March 30, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
March 30, 2026 - Select Board
Good evening. Thank you. Good evening, Carol Martin as the chair of the Select Board. I'm calling tonight's meeting of the Select Board to order. This is Monday, March 30th, 2026 at 6.30 p.m. This meeting tonight is remote access only. So the meeting may be recorded and if recorded, it will be made available to the public on WACAM as soon as possible after the meeting. It's practicable.
Pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, this meeting will be conducted via remote access in accordance with applicable law. No in-person attendance by the members of the public will be permitted. However, you may watch or participate remotely with the meeting link that can be found either on the Select Board agenda or on the webpage calendar, town calendar.
When required by law or allowed by the chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so through the remote access as already indicated on the calendar.
Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person.
Tonight's agenda is going to include announcements of public comment. We're going to have a conversation about our annual town meeting articles and the draft warrant that's being finalized.
We're going to have two reports tonight, one from the Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee and one from the 212 Conchituate Road Advisory Committee.
And because both of their charters have expired, we will vote to disband those committees.
We're going to have a follow-up meeting with the Economic Development Committee to talk about a number of the right options and proposals that they have and share some of our own.
So, this evening, joining me online here is Mr. Fay and Mr. Whitney.
Mr. Levine is not able to join us this evening, and Ms. Brensley has indicated she will join us later for the conversation and discussion when the EDC committee is presenting before us.
We're also joined this evening by our town manager, Michael McCall, and our assistant town manager, Kelsey Powers-Burlett.
So, I think we've got everything there. I will say this. Please note, agenda item times are proximate and items may not be discussed in the order or at the time listed, and all topics are subject to deliberation and vote.
So, does anybody have any announcements?
No.
No.
I have a couple, and I think they may overlap with something Michael and Kelsey are going to speak about, but I do want to mention that next Tuesday, the 7th, April 7th, there will be a forum at the COA hosted by the Board of Public Works on the water long-term supply.
This is an article that we're going to be voting on at Town Meeting, and I believe that's at 7 p.m.
And then on April 13th, which is two weeks from tonight, at the Select Board meeting, we will host a forum on the Holiday Road, 25 Holiday Road article, and that will be a hybrid meeting at 7.15.
And then finally, Kelsey just left, but I'm going to mention that we've currently rolled out a survey that we'd like folks to take regarding the transfer station, and I believe it's online, I believe it's been published, I think there's hard copies of it throughout town.
Please take an opportunity to spend five minutes and do that.
So, Mr. McCall, did you have any?
No? No, that's what Kelsey you all said. Did I say that correctly on the transfer station, or do you want to add something?
I don't, no, you said it perfectly, I don't need to add anything, thank you. Okay, well, if I said it perfectly, we're going to adjourn now, that's it.
Let's move on to public comment. Do we have any public comment this evening? Yes, we have two people, I have Carol Plum. Okay, come, Miss Plum, I recognize you. Hello, am I on? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I just wanted to make some comments and sort of challenge some of the assumptions on that EDC charge, which was, I was reading along, and I'm questioning whether the select board actually can have jurisdiction over, under the expanded charge, access to town council or other paid professionals will be authorized by the board, the select board, as appropriate. Shouldn't that be coming from Michael McCall as our town manager? And the other one is, if you look at, I just lost the page, number three and number four, to continuous review the town bylaws, regulations, and zones for consistency with the town's economic goals, and make any applicable recommendations to improve permitting, licensing, and regulatory functions to the appropriate board or commission. Do they, do you guys actually have jurisdiction to be able to do that? I mean, we have elected boards and commissions to which you are not supposed to be able to, I mean, you're a parking board. You're not actually supposed to be, or the EDC shouldn't be telling the other boards, like, how to run their business, right? Or at least, and if it was going to be someone doing it, you'd think it would be the town manager. And the other one was, if I look at number four under the purpose of the committee, which is streamlining the town's regulatory processes, my experience with that has been that, like, if you look at the ZBA and the planning board and all these others, what we see is that they're asked to chip off away at the 200-foot buffer, 100-foot buffer, and the 30-foot no-disturb zone, all as one-offs. So they're always presented as, this is a great commercial opportunity to do X, Y, and Z, but the overall, like, effect long-term is that you keep taking more and more pieces out. And that's, there are other places where, you know, if you're going to come in and your only goal is economic development, I don't think that's going to be appropriate. And I guess that was just my thought, is that you, I don't see why you have to expand it. You think item number seven would be the thing that they would be working on the most, which is to support and encourage new businesses, and then maybe number one. But anyway, like I said, I'm just curious as to who's got real jurisdiction here and if you guys can actually do that. So thank you for listening to me. Have a good night. Thank you. Do we have an additional public comment, Robbie? Yes, I have Alyssa online. Yes, Ms. Cotter, I recognize you.
