin Gibbons: third year right Betsy Gavron: implementation. and we're moving everybody from the second edition to the third edition. Erin Gibbons: Okay. so I think maybe just some reporting around that. how that's going. and then if you can tie any progress in. iReady data and or MCAS data to what we've been doing in Bridges. Betsy Gavron: Sure Erin Gibbons: anybody else have any thoughts on that? Betsy Cullen: I'd be curious if the middle school math teachers Betsy Gavron: we had a great visit. The middle school math are observing sort of qualitatively or anecdotally. teachers came down and observed bridges in action too. And then any shift in the sort of readiness of students the fifth grade teachers came and saw the sixth graders last matriculating. That's probably only in the last year. I don't year. So that would that would be wonderful. know that that will happen so quickly. but
David Fleishman: So we will weave that into a middle school. We'll figure out how to weave that in to the presentations when our people are here. Erin Mueller: And I also know you had to allocate a little bit more time and kind of. I guess. change a little bit how that was taught. to accommodate a little bit more science time and other topics that we were struggling to fit everything into the day. So just the slight modifications to that that you made. I think it would be nice to hear about absolutely how that's going. Thank you. Christina Rodrigo: Is there any like survey or anything about mental health that's coming out this year? I think like last year. we had Jason Verhoosky and we had not talk like Betsy Gavron: so this year is a. in November. they'll do the Metro West Behavioral Health and Adolescent Health Survey that will take place in November. We usually get the data for that around May. so maybe in June. we could do some sharing out of that data too. They. I know they do a big report out to the community in early fall of the fall. right. David Fleishman: Because you need time to analyze and come up. Erin Gibbons: Okay. it's a it's so much data. it's like a lot. Christina Rodrigo: Okay. yeah. It's an important topic. so I don't want it to. like. Absolutely. or if we're doing other things to like. sure. yeah. Erin Gibbons: yeah. Like a wellness update. Do we have that in here? Ronnie Kessler: No. there's been some great. like. crisis training too that. That's happened this year too. So we can. we can figure out a time to weave some Kate Sambuco: in our last meeting. you mentioned the anti discrimination protocol. David Fleishman: I was just gonna say that. Yeah. Kate Sambuco: Are we going to hear about that anytime soon?
David Fleishman: Yeah. we could do a nondisclosure Well. if you got a time to do a non discrimination protocol update. Betsy Cullen: I'd made a note about AI updates. and I see you mentioned the AU PD work in connection with Jen's February 4 tentative Tech Update. but there was also developing AI guidance for instruct. like instructional guidance. So can we make sure that'll be part of her. in terms of that goal. she will cover. like the tech goals. and that's the AI goal will be part of the tech goal recovery. for sure? Yeah. Sure. You know. we can just add this as we go. and we'll integrate this. We just thought it'd be helpful for you to have some kind of map. It's actually incredibly helpful for me. I won't speak for anybody else. but it's super helpful. because to see it laid out helps spark your brain. Of like. looking at the goals and then looking at this. what else might we want to David Fleishman: and it's helpful for our team members kind of be thinking about when they present. you know. get early notice as we think about ideas and how to share this in the most effective way and around. you know. measuring and progress. Erin Gibbons: how we plan. like. what meetings I want to skip.
Unknown: Start skipping some. Erin Mueller: We asked and very received. Thank you. This is wonderful. Erin Gibbons: It's great. Oh. the one comment I was going to make was. I think it would be great. We used to hear from each of the principals about wants for the budget. totally understand that we're not in the space of need. want. etc. but it may be nice for us to just hear from them when they present against their goals in December. if there are things that particularly really are important in the budget. or just just maybe touching on something. not the wants. right. like needs and hey. you know. this was in here this year. and it's really making a difference. orthings that maybe there are wants that are first time piloting type things that we could try and work with the Foundation on supporting because we know that things are going to be tight next year. So I think that's one thing that could be helpful to align with their goal presentations. other than that. I mean. this is great.
David Fleishman: and we'll get the budget. you know. timing down. I know it used to be here. like very early in December. So we want to push back as long as we can. and also have a thorough process. So that's. that's our goal. Betsy Cullen: I know that Susan use to do. like. a quarterly financial update. David Fleishman: We will have those. We're going to put those in. Those are. those will be placeholders. We've got to. got to do that. So you can expect. I mean. that is so important. as important part of your role in terms of financial oversight. And certainly Kirsteen is aware of how tracking expenses compared to the budget. is really. really important. We did not have. I will share. in terms of budget. we did not hire any positions. Sometimes early on. you know. I've had. where we have to hire positions. We've not budgeted. We've kept to our budget. So that's something we're monitoring. The other part. of course. we monitor is student services. Erin Gibbons: Oh. David. don't say it. Don't say that out loud. Just let it. let it. David Fleishman: It's just something else we monitor. That's all it's I just wanted to we're just moeunitoring. Erin Mueller: Keep monitoring. David Fleishman: Yes. we monitor. Monitor carefully.
Ronnie Kessler: Oh yeah. we got our in our van. Erin Gibbons: Oh. your bus. Erin Mueller: I saw it too. Ronnie Kessler: its registered. license plate. which we're Christina Rodrigo: congratulations. working on. and it's all set to go. David Fleishman: speaking of Student Services and grants. Kate Sambuco: we should take a ride Ronnie Kessler: Yeah. we had it marked number one. just in case we end up getting
Erin Gibbons: maybe we will. Yeah. Ronnie Kessler: they're like. Do you want a number? I'm like. sure. Erin Mueller: Otherwise. it's just really great. Unknown: ERG van. yeah. Erin Gibbons: Kirsteen. I was just thinking. and I'm not sure if there's a good way to suggest this to you. but in conjunction with the with the budget. in advance of that. think it might be really helpful to have a deep dive into expenses and tracking expenses over the past few years. where they fell. where we cut. I um. because people. I'm not sure that's a place we can really cut service we don't want to cut. But I think it would be really helpful to know. like. how lean we are against the expenses. how those are bucketed. Have we made big shifts in that or big cuts in the past couple years? It may be helpful for the community to understand our budget better and that. you know. we have. like. the data to back it up. And it's not just that we have some million dollar dollars sitting somewhere that we can just. you know. because that's kind of like the only piece where I don't. like Kirsteen Patterson: are you specifically asking about the non personnel? Erin Gibbons: yes. yes. yeah. And if you have ideas. like. on how you could kind of like. show it. or Betsy Cullen: you're thinking in like. categorical buckets. Unknown: yeah. like. and we use you take a little leeway to do that. to have it kind of presented. And Erin Gibbons: you don't necessarily have to. like. yeah. however you I just think you thinking about it. like. knowing numbers. knowing how you can kind of pull things data wise. I think some sort of graphic that not even just a graphic. but like some sort of way that it's easily. easily digestible to community members that don't necessarily sit at this table or work in the schools every day. how those things have been impacted with the budget and where we've sat for the for the past few years. and potentially next year. things like that. Kirsteen Patterson: And I do you mean. like. what was not bought last year that we had originally thought Erin Gibbons: potentially. or what we didn't spend on that we were planning to spend on. where we took like. for lack of a better term. robbed Peter to pay Paul. Those kinds of things. The other piece that we talked about. and I can't remember if it was when you started here. before you came. but I don't know that we ever saw it was where we ended up having
toreallocate funds away from proactive facilities. type of care and upkeep and maintenance. to things that had been deferred previously. like the boiler was an example.
That's a spot. you'll she Betsy knows what I'm I think you know what I'm talking about. because the piece that I'm trying to Unknown: so I want to just. yeah. Erin Gibbons: what I'm thinking about there is to show why upfront investment and spending on on the upkeep or new or purchase is important. Because if you don't. all you're doing. is like different by deferring. you're just ending up spending there's there's that that's a different. like bucket. actually. yeah. last couple days in our right. Kirsteen Patterson: and is that something that we are going to address with our master plan? Because that's kind of what. what the dialog is about. Doing nothing has a cost. exactly. and that's. that's. I think we need to also have that going into budget season for these people here. as well as the bigger community. before we even talk about going to build new buildings. David Fleishman: Oh. absolutely. that's probably part of the master plan. Kirsteen Patterson: but I don't know that I can quantify that. That would definitely be an expertise level that is above the just a budget line item per se. There's different components of that. Erin Gibbons: but we can look at historically capital planning. where things have been pushed out indefinitely. three years. two years. whatever it was. and then where did we have to pull it from early because it was pushed out and deferred against advice. David Fleishman: I mean. even looking at. I mean. you look at a maintenance budget and see. did we go over by how much and where did it come from? Take a look at that. That's we can take a look at that.
Erin Gibbons: And the other thing that I just wanted to put on the radar that we're gonna have to talk about. I believe. is bus parking. Unknown: It's already been three years.
Time flies. yes. Erin Gibbons: and. and I know that there's just Yeah. history. We don't have to talk about it right now. I'm just putting it on the radar. Unknown: No. I do have that on the radar. and I have already had conversations and that everything that was identified for mitigation that we accomplished. So I think what is the next step is just reaching out to the town manager in the aspect of requesting the renewal piece of it. Erin Gibbons: Okay. awesome.
Okay. sorry. I just kind of put you on the spot. but I wasn't expecting answers right now. I just was like thinking I had it. You did.
I'm just very nervous for the budget. So.
Unknown: okay.
it's really good news on the Prism grant. Yes. Kirsteen Patterson: the funding for curriculum itself can pay up to half of the cost of whatever the curriculum is in grades k1. and two. Erin Gibbons: awesome Kirsteen Patterson: and maybe k3 Unknown: either k2 or k3
awesome. three. Erin Mueller: So half of the half. right? It's great. Unknown: Twitter is good. and we did talk about putting that on capital. Betsy Gavron: I think that was a very successful Unknown: yes with math. It was it was Betsy Gavron: yes. So I would think that that might be the way to go. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. we should definitely keep that. Betsy Gavron: I was not there when it had. when that process played out. I wasn't at this table with that process played out. but I know it. it's worked really well. Yes. Kirsteen Patterson: because you can. we have a new structure. though. in the town with Wood capital. So Unknown: yeah. Kirsteen Patterson: that that may change. Unknown: Yeah. Just disclaimer. Kirsteen Patterson: Uh. things that might have been in that kind of pipeline might shift or change how. how they're prioritized or reallocating that capacity. Erin Gibbons: I think it benefits and behooves the town and the budget. though. because we can depreciate it as a capital item. and we can't depreciate it as an operating item. right?
Kirsteen Patterson: Well. yes. because you wouldn't. you wouldn't put something thathigh cost in in your operating budget. typically for a year. like one year. you would do that over the course. And I think that's why it ended up. Erin Gibbons: the math ended up there. and it was a really good answer. So if we can finagle that. it's probably the best way to try and do
Unknown: it
Erin Gibbons: before I go to 4.1 can I ask? Did this get left on. Diane? Because. for some reason I didn't. I don't remember saying that wasn't resolved at the last meeting. Y eah. okay. yep. okay.
Unknown: We talked about putting it on in October when we did the other thing. but maybe I'm misremembering.
This is. well. this is. Erin Gibbons: we did appoint Brian O'Herlihy yes to the CIPC. if I'm remembering those acronyms correctly. and the Select Board confirmed him so and I think he's going to be a really good appointment there. The one thing that we really need to find somebody for the seat is the audit committee. Betsy Cullen: So that's on my list. We thought we were going to meet as a full master plan advisory group in August. but then we've just been meeting as a smaller evaluation subcommittee as we reviewed the proposal submitted by the firm. So the whole group hasn't come back together. but I can. we can send an email to that group and see if there's anyone. that was that was a to do of mine from our August meeting is to ask that group if anyone be interested in serving it's the audit committee. I have really good information on the Audit Committee. It only meets almost five times a year. Unknown: full stop.
Erin Gibbons: the meetings include discussing annual comprehensive financial report prepared by the town's external auditor. as well as creating an annual report with recommendations for the board of selectmen. which should be the Select Board. That must be an old I have a link to more information. Should anyone find someone who would like to join this committee? It is a three year term. and I do have somebody that wants to go and chat with people five times a year in town. right?It's only 15 times over three years. Betsy Cullen: Come on. You want me to resend it. We had the blast that we had already sent out. Do we want to resend it? Erin Gibbons: Let's try and do some targeted outreach. Okay. I'd like everyone to come back to me at the end of the month and tell me that they've talked to three people. myself included. I will find three people. Unknown: Is there any particular background. like they need to be a CPA? No. no. Erin Gibbons: They need to be warm body. Unknown: Well. I'm kidding. Erin Gibbons: there's I can tell you. I mean that you don't need. like. specific expertise. Okay. so thank you. Brian O'Herlihy. 12 million times over. and I love that the CIPC has been created
5.1 based on revisions to Title Nine statute and requirements. Our title. nine. proposed revised policy is in our folder. Betsy. I welcome you. Gavron. to give any additional feedback that you care to share. Betsy Gavron: Yeah. when we were working on our handbooks. and we were sort of updating the language for handbooks that met with the new regulations. and when we were building out a new employee handbook group. it was apparent that our new protocols that to match the new regulations that are the school committee policy was just dated and had had not changed. So I reached out to our school council. and this is what. what this is. what's been vetted that matches with the new regs. Erin Gibbons: And so one of my questions was. our coordinator is Ronnie? Correct? Ronnie Kessler: Yes. Erin Gibbons: So what contact info should we have in the policy? Should it just be email and phone number and potentially address here? Yeah. that's fine. Okay. so Director of Student Services. Ronnie Kessler. Should I do the Wayland public schools? right? Yeah. I think what's the address here? Ronnie Kessler: 41 Cochituate Rd
Erin Gibbons: I was gonna say 38 Millbrook. I knew that was wrong. so that's the fire and safety. Unknown: Okay? And then your email is Ronnie. dot underscore. at work. I'm Town. Wayland.us.org. okay.
and do you have a direct link to doctor? 508- 358-3756.
okay.
Erin Gibbons: Um. So just to reiterate. this has already been reviewed by counsel. and I did overview. I didn't have any issues. I didn't have any questions. Does anyone around the table have any issues? Questions. anything? And in the event we do not. I would entertain a motion to approve the revised Title Nine policy and to put it out. Unknown: Sorry. just there's another contact information spot further down in the document for the superintendent that I think we need to complete as well. I don't have page numbers. Erin Gibbons: Oh. I see it. I didn't notice that. You know why? Because it wasn't yellow before. wait one second.
Unknown: Okay. go ahead. Erin Gibbons: Do you want me to put you as doctor. or do you just want to be David Fleischman? The latter would be great. Okay. and I Unknown: what? Yep. 41 Patricia Road. Wayland. 37633763. I. 763 508-358-3763. okay.
File at the top. and it is currently.
if you're talking to me for not kidding. Okay. I'm just doing this and you are David underscore Fleishman at Wayland. ps.org. correct. Okay. I
Wow. it's AC. dash
Erin Gibbons: and should it have the sexual harassment slash r.
Title Nine. or should it just be Title Nine? Genuine question? Kate Sambuco: currently we have it as slash Yeah. in your current version. Unknown: What were you gonna say? Yeah. I like it with both. I think it's supposed to right identify or I just didn't want to Yeah. Got it. Okay.
Okay. all. Um.
anybody else?
Erin Gibbons: No. okay. anybody want to make a motion? Are you asked for a motion? Unknown: I moved to approve and send out for comment. Revise Title Nine. policy. AC. dash. R. do we have a second? Erin Mueller: I'll second. Unknown: Okay. all in favor. aye. any opposed? None. Okay.
Can uh. Erin Gibbons: consent agenda.
Do we have any questions comments. or might Ellen be visiting? Unknown: I move to approve the Consent Agenda.
Betsy Cullen: I'll second. Unknown: Okay. all in favor. Aye. Any opposed
for old times sake? Are there any matters not reasonably anticipated by The chair? Nope. Noi. give me one. I'm Yes. I Erin Gibbons: I move to enter executive session for the purposes of reviewing and approving the executive session minutes with the intent to redact and release said minutes. as permitted by MGL Chapter 38 section 22 for July 16. 2025 the school committee will be joined by Diane Mirabella. recording secretary. The School Committee will adjourn in executive session and will not reconvene in open session. Do I have a second? Erin Mueller: I'll second. Unknown: Betsy. yes. Kate. yes. Christina. yes. Erin. yes. Erin. yes. Okay. So.
No. no. okay. all right. David. do you want to start on 3.1 David Fleishman: Yes. As you all know. we are underway for the 25-26 school year. even though Labor Day was just last week. it feels like we've been in school for a while. and I think that's because we started before Labor Day. and that was the change that Wayland has not done for a while. And so we had a really nice welcome back for our educators. I know several things before we started. It was wonderful here from our new president of our union. Danielle Barron. Erin. welcomed our students. with terrific music from our summer orchestra program. And we were underway.and it's going smoothly. I always say that the first couple of weeks of school are always as long as you do the summer. planning pretty smooth. And then we have new opportunities and challenges every day. One of the challenges of starting earlier. I will say. is that attendance data was was not attendance was not as high as it would be typically in the first two days of school. and that's just something to think about. Whether folks were so used to starting a Tuesday after Labor Day. as some districts have a standard start date versus perhaps a variable start date. but we did have some lower attendance across the board in the first couple of days of school. just something to be aware of and reflect upon since then. I would say one of the pluses. even though we started early. it's been very good school weather in schools without air conditioning. That's been a positive. And the hot weather. the worst the meteorologists are saving for the weekends. like last Saturday. which was really good. that was a it was a non school day. So that's been that's been smooth. We'll have our enrollment numbers. of course. after October 1. we have slightly over projection in kindergarten. a little other under in some areas over. you know. in one grade levels is a little higher. Third grade at Happy Hollow than we projected. But we're we're excited. and it's been positive. and later on. we'll talk about the goals for the year and presentations. We had a chance to visit a couple of co-taught classes I was in off to a positive start. and you'll hear more about that as we as we go. So I will stop there. because tonight. we're going to kind of begin with our summer programming. give you an update on that. and then we update and revise our goals based on our last meeting. We'll talk have a student attendance update from last year with some important data. and then. as I said earlier. we'll go through our meetings because we thought would be really good at this first meeting of the school year. Have a really good plan for the year. and of course. get your feedback. So with that. Betsy. you're kinda going to facilitate. and Ny is here as well. We have a team effort tonight. Betsy Gavron: Yes. and so while school was certainly out over the summer. there was lots going on here in the district. and we're going to share with you a little bit about what happened. So we'll talk about the extended school year program. Ronnie will will take us through that Pegasus and STEAM Explorers. Nye is here to talk a little bit about that. I'll talk a little bit about the Metco transitions program that happened and some of the adult learning that went on over the course of the summer. Ronnie. Ronnie Kessler: so this is just kind of an overview of what ESI is. ESI stands for Extended School Year. extended school year services. So ESI. why at every initial review. annual review. reevaluation. the team. the Special Education team. including parents. one of the questions on the IEP is. does this? Does the student require an extended school year in order to prevent regression? And that's an area that needs to be addressed every year on the IEP. and actually on the new IEP. there's a specific service delivery grid just for summer services. which is nice. So decisions based on are based on evidence of regression. So we look at after December. February and April breaks. we look at summer. so we have data from June. and then teachers are taking data now. so we can really see if there's been regression. That's our biggest data point. especially for kids who did attend. We like to measure that for kids who it was recommended. who did not attend. That's an important part. And then also. just for all kids. it's good to see that regression. So this is a really important data gathering time. In addition to regression. it's also about the rate of recoupment of those skills. So if we expect all kids to lose some amount of. you know. over the summer. have some summer slide. some regression. but if it's going to take a student double the amount of time to recoup those skills. then that's also evidence that they require summer ESI programming. And I kind of went into my I already said this ahead of myself. but it's that. you know. all students regress to some extent. but it's really about like. if you have that break in service. what is that timeframe to get back to where you were before that break? So this is just an overview of the programs that we offered this year. We had tutoring and related services. So that was at Loker and Boston. And actually. I should have also put it was virtual. We had try to really make it work. I know it's hard. So we tried to offer as many options as possible. Parents would reach out and ask for specific time. You know. can I have first thing in the morning or and I would do my best. It's a jigsaw puzzle. so it's hard. but I would do my best. but some. we were able to accommodate some through virtual which is helpful. Our language based programming was at Loker. We had a Learning Academy again at Loker. Milestones and Achieve and TCW were at Luke are and then we had our high school program. which was at the high school. but they also did a lot of off site work. actually volunteering at Pegasus as part of that. which was great. So they were kind of at Loker too.
So just some of our we had tutorials and itinerant therapy. so some kids just come for OT or PT or speech. We had 14 students we attend. students in our preschool. 10 students in Milestones and Achieve. 12 students in our LBC. 10 students in Learning Academy. four students in life skills. Then we partnered with Pegasus a bit more this year. so I'll talk a little bit about that. And then we also had tutoring in Boston. And in it last year we supported the Metco has a program in Boston that runs for four weeks. nine to three o'clock. and we support some students going to that and we send tutors to that program. So we had an SLP and a teacher who went to the Metco program and provided services. I just keep getting ahead of myself. Erin Gibbons: have we. have we always done that Ronnie? Ronnie Kessler: . so when I got here. it was kind of we were just kind of still getting off of covid and everything kind of was virtual. and I was trying to figure out. I worked closely with Latoya around the best way for us to provide services for students. for our Boston resident students. because I want students spending more time on a bus than they are in the program. But we also want to make sure. so I've actually also. I meet with West and Wellesley. Sudbury. Natick around like what they do for programming. And we talked. We didn't end up sharing this year. but last year we ended up sharing a little bit. But I reach out to our Boston resident. students. parents. kind of via survey to find out what you know. what time frame they're looking for. What do they want to virtual? Would they like to come to Luke? Or some they have the option to come to Luke. or would they like it in Boston? And then we kind of work what their needs are and what their availability is and what we can provide. So this is the second year of funding kids at the Metco program. and that's been successful. They're a really nice partner. And then some parents opted for virtual and then Latoya also coordinates some tutoring at I'm going to say it's it's not Hans Christian. it's like there's a Learning Center in Boston Hans Christensen. thank you. I always say. like Hans Christian Anderson Unknown: and the red shoes. yeah. Ronnie Kessler: also. we try to use whatever means possible to help. to give the support to students
our staffing. We had a BCBA. CODA is our certified occupational therapy assistant. And when we have a coda assistant. we also need an occupational therapist to oversee that person so that we contract out for our physical therapist with Easter Seals. Jerry. He's been doing it since before I was here. He's great. He comes back every summer. Kids love him. He loves our kids. So that's nice. We had two speech pathologists. seven program teachers. three tutors and 18 assistants.
Changes that we made for 2025. I did send communication about is why out four weeks earlier? So in the past. it had gone out beginning of April. I sent it out beginning of March. hoping that that was helpful. It was still. I get it. I signed my kids up for camp in like a couple weeks. I mean. it's crazy. so I get it. but I'm trying to send out as much communication as possible. early as possible. Nay. I worked really close. Nay. I worked really closely. This year we were able to do some coordination between Pegasus and our programming. which was really nice. So that was that was great. And then I did send out some surveys this year. like I said. for their Boston resident students. and then for our students who get tutoring. I sent out surveys like asking beforehand. like. what is your availability? Or what would you prefer for timing? Do you want virtual? Do you know. just to get a sense before I schedule everything and then nobody can make it. So I kind of tried to work the other way. So those things seem to help. Definitely. having it at Loker with Pegasus was great. We have a lot of kids who leave Pegasus. you know. just to come for a half hour for speech or. you know. tutoring. And then we have a lot of kids who leave at 11:30 and then go right to Pegasus. So that's great too. And that's all I have. Another successful year Betsy Gavron: transitioning. and speaking of a good partnership with Pegasus. we have Nay. right here. Nayagara Viera: Yeah. I actually liked to mention. not just Pegasus. and put. like. these STEAM Explorers as well. because was the first year we're trying with middle school. And we want. like to have a brand as well. like the middle school. because we saw that Pegasus is a very nice brand. But for the middle school. they're already cool and older enough needed to be a catch name. and we put it like pegs. as a team explorers. and the core values is the same. But I think the focus and even the training of the staff in the beginning was for to include all the students. that all of them can try if you have the right support. and I collaborate a lot with Ronnie and her team. to include all the students in our field trips and our offerings and and the goal for Pegasus and Steam explorers is still like for them to engage and help them to thrive and have problem solving. resilience and teamwork. And we are proud that we extended offering to preschool now to grade 12. And I will talk a little bit more. What was those items that we often had received some feedback throughout the year. we change on our summer program
Pegasus by the numbers. we had 134 kids from preschool to fifth grade. We had 19 middle schoolers. six high schoolers doing the CIT program. We still run as two. three week sections. and with collaboration with ESI we couldn't lower our ratio to five to one. because we appointed also some staff when we need. like. a one on one. or we need some teacher assistant. we share the staff. and we will be able to across all the groups have the support that kids needed on the group they were on the grade. if you can pass. please. And what was new this year. we extend our enrollment for until almost the end of May. and parents. of course. They reach out later. and we have availability. We add them to our program. We had 29 days. was very quickly for us to do the training and set up. We basically have a whole school and low care because we have a huge trailer that we need to set up everything for us to be successful in our program. but we were able to do 29 days this year. We continue to offer the flex scheduling that is very helpful for the kids. Also that do we ask why we have into one. into three. 3:30. now this year. we extend. like. 30 minutes make a little bit difference on the selection in the afternoon as well. and also not to hit traffic. That was very good. We saw even for the parents come in at 3:30 we have a lot of parents coming 3:30 before we have. like. still at three was hard for them to come from the pool and have the time to decompress and prep to leave. and that was a good extending hour. And we'll continue. We extend the range for the Middle school. as I mentioned. and we are calling STEAM explorers and another piece as well. we start the enrollment in January. but we extended to May. and we inform the parents all what we would be offered this year ahead of time. because for them to know what is the field trips and what is the events for if they planning vacation For the kids not to lose any of the offering. And I also collaborate with Ronnie for the ESI students. the service for them not to meet to miss. like the musician or miss something that's exciting happening as well. That was very good. Collaboration with our inclusion specialist that we had to that was Renee. called a little. helped a lot. and they are amazing. if you can pass the CIT program. What was kind of new this year? We collaborated. I did an interview with all of them. and what was the goal for them to do? And I was so exciting to know that even if they don't want teaching. they still want communication. leadership. And with that. I could build the CITs throughout the summer where they could give back to the kids in a way. they are leading some of the activities and some of the events. and they could collaborate as a team. And you couldn't see like senior collaborating with like. almost a freshman. because it's 14 to seniors. and this was a good collaboration for them. And also we discussed with Alison if they could get community service hours. and the hours that they worked. They were able to do the community service hours. and I couldn't sign the form for them. And they participate in all our training. staff training as well. and their online training that they were kept to lead the some of the activities. Here are some pictures just to show what happened. And was very funny. And took. like a while for me to select what is the best pictures. because we had so many good pictures and we did so many things. And if you can. and I just go very quickly in the highlight of the activities every day. we had a specialty. this way. like all the kids couldn't go through all the specialties that we had. We had arts and crafts. science.
theater kind of movement. Drama. Sports. in a way that we select a staff that love the area and want to learn and tied to the team of the week. This way we couldn't go into work if they're learning for dinosaur and they can do different ways of the learning and they in the whole setup of the whole week was about the team that we had select before and in the afternoons this year also was new was the STEAM creating lab. The parents could choose if the kids went to go to the pool or stay to the creation lab. And in there we have. like. every week. Shark Tank edition with right brain curriculum. I think adding them should add it. We have. like a store. and the kids got like fake Texas dollars. and it was the sensations. because they collected the dollars throughout the week. being like a good camper and also participating in the activities and the Shark Tank. They created their own project and pitch their own inventions and other all the things like they. they staff was very creative. And it was amazing how creative they got. And a point that once. like. this staff was like. Oh. you're going not to believe I kind of gave. like the kids. like. $100 should not and I was like. that's fine. They and they were saving. They were learning how to save the money to buy the toys. That was. like. more expensive. And then we needed to. of course. put inflation in our store. to be like. Oh. my God. these kids. they'll work for the money. But this part was very good. And we had. like. also. like. some nice community partners coming if you can pass. We had the fire department and the police department coming. It was amazing. They came with all the cars and kids scooter on the Professional Edition week learned about our field trips. We did so many. nice few trips. We went to Harvard Museum. we went to Anette medical organic farm. and the kids could learn how to be a farmer and do some chores and pet some chickens. it was nice. could you pass please? And they enhance topics. We kind of tried to separate and three main goals for them. for even for the teachers to develop the curriculum for this summer was like a team focused activities where we had. like. hands on projects. and they couldn't do problem solving and teamwork. And want to highlight was the day that the CIT labs. being scientists of the day. they all dressed up as a scientist with lab coat and glasses. Was so much fun. and they were running science experiment. I'm sorry. I'm have a science background. I'm crazy about it. and we developed the CIT like the science experience that the kids could do. And even a mini microscope. we had it as well. Was was nice and arts and crafts as well. We have karaoke. We have a photo booth that they could like do. like infusion of the creativity as well. and dress up and work as a team. And every week was they how it was very crazy in the beginning. because everybody wanted to know what it was like. They the inflatables of the week and the animals in the dinosaur was the sensational. because they have like those for them to take pictures and learn. And always was infused these animals or the team throughout the activities in the week too. And of course. our indoor. outdoor work activities. we have a carnival week. We do like scavenger hunt. and we infuse the math literacy on the Pegasus dollars and they couldn't also learn math and save and do. like. some real financing in banking. even deposit the money with the teacher and redraw after the next week. Was very interesting. This part. Yeah. that was everything. Betsy Gavron: Good Time was half by all of Pegasus. David Fleishman: I just want to say one of the long time Pegasus staff members stopped both of us a matter of fact. just to say what a terrific job Nay did in terms of her innovative programming and her leadership. So I want to publicly recognize you and thank you. You're also modest when you say you have a science background in addition to being an excellent program director. Nye is a dentist. Erin Gibbons: That's what I thought when she said David Fleishman: she really you could introduce a lot into a summer program. So yes. she does it all during the summer. So thank you. Nye. for doing such a great job. Thank you. Christina Rodrigo: Thank you. I heard some feedback about the middle school program. how there was a student there. whose is very hard to please. and loved it. Really really liked it.So that's saying a lot. Nayagara Viera: .Yeah. it was. was nice. We were trying. like to. the hardest part was to bring them back to elementary school. how we're going to do that. and we put them in the second floor. they have. like. a special t shirt. and what we were trying like to make them feel welcome. even though was like instilling in middle school. But what was successful. and we couldn't also expand for some of the students that Ronnie needed to place on ESI. and they weren't able now to continue in Pegasus. because now we have a middle school program. Betsy Gavron: Thank you Nay. So the Metco program also offered a couple different programs this year. the middle school Transitions Program and the Summer Enrichment Program. So the goals for the summer transitions the transitions program was to help middle schools begin to develop those student skills. It was held right at the middle school. They got to get a feel for the building. I was in one day. and you know. there were already seemed very comfortable. sort of moving through the hallways and getting getting their way around the building. Also. that helps them get ready to come back to school and to come back with confidence. One of the beautiful pieces about it. is really to build that cohort from the three different elementary schools. the kids coming together. and make them. you know. a little bit less anxious about that transition to middle school. Which is which. as you know. as many of you know. is a big is a big transition. So the focus of the program. there was some academic pieces. They there was a some science work. math. work. music. Bernadette had was in with the with drumming. They did a lot of drumming there. Jen Judkins came by and did tech talks with the kids and taught them some got them familiar with some of the platforms that they would be using once they were at the middle school. And they also built their student skills. I know the rocket. Rocket work was a big hit while they were there. Additionally. we continued with the Building Community through the circle practices. And they would do daily circle practices talking about some you know. key topics to help them be successful when they're in the middle school. that notion of being an upstander. of having integrity. of when you give your word to somebody in you know. what does that mean? And really think about that core. core values in a community. So that was an exciting. exciting component. You can see the kids all with their their T shirts on when they were getting ready. ready for their field trips as well. There's also a summer enrichment program that happened in Boston again. also to help summer aggression and prepare some of our youngest students. the incoming K students. for the full day K helping increase their confidence and additionally provide some child care options for families during the summer. also to have them less anxious about making that transition. you know. all the way to out there. to elementary school. So they the Metco summer school that took place in Boston. really offered an academic based set of learning experiences for folks. also including math. science. reading. writing. research skills. social studies. probably fewer research skills than the kindergarten kids. but certainly doing that. and there were enrichment classes and field trips as well. So there were 12 kids who were served by this program this summer. Betsy Cullen: Is that in K through five. Betsy. that's k to five. Yes.
Betsy Gavron: in addition to the kids these the adult learning that goes on the summer is fairly comprehensive as well. So David mentioned. I think last. last time we were together about our administrative retreat. you can see some photos of us Learning in Action. What you see there is. we had just gone through some scarf threat. teaching and working with and there is a simulation going on right there. In that right hand picture. there's a group of folks who are acting as a faculty. and you can't see Brian Jones. sort of leading a meeting in there. and the folks in the audience here are identifying what. what of the different SCARF threats are they seeing coming through? So which stands for Just different ways people can be activated. around. around things. when. when. particularly when change is happening. What? What gets triggered for folks? So that was a very active and engaging. engaging time that we had in terms of adult learning. there were also. as we mentioned. more restorative justice training that happened this summer. Last year we history in the fifth grade. They've been piloting it that trained two groups in in tier one training. and this year we trained another tier one training set and a tier two two set. so a little bit more advanced for problem solving. circles. those kind of pieces. So a number of us engaged in that. Caroline ran a culturally responsive teaching in the brain. You may recall that all staff in their first three years are required to do some culturally proficiency work with us. and one of the options is through the course that Caroline teaches. I just found out some offerings today through ideas. We have a membership of ideas that were is another opportunity for folks to learn. 44 folks engaged in co teaching training and work together. All of the partnerships spent two days together doing some of that work. And there's also a course offered by Bethann Monahan and Jake Montway at the middle school about exploring the possibilities of planning with AI. And we get some great feedback about folks who had gone. gone there. alright. And as always. there's summer work that happens that is funded through our operating budget.
last year in a couple of classrooms. and now the whole fifth grade will be be using that new curriculum. The there's some more foundation. scope and sequence work. really doing some alignment of the instruction. Assess. an assessment. The Sexual Abuse Awareness curriculum was updated by a team this summer at the middle school level. there was some writing and math skills curriculum work with our special educators who are focusing on more skill based classes there. There was work with the writing center. You may recall that we were shifting some of the people who would be in the Writing Center were more content areas teachers. So there was some real training there and really thinking through what that might look like and work. Quite a bit of Spanish Immersion curriculum development happened this this summer as well. both in revising in sixth grade and seventh grade work. So the partner teachers got together and did a lot of that work. Some some highlights. At the high school. we had a ninth grade ELA team book feast. where there's a number of titles read by a bunch of teachers. and they made some plans for adopting some new titles in in some small group work. and some may. may become whole class work. There. there's some updating the high school statistics. data sets and problems to really pull some relevant data that would be engaging for kids. There's some really interesting data that they pulled the unified wellness work that we talked about earlier in the spring. Much of that was time was dedicated to planning that new strand that we have. And then there's always some nice work across districts. So K through 12 work. again. on the wellness curriculum development. Scott talked about. right at the I think. our last meeting. our second to last meeting. about how some over the summer. they continue that work with developing curriculum and alignment. And same with the El work. the scope and sequence is really looking at what that the work looks like at the different WIDA levels. which just means that. you know. some kids come in with very little English. until they're almost proficient. So what does that look like across the levels? So that's just a few of the highlights. The the image that you see there was. was actually from some summer work that had to do with Sarah Ward's book series. They had digested them all and created some lessons that are going to be used across. across the grades there. So some of the clock knowledge is really important skills. So that is a summary of some of the things that happened here this summer. David Fleishman: Excellent. Thank you. Now we're going to shift from the summer to the school year. so at our last meeting on August 18. we talked about goals. and that's excellent feedback. So we adjusted some measurements in the goals. We also added. I know Erin. you had talked about facilities in particular a goal. and we worked with kirsteen. you know. as a really strong background on operations. we have a new ticketing system and operations that will monitor carefully and monitor consistency. So that is an additional strategic action in our operations section. along with. you know. all the refinements you suggested. mostly around measuring some around academic achievement in particular.
Unknown: we don't have that's we we don't set a goal. Erin Mueller: We have them from last meeting. but. Erin Gibbons: yeah. we don't know. Erin Mueller: We don't have the new ones. Betsy Gavron: Okay. okay. I'll pull them up. Betsy Cullen: No. I think what we had last time was a PDF. So it won't be the last Betsy Gavron: I thought it was a live talk. so I thought it was already updated for you. My apologies. David Fleishman: Okay. all right. we will pull it up. Christina Rodrigo: While you're pulling it up. I just want to go back like 10 seconds and just acknowledge all the work that ESI did. it was an awesome summer. My family. you know. loved it. It was for. Really helpful for my children. So thank you to you guys and all the staff that worked through the summer. Ronnie Kessler: Yeah. it really was. once the first couple days are always like running around. But it was. it was made a lot of returning staff. which was nice. and a lot of the programming was pretty seamless. so thanks. David Fleishman: we will My apologies.
Unknown: Oh. good. I'm glad my No. Betsy do you have it. right? David Fleishman: I can try Betsy Gavron: I haven't it just umm.
Betsy Gavron: to. yeah. I did. maybe just carry over.
Betsy Gavron: I did could we make copies for people. real Erin Mueller: No.
quick. what would be Erin Gibbons: if you just do Betsy Gavron: have it. I have it here. Unknown: I mean. I mean. Erin's gonna be nice David Fleishman: We want to show you one particular. you know. the one I mentioned. Erin Gibbons: can you share it with the folder. and then I can pull it up. and you can pull it up. Betsy Gavron: Diane. you have the document. Can you pop it in the folder? I just don't know how to do you do it on that computer. Erin Gibbons: Okay. let's if you share it with me. I can put in the folder. perfect. David Fleishman: Okay. Erin Gibbons: and that way. Betsy Gavron: The computer is just not very happy right now. Maybe. it's just spinning. spinning. spinning. David Fleishman: I can I can share it. You want to share exactly? Erin Gibbons: Yeah. that would be great. Yeah. if they're the revised ones. yes. Betsy Gavron: it's just stuck. Unknown: I do that. Dave. I'm going to just do a quick restart of my computer. David Fleishman: Here's mine. All right. Erin. I'm going to Erin Gibbons: okay. and then I can just put in the folder. if just share with you. David Fleishman: All right. okay. you should have it that's easier. Betsy Gavron: sorry. Sharing is unavailable at this time. Please try later. David Fleishman: You should have Unknown: my favorite message.
Erin Gibbons: Are you gonna pull it up on the screen? Betsy. no. Erin Gibbons: I got it I can. Unknown: I
you can't. right. gav: As soon as this restarts. it's okay. Erin Gibbons: No worries. Okay. Unknown: And For some reason i i movement Tom work From my right to my left. Are you? Erin Gibbons: I'm sending it to them. Let me put it in the folder. David Fleishman: Do you want me to share with everybody individually? Erin Gibbons: I just did it. Okay. All good. Unknown: So the. in addition to refining. as I mentioned. the it educational goals. we added an operational piece around development. strengthening the partnership to do town and school facilities teams. I. I see develop a plan to approve existing buildings to provide sustainable and up to date learning environment. just the last piece under additional rules on the first page. Erin Gibbons: Got it I got it is that the only update from the one that we reviewed at our last meeting. David Fleishman: We have updates. I'll give you an example of other updates. The other updates are around. Let me go to the Town. There was nothing more in community. nothing on students services. There was an additional you had asked about the Middle School.
One thing we had was about executive functioning. was establishing baseline skills relative to developmental expectations and establishing targets for improvement. We've talked about how to measure some of the work around executive functioning. Actually talked about that in opening day in terms of as a critical priority. and so that was one is really getting some baseline skills. because this is kind of year one of an initiative we also updated. Let me go down you had questions about the middle school and accountable talk. which.
Erin Gibbons: yeah. kind of fleshing that out and giving it sort of like a rename or right.not rename. but you know what I mean? David Fleishman: Yep. that is right. Unknown: Last bullet three. I'm on page three. Yeah. that's on page three. Let me find it
right. I want Erin Gibbons: Oh. but I don't see it as Erin Mueller: I just used versioning history. right? Erin Gibbons: Which one did where? So.
David Fleishman: yeah. okay. we double check on that one. Hang on a second. Let me go to that one for one second. Unknown: We mean it one double check of run for the Star. Check
I picked
Erin Mueller: I just don't restore it. I
Erin Gibbons: Can I ask a question so Kirstine specific to the additional new goal. the collaborate or piece to the goal. operational goal. collaborate with town facilities to have a cohesive line of communication with regard to custodial expectations and results. and then utilize a work order system that prioritizes urgent requests.
I think. will that. So I think one piece that confuses me about this is that the custodians have. like a dual report structure. right between like you and Michael Faia. right? Like. Kirsteen Patterson: not really. Erin Gibbons: No. have you clarified that Kirsteen Patterson: Yes Erin Gibbons: So maybe that's fixing the problem. Okay? And so the system will be utilized by school personnel only to input a ticket. Is that the idea. Kirsteen Patterson: yes. Erin Gibbons: okay. Kirsteen Patterson: And it's really specific to Building Principles. Erin Gibbons: Okay Kirsteen Patterson: Assistant Principals and I have capability oversight for any building so I can. I can do a ticket on behalf of. Erin Gibbons: okay. Kirsteen Patterson: and have all of them attached to it so that they can see that it's been entered. and any status updates that we get as things are being addressed. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Kirsteen Patterson: And I will track all of them. And it also has a delineation that we can identify the ranking of urgent at a later time. you know. And so it really gives you some drill down data to look at what types of work orders. what types of things are being entered in. and to be able to have some accountability with facilities team as well. and to be able to show what has been done Erin Gibbons: Okay Kirsteen Patterson: versus also still. what still needs to be done. So I think that's a piece that we really want to be able to communicate and show that. yes. there's. there's a lot of things that still need to happen and take place. and there is a lot of efforts being made. And look at everything that has already been accomplished and checked off of that list from the work orders that have come through. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Kirsteen Patterson: so we're really trying to establish a good communication pipe so that we're not just tagging a custodian in the moment. that we really document something and that it is. that is then sent to Mike Faia. so he he really is going to be the person that communicates with custodial team and is able to manage and mobilize who what. building what needs to be done. and really kind of orchestrate that so that things are done quickly. promptly and based on what true emergency requests are versus just my blinds are broken. and I really would like that fixed right now. but there's a pipe leaking in another building. so it gives that ability to really mobilize the fleet that we have and to prioritize our resources in that capacity. Erin Gibbons: Okay? And so when I read this. I look at it as like. things that you may not have been expecting would be put through that. like work order. ticket system. like a roofie leak. A roofie leak. a leaky roof. or a leaking pipe. versus. also. it sounds like. or it reads to me like. coupled with that. you're looking to kind of have. like a standard of care for each building. of regular things that should be happening. and then maybe potentially. like. say. getting water turned on for a garden at a school that maybe that's like on the regular schedule of like between. you know. mid March and end of April. like you're. you're turning the water on at all the schools. or whatever it is like. that's just an easy example for me to pull it up. Kirsteen Patterson: And so it's not just like a standard of care. but standard of communication. because we want our I want our small custodial maintenance team to be able to do what they have already and not be addressed by everybody walking through the hallway and sees them on their path to the next location or the next job that they've already got identified. So we want to really try to mobilize the communication. the style. how it's recorded and reported. so that we have that ability to look back and say. Well. gee. we have all these open tickets at the middle school. Why aren't any of these being addressed? And the answer is. because he's getting all these sticky notes from everybody. giving him 12.000 other things. So we want to eliminate the sticky note. and we want everything to be addressed and again. prioritizing through the building principles. As to. is this really rising to the work order. ticket necessity. or is this something that okay? You know. we'll have a conversation down the road. but we really want to make this a tightened up process so that we have better accountability. So we should just have them wear shirts that have. like a QR code on the front and back that people can just scan. direct you to here. This is my ticket. Yes. okay. that's a that's great. Betsy Cullen: Maybe hats. Kate Sambuco: The shirt will say don't. don't stop me. Erin Gibbons: Please don't stop me. Christina Rodrigo: Submit a ticket to my next job. Erin Mueller: I want one of those. Erin Gibbons: Don't talk to me about it. Now. scan the QR code. Gotta have a ticket. Unknown: Start saying that work. Christina Rodrigo: Cute. Erin Gibbons: Okay. so. and I remember there being and. sorry. I don't mean to take this over. I remember there being question. Questions about implementing like benchmarks to show progress. completion. and so were those things. David Fleishman: for example. we like if you look at if you look at Sarah Ward and executive function. if we go to that one. that's the up there. you'll first place. yeah. the first place you see. you'll see there. establish baseline skills relative to developmental expectations. establish target goals for improvement. That's kind of the benchmark baseline skills right there. That's what we talked about. You know. specifically. executive function was one. Betsy Gavron: And I know that the executive function work they did this year was to pull together a whole bunch of resources so they have the age. at each age span what kids should be able to do. So we want to compare what kids are actually doing to that. and then. based on the deficits we saw are to be focusing lessons in services. Erin Gibbons: And that was something we talked about with you. right. Ronnie. about the group that you work with to like what kids really should be doing. Betsy Gavron: And they did that work this summer. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. it was okay. So I remember talking about. David Fleishman: I mentioned that even in my note about executive functioning with one of the focus is some of the some of the summer work. yeah. y Betsy Cullen: eah. maybe something our families would welcome seeing. if it's digestible totally parents have would benefit maybe from a little understanding. Erin Gibbons: off expectations. I'm sure I have off expectations. Ronnie Kessler: When I talked to. met with SEPAC. mean. I know it's bigger than a special ed issue. but we did talk about maybe devoting a meeting to that. So then maybe we can coordinate with PTO and open it up to. you know. beyond just the SEPAC meeting. but just to kind of present. like. here's all of the information and then just some tips and tools. Erin Gibbons: yeah. Like an I think tips and tools David Fleishman: teachers are learning this is what students are going to be exposed to in school based on our teachers are learning as a result here. we can talk about how to do that. That would be nice follow up. Erin Gibbons: yeah. because it's also not just the tips and tools. but understanding. like right sizing your expectations of your kid. like my nine year old shouldn't be doing her own Betsy Gavron: okay. got it right? laundry. Erin Mueller: But she can. Unknown: but it's a nice. you know. yeah. Christina Rodrigo: We could make it more inclusive and kind of cross pollination into the SEPAC. which. you know. only SEPAC people go to SEPAC. right. yeah. right. We were going to open draw a bigger circle. right? David Fleishman: And general ed. Ronnie Kessler: right. yeah. And K through 12. Erin Gibbons: totally. right. totally. Christina Rodrigo: all grades and Betsy Cullen: or K through retirement. who knows?
Ronnie Kessler: yeah. So I did. We did talk about that at our meeting. so get a date on the books for that and David Fleishman: talk to principals about how to kind of make this a topic. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. it's like that crossover of and I'm probably beating a dead horse. but you know the language that's used in the schools and and being able to to understand it at home. potentially mirrored at home. reuse it at home. reinforce at home. It's that same type of idea. you know. if. if everyone's kind of living the same expectations and knowing Erin Gibbons: Limit. exactly that's what I mean Betsy Cullen: some of RCL. right? Betsy Cullen: like language. emotions. Erin Gibbons: yeah 100% Betsy Cullen: . mindfulness. you know. Erin Gibbons: red zone. I live in the red zone. Sorry. David Fleishman: not just football. but you're the red zone. Betsy Cullen: No other meeting in Wayland public school. Unknown: Yeah. you know. yeah. no i. I agree. yeah. Erin Gibbons: And fro some of it's also like being able to know when you should be pushing your kid on an expectation of something that they should be doing right. like. if it's even just taking more agency for themselves and advocating for themselves. like what level that sort of falls at. that's all really helpful. David Fleishman: You know. as we think about our focus for community engagement. this year. you know. later on. a three portrait of a learner. and we're going to do something later on about our master facilities plan. But I think we can weave this in as a third piece on the executive function around. like an instructional goal. around community engagement. So we will talk about how to do that at each level. because. obviously it's different developmentally. but I think people are really interested in that. Christina Rodrigo: It's also nice to have meetings about stuff that's not like a problem to be solved. right? It's just like pro-act here to like. learn stuff. These are proactive. Erin Mueller: embracing. embracing. Ronnie Kessler: It's really strategies Erin Mueller: right Christina Rodrigo: and that go beyond school. Betsy Cullen: Life skills Unknown: life. yeah. Erin Mueller: Is there a great book on this? Could you do a community talk on this? Unknown: are. yeah. there are some. David Fleishman: There are some. certainly some good ones we can. Ronnie Kessler: or at least have. we could have them available. like Betsy Cullen: I heard it. the committee asked for homework. David Fleishman: Don't want to give too much reading. but we Erin Gibbons: I didn't ask for homework. Ronnie Kessler: Just a recommendation.
Erin Gibbons: Just give me the FAQ sheet. please.at each of my child's age grade level. No. like they sent me home with their physicals .from seven to eight. your child. she should be doing this. right? Is she using the pincer grasp? She got it.
Erin Mueller: I know that wasn't really that they were really little. That was extremely helpful. Erin Gibbons: right Erin Mueller: We have a lot of these talks in our house now. What is age appropriate? Erin Gibbons: This? Anyone who knows Brynn will really get a kick out of this. She was two. she. like. didn't say a word. And I brought early intervention. And I was like. Yeah. something's wrong because Taylor. like. said full sentences at like. you know. nine months or something. not seriously. but. and so I brought them in. and they're like. so once this kid starts. you're gonna want her to stop. because she's getting all of her needs met. and because she's. she's communicating with you. It's just not verbally. like in the words or whatever. And they were right. She started. and now I can't get her to stop. But that was like. my expectation was only on my first kid. so on my second. I was like. she's so behind. What's going on? They were like. no. no. yes. she's good. Kate Sambuco: Older siblings talk for them Erin Gibbons: . yeah. yeah. And there's that piece. and so. yeah. you know. okay.
some of these evidence data under the outcomes and measurements where you have surveys. will you share the educator survey data? I'm not asking for. like. it can be blind. but just. will you share that with us. even if it's not necessarily at the table? You know? David Fleishman: Yeah. no. We could. to survey even you saw even this summer. I know. I know we forwarded you. like our surveys from our summer retreat. Yeah. yeah. We do them regularly. It's really helpful to us to figure out how we can adjust and improve and and do that. absolutely.
Erin Mueller: And I guess my question in general. is part of the work of the year. determining and developing how you'll demonstrate and how you'll show the analytics and the data. that's that's part of what we're doing. like you're setting out the goal to do that. and then over the course of the year. you determine how. okay. David Fleishman: some of it's new as kind of baseline data. or. in the case of. you know. things like reading or some of the math. that's kind of ongoing assessments in the range. And some is taking a look at kind of assessing as we have. like co-teaching. If you go to the co-teaching goal for a second. For example.
there is so. you know. Erin. this is one where it's like multiple it's looking at kind of some of the achievement data right over time. but it's also some surveys from different stakeholders to get a sense of how people perceive it's going. So that's like on a multiple level.
Erin Gibbons: in my little lawyer hat that I wear. not at this table. I uh. your language makes me a little bit nervous
-with indicates satisfaction. I guess. like overall satisfaction. because some families may not love co teaching. but the results may reflect.
yeah. you know what I mean? David Fleishman: Yes. Erin Gibbons: I got you. David Fleishman: That is true. I. Thank you for that.
Erin Gibbons: and I may change it to co-teaching models versus partnerships. Co- teaching model. David Fleishman: yeah. Betsy Cullen: or classroom or something. I Erin Gibbons: right? Because sometimes. like. maybe it's not the right fit for these teachers. but the teachers in general are like. Yes. this is good. We're going to do some swapping or something like that. Anyway.
Are there any other specific things that people remember that they wanted to look at or talk about.
Erin Mueller: No. I looked at the language already of some of the changes that we asked for. and Unknown: it looks like Erin Mueller: it felt like it was covered. Unknown: Yeah.
cullen: the measurement and goals are more concrete in areas where we talked about it last time. Thank you for that David Fleishman: feedback. and we'll certainly talk about them. Actually. this leads nicely into our final topic. after student attendance. which is how we report out to you on this over the course of the year.So can we do student attendance and then get to or do you want to in terms of our next two topics? Erin Gibbons: I was going to ask if you wanted us to vote to approve. David Fleishman: That would be great perfect Yes. before we do that. Thank you.
Erin Gibbons: Does anybody want to make a motion?
We rephrase that. the chair would entertain a motion.
Erin Mueller: I will make a motion to approve the 2025. 2026. district goals as presented. Erin Gibbons: Okay. Do we have a second? Unknown: Second. Erin Gibbons: All in favor? Aye. Any opposed. I said. Okay. great. Thank you forreally working hard on these. but also like acknowledging our feedback and working on David Fleishman: appreciate we appreciate the feedback. Now we're going to shift to student attendance Unknown: from over here. David Fleishman: looking at our data from last year. you'll remember that DESE's motto at the start of last year was -Your presence is power. I definitely Betsy Gavron: I definitely was. and we had a particular challenge with our with our data last year. So So tonight. we'll be talking about sort of. what was the context of the goal. and why did we set it? What was that district goal? What if the efforts been since then and then. what is the date and results of our of our work last year. So why are we focusing on attendance. the so as you may recall. we were seeing spikes in anxiety and mental health leading up to the pandemic. and then certainly exacerbated by the pandemic itself. And coming out of the pandemic. we were seeing a huge increase in family travel during the school year. Part of that was because I believe. you know. people couldn't see their family for so long. there was just a big increase in folks who hadn't seen family from abroad. And so folks were taking advantage of every opportunity they could. I think people also. you know. got used to living in some other places for times. So so there's a real kind of shift back to and so we had a significant increase in our chronic absenteeism. which is defined as when you're absent for 10% or more of the school year. So that's 18 or more days. And we saw this particularly with particular subgroups. If you. some of you are here. when we developed our Student Opportunity Act plan. which really looked at the combination between student attendance and achievement. particularly for those subgroups who were doing significantly. not as well as their as their peers. So here is a look at that grim data. From there. we had 17.9% of all students in our entire district were were chronically absent. which is a lot of kids really out a lot of the school year. And you can see that was almost double. or exactly double. for our Black and African American students. Our English learners. who are not part of our SOA target group when we created the SOA plan. because their achievement was actually some of the highest in the state. So despite. despite their their lower attendance. they were still performing strong. but we have kept a close. closer eye on their attendance because of this data. our low income students were significantly more than double our other population. and our students with disabilities were more than 10% higher than the population overall. We get zero out of four points in our one for district accountability and at all the schools when we're kind of looking at our overall. how we're how we're looked at across this row. So so that 23-24 data in particular was completely problematic. Christina Rodrigo: That's the difference between high needs and students with disabilities. Betsy Gavron: So it's. it's. it's actually often a combination of of subgroups. so you have multiple. multiple areas. So it's. it can be. you know. students with disabilities that are also. that also may be low income. So it's typically. your kids in high needs are a cross section of multiple. Christina Rodrigo: okay Betsy Gavron: areas. So it's not those plus those. it's those are encompassed by. if that makes sense. Betsy Cullen: So there's overlap in that inter Betsy Gavron: intersectionality between those. So our district goal. Ronnie. you if you memorized our district goals from earlier. We talked about really having a need for that consistent. proactive set of attendance strategies. particularly for those students who were were missing school due to mental health reasons. So we were focused on creating and and playing out a vertically consistent. research based set of strategies to prevent patterns of school refusal and really trying to align our practices across the district. So you can see the list of outcomes and measurements we were shooting for you go to the next slide. Ronnie.
we took a three prong approach to this. So we developed school based attendance teams. not like these didn't exist before. but really with consistent sort of protocols around what was happening and how often it was happening. So those school based teams. which typically included an administrator. the school nurse. your counseling teams. So they met at least every three weeks. specifically to focus on the weekly attendance reports and use that to tier their intervention around who needs what. Additionally. we had two district groups. a an attendance working group and an attendance team. The working group. we met five times over the course of the year. we spent our time really researching best practices. looking at kind of the legal requirements as well. and used that to develop communication and communications that we sent out consistently and different tools to try. the Attendance Team had a slightly different focus. They were really looking at the data holistically. So were there patterns across families? Were there places in particular areas? And we had folks on that team that include people like Jay Verhoosky from Wayland Youth and Family Services. Heather Yates the head of Nursing. Ronnie's part of that team. La Toya is a part of that team. And then we had a an administrator from every building that came together and and we problem solved and troubleshooted and and tried to make make some headway. So the areas of focus you may recall. David did some real early messaging around the importance of attendance. Every school principal also sent their own message. messaging around why strong attendance is important. We were pulling different infographics to use to try to really convey the importance of this. The working group developed different emails and letters that came out. and in those early messages. we let people know that we would be sending regular attendance information out. because one of the things we know about school attendance is oftentimes. families. kids. adults. underestimate the number of days that are missed. So that's a very strong in the research. so that the updating families around how often their children have missed. You know that can be tricky. too. You know. you know that the child was out with with covid for a week or with strep throat for a week. and we're still sending the letters just. just. just so you know the numbers and we realize why they were out. but just to to kind of follow through with the consistency around the communication. we also looked at some shared truancy and attendance information that families just might not know. like some families don't know that they are legally required to get their children to school. that that there's. you know. they can be held accountable for not child to school on a regular basis. Yes. Betsy. can I ask a question on that the communication that was sent out? Was it general or Or was it specific to the individual? Unknown: Like. specific to the individual. okay. but I guess. like the context of it. like the I understand the number would be specific. but the messaging in general. like. we understand your child was out sick. However. something Betsy Gavron: galike it was sort of like a something that went to everybody. okay. we say. and we know you. we know why you were out and why did you know this and this number. but okay. and the reasons why the intended is so important was communicated in so the group crafted letters that were sent at four days and eight days at the high school. just because of the way their crediting system works. and and at the other buildings. it was five or 10 days. and then there was a 15 day letter as well. We also made a decision. once we were deeper into the year. like two thirds of the way through the year. you weren't sending like a four day letter. because that's nowhere near chronic absenteeism. So we adjusted as we went through the year.
Another thing that we did was to really align our intervention planning. So we had an aligned intervention monitoring spreadsheets that we were using. We came up with some attendance intervention plans that were used across the board with particular things to try. We created a counselor information gathering form that would be an interview that folks could do withwith families. kind of to try to troubleshoot what's what's at the heart of why the child's not coming to school. as well as a student interview form that we created so so we could get information directly from kids. even younger kids. and we spent some time really focused on celebrating improvement. too. So if you click to the next slide Ron. you can see. So here's an example of a couple pages from the interview for students asking kids. you know. to be able to feel about how they feel about coming to school. what's hard about school. to try to identify some of those things when I'm at school. what are the things that are true for you? And based on that. that can help inform what intervention. you know. if you think a child's coming. you know. not coming to school because they're having some challenges with friendships. then you work on the friendship area. If they're having. you know. just feeling worried in general. what are some coping strategies? So. so these can help really inform what the intervention looks like. So was the interview done on a like situational basis. if it was a student who was trending to more absenteeism. or was it done to generally. to students we were piloting it last year? So I think it Jen in general to sort of because sometimes we may have a whole hypothesis that may not be true. and so you want to get the information from the from the kids. Here a couple. You can see there was a we created a big congratulation banner that could go at a top of an email to. you know. students who had made improvements. So maybe they were really struggling for a semester. and we noticed. we wanted to just really indicate. like we see you. we see that you're trying at this. And then there's the elementary version. where we put the child's picture in them. That's not one of our students. That's just a mock up. but where we put the pictures in and sent those out. we got some positive feedback about that as well. So what were the results of these efforts? So if you recall. before we were at almost 18% we were down to 10.3% last March. this is what's posted on the website. When it's fully updated. will be down to 10.2% by the end of the year. and all of our other numbers have dropped considerably. So if you can go to the next slide. Ronnie. Christina Rodrigo: this is really remarkable. I just want to pause. I mean. the average number of absences went down almost by 10 days! Betsy Cullen: Well. this is as of March. though Betsy Gavron: there was still percentage wise as of Betsy Cullen: the percentage held true. but the number of days were still missing April through June. Betsy Gavron: yes. but we were down. So we were 10.3% of our students were chronic absenteeism on headed for that in March. and we were down to 10.2% by the end of the year. so that you know there was a real significant drop. You can see our attendance trends over time too. We're not quite back to the pre pandemic. but we're back. We're actually below where kind of we were right after the pandemic. Erin Gibbons: and we dropped Covid absence requirements quite significantly last year. So Betsy Gavron: you go to the next slide. you can see these were our three subgroups from our SOA group. We went. you know. there's. there's still more work to do. You know. we have significant improvement. and having almost a quarter of our students who are Black and African American. absent for 18 days is still a lot. but but dropping 10% or more across all of our subgroups was. was. was progress that we felt really good about. Erin Mueller: It's really exciting. Christina Rodrigo: Thank you. Betsy Gavron: This is very hard at it. So. I mean. really. Ronnie was at all the meetings. You know. we had lots of people coming together. thinking really hard doing significant outreach. principles. reaching out over the summer to families who had been behind like. we really want your child to have a strong start. So a lot of relationship building. you know. really thinking about who are the trusted adults for kids. We want kids to want to be at school. So and. you know. some some harder conversations with some families to it. And still. you know. we say. Please. please. please. don't take that trip now. And some families are still making those choices for probably really good reasons. for David Fleishman: even the first two days. you know. I was worried about the first two days of school. and we'll get the final numbers for you. just because. you know. I thought if the kids were missing the first two series of school. or some of the same students were missing on this list. That's not a good way to start the year. Erin Gibbons: So just 1/3 of my kids missed the second day of school.
Erin Mueller: Its tough coming back that early. Unknown: Yeah. I did that Erin Gibbons: a good idea at the end of the like. yeah. there's a lot of people that start starting before Labor Day this year. a lot. It's not like we were an outlier. yeah. David Fleishman: no. I think. I think what I've learned is that it's very important to have a consistent. if possible. have a consistent time you start every year because routines and prudent predictability matter. That's like. kind of my advice. Betsy Cullen: It's like building a habit. David Fleishman: kind of habit Exactly. Ronnie Kessler: A lot of districts start Wednesday and do Wednesday. Thursday. and then have Friday. right? And
Ronnie Kessler: late school at it that way. And I was like. and Betsy Cullen: Huge. Thank you to everybody who worked on these initiatives this year. I mean. it's really powerful to see then I was like. oh. yeah. it might. that might help. you're trying something. and to be able to measure it and see. wow. it actually happened. David Fleishman: It's really one of those things that you experiment with. And I think. you know. one of the challenges also. is some of the communication isn't always received initially. because it is such a shift. But in terms of looking at the research about the intense communication with families. I mean. that's really what the research says. So it's important to follow that research. Erin Mueller: And I had heard. I think that was the reason for my question. I had heard that the personalization of messaging and reaching out to families and and letting them know we miss your student. we want your student to come back. I think felt really good to some families. It makes people like as Caroline Han says. it makes the invisible visible. It reminds them that we care about you. We want you back in school without you. It's not the same without you. So I know from many people that that was really well received. Betsy Gavron: It's always hard to figure out how that's it's I really have to commend the principal. It was super time consuming. consuming. Kate Sambuco: I'm sure it feels like a very heavy lift. but it had such a significant Betsy Gavron: and people were really committed to it. It was a very dedicated group. Erin Gibbons: I have a question. Is there any split of Metco that we can pull out of this? And I'm asking because I really wonder if the like ability to get out here and if you miss your bus. Unknown: you're out of luck Erin Gibbons: you're not going to school that day. And I don't know if there's an answer to fix it. but I just is. do we have data on that? Betsy Gavron: I know anecdotally that that that is the case. yeah. for some Yeah. families. yes. yeah. Erin Gibbons: That was just. you know. and I don't because is it one bus for elementary. middle and high altogether. or it is two Betsy Gavron: there two busses at the middle school. In the high school. there's. there's two stops and two or two main hubs. They're different routes. but there's two different busses. the middle and high school for the elementaries. but they're all the same. like the middle school busses all one time. even if you're on a or No. Erin Mueller: are you saying could they race to another bus? Erin Gibbons: in the morning. morning like they can't get to another bus? Right? Unknown: Correct. Erin Gibbons: The only way we could fix that is potentially. if elementary could then get on a middle and a high. which we don't typically mix those age groups. Betsy Gavron: We've done a little. We've played with that a little bit on the going home end. for example. we had some kids that were staying for the what's the name of the drama program? I was just thinking. Unknown: Oh. Broadway that Betsy Gavron: was meeting on Wednesdays. and they were staying here really long days. And. you know. we met with the family. we talked through the pros and cons of it. And there's not a ton of kids that go home on that fairly late bus. And it worked out in this particular case. but not every family would feel comfortable with their their child going going home with. you know. juniors and seniors in high school Erin Gibbons: totally understand. I was just thinking that would be only one way that they could catch something like you missed it for elementary Betsy Gavron: you could not. Erin Gibbons: They're not close. They're not Kirsteen Patterson: based on kind of what collective location of right the resident. the students in that age group are and they differ between the elementary. middle and high school locations. Okay. Betsy Gavron: okay. so in terms of next steps. we we just calendared all the meetings for the year. I just sent out all those invites yesterday. people inboxes were full of invites from me. So we'll continue both the work with both teams. and we're also adding adding focus on on staff attendance. and obviously working through some strategies for any other questions. I Unknown: I know. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all data. I Christina Rodrigo: I can't wait to see next year's data as well. to just see it like continue to carry book vacations. you know. a long time in the future. right? Betsy Gavron: We only have 180 days for them. We have 185 other days to choose from. So that's always my hope. All right. the last thing is. David Fleishman: the last thing is our proposed we thought to have a calendar of meetings is very helpful to us. Help for you in terms of knowing what's ahead. So we'll talk a little bit about what we're thinking in terms of timing. I should also say that while we're calling up the budget calendar. there's some TBAs there. You know. for us. it was a little bit later last year. and later is better for us in terms of budget. because we have more accurate information. We know there are some town bylaws that compete. but the later we go is. the better we don't always know. Of course. things like health insurance until the end of January. state aid.
recommendation with the governor. you we get that. But of course. it's the legislature who makes the final call on that. So here I let me just open up my computer. and then we'll get it up. That's okay. I'll grab it.
and then we'll get there. It is save screen now. so tonight. you saw our agenda. We are going to have at our next meeting. my own goals and update on our facilities master plan. We have an excellent subcommittee for our Facilities Master Plan. who's been interviewing finalists for our master Facilities Master Plan firm over the last two days. Betsy has joined us. We have a really good team. and we're looking forward to talking more about that at our next meeting. We're also looking forward to talking about the Yonder implementation plan.
