December 16, 2025 – Personnel Board – Video & Transcript
December 16, 2025 - Personnel Board
okay um i call the personnel board meeting of tuesday december 16th to order um
uh present is uh our board members mary ellen castagno paul morenberg jill zuckerman um the
wayland uh hr director kate uh ryan and i think i guess the fire chief is going to join us in
executive he was going to come into open session but uh and marianne peabody um one may watch or
participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found at https colon slash slash www.wayland.ma.us
slash public dash body dash meeting dash information dash virtual dash in person dash and dash hybrid
pursuant to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted by a remote
participation no person uh no person no personal attendance by members of the public will be
permitted uh no in-person attendance by members of the public will be permitted this meeting
is being recorded and will be made available to the public on wacom as soon after the meeting as
is practicable um i will read the agenda for the public marianne also uh robbie bullard robbie bullard
is also doing being our zoom manager thank you and marianne peabody is taking minutes and i called the
meeting to order at 4 20. um can i can i suggest that you postpone reading the meeting uh agenda until
after the executive session surely um the first item we have we'll take out of uh out of order and we
will enter into uh executive session and when we come back from executive session um we will go over
the agenda um i let me just make sure i have here uh okay pursuant to massachusetts general laws chapter 30 a
section 21 a3 to discuss uh i i declare we go into executive session i move we go into executive
session pursuant to massachusetts general laws chapter 30 a section 21 a3 to discuss the grievance at step
two with the international association of firefighters afl cio local 1978 uh because to do so in open
session could negatively impact the bargaining uh uh the bargaining position of the town so declares
the chair um we will um uh we will return to executive uh to regular session at about five o'clock so
if the public wants to begin to look uh for us that's probably when we should be coming back um it may
now be 5 15 because we're getting started late uh i i am invite to participate uh from the union um the union
president um taylor um taylor zingler miller uh jeff mcleod and uh from the town michael is michael mccall
going to meet with us as well yes wayland town manager uh fire chief neil mcpherson and kate ryan
hr director for the town of wayland can i have a second don't move okay and i need a roll call vote so
mary ellen um yes okay paul yes jill yep marianne yes who seconded mary ellen i moved it so yeah
um i'll see you in executive session and we'll be back at around i would say 5 or 5 15. okay okay
we have so i have to go back over the agenda which was called order um i welcome us all back to the
open session meeting um and announcement and public comment um i do have an announcement in that we
have someone who's just been appointed to the personnel board i don't know if this person is
paul is um on the line can you tell hey don't you yeah i don't believe so okay his name is uh dave uh
he was he was online but i was trying to promote the panelists beforehand and every single time they
kept saying error error and he could some mushroom seemed like it could be his and i could not get him
over to the panelists okay thank you robbie so he he's not here uh at any rate he was he's um been
appointed to the personnel boards very qualified uh kate will send us his resume uh i've reached out to him
and uh did say we will be picking a january meeting the next item on the agenda is uh oh we have to go
over the agenda sorry guys um uh a discussion and possible vote on a request from a firefighter to
extend the six-month requirement to use vacation carryover from fiscal year 2025 to fiscal year 2026
as approved by the personnel board on 5625 uh we got the request with very little information and um
i didn't want to just make a decision on my own so i wanted to ask you all um to to we could hear from
the person and hear what they had to say but my understanding is the person did not use um
the vacation time carryover and kate did everyone else use the carryover on time is there anybody else
in the fire department no everyone used everyone that um was carried over that you approved carryover used
their time within the six months and i wasn't sure if they were mitigating circumstances so i shot
thought that we should hear from it um but is the person here is the fire chief here or
or you don't want to present it kate to us i don't yeah i don't see anyone here i did let him know but
i think we're running a little behind um my my thought when i first saw it was he he said he and
his wife had a baby this year he used some of the time not all of the time and then he sent a note that
said he wanted instead of using the time he wanted to be available for overtime so i didn't think that was a
there was anything particularly compelling about that he wasn't ill or he was an i i od until
july right kate the end of july yeah that's correct yeah i didn't use overtime but the use by date was
the end of december correct so he's giving you two weeks notice that he's not gonna complete the
carryover is that correct right and i didn't want to leave it to january because he would have lost it so
i wanted to see if you wanted to no no but i'm saying he didn't request in a timely manner that
he wasn't going to be able to use all of his carryover and how many hours is left in the
carryover all of it some of it yeah he asked for five days five vacation days and four vacation nights
it's all of it he has not taken any of that carryover from july to december but didn't ask earlier
all right and and sent us a note that you know he he was the sole provider for his family so he
didn't want the time but yeah or he didn't take the time but he had sent an earlier letter that said
he wanted to be available for overtime so i just looked at that as when was that earlier
that i guess that's i got a letter that said that you didn't have one like that i don't i don't
i don't imagine i'd be making it up let me see if i anyway in that email that he just sent but
not i didn't get anything previous i don't know but the one that the one that he just sent said
he just didn't use it right he said no no and it says i've been reluctant to use any time as i don't
