January 20, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
January 20, 2026 - Select Board
Good evening, Carol Martin, as chair of the select board, I call the select board meeting of January 2026 to order.
This meeting may be recorded and if recorded, it will be available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. The public will be excluded from the second session of the meeting this evening. Pursuant to chapter 2 of the absence of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person by remote access in form of law and to the public, a public comment. It gives me the remote access one may watch to participate loudly, with the meeting that can be found on the waiting time calendar on the webpage. The required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting, may do so at this meeting location, which we are in the town building, and in the select board meeting room. Public comments should be limited to two minutes per person. In the green meeting room of the next evening is Mr. Whitney, Mr. Rodine, we are joined by our town manager, Mr. McCall. Ms. Branglin will be unable to ignore us this evening, and Mr. Fay hopes to participate in the 8 p.m. by our remote means. Tonight's agenda, after we have announcements of public comment, we're going to have an introduction and ceremony of swearing in Mark Hebert as acting police chief. We're going to have a discussion on annual panel meeting, discussion of articles, discussions, discussions, discussions, possible to insert articles, exhibits, possible consent articles, and it's possible for me to push towards the articles submitted by the board of public works. At 730, we will have a hearing at a source-corrected location. That will be followed by a discussion of the consultants' recommendations to lead our board and the town on the equity audit that we have conducted this last spring summit. We will meet with Tom Glenn, the chair of the surface water quality committee for his annual review of his advisory committee. That will be followed by a discussion and review of the direct agreement from the Clean Water Trust for the purposes of developing a strong water asset management plan. The board will then have a brief discussion about the upcoming evaluation of the town manager. We will then also have an opportunity to provide us with some brief discussion of a couple slides about some of his many accomplishments this year. We followed the town manager's report in our new meetings this evening. However, we will go to release a couple executive session minutes that have been reviewed. I believe there's no correspondence. We will have that followed by members' reports and concerns. There are no topics not recently anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, and hopefully by 9 p.m. we will adjourn. I think what I would like to do towards the audience is, I think I would like to swap this and do the introduction and ceremonial ceremony at first, and then we will continue with our regular meeting. I think there's a couple of days of COVID-19 wanting that a lot, but everyone's okay with that. So with that, I would like to invite Terry Mansfield, assistant to the floor, and we can participate as well. Well, I thought we were going to take part of the discussion. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'll end this over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. As many of you know, recently, Chief Berman had tendered his certification of retirement. As such, we needed to have someone at the helm at our police department. Having worked with Lieutenant Hebert, who has been with the department for 17 years, I had the utmost confidence in his abilities to step in and take on that responsibility and those challenges. Lieutenant Hebert has been with the Weyland Police Department for 17 years. He started as a dispatcher. He's been a patrolman, a detective, sergeant, and lieutenant. He has a bachelor's and master's in criminal justice, and he's completed the FBI's leader trilogy, and that's their leadership academy. I've had the opportunity to work with Lieutenant Hebert for the last three years. He's been involved when we did collective bargaining. I've worked on him with a lot of strategic initiatives with Chief Berman, and I have the utmost confidence that for the next few months, he'll be able to navigate the challenges that we're facing and continue the tradition of community policing that was started by Chief Berman. So I was happy to ask this board to bring him in. I asked that he be appointed acting chief once Chief Berman departed, but I did not afford him the opportunity to come in, introduce himself, and have an opportunity to have his family present at a very important moment in one's career. So with that, Madam Chair, I would like the board to welcome Lieutenant Hebert, who we've made, I've asked this board to accept it as the acting chief of the interim, and we have our assistant town clerk here to perform the swearing, with your permission. Thank you. Thank you. Raise your right hand for me. Do you solemnly affirm that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on you as the acting chief of police for the town of Weyland, according to the best of your abilities and understanding, to the rules and regulations of the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the Commonwealth, and the bylaws of the town of Weyland? I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will maintain the highest ethical standards and uphold the values of the town of Weyland? I do. Congratulations. Thank you. You're welcome to say it in the next three hours, though. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next item on our agenda is announcements. Does anybody have any announcements? I don't share a couple, if you don't mind, in my text room, which is beyond families, right? And I appreciate all the effort everyone did to put in this out. So I think it just really makes us look at where we can move, not fully about it, but in particular days. So I'm not happy to come up with it. So the next item on our agenda is a public comment and on the development. Before we begin tonight, I'm going to repeat a phrase from the last paragraph we were opening remarks that I read, and I read, actually, that I read, which states that, when required by law and a law and a chair, the person's mission to make public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting produced by a person and a lot of people's interests, end quote. We wrote public comment at the site for the former residents to speak to men about issues of concern, or perhaps even of praise. At our last regular meeting, and actually, I'm writing this statement, stating that it's the first time I've spoken since I've ever won this board, and actually, my years in the prior board, some disrespectful comments, public comments, were made. A select board, in accordance with this policy, conducts its meetings with respect for staff, each other, residents, and board members of other boards and committees in town, past and present, and expects persons making public comment to do likewise. I apologize to the board and to the staff member involved that I didn't stop the public comment that was occurring at the last meeting, and I will be more diligent. We want to hear from everybody, but we're not going to be speaking in the manner we would like to be spoken about. So it's not, it's not going to do with anybody in the room. It's not going to stand until it's in the minutes. The board is in conference with this. Okay. All right. So now I'm off my pulpit. We are in public comment soon. Yeah. Yeah. So what time you're in public comment? I don't know if you've been here before. No, I haven't. Sit down and hear out. So I'm just going to time me. You get two minutes. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
So I'm Andrew Carpenter. I live at 8 Orchard Lane in Weyland.
And I'm speaking to agenda item DD, 25 Holiday Road, the proposed funding for an engineering study and appraisal. So my concern is about timing and risk for that item. The town, my understanding is anyways, the town doesn't currently control the land. It remains under the authority of the school committee. Um, and before spending, uh, the $200,000 for the, uh, survey, uh, I believe the board should first have a clear and public understanding of whether the school committee is actually willing to relinquish control of the parcel. And if that decision hasn't been made, there's a real risk that this money goes, that gets spent on it, uh, on the study. The town may not even be able to use that land, uh, from a taxpayer perspective that feels premature and risky. Uh, also, uh, there has already been litigation involving this land. So including a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and, uh, before commissioning any engineering or appraisal work, I think that the town council should review that decision and explain how it affects the town's options and, uh, authority as it relates to that parcel. Um, I'm not asking the board to decide the future of the land tonight. Um, I'm just asking to slow it down and make sure that the ownership and the legal constraints related to it are clear before committing significant public funds in this case, and the $200,000 for the appraisal and survey. Thank you. Yes, Jennifer James Young, 36 Orchard Lane. Um, I too, I'm here, uh, with regard to article DD. Um, my property is adjacent to the land, um, being considered. Um, so I'm really here for my personal statement. Um, my statement really is, uh, this land is one of the last remaining intact woodlands in our neighborhood and serves as an important wildlife habitat, including for barred owls, red fox, as well as a natural corridor that allows wildlife to move safely between larger forested areas and open spaces. These woods are already used by residents for quiet recreation through informal walking paths, proving, uh, providing proven physical and mental health benefits that forests uniquely offer to stay true to Wayland's claim of, quote, easy access to conservation space, which came in the new pamphlet that we all received that Carol mentioned. Um, I strongly urge the town to fully consider conservation and low impact recreational use as viable long-term options before investing in studies primarily focused on development. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't hear you. Carol, are you talking to me? To Hope? I'm right. Thank you. No, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, now I can hear you. Sorry about that. Um, hi, this is Hope Podell. I live at 7 Jenison Road. Um, my question is, I'll keep it really short. I just haven't been in touch with, uh, the select board so recently, and, uh, I have this interest in the, it's, I think, uh, a potential article of XX about, um, the senior, senior property assessment credit, um, and how I can get further information and are there petitioners or what route can I go to, uh, to see that in fact, it, it is on the, uh, town meeting agenda, um, the annual town meeting. So, uh, I will, that's out there and I'm just going to stop at that point. You know what I'm asking. Thank you. Can you answer this question if that's all right. Hope, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, good. Hi.
Um, I think the committee did submit an article, uh, that you're referring to. It has not been, um, reviewed or discussed, so it's not, it has to be vetted, if you will. And the select board will make a decision on whether it's going to be inserted into the warrant for the 2026 town meeting. So I anticipate, I believe, we're hoping to have a representative come and speak to us. I'm hoping as early as our February 2nd meeting, and then we will, the board will hear what the intent is. There is, it's a significant cause, so we will have to have that conversation as well. So does that answer your question? Um, it does well. I just, um, would like whomever it is that I can speak with to become well-informed. And is it, do you listen to, uh, other, uh, excuse me, I hope this is public comment, so we cannot engage back and forth. I'll reach out to you. How's that? Thanks. Is there anyone else for public comment?
I'm Elizabeth Carter. We met 19 Sherman's Fritch Road. And I, um, I have sent, uh, an email, so I won't go over the whole thing. Um, but I did want to just, um, raise my concern that this, um, the changes that will happen with the planned, um, project on the Sherman's Bridge will, um, affect a lot of people. Um, and, um, given how much particularly those directly affected, um, are concerned, I do feel that it should be something that is addressed at the public meeting. Um, we did try to get a public meeting earlier, you know, for anybody who might be able to come with some clear indication of the topic and location with advance notice, but nothing ever came of that. Um, and based on the kind of, um, materials, the extent of the reconstruction, um, it seems to me that it goes beyond a simple repair job and should therefore fall under the category of a project that does need to follow certain, um, bylaws and eventually become, come before the town meeting, um, as opposed to it being done entirely by, um, town officials and, um, employees. Um, I did, um, sit in on the, um, plan of the, uh, board of public works, which is one of the reasons I was late. I'm sorry. Um, it's all online. Um, and, um, it does, it sounds like they are now planning to put a, um, wood, uh, wearing board on top of the glue lamp, which I think is a, is a positive thing. However, there's so much with this project that changes it and, um, extremely limits how non-vehicle users can use the bridge, um, for, uh, recreation and relaxation. Yeah, that, um, that concerns me. Um, it just, it just isn't a simple, um, repair job. It is a redesign. And I don't think, um, sorry, I'll be very quick, that, um, federal and state, uh, only highway bridge laws apply in a small town to a wooden bridge.
Sorry. So the reason we have two minutes is so equitable with every, you know, two, three meters now, we've got someone out of two and they'll say, I've got it to a video and so-and-so go two, two minutes and 32 seconds. So this is why I'm doing it. And also what I want us to take in as many who want to speak. So I think we have the intent of thumb to run into a second. Is that okay? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, is there any other public comment on the, um, on the, uh, I'll see nobody else in line. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I think the next item we're going to go to is the, um, I mean, our biggest item tonight is discuss the articles. So that's, you know, what it's tonight, but I do want to give a little shout out to her that, um, if you looked at the annual timing calendar, it's pretty close to four or five working days after the deadline of the January 15th, you know, when your articles are due, before we actually, um, and that's why there was a bunch today in the supplemental cafe. I did intend that everyone to be really fully acknowledged on them, but just to have, like, a flavor of them. Um, there are, um, you know me with a map, it comes to statistics. There were 5,231, I think this could be on a grand record from the sideboard, uh, uh, so on the articles from the planning board for, uh, items from the top floor, there were two CPC articles issued, they have come down, two people are a suggestion, and I'm very grateful of that. I believe there are seven additional articles, we have not seen those yet, because they don't look here fully certified yet. Obviously one from the finance committee, which is the budget, one from the board of Bumbleforce, which is feeding a large and large supply, and the one that was mentioned earlier, you see the tax, um, the group does. So, um, there are copies of the different articles that we have not seen in both the packet and in the supplemental, but what I really wanted to talk today was to go back and look at this, the first chart, and we're going to do two things on the chart, um, so I guess put together, you know, I think I mentioned too that we're trying to have others on the board also familiar with and comfortable with the process, which is our project, besides me. So Doug is getting paid for this chart, and, um, let me give you a little bit of a copy. So on the chart, we'll do two things. One, we're going to look at select what we use in advance on the finance committee workshop, article workshop, which will be next Wednesday to 28th. And then, I want to go back and look at the ones we didn't insert that are our articles, and insert those. And then I think we might want to look at those that are automatically inserted, like the child club and, um, the planning bulletin. So, so, so we'll get those inserted before we go to the meeting next Wednesday. Kind of put our ducks lined up, if you will, if you will. So, so, so, so with the 52 articles, Phil, that's trying to figure out the best way to divide it so we have somewhat equal one of the five. So, so, so Carol gave some guidance about if you're a liaison to the award makes sense to be able to put them on the articles and that wanted to add to that. And it's that it would be helpful for me to have a sense of what we think are the number of articles that will either fit under the abbreviated presentation procedure or our second time taking a crack at the consent calendar. And take Carol's point machine, I'm Bethany Forge. Um, today that somebody can pull an article out of the consent calendar or the abbreviated presentation procedure so you still have to be able to present it. Um, but I still think it would be who of us to kind of categorize those. Um, and then I, I think that that would be the best way to divvy these up. So this was my first craft added in your version, Carol, because I have my original launch. Do you have an S and T per bill? Oh, I did one. We talked about it to a problem. So since in my first craft, Carol had 13, but a good number was first, we were substantive. I had seven for you. So we were going to add articles S and T for you. I'm okay with the sort of one, but it's okay. So the thing is, we're done, we're doing it electronically, which is hard. In order for us to create the work, we have to write the articles. That's what you're the liaison to is the article write-up. Then we don't get time and we'll find out which ones we're going to actually speak to. Right. So it's the overall workbook, not just presenting. No, I was talking about presenting. I was talking about... Yeah, I mean, that's what I was talking about. You can see we're still at it, so there you go. So what we need to do is... It isn't, it isn't because we are going to hopefully move later on to go sponsor. So what will happen is that the Board of Public Works will speak, and then I'll just take a couple minutes afterwards. So that of assembly is basically the last time I got up and just added a couple points and said, please join the select board in supporting this article because we have voting to support that. But you also have to be writing and answer questions that come up potentially too. I don't know. So you have to be very familiar with articles. That was not going to be, it's going to be somewhat, it's not a final point, but I'm not unhappy if you take some more of my other. Like, for me, when they do a biology, it's not the same as current year transfer, for example. Exactly. You know, one is far more substantive than the other. So, you know, you've been surprised, you know, having written probably a hundred articles in my career here. It's the funniest little ones that take so much time and some of the big ones just go right through. So, I'm already, for example, to your question, I've already seen the write-up beforehand and they put away from the books. As their liaison, they sent it to me and they asked me my input. I gave them some thoughts. They made some changes. So, I've seen that when I wanted the book that's submitted. That doesn't mean that the finance committee or the select board might make other edits during them. So, what we really need to do today is to assign every one of these articles to a select board person who will be responsible for guiding that fully to us so we can vote it. But, that's it. So, I will say this, even though it's probably different, I did reach out to the moderator as well and confirmed that she was comfortable with the concept that we sent down to continue with. Yeah. And to just let her know what we were faking and so on. I have a legitimate topic, too, so. Okay. So, I did, but there'll be a moment to me. She's just sort of seen this for the first time, sorry. Right. I think in fairness, we've got a little bit of an answer to tell me what you have to ask for this is probably this. Right. And as to the point of the writer, I understood that, really, the finance committee is the writer. They do, but we, as a leader, we, if there are, we have to read them. Right. We can have labs, we can have statements. So, that's why we're going to leave on those. And also, when it's ready to go to the board, they'll say to me, it's ready to go to the board. So, you're really just. It's this list. I can't. 51, let's just say they're 52. 52. 51. 51. I'm happy to read that. Thank you. You're including the petitions as well. 77. 51. 51. 51. So, we're not going to talk about it. I said it's 51. I thought it was 52. He graciously gave us the 11. 51. And then, when I spent 10. And then, when I spent 10. So, this could be some horse creating. So, the thing is, next week's meeting on the 28th, I was just thinking that we need to be able to push up. I don't even think there is a medium of illness. So, we really need to kind of have an assured hour. You mean it's better for 52? What? Are you at 52? 51? 52? Yeah. 52? When you're at the 7th. Oh, thank you. When you're at the 7th. I'm going to lose my math badge here. So, and I also want to say this. There's a couple of things that we put in these places always there, standing up with the list that you don't necessarily use, that we may not insert. Yeah. So, anyway, I am happy with the ones who do this. Yeah. I don't care. This is a list of, I guess, potential. There are certain lists that we haven't been able to submit work. So, and I also want to say this. There's a couple of things that we put in these places always there, standing up with the list that we don't necessarily use, that we may not insert. Yeah. So, anyway, I am happy with the ones who do this? Yeah. I don't care. This is a list of, I guess, potential. There are certain lists that we haven't been able to submit work. So, to insert. Right. Right. We're going to be inserting on the next one. The next, I will be, we're going to be inserted. All right. That's right. I didn't put them on my own. Yeah. We're going to discuss those. But I want to just get this done first. I think Bill's absolutely right. I need to lend this by, to lend an end. I do want to switch, take the KPM that was referred to earlier, which is the senior property because that's my credit. I think that's one of my days on. So, I'm going to switch that, and I'm for Tom, and then I want to give him, because I'm not in the mood. Okay. I'm going to see if he would like to, if he can have any wire. I thought that was a 6Q, I thought maybe. Didn't I say Q, really? 6 seconds or gestures, I think somebody that was in 25 hours. Yeah. I think. Yeah, that was a 6Q. I think that was a 6Q. All right. So, there's a little bit of variables here on the media songs. So, can you just send it out to me? Yeah. And I'm going to send it out to Ange and Pete. Maybe I can get Ange and Abby. Can I send this out to you? This chart to you and Tom said, please be listening to Abby. If you weren't happy to send it out that way, you know, get your communications back. Right. Well, I'm sorry. If you can get that to me, then I'll get it out. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Why don't you send it to the whole board? First of all, they're not good that they're happy, but yeah. They're going to send it to the whole board, because you'll need it the next week. It'll be in. Does that make sense? So, what is the responsibility at the meeting? Okay. Let's talk about that. So, good question. The finance committee holds a lot of workshops. You just get a basic understanding of what the audit is. It's not a debate. And you're not supposed to get a little wrong statement like you're going to say and tell me. It's just basically, resend unissued debt, right? And you explain that we have issued some debt that we're not utilizing, so we want to resend it. So, you get up and say, Caroline, I'm going to select one of these on this article. This is a select board article. This is what it's about. If they have any questions, they can get a question. Otherwise, they say, oh, this is what I'm going to say. So, finance committee names on echoes in that column. Now, you know what you're working with on that article. And that's how we don't. I will say this. The select board does not speak to any articles except our own. So, I have personally sent out some emails to folks to remind them that the articles are this next week. Because, you might want to take a look at them. I'm sure that means you need this. But, we don't speak to CPC. No, that means they're just out. However, when those articles are mentioned, let's say, it's a playbook article. And then, the next is telling me, select what it is. And I'm still working. And so, they know who's working on the article. Because, the goal is to get both from the finance committee and go from the select board. And get the right to the manager's office. And this is how the process starts. Exactly. So, we go through the petitioner's articles at that beginning, too? They will present their own articles. We'll just say, the liaison. We'll just sort of, except the one, right? Okay. Okay. And you will get it. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm happy to get it. Okay. All right. So, now, when we submitted a lot of articles, when I did think they were going to have a forum, I did say, let's do the board to insert it. Right? And some of them, we're not going to insert it because we don't know if we need them. For example, if it's the land. So, we will wait until the beginning, probably the end of February, and Michael and Brian will tell us. We need that. We don't need it. And then we have to claim. But we really do need to put some of these in. So, for example, the first one is H, which is the budget. And that's from the finance committee. So, we just hope to insert that. Okay? Mm-hmm. The next one that's open is sell the trade vehicles. I would leave that one open yet. The next one is the spend reserve. And not parent and cancer. I'll let that one open too. So, I don't know if there's one in any of us. And I haven't gotten any information on the spend reserve yet. So, I'd leave that open. And end. So, on the first page, I would only vote to insert H. Everybody remember that? So, these others have been submitted? Yes. Well, if it hasn't been submitted by January 15th. Right. So, let's put it through it. The trains have left us to travel the train stations. These are the articles that we're going to look at. No more in this. And the reason why it's blank in the columns. Flight board vote to submit. Is that came from the other committees. Like CPA, Community Preservation, Finance Committee. So, on page two, we did not vote to insert Article S or Article T. And I remember explaining, I knew that wasn't going to be there. I knew that was going to be there. I knew that was going to be there. I didn't want to vote on the non-full board. But we don't have any choice. We've got to do that. We've got to insert. So, you know, these are viable. Okay with those two? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then the next one open is, Bill, I think you probably want to, you know, hold on on this one. We're inserting. W. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're not going to insert W. We're going to ask Brian to come speak just maybe on February 2nd. I love that. I have a lot of questions on that. Yeah. I mean, read it. Read it? I mean, read it. Yes. Read it. Are you going to make a vote to insert at the end of this list? Yes. Okay. Don't just keep track of it. Yeah. No, it wasn't. I'm certain. I am as well. If you didn't ask, you're okay. I want to make sure people those are not formal votes. You make a formal vote. Would you need to finally make a vote? No. No. I don't need to. I just want to make sure. We're doing a pretty good list case. So, W is not good. This one. Same for that. So, we'll open that. So, then the next one is, why is the real trail? We're definitely going to insert that one, right? I think there are some questions, though, about the – well, is it – let me ask a question, then. Is this related only to the town center properties and the town properties, but excluding privately owned properties? We haven't – that's – see the next column that's to the right? That's our position. That would be when we take a vote on that. This is to let it go forward before town meeting. Put it in the water. Put it in the water. Put it in the water. But we have to take a position before we get in there. So, in other words, we want to continue to pursue this article. Would you like to hold off on this one until we get more involved? Well, I think there was a question about – We're waiting for the DCI to get back to us. Yeah, exactly. All right. You want to hold off on this one until Tom comes? Yeah. Because once we vote to insert, it has to be on the water. You can still pull it. Yeah, we can un-insert, Kevin. Can you still pull it? I think you can. Yeah. Up until the time you go to print, I think. And that's when the water flows. Right. I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable. Let's not do Rachel Thomas. I just wanted to – the gist of it. Now, Michael, this is – these are the final ones. AA is transfer funds to fund the upper 26 by the payroll budget. Should we hold off on with Trinity United? I didn't have it down on my original list on the warrant on the agenda because I think we should hold off. I believe that one is going to be dependent upon whether or not we have a – Let's vote. Let's vote. BB is the home rule for the Green Barrier. We'll put with BB. Yeah. Yep. C is a man of town. This is for us to extend the time for the town meeting. We're going to do that one. D is the holiday rule. Let's want to hold off on this one for – until we get a little bit more. We're waiting for confirmation from the school today, right? So we did reach out to – It's fine to insert. What's it? It's fine to insert. Submit. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Just submit. Yeah. Let's hold off. I'm sorry. Did you say to insert and – or to submit and insert? Yep. Okay. You okay on that? Yeah. Okay. I'm sure we're going to refine some of these. ED is an amendment of town code. This is the Planning Board of Appeals article. I think we want to – we need some more information on this. So I'm going to hold on to this one. Yeah. I'd like to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. Add a CPA set-asides. Insert that. I think we have to insert that because it comes from another community, right? Yeah. Same with GDP, which is the recommended project's population. And I'm going to give – I have a huge shout-out. Two articles for them. They're just very easy to understand. They're really, really nice job. We're in long-term model supply, construction funding. Are we okay with answering that? Yeah, it is. Question. Are we saying that we're going to submit them precisely as they are currently drafting? We're just saying it's going forward to town meeting at the moment. And to Michael's point, we can pull out of this at the end if we got ready. But we can revise the language. That's the whole job of – the whole job of the liaison is going back and forward. I've already reached out to Mr. Barnes on that as well. That's fine. All right. Is that any change? Thank you. Okay. I accept gifts of land. I'm going to hold off. We don't know anything about this. Do we have to insert this? Because it's about the board, though. Is there not an advisory to us? Do you need to do away? It's a town clearing. Yeah. Yeah. But we have to – we have to insert this. We're concerned. We're still going to do the whole review process. Right. We're going to go to position. We're going to change lanes. Why is it flat there? Because we didn't – this is who submitted it. We didn't submit it. But we still have to answer this. We do have to insert. We do have to insert. We do have to insert. So that's the insert box, right? Over here. This is the insert box. Right. Right here, right? Next up, right here. Okay. Okay. What do we want to do about this? We don't know anything about that. Can we hold off? There's something in the supplemental package. I know. I'm going to hold off and kick that. Because we really need to have a point about this. Now the next five. L, L, M, N, N, N, O, O, and PP. We're all coming by the planning board. And so I believe we want to insert our rules. Right? Okay. Okay. Okay. Now we're going to go to three more from the telephone. QQ, R, R, and S. Now for anybody who is watching or listening, in part of the agenda, there is a list that says Exhibit A, and it gives the full title of all the articles that I'm referring to by letter. So for example, when I said B, it's confirm remote participation, and it's right part of the agenda. So you should be able to not have any questions about what we're talking about here. Okay. All right. Now the next perhaps we don't have. Seven. Seven. So I just want to, let's have a, let's. That's looking at your first page. My what? I'm sure I have the ones right on the first page. H. Yeah. I think that's it. I don't see it. H, H, S, G, W, didn't, Y, didn't, A, A, I didn't, sorry. I know L, M, N, O. And then there's, I'm like, what I need most? Yeah. Okay. I move that this is the last one we're going to insert the following articles, as listed in our packet. Article H. The FY 2027. I'm going to spite it. That's acceptance of general object. Number 13, Section 12B. Article T. Allowing additional liquor licenses. Article B. Fee. Home rule authorization and green barrels. C. C. Amending 10. Chapter 36. 1. DD. 25. Holiday Road. Appropriate funding for preliminary design engineering study appraisal. F. The CPA article on set asides and transfers. G. G. CPA. Recommended by the appropriations. H. H. We own long term water supply construction funding article. I. Amending town code section 149. L. L. Zoning article from the Planted Mort. M. Amending flood planning federal flood protection district. N. M. Accessory dwelling unit. Zoning amendments. O. Multi-family housing. Route 20. West sub-district. Amending the maximum dimensions. PP. Ground-mounted solar. Polo-voltaic installations. And three articles from the town clerk. Chapter 91 related to dogs. Penalties related to the regulation of dogs. Invisible house numbers. Second. Sir. Thank you. In front of the discussion. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Shiz. Sub-in these helmets. Send more surgery. Almost. Those spots. You should not. We'll get you one. we'll get you one okay and then what you do is send this off to the um don't even want it to you
