March 11, 2026 – Cultural Council – Video & Transcript
March 11, 2026 - Cultural Council
All right, I'm going to call this meeting to order at, is it 7.15 p.m. on Wednesday?
All right, this is a fully remote meeting on Zoom.
And I'm going to ask, I'm going to do, verify who's here, the member's present.
So, Kevin, are you okay?
Donna?
Yes, present.
Inyan?
Present.
Charles?
Present.
And did I already say, Kevin?
Sorry, guys.
Yes.
Okay.
So, all right, we're all accounted for.
Okay.
Okay, so let me write down 7.15 so I don't take that.
Okay.
All right. Now, the minutes. I know that my name is misspelled on the minutes, which I will take care of or ask Pallavi to take care of. Was there anything else in the minutes that anybody saw that needed to be corrected at all? I did not see anything. It all would correct me. Okay. Okay, so, yeah, I looked at it. All right. So, what I'll do is I'll move approval with the amendment of your name being fixed. Okay, so, Kevin moves approval.
Okay.
Do we need a second for that? Yes, please. Yes, you do. Oh, I second Kevin's motion. Okay.
Okay, now we'll take a vote. Okay. So, I'll start with Charles. Charles, do you approve the minutes? Yes, I'm in favor. Thank you. Okay, good. Dona, are you in favor of approving the minutes? Yes, I approve. Okay. Inyan? Yes, I approve. Okay. And Kevin? Yes. Okay, and I do too. So, minutes approved.
Yep.
Okay, good. All right. Now, let's see. All right, the minutes are approved. I'm going to keep that there for a second. Okay. Give me a second here. All right. Now, we're going to look at project planning and discussion. The mural project, I think we're going to end up, I don't think that we are going to be allocating the funding tonight. I'd rather do that with Naresh anyway, present. If anyone disagrees with that, you're very welcome to say so, and we'll see if we can do it. Hi, Marie. Hi, Marie. Sorry, I'm joined late. Oh, hi. Oh, hi, Naresh. Hi, Charles. Hello, Niamh. Okay. Okay. We started at 7.15, Naresh. Okay, excellent. Okay. Yeah, we just approved the minutes, and we're going down the agenda at this point. Okay. Okay. So, we're thinking, do you have any ideas about how we can fund the mural project? Or should we go down and see which ones we're going to go ahead and fund anyway? Let's look at all of them as a whole. Yeah, look at all of them, and if you choose more than one, we'll just divide up the, you know, divvy up the, you know, the talk. I don't know anything about the Echoes of Liberty exhibition, really. Does anybody know where we are with that? It doesn't look like the status update was on that one. Okay. So, we'll leave that aside. I can tell you one thing. I did send a report for documentation, but I have talked with Rick Conard of the Historical Society Group and Bonnie Gossels, and they've told me that actually the benches that they have already, are already up for approval. They cost $7,500 apiece because they're done up to DCR, DCR regulations. They spec them all. I know exactly the process that they'll go through, but even the pads and stuff have already been sent out to bid. So, there's really, unless we want to withhold some small amount of funding this fiscal year, year, everything they're doing to this point has been funded, partly by state grants and other, and some other sources. Is that pretty clear to people? Let me ask you this. Did we already approve the funding for that project? We did, but I'll tell you, there have been major changes to the plans because of the state funding, the DCR regs, the coordination with DPW. So, they actually have the benches that we, and I haven't confirmed this, although I did send the report. I don't know if you had a chance to see it, Naresh. But the, what we were talking about at the depot, they already have three benches of various configurations in that area, and I'm not planning to put another one at this point. It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I read it. They have signs. Well, good. They have signs that are waiting. Yes. Go ahead, Kevin. Well, what does Pavlavi want us to do? Does she want us to go ahead and give the funding, or does she want to, or did she say we'd discuss it at this meeting? Yeah. We're discussing it at the meeting, and I checked with her, and she is okay with going through each point. I specifically asked for that, and I submitted the report that I was just telling you about to Pavlavi. Yeah, so, yeah, Kevin and Marie, so they should actually kind of ask for some amount, and then we kind of decide. Do you know, Marie, if in your project there's no number? Yeah. I'll tell you what, there is no project that has gone through both the town and the DCR approval project yet. They were waiting for something to maybe come through yesterday, and I have not heard that it happened. So they are not in a position to ask for funds at this point. So it would just be a question of if we can jump into something that opens up this fiscal year, we can set aside a small amount. But, and Arush, maybe you can tell us very quickly. How does the discretionary fund get documented against our budget? Do you, do we, do