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Try: Select Board School Committee Real Estate Town Meeting Budget

October 24, 2025 – Select Board – Video & Transcript

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October 24, 2025 - Select Board

 
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Thank you. Good morning, Carol Martin, Chair of the Select Board. I'm Carla Meeting. I'm the Select Board for October 24, 2025 at, do I say 11 or 1140? 1140, 1141. 1141. Thank you. Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote access in accordance with applicable law. One may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found either on the agenda or at the calendar, Zoom page. This meeting may be recorded and if recorded will be made available to the public on Wacom as soon after the meeting, as is practicable. Recording. Start over. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. So because we are all participating remotely this morning, we will have votes will be by roll call only. Joining me in the room are Bill Whitney, Tom Fay, Anne Bransley, and Doug Levine from the Board. And from the staff, we have Town Manager Michael McCall, Assistant Town Manager Council Powers Burlett, and we have Town Clerk Trudy Reid. Our agenda this morning after announcements and public comment is going to be discussing with you the potential vote to hold a special election for a debt exclusion ballot question on December 11, 2025. We will also discuss the early and mail-in voting and possibly vote to approve police details for said special election, which will be held in the Town Building 41 Constituate Road again on December 11, 2025. Once we have done that, we will discuss, review, and potentially vote to authorize the Town Manager to sign the Acknowledgement Certificate relative to the sale of the Town Center, followed by a discussion review of a draft payment in lieu of taxes, commonly known as pilot program policy, followed by topics not reasonably anticipated by the chair, and hopefully in about 20-25 minutes we will adjourn. So are there any announcements from the board or the staff members present? Mr. Fay? Mr. Fay? I would just ask the chair to explain why this meeting is being recorded and visible at 11-41 versus 11. If you could just explain. Yes, I should do that. Apparently, we had technical difficulties this morning with the link, and although the WACAM link is working, and we were recorded and spoke for about 30 minutes, we were advised that our residents and those interested parties were unable to access the meeting through the link, and so we are restarting the meeting. Is that good? Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else have any announcements? All right. Do we have any public comment? Madam Chair, I don't see anybody waiting to make public comment. Thank you very much. All right. So then, for the next couple of items, we invite attendance by Trudy Reid, our Town Clerk. And the first item is that we are going to discuss holding a special election on December 11, 2025. The board has already voted to put a debt exclusion on the ballot. Then, per our policy, we waited a week to get an input recommendation from the Finance Committee, who concur with us if this is an appropriate action. And then, per our policy, debt exclusion policy, we have weighed one more meeting, which is today, in order to set the date. We'd like to set the date today because it allows 45 days before the election. So, Trudy, do you have any real quick comments you want to make about the date? I do not. Thank you. Thank you. And any other board members have any questions? Otherwise, I'll take a motion. Madam Chair, I would move that the select board schedule a special election to address the debt exclusion question for December 11, 2025. Second. Thank you very much. Any further questions? All right. Let's take a roll call vote. Doug? Yes. Ann? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And Carol, yes. So, the next question we'll have Madam Town Clerk speak to is early and mail-in voting. So, just doing one at a time would be great. How do we start with early voting? So, we are not required to offer in-person early voting unless the Board of Registrars makes a recommendation to the select board to do that. I have called a meeting of the Board of Registrars for November 3, so that we can discuss this and hopefully come back with a recommendation to offer early voting hours since there's such short time notice getting the word out to people about this election. So, we will come up with a schedule to include several days leading up to December 11, and then I will come back to you for that vote once the Board of Registrars have taken their vote. Yeah, our meeting after that will be November 17, and I've just added that to the draft agenda list, so we'll get you on the schedule. And that still gives us time to offer the date, so. Okay. And did you have a recommendation about the voting hours? I was going to ask if we could do 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and ask, you know, for your vote to support that, but we want to keep it consistent with other elections, whatever the Board is comfortable with, we can go with. Okay, comments, a consensus of the Board? I'd like to keep it consistent with past elections. Okay. I would like to keep it consistent. I see a lot of heads shaking, so I think the consensus of the Board is that we will maintain the, I'm going to say that right, normal, regular voting hours of 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Yes. Okay, great. Thank you. And did you want to speak about, yeah, mail-in voting? We will be offering vote by mail. We will go back and look at the applications that we received for the annual election. I'll confirm with the state that those are still valid. We'll be putting out in newsletters, social media, websites, the application, the link, all the dates that we'll be coming up with for the in-person voting, but we will be offering vote by mail. All right. Is everybody good with all of that? I think there was a