Hi. That was more than two minutes.
The town is seeing a drop in school enrollment, I heard, and still over 70% of the budget goes to the schools. This clearly is a time to rethink, say, taxpayer-funded free child care, i.e. nursery school, which parents paid for only a few years ago, but maybe still offering the neediest families partial fee reduction, maybe to reconsider the school's five- to ten-year new construction plans. Also not a great time to submit a bylaw increasing the town employee wage scale to be higher than 70% of the comparison town's pay scales. You've ignored the limits in the past. What's the rush? With such long-term increases at taxpayer expense coming up and staying for decades. As for the water situation, voters chose to pay for it by water rates, not taxes. Maybe we should reconsider only connecting to state water, which was a cheaper plan. While it's very socialistic to want to find a way that single people with no children but bigger houses, who use a lot less water than families with kids, and a smaller house can pay more, so such families can pay less due to home size. Well, as long as I get a 70% tax reduction, since I never had nor will have kids in the public schools, I might go along with that. Gas bills are going up from already high rates between the gas company's request to issue up to $2 billion in long-term bonds, $2 billion it is, and another request to raise rates. I know my home is losing value from being in the private jet flight plan. It's aging at higher tax bills because it was built 14 years ago, and ever-rising annual budgets and long-term taxpayer expenses guaranteeing that. I just think there needs to be a reconsidering of where we are allocating taxpayer funds. Thank you. Thank you. Robert, do you have any more public comment? I have Lorraine online. I'm sorry? She just dropped her hand out of mine. So you don't think there's any more? I don't think so. There was a hand raised, but not anymore. Okay, great. Thank you. So, Mr. Lewis, I see you, but you might want to disappear for a few minutes. We're going to do one other topic before we get to the review of the votes, the committees.
Okay. So the next item on our list is going to be this annual tellmeeting discussion. Just want to give the board some updates on articles, you know, what's happened to them as they're working their way through the process. Also, I want to review the, who's going to make the motions for tellmeeting and then some timetable items. So, let me run through a couple of them. If you have anything you want to add in on any other articles, please feel free to hop in. So, Article O, which the board already authorized the town manager and the chair to make amendments to, hopefully has gone in without any callers in there because nothing had, none of the contracts have signed. And hopefully we will have some amendments to that at town meeting. And that article, which you'll see on the motion chart, was in the consent calendar, but because it's probably going to and hopefully going to have some amendments to it, I've pulled it out and it will be a separate article deliberated on its own merits. Are we okay with that one? Okay. DD, I already mentioned we're having the forum, that's 25 Holiday Road article. And I'm sorry, I'm not using the correct numbers now because they've converted to numbers, but I did receive some correspondence from the Capital Improvement Planning Committee that reminded me, not that I thought the board forgot, but I will bring it up, is that when we had mentioned that we would be looking at the property in terms of possibly selling or having a developer develop the land, they thought it was not a capital project. But should we decide, but should we decide, but should we decide to come forth with a recommendation for passive recreation, a field or a town building, then it would have to go through the capital project planning process. So I think we're all pretty aware of that, but I thought I would, I said I would re-mention that.
The planning board articles, I know that Bill has been helping on these, when they were reviewed by town council, there was edits to a number of articles, including the planning board articles. Did you want to speak to that, Bill? I don't believe so. I know that Kelsey and Jalen have been working hard. There's been a lot of back and forth among town council, the chair of the planning board and the town planner. So I think it's, for the most part, pretty well nailed down. There may be one or two other items, but everyone is acutely aware of the timetable. Okay, I mean, nothing's particular that changes anybody's votes or anything. Article SS, which I think is visible house numbers, I think there was a phrase in there that town council was not comfortable with, which was that this had been reviewed by the building inspector and the assistant fire chief. So I think the recommendation was to remove that from the proposal's comments, which we've done. I don't think that's material, you know, to the board's vote. Let me know if you think otherwise. I have a note here that there's some edits to I.I. I'm not familiar at the moment what those are. Kelsey, could you help me out with that one?
