April 6, 2026 – Finance Committee – Video & Transcript

April 6, 2026 - Finance Committee

Autoscroll:

This meeting is being recorded. It will be made available to the public on WICAM as soon as possible after the meeting. Percement to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with applicable law. One may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found on the calendar tab of the town's home page. Just click on today's date and click on Finance Committee. When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so at the public meeting location or by remote access. Public comment should be related to two minutes per person. So with that, I will, seeing a forum, I'll call the leaders of the committee to order. I'll leave this end in a moment, but I'd just like to make an announcement of my own, which is Phil is back. Sorry to leave everybody in the lurch there for a while. Glad to be back today. Good excuse. Yeah. No more of those, though. The agenda for tonight is to start with public comment and then any member's response. Let's go look at the minutes of March 16th. Thank you, April. The chair of the planning board, Matt Lewis, is here to chat with us about what has now become of Article 25, formerly Article HOFO, which is, for those of you playing our game at home, multi-family housing, Route 20, West Sub-District, to amend the maximum dimensions. Following that, we're going to have, I hope, a really good, at least beginning discussion about what this year on the dance committee was like, what processes we can improve, what recommendations we might come up with for the town, for their side, the town management that has to select for everybody else. And I just skipped one thing. I will, I want to spend a couple of seconds, probably not five minutes, a lot of it, a couple minutes on the project. And, and that is probably it. We will see what happens along the way.
I noticed that Brian Keveney had sent another request for the reserve fund, so we'll vote on that next meeting. Being at the next meeting for two reasons. One, which is, it wasn't on the agenda for tonight, and the second is, honestly, I had no idea what the explanation meant to me. I couldn't make heads or tails out of it, so I've written to him and asked for some more information. Yeah, thank you. So that was going to come up in the, in the topics not reasonably anticipated, but thank you. Um, Robbie, are, are there any members of the public who are calling today? Uh, to no by online. I'm sorry, no. I see no by online. Okay. Um, skip that. Unless it's Louis, if you have a public comment, okay. Then I'll ask you to just hang on for a second. And if we can take a look at those minutes, um, I think we'll thank you. I did send you a couple of, um, very small things, but I didn't want to take up the group's time with, but all those are questions for people. Um, we should move that we, uh, very few minutes, uh, March 16th, as presented. Great. Great. Great. Um, all in favor, you're here. Yeah. We're going to do roll call. Sorry. We do need a roll call, but so I will start, uh, my left. Okay. Yes. April. Yes. Bill. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Rob. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Um, moving on and trying to be efficient, I mean, Ned, if you would go up and join us. Please. I appreciate your, uh, allowing me to come here and putting me on the agenda. I wanted to be here to answer questions that you might have, and also to provide some kind of background for you. Um, I understand that originally he voted 7-0 in favor of the article, and then we changed your mind. So is there a specific reason that he changed your mind so that I can address that? In all candor, I don't remember the original vote, um, but I have no reason to doubt you. I recollect some of the conversation. Do you recollect the conversation? Well, I remember the conversation around why we decided to withdraw it. Correct. Um, if anybody can do a better job than I'm about to do, by all means, I'll jump in. Yeah, this is why we decided to delay our recommendation. So this was one of my articles. Oh, okay. Um, so I can speak to it, um, and I have, um, talked to Ned a little bit about this, but the original article, we were, um, the way, the way we had written it was that the amendments that were being made to the bylaw were in line with how Alta Oxbow was built. Um, and so we all approved it saying yes, and then, um, um, add in between those meetings from the last meeting, um, to when we had approved it, it came to our attention that there was some question of how Alta Oxbow, Alta Oxbow was approved with the height requirement. Um, someone had informed us that it was, or informed me, I should say, that it was a requirement for frontage to be different and that it wasn't the first facing building. I believe that there was a larger frontage required in order to be that high. So we had brought that up because we didn't have a lot of information about it or further details. We decided to defer to town meeting or until we had one room. Um, I just want to start back a little bit. I don't know how many of you followed the MBTA zoning process. Um, but that was a two year effort that we had quite a good, uh, we were lucky enough to get, um, $49,000 rent from the state to pay for a consultant to do the modeling. Um, the state had specific required modeling. That is not intuitive that nobody could do except these consultants that they had available. Um, and, uh, when we started out, our first goal was to make sure that, uh, we would find areas to zone and leave the zone for separate areas. Uh, just, we have to have, um, 50 acres, the zone for multifamily housing and we set out about looking for areas that wouldn't disrupt our existing residential communities. And, uh, the route 20 West was an obvious choice. There wasn't much going on there. It's a limited commercial district. That's the underlying zone. Uh, and we put an overlay on top of it that created, um, the multifamily housing. Uh, 20 West zone. So, um, in doing that, um, I know that there have been documents floating around, um, by members of the EDC, um, and they're not totally accurate. Um, there are currently, and if this happened after we did the zoning, there are four separate lots before there were three separate lots on the rivers and they, excuse me, multifamily housing, uh, route 20 West zone. Um, and, pardon me, with them, um, there are bylaws, as you can, as you can see in what we're proposing, you can see what we had for route 20 West, what we had for river's edge seeing side by side. And I think you, you probably have it still, um, I can send the article around. Okay. Sorry. Um, but what we did was we took river's edge as it was the zone. What river's edge has now is not what the zoning required. We had two separate town meetings to vote on river's edge. Uh, we rejected it the first time because we didn't want more than 190 units. Uh, came back a second time and we said, okay. It's a town town meeting set. Okay. 190, uh, what river's edge has is, uh, 218 units. And it has much higher height than what is allowed in the bylaw in the bylaw. They had 45 feet. Um, and, uh, they actually got variances from the zoning board so that they go up to there's three buildings, um, and they are 63 feet. And then in the rear and one of them, it's 58 feet. Um, but it's questionable whether the variance was legal that they got, they've got it. So they're okay, but it's not clear that anybody else could ever get that kind of variance because there are specific standards. And, um, the one that was used for, uh, river's edge was that, um, the topography was different than other lots in the district, but it's not because that's the only lot in the district. So, and the zoning was created specifically for river's edge. So if somebody had wanted to sue us, they could have. And in addition, um, the people who obtained the river's edge parcel, um, were part of a competitive bid. And in the competitive bid, people were bidding based on what the zoning said, not on getting a variance. That's another issue where we could have been sued, but we're lucky enough not to be. Uh, so when we were doing the zoning, we just looked at what the bylaw required. And that was what we were comparing it to. Um, in the route 20 west subject, well, let me start again. Uh, what the state didn't take into account when it figured out its guidelines and what it wanted was whether or not it was financially feasible to do these developments. It was after that, that, um, we started seeing studies about what you needed to have to be financially feasible and what, what the issues