So at the meeting after that. we thought a shorter meeting to hear a little bit about parents square and our new ISS. We'll have a shorter meeting because we're doing some planning that night in Executive Session. So shorter meeting. we thought it'd be good the second meeting October to have a Spanish Immersion update. also our financial end of year report. That's that's an important document. and obviously Kirsten has just started. so it's a lot of work among other projects. but it's really important for you to know whether we finished the year with like $20 left or $600 you know what I mean? You know it was close. Erin Gibbons: If you finish it in black. I'll be impressed.
Plus. one is where we're at. David Fleishman: So then we will head to Boston on our first meeting in November. And we thought about having a student panel. which is a different. you know. we want to mix it up in terms of presentations for you. we expect we're going to sit down again and obviously have regular facility master plan updates. and we'll finalize that. But we thought there could be another one at that time. even inviting the firm we saw. Like in that night for an overview for you. we'll also have an MCAS update. And then we thought. as we work towards our goals in early December. that could be a nice time to hear from both our elementary principals. the first meeting. the secondary school principals. the second meeting. including. we put in parentheses cell phones. because that's certainly one of the district goals. And the goal here is make sure you hear about all our different goals. We're going to check. I don't know that we'll need four meetings in January. We might get into February. We've got to time that out. So those. those are all those are all kind of tentative. Those are just on the calendar. but we'll. we'll get a more up to date schedule. We thought in February a Tech Update. There's a lot of work in the technology area. both on the operational side and the instructional side. Here a little bit some of the work. the PD with AI. our portrait of a learner work. we have a meeting. actually a planning meeting in a couple of weeks. Be nice to get an update to you. Then I'm sure we'll do some kind of update beforehand. Deborah the middle school curriculum leaders. talk about the accountable. talk workand how that is going. We thought we would have after that. we'll do a double Ronnie. both on executive function and the work from Sarah Ward on the Gen Ed side. and then have a student services update after that. Actually. Ronnie. it's a trifecta for you. Actually. I don't know why. I don't know why we did this. There's a reason we did this. and I can't figure out because co teaching. We'll have some co teachers talk after. we can't we need some time. of course. to do that. That's why we did. yeah. maybe. yeah. that that's a lot. That's all right. We may flip one. I realized that co teaching as Ronnie. but we'll have some some teachers be involved in front of you to hear from some teaching pairs. and then a diversity. equity and belonging update. maybe Caroline with with some of her DEP lead teachers. At the end of May. we'll have to have a final decision. of course. one of our goals in terms of a literacy curriculum. There's a working all year. doing some work and some piloting. I didn't know. did Betsy Gavron: you mentioned the Prism grant last time. The Prism grant so we get some money to help support the literacy curriculum. can't remember if we
David Fleishman: Yeah. no. that's Erin Gibbons: I don't think we did. Erin Mueller: I don't think you did either David Fleishman: . just for the principal then. Yeah. we've been got in. That's good. Betsy Gavron: Yes. we got a significant grant for to support the piloting work and education around the different programs and the why the need for the different programs. as well as some of the partial funding for K to two reading curriculum for next year. So it's a like a multi $100.000 grant. So it's. it was great. Fantastic. Yes. David Fleishman: that is from our State Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. which is still giving grants. Our federal government is now allocating the money that was appropriated as well for the most part.
So which is kind of. what. how it's supposed to work. from a legal or you're all lawyers. you know. that's the way it's supposed to work. And then our Portrait of a Learner recommendation. we expect to finish that in early June. So some of the initiatives. like. for example. Portrait of a Learner. and our work around Master Facilities Plan. we expect to have multiple updates. We put those in as placeholders. Those may shift as the work. but we want to let you know thatyou can expect regular updates. Betsy Cullen: We probably need to add another one in the spring for the master facilities. for the actual readout of options. David Fleishman: exactly. So we'll David Fleishman: do some of that as well. We will definitely do that once. once we have the firm. will really sit down and Betsy Cullen: do that in like April map it out more. We expect to have the firm by the end of the month at the latest. Erin Gibbons: I'd love to get a Bridges curriculum update. Math Achievement discussion on there. Betsy Gavron: See. it's some of that when we do the MCAS data. but we can certainly what in particular would be of the most interest. Erin Gibbons: Well. this is what you're kind of iReady data or but is it your Betsy Gavron: we so we're this is first. this is the will be the third Erin Gibbons: third year right Betsy Gavron: implementation. and we're moving everybody from the second edition to the third edition. Erin Gibbons: Okay. so I think maybe just some reporting around that. how that's going. and then if you can tie any progress in. iReady data and or MCAS data to what we've been doing in Bridges. Betsy Gavron: Sure Erin Gibbons: anybody else have any thoughts on that? Betsy Cullen: I'd be curious if the middle school math teachers Betsy Gavron: we had a great visit. The middle school math are observing sort of qualitatively or anecdotally. teachers came down and observed bridges in action too. And then any shift in the sort of readiness of students the fifth grade teachers came and saw the sixth graders last matriculating. That's probably only in the last year. I don't year. So that would that would be wonderful. know that that will happen so quickly. but
David Fleishman: So we will weave that into a middle school. We'll figure out how to weave that in to the presentations when our people are here. Erin Mueller: And I also know you had to allocate a little bit more time and kind of. I guess. change a little bit how that was taught. to accommodate a little bit more science time and other topics that we were struggling to fit everything into the day. So just the slight modifications to that that you made. I think it would be nice to hear about absolutely how that's going. Thank you. Christina Rodrigo: Is there any like survey or anything about mental health that's coming out this year? I think like last year. we had Jason Verhoosky and we had not talk like Betsy Gavron: so this year is a. in November. they'll do the Metro West Behavioral Health and Adolescent Health Survey that will take place in November. We usually get the data for that around May. so maybe in June. we could do some sharing out of that data too. They. I know they do a big report out to the community in early fall of the fall. right. David Fleishman: Because you need time to analyze and come up. Erin Gibbons: Okay. it's a it's so much data. it's like a lot. Christina Rodrigo: Okay. yeah. It's an important topic. so I don't want it to. like. Absolutely. or if we're doing other things to like. sure. yeah. Erin Gibbons: yeah. Like a wellness update. Do we have that in here? Ronnie Kessler: No. there's been some great. like. crisis training too that. That's happened this year too. So we can. we can figure out a time to weave some Kate Sambuco: in our last meeting. you mentioned the anti discrimination protocol. David Fleishman: I was just gonna say that. Yeah. Kate Sambuco: Are we going to hear about that anytime soon?
David Fleishman: Yeah. we could do a nondisclosure Well. if you got a time to do a non discrimination protocol update. Betsy Cullen: I'd made a note about AI updates. and I see you mentioned the AU PD work in connection with Jen's February 4 tentative Tech Update. but there was also developing AI guidance for instruct. like instructional guidance. So can we make sure that'll be part of her. in terms of that goal. she will cover. like the tech goals. and that's the AI goal will be part of the tech goal recovery. for sure? Yeah. Sure. You know. we can just add this as we go. and we'll integrate this. We just thought it'd be helpful for you to have some kind of map. It's actually incredibly helpful for me. I won't speak for anybody else. but it's super helpful. because to see it laid out helps spark your brain. Of like. looking at the goals and then looking at this. what else might we want to David Fleishman: and it's helpful for our team members kind of be thinking about when they present. you know. get early notice as we think about ideas and how to share this in the most effective way and around. you know. measuring and progress. Erin Gibbons: how we plan. like. what meetings I want to skip.
Unknown: Start skipping some. Erin Mueller: We asked and very received. Thank you. This is wonderful. Erin Gibbons: It's great. Oh. the one comment I was going to make was. I think it would be great. We used to hear from each of the principals about wants for the budget. totally understand that we're not in the space of need. want. etc. but it may be nice for us to just hear from them when they present against their goals in December. if there are things that particularly really are important in the budget. or just just maybe touching on something. not the wants. right. like needs and hey. you know. this was in here this year. and it's really making a difference. orthings that maybe there are wants that are first time piloting type things that we could try and work with the Foundation on supporting because we know that things are going to be tight next year. So I think that's one thing that could be helpful to align with their goal presentations. other than that. I mean. this is great.
David Fleishman: and we'll get the budget. you know. timing down. I know it used to be here. like very early in December. So we want to push back as long as we can. and also have a thorough process. So that's. that's our goal. Betsy Cullen: I know that Susan use to do. like. a quarterly financial update. David Fleishman: We will have those. We're going to put those in. Those are. those will be placeholders. We've got to. got to do that. So you can expect. I mean. that is so important. as important part of your role in terms of financial oversight. And certainly Kirsteen is aware of how tracking expenses compared to the budget. is really. really important. We did not have. I will share. in terms of budget. we did not hire any positions. Sometimes early on. you know. I've had. where we have to hire positions. We've not budgeted. We've kept to our budget. So that's something we're monitoring. The other part. of course. we monitor is student services. Erin Gibbons: Oh. David. don't say it. Don't say that out loud. Just let it. let it. David Fleishman: It's just something else we monitor. That's all it's I just wanted to we're just moeunitoring. Erin Mueller: Keep monitoring. David Fleishman: Yes. we monitor. Monitor carefully.
Ronnie Kessler: Oh yeah. we got our in our van. Erin Gibbons: Oh. your bus. Erin Mueller: I saw it too. Ronnie Kessler: its registered. license plate. which we're Christina Rodrigo: congratulations. working on. and it's all set to go. David Fleishman: speaking of Student Services and grants. Kate Sambuco: we should take a ride Ronnie Kessler: Yeah. we had it marked number one. just in case we end up getting
Erin Gibbons: maybe we will. Yeah. Ronnie Kessler: they're like. Do you want a number? I'm like. sure. Erin Mueller: Otherwise. it's just really great. Unknown: ERG van. yeah. Erin Gibbons: Kirsteen. I was just thinking. and I'm not sure if there's a good way to suggest this to you. but in conjunction with the with the budget. in advance of that. think it might be really helpful to have a deep dive into expenses and tracking expenses over the past few years. where they fell. where we cut. I um. because people. I'm not sure that's a place we can really cut service we don't want to cut. But I think it would be really helpful to know. like. how lean we are against the expenses. how those are bucketed. Have we made big shifts in that or big cuts in the past couple years? It may be helpful for the community to understand our budget better and that. you know. we have. like. the data to back it up. And it's not just that we have some million dollar dollars sitting somewhere that we can just. you know. because that's kind of like the only piece where I don't. like Kirsteen Patterson: are you specifically asking about the non personnel? Erin Gibbons: yes. yes. yeah. And if you have ideas. like. on how you could kind of like. show it. or Betsy Cullen: you're thinking in like. categorical buckets. Unknown: yeah. like. and we use you take a little leeway to do that. to have it kind of presented. And Erin Gibbons: you don't necessarily have to. like. yeah. however you I just think you thinking about it. like. knowing numbers. knowing how you can kind of pull things data wise. I think some sort of graphic that not even just a graphic. but like some sort of way that it's easily. easily digestible to community members that don't necessarily sit at this table or work in the schools every day. how those things have been impacted with the budget and where we've sat for the for the past few years. and potentially next year. things like that. Kirsteen Patterson: And I do you mean. like. what was not bought last year that we had originally thought Erin Gibbons: potentially. or what we didn't spend on that we were planning to spend on. where we took like. for lack of a better term. robbed Peter to pay Paul. Those kinds of things. The other piece that we talked about. and I can't remember if it was when you started here. before you came. but I don't know that we ever saw it was where we ended up having
toreallocate funds away from proactive facilities. type of care and upkeep and maintenance. to things that had been deferred previously. like the boiler was an example.
That's a spot. you'll she Betsy knows what I'm I think you know what I'm talking about. because the piece that I'm trying to Unknown: so I want to just. yeah. Erin Gibbons: what I'm thinking about there is to show why upfront investment and spending on on the upkeep or new or purchase is important. Because if you don't. all you're doing. is like different by deferring. you're just ending up spending there's there's that that's a different. like bucket. actually. yeah. last couple days in our right. Kirsteen Patterson: and is that something that we are going to address with our master plan? Because that's kind of what. what the dialog is about. Doing nothing has a cost. exactly. and that's. that's. I think we need to also have that going into budget season for these people here. as well as the bigger community. before we even talk about going to build new buildings. David Fleishman: Oh. absolutely. that's probably part of the master plan. Kirsteen Patterson: but I don't know that I can quantify that. That would definitely be an expertise level that is above the just a budget line item per se. There's different components of that. Erin Gibbons: but we can look at historically capital planning. where things have been pushed out indefinitely. three years. two years. whatever it was. and then where did we have to pull it from early because it was pushed out and deferred against advice. David Fleishman: I mean. even looking at. I mean. you look at a maintenance budget and see. did we go over by how much and where did it come from? Take a look at that. That's we can take a look at that.
Erin Gibbons: And the other thing that I just wanted to put on the radar that we're gonna have to talk about. I believe. is bus parking. Unknown: It's already been three years.
Time flies. yes. Erin Gibbons: and. and I know that there's just Yeah. history. We don't have to talk about it right now. I'm just putting it on the radar. Unknown: No. I do have that on the radar. and I have already had conversations and that everything that was identified for mitigation that we accomplished. So I think what is the next step is just reaching out to the town manager in the aspect of requesting the renewal piece of it. Erin Gibbons: Okay. awesome.
Okay. sorry. I just kind of put you on the spot. but I wasn't expecting answers right now. I just was like thinking I had it. You did.
I'm just very nervous for the budget. So.
Unknown: okay.
it's really good news on the Prism grant. Yes. Kirsteen Patterson: the funding for curriculum itself can pay up to half of the cost of whatever the curriculum is in grades k1. and two. Erin Gibbons: awesome Kirsteen Patterson: and maybe k3 Unknown: either k2 or k3
awesome. three. Erin Mueller: So half of the half. right? It's great. Unknown: Twitter is good. and we did talk about putting that on capital. Betsy Gavron: I think that was a very successful Unknown: yes with math. It was it was Betsy Gavron: yes. So I would think that that might be the way to go. Erin Gibbons: Yeah. we should definitely keep that. Betsy Gavron: I was not there when it had. when that process played out. I wasn't at this table with that process played out. but I know it. it's worked really well. Yes. Kirsteen Patterson: because you can. we have a new structure. though. in the town with Wood capital. So Unknown: yeah. Kirsteen Patterson: that that may change. Unknown: Yeah. Just disclaimer. Kirsteen Patterson: Uh. things that might have been in that kind of pipeline might shift or change how. how they're prioritized or reallocating that capacity. Erin Gibbons: I think it benefits and behooves the town and the budget. though. because we can depreciate it as a capital item. and we can't depreciate it as an operating item. right?
Kirsteen Patterson: Well. yes. because you wouldn't. you wouldn't put something thathigh cost in in your operating budget. typically for a year. like one year. you would do that over the course. And I think that's why it ended up. Erin Gibbons: the math ended up there. and it was a really good answer. So if we can finagle that. it's probably the best way to try and do
Unknown: it
Erin Gibbons: before I go to 4.1 can I ask? Did this get left on. Diane? Because. for some reason I didn't. I don't remember saying that wasn't resolved at the last meeting. Y eah. okay. yep. okay.
Unknown: We talked about putting it on in October when we did the other thing. but maybe I'm misremembering.
This is. well. this is. Erin Gibbons: we did appoint Brian O'Herlihy yes to the CIPC. if I'm remembering those acronyms correctly. and the Select Board confirmed him so and I think he's going to be a really good appointment there. The one thing that we really need to find somebody for the seat is the audit committee. Betsy Cullen: So that's on my list. We thought we were going to meet as a full master plan advisory group in August. but then we've just been meeting as a smaller evaluation subcommittee as we reviewed the proposal submitted by the firm. So the whole group hasn't come back together. but I can. we can send an email to that group and see if there's anyone. that was that was a to do of mine from our August meeting is to ask that group if anyone be interested in serving it's the audit committee. I have really good information on the Audit Committee. It only meets almost five times a year. Unknown: full stop.
Erin Gibbons: the meetings include discussing annual comprehensive financial report prepared by the town's external auditor. as well as creating an annual report with recommendations for the board of selectmen. which should be the Select Board. That must be an old I have a link to more information. Should anyone find someone who would like to join this committee? It is a three year term. and I do have somebody that wants to go and chat with people five times a year in town. right?It's only 15 times over three years. Betsy Cullen: Come on. You want me to resend it. We had the blast that we had already sent out. Do we want to resend it? Erin Gibbons: Let's try and do some targeted outreach. Okay. I'd like everyone to come back to me at the end of the month and tell me that they've talked to three people. myself included. I will find three people. Unknown: Is there any particular background. like they need to be a CPA? No. no. Erin Gibbons: They need to be warm body. Unknown: Well. I'm kidding. Erin Gibbons: there's I can tell you. I mean that you don't need. like. specific expertise. Okay. so thank you. Brian O'Herlihy. 12 million times over. and I love that the CIPC has been created
5.1 based on revisions to Title Nine statute and requirements. Our title. nine. proposed revised policy is in our folder. Betsy. I welcome you. Gavron. to give any additional feedback that you care to share. Betsy Gavron: Yeah. when we were working on our handbooks. and we were sort of updating the language for handbooks that met with the new regulations. and when we were building out a new employee handbook group. it was apparent that our new protocols that to match the new regulations that are the school committee policy was just dated and had had not changed. So I reached out to our school council. and this is what. what this is. what's been vetted that matches with the new regs. Erin Gibbons: And so one of my questions was. our coordinator is Ronnie? Correct? Ronnie Kessler: Yes. Erin Gibbons: So what contact info should we have in the policy? Should it just be email and phone number and potentially address here? Yeah. that's fine. Okay. so Director of Student Services. Ronnie Kessler. Should I do the Wayland public schools? right? Yeah. I think what's the address here? Ronnie Kessler: 41 Cochituate Rd
Erin Gibbons: I was gonna say 38 Millbrook. I knew that was wrong. so that's the fire and safety. Unknown: Okay? And then your email is Ronnie. dot underscore. at work. I'm Town. Wayland.us.org. okay.
and do you have a direct link to doctor? 508- 358-3756.
okay.
Erin Gibbons: Um. So just to reiterate. this has already been reviewed by counsel. and I did overview. I didn't have any issues. I didn't have any questions. Does anyone around the table have any issues? Questions. anything? And in the event we do not. I would entertain a motion to approve the revised Title Nine policy and to put it out. Unknown: Sorry. just there's another contact information spot further down in the document for the superintendent that I think we need to complete as well. I don't have page numbers. Erin Gibbons: Oh. I see it. I didn't notice that. You know why? Because it wasn't yellow before. wait one second.
Unknown: Okay. go ahead. Erin Gibbons: Do you want me to put you as doctor. or do you just want to be David Fleischman? The latter would be great. Okay. and I Unknown: what? Yep. 41 Patricia Road. Wayland. 37633763. I. 763 508-358-3763. okay.
File at the top. and it is currently.
if you're talking to me for not kidding. Okay. I'm just doing this and you are David underscore Fleishman at Wayland. ps.org. correct. Okay. I
Wow. it's AC. dash
Erin Gibbons: and should it have the sexual harassment slash r.
Title Nine. or should it just be Title Nine? Genuine question? Kate Sambuco: currently we have it as slash Yeah. in your current version. Unknown: What were you gonna say? Yeah. I like it with both. I think it's supposed to right identify or I just didn't want to Yeah. Got it. Okay.
Okay. all. Um.
anybody else?
Erin Gibbons: No. okay. anybody want to make a motion? Are you asked for a motion? Unknown: I moved to approve and send out for comment. Revise Title Nine. policy. AC. dash. R. do we have a second? Erin Mueller: I'll second. Unknown: Okay. all in favor. aye. any opposed? None. Okay.
Can uh. Erin Gibbons: consent agenda.
Do we have any questions comments. or might Ellen be visiting? Unknown: I move to approve the Consent Agenda.
Betsy Cullen: I'll second. Unknown: Okay. all in favor. Aye. Any opposed
for old times sake? Are there any matters not reasonably anticipated by The chair? Nope. Noi. give me one. I'm Yes. I Erin Gibbons: I move to enter executive session for the purposes of reviewing and approving the executive session minutes with the intent to redact and release said minutes. as permitted by MGL Chapter 38 section 22 for July 16. 2025 the school committee will be joined by Diane Mirabella. recording secretary. The School Committee will adjourn in executive session and will not reconvene in open session. Do I have a second? Erin Mueller: I'll second. Unknown: Betsy. yes. Kate. yes. Christina. yes. Erin. yes. Erin. yes. Okay. So.
Select Board
6-Oct-25 - Select Board02:15:37
09-29-25 - Select Board02:48:35
09-24-25 - Select Board01:25:37
15-Sep-25 - Select Board03:27:40
2-Sep-25 - Select Board03:17:11
18-Aug-25 - Select Board03:10:44
Carol Martin: And good evening.
Carol Martin, chair of the
Select Board Following the
meeting left, Monday, October 6,
2025 it's a hybrid meeting.
Those of us in person are in the
Wayland town building, the
Select Board meeting room. One
may watch the meeting. Meeting
link on the public calendar,
also on our agenda, short to
chapter two on the acts of 2025
this meeting will be conducted
in person and bio remote needs
in accordance with applicable
this meeting may be recorded,
which will be made available to
the public on WayCAM as soon
after the meeting, as is
practiced when required by law
or allowed by the chair. Persons
wishing to provide public
comment or otherwise participate
in the meeting may do so in
person attendance or by
accessing the meeting remotely,
as noted above town calendar and
on the Select board agenda, we
request public comment be
limited to two minutes per
person, so when we review the
agenda, we're going to start
tonight with discussion review,
potential vote to approve an
electric vehicle, first light
duty vehicle policy, discussion
with economic development
committee representatives to
discuss review, improving
communications of potential
projects, including but not
limited Town Center amenities.
Follow that with a discussion
review of the DEP rec
classification, including but
not limited to preparation for
the special election ballot and
discussion review and potential
vote to approve the expansion on
advisory boards and committees
charge this discussion,
miscellaneous town properties of
possible warrant articles for
the 2026 annual county meeting,
approximately 8pm hopefully we
will have a vote to take
appointment confirmation to the
Miss Affordable Housing Trust.
Excuse me, and member of the
minister Affordable Housing
Trust representative to the 212
Cochituate road Advisory
Committee. That will be followed
by a discussion to identify
potential additional or new
revenue sources. The Town
manager's report, Consent
Calendar minutes of September 15
and September 24 2025 we'll
review correspondence have fear
select boards reports and
concerns. There are no topics
not reasonably anticipated by
the chair, 48 hours in advance,
and hopefully at 845 we will
adjourn. So my first question
is, are there any announcements
from the board? Speak to the
fast No, I don't think, please
Doug Levine: do. I caught the
tail end of Wayland Fest and
walked around and spoke with a
number of number of people at
the various tables, and was told
that it was an outstanding
success. The weather was
obviously perfect, but everybody
who pulled it together seemed to
have done so. Sean, mostly, we
were informed that there were
approximately 6000 people there.
So this seems to me like a
recipe for success and hope that
it continues in future years. I
also hope there were
representatives there from the
potential new owner of the town
center to see that our community
really comes together in a big
way
Carol Martin: before anyone else
speaks to that. Michael, we
planning on addressing this in
your town manager's report,
which madam Wayland fest. I
forgive you. Okay, so I'm, I'm
also going to say I went earlier
in the day and you couldn't get
appointments finished. I mean,
hello, but that little baby car
I have, I said, whoa. It was
awesome. It was just terrific.
The energy was fabulous. And a
lot of kudos go to a number of
people who put that together.
You know, the arts Wayland and
Chris, Chris Lenno, the rec
department, at the facilities
department, all the staff who've
done and Kelsi, Kelsi got a big
kudos from a couple folks while
I was standing there. So I want
to mention that there were just
unbelievable. I mean, did yours,
really and truly, was I know
I've skipped somebody, but
anyway, did you want to add
something?
Unknown: Tom, yeah, just thank
you, Said. Chris Reynolds,
Catherine Brenna, Chief Berman,
Janelle Mendler, DEP Suarez,
lots of people who I think were
instrumental in putting a lot of
hours in, and it's a great
event, and I hope it's an annual
event, and great for the
businesses I know that, but more
importantly, great for the
community to basically meet
community to basically meet each
other and increase their sense
of belong.
No, ditto everybody. What everybody said, The only thing that I would add is I would expand on what Tom just touched on that I did come, did go. Towards the end too, and the restaurants were packed. So just you know, when we're looking at this from approvals in the future on these types of project projects, we should bear in mind that there can be a good economic opportunity for the small businesses in the area. So it's not just about bringing everybody together, though that's amazing. It's also continuing the party. Carol Martin: Thank you. Alrighty. Thank Is there any public comments this evening? Unknown: We don't see any in the room. Do I have one on the Thank
you. Good evening, everyone. Richard Turner: Richard Turner call speaking, I echo what Doug said. I was up there myself at the festival, and myself and Paul Rufo marched in the parade, and then we Chris Brad keys asked us to stand up next to the stage. Why the national Lane Tom was being sung. The whole thing was well done. Well put together. I had no problem finding a parking space. Got up there earlier, like I got up there quite early, 10 o'clock in the morning. So everyone pulled together, pulled off. A great time. The other comment I have is we need to start thinking about Veterans Day ceremony on November 11, and I need somebody from this board to make a few opening remarks at the ceremony. Thank you, and that's all I have. Carol Martin: So Richard, I have this on my list tonight to talk so your timing is good. Thank you. Is there anybody else with public comment?
Okay, alrighty. Then, so now we're going to move to we're going to invite Michael Faia syllabus director and Olivia Blaney, our sustainability coordinator, we want to come up here. What they would like to do is this, is we're revisiting this. You could see this electric vehicle first policy last year, we asked for some revisions. I know Bill, as the liaison, worked on this. I know Doug has spent some time working on this. This should be in the packet. Yes, okay, okay, it's in our packet. Unknown: Let's see carving my reach. Do you want me to Michael or Carol Martin: Thank you. So this is Unknown: going to be Carol Martin: so very normal. So I believe also, let me just finish my copy
Unknown: of this policy my Carol Martin: slides, or do I have a second? Just hang on. Just one second. Please set up. What page Am I on this? It's right here. Those who are watching page five of the packet is the copy of the draft policy that we're going to be reviewing, and that was just handed out, so just not in addition to the packet. So the policy has been worked on, and I believe also that Lydia has some sides that she would like to show and speak to us first, afterwards, we will have some questions so Unknown: we able to get that slide,
dude and screen share? I can Dave can join. Sorry about that. I have Carol Martin: a hard time hearing vacuum with a fan, so I
Carole Plumb: um, is the link for this luck board meeting On the website? Unknown: Yeah, the home page.
You can
do new people, and there's nothing else. Thank you
so much. Yeah, to get that. Thank you. Bye.
Can you permit her to share? If
you can't share, Carole Plumb: okay, I'm able to I think, thank you perfect. Thank you. Tom Great. Thank you everyone, right? Carol Martin: Laura's yours, go ahead. Okay, so wait a second. Just one more thing I had. I'm not sure that you know everybody. So when I have the board introduce themselves, I don't still know Michael McCall: Michael. So Doug Levine: I am Doug Levine, Unknown: Darryl Martin and friends, and Carol Martin: my bill Whitney is is not tenants tonight, by the way. Okay, so, and he is your liaison, which I think you've already met him or spoken with him. So Olivia has inherited this project, literally. Abby left about two weeks ago, and so now she has very graciously agreed to come and present to us tonight so and she's put together these slides. As I said, yep. So my Carole Plumb: name is Olivia Blaney. I'm the Sustainability Coordinator for Wayland. I'm filling some pretty big shoes with Abby shoot accepting a different position, but I'm here to re present our EV first light duty vehicle policy to you all, and just to give you some context to what this policy would do for the town, and just a little background you might remember from when she last presented. So the EV first policy would allow Wayland to become a mass do we are certified climate leader and upon climate leader status, Wayland would be eligible for $150,000 in technical assistance and $1 million in capital funding for DEP carbonization and renewable energy projects. So before we dive in, super quick, thank you to the board for squeezing me. And I know you guys have a very busy schedule. This application is due in December, so I need a little time just to get everything together before I submit it. So I appreciate your time. So just to give you a little background on what a climate leader means, currently, the mass Doer has two classification tiers for towns and cities eligible for various funding opportunities. The less intense lower tier is a green community, and the higher, more intense tier would be climate leader status. Currently, Wayland is one of 298 out of 351 Massachusetts cities and towns classified as a green community. And since 2011 Wayland received $818,481 in total, and $686,706 in competitive grants from being a green community. So as of May 2025 there are only 19 mass communities to date currently certified as climate leader communities. So we have an opportunity to be one of the first cutting edge and leading communities by getting this climate leader certification. So to get certified as a climate leader with mass doer, there's six requirements. Wayland's currently met five of those six. The last is getting our EV first light duty vehicle policy passed by our Select Board. So this designation would recognize us taking forward thinking steps to reduce greenhouse gasses and send a strong message to our residents, business owners, neighboring towns, that Wayland is serious about leading on climate action in a practical and measurable way. So now I'll just go through like some background on what the EV first light duty vehicle policy would actually mean in practice. So our objectives for fleet electrification, we're going to focus solely on electrification of light duty vehicles. That's vehicles 8500 pounds and lighter. We're going to match vehicle replacements to operational needs. So we're going to look at specifically what is that department using their vehicle for? And what do we need that vehicle to perform? So the department can do what they need to do, optimize investment in local infrastructure and prepare for state regulations that would look like installing EV pumps at sites where electric vehicles are. And this would allow us to secure Climate Leaders funding, which we wouldn't have access to if we weren't classified as a climate leader. So what does EV first mean? Just to debunk the misconception that it means fully electric for every vehicle that the town's purchasing when it comes time to replace a vehicle, if a zero emission vehicle is available that can meet our operational needs, then the town would prioritize an EV purchase. But again, it doesn't necessarily mean we're only doing electric vehicles. So to go through the process of purchasing a new car, if we were to become Climate Leaders and pass. With the electric vehicle light duty first policy. We would go through these steps. We would consider the operational needs, functions such as daily range, towing capacity customizations. We would look at available EVs, what's available on the market right now when we're looking and we would look at charging and maintenance needs. Do we have adequate EV pumps available, and are we able to maintain those electric vehicles that we would, in theory, be buying prior and then when we're making our purchases and it's time to buy a new car in our town's fleet for a light duty purchase, we would start by looking at fully electric vehicles as our first option. If that doesn't make sense for that department, then we would look into plug in hybrids. If that doesn't make sense, we go down to battery and internal combustion hybrids. And then finally, we would look into our most, most efficient internal combustion engine vehicle, which is your typical gas powered car. So like I said before, we're not just getting EVs, it's more just we're going to really go through this list do our very best to be as efficient as possible. And if it's not going to work for the department's needs, then we're going to continue down the line until it makes sense for the town. So just to give you a little summary of what I said before, so our decisions are going to be made as we do now, accounting vehicles, age, mileage and condition. This does not mean if this was passed tomorrow, we're going out and only buying EVs. We're going to wait until it's time for the vehicle to be replaced. Like normal. This is only light duty vehicles. It's not emergency response vehicles, just light duty under 8500 pounds. And before an EV is purchased, we're making sure our operational needs are going to be met, accounting for availability of EVs at that time, charging hardware available and maintenance needs, as I mentioned before. And this is our last piece, the sixth piece of our puzzle before becoming a climate leader with mass d OER. And here is a list of our light duty vehicles in the fleet right now, the Ford ma key, and then the two Nissan LEAFs are already full EVs that we have, and that's in the packet too, if you want to look at that. And now, if anyone has any questions, Carol Martin: I had some questions because on the policies and how to structure the agenda item. So I reached out to Lillian. Both Michael and Lillian met with me last week, and I asked them to give us a sense of what we're talking you know, dollars wise and have you so this is the list of our current vehicles that as they would come up, we would consider them. This is the light duty group that we're talking about. I'm counting 14 vehicles, and I'm counting two already in the that are already three, no see, bad at math. So there are technically 11 vehicles over the next so many years that would be as they come up around they would, we would want to apply this policy, you know, to it so, and I appreciate you putting in that list. It gives us some some scope for it, because if it's a large capital request, we would probably have to consider sending it to the capital planning. All right, open up for questions. Who would like to start please Unknown: on that point, Madam Chair, either ADU, you have a sense of to the capital cost to establish the infrastructure to handle a full fleet electrical cars. If the town gets there at some point,
we'd have to split it up different buildings, as you can now Doug out there. It's it's not a small number. I don't disagree with you. Some of the buildings can handle much more than they already have. We have a good setup at the CLA the schools have plenty of power that infrastructure. We can support quite a few there, high school, middle school, they have some very good opportunities, especially with the solar so a monetary number, we can put that together. But so does that make sense to spread this out over a period of time? I think, with the list of the cars and the years that they become available, it's kind of it's naturally flow that Legere now the cars that are fully electric now you have any difficulties during the coldest, coldest days and getting started running. No, we haven't well last year. We didn't notice. My first year here, and we didn't have any troubles. None of us. We broke down. I know Nate drives his marquee every day to and from So, okay, another very reliable, surprising. That's all I have. Thank you, right? Carol Martin: So May I just follow up? I think what Tom's question was, how many vehicles would be eligible for replacement, say, Unknown: this year? My question would went to infrastructure, infrastructure, okay, otherwise, charging stations, right? How many will I go the cost? You answer that, Michael McCall: if I may. I'm sure there are grants opportunities still to get additional EV chargers out there, correct? Unknown: Yeah, yeah. And Carole Plumb: becoming a climate leader would make us eligible for those grants too. Carol Martin: And Doug, did you want to have a question? Unknown: So, um, but the grant, I looked up the grant, and the grants that I saw was up to 150,000 to hire those infrastructure developers and engineering designs and then million for the DEP carbonization seller grants. But those have already gone in in August, the first for 2025 right? So we would be looking at next year, Carole Plumb: yes, because we would the applications do in December, so we wouldn't get that classification until after we apply, yeah, Unknown: if this is on the chopping block, right from the Fed, just wondering, just so that, like, if we, unfortunately, if, like, you know, we just want, yeah, well, it could, it could be, it Could be that, I don't know sure what they're gonna cut next, but to have this in place, if things come back, it's, it's, we're already there. So and then the requirements there was, you had mentioned that we had all the requirements, except for one, which one was the one that we'd needed, the EV first, we have to pass that. Like just do that, are you concerned about the we have to use it first. You know, like, what are the excuses for getting out of like, the policy itself essentially said, zero, miss it. Emission vehicle must be purchased only, and the only outside that we saw, or that I read up on was essentially, like, really rare situations, like, you know, all of a sudden you have a vehicle that you're trying to, like a school bus or something, and they don't, they don't have them. That's not considered like duty, I think light duty Carol Martin: vehicles only. So this bus policy, since we saw, excuse me, since we saw it last has been clarified, because it's just the light duty vehicles this list that's here, all the vehicles that we have in town, Miss 14 that would be eligible for when we replaced them, not eligible. Doug Levine: We'd happy. I don't read that in the policy. This is first for compliance. It's like what is most financially feasible, so it doesn't seem like you have to go electric, is what they're explaining. If you look at this guideline page that they put out a couple years ago, it seems like there's a little flexibility here. Unknown: Municipality must purchase only zero emission vehicles for municipal use whenever such vehicles are commercially available and practical, and the only ones that I've read on that were not that did not fall under that scenario was when they were back ordered for them, or when they were very specific responses that vehicles that are in Play. Here are the light, light, light duty vehicles, as opposed to heavy vehicles, maybe vans or dump trucks or busses, first responding like, no, but I know, but it's saying purchase only. I don't think there's as much room as it might be to go down. You're talking about the actual policy itself, yeah, okay, well, that's what I read on the policy, maybe Carol Martin: in policy in the second here, just to that too, when it Unknown: come right back, well, it's just my notes so I can get the actual policy. Doug Levine: It says, well, exempt vehicles are not required at this time to meet the zero emission requirements. Exempt vehicle purchase should prioritize the most fuel efficient mile available and consider fuel reduction and emissions reduction technology such as diesel particle filters, etc. That's why, to me, it seems like there's Unknown: some wiggle room. I know I thought so too, until I looked it up. But I'm reading, maybe you guys have see a different thing in practice. Carole Plumb: Um, are you looking at ours online or someone else's? Because this is, like, specific to Wayland online looking okay, so they need these draft policy first. While we're at this, I'm Unknown: just looking at what it requires. And you're looking at the do er web page, yeah, in order to qualify for a climate industry looking at this one? Carol Martin: Yeah. Well, is anybody on this one like, Ma,
Unknown: this is what I research. Yeah. Doug Levine: What were you just reading? What? Where? Where it's like, there's no wiggle room. Unknown: It was within practice. So like, when I looked up, you know what? What is the real requirements to because they're kind of big, yeah? And it was like, this is, Doug Levine: like the first section is all about compliance, right? Yeah. And then I guess my question for Olivia is toward the end of the session. Action on compliance. It's specifically talking about exempt vehicles, and that's where there seems like there's wiggle room, where you don't have to go. EV only Do you know what it means when they're talking about exempt vehicles, Carole Plumb: that would look like, for example, we have, I'll go to our list here. Unknown: Is it Carol Martin: exempt light duty vehicles? You're talking about exempt vehicles in general, like snow Carole Plumb: plows and snow the only vehicles we're touching are light duty vehicles. So it's not plows, trucks, ambulances, none of that. If it's over 8500 pounds or an emergency response vehicle, it doesn't qualify for what this policy is talking about. We do have, for example, if you can look up on the list, the Ford transits. Those are like sprinter looking trucks that some of our maintenance guys use for an example. If that couldn't pull a certain didn't have the power we needed as an EV, we wouldn't have to purchase an EV. We would go through our flow. Unknown: She's talking exactly what I mentioned. It if it's not, if it's what you're looking for, cannot be found, then it gets ADU, and they can and you can ask for a very specific detail of what the child replace so, so like what she's saying, like the wind, the weight itself could vary. And then suppose you have a weight of 3800 you don't have to replace it, just because you found one for 3600 Doug Levine: but are you saying that you have to replace it
Carole Plumb: with an EV? We would start with the EV
Doug Levine: that's our goal, and you're saying it could be cost prohibitive to go the EV, that's your point, saying you have no wiggle room. And if you can buy an EV, you have to get the EV. Well, they think 17%
Unknown: but we're replacing, hopefully eventually we will be replacing all these because that's our goal, was to get as many electric vehicles possible, so we have three. Those three would be replaced with three more. Doug Levine: But yeah, forget replacing EVs. Talk about the gas ones when you when you have when it's time to replace a gas one, right? I hear Ian saying, You have no choice. You have to replace it with an EV. Is there wiggle room to go down that list? How do you start going down that list? Unknown: So it's the need. So if we have a small van and it needs to pull 2500 pounds, and the electric vehicle won't do that, we'll have to go to the next step, which could be a hybrid, which we have done, that's some of, most of our bands are hybrid. So that's how we see this happening. We would start electric first. If that doesn't work, then we would, we would have to move down the list to the next best thing, until we hit where it would work for everybody, by the 12 to 17% increase in cost. But then we do get these little benefits, tax benefits, but we're a town, so it doesn't really work the same, right? And then exactly what you just said, which is, but if the goal is to go there, that way, then you kind of, you have to kind of do it. And then you're in a perpetual though, because then the next time you replace you might Carol Martin: so I didn't pick you up on yet. I'll hop in here one second, so that I originally had issues when the policy came the first round, because it said all vehicles maybe first then I was speaking to Livia last week. She said, Oh, this is just light duty, which is what prompted me to then have this conversation with them and to just narrow it to these vehicles. The policy draft that we have still has a couple places where it says all vehicles. It needs to say, you know, that needs to be substituted purchase of light duty, municipal vehicles, that kind of thing. And I think that would be clearer. And then there's a sentence down here under exemptions that says these vehicles are exempted, and then Bev replace for mandatory bed replacement, but should explore sustainable options for feast. This is not part of this policy. These larger vehicles are not part of this policy. So that should explain that can apply to smaller vehicles as well. Carol, they're saying on the exemptions medium and heavy duty the first bullet, okay, yeah, so there's a couple things here that kind of still need to be worked out in the draft. I think that'll make it clearer. Unknown: The policy permits department heads to get an exemption from the town manager when appropriate, right? Yes, I think this policy was already approved by these, by the doer. It was,
Carol Martin: I think that we want to be to Anne's point where we want to. Many wants to speak, if I recognize you, after I finish my sentence, I think we also need to be mindful of what we are factually agreeing to, because I agree, once we agree with these are going to be in that the electric vehicle first policy, this is where these vehicles are going to be going, and they are. There was, I had this question. There was a big article in the globe that they have these vehicles are more expensive, which is why I wanted to know how many were coming up per year, because otherwise we might have to go back to the Capital Group and also, and I don't know if it affects us, but the average person is finding their insurance is much higher to ensure these cars. So you sure this was a person? Michael Faia wanted to speak much and the Unknown: action mobilization plan leave this one
by approved. In other words, when the OER was approached, they said, the policy is it approved?
Carole Plumb: I also don't know the answer. I'm kind of stepping in suddenly, but I can email you guys and let you know once I figure that out. Unknown: For flexible, Carole Plumb: yeah, yeah, the camp plan that you're talking about, the Select Board approved that. That's a town recognized plan, and one of the things the camp plan does call for is going fully electric in the fleet. This is definitely more focused than that. That's a very broad goal, but the town of Wayland is mimicking the state's carbon neutrality goals. So by 2050 they want to be Wayland wants to be carbon neutral. So this would get us eventually it's going to have to give either we're going to do it or, you know, I don't know,
Carol Martin: on the camp plan, I'm going to say this the 90th time, when we approve that. I also asked to have the 23 items put into timelines, or when they would be and the, you know, protected, projected cost. This is about the third, third year I've been asking this. I might get it yet. So, Michael, I'm sorry you wanted to speak. I'm sorry. Michael McCall: No, I all I wanted to add is I do think that we need to move forward with this type of policy for the reasons Blaney indicated, but I don't think it's consistent with what Governor Baker signed on to, the decarbonization plan and our own camp and being good stewards of the community. You know, they do cost a little bit more some of these vehicles, though, then you're not paying for the gasoline usage. There are trade offs, and there is a suggested timeline on that. Climate Leaders guidance, I think, starting this year for light vehicles, they're recommending try and have 5% of your fleet, and it increases year over year as we move to 2035 and ultimately 2050 so I do agree, Madam Chair, there are a couple of places, as you indicated, in the bank under additional considerations, were talked about all vehicles and maybe a couple things for clarity. But I think it's something that could be cleaned up and endorsed by this board. We're already using these. I see them every day. The last communities I worked in, we got as many charges as we could. We encouraged our community members to use them. That's also part of the camp. So putting the charging stations out not only benefits our employees, but the community as a whole. Carol Martin: What I want to suggest is, I think this, we need a few edits. Maybe also Mr. Whitney is the liaison for the ECC, and I think it would be appropriate, especially where we worked on this, that we wait to take a vote in our next meeting when it comes. Do you think we could make a couple edits here and then have a revised Would that be okay? Do you want to add anything? No, everybody, everybody, come on down before or not. Unknown: It'd be great to know what the dealer really did approve this, because that's a big deal, because it means that we whatever language we have in here, if it's more broad, then you know their guide, their guidance packet. We have a good argument. I would Carol Martin: be disappointed this one to the Dory before it came to us, because I think we should also get to Unknown: speak. No, I'm not sure I agree with that, rather than come to us and say, hey, it's packaged. Carol Martin: Yeah, but I think we do need we've got some mixing match May I will sort it out. I'm happy to help you. If you want some help on that for the 20, Carole Plumb: yeah, we'll definitely reach out, because that's, I hear you. That's a good point. And we'll, we'll let you guys know about the status of that. Um, is there any other section that really was blaring to anyone besides additional policy considerations, reach out to you. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Doug Levine: I just had one, final question. When I was reading through the guidance, and I can't remember if you mentioned this or not, or I didn't hear you, the schools have to sign off on their fleet as well. Is that separate policy, or that will be part of this? Carole Plumb: The schools, like some of them, have smaller like Ford Focuses or some. Like that, they would be considered. But other vehicles, like busses. There is a couple vehicles here, food service that those are, like the Ford transits, like I was talking about, they're in the school's fleet, but nothing larger, like a bus isn't right into this Doug Levine: category, like you sent on page 11. There's no there are no school service. School? Carole Plumb: Yeah, that's how this list is taken from Maya. So that's how they list the names
Carol Martin: on our side, versus Unknown: the food service vehicle part of the town Carol Martin: budget. First is school with it. I think they think it's in the school, but I think one point here is that we probably need to run this by this, although I think Dr fleischen has seen, yeah, that's right, he's seen him. Okay, so, like I'm saying, why don't we thank everybody for their time night, and we'll make a few edits. We'll bring it back at the next meeting. I'll put it on my list here. How does that sound perfect? Thank you very much. Thank you to you Unknown: done. What am I doing here?
Carol Martin: Okay, so our next agenda,
Unknown: Thank you, Jen, thank you. Nice Carol Martin: to meet you all. Yes, you did an admirable job saying how this person inherited this life two weeks. Thank you so agenda, Item number four is to discuss with the Economic Development Committee members to discuss, review, improving communication, potential projects, including, but not limited to the town center communities. We are inviting Dave bilari and Katie Harris of the E to join us before you that David Vallari: she's helping us out. So sorry. You talked about doing the thumb drive. You know, Carol Martin: very funny. Before we do that, I want to make sure that I took the attendance of the room, because it's been a rather busy night tonight, or in the room with me, I have mister Fay, Mister lane, Miss friends, Lee and myself. Mister Whitney is not going to join us. Is not joining us tonight. And we're also joined town manager Michael McCall and our in town manager Kelsi power. So I was spirlett, sorry anyway, who there's plenty of room for at the table, if she would like to join us. Alright, so now we are on the item number four. This is on what page in the packet 16? Okay, so first of all, I want to thank David and Katie for coming, and I want to thank David for reaching out to me back, I think, in August, as a new member. He wanted to know, you know, what was the process, you know, for putting together proposals and coming before the Select Board, so we would have good communication. And you'll notice part of the agenda item tonight says that, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is improve our communication with our advisory committees. And David was actually giving me the inspiration of how to start doing that after we talked a couple times. I you know, we need to be clearer, and we hopefully are. That's a future agenda item for tonight, and I have reached out to your chair to come and join us on November 3, maybe as a committee, or even just yourself as we roll out how we're going to hopefully improve our communication. So thank you, sir. So you know everybody. Are you okay to know everybody? Okay, great. The floor is yours. Unknown: Are you able to pull up the PowerPoint press? Yeah, we'll see if
David Vallari: we can get ourselves back on track. Time wise for you, because I think you wanted us done 720 so we'll do our best to pull this one. Don't worry a little bit. We'll be fast later. Okay, so thanks again for being here. Dave Valerie, Katie Harris, obviously. So members of the EDC, we passed this out September the fourth for review and comment and got some feedback. And then today is really about trying to continue that discussion. And we want to be very clear with this. This is a proposal idea. It is not, you know, trying to come out with final, final results and say this is what we should do in any way. It's just a discussion point, and that's what we were going for. We're talking about, really, three parcels of land here. We did put the gist labels in for clarity there, if any, if there's any concerns, open them up. Divide into, really two sections, though there's a small rectangular section to the left hand side, really, in front of the COA, and then the larger one with the paths carved through it in front of the businesses there. Please go ahead. Carol Martin: I know someone knows how to do. Is it possible to make that a full screen?
So no, thank you.
David Vallari: If you sorry, control minus you might be able to bounce the hair or pinch Unknown: me. Nobody else, nobody Carol Martin: else nobody else can see it okay, Unknown: we're still sharing. We're still sharing. Carol Martin: I think so. Does everybody think that's better? David Vallari: We'll talk through it either way. Right? So imaginations are key from a conceptual layout, or maybe if we just go one slide up. I apologize. I want to make the request here very clear. As we're coming into this, right, all we're looking to do is say, can we move forward and have additional discussions here? We know there's some sticking points with regards to the Raytheon previous site activity and the Aul in place. And so really it's, can we work through you guys, with the town manager's office and the health health board to screen those concerns, really, and say, Do we have any limitations to doing a playground? Do we have any limitations to revamping the site in any way? Since we did construction in 2015, timeframe, it's largely been empty. I think we all know that, like Wayland Fest was a wonderful, you know, energizing community base. There, you saw how well we can use this property or this area if we concentrate and focus as a town. And so what we sat together as the EDC and decided was maybe we can use the template that other towns are using already. And you look at what we're doing in this, this very high level proposal, and nothing's groundbreaking in any way. It's you look at any playgrounds or parks that are at the ends of bike paths or at the starts of them, the great gathering points, there's town plazas or shopping plazas that have done the same template, really with a lot of success, right? So it's just, it's not new in any way, but we as Wayland have some additional concerns that we'd want to address first, which is, can we put a splash pad on this site with the previous activity? And you know, is that just a total no go, because if it is, let's not spend town resources talking about it. So what we'll do is we'll do a very high level, top down view of what we think could work from a proposal standpoint. And then I'm going to pass it to Katie. She'll go through some examples of like, pretty parks that represent that. And then we'll hit some numbers at the end. Michael McCall: So if we could jump to slide two, please,
David Vallari: conceptual layout, really starting from left to right. Gene Millburn, for example, is a huge proponent of this one. And with the community center coming in, they actually put in a water line right at the edge of that parking lot as it quarters the green space. So we have the ability and the infrastructure kind of set up in order to put some pollinator gardens in, some nice plantings, you know, perhaps a pathway in the middle with some benches to read on. And then as we kind of go towards the main site, I think we can all agree, like the way the paths were drawn up is very intricate, and it's nice, so you want to work around that. Let's not fix what's what's not broken, right? We kind of build in into the empty space in the middle. And perhaps we can do on the hillscape, a little amphitheater seating that you can use for the summer concert series, school events, plays, music events, and then you have pavilion canopy picnic tables that give you a little reprieve, because it's a hot site in the sun, place to eat and gather. And then in the dashed line, there could be, you know, around that will be a play game, potentially. So I'll pass it to Katie, and she'll kind of go through a few other Unknown: Yeah, you can go down, yeah. So just to re reiterate what David said, this is just an idea, just spitballing here with some ideas that we've come up with based on the existing space that's already there, some amphitheater seating, which could be nice for rec, rec department to use for something like what happened this past weekend, music, school plays, award ceremonies, maybe for sports. Award ceremonies for sports. We think that we heard that the town has a stage, so maybe that stage is set up for the summer, or maybe it's set up for a concert series, something like that. And I think what's really nice about this too, is that there's a pavilion. So if you go to the town center space now, there is near fairies, there is a somewhat shaded area. But what's nice about this is that the pavilion provides shade for people to eat on a week like this. Where it's really beautiful and sunny, so you can get some shade, have a sandwich to meet people for a picnic shelter from the sun. And I also think it provides people, you know, maybe you can get a pizza from Jailyn and then walk over and then sit under the pavilion. And also provide something for the employees that work in town center to take advantage of so again, it's nothing grand. It's nothing super big, but it's just kind of nice for the space itself and taking advantage of some of the natural features that are already there. Carol Martin: You can go down to the next slide. Unknown: Again, just ideas. As far as the playground, we like the idea. Have to stick to it of something feeling kind of natural. So the stepping stones to the upper right slide, slide, the kids can use those to walk on, but it kind of creates this nice natural barrier. We've gotten some quotes from the same company. These are the park in West and I don't know if you guys have ever been there, but it's just like a very visually nice park. It doesn't feel like it's too loud. It's not like crazy colors, and it just fits into the environment really nicely. Yeah, I um, yeah, it fits into the landscape. This is beaver Brook, yeah. So this is a little bit more of a step up, I guess you would say, because of the water features. And with this playground, and with other playgrounds, like the previous slide, there tend to be a couple areas of for different ages. So you might have one area where kids from, say, ages two to five to play, and then there's a nearby area for kids of, you know, from five to 10 years old. The other thing about these playgrounds, and the the plan that we have, in general, is that it's accessible to all ages, so it's right near the community center. So this doesn't necessarily have to be a space that's just intended for kids. It's intergenerational, accessible to everybody, all
David Vallari: right, so we'll jump into a little bit of math here, and this was a request that we had coming in. So if anyone isn't in love with the math, feel free to, you know, tell us so, and we'll revise it. I think it's a big discussion point of really, as the EDC, what does this mean, and why are you bringing it to the Select Board here? So what we've done is we've broken it up into three categories. Really have commercial appraisal values, residential appraisal values, and then meals tax supplement from commercial appraisal that's like the most clear direct benefit that we would see. Generally. Our town is 100 and $60 million worth of commercial value, and one and a half percent of our 4% commercial base is the town center plaza. So one and a half or 4% three eights. Three eights of 160 is 60 million. There's a typo on that slide. It says 50. It should be 60 for the first number 60, and then 15 million, roughly, from the gist database, puts you the rest of the route, 24 or like CVS down. So what you want to look at with a project like this is what's the potential uplift that we see as a community? You get increased foot traffic, better dwell time, all that, and generally, national parks associations put that number somewhere between eight and 20% when you have such a direct Plaza like this. I said that's just way too aggressive. Let's you know, meter that down. Everyone in Wayland has nice backyards. They're already kind of enjoying it. And so how much you know, do we need to play that number up? And so we'll go conservatively with 3% so 75,000,003% into our tax rate, you see a potential uplift here of those businesses in their appraised value of $35,000 um, the same math, really on the residential side. But really what we were focusing on is, on the left, you see more or less a workable map of what's walkable in Wayland, based on sidewalks we have and infrastructure we have. We know that there's like route 20 beautification efforts and planning boards working a lot of that. So that makes that era even easier to access in the future. But in there, you have about 250 homes, and assuming an appraisal value of about a million, you do the same math out and you're around $40,000 of appraisal value. The numbers there, instead of using a 3% number, residential we found tends to be more near two to 5% and so we said, let's just even go lower than that. Let's go 1% and that averages out. When you think about it, you've got those 40 town homes or 80 town homes between the two town center sites, they're going to see the most uplift. There's no question about that. So maybe they're seeing more like four or 5% true valuation. And everyone else in that larger circle gets half a percent or so and it levels. So those are the more significant numbers. I think meals tax always comes up like, how much can that provide for us? And just because of the raw value that we as a town have on Meals tax, it's only point seven 5% we did about 300,000 last year. You do that backwards, you get 40 million to how much are we really going to say this? This project does. It's insubstantial, insignificant to scale, but maybe it pays for mowing, you know, or something of the sorts,
from a cost and funding standpoint. So we set this up, really as a summary cost and funding is the first and foremost question. We know we have serious challenges as a town right now on budget. We're not trying to make it worse. We promise, um, the the point Katie was making, I think, is the right one, is that nothing here needs to be grand or, you know, the playground mecca of the area, for Wayland to have a benefit here, we just need something that provides people the excuse to come together, spend a little time, get a coffee, get a bagel, you know, go with your kids and shop a little bit and divide and conquer, And so you have low costs that we could estimate based on, you know, what's available online, how much it takes to do a pavilion and picnic tables, how much it takes to do amphitheater seating, which is really just railroad ties cut into the hill. It's not too fancy. And then you get into the more complicated costs of the playground and the splash pad, and that's where things start to get a little bit more fuzzy. And we would need more help from the departments here to give more accurate estimates. I know the playground behind us here in the town building. I think we estimated $400,000 for that one, and I believe some of it comes from the complexities of how close it is to the water. But you look at this, and what we did is, she mentioned, is, reached out to comp and playgrounds and said, Hey, how much does this cost to install? And we took a reasonable approximation, you put in about a capacity for a 60 person system without having to excavate and do a lot of work. And it's about $100,000 and splash pads, that cost is really variable. You have two types of splash pad systems, recirculating and non recirculating, most likely, with the Raytheon constraints that we have on that site from the past, you'd be in recirculating territory, which means water filtration systems, chlorination systems in place such that the water is used as a closed loop and gets fed back in. You're not letting that seep through groundwater, potentially contaminating anything. Funding is really like the biggest topic here, probably, but our goal would be to minimize the town's financial contribution, and so much of this can be done in a phased manner. I mean, we're talking about projects that are all kind of separate in a way you can structure them as such financially, if that fits the bill, CPA funding would potentially be an avenue. And those applications do mid November, and then local business outreach. I think we've all talked about this one and other people have said it that now is a great time to really engage with the new town owners and say, you know, you are the New Town Center Plaza owner. This has a huge benefit to you, but also us. Would you like to partner on this? And I think that's where the town manager's office and select board would be more the appropriate personnel to have that discussion than us. Unknown: I already have great good to hear, David Vallari: and then we'll also hit this point lanes and park that we showed in Weston. When they did that in 2017 they raised, as a community, $116,500 directly, just for that. So it is very possible to engage a community like this. For projects such as this, we'll skip the case studies in interest of time. We have the summaries on the top left the finances. There are some indirect or non quantified financial points that we didn't or economic points that we didn't hit on. Really, you have some commercial vacancies, and this would be a great opportunity for someone to say, put in an ice cream shop that supplements what chocolate therapy is already doing. And, you know, fill in that extra space. And once you get that, you've got more momentum in that town center, more reason for people to hang around and spend time there. So I think we'll stop talking there and hear, hear your guys thoughts and opinions, Unknown: and thanks for the time. Yeah, Carol Martin: thank you for coming and talking to us, and thank you for including an economic benefit. I know the last time that ADU see came before us, that was one thing. Said, you know, when you come forward proposals, we'd like to see the economic benefit to the town, and you've done that. So we appreciate that. Questions from the board, sir, comments and Unknown: questions. First of all, I want to compliment your committee on the what information you provide in the town website. It is very informative for people to go to that website and see what's going on with different businesses in town. I think it's good to keep you up to speed now to town manager's comment about meeting with the current, soon to be new owner. Seems to me that meeting with you folks and town manager and then would be helpful. I suspect that this is not their first rodeo, and they have, they have contacts the professionals who could look at your presentation and look at that town green. So you know what. This would work. This wouldn't work in addition and maybe things that they want to accomplish that they're going to pay for, that that's one suggestion I Michael McCall: got in so like board member Fay, I think they are open to doing something, because we talked about some of the things that didn't happen while Zurich was here, including using some of that shared streets grant money. They were excited to hear about that they want to do some of these things. And one of the things they talked about was maybe working with the town to put something on that lower pool that you had in that earlier slide, so that it's right at the end of Alyssa Avenue, at corner of Andrew, so that if they had that open streets, they could see the playground. It didn't. We didn't get into this flash pad, but they are open. And think about doing something that'll be mutually beneficial for the community.
Unknown: And Miss Harris, you mentioned the stage. You know, as I understand it, town hasn't purchased a stage yet for but we have budgeted for it, and then the money for it. The trick is to find the stage that works best in Wayland and and and person on that search, and he's, he's keeps an eye out the from Florida to Maine. David Vallari: He's looking for stages with the marketplace, Unknown: it's good to find something. So that's all I have. Thanks for the work.