eventually you'll send it to the finance committee which is also filling in things here that's okay okay so that is that um i wanted to talk a little bit about um let's talk about consent instead of exhibit so i did reach out to maria she's good with us doing consent um we were working on this and mentioned to her that we have a lot of small we don't have to make any decisions on consent today but um did want to throw out that we're trying to save time at the time meeting and we've done this once so i want to throw it out to see everyone thinks meeting one consent calendar instead of two or three the second one was basically the cpc articles anybody named their combined and so that would really need to take those small ones at the end like the choose offices and bds if this um put up soviet was there any of those that were any of those and put them all in so how will we determine the difference between the same calendar and just abbreviated presentation yeah so actually things that are in abbreviated can be in the um yeah we also have abbreviated oh no we had some last time i think we can roll and set the only one of the two abbreviations but for example last time i did look this up briefly article three or nine or people in the first one on what they got set um and so they just listed you know and then there's just a list of what's going to be in the
i was thinking today which is dangerous but i was thinking that perhaps we might if we do it at the onset from the staff list we want out we might just put a page right in here
all right we'll start going to be in a consent for writers on page six and twelve or whatever then this is number three what it is number four and five and six ninety in this section i don't know if that makes sense or not but i'm just trying to connect it so people understand this group goes together not necessarily just we start off with consent after i think it was pretty much pretty much we would yeah we want to do that yeah and when you want to let it out this you'll get to do that you'll say that's what we need to do all the ones that each path the budget before we do the budget and we really want to do the budget as soon as there's early in the meeting as possible so last year it was like article 10 wasn't it 9 or 10 but we have all these other things that impact the budget budget the reserve funds that had to get done before
so for example transfer the general stabilization fund that would come before we did a budget transfer funds yeah from the final payable budget yeah and that would be anything we do with budget has to help them because those numbers are already in the budget article and so if someone were to say you know what we don't want to funnel every 500 000 when we do 600 the budget numbers have to change a lot of them can be a lot of towns just put their year to year um you know just standard business articles you know um minor transfer some things and then um just like our own consent calendar somebody has question they flag and then they pull it out and then you can have some type of you know every discussion right and so what if you have three different members of the select board who have articles within you pick one of them to go up yeah but if something gets pulled when the liaison goes up that's why you have to have that liaison because as i wrote you you have to go to somebody prepared to someone might ask questions yeah you're like that's what we did last year we had three consents i think bill did a consent i think and one people pulled a couple of them out and i think the mother is going to come to us in another meeting to talk about it but last year she allowed you know just one person had a question who knows maybe this year she might change it because a lot of other communities it's more than one anybody should just raise their hand well that's what she loved last year because it was new other communities i think this can be well you would know better than i 5 10 20 to get it to get it out yeah i would have to look i mean yeah my hometown does it i don't recall how many people it takes maybe one in a second well anyway so these are things we've been working on but it's a great tool that i think it helps and um and then as we go through the two emotions which we're finished and we'll hold on we'll go back you know we can have a conversation which ones we've actually abbreviated presentation you know i mean like we're both participation it's probably one of them for it's definitely abbreviated but could it be could it be a consent for example we've seen this a number of times okay you know so does that answer all the questions to that so will someone put together a draft of what we think or what the board would consider putting the consent down
yeah well i'll do it and then maybe i can do what you're doing with the banner notes because you know trying to have some a little limited knowledge here but it really is a complicated process okay so let's say i just want to make sure guys i've got the liaisons we're ready for the 28th um then we did the insertions which is great we've talked about consent as we'd like to before we go up um where public works in the house is in november if we would be willing to co-sponsor the article um i will be prepared to have a motion to do so for the discussion at least all right great i will let them know um and then i wanted to mention about the articles the exhibits so we were kind of one some articles for example with the rail trail article the other day and historically what happens is we kind of work on the articles and getting them to the town manager's office and the exhibits sometimes don't always get done until almost the last minute and i was hoping we made an issue if we think there's an exhibit that there's an article comes through we see one that should have an exhibit like a math or something or a link that we identify and as we go along because it really make like you can see it from the top yeah there's just a lot of staff that are doing this okay yeah i'll kind of plug on that plus also you know if you look at something and you say it's not really isn't that clear we have time to get another one of the building friends all right are we good on this everything on that point we just freak out and talk about the outs of the articles that are not yet inserted or maybe that will be happening if we update the spreadsheet so we didn't insert any petitioner articles because they haven't been certified yet by the town clerk so therefore we would want them certified that they're viable and then we won't put them in you know i don't know if the board has to do that we don't have terms i think once they once they get their signature i think there are three ways
well i know that that's true but i think we've got the very we are going to talk about all these articles as we as we go along you know yeah i'm just trying to figure out if there are resource people that need to consult on some of these that haven't been certified such as uh the finance director on w yeah maybe town council and why just trying to figure out
so thank you that's a good segue to my next 70s to my next note so um we're going to start looking at after we go to the finance and watch them and we will have a regular meetings the very second the very nine we'll have we're going to have meetings we're going to stick the 16th we on the 23rd and unfortunately we are march 2nd march 9th problem to 16 and at each one of those meetings we will be looking at audible write-ups hopefully i have asked the town clerk and she's confirmed to come to see us on the second so she'll talk to one of our articles then and then maybe we can make some decisions on those i guess the finance committee to let us know which ones they are not going to do a full write-up on so we're going to show up and those are just our articles so you can put them right through um um we're going to have the cpcs coming in to talk about their two articles on the second as well and so as we have articles that are ready i know you want to talk about the planning board bill article on the second as well so as this as they're ready to come forward to us we will and i think i might ask brian if he's available to column a second to talk to us about article uh w so let me just put that one down as well so it sounds i don't think it's going to kick off i think it'll start falling into shape a bit better it is very confusing first time i have a little business or what is this like otherwise we're good to know what are you talking about martian is this then too yes i'm going to add something from mart you're saying second night 16. yeah i believe that the article write-ups are due finalized on 16. okay so if we have any last ones hoping not to have to add any little extra meetings but it's 50 articles guys let's do your school vacation no she's exactly remember actually yeah and abby will have i had and just reserved those rules today and then i'll send out a note from the schedule so are we good all right well the next item on the agenda what time is 7 26. okay and um four minutes um as i stated earlier there was no um regular session minutes available to review we will review the minutes the 5th and 14th uh and our next meeting on the uh february 2nd which is still in the 30 days so however i do want to have a motion to vote to vote to release with productions the executive session minutes related to agreements with respect to the international association of firefighters and advanced level 1978 step three and those minutes in particular on february 5 and february 12th of 2024 thank you thank you i do want to say that it does take some time for the minutes to be posted but once i would imagine a little bit about 10 days or so those students okay next hour this is going to be
uh it's you know five um let me click there
so i think that now i'm going to conduct a grant every source grant of location here on the open-ended path to install the utility following an anchor um if you're going to invite the tenants by christine cosby is this cost be available it's not on yet it's not on yet okay now what i'm going to do is i'm going to move to tom clem's there right yes yes i see you okay thanks for talking you know 728 maybe
so i am going to do one little piece of focus tonight's hearing is the last one i'm finished so that we'll start collecting a fee i've done about 400 of them this year i don't think um i don't see tom is he there i'm running all of them okay he's declining it says says he's declining before
oh two years are two years on now do you want me to continue to watch it i don't know if somebody's called in since then too there's somebody i'm telling you i'm sorry somebody's called me and i believe it's every source okay well awesome i didn't ever know and why don't we do tom but i was talking really well i'll take him to some of these five minutes yeah or i can go back to the college yeah okay go back to you know i just wonder i have tom recline again you're not ready guys miss crosby are you available yes hello ms crosby are you there yes this is christine crosby from membersource we're going to start your hearing now so just want to make sure you make sure you were online before i started okay yes thank you thank you i have a plan this hearing open for the purpose of considering the application for a grant and locations of eversource energy to install a utility pole and anchor guy to be installed on old connecticut path approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morganbrook road the notice that was published in the metro west daily news on monday january 5th 2026 reads as follows the whaling select board will hold a public hearing on tuesday january 20 20 26 beginning at 7 30 p.m at the whaling town building for you on constituent road whaling and remotely on the application from n star electric company doing business as ever source energy for a grant location installing one pole number 19 slash 75 dash s and one anchor guide in the public right of way on the southeasterly side of old connecticut path whaling mass 01778 approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morganbrook road okay the petitioner requests permission to erect or construct and the location for such a line of wires poles and such other fixtures including anchors and guy as may be necessary to sustain or protect the wires of the line upon along and across the public way or ways as described above now copies of the plan are available from public review online and within the select board packet uh for tonight all right so i'm sure you have done this before but for the public i'm just going to read uh formal rules of evidence and other court procedures do not apply to public hearings before the select board the board expects the prospective applicant and any members of the public who comment to present credible and reliable information in a clear and concise manner so i think we're all here i'm going to give the floor to you um mr crosby to explain uh your reason for applying and also refer the board to the packet um i think what page someone said all the information is on 33 33 starts on 33 would you like to uh speak to us yes um this is christine cosby from eversource energy and we are requesting uh grant a location for a new poll to be installed poll number 19 over 75 dash s and the purpose of this poll would be to provide support to the existing poll that's across the street uh the property owners at 175 old connecticut path looking to have trees removed currently that existing poll out there is being supported by a tree guy which is a guy wire that's installed into a tree and they're looking to have trees the trees removed so that poll needs additional support because of the where it's located at that intersection there's a strain there that comes from contituent road so in order to provide safe conditions for that poll we still we need to support that and that's what we're looking for the stub poll for okay thank you are there um any questions from the board yes um my name is bill whitney uh scarpy uh as i look at the plan uh it it appears that uh the proposed uh 19-75s uh poland anchor is located generally on the opposite side of old connecticut path would it be connected to the existing pole uh on the uh i guess peaceably side or northerly side of it or connecticut path with a cable yes when the new pole would when the new pole gets installed to support poles it would be a guy wire that would be that would be installed from the new poles to the existing poles to provide that support so that it doesn't lean or fall you know fall over overhead it's just a guy wire it's not a wire that it has a you know electric service or anything it's it's a supporting it's a supporting fixture okay thank you um is anybody in i don't see any hands raised but i'll ask any members of the public here to present public comment regarding this installation um is there any additional information you'd like to add miss crossby nope that's pretty much it just we need we need to pull that there to support that existing pole in the corner at the intersection because of the trees being removed okay thank you i'm going to close the hearing and take the matter under advisement and we are going to make a decision i believe this evening um there at this point i mean hearing we consult with the town manager of child council which i don't think is necessary in this case before we take this under advisement we'll make a decision we do have in our packet a letter from the department of public works and it should be allowed to you know patrolling totally thank you sorry um it basically says that they do support this or whatever they will um require a detail officer is required for any work to be performed and also the department public recommends that the select board um approve this because it is consistent with other poles in the vicinity and the bueno police also finds it to be consistent with utility bolt installation practices so the only other piece of consultation usually yet is we will ask the town manager if he also would like to add anything thank you madam chair um this being a duly noticed hearing um you gave the public an opportunity to participate during the open hearing closed it you received sufficient uh documentation as well as support from the petitioner you've heard from the town dpw i think you have sufficient information to base your decision this evening and based on what my staff has i would ask that you support it
okay do we
i move that the board approved the application for granted location for my resourced energy to install and maintain one full and one acre guide to be installed on the public right of way on the southeasterly side of old connecticut path and wayland approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morgan brook road following the directives of the department of public works regarding timing and execution of the construction to minimize construction to ensure public savings the public safety and the dpw exactly the second that motion so
all right that's waiting for the discussion then all those in favor say aye all right so what we need to so you're reflecting it actually you'll get some paperwork as far as we from the or location from the town manager's office with the stipulations to follow the public safety and the dpw rules regulations and time frames and we will sign the paperwork uh right now did you hear me
excuse me did you hear me i we've approved we've approved your application oh okay thank you very much thank you thank you yes sorry i'm concentrating thank you it's me i have to stop looking at all right um i would like to see if time is available we've lost completely now
okay so i'm going to give your attention to the supplemental packet now
i'll take it and then on page is i think 58 of the supplemental packet we're going to talk about so um a year ago i think we engaged a consulting work to um you know conduct what we call an equity audit at the time and then they came to us in the spring it was more like the end of june with some their recommendations because what their findings were um they wanted to make some refinements to that which i think we heard this during september and then we had some input from i think you know it was october 20th meeting um one of the consultants who was actually a resident and a member of the hrdi who participated in this process and we had looked at this and come forward with some recommendations their input that we heard on the 20th is summarized in the packet in the main tag but at our meeting in the 20th we said our next step here is for the board to deliver it and sort of get a sense of oh where we want to proceed you know with this material and information we've gotten so in the supplemental packet i've had um that we need to be involved the summary pages which are the recommendation theme one recommendation theme two recommendation scene three it really encompassed i thought it was nine topics but i think they might close to the 10 or 11. there are in fact uh about 53 bullet points a couple of these really belong more in the school and then there is some overlap but um a couple of things that were emphasized at the meeting on the 20th from the presenters was you know this isn't uh a checklist to go down the checklist this is going to be a way you know how we operate and i kind of had circled that here one of the recommendations our theme on this is not about checking the box it's about listening and responding and building a strong and more unified community together and um i was pleased when i looked at a couple of the bullet points i think we kind of do a couple of these items like we do offer evening hours and hybrid or virtual service options dropping opportunities and what have you so i was pleased to see i think we kind of touched on some of these if not fully to what the consultants thought but i also think it says in here that this is a three-year implementation plan i know the board spoke on the 20th briefly in a deliberation we thought it might be a three to five year implementation plan um and i think that i really wanted to bring this back to just talking about you know some next steps on what we think we should do the uh recommendation we've done on the 24th was you know to engage in the society to do a lot of the work and maybe hire and or hire some part-time staff we did explain that we have some challenges budget-wise and i think we still have the hiring fees so probably wouldn't work out too well we can tell you what else we can hire on anything new by and so on so anyway in the meantime or shortly after we went we had this presentation uh builds i mean i
attended the uh presentation put on by the da in the community center and there was a program but then after the program there was a lot of community input and there were a lot of topics mentioned and there were a number of people who talked about this kind of uh framework and i know doug reached out to a couple and i reached out to a couple and i've heard you know another suggestion which was to kind of take what we have and kind of with that people won't cause a segment of the table and where we kind of take what we have and lay on our talk to some of that and see what kind of office saw this and um and uh michael had mentioned to me he's looking at me now like a couple of weeks ago we talked about this maybe a month ago um that i believe that correct me michael that our insurance maya uh can put together some of these what is it called team building um programs and those we get i believe as part of being members of participating in the insurance program why are they a little of a prosperous right michael that's correct that's part of i mentioned previously that i was going to look to start having that development uh professional development dates and we've looked so i'm going to try to do this every other month on um you're starting on thursday we close the offices and ensure that all employees are attending required training we have epics training other training that we have to do and we were going to split one of the first ones with some basic professional procurement but also under theme two uh where it talks about uh strengthening accessibility representation in town operations um we have a program that we're going to be uh putting on using uh our insurance carrier and it's going to be cultural awareness and diversity and it is part of the presentation so that there will be uh you know some meaningful discussion amongst our employees across all departments um it as you said it's not just checking a box the school department does this with their employees uh today they were having a restorative justice training for some of the school employees here in the town offices so uh we feel that it can come upon us to start offering that for our employees as well so that that would be something we'll be engaging our providers with and at least initially it'll be no cost in the town we'll continue to explore those type of training opportunities so i was very intrigued with this concept of you looking at the resources we have because actually a couple people i spoke to online said we're also opposite residents and do this kind of work on you know this is their profession and said you know um really and truly it's supposed to be set on the table what do you add on and maybe there's some things that might not be or want to tweak how we do it but anyway it was very intriguing that i did speak to michael a couple times we had a couple conversations about it so anyway i wanted to throw that out and i think there's a couple approaches to how we do this but i think you'll agree with me
that perhaps what we ought to do is fill a charge and set up um maybe a short-term committee to kind of give us a kind of a road map here this to what we would how we would accomplish this um and maybe they look at these different styles and what's available like these programs that we might be able to participate in do they fit into some of these recommendations of things we want to do and um i think that um uh let's not go for a second i don't know what this is so probably what is something good i don't know what that's going to do well tell me more about what you envision with that committee so that's working good yeah i think it's not really my vision is what the board's gone vision but i was sort of thinking that if we put together this i don't know be advised or a committee would be advised or some you know a framework what should happen i would like it and but maybe to uh like from staff so i'm sort of thinking of um putting in new family services you know under jason this is it's their their skill set and then we'd be able to layer in you know the work they do work probably when he's leaving the school i was also thinking that they can put together a group we want to reach out to the schools and see if they want to and someone you know one of the appointees and how would you think about that um or would they like us to appoint you know all over so i just kind of i think we want to do something and i think we have to put the statement around um but those were some sort of thoughts that um i had and i have to talk with them and then i talked to michael to um and one thing that i've learned in the last few weeks is i had a conversation with a number of um town officials in wellesland including their actually called their um town manager executive director director i think you know this is their assistant executive director because that and corey testa so i met with him and um director of their board their director of public works and another member who founded this group called the wellesley civil discourse initiative and so they started this um right a few months after covid so it's been going for five and a half years now and it's specifically around structured dialogue and so they work with a group called essential partners of cambridge to help train moderators who are town residents or town officials and then they organize these structured dialogues throughout the year so i think this goes to specifically what this summary is talking about um about having these these difficult conversations right and so i think this is this is something that um we should look into a little closer because they're willing to share some more information and i've wanted to connect michael with them as well um because they've had dialogues on race they've had dialogues specifically about being respectful in public comment and and the animosity that can happen when people disagree about certain local issues and it seems because they've been doing this component on six years that it could be a model that we have known and would have potentially been well that i do um so i might have um so that's a lot of resources that is school to look at right is that what you're saying yeah i think it's something that that we should look at regardless um because i think it's something that that we could potentially take advantage of and we should all um learn more about it right so i think we've identified two or three different a resource and so um i actually was going to hope we equate the next stuff i didn't know go ahead so i was hoping that john was going to be here tonight because i don't see his problem and i was hoping to um get him to help us you know draft the charge and we can kind of go through that after we bounce some of these ideas around um anyways um well i think the word certainly is important and i'm carving some of the financial constraints um uh i guess uh i'd like to better understand the role of this committee of working group visa v the hr deic is there overlap there is there duplication uh but um um i also uh i think we have lots of committees in the town and uh i think something along the lines doug describes having kind of a specific deliverable is yeah is a good thought so it's not responsive to that and share specifically to your suggestion uh but um i i think the notion of exploring alternate models is a good one uh but this is this is one that we should not forget about a lot of that fall by the wayside because of the rest of the business yeah i think one of the reasons i was suggesting that would put this leave the family services the town manager has plenty to do and i don't want us to go into the town manager's office i mean i see how much work to do and i see how much what we have to do i see what they like to do and the frustration because they can't get to things they'd like to doesn't mean they're not interested doesn't mean we're not interested because obviously we said we were talking about the january you know we are right on local schedule talking about it so i really like you know to a specific somehow a specific department in the way kind of talked about beautiful family services was a good fit that becomes the person who funds the next one that maybe comes in and speaks to us this is a good program or whatever but i do think there's some a lot of resources there's several people who um are in this profession in town who are willing to come forward and you know give us some influence on there might also be uh foundation support or uh you know for issues such as this um i do kind of like the idea of working with an experienced group that has a demonstrated track record uh and uh i think if one has specific agreement with a third party uh you're in a better position to push things along but if you have volunteers who well they may be perfectly well qualified so they want to keep it then under our umbrella and then there was a suggestion to make the committee so that's why i was kind of going in that direction i think it's a it's a specific create the plan a three-year plan a five-year plan that we then try to you know follow and implement as opposed to an ongoing uh committee but i totally get it and and they're saying something i don't want to bring another committee because i've always well michael gets 800 more emails that's not everything i'm just trying to protect right not that it's not important and i have to keep saying it is important i'm sorry you're going to miss the study in the first place it's very important but we do need we do need to have a balance here on how much time is available so um would you like to speak to us i'm talking all about me would you like to speak no no i i routinely uh speak with members of hibbi and tim is blue and film and heather contact me regularly to talk about these issues and how to move them forward for the very reason you said we don't want them to fall by the wayside um i still have dialogue with other citizens in town who want to see these efforts move along um and and we really felt that having these professional development dates and neglect that we have another one tentatively scheduled in april um dealing with and addressing discrimination in the workplace so we're we're we're taking it to heart um and it is something that a lot of people want to see so we're happy to help when we can we can you're suggesting maybe that we use human family services jay rooski uh is engaged with a lot of people in the school community as well as in the community um and maybe some people from our staff like that was radical who was our communication coordinator to help you know make sure that this stays in the public eye uh but i do like the conversation that uh it's like board member lavine mentioned about the partners there that were helping with the the conversations and i would be remiss to say that the um over at the library we're going to have a program coming up on someone's community conversation so i i think there's some willingness to do it to continue this effort and people that want to do it and so i think if it's organized bringing some of these partners to help us
