April 21, 2026 – Board of Public Works – Video & Transcript

April 21, 2026 - Board of Public Works

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Okay, it's six o'clock, so I am going to call this meeting to order to read the required language. The location for an in-person meeting is wheelchair accessible. If you need other accommodations in order to participate in the meeting, please contact Wayland's ADA coordinator at 508-358-6821 at least two business days in advance of the meeting. While the municipality will do its best to accommodate you, certain accommodations may require the hiring of outside contractors who may not be available if requested immediately before the meeting. The meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to the public on WayCamp as soon as possible after the meeting. Public will be excluded from executive sessions. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and or via remote access in accordance with the political laws. If this meeting has only remote access, no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted. If this meeting has remote access only, one may watch or participate remotely with a meeting that can be found at, and then the link is there for the town body and virtual attendance. When required by law or allowed by chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the meeting location, in-person or remote as applicable. Public comments should be limited to two minutes per person. Okay, that is the the language to be read, the language, the agenda is out there, and just to point out that the times are estimated and we may not necessarily do them in the order listed. We will start with a call to order and then the roll call. Judy? Here. Ed? Yes. Tom?
Wegemeyer? Yes, here. Mike Spelman said he is going to be a few minutes late. All right, we will recognize him when he comes on board. And if he just is here. Okay, announcements. Any announcements? I have one.
Go ahead. So I understand, George, this is your last meeting with the Board of Public Works. And I wanted to take a moment to recognize your participation, your hard work. First as a liaison to the board with the finance committee, and then in recent years as a member, and then this past year as chair. So I know in working with you side by side over the last year, put a lot of effort into this board, preparing a lot of material, presenting things. And I want to say from myself and from staff, very much appreciate that. And you will be missed. I thank you, sir.
Any other announcements? Okay. Public comment. Do we have anyone there for public comment? So it appears I've got the burden of being the host. Congratulations. And, well, you're the co-host. So if something happens to me, so I'm looking at the attendees. I see two, but I do not see a hand raised. So I do not believe we have public comment. Give them one second to raise their hand if they want. Yeah. And I just want to mention that Mike asked me to recognize Eli Oliver is a Boy Scout who is attending as part of his citizenship requirement. I'm not sure, Eli, if you want to say anything. Or if you're just going to listen in. But if you would like to say hello, you can just hit raise your hand there. I just promoted him. He's on. Okay. Okay. Welcome. Yes, speak up so that you can make sure you get credit for it. Mike Spelman has joined. Ah, there he is. Please let the minutes show that Mr. Spellman has joined at 6.05. Thank you, sir. I see that Eli is muted. I'm not sure if he still was interested in saying anything. Eli, are you there? Yeah, I'm here. Nope. I'm good.
And that's his initial foray into public politics. Good. Can we make him a writing candidate? All right. Yes. All right. Next topic is water abatement. So I see Carl, who was representing the property owner for 227. Seven Rice Road. Let me just make sure. And I think Carl was unfortunately listed as as Julie Goosey as well. So, Carl, if you wanted to just state your full name, your address, I know it's not a Wayland address, but and and who you are representing.
Is he still muted? Let me just see here. Yes, Carl, you are muted. Can you hear me, Carl?
Or maybe I've got the wrong name. I presumed it was Carl. It is. Uh, the gentleman that's representing 227 Rice Road. I also see another individual here on the camera. So, yeah, this my name is Mike Beattie with Lynch Landscape and Tree out of Sudbury. Got it. Got it. Mike, are you representing the owner? No, Carl is. He's working directly with the property owner. So they asked me to attend if there was any other further questions about the abatement for that property. I think Carl just has to unmute. So there's. Uh, at the bottom left, it says audio on your zoom screen, Carl, it should be, uh, aligned through that right now. If you click on it, it should allow you to speak.
I don't know if he can hear us because yeah, he's having a conversation with somebody there. So I don't think he's hearing us. I don't know if I bear with me. If we look through the, uh, materials, do I have a phone number for him?
I do have, I have a phone number for Carl. Do you want to just give him a ring? You don't mind. Yeah, I'll give him a call. Why don't you just mute yourself and then give him a ring, please. Thank you. That while we're waiting, do you know what I didn't couldn't see? I may have missed it. What the amount of abatement is that they're looking for? Yeah. So we calculated that and is in the order of about $8,000.
20% of the total is $8,000. It's not an irrigation system. Oh, it was an out. He's got an outdoor patio. He'll describe it, but he has this property has an outdoor. Uh, patio with a full grill kitchen and water service and that's 8,000 out of how many dollars, uh, bear with me one minute as I'm trying to find, here we go. Um, his bill is generally, um, about $665.
Okay. But how much, what is the bill that he's looking at an abatement against is the 8,000, the total, or what is the amount of the bill or bills? It is, um, it would be 8,463 plus 745. So roughly 9,200. Yeah. Yep. And he's looking for 8,000 out of that. Yes.
I was able to get in touch with Carl. He said he was going to unmute himself and join. It looks like he's connecting. He is connected. Carl, can you hear us? And if you can just introduce yourself and, um, describe the abatement. I still don't. I don't think he can hear us. He said he could hear us. He said he could hear the meeting and then he was just going to unmute. And he has unmuted. I can see that it still says connecting to audio. Oh, you are. Yeah. We got you now. All right. Am I late? Sorry. Just having a little difficulty with the, uh, the audio, but, uh, you're good now. Um, so yes, you've, you've explained that to me before. Um, so. If you just wanted to introduce yourself, um, your relationship with the property owner and then just describe the situation. Okay. So my name is Carl Lagia. Uh, I'm a Sudbury resident for 13 years. Uh, I've been a finished carpenter since, uh, probably 1999 self-employed since maybe 2002. And I worked for Tomer, uh, from 2018 to about 2020. Or 2021 co pretty much continuously in this house, just doing built-ins and all sorts of details all over his house. And, uh, I mean, uh, anyway, so then after that he, he, uh, wants me to, he's wanting me to just poke back in and check on the house. And since he moved to Miami, maybe year, year and a half ago, he won't, you know, I have to check in on the house, uh, once a week or once every other week. So that's what I've done. Um, didn't know anything about that outdoor the outdoor patio that had the sink and the barbecue grill and all the stonework that was built that was built at while I was you know busy with other jobs so there's obviously a sink there with hot and cold water which is what happened you know that's where the the broken pipe was so anyway so I I've been checking on his house every week to two weeks you know for the last more than a year you know so I feel terrible that this happened I just feel horrible but you know I didn't you know I I brought in his outdoor hoses you know I check every toilet when I'm there I flush every toilet check under every sink so but the house is vacant and he did you didn't turn out the house water was not turned off even though it was vacant vacant but I was flushing the toilets every week or two just to keep you know I don't know that's what he told me to do so and I think you would just describe Carl that you know with the the snow during this particular winter that you were unable to you know get around the house and do a full perimeter check and that's what you would describe to me yeah I was walking around the house pretty much every time that I was there to make sure something wasn't stuck on the roof or uh gutter hanging or something else obvious going on that I could see from outside so I would walk a lap of the house and just try and look at everything but obviously when the snow got here you know everything was pretty crazy so but uh anyway I just feel horrible that this happened you know but so staff you know staff you know upon seeing the high um high usage contacted you know the owner who then contacted Carl we have we have uh we have verified that the issue was repaired there is no longer a leak so that that determination has been made and you you saw there's a photo there's a photograph yeah there's a photograph in the packet that shows that flex hose that was the culprit we have we had talked the last time we did one of these that we're going to have to stop with abatements as because of MWRA and our purchase was going on while this was going on and so I don't know at what point we've got to pull that trigger but with you know buying water and then you know giving abatement for somebody that use that water uh gives me issue or pause I don't know how other people feel especially at basically 100 percent of the lost water yeah it's not it's not as though we're drawing from our aquifer at no cost uh of the water even though there's cost of treatment now we're now we're paying MWRA for this emergency connection water yep Judy what do you think I think they should have turned their water off they weren't going to be sick that that was my point and having to go around flushing toilets you can turn it on and then turn it back off uh Mr Spellman you are uh you're muted Mike oh I'm sorry no no the other one sorry coming in hot here I'm a little discombobulated um yeah I don't have a lot of sympathy for for this um and I think I think we do have to I don't know stop the bleeding somewhere when these when these abatements come up um because this is definitely negligence on the homeowner's part um for you know not addressing it not shutting it off knowing that the cold weather was coming I hate to see anybody get that this kind of bill it's it's it's awful um but you know it's for the citizen the other rest of the population of Wayland to to share that burden is is tough yeah do we know what our our cost uh let's let's assume this was all MWRA water which we know it's not um it's a mix but um do we know what the cost of the equivalent water might be it's four dollars and 21 cents for what do you build 100 cubic feet yep what would that come out to so the current bill is 9 000 what yeah and don't forget even if you're doing an MWRA you still have other cost so that's not the sole cost of that water I get it yeah I get it but we uh we've abated a hundred percent for Wayland water in the past so I I'm just trying to get an idea of what that based on this usage the current bill is 9 000 what did you um yeah so I guess if it's um so if I'm doing this with 73 I'm gonna I'm gonna do it by uh consumption so what I'm gonna do is bear with me here if I can quickly do the math bear with me here Tom while you're doing it if I'm looking at this he had two high water bills the first was 10 14 25 and then 3826. yeah the three is the first time he's had a cat should have noticed it yeah um 200 um usage is is not overly alarming you know what you look back it was the same 7 500 8 359 um you know and then 92. so a little high but then then it's the 51 900 so uh that's 44 000 if I take the total um minus the usual it's 44 600 100 cubic feet just trying to figure out what the total bill would be if if we just use the MWRA rate against the usage don't subtract anything out just now what about if we use the lowest tier cost was that tier two three well right now higher tiers for billing correct yeah you definitely would I don't I don't have the bill in front of me but uh um he would have definitely so George you said I'm to share my screen for a second because i i think we need to ground ourselves somewhere are they home insurance cover some there's a water damage due to the weather code good point it's not flooding so it's you know it's not natural like river flooding those things you may not have covered but this is a different different type of damage by water they made damage they should check with the insurance see they got it covered or not so they actually there's two things there was really no damage the uh the leak was outdoors um but uh carl did i i recollect it being told to me that um insurance was contacted and did not cover it
is that is that the case um mike beady from lynch just to give you a an idea of where that the kitchen the property kind of sits down on rice road 227 rice road it sits down lower and the kitchen is off the back and then it drops right off into a sloped hillside so any break would have the water would have probably just continued down into the slope side into the woods area um not really extremely uh an issue probably with insurance so but did you contact insurance and they uh a water usage claim did was that attempted i'm not i'm that that would be up to carl okay yeah i i just handle the irrigation piece of it and uh they just asked me to because i went there with the whalen technician once the bill came with carl and the whaling technician to to determine that whether the water would be affected or if the water was not affected by the change in the water what the leak was to determine that it wasn't related to the irrigation. It's to the potable water because that is a sink used for cooking and outdoor. Got it. So Tom, I just want to make clear, we're, we're looking at this charge right here, right? Which is 85 39. Yes. And then this 9,209. What is that? Somehow I heard you say that it was a little over 9,000, the charge. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. With the, with what? Yeah. I'm trying with the, the 8,000 figure, 8,463 is the amount of water that was extra was more than usual. That's what I have on the sheet that I'm looking at that I'm trying to figure out what the kind of the nomenclature is there for the,
these figures that are a charge amount bill amount. So he might've, they might've had, it looks like it's a pre-existing balance. The 9,200 looks like it just got carried over maybe with a little interest. Yeah. So it looks like to me, the total bill was 85 39, not over 9,000. And then what I did to calculate the cost, I took the 51,900, which is the, the top figure under usage. Yep. I subtracted 7,300, which is the average of the three prior years came up with 44,600 divided that by a hundred because it's a hundred it's 461 per hundred cubic feet. And I came up with a figure of $2,056 that it would have cost to purchase that water. So what I'm looking for is the total cost to purchase all of the water used because we know that it's a lot of water. We know what the bill is.