want it to interfere with my ability to work overtime okay yeah that's yeah that was so you
didn't get anything previous no that was the one i got that was the one i got yeah yeah yeah i
i mean i i unfortunately that's a lot of vacation time to not be able to utilize
but it's also not a lot of time to come to a decision do you know i when i spoke with the chief about this um he could oh sorry he could potentially use this before the end of the year but it's going to be really um challenging it means that he the chief is going to have to do a lot of backfill and paying ot so it's it's going to um be challenging for the department i guess is what i'm going to say yeah but you know he didn't use his time so how much do we let them carry over all of that five or is it three how much it's usually four and four so that's the equivalent of two weeks so four days and four nights yeah and that's all that we approved we didn't approve anything over that everybody was within the usual time no we we approved five days five days for him okay yeah thoughts when do we approve time for him i don't see that he was part of the group yeah oh okay okay i personally i i think he should have put the time in early if he wanted to carry it over when other folks do um my concern is is that this is going to set a precedence i understand that he's the new dad and he's the only one that's working but the they can't join that um they don't pay into that mass um loa yeah fmla no no we don't you know every year we say this is going to be the last time we don't make want to make a president and then we do it and so i think this is just going to add on to it and i'm not trying to be hard or callous it's just you know i i think if we want to curtail it that we need to okay yep um the the flip side of that mary ellen is if it does create a problem for the chief i would also want to be mindful of that well the chief doesn't have to approve it all right it has but if we if he can't carry it over it sounds like he would then use it all before the end of december which would cause a hardship for the chief is that correct okay honestly i'm not sure he could actually use all of that before the end of december at this point there's too there's too much time he wouldn't have a day shifts by the end of this so he couldn't possibly use it um all but he could use some of the chief object to him carrying it over uh no he did not but he also wasn't you know he was somewhat ambiguous about it so yeah i mean i personally think if the chief doesn't object i i don't see a problem i mean i know it's not ideal but can we maybe like say you can carry over half of it because you didn't give us sufficient lead time to no i don't know i don't know that's i think we either approve it or we don't or don't approve it yeah i mean again my sorry my frustration is just that there wasn't a lot of time for us to be planful why so late was that by design why so late right right could we could we uh can we just put it can we like punt and say uh in the discretion of the of the chief or no that that with with the uh if um the personnel board you know would approve this if it's does not it was a high trip to the department yeah if it does not and then the opinion of the in the in the sole discretion of the chief of the fire department and if it you know and if who may approve you know some or a portion of the of the carrot the the carryover in his in his sole discretion are we allowed to do that or no we could do that i'm just wondering if then next year we'll have more people do that that's my concern as well but the thing is if you just say with this one exception and then they have to use those other days that are left by x you know maybe you know he can't carry it on forever he didn't meet the timeline i just don't want to be a hard nose but it's just you know there's a limit could we give a 30-day extension what's the time frame for requesting carry-on so they have to do it by may um for the fiscal year so they and and he did request for these time this time back in may and you have to use it by december and he has to use it by december so this this is already carried over vacation time that he has not used right it says used by december it says used by december so that would mean before december 1st december 30th 30th 30th could we say could we say based on the policy the personal board does not have the authority to extend this further but has no objection to the to the the chief doing so at his sole discretion i what do you think i like that wording i didn't want to put the chief put put it back on the team i mean it's his department yeah he's the one that's going to have to worry about over time and not over time see so that it really does go back to him yeah because if jill's saying like if he doesn't have to i mean she just made that suggestion and it you know devil's advocate and it's true if he doesn't have the staff to you know cover him then it's going to be a moot point right so i think that i agree with her also about taking half now and then maybe if he says it's okay and carry over what the balance is until when see because it's looking giving a one-time exception that you will give you an additional 30 days okay well but again maybe the chief doesn't want to do that i mean yeah yeah
he did indicate he wanted to talk about this can you get him on the phone or something yeah i texted him but he's not i mean again i i would say as well i would be a little hesitant to have the chief make a decision on something that is the discretion of the personnel board contractually yeah right that yeah and and everyone else adhered to it yeah that's my point that was my point and he's now he has more vacation time still now than he did then he still which is why i think like you know i mean in theory he you know he he requested the permission to use it i mean couldn't he just say okay i'm taking it all now and then if the chief and when we have a problem if the if the chief can't accommodate that no the chief doesn't have to approve his vacation to approve him taking it because he hasn't given any notice for it but notice he has to use it and he only has to give notice of the shift or something but right but that's so he so he could he's got you know 14 more days to to use this he could do it right but he only he only works two 24-hour shifts a week so there's not he's not it's not possible for him to use all of at least five days