couple of comments before that. Did you have a comment? Oh, you wanted to know if we were going to put them on the big signs? Yep. Yes. So all this information will be on the two signs, one at the Public Safety Building and one at Fire Station 2, correct? Right. Okay. All right. The next item is to discuss, review and potentially vote to approve police details for the Wayland Town Building special election. Is there any comments on this? Otherwise, I'll take a motion. Is this money that we will be spending town money? I'm sorry? Is this an expenditure of town money for police detail? Is that what this is? This is what I'm getting at. Is there a need given the nature of this election and the expected low turnout? Is this a wise expense? Or is it an expense? Isn't it required by law? It is required by law. We're allowed to have police officers or constables, but we've always used police officers. And it's in the town clerk's budget for the police detail. If it's required by law, why do we have to approve it, our board? Because the legislation put it in the Votes Act of 2022. They totally changed that process because it used to be up to the town clerk and the police chief to make this decision. But that was something legislation put in. I'm sorry, I'm not following. If it's required by the state legislature, why does the municipality have the option to not follow the law? I think the vote, I think the vote is to, I think, I think the whole thing came out is allowing, having the select board vote to have the police chief assign the detail. So that's really the only change that they made. We're all, we're all not sure why, but it used to be all, it used to be handled between the town clerks and the police chief. And now they want the select boards vote to have the police chief make these arrangements for detail. Okay. All right. Thank you. Okay. Do I have a motion on this to approve the police detail for the special election on 12-11-2025? So moved. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. Okay. Unless there's any further discussion, let's have a roll call vote. Mr. Fay? Yes. Ms. Brinsley? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Whitney? Yes. And myself, the motion passes 5-0. So now in the packet, we have a document and this was added to the agenda. So it's a revised agenda. You'll know this is to support and have Michael authorize him to sign an acknowledgement certificate relative to the sale or the upcoming sale of the town center. So I'm going to let Michael speak to this and then we can ask him any questions. Mr. McCall, the floor is yours. I think you're on mute. Thank you, Madam Chair. This document originally came on Monday, labeled as an Estoppel certificate. The attorneys for town center had reached out to KP Law asking if the town would sign this document, which would affirm our understanding that all conditions and obligations had been met on the site and that this was going to be provided to the buyer on behalf of the seller. I didn't feel comfortable with that. I explained that the town council after some conversation back and forth on Wednesday night. Wednesday night I received this updated document, which is called an acknowledged certificate. It changed the wording such it said to the best of our knowledge, and it indicated that we would not waive any of our rights under the document. The problem being with the short amount of time and them asking us to get this on our agenda this week, I believe they're trying to close in the next week or two. There was no way for my immediate staff nor the other departments to verify many of the affirmations or things that we're acknowledging. So KP Law said it's essentially a benign document, but I can't represent to the board that we've been able to verify most of these things, given the very short notice that we received. Okay, so like, like, like was Michael said, we got this a couple of days ago and they asked us to put this on here. Um, and we did, but recognizing time so comments from the board. Yeah, I like to oppose that we we place this on our next meetings agenda, so that some confirmation can be achieved from town staff that the document is is accurate. Is accurate and to the extent town council can weigh in if she hasn't already, that would that would give me more peace of mind. Okay, so the sense of the board. That makes sense. Okay, so I'll put that on for November 3rd and also if the if we don't have all the information, then we'll move it to the 17th, but we will do our best to have it all by then. So the next item on our agenda is this one I did put on on purpose. We had talked a couple meetings ago about potential additional revenue sources for the town and one of those that was identified was a pilot program. So this item is to review a draft pilot program, which is a payment in lieu of taxes, and this is going to be a policy that the board needs to review and adopt so we can then sort of try to go forward with implementation. So I'm going to give the floor to Michael about this and then we'll have a discussion. Michael. Thank you, Madam Chair. As I told the board in the past, it was my intention to reach out to my peers and through the Massachusetts Municipal Managers Association to find out what other communities were doing about payment in lieu of taxes. I did send out a request and I got only a handful of responses and conquered our neighbor was one of them. I had some in Western Massachusetts as well. So Concord's looked to me the best approach of the ones that I reviewed. I met with the administration over in Concord, discussed how they were doing it. They provided me their drafts, which I have tailored to Wayland's. And I had some input from our assessor with this as well. So I am asking the board to consider this. I think given our current financial situation, as well as several of the nonprofits that are expanding in town, which will put considerable strain on our resources, on our public safety, police, fire and DPW. This is something that we should pursue. The policy would look to obtain 25% of the taxes that would