we, do we have to itemize a discretionary fund separately? Or is it just as a last stop? Yeah, so when we, when we submitted for reimbursement, the town treasurer knows she gets notified by Massachusetts, so they know that it's for this amount. So we actually, I think issue a check. So basically instead of filing a reimbursement, I think Pallavi will tell the town treasurer, hey, pay $300 to this organization or something like that. Okay. And does that expense get reported back to the state or is it just, it does? Yes. It does. It does. Okay. So what, as, as chair, can I propose a motion or no? I don't know. Yeah. If you're, if everyone doesn't, no one has questions and the discussion is over, you can, you can propose a motion. Okay. Does anybody have any questions about this? Did I give you enough information? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I propose that we postpone funding because we can join them at any fiscal year and we might be able to take action that doesn't incur costs. If they want us to like, uh, do a, um, a contest or something for artwork for certain project, that we can start something like that without incurring costs. So then I think I will keep the, um, I will keep us, the council up to date on any changes for them and, um, and, and then the historical, uh, society, uh, the historical council might want to come back to us too at some point, but they would have a specific cost and they'll have to do that next fiscal year. I think, I think at this point, uh, if you're, uh, I move that we, uh, keep, uh, keep up to date on the rail trail. I would be happy to keep, uh, the whole council up to date, but that we, uh, postpone funding for that for another cycle. Does anybody want to second that? I said. I'll second it. Okay. We'll put Dona on this second on here. Okay. All right. All right. Good. That's that. And then the MSA community event, um, how do we have anything new on this? Do we have a date or anything else who proposed this one? Mustafa. Okay. Uh, do you know anything about Mustafa's proposal? Uh, unfortunately not. No. Okay. I just wanted to say, uh, that, uh, way can, uh, way C A N actually hosted, uh, a community, uh, dinner on Sunday. Uh, that was very similar to this, like a cultural sharing. And I just wanted you to know that, that, that did happen. But, um, if Mustafa can come back to us on something else, it would be a very good thing to do and we could do it, uh, within, uh, clear guidelines and that would be fine. So, uh, do we have any other option for Mustafa or do we wait for him to come back maybe with a different plan next month?
Anybody have any ideas on that?
Yeah, I can try. Okay. Contact that over till next month and, and, and see if he can offer anything else at this point, a date or something else. Okay. Okay. All right. So that's going to be okay. So actually we'll take a vote on all this. So we have, okay. We are, we are, uh, okay. What about the mural project? Nuresh, do we allocate funding now or do it all in, uh, in one, one allocation? Uh, they're both our options, whatever the team fails. Yep. Whatever the image, you know, the people feel. So, um, if you want to wait till Pallavi is here next week, no, sorry, next month, you can do it then. Or if the mural project needs the money now, we can vote on it now. So it's, it's both our options. So I don't think that their mural project is really paint ready. Okay. At this point, I think there's still in the design. So I think that, uh, we can put that off till next month. And I think that all of these, uh, we can consider the real, real trail project. You know what, let's do it all at once less next month. We all know what's going on and, um, you're updated and, uh, we'll give, that'll give, uh, both Pallavi and Mustafa a chance to, uh, update their ideas. Sounds good to me. Yeah. I move. Oh, someone else do this, please. Someone move. Yep. I move that we postpone allocating the discretionary funds till the April meeting. Okay. A second. Yeah. I can second. I second. Okay. All right. I agree. Yeah. Okay. And yeah. Okay. And, um, all right. So now we'll take a vote. Okay. Indian. What's your vote? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. That's, that's Donna. Sorry. We have to, um, make sure that it's all okay. Yes. Okay. Kevin. Yes. What's your vote? And Charles. Yes. Okay. All right. That's all set. Now we really want to, uh, this one, we've, we really try to have to, have to try to make a move on this. Okay. We have a confirmation of the venue, uh, according to Miriam's email, she has, uh, a schedule on the 17th, which I believe is a Friday. Does that work? And if we, we have to confirm that if we want to get the room on that date. So does that, does that, does that, does that, I can, uh, I can support that. No problem. Okay. So Friday, the 17th April, I can support as well. Very good. Good. Kevin.
Yeah, I can, I can support it. Okay. Charles, how about you make a motion on this one then so that we can, uh, take this vote? Sure. Um, so I would, uh, motion confirmation in favor of the reservation on Friday, April 17th. Okay. Second anybody?