So awesome. Thank you for putting this together. I think we all probably look at that space and would love to see a ton of stuff get done. The only comment that I'd make, I think you guys are just asking, essentially, just almost permission, like, Hey, can we use the town's resources like Michael, valuable resources like Michael, to kind of just vet this out and do some due diligence. And I feel very comfortable doing that. The only thing that I would say is that when I look at this, and I look at your presentation, and I really absorb it, and I think about trying to actually get this done and having it be something that actually happens, I really don't see the path for the splash pad personally, just I'm just looking at the cost of it compared to some of the other aspects of it, And what I don't want to happen right now we have, there's a lot of people who are coming to each of us individually, talking about costs of things, and I just feel like it'll become one of those things where it'll get negative attention, just because they'll look at that and say, this is over half a million dollars, like, What it but you know, you look at 175,000 you go 75 in with, with the talent, the owners, and then you fundraise. This could be done in a year. So I would just say, I guess for my own personal I would really love to see if you guys could just meet me somewhere on that and just say, Okay, let's see what this looks like. Also, when, when you went to the event on Saturday, there were so many tables and setups that might be just doing the ton, yeah, and I love the EDC, but they go for the full Sunday with the whipped cream and the candy and the cherries and stuff. And I'm just thinking that I would love to see this happen. And I think you have, like, a really clear path of getting it done, getting a ton of support, getting funding without the splash problem. David Vallari: Yeah, I think we're obviously totally agreeable to that, and it's not really us that matters. It's kind of what the town people say and are interested in and engaged about. And I think we would absolutely be a proponent of separating things out, phasing them so that, you know, if it's just bite size, we do that 175 fundraise the rest, and then sit on a five year capital plan, or 10 year capital plan better for, you know, doing a splash pad type of activity. You know, there's maybe potentially. For that if you want to go down that road as a town. But that's not necessarily for us to say or guide that direction of I think the towns and the places we've seen that have taken the action to slowly do the splash pad, they've seen a lot of benefit from it. So there's value in it, but it just, you know, if it's a hard bill to swallow, because we got some really tough bills to pay right now, then Unknown: I think the other thing to note too is just talking with some people around town, the EDC may not be the appropriate group to make this happen like I know the rec department is the Department of the town that tends to execute the playgrounds. And so obviously, if there is a department or departments in town that handle these types of things like we understand that you think it makes more sense that you guys do it, because I think you need to have an economic development, economic benefit. We're happy. We're happy to meet with Michael and parse out, Carol Martin: sorry. The board's asking questions for sorry, having a hard time maintaining I need something. Mr. Levine, please. Doug Levine: I love all of this as well, and I was thinking, along the same lines as Anne, about phasing it. I can tell you, I served on ADC 10 years ago, and there was conversation at meetings, then about a playground at Town Center. I think there's always clamoring for playground at time. Playground makes so much sense, right? And I love the other three ideas. I've heard pros and cons about the splash pad. So I would, I would almost think of that as phase two. But of course, it depends so much on funding. So I was thinking, you know, if money was no object and we can have all of these things, would we want to pursue all of these things? And I people were explaining some of the cons to me about the splash pad and how often can it be used in a given year, and, of course, the AOL restrictions, but, but that said a question from Michael, actually, if they were able to get some of this through just with private funding, What would the town meeting vote be? Would we need a town meeting vote to raise some of this? What would that article look like? Is it because anything you do on town on land, even if you're not paying it, it's almost like accepting a gift. Or is that select Word only? Or do you need Tom meeting approval? Michael McCall: Check compound question, Unknown: multiple parts. Michael McCall: Interesting thing you mentioned playground. And I we have to go back, I think, look at the Acts chapter 347, the acts 2008, that created the vote of Public Works Department. Because I want to say, under Massachusetts General law, the Recreation Commission oversees playgrounds versus public works. That does a lot of the other DEP W related things. Doug Levine: But they would have to present an article. Well, Michael McCall: there's couple things here we would probably based on prior experience trying to work with the owners of the property over there, work with them, one, if we want to do it in partnership. And I think it's great that when those folks came in the other day and they were interested in doing something like that, because you want to see the buy in. We do own this, I think under the way the most recent Aul, which is accessory use limitation document that's recorded the Registry of Deeds, we would have to get some opinion of no risk relative to the type of recreation that you want to put over there. Now, I would check with Town Council. I don't know that it would need a town meeting vote. It's it's town land, and select board is usually custodians of townland. You need permission to sell land, right? But I don't think this would be any different if we decided to put a structure, say on this, yeah, I would always double check with them first. If there were monies donated, you'd probably have to accept those on Mass General law as a gift. Doug Levine: Does the town have to do that? Or just the Select Board to accept Michael McCall: the gift? The Select Board accepts gifts on behalf of other departments, and I think the Recreation Commission could accept them as well. And I think you authorized the expenditure of those that any border Commission can accept them, but you authorize the expenditure, and that that came up previously with the last. Library where they they were given gifts, but they had to come selected. Doug Levine: I'm just thinking, because some of the businesses, maybe, if not all the business, will be excited about this concept, as well as the new owner of Town Center. And maybe this isn't a tremendous amount of money, especially just if we're talking the pavilion, picnic tables, the amphitheater, and then maybe a playground for $1,000
Michael McCall: the phasing would be one thing, and then looking at what the you know, there may not be a lot of operational costs for one item, but if you started getting multiple items and there are, each one of those components could trigger an opinion from an LSP, because as soon as you dig in the ground, or obviously, well, I would assume we wouldn't want to use groundwater for this, we would use water, but then somebody's going to have to maintain that circulation system. And if you erect some type of structure, I think you still have to go back to those folks, and I always question the board. We have limited green space, so this, you know, maybe you work with them and do the one playground in that corner and see how it goes, but make sure that you get adequate buy in from the owner before you do it, and if it winds up being a playground, probably have to eat at some point with the Recreation Commission to talk about them and rec managing this as well. Carol Martin: So a lot of little things that I think. Lisa, yes, okay, so I'm going to speak some once upon a time, Oh, Tom will remember this. It was discussion that we would get this piece of land and put a gazebo on this property that folks could use for a number of many ideas, many ideas, right? This is, I have to just say this, because this is the be the devil's advocate. This is Tom land. And so the cost really is not only just the items, but it's also the cost of giving up that the opportunity cost of giving up, up the land. So, and I do want to know those it does say labor is not included. Of course, labor is very expensive, although, to David's point, he thought maybe, if we were phasing things in, when we discussed that perhaps we could maybe get some of the labor done internally on some of these things. But I do think we need a plan. You know, on this, I personally am in favor of the the the business owner of contributing to this. I will tell you, I do know the numbers on the playgrounds. This was 400,000 we have, I think, 12 or 13 playgrounds in town, and they one gets done every two years. So they're on a 2830, year cycle. The beach was recently done. And of course, there's no landscaping because it's on the Sean, per se. I think that was 250 or 275,000 so My one concern about the playground is, particularly if it's a town on playground, is that it's not consistent with and I'm wondering if the wreck would raise this question with the amenities and the scope and the shape and the whatever of our other playgrounds. And so that would be a question that I would, I want to, want to reconcile in my mind you know on that, so yes, Miss Kelsi, come up here now. Thank you. Unknown: Thank you. Just quickly to add to that, because I was in some discussions with the Eliza Norton Foundation and the Recreation Director around renovating the Cochituate ball field and the price ranges for revamping their playground, redoing, redoing that basketball court that's there, doing a little bit of upgrades to the ball field itself, and then reconfiguring the parking was between $1.8 million and about $2 million All in. And just to keep in mind, any town property, any renovations that happen, it doesn't matter the dollar amount. It can be $1 prevail wage. And prevailing wage was in effect. So that's something you have to keep in mind. Is anything that is being renovated on town, and regardless of the price point, prevailing wage matters. So that does drive up the sickness. Mr. Michael McCall: McCall sure to get some of these ideas out. But one of the things that and I made mention Select Board Member Fay in the phone was to avoid liability, the insurance and all these things. When the new owners came in and were excited about this, one thing, I thought of, what if we swap some lands so we have our wastewater facility in the back, and they wanted a portion of that front corner of the green. What if we traded some of the land? Let them build their own playground, they assume some of the liability, and we get some additional. Lane in the back that we could use if we needed for future expansion of our facility. I didn't bring it up at the time, but these are the types of things that I think we could be creative about what we do. And I'm sure we're going to meet again with these folks, but Carol Martin: so and now, may I mention, and now we're going to tell me, I'm a lane swap. Unknown: I think your question is really just whether we're okay with that starting this due diligence. Carol Martin: Yeah, no, I think that's my next point. So let's go into what will we think with the next steps. I mean, it sounds to me, and if the board's in agreement that Michael might reach out to the owners again and have kind of a conversation to see what he thinks. And Does that sound about right? Doug Levine: Yeah, we need to answer the Aul. I think that's step one, or we're all wasting Carol Martin: it well. I think we need to also know if this is on whose land and who's what, what the partnership would look like. I think so, Unknown: if I so would, just because you are bringing up creating more of a process for how we interact with these types of situations, right? So they're essentially pushing to us with an idea, asking, Is it okay for them to do what a due diligence? So what do you want our response? Do you want our responses to be detailed and be like you can look at this and answer these questions, or is it okay to essentially say yes, you may start putting due diligence together and come back. Carol Martin: So if you read the revised charges and look by that, it says that the select Form will determine next steps after consulting with the town manager. So we're consulting with Michael what he thinks the next steps up. Okay, so detailed it right? Because we, one of the things we are trying to avoid is having several people reaching out to the, you know, the LSPs and town council and whatever. This is a very expensive propositions. When this happens, and Michael is the one that we we've delegated that authority to to be in control of those budgets, and so we're trying to make sure we are aware of who's being reaching out. So I think that the next step would be for Michael to tell us what he thinks should be the next step at the moment. Unknown: But I do think if it all comes together, that not out of the realm to have a warrant article in the spring, including the idea of talking of lane that that those stars align, you know, as liaison to the UC I'm happy to stay in communication with you. I'll stay in communication with time management chair, and let's see what progress we can make and and then I'll report the board, and when appropriate, we've had to come back. So can you say that again? I was just trying to arrange this up for what we're writing, though, Carol Martin: right? So, Michael, are you good with that? Michael McCall: Well, I just want to make some general comments, and I don't want to get ahead of item number six, but I think you know, the having the board be supportive initiative is good, because oftentimes some of the board advisory boards will come and ask me, and I said, Really, you're an advisory board. You should go to the Select Board, share your idea. If they if the Select Board buys in, then I have no problem. You know, working with my staff, I just want to make sure that there is that support from this board before we do reach out to say, town council or some of the engineering staff when we do these things, just so that we're not spending a lot of time going in different directions. I want to make sure it's something that this board's in in concurrence with. And I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, you know, where does capital planning come in? And you know, when we have this, depending on what you do, it's it may not be a large project, but when we have larger capital projects, if we're spending money and doing things, those tend to fall in our five year capital plan. This is something that at some point gets referred to them say, where do we want to is this a high priority? Do we want to move it up? Do we want to just put it in at the end of the five year plan and let it work its way down? I guess it will depend upon the size and scope and the type of the project, but it need to be fair to some of the other projects that have been advanced by other departments and boards in the town as well. So that's Unknown: true. It depends on the flexibility and desire of the new owner, and depends on the appetite of the DEP board to based on some of this, or all of it, select board will evaluate how each project furthers the board's goals and objectives, provide guidance and determine appropriate next steps. So we determine the next steps. We determine. So what do you want to Carol Martin: determine? I know we just did determine. I thought we just, we have Michael reach out to the owner. Was nobody agreeing. But no, no, I thought, That's right. There was agreement on that. And I'm sorry I missed it. I just Unknown: joined Sydney. I reach out to the owners to start that conversation. We have a meeting with the members of the EDC, and I'm happy to be part of it, if that discussion seems wise, and then I'll report back to the board on where things are going, and maybe the board will want to be to see back here. And I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this, this project and this playground Lord in a Tom and fashion, so that we can do, possibly, if needed, do something a Tom you. Okay, so perspective warrant should be submitted to support prior to Carol Martin: October dinner again, please. Just
Kelsi Power-Spirlet: trying to, I'm just trying to, like, actually realize this, right? So I'm seeing if it works, right? So does that feel fine, and that might be time to be off. So then that's just good for us to know, right? So, like, if you're bringing as a committee projects, you know, there needs to be enough time between that, if you're making this year, because you have it, the article has to come by October 31
Carol Martin: Okay, well, this is a thing we're putting in place, and October 31 is in two weeks. So it's probably the little flexibility this year. But the concept is, we don't want to be receiving articles in January like we did that to do, right? So we can put any day we want in Unknown: there, but it could also go the other way. Feature, you can ask that these types of projects get brought to this Select Board by a certain day, right? So that it works. I'm just trying to utilize you. And I spoke about this. This this is a big deal. Like we're we get inundated by the same stuff. We get pieces of information, and then we come and it. I think it does hold up some projects. So if we have this process that you put together, it really works. Carol Martin: It's awesome. I think also we have to factor in. What Michael mentioned is, is that, and others, even the committee members, have mentioned, there's a lot of capital projects out there a lot of finances. Just because we like this idea, it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be before Tom, maybe next year. So they might be very much way in advance for Michael McCall: the Faia, really, along the timeline of the new owner. They maybe that's really the key. Yeah, they were excited to hear about that grant that grant that hadn't been used. Now, it took a long time to get a draft agreement with Zurich about the use of that. And I explained how, how that came about, and they said they weren't too worried about it. So they may be very eager. They may want to get that pedestrian zone up and running first and then complement it with this. So I think in terms of first steps, talk to them and find out their timeline. And then I think the second consideration would be,
what if any thing we have to do in terms of looking at the ADU well, to ensure that project or any additional amenities we put there are consistent with no risk. And I think once you have at least those two down, then you can start to make decisions about what we want to do with these folks. So we would know they're interested. We know we're capable of doing it. Okay now, how do we slot it in? How do we pay for it? How do we maintain it that we ask those Carol Martin: questions? Oh, I am going to service that. It's a good thing. Mr. Whitney is not here tonight. He would be giving me the look I am now 40. How many minutes? Okay, but I'm just being said sorry, before you, before you leave, so one
appreciate you coming. No, I think we're wrapping this unless anyone and the board has anything else to say, I think we're good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Kate. What I have now I've added this, obviously, to my direct gender list for another, another meeting for Michael to report back to us. And at that point we get that info, then we'll, we'll develop the next steps, and I'm sure that will involve the committee, and I'm sure Tom as your liaison, will keep you informed as to what information we have found. Does that sound great? Sounds great? Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, right. So I think the next item actually is discuss and review the DEP classification, but not limited to preparation for the special election ballot. So since we voted this, I have spoken to the Finance Committee and gotten a confirmation. They're actually meeting tonight. They're putting together their their recommendation and their presentation. They will come and present to us on Monday, October 20, then, according to the policy, assuming that we continue to go forward with this. We need to meet, have at least one meeting before we vote the actual date to go forward. The town clerk has actually recommended that we look at December 11 in between the holidays and she she would like 45 days. I think the board has expressed an interest in having as much time as possible, because we want to have a strong communication with the residents to understand, you know, what we are trying to recover. So my suggestion is going to be, we meet on the 20th we're going to talk about this tonight. But for framework wise, please use the calendars and see if you're available on Thursday, October 23 for a quick one agenda item meeting, which will be day or night in the morning or it's up, whatever you all want, bands, Unknown: that process gets done, right? So they have to apply for the bands or put them in place. The bands is different than that, yeah, okay. Give me a second. Okay, but one of the concerns had been, what happens if, if this were not to get approved, but we went forward with the bans we were because then there was a very high likelihood that we would receive we would still have an over right? So I'm just asking, Do we care whether this the answer to whether it got approved or not at a special election, whether that was approved or not before or after we could have stopped the ban from going forward. Carol Martin: So we're having the meeting with the bond Council, I believe, tomorrow, Unknown: or meeting
Carol Martin: last week. This is in play. This train hasn't had to do it. It's over. So I think that is Mr. Tom and Michael. You can correct. They're doing the band tomorrow, I Michael McCall: believe. So when they came up with everybody was okay with that. When they came up with these strategies back in beginning, middle of July and early August, they were hoping we could have a special election in in November that would still be after everything, the wheels had started in motion, assuming the Board approved the borrowing and the bands. Unknown: So that process takes time you can pull out of the bands before.
Michael McCall: I don't think so. I think the Unknown: really I've done bands. We should just, I don't. If nobody cares, then it's I just Carol Martin: wanted to give the timeline that I'm working on at the moment, everybody look at their calendars to see what they think about safe,
Doug Levine: new. Late morning and afternoon.
Carol Martin: Okay, so I think that Michael, on the 24/3
because you thought the 24th worst case, I could probably do a remote. No, what's your you're good on the 23rd Anna, you put your calendar too, please 11, because even if we change robots, at least we get this structure set up. Unknown: I do love another 23rd
Carol Martin: that is my What about you? We do 11? Unknown: Never know. Lemon on the 23rd do not we will be remote. Everyone. How long do you think it'll be? Carol Martin: It should be one agenda item, agenda half an hour? Yes, yes. Agenda Item, one item. Agenda is always in the back of somehow seem to morph. But my goal would be in an hour, right? Just to set the election date. Does that work just one hour? Yes, please. It should be less 11 to 12. Okay, as low as short as possible, exactly my lie. DEP, alright, so this is just sort of, I'm giving you, like an overview of what's where we're going to let the size of now I'm going to turn this over to Michael, who's working on the communications and the preparation. We need to put together some materials to that's going to be going off to the board. And we also are going to need on the day of the 23rd the exact wording that's for the motion that we will be voting, that we will that will appear on the ballot. So anyway, you have the floor, sir, that Michael McCall: language will likely be identical to the language that Select Board Member Fay used the other week, because I had sought that from Council. I will make sure that we have that for the board in advance. Okay, but I just wanted to mention was the, as you indicated, madam chair the clerk had identified Thursday, December 11, is the best candidate for a special election. She was factoring in the Thanksgiving holidays. Some of the ARPA was coming up about a week later. So wanted to get it in and not only take those. Of these into consideration. But if we went any later, we'd be getting too close to the end of the year where we had to get our preliminary budget in. And then you also have some residents that do leave town at certain times of year. Carol Martin: We think we've I didn't hear any issues with December 11, Michael McCall: but what I want to say is she's already worked out a timeline for me so that if we did the 11th, it would be a last day to register for vote on or about December 1, we'd have to post the notice on December 4, and then she will come back to us after probably the night of November 3. The registrars are going to have a meeting at six o'clock. So I'm thinking we can put something on our agenda. We have a meeting on November 3 to talk about early voting, because the clerk's office suggested save some additional monies, they may look at having a slightly different voting hours, but to offset that, have two days of early voting and mail, mail in voting for everybody, so that anybody who's traveling could accommodate it, so we would have a couple of votes after the fact to talk about early voting, we also have To the Select Board has to vote on having police presence the days of the polls. So there's a couple things we will have to do on third, even though we would be voting voting on the 23rd to set the date and the language on the ballot, we would have to have a couple additional votes on the third Carol Martin: If so, I kind of that's all details outlined. So that's that plan. Anne's researching about the bands, right? Unknown: No, Michael said that because what we're issuing the bonds, there's no getting around. Carol Martin: That's my understanding. Okay, so let's go to the next item. I think the next item that we really need to talk about here is, I think the next item we really need to talk about here is the communication that's going out to the residents. What? What is our plan to communicate to the residents? What are we sending out? What are we doing? What's it going to say? And I really think we need to look at this
also. I think on the ballot, we also thought we were going to add in an explanation underneath one more question. So I think we really need to be looking at some of this general and what order to Unknown: to work together to simplify the complexity of what's being asked? Carol Martin: Yeah, I think we want to be really, really clear with what it is we're doing. It's not I think there's ways, like the board members, that we really need to declare into what we're trying to accomplish. I think we looked up and it is allowed to have a paragraph underneath that woman language. Is this something we are still considering?
Unknown: I think a lot of it to be helpful, maybe with a chart. If that's helpful to explain what we're doing, the charts on the second page. My opinion, a draft of this should be done by by the 20s, by our meeting later this month, 23rd Carol Martin: first meeting on the 20th is a regular meeting, and then on the 23rd will just be the after we get the presentation from the finance committee on the 20th The policy says we'll wait one week, one meeting, one meeting before we vote which would be the 25 Unknown: zero draft of what we send out, what the truth do it by letter, by the 23rd would be great, and that should be my opinion review by town council manager, Kevin, at least, maybe Chair of the Finance Committee, and some people who
say, yeah, it's a good idea. It makes sense to you. It's a good idea. But when you say the 23rd June being just getting a copy, not the 20th to 20th. 23rd 23rd we're only having a one hour meeting Doug Levine: that's trying to not have we get the draft. Well, we don't discuss, we Unknown: don't discuss it, and they're going to move it to the third. We'll discuss Doug Levine: it on the 20. Unknown: We'll discuss it on the 20. I don't think it's not a lot of time for the 23rd
Michael McCall: it's nice. I'll be hitting on this tomorrow Unknown: to make our lives easier and figured out by the 20th. Michael McCall: No, no, this is something we don't have a lot of time. On Wednesday, we're meeting with our budget committee. I imagine this will be bulk of our discussion will be how to proceed with this. So there you have a lay folks at that meeting as well. I will reach out Town Council. I've already spoken to Attorney Murray previously about the process, the language. And so now that we had the conditional vote the other week, and we know you're going to vote on the 23rd I think we can really start working. There should be something, an informational page on our website, perhaps a question and answer session that could be run. I could have some staff do it, but the end of the day, we always have to be careful, because you're not supposed to be campaigning. It's very clear in the proposition two and a half guidelines about that we cannot be perceived to be sending, sending Tom resources, campaigning one way or the other, but we can provide information, and I will look at, you know, whether there's a mailing or other information that can be provided, and what wording could go on about Unknown: you want to just devote the one hour at least so, because the only other agenda item on your list is to, like, confirm the date I mentioned. Carol Martin: That's what we think now, because, trust me, stuff we'll hop in that has to get done. Michael, when do you think we would be able to review this draft and maybe these Q A FAQs? Is that we want to look at that on the 20th or do you want to wait until it's really the 23rd Michael McCall: you and I will be having an agenda meeting next week. Will we? Yes, yes. Let's I'll give you an update at the agenda meeting. How's that? Let's see how far I move. Happy to help you. Just need some help there. But all right, so now we'll need a day or two show me. Well, it takes a day or two to get a response some from our council. They do represent other players, if they're in trial, as Select Board Member Fay would know, you know, often preoccupied, so sometimes they have to apologize and say, I'll get back to you. And you Carol Martin: know, tomorrow, I think if we're going to be doing a lot of this in November 3, we may, we're going to have to look at some things on November 3 here. All right, so the next item, everyone's all set with that. Okay, great. Thank you. So let's look at the next one, which is we started this last week, and then so we would take the we had put this together as a rules and the responsibilities of advisory committees. This actual, by the way, I do want to mention she did last time. This is actually one of our Select Board objective for this year, and that is, you know, as part of implementing the town manager act that, you know, that we look at, you know, committees in general, in town and so, like, it's really streamlining annual town meeting and reviewing roles and responsible town boards and committees. This is actually one of our one of our objectives. So there you go. And I think last week, the suggestion, which was a good one, was random, then have two separate documents. We kind of just take this, the responsibilities that we were looking at, put them as an expanded charge. So this is what we've come up with on this. I don't know if this is what you were envisioning, but I think we're getting closer here.
Unknown: So my memory of what instigated probably not the right word of this discussion was concerned that five through committees who do things without our knowledge, without our blessing, because we're the ones that have created advisory committees. So in my opinion, what my vision here was one paragraph, and the latest version is short on the last one, which is great. I'd love this to be one paragraph the end of each Advisory Committee's draft and our vote and our Board of vote, we vote that. So I love the first paragraph and second paragraph. Few type of that, that's, that's, that's, that's the it's not beside the point that I can discuss. I can discuss, discuss that with the chair later. The second line of the third paragraph is that something that's already part of Select Board policy or not necessarily. Carol Martin: You know what? I don't know that any of this is policy, select border. Otherwise it's just sort of things that have occurred. So the goal here was to take a big sweep include everything that's going on. Because there are some committees who want to do this. I think the Select Board has felt, in some instances that it would be easier for us to start with a clean slate, rather than Fay a complete draft. So. Unknown: Article, and we're going one article. Is it my understanding that the advisory committees do not sponsor one article rather than select work, right? Carol Martin: So they're giving them to us in January, you know, with a due date two weeks later, and now we're having to spend while we're trying to get ready for the Tom meeting and ramping up big budget season. What have you now, we're having to try and evaluate an article. So the goal there was to kind of put some just there was October 15. And the last draft I went to October 31 this is, you know, so I don't, you know. I have no editorial criteria, per se. I think there were a couple items I think you've hit the summary on the head. We're trying to have improve our communication. I think we have as a board not communicated fully accurately recently, all of the above. And therefore, there are things going that we feel we would like to have a different process. It's up to us to communicate that. Unknown: So the only thing well, we just tried to put it in process right? And it worked relatively well. The deadlines were tough because of situations like this that are going to come up. So just food for thought on that, but I knew where you were going with a lot of this, because a lot of this addresses issues that we've had so like people utilizing Council, but there was no real clear path on how you use Council, and then who the heck brings the warrant? One thing I would wonder and suggest, as just an open idea, is in seeing what just happened today. You know what? I don't know if this happened behind the scenes. I know that I was contacted about this playground idea, but like, if there that real one contact liaison is the one to invite, you know works with you to get them on the agenda, because they've already identified that these this could meet the objectives. I don't know how many of you guys had already been contacted by the ADU? See, I think that was probably all of us. I don't know if that's what we're trying to avoid. I'm just putting it out there that, you know, I think we were all contacted. I don't mind that, but I'm just putting it out there as we could make it a little bit more streamlined if we chose to, and have really the liaison be the only one who can really bring the projects, because they see something, opine, just put in it. I don't even know how I feel about myself. Carol Martin: So I would like to recognize Michael, because this obviously also impacts staff. It's really, I think that's, you know, us, we kind of, you know, we live with it, what? But I'm going to see this because I want, I want Mr. Fay not to give me the bad look when we run late tonight, what we call the first two paragraphs, and then we take the last sentence about the interviewing and put that in the end on that second paragraph, we did have an instance where our committee interviewed folks and said, You can't enter. We went to interview someone else, and then there was an issue why we were interviewing other candidates. Unknown: There's not a policy. It's not in line with our objective. I guess it was. Carol Martin: These are policy. This is our rules. Doug Levine: But before you go to Michael, I wanted to say that I feel very uncomfortable with the last phrase of the last sentence of the second paragraph. I think it is appropriate that these advisory boards receive permission to consult with paid professionals. I feel like it is far too great of a chilling effect to say that they can't speak with other boards, committees or commissions. I think if the intent is to not have them appear formally before another board, committee or commission. That makes sense, but for them to not speak to other volunteers, it's like patriarch
Carol Martin: but again, to Anne's point, I was grabbing issues that have occurred. So the question then becomes, how do we phrase it to resolve it? Because, you know, I have Doug Levine: to have a sentence that say that until the Select Board is essentially on board with a concept, they should not be formally presenting to another board or Unknown: committee, which makes sense. Doug Levine: But I think we do want them to have Unknown: the title question, like no name, or the AU question. Those are all things that other boards would probably answer immediately, even see if it was feasible. So I think it's people a lot of times, to just be communicate like that, openly, zip. Difference between speaking up with town volunteer speaking of border committee, that's, I think, a distinction. Go ahead, if you don't have the approval of the stock board, you want to go in front of board and start sharing ideas. I don't even necessarily blessed by our board. That's we're trying to avoid. Doug Levine: It like, I just feel like you could read this in different ways. You know,
Unknown: you can make it any way we want. Michael, would Carol Martin: you like to opine here, or kelsigus? They're downwind from this, believe me, I Michael McCall: don't want to dissuade any of the advisory boards from you know, fleshing out their ideas. What I do want to ensure, as I indicated before, is that they, they do come to this board and say, Listen, we, we've met as an advisory board. We've come up with this idea. We think it's really great. We would like your endorsement before we go to the town manager and to all of his staff.
Unknown: But do you envision that being to the liaison or to the whole board? First, the Michael McCall: advisory board could work it through their liaison, but more often and not, to date, what happens is I learn about some of these projects from my department head and say, hey, you know anything about this? Because, you know, two or three people come to me in a week and say, Hey, so and so is from such and such a committee is here this week, asking me and then asking me and asking me, and then occasionally I'll get a department head say I was asked if I could call town council on their behalf or something, because under our existing Select Board Policy, which is under review right now in the town manager act, I'm responsible for broadly in Section five, subsection F, overseeing day to day operations, including personnel, financial matters and legal matters. And so it's always been understood that nobody in this building is calling town council without checking with me. I had one of our ADU boards on the phone last Friday, just asking, you know, they call me and said, Okay, if we nine out of 10 times, I'm gonna say not a problem. But you know, we just don't watch the wild wild west with people just calling, you know, up an engineering company or an LSP attorney. I understand your point about that, that last phrase boards or commissions, but select Word member Fay is point you don't want somebody showing up. You're watching a meeting at home, recognition or something else, and there's one of your advisory committees saying, Hey, we're we've got this plan Unknown: stories, yes, I think to all of us, how do you guys feel about the idea of more? How do you Michael, how do you feel about doing the consultants and engineers will be granted by the board appropriate? And then, as a separate line, do access to boards, committees and their commissions. Commissions will be granted by the liaison, so essentially, the liaison would have an understanding of what was happening. Carol Martin: So I just do you have you ever seem to have a
never, really good idea what you think they should look like? Would you like to take a stab here? Thank you. Michael McCall: Interesting. I think Carol Martin: this is an interesting, wonderful discussion. I think this is something that we all want to accomplish, but in a nice manner. You know, like I said, we we've allowed this to created this problem by default, so it's our responsibility to solve it, and we don't want to discourage folks because they're voluntary, noi, but at the same time, we don't want to laugh. We don't want to actually, when they reach out to all these different boys simultaneously, it does bottleneck things sex kind of because it's so so we're trying to have forward progression here. How's that sound? In my Unknown: opinion, it's nice problem I have. There's so many communities that would love to have people, Michael McCall: right? You know, too Unknown: involved. Yeah, Carol Martin: right. All right, even, thank you. And so we're not going to end up doing no no. And also, I want to wait till Bill, do you think you have that ready for the next meeting? Tom, thank you, sir. I knew it. That's why I asked the question I knew the answer to. All right, I think now I think I'm going to turn this over now. Number seven, right to Michael. This is a discussion of miscellaneous on properties and possible warrant article 2026, and this is on page 20. 430, packet, yes. Michael McCall: Thank you. Thank you. Michael, thank you. Madam Chair, some towns kind of have this in the back pocket as a standard article. I get calls, as I may have told you, individually, from time to time, some people just call up and say, I have but town property, and sometimes out of hand, I can just say the town's not going to be interested. There's a Paper Street I've mentioned several times down near the chateau. It's called pond Street. We own about five paper lots. Somebody might say. You, what do you call them? What lots paper? Well, we own a lot, but there's a Paper Street. We don't we there's no real access at this point, but the town owns and somebody made a butt one in the middle of five contiguous lots and wants to buy the one. And I would just say, I'm sorry I couldn't do that. I'm not going to break up these contiguous lots, but the one in your pack is really an example. I've been approached by one of the butters asking if we would sell it. I've talked to some folks at DEP W they have no use for it on our Wayland GIS, it says it is owned by the highway department. I'd have to look to see whether the Board of Public Works would have to sign off on it. But we could make some money, not a lot of money, but you could put this up, typically, depending upon how we took a tax title, or otherwise, like if we would, we could auction this off. We need authorization, typically, from Tom. May we do it? It can be a housekeeping article, or if we have the luxury of time, we might be able to get somebody to go around and look to see if we have other parcels. And when I spoke to the highway department, as you can see, this is on a corner over near Dudley Road. It doesn't have access to the pond, it doesn't have access anything else. We'd have to do a little research. But from time to time, it's a way to know, help the neighbors. It takes something off of our roles that could be developed. I know one of the butters wanted to put an out building on it, if possible, so it would generate some level of taxes. You'd get a one time sale of real estate. So when they first approached me last year, I said, Well, I'll just put a list of potential warrant articles for this year. This probably needs a little bit more research, but I just think something, if we have some time my staff or even our engineering department, if they identify something like this, we should put them on a list and take care of them on an annual basis. Unknown: So I drove by the property yesterday, and it's small. It's point two acres. It's general Road, somewhat of a view of the water, I think, but I can see where one of the photos, like buy it, the only DEP W's already answered the question, the only I can think of is some town use procedure, water related issue, concerning, concerning the pond, right? But if they don't think it's not long time, so I'm not sure it's practical, pumping water up so they don't use short I have no problem. You know, approved an auction for that town meeting via approval. But I suspect this property is one of few in the rap report that was completed several years ago. So to your point, you know, maybe we can look at all the properties to see what do, what we think Michael McCall: this is really just to bring up as a potential idea for a warrant article. And you know, it improves the quality of life for some of those folks. If we don't need it, it's a win. Win. They can develop it. We get a little real estate. They enhance their property. We get some money offers. So, and that's a good suggestion. So I will remember Fay to go through some of those other parcels. Carol Martin: So I'm not we have great idea. Absolutely, we have identified Kelsi Canberra virus. We have identified a number of articles that we would like to bring Tom meeting, and starting on November 3, we're going to start talking a little bit about some of this, because the because not sure, like, like, a is coming up, all these wonderful ideas, and we're all saying, Yes, I'm not sure how far we'll get with this, but we'll give we'll see so and then So, having said that, sometimes Kelsi, we could add that to the list of potential articles. Thank you, all right, and no other comments or comments on that, then let's move to number eight. I'd like to take a motion please, to confirm the appointment of Brian bosser to the 212 Cochituate road Advisory Committee. And he has been appointed by the municipal authority of Housing Trust Fund board, and his term is going to expire on February 28 2026 thank you and for the discussion. Okay, all those in favor say aye, and carries four zero see how fast we got. Alright, the next one is Michael asked Doug and I to put this on to the agenda, so I will turn the floor over to him, but it's selling
Unknown: land. Well, Carol Martin: this thing is so long tonight I'm going live. Alright? So it's just. Those who are listening at home, it's identifying discuss potential additional or new revenue sources. I suspect we'll have this on here a number of times, but we just, we're just starting to roll it out, so I'm going to turn the floor over to Michael. He'll give us some thoughts. And if anyone has ideas where we're rolling I Michael McCall: don't have too many specific ones, but I did want to make the board aware, several people have asked last couple months, I've started to look in how to do a payment rule of taxes program, and I think no better time than right now, where we have several of our large, larger tax exempt organizations looking to expand.
Unknown: I've been Michael McCall: looking at how trying to find out how other towns have done it, and that was an abutting community that's looking into this. They're going to share with me their draft policy that they're working on with their Select Board. I've worked the assessor to identify some of our parcels in town that we would want to approach. It's not a lot of them, but there's a it's couple dozen, and I want to put together a letter, but what I garnered from my peers is that they think there should be a one on one conversation, generally, from someone like the town manager to each one of them, not just a, you know, form letter in the mail, but sit down. I had the opportunity to speak to one of the folks that's expanding, and I did bring it up. But I know people are concerned about taxes in this town, and when we have some of these nonprofits that want to expand, it does put a some there. I should say there is some impact on our services. If people are going to expand and have a campus and housing school, or they have an existing school, you know, if there's issues, we're going to have to run our EMS, they're going to cross our roads. So there's some wear and tear. So I am working with my peers on how to approach this. As I may have said to some of you, individually, there's kind of a you need to come up with a Goldilocks type of number where you don't ask for too little too much, because you probably get one good opportunity to have that conversation. So that's what I'm trying to get from my peers. But I want to start reaching out to some of these folks and talking to them about helping us out, especially the situation we're in. We all want to be good neighbors. We all want to be participants in the community. And there's a time where I think some of them should help out if, especially if they're expanding, they have that the resources to expand, maybe they have some resources to help contribute. So, you know, I mentioned the other about, you know, looking for some of the small parcels to sell off these. These aren't big ideas. They are novel ideas. But I think they're things that we haven't been doing, that we should just start. But I think the pilot is, it's is timely. And I know my other communities that are in a similar situation to us, where they're they're having problems with Proposition two and a half, and they're running out of levy capacity. They're starting to talk about Carol Martin: doing this type of program. I have to just, if you don't mind me hopping in first, away. Thank you. This is so near and dear to my heart for years. You know, it's the, is it the Dover amendment is maybe the right word. It was set up with noble, noble thoughts by the legislature, you know, because for religious organizations and exempting but now we're, you know, we've got, we're running schools, and we're utilizing services and, you know, so if we're not able to succeed Michael on a straight pilot program, one thought I had, by the way, is, since I'm total popped in, I'm all the way in, now, would be, do we establish a non profit fee for police and fire calls, that kind of thing. Or do we have a road maintenance fee? Because, I mean, can we do that? Look at you guys, the three of you. Can we do that legally? Can we establish a road? No, it's going to look at you. Then I'm already paying a police and fire service call, something that everybody would be charged, Unknown: being charged by everybody Carol Martin: else we are. We're being charged. Unknown: We're being an existing tax not stop with the nonprofits. Let's go anyway. Carol Martin: I'm just thinking what you know. So what's interesting on this, too, I might want to just throw in here, is that I participated in the Michael did two. In the meeting the other day at the staffing survey, a consultant came in, and one of the interesting things that's coming out is that more and more, and we heard this when Mill Creek was trying to come in, and then there's these buildings now that are becoming large and four or five stories. And remember, Mill Creek had the proposal, fire actually came in and said, I don't think we have a fire truck or a ladder truck, I guess is the right word, to reach a fourth floor. And they were looking at whatever the height was, we couldn't and so these are expenses that we're going to be incurring. And so how do we, how do we deal with those kinds of things? You know, these additional differences, and when they add so many other, whatever there's units or whatever we're we're going to have to increase staff. So I think that there was somebody. But anyway, can I ask my Doug Levine: question? Sure. So Michael, sorry to keep putting on this agenda. Item is about additional or new revenue sources, and I've been trying to get my mind around this revenue source well, and I don't quite understand it, but I've been looking at some presentations, and it's specifically around foundation funding for the schools. And I'm understanding that there was some enrollment update that we were to receive in early October, which is where we are now, and obviously we made the shift from half day to full day kindergarten, and we're paying for that. Is there a chance that we could be looking at an additional stream of several $100,000 if we hit that threshold this year? Michael McCall: If we would go back to the foundation formula community, yes, we would get additional chapter 70 monies, and that was at the time the schools approached us, almost 1824, months ago, we were still Foundation. And then during the process of going to the full day k we slid back into a minimum ad community. I'll confess I don't fully understand DEP formula. They said there's a multitude of factors. It's not just enrollment, it's the economy, it's inflation. There's a variety of things. But when our enrollment does go up, that is one of the factors that drives it. Yeah, I can talk with the DR Fleishman and Christine Patterson, the business manager over there, if they do have to, as you said, submit those enrollment numbers, usually a month into the school year. So yeah, Doug Levine: I spoke with the Chair of the School Committee as the liaison to the school committee, and she represented that from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26 we did get some additional funding to the tune of about $400,000 but I think we were going to try to determine this year, are we going from minimum aid to Foundation? And I thought that was a timeline that we were looking at within these last few days we're waiting for, for this enrollment numbers for this October 1. So I'd be curious about that, because that would obviously impact us in a big way.
Unknown: Tom Mayland on the topic of a pilot program, I would just ask that if you explore it, that there'd be a formula that would be appropriately applied to any nonprofit or other organization that you want to approach, so that it would Be fair, and whether it be religious or otherwise. And I'll just say this, you know, power programs, I think, started two or three decades ago. I know city of Boston explored. I haven't had any personal experience, but I will say this, that there are some Charena, there are some nonprofits that call themselves nonprofits, but not necessarily nonprofits. I doubt there any of the host in this community, but I just wanted to make that comment. And finally, Tom nonprofit brings so much value to a community that we appreciate that and that that fact can't be appreciated. Michael McCall: You make no mistake about it, this is not to be punitive. You know, we're there to help those folks in their time of need, and we're running into a situation where it's going to get a little bumpy for us in the next couple of years. So if they have an opportunity to help us reciprocate. That's what we're looking to do. And by all means, as I said, I talked to one of my peers in another community, and they actually developed a policy, and they're supposed to send it to me, which I would like to share with the board, that we could spell out a formula and things like that, and then we could tell. Are two nonprofit that comes in. And to your point, you know, communities don't function without them as partners. And I'm sure most, not all of us here volunteer at once, locally, or in my case, in my hometown,
we can't function without them. Unknown: So I have an idea that is a win win. In my opinion, we just educate people that the ADU, it can be an extension of their existing home. Lot of people don't understand that. So you could have a wet bar, you know, in this little extra area. And there's a lot of people who are buying renovating in in Wayland. So if you essentially just educate them and educate everybody, it may, in fact, induce people to go ahead and expand or build a little bigger, and that increases assess values, which increases taxes, and people are happy because they are building bigger homes than they originally thought they could. So when they buy a lot, or when they buy a tear down, or when they renovate, they all of a sudden can have a bigger home than they expected. Carol Martin: Oh, since Anne has brought that up, maybe I can hop in with something that we have been approached by. The Planning Board is holding a farm on the ADU on November 12. And then when I was asked if the board would consider code, it's co sponsoring the forum, and I had said, Miss, maybe they come and speak to us, since you're speaking to this meeting now, or it is thinking they are willing to do that, or that that will have the person come and speak to us briefly on the 20th about supporting this forum about the ADU. Unknown: Yes, let's educate build bigger houses, more Carol Martin: since the real estate development. Unknown: But it's, it's a win, win, because everybody will be happy because it's not more kids, you know, good. Carol Martin: I have a couple little opinion items, but what I know on the we looked at fees, and we upped a lot of fees. I'm not sure if we ever did the Board of Health fees. I know we're waiting to hit on them. Did we? So could we possibly do that those because the fees are the gift that keeps on giving. Because every year,
Unknown: Cheryl, you're like taxes and like students. Carol Martin: I don't know anyway, I'm sure we're going to revisit this again. So thank you for some ideas. All right, so let's move on to the town manager's report.
Michael McCall: Too many people for once Lane chair.
Unknown: So
Michael McCall: first things first. My office hours will be on Tuesday because of the holiday. So Tuesday, October 14, from 5:30pm 6:30pm right here in the Select Board meeting, the health department's going to have two vaccine clinics this. The first one is going to be on October 15, from three to 7pm in the large hearing room. That's a Wednesday, and that's for residents and non residents that are 60 plus years of age. The second one will be for residents and non residents that are at least 12 years of age or older, and that would be Wednesday, October 22 from 3pm to 7pm in the large hearing room as well, right here in the town offices. Just I got a couple ideas that I want to talk to you about under our recap. First, I'll just let you know that I did speak with mister Gould again, and he said that after we read some of the materials, we do not need to fill out our Phase Two comprehensive site plan for the MCP, the Massachusetts contingency plan prior to November 1 of this year, which he previously thought. You may recall, he had said he thought we would have to file a notice of delay. It turns out, we have until November 1 of 2026 so he will not be filing a notice of delay. He will just carry on. As previously indicated, there is a forum at the Fairbanks community center in Sudbury later this week, it is for Sherman's Bridge Road. I believe it starts at 630 I know that I will be in attendance with Tom holder and some of his staff and my counterpart, as well as Tom holders counterparts in Sudbury to answer questions about the proposed repairs that are coming in from MA. Vot. And the only other thing that I wanted to call to the board's attention is future meeting locations as well as Office Hours. Excuse me, building hours here at the town hall. I've had Michael Faia in our new IT director working on security updates to this building. And one of the things that I've had a couple of concerns about we we've had a couple of minor incidents where I've had to ask the Wayland police come over here. I think I would like to start closing the building at four o'clock when we close, and then only opening the building up 15 minutes or so before meetings start, to minimize the opportunity for people that come and wander in the building. Oftentimes, if we're having a particular meeting, the liaisons to those boards may just be one individual and maybe some of our female staff, and there's been a couple of times where I've told that they're not comfortable. A lot of other communities do that, where they lock the building when it closes at the end of business day and do not open it. One of the things my staff did remind me is that the council on aging community center was set up to host meetings. We have state of the art equipment over there. Some of the meeting rooms are larger, new, newer facility, and that perhaps we should take some of our meetings over there from time to time in some of the other working committee should do that as well. But this is not in any way, shape or form, to diminish anybody's access to this building. But I think when the building is closed at four o'clock, it should be closed and only open up when we're having public meetings in the evening. So to minimize anybody who may walk through here, we've been making changes slowly. You've seen in the lobby, we've started putting down roll down desks, kind of like a roll down desk in the old days, in some of these gates, not because I think that there's a real problem Wayland, but you start to see more and more. Just had a person the other day wander onto the property who raised some concerns and to make people feel safe and secure in the building, I want to take those steps, not just for staff, but our residents and guests, and that's where we're upgrading our cameras and door locks, and it's not to spy on people. It's really there to in case there's a problem with the transaction or an incident. I think the best offense is a great defense, and having these things in place. Many other town halls have them. It's just a thought I have, and I just want to share that with you before I make any major changes.
Carol Martin: Thank you. All right, do I have a motion for consent calendar? Unknown: Please approve the Consent Calendar for funding. October, 60,025 Carol Martin: Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor say, Aye. Aye. Motion passes four zero minutes of September 15 and the 24th do we want to put them in the same motion? Doug Levine: Yeah, please. I move that the Board approve the minutes from September 15, 2025, September 24 2025, is as amended, Second. Carol Martin: Thank you. Okay. Do we have any edits on September 15
Unknown: that the second page on the top there is m Kier join the meeting in person and I and Gandhi is spelled, incorrectly spelled, what? Incorrectly G, A n, h, d, I, and it's G, A N, D, H, I, oh, up in the title, not in the appointee, right in the first paragraph. And here, joined the meeting in person, and I found deep Carol Martin: learning. Thank you. Good job. Anything else on that page? Oh, under a 6w Whitney moved blah, blah, blah on the agenda to include that link, to link bill, sorry. It says instead of Brown, young, I would rather I don't like the word instead of because it's a person like Philip Penny rather than, does that sound nice
on a seven? I'm going to throw in this and say, says emotion. But we did discuss. Is after reviewing in the brief discussion, making minor edits the board, you know Bill Whitney moved blah, blah, blah,
did we have a vote on number eight discussion and review the trail, real trail on the historic signs.
ADU, we just okay that anybody else have any edits as we're going on?
Oh, on 813, the very last sentence where it says, See Martin table the vote until the next meeting when the board could consult with finance director B County and Mr. Fay, actually, I think it was Mr. Fay would be present. We do like your consultations, but we actually were looking forward to your presence, and I think that's all I have. Anybody else have anything for that? All right, all right. September 24
under the school committee, where it says the board met jointly with the school committee in its it's open session, and it says less than a quorum, we just say, and finance committee members and three members of the Finance Committee, Christine Patterson. Her name is Christine. It's K, I, R, S, T, E, E, N, yeah.
And at the end of that paragraph, where it says that school committee and finance committee members left the meeting, I don't have anything else. Does anyone else have anything? All right, any further discussion? All those in favor, aye, say, aye, abstain. Sorry on both of them, yes. So the motion carries, 4013, no. 301, same, right? Yeah, our correspondence, any anything of correspondence, right? Then let's move to select those reports or concerns. Did you want to start Unknown: in? I'm concerned people aren't building big enough houses. I see that if they can under ADU,
Carol Martin: all set. Thank you both. Unknown: Will it soon, our board will discuss a potential Task Force consuming Luke one.
Carol Martin: Yay. May I show you something Unknown: on every agenda?
Carol Martin: It's coming by. We've had a few time sensitive items, noi or anything else that, right? I have a couple I want to say that I am very thrilled to say that we are now, please, on every other week schedule again, starting next in the next meeting, except that I had it in the 21st also, we would like to add in December 15. Please look at your calendars and see if that works. Richard, Richard Charena had reached out to me, and we are looking for a volunteer to be the speaker to do the opening remarks for the Veterans Day. I know Tom has done it. I think Bill Jailyn, that's veteran stays
Michael McCall: somebody Tuesday. Carol Martin: Thank you. We have a volunteer if you Unknown: don't, if you want to do it. Great.
Carol Martin: Richard ConCom back to Michael McCall: it's usually 1111. Try and kick it off. Unknown: It's a nice ceremony. It really is. Yeah, usually the glow of the times and the poster there too. Madam Chair. Going back to scheduling. I already have number 15 on my calendar for a meeting. Carol Martin: That's good to hear, guess what? All. Right, I forgot to mention last week that when we finalize the financial policies, that actually is part of our objective. Number five for this year was to finalize financial policies in regards to select board manuals. So that was a big one. Done. Thank you, Michael and Kelsi and staff and everyone. And was terrific job. Big job. On the 20th we're going to be, obviously, meeting with the finance committee. They're going to give us a recommendation regarding the debt exclusion. We are going to have the next meeting. Which is our continuation of the equity audit. That's that discussion. Sure we have a hearing, because they have those all the time as well, and we will revisit this electric vehicle like duty push policy, among other things. I just like to give you a little thumbs up. Having said all that I will take a motion to adjourn at 8:45am, Doug Levine: I on time? So moved. Second, Unknown: second, another.
No, ditto everybody. What everybody said, The only thing that I would add is I would expand on what Tom just touched on that I did come, did go. Towards the end too, and the restaurants were packed. So just you know, when we're looking at this from approvals in the future on these types of project projects, we should bear in mind that there can be a good economic opportunity for the small businesses in the area. So it's not just about bringing everybody together, though that's amazing. It's also continuing the party. Carol Martin: Thank you. Alrighty. Thank Is there any public comments this evening? Unknown: We don't see any in the room. Do I have one on the Thank
you. Good evening, everyone. Richard Turner: Richard Turner call speaking, I echo what Doug said. I was up there myself at the festival, and myself and Paul Rufo marched in the parade, and then we Chris Brad keys asked us to stand up next to the stage. Why the national Lane Tom was being sung. The whole thing was well done. Well put together. I had no problem finding a parking space. Got up there earlier, like I got up there quite early, 10 o'clock in the morning. So everyone pulled together, pulled off. A great time. The other comment I have is we need to start thinking about Veterans Day ceremony on November 11, and I need somebody from this board to make a few opening remarks at the ceremony. Thank you, and that's all I have. Carol Martin: So Richard, I have this on my list tonight to talk so your timing is good. Thank you. Is there anybody else with public comment?
Okay, alrighty. Then, so now we're going to move to we're going to invite Michael Faia syllabus director and Olivia Blaney, our sustainability coordinator, we want to come up here. What they would like to do is this, is we're revisiting this. You could see this electric vehicle first policy last year, we asked for some revisions. I know Bill, as the liaison, worked on this. I know Doug has spent some time working on this. This should be in the packet. Yes, okay, okay, it's in our packet. Unknown: Let's see carving my reach. Do you want me to Michael or Carol Martin: Thank you. So this is Unknown: going to be Carol Martin: so very normal. So I believe also, let me just finish my copy
Unknown: of this policy my Carol Martin: slides, or do I have a second? Just hang on. Just one second. Please set up. What page Am I on this? It's right here. Those who are watching page five of the packet is the copy of the draft policy that we're going to be reviewing, and that was just handed out, so just not in addition to the packet. So the policy has been worked on, and I believe also that Lydia has some sides that she would like to show and speak to us first, afterwards, we will have some questions so Unknown: we able to get that slide,
dude and screen share? I can Dave can join. Sorry about that. I have Carol Martin: a hard time hearing vacuum with a fan, so I
Carole Plumb: um, is the link for this luck board meeting On the website? Unknown: Yeah, the home page.
You can
do new people, and there's nothing else. Thank you
so much. Yeah, to get that. Thank you. Bye.
Can you permit her to share? If
you can't share, Carole Plumb: okay, I'm able to I think, thank you perfect. Thank you. Tom Great. Thank you everyone, right? Carol Martin: Laura's yours, go ahead. Okay, so wait a second. Just one more thing I had. I'm not sure that you know everybody. So when I have the board introduce themselves, I don't still know Michael McCall: Michael. So Doug Levine: I am Doug Levine, Unknown: Darryl Martin and friends, and Carol Martin: my bill Whitney is is not tenants tonight, by the way. Okay, so, and he is your liaison, which I think you've already met him or spoken with him. So Olivia has inherited this project, literally. Abby left about two weeks ago, and so now she has very graciously agreed to come and present to us tonight so and she's put together these slides. As I said, yep. So my Carole Plumb: name is Olivia Blaney. I'm the Sustainability Coordinator for Wayland. I'm filling some pretty big shoes with Abby shoot accepting a different position, but I'm here to re present our EV first light duty vehicle policy to you all, and just to give you some context to what this policy would do for the town, and just a little background you might remember from when she last presented. So the EV first policy would allow Wayland to become a mass do we are certified climate leader and upon climate leader status, Wayland would be eligible for $150,000 in technical assistance and $1 million in capital funding for DEP carbonization and renewable energy projects. So before we dive in, super quick, thank you to the board for squeezing me. And I know you guys have a very busy schedule. This application is due in December, so I need a little time just to get everything together before I submit it. So I appreciate your time. So just to give you a little background on what a climate leader means, currently, the mass Doer has two classification tiers for towns and cities eligible for various funding opportunities. The less intense lower tier is a green community, and the higher, more intense tier would be climate leader status. Currently, Wayland is one of 298 out of 351 Massachusetts cities and towns classified as a green community. And since 2011 Wayland received $818,481 in total, and $686,706 in competitive grants from being a green community. So as of May 2025 there are only 19 mass communities to date currently certified as climate leader communities. So we have an opportunity to be one of the first cutting edge and leading communities by getting this climate leader certification. So to get certified as a climate leader with mass doer, there's six requirements. Wayland's currently met five of those six. The last is getting our EV first light duty vehicle policy passed by our Select Board. So this designation would recognize us taking forward thinking steps to reduce greenhouse gasses and send a strong message to our residents, business owners, neighboring towns, that Wayland is serious about leading on climate action in a practical and measurable way. So now I'll just go through like some background on what the EV first light duty vehicle policy would actually mean in practice. So our objectives for fleet electrification, we're going to focus solely on electrification of light duty vehicles. That's vehicles 8500 pounds and lighter. We're going to match vehicle replacements to operational needs. So we're going to look at specifically what is that department using their vehicle for? And what do we need that vehicle to perform? So the department can do what they need to do, optimize investment in local infrastructure and prepare for state regulations that would look like installing EV pumps at sites where electric vehicles are. And this would allow us to secure Climate Leaders funding, which we wouldn't have access to if we weren't classified as a climate leader. So what does EV first mean? Just to debunk the misconception that it means fully electric for every vehicle that the town's purchasing when it comes time to replace a vehicle, if a zero emission vehicle is available that can meet our operational needs, then the town would prioritize an EV purchase. But again, it doesn't necessarily mean we're only doing electric vehicles. So to go through the process of purchasing a new car, if we were to become Climate Leaders and pass. With the electric vehicle light duty first policy. We would go through these steps. We would consider the operational needs, functions such as daily range, towing capacity customizations. We would look at available EVs, what's available on the market right now when we're looking and we would look at charging and maintenance needs. Do we have adequate EV pumps available, and are we able to maintain those electric vehicles that we would, in theory, be buying prior and then when we're making our purchases and it's time to buy a new car in our town's fleet for a light duty purchase, we would start by looking at fully electric vehicles as our first option. If that doesn't make sense for that department, then we would look into plug in hybrids. If that doesn't make sense, we go down to battery and internal combustion hybrids. And then finally, we would look into our most, most efficient internal combustion engine vehicle, which is your typical gas powered car. So like I said before, we're not just getting EVs, it's more just we're going to really go through this list do our very best to be as efficient as possible. And if it's not going to work for the department's needs, then we're going to continue down the line until it makes sense for the town. So just to give you a little summary of what I said before, so our decisions are going to be made as we do now, accounting vehicles, age, mileage and condition. This does not mean if this was passed tomorrow, we're going out and only buying EVs. We're going to wait until it's time for the vehicle to be replaced. Like normal. This is only light duty vehicles. It's not emergency response vehicles, just light duty under 8500 pounds. And before an EV is purchased, we're making sure our operational needs are going to be met, accounting for availability of EVs at that time, charging hardware available and maintenance needs, as I mentioned before. And this is our last piece, the sixth piece of our puzzle before becoming a climate leader with mass d OER. And here is a list of our light duty vehicles in the fleet right now, the Ford ma key, and then the two Nissan LEAFs are already full EVs that we have, and that's in the packet too, if you want to look at that. And now, if anyone has any questions, Carol Martin: I had some questions because on the policies and how to structure the agenda item. So I reached out to Lillian. Both Michael and Lillian met with me last week, and I asked them to give us a sense of what we're talking you know, dollars wise and have you so this is the list of our current vehicles that as they would come up, we would consider them. This is the light duty group that we're talking about. I'm counting 14 vehicles, and I'm counting two already in the that are already three, no see, bad at math. So there are technically 11 vehicles over the next so many years that would be as they come up around they would, we would want to apply this policy, you know, to it so, and I appreciate you putting in that list. It gives us some some scope for it, because if it's a large capital request, we would probably have to consider sending it to the capital planning. All right, open up for questions. Who would like to start please Unknown: on that point, Madam Chair, either ADU, you have a sense of to the capital cost to establish the infrastructure to handle a full fleet electrical cars. If the town gets there at some point,
we'd have to split it up different buildings, as you can now Doug out there. It's it's not a small number. I don't disagree with you. Some of the buildings can handle much more than they already have. We have a good setup at the CLA the schools have plenty of power that infrastructure. We can support quite a few there, high school, middle school, they have some very good opportunities, especially with the solar so a monetary number, we can put that together. But so does that make sense to spread this out over a period of time? I think, with the list of the cars and the years that they become available, it's kind of it's naturally flow that Legere now the cars that are fully electric now you have any difficulties during the coldest, coldest days and getting started running. No, we haven't well last year. We didn't notice. My first year here, and we didn't have any troubles. None of us. We broke down. I know Nate drives his marquee every day to and from So, okay, another very reliable, surprising. That's all I have. Thank you, right? Carol Martin: So May I just follow up? I think what Tom's question was, how many vehicles would be eligible for replacement, say, Unknown: this year? My question would went to infrastructure, infrastructure, okay, otherwise, charging stations, right? How many will I go the cost? You answer that, Michael McCall: if I may. I'm sure there are grants opportunities still to get additional EV chargers out there, correct? Unknown: Yeah, yeah. And Carole Plumb: becoming a climate leader would make us eligible for those grants too. Carol Martin: And Doug, did you want to have a question? Unknown: So, um, but the grant, I looked up the grant, and the grants that I saw was up to 150,000 to hire those infrastructure developers and engineering designs and then million for the DEP carbonization seller grants. But those have already gone in in August, the first for 2025 right? So we would be looking at next year, Carole Plumb: yes, because we would the applications do in December, so we wouldn't get that classification until after we apply, yeah, Unknown: if this is on the chopping block, right from the Fed, just wondering, just so that, like, if we, unfortunately, if, like, you know, we just want, yeah, well, it could, it could be, it Could be that, I don't know sure what they're gonna cut next, but to have this in place, if things come back, it's, it's, we're already there. So and then the requirements there was, you had mentioned that we had all the requirements, except for one, which one was the one that we'd needed, the EV first, we have to pass that. Like just do that, are you concerned about the we have to use it first. You know, like, what are the excuses for getting out of like, the policy itself essentially said, zero, miss it. Emission vehicle must be purchased only, and the only outside that we saw, or that I read up on was essentially, like, really rare situations, like, you know, all of a sudden you have a vehicle that you're trying to, like a school bus or something, and they don't, they don't have them. That's not considered like duty, I think light duty Carol Martin: vehicles only. So this bus policy, since we saw, excuse me, since we saw it last has been clarified, because it's just the light duty vehicles this list that's here, all the vehicles that we have in town, Miss 14 that would be eligible for when we replaced them, not eligible. Doug Levine: We'd happy. I don't read that in the policy. This is first for compliance. It's like what is most financially feasible, so it doesn't seem like you have to go electric, is what they're explaining. If you look at this guideline page that they put out a couple years ago, it seems like there's a little flexibility here. Unknown: Municipality must purchase only zero emission vehicles for municipal use whenever such vehicles are commercially available and practical, and the only ones that I've read on that were not that did not fall under that scenario was when they were back ordered for them, or when they were very specific responses that vehicles that are in Play. Here are the light, light, light duty vehicles, as opposed to heavy vehicles, maybe vans or dump trucks or busses, first responding like, no, but I know, but it's saying purchase only. I don't think there's as much room as it might be to go down. You're talking about the actual policy itself, yeah, okay, well, that's what I read on the policy, maybe Carol Martin: in policy in the second here, just to that too, when it Unknown: come right back, well, it's just my notes so I can get the actual policy. Doug Levine: It says, well, exempt vehicles are not required at this time to meet the zero emission requirements. Exempt vehicle purchase should prioritize the most fuel efficient mile available and consider fuel reduction and emissions reduction technology such as diesel particle filters, etc. That's why, to me, it seems like there's Unknown: some wiggle room. I know I thought so too, until I looked it up. But I'm reading, maybe you guys have see a different thing in practice. Carole Plumb: Um, are you looking at ours online or someone else's? Because this is, like, specific to Wayland online looking okay, so they need these draft policy first. While we're at this, I'm Unknown: just looking at what it requires. And you're looking at the do er web page, yeah, in order to qualify for a climate industry looking at this one? Carol Martin: Yeah. Well, is anybody on this one like, Ma,
Unknown: this is what I research. Yeah. Doug Levine: What were you just reading? What? Where? Where it's like, there's no wiggle room. Unknown: It was within practice. So like, when I looked up, you know what? What is the real requirements to because they're kind of big, yeah? And it was like, this is, Doug Levine: like the first section is all about compliance, right? Yeah. And then I guess my question for Olivia is toward the end of the session. Action on compliance. It's specifically talking about exempt vehicles, and that's where there seems like there's wiggle room, where you don't have to go. EV only Do you know what it means when they're talking about exempt vehicles, Carole Plumb: that would look like, for example, we have, I'll go to our list here. Unknown: Is it Carol Martin: exempt light duty vehicles? You're talking about exempt vehicles in general, like snow Carole Plumb: plows and snow the only vehicles we're touching are light duty vehicles. So it's not plows, trucks, ambulances, none of that. If it's over 8500 pounds or an emergency response vehicle, it doesn't qualify for what this policy is talking about. We do have, for example, if you can look up on the list, the Ford transits. Those are like sprinter looking trucks that some of our maintenance guys use for an example. If that couldn't pull a certain didn't have the power we needed as an EV, we wouldn't have to purchase an EV. We would go through our flow. Unknown: She's talking exactly what I mentioned. It if it's not, if it's what you're looking for, cannot be found, then it gets ADU, and they can and you can ask for a very specific detail of what the child replace so, so like what she's saying, like the wind, the weight itself could vary. And then suppose you have a weight of 3800 you don't have to replace it, just because you found one for 3600 Doug Levine: but are you saying that you have to replace it
Carole Plumb: with an EV? We would start with the EV
Doug Levine: that's our goal, and you're saying it could be cost prohibitive to go the EV, that's your point, saying you have no wiggle room. And if you can buy an EV, you have to get the EV. Well, they think 17%
Unknown: but we're replacing, hopefully eventually we will be replacing all these because that's our goal, was to get as many electric vehicles possible, so we have three. Those three would be replaced with three more. Doug Levine: But yeah, forget replacing EVs. Talk about the gas ones when you when you have when it's time to replace a gas one, right? I hear Ian saying, You have no choice. You have to replace it with an EV. Is there wiggle room to go down that list? How do you start going down that list? Unknown: So it's the need. So if we have a small van and it needs to pull 2500 pounds, and the electric vehicle won't do that, we'll have to go to the next step, which could be a hybrid, which we have done, that's some of, most of our bands are hybrid. So that's how we see this happening. We would start electric first. If that doesn't work, then we would, we would have to move down the list to the next best thing, until we hit where it would work for everybody, by the 12 to 17% increase in cost. But then we do get these little benefits, tax benefits, but we're a town, so it doesn't really work the same, right? And then exactly what you just said, which is, but if the goal is to go there, that way, then you kind of, you have to kind of do it. And then you're in a perpetual though, because then the next time you replace you might Carol Martin: so I didn't pick you up on yet. I'll hop in here one second, so that I originally had issues when the policy came the first round, because it said all vehicles maybe first then I was speaking to Livia last week. She said, Oh, this is just light duty, which is what prompted me to then have this conversation with them and to just narrow it to these vehicles. The policy draft that we have still has a couple places where it says all vehicles. It needs to say, you know, that needs to be substituted purchase of light duty, municipal vehicles, that kind of thing. And I think that would be clearer. And then there's a sentence down here under exemptions that says these vehicles are exempted, and then Bev replace for mandatory bed replacement, but should explore sustainable options for feast. This is not part of this policy. These larger vehicles are not part of this policy. So that should explain that can apply to smaller vehicles as well. Carol, they're saying on the exemptions medium and heavy duty the first bullet, okay, yeah, so there's a couple things here that kind of still need to be worked out in the draft. I think that'll make it clearer. Unknown: The policy permits department heads to get an exemption from the town manager when appropriate, right? Yes, I think this policy was already approved by these, by the doer. It was,
Carol Martin: I think that we want to be to Anne's point where we want to. Many wants to speak, if I recognize you, after I finish my sentence, I think we also need to be mindful of what we are factually agreeing to, because I agree, once we agree with these are going to be in that the electric vehicle first policy, this is where these vehicles are going to be going, and they are. There was, I had this question. There was a big article in the globe that they have these vehicles are more expensive, which is why I wanted to know how many were coming up per year, because otherwise we might have to go back to the Capital Group and also, and I don't know if it affects us, but the average person is finding their insurance is much higher to ensure these cars. So you sure this was a person? Michael Faia wanted to speak much and the Unknown: action mobilization plan leave this one
by approved. In other words, when the OER was approached, they said, the policy is it approved?
Carole Plumb: I also don't know the answer. I'm kind of stepping in suddenly, but I can email you guys and let you know once I figure that out. Unknown: For flexible, Carole Plumb: yeah, yeah, the camp plan that you're talking about, the Select Board approved that. That's a town recognized plan, and one of the things the camp plan does call for is going fully electric in the fleet. This is definitely more focused than that. That's a very broad goal, but the town of Wayland is mimicking the state's carbon neutrality goals. So by 2050 they want to be Wayland wants to be carbon neutral. So this would get us eventually it's going to have to give either we're going to do it or, you know, I don't know,
Carol Martin: on the camp plan, I'm going to say this the 90th time, when we approve that. I also asked to have the 23 items put into timelines, or when they would be and the, you know, protected, projected cost. This is about the third, third year I've been asking this. I might get it yet. So, Michael, I'm sorry you wanted to speak. I'm sorry. Michael McCall: No, I all I wanted to add is I do think that we need to move forward with this type of policy for the reasons Blaney indicated, but I don't think it's consistent with what Governor Baker signed on to, the decarbonization plan and our own camp and being good stewards of the community. You know, they do cost a little bit more some of these vehicles, though, then you're not paying for the gasoline usage. There are trade offs, and there is a suggested timeline on that. Climate Leaders guidance, I think, starting this year for light vehicles, they're recommending try and have 5% of your fleet, and it increases year over year as we move to 2035 and ultimately 2050 so I do agree, Madam Chair, there are a couple of places, as you indicated, in the bank under additional considerations, were talked about all vehicles and maybe a couple things for clarity. But I think it's something that could be cleaned up and endorsed by this board. We're already using these. I see them every day. The last communities I worked in, we got as many charges as we could. We encouraged our community members to use them. That's also part of the camp. So putting the charging stations out not only benefits our employees, but the community as a whole. Carol Martin: What I want to suggest is, I think this, we need a few edits. Maybe also Mr. Whitney is the liaison for the ECC, and I think it would be appropriate, especially where we worked on this, that we wait to take a vote in our next meeting when it comes. Do you think we could make a couple edits here and then have a revised Would that be okay? Do you want to add anything? No, everybody, everybody, come on down before or not. Unknown: It'd be great to know what the dealer really did approve this, because that's a big deal, because it means that we whatever language we have in here, if it's more broad, then you know their guide, their guidance packet. We have a good argument. I would Carol Martin: be disappointed this one to the Dory before it came to us, because I think we should also get to Unknown: speak. No, I'm not sure I agree with that, rather than come to us and say, hey, it's packaged. Carol Martin: Yeah, but I think we do need we've got some mixing match May I will sort it out. I'm happy to help you. If you want some help on that for the 20, Carole Plumb: yeah, we'll definitely reach out, because that's, I hear you. That's a good point. And we'll, we'll let you guys know about the status of that. Um, is there any other section that really was blaring to anyone besides additional policy considerations, reach out to you. Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Doug Levine: I just had one, final question. When I was reading through the guidance, and I can't remember if you mentioned this or not, or I didn't hear you, the schools have to sign off on their fleet as well. Is that separate policy, or that will be part of this? Carole Plumb: The schools, like some of them, have smaller like Ford Focuses or some. Like that, they would be considered. But other vehicles, like busses. There is a couple vehicles here, food service that those are, like the Ford transits, like I was talking about, they're in the school's fleet, but nothing larger, like a bus isn't right into this Doug Levine: category, like you sent on page 11. There's no there are no school service. School? Carole Plumb: Yeah, that's how this list is taken from Maya. So that's how they list the names
Carol Martin: on our side, versus Unknown: the food service vehicle part of the town Carol Martin: budget. First is school with it. I think they think it's in the school, but I think one point here is that we probably need to run this by this, although I think Dr fleischen has seen, yeah, that's right, he's seen him. Okay, so, like I'm saying, why don't we thank everybody for their time night, and we'll make a few edits. We'll bring it back at the next meeting. I'll put it on my list here. How does that sound perfect? Thank you very much. Thank you to you Unknown: done. What am I doing here?
Carol Martin: Okay, so our next agenda,
Unknown: Thank you, Jen, thank you. Nice Carol Martin: to meet you all. Yes, you did an admirable job saying how this person inherited this life two weeks. Thank you so agenda, Item number four is to discuss with the Economic Development Committee members to discuss, review, improving communication, potential projects, including, but not limited to the town center communities. We are inviting Dave bilari and Katie Harris of the E to join us before you that David Vallari: she's helping us out. So sorry. You talked about doing the thumb drive. You know, Carol Martin: very funny. Before we do that, I want to make sure that I took the attendance of the room, because it's been a rather busy night tonight, or in the room with me, I have mister Fay, Mister lane, Miss friends, Lee and myself. Mister Whitney is not going to join us. Is not joining us tonight. And we're also joined town manager Michael McCall and our in town manager Kelsi power. So I was spirlett, sorry anyway, who there's plenty of room for at the table, if she would like to join us. Alright, so now we are on the item number four. This is on what page in the packet 16? Okay, so first of all, I want to thank David and Katie for coming, and I want to thank David for reaching out to me back, I think, in August, as a new member. He wanted to know, you know, what was the process, you know, for putting together proposals and coming before the Select Board, so we would have good communication. And you'll notice part of the agenda item tonight says that, you know, one of the things we're trying to do is improve our communication with our advisory committees. And David was actually giving me the inspiration of how to start doing that after we talked a couple times. I you know, we need to be clearer, and we hopefully are. That's a future agenda item for tonight, and I have reached out to your chair to come and join us on November 3, maybe as a committee, or even just yourself as we roll out how we're going to hopefully improve our communication. So thank you, sir. So you know everybody. Are you okay to know everybody? Okay, great. The floor is yours. Unknown: Are you able to pull up the PowerPoint press? Yeah, we'll see if
David Vallari: we can get ourselves back on track. Time wise for you, because I think you wanted us done 720 so we'll do our best to pull this one. Don't worry a little bit. We'll be fast later. Okay, so thanks again for being here. Dave Valerie, Katie Harris, obviously. So members of the EDC, we passed this out September the fourth for review and comment and got some feedback. And then today is really about trying to continue that discussion. And we want to be very clear with this. This is a proposal idea. It is not, you know, trying to come out with final, final results and say this is what we should do in any way. It's just a discussion point, and that's what we were going for. We're talking about, really, three parcels of land here. We did put the gist labels in for clarity there, if any, if there's any concerns, open them up. Divide into, really two sections, though there's a small rectangular section to the left hand side, really, in front of the COA, and then the larger one with the paths carved through it in front of the businesses there. Please go ahead. Carol Martin: I know someone knows how to do. Is it possible to make that a full screen?
So no, thank you.