so the next question is going to be there's only three of us tonight do you want to put this back on the end of another couple of weeks so we want folks to hear um in the meantime do you want to get some more information about this so yeah i'm going to send it to you now you're going to send it to me so i don't know and i do want to say this that when we were talking about this it's a serious topic for those watching the tape i kind of jumped and smiled earlier it was because mr clam who was originally going to participate remotely came in and waved at me and it took me by surprise and nothing to do with the topic that's all i'm very concerned about that um maybe we do it like they're in the night or something like that i think the second is kind of over right i'm gonna take this back down here okay so we'll do that and we'll look at some of these ideas yes it's great all right um i would also like on this no we're not talking about i'd like to have one of the women that i spoke to come in and talk about this concept you have to utilize you're saying that maybe we want to listen to that it goes in as well sure does that sound
all right great thank you everyone so miss i think the next item on the agenda is surface water quality um please join us how are you doing good thank you for the invitation good evening everybody
i will start to come join us tonight and he has the charge for me i want to see what's happening what's new concerns you have but also that we have advised charges and i hope to be charged i didn't see anything in there that needed to be updated but we really can tell yourself you know i don't know if you've read yet you've got that email or you've got the charge from the um basically the advisory committee did you see that no i did not see that or if i did i forgot about there was this one that was sent out
this is good time we're meeting next week so if the uh if the uh if the uh uh goal is for the committees to refresh to review and refresh their their mission statements i think it's like being
sure uh before i do it but the you were just talking about the uh the charge so was there a request to for the committees to just update if necessary their mission statements no i'm expecting so i'm sorry to put it in effect on it that says any privacy and they should tell staff time expenditure must be discussed with the select board of this meeting to receive prior select board approval before proceeding access to teleconsole and repeating professionals will be authorized by the board as appropriate perspective time we want to actually be submitted to select board no longer than 160 days prior to time meeting to allow sufficient time to leave it comes to value and determination and the decision to advance and our budget standards just require five approval from the um
so kind of put it in line in terms of what you can say going on in the public actually okay so now because you know we've been we you we've been called an advisory body and uh reading our current mission statement doesn't say anything about advising it says the committee will act to uh improve or or maintain the health of the town ponds and we've been acting that way for since even before i joined you know we have annual contracts for weed management on Dudley pond until recently now it's the dpw purview and herd pond and we've been arranging those contracts and we've been uh approving them running through the town so now we would be going through this body um so have been in the last few days this was this isn't not putting it on the team i'm just saying you do we read this so just i did not i apologize so that's all right so now we've read it and so you're well aware it was a good because we are reviewing this with all the advising communities
okay well i guess before we get on to that so this is a good time because you know we're we're going to be meeting next week and then for the upcoming season and we do have some contracts that we do annually that we're going to uh approve at the committee level and then if approved we we engage with vendors through the rfp process of their uh long-standing vendors we just go ahead and do that so i'm imagining that in the course of i'll give you a summary of what we've done i've done the past year what we're looking ahead to this coming year and then with this if this board agrees would this serve as the approval for us to then commence on the activities that we typically do so i think you're a liaison in the staff liaison is calcium yes the system time manager and then select plug liaison so so i think you have been reaching out to calcium so again this isn't we're putting it on the hot seat we just want to make sure everybody's read this and aware of it okay no this is good thank you that's fine i mean if there's a a more formal process to engage in the activities we do okay well let me start with uh and uh bill do you want to appreciate that thank you so much
so let me start with the review of the activities that we did last year and and the committee's activities are for the five or so years i've been on they're pretty much the same thing year after year so um our budget is thirty thousand dollars for the past three or so years and with that money uh we have uh regularly scheduled activities if you will that we we conduct so we do um water chemistry testing on dudley pond in the fall and spring this is historical it predates me by many many years we've been this committee has been doing it for 15 years this goes back to the time when dudley pond was really in much worse shape than it is now and there's concern about it becoming eutrophic that is a uh swamp like if you will and lamest so as part of the effort that prior committee members had taken to do weed management they were also doing water chemistry testing just to see what the levels of certain chemicals are and are these increasing over time are they maintaining and and from the from that data you can do calculations and see if the pond is getting worse better whatever the case may be so that's historical it used to be done four times a year we now do it twice a year and it's just we're just building on that that body of information we we don't take any action on that necessarily it's been pretty consistent if you will we still maintain this because we have this extensive body of of data but we don't do it four times a year so it's the fall and the spring so that will continue for this coming year and and now and prior to uh well as of about three or so years ago this committee was also tasked with uh contracting with third-party vendors to do uh manual uh hand harvesting of of weeds on w pond was milfoil for many years uh then it became tape grass for a little while but the milfoil was really tricky to do by hand pulling because it breaks apart so easily you're you're basically just disseminating sprouts that will pick up so uh the town uh voted uh uh to uh uh purchase a harvester so-called uh to do mechanical harvesting of this of milfoil on the pond and by doing that uh it's got a blade that goes down to the bottom of the pond so we can the crews can harvest more completely these milfoil plants there's less uh fragmentation less distribution of these seeds so that's something that we've been we're still i still was learning to some extent on it we have some trained uh veterans who volunteer on the pond every summer to operate this and we're getting better at keeping the milfoil down by better harvesting mechanically of the milfoil using this harvester as opposed to people divers uh swimming around and pulling up plants and fragmenting it so that's kind of operating as oh no dpw uh owns the equipment they maintain it and they contract for volunteers every year who go out there and actually operate the equipment on the pond these volunteers are local residents who live on deadly pond who really know the body of water so it's really a good um uh meshing of town resources the dpw team and the local knowledge of the uh the volunteers who work on the plot and so that's really taken that activity away from the surface water quality committee because we're no longer contracting with third parties to do this work it's it's a scheduled um process every year dpw puts the harvester and and the conveyor and the and dumpsters on the pond uh the volunteers are on there eight hours a day for a few weeks later in the season and it's sort of it's a it's a much more efficient way of getting work done as opposed to relying on contractors who there aren't too many of and they come out whenever they can come out and they were never able to pull enough of this stuff so long way of saying that's really uh an activity that was prior under the purview of the surface water quality committee it's really more between the dpw and volunteers so other than the water chemistry testing um we don't have much to do with with telepunk there's a question about uh herbicide application or another more equipment that might need to be purchased we can be the liaison uh to the town on that but um right now the the the mechanical harvesting and the equipment that sort of ticks along uh without any direct involvement by by the committee now the other body of water that we do a lot of work on is herd pond and now when likewise we do uh manual harvesting of plants in that pond in the case of herd pond water chestnuts are the big the big problem there and and this is something that tom largie on the committee has really been single-handedly managing for decades now uh now he's he's inculcating me into the practices of weed management on herd pond so but likewise that's the harvesting of the water chestnuts there suffers from the same issues we have we had recently with with w pond that which is that there aren't many companies that do this stuff it's typically just one company solitude and whereas before they had their own crews they could send out on the pond now they don't even have their own crews they have to subcontract the work out so it's always been a chronic issue to get enough people through solitude on the pond in a timely way to pull the water chestnuts out before they drop their seeds and just perpetuate this cycle of dropping seeds and this is more plants the following year so that's but that's a solitude issue i mean we tom and i and some other volunteers have gone out there but it's uh the problem is way beyond just being addressed by manual harvesting which is why uh a couple seasons ago we uh had investigated using herbicide on on herd pond uh to to treat water chestnuts in a way that we just can't do by mere mechanical physical harvesting of the plants so the committee two years ago excuse me went through the uh process of conservation to get uh to have an order of conditions to expand on the order of conditions for herd pond that would allow us to use herbicide application so that was done in conjunction with solitude and we got that approval last year and so 2025 was our first season actually applying herbicide on herd pond uh and a portion of her pond to to treat these water chestnuts and it wasn't uh you know unlike with priscilla corn w pond which has really been a success that two excuse me yeah the two times we've done it now this first season it wasn't clear that we had great success um we the uh we were hoping now once the herbicide was applied you would see where the plants were normally on the surface they would just brown up die and and and drop down but what we saw when tom and i investigated later and saw two confirmed in their own post treatment survey is we we could tell that all the plants had not taken up this herbicide you could see some of them were clearly dead plants but many others were not were still viable plants they had seeds on them we're not quite sure the timing was ideal so it didn't there was in no way the the success we had hoped it would be and it was only a portion of the pond we only we spent i think barring the permitting which is about a thousand dollars it was nine and a half thousand dollars for this one section of the pond that we treated and so although it doesn't look too promising we want to give it another opportunity so this coming season we'd like to do it again now that we have the permit in place we have more control over the timing of the application because that's sort of getting that approval sort of impinged on when we could actually get the herbicide applied so now we have the permit uh and we'd like to do a larger treatment of the southern end of herd pond uh and see if we can time it better treat a larger area uh have another round of herbicide application and see if we can see anything different than last year or if it's just going to be the same as last year i.e not 100 effective in which case it that wouldn't really necessarily make sense to continue on but we only have the one year some success not a complete success we do want to try it again but that could be the estimate we got almost two years ago to treat the whole southern end of herd pond was on the order of fifteen thousand dollars i imagine the area could be a little bit larger this time around so if we're twenty twenty five thousand dollars i mean that's our budget of thirty thousand would have some money for that it would not cover the whole thing so i can imagine we would need on the order of twenty thousand more dollars if this is something that committee but the board thought of value to pursue um but we we have to get uh an estimate for that work and um so that's that's really going to be the big project for the year we're still going to do the mechanical harvesting on herd pond uh i suppose one way to look at it is we if you know we's that mechanical the hand harvesting excuse me of the water chests on herd pond we typically spend about twelve thousand dollars a year on that and and that again there are so many plants in the pond that's a scratch in the surface so one approach could be we maybe cut back on the the the hand harvesting to allow more resources for the herbicide we'll we'll talk with the committee next week typically we we maintain the hand harvesting again on the order of twelve thousand a year and we would apply in addition to the herbicide application last year was nine thousand could be about double that this year if not a little bit more so that would put us beyond our thirty thousand dollar budget but i can report back to this this board after meeting with the committee next week um but that's what we'd like to try i don't know that would necessarily be a great success but we just need to try other avenues on herd pond what tom has found over the years and what i've come to learn in my five years on the committee is that for a long time due to tom's efforts it looked like we were managing the water chestnuts on the pond the one thing that was an unknown when tom started this work decades ago is we knew the plants dropped those seeds but the science didn't really know how long those seeds were viable were they good for were they viable for seven years ten years over the years it appears that they're they're more viable for longer than we might have thought and in the past couple of years three years at least there's been just such an abundance of water chestnuts it's really essentially clogged blocked the whole southern end of the pond which we haven't even been able to tackle with our usual hand harvesting which is why the idea for herbicide use came to the fore as a way to maybe take a quick approach to knock those plants down yes what can be is an additional
so well it could be it could be i'm i'm so the quote we got two years ago for that whole southern cove so-called apartment was thirteen thousand dollars so that was two years ago i can imagine it'll be closer to twenty so you do realize budget yeah but again let me you know as i said but the hand harvesting is really diminishing returns for us we pay that twelve thousand and sawtude has limited control over the crews they get and last season they were out in kayak so used to be boats and you can get a lot more in there now it's kind so you know one way to to resolve this is you know we again we don't know it'll be 100 successful maybe we pair back on the hand harvesting or don't do it and maybe just the one shot on goal is let's use herbicide see if that makes a difference because now with the hand harvesting it's really so if we did that so i would say if we if we use the money for hand harvesting that's twelve thousand right if we divert that for herbicide that's going to be um probably in the order of half a little more than what we need i mean we could scale the work based on the budget available to us if you're going to need some additional amount of herbicide is it twenty thousand dollars i would say twenty thousand to be safe it was thirteen two years
previous minutes from last year and then it indicated that you had reached out
conservation commission but about how they conduct weed management at lake constituent what did you learn about that um that's such a big space how are they keeping that under control and how do they do a potentially cost effective so uh the that came about uh carol plum on our committee uh she's our uh eyes on a lot of the bodies of water uh in town and she had noticed uh growth of certain plants on town beach that potentially could have been problematic so she was raising attention to the committee early on and and so the question was okay um uh would this fall under first of all under could it be recreation of his town beach so that uh catherine brenna's been doing some work down there for e.coli monitoring would it fall under recreation would it be concom would it be the surface water quality committee and so uh we uh reached out to conservation to get their thoughts on whether we need to get an order of conditions to do some work on there and and what we learned is that uh uh lake contituent is under uh state purview so uh dcr has an order of conditions to manage weeds on herd pond primarily uh central and south pond but if we were to want to expand the scope to specific weeds that we're seeing on north pond it would not be an activity that my committee could take on its own or even conservation would have to go and be in conjunction with with the state so for best practices did they use herbicide at the state of lake contituent did they use an automatic fertilizer they're not using they're not using harvesters uh they they do herbicide application but the scope and the extent of that i i don't know but they also lake contituent does i have a water chestnut problem so it would be different herbicides in any case and i think north pond is where it's always referring to north well we we had so we we had a committee member who would look at who would who would look at central the the main the main pond because that abuts on on whalen too but we never did that the extent of that work never the scope of that work never advanced to working with the state or other towns on weed management it was really about runoff into lake cuchichua so we never did any weed management son yeah it was so let's just clear on my so what i think we need it's good it's 20 000. well that's for proselicore on deadly plot so this year we're not doing any proselicore work on deadly plot that might be a 27 issue so what we need is well we have so the budget is 30 000 so right on for dudley pond what we do is the water chemistry testing twice a year so we have two labs that do the work uh 2 000 each time so it'll be that'll be let's call that five thousand dollars so that's 25 000 uh the rest of our budget and again historically 12 000 would be used for the water chefs not so all right we'll figure this out how's that sound okay now what i'll do correct me if i'm wrong can you receive money from the dudley association uh for historically what the dudley pond association would do is they would uh reimburse the town 25 percent for money the town spent on dudley pond so and prior when we would have when we arranged with contractors to do the hand pulling that would cost a certain amount of dollars and then we would uh we would find out what that what the town spent on that the dudley pond association association would gift not to the town but there was a there's a i think it's a gift fund that was part of the surface water quality committee's budget and that money would go there but that was for dudley pond associated activities right and the reason i was inquiring is you know one of the other times i worked in
people used to question the equity of what we're doing which you have heard pond um one had an association and one didn't and historically what had happened was the the ones that had the association where the town was meeting in the middle we worked with solitude quite a bit the other pond in town we said you should really start an association out there and try and get generate some money so we'll meet you rather than take it all i just didn't know if never heard about her and ponds no but i was serious that the dpa has donated to the town the conveyor yeah yeah yeah they've done a lot and so i don't think there's been a but that's another big long thing yeah no well yeah but just to close the loop on that yeah there's there's unlike dudley pond which is heavily developed herd pond is not so there's no natural constituency there other than the fishermen and yeah you don't see very many yeah okay so i think we're almost done on that the other the other quick question the only quick question that we have which i think does for the year and i'll just throw in quickly and that's even coming within the committee too right one of the surface water quality committee but really the dudley pond and herd pond committee so yes it's important to have that focus on there does it get diluted out of under concom or somebody else but we've had those discussions internally you know anecdotally so no but i'll be glad to come back you know just to give an update on this uh my meeting with the committee next week and talking about our budget and do we do the same thing i've heard probably done in the past or do we conserve some resources to allow for this herbicide so why don't you send me to myself and well you know and like you know again i i don't need much to throw a wrench into the works we can you know this idea of herbicide application on herd pond if we just take even a targeted approach to one area and see if we can successfully treat one area then we can think about expanding a future year so i would consider that as an option that revenue making is complicated maybe we just focus our efforts on a smaller area of the pond to see if we can have success that would then say yes let's make sense for the future thank you thank you thank you for for inviting me to stop appreciate it let you go back you can go back online thank you all right good night
all right i think i need to go back number eight
can you hear us yeah we can't hear you we can't hear you okay let's go we're on number eight somebody wants to see this on number eight discussion review the grant agreement from the clean water trust excuse me should we ask tom to call in uh so we hear his audio or you could just join via your phone steady computer you know it's amazing it's a tough day thank you don't give a lot
i'm just going to try again yeah let's just wait one minute yeah i agree so uh well we're going to be trying to be productive we'll keep it going along here we have time why don't we go back and maybe we'll put the uh ways of science with tom always here how does that sound is that okay i don't know what he's got or we could keep going
yeah so if we have it he comes back mr levine be sure you can send it on the list it's kind of bonus 15 plus minutes
i'm sorry we gave silver's water quality a bonus 15 plus minutes there i do very soon to do your time yeah that's okay i know i gave you more slides than i was always going to yeah we're going to mention that there's too many slides in a minute
trying to stay is that one panelist up there is that oh that's us okay
he's not calling you that's not okay if that for me it's not got in the car coming here
all right should i move on to this yeah i can move on to this one that's yours from that bill right number eight he's discussed interview the grant agreement from the clean water trust for the first storm water asset management plan and this was the two questions you had was the payment schedule and the length of the scheduled payments now i know that you've had i think michael sent an email out do you this is your agenda would you like to speak to it well as you recall uh at the original meeting when we discussed this there was a question about whether the times of the essence i think we thought about how the office town manager should basically be granting uh if time indeed prove to be of the essence and i gather that of course so that the contract was executed subsequently to receive um you know from the town manager indicating uh that uh that uh the state does not uh disperse the funds in advance the entire amount but rather uh apportions it over the 18 or 20 months and uh there's also a schedule uh that the consultant has generated envisions uh a somewhat extended period during which the uh the plan is developed uh looking in various elements in sequence so i am personally satisfied with uh with the uh with the response uh and uh appreciate the additional uh research of this time i don't know we also think of ourselves coming back in you know i i did send that to select board member whitney and i'm looking now in the in my outbox did you get the chart it didn't show up in my it was a chart i had i can resend it hi tom can you hear tom can you hear me yes i can yes all right we can hear you appreciate it let the record reflect that he's showing yeah so i'd like to look back and reflect thank you everyone all right um um i think we are just now believe it or not tom on number nine town manager evaluate and now i gotta look over here tom manager evaluation okay okay that's in the main packet sorry one page something or whatever the mind doesn't show the pages so supplement no no i'm in the main one okay um so what i put in here was they can't tell two things we have to decide we're going to look on the calendar you know what we're going to say 74. thank you thanks 74. um and this is the form that we use so i want to make sure we're all copacetic with the phone and so this is the one we use the next two years i don't know that is very efficient and she's putting all these dates march march march but it's not going to be the case so if you just slow down the 374 where it says the instructions we have the same six seven categories eight categories anybody want to make changes to the form we're happy to the form form so they'll say with a full time i am looks great yeah okay so i want to back up then um i think what we're going to do is to say michael's anniversary is february 27th and so when i was with the school vacation in the middle here it's going to create a little bit of a complication for scheduling so on my goal and i'm hoping it's our goal is that we do his review on march when i say second right when we meet on march 2nd so in order to do that we've got to you know i'll get the copy of the form i'll have kate send it out to everyone and when you have completed it then you will send it back to kate and um i think that bill this is going to be the army volunteer thing the watch it here i come uh i think bill did such an excellent job i'm very patient with all of us um assembling this the last couple years so i'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind uh being the person who you know consolidates all of our reviews into one into one how does that sound mr whitney provided that the members are timely submission their evaluation forms to the uh human resources manager right so that's what i want to talk about the timeline and bill you can help me with this so if we wanted to do this on a second um we're meeting on the 23rd i would assume we would need an executive session on the 23rd to review the the combined uh review right so that we could have a conversation on the second does that sound right we do one executive session well we talk about it don't we don't we talk about that in there and then we also talk about um i don't want to share with um mr mccall to see what exactly as well right well i'm out of the pocket between the 14th and the 21st okay and and we need to
to get it before it is right uh so then the members would need to give us their evaluations during the week of the second day of the federal room a little time two weeks pull that together uh put together a draft distributed the draft to the members i didn't know i don't know what you did i think you gave us a consolidated right um so so it's sort of a summary of the responses um and then you know the members need to look at that and see if they agree or feel that their comments are fairly reflected
so when are you suggesting that we have to we have to we're going to send them to the director of human resources ms ryan so when would we need to get them there i guess i'm going to suggest plan state the fourth what does that sound in the unlikely event that anyone needs a little additional time i can pick them up on the sixth when we could drop them off on the sixth oh they're going to be built in here i've got it i've got to get them from kate right and give me some time during the week of the nines put it together okay and then that needs to go in the pack right or does it is it going to be okay i'll get where it goes from kate knows that sounds good i'll get the flow if they're going to be found guidance either from kp raw or right yeah yeah we've done this once or twice before so we'll figure this out all right so so i'm going to establish it i'd suggest for the purpose of discussion target of uh responses to the hr manager by one said the fourth uh and uh after the sixth i'm really glad i hired you i mean i just yeah in fairness to uh well i mean the thing is is that we always praise michael does work for us he gets it done on time so i think we we've got to really make sure we get this done on time john are you okay with that time are you okay okay and it would be helpful also to have uh a self-evaluation from michael well it's coming it's in the supplemental fabric wait do you see it about 92 slides