Huh? Uh, before somebody second it, this is for the, um, the, uh, the cultural council. Uh, the grantee reception. That's right. Okay. Yep. Yep. Okay. Uh, I'll second it if nobody seconded it. Okay. Very good. All right. So now we'll take a vote. All right. Uh, uh, Naresh. My vote. Yes. Okay. Donna. Yes. Okay. Kevin. Yes. Indian. Yes. And Charles.
Uh, yes. Thank you. Okay, good. All right. That's all set. All right. Um, no, Oh, no rush. Are you, uh, do we need to, uh, follow up with you at all on the, uh, the reimbursement procedures or are you just taking that? Yeah. What I can do, uh, Marie is, uh, I can make a slide and distribute it to you and the team for looking. I haven't done anything yet with it. Okay. So, so I'm not ready to present today, but, um, I can present it over the, uh, over the mail. Okay. If anyone have objections, then I can change things around, but it's very simple stuff. So there's like two slides. It's, it's nothing big deal. And, and they all have a documentation on how to do it because when they get the grant, uh, they get a notification that this is how you get the reimbursement. So I was just going to, yeah, so it should be innocuous. Okay, good. And, uh, food arrangements, um, I don't think we can do that. I, I know that Pahlavi said, as we did last year, it's likely that we will be contributing to that, I think, um, I, so on this, I think the vote can be on confirming the date and we can move the rest of the, the two, the other two items for finalization whenever we have another meeting. Um, it's going to have to be before the reception anyway. Yeah. So, right. So usually everyone brings some, you know, a plate of cookies or a cake or some drinks or something, whatever they want. Right. It worked out well last year, but I know that. Yeah. Yeah. So our next meeting, if it's the second Wednesday will be the eighth. So that'll be a full week before the 17th. So we have time. All right. So, um, did we, sorry guys. I'm a little, uh, do I need a confirmation vote or do, is that the one we just voted on? Sorry. On the 17th that we voted on that. We already voted on that. Yes. Okay, great. Okay. So that, and then the other two will be, uh, we will deal with at the next meeting. Okay. Is there anything else, uh, that hasn't been, uh, reasonably anticipated by the chair? Anything else at all coming up.
That anybody can think though. I think we're good. All right. Would anybody, uh, make a motion to adjourn at this point?
I'll make a motion that we adjourn at, uh, 733. Okay. 733 motion to adjourn. Second.
I second. Okay. So, um, Charles. Yes. I'm in favor. Okay. Naresh. Yes. I'm in favor. Okay. Donna. Yes. Indian. Yes. Kevin. Yes. And Marie. I vote. Yes. So this meeting is now adjourned and thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
All right. Now, the minutes. I know that my name is misspelled on the minutes, which I will take care of or ask Pallavi to take care of. Was there anything else in the minutes that anybody saw that needed to be corrected at all? I did not see anything. It all would correct me. Okay. Okay, so, yeah, I looked at it. All right. So, what I'll do is I'll move approval with the amendment of your name being fixed. Okay, so, Kevin moves approval.
Okay.
Do we need a second for that? Yes, please. Yes, you do. Oh, I second Kevin's motion. Okay.
Okay, now we'll take a vote. Okay. So, I'll start with Charles. Charles, do you approve the minutes? Yes, I'm in favor. Thank you. Okay, good. Dona, are you in favor of approving the minutes? Yes, I approve. Okay. Inyan? Yes, I approve. Okay. And Kevin? Yes. Okay, and I do too. So, minutes approved.
Yep.