Yes. So I.I. was the soliciting bylaw and town council had a number of edits to that. And I know that the town clerk, Ms. Reed, addressed those edits and sent them back. And we're waiting for a final, a final notification from town council that it's ready to go. So the issue here is that the edits in the planning board articles and in the two from the town clerk are part of code. So the part that was being edited was, was the town code, not the proposer's comments, not the finance committee comments or the pros and the cons. Correct. I just want everyone to know, so when they see the time, did, did you know that those two articles were having some edits? Those were yours. Not really, but they don't sound terribly substantive, right? Right. I don't think there's one thing that's substantive that I'm going to bring up, but I think I just want the board to be aware. So when it comes out, we don't say what happened. No one told us anything. So HH, which is the long-term water supply. I think, I think Michael's probably going to speak to this a couple of times, maybe in the, in the course of the meeting, perhaps under the town manager's report, an update. But, um, we did ask, there were members that had asked if we would, you know, revisit the, what the status of the funding is. And so I can tell you that, and Michael, feel free to hop in here, please, is that, uh, the appeal meeting was held on the 27th. And, um, I, I think also there's been some, Michael and others have reached out, and we're getting some support from our Senator, Senator Eldridge, um, in terms of our appeal. And hopefully we will have a positive response. Would you like to add to that?
Oh, you're on mute. Sorry.
It is on for part of my update, but what you said is accurate. Um, the, except I think Mr. Holder in this, um, sure rest testified, I think on Wednesday of last week, but nevertheless, I was, uh, informed that the testimony went really well. People were, uh, pleased with what was submitted by Wayland and we've reached out to our legislators and the Lieutenant Governor's office. Um, uh, Senator Eldridge was gracious enough to, uh, reach out to the DEP and write a letter. I worked with his staff to get that done. So we're getting as much as we can in to supplement our, uh, the record and try and get things changed. Um, the only other thing of note they found out last week, I believe it was Lunenberg, um, was slated to get $41 million in SRF funding. And they cannot move forward with that. So our hope is that maybe we can convince people to re-examine our numbers. And if they find that we meet the criteria, that there is now this unused money from Lunenberg that could be allocated to Wayland. So that's where we are on that. So hopefully that answers, uh, the questions. I have a feeling there'll be, this will be discussed or there'll be an update presented at the forum next week. So as we will keep our fingers crossed, article, why, why, which is the real trail. I'm sorry. No, just cough. Oh, okay. I thought you were talking, um, the real trail article. We had discussed that we would be putting in an exhibit into the, the warrant. Um, I'll let Tom explain. I think it's too large. So did you want to give us an update on that? Um, yes, I mean, ideally with an article like that, you want an appendix that, uh, permits residents to appreciate what the ask is. The problem here is that the main document is a very involved multi-page plans, uh, created by the MassDOT. So we have a link in the article that, um, permits people to go to the clerk's office to look at those plans. But I do plan to, uh, intend to put together a packet for handout at town meeting that will have the key areas that people can understand and appreciate that are, that are affected. So just so we're clear, we're talking small pieces of parcels along the current rail trail between the library and Russell's that the, um, that, that, that concern the article, um, primarily temporary easements for construction. However, there's one permanent easement that, uh, um, involves the Wayland Town Center. And I think there's a handout that we're going to have ready. We're hoping to have it ready for our warrant hearing on the 27th. That's correct. And it definitely will have a slide or two on the screen so people can kind of appreciate, uh, what this concerns. So I just mentioned it because it's a change of what we discussed. And it's also, um, I think there would be many fixed residents who would be anticipating to have something in the appendix. So this way we all know why it's not there, but there is a link and then we're going to have a handout. So that takes care of that. Um, the, um, article E. The, um, is the enterprise fund budget. And, um, well, I think I mentioned before we had a board of public works member, not the, not the board itself had requested us to reconsider our, uh, decision. We have now had, uh, we did not, uh, at the last meeting, we kept the article as the same. And so now we have been asked to get an opinion from town council. So I know Michael has reached out to town council and I don't, I don't, did, we did get, did we get a full answer on this or did you want it?