okay so that's the process we'll use um you know what i think i'll do because why don't i have um i'll put together a little um couple notes on this and have abby send it out to everybody remind them you know here's the form and you know here's the deadline and this and that so if that's great so now if we're going to the supplemental packet right 62 on page 62 i want to i want to defend myself here when i had this conversation with the time manager i said you know feel free to give us you know one or two slides about some of your accomplishments back to you in the 90 point font though this is easier so i'm like i'm gonna give you a few minutes to go over these if you want just a couple
so on page 62 a lot of stuff and well but if i may madam chair you would ask me to try and time sign select board goals and i didn't make a one-to-one connection but i i think during the course of the year we and i used the word of we because we work in partnership and i work with my staff and i am always quick to point out i have great staff they do a lot for me i can't take credit for everything that's on here um and you generally hear me if we have something i will point out the staff members that are doing uh the yeoman's work um but i i think the the keys i try to put some of them in order of relevancy i mean we spent a lot of time this last year working on the financial management for many issues and they touch in different areas because i have a slide on some of the policies that we got the board to advance and my staff did work on the financial policies the pilot program social media program but um we finished last year's town meeting with a balanced budget and we immediately went to work with our budget working group to ensure it touched upon this we closed that 1.8 million dollar gap we we reaffirmed our triple a rating which i thought was important starting with the capital planning committee uh that's been reviewing the capital plan for us we started doing some work to go forward with a long-term financial uh excuse me facilities management plan by having the uh the assessment as well as the college center come in so i think we as much as we were dealing with day-to-day we're trying to look forward and come up with plans and be strategic about how we use town money down the road um i think one of the biggest challenges is is economic development i i give uh the folks in the land use and planning department a lot of credit uh we we started trying to do some new business uh ribbon cutting that was organized in part by the planner but i would participate in that um my staff and i were very supportive of terrain i spent a lot of time with the building commissioner talking to them helping them we spent a lot of time handling people through the liquor licensing and um permitting process and we recognized way back when terrain first came in that we should advance the home rule petition because we've had some people like the new folks at town center that are interested in the liquor license and i just met a gentleman the other day who's looking to open a restaurant here so we encouraged him to take a beer and wine and said we're going to work on this at town meeting so you know we continue to work on some of those other issues like 195 main street i mentioned the policies i think the biggest thing was getting the financial policies that we all worked on for a while and um i know both chairs have worked on the select board manual it's it's probably 95 percent there we did a lot of work on over the summer i'm sure you're looking on your list it's there yeah but um it's very close to being done um one of the things that's come up a lot now that ai is in the news it's use policies not only for staff but officials and when it's appropriate so i've been working uh on my own doing some research and with our it director to to advance those um i think there's been a couple of big wins we we opened the the senior center community center and then that is turned out to be a great facility um we're moving forward the snake brook dam project even though we didn't get the fema grant i wrote them again just in the hopes they would uh um be able to help us out but we picked a contractor we're going to get that done ensuring that we don't lose any of the arpa monies or the state grant monies um and put on their turf field issues believe it or not that that happened earlier this year and um michael fan a lot of staff participated in getting out there we we've got uh the environmental um engineers to help us with that finally getting the security cameras up and running this building that works here so we're trying to address a lot of the needs that are going on we clean up this room a bit we revamp the lobby we're trying to make it look more like a town hall and do things in addition to all the other things that we're working on um put a little bit about staffing about the the ongoing legal matters we deal with every day um we participate and i participate personally in a lot of those meetings that are listed there um i did put in in a couple of them the metro west regional emergency communication center i also think that would pay a lot of dividends going forward uh we signed the ima earlier this year we're participating and we're hoping that right around june july this year that you start actually seeing some cut over so uh that's on the way um public relations i think has been a key part of what i like to do here um continue with the office hours you've seen me a lot of public events especially the incidents that happened in october i made sure that i was directly involved working the mayor and ryan which came here and continue as we talked tonight working uh with hrdei and folks in the community um we've been involved with the sherman's bridge we had a public listening session over in sundry i'm trying to work with some of the folks that have come in from the various neighborhoods about these dover projects um so i try to be responsive today uh i met some new folks i always wear my vest as you know during the day that's a sound manager and i like to greet people when i'm in the hallway because we are a customer service organization um and the only last shameless plug that i'll put in is we're always trying to be mindful of the taxpayers dollars and now trying to close this fly 27 without an override of major cuts was done a lot by working with staff um as you noted there's been hiring trees we've tried to find monies in alternative ways i did have a gentleman say asking all those questions what are we doing to try and keep the taxes down and i told them what efforts we made but i told them there are certain things uh such as health care some of our um um unclassified that just they're beyond our control some of the energy costs but we are trying to make some savings here in the air and on that note i'll just say the reason it's a little colder here is uh uh we shut the fan off a little bit of that but just shutting the fan off here um but if we maybe have a little bit before yeah but uh i think we need to have a discussion too as we work on this building about utilizing the coa more so that we can shut this building down on certain nights especially towards the end of the week um take advantage of the state-of-the-art hvac over here and not be spending money that's just literally growing up but there's an overview i i'm sure there's things that i you know we can talk about but it's been a partnership i think we work well together uh i make myself accessible at all times um and you've also been helpful to me and a few times i've needed uh you know um to take a moment away or two for personal matters but all in all i think it's been a very productive year i've enjoyed my three years here and i'm looking forward to the next three terrific you know i did tease michael obviously about so many slides but i think this is i did encourage you to put some stuff down because i think it helps us when we prepare the review not necessarily going to use all of this material well it's not going to fit on the phone but the fact is is i think it helps to join your memory of things that have happened i think it also is great for the public to see how many things get done besides what they what they see you know there's just so much goes on around town i mean me and michael once a week and gobsmacked sometimes and all things have happened since adult you know five days ago so i appreciate that we appreciate you michael um we will look forward to uh getting this review done in a timely manner so thank you all right so i think actually the next item on our agenda is it's our managers report thank you madam clerk i don't know that
i i didn't go it up till now saying madam chair and slip
sorry about that i think it's um just a couple things many of you may have noticed uh in your mail you may receive the uh note from dbw regarding the annual or in the semi-annual billing is now going quarterly um it shifts the accounts that are already over and that should be happening in the not too distant future if you have any questions please reach out um you can inquire with either dbw or treasurer collector's office where you would have to pay your bills i did know earlier there's some upcoming events that are being sponsored by hrdei um as well as the wayland public schools um and with the support of the lydia marie child fund the first parish and wayland we're going to have conversations that are going to be taking place at the library the next one is january 28th it's the belonging toolkit what actually works there's also conservation conversations not confrontations on february 10th march 10th april 14th and may 12th um there are which i'm sure if you check i'll get uh a website there's more information that can be um derived i think if you go to the hrdei's website and probably the way of the library if anybody has any questions they can contact my office uh i will let you know that we're working diligently meeting with all the unions that uh pretty much all men contacted me now setting up collecting bargaining sessions we're just trying to finalize the budget um i've got some correspondence tonight from the community excuse me the capital improvement planning committee um with some of their recommendations so i foresee mr kevin and i um getting something to deliver to the finance committee in about a week next the end of this week is the mma the massachusetts municipal association's annual meeting governor healy is expected to be there on friday at which time she will probably roll out um the expectations for state aid and i read an article today that they're expecting revenues of approximately 2.9 percent increase part of that is the millionaires tax if you take it out their revenues are expected to increase about 2.4 percent we're hoping that will translate into some additional monies here in whalen um but i'll have an update um the next meeting about what came in and where we stand with regarding to uh our school aid as well as every street in general um thank you um thank you um so i have a follow-up question you may have a follow-up question i just want to have a quote of the mailing uh that the dbw sent out there was also a mailing uh that we received uh about per pipe versus lead pipe yeah uh and uh previously um the dbw had asked people to to check uh their the leads of their houses and scratch it to see if it's copper and so forth we did that and uh reported that uh appropriately but then we got this follow-up note uh that's suggesting that i inferred uh and that they didn't get the information or that there there was maybe a question uh so i'm just curious whether this was a shotgun mailing to everyone as a follow-up or whether it was a target because if it was uh there's this potential issue about the information getting to the right
on there on here's up to you so um i think what we're going to do and i think that you sent it right yes um so earlier in the meeting okay so i'm looking at it maybe kind of getting i'm looking at the the speaker so ready uh earlier in the meeting we spent some time on uh town meeting materials and i explained that because it was very great and got us early most of the articles so we could kind of have a look-see it really was for everyone to have a flavor to see the articles that we have received and there are we believe 52 articles including seven petitioner articles that are being certified so they're not in the packet so between what was in the packet and then the supplementary you get a flavor for the items um and i just wanted everyone to have a good look at that as the rest come through we'll send them along um but then doug took a shot at putting out the select board liaisons for these 52 articles and we discussed it earlier and then the thought was we would send it out to you in the end um to get your input but since you're here why don't we circle back to that and have a quick look of that so did you want to he's got he's got one walk us through on what we what we did john are you open the document yes uh you know what page it's on um well i have it right here i have in front of me so i've got the uh the uh list of the assignments separate email oh what did i get i just sent you an email okay it has the attached document of the assignment and then there's one swap that i can point out to you tell me if you've got that email yeah but hopefully in a moment i did get it let me open it up here yeah so it's a three-page document yep so i'm looking at it i'm looking at it so at the bottom of page one article q acceptance of general law chapter 60s have paid up to 25 dollars um i had that originally assigned to carol but she's hoping that you would take that in addition you see at the bottom there article p reaffirmable participation happy to do that and then on the next page article b for victor uh b for victor another general law file amendment prohibition of cryptocurrency machines we talked about this at the last meeting briefly yeah we're talking about this and looking yeah this is going to be one of those quick ones that's fine uh and then the two articles at the bottom of the page to the two cpa articles which carol said were expertly drafted so far okay sounds good that's fine uh the last page uh articles ii and jj amending uh the first one is a town clerk article yep and the second one do we know if we're going to have this yet we don't know no but we do assign someone just in case yeah and then if it's not and then we gave you the other three town clerk articles at the bottom there double q through double s right and there are seven petitioners articles and i was going to take six out of seven right that sounds great i took kk back because it's one of my liaisons i was kind of familiar with this which a couple of the meetings when we discussed this okay senior property assessment yeah that went back to carol if you want to make a note
so if you want to take a couple minutes while we're thinking if you see something that you think should be changed let us know you want to trade let us know we're we're doing this to kind of be ready for the uh article workshop which is next wednesday you know the finance committee so this way we have all our assignments set up and we'll i'm happy i'm happy to uh accept those assignments okay great and then um if anybody's not going to be able to go next wednesday let me know so there's one um myself or maybe you will pinch it for you all right that's going to be a one agenda item because there's no room for us we're going to call to order in the finance committee meeting so all right so then the other thing we did to talk tonight was because we didn't do it earlier um when i didn't think i had the whole board right you know tonight i didn't we've inserted up quite a few of the articles do you want to walk through once that's that's not necessary i'll look at i'll look at it in the new packet that's fine you don't have to go okay um okay um okay then you'll see which ones still have to be inserted and of course the petitioner articles we haven't looked at yet so there you go all right do you feel up to date a little bit here i do i appreciate that update okay good all right so that's the case let's move on to select board what's the concerns anybody have any john do you want to start i have none thank you okay i have a question is that a concern well i am concerned that i may not have the time of the meeting on the 28th correct is it 6 30 pm i think um we'll send it to you but i think finance committee workshop is at 7 15 okay let's get that sent out that's all yeah good question mr levain um i have a question that we were holding until we got to talk to michael which is about um curious how we're thinking about um a search going forward i know we just swore in the acting team today but just kind of generally what we're thinking about for process and timing um because i i wasn't on the floor the last time um but was the time before that and i was part of that search when louise miller was our town administrator so i don't think they can ask questions in their voice of concerns i didn't ask him in the town meeting you know what i forgot to answer my town manager's report manager um excuse me you know what when the boys indulge us why don't we go back to town manager update report and then maybe he can give us an update is that everybody fine with that okay no one is so that's fine thank you madam chair i actually received this question today from the waiting students uh yes so um what i said to them what i would say to the board is uh in parma i said this evening i do think uh acting chief hebert has the skills necessary to run that department for the short term as you may recall when i arrived here then acting chief berman had been put in place he'd been there for about six months and i wanted to give him the opportunity to get to know him see how he performed um make sure that he felt comfortable on the road in that role before i opened it up to an assessment center and took applications because i wanted to make sure he wanted to move forward and apply for the position i wanted to do something similar for uh acting chief hebert i did tell acting chief hebert that as we've done in the past not only me but some of my predecessors that we would conduct an assessment center we would do a procurement uh bring in an outside agency that generally consists of active and retired police chiefs to help evaluate the candidates once we post the position and then they would rank them make recommendations to me last time i involved staff key department heads because they have any chief would have to work with our dpw director um fire chief hr and the finance director because that's all part of what the chief would do in an organization that size um so i then made a decision and i mean the town manager act and then he came back and presented my decision to the board and the board needs to ratify whether they agree with that or not in the unlikely event that we didn't agree we started over again but that's what we did in the last time when we chose chief berman and i would like to continue using that same model we've done in the past i think it also allows uh you know ample time for the acting chief to get an idea of whether this is something he wants to put in a point as well and i think right now he um you know the feedback i'm getting is positive uh i brought him the other week over when they had the pizza cafe at the community center the senior center i introduced him to many of the seniors and then he held his own and doing q a with all of them and i've received a lot of positive feedback from people who knew him growing up in town uh so i think he has the right combination of the skills the personality the personal knowledge of growing up here in wayland to to do the to do the job in the short term until we make that long term
thank you for your update now i'll go back just it's like where we're going to turn you all set okay i have a couple things and maybe tom really maybe could hop in on this one um one of the two america 250th anniversary's uh celebration ideas is they are having a um knox trail discussion and honoring of that noble training of artillery that came through the game right through wayland and this celebration is on sunday february 8th at 2pm at the village green in framingham and i think i mentioned this before and select what's been uh and michael and i were invited first michael i believe does not be able to attend so i will attend i may uh that there is a very important football
i'm kidding you know they should not conflict that's early in the day right and so i'm um i obviously will represent the board and you know speak um you know the town i guess i think my understanding might be getting a flack they talk about more about the signs of the p i guess the question is i've mentioned it a couple times i kind of need to be able to advise if any other select board members are planning to attend so again february 8 2 p.m phyllis green phony and it's the knoxville um the 250 anniversary of henry knox and his noble train of artillery so if you could just let me know what you think about the team or not maybe the next day or so that would be great so then i can apply and we also is there a description of the activities i'm not familiar with the details of the activities but i can tell you that those can and did hang out in framingham for a bit before they were finally brought to dorchester heights but we'll learn more about that on the february 8th so well hopefully someone tells me some stuff because i have to speak of this so february 8th is is the was the date that the canon arrived in framingham is that the notion i'm not sure about that yeah i'm not sure the date they arrived i do know they hung out there for a while before they were actually brought to dorchester heights so you know i think i'll see if i can get that information i don't know that that's the case but nonetheless we've been asked selected coming attack i think there were limited seats or on their guests or whatever so that's that's what i'm doing um like i mentioned the 60 group is um put up the report this is the first one i've asked the chair and the committee to come to join us on the february second meeting to kind of talk about what they've done this year and maybe talk about the report um also i didn't mention it really only one of those in the articles i did follow up with the chair as regards to whether i probably wrote a lot of good deed capital and i will be attending the meeting tomorrow night to answer any questions about that i had a quick sidebar with michael and uh we're going to try to tell a funding source for that i think that would be a good plan to do before we go so i may have more information on that um let's see i did hear from um our legislators and they would like to come and do a legislative update with us and we'll probably schedule them if not um probably more towards the end of february because we've got to really dig into these articles and they seem to think that was better for them or maybe even the beginning of march um michael alluded to this i did reach out after the last time about so much noise in this room and we're having and i was advised that we should really think about and consider perhaps going to the coa and so um there's two rooms available and me i just haven't had a chance to go over in the building to see what i think but um it doesn't make sense for us to go so we will see i have shared mr face concerns that i really if i move i would like to have an upgrade in my working space versus um you know folding chairs like those laughing we're never going to get a good thing well that's what i mean i want to make sure we have an improvement before we move so anyway um i don't think of anything else and i want to thank you very much for uh coming if i quite a day uh we really appreciate you uh coming in even the last few items if you need any updates give me a call and with that i think we're good to go so i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and so for the discussion we're going to have a roll call vote tom yes uh will yes thank you miss tell me yes for your level thank you very much
This meeting may be recorded and if recorded, it will be available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. The public will be excluded from the second session of the meeting this evening. Pursuant to chapter 2 of the absence of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person by remote access in form of law and to the public, a public comment. It gives me the remote access one may watch to participate loudly, with the meeting that can be found on the waiting time calendar on the webpage. The required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting, may do so at this meeting location, which we are in the town building, and in the select board meeting room. Public comments should be limited to two minutes per person. In the green meeting room of the next evening is Mr. Whitney, Mr. Rodine, we are joined by our town manager, Mr. McCall. Ms. Branglin will be unable to ignore us this evening, and Mr. Fay hopes to participate in the 8 p.m. by our remote means. Tonight's agenda, after we have announcements of public comment, we're going to have an introduction and ceremony of swearing in Mark Hebert as acting police chief. We're going to have a discussion on annual panel meeting, discussion of articles, discussions, discussions, discussions, possible to insert articles, exhibits, possible consent articles, and it's possible for me to push towards the articles submitted by the board of public works. At 730, we will have a hearing at a source-corrected location. That will be followed by a discussion of the consultants' recommendations to lead our board and the town on the equity audit that we have conducted this last spring summit. We will meet with Tom Glenn, the chair of the surface water quality committee for his annual review of his advisory committee. That will be followed by a discussion and review of the direct agreement from the Clean Water Trust for the purposes of developing a strong water asset management plan. The board will then have a brief discussion about the upcoming evaluation of the town manager. We will then also have an opportunity to provide us with some brief discussion of a couple slides about some of his many accomplishments this year. We followed the town manager's report in our new meetings this evening. However, we will go to release a couple executive session minutes that have been reviewed. I believe there's no correspondence. We will have that followed by members' reports and concerns. There are no topics not recently anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance, and hopefully by 9 p.m. we will adjourn. I think what I would like to do towards the audience is, I think I would like to swap this and do the introduction and ceremonial ceremony at first, and then we will continue with our regular meeting. I think there's a couple of days of COVID-19 wanting that a lot, but everyone's okay with that. So with that, I would like to invite Terry Mansfield, assistant to the floor, and we can participate as well. Well, I thought we were going to take part of the discussion. Yes, that's what I'm saying. I'll end this over to you. Thank you, Madam Chair. As many of you know, recently, Chief Berman had tendered his certification of retirement. As such, we needed to have someone at the helm at our police department. Having worked with Lieutenant Hebert, who has been with the department for 17 years, I had the utmost confidence in his abilities to step in and take on that responsibility and those challenges. Lieutenant Hebert has been with the Weyland Police Department for 17 years. He started as a dispatcher. He's been a patrolman, a detective, sergeant, and lieutenant. He has a bachelor's and master's in criminal justice, and he's completed the FBI's leader trilogy, and that's their leadership academy. I've had the opportunity to work with Lieutenant Hebert for the last three years. He's been involved when we did collective bargaining. I've worked on him with a lot of strategic initiatives with Chief Berman, and I have the utmost confidence that for the next few months, he'll be able to navigate the challenges that we're facing and continue the tradition of community policing that was started by Chief Berman. So I was happy to ask this board to bring him in. I asked that he be appointed acting chief once Chief Berman departed, but I did not afford him the opportunity to come in, introduce himself, and have an opportunity to have his family present at a very important moment in one's career. So with that, Madam Chair, I would like the board to welcome Lieutenant Hebert, who we've made, I've asked this board to accept it as the acting chief of the interim, and we have our assistant town clerk here to perform the swearing, with your permission. Thank you. Thank you. Raise your right hand for me. Do you solemnly affirm that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on you as the acting chief of police for the town of Weyland, according to the best of your abilities and understanding, to the rules and regulations of the Constitution of the United States, the laws of the Commonwealth, and the bylaws of the town of Weyland? I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will maintain the highest ethical standards and uphold the values of the town of Weyland? I do. Congratulations. Thank you. You're welcome to say it in the next three hours, though. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The next item on our agenda is announcements. Does anybody have any announcements? I don't share a couple, if you don't mind, in my text room, which is beyond families, right? And I appreciate all the effort everyone did to put in this out. So I think it just really makes us look at where we can move, not fully about it, but in particular days. So I'm not happy to come up with it. So the next item on our agenda is a public comment and on the development. Before we begin tonight, I'm going to repeat a phrase from the last paragraph we were opening remarks that I read, and I read, actually, that I read, which states that, when required by law and a law and a chair, the person's mission to make public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting produced by a person and a lot of people's interests, end quote. We wrote public comment at the site for the former residents to speak to men about issues of concern, or perhaps even of praise. At our last regular meeting, and actually, I'm writing this statement, stating that it's the first time I've spoken since I've ever won this board, and actually, my years in the prior board, some disrespectful comments, public comments, were made. A select board, in accordance with this policy, conducts its meetings with respect for staff, each other, residents, and board members of other boards and committees in town, past and present, and expects persons making public comment to do likewise. I apologize to the board and to the staff member involved that I didn't stop the public comment that was occurring at the last meeting, and I will be more diligent. We want to hear from everybody, but we're not going to be speaking in the manner we would like to be spoken about. So it's not, it's not going to do with anybody in the room. It's not going to stand until it's in the minutes. The board is in conference with this. Okay. All right. So now I'm off my pulpit. We are in public comment soon. Yeah. Yeah. So what time you're in public comment? I don't know if you've been here before. No, I haven't. Sit down and hear out. So I'm just going to time me. You get two minutes. Okay. Yeah. Okay.