Yeah. So. So you're saying, because some of that is not water usage, it's the PFAS fee and the billing fee and there's the base fee, everything. Yep. Yep. So the actual water number is actually lower than that.
It's lower than the 8,500. So the cost for 51,900 cubic feet, the cost, if we went for 61 per hundred cubic feet, the total cost of that water, is 2,392 or the 51,900. Yes. Straight out. Okay. So right up 2,000. Can you get to 8,500? No, no, no. It would have cost us for the MWRA water. If it was, you said it was 461. Yeah. Yeah. That I understand. But the, the starting point is, is not even, it's not 5,000. It's not even 8,500 because that's not all water usage. You mean part of it's the, PFAS remediation fee. Part of it's the administration administrative fee. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. And that even, even if we had no water usage, he would have been billed that or the minimal water usage.
Yeah. So I don't know how you get to 9,000 mitigation when the cost isn't anywhere near that high. No, no, George, I heard the, I heard the total someone earlier that had said the total was over 9,000. I don't know what was being added. That's what I was trying to figure out because I only see 8539. Well, I do too. He was using a number below that, the 9,200. You were adding the two, I guess. I don't know. He was just using that 92 right below there. Yeah. So what, what it is, the 9,209, if you take water usage charge, eight, five, three, nine, you add that $640 and 43 cents for the PFAS charge and the $30. Yeah. For the base charge and that gives you 9,209. Okay. Let's call it PFAS remediation. Too many people tell me they don't want to pay for PFAS. Yes. Um, okay. So we're going to charge that portion anyway. So 92, uh, the difference. So the PFAS remediation charge, as well as the administrative charge, those will need to include if this 85, 39 is the water charge. I think we should include that portion. That's at the normal rate of prior three, uh, periods, same, same periods. So 7,300 is, is the, is the consumption is the water used. I don't, I don't have the price, but you know, we can figure that out. If, if the board is, you know, uh, going to entertain an abatement, as long as you tell me the concept, I can do the calculations. Okay. And then the, um, the remaining water used at the, uh, $4 or 21 for 21. I'm out.
I think that's what I'd pose.
I thought the lowest rate was $6 and something. Well, this is, um, so typically Judy, we would remediate, uh, we would, um, uh, forgive, yeah, forgive, um, all of the water usage, um, that was lost. If it's, if it's repaired, we had one time, uh, in this case, because we're using MWRA water and, um, you know, because there's some negligent negligence here, um, we're suggesting using the MWRA emergency water rate, because part of the water being utilized is we have to pay for that. The town has to pay for that. Um, it's not just water from, from the ground. Um, yeah, I, I found my sheet by the way. It's $4 and 79 cents per a hundred cubic feet. Okay. And then we have other costs that we, we absorb too. So, uh, but I, again, we, at some point we've got to stop with the abatements because you know, that it's, you're not being fair to everybody else that's being billed for water because it has to get made up somewhere along the line,
but that's up to the total board.
But I would agree that as a maximum, it should be the cost of the water only less the cost of what we paid MWRA at, which is a four 79. It's probably, I don't know, 2,500, 3,000. So you're talking roughly, probably $5,000 and change.
Yeah, I did. I went by the 51, 900 and it was, uh, I was using four 61, not four 79, but it was about, it was about 2,500 bucks.
25, five from the 92 from this from the 85 that the $2,500 is what the MWRA, the four 79, just that portion, just that portion. That's what, that's what it would have cost us to purchase this amount of water. Okay. By George's calculation. But a portion of that, you mentioned we're going to charge the normal rate, right? The normal. Yeah. 70, 7,300 was, is what is typically, is what is typically used during that timeframe. Okay. And how much is that? Is that included in your 2,500 or no? No. So we should include,
it's getting complicated, but the difference, so the total is 51, 900. We should take that 7,300 out and build that at the normal rate. The difference should be billed at that four 79 rate, and then we'll build the administrative fee as well as the PFAS remediation fee. So, I understand that if you want to make that the motion, I could carry that out. Okay. All right. Let's before you do that, Mike, Judy, you comfortable with that? Mr. Spellman, Ed, are you guys comfortable with that? I support that math. Judy, it's okay.
Ed, that's fine. Well, I think by thinking in the future, maybe we should send a letter out to tell everyone who go into living and for it up for the, for the winter or what that amputee the house and then they shouldn't remember to shut down everything.
Yep. And hopefully with the AMI, we'll be able to detect the sooner and let folks know. Yep. And we, we have had situations where we've been able to do that. That's great. So it's roughly the bill will be roughly 30% of what we're looking at now. 2,500 plus 600. Yeah. So we're looking at over 500 plus the cost of the water. What's it, what w what would his normal cost be without. It's like about, Oh 2,400 2000. So 2000 plus 2,500 plus 500. Yeah. Okay. So it's, yeah. More than that then. Okay.
Okay. Now you can, now everybody's got the chance to get their input. Now you can make your motion. Okay. Uh, uh, uh still moved um tom if you if you can understand that i got it i got it yep i'll listen to the recording but i understood it when you said it okay so your motion is that we would abate the difference between his normal cost the cost which would include the uh special fee the pfas and the billing costs plus uh the cost of the water used at our mwra rate of 479 versus the uh 9209 exactly or roughly probably about four thousand dollars can we get a second to mike's motion second second okay judy second she got there first mr spellman all right roll call vote wagenbauer hi spellman hi ed hi judy hi george uh not happy i okay all righty so um carl what i would do is over the coming days if you want to um give the office a ring i will speak with julie who you met tomorrow morning to let her know the adjustment that we're going to make and um you can pass on that information to you the owner okay i missed probably 15 minutes of this i didn't hear anything uh and i didn't touch any buttons but my uh somehow well you can go back and listen to the uh tape on way cam in essence carl um it looks like it's about it'll equate to relief of about half of the bill all right we can we can give you we can give you the details in the morning okay did you guys look at the the emails that went back and forth between the homeowner and lynch about shutting his water down yeah that's i i know it's kind of besides the point but yep but the motion has been made and passed so thank you carl okay all right thank you okay next is the uh water division items all righty so i am unmuted so we'll just go down the list you know water consumption pattern with new water consumption pattern with new water consumption pattern with new water consumption pattern meters we have been following this along uh you know since the beginning of the fiscal year since july what we've recently done is taken a look at you know july through this period really it was towards the end of february is where we have decent information um for fiscal year 25 with the old meters and then this fiscal year with the new and what we are seeing is in essence really flat consumption we're not seeing uh at this point in time any measures of the water consumption measureable increase in consumption you know so it's difficult to you know get a solid read on what that means but relative to revenue it means that there is not at this point uh an increase in revenue revenue as a result of new meters do you remember how much we built into the billing analysis to come up with the rates uh for increased due to meters there was something but it was built into there if i remember right i think we used six percent george if i recall i i know the the um the idea was that you'd gain 12 but i think we went with something around six percent that that's what i remember too which means if this holds we're going to have obviously a revenue shortfall right um so what i can do at this point in time just looking at the next topic water revenue to date versus budgeted revenue i can share my screen bear with me it'll show that uh the actual sheet that i want to see if i can figure this out all right can everybody see that i can yep great okay all right so i can manipulate that um so you know some of the points that i want to make um on this is that um what we did is you know myself anita and don who's now on the call here uh joined us moments ago um at the end of middle end of february we took a look at uh our expenses and made projections um on what we would likely spend in each one of our cost centers up until june 30th of this year the end of the fiscal year so that's what you'll see in column um e is fy 26 projection and you know we feel pretty confident that we could achieve those a couple of things that have recently come up that are going to give us a bit of a challenge and things that are really out of our control is um this interest on temporary loans 57 458 that was not something that we had factored in to our calculation when when we were budgeting for fy 26 so this is something that we're going to have to deal with i'm circling it with my mouse right here and then also um we just received on friday an invoice from the mwra for the water that was used only in the first half of fiscal 26 meaning july through december and it was significantly higher than anticipated the invoice is 227 000 so the contingency fund here at 200 we were predicting 160 leaving a balance of 40 that now would be 227 and then that doesn't include where we'll get another invoice before the end of the fiscal year for the water that was used in the second half of fiscal 26 months the months of january through i think don's intending on being able to shut it down within days we've got uh baldwin pond is back up and running and happy hollow we're just waiting to receive uh sample uh confirmation and we'll be able to activate that so we'll be able to close off the nwra water we'll be able to uh our emergency declaration with the dep expires on the 26th of this month so that will that will end the use of the mwr or a water hopefully for the foreseeable future and we'll await that invoice so i guess the point i'm making is that this contingency will be totally used and then we'll have to take a look at the balance of that find us somewhere that we might be able to reduce our expenses and if not um i did affirm with brian keveny that we would have the ability come june 30th if we exceeded our budgeted amount to find some relief using our fund balance