David Vallari: If you sorry, control minus you might be able to bounce the hair or pinch Unknown: me. Nobody else, nobody Carol Martin: else nobody else can see it okay, Unknown: we're still sharing. We're still sharing. Carol Martin: I think so. Does everybody think that's better? David Vallari: We'll talk through it either way. Right? So imaginations are key from a conceptual layout, or maybe if we just go one slide up. I apologize. I want to make the request here very clear. As we're coming into this, right, all we're looking to do is say, can we move forward and have additional discussions here? We know there's some sticking points with regards to the Raytheon previous site activity and the Aul in place. And so really it's, can we work through you guys, with the town manager's office and the health health board to screen those concerns, really, and say, Do we have any limitations to doing a playground? Do we have any limitations to revamping the site in any way? Since we did construction in 2015, timeframe, it's largely been empty. I think we all know that, like Wayland Fest was a wonderful, you know, energizing community base. There, you saw how well we can use this property or this area if we concentrate and focus as a town. And so what we sat together as the EDC and decided was maybe we can use the template that other towns are using already. And you look at what we're doing in this, this very high level proposal, and nothing's groundbreaking in any way. It's you look at any playgrounds or parks that are at the ends of bike paths or at the starts of them, the great gathering points, there's town plazas or shopping plazas that have done the same template, really with a lot of success, right? So it's just, it's not new in any way, but we as Wayland have some additional concerns that we'd want to address first, which is, can we put a splash pad on this site with the previous activity? And you know, is that just a total no go, because if it is, let's not spend town resources talking about it. So what we'll do is we'll do a very high level, top down view of what we think could work from a proposal standpoint. And then I'm going to pass it to Katie. She'll go through some examples of like, pretty parks that represent that. And then we'll hit some numbers at the end. Michael McCall: So if we could jump to slide two, please,
David Vallari: conceptual layout, really starting from left to right. Gene Millburn, for example, is a huge proponent of this one. And with the community center coming in, they actually put in a water line right at the edge of that parking lot as it quarters the green space. So we have the ability and the infrastructure kind of set up in order to put some pollinator gardens in, some nice plantings, you know, perhaps a pathway in the middle with some benches to read on. And then as we kind of go towards the main site, I think we can all agree, like the way the paths were drawn up is very intricate, and it's nice, so you want to work around that. Let's not fix what's what's not broken, right? We kind of build in into the empty space in the middle. And perhaps we can do on the hillscape, a little amphitheater seating that you can use for the summer concert series, school events, plays, music events, and then you have pavilion canopy picnic tables that give you a little reprieve, because it's a hot site in the sun, place to eat and gather. And then in the dashed line, there could be, you know, around that will be a play game, potentially. So I'll pass it to Katie, and she'll kind of go through a few other Unknown: Yeah, you can go down, yeah. So just to re reiterate what David said, this is just an idea, just spitballing here with some ideas that we've come up with based on the existing space that's already there, some amphitheater seating, which could be nice for rec, rec department to use for something like what happened this past weekend, music, school plays, award ceremonies, maybe for sports. Award ceremonies for sports. We think that we heard that the town has a stage, so maybe that stage is set up for the summer, or maybe it's set up for a concert series, something like that. And I think what's really nice about this too, is that there's a pavilion. So if you go to the town center space now, there is near fairies, there is a somewhat shaded area. But what's nice about this is that the pavilion provides shade for people to eat on a week like this. Where it's really beautiful and sunny, so you can get some shade, have a sandwich to meet people for a picnic shelter from the sun. And I also think it provides people, you know, maybe you can get a pizza from Jailyn and then walk over and then sit under the pavilion. And also provide something for the employees that work in town center to take advantage of so again, it's nothing grand. It's nothing super big, but it's just kind of nice for the space itself and taking advantage of some of the natural features that are already there. Carol Martin: You can go down to the next slide. Unknown: Again, just ideas. As far as the playground, we like the idea. Have to stick to it of something feeling kind of natural. So the stepping stones to the upper right slide, slide, the kids can use those to walk on, but it kind of creates this nice natural barrier. We've gotten some quotes from the same company. These are the park in West and I don't know if you guys have ever been there, but it's just like a very visually nice park. It doesn't feel like it's too loud. It's not like crazy colors, and it just fits into the environment really nicely. Yeah, I um, yeah, it fits into the landscape. This is beaver Brook, yeah. So this is a little bit more of a step up, I guess you would say, because of the water features. And with this playground, and with other playgrounds, like the previous slide, there tend to be a couple areas of for different ages. So you might have one area where kids from, say, ages two to five to play, and then there's a nearby area for kids of, you know, from five to 10 years old. The other thing about these playgrounds, and the the plan that we have, in general, is that it's accessible to all ages, so it's right near the community center. So this doesn't necessarily have to be a space that's just intended for kids. It's intergenerational, accessible to everybody, all
David Vallari: right, so we'll jump into a little bit of math here, and this was a request that we had coming in. So if anyone isn't in love with the math, feel free to, you know, tell us so, and we'll revise it. I think it's a big discussion point of really, as the EDC, what does this mean, and why are you bringing it to the Select Board here? So what we've done is we've broken it up into three categories. Really have commercial appraisal values, residential appraisal values, and then meals tax supplement from commercial appraisal that's like the most clear direct benefit that we would see. Generally. Our town is 100 and $60 million worth of commercial value, and one and a half percent of our 4% commercial base is the town center plaza. So one and a half or 4% three eights. Three eights of 160 is 60 million. There's a typo on that slide. It says 50. It should be 60 for the first number 60, and then 15 million, roughly, from the gist database, puts you the rest of the route, 24 or like CVS down. So what you want to look at with a project like this is what's the potential uplift that we see as a community? You get increased foot traffic, better dwell time, all that, and generally, national parks associations put that number somewhere between eight and 20% when you have such a direct Plaza like this. I said that's just way too aggressive. Let's you know, meter that down. Everyone in Wayland has nice backyards. They're already kind of enjoying it. And so how much you know, do we need to play that number up? And so we'll go conservatively with 3% so 75,000,003% into our tax rate, you see a potential uplift here of those businesses in their appraised value of $35,000 um, the same math, really on the residential side. But really what we were focusing on is, on the left, you see more or less a workable map of what's walkable in Wayland, based on sidewalks we have and infrastructure we have. We know that there's like route 20 beautification efforts and planning boards working a lot of that. So that makes that era even easier to access in the future. But in there, you have about 250 homes, and assuming an appraisal value of about a million, you do the same math out and you're around $40,000 of appraisal value. The numbers there, instead of using a 3% number, residential we found tends to be more near two to 5% and so we said, let's just even go lower than that. Let's go 1% and that averages out. When you think about it, you've got those 40 town homes or 80 town homes between the two town center sites, they're going to see the most uplift. There's no question about that. So maybe they're seeing more like four or 5% true valuation. And everyone else in that larger circle gets half a percent or so and it levels. So those are the more significant numbers. I think meals tax always comes up like, how much can that provide for us? And just because of the raw value that we as a town have on Meals tax, it's only point seven 5% we did about 300,000 last year. You do that backwards, you get 40 million to how much are we really going to say this? This project does. It's insubstantial, insignificant to scale, but maybe it pays for mowing, you know, or something of the sorts,
from a cost and funding standpoint. So we set this up, really as a summary cost and funding is the first and foremost question. We know we have serious challenges as a town right now on budget. We're not trying to make it worse. We promise, um, the the point Katie was making, I think, is the right one, is that nothing here needs to be grand or, you know, the playground mecca of the area, for Wayland to have a benefit here, we just need something that provides people the excuse to come together, spend a little time, get a coffee, get a bagel, you know, go with your kids and shop a little bit and divide and conquer, And so you have low costs that we could estimate based on, you know, what's available online, how much it takes to do a pavilion and picnic tables, how much it takes to do amphitheater seating, which is really just railroad ties cut into the hill. It's not too fancy. And then you get into the more complicated costs of the playground and the splash pad, and that's where things start to get a little bit more fuzzy. And we would need more help from the departments here to give more accurate estimates. I know the playground behind us here in the town building. I think we estimated $400,000 for that one, and I believe some of it comes from the complexities of how close it is to the water. But you look at this, and what we did is, she mentioned, is, reached out to comp and playgrounds and said, Hey, how much does this cost to install? And we took a reasonable approximation, you put in about a capacity for a 60 person system without having to excavate and do a lot of work. And it's about $100,000 and splash pads, that cost is really variable. You have two types of splash pad systems, recirculating and non recirculating, most likely, with the Raytheon constraints that we have on that site from the past, you'd be in recirculating territory, which means water filtration systems, chlorination systems in place such that the water is used as a closed loop and gets fed back in. You're not letting that seep through groundwater, potentially contaminating anything. Funding is really like the biggest topic here, probably, but our goal would be to minimize the town's financial contribution, and so much of this can be done in a phased manner. I mean, we're talking about projects that are all kind of separate in a way you can structure them as such financially, if that fits the bill, CPA funding would potentially be an avenue. And those applications do mid November, and then local business outreach. I think we've all talked about this one and other people have said it that now is a great time to really engage with the new town owners and say, you know, you are the New Town Center Plaza owner. This has a huge benefit to you, but also us. Would you like to partner on this? And I think that's where the town manager's office and select board would be more the appropriate personnel to have that discussion than us. Unknown: I already have great good to hear, David Vallari: and then we'll also hit this point lanes and park that we showed in Weston. When they did that in 2017 they raised, as a community, $116,500 directly, just for that. So it is very possible to engage a community like this. For projects such as this, we'll skip the case studies in interest of time. We have the summaries on the top left the finances. There are some indirect or non quantified financial points that we didn't or economic points that we didn't hit on. Really, you have some commercial vacancies, and this would be a great opportunity for someone to say, put in an ice cream shop that supplements what chocolate therapy is already doing. And, you know, fill in that extra space. And once you get that, you've got more momentum in that town center, more reason for people to hang around and spend time there. So I think we'll stop talking there and hear, hear your guys thoughts and opinions, Unknown: and thanks for the time. Yeah, Carol Martin: thank you for coming and talking to us, and thank you for including an economic benefit. I know the last time that ADU see came before us, that was one thing. Said, you know, when you come forward proposals, we'd like to see the economic benefit to the town, and you've done that. So we appreciate that. Questions from the board, sir, comments and Unknown: questions. First of all, I want to compliment your committee on the what information you provide in the town website. It is very informative for people to go to that website and see what's going on with different businesses in town. I think it's good to keep you up to speed now to town manager's comment about meeting with the current, soon to be new owner. Seems to me that meeting with you folks and town manager and then would be helpful. I suspect that this is not their first rodeo, and they have, they have contacts the professionals who could look at your presentation and look at that town green. So you know what. This would work. This wouldn't work in addition and maybe things that they want to accomplish that they're going to pay for, that that's one suggestion I Michael McCall: got in so like board member Fay, I think they are open to doing something, because we talked about some of the things that didn't happen while Zurich was here, including using some of that shared streets grant money. They were excited to hear about that they want to do some of these things. And one of the things they talked about was maybe working with the town to put something on that lower pool that you had in that earlier slide, so that it's right at the end of Alyssa Avenue, at corner of Andrew, so that if they had that open streets, they could see the playground. It didn't. We didn't get into this flash pad, but they are open. And think about doing something that'll be mutually beneficial for the community.
Unknown: And Miss Harris, you mentioned the stage. You know, as I understand it, town hasn't purchased a stage yet for but we have budgeted for it, and then the money for it. The trick is to find the stage that works best in Wayland and and and person on that search, and he's, he's keeps an eye out the from Florida to Maine. David Vallari: He's looking for stages with the marketplace, Unknown: it's good to find something. So that's all I have. Thanks for the work.
So awesome. Thank you for putting this together. I think we all probably look at that space and would love to see a ton of stuff get done. The only comment that I'd make, I think you guys are just asking, essentially, just almost permission, like, Hey, can we use the town's resources like Michael, valuable resources like Michael, to kind of just vet this out and do some due diligence. And I feel very comfortable doing that. The only thing that I would say is that when I look at this, and I look at your presentation, and I really absorb it, and I think about trying to actually get this done and having it be something that actually happens, I really don't see the path for the splash pad personally, just I'm just looking at the cost of it compared to some of the other aspects of it, And what I don't want to happen right now we have, there's a lot of people who are coming to each of us individually, talking about costs of things, and I just feel like it'll become one of those things where it'll get negative attention, just because they'll look at that and say, this is over half a million dollars, like, What it but you know, you look at 175,000 you go 75 in with, with the talent, the owners, and then you fundraise. This could be done in a year. So I would just say, I guess for my own personal I would really love to see if you guys could just meet me somewhere on that and just say, Okay, let's see what this looks like. Also, when, when you went to the event on Saturday, there were so many tables and setups that might be just doing the ton, yeah, and I love the EDC, but they go for the full Sunday with the whipped cream and the candy and the cherries and stuff. And I'm just thinking that I would love to see this happen. And I think you have, like, a really clear path of getting it done, getting a ton of support, getting funding without the splash problem. David Vallari: Yeah, I think we're obviously totally agreeable to that, and it's not really us that matters. It's kind of what the town people say and are interested in and engaged about. And I think we would absolutely be a proponent of separating things out, phasing them so that, you know, if it's just bite size, we do that 175 fundraise the rest, and then sit on a five year capital plan, or 10 year capital plan better for, you know, doing a splash pad type of activity. You know, there's maybe potentially. For that if you want to go down that road as a town. But that's not necessarily for us to say or guide that direction of I think the towns and the places we've seen that have taken the action to slowly do the splash pad, they've seen a lot of benefit from it. So there's value in it, but it just, you know, if it's a hard bill to swallow, because we got some really tough bills to pay right now, then Unknown: I think the other thing to note too is just talking with some people around town, the EDC may not be the appropriate group to make this happen like I know the rec department is the Department of the town that tends to execute the playgrounds. And so obviously, if there is a department or departments in town that handle these types of things like we understand that you think it makes more sense that you guys do it, because I think you need to have an economic development, economic benefit. We're happy. We're happy to meet with Michael and parse out, Carol Martin: sorry. The board's asking questions for sorry, having a hard time maintaining I need something. Mr. Levine, please. Doug Levine: I love all of this as well, and I was thinking, along the same lines as Anne, about phasing it. I can tell you, I served on ADC 10 years ago, and there was conversation at meetings, then about a playground at Town Center. I think there's always clamoring for playground at time. Playground makes so much sense, right? And I love the other three ideas. I've heard pros and cons about the splash pad. So I would, I would almost think of that as phase two. But of course, it depends so much on funding. So I was thinking, you know, if money was no object and we can have all of these things, would we want to pursue all of these things? And I people were explaining some of the cons to me about the splash pad and how often can it be used in a given year, and, of course, the AOL restrictions, but, but that said a question from Michael, actually, if they were able to get some of this through just with private funding, What would the town meeting vote be? Would we need a town meeting vote to raise some of this? What would that article look like? Is it because anything you do on town on land, even if you're not paying it, it's almost like accepting a gift. Or is that select Word only? Or do you need Tom meeting approval? Michael McCall: Check compound question, Unknown: multiple parts. Michael McCall: Interesting thing you mentioned playground. And I we have to go back, I think, look at the Acts chapter 347, the acts 2008, that created the vote of Public Works Department. Because I want to say, under Massachusetts General law, the Recreation Commission oversees playgrounds versus public works. That does a lot of the other DEP W related things. Doug Levine: But they would have to present an article. Well, Michael McCall: there's couple things here we would probably based on prior experience trying to work with the owners of the property over there, work with them, one, if we want to do it in partnership. And I think it's great that when those folks came in the other day and they were interested in doing something like that, because you want to see the buy in. We do own this, I think under the way the most recent Aul, which is accessory use limitation document that's recorded the Registry of Deeds, we would have to get some opinion of no risk relative to the type of recreation that you want to put over there. Now, I would check with Town Council. I don't know that it would need a town meeting vote. It's it's town land, and select board is usually custodians of townland. You need permission to sell land, right? But I don't think this would be any different if we decided to put a structure, say on this, yeah, I would always double check with them first. If there were monies donated, you'd probably have to accept those on Mass General law as a gift. Doug Levine: Does the town have to do that? Or just the Select Board to accept Michael McCall: the gift? The Select Board accepts gifts on behalf of other departments, and I think the Recreation Commission could accept them as well. And I think you authorized the expenditure of those that any border Commission can accept them, but you authorize the expenditure, and that that came up previously with the last. Library where they they were given gifts, but they had to come selected. Doug Levine: I'm just thinking, because some of the businesses, maybe, if not all the business, will be excited about this concept, as well as the new owner of Town Center. And maybe this isn't a tremendous amount of money, especially just if we're talking the pavilion, picnic tables, the amphitheater, and then maybe a playground for $1,000
Michael McCall: the phasing would be one thing, and then looking at what the you know, there may not be a lot of operational costs for one item, but if you started getting multiple items and there are, each one of those components could trigger an opinion from an LSP, because as soon as you dig in the ground, or obviously, well, I would assume we wouldn't want to use groundwater for this, we would use water, but then somebody's going to have to maintain that circulation system. And if you erect some type of structure, I think you still have to go back to those folks, and I always question the board. We have limited green space, so this, you know, maybe you work with them and do the one playground in that corner and see how it goes, but make sure that you get adequate buy in from the owner before you do it, and if it winds up being a playground, probably have to eat at some point with the Recreation Commission to talk about them and rec managing this as well. Carol Martin: So a lot of little things that I think. Lisa, yes, okay, so I'm going to speak some once upon a time, Oh, Tom will remember this. It was discussion that we would get this piece of land and put a gazebo on this property that folks could use for a number of many ideas, many ideas, right? This is, I have to just say this, because this is the be the devil's advocate. This is Tom land. And so the cost really is not only just the items, but it's also the cost of giving up that the opportunity cost of giving up, up the land. So, and I do want to know those it does say labor is not included. Of course, labor is very expensive, although, to David's point, he thought maybe, if we were phasing things in, when we discussed that perhaps we could maybe get some of the labor done internally on some of these things. But I do think we need a plan. You know, on this, I personally am in favor of the the the business owner of contributing to this. I will tell you, I do know the numbers on the playgrounds. This was 400,000 we have, I think, 12 or 13 playgrounds in town, and they one gets done every two years. So they're on a 2830, year cycle. The beach was recently done. And of course, there's no landscaping because it's on the Sean, per se. I think that was 250 or 275,000 so My one concern about the playground is, particularly if it's a town on playground, is that it's not consistent with and I'm wondering if the wreck would raise this question with the amenities and the scope and the shape and the whatever of our other playgrounds. And so that would be a question that I would, I want to, want to reconcile in my mind you know on that, so yes, Miss Kelsi, come up here now. Thank you. Unknown: Thank you. Just quickly to add to that, because I was in some discussions with the Eliza Norton Foundation and the Recreation Director around renovating the Cochituate ball field and the price ranges for revamping their playground, redoing, redoing that basketball court that's there, doing a little bit of upgrades to the ball field itself, and then reconfiguring the parking was between $1.8 million and about $2 million All in. And just to keep in mind, any town property, any renovations that happen, it doesn't matter the dollar amount. It can be $1 prevail wage. And prevailing wage was in effect. So that's something you have to keep in mind. Is anything that is being renovated on town, and regardless of the price point, prevailing wage matters. So that does drive up the sickness. Mr. Michael McCall: McCall sure to get some of these ideas out. But one of the things that and I made mention Select Board Member Fay in the phone was to avoid liability, the insurance and all these things. When the new owners came in and were excited about this, one thing, I thought of, what if we swap some lands so we have our wastewater facility in the back, and they wanted a portion of that front corner of the green. What if we traded some of the land? Let them build their own playground, they assume some of the liability, and we get some additional. Lane in the back that we could use if we needed for future expansion of our facility. I didn't bring it up at the time, but these are the types of things that I think we could be creative about what we do. And I'm sure we're going to meet again with these folks, but Carol Martin: so and now, may I mention, and now we're going to tell me, I'm a lane swap. Unknown: I think your question is really just whether we're okay with that starting this due diligence. Carol Martin: Yeah, no, I think that's my next point. So let's go into what will we think with the next steps. I mean, it sounds to me, and if the board's in agreement that Michael might reach out to the owners again and have kind of a conversation to see what he thinks. And Does that sound about right? Doug Levine: Yeah, we need to answer the Aul. I think that's step one, or we're all wasting Carol Martin: it well. I think we need to also know if this is on whose land and who's what, what the partnership would look like. I think so, Unknown: if I so would, just because you are bringing up creating more of a process for how we interact with these types of situations, right? So they're essentially pushing to us with an idea, asking, Is it okay for them to do what a due diligence? So what do you want our response? Do you want our responses to be detailed and be like you can look at this and answer these questions, or is it okay to essentially say yes, you may start putting due diligence together and come back. Carol Martin: So if you read the revised charges and look by that, it says that the select Form will determine next steps after consulting with the town manager. So we're consulting with Michael what he thinks the next steps up. Okay, so detailed it right? Because we, one of the things we are trying to avoid is having several people reaching out to the, you know, the LSPs and town council and whatever. This is a very expensive propositions. When this happens, and Michael is the one that we we've delegated that authority to to be in control of those budgets, and so we're trying to make sure we are aware of who's being reaching out. So I think that the next step would be for Michael to tell us what he thinks should be the next step at the moment. Unknown: But I do think if it all comes together, that not out of the realm to have a warrant article in the spring, including the idea of talking of lane that that those stars align, you know, as liaison to the UC I'm happy to stay in communication with you. I'll stay in communication with time management chair, and let's see what progress we can make and and then I'll report the board, and when appropriate, we've had to come back. So can you say that again? I was just trying to arrange this up for what we're writing, though, Carol Martin: right? So, Michael, are you good with that? Michael McCall: Well, I just want to make some general comments, and I don't want to get ahead of item number six, but I think you know, the having the board be supportive initiative is good, because oftentimes some of the board advisory boards will come and ask me, and I said, Really, you're an advisory board. You should go to the Select Board, share your idea. If they if the Select Board buys in, then I have no problem. You know, working with my staff, I just want to make sure that there is that support from this board before we do reach out to say, town council or some of the engineering staff when we do these things, just so that we're not spending a lot of time going in different directions. I want to make sure it's something that this board's in in concurrence with. And I guess I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, you know, where does capital planning come in? And you know, when we have this, depending on what you do, it's it may not be a large project, but when we have larger capital projects, if we're spending money and doing things, those tend to fall in our five year capital plan. This is something that at some point gets referred to them say, where do we want to is this a high priority? Do we want to move it up? Do we want to just put it in at the end of the five year plan and let it work its way down? I guess it will depend upon the size and scope and the type of the project, but it need to be fair to some of the other projects that have been advanced by other departments and boards in the town as well. So that's Unknown: true. It depends on the flexibility and desire of the new owner, and depends on the appetite of the DEP board to based on some of this, or all of it, select board will evaluate how each project furthers the board's goals and objectives, provide guidance and determine appropriate next steps. So we determine the next steps. We determine. So what do you want to Carol Martin: determine? I know we just did determine. I thought we just, we have Michael reach out to the owner. Was nobody agreeing. But no, no, I thought, That's right. There was agreement on that. And I'm sorry I missed it. I just Unknown: joined Sydney. I reach out to the owners to start that conversation. We have a meeting with the members of the EDC, and I'm happy to be part of it, if that discussion seems wise, and then I'll report back to the board on where things are going, and maybe the board will want to be to see back here. And I'd like to see this. I'd like to see this, this project and this playground Lord in a Tom and fashion, so that we can do, possibly, if needed, do something a Tom you. Okay, so perspective warrant should be submitted to support prior to Carol Martin: October dinner again, please. Just
Kelsi Power-Spirlet: trying to, I'm just trying to, like, actually realize this, right? So I'm seeing if it works, right? So does that feel fine, and that might be time to be off. So then that's just good for us to know, right? So, like, if you're bringing as a committee projects, you know, there needs to be enough time between that, if you're making this year, because you have it, the article has to come by October 31
Carol Martin: Okay, well, this is a thing we're putting in place, and October 31 is in two weeks. So it's probably the little flexibility this year. But the concept is, we don't want to be receiving articles in January like we did that to do, right? So we can put any day we want in Unknown: there, but it could also go the other way. Feature, you can ask that these types of projects get brought to this Select Board by a certain day, right? So that it works. I'm just trying to utilize you. And I spoke about this. This this is a big deal. Like we're we get inundated by the same stuff. We get pieces of information, and then we come and it. I think it does hold up some projects. So if we have this process that you put together, it really works. Carol Martin: It's awesome. I think also we have to factor in. What Michael mentioned is, is that, and others, even the committee members, have mentioned, there's a lot of capital projects out there a lot of finances. Just because we like this idea, it doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be before Tom, maybe next year. So they might be very much way in advance for Michael McCall: the Faia, really, along the timeline of the new owner. They maybe that's really the key. Yeah, they were excited to hear about that grant that grant that hadn't been used. Now, it took a long time to get a draft agreement with Zurich about the use of that. And I explained how, how that came about, and they said they weren't too worried about it. So they may be very eager. They may want to get that pedestrian zone up and running first and then complement it with this. So I think in terms of first steps, talk to them and find out their timeline. And then I think the second consideration would be,
what if any thing we have to do in terms of looking at the ADU well, to ensure that project or any additional amenities we put there are consistent with no risk. And I think once you have at least those two down, then you can start to make decisions about what we want to do with these folks. So we would know they're interested. We know we're capable of doing it. Okay now, how do we slot it in? How do we pay for it? How do we maintain it that we ask those Carol Martin: questions? Oh, I am going to service that. It's a good thing. Mr. Whitney is not here tonight. He would be giving me the look I am now 40. How many minutes? Okay, but I'm just being said sorry, before you, before you leave, so one
appreciate you coming. No, I think we're wrapping this unless anyone and the board has anything else to say, I think we're good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Kate. What I have now I've added this, obviously, to my direct gender list for another, another meeting for Michael to report back to us. And at that point we get that info, then we'll, we'll develop the next steps, and I'm sure that will involve the committee, and I'm sure Tom as your liaison, will keep you informed as to what information we have found. Does that sound great? Sounds great? Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, right. So I think the next item actually is discuss and review the DEP classification, but not limited to preparation for the special election ballot. So since we voted this, I have spoken to the Finance Committee and gotten a confirmation. They're actually meeting tonight. They're putting together their their recommendation and their presentation. They will come and present to us on Monday, October 20, then, according to the policy, assuming that we continue to go forward with this. We need to meet, have at least one meeting before we vote the actual date to go forward. The town clerk has actually recommended that we look at December 11 in between the holidays and she she would like 45 days. I think the board has expressed an interest in having as much time as possible, because we want to have a strong communication with the residents to understand, you know, what we are trying to recover. So my suggestion is going to be, we meet on the 20th we're going to talk about this tonight. But for framework wise, please use the calendars and see if you're available on Thursday, October 23 for a quick one agenda item meeting, which will be day or night in the morning or it's up, whatever you all want, bands, Unknown: that process gets done, right? So they have to apply for the bands or put them in place. The bands is different than that, yeah, okay. Give me a second. Okay, but one of the concerns had been, what happens if, if this were not to get approved, but we went forward with the bans we were because then there was a very high likelihood that we would receive we would still have an over right? So I'm just asking, Do we care whether this the answer to whether it got approved or not at a special election, whether that was approved or not before or after we could have stopped the ban from going forward. Carol Martin: So we're having the meeting with the bond Council, I believe, tomorrow, Unknown: or meeting
Carol Martin: last week. This is in play. This train hasn't had to do it. It's over. So I think that is Mr. Tom and Michael. You can correct. They're doing the band tomorrow, I Michael McCall: believe. So when they came up with everybody was okay with that. When they came up with these strategies back in beginning, middle of July and early August, they were hoping we could have a special election in in November that would still be after everything, the wheels had started in motion, assuming the Board approved the borrowing and the bands. Unknown: So that process takes time you can pull out of the bands before.
Michael McCall: I don't think so. I think the Unknown: really I've done bands. We should just, I don't. If nobody cares, then it's I just Carol Martin: wanted to give the timeline that I'm working on at the moment, everybody look at their calendars to see what they think about safe,
Doug Levine: new. Late morning and afternoon.
Carol Martin: Okay, so I think that Michael, on the 24/3
because you thought the 24th worst case, I could probably do a remote. No, what's your you're good on the 23rd Anna, you put your calendar too, please 11, because even if we change robots, at least we get this structure set up. Unknown: I do love another 23rd
Carol Martin: that is my What about you? We do 11? Unknown: Never know. Lemon on the 23rd do not we will be remote. Everyone. How long do you think it'll be? Carol Martin: It should be one agenda item, agenda half an hour? Yes, yes. Agenda Item, one item. Agenda is always in the back of somehow seem to morph. But my goal would be in an hour, right? Just to set the election date. Does that work just one hour? Yes, please. It should be less 11 to 12. Okay, as low as short as possible, exactly my lie. DEP, alright, so this is just sort of, I'm giving you, like an overview of what's where we're going to let the size of now I'm going to turn this over to Michael, who's working on the communications and the preparation. We need to put together some materials to that's going to be going off to the board. And we also are going to need on the day of the 23rd the exact wording that's for the motion that we will be voting, that we will that will appear on the ballot. So anyway, you have the floor, sir, that Michael McCall: language will likely be identical to the language that Select Board Member Fay used the other week, because I had sought that from Council. I will make sure that we have that for the board in advance. Okay, but I just wanted to mention was the, as you indicated, madam chair the clerk had identified Thursday, December 11, is the best candidate for a special election. She was factoring in the Thanksgiving holidays. Some of the ARPA was coming up about a week later. So wanted to get it in and not only take those. Of these into consideration. But if we went any later, we'd be getting too close to the end of the year where we had to get our preliminary budget in. And then you also have some residents that do leave town at certain times of year. Carol Martin: We think we've I didn't hear any issues with December 11, Michael McCall: but what I want to say is she's already worked out a timeline for me so that if we did the 11th, it would be a last day to register for vote on or about December 1, we'd have to post the notice on December 4, and then she will come back to us after probably the night of November 3. The registrars are going to have a meeting at six o'clock. So I'm thinking we can put something on our agenda. We have a meeting on November 3 to talk about early voting, because the clerk's office suggested save some additional monies, they may look at having a slightly different voting hours, but to offset that, have two days of early voting and mail, mail in voting for everybody, so that anybody who's traveling could accommodate it, so we would have a couple of votes after the fact to talk about early voting, we also have To the Select Board has to vote on having police presence the days of the polls. So there's a couple things we will have to do on third, even though we would be voting voting on the 23rd to set the date and the language on the ballot, we would have to have a couple additional votes on the third Carol Martin: If so, I kind of that's all details outlined. So that's that plan. Anne's researching about the bands, right? Unknown: No, Michael said that because what we're issuing the bonds, there's no getting around. Carol Martin: That's my understanding. Okay, so let's go to the next item. I think the next item that we really need to talk about here is, I think the next item we really need to talk about here is the communication that's going out to the residents. What? What is our plan to communicate to the residents? What are we sending out? What are we doing? What's it going to say? And I really think we need to look at this
also. I think on the ballot, we also thought we were going to add in an explanation underneath one more question. So I think we really need to be looking at some of this general and what order to Unknown: to work together to simplify the complexity of what's being asked? Carol Martin: Yeah, I think we want to be really, really clear with what it is we're doing. It's not I think there's ways, like the board members, that we really need to declare into what we're trying to accomplish. I think we looked up and it is allowed to have a paragraph underneath that woman language. Is this something we are still considering?
Unknown: I think a lot of it to be helpful, maybe with a chart. If that's helpful to explain what we're doing, the charts on the second page. My opinion, a draft of this should be done by by the 20s, by our meeting later this month, 23rd Carol Martin: first meeting on the 20th is a regular meeting, and then on the 23rd will just be the after we get the presentation from the finance committee on the 20th The policy says we'll wait one week, one meeting, one meeting before we vote which would be the 25 Unknown: zero draft of what we send out, what the truth do it by letter, by the 23rd would be great, and that should be my opinion review by town council manager, Kevin, at least, maybe Chair of the Finance Committee, and some people who
say, yeah, it's a good idea. It makes sense to you. It's a good idea. But when you say the 23rd June being just getting a copy, not the 20th to 20th. 23rd 23rd we're only having a one hour meeting Doug Levine: that's trying to not have we get the draft. Well, we don't discuss, we Unknown: don't discuss it, and they're going to move it to the third. We'll discuss Doug Levine: it on the 20. Unknown: We'll discuss it on the 20. I don't think it's not a lot of time for the 23rd
Michael McCall: it's nice. I'll be hitting on this tomorrow Unknown: to make our lives easier and figured out by the 20th. Michael McCall: No, no, this is something we don't have a lot of time. On Wednesday, we're meeting with our budget committee. I imagine this will be bulk of our discussion will be how to proceed with this. So there you have a lay folks at that meeting as well. I will reach out Town Council. I've already spoken to Attorney Murray previously about the process, the language. And so now that we had the conditional vote the other week, and we know you're going to vote on the 23rd I think we can really start working. There should be something, an informational page on our website, perhaps a question and answer session that could be run. I could have some staff do it, but the end of the day, we always have to be careful, because you're not supposed to be campaigning. It's very clear in the proposition two and a half guidelines about that we cannot be perceived to be sending, sending Tom resources, campaigning one way or the other, but we can provide information, and I will look at, you know, whether there's a mailing or other information that can be provided, and what wording could go on about Unknown: you want to just devote the one hour at least so, because the only other agenda item on your list is to, like, confirm the date I mentioned. Carol Martin: That's what we think now, because, trust me, stuff we'll hop in that has to get done. Michael, when do you think we would be able to review this draft and maybe these Q A FAQs? Is that we want to look at that on the 20th or do you want to wait until it's really the 23rd Michael McCall: you and I will be having an agenda meeting next week. Will we? Yes, yes. Let's I'll give you an update at the agenda meeting. How's that? Let's see how far I move. Happy to help you. Just need some help there. But all right, so now we'll need a day or two show me. Well, it takes a day or two to get a response some from our council. They do represent other players, if they're in trial, as Select Board Member Fay would know, you know, often preoccupied, so sometimes they have to apologize and say, I'll get back to you. And you Carol Martin: know, tomorrow, I think if we're going to be doing a lot of this in November 3, we may, we're going to have to look at some things on November 3 here. All right, so the next item, everyone's all set with that. Okay, great. Thank you. So let's look at the next one, which is we started this last week, and then so we would take the we had put this together as a rules and the responsibilities of advisory committees. This actual, by the way, I do want to mention she did last time. This is actually one of our Select Board objective for this year, and that is, you know, as part of implementing the town manager act that, you know, that we look at, you know, committees in general, in town and so, like, it's really streamlining annual town meeting and reviewing roles and responsible town boards and committees. This is actually one of our one of our objectives. So there you go. And I think last week, the suggestion, which was a good one, was random, then have two separate documents. We kind of just take this, the responsibilities that we were looking at, put them as an expanded charge. So this is what we've come up with on this. I don't know if this is what you were envisioning, but I think we're getting closer here.
Unknown: So my memory of what instigated probably not the right word of this discussion was concerned that five through committees who do things without our knowledge, without our blessing, because we're the ones that have created advisory committees. So in my opinion, what my vision here was one paragraph, and the latest version is short on the last one, which is great. I'd love this to be one paragraph the end of each Advisory Committee's draft and our vote and our Board of vote, we vote that. So I love the first paragraph and second paragraph. Few type of that, that's, that's, that's, that's the it's not beside the point that I can discuss. I can discuss, discuss that with the chair later. The second line of the third paragraph is that something that's already part of Select Board policy or not necessarily. Carol Martin: You know what? I don't know that any of this is policy, select border. Otherwise it's just sort of things that have occurred. So the goal here was to take a big sweep include everything that's going on. Because there are some committees who want to do this. I think the Select Board has felt, in some instances that it would be easier for us to start with a clean slate, rather than Fay a complete draft. So. Unknown: Article, and we're going one article. Is it my understanding that the advisory committees do not sponsor one article rather than select work, right? Carol Martin: So they're giving them to us in January, you know, with a due date two weeks later, and now we're having to spend while we're trying to get ready for the Tom meeting and ramping up big budget season. What have you now, we're having to try and evaluate an article. So the goal there was to kind of put some just there was October 15. And the last draft I went to October 31 this is, you know, so I don't, you know. I have no editorial criteria, per se. I think there were a couple items I think you've hit the summary on the head. We're trying to have improve our communication. I think we have as a board not communicated fully accurately recently, all of the above. And therefore, there are things going that we feel we would like to have a different process. It's up to us to communicate that. Unknown: So the only thing well, we just tried to put it in process right? And it worked relatively well. The deadlines were tough because of situations like this that are going to come up. So just food for thought on that, but I knew where you were going with a lot of this, because a lot of this addresses issues that we've had so like people utilizing Council, but there was no real clear path on how you use Council, and then who the heck brings the warrant? One thing I would wonder and suggest, as just an open idea, is in seeing what just happened today. You know what? I don't know if this happened behind the scenes. I know that I was contacted about this playground idea, but like, if there that real one contact liaison is the one to invite, you know works with you to get them on the agenda, because they've already identified that these this could meet the objectives. I don't know how many of you guys had already been contacted by the ADU? See, I think that was probably all of us. I don't know if that's what we're trying to avoid. I'm just putting it out there that, you know, I think we were all contacted. I don't mind that, but I'm just putting it out there as we could make it a little bit more streamlined if we chose to, and have really the liaison be the only one who can really bring the projects, because they see something, opine, just put in it. I don't even know how I feel about myself. Carol Martin: So I would like to recognize Michael, because this obviously also impacts staff. It's really, I think that's, you know, us, we kind of, you know, we live with it, what? But I'm going to see this because I want, I want Mr. Fay not to give me the bad look when we run late tonight, what we call the first two paragraphs, and then we take the last sentence about the interviewing and put that in the end on that second paragraph, we did have an instance where our committee interviewed folks and said, You can't enter. We went to interview someone else, and then there was an issue why we were interviewing other candidates. Unknown: There's not a policy. It's not in line with our objective. I guess it was. Carol Martin: These are policy. This is our rules. Doug Levine: But before you go to Michael, I wanted to say that I feel very uncomfortable with the last phrase of the last sentence of the second paragraph. I think it is appropriate that these advisory boards receive permission to consult with paid professionals. I feel like it is far too great of a chilling effect to say that they can't speak with other boards, committees or commissions. I think if the intent is to not have them appear formally before another board, committee or commission. That makes sense, but for them to not speak to other volunteers, it's like patriarch
Carol Martin: but again, to Anne's point, I was grabbing issues that have occurred. So the question then becomes, how do we phrase it to resolve it? Because, you know, I have Doug Levine: to have a sentence that say that until the Select Board is essentially on board with a concept, they should not be formally presenting to another board or Unknown: committee, which makes sense. Doug Levine: But I think we do want them to have Unknown: the title question, like no name, or the AU question. Those are all things that other boards would probably answer immediately, even see if it was feasible. So I think it's people a lot of times, to just be communicate like that, openly, zip. Difference between speaking up with town volunteer speaking of border committee, that's, I think, a distinction. Go ahead, if you don't have the approval of the stock board, you want to go in front of board and start sharing ideas. I don't even necessarily blessed by our board. That's we're trying to avoid. Doug Levine: It like, I just feel like you could read this in different ways. You know,
Unknown: you can make it any way we want. Michael, would Carol Martin: you like to opine here, or kelsigus? They're downwind from this, believe me, I Michael McCall: don't want to dissuade any of the advisory boards from you know, fleshing out their ideas. What I do want to ensure, as I indicated before, is that they, they do come to this board and say, Listen, we, we've met as an advisory board. We've come up with this idea. We think it's really great. We would like your endorsement before we go to the town manager and to all of his staff.
Unknown: But do you envision that being to the liaison or to the whole board? First, the Michael McCall: advisory board could work it through their liaison, but more often and not, to date, what happens is I learn about some of these projects from my department head and say, hey, you know anything about this? Because, you know, two or three people come to me in a week and say, Hey, so and so is from such and such a committee is here this week, asking me and then asking me and asking me, and then occasionally I'll get a department head say I was asked if I could call town council on their behalf or something, because under our existing Select Board Policy, which is under review right now in the town manager act, I'm responsible for broadly in Section five, subsection F, overseeing day to day operations, including personnel, financial matters and legal matters. And so it's always been understood that nobody in this building is calling town council without checking with me. I had one of our ADU boards on the phone last Friday, just asking, you know, they call me and said, Okay, if we nine out of 10 times, I'm gonna say not a problem. But you know, we just don't watch the wild wild west with people just calling, you know, up an engineering company or an LSP attorney. I understand your point about that, that last phrase boards or commissions, but select Word member Fay is point you don't want somebody showing up. You're watching a meeting at home, recognition or something else, and there's one of your advisory committees saying, Hey, we're we've got this plan Unknown: stories, yes, I think to all of us, how do you guys feel about the idea of more? How do you Michael, how do you feel about doing the consultants and engineers will be granted by the board appropriate? And then, as a separate line, do access to boards, committees and their commissions. Commissions will be granted by the liaison, so essentially, the liaison would have an understanding of what was happening. Carol Martin: So I just do you have you ever seem to have a
never, really good idea what you think they should look like? Would you like to take a stab here? Thank you. Michael McCall: Interesting. I think Carol Martin: this is an interesting, wonderful discussion. I think this is something that we all want to accomplish, but in a nice manner. You know, like I said, we we've allowed this to created this problem by default, so it's our responsibility to solve it, and we don't want to discourage folks because they're voluntary, noi, but at the same time, we don't want to laugh. We don't want to actually, when they reach out to all these different boys simultaneously, it does bottleneck things sex kind of because it's so so we're trying to have forward progression here. How's that sound? In my Unknown: opinion, it's nice problem I have. There's so many communities that would love to have people, Michael McCall: right? You know, too Unknown: involved. Yeah, Carol Martin: right. All right, even, thank you. And so we're not going to end up doing no no. And also, I want to wait till Bill, do you think you have that ready for the next meeting? Tom, thank you, sir. I knew it. That's why I asked the question I knew the answer to. All right, I think now I think I'm going to turn this over now. Number seven, right to Michael. This is a discussion of miscellaneous on properties and possible warrant article 2026, and this is on page 20. 430, packet, yes. Michael McCall: Thank you. Thank you. Michael, thank you. Madam Chair, some towns kind of have this in the back pocket as a standard article. I get calls, as I may have told you, individually, from time to time, some people just call up and say, I have but town property, and sometimes out of hand, I can just say the town's not going to be interested. There's a Paper Street I've mentioned several times down near the chateau. It's called pond Street. We own about five paper lots. Somebody might say. You, what do you call them? What lots paper? Well, we own a lot, but there's a Paper Street. We don't we there's no real access at this point, but the town owns and somebody made a butt one in the middle of five contiguous lots and wants to buy the one. And I would just say, I'm sorry I couldn't do that. I'm not going to break up these contiguous lots, but the one in your pack is really an example. I've been approached by one of the butters asking if we would sell it. I've talked to some folks at DEP W they have no use for it on our Wayland GIS, it says it is owned by the highway department. I'd have to look to see whether the Board of Public Works would have to sign off on it. But we could make some money, not a lot of money, but you could put this up, typically, depending upon how we took a tax title, or otherwise, like if we would, we could auction this off. We need authorization, typically, from Tom. May we do it? It can be a housekeeping article, or if we have the luxury of time, we might be able to get somebody to go around and look to see if we have other parcels. And when I spoke to the highway department, as you can see, this is on a corner over near Dudley Road. It doesn't have access to the pond, it doesn't have access anything else. We'd have to do a little research. But from time to time, it's a way to know, help the neighbors. It takes something off of our roles that could be developed. I know one of the butters wanted to put an out building on it, if possible, so it would generate some level of taxes. You'd get a one time sale of real estate. So when they first approached me last year, I said, Well, I'll just put a list of potential warrant articles for this year. This probably needs a little bit more research, but I just think something, if we have some time my staff or even our engineering department, if they identify something like this, we should put them on a list and take care of them on an annual basis. Unknown: So I drove by the property yesterday, and it's small. It's point two acres. It's general Road, somewhat of a view of the water, I think, but I can see where one of the photos, like buy it, the only DEP W's already answered the question, the only I can think of is some town use procedure, water related issue, concerning, concerning the pond, right? But if they don't think it's not long time, so I'm not sure it's practical, pumping water up so they don't use short I have no problem. You know, approved an auction for that town meeting via approval. But I suspect this property is one of few in the rap report that was completed several years ago. So to your point, you know, maybe we can look at all the properties to see what do, what we think Michael McCall: this is really just to bring up as a potential idea for a warrant article. And you know, it improves the quality of life for some of those folks. If we don't need it, it's a win. Win. They can develop it. We get a little real estate. They enhance their property. We get some money offers. So, and that's a good suggestion. So I will remember Fay to go through some of those other parcels. Carol Martin: So I'm not we have great idea. Absolutely, we have identified Kelsi Canberra virus. We have identified a number of articles that we would like to bring Tom meeting, and starting on November 3, we're going to start talking a little bit about some of this, because the because not sure, like, like, a is coming up, all these wonderful ideas, and we're all saying, Yes, I'm not sure how far we'll get with this, but we'll give we'll see so and then So, having said that, sometimes Kelsi, we could add that to the list of potential articles. Thank you, all right, and no other comments or comments on that, then let's move to number eight. I'd like to take a motion please, to confirm the appointment of Brian bosser to the 212 Cochituate road Advisory Committee. And he has been appointed by the municipal authority of Housing Trust Fund board, and his term is going to expire on February 28 2026 thank you and for the discussion. Okay, all those in favor say aye, and carries four zero see how fast we got. Alright, the next one is Michael asked Doug and I to put this on to the agenda, so I will turn the floor over to him, but it's selling
Unknown: land. Well, Carol Martin: this thing is so long tonight I'm going live. Alright? So it's just. Those who are listening at home, it's identifying discuss potential additional or new revenue sources. I suspect we'll have this on here a number of times, but we just, we're just starting to roll it out, so I'm going to turn the floor over to Michael. He'll give us some thoughts. And if anyone has ideas where we're rolling I Michael McCall: don't have too many specific ones, but I did want to make the board aware, several people have asked last couple months, I've started to look in how to do a payment rule of taxes program, and I think no better time than right now, where we have several of our large, larger tax exempt organizations looking to expand.
Unknown: I've been Michael McCall: looking at how trying to find out how other towns have done it, and that was an abutting community that's looking into this. They're going to share with me their draft policy that they're working on with their Select Board. I've worked the assessor to identify some of our parcels in town that we would want to approach. It's not a lot of them, but there's a it's couple dozen, and I want to put together a letter, but what I garnered from my peers is that they think there should be a one on one conversation, generally, from someone like the town manager to each one of them, not just a, you know, form letter in the mail, but sit down. I had the opportunity to speak to one of the folks that's expanding, and I did bring it up. But I know people are concerned about taxes in this town, and when we have some of these nonprofits that want to expand, it does put a some there. I should say there is some impact on our services. If people are going to expand and have a campus and housing school, or they have an existing school, you know, if there's issues, we're going to have to run our EMS, they're going to cross our roads. So there's some wear and tear. So I am working with my peers on how to approach this. As I may have said to some of you, individually, there's kind of a you need to come up with a Goldilocks type of number where you don't ask for too little too much, because you probably get one good opportunity to have that conversation. So that's what I'm trying to get from my peers. But I want to start reaching out to some of these folks and talking to them about helping us out, especially the situation we're in. We all want to be good neighbors. We all want to be participants in the community. And there's a time where I think some of them should help out if, especially if they're expanding, they have that the resources to expand, maybe they have some resources to help contribute. So, you know, I mentioned the other about, you know, looking for some of the small parcels to sell off these. These aren't big ideas. They are novel ideas. But I think they're things that we haven't been doing, that we should just start. But I think the pilot is, it's is timely. And I know my other communities that are in a similar situation to us, where they're they're having problems with Proposition two and a half, and they're running out of levy capacity. They're starting to talk about Carol Martin: doing this type of program. I have to just, if you don't mind me hopping in first, away. Thank you. This is so near and dear to my heart for years. You know, it's the, is it the Dover amendment is maybe the right word. It was set up with noble, noble thoughts by the legislature, you know, because for religious organizations and exempting but now we're, you know, we've got, we're running schools, and we're utilizing services and, you know, so if we're not able to succeed Michael on a straight pilot program, one thought I had, by the way, is, since I'm total popped in, I'm all the way in, now, would be, do we establish a non profit fee for police and fire calls, that kind of thing. Or do we have a road maintenance fee? Because, I mean, can we do that? Look at you guys, the three of you. Can we do that legally? Can we establish a road? No, it's going to look at you. Then I'm already paying a police and fire service call, something that everybody would be charged, Unknown: being charged by everybody Carol Martin: else we are. We're being charged. Unknown: We're being an existing tax not stop with the nonprofits. Let's go anyway. Carol Martin: I'm just thinking what you know. So what's interesting on this, too, I might want to just throw in here, is that I participated in the Michael did two. In the meeting the other day at the staffing survey, a consultant came in, and one of the interesting things that's coming out is that more and more, and we heard this when Mill Creek was trying to come in, and then there's these buildings now that are becoming large and four or five stories. And remember, Mill Creek had the proposal, fire actually came in and said, I don't think we have a fire truck or a ladder truck, I guess is the right word, to reach a fourth floor. And they were looking at whatever the height was, we couldn't and so these are expenses that we're going to be incurring. And so how do we, how do we deal with those kinds of things? You know, these additional differences, and when they add so many other, whatever there's units or whatever we're we're going to have to increase staff. So I think that there was somebody. But anyway, can I ask my Doug Levine: question? Sure. So Michael, sorry to keep putting on this agenda. Item is about additional or new revenue sources, and I've been trying to get my mind around this revenue source well, and I don't quite understand it, but I've been looking at some presentations, and it's specifically around foundation funding for the schools. And I'm understanding that there was some enrollment update that we were to receive in early October, which is where we are now, and obviously we made the shift from half day to full day kindergarten, and we're paying for that. Is there a chance that we could be looking at an additional stream of several $100,000 if we hit that threshold this year? Michael McCall: If we would go back to the foundation formula community, yes, we would get additional chapter 70 monies, and that was at the time the schools approached us, almost 1824, months ago, we were still Foundation. And then during the process of going to the full day k we slid back into a minimum ad community. I'll confess I don't fully understand DEP formula. They said there's a multitude of factors. It's not just enrollment, it's the economy, it's inflation. There's a variety of things. But when our enrollment does go up, that is one of the factors that drives it. Yeah, I can talk with the DR Fleishman and Christine Patterson, the business manager over there, if they do have to, as you said, submit those enrollment numbers, usually a month into the school year. So yeah, Doug Levine: I spoke with the Chair of the School Committee as the liaison to the school committee, and she represented that from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26 we did get some additional funding to the tune of about $400,000 but I think we were going to try to determine this year, are we going from minimum aid to Foundation? And I thought that was a timeline that we were looking at within these last few days we're waiting for, for this enrollment numbers for this October 1. So I'd be curious about that, because that would obviously impact us in a big way.
Unknown: Tom Mayland on the topic of a pilot program, I would just ask that if you explore it, that there'd be a formula that would be appropriately applied to any nonprofit or other organization that you want to approach, so that it would Be fair, and whether it be religious or otherwise. And I'll just say this, you know, power programs, I think, started two or three decades ago. I know city of Boston explored. I haven't had any personal experience, but I will say this, that there are some Charena, there are some nonprofits that call themselves nonprofits, but not necessarily nonprofits. I doubt there any of the host in this community, but I just wanted to make that comment. And finally, Tom nonprofit brings so much value to a community that we appreciate that and that that fact can't be appreciated. Michael McCall: You make no mistake about it, this is not to be punitive. You know, we're there to help those folks in their time of need, and we're running into a situation where it's going to get a little bumpy for us in the next couple of years. So if they have an opportunity to help us reciprocate. That's what we're looking to do. And by all means, as I said, I talked to one of my peers in another community, and they actually developed a policy, and they're supposed to send it to me, which I would like to share with the board, that we could spell out a formula and things like that, and then we could tell. Are two nonprofit that comes in. And to your point, you know, communities don't function without them as partners. And I'm sure most, not all of us here volunteer at once, locally, or in my case, in my hometown,
we can't function without them. Unknown: So I have an idea that is a win win. In my opinion, we just educate people that the ADU, it can be an extension of their existing home. Lot of people don't understand that. So you could have a wet bar, you know, in this little extra area. And there's a lot of people who are buying renovating in in Wayland. So if you essentially just educate them and educate everybody, it may, in fact, induce people to go ahead and expand or build a little bigger, and that increases assess values, which increases taxes, and people are happy because they are building bigger homes than they originally thought they could. So when they buy a lot, or when they buy a tear down, or when they renovate, they all of a sudden can have a bigger home than they expected. Carol Martin: Oh, since Anne has brought that up, maybe I can hop in with something that we have been approached by. The Planning Board is holding a farm on the ADU on November 12. And then when I was asked if the board would consider code, it's co sponsoring the forum, and I had said, Miss, maybe they come and speak to us, since you're speaking to this meeting now, or it is thinking they are willing to do that, or that that will have the person come and speak to us briefly on the 20th about supporting this forum about the ADU. Unknown: Yes, let's educate build bigger houses, more Carol Martin: since the real estate development. Unknown: But it's, it's a win, win, because everybody will be happy because it's not more kids, you know, good. Carol Martin: I have a couple little opinion items, but what I know on the we looked at fees, and we upped a lot of fees. I'm not sure if we ever did the Board of Health fees. I know we're waiting to hit on them. Did we? So could we possibly do that those because the fees are the gift that keeps on giving. Because every year,
Unknown: Cheryl, you're like taxes and like students. Carol Martin: I don't know anyway, I'm sure we're going to revisit this again. So thank you for some ideas. All right, so let's move on to the town manager's report.
Michael McCall: Too many people for once Lane chair.
Unknown: So
Michael McCall: first things first. My office hours will be on Tuesday because of the holiday. So Tuesday, October 14, from 5:30pm 6:30pm right here in the Select Board meeting, the health department's going to have two vaccine clinics this. The first one is going to be on October 15, from three to 7pm in the large hearing room. That's a Wednesday, and that's for residents and non residents that are 60 plus years of age. The second one will be for residents and non residents that are at least 12 years of age or older, and that would be Wednesday, October 22 from 3pm to 7pm in the large hearing room as well, right here in the town offices. Just I got a couple ideas that I want to talk to you about under our recap. First, I'll just let you know that I did speak with mister Gould again, and he said that after we read some of the materials, we do not need to fill out our Phase Two comprehensive site plan for the MCP, the Massachusetts contingency plan prior to November 1 of this year, which he previously thought. You may recall, he had said he thought we would have to file a notice of delay. It turns out, we have until November 1 of 2026 so he will not be filing a notice of delay. He will just carry on. As previously indicated, there is a forum at the Fairbanks community center in Sudbury later this week, it is for Sherman's Bridge Road. I believe it starts at 630 I know that I will be in attendance with Tom holder and some of his staff and my counterpart, as well as Tom holders counterparts in Sudbury to answer questions about the proposed repairs that are coming in from MA. Vot. And the only other thing that I wanted to call to the board's attention is future meeting locations as well as Office Hours. Excuse me, building hours here at the town hall. I've had Michael Faia in our new IT director working on security updates to this building. And one of the things that I've had a couple of concerns about we we've had a couple of minor incidents where I've had to ask the Wayland police come over here. I think I would like to start closing the building at four o'clock when we close, and then only opening the building up 15 minutes or so before meetings start, to minimize the opportunity for people that come and wander in the building. Oftentimes, if we're having a particular meeting, the liaisons to those boards may just be one individual and maybe some of our female staff, and there's been a couple of times where I've told that they're not comfortable. A lot of other communities do that, where they lock the building when it closes at the end of business day and do not open it. One of the things my staff did remind me is that the council on aging community center was set up to host meetings. We have state of the art equipment over there. Some of the meeting rooms are larger, new, newer facility, and that perhaps we should take some of our meetings over there from time to time in some of the other working committee should do that as well. But this is not in any way, shape or form, to diminish anybody's access to this building. But I think when the building is closed at four o'clock, it should be closed and only open up when we're having public meetings in the evening. So to minimize anybody who may walk through here, we've been making changes slowly. You've seen in the lobby, we've started putting down roll down desks, kind of like a roll down desk in the old days, in some of these gates, not because I think that there's a real problem Wayland, but you start to see more and more. Just had a person the other day wander onto the property who raised some concerns and to make people feel safe and secure in the building, I want to take those steps, not just for staff, but our residents and guests, and that's where we're upgrading our cameras and door locks, and it's not to spy on people. It's really there to in case there's a problem with the transaction or an incident. I think the best offense is a great defense, and having these things in place. Many other town halls have them. It's just a thought I have, and I just want to share that with you before I make any major changes.
Carol Martin: Thank you. All right, do I have a motion for consent calendar? Unknown: Please approve the Consent Calendar for funding. October, 60,025 Carol Martin: Thank you. Any further discussion? All those in favor say, Aye. Aye. Motion passes four zero minutes of September 15 and the 24th do we want to put them in the same motion? Doug Levine: Yeah, please. I move that the Board approve the minutes from September 15, 2025, September 24 2025, is as amended, Second. Carol Martin: Thank you. Okay. Do we have any edits on September 15
Unknown: that the second page on the top there is m Kier join the meeting in person and I and Gandhi is spelled, incorrectly spelled, what? Incorrectly G, A n, h, d, I, and it's G, A N, D, H, I, oh, up in the title, not in the appointee, right in the first paragraph. And here, joined the meeting in person, and I found deep Carol Martin: learning. Thank you. Good job. Anything else on that page? Oh, under a 6w Whitney moved blah, blah, blah on the agenda to include that link, to link bill, sorry. It says instead of Brown, young, I would rather I don't like the word instead of because it's a person like Philip Penny rather than, does that sound nice
on a seven? I'm going to throw in this and say, says emotion. But we did discuss. Is after reviewing in the brief discussion, making minor edits the board, you know Bill Whitney moved blah, blah, blah,
did we have a vote on number eight discussion and review the trail, real trail on the historic signs.
ADU, we just okay that anybody else have any edits as we're going on?
Oh, on 813, the very last sentence where it says, See Martin table the vote until the next meeting when the board could consult with finance director B County and Mr. Fay, actually, I think it was Mr. Fay would be present. We do like your consultations, but we actually were looking forward to your presence, and I think that's all I have. Anybody else have anything for that? All right, all right. September 24
under the school committee, where it says the board met jointly with the school committee in its it's open session, and it says less than a quorum, we just say, and finance committee members and three members of the Finance Committee, Christine Patterson. Her name is Christine. It's K, I, R, S, T, E, E, N, yeah.
And at the end of that paragraph, where it says that school committee and finance committee members left the meeting, I don't have anything else. Does anyone else have anything? All right, any further discussion? All those in favor, aye, say, aye, abstain. Sorry on both of them, yes. So the motion carries, 4013, no. 301, same, right? Yeah, our correspondence, any anything of correspondence, right? Then let's move to select those reports or concerns. Did you want to start Unknown: in? I'm concerned people aren't building big enough houses. I see that if they can under ADU,
Carol Martin: all set. Thank you both. Unknown: Will it soon, our board will discuss a potential Task Force consuming Luke one.
Carol Martin: Yay. May I show you something Unknown: on every agenda?
Carol Martin: It's coming by. We've had a few time sensitive items, noi or anything else that, right? I have a couple I want to say that I am very thrilled to say that we are now, please, on every other week schedule again, starting next in the next meeting, except that I had it in the 21st also, we would like to add in December 15. Please look at your calendars and see if that works. Richard, Richard Charena had reached out to me, and we are looking for a volunteer to be the speaker to do the opening remarks for the Veterans Day. I know Tom has done it. I think Bill Jailyn, that's veteran stays
Michael McCall: somebody Tuesday. Carol Martin: Thank you. We have a volunteer if you Unknown: don't, if you want to do it. Great.
Carol Martin: Richard ConCom back to Michael McCall: it's usually 1111. Try and kick it off. Unknown: It's a nice ceremony. It really is. Yeah, usually the glow of the times and the poster there too. Madam Chair. Going back to scheduling. I already have number 15 on my calendar for a meeting. Carol Martin: That's good to hear, guess what? All. Right, I forgot to mention last week that when we finalize the financial policies, that actually is part of our objective. Number five for this year was to finalize financial policies in regards to select board manuals. So that was a big one. Done. Thank you, Michael and Kelsi and staff and everyone. And was terrific job. Big job. On the 20th we're going to be, obviously, meeting with the finance committee. They're going to give us a recommendation regarding the debt exclusion. We are going to have the next meeting. Which is our continuation of the equity audit. That's that discussion. Sure we have a hearing, because they have those all the time as well, and we will revisit this electric vehicle like duty push policy, among other things. I just like to give you a little thumbs up. Having said all that I will take a motion to adjourn at 8:45am, Doug Levine: I on time? So moved. Second, Unknown: second, another.
Surface Water Quality Committee
08-27-25 - Surface Water Quality Committee
Tom Klemm: 7:06pm. and because
we are remote. let's have
everyone go around the room and
acknowledge that they are their
name and their presence. Go
Steve. First.
Steve Garone: Steve Garone.
member of the committee.
Tom Klemm: okay. And then Tom
Tom Largey: Tom Largey
Tom Klemm: and Tom Klem present.
Great. So we have a quorum.
three members of five at 7:06pm.
okay. very good. And we missed
last month's meeting. So we'll touch on the topics that we had on the agenda back in July. and then new developments since that time. So let me call my agenda up here on the town side. Any public comment? By any chance. I don't think we have anybody on town side. Okay. next item on the agenda is to approve the minutes from our June 18 meeting. I sent those for circulation. If anybody has any comments we can discuss. If not. I will make a motion to approve the minutes from June 18. Tom Largey: I second that motion. Tom Klemm: okay. and then let's go around the room.
Tom Largey: Tom Largey aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone aye. Tom Klemm: and Tom Klem. aye thank you. wonderful.
Okay. first item up. Heard Pond status on the herbicide treatment and hand harvesting of water chestnut. Tom Largey. the floor is yours to give Steve the update on. Tom Largey: okay. well. there was a lot has gone on this summer. both on hand pulling and an herbicide treatment. So the first herbicide treatment. it was around the middle of July. and a second one just. I think it was August 6. and so that was the South Cove. If you look at a map of Heard pond. I also call it the Southwest Cove. It's on the southwest side. So we've had two herbicide treatments. And Tom Klem and I were out a couple of weeks ago to look at it. and at that time. we saw in the treated area plants were were not healthy. but they were still living. So there was a concern then that they could still drop seeds. Because when these plants drop seeds. you know. the total would be in the 10s of 1000s. I was going to go out today to take a look. I load. I try not to go out on a hot. hot day. Today was a cold morning and but I happened to run into the fellow from SOLitude who was winding up the hand pulling so I asked him to go out there and look at the distressed plants. And also. it turns out. and this is quite a problem. a big problem. when Tom Klem and I. Tom Klem particular. going through the whole NOI process. and there was an issue with approval from US Fish and Wildlife. because about 95% of Heard pond is surrounded by fish and wildlife land. And it turns out. we had originally come in with a map that showed Heard pond. but it's not as simple as that. because some of Heard pond. as in fish and wildlife land. and that was finally straightened out. but the herbicide applicators were constrained from applying the herbicide in the Fish and Wildlife land. So when Tom Klem and I were out there a couple of Sundays ago. we could see. and it's very mucky stuff. and we could see there seemed to be a band of brighter green on the other side of all of the treated water chestnuts. So this fellow this morning. went in there. I asked him to measure the extent of. And roughly. by the way Tom. there was an email from Jeff Castellani. Did you see that it came about four or five o'clock? Yeah. briefly before the meeting. yeah. with a number of photos. which it turns out. you have to log into Google to view. and that was a little onerous for me. Tom Klemm: Let me. I can do that. I'll forward them to you. if my login Tom Largey: so anyway. and there was an error this fellow. Rocco. who was out this morning. He made a an error between left and right. and because he was talking about the part of the pond that abuts the barrier between it and the Sudbury River. and he used left instead of right. and right takes you down more southerly and more westerly. So what he said. told Jeff. and it's in Jeff's email. is that and he uses canoe to for cover. to measure it. But starting in that area with the wetlands between the pond and the Sudbury river. there was a band of about 20 feet of untreated plants. And it kind of goes around and to the right. I left Jeff a message on that. We'll have to get that straightened out to about a band of about 50 feet wide down at the very far end of the pond. So that's untreated. Also Rocco pulled some of the plants and looked at them and felt that either the seeds were dead. and when they're dead. they're black. if they're good seeds. they're green. But these were dead seeds. seeds. and what. a week or so ago. I talked to this fellow at SOLitude Tanner Pool and raised a concern that all these plants that Tom Klem and I saw. they were still living. They were just kind of brownish. or. you know. he could. or whatever. and they assured me that the plants would not have the energy to produce the seeds. And that. apparently. is what Rocco saw this morning. So by the way. was the name Rocco. He does. he's. he's just an older retired guy. He's. he doesn't look like a gangster or anything like that. But anyway. so the fact of the that green band of unharvested plant is a extremely serious situation looking into the future. if not perpetuity. because in future years. if we can't treat that. then. you know. if you were to take a couple of 100 yards of plants. very dense. 20 to 50 feet. foot band. you're talking 1000s of plants that can drop 10s of 1000s of seeds so that that can never be controlled. That's serious issue. We really didn't
we. meaning I and Tom. unless we were out in the pond with GPS. we could never tell which was fish and wildlife which wasn't. you know. they had to work out the measurements on the GPS.
anyway. So that's the treated area. On the untreated area. there are three. three pulling days in July. about 17. Tom Klemm: Let me pause you there. before we go on to the hand. the hand pulling part of this So Steve. just to get you.... to summarize what Tom was saying. You know. we went into this we were hoping to get the permit for the Clearcast. treat that south part of the pond. and ideally wipe out the plants that were there. Yeah. but based on what Tom was saying. some of that water was still in fish and wildlife territory. so it couldn't be treated. It's a pretty big band. And even the areas. we did treat. it's uncertain how effective that was. So it's. it's very likely. and Tom Langey let me know if you agree with this. that it's. it'll be hard to tell next season whether we were effective. and that's gonna be a combination of because we couldn't treat all the area and even the area that was treated. those plants still may have dropped viable seeds. so we'll have to see. But it's questionable whether this year. bought us any time or made any gains beyond the hand harvesting. Tom Largey: yeah. well. also from year to year is this variability. You know. the history of the pond was that we started in 2003 proceeded through to 2016 and had great success. and the pond appeared to be terrific. shoreline to shoreline. All of a sudden. 50.000 plants in 2016 the pulling crews were overwhelmed. Many 10s of 1000s. if not hundreds of 1000s of seeds were dropped in 2016. The viability you know. there's a curve. A huge number of seeds are viable in the next. first several years. and then it tapers off. But it's a long. long tail. They had said seven years. and the literature said 10 and 10 to 12. 12. to 15. I'm convinced a Heard pond is 20 years those. The science is lacking a little bit there. So I'm certain that there are 10s of 1000s. hundreds of 1000s of seeds in that area. some number which will come next year. But I am heartened by Rocco this morning looking at some plants and not seeing any viable seeds on the plants. Oh.