There's not too much I can add at this point. And I, I tried to, uh, we had to prioritize some of the responses and town council was juggling a couple of things today and, uh, had to attend another meeting in another community. So I, I traded some emails, but did not get a neat and a full answer that I could share. Um, other than this is a select board article and the select board does introduce it, but I, I'm hoping that maybe I get something before the end of the evening. Okay. So I just want to let everybody know that I'm just, Bill, yes. What is the question that was posed to town council? Does the select board have the authority to essentially override a board of public works vote? Cause they voted to include retained earnings as a funding source. And when the article came through at the recommendation of the finance team, the select board, uh, elected not to include retained earnings as a funding source. So. Thank you. And I will say that since we're doing this, I think part of the reason is that we need to maintain a certain level of retained earnings in all our funds, whether it's a general fund or the enterprise funds in order for us to enjoy the, um, excellent bond rating and lower rates that we do when we do borrowing. And, um, um, um, the recommendation was made because the, that fund does not have, uh, I think we're supposed to aim for, they just changed the move the river. If you will, we're supposed to be aiming for 25% and particularly in view of the fact that they will be having increased, uh, budgets going forward. Once we pass the long-term water supply construction, that was the recommendation and that's what we went with. So, um, I reached up to Michael and then we decided collectively it would be a good idea to get input from town council. So, and I wanted to mention it to me cause tomorrow the warrant is going out to print. So we have comments on that.
Okay. So the last one, um, another interesting one is there's an article called KK and I think number 33. I don't know. It's not 33. Um, this is the one that was brought to us from the senior tax, um, relief committee. And, um, they are looking to have recognition of service for those who've been here for a number of years, over 65, maybe been here 20 years or what have you would be a redistribution, kind of like a, uh, residential exemption if you ask me, but nonetheless, um, the town council has ruled, come back and said to us that this article is repugnant as it has written because it is essentially providing, uh, an exemption that does not exist. Most exemptions, um, the DOR has through the assessor's office or on the taxes are, uh, through, uh, means tested. And I believe it's chapter 59. So the question was, what do we do with the article? And, um, so Kelsey reached out to, um, town council for me and it came back and it said, I'm going to read this. So if the warrant is still a work in progress, uh, in any article, there's not a petitioner article may be removed and where the senior tax relief committee is appointed by the select board, the board can remove the article. And then once the warrant is closed, of course, once we go to print, then the options are, uh, can be passed over at town meeting. Um, so we found out this information, um, last Thursday night, I think it was, and with us having a meeting tonight and then our, our, uh, deadline is month tomorrow for this warrant. There was not enough time for that committee to obviously get together and, and have a discussion. And so, um, while I understand that we can, in fact, we can, we may just say we have to pull this. I'm, um, I want to have a discussion with, with you on the board, but with the three of us, I guess at this point, because, um, I'm uncomfortable where that board did not have an opportunity. Opportunity time-wise to have a discussion to decide what they would like to do with the article, um, just similarly pulling it. So let me open it up, um, to the, to Bill and Tom.
Well, if I may, um, did town council indicate whether the article could be revised to make it appropriate? I believe if they add in, I didn't speak of it, but I believe if they add in a means test, and I did speak to the proponent of the article and said, if you added in an amendment, which means test, then you would, um, probably qualify. Does that mean residents attest under oath relative to their income or they have to submit tax returns, if you know? Yes. And I think you do that now under those, um, so I did speak to the, um, um, to, you know, to the proponent, Mr. Click Gordon. And I said, you know, if we did not pull this, then I would expect that committee to meet and get back to the select board by the 27th meeting to let us know what their intent was to do with the article at town meeting. Um, because, um, I just felt it would be nicer to let them have the opportunity to vote to what they want to do with it, pull it or something to see if they can do something else rather than us. You know, that we would pull, they would pass over, but I'm open to conversation here. Bill, did you have something you want to add? Um, well, as you point out, if it goes in the warrant, the only way, and if it is continued to be deemed, uh, repugnant, which I gather is not a value judgment, but means inconsistent with state law, um, then it would, it would have to be passed over. Um, I think it would be cleaner if it were taken out of the warrant, frankly. Uh, in your conversation with the proponent, uh, was there any indication of, uh, interest in amending it to make it a means-tested exemption? Yeah, I think there was some conversation that the problem is, is that because we didn't hear back from town council, so that there was no time to go back to them to say, hey, is an issue, that's where I'm stuck, you know, um, on this. But he did say, they would be open to amendment, they might, they would be open to, they would be open to, uh, passing over it as well, if they, if they can't come to a decision or, or if the amendment would be something that's not their intention.