so we'll do everything we can to to limit expenses while still providing proper service but yeah and one of one of the concerns that i've had expressed to me is the concern that some of the expenses are for things that we had planned to do but we don't not that it's going to put anybody at risk but that we're just kicking the can down the road and that that that is something that doesn't sit well with some people so we just have to be careful in terms of what we do and how much we do i applaud tom's efforts but you may get some feedback about that yeah and there are you know i call it discretionary spending um that discretionary spending are things like um you know replacing alder hydrants and you know those types of things that we the kind of work that we can defer um we do not have the ability and would not uh put anybody at risk um you know we will we will perform the work that we need to perform to produce safe potable drinking water we're not gonna we're not gonna make ends meet by putting that issue at risk right but that's where they talk about for example if you do not do that and then that shows you that it's really not proportionate i mean we aren't we're doing it and we're hearing clients go well it husband's been working so many hours and they haven't had a day and they haven't ever had enough um we don't see the fire hydrant this year you have to do it next year so we're kicking the down the road and we may probably next year push something out again but it's still deferring things that we believe we should have been doing yeah what i call best management best management practices things that we should be doing correct and we have a habit of doing that and tom does a very good job of doing that as you see shortfalls in revenue okay any uh so bottom line where do you think that's going to end us up between the uh lower revenue and the higher expenses so i did a um kind of a calculation the the other thing that we're also unsure of and we won't know until a month or two from now is that matt abrahams did an analysis of what we might expect you uh, in a one-time increase in revenue as a result of going to quarterly billing. And it was $85,000 here, you know, so, you know, fingers crossed that that occurs, uh, we're just now April, May, and June is really are, uh, the second time that we're billing all of the accounts. So we'll have a much better sense as to, uh, to whether we actually experienced that or not. Yeah. Yeah. Tom, that wouldn't that kick in, in April, if we build in January, you know, the six month billing in January, and then we move to quarterly billing, the next bill where we'd see that increase would be in April, wouldn't it? That's what, that's what I thought when I came up with my number, but I got schooled because they're basically changing the sequencing of when they're going to be doing the billing, trying to level out the workload. So, uh, Matt did a whole analysis in terms of the timing of the billings, et cetera. Okay. And that the 85,000 is what he came up with. Yeah. So two routes are building, you know, January two and February two in March. So that's six routes. Um, and then we start that whole process again in April, May, June, where in years prior, we wouldn't have got that April, May, June. Um, so that's where, that's where he's seeing that. So those, those April, May. That's where the early, you know, bills will be, will, they'll be due, you know, by June 30th. Uh, no, no, only, only the April one, only we're going to build May 10th. We're going to bill, we'll be building May 10th. Which one? Which one? April's right. What would have been the way I understood what Matt was saying is what would have been billed in, uh, been January would be built in April. Then the. getting a partial period you're not going to get a full sequence of the six months pulled forward right you're just going to get those three months but three months not even three is what he's saying because the timing of when the six month bill hit and then it's three months from there so if the billing would have been in april then may june would go out in july instead of the you know three months after that if it was billed in whatever it is it's only you only get a short window in terms of the amount you don't get a full three billing cycles it's not a three month bill that we're we're billing well it is but it's three months from the last bill so if the last bill of course on the six months was march 31st okay it would that would be billed in oh yeah yeah no no i get that yeah all i'm saying is that the bills in january we should the increase is going to be that we're not going to build them again in july we're now moved up three months we're billing in april so we're going to see that revenue come this fiscal year as opposed to having i don't know that they're going to be ready to do that mike from talking to matt because it sounded like because of the timing of having to implement some of these and resetting some of it to balance workloads it was significantly less because i thought we'd get like four hundred thousand and matt schooled me that that's that's it's not going to happen that way because that what you're talking about is what i thought yeah i'm just thinking that in april may and june we should be invoicing quarters like uh you know half of what we'd usually invoice um that we wouldn't have otherwise invoiced this year just for those three that's right and you know and sarah you know had a comprehensive schedule uh she worked with matt matt took that information uh she's got it right down to the day and um took that information and this is what he was projecting was the 85 000 and uh but you know we're not gonna we won't know whether we actually achieve that experience that until those bills start coming in but that that is the philosophy um that was the other that was the only other really unknown and do we recognize the revenue when we invoice it or only when it's collected when it's collected okay yeah yeah so your june billing is actually a july collection correct yeah yeah so that's gonna yep so we'll really only see two months possibly uh optimistically two months that was that was the point i was making right got it okay yep um but if you want mike uh tom can send you that schedule that was prepared detailed analysis okay so i have a question about about the interest on the temporary loan is that is that what it but that that 57 000 yeah yep what was that for what was the temporary loan for so when we go out to borrow um brian will um issue what they call a ban i forget what the acronym is for uh what it means but it's actually a temporary loan before he bonds it and so that's the cost of doing that ban and then he had said you know i i asked him about this and um he had offered that well if it makes any feel any better okay granted yeah you've got to come up with the 57 000 on the interest he said but all of the costs of that whole process are absorbed by the general fund you know so we said if that makes you feel any better i said well yeah that's kind but we still have to come up with fifty seven thousand dollars in our budget to to accommodate this uh these what he calls what's listed as a temporary loan is also a ban b-a-n yeah it's when we require the funds prior to the town bond issues so he borrows like twice a year and these bans are like short term to get us to those two formal borrowings but we have a fund large fund balance why can't we borrow from ourselves for for something like that i don't know i think i think is because under the rules we have to have the the loan out there the top before we can start anything i don't know but the issue in terms of cash that's a good question cash flow and those various interest payments that are due uh remember that that's a significant amount of money but so is the debt service that comes in november but we collect the money over the full year so a lot of that is used to pay that november principal and interest payment and then as i'm thinking more on this when you know for a project like the booster station or the tank or those types of things you know those are voted to be issued as a borrowing and so that is all lined up for that what we would be using would be money from a fund balance for a short term i just i don't know if the mechanism even exists if it's you know considered proper accounting principles i i don't know just thinking we had about 1.3 million earmarked for so many years for ami that just sat in the account uh you know i don't know there maybe there are regulations on why you can't use that yeah but if you take a look at that sheet mike there's 1.3 million of other principal and interest payments on debt that come through this year and that timing can have a significant impact on your 1.3 million they talk about because it gets used up and then rebuilt yep okay what are the costs that the general fund takes care of do we have he was saying that he was just saying the uh um he listed off a handful of fees that uh the town pays when they go through a borrowing process the investment banking fees yeah printing cost the issuance cost these kinds of things okay do we know the significance of that is it 10 of what we're paying or yeah he didn't okay he didn't say again okay let's put it this way investment bankers don't work cheap when did we activate the emergency connection again this year we did it a couple of times but uh for this particular calendar yes and i see don on the screen yeah don i know just we just put this information together for uh uh for our environmental impact report do you recollect it was uh the end of november when we had the the air dryer failure um at baldwin pond that was november 7th i remember that distinctly um and it's it's been used like on and off since then um it's off now though just fyi uh okay um but yeah but in essence you know it's you know for over the course of from january 1 until april we used the air dryer failure um and we had the air dryer failure um and we had the air dryer failure um and we had the air dryer failure um and we had the air dryer failure um we had the air dryer failure us about it was actually shut off on sunday so we haven't used it since sunday we were able to get happy hollow i guess we're doing a real serfrewрь i guess which is really fast using the same technology follow up and running today. But I can give you the update on that later. Okay. All right. What else do we have underwater vision items? The last thing we kind of slipped into it already was just, you know, FY26 expense concerns. You know, we kind of went over it with this sheet. We made our predictions. You know, Don talks about air dryers. We talk about pipes, you know, that fails and, you know, so you never know really what to expect. I was not expecting the bill from the MWRI to be as high as it was. I've asked regularly for it. So that was an unexpected, you know, unexpected, the level of that expense was unexpected. But that gives you a sense of the types of things that can throw this off. And these are just pure water billings, right? The, once you go on MWRI, we get the water billings and we get a, I call it a capital charge that comes later. We don't get that charge on this use of water, do we? So we get, we get a, and every time we activate this, we go into a higher tier, we pay a higher premium. And I think, you know, that has a lot to do why it's 227 and not the 160 that I was thinking it was going to be. We're charged for the water and there is actually a capital charge. That's part of that calculation. Okay. But that's in this, it's not something that's going to come six months from now. No, it's within this, it's within the invoice. You can actually, and I'm happy to, to forward it to the board. You can see it as a three-page document that it's got a pretty, pretty decent, it's in pretty decent detail. Okay. I was just remembering Matt's comment when we were talking about the, his putting together the forecast for 2728, where he's talking about the delay, in terms of that capital fee at some point. I wanted to make sure we weren't looking at another billing coming. Yeah, no, it's, this is an emergency connection billing scenario. And when we're on a permanent connection, it's a different scenario. Okay. With a lower water rate, but a higher capital rate. Yeah. You wind up, you, you wind up, every community pays a percentage of their capital program. Right. Yep. So get back to the same thing. Okay. Yep. All right. Anything else on water department guys? That's what I have prepared. I'm going to stop sharing this. Okay.
Okay. Next item. I just want to be careful and make sure I'm working off of the right agenda. Yep. Yeah. So transfer station. Yep. So I can share again, my screen. I've got the packet includes two sizable spreadsheets. Let's see. I think this is option one share.
Okay. So this is the transfer station. And what I wanted to point out. So what we did is I can scroll over. What's the right side of my screen actually has, why is this not going? I am not sure why I can't. You have to click on enable editing before it moves. I'm just trying to swing to the right. For some reason.
Maybe try that. Click on enable editing. Yeah. Here we go. Here we go. If I use my arrow key, I'll have to bounce back and forth. I think, cause I don't know if I have the wherewithal to, to minimize this to a small, so I can see the entire, but in essence. You can hide columns. Yeah. It's Nevermind. There you go. Is that what? All right. Okay. Here we go. Thank you. There we go. Okay. So two options. Yes. We just built two options to consider what we're realizing is that we're our revenue from a number of our revenue sources, stickers, metal, recycle, pay as you throw miscellaneous tires, bulky. We're seeing a reduction in this revenue. So what we've done is we actually kind of forecasted for next fiscal year for fiscal 27, the reductions in that revenue. We simply took that reduction, added it onto what we would have to bring in for sticker fees. The two major sources of revenue we have are sticker fees and the pay as you throw the bags. So in option one, what we did is we now need to raise $299,000 in sticker fees. If that's the only thing that we increase. And in essence, what that equates to is a sticker fee. Okay. And we divided it by the number of stickers that we sold this particular year, just to give us a discussion point. And the sticker would be about $232 versus the $200 that we have right now. Let's have a report. I have on a different sheet, but I can probably explain it without moving around so much, is that if we were to increase both, share the increase between the sticker fees and the bags, the bag fees, we could have an option whereby we would increase the sticker fees would be one option is about $217 per sticker. And then there would be a 9% increase in bag fees.