Tom Klemm: go ahead. Steve. Steve Garone: no. I'm curious about this dichotomy between what we can do. where we can do something. and where we can't. because it's Fish and Wildlife. How does that part that we can't treat get treated? What is the process? Tom Largey: Well. it can't be unless they're not going to do it. I think off off season. we're going to have to pursue that with Fish and Wildlife. That's another round of permitting that we may have. I'm talking personally may or may not have the stomach for and with expenses unknown. Tom Klem is. is pretty good at that stuff. but my. oh. my. it's. it's just a difficult situation. Tom Klemm: to me. what's. what's a bit frustrating about that is. I don't recall hearing that at any of the prior meetings. Now. it just seemed like we could treat that whole. anything that was in the water was was treatable. And so to learn after later. at least to me. it sounds like this is information learned after the fact. when it could have been communicated earlier. Now. in practice. it wouldn't have made any difference. because Tom as you say. we'd need to get Fish and Wildlife approval. But that's a bit of a surprise to learn after they've applied that they couldn't get that innermost part. the closest to shore part. because of this overlay with Fish and Wildlife. Tom Largey: And well. you know. I think what instigated it was last fall. And. oh. the. what do they call that? The. the. what is it? MEPA. Mass EPA. and on to Fish and Wildlife. Yes. those things are not questioned in earlier years and and in fact. for many years. most years. I've sent a report to Fish and Wildlife. and we describe all of that. and it was hand pulling or harvesting. although around 2002 there was a an application of an herbicide in the pond. I. I was not a. not a principal on that. and I just have no records about that Fish and Wildlife knew about it. They approved of it. but then all of a sudden you get into this permitting process. and it got sticky. and so it's just. it's. you know. I like to say that's you. That's part of what Mr. Trump got elected for. Because regulations. regulations. regulations. it's extremely difficult. And. you know. this is a prime example. Tom Klemm: yeah. this is learning it at a micro level. And you can imagine a bigger project that they'd have to go through. But. Steve Garone: oh yeah. doesn't being able to deal with what you're dealing with on like only one part of the pond. Compro. uh. compromise. doesn't get compromised what you're doing when the other half you can't do it with. Tom Largey: So absolutely. absolutely. Tom Klemm: Well. no. I'm not sure I agree. I mean. it means that the perimeter encroaches. but it encroaches up to the point where we can begin treating it. So. yes. we can treat that area closer to shore. It just means that's. that's land that's that's now lost to the water chestnuts. So it doesn't prevent any other work that we're doing. I like the work that we did accomplish. but that perimeter is now is less than it was before. Tom Largey: because that's what water chest spread. So inevitably you know. when the seeds drop. they don't always drop directly to the bottom. Things happen. You know. there are strong winds that this is very shallow water. can roll up the bottom. and just like anything else. they're going to inevitably spread. What the rate is is hard to say. but they will tend to spit. the seeds will tend to spill into the rest of the pond. That's. that's. that's. that's a problem. So we can treat next year and the year after. But there's in particular. the area that's closest to the untreated area. there are going to be more plants. The seeds just spill and they're impossible to count. Just impossible
Tom Klemm: Tom. Do you want to go on to Steve Garone: the you want to count seeds? Is that what you said. What? What are you counting when you say they're impossible to count? Tom Largey: Well. as an example. in 2016 I. I went and bought at town of Wayland. expense. a clam rake. Okay. that's when I had more energy and went into the South Cove and tried a little raking. and decided it was a very difficult endeavor. So then we had SOLitude come in and dredge up some chunks off the bottom and bring that. I forgot how they did it. bring that dripping mess aboard and look for water chestnut seeds. And they've they were hard to find. They just say. even though. okay. we were knew. we knew where there you can't do it's hard to do more than that. and that's all expensive. so. but the clam rake is still in my shed. It's town of Wayland property. If anybody wants to rake clams. they could borrow it. I should turn it over to DPW or somebody I don't know. I've got the rake Steve Garone: We could probably use it. I got Tom Largey: a friend. seriously. uh. I'll bring it by tomorrow. Steve Garone: I'll want to. I want to see it first. Tom Largey: Well. it's a clam rake right? It's got tongs. it's but it would probably do great on tape grass. Oh.
Steve Garone: boy. wow. Anyway. Tom Klemm: let's. let's so Tom. The other part of this is the hand harvesting part. So why don't you talk about that part and some of the challenges we're facing there? Or. I guess. more accurate. to say that SOLitude is facing. and that's by indirectly impacts us and our ability to manage Tom Largey: Yeah. well.Jeff had reported earlier they did 3 days on the main part of the pond. the open water area. the South Cove is not open water. It's wall to wall weeds. despite the fact that 10 years ago. it was open water and we cleared it bank to bank. and we nevertheless still had this Those are really hard to do. and you pull a plant and around 2009 we we had a project there. and several of us on the committee. tremendous infestation of long dormant seeds. But anyway. and get out there. I got waders. We had laundry baskets with floats on them. We're pulling laundry baskets and waiting through the shallows in the pond. which is not much fun. but you'd do a an we had allocated seven pulling days at $1.200 a day. plus area one week. and the next week there'd be plants back. because those plants are hidden under the water lilies so and for years and years. I've made a special point through the season $1.500 for a report. comes out to $9.900 and so they used three to tell SOLitude to please get the water water lilies so they have and they. and what Jeff is saying in this note that I mentioned. that you Tom and I got. was that they pulled in July. and Then there seems to have been a second propagation in July. pulled 1.700 plants from open water areas. Then last event. more seeds came up. So many more seeds in the or plants in the open water area. Tom Klem and I saw some when we were out Friday. they came back and used four more days. including today. a couple Sundays ago. I'd call that sporadic. But what I really wanted them to pay attention to was the area the approaches to the South Cove. outside the treated area and Tom Klem and I have pulled approximately 4.000 plants. including many. many saw quite a few plants there a couple of Sundays ago. So this fellow. Rocco. went out surveyed that. reported to Jeff . In this letter. Jeff is recommending that we have two additional days along Pelham Island Road and other parts of the pond. or of pulling to get those plants that are outside of the treated area. which would be $2.400. it turns out. the last two. three years. we've exceeded our 9.900 by some amount every year. So quite a few water lilies. $2.400 Tom Klemm: by about. a by a couple $1.000 every year. Tom Largey: Yeah. yeah. Well. a couple of years ago was 12.000 more. But anyway. I'd like to make a motion that. and I don't know how much money we have in our accounts. I think this is a serious issue. We're going to run out of money on some on some things. somehow. But I would like to make a motion that we approve two additional hand pulling days at $1.200 each to
pull the area outside of the treated area. Tom Klemm: we will be able to manage that. I mean. it's a few $1.000 I'm willing to approve this. and we'll. we'll manage to have to push it off into the next fiscal year. or something. We can do that. So that's a small dollar. So I. I second that. Steve Garone: I want to. just want to ask a question about that. because one of the things I want to talk about in relation to Dudley Pond is that we're coming up on the fall measurements that we need to do. Tom Klemm: Yeah. that's on the agenda. We'll talk about that Steve Garone: Okay? And. you know. I want to make sure that we're not that we have that money in place as well. Yep. I don't want to jump ahead. but if we're adding
Tom Klemm: yeah and right now. well. I'll have time to show the the budget and where we are. Okay. great. You know. this may impact stuff like Procellacor core down the road. but we'll. we'll see. I mean. this is a few $1.000 let's. let's do. This now. I mean. I think we're going to be in reactive mode for for a lot of this stuff. So I second the motion for two more days of manual water test harvesting on hard pond. And now let's go through a roll call vote. Tom Largey: Tom Largey. aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem aye. All right. You got it Tom. Tom Largey: okay. oh. go ahead. Tom. oh. that's about all I have to say about Heard Pond. You know. I'm 85 years old. I still move around pretty well. but my. oh. my. this. this goes on endlessly. I used and so Tom Klemm: well. I did want to touch on on a point. Steve Garone: Tom. are you grooming a successor? Telling us? Are you grooming a successor? Is that what you're telling us? Tom Largey: Well. very luckily. Mister Clem has done admirably with the paperwork. with the paper. which I have no stomach for anymore. yeah. Tom Klemm: but what you need are. what you know. are boots on the ground. so to speak. yeah. and Tom. you know. one thing you pointed out is that and Steve. you know. SOLitude doesn't have their own crews for this. they have to get involved. Well. not volunteers. They've got to hire people. which has been difficult. They've been using Charles River Canoe and Kayak until recently. this year was Tom they hired volunteers. Who do they know what it was?
Tom Largey: Yeah. they it's a little confusing. Actually. the president of Charles River Canoe was out on the pond Saturday and Sunday. I didn't know that. and that was a non contractual day. That's for them to figure out. not us. but these guys that were doing the pulling are mighty. mighty independent guys. They would fit right in at a biker bar. and that's how they look. And you know. crews like this are hard to pull together. That's that's all there is to it. But this fellow. Rocco. who is out there. he normally drives a harvester and drives there equipment. but they pulled them in to do this so because they can't get kids. and it's just awfully difficult. Tom Klemm: Yeah. so Steve. the problem is multiple so first of all. SOLitude has to hire the crews. which is difficult for them to do. which means we can't control the timing of when they do this. I mean. Tom has said many times. you want to get these plants before they drop seeds. so we can't control that. They're now dropping seeds. There's still a lot of plants in the water. and then we get charged by the day. and it sounds like the guys out there today were in kayaks. which has a much less capacity than. for example. Tom your boat. So we're paying the same amount for a day. whether it's a kayak or some guy in a boat who can haul in sacks of stuff. So you know. these things work against us to get a really good harvesting to get the most bang for our buck. so to speak. That's gonna be a chronic challenge. oh? But that's Unknown: okay. Yeah.
Steve Garone: you don't. You're not grooming a successor. is what you're saying. We already have them. Tom Klemm: He's just. he's just pointing out that he can't do it forever. None of us can. Tom Largey: You know what? A few years ago. when we had a different mix on the committee? Yes. you know. there was Mike Lowery who had a pontoon boat could tool around Dudley pond. and that one or two others had kayaks. Linwood Bradford had his boat on Lake Cochituate. And it sure helps. if you're on surface water quality. to have members who have boats. and what Unknown: what water I'm Tom Largey: one of them. yeah. well. I'll bring you out to Heard pond anytime we can do a survey. Steve Garone: You want to transport my boat over there. That's fine. Tom Largey: anyway. Steve Garone: So moving on. Tom Klemm: Yeah. so Okay. let me. let's go on. sort of moving on to Dudley Pond. And before we get into some i into some larger topics. let's take care of some quick business. The first is we do have an invoice. So recall that few months ago. we contracted with ARC. aquatic I always get the name wrong. Aquatic Restoration. something to do a survey of the flora in Dudley Pond. pre and post harvest. mechanical harvesting season. So they've done that first survey. and we received an invoice for it. I sent it around to everybody. It's for $2.400 odd dollars. And so my first request is that we. I'm making a motion that we approve payment to ARC for that first survey that they had performed for us. Steve Garone: Second. Tom Klemm: thank you. And let's go around the virtual room to approve or not. Tom Largey: Tom Largey aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone. aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem. aye. thank you. Okay? And then another quick one. Steve. you had alluded to it earlier. There's the fall water chemistry testing coming up. Do you want to make a motion to approve expenditure of about? It's about $2.000 right? Steve Garone: Yeah. somewhere in that ballpark. I don't have the exact amount. Shouldn't change. One of the things I want to. I want to just bring this up. This one's going to be a little bit tricky. And the reason is. you know. half of the testing is done by me submitting. then the samples I get to a lab case. and the other one is done by a guy named Ben Weatherall. Tom Klemm: Oh. right. Steve Garone: He comes out with his meter. Well. Ben has changed companies. and while he's willing to do it this fall. he has to do it on his own time. which means a weekend. So we're trying to work out the logistics. because it turns out that one) his testing and my testing need to be done at around the same time. And two) one of the tests that I do requires it get to the lab within 24 hours. So that kind of puts us on a Sunday. and Ben is willing to do a Sunday. so I think we're going to be able to work it out in this fall. but I don't think Ben's going to be available in the future. which means we'll either have to train me to do it and rent the equipment or find somebody else. Tom Klemm: Does Ben do any. I'm recollecting that Ben has his multimeter. and he's looking at oxidation. Steve Garone: dissolved oxygen. you know. Tom Klemm: So the question is. is it all stuff that's read off of this meter? Or there are there tests involved that he does or sends? No. Steve Garone: no. I do those. He just use that meter. So. I mean. one of the alternatives is. after this fall. I can somehow get trained on using the meter. and we just have to rent it. and that might actually make things cheaper. But we haven't answered that question yet. Tom Klemm: hasn't Mike lower you used the meter before? Could Mike train you on it? Because if it's just a handheld meter. Steve Garone: I wasn't aware of that. so I'll find out. Tom Klemm: Okay. but the upside is that. then we'll do it this fall. but beyond that. we need to Steve Garone: Exactly Tom Klemm: Okay. Steve Garone: right. So we're aiming now for probably October 5. which is a Sunday. So the logistics are going to be that. you know. he may. he may be able to go out in the afternoon. He prefer the morning. but we should do it on the same day. but I would have to go out after 3pm so that they can get that sample back to the lab within 24 hours. Tom Klemm: So that is the day of the Dudley Pond Fun Run. So if you can coordinate all of it for the afternoon. it might be better. Steve Garone: right? I forgot about that. Tom Klemm: So the morning might be tough if you're if he's thinking about parking at Mansion beach to do his thing. Steve Garone: NAH let him park in my driveway. Okay? Forgot about that. which is interesting. because I usually do that run. So maybe we'll make it a different weekend. Tom Klemm: okay. but yeah. let me and I hope Ben does a good job writing those reports. But as far as collecting data. if it's just the multimeter. the multimeter. then we should be able to manage that ourselves. and as you say. it'll be a bit of a cost saver. Yeah. Okay. so he'll do it this fall. but after that. we're on our own Steve Garone: to figure out a new way to do it. Okay? Tom Largey: Well. there has been a. you know. in the in the past. surface water quality has bought some equipment and Carole Plumb. I think I don't know. a year. two or three years ago. has raised the issue of some of this equipment. and it turns out. you need supplies to run the equipment. and the equipment is maybe obsolete and so forth. So which. you know there. there's stuff lurking around there. but maybe difficult to use. and may be expensive to use. Tom Klemm: You are correct.She was talking about the. I believe it was the pH probe. and it hadn't been used in a while. and it was going to take some rejuvenation. if that's even possible. I possible. Steve Garone: So things that we measure. what's that pH? So one of the things Tom Klemm: we measure. right? And so Ben's got one of these things. so we. if we have to rent from him. that's probably going to be that there goes any cost savings. right? Potentially. Steve Garone: I'm not sure. does he have it. or does he rent Tom Klemm: it? I don't know anything you could ask Norm. because Norm and Ben have been doing this for years. so check with him. I just. you know. they take care of it. And so I don't know exactly the how of it. but yeah. check it with Norm. Okay. you know. I wouldn't be. you know. I don't know. Actually. no. Ben does measure at multiple spots. Steve Garone: And what I do know is that Ben. in our discussions about this. said. when he can't do it. we would have to rent it. So we'd have to find out from him where to rent it. and somehow get trained. or read an instruction manual. or talk to Tom. I'm sorry. talk to Mike Lowery. Okay. we'll figure it out. Tom Klemm: Okay In the meantime. did we so I made the motion? Did we actually take a vote on that. or did we go right into some questions? Steve Garone: I just interrupted you. so let's Tom Klemm: Okay. Well. sorry. the second. okay. well. let me just. let's start again. So motion to approve expenditure for Fall water chemistry testing on Dudley pond on the order of $2.000 is there a second? Steve Garone: Second? Tom Klemm: Thank you. and let's go around the virtual room. Tom Largey: Tom Largey . aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone . aye
Tom Klemm: thank you. Tom Clem. aye. okay. very good. Those are the two. Let's see approval. Okay. excuse me. we had a topic last time. And Steve. I don't know if you want to talk more about this revenue updates. You know the my guess first. before we get into that. I know Alison has sent some updates on the harvesting. I have not had a chance to read those. Steve. do you want to give an update? Are we? Is that thing broken down again? Are we making a great headway? What's the Steve Garone: I haven't. I haven't in front of me. What's funny was that I see Allison almost every day. I run out to the beach. I talk to her and I. and she said she sent me something before the meeting. and so I hadn't seen anything. so I said I wrote her a note today. and said. Are you going to send something? Well. she sent it to you and me on the town email. as opposed I think she was going to send it directly to me in my personal email. so I literally saw it right before we started this meeting. So I have it up in front of me. And basically there are. there are two parts to it.
She did tell me. by the way. this is not in her report that this from the from the standpoint everything's relative. from the standpoint of the efficacy and the use of the harvester over the course of the weeks we're using it. it's been the best year so far. The fewest breakdowns. you know. problems that did crop up were fixed fairly quickly. and that we also shifted. as you know. the starting point. which turned out to be a really good decision this year. Tom Largey: are you talking about the depth? Steve Garone: No. about the date that we started harvest? Oh yeah. okay. toward the end of July. and that that worked out really well. I was really surprised. because I have a pontoon boat on the pond. and usually the tape grass issues crop up a lot earlier in this season that they did this year. We think that might have been due to the fact where we. we when we measured the Secchi depth in the spring. it's usually like 11 or 12 feet. Yup. it was like 8. 8 one half feet at the most. So we think for some reason the pond was not as clear as it was. maybe less sunlight got down then. That might have retarded the regrowth a little bit. but we're not sure. Tom Klemm: So there's been no complaints then from residents about weeds fouling their props. Steve Garone: not that I know of now. Well. not not until recently. The last couple of weeks have been tough. but. but this is very late in the season for that to happen. so it's actually been pretty good. and they've been doing a great job. You know. one of the concerns that I. I voice all the time. which sort of. you know. one of the reasons why I was prompted to raise the issue around this committee's role was that. is there a plan when these people don't want to do it anymore. and what are we going to do about that? So we. you know that I think they're almost done. They have a couple of weeks left. and they're doing a good job. In terms of milfoil. she wrote a note that said very little was found in the pond mid July. They watched whatever comes. whatever gets cut that goes in the conveyor for milfoil strands. Uh. they've seen less than 10 small strands from the Chat Cove area. which is where we usually see a lot. So the milfoil evidently. is not that bad right now. Tom Klemm: I'd like to. we'll keep monitoring that. but I don't want to reflexively apply for seller Procellacor every three years. because I'm concerned about resistance building up over time. So if we can. if it stays low this year and doesn't appear to be a threat. then I would like to. if we can bypass next year. maybe think about 27 if we need to do it right. Steve Garone: Well. I want to. I want to. I want to follow up with Allison. I'm literally just reading what she wrote here. and I haven't heard about it. but yes. that would be great. I can tell you that the tape grass is awful though right now. that stuff's still. still doing its thing. But she also gave us some statistics on what she's done. Okay. so. so actually. we week left. This is week six. and she has indicated she broke it down by week. but the total as of Tuesday. which is yesterday. Total pounds collected over six weeks is over 101.000 Tom Largey: Wow. Tom Klemm: What do you mean one week left? Steve Garone: Well. she they contracted for seven weeks. We're in week six so. Tom Klemm: But they okay. they did it through October last year. Was that because they lost weeks. because it was broken down. Steve Garone: yeah. we're doing few weeks this year.
Tom Klemm: Well. we're doing because it started later. but the number of weeks is the same as it was last year. right? I'm sorry. the same number of weeks as we did in 2024 Steve Garone: I'm not sure. I'm not sure about Tom Klemm: that okay. because I Okay. I mean. my assumption might have been incorrect. I assumed they were gonna I knew they were starting later. yeah. but if it's the same number of weeks. and last year they went into October. oh. yeah. I guess it makes sense if the same number of weeks. and they may have started later. but they were able to work straight through. because the the harvester didn't break down. whereas last year it broke down. Okay. Steve Garone: so again. I haven't talked to her about this report. because I just read it just before we got on here. Got it okay. but it says we are in the middle of week six of seven harvest weeks. And she sent this report yesterday. so there's one more week left after this. if this is correct. and they've worked 281 person hours.
Tom Klemm: So this started late July. So this is going to be basically how many weeks total. seven weeks. eight weeks. It's seven weeks. And was it seven weeks last year. and I know was broken up by again. Steve Garone: you asked me that I don't remember. So okay. Tom Klemm: I would be curious if the weeks Steve Garone: question and I'll. I'll get an answer. Okay. so you know that's basically what we know right now. We did have a little better cooperation from people around the pond in terms of raking. you know. Bob Smith and I are doing a lot of that. And the Leonards have a motorboat that they take out. I think. every week. where they go around and collect as much as they can collect. So we're having a little bit better
floating stuff collection than we had in the past. Okay. that's been. it's been. okay. yeah. Tom Klemm: Yeah. great. And Tom Largey. you know. again. these are just emails coming from Allison. I will compile this stuff. I always circulate it to the whole committee. and I know you want a more formal report that might be something that I can take on. and if. because Allison has done doing a lot of work already. but maybe I can take this information and put it in something in a more formal way to document the work being done. So I'll take that as an action item. Steve Garone: right. Tom Largey: Yeah. And then that case. we have a report this year that can be measured against next year and so forth. right? Yeah. So that's that's pretty darn important. Well. that amounts to assuming next week about 350 personnel hours. I don't know what they get paid. I'm sure it's somewhere in the 20s. Hard to say that's not. not too bad. I don't think. for from a cost point of view.
Steve Garone: yeah. it's not. it's. it's not our budget. though. Tom Largey: yeah. yeah. but it's the Town. The Town is spending the money. So. yeah. So what they do it four days a week. right? Is it four days a week? Steve Garone: Four days a week? Monday through Thursday. Yeah. I think the reason why they don't do it on Friday is because the town building's closed on Friday. Tom Largey: Right. All right. Well. back to the 101.000 pounds. We've been told the town no longer has a composting facility. so that was seen as a problem if we were to use a Harvester on Heard pond. But that 100.000 pounds of tape grass. Where does that go? Steve Garone: That's a you know. as you are talking. I was thinking to myself. I would love to know the answer to that myself. Tree said to me yesterday. he was. he was the end of his day. He was making jokes. and he said we got the the Sally contract for the high school. I But seriously. I don't know the answer to that. and I'll get that answer as well. Tom Largey: Okay. Tom Klemm: I have a question for you. how the 101.000 pounds? What's that estimate based on? Steve Garone: Well. she broke it down by week. and basically they they size a load at 1.500 pounds. And so they take the number of loads they do in a week and do the multiplication. Tom Klemm: Is that what the max weight of the harvester is must be. yeah. okay. yeah. I'm just curious what the what the unit was. They calculated that number from. okay. so. Steve Garone: but you reminded me of a small point as you were speaking. I got a I got an email from Norm about a week ago. He was trying to download our may report on our measurements. and he says. evidently. was never posted. I I know I sent it to you. and I think I sent it to Jailyn too.
Tom Klemm: Yeah. this is a
Steve Garone: subject matter a little bit here. Tom Klemm: Well. let's so for this one. Why don't you just send it directly to Norm. So he was looking for on our web page. Steve Garone: So. you know. it was because every time I've done this in the past. haven't been a lot of them. but I send it to I send it to the committee. and I send it to Jailyn. And I thought she usually posts it. but Tom Klemm: it's was just as well. because what. what Jailyn does is she'll create a new like a not a link. saving a thumb thumbnail. It's basically. every time we upload a new document. there's a new line that appears on our web page. which is ridiculous. What I want there to be is one tab for document library. and then you go there and you can find what you're looking for. So to send that one directly to Norm. that's that's a larger issue about how we make documentation publicly available. not only amongst this committee. but but to the public. So to send Norm that one for now. I don't think anybody else beyond the DPA cares. So if Norm has it. he can distribute it to everybody. Steve Garone: Funny thing is. Norm. Norm should have it because I'm not sure I'm going to have to do it this time. but I always have him review it. because he's done it more times than I have. But anyway. but we've had this conversation before in this committee. right about how documentation is posted in the town. And. yeah. we'll Tom Klemm: talk about that. about that that further down the agenda. because that was gonna be a topic for last time. So I'll touch on that. They get there . last thing on Dudley pond. And have you had any discussions with Allison about how we're going to capture this information? So as you say. when Alison and Tree can't or don't want to do this. we have a source document to hand off to the next person. Steve Garone: I had. I think I may have told you this. I had a long sit down with Allison about a month and a half ago to talk about a number of things around this. And one of the things I said to her is. you know. we really need to develop a best practices document. And I said I'd be happy to write it. but I have to do it in collaboration with you guys. because you guys are the ones that are out there using the equipment. etc. And we do have some material. I mean. I don't know if you knew this. but when. when the harvester first arrived and the DPW guys are out here showing people how to use it. I did. I did videos. I took videos of what they were teaching and what they were showing people. And I did that because Norm asked me to and. and then I was waiting for Norm to go. Well. you know. can you put it together in a in a whole video? And. you know. whatever. nobody ever asked me. This is before I was on the committee. So the idea to do that has been around for a while. but we haven't done it yet. So it's a very good point. because. you know. and frankly. you know. I'm I'm thinking it's important. but you know. I've also had conversations with Carol Martin who said. Well. that's the DPW's job. Don't worry. If we need to hire new people. They will do it. and they will train them. I don't know. Tom Klemm: They'll they'll train them. but there's local knowledge that they are not going to be able to impart to these people. right? Steve Garone: So. yeah. I so I did have that conversation with her. She seemed willing to do it. but. you know. then the season started. and I didn't really want to bother her. because she's just straight out. So this fall. we revisit it. Okay. all right. Tom Klemm: one last thing on Dudley pond. yeah. and kudos to our own Carole Plumb for pointing this out some time ago. there is what appeared on the town website. A few months back. was a notice that the town is contracting with an engineering firm to assess wastewater impact on Dudley pond. and turns out. this is a larger issue to determine. for example. whether there needs to be a local wastewater treatment station around Dudley pond. And there were several different proposals around that area. So it wasn't highly publicized. but Cheryl Carole has her eyes on what the town's doing. So. Part of this initiative was to have a a wastewater. a Dudley pond wastewater study group of interested residents to vet these proposals. And that committee has been formed. I am on it. Norm is on it. There's someone else in the in the Dudley pond community. who's on there. and there's a fourth person whose name I didn't recognize. Steve. are you or no. you're not on it. Steve. it's. it's Norm. And there's a fourth person Steve Garone: I literally found out about that committee. like. two days ago. from Bob Smith. I didn't even know it existed. Tom Klemm: Yeah. it was all low key. And again. if it wasn't for Carole Plumb. I wouldn't know. I mean. I'm not as good as she is sleuthing stuff out. So kudos to Carole and so again. But this whole thing is just strange. You know. this idea that the town is going to determine what may or may not need to be done around the Dudley plot area in terms of wastewater treatment. very odd how it sort of popped up out of the blue. I guess I think the originating. the source behind it was Abigail Charest. the town engineer. but maybe it predates her. I don't know. So anyways. this committee is meeting for the first time later in September. and I will be updating the committee as it goes forward. but that's I'll resend the link. You know. you can try and glean some information there. But. you know. the long term goal is. how do we obviate the the how do we mitigate from wastewater getting at the Dudley pond? And Steve. you'll recall years ago when they wanted to put a little wastewater unit down by what's now Dudley woods. for a development. You know. I think that idea is going to come back as one of the options this committee will face. So I'll resend the link to the group right now. This is just to raise awareness that the committee. the group. has been formed. Our first meeting is in September. Good news is it's mostly Dudley upon people who are on there. so I think they'll be certainly getting a critical assessment from. from us. So stay tuned. Steve Garone: So are you. are you telling me that I may not have to have a septic system anymore? Tom Klemm: Well. that's. I mean. I think. yeah. I mean. one of the. one of the. what the. what the town is looking for. is. yeah. can can we? I don't know if tying into Natick was an option. certainly a local wastewater treatment was. I think there was something about shunting it somewhere towards the high school. I think is there some wastewater? I don't know. There was a third option. but yeah. the upshot would be to not really have reliance on the cesspools that are still around there and other kinds of on site septic treatment. Can it be treated either on site in a more comprehensive way. or just sent elsewhere? It's quite vague on that. on the website. on the town the website. I'll resend the link so people can can look at that. Steve Garone: Sounds expensive. Tom Klemm: We're just rolling in money. Okay. that is all on Dudley pond and Tom Largey. I saw you yawn. We'll try and wrap it. I think it'll go pretty quick. Steve Garone: He's had a long day. Tom Klemm: Yes. Okay. okay. The next one is pretty quick. So again. our Eagle Eye Carole. she had noticed that Mass DCR is updating the their 20 year old guide to Massachusetts Lakes and Ponds and treatment options for the different kinds of invasives one might find. I looked. I was turn over the floor to Carole on that she's not here. but I was looking at it earlier this week. and there's nothing new as of yet. Basically. what the state has done is they've taken comments. There was an open period to comment on that older version. that window is closed. and the state is now taking those comments and will revise. So currently. there's nothing new in this documentation. It's the same thing from 2004. so there's no news to report as of yet. There was just an open comment period. People commented. the state's going to revise it. So I was in the impression at first that there was a new version that had been uploaded. But no. it's just the comment window is closed. The state is going to revise So more to come on that. And I'll let Carole speak more authoritatively on that. Okay. okay. something Steve. that you had brought up last time. and we can defer this one into a larger group. But you know. this the surface water it concerns the surface water quality committee's mission statement. And as founded. we are an advisory body. We are not supposed to be taking an active role. even though. in fact. we are. We just talked about water chemistry testing. Heard Pond weed management. Dudley pond. So. you know. Steve. to your point. we are already doing that stuff. and maybe it's the question of making our mission statement reflect that we're actually doing stuff and we are not simply advising the Select Board on what should be done. I will open the floor to you if you want to make any other comments around that. or if you had something more specific in mind that I am overlooking in my gloss Steve Garone: Well. all I can say is that you know the ideas came up in all first it. they started with me. Because. you know. I. when I. when I started working on this group. with this group. I started thinking about. you know. what is our role? What. what. what are we trying to accomplish? Some of that came from the fact that most of my focus has been on Dudley pond. And as you know. we have a Dudley Pond Association that tries at least to be somewhat active in weed management and things that go on around the pond. But frankly. I don't think did a very good job at that. They do a really good job at social things. but that's pretty much it. And they have money. Yes. they have some money. So people started talking to me about the fact that. well. you know. why don't. why don't you guys. you guys should really own this whole weed management thing. and you should really be controlling the budget. and you should really be. you know. figuring out what the long term plan is for all the water bodies within Wayland. And it doesn't seem like you're doing that. And I'm not sure that we can. given that we're an advisory board to these Selectmen. and we don't have a budget to do all those things. Tom Klemm: Are these comments from Dudley Folks. or just folks across town Steve Garone: Dudley Pond folks. pretty much. Tom Largey: Well. my comment is. I always felt we were doing quite a bit more than advising. We've been rolling out contracts for. Many. many years. And I think in the case of Dudley Pond. almost everything that was was done on it for many years was through Surface Water Quality. you know. various whatever there were treatments or pilots or or this or that. The difference is that Heard Pond doesn't have an association. I think we do it all there. Dudley pond has call it an Activist Association. That's that's a primary. It's quite a difference.
Steve Garone: Yeah. No. it is. It is active. as I mentioned earlier. How do I put this? It talks a lot about the kinds of issues that we're supposed to be dealing with here. and we do deal with here in terms of weed management and so on. but they have not really turned that into real action and real work. And so that kind of falls on people around Dudley pond that don't want to be affiliated with the DPA and don't want to be in Surface Water Quality. So they kind of. they're kind of renegades. if you will. Okay. so I. I get the sense that. you know. they want to really look to us. to do what they're doing. but they don't see us doing it. and they can't. They don't want to deal with the DPA. because the DPA doesn't do it at all. Tom Largey: So what are they doing? What are they doing that isn't? I mean. there's. there's a harvester on the pond. there's water testing. there's. there are periodic applications of herbicides. What are they doing otherwise? I have no idea. Never heard of Steve Garone: okay. so you bring up the harvester. right? So the harvester. I was involved in the the liaison with the DPA over the harvester. because they. to a very great extent. paid for it. okay? And there was a lot of resistance to doing that. And it took a lot of convincing to get them to. you know. give the town the funds. at least in part. to to purchase that machine. Tom Largey: So I thought the harvester of the $95.000 or whatever. was merely a line item. It was a line item in the in the town warrant several years ago. and the town paid for Steve Garone: It was. it was kind of a. there are some things it.
that there was some payments that the DPA was supposed to pay the town that they didn't pay to kind of. you know. be able to channel it toward the harvester and the conveyor. Complicated story. but basically. you know. the Dudley Pond Association. from the standpoint of dealing with weeds on the pond. has been a source of money. but that's pretty much it. Tom. do you agree with me? Do you is this what you've seen as well? Tom Klemm: So first off. I'll say I agree with Tom. I don't know. It sounds like this is conflating two different things. So one hand. they're saying we should be doing more. not only on Dudley pond. but the other ponds in town. And so I would ask as Tom did. what more do they want to say on Dudley pond? But then you segue into the whole harvester and the Dudley Pond Association was willing to pay for this. In the end. the town approved it at town meeting. But it is true that the DEP never gave back to the town money over time for this thing. so they complained that we welched on our deal. That's that's fine. I will say that I didn't try and get I've tried several. not recently. but when this. when the town first had the harvester. it was overseeing its use. I had written to several folks at the DPW to ask. Can you give me. you know. a list of what you've spent on this thing? What are the amortized costs? Because what we've done historically as the DPA in the DPA a was they would find out from the town what was spent on that seasons of management of Dudley pond. and there was a memorandum of understanding between the DPA and the town that the DPA a would contribute back or make a gift of some 20 or 25% of whatever the town spent. And that hasn't happened in at least five years. because I've not had a. Uh. or since the harvester was purchased. because I haven't gotten from the DPA what those expenses were without that number. I can't. yeah. work with Tree or Jamie on what 25% is. So I'm not quite so it's true that we haven't done that. I'm not sure what the complaint is. Are these people insisting that we pay that money. which is fine. We haven't done it. As far as actual work. as Tom said. We're doing all kinds of things on the pond. and I don't know what specifically they are thinking is missing. Steve Garone: I think. I think what. what. what I've heard. is not so much about. you're not you're not testing. you're not doing this. It's more about. you know. the long term. what's the long term plan? Do we do we need another harvester? Tom Klemm: I see Steve Garone: . how are we going to fund it? How are we going to get new people to run the harvester? What. you know. what is a long term plan for dealing with weeds on the pond. we don't really have that. we're kind of watching and going. so that's what I hear back. Tom Klemm: Okay. well. I would. you know. to those. I would say. you know. we are doing. we're we're managing milfoil with Procellacor as needed. And then for the harvester. You know. we were just talking about this tree. and Allison can't do it forever. We've got some younger people. And if you know. it's. I don't think it's too difficult to learn to use the harvester. Maybe that from within the DPA there might be somebody willing to step up into those roles. Would be because of that Allison and Tree. the thing is just going to be dormant. and not you. So. you know. I go to the DPA meetings I can present again. and maybe. and probably the people who are complaining Steve Garone: No. that's. that was my point. They don't. because they don't have anything to do with it. Tom Klemm: Yeah? So then I would. you know. I can't take those kinds of comments seriously if they're not even willing to go to a meeting and articulate what they think should be done if it's a one on one with you as they see you. So it's hard to take that seriously or even really act on it. Yeah. Steve Garone: no. I get that. I get that. So. you know. I think it's just important to recognize. I think that a lot of the drive behind a lot of things that have gone on. including the harvester. including the conveyor. and. you know. a lot of the other things that go on. are not. we're not. Are not initiated or worked on by the DPA. They're all people who no longer affiliate with the DPA. So it's kind of like. you know. I won't call it a free for all. but. you know. I think it's something that. frankly. I think we should own. Tom Klemm: Yeah. yeah. Well. I mean. I would say that we do. I We present. we give updates at the town meetings. If the people who are voicing these concerns aren't at the town meetings. they're not going to hear the updates. They're not going to be able to answer questions. So okay. noted. though. but I mean. definitely I will. We'll look into that money that we were promising to give back to the town. I'll try and follow up with the DPW. You know. maybe even aside from reaching out to DPW. the town did pay whatever that money was for a harvester. Maybe there's another way I can. yeah. have the DPA pay back some portion to the town and to sort of bypass the the DPW on that part. But I'll. I'll take that as an action item. Steve Garone: Don't. don't. don't mention my name when you do that. I won't. Tom Klemm: It'll be. it'll be an idea that came out of my own mind. recognizing that we haven't paid the town for this instrument. So I'll take care of that. Okay. let's see. I think that is it on Dudley pond. Let's see mechanical harvesting. Okay. yeah. so I guess Steve. so what you were saying. you know. this committee can still talk about whether we want to have our mission statement accurately reflect that we actually take action and are not advisory. Let me what I will do as an action. and maybe I'll sound out Carol Martin first just get her idea on changing the mission statement. just to reflect that we are actually more active than the mission statement implies. because at this point. we are taking a lot of initiative on this stuff. and the town hasn't pushed back. and I think they would probably welcome it. because this stuff is not going to be done otherwise. right? The Select Board is not going to be seeing this. So I'll take as an action to review and refresh if needed. on the mission statement. But I'll get Carol Martin's input to see how she might advise us to go ahead with this. Yeah. good idea. Or maybe she'll say. don't just keep. keep on trucking and leave things as they are. But I'll. I'll talk to Steve Garone: I have a I have a feeling I can predict what she'll say. but I won't say it Tom Klemm: Just okay. yeah. don't say it. See what happens. Yes. okay. And I think the next thing I have is September and. oh. one quick thing. I got the notice from the Town. September 30 is when the each committee's annual report is due. I've got all the information at my fingertips to do that. so just Steve Garone: which you have to do. or we disappear. I learned notifying this committee that I'm going to put that together. we should have a meeting before the end of September. I can submit a draft for folks to look at and comment on. So that is that tonight because I was really with a friend of mine in also my action to put together the annual report.
town who. when he first moved into town. was on a committee about focused on bike paths. which were really the sidewalks in town. okay? And he said. they. they never met. and they. they never wrote a report. And there's some rule that says. you know. if a year or so goes by. we don't write a report. You You're dissolved. So you gotta write that. Tom Klemm: Yeah. no. I've been doing it the past couple of years. Tom Largey: Well. an example of. you know. with the Wayland Mill Pond. We've discussed that over the years. I had some hydro raking done about 10 years ago on the shoreline of the mill pond. and it was supposedly dredged as some time in the 1970s but nobody knew anything. And so I went through the town reports which are are bound. now they're online. And so I found the town meeting article that authorized it. and how much money was spent. which is not a whole lot of money in today's terms. And I don't think people worried about permits. and they just did it. They just did it. Tom Klemm: Well. I think I suspect permits would be the least of the issue today. I'm sure it's going to cost ridiculous amounts of money. And then what do you put on that muck? Yeah. but maybe once every 50 years is a good time to do it. so I don't know. I'm not going to touch that one right now at the moment. Yeah. well. I haven't thought about that. You know. clearly. because Tom. you've mentioned. when I first enjoyed this committee. you were talking about Mill Pond. and you mentioned the hydro raking way back in the day. or the the dredging back in the day. and the hydro ranking more recently. Tom Largey: Yeah. well. if we. if they don't get into the reports. it's just lost knowledge. I don't think people go through the reports very assiduously either. but it's there. It's a record. Tom Klemm: So. yeah. that's a good in fact. I've probably not even included Mill Pond in the last few years. So let me do that. if nothing else to say. just to point out long term concerns around sediment build up and referring back to the 74 Tom Largey: Yeah. okay. yeah. yeah.
Tom Klemm: All right. refer to dredging and Hydro. Okay. The next item now is the September meeting. And Steve. I will defer to you. because I know your schedule gets quite complicated in September. So. and this is already late August. so I will be traveling mid September. So the week of the 22nd would be ideal. especially with this report due on the 30th. it'd be good to meet the week before. if possible. So Steve. what is your Week of the 22nd of September look like? Steve Garone: Well. so that I have two commitments that I've had ever since I joined the committee. Wednesday nights are a band practice that I really should not miss. That's why Wednesday nights were never good for me. Occasionally. it can work depending on which week it is. if. like. if it's. you know. a school vacation week. we don't. we don't rehearse. or whatever. And the second Tuesday of every month is. is another meeting that I have. but that's only one week a month. And I know Thursdays are out right. because we don't have somebody Tom Klemm: for whatever reason. the Town can only do a zoom up until 4pm Yeah. So that doesn't work. What about September? So that you mentioned Wednesdays? What about and your second Tuesday is out. What about Tuesday the 23rd?
Steve Garone: all other than but wait a minute. let me. Let me just check the calendar and make sure that September. Oh. yeah. So the so the second Tuesday is the ninth. so the 16th is good and the 23rd is good. Only third Tom Largey: Twenty third is fine with me. Tom Klemm: let's do the 23rd then. because that'll give me time to put this report together and then send it to people so they can comment on the 23rd and then I can make any changes before submitting it. Okay? I. September 3. Tuesday. I am Steve Garone: going to have visitors that week. but I can. I'm sure I can break away. Tom Klemm: Okay. okay. that is. that is good. We'll keep that. And then. as I mentioned. Jack Carr has. has. has had chronic issues for a while. being able to attend any meetings any night of the week. And I have a few people in mind. but they are not unfortunately. but they are they're Dudley pond people. I'm very sensitive to this committee membership being a bunch of folks who live on Dudley Pond because Steve Garone: Hold on. Can I back you up a minute? Yes. I just remembered something. I am I'm not. I'm not available on the 23rd typically. I am. but I have something going on that night. I'm sorry.
Tom Klemm: Alright. let's see this 16th is only a couple weeks away. Alright. let's just do it on what is the 30th is? That is the following Tuesday. Let's just. how about the 30th? Then September 30? Tom Largey: Fine with me
Steve Garone: that? See. I thought it was due on the 30th. Tom Klemm: Well. I'll just have to circulate it. and people can make comments. and let's do it that way. Okay? Because I got earlier. I That's just too soon after this meeting. I'm not going to have it done anyways. So let's just do the 30th and I'll circulate before then folks can send their comments to me individually. but you know.
so Steve. confirming that the 30th Tuesday Steve Garone: is okay. yeah. that should that should be fine. Okay. we'll do that then. And Tom Klemm: Tom Largey. you said the 30th is final service is fine with me. Okay. very good. Okay. so getting back to what I was saying. so I'd like to Jack is willing to vacate his seat if we have. if we can get a new another person. And so I don't know if. and I. fortunately. my network is all here. and this part of town. the Dudley Pond part of town. Steve. I don't know if you know anybody else where Tom Largey. but if you can think of somebody who might be able to who'll be willing to serve on this committee. and maybe isn't in the southern part of town. you know. sound them out. and let's. let's see if They're interested. because Jack is willing to step aside. He doesn't be able to make it. And. you know. last month. we had a quorum issue. And so I'd like to with five people. We should never have a quorum issue. So Jack is willing to vacate the seat. So if anybody. if either of you can think of somebody who might be willing to serve. send them my way. Tom Largey: Yeah. Well. you know. of course. Jack was looking after Lake Cochituate before him. Linwood Bradford was and that the fact that it's DCR owns it. basically makes it awfully hard to even keep track of what's going on there. let alone influence anything it's it's a tough. tough job. you know. for committee members. that certainly seems to work where somebody has some ownership. which. you know. as as an example. In the past. we had Mike Lowery and then Tony Moore's engineer interested in the testing. And so otherwise. people just come and they kind of listen it. it. it's. it's hard to get. I think. to hold on to people. unless there's something. somehow that they have ownership of. Carole. she's pretty avid. She's seems to have ownership of. oh. I don't know. Tom Klemm: Town beach
Tom Largey: like that. which keeps her going. Tom Klemm: It's Tom. Let me was Tony. Would Tony? More? You think be interested? I can reach out to him. I have his email. would he Tom Largey: No? You know he's no. When he resigned. he resigned. apparently. his wife as well. She was in a car accident many years ago. and there's some issue there. And no. I think he's. I think he's flat out of out of it. He put many years into it. Yeah. he did. Another fellow was Bob Goldsmith. And right. I remember him. and you know. Bob was interested in things. and to the point where once I took him on my little boat across Dudley pond and deposited him on. I told him it wasn't a good idea deposited him on a far shoreline. These shorelines are difficult. He was ready to get back in the boat in a minute. but it was nothing like Dudley pond. You know. you step onto something round that moves and you realize it might be a snapping turtle. Happened to me once. well anyway. but I. while you were mentioning. I went over a mental list of some acquaintances I have. And by the way. Steve. do you know. do you know Larry? I mean Larry Kiernan. no. oh. you mentioned the bike path. and Larry was super on the on the on the bike path. He was a prime. prime pusher. I And. oh. that you talking about the rail trail. Yeah. the rail. the rail. Oh. I love the rail trail. Yeah. but you don't know Larry K i. e r n. a n. but I'm not certain he's interested in water. but he was super on the rail trail committee. Somebody I know of you know otherwise we have down the street is Shannon Fisher. who's a new ConCom member. and so she was and she's all for trees. I volunteered to I sent her a note saying I'd be glad to take her on a tour of the water bodies in Wayland. But we haven't found the time. She hasn't found the time yet. So just hard to say Tom Klemm: Tom. that guy who lives near Heard pond. is he in Wayland or Tom Largey: he lives in Sudbury? He lives in Sudbury. right? Yeah. yeah. yeah. He lives in Sudbury. There is a fellow. Brian Moore. who lives on the Wayland right past her. Uh. heard pond. He's a physician. and he did join the historic commission because he wanted to do something. But I haven't seen him for quite a while. In fact. I'm wondering if he didn't move or something like that. I. you know. from time to time. I engage people who are might be fishing or walking around the pond. This fellow Brian. he and his family did frequently. Turns out most of the fishermen are from Framingham. Natick. Marlboro. Sudbury. not too many from Wayland. Tom Klemm: Okay. all right. Well. as you. as you guys. were talking to spark some creative thinking in my mind. So I've got some names down here that I'll I can reach out to. Tom Largey: But yeah. you know. there is a new Wayland Post newspaper. Do all of you see it? I write? Yes. yeah. Well. that's. you know. as an example. Today. I was. I did have a hard day. I. besides the pond in the morning. I played two chess games this afternoon. one against my nemesis. I beat him this time. but we are starting a Wayland chess gathering on Thursdays. So I'm going to write some kind of something about it. but I'm not going to do it until September or October. It's summertime right now. but the thought is. if you run something in the Wayland post. that somebody might see it and and you know. around us. we've had new people move in. and a fellow three. three doors down is on the assessors committee. This Shannon Fisher. is on ConCom. Others with young families. but they're not particularly water oriented. but some of them seem to be a pretty public spirited as gotta be a way to reach some of those and maybe the Wayland Post some. some something in there. Tom Klemm: Tom. let me know about that Wayland chess group. My brothers are getting me involved in chess. and I'm terrible at it. so maybe I can go and stink up the join at the Wayland chess club. but I. I'm trying to get better at this. I'm playing online and getting beat by people. I might as well get beat face to face. Oh. let me know. Well. Tom Largey: I'm available loads of evenings. so maybe we could get together. Tom Klemm: Okay. well. you might. you might tire of me as a competitor if you're really good at it. because you might just you. Yeah. but okay. I'll follow up with you on that. Okay. alrighty. okay. Steve Garone: So. speaking of the bike path. I wrote. I wrote an article or a column. I guess. in the Wayland post about rail trail etiquette. Tom Largey: I think I saw that Steve Garone: I do a lot of bike riding on the rail trail. some running. And. you know. people need to treat that the rail trail like. you know. car road with two directions. and they don't often do it. And I've seen people get hurt because people are in the wrong place. Tom Largey: Yeah. yeah. I think I saw that article. yeah. Steve Garone: By the way. I want to make sure we're done with our business. Tom. we are. I was going to adjourn once we're done. I was going to ask if. if you guys know new Steve Green. no. I don't. Yeah. He lives. He lives over on Pine Needle down Cochituate. lived. We got a surprise a couple of days ago. He was driving up in Maine. long story as to the circumstances. and some kid going 123 miles an hour. ran into him and killed him. Tom Largey: Oh. my lord. Tom Klemm: was he driving or on a bike? Steve Garone: He was driving at a in a pickup truck. and his wife was up in Maine for a 50th high school reunion. and he didn't want to go because he didn't know anybody. And I think he was either running errands or driving back to Wayland. and we. a lot of us. went to his funeral today. Wow. wow. You know you gotta live for the moment. because things can change just like that. Tom Largey: Yeah. Any of you ever know David Lane? No. well. he lived in Cochituate. He was. he is. he was a well known artist. He had sculptures on his front lawn. And this is quite a few years ago. but he was well known in town. and so he was teaching at. I guess. Wellesley College several years ago. and a deer jumped in front of his car and shattered the windshield and killed him. So you never know. You never know. Tom Klemm: So there was a house near. did he live on School Street? Because there was a house on School Street had these huge sculpture Tom Largey: that was. that was a. that was a. yeah. yeah. That was a. I used to joke with my wife about getting one of those sculptures. but just a joke. Tom Klemm: yeah. no. we didn't know we Yeah. Okay. alright. Well. that was that concluded our business. So thank you for aligning on that date for our next meeting. If there's nothing else. I would make a motion that we adjourn at 8:34pm Tom Largey: I second that Tom Klemm: let's go around the room. Steve Garone: Steve Garone. aye Tom Largey: Tom Largey. aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem aye Awesome. Alright. everyone. Have a great Labor Day weekend. We'll talk to you guys at the at the end of September. Steve Garone: Alrighty. take care. Tom Largey: bye. bye.
last month's meeting. So we'll touch on the topics that we had on the agenda back in July. and then new developments since that time. So let me call my agenda up here on the town side. Any public comment? By any chance. I don't think we have anybody on town side. Okay. next item on the agenda is to approve the minutes from our June 18 meeting. I sent those for circulation. If anybody has any comments we can discuss. If not. I will make a motion to approve the minutes from June 18. Tom Largey: I second that motion. Tom Klemm: okay. and then let's go around the room.
Tom Largey: Tom Largey aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone aye. Tom Klemm: and Tom Klem. aye thank you. wonderful.
Okay. first item up. Heard Pond status on the herbicide treatment and hand harvesting of water chestnut. Tom Largey. the floor is yours to give Steve the update on. Tom Largey: okay. well. there was a lot has gone on this summer. both on hand pulling and an herbicide treatment. So the first herbicide treatment. it was around the middle of July. and a second one just. I think it was August 6. and so that was the South Cove. If you look at a map of Heard pond. I also call it the Southwest Cove. It's on the southwest side. So we've had two herbicide treatments. And Tom Klem and I were out a couple of weeks ago to look at it. and at that time. we saw in the treated area plants were were not healthy. but they were still living. So there was a concern then that they could still drop seeds. Because when these plants drop seeds. you know. the total would be in the 10s of 1000s. I was going to go out today to take a look. I load. I try not to go out on a hot. hot day. Today was a cold morning and but I happened to run into the fellow from SOLitude who was winding up the hand pulling so I asked him to go out there and look at the distressed plants. And also. it turns out. and this is quite a problem. a big problem. when Tom Klem and I. Tom Klem particular. going through the whole NOI process. and there was an issue with approval from US Fish and Wildlife. because about 95% of Heard pond is surrounded by fish and wildlife land. And it turns out. we had originally come in with a map that showed Heard pond. but it's not as simple as that. because some of Heard pond. as in fish and wildlife land. and that was finally straightened out. but the herbicide applicators were constrained from applying the herbicide in the Fish and Wildlife land. So when Tom Klem and I were out there a couple of Sundays ago. we could see. and it's very mucky stuff. and we could see there seemed to be a band of brighter green on the other side of all of the treated water chestnuts. So this fellow this morning. went in there. I asked him to measure the extent of. And roughly. by the way Tom. there was an email from Jeff Castellani. Did you see that it came about four or five o'clock? Yeah. briefly before the meeting. yeah. with a number of photos. which it turns out. you have to log into Google to view. and that was a little onerous for me. Tom Klemm: Let me. I can do that. I'll forward them to you. if my login Tom Largey: so anyway. and there was an error this fellow. Rocco. who was out this morning. He made a an error between left and right. and because he was talking about the part of the pond that abuts the barrier between it and the Sudbury River. and he used left instead of right. and right takes you down more southerly and more westerly. So what he said. told Jeff. and it's in Jeff's email. is that and he uses canoe to for cover. to measure it. But starting in that area with the wetlands between the pond and the Sudbury river. there was a band of about 20 feet of untreated plants. And it kind of goes around and to the right. I left Jeff a message on that. We'll have to get that straightened out to about a band of about 50 feet wide down at the very far end of the pond. So that's untreated. Also Rocco pulled some of the plants and looked at them and felt that either the seeds were dead. and when they're dead. they're black. if they're good seeds. they're green. But these were dead seeds. seeds. and what. a week or so ago. I talked to this fellow at SOLitude Tanner Pool and raised a concern that all these plants that Tom Klem and I saw. they were still living. They were just kind of brownish. or. you know. he could. or whatever. and they assured me that the plants would not have the energy to produce the seeds. And that. apparently. is what Rocco saw this morning. So by the way. was the name Rocco. He does. he's. he's just an older retired guy. He's. he doesn't look like a gangster or anything like that. But anyway. so the fact of the that green band of unharvested plant is a extremely serious situation looking into the future. if not perpetuity. because in future years. if we can't treat that. then. you know. if you were to take a couple of 100 yards of plants. very dense. 20 to 50 feet. foot band. you're talking 1000s of plants that can drop 10s of 1000s of seeds so that that can never be controlled. That's serious issue. We really didn't
we. meaning I and Tom. unless we were out in the pond with GPS. we could never tell which was fish and wildlife which wasn't. you know. they had to work out the measurements on the GPS.
anyway. So that's the treated area. On the untreated area. there are three. three pulling days in July. about 17. Tom Klemm: Let me pause you there. before we go on to the hand. the hand pulling part of this So Steve. just to get you.... to summarize what Tom was saying. You know. we went into this we were hoping to get the permit for the Clearcast. treat that south part of the pond. and ideally wipe out the plants that were there. Yeah. but based on what Tom was saying. some of that water was still in fish and wildlife territory. so it couldn't be treated. It's a pretty big band. And even the areas. we did treat. it's uncertain how effective that was. So it's. it's very likely. and Tom Langey let me know if you agree with this. that it's. it'll be hard to tell next season whether we were effective. and that's gonna be a combination of because we couldn't treat all the area and even the area that was treated. those plants still may have dropped viable seeds. so we'll have to see. But it's questionable whether this year. bought us any time or made any gains beyond the hand harvesting. Tom Largey: yeah. well. also from year to year is this variability. You know. the history of the pond was that we started in 2003 proceeded through to 2016 and had great success. and the pond appeared to be terrific. shoreline to shoreline. All of a sudden. 50.000 plants in 2016 the pulling crews were overwhelmed. Many 10s of 1000s. if not hundreds of 1000s of seeds were dropped in 2016. The viability you know. there's a curve. A huge number of seeds are viable in the next. first several years. and then it tapers off. But it's a long. long tail. They had said seven years. and the literature said 10 and 10 to 12. 12. to 15. I'm convinced a Heard pond is 20 years those. The science is lacking a little bit there. So I'm certain that there are 10s of 1000s. hundreds of 1000s of seeds in that area. some number which will come next year. But I am heartened by Rocco this morning looking at some plants and not seeing any viable seeds on the plants. Oh.
Tom Klemm: go ahead. Steve. Steve Garone: no. I'm curious about this dichotomy between what we can do. where we can do something. and where we can't. because it's Fish and Wildlife. How does that part that we can't treat get treated? What is the process? Tom Largey: Well. it can't be unless they're not going to do it. I think off off season. we're going to have to pursue that with Fish and Wildlife. That's another round of permitting that we may have. I'm talking personally may or may not have the stomach for and with expenses unknown. Tom Klem is. is pretty good at that stuff. but my. oh. my. it's. it's just a difficult situation. Tom Klemm: to me. what's. what's a bit frustrating about that is. I don't recall hearing that at any of the prior meetings. Now. it just seemed like we could treat that whole. anything that was in the water was was treatable. And so to learn after later. at least to me. it sounds like this is information learned after the fact. when it could have been communicated earlier. Now. in practice. it wouldn't have made any difference. because Tom as you say. we'd need to get Fish and Wildlife approval. But that's a bit of a surprise to learn after they've applied that they couldn't get that innermost part. the closest to shore part. because of this overlay with Fish and Wildlife. Tom Largey: And well. you know. I think what instigated it was last fall. And. oh. the. what do they call that? The. the. what is it? MEPA. Mass EPA. and on to Fish and Wildlife. Yes. those things are not questioned in earlier years and and in fact. for many years. most years. I've sent a report to Fish and Wildlife. and we describe all of that. and it was hand pulling or harvesting. although around 2002 there was a an application of an herbicide in the pond. I. I was not a. not a principal on that. and I just have no records about that Fish and Wildlife knew about it. They approved of it. but then all of a sudden you get into this permitting process. and it got sticky. and so it's just. it's. you know. I like to say that's you. That's part of what Mr. Trump got elected for. Because regulations. regulations. regulations. it's extremely difficult. And. you know. this is a prime example. Tom Klemm: yeah. this is learning it at a micro level. And you can imagine a bigger project that they'd have to go through. But. Steve Garone: oh yeah. doesn't being able to deal with what you're dealing with on like only one part of the pond. Compro. uh. compromise. doesn't get compromised what you're doing when the other half you can't do it with. Tom Largey: So absolutely. absolutely. Tom Klemm: Well. no. I'm not sure I agree. I mean. it means that the perimeter encroaches. but it encroaches up to the point where we can begin treating it. So. yes. we can treat that area closer to shore. It just means that's. that's land that's that's now lost to the water chestnuts. So it doesn't prevent any other work that we're doing. I like the work that we did accomplish. but that perimeter is now is less than it was before. Tom Largey: because that's what water chest spread. So inevitably you know. when the seeds drop. they don't always drop directly to the bottom. Things happen. You know. there are strong winds that this is very shallow water. can roll up the bottom. and just like anything else. they're going to inevitably spread. What the rate is is hard to say. but they will tend to spit. the seeds will tend to spill into the rest of the pond. That's. that's. that's. that's a problem. So we can treat next year and the year after. But there's in particular. the area that's closest to the untreated area. there are going to be more plants. The seeds just spill and they're impossible to count. Just impossible
Tom Klemm: Tom. Do you want to go on to Steve Garone: the you want to count seeds? Is that what you said. What? What are you counting when you say they're impossible to count? Tom Largey: Well. as an example. in 2016 I. I went and bought at town of Wayland. expense. a clam rake. Okay. that's when I had more energy and went into the South Cove and tried a little raking. and decided it was a very difficult endeavor. So then we had SOLitude come in and dredge up some chunks off the bottom and bring that. I forgot how they did it. bring that dripping mess aboard and look for water chestnut seeds. And they've they were hard to find. They just say. even though. okay. we were knew. we knew where there you can't do it's hard to do more than that. and that's all expensive. so. but the clam rake is still in my shed. It's town of Wayland property. If anybody wants to rake clams. they could borrow it. I should turn it over to DPW or somebody I don't know. I've got the rake Steve Garone: We could probably use it. I got Tom Largey: a friend. seriously. uh. I'll bring it by tomorrow. Steve Garone: I'll want to. I want to see it first. Tom Largey: Well. it's a clam rake right? It's got tongs. it's but it would probably do great on tape grass. Oh.
Steve Garone: boy. wow. Anyway. Tom Klemm: let's. let's so Tom. The other part of this is the hand harvesting part. So why don't you talk about that part and some of the challenges we're facing there? Or. I guess. more accurate. to say that SOLitude is facing. and that's by indirectly impacts us and our ability to manage Tom Largey: Yeah. well.Jeff had reported earlier they did 3 days on the main part of the pond. the open water area. the South Cove is not open water. It's wall to wall weeds. despite the fact that 10 years ago. it was open water and we cleared it bank to bank. and we nevertheless still had this Those are really hard to do. and you pull a plant and around 2009 we we had a project there. and several of us on the committee. tremendous infestation of long dormant seeds. But anyway. and get out there. I got waders. We had laundry baskets with floats on them. We're pulling laundry baskets and waiting through the shallows in the pond. which is not much fun. but you'd do a an we had allocated seven pulling days at $1.200 a day. plus area one week. and the next week there'd be plants back. because those plants are hidden under the water lilies so and for years and years. I've made a special point through the season $1.500 for a report. comes out to $9.900 and so they used three to tell SOLitude to please get the water water lilies so they have and they. and what Jeff is saying in this note that I mentioned. that you Tom and I got. was that they pulled in July. and Then there seems to have been a second propagation in July. pulled 1.700 plants from open water areas. Then last event. more seeds came up. So many more seeds in the or plants in the open water area. Tom Klem and I saw some when we were out Friday. they came back and used four more days. including today. a couple Sundays ago. I'd call that sporadic. But what I really wanted them to pay attention to was the area the approaches to the South Cove. outside the treated area and Tom Klem and I have pulled approximately 4.000 plants. including many. many saw quite a few plants there a couple of Sundays ago. So this fellow. Rocco. went out surveyed that. reported to Jeff . In this letter. Jeff is recommending that we have two additional days along Pelham Island Road and other parts of the pond. or of pulling to get those plants that are outside of the treated area. which would be $2.400. it turns out. the last two. three years. we've exceeded our 9.900 by some amount every year. So quite a few water lilies. $2.400 Tom Klemm: by about. a by a couple $1.000 every year. Tom Largey: Yeah. yeah. Well. a couple of years ago was 12.000 more. But anyway. I'd like to make a motion that. and I don't know how much money we have in our accounts. I think this is a serious issue. We're going to run out of money on some on some things. somehow. But I would like to make a motion that we approve two additional hand pulling days at $1.200 each to
pull the area outside of the treated area. Tom Klemm: we will be able to manage that. I mean. it's a few $1.000 I'm willing to approve this. and we'll. we'll manage to have to push it off into the next fiscal year. or something. We can do that. So that's a small dollar. So I. I second that. Steve Garone: I want to. just want to ask a question about that. because one of the things I want to talk about in relation to Dudley Pond is that we're coming up on the fall measurements that we need to do. Tom Klemm: Yeah. that's on the agenda. We'll talk about that Steve Garone: Okay? And. you know. I want to make sure that we're not that we have that money in place as well. Yep. I don't want to jump ahead. but if we're adding
Tom Klemm: yeah and right now. well. I'll have time to show the the budget and where we are. Okay. great. You know. this may impact stuff like Procellacor core down the road. but we'll. we'll see. I mean. this is a few $1.000 let's. let's do. This now. I mean. I think we're going to be in reactive mode for for a lot of this stuff. So I second the motion for two more days of manual water test harvesting on hard pond. And now let's go through a roll call vote. Tom Largey: Tom Largey. aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem aye. All right. You got it Tom. Tom Largey: okay. oh. go ahead. Tom. oh. that's about all I have to say about Heard Pond. You know. I'm 85 years old. I still move around pretty well. but my. oh. my. this. this goes on endlessly. I used and so Tom Klemm: well. I did want to touch on on a point. Steve Garone: Tom. are you grooming a successor? Telling us? Are you grooming a successor? Is that what you're telling us? Tom Largey: Well. very luckily. Mister Clem has done admirably with the paperwork. with the paper. which I have no stomach for anymore. yeah. Tom Klemm: but what you need are. what you know. are boots on the ground. so to speak. yeah. and Tom. you know. one thing you pointed out is that and Steve. you know. SOLitude doesn't have their own crews for this. they have to get involved. Well. not volunteers. They've got to hire people. which has been difficult. They've been using Charles River Canoe and Kayak until recently. this year was Tom they hired volunteers. Who do they know what it was?
Tom Largey: Yeah. they it's a little confusing. Actually. the president of Charles River Canoe was out on the pond Saturday and Sunday. I didn't know that. and that was a non contractual day. That's for them to figure out. not us. but these guys that were doing the pulling are mighty. mighty independent guys. They would fit right in at a biker bar. and that's how they look. And you know. crews like this are hard to pull together. That's that's all there is to it. But this fellow. Rocco. who is out there. he normally drives a harvester and drives there equipment. but they pulled them in to do this so because they can't get kids. and it's just awfully difficult. Tom Klemm: Yeah. so Steve. the problem is multiple so first of all. SOLitude has to hire the crews. which is difficult for them to do. which means we can't control the timing of when they do this. I mean. Tom has said many times. you want to get these plants before they drop seeds. so we can't control that. They're now dropping seeds. There's still a lot of plants in the water. and then we get charged by the day. and it sounds like the guys out there today were in kayaks. which has a much less capacity than. for example. Tom your boat. So we're paying the same amount for a day. whether it's a kayak or some guy in a boat who can haul in sacks of stuff. So you know. these things work against us to get a really good harvesting to get the most bang for our buck. so to speak. That's gonna be a chronic challenge. oh? But that's Unknown: okay. Yeah.