were. So, um, we've seen now several economic feasibility analysis of project costs, revenue, degree of risk, and estimated return. And those factors also determine whether a project can obtain financing at all. And what we've learned is that on larger projects, not necessarily the size of river's edge, but anything, you know, like 16 units or more financing is really an issue. Um, and we put the river's edge, not the river's edge, good word. You put the route 20 west district in the MBTA area because the property owners that back there had been asked, they said, if you do it, we'll build these. Uh, I'm sure they didn't realize at the time what the financing, uh, problems might be. Um, so with that, we decided, well, we really want to get more multifamily housing. It's the most logical place to put multifamily housing. Um, increasing the maximum units per acre to 32 matches what river's edge was in the bylaw. They have more than that, but that's what the bylaw said. And, uh, the maximum height of the building, uh, needed to, to match the financial requirements. The height of the building would need to be 58 feet. Um, the documents prepared by the EDC show buildings. I don't know if you've, you've seen them. I think you have, I think everyone has. They had buildings essentially sitting right on the road. Um, block buildings, no windows. Um, and they said, well, that would be a problem, but they won't sit right on the road because they're the two parcels that front on the road. There is, um, I'm trying to ask 534, which is on the, when you're looking at the site, it's on the left on the Sudbury line. Uh, that is only, uh, two acres and two acres is smaller than, uh, the, uh, minimum. The, well, it's smaller than the two acre minimum. Sorry. It's less than that. It was smaller than the two acre minimum. It's 1.52 acres. So that isn't even eligible unless it's combined with another lot somehow. And that lot of property was just sold to the Sudbury, um, food pantry. And in the near future, it's unlikely that they're going to be developing that or so and take this to the other piece. Right. So the, um, the, uh, there, uh, there's a, a roadway that goes through and that's small as well, and you need it to get back to the, um, Longfellow. Um, then there is, uh, the property behind where the Sudbury community pantry is, is, um, is, is developable. I think it's a 3.1 acres in the rear and that is developable, but it's way back in the site. You know, away from route 20. Um, and, uh, the property that's at, uh, I think it's 526, which is the one when you're looking at it, uh, to the right, when you're looking head on to the right, right next to the landfill and it has a very high embankment in front of it. It can't come down. It has to stay there. Um, and the building would have to go below that, the police and fire, uh, in our regulations, we have bylaw and we have regulations, uh, in creating the bylaw, we tried to keep it as slim as possible because we wanted it to pass muster. Um, and we went a little further with our, uh, our regulations and we had performance standards in them, um, in the, uh, bylaw, we have to have a buffering around properties, uh, particularly along roadways, public roadways. So there will be some buffering there. Um, and then, um, in the bylaw, in a regulation, um, we have a provision that you have to get certification from the fire department concerning adequate access for fire and service equipment. And it would be around the entire building. And we know from having dealt with the police and fire before they want to be able to go around the entire building. So the building will have to be set back. It cannot be sitting right on the road.
Um, let's see, I tried to write notes that I'd have more detail here. Um, the, uh, the bylaw requires a 20% maximum lot coverage. So you can't cover more with a building than 20% of the site. So as you're starting to get into all of this, it becomes clear that in order to do the development at all in this district, you need to be able to have some leeway and it won't impact on the, uh, visual aspect of what would ever go in there. We don't think it would. Um, all of this stuff is very complicated, uh, and difficult. Um, we've gone to, the planning board members have gone to training to learn about the MBTA. We've gone to training to learn about how to be planning board members. We have multiple different kinds of decisions that we have to arrive at, and they all have different criteria and it's not as easy as saying, I like this. This is the best. I mean, we have to really go through the process. In addition, when the project was not the project, the, uh, bylaw was approved, we have a letter from the state and it says that we better be careful. We saw you didn't put your design guidelines in your bylaw. We know you're doing it in regulations, but you better be careful because if you do something that we don't like, we'll be back at you. Um, and it's supposed to be as of right, which doesn't mean that they don't go through a site plan review. They go through a site plan review and then they have to get a building permit. And the site plan review is before the planning board. And when we do site plan review, we try to, uh, direct the developer to do the kinds of things that we're looking to have done.
So, um, the, also, uh, the idea that there would be any kind of amendment to this on town meeting floor is not possible. Uh, it would be a substantial change to what was proposed. It would require, um, submission to the select board, then with the planning board, a public hearing, and then a report from the planning board, and it couldn't be voted on unless it was a report from the planning board. And I just want to add, so the amendment that, um, Annette is talking about is the email that we had received in regards to the Route 20 West from Rebecca Senizzi on 325 that, um, extended or is looking to create a recommendation to amend the article. So that's what Annette is referring to as an amendment on the floor. But even if that were submitted, we'd have to go to the model and statement to be able to propose it. And we don't have money for modeling, none of other things. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you have if I haven't been comprehensive enough. So I think that what I'm hearing is telling you if I'm right or just correct, please, is that the two lots that front Route 20, one is too small to be built on. Under this bylaw. Under this bylaw. It can be built on under its exists under the underlying bylaw, which is limited commercial. Yeah. Okay. Um, but that, that original bylaw wouldn't allow a five to six story building anyway, right? Uh, no. Um, okay. So then, and the other lot is the one that has the large, the big firm, the firm acquire, then it will be either, either pushed back further or below grade or both. Is that fair? Yeah. Both. It, it really is a huge drop off there. If you look at, um, the town's GIS, you can see, uh, contours. And so you can see what it, it is like. And there are trees up there now. Uh, if they aren't sufficient to rock the view, uh, we would require more trees because we're allowed to.
Each article is in the, it's going to be in front of, it's in the war. It's in the war. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People as with a six to zero. No, we ended up deferring. We changed because we didn't have all the information. We heard there was a change and we didn't have all the information. And I didn't have a chance to talk to Annette before all of that. But right now it has no vote one way or the other. So I'm going to take off. Correct. Are you sure likely to be supporting it? Do you know what the opposition was with the select board? Because they voted two, three against. I listened to their tape and I don't want to characterize it. My sense is they thought that they could, um, strong arm whoever the property owner was who would like to do the development and get more of something. That is really not what the MBTA bylaw is about. And I think the state would not be happy, uh, to think that we would be doing something like that.
And really this bylaw is just in response to the state sort of saying you need to codify. Yeah. Right. I mean, we, everything we do, we have an improvement versus now is increasing the, um, number of units per acre and the maximum building height. And in doing that, we have checked with the state already before we submitted the bylaw change to make sure that we would not have to redo modeling because we're not, we're going up. We're not changing any of the groundwork. So we would be creating more units than we would have before.