You know, so for instance, I think for large bags, $15 would go up to like $1,650 or something like that for a package of five. So it's really just a discussion point. What I would like to be. What I would like to be able to do tonight is we have to get our online store activated. And so we don't need to decide bulky fees and mattress fees and all of those miscellaneous charges tonight. But I would like to get a motion and a vote to set the FY27 sticker fees so that we can move forward and get our online store set up and ready to accept. So, Tom. The thing is on this, this assumes you have no decrease in terms of the number of stickers sold. So if you get a 5% decrease, obviously this wouldn't give you the revenue that you needed. But this assumes no decrease. That's right. So that that is one of the risks. And then the second is, where do we think we'll have less drop off in terms of usage slash revenue sales? By splitting it or putting it all in sticker fees or some mix. Now, one of the comments I heard talking to the transfer station people is what they saw is when we raised bank fees, people had a tendency to stuff more into the smaller bags rather than using the bigger ones because of the cost of the bigger bags. So trying to get around some of that increase, which I don't. Right. But that. And I know. I know Joe, who's on the call here tonight, is not a fan of the of the bag fees. Mary Ann is not a fan of increasing the bag fees. Joe, if you wanted to elaborate on the logic behind that was I know you guys have been discussing this. Well, speaking with the staff over there as well as George. I'm going to agree, George. She said it's really harder to to manage when the bag fees go up. Because you the more people try cheating the system, it's it's just harder to, you know, be very disciplined over that rubbish container. So I'm just I'm looking at it from the standpoint, she says, most of her complaints come from the bags, not the fees. The last time we did raise the fee, most of her complaints were about the bags. So just passing that along. Yep. And can you just you and I had a conversation about the. Mix in terms of sticker fees sold versus those people that use it on a regular basis versus those that use it very periodically, but have the stickers for things like yard waste, these kinds of things in spring and fall. You want to can you elaborate a little bit so people understand? Yeah, absolutely. It's it's an interesting kind of statistic that we've come about is that and I know one of our I think our next topic is proactive renewal outreach. And I think one of the things that we've come about is that when we started this fiscal year, it was our intent and our desire to get contact information for all of our sticker holders, every household. But for a number of reasons, there have been gaps in that information. And we understood at the beginning of the fiscal year that we didn't have that. So what we did is we actually developed these postcards that had that asked for people to complete name, address, email address, phone number. And we had, you know, a thousand of these made or fifteen hundred of these made and staff have over the course of the last month or six weeks have been approaching customers as they come in explaining, you know, we're trying to capture everybody's contact information so that we can notify people of, you know, business at hand here, things that we've got going on here, renewal reminders, those types of things. And we handed out and received back. We actually. You know, they stand there while the customer actually completes these. So they hand it to them. The customer completes it. They take it back. And over the course of the last six weeks or so, we've only gotten about four to five hundred of these cards completed. And people are now telling Marianne and her staff over there, oh, I've already filled that out. I've already filled that out. So, you know, it's not an exact science, but just for the sake of discussion. We sold in this fiscal year, fifteen hundred, you know, full stickers. So fifteen hundred households. So if we're at five hundred and people are telling us, I've already done that, I've already done that. You know, Joe makes a point that, you know, many people, including himself, will will say that I've already done that because they don't want to give out their contact information. They don't want to be bothered. So there's a little bit, you know, to be said about that. But even if you were to adjust it and say half. So seven hundred and fifty. Does that tell us that there's only half of the sticker holders are regular users of the transfer station and that the remaining seven hundred and fifty or so are infrequent? They they find that buying a two hundred dollar sticker just for them to bring in leaves in the fall and, you know, yard cleanup in the spring or whatever, it's worth it to them so that we're really only we're only seeing half of those customers actually. Coming on to the property on a regular basis. So it's it's unknown, but it's it's interesting. I was not expecting it. Tom, this is Judy. My question to you is when you say a full sticker, is that per car? Because, like, we have two cars, we have two stickers. Yeah. So any time I'm trying to monitor the use, I'm just I'm really interested in households. You know, so a house. Purchases at a minimum, they purchase a full sticker. So that's that's what that's the statistic I use to monitor, you know, how many households in town are using it. If they buy a trailer sticker, a second sticker that just kind of confuses the issue. I'm just interested in full two hundred dollar stickers. And in my mind, that tells us that's how many households we have using the facility. Now, the the impact on this, obviously, is that people that aren't using it. On a regular basis don't require as much expense on our side in terms of taking that trash to the incinerator, et cetera. The transfer fees. And it also tells us when we talk about we think about one third of the community uses transfer station. It might actually be significantly less than that if the 500 number is correct. So it's just things to think about as we look at the evaluation. And look at the pricing that we go here. And maybe one of the opportunities with the landscaping, you know, clean up in spring or clean up in the fall. Is there some way we can get more people to use the landfill because we have less cost for that? And, you know, get them to buy a sticker just because it makes their life easier for those two events. As part of that outreach.
Tom, go ahead.
Did we not collect any contact info when folks paid this this past year? No, I can't say that we didn't collect any. We didn't collect all. And I did. There's when those when those sheets are formed and filled out.
Many times they're collected and actually put into the system at a later date because the line is so long. I actually witnessed it and stood there. Next to the person that was actually doing the work, the woman that that joins us at the end of May to do this type of work. And so we didn't realize that a lot of people had left that blank until after the fact. So there are some very few people. And I can almost count on two hands. The number of people that utilized our online store. So we're trying to change that this year. We're trying. We're trying to do that because, yeah, that was the idea was to try and email folks now with the renewal so that, yeah, we will do that. Well, I mean, we it's I can't say we don't have any. We had some. We've got an additional, you know, through the cards or whatever. I think it's safe to say the remaining people probably they just they're not offering their information. So I know we don't have Mike McCann here any longer, but that's what we were trying to do. Is understand who made payments. So we have everyone's name, correct? Yes, we have name, address and car and car. Can't we cross reference that with with other town databases to to get their email addresses? Great idea. And we did that. We actually working with Catherine Brenna. She's quite adept at this sportsman platform. And we. We actually, you know, in some of the programs that that she runs, whether it's through a wreck or the beach, we cross referenced and we were able to capture. I don't have the exact number, but staff are telling me it was, you know, it was worth the effort because we were able to produce a measurable amount of contact information doing that. The one thing I was thinking about doing that I don't think we've done is cross referencing it with AMI. You know, we've got we have all that information with the meter change out. So in having different formats, I'm not sure exactly what level of effort it'll take. But, you know, it's one of those things, lessons learned. You know, so we are depending upon the the vote, you know, tonight, the decision tonight, we're prepared to put a message together and get it out very quickly to the the email addresses that we do have. How many do we have of the 50? Fifteen hundred about. I do not know. I don't know. I don't have that that figure for you. When you do that, could you also do some kind of a survey without worry about backlash where we start to ask about how often they use it? They say, oh, wait a minute. That's all I use. It's not worth it. I want to stay away from that. But I'm trying to get information that might be useful to us. Exactly. That's what I'm thinking as well. Yeah. I think we have to watch out for. Unintended consequences. Right. So, yeah, we tried to build some of that into our survey, but.
Question here. The AMI has every household's email. We have an email of when the media was changed. Yes. Yep. OK, well, maybe I can help them. If you can get it into an Excel spreadsheet, I can I can match it for you. OK, thank you for that offer. Yeah. Find where you have your list of this sticker holders and you'll go do a search for those on the town on the AMI Web's information for their what their address email address. Yeah. OK. So the real bottom line is right now with without that increase, we have a I'm sorry, with the increase, we still have one hundred thirty one. One hundred thirty one thousand is what we're taking from the fund balance, right? But that's that's the problem. I mean, it should be if it's not that's that much below break even. Even even if you know what you see on the screen right now, even if we raise the sticker fee to two hundred thirty two dollars, that's what you've got. Right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. So that's my shortfall with the increase. And obviously that can't go on forever. And a big part of that. And a big part of that is the hit that we got hit by the transfer to OPEB and general fund. Mm hmm. Yeah. That's the eighty one thousand dollars right here. Yep. Yeah. I had a question about that. I know that the folks that work at the transfer station don't work there full time. They they work in other capacities. Is that eighty one thousand just for the portion of time they work at the transfer station? Yeah, there's there's really only. One employee that's shared and that is factored in there. Yep. They have that split. The others are assigned to that permanently.
Okay. So five days a week they're working at the transfer station. There's no other activities. Yeah, they're there Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. They've got, you know, ten hour days and then Wednesdays and Fridays they work a half day. Wednesdays they're making the rounds to the fields. That's the day that they pick up waste around town. And then it's just. You know, property maintenance, clean up, pushing back, you know, those types of things. Yeah, I don't know how other people feel, but I'm not comfortable with that one thirty one number because that's going to eat up our cash balance, free cash balance very quickly. We came up or you came up with a number of items that we don't bill for in like some of the trash pickups and other things I would suggest that is part of when you're going through, not as a trash pick up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not as a sticker decision, but as you go through the other line items that you have a look, see and make a decision on some of those, see how much we can bill people for not at our cost. But what's market for this? In other words, if they had to go out and have somebody pick up what they would be charged and see how much of that we can use to reduce that one thirty one. If nothing else, if the town starts to complain, we can. Talk about the eighty one thousand and the shortfall and the lack of the subsidy that we used to get.