you know what i mean i don't know that he okay there are enough days in order for him to use so he could still use the two days and two nights before the end of the year more than likely yes and then he would have the three whatever's left to use in before the um february before february 1st if this is what i have an extension but but but you'd be having to give him an extension i mean he can use some of his time if we say no you can't carry it over i i mean again i i i feel like the the i feel like it's it's too belated no that's my point too yeah right and again that was my the more we discuss it if we if we say no then he just he just can use the two days or what not if the chief will permit it not if the chief will let him to do it if he can get approval for the vacation days then yes he could yeah if the chief approves that he can get he can do it but otherwise he can't i hate to say no to this but i mean the chief might actually feel like in this case it makes it's justified we don't know i mean that's why he needs to come on the line so i know if the chief said to us if the chief said to us you know in this case in this situation i have done a problem with it we would all say fine right but is that favoritism is that favoritism from one person to another you know we have to be careful but all policies all policies usually give you know management the ability to make it does and in the vacation policy it does have that so we've let them carry it over till the end of december if the chief commits right that we did already give an exception yeah that's right that's right that's why i was saying if he can't use it he's already had time to use it but he's too late in asking for it which is you know we have to know on his end how come he was so late but we also have to know from the chief's the end of uh you know perspective if he can use whatever he can use before the end of december because we only extend it to them yeah so i i i don't think any of us feel comfortable saying yes so i think we either say no or we say no but the chief in his discretion may uh no if we say no if we say no it's no no no if we say no he still has to use it by the end of december then the chief still has the discretion of whether he uses it or not no i understand that couldn't we also couldn't we also say the personal board does not has determined that it cannot grant a further enlargement to the carryover period however it you know the chief in his discretion may grant a partial or full additional carryover he can't it's up to us to carry it over to get permission to carry it over always yes yeah by the contract and every year we say this is it this is the last time and then we agree to it no i don't mind if people within the the like terms say i you know i need additional carryover and then the chief presents us with the list this i just feel like it you know you're asking 20 days beforehand about an amount that is so large you wouldn't have been able to use it anyway so i'm not i feel like you yeah i feel like that's not and you're asking for you know he's asking for an exception to the exception that was already given and paul you're right like if the chief was here or if there was like an extenuating circumstance that that prevented this person from bringing it to our attention earlier maybe they're well what if we said what what if we what if we said that we cannot approve it based on the policy but we but uh the per the we the personnel board could can revisit this decision uh if by mutual agreement of the firefighter and the chief no because we can't extend it we already extended it to december all right well yeah yeah and how has the personnel board uh marianne to your knowledge ever extended an extension yeah no yeah granted it well we didn't and then we got tired of always granting it and then we said okay let's put a time frame then they can use it because they're still accruing more vacation right so they can they can plan it out and that's what they were supposed to do and everybody else did it and there were how many people on that list kate um let me look it's in your packet we learned a fair amount of people i mean it it was yeah but most everyone was under the four and four so this was the only one two three just two it looks like we're above the four yeah like 16 15 16 people what i'm a bit uncomfortable because we haven't heard from the firefighter or the chief like that's the the one thing that's giving me pause i mean i think we can say by the letter of the law no it's not extended but it's quite possible that the chief you know thinks this is meritorious and i just i hate to say no having not heard from either party i believe the chief would have said something if it was okay because we had his undivided attention we didn't bring it up then but i think he would he he he asked me if we're going to handle it in open session i said yes and he said well i want to be there so he was planning i thought to be here for open session yeah okay did you try to message him or i i am i've i've tried to to message him a couple times he's not responding did you call him call him i can try hold on yeah so are we going to table anything because it's getting oh i know guys time's marching on okay so uh let's see if we can get him and we'll just move on to uh the other things um we have policies that we wanted to do and i would just say that i think kate and i talked about putting mutual respect in the workplace and standards of contact into one policy and those are two policies paul that you had a lot of concern about and so when you did your review so kate sent us the review so i wanted you to speak to those particular the issues you had there we can table it to our next meeting but i wanted you to think about yeah i would recommend we table i i mean i looked at it i agree yeah those are the two we were going to put together kate right mutual respect on the workplace standards of contact conduct and then we're going to do protection from retaliation yeah um but in the packet or all the other things okay um let's look at the open session minutes that we received from paul did and did people have a chance to review them we just got them before the meeting the open session minutes of september 3rd is it third do we have to review them today or can we put them off to the next meeting does that talk timely um well there it's really quick to review them okay because and then we can put them up all right the only thing