So I'm Andrew Carpenter. I live at 8 Orchard Lane in Weyland.
And I'm speaking to agenda item DD, 25 Holiday Road, the proposed funding for an engineering study and appraisal. So my concern is about timing and risk for that item. The town, my understanding is anyways, the town doesn't currently control the land. It remains under the authority of the school committee. Um, and before spending, uh, the $200,000 for the, uh, survey, uh, I believe the board should first have a clear and public understanding of whether the school committee is actually willing to relinquish control of the parcel. And if that decision hasn't been made, there's a real risk that this money goes, that gets spent on it, uh, on the study. The town may not even be able to use that land, uh, from a taxpayer perspective that feels premature and risky. Uh, also, uh, there has already been litigation involving this land. So including a decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and, uh, before commissioning any engineering or appraisal work, I think that the town council should review that decision and explain how it affects the town's options and, uh, authority as it relates to that parcel. Um, I'm not asking the board to decide the future of the land tonight. Um, I'm just asking to slow it down and make sure that the ownership and the legal constraints related to it are clear before committing significant public funds in this case, and the $200,000 for the appraisal and survey. Thank you. Yes, Jennifer James Young, 36 Orchard Lane. Um, I too, I'm here, uh, with regard to article DD. Um, my property is adjacent to the land, um, being considered. Um, so I'm really here for my personal statement. Um, my statement really is, uh, this land is one of the last remaining intact woodlands in our neighborhood and serves as an important wildlife habitat, including for barred owls, red fox, as well as a natural corridor that allows wildlife to move safely between larger forested areas and open spaces. These woods are already used by residents for quiet recreation through informal walking paths, proving, uh, providing proven physical and mental health benefits that forests uniquely offer to stay true to Wayland's claim of, quote, easy access to conservation space, which came in the new pamphlet that we all received that Carol mentioned. Um, I strongly urge the town to fully consider conservation and low impact recreational use as viable long-term options before investing in studies primarily focused on development. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't hear you. Carol, are you talking to me? To Hope? I'm right. Thank you. No, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, now I can hear you. Sorry about that. Um, hi, this is Hope Podell. I live at 7 Jenison Road. Um, my question is, I'll keep it really short. I just haven't been in touch with, uh, the select board so recently, and, uh, I have this interest in the, it's, I think, uh, a potential article of XX about, um, the senior, senior property assessment credit, um, and how I can get further information and are there petitioners or what route can I go to, uh, to see that in fact, it, it is on the, uh, town meeting agenda, um, the annual town meeting. So, uh, I will, that's out there and I'm just going to stop at that point. You know what I'm asking. Thank you. Can you answer this question if that's all right. Hope, can you hear me? Yes. Okay, good. Hi.
Um, I think the committee did submit an article, uh, that you're referring to. It has not been, um, reviewed or discussed, so it's not, it has to be vetted, if you will. And the select board will make a decision on whether it's going to be inserted into the warrant for the 2026 town meeting. So I anticipate, I believe, we're hoping to have a representative come and speak to us. I'm hoping as early as our February 2nd meeting, and then we will, the board will hear what the intent is. There is, it's a significant cause, so we will have to have that conversation as well. So does that answer your question? Um, it does well. I just, um, would like whomever it is that I can speak with to become well-informed. And is it, do you listen to, uh, other, uh, excuse me, I hope this is public comment, so we cannot engage back and forth. I'll reach out to you. How's that? Thanks. Is there anyone else for public comment?
I'm Elizabeth Carter. We met 19 Sherman's Fritch Road. And I, um, I have sent, uh, an email, so I won't go over the whole thing. Um, but I did want to just, um, raise my concern that this, um, the changes that will happen with the planned, um, project on the Sherman's Bridge will, um, affect a lot of people. Um, and, um, given how much particularly those directly affected, um, are concerned, I do feel that it should be something that is addressed at the public meeting. Um, we did try to get a public meeting earlier, you know, for anybody who might be able to come with some clear indication of the topic and location with advance notice, but nothing ever came of that. Um, and based on the kind of, um, materials, the extent of the reconstruction, um, it seems to me that it goes beyond a simple repair job and should therefore fall under the category of a project that does need to follow certain, um, bylaws and eventually become, come before the town meeting, um, as opposed to it being done entirely by, um, town officials and, um, employees. Um, I did, um, sit in on the, um, plan of the, uh, board of public works, which is one of the reasons I was late. I'm sorry. Um, it's all online. Um, and, um, it does, it sounds like they are now planning to put a, um, wood, uh, wearing board on top of the glue lamp, which I think is a, is a positive thing. However, there's so much with this project that changes it and, um, extremely limits how non-vehicle users can use the bridge, um, for, uh, recreation and relaxation. Yeah, that, um, that concerns me. Um, it just, it just isn't a simple, um, repair job. It is a redesign. And I don't think, um, sorry, I'll be very quick, that, um, federal and state, uh, only highway bridge laws apply in a small town to a wooden bridge.
Sorry. So the reason we have two minutes is so equitable with every, you know, two, three meters now, we've got someone out of two and they'll say, I've got it to a video and so-and-so go two, two minutes and 32 seconds. So this is why I'm doing it. And also what I want us to take in as many who want to speak. So I think we have the intent of thumb to run into a second. Is that okay? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Well, is there any other public comment on the, um, on the, uh, I'll see nobody else in line. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I think the next item we're going to go to is the, um, I mean, our biggest item tonight is discuss the articles. So that's, you know, what it's tonight, but I do want to give a little shout out to her that, um, if you looked at the annual timing calendar, it's pretty close to four or five working days after the deadline of the January 15th, you know, when your articles are due, before we actually, um, and that's why there was a bunch today in the supplemental cafe. I did intend that everyone to be really fully acknowledged on them, but just to have, like, a flavor of them. Um, there are, um, you know me with a map, it comes to statistics. There were 5,231, I think this could be on a grand record from the sideboard, uh, uh, so on the articles from the planning board for, uh, items from the top floor, there were two CPC articles issued, they have come down, two people are a suggestion, and I'm very grateful of that. I believe there are seven additional articles, we have not seen those yet, because they don't look here fully certified yet. Obviously one from the finance committee, which is the budget, one from the board of Bumbleforce, which is feeding a large and large supply, and the one that was mentioned earlier, you see the tax, um, the group does. So, um, there are copies of the different articles that we have not seen in both the packet and in the supplemental, but what I really wanted to talk today was to go back and look at this, the first chart, and we're going to do two things on the chart, um, so I guess put together, you know, I think I mentioned too that we're trying to have others on the board also familiar with and comfortable with the process, which is our project, besides me. So Doug is getting paid for this chart, and, um, let me give you a little bit of a copy. So on the chart, we'll do two things. One, we're going to look at select what we use in advance on the finance committee workshop, article workshop, which will be next Wednesday to 28th. And then, I want to go back and look at the ones we didn't insert that are our articles, and insert those. And then I think we might want to look at those that are automatically inserted, like the child club and, um, the planning bulletin. So, so, so we'll get those inserted before we go to the meeting next Wednesday. Kind of put our ducks lined up, if you will, if you will. So, so, so, so with the 52 articles, Phil, that's trying to figure out the best way to divide it so we have somewhat equal one of the five. So, so, so Carol gave some guidance about if you're a liaison to the award makes sense to be able to put them on the articles and that wanted to add to that. And it's that it would be helpful for me to have a sense of what we think are the number of articles that will either fit under the abbreviated presentation procedure or our second time taking a crack at the consent calendar. And take Carol's point machine, I'm Bethany Forge. Um, today that somebody can pull an article out of the consent calendar or the abbreviated presentation procedure so you still have to be able to present it. Um, but I still think it would be who of us to kind of categorize those. Um, and then I, I think that that would be the best way to divvy these up. So this was my first craft added in your version, Carol, because I have my original launch. Do you have an S and T per bill? Oh, I did one. We talked about it to a problem. So since in my first craft, Carol had 13, but a good number was first, we were substantive. I had seven for you. So we were going to add articles S and T for you. I'm okay with the sort of one, but it's okay. So the thing is, we're done, we're doing it electronically, which is hard. In order for us to create the work, we have to write the articles. That's what you're the liaison to is the article write-up. Then we don't get time and we'll find out which ones we're going to actually speak to. Right. So it's the overall workbook, not just presenting. No, I was talking about presenting. I was talking about... Yeah, I mean, that's what I was talking about. You can see we're still at it, so there you go. So what we need to do is... It isn't, it isn't because we are going to hopefully move later on to go sponsor. So what will happen is that the Board of Public Works will speak, and then I'll just take a couple minutes afterwards. So that of assembly is basically the last time I got up and just added a couple points and said, please join the select board in supporting this article because we have voting to support that. But you also have to be writing and answer questions that come up potentially too. I don't know. So you have to be very familiar with articles. That was not going to be, it's going to be somewhat, it's not a final point, but I'm not unhappy if you take some more of my other. Like, for me, when they do a biology, it's not the same as current year transfer, for example. Exactly. You know, one is far more substantive than the other. So, you know, you've been surprised, you know, having written probably a hundred articles in my career here. It's the funniest little ones that take so much time and some of the big ones just go right through. So, I'm already, for example, to your question, I've already seen the write-up beforehand and they put away from the books. As their liaison, they sent it to me and they asked me my input. I gave them some thoughts. They made some changes. So, I've seen that when I wanted the book that's submitted. That doesn't mean that the finance committee or the select board might make other edits during them. So, what we really need to do today is to assign every one of these articles to a select board person who will be responsible for guiding that fully to us so we can vote it. But, that's it. So, I will say this, even though it's probably different, I did reach out to the moderator as well and confirmed that she was comfortable with the concept that we sent down to continue with. Yeah. And to just let her know what we were faking and so on. I have a legitimate topic, too, so. Okay. So, I did, but there'll be a moment to me. She's just sort of seen this for the first time, sorry. Right. I think in fairness, we've got a little bit of an answer to tell me what you have to ask for this is probably this. Right. And as to the point of the writer, I understood that, really, the finance committee is the writer. They do, but we, as a leader, we, if there are, we have to read them. Right. We can have labs, we can have statements. So, that's why we're going to leave on those. And also, when it's ready to go to the board, they'll say to me, it's ready to go to the board. So, you're really just. It's this list. I can't. 51, let's just say they're 52. 52. 51. 51. I'm happy to read that. Thank you. You're including the petitions as well. 77. 51. 51. 51. So, we're not going to talk about it. I said it's 51. I thought it was 52. He graciously gave us the 11. 51. And then, when I spent 10. And then, when I spent 10. So, this could be some horse creating. So, the thing is, next week's meeting on the 28th, I was just thinking that we need to be able to push up. I don't even think there is a medium of illness. So, we really need to kind of have an assured hour. You mean it's better for 52? What? Are you at 52? 51? 52? Yeah. 52? When you're at the 7th. Oh, thank you. When you're at the 7th. I'm going to lose my math badge here. So, and I also want to say this. There's a couple of things that we put in these places always there, standing up with the list that you don't necessarily use, that we may not insert. Yeah. So, anyway, I am happy with the ones who do this. Yeah. I don't care. This is a list of, I guess, potential. There are certain lists that we haven't been able to submit work. So, and I also want to say this. There's a couple of things that we put in these places always there, standing up with the list that we don't necessarily use, that we may not insert. Yeah. So, anyway, I am happy with the ones who do this? Yeah. I don't care. This is a list of, I guess, potential. There are certain lists that we haven't been able to submit work. So, to insert. Right. Right. We're going to be inserting on the next one. The next, I will be, we're going to be inserted. All right. That's right. I didn't put them on my own. Yeah. We're going to discuss those. But I want to just get this done first. I think Bill's absolutely right. I need to lend this by, to lend an end. I do want to switch, take the KPM that was referred to earlier, which is the senior property because that's my credit. I think that's one of my days on. So, I'm going to switch that, and I'm for Tom, and then I want to give him, because I'm not in the mood. Okay. I'm going to see if he would like to, if he can have any wire. I thought that was a 6Q, I thought maybe. Didn't I say Q, really? 6 seconds or gestures, I think somebody that was in 25 hours. Yeah. I think. Yeah, that was a 6Q. I think that was a 6Q. All right. So, there's a little bit of variables here on the media songs. So, can you just send it out to me? Yeah. And I'm going to send it out to Ange and Pete. Maybe I can get Ange and Abby. Can I send this out to you? This chart to you and Tom said, please be listening to Abby. If you weren't happy to send it out that way, you know, get your communications back. Right. Well, I'm sorry. If you can get that to me, then I'll get it out. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Why don't you send it to the whole board? First of all, they're not good that they're happy, but yeah. They're going to send it to the whole board, because you'll need it the next week. It'll be in. Does that make sense? So, what is the responsibility at the meeting? Okay. Let's talk about that. So, good question. The finance committee holds a lot of workshops. You just get a basic understanding of what the audit is. It's not a debate. And you're not supposed to get a little wrong statement like you're going to say and tell me. It's just basically, resend unissued debt, right? And you explain that we have issued some debt that we're not utilizing, so we want to resend it. So, you get up and say, Caroline, I'm going to select one of these on this article. This is a select board article. This is what it's about. If they have any questions, they can get a question. Otherwise, they say, oh, this is what I'm going to say. So, finance committee names on echoes in that column. Now, you know what you're working with on that article. And that's how we don't. I will say this. The select board does not speak to any articles except our own. So, I have personally sent out some emails to folks to remind them that the articles are this next week. Because, you might want to take a look at them. I'm sure that means you need this. But, we don't speak to CPC. No, that means they're just out. However, when those articles are mentioned, let's say, it's a playbook article. And then, the next is telling me, select what it is. And I'm still working. And so, they know who's working on the article. Because, the goal is to get both from the finance committee and go from the select board. And get the right to the manager's office. And this is how the process starts. Exactly. So, we go through the petitioner's articles at that beginning, too? They will present their own articles. We'll just say, the liaison. We'll just sort of, except the one, right? Okay. Okay. And you will get it. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm happy to get it. Okay. All right. So, now, when we submitted a lot of articles, when I did think they were going to have a forum, I did say, let's do the board to insert it. Right? And some of them, we're not going to insert it because we don't know if we need them. For example, if it's the land. So, we will wait until the beginning, probably the end of February, and Michael and Brian will tell us. We need that. We don't need it. And then we have to claim. But we really do need to put some of these in. So, for example, the first one is H, which is the budget. And that's from the finance committee. So, we just hope to insert that. Okay? Mm-hmm. The next one that's open is sell the trade vehicles. I would leave that one open yet. The next one is the spend reserve. And not parent and cancer. I'll let that one open too. So, I don't know if there's one in any of us. And I haven't gotten any information on the spend reserve yet. So, I'd leave that open. And end. So, on the first page, I would only vote to insert H. Everybody remember that? So, these others have been submitted? Yes. Well, if it hasn't been submitted by January 15th. Right. So, let's put it through it. The trains have left us to travel the train stations. These are the articles that we're going to look at. No more in this. And the reason why it's blank in the columns. Flight board vote to submit. Is that came from the other committees. Like CPA, Community Preservation, Finance Committee. So, on page two, we did not vote to insert Article S or Article T. And I remember explaining, I knew that wasn't going to be there. I knew that was going to be there. I knew that was going to be there. I didn't want to vote on the non-full board. But we don't have any choice. We've got to do that. We've got to insert. So, you know, these are viable. Okay with those two? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Then the next one open is, Bill, I think you probably want to, you know, hold on on this one. We're inserting. W. Yeah. Yeah. So, we're not going to insert W. We're going to ask Brian to come speak just maybe on February 2nd. I love that. I have a lot of questions on that. Yeah. I mean, read it. Read it? I mean, read it. Yes. Read it. Are you going to make a vote to insert at the end of this list? Yes. Okay. Don't just keep track of it. Yeah. No, it wasn't. I'm certain. I am as well. If you didn't ask, you're okay. I want to make sure people those are not formal votes. You make a formal vote. Would you need to finally make a vote? No. No. I don't need to. I just want to make sure. We're doing a pretty good list case. So, W is not good. This one. Same for that. So, we'll open that. So, then the next one is, why is the real trail? We're definitely going to insert that one, right? I think there are some questions, though, about the – well, is it – let me ask a question, then. Is this related only to the town center properties and the town properties, but excluding privately owned properties? We haven't – that's – see the next column that's to the right? That's our position. That would be when we take a vote on that. This is to let it go forward before town meeting. Put it in the water. Put it in the water. Put it in the water. But we have to take a position before we get in there. So, in other words, we want to continue to pursue this article. Would you like to hold off on this one until we get more involved? Well, I think there was a question about – We're waiting for the DCI to get back to us. Yeah, exactly. All right. You want to hold off on this one until Tom comes? Yeah. Because once we vote to insert, it has to be on the water. You can still pull it. Yeah, we can un-insert, Kevin. Can you still pull it? I think you can. Yeah. Up until the time you go to print, I think. And that's when the water flows. Right. I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable. Let's not do Rachel Thomas. I just wanted to – the gist of it. Now, Michael, this is – these are the final ones. AA is transfer funds to fund the upper 26 by the payroll budget. Should we hold off on with Trinity United? I didn't have it down on my original list on the warrant on the agenda because I think we should hold off. I believe that one is going to be dependent upon whether or not we have a – Let's vote. Let's vote. BB is the home rule for the Green Barrier. We'll put with BB. Yeah. Yep. C is a man of town. This is for us to extend the time for the town meeting. We're going to do that one. D is the holiday rule. Let's want to hold off on this one for – until we get a little bit more. We're waiting for confirmation from the school today, right? So we did reach out to – It's fine to insert. What's it? It's fine to insert. Submit. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Just submit. Yeah. Let's hold off. I'm sorry. Did you say to insert and – or to submit and insert? Yep. Okay. You okay on that? Yeah. Okay. I'm sure we're going to refine some of these. ED is an amendment of town code. This is the Planning Board of Appeals article. I think we want to – we need some more information on this. So I'm going to hold on to this one. Yeah. I'd like to hear it. Yeah. Yeah. Add a CPA set-asides. Insert that. I think we have to insert that because it comes from another community, right? Yeah. Same with GDP, which is the recommended project's population. And I'm going to give – I have a huge shout-out. Two articles for them. They're just very easy to understand. They're really, really nice job. We're in long-term model supply, construction funding. Are we okay with answering that? Yeah, it is. Question. Are we saying that we're going to submit them precisely as they are currently drafting? We're just saying it's going forward to town meeting at the moment. And to Michael's point, we can pull out of this at the end if we got ready. But we can revise the language. That's the whole job of – the whole job of the liaison is going back and forward. I've already reached out to Mr. Barnes on that as well. That's fine. All right. Is that any change? Thank you. Okay. I accept gifts of land. I'm going to hold off. We don't know anything about this. Do we have to insert this? Because it's about the board, though. Is there not an advisory to us? Do you need to do away? It's a town clearing. Yeah. Yeah. But we have to – we have to insert this. We're concerned. We're still going to do the whole review process. Right. We're going to go to position. We're going to change lanes. Why is it flat there? Because we didn't – this is who submitted it. We didn't submit it. But we still have to answer this. We do have to insert. We do have to insert. We do have to insert. So that's the insert box, right? Over here. This is the insert box. Right. Right here, right? Next up, right here. Okay. Okay. What do we want to do about this? We don't know anything about that. Can we hold off? There's something in the supplemental package. I know. I'm going to hold off and kick that. Because we really need to have a point about this. Now the next five. L, L, M, N, N, N, O, O, and PP. We're all coming by the planning board. And so I believe we want to insert our rules. Right? Okay. Okay. Okay. Now we're going to go to three more from the telephone. QQ, R, R, and S. Now for anybody who is watching or listening, in part of the agenda, there is a list that says Exhibit A, and it gives the full title of all the articles that I'm referring to by letter. So for example, when I said B, it's confirm remote participation, and it's right part of the agenda. So you should be able to not have any questions about what we're talking about here. Okay. All right. Now the next perhaps we don't have. Seven. Seven. So I just want to, let's have a, let's. That's looking at your first page. My what? I'm sure I have the ones right on the first page. H. Yeah. I think that's it. I don't see it. H, H, S, G, W, didn't, Y, didn't, A, A, I didn't, sorry. I know L, M, N, O. And then there's, I'm like, what I need most? Yeah. Okay. I move that this is the last one we're going to insert the following articles, as listed in our packet. Article H. The FY 2027. I'm going to spite it. That's acceptance of general object. Number 13, Section 12B. Article T. Allowing additional liquor licenses. Article B. Fee. Home rule authorization and green barrels. C. C. Amending 10. Chapter 36. 1. DD. 25. Holiday Road. Appropriate funding for preliminary design engineering study appraisal. F. The CPA article on set asides and transfers. G. G. CPA. Recommended by the appropriations. H. H. We own long term water supply construction funding article. I. Amending town code section 149. L. L. Zoning article from the Planted Mort. M. Amending flood planning federal flood protection district. N. M. Accessory dwelling unit. Zoning amendments. O. Multi-family housing. Route 20. West sub-district. Amending the maximum dimensions. PP. Ground-mounted solar. Polo-voltaic installations. And three articles from the town clerk. Chapter 91 related to dogs. Penalties related to the regulation of dogs. Invisible house numbers. Second. Sir. Thank you. In front of the discussion. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. Shiz. Sub-in these helmets. Send more surgery. Almost. Those spots. You should not. We'll get you one. we'll get you one okay and then what you do is send this off to the um don't even want it to you
eventually you'll send it to the finance committee which is also filling in things here that's okay okay so that is that um i wanted to talk a little bit about um let's talk about consent instead of exhibit so i did reach out to maria she's good with us doing consent um we were working on this and mentioned to her that we have a lot of small we don't have to make any decisions on consent today but um did want to throw out that we're trying to save time at the time meeting and we've done this once so i want to throw it out to see everyone thinks meeting one consent calendar instead of two or three the second one was basically the cpc articles anybody named their combined and so that would really need to take those small ones at the end like the choose offices and bds if this um put up soviet was there any of those that were any of those and put them all in so how will we determine the difference between the same calendar and just abbreviated presentation yeah so actually things that are in abbreviated can be in the um yeah we also have abbreviated oh no we had some last time i think we can roll and set the only one of the two abbreviations but for example last time i did look this up briefly article three or nine or people in the first one on what they got set um and so they just listed you know and then there's just a list of what's going to be in the