Okay, good. All right. Now, let's see. All right, the minutes are approved. I'm going to keep that there for a second. Okay. Give me a second here. All right. Now, we're going to look at project planning and discussion. The mural project, I think we're going to end up, I don't think that we are going to be allocating the funding tonight. I'd rather do that with Naresh anyway, present. If anyone disagrees with that, you're very welcome to say so, and we'll see if we can do it. Hi, Marie. Hi, Marie. Sorry, I'm joined late. Oh, hi. Oh, hi, Naresh. Hi, Charles. Hello, Niamh. Okay. Okay. We started at 7.15, Naresh. Okay, excellent. Okay. Yeah, we just approved the minutes, and we're going down the agenda at this point. Okay. Okay. So, we're thinking, do you have any ideas about how we can fund the mural project? Or should we go down and see which ones we're going to go ahead and fund anyway? Let's look at all of them as a whole. Yeah, look at all of them, and if you choose more than one, we'll just divide up the, you know, divvy up the, you know, the talk. I don't know anything about the Echoes of Liberty exhibition, really. Does anybody know where we are with that? It doesn't look like the status update was on that one. Okay. So, we'll leave that aside. I can tell you one thing. I did send a report for documentation, but I have talked with Rick Conard of the Historical Society Group and Bonnie Gossels, and they've told me that actually the benches that they have already, are already up for approval. They cost $7,500 apiece because they're done up to DCR, DCR regulations. They spec them all. I know exactly the process that they'll go through, but even the pads and stuff have already been sent out to bid. So, there's really, unless we want to withhold some small amount of funding this fiscal year, year, everything they're doing to this point has been funded, partly by state grants and other, and some other sources. Is that pretty clear to people? Let me ask you this. Did we already approve the funding for that project? We did, but I'll tell you, there have been major changes to the plans because of the state funding, the DCR regs, the coordination with DPW. So, they actually have the benches that we, and I haven't confirmed this, although I did send the report. I don't know if you had a chance to see it, Naresh. But the, what we were talking about at the depot, they already have three benches of various configurations in that area, and I'm not planning to put another one at this point. It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I read it. They have signs. Well, good. They have signs that are waiting. Yes. Go ahead, Kevin. Well, what does Pavlavi want us to do? Does she want us to go ahead and give the funding, or does she want to, or did she say we'd discuss it at this meeting? Yeah. We're discussing it at the meeting, and I checked with her, and she is okay with going through each point. I specifically asked for that, and I submitted the report that I was just telling you about to Pavlavi. Yeah, so, yeah, Kevin and Marie, so they should actually kind of ask for some amount, and then we kind of decide. Do you know, Marie, if in your project there's no number? Yeah. I'll tell you what, there is no project that has gone through both the town and the DCR approval project yet. They were waiting for something to maybe come through yesterday, and I have not heard that it happened. So they are not in a position to ask for funds at this point. So it would just be a question of if we can jump into something that opens up this fiscal year, we can set aside a small amount. But, and Arush, maybe you can tell us very quickly. How does the discretionary fund get documented against our budget? Do you, do we, do we, do we have to itemize a discretionary fund separately? Or is it just as a last stop? Yeah, so when we, when we submitted for reimbursement, the town treasurer knows she gets notified by Massachusetts, so they know that it's for this amount. So we actually, I think issue a check. So basically instead of filing a reimbursement, I think Pallavi will tell the town treasurer, hey, pay $300 to this organization or something like that. Okay. And does that expense get reported back to the state or is it just, it does? Yes. It does. It does. Okay. So what, as, as chair, can I propose a motion or no? I don't know. Yeah. If you're, if everyone doesn't, no one has questions and the discussion is over, you can, you can propose a motion. Okay. Does anybody have any questions about this? Did I give you enough information? Yes. Okay. Okay. So I propose that we postpone funding because we can join them at any fiscal year and we might be able to take action that doesn't incur costs. If they want us to like, uh, do a, um, a contest or something for artwork for certain project, that we can start something like that without incurring costs. So then I think I will keep the, um, I will keep us, the council up to date on any changes for them and, um, and, and then the historical, uh, society, uh, the historical council might want to come back to us too at some point, but they would have a specific cost and they'll have to do that next fiscal year. I think, I think at this point, uh, if you're, uh, I move that we, uh, keep, uh, keep up to date on the rail trail. I would be happy to keep, uh, the whole council up to date, but that we, uh, postpone funding for that for another cycle. Does anybody want to second that? I said. I'll second it. Okay. We'll put Dona on this second on here. Okay. All right. All right. Good. That's that. And then the MSA community event, um, how do we have anything new on this? Do we have a date or anything else who proposed this one? Mustafa. Okay. Uh, do you know anything about Mustafa's proposal? Uh, unfortunately not. No. Okay. I just wanted to say, uh, that, uh, way can, uh, way C A N actually hosted, uh, a community, uh, dinner on Sunday. Uh, that was very similar to this, like a cultural sharing. And I just wanted you to know that, that, that did happen. But, um, if Mustafa can come back to us on something else, it would be a very good thing to do and we could do it, uh, within, uh, clear guidelines and that would be fine. So, uh, do we have any other option for Mustafa or do we wait for him to come back maybe with a different plan next month?
Anybody have any ideas on that?