I kind of feel the same way Bill does. I, I, I, I, you know, if an article does not sustain with the law, it's difficult for us to vote to put it in the warrant, right? Well, we already did vote to put it in, now we're voting to pull it out. Exactly. Right. Okay. So we, you can make a motion and we'll go from there. Uh, I don't know though, Carol, given the fact that they've indicated to you, at least the chair did, that they might be willing to revise it to, um, add language relative to people's income. Um, I feel like it would be appropriate to give them that chance. Tough one. The difficulty of course is that the warrant will have gone out and been read by everyone. I know. The means testing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I know they worked hard on this article, um, but it's not an article that can't be brought, you know, at our next time meeting, you know, and just get it right. You know? Yeah, I just would have been more comfortable, as I said, if we had got heard back. Right. If we'd heard back last Monday, in my opinion, they would have had time to pull the meeting and get back to us and then I'm good. I'm always so sensitive to the fact that because we can do so many things, doesn't mean we necessarily should, you know, as a board. Uh, and I try to make sure we're very collaborative with other boards. And so that's my, my concern. And having said that, thank you for listening. Let's have a motion. So I'll move this board vote to, to, um, insert article, to reinsert article KK. Uh, well, let me, let me, it is, I didn't know whether it needed to be in the affirmative, Carol, or not. So, uh, you are right. It's already inserted. So I'll, I'll make a motion then to pull, um, article KK from the 2026 annual time meeting warrant. Before we have a second, let me just clarify with Mr. McCall, because I agree with you doing it both of those ways. So, um, Mr. McCall, do you think we should say re-vote to insert, in which case we don't? But this is already in, but we could pull it so we could not insert it. And you've got two contradictory votes. Right. So do we say pull it or do we say insert it?
My gut tells me to pull it because I think that's clear and clean to people what your intentions are. I'm going to second the motion.
And what did you say, Tom, to begin with? Did you say pull it? I'm going to vote to pull article KK from the 2026 annual time meeting warrant. I'm good with pull, too. If we're wrong, we're all wrong. How does that sound? Fine. We're running together here. So, all right. Uh, we have to have a roll call vote. So all those in favor, uh, Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. And I'm going to abstain. And we're still going to pass, right?
Two zero one. Yep. Two zero one. Pass. That's a majority of those present. Once you have a court, it's a majority of those present. Okay, so it's two zero one. We're okay with that? Right. Okay, great. Thanks. And Carol, if you could please explain to the petitioner the, you know, the quandary we find ourselves in, but we think this is a more prudent course. I did have a couple of conversations with them, um, for this very reason, because it certainly is an option that, that the select board has to sometimes exercise, even though I don't know, but I will just think it's all right. Um, I think the other item, my article I have is EE.
Okay. This is the planning board appeal article. Again, we just got information back from town council. I think on Friday, Doug's the liaison for this article. And, um, Carolyn had a couple of suggestions. And so he said, we talked about it and then we said, okay, let's have Carolyn give us the proposed adjusted language. So she did. And it's in the supplemental packet to see, and I had them leave all the comments. I'm sorry. It was late. We were waiting because Doug had another question and Carolyn wasn't able to get back to him today on that, but essentially you can see what the language is going to be here, some changes. And basically I just wanted to share this with you because it's a little bit different than, or a little more expanded, I should say, than what we saw when we voted. I don't think it changes the intent of the substance. The question about, uh, the proposed, uh, section 610.1.1. Yep. For any project that involves construction of a structure equal to or less than 10,000 square feet or alteration equal to or less than 20,000 square feet of a site, anyone may upon denial or issuance of a, any required building permit appeal the site plan decision of the planning board to the zoning board of appeals pursuant to MGL chapter 40, section 8 and 15. I do not know what that section of state law refers to. So I'm trying to figure out if that effectively exempts smaller projects from uh, uh, the ability to, uh, file an appeal prior to the issuance of a building permit.