Is there a financial implication to the town one way or the other? Yeah. You get more money. Right. You get more money in, um, in taxes. Yeah. I, by the way, I just, uh, listened to that, to take that meeting today. I think your characterization is fair. Um, there were some other concerns about whether, you know, the, the fire chief was, was, would be, basically would sign off on it. Um, and you know, my understanding of listening to them is that exactly what you have just said, which is that that would be part of any permitting process. Um, so I think at the end of the day, I think that I would have to agree with that. Um, and Annette did have a memo that I had shared with, I think the committee too, when we first approved it, um, that the fire chief, cause that was one of the select board concerns that I had heard as well, and that we had solved, cause she had a memo from the fire chief saying that. Well, it's from the department, from the person in charge of doing it, Mr. Ripley. Uh, they, um, they told us that the, uh, equipment can go up to a hundred feet. So not to, to worry about that. I know that the fire chief is always concerned about any large construction project, but if we have to build multi-family housing, it's going to be a large construction project. And, um, at Alta where he's having difficulty, it's because there's one elevator in that for each building, and it's a very big complex. So that, um, if somebody's going up and down or people are moving in and out, police and fire can't get in there fast enough to get emergency people out. Where I, at the time that that was approved, uh, I actually as an individual citizen objected and said, I think you need to have two elevators. You can't just have one elevator per building. So we would push for, you know, more than one elevator and easy access. What is just generally the approval process? Like if someone were to come and say, we want to build X building, who, who reviews it? The planning board. Um, we have a whole bylaw and we have a whole set of regulations. They're available online under our, on our webpage. Um, uh, when you go to our webpage, left-hand side, MBTA is a link for the MBTA stuff and everything that's in there. And so they've come to the planning board. There's a whole, um, an application process. It says what they have to give us. Um, and, uh, you're going to go, I don't know. No, I just, it was just sort of generally, is it, it's the planning board. It sounds like the fire chief needs to sign off. Everybody gets to, when we do site plan approval, um, all of the, uh, land use, uh, departments, including fire and police and DPW get a copy of the application. They have 30 days to review it and get back to us. Um, and then we have a hearing, uh, I noticed hearing, um, and we started doing the documents and, uh, have usually an outside consultant, uh, an engineering consultant that assists, you know, we issue the decision. It's usually several hearing processes, not just for sessions, not just one. So, no, I guess my question is really if, if there were whatever proposed plan, you know, would people on the public have opportunity to weigh in? Right. But it's different the kind of things that we can do, um, in response to public comment, um, for site plan are different than what we can do in response to public comment for special permits, special permits are created by state statute. Um, and there's a whole special provision of what you can consider and what you can't, and you can impose a lot of conditions. I mean, you've got special permits, when you're dealing with site plan, you can't promote and host each conditions, but you can impose conditions on, for example, construction. Uh, you have to do it between this hour and that hour. Uh, no construction, uh, on Saturdays and Sundays, uh, deliveries of X, Y, some time, batch pickup at X, Y, some time, that kind of thing.
Um, my last question is, thank you. The, I'll call it not a good formula. Well, that's the, that's too small, right? It's about a bigger and a half. Yeah, I think it's, why is it that we're, we're confident that can't be combined with some other? It could, except that it, this was just sold. It originally, um, uh, 534 Boston Post Road, which included the small lot in the front and went back further and took in the rear part of the lot. Um, it was, uh, subdivided, uh, after the bylaw was adopted and, uh, it was purchased by the community, um, through bank and it could, but I, since they just purchased it in 2024 and they've been looking for a long time in the near future, I think it would be really unlikely that they would move. Also, when you're building a building, you're not just building a building, you have to have parking and surface parking or maybe underground, but I think there it would probably be surface. And we also have to have, um, wastewater capacity. And that's the toughest thing that we have in Wayland. Um, and it's not really near wastewater treatment plant. It would probably be too big to be accepted to the wastewater treatment plant because I don't think there's enough capacity right now for it. Um, and they have to put in some kind of a septic system or treatment plant depending on how big, uh, their usage is. So they need to have space to do that as well.
Thank you. Any questions or for anybody else?
Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope you'll support it. Thank you very quick update on the NWRI project. April 2nd, maybe you've heard this elsewhere, but on April 2nd, the appeal failed. Um, and, uh, apparently the, I don't have any documentation on this, but I'm, uh, just one email that said that the, the reasoning was not clear and the the, uh, scoring of the application didn't change. So there, you know, the select board and the for the public works are now looking at, they're getting to look at conventional bond financing and some other alternatives that would not be alternatives is the wrong word. Some other supplements that would perhaps reduce the amount of, that we'll actually have to borrow. That's all I can tell you at this moment, but I just wanted to make sure you knew that, that, that, that appeal has run its course tomorrow with their public meeting infrastructure assessment, which is
yeah. I'm actually not going to be able to make that meetings, but if anybody, I will watch it of course later on, but if anybody is wants to be there, it'd be lovely. Um, um, it's on, it's online. It's on zoom and in this building or at the, in the building, probably in the larger room. I don't know. Okay. I don't know if it's just intentional building. You made my job a lot easier when you sent the email making some, you know, some quick observations about what we did and, uh, what we might do differently next time. Um, I don't have a speech prepared. I don't have a viewpoint on this necessarily, except that. I, I found that doing the work of a budget and 52 articles, which I know, you know, I know that the number came down. Um, and even before it goes back, I think it was a little bit more overwhelming. Um, and what, um, what suffered there for me, my attention to the budget that seems backward to me, but that's what happened. So one thing I would like to see us to figure out a way to separate those two projects in time. I mean, this is Bill's idea, but it's something I would very much want to see. Um, and, and really look at, you know, where we're adding value and what, you know, what, what we should be doing, you know, I don't know that they, um, you know, that was my idea. I know what they, I know what the, the, uh, town code says, but we're supposed to write a report on this article. The company is pretty much up to us. Um, you know, as, as you all know, we actually have final say over the report too, for every article. Um, but, but you might ask whether each, or even the financially, you know, uh, significant artists need a page, a point page and three or four comments on each one. I don't know if the answer is, but I'd like to throw that out there for you all to think about. Um, um, before I jump too far ahead, you know, the select board does intend to hold a meeting in the near future, uh, with us and probably with, uh, uh, the, uh, the town manager, but not probably, I'm sure it's the town manager and the landscape or maybe others, uh, what we can all do to make this process better. So if, um, if you have ideas, um, that is great. Um, if you have observations, complaints, whatever it is, you know, here's our opportunity to start thinking about that. I mean, following up on what you just said, I mean, we, we focused a lot on benchmarking, you know, last year, uh, but it was benchmarking, you know, town parameters, I mean, benchmarking how people do town meetings, how other finance committee, committees operate might be useful too. I mean, uh, I, um, you know, I actually happened to just picked up the, uh, the Lincoln, you know, articles and how they do it and it's different. So, uh, I think educating ourselves on other alternatives, you know, makes sense.