Steve Garone: you don't. You're not grooming a successor. is what you're saying. We already have them. Tom Klemm: He's just. he's just pointing out that he can't do it forever. None of us can. Tom Largey: You know what? A few years ago. when we had a different mix on the committee? Yes. you know. there was Mike Lowery who had a pontoon boat could tool around Dudley pond. and that one or two others had kayaks. Linwood Bradford had his boat on Lake Cochituate. And it sure helps. if you're on surface water quality. to have members who have boats. and what Unknown: what water I'm Tom Largey: one of them. yeah. well. I'll bring you out to Heard pond anytime we can do a survey. Steve Garone: You want to transport my boat over there. That's fine. Tom Largey: anyway. Steve Garone: So moving on. Tom Klemm: Yeah. so Okay. let me. let's go on. sort of moving on to Dudley Pond. And before we get into some i into some larger topics. let's take care of some quick business. The first is we do have an invoice. So recall that few months ago. we contracted with ARC. aquatic I always get the name wrong. Aquatic Restoration. something to do a survey of the flora in Dudley Pond. pre and post harvest. mechanical harvesting season. So they've done that first survey. and we received an invoice for it. I sent it around to everybody. It's for $2.400 odd dollars. And so my first request is that we. I'm making a motion that we approve payment to ARC for that first survey that they had performed for us. Steve Garone: Second. Tom Klemm: thank you. And let's go around the virtual room to approve or not. Tom Largey: Tom Largey aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone. aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem. aye. thank you. Okay? And then another quick one. Steve. you had alluded to it earlier. There's the fall water chemistry testing coming up. Do you want to make a motion to approve expenditure of about? It's about $2.000 right? Steve Garone: Yeah. somewhere in that ballpark. I don't have the exact amount. Shouldn't change. One of the things I want to. I want to just bring this up. This one's going to be a little bit tricky. And the reason is. you know. half of the testing is done by me submitting. then the samples I get to a lab case. and the other one is done by a guy named Ben Weatherall. Tom Klemm: Oh. right. Steve Garone: He comes out with his meter. Well. Ben has changed companies. and while he's willing to do it this fall. he has to do it on his own time. which means a weekend. So we're trying to work out the logistics. because it turns out that one) his testing and my testing need to be done at around the same time. And two) one of the tests that I do requires it get to the lab within 24 hours. So that kind of puts us on a Sunday. and Ben is willing to do a Sunday. so I think we're going to be able to work it out in this fall. but I don't think Ben's going to be available in the future. which means we'll either have to train me to do it and rent the equipment or find somebody else. Tom Klemm: Does Ben do any. I'm recollecting that Ben has his multimeter. and he's looking at oxidation. Steve Garone: dissolved oxygen. you know. Tom Klemm: So the question is. is it all stuff that's read off of this meter? Or there are there tests involved that he does or sends? No. Steve Garone: no. I do those. He just use that meter. So. I mean. one of the alternatives is. after this fall. I can somehow get trained on using the meter. and we just have to rent it. and that might actually make things cheaper. But we haven't answered that question yet. Tom Klemm: hasn't Mike lower you used the meter before? Could Mike train you on it? Because if it's just a handheld meter. Steve Garone: I wasn't aware of that. so I'll find out. Tom Klemm: Okay. but the upside is that. then we'll do it this fall. but beyond that. we need to Steve Garone: Exactly Tom Klemm: Okay. Steve Garone: right. So we're aiming now for probably October 5. which is a Sunday. So the logistics are going to be that. you know. he may. he may be able to go out in the afternoon. He prefer the morning. but we should do it on the same day. but I would have to go out after 3pm so that they can get that sample back to the lab within 24 hours. Tom Klemm: So that is the day of the Dudley Pond Fun Run. So if you can coordinate all of it for the afternoon. it might be better. Steve Garone: right? I forgot about that. Tom Klemm: So the morning might be tough if you're if he's thinking about parking at Mansion beach to do his thing. Steve Garone: NAH let him park in my driveway. Okay? Forgot about that. which is interesting. because I usually do that run. So maybe we'll make it a different weekend. Tom Klemm: okay. but yeah. let me and I hope Ben does a good job writing those reports. But as far as collecting data. if it's just the multimeter. the multimeter. then we should be able to manage that ourselves. and as you say. it'll be a bit of a cost saver. Yeah. Okay. so he'll do it this fall. but after that. we're on our own Steve Garone: to figure out a new way to do it. Okay? Tom Largey: Well. there has been a. you know. in the in the past. surface water quality has bought some equipment and Carole Plumb. I think I don't know. a year. two or three years ago. has raised the issue of some of this equipment. and it turns out. you need supplies to run the equipment. and the equipment is maybe obsolete and so forth. So which. you know there. there's stuff lurking around there. but maybe difficult to use. and may be expensive to use. Tom Klemm: You are correct.She was talking about the. I believe it was the pH probe. and it hadn't been used in a while. and it was going to take some rejuvenation. if that's even possible. I possible. Steve Garone: So things that we measure. what's that pH? So one of the things Tom Klemm: we measure. right? And so Ben's got one of these things. so we. if we have to rent from him. that's probably going to be that there goes any cost savings. right? Potentially. Steve Garone: I'm not sure. does he have it. or does he rent Tom Klemm: it? I don't know anything you could ask Norm. because Norm and Ben have been doing this for years. so check with him. I just. you know. they take care of it. And so I don't know exactly the how of it. but yeah. check it with Norm. Okay. you know. I wouldn't be. you know. I don't know. Actually. no. Ben does measure at multiple spots. Steve Garone: And what I do know is that Ben. in our discussions about this. said. when he can't do it. we would have to rent it. So we'd have to find out from him where to rent it. and somehow get trained. or read an instruction manual. or talk to Tom. I'm sorry. talk to Mike Lowery. Okay. we'll figure it out. Tom Klemm: Okay In the meantime. did we so I made the motion? Did we actually take a vote on that. or did we go right into some questions? Steve Garone: I just interrupted you. so let's Tom Klemm: Okay. Well. sorry. the second. okay. well. let me just. let's start again. So motion to approve expenditure for Fall water chemistry testing on Dudley pond on the order of $2.000 is there a second? Steve Garone: Second? Tom Klemm: Thank you. and let's go around the virtual room. Tom Largey: Tom Largey . aye Steve Garone: Steve Garone . aye
Tom Klemm: thank you. Tom Clem. aye. okay. very good. Those are the two. Let's see approval. Okay. excuse me. we had a topic last time. And Steve. I don't know if you want to talk more about this revenue updates. You know the my guess first. before we get into that. I know Alison has sent some updates on the harvesting. I have not had a chance to read those. Steve. do you want to give an update? Are we? Is that thing broken down again? Are we making a great headway? What's the Steve Garone: I haven't. I haven't in front of me. What's funny was that I see Allison almost every day. I run out to the beach. I talk to her and I. and she said she sent me something before the meeting. and so I hadn't seen anything. so I said I wrote her a note today. and said. Are you going to send something? Well. she sent it to you and me on the town email. as opposed I think she was going to send it directly to me in my personal email. so I literally saw it right before we started this meeting. So I have it up in front of me. And basically there are. there are two parts to it.
She did tell me. by the way. this is not in her report that this from the from the standpoint everything's relative. from the standpoint of the efficacy and the use of the harvester over the course of the weeks we're using it. it's been the best year so far. The fewest breakdowns. you know. problems that did crop up were fixed fairly quickly. and that we also shifted. as you know. the starting point. which turned out to be a really good decision this year. Tom Largey: are you talking about the depth? Steve Garone: No. about the date that we started harvest? Oh yeah. okay. toward the end of July. and that that worked out really well. I was really surprised. because I have a pontoon boat on the pond. and usually the tape grass issues crop up a lot earlier in this season that they did this year. We think that might have been due to the fact where we. we when we measured the Secchi depth in the spring. it's usually like 11 or 12 feet. Yup. it was like 8. 8 one half feet at the most. So we think for some reason the pond was not as clear as it was. maybe less sunlight got down then. That might have retarded the regrowth a little bit. but we're not sure. Tom Klemm: So there's been no complaints then from residents about weeds fouling their props. Steve Garone: not that I know of now. Well. not not until recently. The last couple of weeks have been tough. but. but this is very late in the season for that to happen. so it's actually been pretty good. and they've been doing a great job. You know. one of the concerns that I. I voice all the time. which sort of. you know. one of the reasons why I was prompted to raise the issue around this committee's role was that. is there a plan when these people don't want to do it anymore. and what are we going to do about that? So we. you know that I think they're almost done. They have a couple of weeks left. and they're doing a good job. In terms of milfoil. she wrote a note that said very little was found in the pond mid July. They watched whatever comes. whatever gets cut that goes in the conveyor for milfoil strands. Uh. they've seen less than 10 small strands from the Chat Cove area. which is where we usually see a lot. So the milfoil evidently. is not that bad right now. Tom Klemm: I'd like to. we'll keep monitoring that. but I don't want to reflexively apply for seller Procellacor every three years. because I'm concerned about resistance building up over time. So if we can. if it stays low this year and doesn't appear to be a threat. then I would like to. if we can bypass next year. maybe think about 27 if we need to do it right. Steve Garone: Well. I want to. I want to. I want to follow up with Allison. I'm literally just reading what she wrote here. and I haven't heard about it. but yes. that would be great. I can tell you that the tape grass is awful though right now. that stuff's still. still doing its thing. But she also gave us some statistics on what she's done. Okay. so. so actually. we week left. This is week six. and she has indicated she broke it down by week. but the total as of Tuesday. which is yesterday. Total pounds collected over six weeks is over 101.000 Tom Largey: Wow. Tom Klemm: What do you mean one week left? Steve Garone: Well. she they contracted for seven weeks. We're in week six so. Tom Klemm: But they okay. they did it through October last year. Was that because they lost weeks. because it was broken down. Steve Garone: yeah. we're doing few weeks this year.
Tom Klemm: Well. we're doing because it started later. but the number of weeks is the same as it was last year. right? I'm sorry. the same number of weeks as we did in 2024 Steve Garone: I'm not sure. I'm not sure about Tom Klemm: that okay. because I Okay. I mean. my assumption might have been incorrect. I assumed they were gonna I knew they were starting later. yeah. but if it's the same number of weeks. and last year they went into October. oh. yeah. I guess it makes sense if the same number of weeks. and they may have started later. but they were able to work straight through. because the the harvester didn't break down. whereas last year it broke down. Okay. Steve Garone: so again. I haven't talked to her about this report. because I just read it just before we got on here. Got it okay. but it says we are in the middle of week six of seven harvest weeks. And she sent this report yesterday. so there's one more week left after this. if this is correct. and they've worked 281 person hours.
Tom Klemm: So this started late July. So this is going to be basically how many weeks total. seven weeks. eight weeks. It's seven weeks. And was it seven weeks last year. and I know was broken up by again. Steve Garone: you asked me that I don't remember. So okay. Tom Klemm: I would be curious if the weeks Steve Garone: question and I'll. I'll get an answer. Okay. so you know that's basically what we know right now. We did have a little better cooperation from people around the pond in terms of raking. you know. Bob Smith and I are doing a lot of that. And the Leonards have a motorboat that they take out. I think. every week. where they go around and collect as much as they can collect. So we're having a little bit better
floating stuff collection than we had in the past. Okay. that's been. it's been. okay. yeah. Tom Klemm: Yeah. great. And Tom Largey. you know. again. these are just emails coming from Allison. I will compile this stuff. I always circulate it to the whole committee. and I know you want a more formal report that might be something that I can take on. and if. because Allison has done doing a lot of work already. but maybe I can take this information and put it in something in a more formal way to document the work being done. So I'll take that as an action item. Steve Garone: right. Tom Largey: Yeah. And then that case. we have a report this year that can be measured against next year and so forth. right? Yeah. So that's that's pretty darn important. Well. that amounts to assuming next week about 350 personnel hours. I don't know what they get paid. I'm sure it's somewhere in the 20s. Hard to say that's not. not too bad. I don't think. for from a cost point of view.
Steve Garone: yeah. it's not. it's. it's not our budget. though. Tom Largey: yeah. yeah. but it's the Town. The Town is spending the money. So. yeah. So what they do it four days a week. right? Is it four days a week? Steve Garone: Four days a week? Monday through Thursday. Yeah. I think the reason why they don't do it on Friday is because the town building's closed on Friday. Tom Largey: Right. All right. Well. back to the 101.000 pounds. We've been told the town no longer has a composting facility. so that was seen as a problem if we were to use a Harvester on Heard pond. But that 100.000 pounds of tape grass. Where does that go? Steve Garone: That's a you know. as you are talking. I was thinking to myself. I would love to know the answer to that myself. Tree said to me yesterday. he was. he was the end of his day. He was making jokes. and he said we got the the Sally contract for the high school. I But seriously. I don't know the answer to that. and I'll get that answer as well. Tom Largey: Okay. Tom Klemm: I have a question for you. how the 101.000 pounds? What's that estimate based on? Steve Garone: Well. she broke it down by week. and basically they they size a load at 1.500 pounds. And so they take the number of loads they do in a week and do the multiplication. Tom Klemm: Is that what the max weight of the harvester is must be. yeah. okay. yeah. I'm just curious what the what the unit was. They calculated that number from. okay. so. Steve Garone: but you reminded me of a small point as you were speaking. I got a I got an email from Norm about a week ago. He was trying to download our may report on our measurements. and he says. evidently. was never posted. I I know I sent it to you. and I think I sent it to Jailyn too.
Tom Klemm: Yeah. this is a
Steve Garone: subject matter a little bit here. Tom Klemm: Well. let's so for this one. Why don't you just send it directly to Norm. So he was looking for on our web page. Steve Garone: So. you know. it was because every time I've done this in the past. haven't been a lot of them. but I send it to I send it to the committee. and I send it to Jailyn. And I thought she usually posts it. but Tom Klemm: it's was just as well. because what. what Jailyn does is she'll create a new like a not a link. saving a thumb thumbnail. It's basically. every time we upload a new document. there's a new line that appears on our web page. which is ridiculous. What I want there to be is one tab for document library. and then you go there and you can find what you're looking for. So to send that one directly to Norm. that's that's a larger issue about how we make documentation publicly available. not only amongst this committee. but but to the public. So to send Norm that one for now. I don't think anybody else beyond the DPA cares. So if Norm has it. he can distribute it to everybody. Steve Garone: Funny thing is. Norm. Norm should have it because I'm not sure I'm going to have to do it this time. but I always have him review it. because he's done it more times than I have. But anyway. but we've had this conversation before in this committee. right about how documentation is posted in the town. And. yeah. we'll Tom Klemm: talk about that. about that that further down the agenda. because that was gonna be a topic for last time. So I'll touch on that. They get there . last thing on Dudley pond. And have you had any discussions with Allison about how we're going to capture this information? So as you say. when Alison and Tree can't or don't want to do this. we have a source document to hand off to the next person. Steve Garone: I had. I think I may have told you this. I had a long sit down with Allison about a month and a half ago to talk about a number of things around this. And one of the things I said to her is. you know. we really need to develop a best practices document. And I said I'd be happy to write it. but I have to do it in collaboration with you guys. because you guys are the ones that are out there using the equipment. etc. And we do have some material. I mean. I don't know if you knew this. but when. when the harvester first arrived and the DPW guys are out here showing people how to use it. I did. I did videos. I took videos of what they were teaching and what they were showing people. And I did that because Norm asked me to and. and then I was waiting for Norm to go. Well. you know. can you put it together in a in a whole video? And. you know. whatever. nobody ever asked me. This is before I was on the committee. So the idea to do that has been around for a while. but we haven't done it yet. So it's a very good point. because. you know. and frankly. you know. I'm I'm thinking it's important. but you know. I've also had conversations with Carol Martin who said. Well. that's the DPW's job. Don't worry. If we need to hire new people. They will do it. and they will train them. I don't know. Tom Klemm: They'll they'll train them. but there's local knowledge that they are not going to be able to impart to these people. right? Steve Garone: So. yeah. I so I did have that conversation with her. She seemed willing to do it. but. you know. then the season started. and I didn't really want to bother her. because she's just straight out. So this fall. we revisit it. Okay. all right. Tom Klemm: one last thing on Dudley pond. yeah. and kudos to our own Carole Plumb for pointing this out some time ago. there is what appeared on the town website. A few months back. was a notice that the town is contracting with an engineering firm to assess wastewater impact on Dudley pond. and turns out. this is a larger issue to determine. for example. whether there needs to be a local wastewater treatment station around Dudley pond. And there were several different proposals around that area. So it wasn't highly publicized. but Cheryl Carole has her eyes on what the town's doing. So. Part of this initiative was to have a a wastewater. a Dudley pond wastewater study group of interested residents to vet these proposals. And that committee has been formed. I am on it. Norm is on it. There's someone else in the in the Dudley pond community. who's on there. and there's a fourth person whose name I didn't recognize. Steve. are you or no. you're not on it. Steve. it's. it's Norm. And there's a fourth person Steve Garone: I literally found out about that committee. like. two days ago. from Bob Smith. I didn't even know it existed. Tom Klemm: Yeah. it was all low key. And again. if it wasn't for Carole Plumb. I wouldn't know. I mean. I'm not as good as she is sleuthing stuff out. So kudos to Carole and so again. But this whole thing is just strange. You know. this idea that the town is going to determine what may or may not need to be done around the Dudley plot area in terms of wastewater treatment. very odd how it sort of popped up out of the blue. I guess I think the originating. the source behind it was Abigail Charest. the town engineer. but maybe it predates her. I don't know. So anyways. this committee is meeting for the first time later in September. and I will be updating the committee as it goes forward. but that's I'll resend the link. You know. you can try and glean some information there. But. you know. the long term goal is. how do we obviate the the how do we mitigate from wastewater getting at the Dudley pond? And Steve. you'll recall years ago when they wanted to put a little wastewater unit down by what's now Dudley woods. for a development. You know. I think that idea is going to come back as one of the options this committee will face. So I'll resend the link to the group right now. This is just to raise awareness that the committee. the group. has been formed. Our first meeting is in September. Good news is it's mostly Dudley upon people who are on there. so I think they'll be certainly getting a critical assessment from. from us. So stay tuned. Steve Garone: So are you. are you telling me that I may not have to have a septic system anymore? Tom Klemm: Well. that's. I mean. I think. yeah. I mean. one of the. one of the. what the. what the town is looking for. is. yeah. can can we? I don't know if tying into Natick was an option. certainly a local wastewater treatment was. I think there was something about shunting it somewhere towards the high school. I think is there some wastewater? I don't know. There was a third option. but yeah. the upshot would be to not really have reliance on the cesspools that are still around there and other kinds of on site septic treatment. Can it be treated either on site in a more comprehensive way. or just sent elsewhere? It's quite vague on that. on the website. on the town the website. I'll resend the link so people can can look at that. Steve Garone: Sounds expensive. Tom Klemm: We're just rolling in money. Okay. that is all on Dudley pond and Tom Largey. I saw you yawn. We'll try and wrap it. I think it'll go pretty quick. Steve Garone: He's had a long day. Tom Klemm: Yes. Okay. okay. The next one is pretty quick. So again. our Eagle Eye Carole. she had noticed that Mass DCR is updating the their 20 year old guide to Massachusetts Lakes and Ponds and treatment options for the different kinds of invasives one might find. I looked. I was turn over the floor to Carole on that she's not here. but I was looking at it earlier this week. and there's nothing new as of yet. Basically. what the state has done is they've taken comments. There was an open period to comment on that older version. that window is closed. and the state is now taking those comments and will revise. So currently. there's nothing new in this documentation. It's the same thing from 2004. so there's no news to report as of yet. There was just an open comment period. People commented. the state's going to revise it. So I was in the impression at first that there was a new version that had been uploaded. But no. it's just the comment window is closed. The state is going to revise So more to come on that. And I'll let Carole speak more authoritatively on that. Okay. okay. something Steve. that you had brought up last time. and we can defer this one into a larger group. But you know. this the surface water it concerns the surface water quality committee's mission statement. And as founded. we are an advisory body. We are not supposed to be taking an active role. even though. in fact. we are. We just talked about water chemistry testing. Heard Pond weed management. Dudley pond. So. you know. Steve. to your point. we are already doing that stuff. and maybe it's the question of making our mission statement reflect that we're actually doing stuff and we are not simply advising the Select Board on what should be done. I will open the floor to you if you want to make any other comments around that. or if you had something more specific in mind that I am overlooking in my gloss Steve Garone: Well. all I can say is that you know the ideas came up in all first it. they started with me. Because. you know. I. when I. when I started working on this group. with this group. I started thinking about. you know. what is our role? What. what. what are we trying to accomplish? Some of that came from the fact that most of my focus has been on Dudley pond. And as you know. we have a Dudley Pond Association that tries at least to be somewhat active in weed management and things that go on around the pond. But frankly. I don't think did a very good job at that. They do a really good job at social things. but that's pretty much it. And they have money. Yes. they have some money. So people started talking to me about the fact that. well. you know. why don't. why don't you guys. you guys should really own this whole weed management thing. and you should really be controlling the budget. and you should really be. you know. figuring out what the long term plan is for all the water bodies within Wayland. And it doesn't seem like you're doing that. And I'm not sure that we can. given that we're an advisory board to these Selectmen. and we don't have a budget to do all those things. Tom Klemm: Are these comments from Dudley Folks. or just folks across town Steve Garone: Dudley Pond folks. pretty much. Tom Largey: Well. my comment is. I always felt we were doing quite a bit more than advising. We've been rolling out contracts for. Many. many years. And I think in the case of Dudley Pond. almost everything that was was done on it for many years was through Surface Water Quality. you know. various whatever there were treatments or pilots or or this or that. The difference is that Heard Pond doesn't have an association. I think we do it all there. Dudley pond has call it an Activist Association. That's that's a primary. It's quite a difference.
Steve Garone: Yeah. No. it is. It is active. as I mentioned earlier. How do I put this? It talks a lot about the kinds of issues that we're supposed to be dealing with here. and we do deal with here in terms of weed management and so on. but they have not really turned that into real action and real work. And so that kind of falls on people around Dudley pond that don't want to be affiliated with the DPA and don't want to be in Surface Water Quality. So they kind of. they're kind of renegades. if you will. Okay. so I. I get the sense that. you know. they want to really look to us. to do what they're doing. but they don't see us doing it. and they can't. They don't want to deal with the DPA. because the DPA doesn't do it at all. Tom Largey: So what are they doing? What are they doing that isn't? I mean. there's. there's a harvester on the pond. there's water testing. there's. there are periodic applications of herbicides. What are they doing otherwise? I have no idea. Never heard of Steve Garone: okay. so you bring up the harvester. right? So the harvester. I was involved in the the liaison with the DPA over the harvester. because they. to a very great extent. paid for it. okay? And there was a lot of resistance to doing that. And it took a lot of convincing to get them to. you know. give the town the funds. at least in part. to to purchase that machine. Tom Largey: So I thought the harvester of the $95.000 or whatever. was merely a line item. It was a line item in the in the town warrant several years ago. and the town paid for Steve Garone: It was. it was kind of a. there are some things it.
that there was some payments that the DPA was supposed to pay the town that they didn't pay to kind of. you know. be able to channel it toward the harvester and the conveyor. Complicated story. but basically. you know. the Dudley Pond Association. from the standpoint of dealing with weeds on the pond. has been a source of money. but that's pretty much it. Tom. do you agree with me? Do you is this what you've seen as well? Tom Klemm: So first off. I'll say I agree with Tom. I don't know. It sounds like this is conflating two different things. So one hand. they're saying we should be doing more. not only on Dudley pond. but the other ponds in town. And so I would ask as Tom did. what more do they want to say on Dudley pond? But then you segue into the whole harvester and the Dudley Pond Association was willing to pay for this. In the end. the town approved it at town meeting. But it is true that the DEP never gave back to the town money over time for this thing. so they complained that we welched on our deal. That's that's fine. I will say that I didn't try and get I've tried several. not recently. but when this. when the town first had the harvester. it was overseeing its use. I had written to several folks at the DPW to ask. Can you give me. you know. a list of what you've spent on this thing? What are the amortized costs? Because what we've done historically as the DPA in the DPA a was they would find out from the town what was spent on that seasons of management of Dudley pond. and there was a memorandum of understanding between the DPA and the town that the DPA a would contribute back or make a gift of some 20 or 25% of whatever the town spent. And that hasn't happened in at least five years. because I've not had a. Uh. or since the harvester was purchased. because I haven't gotten from the DPA what those expenses were without that number. I can't. yeah. work with Tree or Jamie on what 25% is. So I'm not quite so it's true that we haven't done that. I'm not sure what the complaint is. Are these people insisting that we pay that money. which is fine. We haven't done it. As far as actual work. as Tom said. We're doing all kinds of things on the pond. and I don't know what specifically they are thinking is missing. Steve Garone: I think. I think what. what. what I've heard. is not so much about. you're not you're not testing. you're not doing this. It's more about. you know. the long term. what's the long term plan? Do we do we need another harvester? Tom Klemm: I see Steve Garone: . how are we going to fund it? How are we going to get new people to run the harvester? What. you know. what is a long term plan for dealing with weeds on the pond. we don't really have that. we're kind of watching and going. so that's what I hear back. Tom Klemm: Okay. well. I would. you know. to those. I would say. you know. we are doing. we're we're managing milfoil with Procellacor as needed. And then for the harvester. You know. we were just talking about this tree. and Allison can't do it forever. We've got some younger people. And if you know. it's. I don't think it's too difficult to learn to use the harvester. Maybe that from within the DPA there might be somebody willing to step up into those roles. Would be because of that Allison and Tree. the thing is just going to be dormant. and not you. So. you know. I go to the DPA meetings I can present again. and maybe. and probably the people who are complaining Steve Garone: No. that's. that was my point. They don't. because they don't have anything to do with it. Tom Klemm: Yeah? So then I would. you know. I can't take those kinds of comments seriously if they're not even willing to go to a meeting and articulate what they think should be done if it's a one on one with you as they see you. So it's hard to take that seriously or even really act on it. Yeah. Steve Garone: no. I get that. I get that. So. you know. I think it's just important to recognize. I think that a lot of the drive behind a lot of things that have gone on. including the harvester. including the conveyor. and. you know. a lot of the other things that go on. are not. we're not. Are not initiated or worked on by the DPA. They're all people who no longer affiliate with the DPA. So it's kind of like. you know. I won't call it a free for all. but. you know. I think it's something that. frankly. I think we should own. Tom Klemm: Yeah. yeah. Well. I mean. I would say that we do. I We present. we give updates at the town meetings. If the people who are voicing these concerns aren't at the town meetings. they're not going to hear the updates. They're not going to be able to answer questions. So okay. noted. though. but I mean. definitely I will. We'll look into that money that we were promising to give back to the town. I'll try and follow up with the DPW. You know. maybe even aside from reaching out to DPW. the town did pay whatever that money was for a harvester. Maybe there's another way I can. yeah. have the DPA pay back some portion to the town and to sort of bypass the the DPW on that part. But I'll. I'll take that as an action item. Steve Garone: Don't. don't. don't mention my name when you do that. I won't. Tom Klemm: It'll be. it'll be an idea that came out of my own mind. recognizing that we haven't paid the town for this instrument. So I'll take care of that. Okay. let's see. I think that is it on Dudley pond. Let's see mechanical harvesting. Okay. yeah. so I guess Steve. so what you were saying. you know. this committee can still talk about whether we want to have our mission statement accurately reflect that we actually take action and are not advisory. Let me what I will do as an action. and maybe I'll sound out Carol Martin first just get her idea on changing the mission statement. just to reflect that we are actually more active than the mission statement implies. because at this point. we are taking a lot of initiative on this stuff. and the town hasn't pushed back. and I think they would probably welcome it. because this stuff is not going to be done otherwise. right? The Select Board is not going to be seeing this. So I'll take as an action to review and refresh if needed. on the mission statement. But I'll get Carol Martin's input to see how she might advise us to go ahead with this. Yeah. good idea. Or maybe she'll say. don't just keep. keep on trucking and leave things as they are. But I'll. I'll talk to Steve Garone: I have a I have a feeling I can predict what she'll say. but I won't say it Tom Klemm: Just okay. yeah. don't say it. See what happens. Yes. okay. And I think the next thing I have is September and. oh. one quick thing. I got the notice from the Town. September 30 is when the each committee's annual report is due. I've got all the information at my fingertips to do that. so just Steve Garone: which you have to do. or we disappear. I learned notifying this committee that I'm going to put that together. we should have a meeting before the end of September. I can submit a draft for folks to look at and comment on. So that is that tonight because I was really with a friend of mine in also my action to put together the annual report.
town who. when he first moved into town. was on a committee about focused on bike paths. which were really the sidewalks in town. okay? And he said. they. they never met. and they. they never wrote a report. And there's some rule that says. you know. if a year or so goes by. we don't write a report. You You're dissolved. So you gotta write that. Tom Klemm: Yeah. no. I've been doing it the past couple of years. Tom Largey: Well. an example of. you know. with the Wayland Mill Pond. We've discussed that over the years. I had some hydro raking done about 10 years ago on the shoreline of the mill pond. and it was supposedly dredged as some time in the 1970s but nobody knew anything. And so I went through the town reports which are are bound. now they're online. And so I found the town meeting article that authorized it. and how much money was spent. which is not a whole lot of money in today's terms. And I don't think people worried about permits. and they just did it. They just did it. Tom Klemm: Well. I think I suspect permits would be the least of the issue today. I'm sure it's going to cost ridiculous amounts of money. And then what do you put on that muck? Yeah. but maybe once every 50 years is a good time to do it. so I don't know. I'm not going to touch that one right now at the moment. Yeah. well. I haven't thought about that. You know. clearly. because Tom. you've mentioned. when I first enjoyed this committee. you were talking about Mill Pond. and you mentioned the hydro raking way back in the day. or the the dredging back in the day. and the hydro ranking more recently. Tom Largey: Yeah. well. if we. if they don't get into the reports. it's just lost knowledge. I don't think people go through the reports very assiduously either. but it's there. It's a record. Tom Klemm: So. yeah. that's a good in fact. I've probably not even included Mill Pond in the last few years. So let me do that. if nothing else to say. just to point out long term concerns around sediment build up and referring back to the 74 Tom Largey: Yeah. okay. yeah. yeah.
Tom Klemm: All right. refer to dredging and Hydro. Okay. The next item now is the September meeting. And Steve. I will defer to you. because I know your schedule gets quite complicated in September. So. and this is already late August. so I will be traveling mid September. So the week of the 22nd would be ideal. especially with this report due on the 30th. it'd be good to meet the week before. if possible. So Steve. what is your Week of the 22nd of September look like? Steve Garone: Well. so that I have two commitments that I've had ever since I joined the committee. Wednesday nights are a band practice that I really should not miss. That's why Wednesday nights were never good for me. Occasionally. it can work depending on which week it is. if. like. if it's. you know. a school vacation week. we don't. we don't rehearse. or whatever. And the second Tuesday of every month is. is another meeting that I have. but that's only one week a month. And I know Thursdays are out right. because we don't have somebody Tom Klemm: for whatever reason. the Town can only do a zoom up until 4pm Yeah. So that doesn't work. What about September? So that you mentioned Wednesdays? What about and your second Tuesday is out. What about Tuesday the 23rd?
Steve Garone: all other than but wait a minute. let me. Let me just check the calendar and make sure that September. Oh. yeah. So the so the second Tuesday is the ninth. so the 16th is good and the 23rd is good. Only third Tom Largey: Twenty third is fine with me. Tom Klemm: let's do the 23rd then. because that'll give me time to put this report together and then send it to people so they can comment on the 23rd and then I can make any changes before submitting it. Okay? I. September 3. Tuesday. I am Steve Garone: going to have visitors that week. but I can. I'm sure I can break away. Tom Klemm: Okay. okay. that is. that is good. We'll keep that. And then. as I mentioned. Jack Carr has. has. has had chronic issues for a while. being able to attend any meetings any night of the week. And I have a few people in mind. but they are not unfortunately. but they are they're Dudley pond people. I'm very sensitive to this committee membership being a bunch of folks who live on Dudley Pond because Steve Garone: Hold on. Can I back you up a minute? Yes. I just remembered something. I am I'm not. I'm not available on the 23rd typically. I am. but I have something going on that night. I'm sorry.
Tom Klemm: Alright. let's see this 16th is only a couple weeks away. Alright. let's just do it on what is the 30th is? That is the following Tuesday. Let's just. how about the 30th? Then September 30? Tom Largey: Fine with me
Steve Garone: that? See. I thought it was due on the 30th. Tom Klemm: Well. I'll just have to circulate it. and people can make comments. and let's do it that way. Okay? Because I got earlier. I That's just too soon after this meeting. I'm not going to have it done anyways. So let's just do the 30th and I'll circulate before then folks can send their comments to me individually. but you know.
so Steve. confirming that the 30th Tuesday Steve Garone: is okay. yeah. that should that should be fine. Okay. we'll do that then. And Tom Klemm: Tom Largey. you said the 30th is final service is fine with me. Okay. very good. Okay. so getting back to what I was saying. so I'd like to Jack is willing to vacate his seat if we have. if we can get a new another person. And so I don't know if. and I. fortunately. my network is all here. and this part of town. the Dudley Pond part of town. Steve. I don't know if you know anybody else where Tom Largey. but if you can think of somebody who might be able to who'll be willing to serve on this committee. and maybe isn't in the southern part of town. you know. sound them out. and let's. let's see if They're interested. because Jack is willing to step aside. He doesn't be able to make it. And. you know. last month. we had a quorum issue. And so I'd like to with five people. We should never have a quorum issue. So Jack is willing to vacate the seat. So if anybody. if either of you can think of somebody who might be willing to serve. send them my way. Tom Largey: Yeah. Well. you know. of course. Jack was looking after Lake Cochituate before him. Linwood Bradford was and that the fact that it's DCR owns it. basically makes it awfully hard to even keep track of what's going on there. let alone influence anything it's it's a tough. tough job. you know. for committee members. that certainly seems to work where somebody has some ownership. which. you know. as as an example. In the past. we had Mike Lowery and then Tony Moore's engineer interested in the testing. And so otherwise. people just come and they kind of listen it. it. it's. it's hard to get. I think. to hold on to people. unless there's something. somehow that they have ownership of. Carole. she's pretty avid. She's seems to have ownership of. oh. I don't know. Tom Klemm: Town beach
Tom Largey: like that. which keeps her going. Tom Klemm: It's Tom. Let me was Tony. Would Tony? More? You think be interested? I can reach out to him. I have his email. would he Tom Largey: No? You know he's no. When he resigned. he resigned. apparently. his wife as well. She was in a car accident many years ago. and there's some issue there. And no. I think he's. I think he's flat out of out of it. He put many years into it. Yeah. he did. Another fellow was Bob Goldsmith. And right. I remember him. and you know. Bob was interested in things. and to the point where once I took him on my little boat across Dudley pond and deposited him on. I told him it wasn't a good idea deposited him on a far shoreline. These shorelines are difficult. He was ready to get back in the boat in a minute. but it was nothing like Dudley pond. You know. you step onto something round that moves and you realize it might be a snapping turtle. Happened to me once. well anyway. but I. while you were mentioning. I went over a mental list of some acquaintances I have. And by the way. Steve. do you know. do you know Larry? I mean Larry Kiernan. no. oh. you mentioned the bike path. and Larry was super on the on the on the bike path. He was a prime. prime pusher. I And. oh. that you talking about the rail trail. Yeah. the rail. the rail. Oh. I love the rail trail. Yeah. but you don't know Larry K i. e r n. a n. but I'm not certain he's interested in water. but he was super on the rail trail committee. Somebody I know of you know otherwise we have down the street is Shannon Fisher. who's a new ConCom member. and so she was and she's all for trees. I volunteered to I sent her a note saying I'd be glad to take her on a tour of the water bodies in Wayland. But we haven't found the time. She hasn't found the time yet. So just hard to say Tom Klemm: Tom. that guy who lives near Heard pond. is he in Wayland or Tom Largey: he lives in Sudbury? He lives in Sudbury. right? Yeah. yeah. yeah. He lives in Sudbury. There is a fellow. Brian Moore. who lives on the Wayland right past her. Uh. heard pond. He's a physician. and he did join the historic commission because he wanted to do something. But I haven't seen him for quite a while. In fact. I'm wondering if he didn't move or something like that. I. you know. from time to time. I engage people who are might be fishing or walking around the pond. This fellow Brian. he and his family did frequently. Turns out most of the fishermen are from Framingham. Natick. Marlboro. Sudbury. not too many from Wayland. Tom Klemm: Okay. all right. Well. as you. as you guys. were talking to spark some creative thinking in my mind. So I've got some names down here that I'll I can reach out to. Tom Largey: But yeah. you know. there is a new Wayland Post newspaper. Do all of you see it? I write? Yes. yeah. Well. that's. you know. as an example. Today. I was. I did have a hard day. I. besides the pond in the morning. I played two chess games this afternoon. one against my nemesis. I beat him this time. but we are starting a Wayland chess gathering on Thursdays. So I'm going to write some kind of something about it. but I'm not going to do it until September or October. It's summertime right now. but the thought is. if you run something in the Wayland post. that somebody might see it and and you know. around us. we've had new people move in. and a fellow three. three doors down is on the assessors committee. This Shannon Fisher. is on ConCom. Others with young families. but they're not particularly water oriented. but some of them seem to be a pretty public spirited as gotta be a way to reach some of those and maybe the Wayland Post some. some something in there. Tom Klemm: Tom. let me know about that Wayland chess group. My brothers are getting me involved in chess. and I'm terrible at it. so maybe I can go and stink up the join at the Wayland chess club. but I. I'm trying to get better at this. I'm playing online and getting beat by people. I might as well get beat face to face. Oh. let me know. Well. Tom Largey: I'm available loads of evenings. so maybe we could get together. Tom Klemm: Okay. well. you might. you might tire of me as a competitor if you're really good at it. because you might just you. Yeah. but okay. I'll follow up with you on that. Okay. alrighty. okay. Steve Garone: So. speaking of the bike path. I wrote. I wrote an article or a column. I guess. in the Wayland post about rail trail etiquette. Tom Largey: I think I saw that Steve Garone: I do a lot of bike riding on the rail trail. some running. And. you know. people need to treat that the rail trail like. you know. car road with two directions. and they don't often do it. And I've seen people get hurt because people are in the wrong place. Tom Largey: Yeah. yeah. I think I saw that article. yeah. Steve Garone: By the way. I want to make sure we're done with our business. Tom. we are. I was going to adjourn once we're done. I was going to ask if. if you guys know new Steve Green. no. I don't. Yeah. He lives. He lives over on Pine Needle down Cochituate. lived. We got a surprise a couple of days ago. He was driving up in Maine. long story as to the circumstances. and some kid going 123 miles an hour. ran into him and killed him. Tom Largey: Oh. my lord. Tom Klemm: was he driving or on a bike? Steve Garone: He was driving at a in a pickup truck. and his wife was up in Maine for a 50th high school reunion. and he didn't want to go because he didn't know anybody. And I think he was either running errands or driving back to Wayland. and we. a lot of us. went to his funeral today. Wow. wow. You know you gotta live for the moment. because things can change just like that. Tom Largey: Yeah. Any of you ever know David Lane? No. well. he lived in Cochituate. He was. he is. he was a well known artist. He had sculptures on his front lawn. And this is quite a few years ago. but he was well known in town. and so he was teaching at. I guess. Wellesley College several years ago. and a deer jumped in front of his car and shattered the windshield and killed him. So you never know. You never know. Tom Klemm: So there was a house near. did he live on School Street? Because there was a house on School Street had these huge sculpture Tom Largey: that was. that was a. that was a. yeah. yeah. That was a. I used to joke with my wife about getting one of those sculptures. but just a joke. Tom Klemm: yeah. no. we didn't know we Yeah. Okay. alright. Well. that was that concluded our business. So thank you for aligning on that date for our next meeting. If there's nothing else. I would make a motion that we adjourn at 8:34pm Tom Largey: I second that Tom Klemm: let's go around the room. Steve Garone: Steve Garone. aye Tom Largey: Tom Largey. aye Tom Klemm: Tom Klem aye Awesome. Alright. everyone. Have a great Labor Day weekend. We'll talk to you guys at the at the end of September. Steve Garone: Alrighty. take care. Tom Largey: bye. bye.
Wastewater Management
8-Sep-25 - Wastewater Management
Michael Gitten: Uh. at 1113 I'm
calling the September 8 meeting
of the Wayland Wastewater
Management District commission
to order it was posted online
where there was a link to this
Zoom meeting. and I'm like
getting participating remotely.
Darren Bock: Darren Boch.
participating remotely.
Michael Gitten: Okay. and I'm
not. no one's on for public
comment.
Jailyn Bratica: Yes. there's no
one on for public comment. Okay.
Michael Gitten: so then we'll go
to the monthly operating report.
Jared. what?
Jared Cotton: Yes. we had a very
busy summer.
Michael Gitten: Yeah. the three
month operating report.
Jared Cotton: yeah. so it was
busier than our normal summers.
Anyway. so last we met MBR tank
one had been cleaned and
recoated. Since then we
installed fine screen number
two. which was the first one we
installed. We cleaned the grid
chamber and recoated it. We
cleaned out the EQ tank or the
EQ basin. and cleaned out all
the tanks on train one side. We
installed new diffusers and in
MBR tank one. and got that back
online so that one's been
running very nicely since it's
been fully cleaned after that.
and the screen number two is
installed. We removed the old
screen so that we could install
new screen number one. And I
mean number one and number two.
just from like SCADA point of
view. You know. it doesn't
really matter other than that.
So the both screens are running in hand. Currently we have them set how we want. and we are currently just waiting for a communication control box that will allow the screens to communicate with SCADA so you can turn one online. or turn one on lead and one on lag. we can get alarm calls from it. which we don't really. we don't need. Like. the process will always run. It's just if. in the future. if. for whatever reason. one of the screens goes down. it will go through the overflow. to the other screen. and everything will work great. It will just also let me know. It will call out me. or Whitewater saying that there was an issue with screen one and screen two is online. And then we can decide if we're going to do anything in that moment. or save it for the next day. or whatever it is. So the screens are almost 100% done. They are like 99% done. right. having the screens online in hand. Though. these new screens use a wash water system. and they have solenoid valves. So when we do have the SCADA system connected to it. it will choose when the water comes on and off. Since we don't have SCADA connected to it right now. we have the water running continuously. We did find that that was causing us to discharge more water than we were taking in. so we scaled the flow back on those wash waters a little bit. but we still do need them for the screenings going through. So we do have a slightly elevated water bill this this past month. but that will be going down and being more accurate. as we get the communications back online or just hooked up.
we've also been experiencing some weird power issues. It doesn't seem like we're getting. we're losing power to the whole building. like it's a utility issue. We had Wilson Controls in. Dagle Electric and LCS were in and we found that we had some power issues between the MCC cabinets and the PLC cabinet. And these appear to be old wiring issues. They like they very well could be from or when the plant was built. I. It most likely wasn't from our recent PLC upgrade. because they didn't go into the other electrical cabinets. So that is just going to. it's going to be an investigation coming up for us to find out what is causing these issues.
Michael Gitten: How does it manifest itself when you say an issue. does it just. does it send alarms or stuff stop working? Jared Cotton: Um. kind of neither. It's more like. I sorry. yeah. sometimes it is alarms. like it has kind of reset the PLC. and so LCS did have to. like remote in and put the program back on the PLC. But also sometimes it just makes the not even like the SCADA computer. um. like the computer itself is working fine. but it does make the SCADA screen look a little funky. like I can see the numbers are changing. I can see our levels. but some of the words might be blacked out. So it's not affecting our process. It's not affecting my ability to make changes to the process. But it's not right. and it's definitely. certainly more of a nuisance. so we definitely need to get that figured out. But yeah. it's not like a danger to the plant or processor. Unknown: Does anyone think it's putting a strain on the equipment if it's not getting proper power? Is it straining the equipment? Does anyone talk about that? Jared Cotton: N o.You Yeah. I don't think that's been mentioned.
Yeah. it's more like. it's almost like cycling might not be the best word. Unfortunately. these electricians and computer people speaking a language I don't fully understand. so it's hard to translate. Michael Gitten: Darren. is that your world? Unknown: It is my world. But I'm letting Jared finish here and trying to understand what's happening. But. I mean. you at in the end of the day. you need to get somebody out to investigate. right? Jared Cotton: Yes. yeah. definitely. Unknown: So you're probably. you know. I'm not going to guess Mike. I would look. I would look for grounding issues. What I would look for first. but you said the motor control center and all that. But. yeah. this is my world. But until somebody goes out and troubleshoots Mike. and understanding when it's happening. I I could. I could ask a billion questions right now. Jared Cotton: yeah. and yeah. and there are just so many wires. you know. potential sources that to find the issue. Yeah. we're just trying to get a plan. the plan our approach to this. Unknown: And it could be that some wires are not shielded. right. so they're picking up signal and all that. which is causing the PLC. I mean. there's a lot of different things. Darren Bock: Yeah.
Unknown: All right. so you got that going on. but like you said. plant operational? Yep. you are getting these PLC power surge that is causing the PLC to shut down to the point where you actually have to reinstall the firmware. which is crazy. Jared Cotton: Yes. that's happened twice now. Darren Bock: Wow. Jared Cotton: Yeah. Yeah. So it was definitely not ideal. We thought it was originally a. you know. battery backup issue. We thought that was not holding a charge. and so it's kind of dropping power to the PLC. and when we remove that. it seems to have solved the issue. But it did pop back up. So now. now we know to look elsewhere.
Unknown: Who troubleshoots this? Is this just a hired electrician. or is it the people who installed the SCADA Jared Cotton: so we had. we actually had Wilson Controls down here. They were replacing VFDs for us. and they were here with Daigle electric. our on call electricians. So they were the ones that that noticed this was the issue. So I mean. definitely Daigle will be involved. but I'm not sure if i. If they will also recommend having Wilson Controls too. Unknown: Yeah. All right. well. knock on wood that this is a simple thing at the end of the day Michael Gitten: only because it's been in the news. It's it's any bugs in the in the computers. or anything that you're aware of. Tom of you. Tom Holder: yeah. So we're not aware of any cyber. you know. attack that we get. We get warnings. IT is pretty tuned in with that type of stuff. So it just. I think it's a matter of. you know. we've been making a lot of changes at the plant. We've had a lot of different folks in the plant. and it's just taking a little bit of time to work out all of these little idiosyncrasies that were coming about. And I know each each month we as go we go by where we're looking forward to having this thing. you know. operating kind of back to normal. But I have to say. This plant has gotten a lot of attention. a lot of needed repairs. And. you know. I think in the next month or so. once we get all of this work that Jared is describing. I think we'll be in a much better place. and everything will be current. Michael Gitten: So is the last thing on the major capital improvements. the screens. the painting. is it this SCADA hook up? Is that all that remains to be done? Jared Cotton: Yeah. of this project? Yeah. that's. that's once that's hooked up. the whole screens and tank coding. all that will be officially closed. I mean. the the tank coatings have been finished like that. Is a separate project. then. yeah. that is completely done. Unknown: nice. Well. I guess this is why we are slowly. you know. we put that that informed cap on the design flow. Mm. hmm. Okay. what any updates on the Oxbow FOG matter? Jared Cotton: Um. I. I don't believe so. I believe we gave them a notice. and I think that that's. as far as I'm aware. Tom Holder: yeah. we actually. you know. some administrative things. I mean. obviously we are continuing to hire somebody to to vacuum out the fat soils and grease on a periodic basis. as we as we deem it necessary. We charge them for it. They are current on their payments. We have engaged town council on some likely next steps this weekend. We it's not proper to sustain this. you know. vacuuming it out. cleaning it out on a monthly basis. We just can't sustain that. And that's not the way we should continue. Michael Gitten: So that was so. so it's kind of got into a bad. a known. but bad pattern of about every month it needs. it needs maintenance. That is not normal for this type of operation. Tom Holder: Yeah. that's. that's correct. We don't. we didn't experience having these fat soils and grease it. It wreaks havoc on the equipment. And. you know. cleaning it is a short term solution. but it's not a long term solution. And they've got some engineers that they've. you know. contracted with. some of them that have been on board since Wood Partners owned it and the prior owner. and so they still are engaged with us. and have a difference in opinions. which is not all that unexpected. but we've kind of. we've kind of exhausted the engineering back and forth. and Now I think. you know. it's gotten to a point where that we need to have some attorneys weigh in. and you know. we have our regulations where we feel pretty strongly about what we can expect there. and we're not. we're not. they're not meeting those expectations. Michael Gitten: Thank you. Uh. anything else. what? Darren Bock: What's the. what has the flow been Jared? Jared Cotton: um. it's still pretty consistent with. with the summer we our flow is definitely dipped a little bit like we got down to like 25. 26 a few times. but still averaging around like 30.32. on our discharge this last month. having having slightly elevated discharge flows from the wash water of the screens. I. But yeah. still. still pretty typical. Alta is still giving us. you know. like between 11 and 12 or 11.13 you know. averaging 12. yeah. okay.
Michael Gitten: and none of the. none of the new restaurant in the bank haven't come online. have they formally done anything? Or I'm jumping ahead on agenda. Maybe we can. We can circle back to that. Okay. Darren. Ed. any other comments questions for operations.
Unknown: Um. my only comment. I mean. would be. I mean. out outside of this electrical issue. right? This PLC. everything else was the work we had planned. right? So you didn't have any other unknown. like. oh my god. what happened. right? Type of thing. yeah. it was all planned work. So that's good. Well. you said it was busy. It was planned. Tom Holder: Yeah. it was planned. you know. And I think scheduling it. you know. a lot of these. a lot of these phases of the improvements had to be sequenced. And. you know. so getting that done. getting the right people in the building. one after the other. You know. was took a took a little bit of effort. but the work itself was planned. and it was just a matter of scheduling and getting those right folks in the building. you know. in a proper sequence.
Michael Gitten: Okay. so then we can move on to Sarah in the financial report. Sarah Pawluczonek: Okay. pull that up right now.
Can everyone hear me and see the report Okay.? Tom Holder: clearly. yep. Sarah Pawluczonek: excellent. Okay. so this goes through August 31- 17% of the way complete. Everything is in the forecast for now. obviously it's always a little bit. You know. early on the forecast. the only notable overage and expenses predicted is with water. which is what Jared mentioned. So you can see that I'm predicting around 5.700. I looked at the reading. did the math. I know we have a very high water bill next time. we already had a decently high one. So. you know. we didn't plan for that. We didn't expect that. So that will be something that will either run that line over. or it will have to come out of something like contingency. depending on how we feel. It should be. you know. paid off. Unknown: Was it related to the project? Sarah Pawluczonek: It? I mean. I would say so. right. Jared. or. I don't know. we could probably do it that way. Jared Cotton: I think I'd say so. because the project isn't. this is happening. because the project isn't completed. because we don't have the communication box yet. So once that is in. the project is done. and we shouldn't have this issue anymore. Unknown: I just. I don't know where we're at on the project budget. That's all. Sarah Pawluczonek: I will definitely shoot down to that real quick just to address that so we looks like we've spent and have encumbrances. leaving us with 43.000 well. 44.000 out of the 526. so there is some room for that. There are a few other things. I believe. I just got another invoice from Daigle which will have to go against that. So that was about. I want to say that was a few 1000. I do not remember the exact number. I'm not certain what else is yet to come. Jared. and you'll know more than me what's left. I know we're done with the tank painting and the Alsen portion of that is paid off. That's a separate project. but still that's done. other than electrical work and whatever mechanical assistance we're getting and the water. I'm not sure if there's anything else left to come through. Tom Holder: but you had made a remark at the last meeting. Darren. you know that anything associated with the project should be paid from the project. And we're at that same philosophy. you know. So what Sarah was just talking about moments ago. it does appear that we'll have. you know. a balance that we'll be able to pay from the project funds. Unknown: Yep. yes. I mean. I've been like. said. I know Matt had a different argument than you could argue it either way. but I don't know. I've always gone with account for it where it lies. right? Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah.I think he was saying. you know. legally. you know. accounting. by accounting principles. You could pay for it from. you know. two different sources. but yeah. we're of the philosophy that if it's associated with the project. we have. you know. we have project funds available. The right place to put it is within the project. Darren Bock: Yep. okay. Sarah Pawluczonek: yeah. when that comes through. we'll make sure we you. Make that. We'll put that against the project instead of the water line. So there's nothing surprising at all in operating expenses. It's all pretty much status quo. nothing else besides that one. You know. we do have obviously small. small equipment is something that we put together and chip away at all year. and the intention is always to spend that entire thing in order to keep things moving. I know that you have a list that takes that whole number down. Jared. I believe we don't have to worry too much about long term. term debt and principle that is already pre planned. and that exact amount is exactly what goes out. The revenue looks good. As far as bringing in wastewater user charges. that's already at. you know. 27% of target with one billing. which makes sense because it's a quarter. So that's really good. little tiny bit over. And we have another billing going out in the middle of this month. which will come due a month from then. So mid October. with the next time we see more revenue we have a little bit of this is. I think. lien revenue coming in coming in.
from the prior year. So. you know. there's always late. I'm not sure it was just $15 nothing to write home about. But those liens are in process. The demand notices have gone out. I'll be making phone calls soon. I have not. I do not have a list of how many. just yet. kind of waiting to see who's going to pay or give them a chance to at least come due on the demand notice. and then start. you know. we send out a second notice as well. But between the first and the second is when I will generally start making phone calls. which are only to commercial accounts because we don't have residential phone numbers. If I find one. and I'm lucky enough to have one. I will. but it's usually the commercial accounts that I'm able to communicate to. so at least give them till the due date. which is approaching. and then we have the service order. which is the third pump out from McVac for the Alta wet well. so that came in in this year. because it was billed towards the end of last year. So that is in here under the service orders. I don't know when the next time that will come around coming around again soon. and we're billing it out again soon. again.
It's pretty much a wash. because we build them for what we pay. So it's not really a generator. It's more of a nuisance for us to do the work. But. and then some interest is. you know. 20. almost 3.000 and that is really it. It's kind of early. It's not a lot to talk about. other than the fact that we've. you know. used a lot of our two projects budgets. and we have not started with the we haven't paid anything towards the low pressure sewer replacement design project yet. Darren Bock: Where did we end up for last year.
Sarah Pawluczonek: for the screens project? Unknown: No. just overall financial. What Sarah Pawluczonek: financial? Unknown: What did we end up taking from? Sarah Pawluczonek: Let me grab that. I'll put it up on the screen. Unknown: retained? Or do we even have to? Sarah Pawluczonek: No. it's fine. I can definitely pull that up quickly when I can get my fingers on it. Here should be the final.
Unknown: yeah. like said it's early when you're looking at like this. Sarah Pawluczonek: yeah. is. can you see the new document up? Did that move over? Okay. Tom Holder: black. blank screen. Sarah Pawluczonek: All right. I'm gonna stop. I'm just gonna stop sharing. reshare. because sometimes it just doesn't. yeah. yep. Tom Holder: Good move. Sarah Pawluczonek: Okay. So go to the bottom. yep. our total operating expenses. We did end up with. you know. money left over. I cleared out the forecast at this point because this is just to close out so. and then we had revenue of that with our and then our totals are down here. Darren Bock: operating income in 24 total income. 23 loss without operating so help me? Guess what? I'm what I'm wondering is I thought if we said that we would end in the positive. we would take less from retained earnings. right? So the idea would be that retained earnings wouldn't be drawn down as much as we predicted. Sarah Pawluczonek: right Darren Bock: So is that. I mean. I see you have it. I think you have it accounted for 105. there in the retained earnings. Sarah Pawluczonek: yes. just to balance the numbers over here with the initial But what ends up happening is. of course. if we don't use it. it just stays in retained earnings so. Unknown: got it so. so it should stay in retained earnings. right? Should? Oh. yeah. I would assume. all right. So our retained earnings number that we were going with Matt that. as you know. we kept talking about how its depleting right now will not. I mean. like said. this gives us a bump as we do the analysis for next year. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. I mean. that definitely is something that we I know we built some of that expectation into the rate study already with what we expected to carry forward. so it's not a surprise amount. But yes. okay. and I was just thinking about something which. with the Terrain project. which. of course. brings in privilege fee money. which we don't have on this budget. I'll go back to the other one. I'm gonna have a privilege fee on the other one. Yeah. I think I might have. I might have glossed right over that. and I meant to bring that up. Unknown: So we took no. no retained earnings last year that. that that's just an accounting exercise there. right ? there. Sarah Pawluczonek: that that's the way I read this. Well. there's two retained earnings polls. actually. because there's the 95 and then there's a 105 so it's. you know. 200 is the plan so. but we should have. we should have saved. we should have only taken about 75.000 in the end. Easy math. Unknown: right? Sarah Pawluczonek: right So. yeah. so that was good. so that Unknown: we had fore for the for the engineer. So we had forecasted around 200 grand. and we took 75 grand. Is that Sarah Pawluczonek: that should be how it sorted out. correct? And. yeah. of course. the where's my privilege fee line? It's in here somewhere. Oh. yeah. you can see right here. sorry. the 128 Yep. Unknown: So I don't think we see your do we see the new. No. that's all right. I remember. I remember seeing it. But you. I was. I was about. I forgot to make comment on to Sarah. Sarah Pawluczonek: Its a big one Unknown: So we're. we're predicting that based upon connections coming in the Sarah Pawluczonek: the $128.856. that's. that is the cash check that we have. Oh. wow. Okay. we have that. That's not. that's. there is no prediction. because you never know Right? Got it. Got it. I could add something if I get a little closer with some of the others. because there was another restaurant I'm jumping ahead out. I can wait until we get to that too home to Unknown: the same thing. Okay. now I get it. I get it. I didn't see that. You didn't have it in the forecast. Okay. that's good. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. it is. Unknown: Okay. So what's not getting even better for the year we still haven't really experienced the Council of Aging or the Library being fully operational for very long. Tom Holder: Yeah. library is yet to formally connect. Unknown: Really? What do they do? I thought they disconnected their septic. Tom Holder: Yeah. they're they've got some internal pumping issues to work through. from what I understand. so I don't think we're receiving them yet. Michael Gitten: Okay. and I thought it was a backup pump or something. Wow. Okay.Okay. okay. any. anyone. any questions on the financial end of things? So it does. it does. It's a good we could keep talking. and Sarah request for new services. So sure. what's the what's the background on the 128.000 Sarah Pawluczonek: so that is the privilege fee that was assessed for Terrain for their project. and that includes the usual calculation based on the privilege fee rate. plus. because they fall within that threshold for the study. it adds that number on there too. So it's a combination of both. I think they were around. I'm gonna ballpark at 2.100 they needed. in addition to what they had over there. And another project came forward. which I don't think is going to get off the ground. but it was a request for about 3.000 more. and it was another restaurant. I have not heard from them. but they also fell in with. obviously. the rate plus the study cost. because of that number. But I'm not banking on that one. because that's a it doesn't seem like it's getting any traction. We'll see. I guess I wouldn't predict it. I wouldn't put it in the forecast yet. There. the Dunkin Donuts. I hear rumbling. still. sorry I didn't mean to cut you off. But again. they haven't come back to us. You know. if you hear from them periodically. but I I'm hearing that they're starting to maybe actually do some construction. So we might actually. that might actually happen this year. We will see. Unknown: yeah. you could see they something was going on. and they're actually. that's one where they're talking about putting two putting two small restaurants in that building. right. right. or two casual. We don't have fast food two casual. uh. fast casual. Darren Bock: fast casual. Michael Gitten: with a drive through that you have to only use your app for. So. but that's not on so that's all there. If you explain the study. what is that? How much was that. and what does that involve? Sarah Pawluczonek: That's in our privilege fee document. and that I believe. is 75.000 or a I can't eloquently explain the type of there are different thresholds. but that's like a Tom Holder: So we have in our. you know. right now. we've full scale. Tom. you might be able to explain that better than me. That's out of my comfort zone. yeah. gotten our capital budget to do an evaluation and preliminary design for the system that lies within Route 20. yeah. So. as Sarah explains in our privilege fee document. it talks about it. if somebody is seeking. and the threshold might be over 500 gallons per day. that they actually then pay a component of necessary evaluations. So there's a calculation. and I think that's what that's what the intent is. to use the Terrains payment for that planned work. Michael Gitten: So that's going to focus on the conveyance to the plant. not the plant. Tom Holder: I believe that is the case.
Unknown: And that goes back to the budget that you showed us. Is it. would it go towards that online item that's already in the the budget . that's in our retained earnings. technically. the low pressure sewer replacement is that I'm looking. Sarah Pawluczonek: oh. that was that capital project is in on our budget. I can bring it back up too. if it helps Unknown: the design. Is this a similar would it? Would it alleviate the need or some of that. Would it be redundant to that? Or is that what it is Sarah Pawluczonek: that might already be borrowed? Oh. sorry. I'm sorry. Tom I assume that's already borrowed. but I don't know. maybe it's not borrowed yet. Tom Holder: So. yeah. it's what is planned for. You know. they call it a BAN. It's like a short term borrow before the finance department actually does their formal borrowing later in November. but it would be put towards that. So it would. it would lessen the actual. you know. town. or. you know. commission exposure on that project. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yep. And as that's really it for new entries to the system for now. just movement in town center. which is already pre purchased. and they did ask and inquire about purchasing more flow at one point. I have not heard back in a few months. I do hear there's a sale possibly underway or something changing over there. so I don't know if that will take time. Unknown: So. so that means we have about 8.000 gallons available for others at this point Sarah Pawluczonek: Sounds about right. Michael Gitten: Yeah. it does. yeah. So I just so others know I did go give an overview to the planning board about our basically. I read the privilege free document. They were sorely disappointed. They thought I was going to give them a primer on Title Five. I was like. no. So they and basically- the party line is. our goal is to comply with our discharge permits. get as much flow as we can. because we believe that will help keep rates down. And there's still some that feel we need to. I think they're misreading or we we need to dig up. when we had outside counsel. read the preamble of our our issuing charter or or authorization from the state. There's still confusion on that. what it allows us to do so but that's how I knew that 10.000 off top my head. because and that. that that. when you say the Terrain was that just. does that include the the old dentist office? Is it both parts? Is it because it's by parcel. right? Sarah Pawluczonek: Yes. Tom Holder: yeah. that that includes both which they're going to utilize that front building as well. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. the front building had enough flow. They didn't need to increase anything over there. It was just for the large building in the back. Unknown: right. Well. the next big connection. maybe we can get someone to do the statistical analysis to see on the design. flow. appropriateness. the Title five basis. but that's for next. next big project that comes through the town every five years. 10. Okay. anything else on?
Uh. so the the minutes and I just. I don't know whether this is I did related to that. I think it is equivalent of minutes. So I don't think it's necessarily new business and not looking for real discussion here. but I had volunteered to take a stab at the annual report that we need to submit by the end of this month. I believe correct. And I basically took last year's. took out some of the history about Oxbow. and sent it around last night. And definitely Sarah. if you to correct the numbers. the only number that is correct is is the rates for the next year or the current year. And I guess I was selective. I did notice for a while that Wind River was not sending around that nice one page sheet that tells total flow. And they are. I'm happy to see they're doing it again. I think when they went to the the automatic DMR. they but it for what it's worth. I find that very helpful. and I hope that I asked that they continue to do that. I don't know. I don't know what. what to call it. Jared. do you know what I'm talking about? The the one pager. where they summarize all our flow. Jared Cotton: Um. I know the page you're talking about. but. yeah. I'm not sure how to like phrase it exactly. but yeah. like it's. it's like the flow totals. Michael Gitten: DMR. yeah. it's not Yeah. but it's Yeah. For a while there I noticed. when I was looking at the past year. they weren't doing that. Sarah Pawluczonek: They would send it in chunks. I think. they would send a few at a time delayed. yeah. Unknown: yeah. and. and. yeah. that's I noticed that too. Sarah Pawluczonek: I might have some that you don't I don't know if they've left people off. You know what I mean? So if you're looking for any particular ones that you're missing. let me know I might have them. Unknown: I just got excited when I looked at one that said 35.000 gallons. And I said. Ooh. our flows up. But I think what I really was probably seeing was US generating flow due to the work we were doing versus overall. Maybe. maybe the flow over the last last state. fiscal town. fiscal year. maybe went up 2% I percent. Nothing. nothing. real significant. So. so if people have comments on that. I'm more than happy to take them and consolidate or otherwise. I'll just work with Sarah and Tom and Jared to wrap that up. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. I'll take a look at that today. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. but it will get done today. Unknown: Yeah. no. I'm fine with that. Mike. you know. I lot of it's repetitive the prior years. other than just updating the project and latest financials done. Michael Gitten: yeah.
Tom Holder: so probably a motion and vote to. you know. to use Mike's draft version. You know. with updates from. you know. Sarah and Jared. and vote on that. just so we have a formal vote so that you're able to submit it. you know. in the next week or two. prior to the next meeting. Would be. I think that'll be helpful. Unknown: Okay. I make a motion that the draft annual report that I circulated on the the seventh. be updated with the facts. the financial facts and other. you know. corrections that people might see related to the facts that we make those updates and submit. submit it as our 2025. annual report.
Second. Darren Bock: yeah. I'll second that motion.
Michael Gitten: Mike Gitten in favor.
Darren Bock: Darren Boch in favor. Tsung Chiang: Yeah. I'm in favor Michael Gitten: Okay. um. okay. Now to the minutes i Unknown: i read where my name was. everything looked good. Where my name was from. what I can remember. but I did. I did go in and sign it. so that's good. And that was in the motion that we nominate Darren. So I did make it there. Yeah. I have no comments. Ed. any comments on the minutes that were circulated last week by Sarah. I don't. I don't have any comment. but I I have to apologize because my computer I never. I only check email twice a day. in the early morning and late at night. just trying to do things simple. Another thing I have apologize I really doesn't know that much about small wastewater treatment plan. I usually design the big city stuff. so that's that's how it is.
Michael Gitten: Well. we appreciate it. Unknown: Yeah. no. you got a leg up on me? Michael Gitten: Yep. Okay. then the meeting minutes are. did I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes? I make a motion to approve the June 9. 2025. meeting minutes? Mike. yes. Darren Bock: Darren. yes.
Tsung Chiang: And okay. yes.
Unknown: Okay. So when's our next meeting? Sarah Pawluczonek: That is pretty late in October. I think it is the 20th at 11am if that still works. and we probably should put another one on there. another couple. if we can. just so we can give the town a heads up so it can. you know. block out that time for us.
Tom Holder: Yeah. So. what do we usually? We're usually. what the third Monday. I don't know the So. the 17th of November is that? Work for folks looking the
Michael Gitten: only request I make. is there any way we can make it at 1130 on that day? Is that a problem? Darren Bock: I'm good. Tom Holder: I think staff would be all right. I think Sarah Pawluczonek: fine with me. Michael Gitten: Know we're going to talk about by then is the successful completion of the projects electrical fix and how someone's gobbled up to the last 8000 gallons of privilege fee. Unknown: Tom is going to say that the plants back at 70 miles per hour. Michael Gitten: Yeah. and we got a quarter million dollars of revenue we didn't anticipate.
Unknown: Okay. any. anything else. anything. any topics we didn't cover. Tom Holder: just that I missed the I missed the Polar Park conversation. was I was there for the first time on Saturday. I hadn't been before. And of course. the day that I decided to go take you for a birthday gift. we wind up with a tornado warning. It was like unbelievable. The the weather. they shut the place down. They had to relocate whatever 14.000 people that that place holds into what they call the DCU cocktail. you know. lounge and yeah. so it was. you know. safe to say I didn't get to see the game. I guess I'll go another time. or whatever. But man. what a first experience at Polar Park. It's a gorgeous place. So if you're going there. if you're going there for a trade show tomorrow. I think you'll. I think you'll. you'll be impressed. Michael Gitten: Okay. yeah. I've been there for a game. but now just answer. It is in the DCU cocktail center. but then it spills out into the promenade. Tom Holder: yeah. concourse areas that are open covered. but open and yes. yes. yeah. it's nice. Unknown: Okay. sorry to interrupt this really quick. I'm sorry. Mike. actually. on October 20. can we move that from noon to one at all? That worked for everybody. Michael Gitten: I'm sorry that works. Actually. It actually works better for me if we could still do it. Unknown: Guys are okay with that. Sarah Pawluczonek: That's fine Unknown: sorry to interrupt your launch Tom Holder: one is that what you said? Unknown: Yeah. yeah. Darren Bock: I have a training that I've been signed up for. Unknown: Okay. okay. so 1pm start. or noon. or noon. Sarah Pawluczonek: oh. noon to 1pm sorry. Unknown: Or you can do a one start. either one. Michael Gitten: I'm open to whatever. Folks
Tom Holder: would do. You think you'd be jammed Darren at noon or Unknown: no. I'll be fine at noon. 11. doing a whole artificial intelligence course and all that. So. okay. Tom Holder: I'm done by Yeah. Okay. yeah. Sarah Pawluczonek: olOkay. I'll put noon and then thanks. The updates coming.