i see on page one is no in person attendance by member of the public was permitted and take out the b b e kate you can take that out right and then i got cut off but i realized it had nothing to do with the content of the meeting i got cut off and came back in so i won't i was going to add that but i won't bother because i was back before the discussion was over and before trudy left and then i looked at the video the next day sorry i didn't i didn't make note of that i apologize okay should we make note of it yeah i don't i don't think i did no you didn't but i i was knocked out but i came back before she left but i missed a lot of the discussion and actually had to listen to it on a separate download of the meeting so just if you put that in there somewhere uh i would say uh do we actually need that if it didn't impact any vote or discussion that's why i didn't say anything it didn't impact the discussion and i got back in every vote so i don't think we need to do that unless you feel it's important no no that's fine because i did vote so so other than that i didn't see anything so i didn't know about uh jill and mary ellen nope okay all right okay so can i i wasn't there so i'm gonna abstain okay mary ellen do you want to make a motion or to approve i make a motion that we um approve the minutes as written now as uh amended there's only amended yes okay uh can i have a second second thank you paul and jill's gonna abstain so roll call vote mary ellen yes paul yes mary ann yes um the other thing that we have to do is pick a meeting time we picked a standard meeting time and it's turning out to be always after a holiday so this one comes right after new year's and kate would think she will not be ready and would like us to move that uh move the second one that we just said we were going to do did we always said that we agreed upon a date in january we did but kate has asked if we can move it from the 7th to something else yes yep and and we have to be cognizant of school vacation week and i don't oh no that's not january okay yeah i can do the 13th or 14th if that's is that a wednesday we were doing a wednesday it's a tuesday or wednesday i can't do 14 i can't do the 14th but i could do the 13th i'd prefer to keep it on a tuesday but let me look and see tuesday the 13th is good the 13th is a tuesday mary allen okay let me look okay and we need a set of minutes from october for that meeting okay is that me no that's paul he did it on my behalf so i'm november yeah yeah the 13th is fine at four o'clock you want to do that and i told the new member that we generally meet it from four to six he's he has his own business as well so if that wasn't possible we could change it in the future but i wanted to get some input from him but we'll float the date by him are there other dates in case we can't do that so we're talking about tuesday january 13th at 4 pm yeah when he says later in the day i don't have an appetite for much later than if i i don't yeah i don't i mean he didn't say anything i just said we have new members sometimes we've always had evening meetings because people were working we've all been able to make the four o'clock i don't know if that's possible for another person so we we can see um but i do know that we have executive session minutes from that date that need to be done and um open session minutes that need to be done um are there but so we agree to the 13th works for people that was changed from the ninth right yes is that enough time kate um yeah i will figure that out all right um and we want if we we could also move it later in the month i mean it gives paul more time for the minutes and i've just asked him to review his notes that he did two years ago or his thinking two years ago on those two policies where he had a lot of input and but he didn't write it down he said he had a lot of concerns so i thought we needed to talk it through and he had language concerns and whether the language is actually bullying language i think paul is what you had on those two policies i can also do tuesday the 20th okay that's better thursday the 22nd i don't even know why i already have that populated on my my calendar here the 22nd board the 20th mm-hmm paul does that work for you the 20th it's a little later 20th okay let's do that and i will tell the new member i i welcomed him he seems like a nice person so hopefully uh and what was the name again mary ellen i'm sorry his name is dave i always get i always want to call williams dave williams uh okay so will we given him two dates the 16th or the i'm sorry the 13th or the 20th or we just 20th 20th just because i think paul has a a lot there too so i don't want to um so the 20th will give a little more time um and i i was wondering if we could have that in a open session i mean a regular meeting instead of virtual to meet the new person but i i'll if you guys prefer the you know virtual that's fine with me but i i i would like to meet the person and have him get to know us if that's okay but we need more than one of me in the room the town doesn't want to doesn't want to just because it costs a little more to have a an in-person meeting is that okay that would depend on how you know the flu season is going and the covid season is going see okay yeah of course we'll see all right and then um personnel board members reports and concerns anything okay topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance if any new personnel board member that was that just was done yesterday so i wanted to bring that to your attention okay all right so we're just tabling the um the full discussion maybe we can put them up farther higher on the on the agenda because that needs time to discuss instead of yeah and they're and they're and they're important ones and i know that paul has a lot of concerns on the i agree i agree 100 but we do need to to have time for that and not rushed at the end and you know what i mean so maybe we'll see the firefighters next time okay uh can i have a there being no further business can i have a move to adjourn i'm sorry i might have spaced out but what are we doing with the carryover just saying no oh oh we didn't make a decision we have to come back because we can't get the chief yeah no i couldn't get a hold of them i'm sorry i tried to call so i guess that's what we say we weren't able to get in touch with either of the parties and we we cannot extend at this time yeah all right that's actually a good point do we have