Um, I think one of the things that is challenging and I would be interested to get select forward and the town manager's take on this is there are times where we do a write-up because there's a financial implication and we have to explain it to the public, right? And there are times where we do a write-up because there might be a financial implication, but the truth of it is we're doing it really is the courtesy to, I would argue, the town to make sure to give, um, an article really an opportunity to be expanded upon, upon, really what is the article getting at? Um, and I think that in, in that secondary population of articles, it is really tough to ascertain if it is the role responsibility of the finance committee member to put forth an argument that is representative of various viewpoints or if it's really meant to be balanced and unopinionated, you know what I mean? Like I find, and I imagine maybe, maybe other people may or may not agree, um, but I find those articles to be the most challenging because, um, I can speak for myself. You want it to be a collaborative process. You want to make sure you're doing justice to why someone would submit an article. But at the same time, the person who is a proponent for that article is not going to have an unbiased opinion, right? They're not going to have that balanced perspective. And so I think it's, it is challenging to sort of come at what is the goal of that write-up and, and how do we maybe be reasonable? You know what I mean? Because you're spending a lot of time on this. I agree with that. Yeah. But I guess I would even ask and take it one step further and ask why should that be income? Right, right. That's my point. Somebody, I think somebody needs to put together a clear plain English statement of what each article is about. But if it's not a financial article, why is it us? Right. I, I agree. I think that's my point, Carl. Like trying to understand, like, what do you want us to do with these articles where, like, it's pretty clear that the meat and potatoes of the article is not financial or financial impact. And so it seems like we've done it because perhaps we've historically done it. But I, I would like, those are the ones that we're spending the most time on, I believe. Like, I can speak for myself, those are the ones I'm spending the time on. It's not the financial, sorry, the financial ones, you can sort of get at the heart of relatively quickly. I would add to that, that I think that, and Rob might agree with me on this or not, because we had articles that seemed to go on for right now. And there was so much background that we were not aware of. Like, there was, there's been a lot of discussion about some of the articles that came up that slacked for DPW, a lot of people have been assessing for years. And there's been such a huge backlog, but we don't get any of that information until you start the write up. And then it's like, oh, well, no, you need to talk to this person. And it's like, wait a minute, like, where is all that information? And why didn't we get that? Especially with like, if town council had already been involved, or if there had been other discussions, I think the background or a lot of the history would have helped a lot. And even the laws around things of like, what we're allowed to do and what we're not allowed to do would be very helpful. Because that was something I know Rob and I were challenged with. It's like, well, what does this say? But I still, I think to me, your challenges still fall under the same question that I think we're all asking of like, why, why are we getting at the heart of that as opposed to having something? But some of the articles that we had would cost the town significant amount of money, right? We were in the process of potentially losing grants. And there, there was some things that it's like, I could see the financial impact. And what I kept hearing from select board was, these are petitioner articles, we need to do the due diligence specifically for petitioner articles, to make sure that we are looking at everything. And we're not just saying there's no financial impact and kind of like, they don't want us to wipe our hands of it, they wanted it to have a full review. As I reflected on this and Bill's helpful email, to me, staff support rose to the number one issue. And I would want that to help on all of this and to actually have FinCom, be able to review a draft that the staff person has already assembled all the background information and, and put together what might be a draft article that could go forward. And then, and then the FinCom role isn't creating that as much as it is being a sounding board for it. But also that relates to the budget issue and the fact that, you know, in some years, we've gone much earlier into budgeting questions, and often with very preliminary data. And it's like, then we're redoing it like multiple times, which doesn't feel particularly productive. I, I, I, on that piece, I, I, I do agree, just to start with your initial point that some staff help on, especially the petitioner articles, where there's, there were so many unknowns, and, and there was a lot of, I mean, Robin, April, and like, that there were, there are a number of those where you're, you're kind of, you know, you start to unravel something, and you find something else, and you better at that. And there's, there's just so much to do that it really would be helpful to have, you know, sort of a base set of information, and just kind of, you know, write the pros and cons related to that, and kind of do a couple checks. But starting with the whole ball of wax and not even knowing what you're getting into is, it's just, that's, that's a lot to ask, especially this year, with the timing of everything else. On the second piece, with the budget, like,
it was a unique year, in, in that we didn't get any of the capital stuff until late. Typically, the capital budget is something we work on in the fall. And really, that was just a function of the CIPC getting started, and they have a lot of work to do in order to, to make a recommendation to us. So that should, should, that process should correct itself next year, and looking forward. I guess I would just wonder, I don't know that town management spent a lot of time with the CIPC process, is, at least that's how it felt to me. And for, and I would encourage town management to spend a lot of time with CIPC. Agreed. And have that done up front, because I think CIPC, they have to have a report by, I don't remember what's in the list, October 15th? October 15th. Right. So, October 15th. So, it, I would hope that town, town manager, the town manager, and sign board, right, so that they can present to FinCom, so that that's something that we can look at in, you know, November, December, before, before we get to the, to the operating. And the operating this year, you know, it was the operating budget, and the school's budget was late. It, every, it seems like we've been pushing later, and this year was as late as I've seen it. And it, it just exacerbated everything. So, I, I, we are, of course, Phil's comment on staff support. I mean, I don't know that we have to decide, like, now exactly what they would do, but I think there's a lot of clerical tasks that would chew up a lot of our time. And I guess I'm the repository of what other people do. I mean, being on the energy committee, there are two staff members who come to every meeting, who take minutes, who produce the agenda. We don't have to go that far, but, you know, other committees have staff support, and ours doesn't, and ours seem to be an important committee, so why wouldn't we have more staff support? Staff support, and I, I think just, you know,
us as a committee, but I think, you know, the town manager, finance director, I mean, things were later this year. There, there may be exceptions in certain years, but we need to get back on ground. Yeah, more things up. Yeah, I, the other one for me is, and we touched on it a bit with a little bit of benchmarking, like, but there's a huge communication challenge in front of the town for financial decision making going forward, that I think we need to really take it on as how to, you know, educate all of us, and as to what the, the options are going to be, and the choices as we start getting to override country with, you know, how badly that's going for so many other towns, and so it's like even more work. Just, you know, a quick sort of two-minute report, and I'm not recommending it, but in reading through the, the, the Lincoln approach, what they, they have a finance committee report very similar to what we did, that long report that you did. They had a chapter to the end of that, which was, what are all the articles that have financial implication? What's our position on it? There is no pros and cons, uh, on any of the articles, uh, no write-up on any of the articles, other than the article itself, but they include a chapter in the finance committee's report, and it summarizes the important articles that have financial income. Anyway, that's just one data point. Does it give the FinCon vote as a recommendation or not? They just, the FinCon endorses the entire report, and the report sort of says, here are the articles that are important to pass in order to be, you know, to have the budget, uh, but they don't do a voter on each article. They sort of just endorse the overall report. I'm encouraging, like, my two cents is, um, that I'm supportive of anything that removes us from certainly an administrative burden in order to continue to focus on sort of the raison d'etre for this committee, which is the finance, like the financials, right? And so in my mind, part of that is we need to see capital, ideally the effort, like we need to see those earlier. And I, having done it twice, one of the things that was really different this cycle versus the previous cycle is we didn't meet with every department head. And, and I actually really liked that. Having now seen both, I think at the last minute, we still had, I can speak for myself, I still had capital questions, and I know that those departments were doing their best to get us answers, but we really were under the kinds of a sink of like trying to make the right decisions. And I think that's tough. I think that really puts us in a tough spot of balancing between wanting to be supportive of all the efforts that everyone has put in. But simultaneously, our job is oversight, financial oversight. And if I can't really get answers to every single question I have, how much financial oversight is there really? And that's where I think it all starts to fall apart. Like, that is why I just, that to me would be something that I would like to see again. I realize that that's an effort, but that's sort of my goal. Well, and I thought that we spent, I mean, whether it be department heads or the capital committee coming or whatever, I think we had a lot of meetings where we were talking to ourselves. And even if they're not finished, just educationally, have them come where, you know, how they're going, what are you working on? What are the issues that you're thinking about? You know, I think just having guests at our meetings would be really helpful, you know, to get us prepped for what we're going to get in January, February, March. I also, yeah, one of the things that I know I floated in the past that touches on a couple themes here, right? I think, you know, we were talking about the articles and the budget and the relative focus. I think I also probably focused more on articles than budget in some cases, because articles were an individual responsibility, right? If I didn't do my articles, they didn't happen. If I didn't do the budget, or pay quite as close attention, there were lots of other people looking at it. Something I think I floated is the idea of doing some amount of divide and conquer in the context of the budget, right? So different members of the committee having not sole, but kind of primary responsibility for some section of either the operating or the capital budget, which I think one moves that a little bit more towards that individual responsibility of, hey, I'm responsible for answering questions about public works budget. And if I don't understand all that stuff, you know, no one else, the committee is not going to be as informed. And I also think to the point about working more closely with, you know, with the department heads and things like that, that it might be more practical to, again, do some of that divide and conquer where different members of the committee are working more, more closely with different department heads, and bringing some of that back, versus sort of having everyone work with every department head.