Great. Michael Gitten: Okay. well. we'll do this all again on the 20th at noon. All right. that we adjourn. Unknown: yep. second that motion. sorry. Mike. All right. I forgot about that procedure. Second that Sarah Pawluczonek: we're rusty. It's been a while. Darren Bock: Yeah. we're rusty. All right. bye. Good seeing everyone. Unknown: Bye. everybody. Thank you.
So the both screens are running in hand. Currently we have them set how we want. and we are currently just waiting for a communication control box that will allow the screens to communicate with SCADA so you can turn one online. or turn one on lead and one on lag. we can get alarm calls from it. which we don't really. we don't need. Like. the process will always run. It's just if. in the future. if. for whatever reason. one of the screens goes down. it will go through the overflow. to the other screen. and everything will work great. It will just also let me know. It will call out me. or Whitewater saying that there was an issue with screen one and screen two is online. And then we can decide if we're going to do anything in that moment. or save it for the next day. or whatever it is. So the screens are almost 100% done. They are like 99% done. right. having the screens online in hand. Though. these new screens use a wash water system. and they have solenoid valves. So when we do have the SCADA system connected to it. it will choose when the water comes on and off. Since we don't have SCADA connected to it right now. we have the water running continuously. We did find that that was causing us to discharge more water than we were taking in. so we scaled the flow back on those wash waters a little bit. but we still do need them for the screenings going through. So we do have a slightly elevated water bill this this past month. but that will be going down and being more accurate. as we get the communications back online or just hooked up.
we've also been experiencing some weird power issues. It doesn't seem like we're getting. we're losing power to the whole building. like it's a utility issue. We had Wilson Controls in. Dagle Electric and LCS were in and we found that we had some power issues between the MCC cabinets and the PLC cabinet. And these appear to be old wiring issues. They like they very well could be from or when the plant was built. I. It most likely wasn't from our recent PLC upgrade. because they didn't go into the other electrical cabinets. So that is just going to. it's going to be an investigation coming up for us to find out what is causing these issues.
Michael Gitten: How does it manifest itself when you say an issue. does it just. does it send alarms or stuff stop working? Jared Cotton: Um. kind of neither. It's more like. I sorry. yeah. sometimes it is alarms. like it has kind of reset the PLC. and so LCS did have to. like remote in and put the program back on the PLC. But also sometimes it just makes the not even like the SCADA computer. um. like the computer itself is working fine. but it does make the SCADA screen look a little funky. like I can see the numbers are changing. I can see our levels. but some of the words might be blacked out. So it's not affecting our process. It's not affecting my ability to make changes to the process. But it's not right. and it's definitely. certainly more of a nuisance. so we definitely need to get that figured out. But yeah. it's not like a danger to the plant or processor. Unknown: Does anyone think it's putting a strain on the equipment if it's not getting proper power? Is it straining the equipment? Does anyone talk about that? Jared Cotton: N o.You Yeah. I don't think that's been mentioned.
Yeah. it's more like. it's almost like cycling might not be the best word. Unfortunately. these electricians and computer people speaking a language I don't fully understand. so it's hard to translate. Michael Gitten: Darren. is that your world? Unknown: It is my world. But I'm letting Jared finish here and trying to understand what's happening. But. I mean. you at in the end of the day. you need to get somebody out to investigate. right? Jared Cotton: Yes. yeah. definitely. Unknown: So you're probably. you know. I'm not going to guess Mike. I would look. I would look for grounding issues. What I would look for first. but you said the motor control center and all that. But. yeah. this is my world. But until somebody goes out and troubleshoots Mike. and understanding when it's happening. I I could. I could ask a billion questions right now. Jared Cotton: yeah. and yeah. and there are just so many wires. you know. potential sources that to find the issue. Yeah. we're just trying to get a plan. the plan our approach to this. Unknown: And it could be that some wires are not shielded. right. so they're picking up signal and all that. which is causing the PLC. I mean. there's a lot of different things. Darren Bock: Yeah.
Unknown: All right. so you got that going on. but like you said. plant operational? Yep. you are getting these PLC power surge that is causing the PLC to shut down to the point where you actually have to reinstall the firmware. which is crazy. Jared Cotton: Yes. that's happened twice now. Darren Bock: Wow. Jared Cotton: Yeah. Yeah. So it was definitely not ideal. We thought it was originally a. you know. battery backup issue. We thought that was not holding a charge. and so it's kind of dropping power to the PLC. and when we remove that. it seems to have solved the issue. But it did pop back up. So now. now we know to look elsewhere.
Unknown: Who troubleshoots this? Is this just a hired electrician. or is it the people who installed the SCADA Jared Cotton: so we had. we actually had Wilson Controls down here. They were replacing VFDs for us. and they were here with Daigle electric. our on call electricians. So they were the ones that that noticed this was the issue. So I mean. definitely Daigle will be involved. but I'm not sure if i. If they will also recommend having Wilson Controls too. Unknown: Yeah. All right. well. knock on wood that this is a simple thing at the end of the day Michael Gitten: only because it's been in the news. It's it's any bugs in the in the computers. or anything that you're aware of. Tom of you. Tom Holder: yeah. So we're not aware of any cyber. you know. attack that we get. We get warnings. IT is pretty tuned in with that type of stuff. So it just. I think it's a matter of. you know. we've been making a lot of changes at the plant. We've had a lot of different folks in the plant. and it's just taking a little bit of time to work out all of these little idiosyncrasies that were coming about. And I know each each month we as go we go by where we're looking forward to having this thing. you know. operating kind of back to normal. But I have to say. This plant has gotten a lot of attention. a lot of needed repairs. And. you know. I think in the next month or so. once we get all of this work that Jared is describing. I think we'll be in a much better place. and everything will be current. Michael Gitten: So is the last thing on the major capital improvements. the screens. the painting. is it this SCADA hook up? Is that all that remains to be done? Jared Cotton: Yeah. of this project? Yeah. that's. that's once that's hooked up. the whole screens and tank coding. all that will be officially closed. I mean. the the tank coatings have been finished like that. Is a separate project. then. yeah. that is completely done. Unknown: nice. Well. I guess this is why we are slowly. you know. we put that that informed cap on the design flow. Mm. hmm. Okay. what any updates on the Oxbow FOG matter? Jared Cotton: Um. I. I don't believe so. I believe we gave them a notice. and I think that that's. as far as I'm aware. Tom Holder: yeah. we actually. you know. some administrative things. I mean. obviously we are continuing to hire somebody to to vacuum out the fat soils and grease on a periodic basis. as we as we deem it necessary. We charge them for it. They are current on their payments. We have engaged town council on some likely next steps this weekend. We it's not proper to sustain this. you know. vacuuming it out. cleaning it out on a monthly basis. We just can't sustain that. And that's not the way we should continue. Michael Gitten: So that was so. so it's kind of got into a bad. a known. but bad pattern of about every month it needs. it needs maintenance. That is not normal for this type of operation. Tom Holder: Yeah. that's. that's correct. We don't. we didn't experience having these fat soils and grease it. It wreaks havoc on the equipment. And. you know. cleaning it is a short term solution. but it's not a long term solution. And they've got some engineers that they've. you know. contracted with. some of them that have been on board since Wood Partners owned it and the prior owner. and so they still are engaged with us. and have a difference in opinions. which is not all that unexpected. but we've kind of. we've kind of exhausted the engineering back and forth. and Now I think. you know. it's gotten to a point where that we need to have some attorneys weigh in. and you know. we have our regulations where we feel pretty strongly about what we can expect there. and we're not. we're not. they're not meeting those expectations. Michael Gitten: Thank you. Uh. anything else. what? Darren Bock: What's the. what has the flow been Jared? Jared Cotton: um. it's still pretty consistent with. with the summer we our flow is definitely dipped a little bit like we got down to like 25. 26 a few times. but still averaging around like 30.32. on our discharge this last month. having having slightly elevated discharge flows from the wash water of the screens. I. But yeah. still. still pretty typical. Alta is still giving us. you know. like between 11 and 12 or 11.13 you know. averaging 12. yeah. okay.
Michael Gitten: and none of the. none of the new restaurant in the bank haven't come online. have they formally done anything? Or I'm jumping ahead on agenda. Maybe we can. We can circle back to that. Okay. Darren. Ed. any other comments questions for operations.
Unknown: Um. my only comment. I mean. would be. I mean. out outside of this electrical issue. right? This PLC. everything else was the work we had planned. right? So you didn't have any other unknown. like. oh my god. what happened. right? Type of thing. yeah. it was all planned work. So that's good. Well. you said it was busy. It was planned. Tom Holder: Yeah. it was planned. you know. And I think scheduling it. you know. a lot of these. a lot of these phases of the improvements had to be sequenced. And. you know. so getting that done. getting the right people in the building. one after the other. You know. was took a took a little bit of effort. but the work itself was planned. and it was just a matter of scheduling and getting those right folks in the building. you know. in a proper sequence.
Michael Gitten: Okay. so then we can move on to Sarah in the financial report. Sarah Pawluczonek: Okay. pull that up right now.
Can everyone hear me and see the report Okay.? Tom Holder: clearly. yep. Sarah Pawluczonek: excellent. Okay. so this goes through August 31- 17% of the way complete. Everything is in the forecast for now. obviously it's always a little bit. You know. early on the forecast. the only notable overage and expenses predicted is with water. which is what Jared mentioned. So you can see that I'm predicting around 5.700. I looked at the reading. did the math. I know we have a very high water bill next time. we already had a decently high one. So. you know. we didn't plan for that. We didn't expect that. So that will be something that will either run that line over. or it will have to come out of something like contingency. depending on how we feel. It should be. you know. paid off. Unknown: Was it related to the project? Sarah Pawluczonek: It? I mean. I would say so. right. Jared. or. I don't know. we could probably do it that way. Jared Cotton: I think I'd say so. because the project isn't. this is happening. because the project isn't completed. because we don't have the communication box yet. So once that is in. the project is done. and we shouldn't have this issue anymore. Unknown: I just. I don't know where we're at on the project budget. That's all. Sarah Pawluczonek: I will definitely shoot down to that real quick just to address that so we looks like we've spent and have encumbrances. leaving us with 43.000 well. 44.000 out of the 526. so there is some room for that. There are a few other things. I believe. I just got another invoice from Daigle which will have to go against that. So that was about. I want to say that was a few 1000. I do not remember the exact number. I'm not certain what else is yet to come. Jared. and you'll know more than me what's left. I know we're done with the tank painting and the Alsen portion of that is paid off. That's a separate project. but still that's done. other than electrical work and whatever mechanical assistance we're getting and the water. I'm not sure if there's anything else left to come through. Tom Holder: but you had made a remark at the last meeting. Darren. you know that anything associated with the project should be paid from the project. And we're at that same philosophy. you know. So what Sarah was just talking about moments ago. it does appear that we'll have. you know. a balance that we'll be able to pay from the project funds. Unknown: Yep. yes. I mean. I've been like. said. I know Matt had a different argument than you could argue it either way. but I don't know. I've always gone with account for it where it lies. right? Tom Holder: Yeah. yeah.I think he was saying. you know. legally. you know. accounting. by accounting principles. You could pay for it from. you know. two different sources. but yeah. we're of the philosophy that if it's associated with the project. we have. you know. we have project funds available. The right place to put it is within the project. Darren Bock: Yep. okay. Sarah Pawluczonek: yeah. when that comes through. we'll make sure we you. Make that. We'll put that against the project instead of the water line. So there's nothing surprising at all in operating expenses. It's all pretty much status quo. nothing else besides that one. You know. we do have obviously small. small equipment is something that we put together and chip away at all year. and the intention is always to spend that entire thing in order to keep things moving. I know that you have a list that takes that whole number down. Jared. I believe we don't have to worry too much about long term. term debt and principle that is already pre planned. and that exact amount is exactly what goes out. The revenue looks good. As far as bringing in wastewater user charges. that's already at. you know. 27% of target with one billing. which makes sense because it's a quarter. So that's really good. little tiny bit over. And we have another billing going out in the middle of this month. which will come due a month from then. So mid October. with the next time we see more revenue we have a little bit of this is. I think. lien revenue coming in coming in.
from the prior year. So. you know. there's always late. I'm not sure it was just $15 nothing to write home about. But those liens are in process. The demand notices have gone out. I'll be making phone calls soon. I have not. I do not have a list of how many. just yet. kind of waiting to see who's going to pay or give them a chance to at least come due on the demand notice. and then start. you know. we send out a second notice as well. But between the first and the second is when I will generally start making phone calls. which are only to commercial accounts because we don't have residential phone numbers. If I find one. and I'm lucky enough to have one. I will. but it's usually the commercial accounts that I'm able to communicate to. so at least give them till the due date. which is approaching. and then we have the service order. which is the third pump out from McVac for the Alta wet well. so that came in in this year. because it was billed towards the end of last year. So that is in here under the service orders. I don't know when the next time that will come around coming around again soon. and we're billing it out again soon. again.
It's pretty much a wash. because we build them for what we pay. So it's not really a generator. It's more of a nuisance for us to do the work. But. and then some interest is. you know. 20. almost 3.000 and that is really it. It's kind of early. It's not a lot to talk about. other than the fact that we've. you know. used a lot of our two projects budgets. and we have not started with the we haven't paid anything towards the low pressure sewer replacement design project yet. Darren Bock: Where did we end up for last year.
Sarah Pawluczonek: for the screens project? Unknown: No. just overall financial. What Sarah Pawluczonek: financial? Unknown: What did we end up taking from? Sarah Pawluczonek: Let me grab that. I'll put it up on the screen. Unknown: retained? Or do we even have to? Sarah Pawluczonek: No. it's fine. I can definitely pull that up quickly when I can get my fingers on it. Here should be the final.
Unknown: yeah. like said it's early when you're looking at like this. Sarah Pawluczonek: yeah. is. can you see the new document up? Did that move over? Okay. Tom Holder: black. blank screen. Sarah Pawluczonek: All right. I'm gonna stop. I'm just gonna stop sharing. reshare. because sometimes it just doesn't. yeah. yep. Tom Holder: Good move. Sarah Pawluczonek: Okay. So go to the bottom. yep. our total operating expenses. We did end up with. you know. money left over. I cleared out the forecast at this point because this is just to close out so. and then we had revenue of that with our and then our totals are down here. Darren Bock: operating income in 24 total income. 23 loss without operating so help me? Guess what? I'm what I'm wondering is I thought if we said that we would end in the positive. we would take less from retained earnings. right? So the idea would be that retained earnings wouldn't be drawn down as much as we predicted. Sarah Pawluczonek: right Darren Bock: So is that. I mean. I see you have it. I think you have it accounted for 105. there in the retained earnings. Sarah Pawluczonek: yes. just to balance the numbers over here with the initial But what ends up happening is. of course. if we don't use it. it just stays in retained earnings so. Unknown: got it so. so it should stay in retained earnings. right? Should? Oh. yeah. I would assume. all right. So our retained earnings number that we were going with Matt that. as you know. we kept talking about how its depleting right now will not. I mean. like said. this gives us a bump as we do the analysis for next year. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. I mean. that definitely is something that we I know we built some of that expectation into the rate study already with what we expected to carry forward. so it's not a surprise amount. But yes. okay. and I was just thinking about something which. with the Terrain project. which. of course. brings in privilege fee money. which we don't have on this budget. I'll go back to the other one. I'm gonna have a privilege fee on the other one. Yeah. I think I might have. I might have glossed right over that. and I meant to bring that up. Unknown: So we took no. no retained earnings last year that. that that's just an accounting exercise there. right ? there. Sarah Pawluczonek: that that's the way I read this. Well. there's two retained earnings polls. actually. because there's the 95 and then there's a 105 so it's. you know. 200 is the plan so. but we should have. we should have saved. we should have only taken about 75.000 in the end. Easy math. Unknown: right? Sarah Pawluczonek: right So. yeah. so that was good. so that Unknown: we had fore for the for the engineer. So we had forecasted around 200 grand. and we took 75 grand. Is that Sarah Pawluczonek: that should be how it sorted out. correct? And. yeah. of course. the where's my privilege fee line? It's in here somewhere. Oh. yeah. you can see right here. sorry. the 128 Yep. Unknown: So I don't think we see your do we see the new. No. that's all right. I remember. I remember seeing it. But you. I was. I was about. I forgot to make comment on to Sarah. Sarah Pawluczonek: Its a big one Unknown: So we're. we're predicting that based upon connections coming in the Sarah Pawluczonek: the $128.856. that's. that is the cash check that we have. Oh. wow. Okay. we have that. That's not. that's. there is no prediction. because you never know Right? Got it. Got it. I could add something if I get a little closer with some of the others. because there was another restaurant I'm jumping ahead out. I can wait until we get to that too home to Unknown: the same thing. Okay. now I get it. I get it. I didn't see that. You didn't have it in the forecast. Okay. that's good. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. it is. Unknown: Okay. So what's not getting even better for the year we still haven't really experienced the Council of Aging or the Library being fully operational for very long. Tom Holder: Yeah. library is yet to formally connect. Unknown: Really? What do they do? I thought they disconnected their septic. Tom Holder: Yeah. they're they've got some internal pumping issues to work through. from what I understand. so I don't think we're receiving them yet. Michael Gitten: Okay. and I thought it was a backup pump or something. Wow. Okay.Okay. okay. any. anyone. any questions on the financial end of things? So it does. it does. It's a good we could keep talking. and Sarah request for new services. So sure. what's the what's the background on the 128.000 Sarah Pawluczonek: so that is the privilege fee that was assessed for Terrain for their project. and that includes the usual calculation based on the privilege fee rate. plus. because they fall within that threshold for the study. it adds that number on there too. So it's a combination of both. I think they were around. I'm gonna ballpark at 2.100 they needed. in addition to what they had over there. And another project came forward. which I don't think is going to get off the ground. but it was a request for about 3.000 more. and it was another restaurant. I have not heard from them. but they also fell in with. obviously. the rate plus the study cost. because of that number. But I'm not banking on that one. because that's a it doesn't seem like it's getting any traction. We'll see. I guess I wouldn't predict it. I wouldn't put it in the forecast yet. There. the Dunkin Donuts. I hear rumbling. still. sorry I didn't mean to cut you off. But again. they haven't come back to us. You know. if you hear from them periodically. but I I'm hearing that they're starting to maybe actually do some construction. So we might actually. that might actually happen this year. We will see. Unknown: yeah. you could see they something was going on. and they're actually. that's one where they're talking about putting two putting two small restaurants in that building. right. right. or two casual. We don't have fast food two casual. uh. fast casual. Darren Bock: fast casual. Michael Gitten: with a drive through that you have to only use your app for. So. but that's not on so that's all there. If you explain the study. what is that? How much was that. and what does that involve? Sarah Pawluczonek: That's in our privilege fee document. and that I believe. is 75.000 or a I can't eloquently explain the type of there are different thresholds. but that's like a Tom Holder: So we have in our. you know. right now. we've full scale. Tom. you might be able to explain that better than me. That's out of my comfort zone. yeah. gotten our capital budget to do an evaluation and preliminary design for the system that lies within Route 20. yeah. So. as Sarah explains in our privilege fee document. it talks about it. if somebody is seeking. and the threshold might be over 500 gallons per day. that they actually then pay a component of necessary evaluations. So there's a calculation. and I think that's what that's what the intent is. to use the Terrains payment for that planned work. Michael Gitten: So that's going to focus on the conveyance to the plant. not the plant. Tom Holder: I believe that is the case.
Unknown: And that goes back to the budget that you showed us. Is it. would it go towards that online item that's already in the the budget . that's in our retained earnings. technically. the low pressure sewer replacement is that I'm looking. Sarah Pawluczonek: oh. that was that capital project is in on our budget. I can bring it back up too. if it helps Unknown: the design. Is this a similar would it? Would it alleviate the need or some of that. Would it be redundant to that? Or is that what it is Sarah Pawluczonek: that might already be borrowed? Oh. sorry. I'm sorry. Tom I assume that's already borrowed. but I don't know. maybe it's not borrowed yet. Tom Holder: So. yeah. it's what is planned for. You know. they call it a BAN. It's like a short term borrow before the finance department actually does their formal borrowing later in November. but it would be put towards that. So it would. it would lessen the actual. you know. town. or. you know. commission exposure on that project. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yep. And as that's really it for new entries to the system for now. just movement in town center. which is already pre purchased. and they did ask and inquire about purchasing more flow at one point. I have not heard back in a few months. I do hear there's a sale possibly underway or something changing over there. so I don't know if that will take time. Unknown: So. so that means we have about 8.000 gallons available for others at this point Sarah Pawluczonek: Sounds about right. Michael Gitten: Yeah. it does. yeah. So I just so others know I did go give an overview to the planning board about our basically. I read the privilege free document. They were sorely disappointed. They thought I was going to give them a primer on Title Five. I was like. no. So they and basically- the party line is. our goal is to comply with our discharge permits. get as much flow as we can. because we believe that will help keep rates down. And there's still some that feel we need to. I think they're misreading or we we need to dig up. when we had outside counsel. read the preamble of our our issuing charter or or authorization from the state. There's still confusion on that. what it allows us to do so but that's how I knew that 10.000 off top my head. because and that. that that. when you say the Terrain was that just. does that include the the old dentist office? Is it both parts? Is it because it's by parcel. right? Sarah Pawluczonek: Yes. Tom Holder: yeah. that that includes both which they're going to utilize that front building as well. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. the front building had enough flow. They didn't need to increase anything over there. It was just for the large building in the back. Unknown: right. Well. the next big connection. maybe we can get someone to do the statistical analysis to see on the design. flow. appropriateness. the Title five basis. but that's for next. next big project that comes through the town every five years. 10. Okay. anything else on?
Uh. so the the minutes and I just. I don't know whether this is I did related to that. I think it is equivalent of minutes. So I don't think it's necessarily new business and not looking for real discussion here. but I had volunteered to take a stab at the annual report that we need to submit by the end of this month. I believe correct. And I basically took last year's. took out some of the history about Oxbow. and sent it around last night. And definitely Sarah. if you to correct the numbers. the only number that is correct is is the rates for the next year or the current year. And I guess I was selective. I did notice for a while that Wind River was not sending around that nice one page sheet that tells total flow. And they are. I'm happy to see they're doing it again. I think when they went to the the automatic DMR. they but it for what it's worth. I find that very helpful. and I hope that I asked that they continue to do that. I don't know. I don't know what. what to call it. Jared. do you know what I'm talking about? The the one pager. where they summarize all our flow. Jared Cotton: Um. I know the page you're talking about. but. yeah. I'm not sure how to like phrase it exactly. but yeah. like it's. it's like the flow totals. Michael Gitten: DMR. yeah. it's not Yeah. but it's Yeah. For a while there I noticed. when I was looking at the past year. they weren't doing that. Sarah Pawluczonek: They would send it in chunks. I think. they would send a few at a time delayed. yeah. Unknown: yeah. and. and. yeah. that's I noticed that too. Sarah Pawluczonek: I might have some that you don't I don't know if they've left people off. You know what I mean? So if you're looking for any particular ones that you're missing. let me know I might have them. Unknown: I just got excited when I looked at one that said 35.000 gallons. And I said. Ooh. our flows up. But I think what I really was probably seeing was US generating flow due to the work we were doing versus overall. Maybe. maybe the flow over the last last state. fiscal town. fiscal year. maybe went up 2% I percent. Nothing. nothing. real significant. So. so if people have comments on that. I'm more than happy to take them and consolidate or otherwise. I'll just work with Sarah and Tom and Jared to wrap that up. Sarah Pawluczonek: Yeah. I'll take a look at that today. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet. but it will get done today. Unknown: Yeah. no. I'm fine with that. Mike. you know. I lot of it's repetitive the prior years. other than just updating the project and latest financials done. Michael Gitten: yeah.
Tom Holder: so probably a motion and vote to. you know. to use Mike's draft version. You know. with updates from. you know. Sarah and Jared. and vote on that. just so we have a formal vote so that you're able to submit it. you know. in the next week or two. prior to the next meeting. Would be. I think that'll be helpful. Unknown: Okay. I make a motion that the draft annual report that I circulated on the the seventh. be updated with the facts. the financial facts and other. you know. corrections that people might see related to the facts that we make those updates and submit. submit it as our 2025. annual report.
Second. Darren Bock: yeah. I'll second that motion.
Michael Gitten: Mike Gitten in favor.
Darren Bock: Darren Boch in favor. Tsung Chiang: Yeah. I'm in favor Michael Gitten: Okay. um. okay. Now to the minutes i Unknown: i read where my name was. everything looked good. Where my name was from. what I can remember. but I did. I did go in and sign it. so that's good. And that was in the motion that we nominate Darren. So I did make it there. Yeah. I have no comments. Ed. any comments on the minutes that were circulated last week by Sarah. I don't. I don't have any comment. but I I have to apologize because my computer I never. I only check email twice a day. in the early morning and late at night. just trying to do things simple. Another thing I have apologize I really doesn't know that much about small wastewater treatment plan. I usually design the big city stuff. so that's that's how it is.
Michael Gitten: Well. we appreciate it. Unknown: Yeah. no. you got a leg up on me? Michael Gitten: Yep. Okay. then the meeting minutes are. did I make a motion to approve the meeting minutes? I make a motion to approve the June 9. 2025. meeting minutes? Mike. yes. Darren Bock: Darren. yes.
Tsung Chiang: And okay. yes.
Unknown: Okay. So when's our next meeting? Sarah Pawluczonek: That is pretty late in October. I think it is the 20th at 11am if that still works. and we probably should put another one on there. another couple. if we can. just so we can give the town a heads up so it can. you know. block out that time for us.
Tom Holder: Yeah. So. what do we usually? We're usually. what the third Monday. I don't know the So. the 17th of November is that? Work for folks looking the
Michael Gitten: only request I make. is there any way we can make it at 1130 on that day? Is that a problem? Darren Bock: I'm good. Tom Holder: I think staff would be all right. I think Sarah Pawluczonek: fine with me. Michael Gitten: Know we're going to talk about by then is the successful completion of the projects electrical fix and how someone's gobbled up to the last 8000 gallons of privilege fee. Unknown: Tom is going to say that the plants back at 70 miles per hour. Michael Gitten: Yeah. and we got a quarter million dollars of revenue we didn't anticipate.
Unknown: Okay. any. anything else. anything. any topics we didn't cover. Tom Holder: just that I missed the I missed the Polar Park conversation. was I was there for the first time on Saturday. I hadn't been before. And of course. the day that I decided to go take you for a birthday gift. we wind up with a tornado warning. It was like unbelievable. The the weather. they shut the place down. They had to relocate whatever 14.000 people that that place holds into what they call the DCU cocktail. you know. lounge and yeah. so it was. you know. safe to say I didn't get to see the game. I guess I'll go another time. or whatever. But man. what a first experience at Polar Park. It's a gorgeous place. So if you're going there. if you're going there for a trade show tomorrow. I think you'll. I think you'll. you'll be impressed. Michael Gitten: Okay. yeah. I've been there for a game. but now just answer. It is in the DCU cocktail center. but then it spills out into the promenade. Tom Holder: yeah. concourse areas that are open covered. but open and yes. yes. yeah. it's nice. Unknown: Okay. sorry to interrupt this really quick. I'm sorry. Mike. actually. on October 20. can we move that from noon to one at all? That worked for everybody. Michael Gitten: I'm sorry that works. Actually. It actually works better for me if we could still do it. Unknown: Guys are okay with that. Sarah Pawluczonek: That's fine Unknown: sorry to interrupt your launch Tom Holder: one is that what you said? Unknown: Yeah. yeah. Darren Bock: I have a training that I've been signed up for. Unknown: Okay. okay. so 1pm start. or noon. or noon. Sarah Pawluczonek: oh. noon to 1pm sorry. Unknown: Or you can do a one start. either one. Michael Gitten: I'm open to whatever. Folks
Tom Holder: would do. You think you'd be jammed Darren at noon or Unknown: no. I'll be fine at noon. 11. doing a whole artificial intelligence course and all that. So. okay. Tom Holder: I'm done by Yeah. Okay. yeah. Sarah Pawluczonek: olOkay. I'll put noon and then thanks. The updates coming.
Great. Michael Gitten: Okay. well. we'll do this all again on the 20th at noon. All right. that we adjourn. Unknown: yep. second that motion. sorry. Mike. All right. I forgot about that procedure. Second that Sarah Pawluczonek: we're rusty. It's been a while. Darren Bock: Yeah. we're rusty. All right. bye. Good seeing everyone. Unknown: Bye. everybody. Thank you.
Zoning Board of Appeals
10-14-25 - Zoning Board of Appeals01:26:43
9-Sep-25 - Zoning Board of Appeals01:32:01
12-Aug-25 - Zoning Board of Appeals01:08:32
Thomas White: Alright. Good
evening. This is the September
9, 2025 meeting with the Wayland
zone Board of Appeals. I'll read
the preamble here, pursuant to
chapter two of the acts of 2025
the meeting will be conducted in
in person, conducted in person
and via remote means, in
accordance with applicable law.
The public meeting link can be
found on the mail in town
calendar site. This meeting may
be recorded, made available to
the public on WayCAM as soon
after the meeting as is
practicable. Times are
approximate, and some items may
not be discussed in the order
listed or at the specific time
estimated. All topics may be
subject to deliberation vote
we're required by law or allowed
by the chair. Persons wishing to
provide public comment or
otherwise participate in the
meeting may do so by in person
attendance or by accessing the
meeting remotely. We request
that public comments be limited
to two minutes per person, so
before we get started with the
full agenda, is there any public
comment tonight that's not
related to the specific cases,
right? Hearing, none. Moving on
to the second item, which is to
review and approve the draft
minutes. This is to highlight a
quick typo here. The agenda says
the draft minutes are from 813,
2025 but they're actually from
812, 2025 is there? On the board
had a chance to review the
minutes? No, you've not. Do you
would you be able to take a
quick read through the minutes
now? Yes, okay, perfect, because
I want to avoid challenge with
challenges with
Justine Paul: i Can I comment on one quick thing for the minutes, the minutes state that I was on Zoom and arrived at 720 And I was in person and I was on time. Thomas White: Oh, okay.
Justine Paul: I think that was the July meeting that those bands were correct. Thomas White: Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, it's that's what's bad. Looked at July 8, 2025 are the ones that appear to be on the Share points Justine Paul: I saw the Oh, so that's maybe, that was, maybe that's Thomas White: probably is. I think that's why. Okay, the meeting, yeah, the meeting notes we have here are from July 8, Adam Hirsh: so not August, Thomas White: no, so it looks like the draft minutes for August. August 12, they're not here. Adam Hirsh: Okay, so I've checked, I've I've reviewed July,
Thomas White: yeah, so then, so Justine, your, your, your comment is for the July notes, or your comment was for August, but you misread these as July.
Justine Paul: So my comment was for August, but I thought that that was what August had said. And now I need to go back, because I thought that that was what it said for August Thomas White: as well. Yeah, I'm not seeing a copy of the August meeting notes on the Share file.
Justine Paul: just misread. Miss opened up the wrong one. Then hold on, Unknown: August Justine Paul: minutes. Hold on, what Minutes did I read? Is okay, Thomas White: all right, Justine Paul: hite Thomas White: the August one. I've got the August ones here. Now is everyone so you, you had read the August ones, so, but in your comment was still stands. Hunter Perry: that my comment still stands that I was on Zoom,
wait, yeah, yes, Thomas White: sorry. All right. So, um, I guess we're going to have to modify these minutes to reflect the fact that Mr. Perry was attending via zoom, not in person.
Do you have the same comment? Ms Paul
Justine Paul: for August. Yes, I was in person for August.
Thomas White: Okay, Adam Hirsh: no i still. Thomas White: What else All right, so it looks like we're it looks like we're editing these right now live, so. Nathan Maltinsky: I understand. I understand.
Adam Hirsh: I don't need to vote on eight minutes this August. Thomas White: No, you weren't. It's your, yeah. You weren't here hirsh: July. Yes, Thomas White: yep. All right, just breezing through these right now. So if we just, if we just correct that Justine Paul was in person, not by zoom,
Adam Hirsh: and that she was not there, Thomas White: and she was on time very Important subject. This is the 7pm hearing. This is the zba case 25 minutes as amended during the hearing on September 9 dash 24 this is the 40 D classification of amendment. This is the application of the Wayland Municipal Affordable Housing Trust for amendments the original 40 D special permit. This is case number 21 dash 29 which was for 40 B special permit request for 12 Hammond road parcel ID 51B-034. This Before we get started on this, I had a meeting with the building request is for an amendment involving a change to the Commissioner, myself and town counsel, and we discussed this. We don't need to vote on this. This is literally this can be a discussion on the board, if we are in agreement that the well, a discussion about whether the change to the footprint would be considered insubstantial. We reviewed, on the call, the kind of criteria that we would look through to make that determination. And it was noted that what's happening with this particular project is the footprint of the houses changing slightly from a very rectangular shape to a slightly more square shape. The setback, as a result, does change, but it's still greater than the setback allowed in this district. So I think it's very clear that that would be indicative of substantial footprints of the proposed home. change. There's no chamy. It's a single family structure. It's the massing of it has slightly been modified, but the program hasn't changed. The interior configuration has minimally changed, but that room count, the components that make up the bulk of the project are exactly the same as they were. It's literally just a kind of a slight modification to the footprint. So I don't know how to respond. I think it would be considered insubstantial, yeah. So according to town counsel, this is not something that we need to vote on. This is more or less a discussion, and town counsel would be happy to to draft an amendment to the decision. And we also have some cleaned up copies that were given to us tonight that explain the two different versions of the you know, the one that we approved and the new version that we have. So what, what does the board think? Adam Hirsh: I don't have any problems I, data is this is definitely something extremely minor, and in some cases, actually makes it more compliance of. I'm fine. I'm fine with that. Hunter Perry: I didn't see any floor plans. And do you see the floor plans or not? Thomas White: They didn't. They didn't submit a set of floor plans, but, but we were assured that it's, it's a, the proposed three bedroom dwelling is still the proposed three bedroom dwellings. And if you look at the if you look at the footprint, the change would be very minimal inside, Nathan Maltinsky: if I may chair. The only thing that changed was the setbacks on the left side, from 24 feet one inch to 15 feet, three inch. So still is in the 15 foot setback. And this is full. To be yourselves, permitted anyway, but that's the biggest change.
Thomas White: Any other discussion,
Hunter Perry: pretty straightforward. Thomas White: So I think, I think the board is in agreement that we could consider this an insubstantial change, and we can direct town counsel to Adam Hirsh: trust agreement Justine Paul: And I think that I was in agreement previously as well, so I Hunter Perry: I didn't have an explanation, really, do you like that? And all I really had was the original, like copy of the plans. Thomas White: And it was very it was a little, it was presented in a way. It was a little bit confusing for the board to understand. Unknown: This seems pretty straightforward. Thomas White: I think it's straightforward, alright, so, so I'll, I'll connect back with Town Counsel, and I'll direct them to make an amendment, or, I guess it's process, a request for the amendment to the change that footprint house, Adam Hirsh: great. Thank you. Nathan Maltinsky: Thank you. Thomas White: All right, so, all right, it's 717 so we can move on to the 710 hearing. This is a discussion and review of compliant with a special permit, 22 dash, 21 for the school bus parking at the 41 Cochituate road. This is a special permit granted in August 2022 for the continued parking, temporary parking of up to 16 school busses at the rear lot, 4124 road. The permit is valid through August, 31 31st 2027, and includes conditions prohibiting fueling or fluid top offs on the site and requiring the installation of physical barriers to protect against vegetated areas. So do we have is someone making a presentation to us this evening for this Nathan Maltinsky: I thought my Mike Faia was gonna be,
Michael Faia: yeah, I'm on guys. I'm on the phone. I Thomas White: Oh, perfect. All right. So good evening. Good evening. Mike, do you want to it's a little informal, right? I mean, this is really a check in. And, you know, we had requested a checking period after a few years to assess how the special permit was going. So we were looking for you to give us an update on the status of this, and the board has received some other communication from, I think, from a conservation commission that we can go through separately. But okay, yeah, if you could give us an overview, that'd be great. Unknown: Yes, from what I know, this was done long before I started, but as it stands right now, everything has been going fine there. There isn't any fueling going on. We were asked to do some protective measures along the border of the parking lot where it meets the conservation land and the children's play area, and we were asked to rework some of the signage so that it explained the parking a little better, and we added a crosswalk off the main crosswalk, so that it was there's some accessible, people could could use the accessible ramp a little bit easier from the parking lot. Other than that, I don't have much more to report.
Thomas White: Okay, I guess I ask you probably have not seen the email from the Conservation Commission that was sent to zoning board. Michael Faia: I probably I have not no
Thomas White: so well, let me. Let me read. Let me read this email that the zoning board received today, September 9. This is from Linda Hansen, conservation, Conservation Director for Wayland, yes, so that to the board, she writes, in compliance with the ZBA permit and conservation, the conservation order of conditions, the bus parking was historically not allowed in the rear parking area. It was my understanding that the ZBA allowed busses, bus parking in this parking as a temporary solution. If that is true, I believe that that is what was discussed. She goes on to say that the parking spaces in the front of the building were striped without permission from the ZBA and are not legal. I'm not sure, but. Is referring to, but we can discuss that. she indicated, indicates that that's unsafe for drivers exiting their cars in the travel lane. Also, it has concerns about the number of cars entering the parking lot and cutting through to Pelham Island Road, noting that there are no sidewalks or pedestrian crossings. She also notes that the proximity of the riverfront doesn't allow anyone to construct sidewalks or pedestrian crossings, um, the busses, she says, In addition, the bustles, busses are not allowed to idle in the back parking lot or be maintained, but both of those activities happen on frequent basis. The land directly behind the busses is a priority habitat for Rare and Threatened species. And if these conditions for the permit cannot be followed, the busses need to move. So this is, this is a little difficult because that's, you know, we did agree to a temporary special permit. You know, that is valid only through August 2027 but as part of that permit, we did ask for a check in to sort of understand the status of what was happening. I'm concerned because I think we're going to need to do some investigation, because the assertions from this email contradict what we just heard, and I think contradict the permit that we approved. So I don't know that we're going to be able to get to an answer to this tonight. I was a little surprised at the email, but I think this is potentially a problem.
Adam Hirsh: would it be value add for them to to get together, Thomas White: and yeah, I think it would be important. I don't think we can. We can't. We can't take any action on on this tonight. I'm not planning on that. But I think at a minimum, we need to have, I think we need to facilitate some communication between Mr. Faia and Hansen so we can understand the difference of interpret. Interpretation, or the concerns about the execution of the special permit.
Hunter Perry: I guess looking at the conditions of the special permit, I'm trying to kind of cross examine what is not being adhered to.
Adam Hirsh: There sounds like idling is what it sounded like, and Michael Faia: which is kind of confusing, because you have diesel busses that need to start and run. I don't know how I, once again, wasn't here for the original. So I you know, other than it's, it's, it's, it's something that a diesel engine has to do. It's not idling, it's just warming up, which you could Adam Hirsh: Why don't we give them the opportunity to have a conversation and then have them come back next month to give an update based off of conversations, and is that something that you can be amenable to? Thomas White: Is that? I think, I think that makes sense. I Adam Hirsh: I don't think you're going to be able to get any think I
answers this evening without having any conversations or having them do follow up before you know? Thomas White: No, I think yes, Adam Hirsh: something more concrete. Thomas White: I think Mr. Perry makes a good point. If you listen to the 10, if you read the 10 conditions we've outlined, they don't. re they don't mention anything that is contained in the conservation email from the Conservation Director. So it may be, it may be a situation where those things may be occurring, and they may, they may be problematic, but they aren't necessarily things we conditioned in line items one through 10 in the special permit that we granted. You know, permit number 22 dash 21 but in the interest of kind of moving things forward, I think at a minimum, we need to see if we can have some internal coordination between the Conservation Commission and and Mr. Faia, at least, to understand in the context of the decision and the request that we have to review this, you know, how do we, how do we, kind of, I guess, bridge these concerns. Nathan Maltinsky: I do have some information. I was on peripheral when this whole thing went down, so I will hold comment until I speak to both parties and okay, and then we can discuss all this next month. Michael Faia: It would be helpful if I could see the email from Linda. That would be, Thomas White: yeah, we just got it today, so we can absolutely forward that to you Michael Faia: all right, that'd be helpful so I know what, so I know what I'm addressing. Thomas White: I. Uh, understandable, Michael Faia: perfect. Thomas White: All right, Adam Hirsh: do we have to do a specific time for next month? I Thomas White: don't think so, because this is not, this isn't to hear this is a we're not, it's not an application for new permit. This is just a check in discussion. So I think we can just have a meeting. Well, we do. So I think we should agree that we'll sort of continue again. We don't have to vote on this. This is just a note that we want to add this to the to the next zoning meeting, which is Hang on. So we want to add this to the agenda for October 14 or the 10th. All right, so it being 726 we can move on to the 720 hearing. This is uh, page number 25 dash 23 for 10 chestnut roads. This is the application of Joseph Dorr, the owner of the property at 10 Chestnut Road, parcel ID 46b, 044, located in the R 20 zoning district. The applicant is seeking a variant special permit or other zoning relief as necessary to address adjust previously approved architectural plans from decision 24 dash 35 the proposed changes include repositioning Joe Dorr: right here. I'm Joe. the building and adding a stoop to the rear of the house. Do we Thomas White: Come up and introduce yourself and give us have anyone here to present that?
an overview of what you're looking to do. Unknown: I'm Joe Dorr and well, the septic system that was designed for the original plan was installed some time ago and hooked up to the old house, and with a current survey, is a problem with the set, the set, side set to the septic system. So we're asking to amend the variance to let us shift the house a little bit. And you know, really, there was always going to be a bulk head in the back and some sort of landing, and this wasn't drawn on the original footprint. Thomas White: So I'm just looking back at the original design. So the original special permit was to demolish an existing house right attached garage and construct a new two bedroom home with a one car garage. Yep, you're still doing the exact same, Joe Dorr: same Yep, same footprint. Just needs to shift a little bit. It's a small lot, and the septic system has encroached on the set back of the building. It was really Unknown: just got one foot. Yeah. Thomas White: Oh, that is the only change, right? The pretty much nine foot two goes to eight foot nine and eight foot five goes to seven foot five, Joe Dorr: correct.
Thomas White: And it was a bulkhead on the back that was not on the original one Unknown: There was a door opening there in the footprint, but they didn't draw the bulkhead Nathan Maltinsky: bulkheads are exempt from zoning. Thomas White: Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah. Um, all right, before we ask any questions, is there anyone else here tonight to talk about this case? Anyone online? Robbie Bullard: I'm seeing no online. Thomas White: Okay. I think this is completely reasonable. In my mind. I think the difference, the difference in one foot, I don't think is, is consequential. And I'm moving back through the previous decision. It it doesn't appear that we had any neighbors, uh, that expressed concerns at that time for the project. Yeah, any concerns further?
Unknown: You actually had a neighbor in favor that. for the project,
Joe Dorr: I think all the neighbors would still be in favor.
Thomas White: Any other questions from the board? I guess I have a question for the commissioner. Would we amend this permit, or do we need to create an entirely new decision? Nathan Maltinsky: I think we can amend this permit just because of the change in the footprint and just amend it for the setback on this site, okay? Because it'll be cleaner than I think, writing a new decision to make an amendment in the eight foot five to the 75 and the eight nine to the nine to nine of eight. Nine, yes, all right, very sorry.
Thomas White: I guess I would make a motion that the zoning board approves an amendment to decision 24 dash 35 that makes a slight modification to the footprint originally proposed, and reduces the east side yard setback from the approved nine foot two inches to eight foot Nine inches from the originally approved two foot five to the new dimension of seven foot five. Second, Adam Hirsh: Second.
Thomas White: Discussion.
I haven't named a panel. The panel is going to be the four of us, which does mean that this does need to be a unanimous decision. The panel is Justine Paul, Hunter Perry, Adam Hirsch and myself, Thomas White,
so all this to do a roll call vote. Ms Paul Justine Paul: aye. Thomas White: Mr. Mr. Perry Hunter Perry: aye, Thomas White: Mr. Hirsh Adam Hirsh: aye, Thomas White: Mr. White aye. So we've approved the amendment permit. So Anina, I can work with you on how to address this, because we're going to want to use this document, so we'll have to get a copy of this. Thank Mr. Perry, you wrote this so you might have the original document. You just we just need to probably send that to Anina. Unknown: So great. I have a question, sure, are we going to have to refile this for the Registry of Deeds? For this change, Thomas White: I think the amended permit would have to be filed with the Registry of Deeds. Joe Dorr: Okay, answered the question, Thomas White: yeah. I think that would be the appropriate thing to do. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming in. Good luck with this. Joe Dorr: Thank you, good night Thomas White: All right, so it is 734 so we can move on to the Kirstyn Lipson: Hi, good evening. My name is Kirstyn 730 hearing. This is a ZBA case. 25 dash, 2521 sorry, 25 dash, 25 for 21 Cochituate road. This is the application of the Millbrook Group LLC, Kirstyn Lipson, for property located at 21 Cochituate Road, parcel ID 23 dash 47 and Wayland MA in the business A zoning district. The applicant is seeking a restaurant. Each special permit property to convert to Cafe and Bistro, including outdoor patio seating. The structure is considered pre existing, non conforming structure as does not meet the setback requirements zoning by law. Additionally, the Lipson. Don't know if any address. I've seen other people property is located in the aquifer protection district and the National and Local Historic District. Additional zoning relief, such as variance variances or special permits may be required. So good evening. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what's what's being proposed here?
do it, Thomas White: but technically you're supposed to Unknown: Okay 10 Millbrook Road in Wayland, and I'm joined tonight by Alex. Oh, sorry. One side, Alex Sipes, he's with Avison and Young they're our project management firm as well. At Lake with Joe, the architect of our architecture firm, and then virtually Jeff Ugino, who is my lawyer, and I am the CEO and founder of the Millbrook group, and I'm coming to the committee tonight requesting a special use permit to operated cafe and Bistro at 21 Cochituate Road, also known as the Old Collins market building here in town, I'm in the process of purchasing the building from Senne Real Estate. It's currently zoned as a commercial, commercial property, but with my intent to turn it into a bistro and cafe, it'll need the special use. my intent is to call it Town House, which is really to honor the legacy of this building, which was the first public town hall, which we used to call town houses back in the 1800s. it will be really community and neighborhood focused. My goal is to preserve the legacy and the heritage and the historical nature of the building really breathe fresh new life and use into what is currently and somewhat neglected building, and certainly under under utilized in terms of kind of that, the tactics, tactical aspects It will operate from Tuesday to Friday, 7:30am to 3:30pm offering coffee, light, light bites of very grab and go kind of, kind of environment. Saturday and Sunday, it'll operate from eight to eight. We'll also be offering some afternoon tea as well as brunch and then in the evening kind of a wine bar, Bistro, type, type of atmosphere. There'll be a small dining room upstairs that will be library themed, also to honor the its role as the first public library back back in the day. And this area will serve as flex dining area for regular customers, or it can be rented out for intimate events such as bridal showers, as well as board meetings for local businesses, bridal showers, all of those kind of kind of opportunities. Kirstyn Lipson: the menu will offer really local, forward, sustainable, sustainable food, looking to partner with as many local farms and providers as possible. Again, really reinforcing that community aspect. If du plan to add a small patio in the back, it'll be modest, somewhere between eight to 10 seats. We'll have a natural screening to shield with the resident of abutter, who I've spoken with, and we've discussed the plans, and I've gained her support, and we will keep her apprised as we continue to move forward, especially given the hours only going to 8pm we don't expect noise or lights to be to be concerned there. I will say that as part of my application, I did request for setback relief. However, upon further examination by my legal team, we don't believe that this actually meets a structure definition, because it's just a patio. It's not covered, it's not attached to the property. So I would, I would request that we don't need relief on that element. One of the reasons that I really believe wholeheartedly in this project, and not only has it been a passion of mine that I've been looking to bring to life for the past two decades, actually, but this really fills a community lead. the Economic Development Committee did a survey over this last winter, and the number one most requested new business was a coffee shop. Wayland has no such offering, especially a local coffee shop offering artisan coffee. It's locally owned, owned and sourced that also offers opportunities for local business people to have meetings, social gatherings. Right now, they have to go to other neighboring towns, so this is an opportunity for Wayland to capture that business. 86% also requested more businesses next to the rail trail. This is within 300 feet of the rail trail, and 99% were concerned about empty storefronts, and this is definitely an underutilized historic building that has been a part of the town since 1841 so my intent is really to honor, honor this historic pillar of the community and bring it back to be a cornerstone that that can really serve, serve the area. My other relief request was on the parking situation, since this is a non conforming tlot can built in the 1840s before the car. it's, whenI first filed, and even when we spec with spoke with the town manager last week, we were using the full fire capacity, looking for the parking relief. in its current use as an office building, it is 13.5 spots. Is what it's relief. the brief relief it's been granted because there is no on site parking. There are six street parking spots right in front of it, and an additional six right around the corner on Pelham Island Road. However, the fire capacity is hardly, it's that's more of a theoretical capacity for this type of business. As I went through and looked at my projections hour by hour for the weekday and the weekend, the expected capacity is 45 patrons per hour during the week and 55 per hour during the weekend, and most of those will the average time is about 15 to 20 minutes stay. based on that, and including the the employee calculations, as well as the upstairs right hand side will continue to be leased by Sunne real estate for at least four to eight years. So including that consideration as well, that gets us to 15.8 spots during the week and 18.3 spots during the weekend. And according to the bylaw section five oh, 6.2 within 20% of the current use for parking, which, given the 13.5 spots, the weekday increase is within that 20% and the weekend is just over by two spots. So looking to request the release of those those two spots. So that is my spiel. I welcome any questions or comments
Unknown: or I'll type sorry Travis or Val thing that I missed that you want to add Nathan Maltinsky: up front support. Unknown: Yes, yes. Thank you that not only do only does this fulfill a need, a theoretical need, but there has been an outpouring of community support when I started mentioning it, just on the Wayland Facebook moms group, within 36 hours, I got over 50 letters, many of which I included in the application. I believe some have also been emailed directly to you. They include letters from the residential abutters, businesses nearby. One of them is also here tonight. And so I think that there is it really represents not only a theoretical community need, but an actual community need that I believe wholeheartedly, Town House that fulfill.
Thomas White: there's probably going to be some, I guess, questions from the board, but I guess before we go on is we need to hear if there's anyone else that wants to speak about this project. Here, you come up and introduce yourself. Kirstyn Lipson: Should I step aside? Thomas White: Yes, good, yes.
Win Treese: Thank you. My name is Win Treese, 11, Irwin Road and member of the Board of Library Trustees. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the board at the trustees meeting on August 20, the board voted to authorize the chair and director to send you the letter of support that is you have in your packet. We are very excited about the project, as noted in the letter, the board unanimously supports creative use of the former Collins market. However, one of the options that has been discussed for parking relief is the library parking lot, and the library cannot provide any parking spaces for this use. The library is very limited parking as it is. a Town, a Town meeting gave the library board jurisdiction the full parcel at one Concord road containing the upper parking lot, including the unpaved built area behind the Freight House for expanded library parking that was under Article 32 of the 1986 town meeting, when Town meeting unanimously voted the land to be acquired from the MBTA its our understanding that another board cannot grant parking access, access to a lot under the authority of another board, even if done, however, any commitment to other uses would severely constrain the library's ability to plan for its future needs, and further complicated its abilities to provide adequate parking for the public coming to the library. Although the library cannot assist the outcome of parking, we think it would be reasonable to continue this matter the next zba meeting to explore other parking options if necessary. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thomas White: Okay, thank you. Anybody else ? so thank you for that. oh, sorry, I didn't see you. Unknown: That's alright. My name is Gretchen Schuler, 126 Old Connecticut Path, and I, although I serve on the Historic District Commission, I'm speaking myself. Uh, we've not had a meeting or had any discussion on the historic district commission. I think this is really exciting application. I've read through it, and there are lots of wonderful parts of it. I am concerned about the parking. and years ago, we had meeting of all of the boards that would I used to serve on the Plannng Board for really long time, and the Historic District Commission, the Historical Commission, and the Library and the Historical Society trying to figure out, what could we do? And I think it's going to take some action on the part of the town to the to get over this problem. Kirstyn Lipson: I mean, we've got the Depot, we've got the library area, which we've just talked about at that time, when we were talking about it was when the library was trying to decide, are they staying or they're going? And we kept talking about a two story structure in the parking lot of the parking of the library in order to accommodate parking. And I don't know if that's the the answer, but I think we have to think outside of the box for this. And you you're in a really tough position here to have to figure out how to accommodate parking and to allow them to go forward, but I'd hate to see it go down because of the parking, and I think we all need to get together and think about it. And the other part, I mean, because all the parking we're talking about is public parking. And the other thing, little, tiny thing that has come to my thoughts is that we have a really important property as a abutting this property as well. It's an 1820s Federal House, and the people have been there for a really long time. And so what will happen? I think the hours are great for them. But what about exhaust? And what about all of those, you know, the fans and all that kind of stuff, is that noisy? I don't know the answer to that. And I just think we want to make sure we think through those things and protect the properties around it. It's a residential property, if it were commercial, be another, another issue. But thank you. Thomas White: Thank you very much. Robbie Bullard: Michael McCall is online, sure, Michael, he's on. Thomas White: Okay, so you wanted to, do you have something to add Mr. McCall? Michael McCall: yes, good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the ZBA, I just wanted to follow up. I did meet with Miss Lipson the other week, and I did indicate I would follow up. She did follow up with me today, and I did send her an email. And similar to what the representative of the board of library trustees had indicated, I had followed up with the library trustees, our town counsel and through my staff, our insurer and I informed Miss Lipson that as the manager, that I could not endorse the the her request for relief. There was some issues that we felt with regard to setting a precedence of using these parking spaces, which are not a general municipal lot, as well as potential liability. It was recommended if we were going to entertain doing something like this, if, let's say the library trustees were inclined to do so, then I would need a lease agreement with indemnification language as well as appropriate insurance coverage. And in most cases, we would have to follow public procurement laws, and depending upon the value of the spaces, it may require a public bid process if we were going to do something like that. So first, the reasons that were stated by the library trustees, as well as some concerns we have about that intersection, pedestrian traffic that would be crossing to utilize the Bistro. We would not be in favor of allowing the use of those spaces. in your relief that you're looking at but notwithstanding that I really did enjoy the proposal, like other folks, I do think it's a well thought out business plan, but I just don't see how we could include town spaces for the parking relief as that it would open up the door to me having to offer that to other folks, and that would become problematic.
Thomas White: Okay Thank you. We have another, another question. If you could name, name and address with
Margery Baston: Margery Baston, 11 Cochituate Road right next to 21 Cochituate Road, I have. The same concerns about the parking. I love the idea, and lot of people are very enthusiastic about it, very well thought out. One of the small suggestions sounds to me that could help, maybe a teeny little bit if the town will be willing to do it. The town currently has four signs on Pelham Island Island road for two hour, parking back.
Okay, right now down the problem in front of the old Collins market is that you have people parking there all day, and your people parking in a depot, parking lot all day. It shouldn't happen. should it? so if the signs that you have on Pelham Island Road, the two hour parking were put on those six spaces in front of 21 Cochituate Road and used in the Depot Parking lot, I think you could bless the businesses there, including the Wayland Depot that wants to have people come and go and freely, you know, park for a short time, and it would, I hope, encourage employees or people who want to park there all day to find another place to park. Just a thought, Thomas White: thank you. Margery Baston: Oh, maybe I should sign Yes. Oops. Adam Hirsh: So we have the right to be able to do that. Unknown: There's a host of issues here. You will need some legal advice on but the short answer to that is, I don't. I have suspicions, but I'm not sure. Adam Hirsh: Yeah, suspicions. I
Thomas White: Any other public comment? it looks like so you want to go back up? Thomas White: okay, could you, I guess, give us a little more Kirstyn Lipson: Yes, that's okay. A couple additional points and clarifications. One, I know Mr. McCall when, when I spoke with him last week, that was when we were looking at the full fire capacity and using that for the parking relief. So just wanted to reiterate the reduced number looking at the expected actual capacity. Additionally, we expect a lot of the traffic to come from current rail trail users as well as municipal employees, the public and safety employees, other local businesses. So a lot of the traffic will be foot traffic, as well as bike traffic, or just already there, not net new traffic. We do plan on putting in bike racks to help accommodate the bike traffic. We've also met with Greg Dale from the Historic Commission, District, District commission, clarity on the parking space calculations and sort of looking and he has, we've talked about our plans about maintaining the historical nature. And you know, the really only front facing modification be making it ADA accessible with a ramp. And he's on board with that, so I'm definitely looking to collaborate closely with him. Also, I should say, given the extensive renovations required inside, we aren't looking to open until next June, so there is time to find a solution if we if we work collaboratively and creatively. And on the note about the pedestrian crosswalk, there is, for those who aren't familiar with that intersection, there is a not only crosswalk, but a light as well for the pedestrians. Yes, I think those were my my additional comments,
through
Kirstyn Lipson: Yes, okay, let me pull up my specific notes. They have it broken down by employees, patrons and the the real estate. Commercial, the office space for upstairs. Okay, so, correctly, okay, for we'll start with the the easy, the easiest part, the second floor office space will be 900 square feet per the code five 06.12 for office or professional space on the second floor, it's one spot per each 400 square feet of floor area. So 900 square feet divided by 400, 2.25 spaces for that quarter the building. Okay for the full time employee portion, the full time equivalent is seven FTEs, so no more than seven employees at any given time. And for that, it's for the code five0, 6.13 it's three, one space for every three employees. So that is 2.33 and then for the patrons, it is one spot for every four seats. And so initially, with our fire code capacity, it's 91 seats. However, as as I mentioned, looking at the expected capacity, it's 45 seats per hour. Again, many of those will be a quick turn during the week, and 55 per hour during the weekend. And so that that netted out to on the 40 the 45 it came to. Unknown: All in was 15.8 spots, and on the weekend, 18.3 spots. And I apologize that includes the employees and the office space. I don't have the specific patron number there, and the current relief, based on the use as a commercial office space, is 13.5 spots, and the 400, 1 spot for 400 square feet on the second floor, it's one spot for for 200 square feet on the first floor, and so it's 1,800 square feet on the top and 1,800 on The bottom. That's how it got to the current early calculation. Thomas White: Okay? And then you indicated that there was another provision in the bylaw that's within 20% Kirstyn Lipson: yes, 506.2 and that's in change of ownership for a change of use that necessitates more than the 20% change in the current relief for use. And so the current release being 13.5, 20% would be 16.2. so the weekday increase of expected 15.8 is within that 20% and the weekend of 18.3 is just two spots above the 16.2 so also, another note, I'm fully in favor of Margery's suggestion of the two hour parking in front. some of the employees that park there all day their businesses do have on site parking. so that could potentially help create more more short term parking options. I
Thomas White: other questions from the board, Hunter Perry: yes, so on the second floor, for the plan for the second floor, can you tell us a little bit more about kind of the plan for how many seats will be up there at a given time? Probably different during the week than on the weekend,
Kirstyn Lipson: yes, and on plan, we include kind of the, again, fire code, the theoretical set backs. But I'll give you a little little overview based on the actual layout. So there'll be that private dining room there that I mentioned that'll be available for small, small, intimate events. And then there'll be a couple, mix of two, two and four top tables, as well as a couch, more lounge seating areas. During the day that will not be table service, it'll be counter service. And then during the the evening, weekend dinner hours, it'll just be regular dinner service. So I believe on the plan right now it's set at 45 but again, with the expected, it would be probably even to downstairs, since it is half half the floor and downstairs about. About a quarter of the space will be support kitchen, so it'll be about equally dispersed.
Hunter Perry: Great, thanks. Adam Hirsh: So potentially you could have another 50 people up there ish, Kirstyn Lipson: oh no, that the total capacity is included that will. That will, that will, largely, we anticipate, be used for events, and again, by events, small scale, their parties.
Thomas White: Other questions.
Adam Hirsh: The patio area. I know you're not seeking relief on it now, but how, what is your dimensions on that? Just out of curiosity, how close are you coming to the boundary lines and stuff? Just Nathan Maltinsky: so we can look on page 12, there's some dimensions. I think it looks at them. Momentum Unknown: studies, page 12 of which Friday Kirstyn Lipson: and that rear lot line is the pediatrician parking lot and I checked with the Department of Conservation, and it does not trigger any kind of storm water concerns this proposed size I
Adam Hirsh: does that impact set backs and stuff like that? Thomas White: I don't believe a patio does is, I think it doesn't pass it down that backs or anything. It's going to be exempt. Unknown: I believe it is Adam Hirsh: one I'd rather ask and on patio, just from your protection wise, Kirstyn Lipson: thank you for explicitly asking.
Jeffery Ugino: I could share the plan on the screen, if it would help the audience for The chair? Thomas White: Sure.
Jeffery Ugino: Thanks, Mr. Chair, oops, there you go, and Thomas White: that's completely that patio is going to be flush with the grave, right? Yes,
Kirstyn Lipson: and to orient everyone looking at the screen, to the right is the road, I'm sorry, left is the road to the right is that old back abutter is the pediatrician's parking lot, and then below the screen is the residential abtter, and behind is the Silk Veterinary.
Thomas White: I have a question, and I don't know if it's going to be applicants, the applicants attorney or for the building Commissioner. So I I've read through the what I think is the applicable by law here, which is the restaurant use special permit, but looking at the question about parking relief, sort of I'm struck by exactly what provision of the bylaw this board would have to act specifically on that. And this kind of goes to a question that the applicant raised, and a question that Mr. Hirsh raised as well. And I should preface this by saying this is an incredibly exciting application. And I think, you know, I think you can see, based on, you know, the feedback that you can receive from the town neighbors, everyone is looking for a way to move this forward. I do see some. On potential sticky legal issues that I think we have to sort through just to be sure that if this board grants you a permit, there are no sort of legal impediments to sort of us acting this way. Because the question of parking relief is very, very tricky on this one, because the restaurant use special permit doesn't really specifically talk about that talks about vehicle access. It doesn't necessarily talk about the constraints of parking, and typically the parking requirements are really triggered by new construction. So I realized that was kind of along with the general question, but maybe starting with, I don't know if your attorney has looked at this and has any any, any thoughts on that, you can start there, and then we can, we can see if the commissioner has any comments. Kirstyn Lipson: Jeff, perhaps the special use threshold that we were talking about. Unknown: Yes, Mr. Chair again, Jeff Ugino of Gelerman Cabral, on behalf of the applicant, I would ask the Board to consider zoning by law section 4401, dash , dot 1.2, which allows pre existing, non conforming building structures or uses which this is may be changed, extended or altered by special permit pursuant to section 198 dash, 201, just continue on, provided no such changes extension alteration shall be permitted unless there's a finding that such change extension alteration shall not be substantially more detrimental than existing, non conforming building structure or use to the neighborhood. And I'd say that that, I would ask that the board consider that this is the applicable section in the bylaw, that this is a, you know, a traditional Zoning Act, a Section six, finding of of of a change in use. That's it's not substantially more detrimental. Of course, that's a that's a double negative. I asked the board to consider this is a use which would be a positive, and a and a net plus to the neighborhood based on that standard.
Thomas White: Very interesting. I appreciate that. I would not have suspected that is an avenue, but I'm intrigued by that as an option. Thank you. You up next Chair, yeah, I wonder if the building commissioner has any thoughts on this. Nathan Maltinsky: A tangled web we weave here. Thomas White: It's very complicated. Unknown: It is because on 4112, it does say that a single or two family dwelling may be changed, extended. It does not say a business use, but in the beginning of the chapter does say non conforming building structures or uses, maybe change, extended or altered by a special permit by the ZBA. So yes, it is in there. But then we circle back to so it's in the purview of the of the board to make a decision on this, but our biggest fall back right now is the parking, which it clears that we don't have enough of, yeah, some, some sort of potential agreement to maybe possibly utilize the Depot parking as an offset may be viable, per our town manager's indication, but so Thomas White: you can see, so you think, but, but to kind of pick this apart, specifically, you're in agreement that 401. 1.2 provides the board with the discretion to consider waiving the parking requirement. I've read the bylaw. I know there's nothing in the bylaw that gives us a roadmap for this particular case. So we've already gone there. So I'm looking for, I'm looking again, with the idea that for this board to take action, I just want to be sure we have a solid legal footing for any of the decisions we have, because this is a perplexing one, because I think it's a fantastic use for that building. I just wonder if our bylaw has a particular provision that ensures, like a positive decision can be rendered in this case, Jeffery Ugino: if I could, if I could, Mr. Chair, just one more comment. I. You know, I would, I would agree that, you know, parking relief is certainly needed. I would just ask the Board to consider that that right now, the current use is not, is not in compliance in terms of parking. So it's currently non conforming as to parking, and will remain non conforming as to parking. And the question becomes, will a proposed use be more substantially detrimental than the existing use? So I just, I think this could be, it could be an avenue for the board.
Thomas White: I would agree. And that's why I was kind of, I was in essence asking that question about the parking relief itself. Because if, if you do look specifically at the leading sentence of 401, point 1.2 I, I somewhat agree with the applicants council that this could be very straightforward. The existing building doesn't comply. This changes it. We could, we could determine that this changes it minimally. Hunter Perry: The parking is more of a business decision than it is. Thomas White: I would agree. I mean, in I think in some cases, we could consider parking. I mean, the by law gives us the ability to sort of constrain parking. But, you know, parking requirements are part of a business decision on behalf of the applicant. I mean, would would she be as interested in this building if it had a parking lot behind it? I mean, it doesn't, and the applicants interested in this as an option, and so the relief that we could grant doesn't solve the potential fact that maybe she will have more customers than she has parking spaces for which could be a problem for the business, but not necessarily a problem for the town. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at the I'm looking at the options for parking relief and whether they actually have a substantially negative impact on, through the standard we have, right noise, vibration, smoke, other objectionable features. I suppose people could raise an objection to additional traffic, but, I mean, there's a lot of traffic at that intersection, I don't know. I don't know that this cafe is going to make traffic different than it necessarily is. So Kirstyn Lipson: can only hope.