the ability to do things offline if there's like a like if it's could they no no it would be a public it would have to be a public meeting yeah because this is a union right and the union wants equity for all their people you know they're really concerned about that so um i think you know if we ask them all to use their time fans fear fans fear because they'll all come back at you and say why couldn't i use it you can't do for johnny what you didn't do for me yeah that's what i think but anyway so we have did the firefighter ever like sign on to any that do we know from robbie if he ever made an attempt to participate uh i don't think he was planning on being here was he i don't know is robbie still around uh i don't see robbie i don't think he's here anymore um i i did send the firefighter hit the link or um i told him how to get on through the public link and i gave him the time but we were running a little bit later than i had anticipated so i don't know i mean you can always you can revisit it in january it just means that that time is kind of he won't we weren't going to accept it so we can revisit it but i don't know there'll be a point by then yeah i mean he can he can use it he can use what he can use and then if they want to come and lobby for another day that's you know but we could we could we could uh we could revisit it we could enlarge it after it's expired i mean in theory you could but then he would have no motivation to use it but how can we how can we state that so that it's not giving a mixed message use it but don't but we'll think about it later you know that see i disagree i think it needs to be cut and dry no yeah yeah and i'm not trying i feel like you're asking i feel like you know you're asking for an extension right it's a mixed message that you can bring it back and we'll talk about it because we're not going to do anything different without being thankful say no i would say no yeah i feel like given the information that we have i feel like the answer for me i would vote no so i know i hate i hate to be just so what do you call it impatient but i really need to go because you're getting phone call we have to have a vote all right so who's making the motion jill do you want to make the motion given the information we have and no participation just given the information we have um we declined to extend we are not able to offer an extension to the extension that was already given okay do i have a second second okay okay it sounds a little passive aggressive but okay yeah we will not be able to offer an extension no but but that's what it is it's an extension to the extension how about how about a further extension a further extension that's fine also yeah oh paul you're always so politically correct that's what i like extension that's good that's helpful that's better okay um roll call vote jill yes okay paul yes you don't have to vote yes but you did okay mary ellen yes okay mary ann yes i mean you certainly could vote no or you could abstain you could do whatever um okay all right you're you're okay with your yes i mean do you think it would seem more sympathetic if it was divided i i don't know it's fine you could abstain no that's fine that's all right okay so can i have a motion to adjourn so moved six 20 seconds yeah okay roll call yes mary ellen yes yes yes jill yes me yes and i
i mean i i unfortunately that's a lot of vacation time to not be able to utilize
but it's also not a lot of time to come to a decision do you know i when i spoke with the chief about this um he could oh sorry he could potentially use this before the end of the year but it's going to be really um challenging it means that he the chief is going to have to do a lot of backfill and paying ot so it's it's going to um be challenging for the department i guess is what i'm going to say yeah but you know he didn't use his time so how much do we let them carry over all of that five or is it three how much it's usually four and four so that's the equivalent of two weeks so four days and four nights yeah and that's all that we approved we didn't approve anything over that everybody was within the usual time no we we approved five days five days for him okay yeah thoughts when do we approve time for him i don't see that he was part of the group yeah oh okay okay i personally i i think he should have put the time in early if he wanted to carry it over when other folks do um my concern is is that this is going to set a precedence i understand that he's the new dad and he's the only one that's working but the they can't join that um they don't pay into that mass um loa yeah fmla no no we don't you know every year we say this is going to be the last time we don't make want to make a president and then we do it and so i think this is just going to add on to it and i'm not trying to be hard or callous it's just you know i i think if we want to curtail it that we need to okay yep um the the flip side of that mary ellen is if it does create a problem for the chief i would also want to be mindful of that well the chief doesn't have to approve it all right it has but if we if he can't carry it over it sounds like he would then use it all before the end of december which would cause a hardship for the chief is that correct okay honestly i'm not sure he could actually use all of that before the end of december at this point there's too there's too much time he wouldn't have a day shifts by the end of this so he couldn't possibly use it um all but he could use some of the chief object to him carrying it over uh no he did not but he also wasn't you know he was somewhat ambiguous about it so yeah i mean i personally think if the chief doesn't object i i don't see a problem i mean i know it's not ideal but can we maybe like say you can carry over half of it because you didn't give us sufficient lead time to no i don't know i don't know that's i think we either approve it or we don't or don't approve it yeah i mean again my sorry my frustration is just that there wasn't a lot of time for us to be planful why so late was that by design why so late right right could we could we uh can we just put it can we like punt and say uh in the discretion of the of the chief or no that that with with the uh if um the personnel board you know would approve this if it's does not it was a high trip to the department yeah if it does not and then the opinion of the in the in the sole discretion of the chief of the fire department and if it