i was thinking today which is dangerous but i was thinking that perhaps we might if we do it at the onset from the staff list we want out we might just put a page right in here
all right we'll start going to be in a consent for writers on page six and twelve or whatever then this is number three what it is number four and five and six ninety in this section i don't know if that makes sense or not but i'm just trying to connect it so people understand this group goes together not necessarily just we start off with consent after i think it was pretty much pretty much we would yeah we want to do that yeah and when you want to let it out this you'll get to do that you'll say that's what we need to do all the ones that each path the budget before we do the budget and we really want to do the budget as soon as there's early in the meeting as possible so last year it was like article 10 wasn't it 9 or 10 but we have all these other things that impact the budget budget the reserve funds that had to get done before
so for example transfer the general stabilization fund that would come before we did a budget transfer funds yeah from the final payable budget yeah and that would be anything we do with budget has to help them because those numbers are already in the budget article and so if someone were to say you know what we don't want to funnel every 500 000 when we do 600 the budget numbers have to change a lot of them can be a lot of towns just put their year to year um you know just standard business articles you know um minor transfer some things and then um just like our own consent calendar somebody has question they flag and then they pull it out and then you can have some type of you know every discussion right and so what if you have three different members of the select board who have articles within you pick one of them to go up yeah but if something gets pulled when the liaison goes up that's why you have to have that liaison because as i wrote you you have to go to somebody prepared to someone might ask questions yeah you're like that's what we did last year we had three consents i think bill did a consent i think and one people pulled a couple of them out and i think the mother is going to come to us in another meeting to talk about it but last year she allowed you know just one person had a question who knows maybe this year she might change it because a lot of other communities it's more than one anybody should just raise their hand well that's what she loved last year because it was new other communities i think this can be well you would know better than i 5 10 20 to get it to get it out yeah i would have to look i mean yeah my hometown does it i don't recall how many people it takes maybe one in a second well anyway so these are things we've been working on but it's a great tool that i think it helps and um and then as we go through the two emotions which we're finished and we'll hold on we'll go back you know we can have a conversation which ones we've actually abbreviated presentation you know i mean like we're both participation it's probably one of them for it's definitely abbreviated but could it be could it be a consent for example we've seen this a number of times okay you know so does that answer all the questions to that so will someone put together a draft of what we think or what the board would consider putting the consent down
yeah well i'll do it and then maybe i can do what you're doing with the banner notes because you know trying to have some a little limited knowledge here but it really is a complicated process okay so let's say i just want to make sure guys i've got the liaisons we're ready for the 28th um then we did the insertions which is great we've talked about consent as we'd like to before we go up um where public works in the house is in november if we would be willing to co-sponsor the article um i will be prepared to have a motion to do so for the discussion at least all right great i will let them know um and then i wanted to mention about the articles the exhibits so we were kind of one some articles for example with the rail trail article the other day and historically what happens is we kind of work on the articles and getting them to the town manager's office and the exhibits sometimes don't always get done until almost the last minute and i was hoping we made an issue if we think there's an exhibit that there's an article comes through we see one that should have an exhibit like a math or something or a link that we identify and as we go along because it really make like you can see it from the top yeah there's just a lot of staff that are doing this okay yeah i'll kind of plug on that plus also you know if you look at something and you say it's not really isn't that clear we have time to get another one of the building friends all right are we good on this everything on that point we just freak out and talk about the outs of the articles that are not yet inserted or maybe that will be happening if we update the spreadsheet so we didn't insert any petitioner articles because they haven't been certified yet by the town clerk so therefore we would want them certified that they're viable and then we won't put them in you know i don't know if the board has to do that we don't have terms i think once they once they get their signature i think there are three ways
well i know that that's true but i think we've got the very we are going to talk about all these articles as we as we go along you know yeah i'm just trying to figure out if there are resource people that need to consult on some of these that haven't been certified such as uh the finance director on w yeah maybe town council and why just trying to figure out
so thank you that's a good segue to my next 70s to my next note so um we're going to start looking at after we go to the finance and watch them and we will have a regular meetings the very second the very nine we'll have we're going to have meetings we're going to stick the 16th we on the 23rd and unfortunately we are march 2nd march 9th problem to 16 and at each one of those meetings we will be looking at audible write-ups hopefully i have asked the town clerk and she's confirmed to come to see us on the second so she'll talk to one of our articles then and then maybe we can make some decisions on those i guess the finance committee to let us know which ones they are not going to do a full write-up on so we're going to show up and those are just our articles so you can put them right through um um we're going to have the cpcs coming in to talk about their two articles on the second as well and so as we have articles that are ready i know you want to talk about the planning board bill article on the second as well so as this as they're ready to come forward to us we will and i think i might ask brian if he's available to column a second to talk to us about article uh w so let me just put that one down as well so it sounds i don't think it's going to kick off i think it'll start falling into shape a bit better it is very confusing first time i have a little business or what is this like otherwise we're good to know what are you talking about martian is this then too yes i'm going to add something from mart you're saying second night 16. yeah i believe that the article write-ups are due finalized on 16. okay so if we have any last ones hoping not to have to add any little extra meetings but it's 50 articles guys let's do your school vacation no she's exactly remember actually yeah and abby will have i had and just reserved those rules today and then i'll send out a note from the schedule so are we good all right well the next item on the agenda what time is 7 26. okay and um four minutes um as i stated earlier there was no um regular session minutes available to review we will review the minutes the 5th and 14th uh and our next meeting on the uh february 2nd which is still in the 30 days so however i do want to have a motion to vote to vote to release with productions the executive session minutes related to agreements with respect to the international association of firefighters and advanced level 1978 step three and those minutes in particular on february 5 and february 12th of 2024 thank you thank you i do want to say that it does take some time for the minutes to be posted but once i would imagine a little bit about 10 days or so those students okay next hour this is going to be
uh it's you know five um let me click there
so i think that now i'm going to conduct a grant every source grant of location here on the open-ended path to install the utility following an anchor um if you're going to invite the tenants by christine cosby is this cost be available it's not on yet it's not on yet okay now what i'm going to do is i'm going to move to tom clem's there right yes yes i see you okay thanks for talking you know 728 maybe
so i am going to do one little piece of focus tonight's hearing is the last one i'm finished so that we'll start collecting a fee i've done about 400 of them this year i don't think um i don't see tom is he there i'm running all of them okay he's declining it says says he's declining before
oh two years are two years on now do you want me to continue to watch it i don't know if somebody's called in since then too there's somebody i'm telling you i'm sorry somebody's called me and i believe it's every source okay well awesome i didn't ever know and why don't we do tom but i was talking really well i'll take him to some of these five minutes yeah or i can go back to the college yeah okay go back to you know i just wonder i have tom recline again you're not ready guys miss crosby are you available yes hello ms crosby are you there yes this is christine crosby from membersource we're going to start your hearing now so just want to make sure you make sure you were online before i started okay yes thank you thank you i have a plan this hearing open for the purpose of considering the application for a grant and locations of eversource energy to install a utility pole and anchor guy to be installed on old connecticut path approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morganbrook road the notice that was published in the metro west daily news on monday january 5th 2026 reads as follows the whaling select board will hold a public hearing on tuesday january 20 20 26 beginning at 7 30 p.m at the whaling town building for you on constituent road whaling and remotely on the application from n star electric company doing business as ever source energy for a grant location installing one pole number 19 slash 75 dash s and one anchor guide in the public right of way on the southeasterly side of old connecticut path whaling mass 01778 approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morganbrook road okay the petitioner requests permission to erect or construct and the location for such a line of wires poles and such other fixtures including anchors and guy as may be necessary to sustain or protect the wires of the line upon along and across the public way or ways as described above now copies of the plan are available from public review online and within the select board packet uh for tonight all right so i'm sure you have done this before but for the public i'm just going to read uh formal rules of evidence and other court procedures do not apply to public hearings before the select board the board expects the prospective applicant and any members of the public who comment to present credible and reliable information in a clear and concise manner so i think we're all here i'm going to give the floor to you um mr crosby to explain uh your reason for applying and also refer the board to the packet um i think what page someone said all the information is on 33 33 starts on 33 would you like to uh speak to us yes um this is christine cosby from eversource energy and we are requesting uh grant a location for a new poll to be installed poll number 19 over 75 dash s and the purpose of this poll would be to provide support to the existing poll that's across the street uh the property owners at 175 old connecticut path looking to have trees removed currently that existing poll out there is being supported by a tree guy which is a guy wire that's installed into a tree and they're looking to have trees the trees removed so that poll needs additional support because of the where it's located at that intersection there's a strain there that comes from contituent road so in order to provide safe conditions for that poll we still we need to support that and that's what we're looking for the stub poll for okay thank you are there um any questions from the board yes um my name is bill whitney uh scarpy uh as i look at the plan uh it it appears that uh the proposed uh 19-75s uh poland anchor is located generally on the opposite side of old connecticut path would it be connected to the existing pole uh on the uh i guess peaceably side or northerly side of it or connecticut path with a cable yes when the new pole would when the new pole gets installed to support poles it would be a guy wire that would be that would be installed from the new poles to the existing poles to provide that support so that it doesn't lean or fall you know fall over overhead it's just a guy wire it's not a wire that it has a you know electric service or anything it's it's a supporting it's a supporting fixture okay thank you um is anybody in i don't see any hands raised but i'll ask any members of the public here to present public comment regarding this installation um is there any additional information you'd like to add miss crossby nope that's pretty much it just we need we need to pull that there to support that existing pole in the corner at the intersection because of the trees being removed okay thank you i'm going to close the hearing and take the matter under advisement and we are going to make a decision i believe this evening um there at this point i mean hearing we consult with the town manager of child council which i don't think is necessary in this case before we take this under advisement we'll make a decision we do have in our packet a letter from the department of public works and it should be allowed to you know patrolling totally thank you sorry um it basically says that they do support this or whatever they will um require a detail officer is required for any work to be performed and also the department public recommends that the select board um approve this because it is consistent with other poles in the vicinity and the bueno police also finds it to be consistent with utility bolt installation practices so the only other piece of consultation usually yet is we will ask the town manager if he also would like to add anything thank you madam chair um this being a duly noticed hearing um you gave the public an opportunity to participate during the open hearing closed it you received sufficient uh documentation as well as support from the petitioner you've heard from the town dpw i think you have sufficient information to base your decision this evening and based on what my staff has i would ask that you support it
okay do we
i move that the board approved the application for granted location for my resourced energy to install and maintain one full and one acre guide to be installed on the public right of way on the southeasterly side of old connecticut path and wayland approximately 70 plus or minus feet southwest of morgan brook road following the directives of the department of public works regarding timing and execution of the construction to minimize construction to ensure public savings the public safety and the dpw exactly the second that motion so
all right that's waiting for the discussion then all those in favor say aye all right so what we need to so you're reflecting it actually you'll get some paperwork as far as we from the or location from the town manager's office with the stipulations to follow the public safety and the dpw rules regulations and time frames and we will sign the paperwork uh right now did you hear me
excuse me did you hear me i we've approved we've approved your application oh okay thank you very much thank you thank you yes sorry i'm concentrating thank you it's me i have to stop looking at all right um i would like to see if time is available we've lost completely now
okay so i'm going to give your attention to the supplemental packet now
i'll take it and then on page is i think 58 of the supplemental packet we're going to talk about so um a year ago i think we engaged a consulting work to um you know conduct what we call an equity audit at the time and then they came to us in the spring it was more like the end of june with some their recommendations because what their findings were um they wanted to make some refinements to that which i think we heard this during september and then we had some input from i think you know it was october 20th meeting um one of the consultants who was actually a resident and a member of the hrdi who participated in this process and we had looked at this and come forward with some recommendations their input that we heard on the 20th is summarized in the packet in the main tag but at our meeting in the 20th we said our next step here is for the board to deliver it and sort of get a sense of oh where we want to proceed you know with this material and information we've gotten so in the supplemental packet i've had um that we need to be involved the summary pages which are the recommendation theme one recommendation theme two recommendation scene three it really encompassed i thought it was nine topics but i think they might close to the 10 or 11. there are in fact uh about 53 bullet points a couple of these really belong more in the school and then there is some overlap but um a couple of things that were emphasized at the meeting on the 20th from the presenters was you know this isn't uh a checklist to go down the checklist this is going to be a way you know how we operate and i kind of had circled that here one of the recommendations our theme on this is not about checking the box it's about listening and responding and building a strong and more unified community together and um i was pleased when i looked at a couple of the bullet points i think we kind of do a couple of these items like we do offer evening hours and hybrid or virtual service options dropping opportunities and what have you so i was pleased to see i think we kind of touched on some of these if not fully to what the consultants thought but i also think it says in here that this is a three-year implementation plan i know the board spoke on the 20th briefly in a deliberation we thought it might be a three to five year implementation plan um and i think that i really wanted to bring this back to just talking about you know some next steps on what we think we should do the uh recommendation we've done on the 24th was you know to engage in the society to do a lot of the work and maybe hire and or hire some part-time staff we did explain that we have some challenges budget-wise and i think we still have the hiring fees so probably wouldn't work out too well we can tell you what else we can hire on anything new by and so on so anyway in the meantime or shortly after we went we had this presentation uh builds i mean i
attended the uh presentation put on by the da in the community center and there was a program but then after the program there was a lot of community input and there were a lot of topics mentioned and there were a number of people who talked about this kind of uh framework and i know doug reached out to a couple and i reached out to a couple and i've heard you know another suggestion which was to kind of take what we have and kind of with that people won't cause a segment of the table and where we kind of take what we have and lay on our talk to some of that and see what kind of office saw this and um and uh michael had mentioned to me he's looking at me now like a couple of weeks ago we talked about this maybe a month ago um that i believe that correct me michael that our insurance maya uh can put together some of these what is it called team building um programs and those we get i believe as part of being members of participating in the insurance program why are they a little of a prosperous right michael that's correct that's part of i mentioned previously that i was going to look to start having that development uh professional development dates and we've looked so i'm going to try to do this every other month on um you're starting on thursday we close the offices and ensure that all employees are attending required training we have epics training other training that we have to do and we were going to split one of the first ones with some basic professional procurement but also under theme two uh where it talks about uh strengthening accessibility representation in town operations um we have a program that we're going to be uh putting on using uh our insurance carrier and it's going to be cultural awareness and diversity and it is part of the presentation so that there will be uh you know some meaningful discussion amongst our employees across all departments um it as you said it's not just checking a box the school department does this with their employees uh today they were having a restorative justice training for some of the school employees here in the town offices so uh we feel that it can come upon us to start offering that for our employees as well so that that would be something we'll be engaging our providers with and at least initially it'll be no cost in the town we'll continue to explore those type of training opportunities so i was very intrigued with this concept of you looking at the resources we have because actually a couple people i spoke to online said we're also opposite residents and do this kind of work on you know this is their profession and said you know um really and truly it's supposed to be set on the table what do you add on and maybe there's some things that might not be or want to tweak how we do it but anyway it was very intriguing that i did speak to michael a couple times we had a couple conversations about it so anyway i wanted to throw that out and i think there's a couple approaches to how we do this but i think you'll agree with me
that perhaps what we ought to do is fill a charge and set up um maybe a short-term committee to kind of give us a kind of a road map here this to what we would how we would accomplish this um and maybe they look at these different styles and what's available like these programs that we might be able to participate in do they fit into some of these recommendations of things we want to do and um i think that um uh let's not go for a second i don't know what this is so probably what is something good i don't know what that's going to do well tell me more about what you envision with that committee so that's working good yeah i think it's not really my vision is what the board's gone vision but i was sort of thinking that if we put together this i don't know be advised or a committee would be advised or some you know a framework what should happen i would like it and but maybe to uh like from staff so i'm sort of thinking of um putting in new family services you know under jason this is it's their their skill set and then we'd be able to layer in you know the work they do work probably when he's leaving the school i was also thinking that they can put together a group we want to reach out to the schools and see if they want to and someone you know one of the appointees and how would you think about that um or would they like us to appoint you know all over so i just kind of i think we want to do something and i think we have to put the statement around um but those were some sort of thoughts that um i had and i have to talk with them and then i talked to michael to um and one thing that i've learned in the last few weeks is i had a conversation with a number of um town officials in wellesland including their actually called their um town manager executive director director i think you know this is their assistant executive director because that and corey testa so i met with him and um director of their board their director of public works and another member who founded this group called the wellesley civil discourse initiative and so they started this um right a few months after covid so it's been going for five and a half years now and it's specifically around structured dialogue and so they work with a group called essential partners of cambridge to help train moderators who are town residents or town officials and then they organize these structured dialogues throughout the year so i think this goes to specifically what this summary is talking about um about having these these difficult conversations right and so i think this is this is something that um we should look into a little closer because they're willing to share some more information and i've wanted to connect michael with them as well um because they've had dialogues on race they've had dialogues specifically about being respectful in public comment and and the animosity that can happen when people disagree about certain local issues and it seems because they've been doing this component on six years that it could be a model that we have known and would have potentially been well that i do um so i might have um so that's a lot of resources that is school to look at right is that what you're saying yeah i think it's something that that we should look at regardless um because i think it's something that that we could potentially take advantage of and we should all um learn more about it right so i think we've identified two or three different a resource and so um i actually was going to hope we equate the next stuff i didn't know go ahead so i was hoping that john was going to be here tonight because i don't see his problem and i was hoping to um get him to help us you know draft the charge and we can kind of go through that after we bounce some of these ideas around um anyways um well i think the word certainly is important and i'm carving some of the financial constraints um uh i guess uh i'd like to better understand the role of this committee of working group visa v the hr deic is there overlap there is there duplication uh but um um i also uh i think we have lots of committees in the town and uh i think something along the lines doug describes having kind of a specific deliverable is yeah is a good thought so it's not responsive to that and share specifically to your suggestion uh but um i i think the notion of exploring alternate models is a good one uh but this is this is one that we should not forget about a lot of that fall by the wayside because of the rest of the business yeah i think one of the reasons i was suggesting that would put this leave the family services the town manager has plenty to do and i don't want us to go into the town manager's office i mean i see how much work to do and i see how much what we have to do i see what they like to do and the frustration because they can't get to things they'd like to doesn't mean they're not interested doesn't mean we're not interested because obviously we said we were talking about the january you know we are right on local schedule talking about it so i really like you know to a specific somehow a specific department in the way kind of talked about beautiful family services was a good fit that becomes the person who funds the next one that maybe comes in and speaks to us this is a good program or whatever but i do think there's some a lot of resources there's several people who um are in this profession in town who are willing to come forward and you know give us some influence on there might also be uh foundation support or uh you know for issues such as this um i do kind of like the idea of working with an experienced group that has a demonstrated track record uh and uh i think if one has specific agreement with a third party uh you're in a better position to push things along but if you have volunteers who well they may be perfectly well qualified so they want to keep it then under our umbrella and then there was a suggestion to make the committee so that's why i was kind of going in that direction i think it's a it's a specific create the plan a three-year plan a five-year plan that we then try to you know follow and implement as opposed to an ongoing uh committee but i totally get it and and they're saying something i don't want to bring another committee because i've always well michael gets 800 more emails that's not everything i'm just trying to protect right not that it's not important and i have to keep saying it is important i'm sorry you're going to miss the study in the first place it's very important but we do need we do need to have a balance here on how much time is available so um would you like to speak to us i'm talking all about me would you like to speak no no i i routinely uh speak with members of hibbi and tim is blue and film and heather contact me regularly to talk about these issues and how to move them forward for the very reason you said we don't want them to fall by the wayside um i still have dialogue with other citizens in town who want to see these efforts move along um and and we really felt that having these professional development dates and neglect that we have another one tentatively scheduled in april um dealing with and addressing discrimination in the workplace so we're we're we're taking it to heart um and it is something that a lot of people want to see so we're happy to help when we can we can you're suggesting maybe that we use human family services jay rooski uh is engaged with a lot of people in the school community as well as in the community um and maybe some people from our staff like that was radical who was our communication coordinator to help you know make sure that this stays in the public eye uh but i do like the conversation that uh it's like board member lavine mentioned about the partners there that were helping with the the conversations and i would be remiss to say that the um over at the library we're going to have a program coming up on someone's community conversation so i i think there's some willingness to do it to continue this effort and people that want to do it and so i think if it's organized bringing some of these partners to help us