Yeah, I can try. Okay. Contact that over till next month and, and, and see if he can offer anything else at this point, a date or something else. Okay. Okay. All right. So that's going to be okay. So actually we'll take a vote on all this. So we have, okay. We are, we are, uh, okay. What about the mural project? Nuresh, do we allocate funding now or do it all in, uh, in one, one allocation? Uh, they're both our options, whatever the team fails. Yep. Whatever the image, you know, the people feel. So, um, if you want to wait till Pallavi is here next week, no, sorry, next month, you can do it then. Or if the mural project needs the money now, we can vote on it now. So it's, it's both our options. So I don't think that their mural project is really paint ready. Okay. At this point, I think there's still in the design. So I think that, uh, we can put that off till next month. And I think that all of these, uh, we can consider the real, real trail project. You know what, let's do it all at once less next month. We all know what's going on and, um, you're updated and, uh, we'll give, that'll give, uh, both Pallavi and Mustafa a chance to, uh, update their ideas. Sounds good to me. Yeah. I move. Oh, someone else do this, please. Someone move. Yep. I move that we postpone allocating the discretionary funds till the April meeting. Okay. A second. Yeah. I can second. I second. Okay. All right. I agree. Yeah. Okay. And yeah. Okay. And, um, all right. So now we'll take a vote. Okay. Indian. What's your vote? Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. That's, that's Donna. Sorry. We have to, um, make sure that it's all okay. Yes. Okay. Kevin. Yes. What's your vote? And Charles. Yes. Okay. All right. That's all set. Now we really want to, uh, this one, we've, we really try to have to, have to try to make a move on this. Okay. We have a confirmation of the venue, uh, according to Miriam's email, she has, uh, a schedule on the 17th, which I believe is a Friday. Does that work? And if we, we have to confirm that if we want to get the room on that date. So does that, does that, does that, does that, I can, uh, I can support that. No problem. Okay. So Friday, the 17th April, I can support as well. Very good. Good. Kevin.
Yeah, I can, I can support it. Okay. Charles, how about you make a motion on this one then so that we can, uh, take this vote? Sure. Um, so I would, uh, motion confirmation in favor of the reservation on Friday, April 17th. Okay. Second anybody?
Huh? Uh, before somebody second it, this is for the, um, the, uh, the cultural council. Uh, the grantee reception. That's right. Okay. Yep. Yep. Okay. Uh, I'll second it if nobody seconded it. Okay. Very good. All right. So now we'll take a vote. All right. Uh, uh, Naresh. My vote. Yes. Okay. Donna. Yes. Okay. Kevin. Yes. Indian. Yes. And Charles.
Uh, yes. Thank you. Okay, good. All right. That's all set. All right. Um, no, Oh, no rush. Are you, uh, do we need to, uh, follow up with you at all on the, uh, the reimbursement procedures or are you just taking that? Yeah. What I can do, uh, Marie is, uh, I can make a slide and distribute it to you and the team for looking. I haven't done anything yet with it. Okay. So, so I'm not ready to present today, but, um, I can present it over the, uh, over the mail. Okay. If anyone have objections, then I can change things around, but it's very simple stuff. So there's like two slides. It's, it's nothing big deal. And, and they all have a documentation on how to do it because when they get the grant, uh, they get a notification that this is how you get the reimbursement. So I was just going to, yeah, so it should be innocuous. Okay, good. And, uh, food arrangements, um, I don't think we can do that. I, I know that Pahlavi said, as we did last year, it's likely that we will be contributing to that, I think, um, I, so on this, I think the vote can be on confirming the date and we can move the rest of the, the two, the other two items for finalization whenever we have another meeting. Um, it's going to have to be before the reception anyway. Yeah. So, right. So usually everyone brings some, you know, a plate of cookies or a cake or some drinks or something, whatever they want. Right. It worked out well last year, but I know that. Yeah. Yeah. So our next meeting, if it's the second Wednesday will be the eighth. So that'll be a full week before the 17th. So we have time. All right. So, um, did we, sorry guys. I'm a little, uh, do I need a confirmation vote or do, is that the one we just voted on? Sorry. On the 17th that we voted on that. We already voted on that. Yes. Okay, great. Okay. So that, and then the other two will be, uh, we will deal with at the next meeting. Okay. Is there anything else, uh, that hasn't been, uh, reasonably anticipated by the chair? Anything else at all coming up.
That anybody can think though. I think we're good. All right. Would anybody, uh, make a motion to adjourn at this point?
I'll make a motion that we adjourn at, uh, 733. Okay. 733 motion to adjourn. Second.
I second. Okay. So, um, Charles. Yes. I'm in favor. Okay. Naresh. Yes. I'm in favor. Okay. Donna. Yes. Indian. Yes. Kevin. Yes. And Marie. I vote. Yes. So this meeting is now adjourned and thank you everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.