Well, I guess that I don't think this would be a, you know, person X is the only person who looks at this section of the budget. But it just might be a, a way to move things along a little more quickly. And then again, kind of put a little more of that individual responsibility around the budget, versus just kind of, everybody's responsible for everything.
I think that's, that's not a bad thought to kind of have some focus areas. So you become a little bit more expert, expert, and you work on that for a year or two, and you kind of pass it along. So that everyone learns. The other, the other point to note is that technically, and with the town manager act, most of our questions are, we're supposed to be going through the town manager versus going directly to department heads. It really is sometimes helpful to hear from the department heads. So that's just something, a conversation I think we're going to maybe want to have in the future. And if we can work with, I think in some cases, it's really helpful to hear directly from, you know, public works or, and definitely the schools. The schools is a huge part of the budget. And we didn't spend nearly as much time as we probably should have this year, just given time constraints. But I think we have those superintendent in for one meeting, we attended one of their meetings, but there was, there was a lot more that, you know, we could have gotten into, um, with another meeting. But I think some of the, just having some of those conversations, um, I guess, going through the town manager and if we can coordinate, I think that would be helpful and having, you know, a little bit more time to do that. I agree with that. I think that we want to be doing that in the fall, or a third of January. Yeah, I think that makes sense. And then if we get the details. If something happens, you get a budget and you're given 30 days or 15 days to approve it. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I think the pushback we'll get when we have is that, hey, we're not ready to talk to you yet. It's like, that's okay. Let's just talk about the challenge. Let's just talk about the challenges, you know, what, what, what you're starting, like you can have a conversation without them feeling they have to be finished with something. Let's talk about the 27 budget and how that's going. Right, right. Exactly. It's building the relationship. It isn't like we're expecting a final output, you know, when they meet with us.
One other thing that upon the budget itself, we did get,
I think you disagreed with me on the, on the, uh, characterization, but we got what was described as a preliminary budget on December 30th per town code. Um, I got it. The committee didn't. I did not. The committee didn't get it. Or you got it. No, not at all. But, but I'm just, so, but. Understood. Okay. Yeah. Just let's see. The reason I think you did actually send it out a few days later, but I was told in writing not to spend any time on it because it was too pro-married by Brian Kevin. And I wouldn't say that publicly except that that's what happened and it's out there. So we didn't, we actually tried to, you know, I tried to put together a meeting while Phil was out of the country. Um, yeah, couldn't get a forum together on short notice. Um, and so we could, that we did not. What I've been told, um, by, um, by a member of the select board is that that was probably a mistake. That, that there was enough in there that we really could have started a month earlier. Right. And, you know, and, uh, I, I basically, maybe I was naive, but I took that, that email from, um, Brian to heart and said, okay, let's, let's wait till we got something in there. You know, it's more, it's closer. Yeah. I, I think saying preliminary is good. We want to see preliminary. Well, just to be clear, there were three numbers that were known at that point. One was healthcare and that could have been. Which always comes. I understand. But that could have been a five or $10 million swing, um, from where, you know, worst case to what happened, the other state support. And that was similarly a $10 million plus potential swing. But every, every year it's in the same, that it's, that's the same situation. We, we don't get those numbers until mid, like end of January. Understood. Understood. So, but there's, there are lots of other things you can look at and then just sort of assume like steady state aid. And then if you get a little more, if you get less, which we have, it's possible. I mean, at the original, original budget budget, I forget how it was 10 or 12% for it. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I think that was it. Right. Most certainly going to be a high, you know, I know that, but it's almost certainly. So if that's true, then it's not like you're going to have to redo the entire budget. Correct. To, well, we are slashing when it comes in at a higher number. Right. So, so right. Right. And those aren't the questions that necessitate meetings. Look, we don't have meetings because we have questions about healthcare premiums, right? Those come from Metro West Suburban. Like, we have the questions about, Hey, we saw the IT budget increased a hundred grand, and we also noticed the additional capital. We need to talk about that. Right. So that's, then we lose time because we don't have the chance to get, you know, all the answers that we would like. So, and there may be a parallel argument with the articles. I mean, I, I'm sure we get 52 articles plop all at once. There's gotta be some of them that are done earlier. And it's like, give us articles as they come off the press. Don't wait until you have to gather all 52 together and give us the whole package. Like the standard articles. Right. Absolutely. Standard articles you probably have in the fall. I mean, so at least it gets us, you know, a little bit of a head start. I also don't know on the petitioner article side, this might've been more me, but I felt like there were some petitioner articles where the petitioner probably could have used more support earlier in the process of kind of understanding the, the article process and drafting the article. And it was a little unclear. One, I felt wildly unqualified to support that. And two, it wasn't really clear if that was kind of, you know, my job or what latitude I had to support some of that by the time we were involved in the process. I don't, I know sort of the article workshop and kind of the, our involvement in the article process feels like it's mostly, it's pretty close, right? Like the gap between when the finance committee gets involved and when articles need to be finalized, I don't think is huge or the article text, which is our write-ups. I don't know if there's an opportunity for the town to start the article process for petitioners earlier, even if the finance committee isn't involved to try to make sure that by the time the finance committee is involved, some of those things are more baked than again to, I guess, to April's point. Like there were legal questions about what some of the articles even meant that persisted after our write-ups were supposed to be done. You know, probably the town could have identified that that was a problem and tried to resolve those earlier. Yeah, sure. Well, I know there are deadlines, you wait, but that doesn't tell you when you're smart. Yeah. Right. So there's got a reason I can think of that other than bandwidth that they couldn't start that process. Yeah. I mean, just playing devil bad get on that. I agree. I agree wholeheartedly, Rob, like in terms of ideally more support, I imagine, I'm not sure if that's actually going to resolve some of these issues we see. Like I know that the article I received apparently was on its ninth version. I received the ninth version and then I still did probably six to seven drafts on top of that. So, you know, I guess if I were to prioritize our requests and sort of the things that we think might have the greatest impact, I would say probably some town support to pick up some of the administrative efforts to then be able to refocus our efforts on the budget and the actual financials and then doing that earlier. I think those are the biggest things. And then because I guess my point Rob is like, I suspect with some of those petitioner articles, some of the confusion and swirl might just be part for the course, even even with more support. Yeah, I'm I think that's definitely true for some of them. I think some of them might get better, but fair point.