so the next question is going to be there's only three of us tonight do you want to put this back on the end of another couple of weeks so we want folks to hear um in the meantime do you want to get some more information about this so yeah i'm going to send it to you now you're going to send it to me so i don't know and i do want to say this that when we were talking about this it's a serious topic for those watching the tape i kind of jumped and smiled earlier it was because mr clam who was originally going to participate remotely came in and waved at me and it took me by surprise and nothing to do with the topic that's all i'm very concerned about that um maybe we do it like they're in the night or something like that i think the second is kind of over right i'm gonna take this back down here okay so we'll do that and we'll look at some of these ideas yes it's great all right um i would also like on this no we're not talking about i'd like to have one of the women that i spoke to come in and talk about this concept you have to utilize you're saying that maybe we want to listen to that it goes in as well sure does that sound
all right great thank you everyone so miss i think the next item on the agenda is surface water quality um please join us how are you doing good thank you for the invitation good evening everybody
i will start to come join us tonight and he has the charge for me i want to see what's happening what's new concerns you have but also that we have advised charges and i hope to be charged i didn't see anything in there that needed to be updated but we really can tell yourself you know i don't know if you've read yet you've got that email or you've got the charge from the um basically the advisory committee did you see that no i did not see that or if i did i forgot about there was this one that was sent out
this is good time we're meeting next week so if the uh if the uh if the uh uh goal is for the committees to refresh to review and refresh their their mission statements i think it's like being
sure uh before i do it but the you were just talking about the uh the charge so was there a request to for the committees to just update if necessary their mission statements no i'm expecting so i'm sorry to put it in effect on it that says any privacy and they should tell staff time expenditure must be discussed with the select board of this meeting to receive prior select board approval before proceeding access to teleconsole and repeating professionals will be authorized by the board as appropriate perspective time we want to actually be submitted to select board no longer than 160 days prior to time meeting to allow sufficient time to leave it comes to value and determination and the decision to advance and our budget standards just require five approval from the um
so kind of put it in line in terms of what you can say going on in the public actually okay so now because you know we've been we you we've been called an advisory body and uh reading our current mission statement doesn't say anything about advising it says the committee will act to uh improve or or maintain the health of the town ponds and we've been acting that way for since even before i joined you know we have annual contracts for weed management on Dudley pond until recently now it's the dpw purview and herd pond and we've been arranging those contracts and we've been uh approving them running through the town so now we would be going through this body um so have been in the last few days this was this isn't not putting it on the team i'm just saying you do we read this so just i did not i apologize so that's all right so now we've read it and so you're well aware it was a good because we are reviewing this with all the advising communities
okay well i guess before we get on to that so this is a good time because you know we're we're going to be meeting next week and then for the upcoming season and we do have some contracts that we do annually that we're going to uh approve at the committee level and then if approved we we engage with vendors through the rfp process of their uh long-standing vendors we just go ahead and do that so i'm imagining that in the course of i'll give you a summary of what we've done i've done the past year what we're looking ahead to this coming year and then with this if this board agrees would this serve as the approval for us to then commence on the activities that we typically do so i think you're a liaison in the staff liaison is calcium yes the system time manager and then select plug liaison so so i think you have been reaching out to calcium so again this isn't we're putting it on the hot seat we just want to make sure everybody's read this and aware of it okay no this is good thank you that's fine i mean if there's a a more formal process to engage in the activities we do okay well let me start with uh and uh bill do you want to appreciate that thank you so much
so let me start with the review of the activities that we did last year and and the committee's activities are for the five or so years i've been on they're pretty much the same thing year after year so um our budget is thirty thousand dollars for the past three or so years and with that money uh we have uh regularly scheduled activities if you will that we we conduct so we do um water chemistry testing on dudley pond in the fall and spring this is historical it predates me by many many years we've been this committee has been doing it for 15 years this goes back to the time when dudley pond was really in much worse shape than it is now and there's concern about it becoming eutrophic that is a uh swamp like if you will and lamest so as part of the effort that prior committee members had taken to do weed management they were also doing water chemistry testing just to see what the levels of certain chemicals are and are these increasing over time are they maintaining and and from the from that data you can do calculations and see if the pond is getting worse better whatever the case may be so that's historical it used to be done four times a year we now do it twice a year and it's just we're just building on that that body of information we we don't take any action on that necessarily it's been pretty consistent if you will we still maintain this because we have this extensive body of of data but we don't do it four times a year so it's the fall and the spring so that will continue for this coming year and and now and prior to uh well as of about three or so years ago this committee was also tasked with uh contracting with third-party vendors to do uh manual uh hand harvesting of of weeds on w pond was milfoil for many years uh then it became tape grass for a little while but the milfoil was really tricky to do by hand pulling because it breaks apart so easily you're you're basically just disseminating sprouts that will pick up so uh the town uh voted uh uh to uh uh purchase a harvester so-called uh to do mechanical harvesting of this of milfoil on the pond and by doing that uh it's got a blade that goes down to the bottom of the pond so we can the crews can harvest more completely these milfoil plants there's less uh fragmentation less distribution of these seeds so that's something that we've been we're still i still was learning to some extent on it we have some trained uh veterans who volunteer on the pond every summer to operate this and we're getting better at keeping the milfoil down by better harvesting mechanically of the milfoil using this harvester as opposed to people divers uh swimming around and pulling up plants and fragmenting it so that's kind of operating as oh no dpw uh owns the equipment they maintain it and they contract for volunteers every year who go out there and actually operate the equipment on the pond these volunteers are local residents who live on deadly pond who really know the body of water so it's really a good um uh meshing of town resources the dpw team and the local knowledge of the uh the volunteers who work on the plot and so that's really taken that activity away from the surface water quality committee because we're no longer contracting with third parties to do this work it's it's a scheduled um process every year dpw puts the harvester and and the conveyor and the and dumpsters on the pond uh the volunteers are on there eight hours a day for a few weeks later in the season and it's sort of it's a it's a much more efficient way of getting work done as opposed to relying on contractors who there aren't too many of and they come out whenever they can come out and they were never able to pull enough of this stuff so long way of saying that's really uh an activity that was prior under the purview of the surface water quality committee it's really more between the dpw and volunteers so other than the water chemistry testing um we don't have much to do with with telepunk there's a question about uh herbicide application or another more equipment that might need to be purchased we can be the liaison uh to the town on that but um right now the the the mechanical harvesting and the equipment that sort of ticks along uh without any direct involvement by by the committee now the other body of water that we do a lot of work on is herd pond and now when likewise we do uh manual harvesting of plants in that pond in the case of herd pond water chestnuts are the big the big problem there and and this is something that tom largie on the committee has really been single-handedly managing for decades now uh now he's he's inculcating me into the practices of weed management on herd pond so but likewise that's the harvesting of the water chestnuts there suffers from the same issues we have we had recently with with w pond that which is that there aren't many companies that do this stuff it's typically just one company solitude and whereas before they had their own crews they could send out on the pond now they don't even have their own crews they have to subcontract the work out so it's always been a chronic issue to get enough people through solitude on the pond in a timely way to pull the water chestnuts out before they drop their seeds and just perpetuate this cycle of dropping seeds and this is more plants the following year so that's but that's a solitude issue i mean we tom and i and some other volunteers have gone out there but it's uh the problem is way beyond just being addressed by manual harvesting which is why uh a couple seasons ago we uh had investigated using herbicide on on herd pond uh to to treat water chestnuts in a way that we just can't do by mere mechanical physical harvesting of the plants so the committee two years ago excuse me went through the uh process of conservation to get uh to have an order of conditions to expand on the order of conditions for herd pond that would allow us to use herbicide application so that was done in conjunction with solitude and we got that approval last year and so 2025 was our first season actually applying herbicide on herd pond uh and a portion of her pond to to treat these water chestnuts and it wasn't uh you know unlike with priscilla corn w pond which has really been a success that two excuse me yeah the two times we've done it now this first season it wasn't clear that we had great success um we the uh we were hoping now once the herbicide was applied you would see where the plants were normally on the surface they would just brown up die and and and drop down but what we saw when tom and i investigated later and saw two confirmed in their own post treatment survey is we we could tell that all the plants had not taken up this herbicide you could see some of them were clearly dead plants but many others were not were still viable plants they had seeds on them we're not quite sure the timing was ideal so it didn't there was in no way the the success we had hoped it would be and it was only a portion of the pond we only we spent i think barring the permitting which is about a thousand dollars it was nine and a half thousand dollars for this one section of the pond that we treated and so although it doesn't look too promising we want to give it another opportunity so this coming season we'd like to do it again now that we have the permit in place we have more control over the timing of the application because that's sort of getting that approval sort of impinged on when we could actually get the herbicide applied so now we have the permit uh and we'd like to do a larger treatment of the southern end of herd pond uh and see if we can time it better treat a larger area uh have another round of herbicide application and see if we can see anything different than last year or if it's just going to be the same as last year i.e not 100 effective in which case it that wouldn't really necessarily make sense to continue on but we only have the one year some success not a complete success we do want to try it again but that could be the estimate we got almost two years ago to treat the whole southern end of herd pond was on the order of fifteen thousand dollars i imagine the area could be a little bit larger this time around so if we're twenty twenty five thousand dollars i mean that's our budget of thirty thousand would have some money for that it would not cover the whole thing so i can imagine we would need on the order of twenty thousand more dollars if this is something that committee but the board thought of value to pursue um but we we have to get uh an estimate for that work and um so that's that's really going to be the big project for the year we're still going to do the mechanical harvesting on herd pond uh i suppose one way to look at it is we if you know we's that mechanical the hand harvesting excuse me of the water chests on herd pond we typically spend about twelve thousand dollars a year on that and and that again there are so many plants in the pond that's a scratch in the surface so one approach could be we maybe cut back on the the the hand harvesting to allow more resources for the herbicide we'll we'll talk with the committee next week typically we we maintain the hand harvesting again on the order of twelve thousand a year and we would apply in addition to the herbicide application last year was nine thousand could be about double that this year if not a little bit more so that would put us beyond our thirty thousand dollar budget but i can report back to this this board after meeting with the committee next week um but that's what we'd like to try i don't know that would necessarily be a great success but we just need to try other avenues on herd pond what tom has found over the years and what i've come to learn in my five years on the committee is that for a long time due to tom's efforts it looked like we were managing the water chestnuts on the pond the one thing that was an unknown when tom started this work decades ago is we knew the plants dropped those seeds but the science didn't really know how long those seeds were viable were they good for were they viable for seven years ten years over the years it appears that they're they're more viable for longer than we might have thought and in the past couple of years three years at least there's been just such an abundance of water chestnuts it's really essentially clogged blocked the whole southern end of the pond which we haven't even been able to tackle with our usual hand harvesting which is why the idea for herbicide use came to the fore as a way to maybe take a quick approach to knock those plants down yes what can be is an additional
so well it could be it could be i'm i'm so the quote we got two years ago for that whole southern cove so-called apartment was thirteen thousand dollars so that was two years ago i can imagine it'll be closer to twenty so you do realize budget yeah but again let me you know as i said but the hand harvesting is really diminishing returns for us we pay that twelve thousand and sawtude has limited control over the crews they get and last season they were out in kayak so used to be boats and you can get a lot more in there now it's kind so you know one way to to resolve this is you know we again we don't know it'll be 100 successful maybe we pair back on the hand harvesting or don't do it and maybe just the one shot on goal is let's use herbicide see if that makes a difference because now with the hand harvesting it's really so if we did that so i would say if we if we use the money for hand harvesting that's twelve thousand right if we divert that for herbicide that's going to be um probably in the order of half a little more than what we need i mean we could scale the work based on the budget available to us if you're going to need some additional amount of herbicide is it twenty thousand dollars i would say twenty thousand to be safe it was thirteen two years
previous minutes from last year and then it indicated that you had reached out
conservation commission but about how they conduct weed management at lake constituent what did you learn about that um that's such a big space how are they keeping that under control and how do they do a potentially cost effective so uh the that came about uh carol plum on our committee uh she's our uh eyes on a lot of the bodies of water uh in town and she had noticed uh growth of certain plants on town beach that potentially could have been problematic so she was raising attention to the committee early on and and so the question was okay um uh would this fall under first of all under could it be recreation of his town beach so that uh catherine brenna's been doing some work down there for e.coli monitoring would it fall under recreation would it be concom would it be the surface water quality committee and so uh we uh reached out to conservation to get their thoughts on whether we need to get an order of conditions to do some work on there and and what we learned is that uh uh lake contituent is under uh state purview so uh dcr has an order of conditions to manage weeds on herd pond primarily uh central and south pond but if we were to want to expand the scope to specific weeds that we're seeing on north pond it would not be an activity that my committee could take on its own or even conservation would have to go and be in conjunction with with the state so for best practices did they use herbicide at the state of lake contituent did they use an automatic fertilizer they're not using they're not using harvesters uh they they do herbicide application but the scope and the extent of that i i don't know but they also lake contituent does i have a water chestnut problem so it would be different herbicides in any case and i think north pond is where it's always referring to north well we we had so we we had a committee member who would look at who would who would look at central the the main the main pond because that abuts on on whalen too but we never did that the extent of that work never the scope of that work never advanced to working with the state or other towns on weed management it was really about runoff into lake cuchichua so we never did any weed management son yeah it was so let's just clear on my so what i think we need it's good it's 20 000. well that's for proselicore on deadly plot so this year we're not doing any proselicore work on deadly plot that might be a 27 issue so what we need is well we have so the budget is 30 000 so right on for dudley pond what we do is the water chemistry testing twice a year so we have two labs that do the work uh 2 000 each time so it'll be that'll be let's call that five thousand dollars so that's 25 000 uh the rest of our budget and again historically 12 000 would be used for the water chefs not so all right we'll figure this out how's that sound okay now what i'll do correct me if i'm wrong can you receive money from the dudley association uh for historically what the dudley pond association would do is they would uh reimburse the town 25 percent for money the town spent on dudley pond so and prior when we would have when we arranged with contractors to do the hand pulling that would cost a certain amount of dollars and then we would uh we would find out what that what the town spent on that the dudley pond association association would gift not to the town but there was a there's a i think it's a gift fund that was part of the surface water quality committee's budget and that money would go there but that was for dudley pond associated activities right and the reason i was inquiring is you know one of the other times i worked in
people used to question the equity of what we're doing which you have heard pond um one had an association and one didn't and historically what had happened was the the ones that had the association where the town was meeting in the middle we worked with solitude quite a bit the other pond in town we said you should really start an association out there and try and get generate some money so we'll meet you rather than take it all i just didn't know if never heard about her and ponds no but i was serious that the dpa has donated to the town the conveyor yeah yeah yeah they've done a lot and so i don't think there's been a but that's another big long thing yeah no well yeah but just to close the loop on that yeah there's there's unlike dudley pond which is heavily developed herd pond is not so there's no natural constituency there other than the fishermen and yeah you don't see very many yeah okay so i think we're almost done on that the other the other quick question the only quick question that we have which i think does for the year and i'll just throw in quickly and that's even coming within the committee too right one of the surface water quality committee but really the dudley pond and herd pond committee so yes it's important to have that focus on there does it get diluted out of under concom or somebody else but we've had those discussions internally you know anecdotally so no but i'll be glad to come back you know just to give an update on this uh my meeting with the committee next week and talking about our budget and do we do the same thing i've heard probably done in the past or do we conserve some resources to allow for this herbicide so why don't you send me to myself and well you know and like you know again i i don't need much to throw a wrench into the works we can you know this idea of herbicide application on herd pond if we just take even a targeted approach to one area and see if we can successfully treat one area then we can think about expanding a future year so i would consider that as an option that revenue making is complicated maybe we just focus our efforts on a smaller area of the pond to see if we can have success that would then say yes let's make sense for the future thank you thank you thank you for for inviting me to stop appreciate it let you go back you can go back online thank you all right good night
all right i think i need to go back number eight
can you hear us yeah we can't hear you we can't hear you okay let's go we're on number eight somebody wants to see this on number eight discussion review the grant agreement from the clean water trust excuse me should we ask tom to call in uh so we hear his audio or you could just join via your phone steady computer you know it's amazing it's a tough day thank you don't give a lot
i'm just going to try again yeah let's just wait one minute yeah i agree so uh well we're going to be trying to be productive we'll keep it going along here we have time why don't we go back and maybe we'll put the uh ways of science with tom always here how does that sound is that okay i don't know what he's got or we could keep going
yeah so if we have it he comes back mr levine be sure you can send it on the list it's kind of bonus 15 plus minutes
i'm sorry we gave silver's water quality a bonus 15 plus minutes there i do very soon to do your time yeah that's okay i know i gave you more slides than i was always going to yeah we're going to mention that there's too many slides in a minute
trying to stay is that one panelist up there is that oh that's us okay
he's not calling you that's not okay if that for me it's not got in the car coming here