Fair point, George. George, does this is this should we treat this still as an enterprise fund if it's no longer sustainable? When does it go back to the general fund as a revolving fund? You would. Well, that would be the same as getting them to contribute money. But I would agree. I don't think it's that was my comment. I don't think it's sustainable. In its current format. And that requires a town meeting vote, as I understand it. And, you know, I think that we should have a maybe a motion of concern sent to the select board that based on this review, we don't see the transfer station without the subsidies and with the billing from the town as sustainable. And the suggests that they look at moving this back to a revolving fund. Because it cannot. It does not have the bandwidth to stand on its own anymore. Is that something that is that something that could be handled, you know, through the working group that's part of this evaluation? I'm not sure if that's a proper place to to put a finding. Yeah. The working group. I don't know. I'm not finding a lot of collaboration with the working group so far. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think that's so this is our budget right now. And so I think it belongs with us and our responsibility to tell the select board. This isn't working. We don't anticipate it's going to work much longer. We need to do something. And raising raising fees is not the solution. Right. I think we need to make that point that what we see is for every increase, it actually results in less revenue or flat revenue. Because we have. We have declining participation. Right. And it might not be a bad idea, not only to send it to the Board of Selectmen, but to the working group. Yeah, definitely. We can share it with the working group. Yeah. Yeah. We can share that information with the working group. All right. How does the rest of the board feel? Judy? Mike Spelman? Ed? I agree. Go ahead. No, I agree. I think. I think we should. I think we should tell the select board that this is not working the way it's set up. And the town needs to cover it. Yeah. Yeah. Same here. Yeah. If we want to raise the price, that's when we lost some of the people. So, generally, it won't work that way. I was thinking how we're going to. I'm not that good in that field. You would need a 20% revenue increase to offset that $131,000. Yeah. It's too much for, you know, people in the borderline. They may not want to use it. Right. Well, we see a small increase. They won't do it, let alone that. Okay. Can I suggest a motion to be made is that Tom should draft a notice to the Board of Selectmen and the town manager. That based on the budget review and the projected revenue and the additional expenses being charged to the transfer station by the town, we don't see that this is a viable entity as an enterprise fund. And that they consider moving this either to a revolving fund or significant increase in revenue from the town. I guess I would respectfully say that this Board probably has more horsepower than a memo from me. Well, you could draft a memo from the Board. I'm kind of with Tom. I think this is our responsibility to communicate this. Okay. Now we're talking about who's going to draft a memo. But let's get the motion approved first and then decide who's going to write it. Okay. What's the motion again? The motion is to notify the Board of Selectmen. Notify the Board of Selectmen that our Board does not see the transfer station is currently constructed being a long-term viable entity and suggest that they consider either significant subsidies or make it a revolving fund until such time, I don't know, in spite of the evaluation that's going on. So moved. Can I get a second? Seconded. Okay. Seconded. I'm going to give a couple of seconds. Mike Wiggenbauer, Rose, can I have a roll call vote? Ed? Yes. Judy? Yes. Spellman? Yes. Wiggenbauer? Yes. Vigis? Yes. Okay. Then the only question is who is going to draft that for review at the next Board meeting. So they can, I assume the Board would want to approve that. I guess we can share the motion that's in the memo. We can share the motion that's been voted and approved with them as a starter. But I can work on some language with you, George, if that makes sense. Well, I'll be glad to help, but I won't be around for the meeting where you're going to discuss it with the Board. This is my last meeting, so. But if we are authorized to work jointly to deliver that memo, I think we can do that. Now. Okay. I don't have a problem. Okay. And actually, we have a meeting that's coming up. The start of the town meeting, there's always a brief meeting in case something, because we have everybody there to cover ourselves. That's true. So we might even be able to circulate it there. Sounds good. Okay. Do you want me, do I get the feeling you'd like me to do that? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So are you willing me to do the first draft of this? That would be great. Yeah. I'm working on the transfers or the Article 15 and the slides. Yeah. If you want to bring an Article 15 up, then I will say no, but I will do the first draft. Okay. And it's between you and I, and then Tom, and go from there. Okay. Sounds good. In the meantime, I'm not sure that we want to increase the sticker fee even further to I mean, further than what we have today or further than what Tom has proposed? Further than what we have today.
The only problem I think you're going to have if you do that is that, again, the Board of Selectmen will say, well, you're not even trying by raising sticker fees for the increased cost. We did last year. We increased to $200. But that was last year. Right? And what has it yielded us? What's the additional revenue we've seen?
I'm just looking to see if we can capture it. $23,000.
Where's your 26? You don't have a 26 actual on here. No, we don't. Let me just see if I have something. I thought we had 26 actual that tells us where we're at so we can know what our shortfall is. How do we not have? Because we're looking at a 27 budget.
If I remember what we had, we did have a small increase in revenue. So right now we're showing sticker revenue at $221,877.
Okay. And then remember that stickers that we sell in June for next year are actually out towards fiscal 26. It's just the way that the timing of this. So that will increase, but based upon July through now.
So we were 294. We were about 300,000 last year. And we'll probably be about the same. Because if I remember right, those sales are about 70, 75,000 for the next year, about a third. Okay. So we'll be about the same. Or up slightly. Maybe. 294. We had last year of 75 to 222 would be what 296. 296. Yeah. So probably basically flat. But again, please, that's off of my memory that I'm an old guy, so it's probably wrong.
Yeah, I think that's important. We just, we don't want to, it's going to be super, super difficult to gain folks back.
Yeah. Look at my little book here and see if I have this. It's in my book. And what are our bag fees right now? I don't see that in the pack in any of our current fees.
So like what we, our revenue based on that? Or our current fees? It's, that's the bag. So that's, I think it's $5 for a small, nine for a medium and 15 for a large. That's a pack of five.
Nine and 15. Is that what you said? Yeah. Five, nine and 15. Five, nine and 15. You know, and the option, you know, one of the options was to kind of share the, share the increase and the proposal that is in the packet was a 9% increase, which I think it yields, I have it written down somewhere, but it was like 1650 for, it went up a buck and a half for the large and a buck for the mediums and less than a dollar for the smalls or something. That was a 9%. So the sticker goes up to 210 from where it's currently at, which is 200. That's only a 5% increase. You can always say it's, that's, that's like covering inflation. You can propose that. I mean, it's, I just think we went up quite a bit last year and now we're, and I think we lost folks and we move up again.
It's just going to be a challenge to get anyone back. I think at those, at these rates.
All right.
My, my, my provider here at home went up 12%. A quarter for diesel fees. Just got that notice last week. I think people are, are informed that things require diesel are going to be going up across the board. Yep. And one of the concerns is do we have the right amount of cost increases built into this for tipping fees and other things that they're going to come back and say, because of the energy crisis, energy pricing. It's a emergency kind of thing and forget your contract prices. This is your new price.
I can let you know that their cost of disposal of yard waste just tripled. And is that reflected in these expenses? I do not know. No, this, this budget was prepared in November. Yeah. We just received this this week. I mean, thankfully it's, I mean, it's up 10%. It's up tens and tens of thousands, but it's just a heads up. It has tripled.
Yeah. So if you want to show some effort, Judy, I guess that that would show effort. But I think if we try to, I just don't think it's viable any longer as an enterprise fund. And then no matter how much we raise the cost of the bags or bulky, it's not going to make up $131,000. Yep. So would they say absolutely no, we're not taking it? Back to the, you know, revolving fund or whatever it's called general fund, because you guys refuse to raise rates. Is that, is that a concern? I think we, I think we have been raising rates.
I think that'll be a concern. Now the 131, by the way, is based on the increase in stickers. So if you don't increase the sticker fee, you're going to, that 131 is going to increase. Well, the one, the 131 is locked in. It's in the warrant book at 131, 464.
Yeah. Tom, it may be in the warrant, but I guarantee it's not locked in. At the end of the day, it's going to be a difference between revenue and expenses. Yeah. A year from now we'll be, yeah. Paying the pauper. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Yep. And this 131 is based on a, this sticker amount is, has an increase in it. Yeah. So if we don't put an increase in it, that 131 by definition, the end of the year is going to be higher. Correct. So how much of a sticker increase is this? 16%. The 16%. So you have what? So it's two, two, $232 is what this shows. And the other one is an increase of 9%, which would make it 217. So, yeah. So the, it's shared between the bags and then it's, so it'd be a $217. $217 sticker fee, and then a 9% increase in bags. Okay. So if it's not shared, then we should raise the sticker to 220 or so. Is that what I'm hearing? To make this column U work, it would be 232. 232. And that's without the bag increase. Correct.
It's just to make the math work. And then, then we lose, let's say we lose 20. Sticker holders. Then we're on, then we're below again. So it's. How many, how many sticker holders did we lose last year? Is that been determined? We actually held pretty steady. This particular year. We, we went up from, if you remember, I think I remember this correctly. So the year prior, we were at $185 a sticker, but then we had a $10 fee for those that used credit cards because we were getting charged an exorbitant amount of money per credit card. So it was in essence, if anybody used a credit card was paying 195. So with the introduction of sportsman, where that credit card fee was, is now minimal. We did away with that. So in essence, it went from 185 to 200 formally, but people were, were paying 195 if they used a credit card. So that gives you a sense of what we did for this particular year. And the number of full sticker holders held steady. It did. It did. It did. It did. It did. It did. It did. It did. It did. Yeah, it held pretty steady.
So I'm more comfortable with raising the sticker and leaving the bags alone. And so if it goes to 230 or 235, I don't remember the number. I think we can explain it, especially given costs of certain items are tripling. I would say one of the things that might help us is if people are not happy and they go to get a quote for trash pickup, which is skyrocketing right now, they're going to think they get a deal.
How much is trash picked up these days? Is that also going up? Does anyone know?
Well, Mike just said he got a, Mike, that was a fee for your trash pickup, right?
So I did a survey on our end because we were all taxed. We were all taxed with falling vendors with a Wayland address. And I would say the average pickup for recycling and rubbish was about $75 a month. And that was variable a little bit, but that's, you know, just under a thousand a year.
When did this budget get put together, this one here, Tom? For FY27? Yeah. It would have been like November. The revenue budget. Yeah, what we do is we put together an expense budget. And then we just, whatever the expense. We have to then match it with revenue. So we take a look at what we've done historically year after year after year. And, but that's, yeah, it's, it's very straightforward. You have to make enough money to pay the budget bill. There's no, basically, translated, there's no science behind the revenue numbers. It's basically they increase everything but sticker fees and then figure out what the difference is between expenses and sticker fee. Yeah. And all the other revenue, and that becomes sticker fees. And when we originally put together the budget, that 131 increased because we got hit by the. 81 grand. 81 grand, because we originally had 50 shortfall. And they hit us with the 81, which is how it comes to 131. All right. I'll make a motion to increase the sticker fee to 225 for the annual full sticker fee. And increase. Increase the medium bag fees to 10. So it'll be 5, 10, and 15. Okay. Sounds good. So moved. You don't actually have to make a decision on the bags now.
You only need to. Why not? Because the only, the only reason we're doing this now is so that Tom can advertise the sticker fees for the system to get people, because they normally buy it in June. But I guess, you know. When do the bag fees go up? They would go up with the fiscal year. You know, they would go up. So what I would, if you're going to, if you're going to do the combination, like you're suggesting, like this motion, I would make that vote tonight.
You would? Yeah. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Because your, your bag, pardon me, your sticker fee is being set based upon a simultaneous increase in the medium bag charge. So, yeah, I would, I would press on and make that. Make that vote tonight, get those out of the way. And then what we can do is, you know, at a later meeting, we can worry about the smaller things, the bulky, the mattresses, we can describe, you know, what we're seeing as far as our charges for those things. It was really the sticker fee. And now the bag fee. That's really the most time critical.
Okay. So with the proposal is bag fees, 15, 10 and five. And what are they today? Five, nine and 15. So it'd be five, 10 and 15. So just a dollar. For the medium bags. Yeah. Which I think those are the ones most used.