normally be levied on these properties and would require staff primarily need to reach out and work and negotiate with these folks. So I think it's it's the right thing for us to try at this point in time. And additionally, I found some mechanisms to reach out to the federal and state governments to try and get some payment in lieu of taxes for a lot of the open space that the National National Wildlife Refuge has, as well as some of the DCR property here in town. Thank you. Thank you. Questions from the board? Anyone? Hi, Bill. Michael, thank you for putting this together. I applaud your initiative. My question is whether Houses of Worship would be subject to this policy. I would reach out to all of them. You know, I think policy wise, I wouldn't want to single out any particular organization, certainly subject to review. I can double check how far Concord got. And I should have prefaced this by saying I didn't do a lot of whole scale change to what Concord did. Theirs is pretty straightforward. But I do think they were reaching out to all the various nonprofits in their town. I can double check. They actually have a few more private schools. They have hospitals. They have a different makeup than we do. We tend to have some smaller nonprofits, as you say, religious institutions, and we have a handful of schools here. My only experience with pilot programs is in Boston, which is pretty squarely aimed at hospitals or medical centers and universities and colleges. I don't believe that religious organizations are subject to the payment in lieu of tax programs. So I think some additional research on that question might be worthwhile. Mm hmm. And the only thing I would say is one of the religious institutions here in town is dramatically changing the scope of their property to include things other than traditional houses of worship, or so to speak, to have a school on their property and potentially housing. So that's kind of an asterisk next to that one. I wonder if housing would be considered taxable if the religious organization charges rent to the tenants. So, but maybe a distinction would be to have it applicable to other than worship spaces. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Understood. Okay. I just had a quick question, Michael, and I know we're going to run out of time so we can talk about this separately. I was having a hard time following the end of item number two on the second page of the policy where it says the town expects to negotiate pilot agreements whereby once the payment target is reached, the payment will annually increase by an escalation factor generally equal to the average historic growth in annual tax levy. I was just understanding if it if the number that was arrived at in negotiation was 25% wouldn't that just be increasing anyway. Right, if they're paying 25% of what the overall tax would be, and our taxes go up year to year, then that then that 25% share would go up right. It should. It should, yes. Okay. So it may it may be may not be necessary. The only way would be is property values went down, but and then it would adjust accordingly. So. Yeah. I think Tom had his hand raised. And yes, just so I'm clear, Mr. town manager, each of these properties are praised currently based on the usual formula that the town uses for praising all properties commercial residential nonprofits right there. They're throughout they're all appraised correct. Yes, the assessor is giving me a list of all these properties and they have values associated with them. Yes. So that was okay. Which leads me to my next question as could you provide the board with a list of all the recipients of this letter that you anticipate if you proceed with this effort. Yes. I have that list right now in an Excel spreadsheet. It may be more value to the board if I take off the federal and state properties, because the number of federal properties, they're all little parcels all part of the National Wildlife Refuge and just focus on those smaller ones. Um, because I, I will be re they have websites that you apply through, so they wouldn't be getting a letter under this. Um, but I can, uh, distribute that list to the board. Thank you. Um, anyone else have any questions? So, so I have a couple of my question was, I think fits with Tom's is how many nonprofits are we speaking about? Uh, what's the potential dollar revenue for the town? Um, and I assume we have to put an effective date on here. Um, I think to Bill's question is this is if it's just the house of worship, perhaps we carve that out. We look at that. But once we start building in, you know, a preschool or any of that, they rely on and utilize services, particularly the fire department, should they have, you know, a health issue or police if there's another issue. So there are regular users of the services besides, you know, like the resident it's available to them. They use them. So I think that I'm comfortable with this, with policy. There is a sentence here. I mean, the policy on number two says these pilot agreements should be based upon fair market value and tax levy. Um, I'm not sure what else we would base them on. So should it say should or should it say, well, it's just a minor thing, but I was not sure. Should seems a little bit iffy. And I think if we're asking, we should be clear on what we're asking for. Um, anyway, um, is it the sense of the board that we are, and then there's a letter attached that Michael is putting together after he speaks to, um, uh, to the folks. That are involved on the property, the properties of all. Is it the sense of the board that we want to pursue this? Do we need to vote on this? I think it's a good idea, but something to keep in mind. And Michael, as you're doing research, I think you're going to find this to be true that all organizations have to be treated equally. I don't think we can do any, any sort of carve out that might exclude a specific group over another group. Um, you know, obviously I don't know this for a fact, but that would be my inclination. So, um, just something to, to make sure that we