Well, I mean petitioner articles, I mean, I know there's like all the discussion about, but I think I kind of heard a little of people wanted to make tweaks, like once they've submitted their their article, that's the article, unless they make a change and they get all the signatures again to make that change. Because I think people were tempted and oh, like I'll just I'll just change my, you know, the petitioner article. But once it's been submitted, I mean, we can't really go back and make a lot of tweaks unless we go through the whole process again. Yeah. And I think I guess I said maybe if I wasn't clear, I think some of those petitioner articles felt like they were arriving not as baked as they should have. And then like you say, there's a point at which it becomes too late to fix that. So we're kind of trying to work around, it was like we were kind of trying to work around the fact that there should have, yeah, that we couldn't change it, and that it wasn't kind of baked enough when we got it. And that was kind of my point of like, if, if we start the article, you know, submission process earlier, and those can be a little more baked before we say, hey, this is the article text that's set in stone. I think Iris is totally right that like, that's not going to solve everything. There will be some things that are still problems, right? But I think it might be a hopefully a relatively low impact option to hopefully solve some of them. I thought we did, you know, make a good first cut at going through and identifying some that were, I mean, there were more that he didn't comment on that do not have financial implications than we've had. So I think that was nice to be able to take like at least, you know, a dozen or, I don't know, eight to 10. I don't remember exactly how many it was, but we took the number off the board to start, which was, I think that was helpful. Just having started with 52, kind of reduce the number divided by, by six, which I usually writes. One thing I think, you know, so it's not just for the town. I think we need some better procedures too in this committee. You know, I rock rock cried out for some help, pretty late in the game, said, you know, nobody ever told me how to do an article right on right. And, you know, I think that's a mistake. So, um, especially given the articles you've had, right, if you would, if you would add as standard. I think that also, to be fair, right, part of that was because there was that confusion where two articles that we initially thought maybe we weren't going to do write-ups on then relatively late in the game, suddenly we were. So things that I had thought, oh, I don't need to look at this that closely because we already decided we aren't going to do a write-up on it suddenly. But yeah, I think, and we kind of talked about that at the last session, right? I think, um, having a bit more of a guide for that and just some sort of framework would be a good idea. It also probably didn't help that I joined kind of weirdly off-cycle for the committee.
I think in the past we've, like, the newest person or the newest people have been assigned some of the these more standard articles that are, you know, there's less.
I admit it before, and I apologize for the loss of the favor. Didn't they just look back to it? Yeah, you did us a favor. And the, at least in part, didn't seem big financially yet, so. So we did, you know, it didn't end up being a huge obstacle, but we had some changes in what our procedures were going to be in terms of what we write up. That's the second piece of that. Yeah, if there's non-financial, you know, well, sometimes we still need to write up something, and what would that be? I think getting that in order ahead of time would be helpful. Again, it didn't, we kind of muddled through it, and it wasn't a huge obstacle, but, but, you know, I ended up just sort of waiting. I figured I'll do it the way I think, and if it's not right, somebody eventually would tell me. I was never 100% sure I was doing it the right way. But we need a process, Luzia. That's what's good. Yes. That's what we'll do, my friend.
Yeah, that's exactly right, we do.
These are, I mean, at least within the committee, these are things we could be working on, um, I'll say off-cycle from an after-town meeting and another good healthy break. So start thinking about those issues and trying to get, make sure not only we, but it's like we're on board with whatever we decide, or we're on board with whatever they tell us we have to do, but we shouldn't be waiting until January and February to get out again. Um, um, you know, I think another theory that, you know, I keep looking at things and saying, okay, so what makes, you know, aside from, from complying with town code, what are we doing here? Right. And, and so if you're trying to make the, and I know we are, we are trying to make things better. That's why anybody would volunteer for any of these committees. Um, one of the things we had talked about early on and then dropped when things got hot and heavy with the, um, with the, with the budget and the, the articles was the idea of improving the information available to the town on our website. Um, and I'm not suggesting anybody drop the ball here, but that's something I'd love to go back to in the off seat. And, and you know, so that, you know, it's amazing how difficult is to find things, you know, they're not there. So, this is one where I would turn to a Stafford that could just take that, um, well, I think would be our responsibility to say that could be very doable.
Yeah. I think that'll be, you know, our next step. I think this has been a really helpful and useful brainstorming of some real good ideas. And the next step is always implementation, you know, carrying it to the select board or carrying it to, to my verbal or whatever. It's like, so that, you know, every month we don't come back and say, well, how are things coming? Well, we haven't done anything yet, but it's, you know, it's still a good idea. So I think it's really thinking about, okay, who do we talk to and how do we get this done at this point? I think the other thing that would be sort of interesting, I know, um, we've thought a lot about education, communication to the public. The other sort of thing that, um, I think we have previously discussed a little bit, but thinking about things to maybe do or consider as maybe just an exercise for the summer. I think about taking some of the demographic information we have about the town and almost creating like personas of like people who are in town and like really, yeah, I see Rob, like you're on board, right? Like really having these different personas to say, right, like, so median age is 45, right? That's a married person who's 45 and they got two kids and their two kids are, uh, under the age of 10 and they're in the public schools and this is their median income and this is their median house value. And here's what they're paying in taxes. And maybe here's a couple of things of what they're looking for in community. And then, okay, the next sliver is 65. And here's what that persona is looking for. And here's, I think that might help in my mind, just a little bit of, as we continue to have financial conversations of trying to balance everyone's needs and, and think about the impact to different people to, you know, I know that's maybe a fairly product management perspective, but that is the perspective I suppose that I bring. And in my mind, that would help me as we think about communication out to different populations and, and just taking into account what different populations and again, personas in town probably really care about and where they're being hit the hardest or, or, um, potentially impacted the most. So it's just a thought.