81,000. Tom, what is that for? Those are the indirects and OPEB. And we're not usually charged that. And that's why it was a surprise. Yeah. They, I mean, I can't, I can't speak for certain, but in years past and knowing that they were contributing $50,000, they knew it was like getting blood from a stone. So. We were not assessed those indirects and OPEB charges, but I think, you know, we, we asserted ourselves pretty well in getting the 50, this in FY 27. And then I think it was counted. Okay. That sounds good. So you're also now going to start like everybody else paying these other two indirects and OPEBs. Yeah. They gave us the 50 and charged us 81 is the balance. Exactly. Yeah. Crazy. And Tom will say, I'm telling you. I don't want to hold stories, but, um, the story goes, uh, when we began and switched from, uh, a dump from a landfill to a transfer station, we had taken in tons of money for the general fund, um, that the sticker payers didn't, didn't see any of that. It went direct to the town, um, the order of half a million dollars from the big dig storing, um, dirt from the big dig, Joe, you were around probably. You remember the, uh, trucks coming at night, I understand. And, um, so the town benefit benefited quite a bit, um, revenue wise from having the landfill and the, the sticker payers at the time didn't see that, um, any of those funds. So the agreement I had with the then finance director and the select board or the board of select and chair at the time was that we would not be charged any OPEB fees. Indefinitely. Um, but of course it's just a story. It's kind of like the, uh, the verbal agreement at Sherman's bridge road. There's no proof of that. So, um, but for years they upheld that, um, this year they did not.
Always get it in writing, Mike.
Okay. Do we have a motion? Yes, I made a motion. I think, uh, Mike seconded it. Yeah. No. Okay. Or was it Judy? I don't know. Who wants to take? I'm okay. I'm a second. All right. Let's take a second. Take a vote. Wake up our. Hi. Spellman. Hi. Judy. Hi. Ed. Hi. You just, I. Okay. So, uh, this will help with my memo and, uh, Tom, the other thing that would be helpful. Can you send me at least through whatever you have, where we stand on. The, uh, actual revenue and expenses for fiscal 26. Yes. And I don't know if you have any projection of, uh, I have to dig back through some of the old stuff on the transfer station. See what I can figure out.
Cause I want that as part of the memo about the transfer station. Yep. Yep. Yeah. I have that information. Okay.
All right.
About a half an hour behind, uh, town meeting articles. I have the old agenda. For some reason. So, uh, somebody straightened me out in terms of what we have to cover. Cause I know there was a changes.
Yeah, I guess. I mean, the, the, the real, the change was, I just added the actual numbers of the articles. So, um, it's article three, the enterprise fund, and then article 15, which is the long-term water supply.
You know, so we have. Just, just, we skipped over the transfer station evaluation. Oh, I'm sorry. Status of evaluation. Yeah. Sorry about that. So, uh. The, the consultant proposed a, a survey, um, initially a branching survey. That was their draft survey they shared with us and then later changed it into a non-branching survey. Um, we, we provided input. Um, they made some recommendations, but we never discussed the recommendations. Um, and the survey went out, um, they did, I believe, get, um, a decent number of responses, maybe in the range of 600. Um, I know that the economic development committee had put out a survey and received about 1500 responses. So decent, um, in terms of the, the, uh, responses. So, so far I'm not too impressed with the consultant and, uh, the way we've gone about this first step. Um, I'm hoping that their expertise and coming up with the various solutions and assessing the costs and the. the the various components will be um a strength of theirs okay when do you expect to see something from them on this i'm not sure exactly um that that's part of the challenges the communications um we're not really in direct communication everything although the communication is handled through the town manager's office um so it's it's filtered coming to us and joe do you know what the i think they're trying to schedule a meeting so we were trying to schedule granted the the hardest part of this is is getting the you know the select board chair um on a good timeline due to you know town meeting but uh we were looking at the 29th of the 30th and that was the information sent out i haven't there there hasn't been one response yet for many of the members yeah i think uh at least speaking for myself i'm a little disenchanted with the the process itself i'm not sure if that's why others are haven't responded yet um but i do think yeah with town meeting coming up it might be better to to look after town meeting to continue this do you is somebody prepared if when the article comes up for discussion uh asks about the evaluation somebody could be able to give us small response because i think you should have something prepared just in case well that that's what i've said i'm representing the board that's sponsoring this and i'd like to see some more interaction i haven't seen that yet um i i'm not sure if this is falling under the select board uh or if it's falling under us um it's it's being run by the town manager's office
well between your working group and whether it be the town or your yourself i think somebody has got to be prepared to answer a question if it comes up about the where we are and what what any feedback and it may be that there's no initial feedback because they're still working on it but we're looking at x y and z where do you think this will come up the article about the transfer station i honestly george think it's it's still in the information informational gathering uh phase well i don't have a problem with that i just somebody's got to be able to be responsible for stepping up and giving whatever that people want to say about it when they don't know what they want to say about it because we'll be asking for you know that budget and expense line and the use of retained earnings that just as a just in case if somebody asks so we aren't all looking at each other saying who's going to get up and answer that well i guess i i can get up and answer the where we're at yeah yeah yeah okay okay how are we going to walk through this tom i just go line by line you know uh i mean i don't i don't have anything prepared for this um just you know feedback on the forum that was the did everybody uh anybody get any feedback at all i thought it went pretty well i think the venue was great um i think there was probably maybe a dozen or 15 in person i think i counted 22 on zoom it's on way cam um you know so i think that the turnout was i think as expected do we have the deck available to is it online yeah it's it is it's on the it's on the uh the project the mwra uh project webpage yes okay
does wake cam can wake camp tell us how many people viewed it on their site
i bet they can i don't know how i get access to that but i would imagine they must in this day and age they must have yeah you just you just might want to call and find out because it might be helpful if question comes up and we had you know 39 people or whatever the total is that either listened to or were there plus another x that watched it on wake cam okay so basically a little feedback disappointing in terms of the size but understand okay review of presentation and handouts for town meeting so i know mike you've put together a narrative um that you forwarded to me looks looks good um uh yeah i mean i can read through that if you guys would like um it's a work in progress um you want me to just read it i'm not sure will that be helpful or do you want me to share it on screen i can share with you my draft why don't you just go ahead and read it okay all right madame moderator yes i would like to speak to my motion to be very clear direct and transparent none of whalen's currently permitted water supplies not one will complete the function of the water supply in the area of wake camp you with the new EPA four-parts-per-trillion PFAS standards that go into effect in 2029. What that means is that unless we implement a solution to provide compliant water, we'll be in a situation similar to the one we faced in 2021 when MassDEP introduced new PFAS standards and our primary water source was declared noncompliant. At that point, we began distributing bottled water for drinking and cooking. This is not the situation we want Wayland to be in again in 2029. In addition to the new PFAS compliance requirements, our current infrastructure is failing and requires a major overhaul. In this fiscal year alone, our current temporary PFAS filtering system has failed more than once, and we've had to activate our very expensive emergency MWRA connection three times to date. Stated simply, we need a new system, one that can support Wayland's water requirements long-term. Along those lines, for the past five plus years now, staff, board members, and engineers have examined a very wide variety of options to deliver PFAS-free water. After much analysis, we've settled on a robust yet flexible solution that is the most cost-effective in the long term and provides a great deal of redundancy. The dual-source system selected includes establishing a permanent granulated activated carbon PFAS remediation treatment facility at Happy Hollow, coupled with a permanent connection to the MWRA system that can support Wayland's water requirements long-term. In addition to the new PFAS filtering system, our current system is failing and requires a major overhaul. This plan isn't new. The Town has approved each design step along the way, and we're now at the point where we need your approval to move ahead with construction. In addition to the 2029 compliance deadline and the current system failures mentioned, it's extremely important that we move ahead now so that we can secure the $7 million MWRA entrance fee waiver, which is also time-sensitive. Simply put, we need to move ahead with the MWRA entrance fee waiver. Simply put, we need to move ahead with the MWRA entrance fee waiver, which is also time-sensitive. Simply put, we need to move ahead with the MWRA entrance fee waiver, which is also time-sensitive. Voting yes to this article is a yes vote to Water and Wayland, so we need and request your support tonight. Thank you. Good. Sounds really good. Do you know if somebody has offered to be the opponent to this article? I don't. I'm estimating this should take me about four minutes. I don't know how long that took. And I think we have seven, Tom, if I'm right. Correct. So I would yield... I would yield some of my time to Carol Martin as the co-sponsor.
Were any of those proposed slides, Mike? I'm not sure if you had a chance to take a peek at those, whether they helped. I tried to follow, you know, kind of the... Do you have them that you can share, or do you want me to try to... Let me see. I didn't get much of a chance to look at them today. Yeah, that's fine. Let me see. All right. I have it open, so let me see if I can share. I think mainly we want to be very visual with this, so I was suggesting maybe a PowerPoint. Okay. I was suggesting, you know, kind of a view of what the Happy Hollow plant would look like and where it would be located. This might be a little busy, but the image of the new pumping station and the location, I think I would enlarge this a bit. These are just drafts. So that we can show this would be the pumping station. Could you go back one second? Yeah. In terms of the Happy Hollow, do you think it would be useful to show them a comparison in terms of the current temporary facility that doesn't have heating, no security fences or anything else, and a couple pictures of what the Happy Hollow will look like when it's completed so they can see the upgrade?
I think we can include up to three slides. Well, even if it's not... Would you say you're not sure this is what you're going to put up, but is part of the handout when they come in? Yes. Yeah. Because I think, to me, the biggest issue is guys, we're depending on something that is not secure. With all the crazy things that are going on, somebody can come in kids could come in or whatever. Think it's a joke and take us out of commission for months. Yeah. I mean, I've been talking to DPW about it. of the pump stations right now. Anyone can walk by and flip a switch and turn them off. And there's some building regulations that don't allow us to enclose those. It's kind of crazy. Well, yeah, I like the suggestion of, you know, I know that this is what Miranda Jones, moderator Miranda Jones said that, you know, she would support up to like three slides. But you're right, George, that doesn't prevent us from having something far larger as a handout on the table. You know, one option is I make copies of the presentation that we gave at the forum that has all of that information. You know, I can put three slides per page. It wouldn't be massive. I could have those on the table so people could actually see what you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I like Mike's feel, but I think the other thing we have to get across is number one, what we have today is not secure. Somebody can come in and cause a problem. Number two, if we do have a problem, it's not only handing out bottled water, but it's having enough water to handle firefighting and other emergency needs.
Yep. And this is a long-term solution. And while people say, well, PFAS is not as big a deal anymore, the issue is it may not be with this administration, but they're already talking about other kinds of things that they need to. Filter out, and it's not going to go away. It's going to get worse. Now the new thing is the microplastics.