don't fall into accidentally as you're doing your research, Michael. Thank you, Ann. So I'm, I'm wondering if we were, I'm sorry, Tom. So to Ann's point, my concern is that there may be organizations in town that really operate on a shoestring, or to put it another way, this would cause them to close up shop. And is that something we want to do, given that many of these organizations really contribute a great deal to the fabric of the community? Um, so what I'm getting at is I'm wondering whether it makes sense to do some due diligence on the organizations that we are considering and have them provide feedback to us on the idea. I think that makes sense because you can formulate it at least when I research this, you can, you can do it in all different ways. So it could be based on expansion, it could be based on, um, a specific type of, you know, expansion. So you can be very, very, it just has to be, in my opinion, treated equally based on what I've read. And you'd have it so there's a threshold in, so it would apply to nonprofits of a certain size with a certain number of employees. Exactly. You could do that as well. So it's essentially just, just saying it's, it's, it's, if you could imagine, it's just completely separating this possible fee, additional fee from taxes. So don't even think about them as nonprofits or for profits. It's just saying, hey, you have a community, you know, we're, we're taking on an expense, uh, based on your operations as a town. And therefore we're asking that you participate in some sort of coverage of that fee, whatever that is. Um, so as long as it's treated fairly, you can pretty much put any parameters in place if you get it approved right by the town. Um, but I'm sure there's some additional rules, but that's why I was saying, you know, it's Michael is researching it right now. So, um, let's, let's flush it out. It's a great idea. And other towns are doing it outside of this state, by the way, it's, we're not doing it in Massachusetts a lot, but you'll find that New Hampshire does it and New York does it. So, um, there's, there's models we can, we can look at. So if, if I may hop in here, if you look on this purpose, second paragraph, this is exactly what Ann is saying. And I think it's exactly the crux of what we're trying to get at, where it says, while municipal service requirements vary among the diverse groups, I'm in the middle here, all benefit from the overall enhanced quality of life enjoyed by the community. However, the cost of municipal services is substantial, right? And the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has limited sources of revenue. Actually, I should say the town of Wayland has limited sources of revenue applicable, right? And Wayland property taxes provide blah, blah, blah. So what we're saying is, is the operation, your expanded operation or whatever it is that we designate is putting a pressure on our services. That's what we're saying. I mean, that's what we were saying in discussion. And so maybe that is the, where we start. And, um, does that sound like the direction we want to go in? That makes sense. I personally support the, uh, the, the, the effort. I just would ask that we just, uh, um, explore it in further detail. That's all. So, so go ahead, Michael, would you like to hop in? No, I was just going to reiterate it. It is a voluntary program and it reiterates that in the letter and it does state in the policy that this is a voluntary, we're, we're asking them to, you know, as members of the community in our, in our time of need, where we're, we're running up short, uh, to, to try and pitch in if they can. So, uh, it's, it's not mandatory. I mean, it also talks down here, if you rent property that you should be, you know, perhaps contributing to the town conference as well, right? Number one, their own real property or rent real property, I guess, but based on fair market value, but it really does say that supports the critical. And number two of the policy, it also says it supports the critical services, the town's police, fire, public operations, and other town services. So, and it does say also in somewhere another sentence, which I don't see at the moment, that we have to pay for this cost. But if they're utilizing it and not contributing, that cost goes back onto their citizens. So I think it's, I think there's some really good bones in here. I think we're probably 90% there. So, um, how do we want to proceed? Do we want to say yes? Do we want to say, let's have a little adjustment and see if we see it? Yeah. Let, let's, um, revisit this again. So we can have a little bit more time for discussion. Cause we're kind of rushed today. Press for time. Yeah. Okay. Um, so Michael, what about if I put this on the 17th? Cause I don't think I have time to do it for the third. Yeah, that's, that's perfect. Madam chair. We'll, we'll continue to look. Okay. Get some more numbers from my assessor. As you indicated, what the number of parcels, what potential amounts we could be looking at. Right. Thank you. And I, and again, Bill said it, but I want to echo it on behalf of the board. Thank you for getting onto this. And so quickly with everything else you've got going on, but it is, it is really great that we're tackling a lot of these policies. It really, and truly is. All right. Um, yes, to your earlier point about, uh, rental property by nonprofits. If, if a nonprofit rents a space in a for-profit and a building owned by a for-profit, uh, typically the lease would provide that they would pay their allocable share of property taxes. Good point. That's why we have to revisit this. I think, but I think we're mostly there myself. So, um, so having said that, I want to thank everybody, not only for coming this morning, but for your patience with our technology and keeping it much longer than I anticipated, I will see you on November 3rd. And with that, I will take a motion to adjourn at 12.09, please. So moved. Second. Thank you. Um, all those in favor, Ann? Yes. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. Doug? Yes. And myself? Yes.