I'm all for that. I don't know how you do it. Make it, make these just, you know, more statistically significant. Um, um, I look around the room. I think we have those avatars sitting at the table. I think the question for that point is how, how representative these avatars are, right? Because to your point, usually that process starts with statistics, right? It starts with, okay, you know, what are the populations within the different age brackets and what are the averages among those groups, right? And then you kind of transition that more and more towards, towards these personas. Um, but I think I, those very much on my mind to the point when we talk, we're talking about the communications, right? Like at some point, I think there needs to be a chart of right. Who, who do we think the main audiences in the town are and where can we communicate to them? Because there are people who read the Wayland post and there are people who read the school committee newsletter. And there are people who, you know, read the bulletin board outside the dog park they're going to put at the town center, right? Um, and those might be different audiences who we want to, who one, we want to make sure we reach them all. And two, we might want to reach them with different messages based on, you know, what we think their financial, um, existing financial knowledge is. It's also an issue that isn't unique to our committee. So, I mean, I'm thinking this is, the select board would have the same question. The, the planning board would have the same question. You know, so maybe there's a little bit more of a, of a town-wide sort of, you know, market research into creating the avatars rather, and you don't want each committee having their own sort of research into that. Anyway, just brave. I'm not sure how it would be done, but other people are going to have the same issue of other committees. We tried to do that. Um, when we were, I don't remember which thing it was you were working on, but we tried, oh, I know, the RAP report. We tried to do that. And what we found was that all the databases were so very different that we could, we couldn't find one to rely on. Because what we have in our town report is different than what the state has, different things, and then it's different than what the school has. And it, it became very difficult, but it's a great idea that something can be done. Well, somehow the senior tax release committee, that might not be the proper names, but they, they came up with the number of people they thought were eligible, the number of families that were eligible for the, for the, um, uh, tax release. I don't, don't know how they did that, but I would be really curious. I mean, I think that's what it, let's assume it's accurate. I think it's really good information. And, you know, I don't know how many 45-year-old couples that are in town with two kids in the school. It's my idea. Yeah. Right. So is that 10 people? Is it 2,000? Right. Housewives? I don't know. Yeah. And that's, that would be useful to me.
That doesn't tell you how they think. No. Just knowing. No, but I, I, drilling down just more demographic information in general. And I don't know if you're going to find like the typical this and the typical that, but, but just to have a, a better sense of, of the composition of the town, I think would be helpful. Sure. And, and figuring out how to, you know, relate each out. Yeah. Well, and to, you know, just distribute information, um, you know, what's the most effective way to each group like this. I think that, that's what would be helpful. I, I just, I'm not going to be here, but, um, there, there are a lot of challenges kind of looking at as, you know, as we're looking at overrides and trying to sort of distill information, relay information, inform, educate, like, um, so I think the other challenge is just trying to figure out what's manageable and trying to, you know, achieve those goals. It's all the street list, um, that the town, all it keeps, which the published one, uh, evidently just has who is registered to vote. Um, but there's a big one that has, I think, who's registered to vote and who lives here. Um, and it, it's part of the census and so they put it together and that has the year of birth. So you can take that. She has the data and I think you can sort it so that you could get at least the basics. And then there might be a way to cross that data with the school data because the schools have a list as well of who all the parents are, who all the kids are. But the schools include many people who don't live here. That's part of why this list is different, right? So the schools are obligated. For example, if you, right, like there's the homeless population, there's a bunch of populations that are required that, that are, would be in the schools that are not. There's a, there's a report that the schools do every year that, um, how many kids in each grade, how many come from outside of Wayland, uh, how many are in the Medco program, so that you can, you can separate them out. And now that people have good computer skills, which I don't. Um, there's probably a way to program that and get it out. Um, on that note, okay, I'm sorry, this is a little bit, I don't know if I'm going to ask this. Who all is up for? I was going to ask the same thing because I'm like, is there a way to put, oh, I have a warranted sign at the time meeting. Fine. It's going to be, because I know how many positions, me and Pam, you know, because my appointment is up. Mine's up. Mine's up. Mine's up. That's three. Yeah. And there's, well, I think the one that they slotted me into, and I just said I was going to do one, you know, until town meeting. So, um, but I need to, no, to, okay, to, to formally and people, but we've got a We've got a few. Basically. I've made my first slide. And for everyone's knowledge, I have decided to not continue. Okay. So there's five of us. And I've let my and Carol.
Okay. And Rob and Bill, you guys have multi-years. You're. So they tell me. Two more years. Chair, co-chair. Could be a two-person meeting. I have a few more years. Hi. Well, anyway, that's another topic. Unless I have a nervous breakdown in the meeting. I can't say stuff like that.
Um, I'm going to let that go until the staff meeting and after a little bit of a break before I decide what I'd like to do. I'm also undecided. I sent you a new mouth. I volunteered to pick up the, pick up the slack over the weekend. Although no one ever called you. No, no. First of all, I need to do it. Oh, okay. I will honor all the guests.
When, uh, the, um, the, just for the weekend coverage, I had volunteered. But it sounds like you made me to it. So thanks, Pam. So is there a way at town meeting to be able to, I'm just wondering, right? Right? Like to do like a public service announcement about that. Like, if you want to be involved, I think it's the great email to say, if you want to say it all. There's some seats on this committee that are available. You know, I also think it's a way to leverage the points that Phil had in terms of getting staff support. It's like, you know, people are not going to join because they're aware of how hard the workload is. And it's like the staff support will help in recruiting people. And we are in need of recruiting people now. So please give us the staff support. And we'd use that argument. I think it's a very good argument. And it's true.