So, you know, somehow we've got to get people to not think that this is all, it's not going to continue. Well, and that's, Tom brought up, you know, our current infrastructure is failing. We're trying to limp along until we can get a new facility in place. But even without PFAS, we're still facing a crisis. Yeah.
And I'm just trying to, you know, hand out something that they can have. So while you're talking, they've already seen this. So, you know, it's like the old thing. First, you're going to tell them what you're going to tell them, then you're going to tell them, and then you're going to tell them what you just told them. It's a good speech. Yep.
Yeah. So we can look at, in terms of handouts. Yeah. Just a thought for you. Yeah. And then I can, you know, I can adjust. I didn't put any finesse. What do you think of the one that you got your mouse, slide four? This one I like. And what, it's a little text heavy. And so what I was suggesting is we have a progress bar, maybe 75% filled in. But, you know, this is where we're at. We, you know, 2021, we began the evaluation. 2023, we came up with the recommendation. 2023, we also voted to, apply for admission. And we received the vote to begin design, 30% design. 2024, we had the vote for the final design. And now we're at this stage where we need the vote of approval for construction funds.
You know, so I guess as you know, you'll, you'll read through your narrative and then, you know, whether you've simultaneously referenced this up on, I don't know how that all works, to be honest. So, you know, we've got a little bit of mileage out of, at the forum, but I just stuck it in there. Yeah. There's so many different directions you can go with this. And so many, there's so much to say. That I want to try to keep it on the high level points. See, and with this, people start arguing. Well, that, you didn't use the right percentage there, or you, yeah, I'm just afraid we get. Yeah, that's too busy. Yeah. I think this is a little text heavy, so we need to figure out a way to make it more graphic. Yeah. These are, these are good, but I think I would, it, it's even a little busy with, you know, the two, two slides and then this one too.
Although it's informative that this is better for a packet and handout.
I, you know, I don't know how, how. How well folks will be able to see. Yeah, I don't know either. That's the, you know. You might even want to ask yourself, do you really want to have, be distracted by slides versus just having the handouts? Mm-hmm. Because slides can become distracting. Yeah.
Because you can always reference the handout. Right. Yep.
Yep. And I just have to, I've got a deadline for, I'm sorry, Mike. I've got a deadline of next Monday to submit these to the moderator. For approval. And speaking of whether I don't anticipate any problem with having the handouts, all of that, but that's kind of my deadline is to, to submit them on Monday to her so that we get any remarks back so we can make adjustments for the following Monday. Sounds good. I would just suggest putting page numbers on the slide. So if Mike is up there and he wants people to look at a certain slide, he can actually say, look at page five or whatever. Yeah. You're talking about the handout slides. The handouts. Yeah. I think there should be a couple of slides up on the projector as well.
Okay. I don't think everybody's going to grab the handouts. And especially the one we're looking at there. So people can see, because I think we need to identify maybe the top three things that people are going to be concerned about, which is why can't we just upgrade the one we have? Right. Well, it's in a floodplain. It's unsecured. We can't secure a loan because it's in a floodplain. So we can't build it there. So it has to go someplace else. And this clearly shows where it's going. And it's in a nice place where there's plenty of space. And we can secure it. And secure it. Thank you.
The eye of the building is a nice touch. But seeing where it's going to be and seeing where the existing one is, is critical. And maybe showing the condition of the one that's there. And you can drag that little sketch. If you click on it. If you click on that and drag it over, Mike. Yeah, that. Yep. Oops. Yep. There you go. Just bring it over. Yeah. It kind of plopped that. It kind of gives you a sense of what it looks like and where it's going to be located. Yeah.
So I do like a little highlight yellow here with a line out to this. And then a highlight here to show the existing and maybe label it or something. But yeah. But something visual for folks to look at. Just remember, even though it's going to be up on that big screen. People in the back are not going to be able to see labeling and those kinds of things.
Yeah. That's what I'm a little worried about. Yeah. Mike, in your opening remarks, did you mention the $7 million fee waiver? Yes. And do we? Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Near the end, I said, in addition to the 2029 compliance deadline and the current system failures mentioned, it's extremely important that we move ahead now. So that we can secure the $7 million MWRA entrance fee waiver, which is also time sensitive. You might want to just reference that as a cost of delay.
Cost of delay is both the $7 million plus the increased costs that we're seeing every year.
Try to figure out how I can weave that in. Mike, we're going to need you to rewrite the whole thing. I think you just weave it in. The question is, why now? Well, here's two good reasons why now. Yeah. And I get, you know, the consequence of not approving this is the continued failing of our current equipment, which quite likely will jeopardize our ability to provide water. Let it be known. If you vote no, we've got some real problems. Start to build up your bottle water supply. Yeah. And it's not crime. Wolf, it's, this is a real situation that we've been, we've been experiencing this year. Yep.
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, this one is good for the, for the packet as well.
It is a little busy too, but. Yeah, this was, again, I was trying to, you know, you were looking for locations of things and this kind of gives you a sense of where all the, where all the, the key points are. Yeah. But again, on that massive screen, I find, you know, I think Mike Spelman. He said, or maybe it was George, but anyway, with all the lighting in the field house, it's, it's, it's not all that clear. Right. The screen. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's not all the words and stuff. Challenging. You can see when people, they, they put up the wording for motions. You can read that, but if you're. Right. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I don't know whether it's a distraction or if it's a help. One of the things we might want to do is as it starts to come up, any of the handouts that haven't been picked up, we can walk around and pass out. Yeah.
Okay.
One of the items is the outreach program.
Anything on that, Tom?
Yeah. I mean, I, one of the things that I don't have it listed here is that April 29th, the League of Women Voters, I think, have a, a warrant meeting. And I think there are two articles that are being asked to discuss. So I think, Mike, you, you, I think I saw you back and forth with Mary Ante, sir. You and I are going to, you and I'll do that. And I, I'm presuming that we're going to. Probably talk and show some of what we've got tonight, I would imagine. Yeah. So the, the idea is there, there, there, it's kind of a dry run. Yeah. To, to get feedback. You know, so, so yeah, it'll, it'll essentially be a dry run. Okay. Yeah.
You know, so we'll have a, we'll have a table, you know, at the right across somewhere, the, the town clerks folks are registering. Voters to come in, they grab their handset. We'll be sitting right there where we always have a table, you know, so we'll have the handouts. We'll have Ed Chang's letter, that letter that, that he wrote. We'll have copies of that for folks.
I was going to, I can have the most recent Gantt schedule. There's a lot going on. And it's, it's not that easy to, to minimize it and to restructure it. So it's, it's really, I guess, all or nothing. But the Gantt chart shows you what the schedule is and shows you. Anybody that's interested in seeing that, we don't, we don't have to have that if we think it would be too complicated. I think it's too complicated. Yeah. A simple timeline would be, you know, just the major milestones. Yeah. Well, that, like that slide that we were talking about. Yeah. Yes. Is there anything that we should be sending over to the local paper?
Like Ed's, there was Ed's memo or letter in that at some point. Did they publish that? No. I just, just think about what we might want to send to them, ask them to publish.
Because Carol's, I talked to Carol about, you know, whatever she could do to help. And Tom, because it was the one that's on the water. Yeah. Yeah. Said he was going to try and get something in supporting the, the article. Okay. Yeah.
The one thing I was, what I've been told from the town manager's office, there's a fine line of what I, or we are able to, to present, whether it's on, you know, a town Facebook page, social media, whatever, to promote an article. There's actually language that disallows it. And I'm not sure if anybody's looked at the Wayland Post that just came out today, but there was a paid, it says a paid advertisement, vote no against article 16. You know, so I guess if you're a paid person or whatever, you can stick something in there. But as a town official, we are very limited into what we can actually put out there. But Ed could ask you to send it for him, right?
So you're just saying, you know, Ed, blah, blah, blah, has asked me to send this to you. Yeah, Ed's letter. Sure. Sure. Yep. Take you out of the Senate. Well, I, I see one of the reporters on our meeting tonight. So hopefully she, he's hearing this and we'll, we can connect. Yep. Yeah. Do we, do we have his letter on the board of public works site or related to the water? We, we may not. I'm not sure if I actually put that up there. I might've, I'd have to take a look. I just put a couple of things up like a week ago, right after the forum, I put a couple of things up. It might've been his letter. It might be there. But if not, I can. That'd be good.
Okay.
What else do we have on the warrant? Articles? I know you made one other change, Mike?
I just wanna mention at the Enterprise Fund article three, we had voted to include retained earnings. The finance director removed that line item or did not include that line item. So the article is going to town meeting without that as a funding source. Yeah. So the question I have is who has authority? Yeah. the budget uh is it the board of public works as water commissioners under mass state law is it the town manager is the finance director is it fincom um i did ask a question through carol of town council um but i don't think the question i asked was clear enough because i got the answer back that the article article 3 is the select board's article and they can control the language my question is who has authority over what budget is presented at town meeting yeah and i don't have the answer to that yeah and i understand in the last meeting i made the comment that while i don't agree with what was decided that is what was decided and should be reflected i think the real real issue is at this point with everything that's going on especially with some of the issues we're having with this year's water budget because the mwa and other cost and the increase that we're looking at in 27 to build up enough cash to make the debt service payment in november of 27 which is fiscal 28 having to have cash for all that interest do you really want to raise questions about the amount of cash that we have and the use of that cash when you can get to the same spot without using that just based on how you project the water production so i i don't know we want to raise the uh what do you want to call it the the issue and get into a dispute with somebody from the board of selectmen or whatever coming up and raising questions that can have a negative impact on 38 million i don't want to uh shoot myself in the foot right i mean i i think the the issue going forward if this ever happens again is that we did not send them a formal complaint because i pitched to carol again today and that was probably our our problem if we had done that they would have had to address it and we did not and the decision was made without our board present or represented so there's only one side of the argument heard um you know and that's uh i mean i guess maybe that's us for not realizing that was the agenda item and we should have showed up but um agreed okay yeah
and 15 we talked about an outreach um yeah if there's any other i mean we've done the forum we're doing the league of women voters um uh ed's letter is great and um judy do you have connections at the whalen post maybe you can share that so it comes from the board rather than staff and we don't put tom in any uh situation share ed's letter or share what share ed's letter with the whalen post uh sure i can do that um tom can you send me a copy of it so i have a correct copy yeah um question i have is we all probably have access to listservs or people that we you know whether it's the boy scouts or whalen dads or something are we allowed to lobby there or is that again yes no we can mike's mike sent a note out and i followed it up with whalen dads
and it's kind of the same group as whalen softball um okay same core group um so it is an individual though right can you share what you sent mike so i can sort of i think i think he did i Mike shared that with you, didn't he? No, I don't believe so. Okay. No, but I can send it over to you, Judy. That's supposed to come out this week. Okay. That would be great. And the only other thing I have, and we can talk offline if you want, Mike, is did you get in touch with our state rep, Carmen? Carmen, I thought he was going to try and give me a call today or yesterday. He mentioned Monday or Tuesday afternoon. I let him know I was open both days, so I haven't heard from him yet. Is he the one that was at the forum?