all right should i move on to this yeah i can move on to this one that's yours from that bill right number eight he's discussed interview the grant agreement from the clean water trust for the first storm water asset management plan and this was the two questions you had was the payment schedule and the length of the scheduled payments now i know that you've had i think michael sent an email out do you this is your agenda would you like to speak to it well as you recall uh at the original meeting when we discussed this there was a question about whether the times of the essence i think we thought about how the office town manager should basically be granting uh if time indeed prove to be of the essence and i gather that of course so that the contract was executed subsequently to receive um you know from the town manager indicating uh that uh that uh the state does not uh disperse the funds in advance the entire amount but rather uh apportions it over the 18 or 20 months and uh there's also a schedule uh that the consultant has generated envisions uh a somewhat extended period during which the uh the plan is developed uh looking in various elements in sequence so i am personally satisfied with uh with the uh with the response uh and uh appreciate the additional uh research of this time i don't know we also think of ourselves coming back in you know i i did send that to select board member whitney and i'm looking now in the in my outbox did you get the chart it didn't show up in my it was a chart i had i can resend it hi tom can you hear tom can you hear me yes i can yes all right we can hear you appreciate it let the record reflect that he's showing yeah so i'd like to look back and reflect thank you everyone all right um um i think we are just now believe it or not tom on number nine town manager evaluate and now i gotta look over here tom manager evaluation okay okay that's in the main packet sorry one page something or whatever the mind doesn't show the pages so supplement no no i'm in the main one okay um so what i put in here was they can't tell two things we have to decide we're going to look on the calendar you know what we're going to say 74. thank you thanks 74. um and this is the form that we use so i want to make sure we're all copacetic with the phone and so this is the one we use the next two years i don't know that is very efficient and she's putting all these dates march march march but it's not going to be the case so if you just slow down the 374 where it says the instructions we have the same six seven categories eight categories anybody want to make changes to the form we're happy to the form form so they'll say with a full time i am looks great yeah okay so i want to back up then um i think what we're going to do is to say michael's anniversary is february 27th and so when i was with the school vacation in the middle here it's going to create a little bit of a complication for scheduling so on my goal and i'm hoping it's our goal is that we do his review on march when i say second right when we meet on march 2nd so in order to do that we've got to you know i'll get the copy of the form i'll have kate send it out to everyone and when you have completed it then you will send it back to kate and um i think that bill this is going to be the army volunteer thing the watch it here i come uh i think bill did such an excellent job i'm very patient with all of us um assembling this the last couple years so i'm going to ask if you wouldn't mind uh being the person who you know consolidates all of our reviews into one into one how does that sound mr whitney provided that the members are timely submission their evaluation forms to the uh human resources manager right so that's what i want to talk about the timeline and bill you can help me with this so if we wanted to do this on a second um we're meeting on the 23rd i would assume we would need an executive session on the 23rd to review the the combined uh review right so that we could have a conversation on the second does that sound right we do one executive session well we talk about it don't we don't we talk about that in there and then we also talk about um i don't want to share with um mr mccall to see what exactly as well right well i'm out of the pocket between the 14th and the 21st okay and and we need to
to get it before it is right uh so then the members would need to give us their evaluations during the week of the second day of the federal room a little time two weeks pull that together uh put together a draft distributed the draft to the members i didn't know i don't know what you did i think you gave us a consolidated right um so so it's sort of a summary of the responses um and then you know the members need to look at that and see if they agree or feel that their comments are fairly reflected
so when are you suggesting that we have to we have to we're going to send them to the director of human resources ms ryan so when would we need to get them there i guess i'm going to suggest plan state the fourth what does that sound in the unlikely event that anyone needs a little additional time i can pick them up on the sixth when we could drop them off on the sixth oh they're going to be built in here i've got it i've got to get them from kate right and give me some time during the week of the nines put it together okay and then that needs to go in the pack right or does it is it going to be okay i'll get where it goes from kate knows that sounds good i'll get the flow if they're going to be found guidance either from kp raw or right yeah yeah we've done this once or twice before so we'll figure this out all right so so i'm going to establish it i'd suggest for the purpose of discussion target of uh responses to the hr manager by one said the fourth uh and uh after the sixth i'm really glad i hired you i mean i just yeah in fairness to uh well i mean the thing is is that we always praise michael does work for us he gets it done on time so i think we we've got to really make sure we get this done on time john are you okay with that time are you okay okay and it would be helpful also to have uh a self-evaluation from michael well it's coming it's in the supplemental fabric wait do you see it about 92 slides
okay so that's the process we'll use um you know what i think i'll do because why don't i have um i'll put together a little um couple notes on this and have abby send it out to everybody remind them you know here's the form and you know here's the deadline and this and that so if that's great so now if we're going to the supplemental packet right 62 on page 62 i want to i want to defend myself here when i had this conversation with the time manager i said you know feel free to give us you know one or two slides about some of your accomplishments back to you in the 90 point font though this is easier so i'm like i'm gonna give you a few minutes to go over these if you want just a couple
so on page 62 a lot of stuff and well but if i may madam chair you would ask me to try and time sign select board goals and i didn't make a one-to-one connection but i i think during the course of the year we and i used the word of we because we work in partnership and i work with my staff and i am always quick to point out i have great staff they do a lot for me i can't take credit for everything that's on here um and you generally hear me if we have something i will point out the staff members that are doing uh the yeoman's work um but i i think the the keys i try to put some of them in order of relevancy i mean we spent a lot of time this last year working on the financial management for many issues and they touch in different areas because i have a slide on some of the policies that we got the board to advance and my staff did work on the financial policies the pilot program social media program but um we finished last year's town meeting with a balanced budget and we immediately went to work with our budget working group to ensure it touched upon this we closed that 1.8 million dollar gap we we reaffirmed our triple a rating which i thought was important starting with the capital planning committee uh that's been reviewing the capital plan for us we started doing some work to go forward with a long-term financial uh excuse me facilities management plan by having the uh the assessment as well as the college center come in so i think we as much as we were dealing with day-to-day we're trying to look forward and come up with plans and be strategic about how we use town money down the road um i think one of the biggest challenges is is economic development i i give uh the folks in the land use and planning department a lot of credit uh we we started trying to do some new business uh ribbon cutting that was organized in part by the planner but i would participate in that um my staff and i were very supportive of terrain i spent a lot of time with the building commissioner talking to them helping them we spent a lot of time handling people through the liquor licensing and um permitting process and we recognized way back when terrain first came in that we should advance the home rule petition because we've had some people like the new folks at town center that are interested in the liquor license and i just met a gentleman the other day who's looking to open a restaurant here so we encouraged him to take a beer and wine and said we're going to work on this at town meeting so you know we continue to work on some of those other issues like 195 main street i mentioned the policies i think the biggest thing was getting the financial policies that we all worked on for a while and um i know both chairs have worked on the select board manual it's it's probably 95 percent there we did a lot of work on over the summer i'm sure you're looking on your list it's there yeah but um it's very close to being done um one of the things that's come up a lot now that ai is in the news it's use policies not only for staff but officials and when it's appropriate so i've been working uh on my own doing some research and with our it director to to advance those um i think there's been a couple of big wins we we opened the the senior center community center and then that is turned out to be a great facility um we're moving forward the snake brook dam project even though we didn't get the fema grant i wrote them again just in the hopes they would uh um be able to help us out but we picked a contractor we're going to get that done ensuring that we don't lose any of the arpa monies or the state grant monies um and put on their turf field issues believe it or not that that happened earlier this year and um michael fan a lot of staff participated in getting out there we we've got uh the environmental um engineers to help us with that finally getting the security cameras up and running this building that works here so we're trying to address a lot of the needs that are going on we clean up this room a bit we revamp the lobby we're trying to make it look more like a town hall and do things in addition to all the other things that we're working on um put a little bit about staffing about the the ongoing legal matters we deal with every day um we participate and i participate personally in a lot of those meetings that are listed there um i did put in in a couple of them the metro west regional emergency communication center i also think that would pay a lot of dividends going forward uh we signed the ima earlier this year we're participating and we're hoping that right around june july this year that you start actually seeing some cut over so uh that's on the way um public relations i think has been a key part of what i like to do here um continue with the office hours you've seen me a lot of public events especially the incidents that happened in october i made sure that i was directly involved working the mayor and ryan which came here and continue as we talked tonight working uh with hrdei and folks in the community um we've been involved with the sherman's bridge we had a public listening session over in sundry i'm trying to work with some of the folks that have come in from the various neighborhoods about these dover projects um so i try to be responsive today uh i met some new folks i always wear my vest as you know during the day that's a sound manager and i like to greet people when i'm in the hallway because we are a customer service organization um and the only last shameless plug that i'll put in is we're always trying to be mindful of the taxpayers dollars and now trying to close this fly 27 without an override of major cuts was done a lot by working with staff um as you noted there's been hiring trees we've tried to find monies in alternative ways i did have a gentleman say asking all those questions what are we doing to try and keep the taxes down and i told them what efforts we made but i told them there are certain things uh such as health care some of our um um unclassified that just they're beyond our control some of the energy costs but we are trying to make some savings here in the air and on that note i'll just say the reason it's a little colder here is uh uh we shut the fan off a little bit of that but just shutting the fan off here um but if we maybe have a little bit before yeah but uh i think we need to have a discussion too as we work on this building about utilizing the coa more so that we can shut this building down on certain nights especially towards the end of the week um take advantage of the state-of-the-art hvac over here and not be spending money that's just literally growing up but there's an overview i i'm sure there's things that i you know we can talk about but it's been a partnership i think we work well together uh i make myself accessible at all times um and you've also been helpful to me and a few times i've needed uh you know um to take a moment away or two for personal matters but all in all i think it's been a very productive year i've enjoyed my three years here and i'm looking forward to the next three terrific you know i did tease michael obviously about so many slides but i think this is i did encourage you to put some stuff down because i think it helps us when we prepare the review not necessarily going to use all of this material well it's not going to fit on the phone but the fact is is i think it helps to join your memory of things that have happened i think it also is great for the public to see how many things get done besides what they what they see you know there's just so much goes on around town i mean me and michael once a week and gobsmacked sometimes and all things have happened since adult you know five days ago so i appreciate that we appreciate you michael um we will look forward to uh getting this review done in a timely manner so thank you all right so i think actually the next item on our agenda is it's our managers report thank you madam clerk i don't know that
i i didn't go it up till now saying madam chair and slip
sorry about that i think it's um just a couple things many of you may have noticed uh in your mail you may receive the uh note from dbw regarding the annual or in the semi-annual billing is now going quarterly um it shifts the accounts that are already over and that should be happening in the not too distant future if you have any questions please reach out um you can inquire with either dbw or treasurer collector's office where you would have to pay your bills i did know earlier there's some upcoming events that are being sponsored by hrdei um as well as the wayland public schools um and with the support of the lydia marie child fund the first parish and wayland we're going to have conversations that are going to be taking place at the library the next one is january 28th it's the belonging toolkit what actually works there's also conservation conversations not confrontations on february 10th march 10th april 14th and may 12th um there are which i'm sure if you check i'll get uh a website there's more information that can be um derived i think if you go to the hrdei's website and probably the way of the library if anybody has any questions they can contact my office uh i will let you know that we're working diligently meeting with all the unions that uh pretty much all men contacted me now setting up collecting bargaining sessions we're just trying to finalize the budget um i've got some correspondence tonight from the community excuse me the capital improvement planning committee um with some of their recommendations so i foresee mr kevin and i um getting something to deliver to the finance committee in about a week next the end of this week is the mma the massachusetts municipal association's annual meeting governor healy is expected to be there on friday at which time she will probably roll out um the expectations for state aid and i read an article today that they're expecting revenues of approximately 2.9 percent increase part of that is the millionaires tax if you take it out their revenues are expected to increase about 2.4 percent we're hoping that will translate into some additional monies here in whalen um but i'll have an update um the next meeting about what came in and where we stand with regarding to uh our school aid as well as every street in general um thank you um thank you um so i have a follow-up question you may have a follow-up question i just want to have a quote of the mailing uh that the dbw sent out there was also a mailing uh that we received uh about per pipe versus lead pipe yeah uh and uh previously um the dbw had asked people to to check uh their the leads of their houses and scratch it to see if it's copper and so forth we did that and uh reported that uh appropriately but then we got this follow-up note uh that's suggesting that i inferred uh and that they didn't get the information or that there there was maybe a question uh so i'm just curious whether this was a shotgun mailing to everyone as a follow-up or whether it was a target because if it was uh there's this potential issue about the information getting to the right
on there on here's up to you so um i think what we're going to do and i think that you sent it right yes um so earlier in the meeting okay so i'm looking at it maybe kind of getting i'm looking at the the speaker so ready uh earlier in the meeting we spent some time on uh town meeting materials and i explained that because it was very great and got us early most of the articles so we could kind of have a look-see it really was for everyone to have a flavor to see the articles that we have received and there are we believe 52 articles including seven petitioner articles that are being certified so they're not in the packet so between what was in the packet and then the supplementary you get a flavor for the items um and i just wanted everyone to have a good look at that as the rest come through we'll send them along um but then doug took a shot at putting out the select board liaisons for these 52 articles and we discussed it earlier and then the thought was we would send it out to you in the end um to get your input but since you're here why don't we circle back to that and have a quick look of that so did you want to he's got he's got one walk us through on what we what we did john are you open the document yes uh you know what page it's on um well i have it right here i have in front of me so i've got the uh the uh list of the assignments separate email oh what did i get i just sent you an email okay it has the attached document of the assignment and then there's one swap that i can point out to you tell me if you've got that email yeah but hopefully in a moment i did get it let me open it up here yeah so it's a three-page document yep so i'm looking at it i'm looking at it so at the bottom of page one article q acceptance of general law chapter 60s have paid up to 25 dollars um i had that originally assigned to carol but she's hoping that you would take that in addition you see at the bottom there article p reaffirmable participation happy to do that and then on the next page article b for victor uh b for victor another general law file amendment prohibition of cryptocurrency machines we talked about this at the last meeting briefly yeah we're talking about this and looking yeah this is going to be one of those quick ones that's fine uh and then the two articles at the bottom of the page to the two cpa articles which carol said were expertly drafted so far okay sounds good that's fine uh the last page uh articles ii and jj amending uh the first one is a town clerk article yep and the second one do we know if we're going to have this yet we don't know no but we do assign someone just in case yeah and then if it's not and then we gave you the other three town clerk articles at the bottom there double q through double s right and there are seven petitioners articles and i was going to take six out of seven right that sounds great i took kk back because it's one of my liaisons i was kind of familiar with this which a couple of the meetings when we discussed this okay senior property assessment yeah that went back to carol if you want to make a note
so if you want to take a couple minutes while we're thinking if you see something that you think should be changed let us know you want to trade let us know we're we're doing this to kind of be ready for the uh article workshop which is next wednesday you know the finance committee so this way we have all our assignments set up and we'll i'm happy i'm happy to uh accept those assignments okay great and then um if anybody's not going to be able to go next wednesday let me know so there's one um myself or maybe you will pinch it for you all right that's going to be a one agenda item because there's no room for us we're going to call to order in the finance committee meeting so all right so then the other thing we did to talk tonight was because we didn't do it earlier um when i didn't think i had the whole board right you know tonight i didn't we've inserted up quite a few of the articles do you want to walk through once that's that's not necessary i'll look at i'll look at it in the new packet that's fine you don't have to go okay um okay um okay then you'll see which ones still have to be inserted and of course the petitioner articles we haven't looked at yet so there you go all right do you feel up to date a little bit here i do i appreciate that update okay good all right so that's the case let's move on to select board what's the concerns anybody have any john do you want to start i have none thank you okay i have a question is that a concern well i am concerned that i may not have the time of the meeting on the 28th correct is it 6 30 pm i think um we'll send it to you but i think finance committee workshop is at 7 15 okay let's get that sent out that's all yeah good question mr levain um i have a question that we were holding until we got to talk to michael which is about um curious how we're thinking about um a search going forward i know we just swore in the acting team today but just kind of generally what we're thinking about for process and timing um because i i wasn't on the floor the last time um but was the time before that and i was part of that search when louise miller was our town administrator so i don't think they can ask questions in their voice of concerns i didn't ask him in the town meeting you know what i forgot to answer my town manager's report manager um excuse me you know what when the boys indulge us why don't we go back to town manager update report and then maybe he can give us an update is that everybody fine with that okay no one is so that's fine thank you madam chair i actually received this question today from the waiting students uh yes so um what i said to them what i would say to the board is uh in parma i said this evening i do think uh acting chief hebert has the skills necessary to run that department for the short term as you may recall when i arrived here then acting chief berman had been put in place he'd been there for about six months and i wanted to give him the opportunity to get to know him see how he performed um make sure that he felt comfortable on the road in that role before i opened it up to an assessment center and took applications because i wanted to make sure he wanted to move forward and apply for the position i wanted to do something similar for uh acting chief hebert i did tell acting chief hebert that as we've done in the past not only me but some of my predecessors that we would conduct an assessment center we would do a procurement uh bring in an outside agency that generally consists of active and retired police chiefs to help evaluate the candidates once we post the position and then they would rank them make recommendations to me last time i involved staff key department heads because they have any chief would have to work with our dpw director um fire chief hr and the finance director because that's all part of what the chief would do in an organization that size um so i then made a decision and i mean the town manager act and then he came back and presented my decision to the board and the board needs to ratify whether they agree with that or not in the unlikely event that we didn't agree we started over again but that's what we did in the last time when we chose chief berman and i would like to continue using that same model we've done in the past i think it also allows uh you know ample time for the acting chief to get an idea of whether this is something he wants to put in a point as well and i think right now he um you know the feedback i'm getting is positive uh i brought him the other week over when they had the pizza cafe at the community center the senior center i introduced him to many of the seniors and then he held his own and doing q a with all of them and i've received a lot of positive feedback from people who knew him growing up in town uh so i think he has the right combination of the skills the personality the personal knowledge of growing up here in wayland to to do the to do the job in the short term until we make that long term
thank you for your update now i'll go back just it's like where we're going to turn you all set okay i have a couple things and maybe tom really maybe could hop in on this one um one of the two america 250th anniversary's uh celebration ideas is they are having a um knox trail discussion and honoring of that noble training of artillery that came through the game right through wayland and this celebration is on sunday february 8th at 2pm at the village green in framingham and i think i mentioned this before and select what's been uh and michael and i were invited first michael i believe does not be able to attend so i will attend i may uh that there is a very important football
i'm kidding you know they should not conflict that's early in the day right and so i'm um i obviously will represent the board and you know speak um you know the town i guess i think my understanding might be getting a flack they talk about more about the signs of the p i guess the question is i've mentioned it a couple times i kind of need to be able to advise if any other select board members are planning to attend so again february 8 2 p.m phyllis green phony and it's the knoxville um the 250 anniversary of henry knox and his noble train of artillery so if you could just let me know what you think about the team or not maybe the next day or so that would be great so then i can apply and we also is there a description of the activities i'm not familiar with the details of the activities but i can tell you that those can and did hang out in framingham for a bit before they were finally brought to dorchester heights but we'll learn more about that on the february 8th so well hopefully someone tells me some stuff because i have to speak of this so february 8th is is the was the date that the canon arrived in framingham is that the notion i'm not sure about that yeah i'm not sure the date they arrived i do know they hung out there for a while before they were actually brought to dorchester heights so you know i think i'll see if i can get that information i don't know that that's the case but nonetheless we've been asked selected coming attack i think there were limited seats or on their guests or whatever so that's that's what i'm doing um like i mentioned the 60 group is um put up the report this is the first one i've asked the chair and the committee to come to join us on the february second meeting to kind of talk about what they've done this year and maybe talk about the report um also i didn't mention it really only one of those in the articles i did follow up with the chair as regards to whether i probably wrote a lot of good deed capital and i will be attending the meeting tomorrow night to answer any questions about that i had a quick sidebar with michael and uh we're going to try to tell a funding source for that i think that would be a good plan to do before we go so i may have more information on that um let's see i did hear from um our legislators and they would like to come and do a legislative update with us and we'll probably schedule them if not um probably more towards the end of february because we've got to really dig into these articles and they seem to think that was better for them or maybe even the beginning of march um michael alluded to this i did reach out after the last time about so much noise in this room and we're having and i was advised that we should really think about and consider perhaps going to the coa and so um there's two rooms available and me i just haven't had a chance to go over in the building to see what i think but um it doesn't make sense for us to go so we will see i have shared mr face concerns that i really if i move i would like to have an upgrade in my working space versus um you know folding chairs like those laughing we're never going to get a good thing well that's what i mean i want to make sure we have an improvement before we move so anyway um i don't think of anything else and i want to thank you very much for uh coming if i quite a day uh we really appreciate you uh coming in even the last few items if you need any updates give me a call and with that i think we're good to go so i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and i'll have motion to adjourn and so for the discussion we're going to have a roll call vote tom yes uh will yes thank you miss tell me yes for your level thank you very much