Um, somebody have a thought here. Michael, do you have a thought?
You're muted, Michael. Yeah.
Trying to look on the fly. I, those, that's the, uh, uh, under state law, chapter 48 controls, essentially, uh, appeals, board of appeals measures and, um, section 8 and 15 are appeals to the permit granting authority and, um, the procedure, uh, section 8, um, is the appeals of the permit granting authority, uh, as the zoning ordinance and bylaw may provide, and then 15. I, I, I don't know them, uh, that well, but that's the sections that that's referring to. That would be the normal appeal process. So is the effect of the second, of this second, uh, the subject section, the second paragraph, uh, to preclude the ability of people appealing these smaller projects from doing so, um, within 20 days of site plan approval, having been followed by the town clerk? What, what is the effect of this second, second paragraph? It's my question.
I think this was in, uh, I'm just looking for it in the packet and I don't think it's in the regular packet. Is it, Madam Chair? It's in the supplement. Supplemental packet, but, um, so Kelsey, Kelsey, excuse me, Doug sent an email back to Carolyn asking a clarifying question. Can, do you, did you get CC'd on that? I did not. No, Madam Chair. I, I, I was CC'd, Madam Chair, but I don't think, let me. Okay. Cause I didn't, um, okay. Cause Doug had a question about this, like these adjustments. So, um, similar to my response, um, uh, counsel had indicated that she could not get back this afternoon. Um, but she said she would take another look to see if, uh, for further clarification under the two-peel, two-tier appeal process, um, based on may be needed.
So I don't have a formal response.
And I, I think Doug reached out only this, uh, select board member Levine reached out this afternoon for the additional clarification. Right. So, Madam Chair, are you, are you concerned that the changes are a substance of change? Cause if not, you know, it's just change and the article's been asserted, right? And voted on, right? Right. But I want you to see it because it's a whole paragraph. And I, and I wanted to explain, see, the thing is, there's nothing worse than opening, you voted one thing and then you open up the warrant and just see something else. Then you come to a meeting when you go, what happened? Well, this is what happened in the middle of proofing things. Stuff changes as Bill can tell you from the plan of order because it doesn't necessarily, as I've said on most of these, they're not going to change the proposal's comments or the finance committee's comments or the pros and the cons or the votes, in my opinion. But this one I wanted you to see because this is one of the ones we've submitted and to just make sure you're all safe with that. And then we're still comfortable with Mr. Levine, you know, working us through the system. My inference is that the second paragraph clarifies that the ability to appeal over the 20 days of site plan approval is applicable only to projects over structures over 10,000 square feet and sites over 20,000 square feet. Pardon me. So I'd be comfortable with it, provided that we get some clarification from town council, but that is indeed the case. Okay. So, Mr. McCauley. As my personal view, I don't know what the rest of the board thinks. Because I will not be speaking to town council, but.
So, Michael, you got that? You're good? So, I think I will speak separately with site board member Whitney, just to get clarification before I speak to town council tomorrow. That's great. I appreciate that. So then I want to also let, are we all set then on that? The change is there, right? Okay. I think I've got them all here. The last thing I want to mention about this article is we forwarded this to the planning board for review. They have to hold a hearing and then they can issue a report. Um, unfortunately they had the Dover amendment projects already on the calendar. So this is now, I think we got noticed today that the hearing will be, is it April 29th? And that they will try to get the report done in time for town meeting. So we'll see what happens after that. How's that sound? I think that's it. I think I've got all the summaries, all the possible changes since his last sermon. Okay. So the next thing is I'd like to have you go back to the main packet and then you'll see right on the, um, page five, I think it is. Um, I took the article list. Now they're by the number, but I left the original letter there just in case you know them by the letter and the item. Um, and then there are 42 articles going to town meeting, um, we had like 27 or 28 and then about 12 or so of ours are, um, are, are grouped into a consent calendar. So in the end, the select board has 17 articles that we will be the article presenter for. And, um, I made this little draft list originally. Um, Doug and I took three and Anne had three and then Bill and Tom, you had four. And then when we realized we had to pull article O, which is number nine out of the consent calendar, because me most likely we'll have some amendments. I said, I would take that one as well. Cause I'm the liaison for, I put some familiar with the, um, with what's going to be happening there. So now I have four. Um, so that what we're doing here is just confirm these are the ones that you would like to speak to at town meeting, um, because we're going to give this list then tomorrow to Kelsey as she's getting us ready for the emotions meeting, which is next week that I will attend on our behalf. So does anybody have any issues with what they have? You want to trade now?