you know and if who may approve you know some or a portion of the of the carrot the the carryover in his in his sole discretion are we allowed to do that or no we could do that i'm just wondering if then next year we'll have more people do that that's my concern as well but the thing is if you just say with this one exception and then they have to use those other days that are left by x you know maybe you know he can't carry it on forever he didn't meet the timeline i just don't want to be a hard nose but it's just you know there's a limit could we give a 30-day extension what's the time frame for requesting carry-on so they have to do it by may um for the fiscal year so they and and he did request for these time this time back in may and you have to use it by december and he has to use it by december so this this is already carried over vacation time that he has not used right it says used by december it says used by december so that would mean before december 1st december 30th 30th 30th could we say could we say based on the policy the personal board does not have the authority to extend this further but has no objection to the to the the chief doing so at his sole discretion i what do you think i like that wording i didn't want to put the chief put put it back on the team i mean it's his department yeah he's the one that's going to have to worry about over time and not over time see so that it really does go back to him yeah because if jill's saying like if he doesn't have to i mean she just made that suggestion and it you know devil's advocate and it's true if he doesn't have the staff to you know cover him then it's going to be a moot point right so i think that i agree with her also about taking half now and then maybe if he says it's okay and carry over what the balance is until when see because it's looking giving a one-time exception that you will give you an additional 30 days okay well but again maybe the chief doesn't want to do that i mean yeah yeah
he did indicate he wanted to talk about this can you get him on the phone or something yeah i texted him but he's not i mean again i i would say as well i would be a little hesitant to have the chief make a decision on something that is the discretion of the personnel board contractually yeah right that yeah and and everyone else adhered to it yeah that's my point that was my point and he's now he has more vacation time still now than he did then he still which is why i think like you know i mean in theory he you know he he requested the permission to use it i mean couldn't he just say okay i'm taking it all now and then if the chief and when we have a problem if the if the chief can't accommodate that no the chief doesn't have to approve his vacation to approve him taking it because he hasn't given any notice for it but notice he has to use it and he only has to give notice of the shift or something but right but that's so he so he could he's got you know 14 more days to to use this he could do it right but he only he only works two 24-hour shifts a week so there's not he's not it's not possible for him to use all of at least five days you know what i mean i don't know that he okay there are enough days in order for him to use so he could still use the two days and two nights before the end of the year more than likely yes and then he would have the three whatever's left to use in before the um february before february 1st if this is what i have an extension but but but you'd be having to give him an extension i mean he can use some of his time if we say no you can't carry it over i i mean again i i i feel like the the i feel like it's it's too belated no that's my point too yeah right and again that was my the more we discuss it if we if we say no then he just he just can use the two days or what not if the chief will permit it not if the chief will let him to do it if he can get approval for the vacation days then yes he could yeah if the chief approves that he can get he can do it but otherwise he can't i hate to say no to this but i mean the chief might actually feel like in this case it makes it's justified we don't know i mean that's why he needs to come on the line so i know if the chief said to us if the chief said to us you know in this case in this situation i have done a problem with it we would all say fine right but is that favoritism is that favoritism from one person to another you know we have to be careful but all policies all policies usually give you know management the ability to make it does and in the vacation policy it does have that so we've let them carry it over till the end of december if the chief commits right that we did already give an exception yeah that's right that's right that's why i was saying if he can't use it he's already had time to use it but he's too late in asking for it which is you know we have to know on his end how come he was so late but we also have to know from the chief's the end of uh you know perspective if he can use whatever he can use before the end of december because we only extend it to them yeah so i i i don't think any of us feel comfortable saying yes so i think we either say no or we say no but the chief in his discretion may uh no if we say no if we say no it's no no no if we say no he still has to use it by the end of december then the chief still has the discretion of whether he uses it or not no i understand that couldn't we also couldn't we also say the personal board does not has determined that it cannot grant a further enlargement to the carryover period however it you know the chief in his discretion may grant a partial or full additional carryover he can't it's up to us to carry it over to get permission to carry it over always yes yeah by the contract and every year we say this is it this is the last time and then we agree to it no i don't mind if people within the the like terms say i you know i need additional carryover and then the chief presents us with the list this i just feel like it you know you're asking 20 days beforehand about an amount that is so large you wouldn't have been able to use it anyway so i'm not i feel like you yeah i feel like that's not and you're asking for you know he's asking for an exception to the exception that was already given and paul you're right like if the chief was here or if there was like an extenuating circumstance that that prevented this person from bringing it to our attention earlier maybe they're well what if we said