Adam Hirsh: Yeah, the also, you have to consider the library lot itself, and that area is not very large to begin with, and you often see that lot being consumed up pretty quickly, especially by patrons on, you know, on the walkway and everything like that. So it's, it's tough, from, it is tough. I, I mean, I definitely see the, I think the value of, like, making those two hour parkings and being able to generate some extra, you know, income from, you know, for the town and stuff. But like, beyond that, like, I don't know how we're going to be able to grab spots from the library to be able to help a business. Thomas White: I don't think Adam Hirsh: I also can't. I also think that if people park there, so be it like you can't stop someone from parking over there. Thomas White: I also don't think the ZBA has the authority to require that DPW to change the signs, however good an idea that may be, yeah, we could. We could. Adam Hirsh: We don't have that. I mean, this is good, Thomas White: yeah, no, it's a great idea. I actually don't, don't know that we could even do that. We have, we might not have the authority to do that. We could suggest. Adam Hirsh: We can suggest, yeah, Thomas White: sorry, you had a you had a comment, yeah, David Lipson: okay with me. Two other points that I'd be saying, Adam Hirsh: Hold on. Please come up and David Lipson: uh? David Lipson 10 Millbrook Road, married to the applicant, obviously very supportive of the project. Just two additional points I thought might be salient to the conversation here. One is the increased expected occupancy in the restaurant occurs on the weekend when part utilization, utilization of the existing parking from employees of businesses that are moving Monday to Friday, so that that higher occupancy becoming at a time when there's naturally less less demand, less strain on the existing Parking that's there. And a second point is, I think there's a expectation that a lot of the community need that the cafe is serving would also be serving the residential areas in and around town center, which can access the property by protected sidewalk. So. So considering the amount of foot and bike traffic, both from the rail trail, from employees at the existing businesses and from patrons walking over from residential areas in town center, I think those could all be considerations in terms of understanding and appreciating what the patronage of the business might actually mean in terms of demand and strain on the existing parking and might impact the considerations for relief. Thank you. Unknown: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I can I think that if, I mean, if we're okay with there, with people parking and like in residential areas, I think when I go out to eat, I'm okay with walking a little bit, and there are a decent amount of spaces to park along that area, if people are willing to walk just a little bit, there are residential streets over there, and there are a good amount of parking lots in that area, if you walk just a little bit that could be shared, especially at night, I think good point. The Town building is only a few minutes away.
Thomas White: Yeah, sorry, reminder, when I, when I lived in the, when I lived in the south end of Boston, I I, I would have to park by 20 minutes from my apartment. I'm comfortable with that. Hunter Perry: I guess one, one point about the library parking lot. You know, it's currently not being policed, for people that are walking on the Rail Trail or, you know, going to other places, why is it fair to not police those people? But, you know, to think that it's going to be an issue for this cafe that's going to that has absolute outcry of support, I just don't necessarily think that that's, you know, to turn to ultimately push away something that has this much over, over an issue like that, Thomas White: I would agree, I think that we heard from the Town Manager that there may be a legal issue tied to permission about using the library parking lot. What could it? Could raise an issue? Because I don't, Adam Hirsh: maybe the Mr. McCall team, yeah, Thomas White: if I did, I hear that, did I hear that concern correctly? Unknown: So I think the problem would lie in dedicated use, and we couldn't give it to dedicate spots to any one particular business without some type of formal agreement and indemnification language. And the other problem is whether or not this would be characterized as a general municipal parking lot. I mean, many of you know just the town building. People come in for the sports field. People are parking there. They come in for the EV chargers. I think it's understood that a lot of people can utilize that parking lot for a multitude of things. During my conversation with the library trustees recently, when it came up about the Tom meeting article and some of the prior votes of the trustees over time about the exclusive use of the library, the question came up whether or not they could post signage that that lot is for library patrons only during library hours, and that standard language, such as, you know, all others, may be removed at the owners expense. Could those type of signs be erected there? And I have forward that to counsel, and it looks like that could be possible. So while it may not have been police previously, it may this conversation may have opened it up to do we have to enforce that going forward if there is no parking for library employees and library patrons during library hours? So that that question was brought to me, so I'm still working on those answers. Hunter Perry: Does that go for the Depot as well? The same issue. Unknown: I looked today trying to find additional information. I didn't. We took the library lot by a taking, from I want to say the Boston and Maine railroad. And I understand there's some dedicated lease parking that may go to the Depot, but I think it's different where there was a town meeting vote to acquire the the additional land for parking across the street, and the plan of land says the intended library parking lot and the language was to be intended for library parking. so I think there's, there's a difference between those spaces. I don't have all the complete legal authority, but in history on it, but I think they are different. Different that the depot spaces there are not for any dedicated use except for those leased spaces to the depot, whereas the library lot, it was the intention of Town meeting to acquire it for the Library.
Hunter Perry: Thank you. Unknown: Just to reiterate, we are not seeking dedicated spot, and additionally that that lot beyond the freight house that is currently not used, but perhaps intended for the library parking is I live right at the road, and I hardly ever see a car and there so that could potentially offer some some relief for the the library's use that is not currently being utilized.
Adam Hirsh: I think, for me, the why I, while I do think the the usage is absolutely fantastic, I still am not sure whether or not we can put a business in a default type of lot, and I don't, I'm still up in the air about it, and whether or not, you know something like that could even be used and kind of based off of what Mr. McCall was saying. So Well, I do think the the idea, the premise of what you're trying to do, is fantastic. So, and there's obviously very high support and very high want, and I, you know, I think the amount of foot traffic you're going to get, and the amount of bicycles and everything is going to be off the chart, and it's going to be great. I just, I still see an issue with dedicating spots like that are not dedicated but allowing. I mean, you're here's the thing is that if someone were to park over there, there's nothing that's going to prevent them from parking over there and coming over at their own risk, right? So, you know, I don't know. It just, I don't know if we can make that a part of this piece. Unknown: Could I just interject, Mr. Chair? It one of my concerns. What Mr. Hirsh alluded to, if we were to do, say, include this as part of the parking relief for this particular business, if somebody else on this, that same area then said, well, they wanted to come back before the ZBA for some alteration or new business, and we've set this precedent now. Do we have to allow them to include and and then what point do you have saturation there that that was just part of the conversation I had with the library and in my own concerns. And again, I'm not it's not about the proposal, really before you. It's the precedent that you set when you start just using as part of the relief, where, does it end down the road? Thomas White: I would agree with you 100% and you know, I've been, while we've been having this discussion, I've sort of gone through the three provisions of the bylaw. And I don't have a conclusion, but I see a I see a problem in in the way the bylaw language like we have an option to consider a straightforward relief under 401.1 in which case I think I would need advice from town council, but I think we would have the latitude to waive parking. right. I am concerned, however, that in in the parking bylaw, specifically 506 1.1, there's a provision that allows a under a site plan review, to sort of for for the site plan review, granting authority to discuss any or all of the party that seems to apply, that seems to give us the latitude to waive parking requirements. However, this project doesn't require site plan review, so I think that avenue was closed. I think under the change of use provisions for the restaurant proposal, I think it's extremely straightforward, and I think we could easily approve that in that language. Yeah, so I guess the thing that I'm I'm coming back to is, I, I, I still think we need some kind of legal vehicle to address the, ultimately, a waiver of the parking requirements. Michael McCall: So if I may, Mr. Chair again, where I'm still in the process of gathering information, you know, it may be prudent that you continue to matter and seek some additional opinion from town council relative to the questions that you and the other board members have. You know. Just so that gives you that footing, that way you're working in the best interest both of the town and the applicant. Thomas White: I would agree. I'm actually going to make that, we're going to make that. I would make that request of you, because I need to run requests to speak with town counsel thorugh. I absolutely would, because I think it's important. I think there is a legal path here. I think we just need a little bit of guidance to make sure one that we address the applicants concerns the the application fairly and positively, but also make sure that we're not we're not establishing a precedent. Because as interesting as this sounds like, if we conceivably say we could come up with a vehicle to waive their parking requirements here. You know, we have to imagine that there could conceivably be a precedent set, that there could be another use that comes in that would look for that really, if we would absolutely not be interested in waiving those parking requirements, because it's not necessarily a compelling use case. So there is a challenge. There is a challenge to this relief strictly under the 401 point 1.2 section of this of the special permit language. So I'm just, I'm mindful of both of those things so, but I think to continue this, not, not to get too bogged down. If we look at the the narrative and the requested relief, I think the applicant indicated that we're not really concerned with the rear setback requirement. We need a special permit for the restaurant use. The signage will be handled separately. The outdoor dining would be handled separately. It just, it just really turns on the two issues of the restaurant special permit and the off street parking requirements. And I'm satisfied that 1102, point 1.1 is extremely straightforward, and there would be no impediment to this board issuing, issuing that permit for the restaurant itself. I think the question about, the question about parking is, is an important one. I think it's an important one to the applicant. I don't think any of us want to know, you know, create an approval process and then, you know, basically not allow the applicant to succeed because there isn't enough parking. But I think the applicant study the neighborhood, knows what the parking limits are. Unknown: So I would also note that the all the other businesses in the area do have onsite permit. Thomas White: Yes, this one, this building, seems to be the only one Unknown: yes. So just in terms of precedent setting, you know, from the historical district, and no onsite parking. Adam Hirsh: So in my mind, there are kind of two avenues that you could potentially go down. First avenue, is we could potentially put to a vote and approval for the restaurant use without the parking part of it, in which you know, patrons will have to figure figure it out right. Or the other option is potentially doing a continuance, getting more understanding of potential expectations. And you know what, what is allowed and stuff, and then, you know, doing, doing that continuance. Thomas White: So, yeah, I have concerns about bifurcating the permit in two. I think it exposes the applicant in the town Adam Hirsh: I was saying, drop it, yeah, parking provision completely at that point. If it was to go through tonight, Thomas White: I don't think we do that. I think I would suggest we can. I would suggest we continue this, because I think that all out will allow me to seek some additional legal counsel to sort of confirm that we're on solid footing. Proceeding with a split. It's a slightly different form of relief. Under 401, point 1.2 and under 1111, or 2.1 point Adam Hirsh: one which is the avenue that I was actually recommending, yeah, but there is the other avenue, and I just want to make sure the applicant is aware. You could technically amend it to remove that part. Yeah. Thomas White: The other challenge, of course, is that we've only got four people tonight, so although we have a quorum, we have a year yes vote yes. Sorry about that, but Adam Hirsh: I just wanted to, I wanted to make sure everything was laid out. So that way interesting. Yeah. Thomas White: So I guess would you be, notwithstanding the fact that just obviously, a lot of people here, and not everyone is here has spoken, given that it's such a compelling proposal to pointed out the fact that our bylaw doesn't really contemplate a lot of things in this area. So you know, would you be amenable to continuing this to next month so we could come up with a hopefully a clean decision and a legally sound way of proceeding here, Unknown: Jeff, I might check with you to see if you have any. I know we do have a provision in the purchase and sale for an additional 30 day extension. Any other considerations that need to come to mind? Jeffery Ugino: I think it's a great idea to continue, as long as you're fine with a Kirsten, Unknown: yeah, yeah, Kirstyn Lipson: great. Then, yes, I'm amenable Thomas White: Great. So Kirstyn Lipson: I guess my follow up question, is there anything that you need from me in preparation for that, or is it more Adam Hirsh: I think its plainly on us Thomas White: And I think, unfortunately, it's mainly on us and meaning me. So there'd be a lawyer can help me there? All right, yeah, as I said, I don't. I don't have any other questions on the restaurant use and the change of use of this for restaurant that's extremely straightforward. And as I said, I'm comfortable that the outdoor seating panel as a separate application and signage handled separately is also very straightforward. We've dealt with that on numerous restaurant projects before, where the signage is done as a separate application. So that's easy. That's easy to do, I guess before we ask you to sign a continuance, given that there's a number of people here, are there any other people here that had anything that they, you know, concern or comment that they wanted to make about this?
Hunter Perry: I guess one other piece on how she may be able to help. If there's any creative ideas that you have for the parking piece, any conversations that you can have with you know, library and depot prior to that meeting that would only be helpful. Kirstyn Lipson: I did share with with Mr. McCall on the depot specifically, because I think that seems like the more open one, changing from it's currently single, pull in and parallel, perpendicular, parked on one side. But based on the footprint of the lot, you could change it to pull in and angled on both sides, and that would add about eight spots. Gretchen Schuler: It used to be that like it was. Hunter Perry: There you go. And for what it's worth, it seems like there's enough excitement to pursue something like that. Yeah. Thomas White: And the only thing I'm the only thing I would ask is, is there any I'm trying to think about the calculation we did to determine the parking required for the 45 seats an hour and the 55 seats an hour, is there any? Is there anything in the methodology of that calculation that would allow you to always keep this within 20%
Kirstyn Lipson: I could we talked about being open to doing like a max capacity. We would be amenable to that. David Lipson: And I think what, or what it's worth to the layout that we put forward, we just want to be consistent when we went to DPW for the Wastewater, so we wanted to show it at its absolute building max capacity. So it's not necessarily that what you guys saw is not necessarily the layout it's going to be it was just, we just want to show, based on the square footage, the max capacity. Thomas White: So I would agree. I think that's extremely important. I think as you talked about fire as well, typically there's like multiple classifications of the occupancy. There's like the the egress capacity, the fire capacity, wastewater capacity, parking capacity, and an actual usage of the number of people that you can reasonably fit in the building. Kirstyn Lipson: So, and we have aired on the conservative side with DPW. So the Thomas White: Yeah, no, but I'm saying I also, I think it's appropriate that you have different numbers. I don't think the number you give to the DPW has to be the same as the number you give for parking, nor is it the number you use on your egos calculations. I think they're all supposed to be different. That's totally acceptable. So was that, I guess the only thing other item was, do we have a continuance form that the applicant can sign? Unknown: She wouldn't need to for a special permit. Let's just continue. Thomas White: Alright, perfect. Alright. So do we have to pick a do we have to vote on a continuance for a date and time certain, I believe we do. Yes, yeah, to Adam Hirsh: we want make sure that she actually agrees with it. Thomas White: Yeah, we have an official, officially done it yet. Yeah, ask her, and then yes. So you, you right? So great. All right, so let me just check the calendar again, October 14, yeah, um, so I'd make a motion that we continue application. 2525 2525 to was the date again, October or 14. October 14, at, I guess, seven, 7:10pm, Adam Hirsh: second, Thomas White: second, alright, by roll call. Ms. Paul Justine Paul: aye Thomas White: Perry Hunter Perry: aye Thomas White: Hirsh Adam Hirsh: aye Thomas White: White aye alright. So we are officially extended to next month, and then hopefully we will be able to have some positive news for you. And then obviously, in the interim, you have any additional information on sort of the metrics for that hourly parking calculation that you could email, that would be great. I think there's some opportunity there, because that is a that is not necessarily a prescribed calculation in the bylaw. So I think there's some opportunity to understand how that gets determined. So thank you for the application, and I'm excited about what the opportunities it disposes. I think we heard from a lot of people that there's, there's an enormous amount of enthusiasm for this. See if we can find a way here. Unknown: Thank you for your consideration, collaboration. Thank you, pleasure. Thank Hunter Perry: you. Thank you. Alright.
Thomas White: We have any updates from the building Commissioner.
Nathan Maltinsky: Has everyone looked at the annual report prepared by ZBA? Thomas White: I know that I have because Anita did a wonderful job writing it. any other comments.
Nathan Maltinsky: No, not really this status quo. Yep, nothing, nothing. Really new report on it
Thomas White: any board comments or concerns? Alright, anyone
have a motion move to adjourn second? Alright, Miss Paul, hi, Mr. Perry. Hi, white, aye. All right, we're adjourned. Thank you.
Justine Paul: i Can I comment on one quick thing for the minutes, the minutes state that I was on Zoom and arrived at 720 And I was in person and I was on time. Thomas White: Oh, okay.
Justine Paul: I think that was the July meeting that those bands were correct. Thomas White: Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, it's that's what's bad. Looked at July 8, 2025 are the ones that appear to be on the Share points Justine Paul: I saw the Oh, so that's maybe, that was, maybe that's Thomas White: probably is. I think that's why. Okay, the meeting, yeah, the meeting notes we have here are from July 8, Adam Hirsh: so not August, Thomas White: no, so it looks like the draft minutes for August. August 12, they're not here. Adam Hirsh: Okay, so I've checked, I've I've reviewed July,
Thomas White: yeah, so then, so Justine, your, your, your comment is for the July notes, or your comment was for August, but you misread these as July.
Justine Paul: So my comment was for August, but I thought that that was what August had said. And now I need to go back, because I thought that that was what it said for August Thomas White: as well. Yeah, I'm not seeing a copy of the August meeting notes on the Share file.
Justine Paul: just misread. Miss opened up the wrong one. Then hold on, Unknown: August Justine Paul: minutes. Hold on, what Minutes did I read? Is okay, Thomas White: all right, Justine Paul: hite Thomas White: the August one. I've got the August ones here. Now is everyone so you, you had read the August ones, so, but in your comment was still stands. Hunter Perry: that my comment still stands that I was on Zoom,
wait, yeah, yes, Thomas White: sorry. All right. So, um, I guess we're going to have to modify these minutes to reflect the fact that Mr. Perry was attending via zoom, not in person.
Do you have the same comment? Ms Paul
Justine Paul: for August. Yes, I was in person for August.
Thomas White: Okay, Adam Hirsh: no i still. Thomas White: What else All right, so it looks like we're it looks like we're editing these right now live, so. Nathan Maltinsky: I understand. I understand.
Adam Hirsh: I don't need to vote on eight minutes this August. Thomas White: No, you weren't. It's your, yeah. You weren't here hirsh: July. Yes, Thomas White: yep. All right, just breezing through these right now. So if we just, if we just correct that Justine Paul was in person, not by zoom,
Adam Hirsh: and that she was not there, Thomas White: and she was on time very Important subject. This is the 7pm hearing. This is the zba case 25 minutes as amended during the hearing on September 9 dash 24 this is the 40 D classification of amendment. This is the application of the Wayland Municipal Affordable Housing Trust for amendments the original 40 D special permit. This is case number 21 dash 29 which was for 40 B special permit request for 12 Hammond road parcel ID 51B-034. This Before we get started on this, I had a meeting with the building request is for an amendment involving a change to the Commissioner, myself and town counsel, and we discussed this. We don't need to vote on this. This is literally this can be a discussion on the board, if we are in agreement that the well, a discussion about whether the change to the footprint would be considered insubstantial. We reviewed, on the call, the kind of criteria that we would look through to make that determination. And it was noted that what's happening with this particular project is the footprint of the houses changing slightly from a very rectangular shape to a slightly more square shape. The setback, as a result, does change, but it's still greater than the setback allowed in this district. So I think it's very clear that that would be indicative of substantial footprints of the proposed home. change. There's no chamy. It's a single family structure. It's the massing of it has slightly been modified, but the program hasn't changed. The interior configuration has minimally changed, but that room count, the components that make up the bulk of the project are exactly the same as they were. It's literally just a kind of a slight modification to the footprint. So I don't know how to respond. I think it would be considered insubstantial, yeah. So according to town counsel, this is not something that we need to vote on. This is more or less a discussion, and town counsel would be happy to to draft an amendment to the decision. And we also have some cleaned up copies that were given to us tonight that explain the two different versions of the you know, the one that we approved and the new version that we have. So what, what does the board think? Adam Hirsh: I don't have any problems I, data is this is definitely something extremely minor, and in some cases, actually makes it more compliance of. I'm fine. I'm fine with that. Hunter Perry: I didn't see any floor plans. And do you see the floor plans or not? Thomas White: They didn't. They didn't submit a set of floor plans, but, but we were assured that it's, it's a, the proposed three bedroom dwelling is still the proposed three bedroom dwellings. And if you look at the if you look at the footprint, the change would be very minimal inside, Nathan Maltinsky: if I may chair. The only thing that changed was the setbacks on the left side, from 24 feet one inch to 15 feet, three inch. So still is in the 15 foot setback. And this is full. To be yourselves, permitted anyway, but that's the biggest change.
Thomas White: Any other discussion,
Hunter Perry: pretty straightforward. Thomas White: So I think, I think the board is in agreement that we could consider this an insubstantial change, and we can direct town counsel to Adam Hirsh: trust agreement Justine Paul: And I think that I was in agreement previously as well, so I Hunter Perry: I didn't have an explanation, really, do you like that? And all I really had was the original, like copy of the plans. Thomas White: And it was very it was a little, it was presented in a way. It was a little bit confusing for the board to understand. Unknown: This seems pretty straightforward. Thomas White: I think it's straightforward, alright, so, so I'll, I'll connect back with Town Counsel, and I'll direct them to make an amendment, or, I guess it's process, a request for the amendment to the change that footprint house, Adam Hirsh: great. Thank you. Nathan Maltinsky: Thank you. Thomas White: All right, so, all right, it's 717 so we can move on to the 710 hearing. This is a discussion and review of compliant with a special permit, 22 dash, 21 for the school bus parking at the 41 Cochituate road. This is a special permit granted in August 2022 for the continued parking, temporary parking of up to 16 school busses at the rear lot, 4124 road. The permit is valid through August, 31 31st 2027, and includes conditions prohibiting fueling or fluid top offs on the site and requiring the installation of physical barriers to protect against vegetated areas. So do we have is someone making a presentation to us this evening for this Nathan Maltinsky: I thought my Mike Faia was gonna be,
Michael Faia: yeah, I'm on guys. I'm on the phone. I Thomas White: Oh, perfect. All right. So good evening. Good evening. Mike, do you want to it's a little informal, right? I mean, this is really a check in. And, you know, we had requested a checking period after a few years to assess how the special permit was going. So we were looking for you to give us an update on the status of this, and the board has received some other communication from, I think, from a conservation commission that we can go through separately. But okay, yeah, if you could give us an overview, that'd be great. Unknown: Yes, from what I know, this was done long before I started, but as it stands right now, everything has been going fine there. There isn't any fueling going on. We were asked to do some protective measures along the border of the parking lot where it meets the conservation land and the children's play area, and we were asked to rework some of the signage so that it explained the parking a little better, and we added a crosswalk off the main crosswalk, so that it was there's some accessible, people could could use the accessible ramp a little bit easier from the parking lot. Other than that, I don't have much more to report.
Thomas White: Okay, I guess I ask you probably have not seen the email from the Conservation Commission that was sent to zoning board. Michael Faia: I probably I have not no
Thomas White: so well, let me. Let me read. Let me read this email that the zoning board received today, September 9. This is from Linda Hansen, conservation, Conservation Director for Wayland, yes, so that to the board, she writes, in compliance with the ZBA permit and conservation, the conservation order of conditions, the bus parking was historically not allowed in the rear parking area. It was my understanding that the ZBA allowed busses, bus parking in this parking as a temporary solution. If that is true, I believe that that is what was discussed. She goes on to say that the parking spaces in the front of the building were striped without permission from the ZBA and are not legal. I'm not sure, but. Is referring to, but we can discuss that. she indicated, indicates that that's unsafe for drivers exiting their cars in the travel lane. Also, it has concerns about the number of cars entering the parking lot and cutting through to Pelham Island Road, noting that there are no sidewalks or pedestrian crossings. She also notes that the proximity of the riverfront doesn't allow anyone to construct sidewalks or pedestrian crossings, um, the busses, she says, In addition, the bustles, busses are not allowed to idle in the back parking lot or be maintained, but both of those activities happen on frequent basis. The land directly behind the busses is a priority habitat for Rare and Threatened species. And if these conditions for the permit cannot be followed, the busses need to move. So this is, this is a little difficult because that's, you know, we did agree to a temporary special permit. You know, that is valid only through August 2027 but as part of that permit, we did ask for a check in to sort of understand the status of what was happening. I'm concerned because I think we're going to need to do some investigation, because the assertions from this email contradict what we just heard, and I think contradict the permit that we approved. So I don't know that we're going to be able to get to an answer to this tonight. I was a little surprised at the email, but I think this is potentially a problem.
Adam Hirsh: would it be value add for them to to get together, Thomas White: and yeah, I think it would be important. I don't think we can. We can't. We can't take any action on on this tonight. I'm not planning on that. But I think at a minimum, we need to have, I think we need to facilitate some communication between Mr. Faia and Hansen so we can understand the difference of interpret. Interpretation, or the concerns about the execution of the special permit.
Hunter Perry: I guess looking at the conditions of the special permit, I'm trying to kind of cross examine what is not being adhered to.
Adam Hirsh: There sounds like idling is what it sounded like, and Michael Faia: which is kind of confusing, because you have diesel busses that need to start and run. I don't know how I, once again, wasn't here for the original. So I you know, other than it's, it's, it's, it's something that a diesel engine has to do. It's not idling, it's just warming up, which you could Adam Hirsh: Why don't we give them the opportunity to have a conversation and then have them come back next month to give an update based off of conversations, and is that something that you can be amenable to? Thomas White: Is that? I think, I think that makes sense. I Adam Hirsh: I don't think you're going to be able to get any think I
answers this evening without having any conversations or having them do follow up before you know? Thomas White: No, I think yes, Adam Hirsh: something more concrete. Thomas White: I think Mr. Perry makes a good point. If you listen to the 10, if you read the 10 conditions we've outlined, they don't. re they don't mention anything that is contained in the conservation email from the Conservation Director. So it may be, it may be a situation where those things may be occurring, and they may, they may be problematic, but they aren't necessarily things we conditioned in line items one through 10 in the special permit that we granted. You know, permit number 22 dash 21 but in the interest of kind of moving things forward, I think at a minimum, we need to see if we can have some internal coordination between the Conservation Commission and and Mr. Faia, at least, to understand in the context of the decision and the request that we have to review this, you know, how do we, how do we, kind of, I guess, bridge these concerns. Nathan Maltinsky: I do have some information. I was on peripheral when this whole thing went down, so I will hold comment until I speak to both parties and okay, and then we can discuss all this next month. Michael Faia: It would be helpful if I could see the email from Linda. That would be, Thomas White: yeah, we just got it today, so we can absolutely forward that to you Michael Faia: all right, that'd be helpful so I know what, so I know what I'm addressing. Thomas White: I. Uh, understandable, Michael Faia: perfect. Thomas White: All right, Adam Hirsh: do we have to do a specific time for next month? I Thomas White: don't think so, because this is not, this isn't to hear this is a we're not, it's not an application for new permit. This is just a check in discussion. So I think we can just have a meeting. Well, we do. So I think we should agree that we'll sort of continue again. We don't have to vote on this. This is just a note that we want to add this to the to the next zoning meeting, which is Hang on. So we want to add this to the agenda for October 14 or the 10th. All right, so it being 726 we can move on to the 720 hearing. This is uh, page number 25 dash 23 for 10 chestnut roads. This is the application of Joseph Dorr, the owner of the property at 10 Chestnut Road, parcel ID 46b, 044, located in the R 20 zoning district. The applicant is seeking a variant special permit or other zoning relief as necessary to address adjust previously approved architectural plans from decision 24 dash 35 the proposed changes include repositioning Joe Dorr: right here. I'm Joe. the building and adding a stoop to the rear of the house. Do we Thomas White: Come up and introduce yourself and give us have anyone here to present that?
an overview of what you're looking to do. Unknown: I'm Joe Dorr and well, the septic system that was designed for the original plan was installed some time ago and hooked up to the old house, and with a current survey, is a problem with the set, the set, side set to the septic system. So we're asking to amend the variance to let us shift the house a little bit. And you know, really, there was always going to be a bulk head in the back and some sort of landing, and this wasn't drawn on the original footprint. Thomas White: So I'm just looking back at the original design. So the original special permit was to demolish an existing house right attached garage and construct a new two bedroom home with a one car garage. Yep, you're still doing the exact same, Joe Dorr: same Yep, same footprint. Just needs to shift a little bit. It's a small lot, and the septic system has encroached on the set back of the building. It was really Unknown: just got one foot. Yeah. Thomas White: Oh, that is the only change, right? The pretty much nine foot two goes to eight foot nine and eight foot five goes to seven foot five, Joe Dorr: correct.
Thomas White: And it was a bulkhead on the back that was not on the original one Unknown: There was a door opening there in the footprint, but they didn't draw the bulkhead Nathan Maltinsky: bulkheads are exempt from zoning. Thomas White: Yeah, no, that's true. Yeah. Um, all right, before we ask any questions, is there anyone else here tonight to talk about this case? Anyone online? Robbie Bullard: I'm seeing no online. Thomas White: Okay. I think this is completely reasonable. In my mind. I think the difference, the difference in one foot, I don't think is, is consequential. And I'm moving back through the previous decision. It it doesn't appear that we had any neighbors, uh, that expressed concerns at that time for the project. Yeah, any concerns further?
Unknown: You actually had a neighbor in favor that. for the project,
Joe Dorr: I think all the neighbors would still be in favor.
Thomas White: Any other questions from the board? I guess I have a question for the commissioner. Would we amend this permit, or do we need to create an entirely new decision? Nathan Maltinsky: I think we can amend this permit just because of the change in the footprint and just amend it for the setback on this site, okay? Because it'll be cleaner than I think, writing a new decision to make an amendment in the eight foot five to the 75 and the eight nine to the nine to nine of eight. Nine, yes, all right, very sorry.
Thomas White: I guess I would make a motion that the zoning board approves an amendment to decision 24 dash 35 that makes a slight modification to the footprint originally proposed, and reduces the east side yard setback from the approved nine foot two inches to eight foot Nine inches from the originally approved two foot five to the new dimension of seven foot five. Second, Adam Hirsh: Second.
Thomas White: Discussion.
I haven't named a panel. The panel is going to be the four of us, which does mean that this does need to be a unanimous decision. The panel is Justine Paul, Hunter Perry, Adam Hirsch and myself, Thomas White,
so all this to do a roll call vote. Ms Paul Justine Paul: aye. Thomas White: Mr. Mr. Perry Hunter Perry: aye, Thomas White: Mr. Hirsh Adam Hirsh: aye, Thomas White: Mr. White aye. So we've approved the amendment permit. So Anina, I can work with you on how to address this, because we're going to want to use this document, so we'll have to get a copy of this. Thank Mr. Perry, you wrote this so you might have the original document. You just we just need to probably send that to Anina. Unknown: So great. I have a question, sure, are we going to have to refile this for the Registry of Deeds? For this change, Thomas White: I think the amended permit would have to be filed with the Registry of Deeds. Joe Dorr: Okay, answered the question, Thomas White: yeah. I think that would be the appropriate thing to do. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming in. Good luck with this. Joe Dorr: Thank you, good night Thomas White: All right, so it is 734 so we can move on to the Kirstyn Lipson: Hi, good evening. My name is Kirstyn 730 hearing. This is a ZBA case. 25 dash, 2521 sorry, 25 dash, 25 for 21 Cochituate road. This is the application of the Millbrook Group LLC, Kirstyn Lipson, for property located at 21 Cochituate Road, parcel ID 23 dash 47 and Wayland MA in the business A zoning district. The applicant is seeking a restaurant. Each special permit property to convert to Cafe and Bistro, including outdoor patio seating. The structure is considered pre existing, non conforming structure as does not meet the setback requirements zoning by law. Additionally, the Lipson. Don't know if any address. I've seen other people property is located in the aquifer protection district and the National and Local Historic District. Additional zoning relief, such as variance variances or special permits may be required. So good evening. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us what's what's being proposed here?
do it, Thomas White: but technically you're supposed to Unknown: Okay 10 Millbrook Road in Wayland, and I'm joined tonight by Alex. Oh, sorry. One side, Alex Sipes, he's with Avison and Young they're our project management firm as well. At Lake with Joe, the architect of our architecture firm, and then virtually Jeff Ugino, who is my lawyer, and I am the CEO and founder of the Millbrook group, and I'm coming to the committee tonight requesting a special use permit to operated cafe and Bistro at 21 Cochituate Road, also known as the Old Collins market building here in town, I'm in the process of purchasing the building from Senne Real Estate. It's currently zoned as a commercial, commercial property, but with my intent to turn it into a bistro and cafe, it'll need the special use. my intent is to call it Town House, which is really to honor the legacy of this building, which was the first public town hall, which we used to call town houses back in the 1800s. it will be really community and neighborhood focused. My goal is to preserve the legacy and the heritage and the historical nature of the building really breathe fresh new life and use into what is currently and somewhat neglected building, and certainly under under utilized in terms of kind of that, the tactics, tactical aspects It will operate from Tuesday to Friday, 7:30am to 3:30pm offering coffee, light, light bites of very grab and go kind of, kind of environment. Saturday and Sunday, it'll operate from eight to eight. We'll also be offering some afternoon tea as well as brunch and then in the evening kind of a wine bar, Bistro, type, type of atmosphere. There'll be a small dining room upstairs that will be library themed, also to honor the its role as the first public library back back in the day. And this area will serve as flex dining area for regular customers, or it can be rented out for intimate events such as bridal showers, as well as board meetings for local businesses, bridal showers, all of those kind of kind of opportunities. Kirstyn Lipson: the menu will offer really local, forward, sustainable, sustainable food, looking to partner with as many local farms and providers as possible. Again, really reinforcing that community aspect. If du plan to add a small patio in the back, it'll be modest, somewhere between eight to 10 seats. We'll have a natural screening to shield with the resident of abutter, who I've spoken with, and we've discussed the plans, and I've gained her support, and we will keep her apprised as we continue to move forward, especially given the hours only going to 8pm we don't expect noise or lights to be to be concerned there. I will say that as part of my application, I did request for setback relief. However, upon further examination by my legal team, we don't believe that this actually meets a structure definition, because it's just a patio. It's not covered, it's not attached to the property. So I would, I would request that we don't need relief on that element. One of the reasons that I really believe wholeheartedly in this project, and not only has it been a passion of mine that I've been looking to bring to life for the past two decades, actually, but this really fills a community lead. the Economic Development Committee did a survey over this last winter, and the number one most requested new business was a coffee shop. Wayland has no such offering, especially a local coffee shop offering artisan coffee. It's locally owned, owned and sourced that also offers opportunities for local business people to have meetings, social gatherings. Right now, they have to go to other neighboring towns, so this is an opportunity for Wayland to capture that business. 86% also requested more businesses next to the rail trail. This is within 300 feet of the rail trail, and 99% were concerned about empty storefronts, and this is definitely an underutilized historic building that has been a part of the town since 1841 so my intent is really to honor, honor this historic pillar of the community and bring it back to be a cornerstone that that can really serve, serve the area. My other relief request was on the parking situation, since this is a non conforming tlot can built in the 1840s before the car. it's, whenI first filed, and even when we spec with spoke with the town manager last week, we were using the full fire capacity, looking for the parking relief. in its current use as an office building, it is 13.5 spots. Is what it's relief. the brief relief it's been granted because there is no on site parking. There are six street parking spots right in front of it, and an additional six right around the corner on Pelham Island Road. However, the fire capacity is hardly, it's that's more of a theoretical capacity for this type of business. As I went through and looked at my projections hour by hour for the weekday and the weekend, the expected capacity is 45 patrons per hour during the week and 55 per hour during the weekend, and most of those will the average time is about 15 to 20 minutes stay. based on that, and including the the employee calculations, as well as the upstairs right hand side will continue to be leased by Sunne real estate for at least four to eight years. So including that consideration as well, that gets us to 15.8 spots during the week and 18.3 spots during the weekend. And according to the bylaw section five oh, 6.2 within 20% of the current use for parking, which, given the 13.5 spots, the weekday increase is within that 20% and the weekend is just over by two spots. So looking to request the release of those those two spots. So that is my spiel. I welcome any questions or comments
Unknown: or I'll type sorry Travis or Val thing that I missed that you want to add Nathan Maltinsky: up front support. Unknown: Yes, yes. Thank you that not only do only does this fulfill a need, a theoretical need, but there has been an outpouring of community support when I started mentioning it, just on the Wayland Facebook moms group, within 36 hours, I got over 50 letters, many of which I included in the application. I believe some have also been emailed directly to you. They include letters from the residential abutters, businesses nearby. One of them is also here tonight. And so I think that there is it really represents not only a theoretical community need, but an actual community need that I believe wholeheartedly, Town House that fulfill.
Thomas White: there's probably going to be some, I guess, questions from the board, but I guess before we go on is we need to hear if there's anyone else that wants to speak about this project. Here, you come up and introduce yourself. Kirstyn Lipson: Should I step aside? Thomas White: Yes, good, yes.
Win Treese: Thank you. My name is Win Treese, 11, Irwin Road and member of the Board of Library Trustees. I'm speaking tonight on behalf of the board at the trustees meeting on August 20, the board voted to authorize the chair and director to send you the letter of support that is you have in your packet. We are very excited about the project, as noted in the letter, the board unanimously supports creative use of the former Collins market. However, one of the options that has been discussed for parking relief is the library parking lot, and the library cannot provide any parking spaces for this use. The library is very limited parking as it is. a Town, a Town meeting gave the library board jurisdiction the full parcel at one Concord road containing the upper parking lot, including the unpaved built area behind the Freight House for expanded library parking that was under Article 32 of the 1986 town meeting, when Town meeting unanimously voted the land to be acquired from the MBTA its our understanding that another board cannot grant parking access, access to a lot under the authority of another board, even if done, however, any commitment to other uses would severely constrain the library's ability to plan for its future needs, and further complicated its abilities to provide adequate parking for the public coming to the library. Although the library cannot assist the outcome of parking, we think it would be reasonable to continue this matter the next zba meeting to explore other parking options if necessary. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thomas White: Okay, thank you. Anybody else ? so thank you for that. oh, sorry, I didn't see you. Unknown: That's alright. My name is Gretchen Schuler, 126 Old Connecticut Path, and I, although I serve on the Historic District Commission, I'm speaking myself. Uh, we've not had a meeting or had any discussion on the historic district commission. I think this is really exciting application. I've read through it, and there are lots of wonderful parts of it. I am concerned about the parking. and years ago, we had meeting of all of the boards that would I used to serve on the Plannng Board for really long time, and the Historic District Commission, the Historical Commission, and the Library and the Historical Society trying to figure out, what could we do? And I think it's going to take some action on the part of the town to the to get over this problem. Kirstyn Lipson: I mean, we've got the Depot, we've got the library area, which we've just talked about at that time, when we were talking about it was when the library was trying to decide, are they staying or they're going? And we kept talking about a two story structure in the parking lot of the parking of the library in order to accommodate parking. And I don't know if that's the the answer, but I think we have to think outside of the box for this. And you you're in a really tough position here to have to figure out how to accommodate parking and to allow them to go forward, but I'd hate to see it go down because of the parking, and I think we all need to get together and think about it. And the other part, I mean, because all the parking we're talking about is public parking. And the other thing, little, tiny thing that has come to my thoughts is that we have a really important property as a abutting this property as well. It's an 1820s Federal House, and the people have been there for a really long time. And so what will happen? I think the hours are great for them. But what about exhaust? And what about all of those, you know, the fans and all that kind of stuff, is that noisy? I don't know the answer to that. And I just think we want to make sure we think through those things and protect the properties around it. It's a residential property, if it were commercial, be another, another issue. But thank you. Thomas White: Thank you very much. Robbie Bullard: Michael McCall is online, sure, Michael, he's on. Thomas White: Okay, so you wanted to, do you have something to add Mr. McCall? Michael McCall: yes, good evening, Mr. Chair and members of the ZBA, I just wanted to follow up. I did meet with Miss Lipson the other week, and I did indicate I would follow up. She did follow up with me today, and I did send her an email. And similar to what the representative of the board of library trustees had indicated, I had followed up with the library trustees, our town counsel and through my staff, our insurer and I informed Miss Lipson that as the manager, that I could not endorse the the her request for relief. There was some issues that we felt with regard to setting a precedence of using these parking spaces, which are not a general municipal lot, as well as potential liability. It was recommended if we were going to entertain doing something like this, if, let's say the library trustees were inclined to do so, then I would need a lease agreement with indemnification language as well as appropriate insurance coverage. And in most cases, we would have to follow public procurement laws, and depending upon the value of the spaces, it may require a public bid process if we were going to do something like that. So first, the reasons that were stated by the library trustees, as well as some concerns we have about that intersection, pedestrian traffic that would be crossing to utilize the Bistro. We would not be in favor of allowing the use of those spaces. in your relief that you're looking at but notwithstanding that I really did enjoy the proposal, like other folks, I do think it's a well thought out business plan, but I just don't see how we could include town spaces for the parking relief as that it would open up the door to me having to offer that to other folks, and that would become problematic.
Thomas White: Okay Thank you. We have another, another question. If you could name, name and address with
Margery Baston: Margery Baston, 11 Cochituate Road right next to 21 Cochituate Road, I have. The same concerns about the parking. I love the idea, and lot of people are very enthusiastic about it, very well thought out. One of the small suggestions sounds to me that could help, maybe a teeny little bit if the town will be willing to do it. The town currently has four signs on Pelham Island Island road for two hour, parking back.
Okay, right now down the problem in front of the old Collins market is that you have people parking there all day, and your people parking in a depot, parking lot all day. It shouldn't happen. should it? so if the signs that you have on Pelham Island Road, the two hour parking were put on those six spaces in front of 21 Cochituate Road and used in the Depot Parking lot, I think you could bless the businesses there, including the Wayland Depot that wants to have people come and go and freely, you know, park for a short time, and it would, I hope, encourage employees or people who want to park there all day to find another place to park. Just a thought, Thomas White: thank you. Margery Baston: Oh, maybe I should sign Yes. Oops. Adam Hirsh: So we have the right to be able to do that. Unknown: There's a host of issues here. You will need some legal advice on but the short answer to that is, I don't. I have suspicions, but I'm not sure. Adam Hirsh: Yeah, suspicions. I
Thomas White: Any other public comment? it looks like so you want to go back up? Thomas White: okay, could you, I guess, give us a little more Kirstyn Lipson: Yes, that's okay. A couple additional points and clarifications. One, I know Mr. McCall when, when I spoke with him last week, that was when we were looking at the full fire capacity and using that for the parking relief. So just wanted to reiterate the reduced number looking at the expected actual capacity. Additionally, we expect a lot of the traffic to come from current rail trail users as well as municipal employees, the public and safety employees, other local businesses. So a lot of the traffic will be foot traffic, as well as bike traffic, or just already there, not net new traffic. We do plan on putting in bike racks to help accommodate the bike traffic. We've also met with Greg Dale from the Historic Commission, District, District commission, clarity on the parking space calculations and sort of looking and he has, we've talked about our plans about maintaining the historical nature. And you know, the really only front facing modification be making it ADA accessible with a ramp. And he's on board with that, so I'm definitely looking to collaborate closely with him. Also, I should say, given the extensive renovations required inside, we aren't looking to open until next June, so there is time to find a solution if we if we work collaboratively and creatively. And on the note about the pedestrian crosswalk, there is, for those who aren't familiar with that intersection, there is a not only crosswalk, but a light as well for the pedestrians. Yes, I think those were my my additional comments,
through
Kirstyn Lipson: Yes, okay, let me pull up my specific notes. They have it broken down by employees, patrons and the the real estate. Commercial, the office space for upstairs. Okay, so, correctly, okay, for we'll start with the the easy, the easiest part, the second floor office space will be 900 square feet per the code five 06.12 for office or professional space on the second floor, it's one spot per each 400 square feet of floor area. So 900 square feet divided by 400, 2.25 spaces for that quarter the building. Okay for the full time employee portion, the full time equivalent is seven FTEs, so no more than seven employees at any given time. And for that, it's for the code five0, 6.13 it's three, one space for every three employees. So that is 2.33 and then for the patrons, it is one spot for every four seats. And so initially, with our fire code capacity, it's 91 seats. However, as as I mentioned, looking at the expected capacity, it's 45 seats per hour. Again, many of those will be a quick turn during the week, and 55 per hour during the weekend. And so that that netted out to on the 40 the 45 it came to. Unknown: All in was 15.8 spots, and on the weekend, 18.3 spots. And I apologize that includes the employees and the office space. I don't have the specific patron number there, and the current relief, based on the use as a commercial office space, is 13.5 spots, and the 400, 1 spot for 400 square feet on the second floor, it's one spot for for 200 square feet on the first floor, and so it's 1,800 square feet on the top and 1,800 on The bottom. That's how it got to the current early calculation. Thomas White: Okay? And then you indicated that there was another provision in the bylaw that's within 20% Kirstyn Lipson: yes, 506.2 and that's in change of ownership for a change of use that necessitates more than the 20% change in the current relief for use. And so the current release being 13.5, 20% would be 16.2. so the weekday increase of expected 15.8 is within that 20% and the weekend of 18.3 is just two spots above the 16.2 so also, another note, I'm fully in favor of Margery's suggestion of the two hour parking in front. some of the employees that park there all day their businesses do have on site parking. so that could potentially help create more more short term parking options. I
Thomas White: other questions from the board, Hunter Perry: yes, so on the second floor, for the plan for the second floor, can you tell us a little bit more about kind of the plan for how many seats will be up there at a given time? Probably different during the week than on the weekend,
Kirstyn Lipson: yes, and on plan, we include kind of the, again, fire code, the theoretical set backs. But I'll give you a little little overview based on the actual layout. So there'll be that private dining room there that I mentioned that'll be available for small, small, intimate events. And then there'll be a couple, mix of two, two and four top tables, as well as a couch, more lounge seating areas. During the day that will not be table service, it'll be counter service. And then during the the evening, weekend dinner hours, it'll just be regular dinner service. So I believe on the plan right now it's set at 45 but again, with the expected, it would be probably even to downstairs, since it is half half the floor and downstairs about. About a quarter of the space will be support kitchen, so it'll be about equally dispersed.
Hunter Perry: Great, thanks. Adam Hirsh: So potentially you could have another 50 people up there ish, Kirstyn Lipson: oh no, that the total capacity is included that will. That will, that will, largely, we anticipate, be used for events, and again, by events, small scale, their parties.
Thomas White: Other questions.
Adam Hirsh: The patio area. I know you're not seeking relief on it now, but how, what is your dimensions on that? Just out of curiosity, how close are you coming to the boundary lines and stuff? Just Nathan Maltinsky: so we can look on page 12, there's some dimensions. I think it looks at them. Momentum Unknown: studies, page 12 of which Friday Kirstyn Lipson: and that rear lot line is the pediatrician parking lot and I checked with the Department of Conservation, and it does not trigger any kind of storm water concerns this proposed size I
Adam Hirsh: does that impact set backs and stuff like that? Thomas White: I don't believe a patio does is, I think it doesn't pass it down that backs or anything. It's going to be exempt. Unknown: I believe it is Adam Hirsh: one I'd rather ask and on patio, just from your protection wise, Kirstyn Lipson: thank you for explicitly asking.
Jeffery Ugino: I could share the plan on the screen, if it would help the audience for The chair? Thomas White: Sure.
Jeffery Ugino: Thanks, Mr. Chair, oops, there you go, and Thomas White: that's completely that patio is going to be flush with the grave, right? Yes,
Kirstyn Lipson: and to orient everyone looking at the screen, to the right is the road, I'm sorry, left is the road to the right is that old back abutter is the pediatrician's parking lot, and then below the screen is the residential abtter, and behind is the Silk Veterinary.
Thomas White: I have a question, and I don't know if it's going to be applicants, the applicants attorney or for the building Commissioner. So I I've read through the what I think is the applicable by law here, which is the restaurant use special permit, but looking at the question about parking relief, sort of I'm struck by exactly what provision of the bylaw this board would have to act specifically on that. And this kind of goes to a question that the applicant raised, and a question that Mr. Hirsh raised as well. And I should preface this by saying this is an incredibly exciting application. And I think, you know, I think you can see, based on, you know, the feedback that you can receive from the town neighbors, everyone is looking for a way to move this forward. I do see some. On potential sticky legal issues that I think we have to sort through just to be sure that if this board grants you a permit, there are no sort of legal impediments to sort of us acting this way. Because the question of parking relief is very, very tricky on this one, because the restaurant use special permit doesn't really specifically talk about that talks about vehicle access. It doesn't necessarily talk about the constraints of parking, and typically the parking requirements are really triggered by new construction. So I realized that was kind of along with the general question, but maybe starting with, I don't know if your attorney has looked at this and has any any, any thoughts on that, you can start there, and then we can, we can see if the commissioner has any comments. Kirstyn Lipson: Jeff, perhaps the special use threshold that we were talking about. Unknown: Yes, Mr. Chair again, Jeff Ugino of Gelerman Cabral, on behalf of the applicant, I would ask the Board to consider zoning by law section 4401, dash , dot 1.2, which allows pre existing, non conforming building structures or uses which this is may be changed, extended or altered by special permit pursuant to section 198 dash, 201, just continue on, provided no such changes extension alteration shall be permitted unless there's a finding that such change extension alteration shall not be substantially more detrimental than existing, non conforming building structure or use to the neighborhood. And I'd say that that, I would ask that the board consider that this is the applicable section in the bylaw, that this is a, you know, a traditional Zoning Act, a Section six, finding of of of a change in use. That's it's not substantially more detrimental. Of course, that's a that's a double negative. I asked the board to consider this is a use which would be a positive, and a and a net plus to the neighborhood based on that standard.
Thomas White: Very interesting. I appreciate that. I would not have suspected that is an avenue, but I'm intrigued by that as an option. Thank you. You up next Chair, yeah, I wonder if the building commissioner has any thoughts on this. Nathan Maltinsky: A tangled web we weave here. Thomas White: It's very complicated. Unknown: It is because on 4112, it does say that a single or two family dwelling may be changed, extended. It does not say a business use, but in the beginning of the chapter does say non conforming building structures or uses, maybe change, extended or altered by a special permit by the ZBA. So yes, it is in there. But then we circle back to so it's in the purview of the of the board to make a decision on this, but our biggest fall back right now is the parking, which it clears that we don't have enough of, yeah, some, some sort of potential agreement to maybe possibly utilize the Depot parking as an offset may be viable, per our town manager's indication, but so Thomas White: you can see, so you think, but, but to kind of pick this apart, specifically, you're in agreement that 401. 1.2 provides the board with the discretion to consider waiving the parking requirement. I've read the bylaw. I know there's nothing in the bylaw that gives us a roadmap for this particular case. So we've already gone there. So I'm looking for, I'm looking again, with the idea that for this board to take action, I just want to be sure we have a solid legal footing for any of the decisions we have, because this is a perplexing one, because I think it's a fantastic use for that building. I just wonder if our bylaw has a particular provision that ensures, like a positive decision can be rendered in this case, Jeffery Ugino: if I could, if I could, Mr. Chair, just one more comment. I. You know, I would, I would agree that, you know, parking relief is certainly needed. I would just ask the Board to consider that that right now, the current use is not, is not in compliance in terms of parking. So it's currently non conforming as to parking, and will remain non conforming as to parking. And the question becomes, will a proposed use be more substantially detrimental than the existing use? So I just, I think this could be, it could be an avenue for the board.
Thomas White: I would agree. And that's why I was kind of, I was in essence asking that question about the parking relief itself. Because if, if you do look specifically at the leading sentence of 401, point 1.2 I, I somewhat agree with the applicants council that this could be very straightforward. The existing building doesn't comply. This changes it. We could, we could determine that this changes it minimally. Hunter Perry: The parking is more of a business decision than it is. Thomas White: I would agree. I mean, in I think in some cases, we could consider parking. I mean, the by law gives us the ability to sort of constrain parking. But, you know, parking requirements are part of a business decision on behalf of the applicant. I mean, would would she be as interested in this building if it had a parking lot behind it? I mean, it doesn't, and the applicants interested in this as an option, and so the relief that we could grant doesn't solve the potential fact that maybe she will have more customers than she has parking spaces for which could be a problem for the business, but not necessarily a problem for the town. So I'm looking at, I'm looking at the I'm looking at the options for parking relief and whether they actually have a substantially negative impact on, through the standard we have, right noise, vibration, smoke, other objectionable features. I suppose people could raise an objection to additional traffic, but, I mean, there's a lot of traffic at that intersection, I don't know. I don't know that this cafe is going to make traffic different than it necessarily is. So Kirstyn Lipson: can only hope.
Adam Hirsh: Yeah, the also, you have to consider the library lot itself, and that area is not very large to begin with, and you often see that lot being consumed up pretty quickly, especially by patrons on, you know, on the walkway and everything like that. So it's, it's tough, from, it is tough. I, I mean, I definitely see the, I think the value of, like, making those two hour parkings and being able to generate some extra, you know, income from, you know, for the town and stuff. But like, beyond that, like, I don't know how we're going to be able to grab spots from the library to be able to help a business. Thomas White: I don't think Adam Hirsh: I also can't. I also think that if people park there, so be it like you can't stop someone from parking over there. Thomas White: I also don't think the ZBA has the authority to require that DPW to change the signs, however good an idea that may be, yeah, we could. We could. Adam Hirsh: We don't have that. I mean, this is good, Thomas White: yeah, no, it's a great idea. I actually don't, don't know that we could even do that. We have, we might not have the authority to do that. We could suggest. Adam Hirsh: We can suggest, yeah, Thomas White: sorry, you had a you had a comment, yeah, David Lipson: okay with me. Two other points that I'd be saying, Adam Hirsh: Hold on. Please come up and David Lipson: uh? David Lipson 10 Millbrook Road, married to the applicant, obviously very supportive of the project. Just two additional points I thought might be salient to the conversation here. One is the increased expected occupancy in the restaurant occurs on the weekend when part utilization, utilization of the existing parking from employees of businesses that are moving Monday to Friday, so that that higher occupancy becoming at a time when there's naturally less less demand, less strain on the existing Parking that's there. And a second point is, I think there's a expectation that a lot of the community need that the cafe is serving would also be serving the residential areas in and around town center, which can access the property by protected sidewalk. So. So considering the amount of foot and bike traffic, both from the rail trail, from employees at the existing businesses and from patrons walking over from residential areas in town center, I think those could all be considerations in terms of understanding and appreciating what the patronage of the business might actually mean in terms of demand and strain on the existing parking and might impact the considerations for relief. Thank you. Unknown: Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I can I think that if, I mean, if we're okay with there, with people parking and like in residential areas, I think when I go out to eat, I'm okay with walking a little bit, and there are a decent amount of spaces to park along that area, if people are willing to walk just a little bit, there are residential streets over there, and there are a good amount of parking lots in that area, if you walk just a little bit that could be shared, especially at night, I think good point. The Town building is only a few minutes away.
Thomas White: Yeah, sorry, reminder, when I, when I lived in the, when I lived in the south end of Boston, I I, I would have to park by 20 minutes from my apartment. I'm comfortable with that. Hunter Perry: I guess one, one point about the library parking lot. You know, it's currently not being policed, for people that are walking on the Rail Trail or, you know, going to other places, why is it fair to not police those people? But, you know, to think that it's going to be an issue for this cafe that's going to that has absolute outcry of support, I just don't necessarily think that that's, you know, to turn to ultimately push away something that has this much over, over an issue like that, Thomas White: I would agree, I think that we heard from the Town Manager that there may be a legal issue tied to permission about using the library parking lot. What could it? Could raise an issue? Because I don't, Adam Hirsh: maybe the Mr. McCall team, yeah, Thomas White: if I did, I hear that, did I hear that concern correctly? Unknown: So I think the problem would lie in dedicated use, and we couldn't give it to dedicate spots to any one particular business without some type of formal agreement and indemnification language. And the other problem is whether or not this would be characterized as a general municipal parking lot. I mean, many of you know just the town building. People come in for the sports field. People are parking there. They come in for the EV chargers. I think it's understood that a lot of people can utilize that parking lot for a multitude of things. During my conversation with the library trustees recently, when it came up about the Tom meeting article and some of the prior votes of the trustees over time about the exclusive use of the library, the question came up whether or not they could post signage that that lot is for library patrons only during library hours, and that standard language, such as, you know, all others, may be removed at the owners expense. Could those type of signs be erected there? And I have forward that to counsel, and it looks like that could be possible. So while it may not have been police previously, it may this conversation may have opened it up to do we have to enforce that going forward if there is no parking for library employees and library patrons during library hours? So that that question was brought to me, so I'm still working on those answers. Hunter Perry: Does that go for the Depot as well? The same issue. Unknown: I looked today trying to find additional information. I didn't. We took the library lot by a taking, from I want to say the Boston and Maine railroad. And I understand there's some dedicated lease parking that may go to the Depot, but I think it's different where there was a town meeting vote to acquire the the additional land for parking across the street, and the plan of land says the intended library parking lot and the language was to be intended for library parking. so I think there's, there's a difference between those spaces. I don't have all the complete legal authority, but in history on it, but I think they are different. Different that the depot spaces there are not for any dedicated use except for those leased spaces to the depot, whereas the library lot, it was the intention of Town meeting to acquire it for the Library.
Hunter Perry: Thank you. Unknown: Just to reiterate, we are not seeking dedicated spot, and additionally that that lot beyond the freight house that is currently not used, but perhaps intended for the library parking is I live right at the road, and I hardly ever see a car and there so that could potentially offer some some relief for the the library's use that is not currently being utilized.
Adam Hirsh: I think, for me, the why I, while I do think the the usage is absolutely fantastic, I still am not sure whether or not we can put a business in a default type of lot, and I don't, I'm still up in the air about it, and whether or not, you know something like that could even be used and kind of based off of what Mr. McCall was saying. So Well, I do think the the idea, the premise of what you're trying to do, is fantastic. So, and there's obviously very high support and very high want, and I, you know, I think the amount of foot traffic you're going to get, and the amount of bicycles and everything is going to be off the chart, and it's going to be great. I just, I still see an issue with dedicating spots like that are not dedicated but allowing. I mean, you're here's the thing is that if someone were to park over there, there's nothing that's going to prevent them from parking over there and coming over at their own risk, right? So, you know, I don't know. It just, I don't know if we can make that a part of this piece. Unknown: Could I just interject, Mr. Chair? It one of my concerns. What Mr. Hirsh alluded to, if we were to do, say, include this as part of the parking relief for this particular business, if somebody else on this, that same area then said, well, they wanted to come back before the ZBA for some alteration or new business, and we've set this precedent now. Do we have to allow them to include and and then what point do you have saturation there that that was just part of the conversation I had with the library and in my own concerns. And again, I'm not it's not about the proposal, really before you. It's the precedent that you set when you start just using as part of the relief, where, does it end down the road? Thomas White: I would agree with you 100% and you know, I've been, while we've been having this discussion, I've sort of gone through the three provisions of the bylaw. And I don't have a conclusion, but I see a I see a problem in in the way the bylaw language like we have an option to consider a straightforward relief under 401.1 in which case I think I would need advice from town council, but I think we would have the latitude to waive parking. right. I am concerned, however, that in in the parking bylaw, specifically 506 1.1, there's a provision that allows a under a site plan review, to sort of for for the site plan review, granting authority to discuss any or all of the party that seems to apply, that seems to give us the latitude to waive parking requirements. However, this project doesn't require site plan review, so I think that avenue was closed. I think under the change of use provisions for the restaurant proposal, I think it's extremely straightforward, and I think we could easily approve that in that language. Yeah, so I guess the thing that I'm I'm coming back to is, I, I, I still think we need some kind of legal vehicle to address the, ultimately, a waiver of the parking requirements. Michael McCall: So if I may, Mr. Chair again, where I'm still in the process of gathering information, you know, it may be prudent that you continue to matter and seek some additional opinion from town council relative to the questions that you and the other board members have. You know. Just so that gives you that footing, that way you're working in the best interest both of the town and the applicant. Thomas White: I would agree. I'm actually going to make that, we're going to make that. I would make that request of you, because I need to run requests to speak with town counsel thorugh. I absolutely would, because I think it's important. I think there is a legal path here. I think we just need a little bit of guidance to make sure one that we address the applicants concerns the the application fairly and positively, but also make sure that we're not we're not establishing a precedent. Because as interesting as this sounds like, if we conceivably say we could come up with a vehicle to waive their parking requirements here. You know, we have to imagine that there could conceivably be a precedent set, that there could be another use that comes in that would look for that really, if we would absolutely not be interested in waiving those parking requirements, because it's not necessarily a compelling use case. So there is a challenge. There is a challenge to this relief strictly under the 401 point 1.2 section of this of the special permit language. So I'm just, I'm mindful of both of those things so, but I think to continue this, not, not to get too bogged down. If we look at the the narrative and the requested relief, I think the applicant indicated that we're not really concerned with the rear setback requirement. We need a special permit for the restaurant use. The signage will be handled separately. The outdoor dining would be handled separately. It just, it just really turns on the two issues of the restaurant special permit and the off street parking requirements. And I'm satisfied that 1102, point 1.1 is extremely straightforward, and there would be no impediment to this board issuing, issuing that permit for the restaurant itself. I think the question about, the question about parking is, is an important one. I think it's an important one to the applicant. I don't think any of us want to know, you know, create an approval process and then, you know, basically not allow the applicant to succeed because there isn't enough parking. But I think the applicant study the neighborhood, knows what the parking limits are. Unknown: So I would also note that the all the other businesses in the area do have onsite permit. Thomas White: Yes, this one, this building, seems to be the only one Unknown: yes. So just in terms of precedent setting, you know, from the historical district, and no onsite parking. Adam Hirsh: So in my mind, there are kind of two avenues that you could potentially go down. First avenue, is we could potentially put to a vote and approval for the restaurant use without the parking part of it, in which you know, patrons will have to figure figure it out right. Or the other option is potentially doing a continuance, getting more understanding of potential expectations. And you know what, what is allowed and stuff, and then, you know, doing, doing that continuance. Thomas White: So, yeah, I have concerns about bifurcating the permit in two. I think it exposes the applicant in the town Adam Hirsh: I was saying, drop it, yeah, parking provision completely at that point. If it was to go through tonight, Thomas White: I don't think we do that. I think I would suggest we can. I would suggest we continue this, because I think that all out will allow me to seek some additional legal counsel to sort of confirm that we're on solid footing. Proceeding with a split. It's a slightly different form of relief. Under 401, point 1.2 and under 1111, or 2.1 point Adam Hirsh: one which is the avenue that I was actually recommending, yeah, but there is the other avenue, and I just want to make sure the applicant is aware. You could technically amend it to remove that part. Yeah. Thomas White: The other challenge, of course, is that we've only got four people tonight, so although we have a quorum, we have a year yes vote yes. Sorry about that, but Adam Hirsh: I just wanted to, I wanted to make sure everything was laid out. So that way interesting. Yeah. Thomas White: So I guess would you be, notwithstanding the fact that just obviously, a lot of people here, and not everyone is here has spoken, given that it's such a compelling proposal to pointed out the fact that our bylaw doesn't really contemplate a lot of things in this area. So you know, would you be amenable to continuing this to next month so we could come up with a hopefully a clean decision and a legally sound way of proceeding here, Unknown: Jeff, I might check with you to see if you have any. I know we do have a provision in the purchase and sale for an additional 30 day extension. Any other considerations that need to come to mind? Jeffery Ugino: I think it's a great idea to continue, as long as you're fine with a Kirsten, Unknown: yeah, yeah, Kirstyn Lipson: great. Then, yes, I'm amenable Thomas White: Great. So Kirstyn Lipson: I guess my follow up question, is there anything that you need from me in preparation for that, or is it more Adam Hirsh: I think its plainly on us Thomas White: And I think, unfortunately, it's mainly on us and meaning me. So there'd be a lawyer can help me there? All right, yeah, as I said, I don't. I don't have any other questions on the restaurant use and the change of use of this for restaurant that's extremely straightforward. And as I said, I'm comfortable that the outdoor seating panel as a separate application and signage handled separately is also very straightforward. We've dealt with that on numerous restaurant projects before, where the signage is done as a separate application. So that's easy. That's easy to do, I guess before we ask you to sign a continuance, given that there's a number of people here, are there any other people here that had anything that they, you know, concern or comment that they wanted to make about this?
Hunter Perry: I guess one other piece on how she may be able to help. If there's any creative ideas that you have for the parking piece, any conversations that you can have with you know, library and depot prior to that meeting that would only be helpful. Kirstyn Lipson: I did share with with Mr. McCall on the depot specifically, because I think that seems like the more open one, changing from it's currently single, pull in and parallel, perpendicular, parked on one side. But based on the footprint of the lot, you could change it to pull in and angled on both sides, and that would add about eight spots. Gretchen Schuler: It used to be that like it was. Hunter Perry: There you go. And for what it's worth, it seems like there's enough excitement to pursue something like that. Yeah. Thomas White: And the only thing I'm the only thing I would ask is, is there any I'm trying to think about the calculation we did to determine the parking required for the 45 seats an hour and the 55 seats an hour, is there any? Is there anything in the methodology of that calculation that would allow you to always keep this within 20%
Kirstyn Lipson: I could we talked about being open to doing like a max capacity. We would be amenable to that. David Lipson: And I think what, or what it's worth to the layout that we put forward, we just want to be consistent when we went to DPW for the Wastewater, so we wanted to show it at its absolute building max capacity. So it's not necessarily that what you guys saw is not necessarily the layout it's going to be it was just, we just want to show, based on the square footage, the max capacity. Thomas White: So I would agree. I think that's extremely important. I think as you talked about fire as well, typically there's like multiple classifications of the occupancy. There's like the the egress capacity, the fire capacity, wastewater capacity, parking capacity, and an actual usage of the number of people that you can reasonably fit in the building. Kirstyn Lipson: So, and we have aired on the conservative side with DPW. So the Thomas White: Yeah, no, but I'm saying I also, I think it's appropriate that you have different numbers. I don't think the number you give to the DPW has to be the same as the number you give for parking, nor is it the number you use on your egos calculations. I think they're all supposed to be different. That's totally acceptable. So was that, I guess the only thing other item was, do we have a continuance form that the applicant can sign? Unknown: She wouldn't need to for a special permit. Let's just continue. Thomas White: Alright, perfect. Alright. So do we have to pick a do we have to vote on a continuance for a date and time certain, I believe we do. Yes, yeah, to Adam Hirsh: we want make sure that she actually agrees with it. Thomas White: Yeah, we have an official, officially done it yet. Yeah, ask her, and then yes. So you, you right? So great. All right, so let me just check the calendar again, October 14, yeah, um, so I'd make a motion that we continue application. 2525 2525 to was the date again, October or 14. October 14, at, I guess, seven, 7:10pm, Adam Hirsh: second, Thomas White: second, alright, by roll call. Ms. Paul Justine Paul: aye Thomas White: Perry Hunter Perry: aye Thomas White: Hirsh Adam Hirsh: aye Thomas White: White aye alright. So we are officially extended to next month, and then hopefully we will be able to have some positive news for you. And then obviously, in the interim, you have any additional information on sort of the metrics for that hourly parking calculation that you could email, that would be great. I think there's some opportunity there, because that is a that is not necessarily a prescribed calculation in the bylaw. So I think there's some opportunity to understand how that gets determined. So thank you for the application, and I'm excited about what the opportunities it disposes. I think we heard from a lot of people that there's, there's an enormous amount of enthusiasm for this. See if we can find a way here. Unknown: Thank you for your consideration, collaboration. Thank you, pleasure. Thank Hunter Perry: you. Thank you. Alright.
Thomas White: We have any updates from the building Commissioner.
Nathan Maltinsky: Has everyone looked at the annual report prepared by ZBA? Thomas White: I know that I have because Anita did a wonderful job writing it. any other comments.
Nathan Maltinsky: No, not really this status quo. Yep, nothing, nothing. Really new report on it
Thomas White: any board comments or concerns? Alright, anyone
have a motion move to adjourn second? Alright, Miss Paul, hi, Mr. Perry. Hi, white, aye. All right, we're adjourned. Thank you.