And is there an email that comes out to ask about whether we're going to re-up? Or do we have to send an email in? Because I'm about to send my email right now. I would guess that whoever's in charge of that right now is not thinking about that because they're trying to get to and through town meeting. But, um, so I think the committee appointing board is Sherry, Carol, and Miranda. Correct. I think it's the three people. Oh, it's Miranda. Okay. I think so. It is. It's the moderator. Okay. But yeah, I just, I don't know whether they would be proactive and ask or whether... Yeah. I had a conversation with Carol about this. Yeah. Put it on her agenda. But I don't know what actions she's going to take. Last year I asked Peyton to stay along. It's how that happened. So I guess you have a potential pool of previous members. I mean, I don't know if any of them would be interested in coming back or really want them back, but I don't even know who they are, but that would be, uh, another potential. Yep. Yep. I've tried that before, but it's, they weren't, again. And you're going to leave. She's like, primitive. So being undecided myself, I can only look at the people who apparently are going to stay on for a few more reasons and say, call your friends and stack the deck. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Who do you want to work with? Yeah. I mean, well, and actually, you know, thinking about it, you know, and asking friends with people I know, the more I can tell them that we're resolving some of the stress and time problems, the more I can be convincing. Otherwise they'll say, what was it like? And it's like, man, you wouldn't believe it. Have we exhausted this for today, Gary? Unanticipated topics? Topics not reasonably unanticipated? Correct. Whatever that is. I have one. Um, we gave the snake book, Brooke dam grant. Okay. I had a question about this. So I recollect, and maybe I'm wrong, that we had previously
given appropriations, no, for that work in the $1.4 million. With expectation that that, um, grant would come through. With the expectation that the grant would come through. So what happens now? So the grant effectively pays back those appropriations. And where does that money go? I don't think the money has been spent at all. It was sort of always expecting to get the grant. I'm not sure what happens to the appropriation part, but I don't think the money's been spent. My sense was that we've had money appropriated and we were still waiting for this grant. So it, I think we needed all of that money in order to pursue the appropriation and the grant. I don't think so. That's not what I understood. I understood that the appropriations were equivalent to the grant money that we were expecting. I would, if possible, I can send Brian an email. I just wanted to understand what happens. It probably would be good to clarify. Yeah. Like, I, because I think we need all of that, but let's, okay, let's do it here. Was that an appropriation last year? It was last year. Okay. Phil, Phil abstained because he was unclear about whether the money was needed. Yeah, that, that's distinctly why our vote, and so that's when it, when we heard the news, I was like, oh, I wonder what happens to that money. So I would just like to understand now that it's sort of full circle. So I'm looking at Flaskins' Warrant and the capital budget, it was in for $1.4 million. Which is the same amount. Which is the same amount. And again, the write-up. I think it was in capital budget until the, until the grant was confirmed. Trying to remember the write-up. I think I did. Then like, what happens? Do we just like basically strike out that money? We don't borrow against it. So, so it's just a debt service will be reduced in the future? No, we hadn't borrowed. We hadn't borrowed. We hadn't. We hadn't. We hadn't optimized it. It was appropriated. I see. So, so it can just go back to other capital projects. The source of the appropriation. So, the appropriation. So effectively, for other capital. So, the $1.4 million. Indeed, we don't need it.
Yeah, that's, see, like this is, I'm so curious.
I don't think it was borrowed. I don't think it was ever borrowed. According to the warrant, it was the source of funds was receipts reserved from a for sale and real estate fund. But it could be a transfer. So, again, it would just be lovely to know because I just want to make sure whatever, I would like to know what's happening with $1.4 million.
And in an ideal world, maybe it just all gets struck and everything goes down 1.4. But if that money is now sitting somewhere else and can be spent on something else, I would love to also understand that because in my mind that impacts sort of how I think of the appropriations and what we're actually agreeing to. I do understand our federal delegation was quite helpful in actually getting the money out of FEMA, which is not automatic.
So I have the memo on this. I can flip it over to you. They just show the two different options from the conservation department, but the total project was $2.88 million. $1.4 million was the grant. And then there was a town match in ARPA funds. It would be good to hear an update, too, just to know where, you know, but they'll be right in my mind. Yeah. Well, and what, you know, if that estimate has changed. Yeah.
I think there are only other topics that were not reasonably anticipated by me are that given that we've been asked to approve our transfer from the reserve fund by Brian, the one you mentioned earlier,
and perhaps to continue this discussion and take our vote on article 25, I'd like to meet again in pretty near future, maybe next Monday, if you can get a forum. So for article 25 with that, and just a transfer request and. Okay. I'm comfortable voting on article 25 tonight. Okay. It's not on agenda. Oh, I understand. Okay. Thank you. Fine. I don't think you didn't have a vote on there. No, I'm totally okay. I actually did. I did. But I'm still not comfortable. Okay. I'm not ready to do it myself. Um, take the vote, take the vote. I mean, I'm ready, but, but I'll vote with whatever. It sounds like we need to do some meeting to do the transfer anyways.
Is there anything I can do to help you?
I don't think so, but I'll, I'll, I'll let you know if that's not right. Thank you.
So there are people that are available on Monday, week from tonight.
I don't think it needs to be very long. We want to carry on the process discussion. I think I was going to try to go to another town, something, but I'll check. I think there's a town discussion of maybe article DD or something that I wanted to try to attend or whatever, whatever article DD is in numeric format. Is that holiday? Yep. Yeah. Is that Monday? Yeah. I think there's something on, on Monday evening about that. Yeah. Public forum on Monday evening. So I probably couldn't make it, but you don't miss.
Well, no, but if there's another night in the near future, we don't even have to meet in person. We can meet by zoom. That makes life easier for people.
A Wednesday night soon.
I'm sorry. For a Wednesday night. I could probably do the 15th. I think. I can't, but again, no one of us is going to work for the forum.
It looks like I could probably make the first, you know, 10 minutes of a meeting on Monday. Um, the, uh, the public forum is at 7 15 on Monday at town, town meeting, uh, town building. We meet earlier on Monday, 6 30.
Could probably do that.
But if everyone else can do it, I can join at seven. Okay.
My recommendation. We, we just stick to seven on Monday and I can be there for them. I mean, if we, if it's just for the vote, I can be there for, be there for the first 10 minutes and vote and you can continue without me or. I'll get the agenda. Next couple of days. Is it going to be in person and zoom or just every move only?
What do people think?
We're about maybe, maybe. I bring the line. Let's just do it. Great. Great. Great. Just do it. And the last thing I learned about today is that on primary case of paper, on April 27th,
there is a, um, a warrant hearing, public hearing on the warrant where anyone in the town is going to ask questions about articles and about anything about the budget, whatever it is, on their mind. I will be out of, out of state.
So if there's anybody here who can go to that meeting to represent the finance committee, that would be sorry. When is it again? When is it again? April 27th, which is in the evening. It's in the evening.
Yeah. It's being hosted, if you will, by the select board. So they'll, they'll be in at six or six 30 or something like that. And then she's careful. It could be likely around seven. Right. I'm also out of town. The 27th. And awesome. Oh, it's on their room. They're in their meeting. That's right. That's right. Or the select board can do it. They, they can, um, understand they will address articles that they didn't sponsor. So, okay.
On the other hand, I see nothing in the code that requires our presence there. So we can, if somebody could do it. Great. It's hot. We'll live with it. And you don't have to just hide down. I could, I could possibly, I could probably do it. The 27th. I think I come back that day. Um, yeah. So if you need someone to do it, I can do it. I might be able to journey. I'm coming back from vacation too. So I'm like, it's going to be a very tough, tough day back, but I could potentially help you with that. Well, thank you both. Let's see how the next couple weeks go. My plans change.
Right on time. I'm happy to say I have no further business before the meeting. In relation to adjourn. Second. All in favor.
Yes. April. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you. We are recording stopped. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you. Recording stopped. Recording stopped.