what what if we what if we said that we cannot approve it based on the policy but we but uh the per the we the personnel board could can revisit this decision uh if by mutual agreement of the firefighter and the chief no because we can't extend it we already extended it to december all right well yeah yeah and how has the personnel board uh marianne to your knowledge ever extended an extension yeah no yeah granted it well we didn't and then we got tired of always granting it and then we said okay let's put a time frame then they can use it because they're still accruing more vacation right so they can they can plan it out and that's what they were supposed to do and everybody else did it and there were how many people on that list kate um let me look it's in your packet we learned a fair amount of people i mean it it was yeah but most everyone was under the four and four so this was the only one two three just two it looks like we're above the four yeah like 16 15 16 people what i'm a bit uncomfortable because we haven't heard from the firefighter or the chief like that's the the one thing that's giving me pause i mean i think we can say by the letter of the law no it's not extended but it's quite possible that the chief you know thinks this is meritorious and i just i hate to say no having not heard from either party i believe the chief would have said something if it was okay because we had his undivided attention we didn't bring it up then but i think he would he he he asked me if we're going to handle it in open session i said yes and he said well i want to be there so he was planning i thought to be here for open session yeah okay did you try to message him or i i am i've i've tried to to message him a couple times he's not responding did you call him call him i can try hold on yeah so are we going to table anything because it's getting oh i know guys time's marching on okay so uh let's see if we can get him and we'll just move on to uh the other things um we have policies that we wanted to do and i would just say that i think kate and i talked about putting mutual respect in the workplace and standards of contact into one policy and those are two policies paul that you had a lot of concern about and so when you did your review so kate sent us the review so i wanted you to speak to those particular the issues you had there we can table it to our next meeting but i wanted you to think about yeah i would recommend we table i i mean i looked at it i agree yeah those are the two we were going to put together kate right mutual respect on the workplace standards of contact conduct and then we're going to do protection from retaliation yeah um but in the packet or all the other things okay um let's look at the open session minutes that we received from paul did and did people have a chance to review them we just got them before the meeting the open session minutes of september 3rd is it third do we have to review them today or can we put them off to the next meeting does that talk timely um well there it's really quick to review them okay because and then we can put them up all right the only thing i see on page one is no in person attendance by member of the public was permitted and take out the b b e kate you can take that out right and then i got cut off but i realized it had nothing to do with the content of the meeting i got cut off and came back in so i won't i was going to add that but i won't bother because i was back before the discussion was over and before trudy left and then i looked at the video the next day sorry i didn't i didn't make note of that i apologize okay should we make note of it yeah i don't i don't think i did no you didn't but i i was knocked out but i came back before she left but i missed a lot of the discussion and actually had to listen to it on a separate download of the meeting so just if you put that in there somewhere uh i would say uh do we actually need that if it didn't impact any vote or discussion that's why i didn't say anything it didn't impact the discussion and i got back in every vote so i don't think we need to do that unless you feel it's important no no that's fine because i did vote so so other than that i didn't see anything so i didn't know about uh jill and mary ellen nope okay all right okay so can i i wasn't there so i'm gonna abstain okay mary ellen do you want to make a motion or to approve i make a motion that we um approve the minutes as written now as uh amended there's only amended yes okay uh can i have a second second thank you paul and jill's gonna abstain so roll call vote mary ellen yes paul yes mary ann yes um the other thing that we have to do is pick a meeting time we picked a standard meeting time and it's turning out to be always after a holiday so this one comes right after new year's and kate would think she will not be ready and would like us to move that uh move the second one that we just said we were going to do did we always said that we agreed upon a date in january we did but kate has asked if we can move it from the 7th to something else yes yep and and we have to be cognizant of school vacation week and i don't oh no that's not january okay yeah i can do the 13th or 14th if that's is that a wednesday we were doing a wednesday it's a tuesday or wednesday i can't do 14 i can't do the 14th but i could do the 13th i'd prefer to keep it on a tuesday but let me look and see tuesday the 13th is good the 13th is a tuesday mary allen okay let me look okay and we need a set of minutes from october for that meeting okay is that me no that's paul he did it on my behalf so i'm november yeah yeah the 13th is fine at four o'clock you want to do that and i told the new member that we generally meet it from four to six he's he has his own business as well so if that wasn't possible we could change it in the future but i wanted to get some input from him but we'll float the date by him are there other dates in case we can't do that so we're talking about tuesday january 13th at 4 pm yeah when he says later in the day i don't have an appetite for much later than if i i don't yeah i don't i mean he didn't say anything i just said we have new members sometimes we've always had evening meetings because people were working we've all been able to make the four o'clock i don't know if that's possible for another person so we we can see um but i do know that we have executive session minutes from that date that need to be done and um open session