No. Because one of our reps was there. That's a future rep. That was Robbie. He's running. Oh, is he running? Okay.
Shows you what I know. Yeah, so Judy introduced me to Carmen. And I understand Judy mentioned that he wrote a letter of support for our appeal. Correct. Tom, did you know that? Yes. It was actually part of our appeal packet. Yep. Oh, great. Okay. Yeah, so we were going to schedule a discussion. No, we haven't connected yet. It could be one of the many numbers that I didn't recognize that called me today, but it wasn't his because I put his in my contacts. Do you need me to help organize it? I'll reach out to him again. I think you're on the text string. So, yeah. All right.
Thank you. All right.
Since we're now a little bit behind, anything else on Tom meeting or are we all set? Articles and what we're doing. Okay. Water restrictions. Don. I'm going to be super quick. But precise. Quick but precise. Yes. So, I just wanted to give you. All a quick update. On the repairs that we've been making. The air drying system at Baldwin pond is back up in operation. The plants back online. The piping upgrades at the happy hollow PFAS 10 are complete.
We. We're waiting on that bacteria logical results to come in. We got them in yesterday. My staff and I were out on site today. Fine tuning. The chemical process. Before the water is pumped back into the system. We should have it up online first thing in the morning. As Tom mentioned earlier, the emergency declaration with mass DEP ends on the 26th. This means that we are able to lift the ban on non-essential outdoor water use. Drought conditions are improving. Um, I, I stuck a little link into the drought task force website, uh, in the email from this morning. Um, even though the, the drought conditions are improving, even though we are, um, getting close to having our sources back up and running, um, not at quite a hundred percent, but, uh, at least back. And so we don't have to rely on the NWRA. Um, I, I am recommending that we start the, the season out this year with a partial ban. Um, just, I just don't know how things are going to go with the, the PFAS, uh, upgrades that were made. And I just want to be cautious. Um, and, you know, I would like to request, um, from the board that, um, a motion for, for Tom and I to enact, um, uh, outdoor water. Our conservation measures, you know, as we need them this summer, same thing as we did last year, exactly the same thing as we did last year. And the timing is the same as last year. Yep. So in comparison to revenue billings, et cetera, between the two years, uh, should, should have a similar, uh, no great disparity from last year. Correct. Is that a commercial for you as I did? Did I do it right?
Thanks, George.
And this is the. The type where we can lift it and put it back in as required. Correct. Yeah. So, um, so in years past we followed these, the stream flow, um, monitoring and right now, you know, the stream is, is ripping right along. So, um, it's, it's about a hundred cubic feet per second higher than what our, um, our permit says we have to start keeping an eye on that. So, um, you know, things are in a good. Good place. I just, I don't want to overtax the system, uh, seeing how we just got it all put back together. So, uh, I just want to take things cautious and, um, you know, if things are running good, you know, and we're meeting our permit conditions, we can, you know, ease back on that. Um, your current proposal is two days a week only. That's what I'd like to start at. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So the alert I see is. It's 564 cubic feet per second currently. Yes. And we're, we're, um, our requirement is to be, uh, let me see if, so between May and June, um, if it drops below 427, uh, cubic feet per second, um, that's, you know, for, for seven consecutive days, that's when we would have to institute these restrictions. I'm just asking, you know, if we could start this. You know, uh, on, on the cautious side of things until, you know, we're a hundred percent sure everything is, is, um, back up and running correctly. Yep. Now that's when we have to, according to our permit, but this, this would be, um, kind of, uh, option for us to implement given our equipment situation. Yeah. Yep. Okay. And it's actually, you know, you can actually cite, uh, town bylaw chapter one 90 dash four. Um, it's a conservation restriction that the board of public works has the ability to exercise. So that's what, that's what we would be utilizing what Don is recommending. And I think the, the issue that may come up is somebody may accuse us of putting this in just before the town meeting vote on NWRA. So, uh, I think we just have to be clear that why we're putting this in at this point, uh, when we notify the, uh, population. Yeah. It's consistent. We've done this every year in recent memory. Right. And the concern about the equipment. Yeah. That's, you know, Don was describing to me that even with Baldwin pond, you know, it's, it's operating at half capacity. Happy hollow was operating at half capacity. Um, Don's ability to keep that tank full, uh, is questionable. Our equipment is running 24 seven right now. And, you know, we just can't sustain that. And I think that's key to get. That out and, and somehow even maybe build that into the discussion at the, at the meeting on the NWRA in terms of, you know, what the current conditions are today and why there's a risk, because I don't think that most people recognize that it's not all in one spot that we can hit show them.
Cause it's all that tells you is if something goes wrong, we don't have much room for maneuver.
So if I say a motion to authorize DPW staff to enact outdoor water. Water conservation measures as required under the conservation restriction, is that cover it or. Yeah, I think that that, uh, that, you know, sites of the regulation that you can, uh, enforce. Okay. Do I hear a second regulation? Then I'll add regulation. Okay. Second, Judy seconds. All right. Roll call vote, Ed. Yeah. Spellman. Yes. Mike. Yes. Judy. Yes. George. Yes. Five zero zero. Okay. Uh, one question, uh, that we might get at the town meeting is that if we don't pass this and we have a problem in the future, uh, are we still guaranteed the emergency water if we're not going MWRA? If we can't meet daily demand, we would have to, uh, reach out to mass DEP, explain why, uh, request an emergency declaration, uh, for the use of the MWRA connection. Uh, you know, once that's granted, we would immediately go into a full outdoor watering ban. Um, that's, that's process. That's not really my question. My question is if we don't go forward with the, with the article and construction costs is not approved. So we're not moving forward with the MWRA is that emergency connection still available to us? The answer is no, that emergency connection was established through an eight M permit, and it is there for strictly emergency use in knowing that we're seeking a permanent connection. So it's really just a stop gap, uh, resolution. Uh, so they would not allow us. And that's one of the reasons why every time you activate it, you pay a higher and higher premium it's to dissuade communities from doing just that. Just fine. If they're not hiring it up any time they want, uh, if they are not going to help themselves and establish a more permanent, uh, resol or solution, then, um, the MWRA would not be, um, supportive of us continuing that. Okay. So somehow without the sky is falling kind of comment, you know, people say, well, we don't care. We'll just draw more on the emergency connection. Yeah, that would, so we can, we can explain why that would not be an option for us. Right.
Okay. All right. So that's been approved. All right. Uh, I haven't missed anything. Have I? Cause I'm working off the old one. No, you're good. We're we're beyond any amendments on the, uh, all right. I don't want to get, I don't want to get in any trouble here. All right. Minutes, February 24th.
I've got a couple comments and we'll see if anybody else has any, uh, on page two on the Sherman bridge. Yep. Last line repaired by mass. Do T it's not both launches. It's should be boat launches. Yes, indeed.
And on, uh, page six, uh, under route 20 landfill bus parking is listed twice.
So I think you take the first one after athletic fields out.
Uh, let me find it. Hold on page six. Yep. I'm on page six. I'm under route 20. I plan to get six. See athletic field.
Athletic field, bus parking, DPW material center parking for about 21, but, oh, I see. So get rid of, uh, bus parking. Yep. Right. Done. And there should be a comma after field. Yeah. Yep. Correct. Okay. Uh, January 20th minutes. George, can I just add one right above that route 20, um, the second sentence or a second line on that page, which includes emerging the existing transfer stations. Um, should be just station with coordinated pickup.
Oh, it doesn't exist in transfer state. Oh, so let's just get rid of the S. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Okay. Thanks. Okay. January 20th approved minutes. The vote is not there. You should have the vote. Uh, where are you? Sorry, George. January 20th minutes. Doesn't show what the vote was. Oh, okay.
Oh, okay.
Anybody else have any other changes, comments, concerns?
Okay. Can I have a, uh, well, we'll do both minutes together.
Does anybody have anything on March 16th? The 10th. I'm sorry. 10th. Yeah. Sorry. Making sure I'm straight. You better at this than I am. Anybody have any changes to this one?
Okay. Can I have a motion to accept the February 24th and March 10th, 2026 minutes? So move. Judy move. Can I get a second? Okay. Second. Ed seconds. All right. Uh, roll call vote. Ed. Yes. Judy. Yes. Spellman. Yes. Mike. Yes. And that's for both. Yes. Yes. That's good. Okay. We have all both. Great. Okay. Any board member concerns?
Okay. We have a write-in candidate.
No, we, we do. I mean, we, we have someone. That's come forward, um, to be a write-in candidate.
I don't, I don't know, as a board, do we, uh, what we do with that information. Um, you're talking about, right. I thought about Canada. I thought you said candidate. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So no one registered. Uh, so obviously anybody can be a write-in candidate and all you need to do is have a majority of the write-in votes. So if there's only one person that writes in a candidate name, that's the. The person with one vote.
When are we supposed to find out like if this person really is interested in being a write-in?
I, I'm not sure what the protocol is for announcing that, uh, as, as a board. Um, I, I know Tom's spoken, uh, with this person. I have, um, I can share that and if you want to ask us offline. Yeah. Okay.
Resident to resident. Not necessarily as a board member to a board member. Right.
Yeah. Is that's not something the board, I think wants to be dealing with. Okay. Set dates, May 4th, the town meeting, probably to the fifth or sixth, May 19th and June 16th.
Okay. Sounds good. I cannot make it May 4th meeting. I had, I had a, I'm a chair or nonprofit organization. Uh, we. We have annual meeting in Boston. This is six o'clock, uh, including dinner by the time we're done. This is nine. So, uh, we, uh, every year is the same, same time before that kind of difficult. Okay. That's the town, town meeting. Yeah. Tom. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But yeah, it would be nice to have your knowledge there for questions, but understand. Yep. Okay. All right. Ready for your last official act. Okay. I have a motion to adjourn. Well, I, yeah, I'd like to thank George for all the work he's put in here. Um, over the years of both as a liaison, as Tom mentioned, and as a board member and recently as chair, appreciate that, but I have to call the May 4th meeting to order. So keep that. Uh, oh, good. Okay. All right. Thank you, George. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I wish you, I wish you the best going forward. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, can I have a motion to adjourn? Don't move. Don't move. Judy moved. Ed second. Uh, roll call vote. Mike. Yes. Mike. Yes. Ed. Yes. Judy. Yes. George. Yes. Five zero zero. Thank you very much folks.