minutes that need to be done um are there but so we agree to the 13th works for people that was changed from the ninth right yes is that enough time kate um yeah i will figure that out all right um and we want if we we could also move it later in the month i mean it gives paul more time for the minutes and i've just asked him to review his notes that he did two years ago or his thinking two years ago on those two policies where he had a lot of input and but he didn't write it down he said he had a lot of concerns so i thought we needed to talk it through and he had language concerns and whether the language is actually bullying language i think paul is what you had on those two policies i can also do tuesday the 20th okay that's better thursday the 22nd i don't even know why i already have that populated on my my calendar here the 22nd board the 20th mm-hmm paul does that work for you the 20th it's a little later 20th okay let's do that and i will tell the new member i i welcomed him he seems like a nice person so hopefully uh and what was the name again mary ellen i'm sorry his name is dave i always get i always want to call williams dave williams uh okay so will we given him two dates the 16th or the i'm sorry the 13th or the 20th or we just 20th 20th just because i think paul has a a lot there too so i don't want to um so the 20th will give a little more time um and i i was wondering if we could have that in a open session i mean a regular meeting instead of virtual to meet the new person but i i'll if you guys prefer the you know virtual that's fine with me but i i i would like to meet the person and have him get to know us if that's okay but we need more than one of me in the room the town doesn't want to doesn't want to just because it costs a little more to have a an in-person meeting is that okay that would depend on how you know the flu season is going and the covid season is going see okay yeah of course we'll see all right and then um personnel board members reports and concerns anything okay topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance if any new personnel board member that was that just was done yesterday so i wanted to bring that to your attention okay all right so we're just tabling the um the full discussion maybe we can put them up farther higher on the on the agenda because that needs time to discuss instead of yeah and they're and they're and they're important ones and i know that paul has a lot of concerns on the i agree i agree 100 but we do need to to have time for that and not rushed at the end and you know what i mean so maybe we'll see the firefighters next time okay uh can i have a there being no further business can i have a move to adjourn i'm sorry i might have spaced out but what are we doing with the carryover just saying no oh oh we didn't make a decision we have to come back because we can't get the chief yeah no i couldn't get a hold of them i'm sorry i tried to call so i guess that's what we say we weren't able to get in touch with either of the parties and we we cannot extend at this time yeah all right that's actually a good point do we have the ability to do things offline if there's like a like if it's could they no no it would be a public it would have to be a public meeting yeah because this is a union right and the union wants equity for all their people you know they're really concerned about that so um i think you know if we ask them all to use their time fans fear fans fear because they'll all come back at you and say why couldn't i use it you can't do for johnny what you didn't do for me yeah that's what i think but anyway so we have did the firefighter ever like sign on to any that do we know from robbie if he ever made an attempt to participate uh i don't think he was planning on being here was he i don't know is robbie still around uh i don't see robbie i don't think he's here anymore um i i did send the firefighter hit the link or um i told him how to get on through the public link and i gave him the time but we were running a little bit later than i had anticipated so i don't know i mean you can always you can revisit it in january it just means that that time is kind of he won't we weren't going to accept it so we can revisit it but i don't know there'll be a point by then yeah i mean he can he can use it he can use what he can use and then if they want to come and lobby for another day that's you know but we could we could we could uh we could revisit it we could enlarge it after it's expired i mean in theory you could but then he would have no motivation to use it but how can we how can we state that so that it's not giving a mixed message use it but don't but we'll think about it later you know that see i disagree i think it needs to be cut and dry no yeah yeah and i'm not trying i feel like you're asking i feel like you know you're asking for an extension right it's a mixed message that you can bring it back and we'll talk about it because we're not going to do anything different without being thankful say no i would say no yeah i feel like given the information that we have i feel like the answer for me i would vote no so i know i hate i hate to be just so what do you call it impatient but i really need to go because you're getting phone call we have to have a vote all right so who's making the motion jill do you want to make the motion given the information we have and no participation just given the information we have um we declined to extend we are not able to offer an extension to the extension that was already given okay do i have a second second okay okay it sounds a little passive aggressive but okay yeah we will not be able to offer an extension no but but that's what it is it's an extension to the extension how about how about a further extension a further extension that's fine also yeah oh paul you're always so politically correct that's what i like extension that's good that's helpful that's better okay um roll call vote jill yes okay paul yes you don't have to vote yes but you did okay mary ellen yes okay mary ann yes i mean you certainly could vote no or you could abstain you could do whatever um okay all right you're you're okay with your yes i mean do you think it would seem more sympathetic if it was divided i i don't know it's fine you could abstain no that's fine that's all right okay so can i have a motion to adjourn so moved six 20 seconds yeah okay roll call yes mary ellen yes yes yes jill yes me yes and i