Everybody's good with these? Yes. I'm good with the presenters. I'm not, I'm not loving the, uh, I'm not loving the. Position of one article, which has been quite controversial. And I think the stick it third article from the end and the second night is not doing the residents a good service. And I'd love to consider moving that article up. Um, I know you wait, but the bottom line is the book has been, I cannot tell you how many hours I've spent on this and I've revised it four times and everybody wants the article first. The planning board wants to be first. The CPC wants to be first. Everybody wants to be first. So we moved, um, a holiday road up from 38 to 31. That's what we had discussed there on the 16th or the 9th, the 16th, I guess we discussed that. So, but first of all, right now, everybody's comfortable with the ones that are presenting, right?
Yeah. I know. I have no problem. Yeah. Okay. So that's number one. So then, because what's going to happen is like I said, we're going to set the motions up and then we'll get those done at the same time. The League of Women Voters is probably going to reach out to individual board members because they do an article, um, I don't want to say forum. They do an article discussion night. Right. And, uh, I did hear from Mary, but I did not get the date. So I can't tell you the date. So she will see this list and know who to reach out to. So anyway, all right. So, I, uh, I, uh, I got to agree with Tom. Uh, I think to have holiday road following a zoning housekeeping article is, uh, you know, I, I think there is going to be a lot of interest in that particular article. And, uh, and I appreciate all the time you and the staff has spent pulling this all together. Uh, but I would feel more comfortable if it were more apt to be considered. At the first night of town meeting, assuming we go more than one night. You know, I don't think you fit it into the first night because you're going to do, by the time you do the budget and you do a couple items and you do the water, we will be pretty much out at the time. What happens is you also want to think about when you look at this, it's a huge jigsaw puzzle in that you want to look at the timing. It's not really great to be like nine 30, 10 o'clock at night either, because we tend to lose people around nine, nine, nine 15. So you want some of the, the other ones. Then in the first, next night, you need a couple items that aren't going to be, uh, in case we don't have a huge number there. Yeah. So you're really in a pretty good spot where you are. Um, the third thing I'm going to say is that book is set and they've formatted this. And if we move something, you're going to cause a lot of work for Jalen and Kelsey. We have every confidence in Jalen and Kelsey.
And may I mention, can I want to say this right now? Cause it's on the tape. There's no way. And you know what I'm doing this job next year. You and you, you'll see how much fun this is. I like to duck started it and said to me, can you help me when he did his. So I'd like to move that move that this board vote. I just want to know where you want to move it to before we, we don't have to avoid anything. What's where you move. I want to move it after the budget. All right. So after, after, after number 10. Hmm. So then what you're going to do is you're going to push the water to the second night. Not if we don't, not, not if we move the water to after the, uh, holiday road. Those are the most controversial. It's going to be like 10 o'clock at night. There's not going to be enough people there, Tom. The budget traditionally lasts three or four years. The budget has been fairly smooth. It's been fairly smooth and, uh, and not taking up a lot of time. I just think those are the most controversial articles to have them both the same night. I think it's appropriate. So then the next night we'll be lucky to get a quorum and, um, okay. I, I need, can I talk to you about this offline though? So, um, I'm happy to talk offline, but we need to vote tonight because this is going to print. We don't need to vote it. I mean, the bottom line is you're, you know, we need, in my opinion, we need to vote it just so there's a, there's a record because I know you feel differently, but I think at least two members tonight feel differently than you on this. I think I'd like to hear from the staff about this as well, because the bottom line is you're putting those three on the same night. There won't be. I'm personally okay with putting the water before holiday road. I think that's pretty important. All right. All right. So if you move the water after the budget and holiday road after the water, how does that sound, Bill? You don't usually put big articles, one, two, three. You have something, you have like a little filler, which is the consent calendar. Let's take five minutes to get those done. Well, we'll start a new tradition then. But I just think that those are the most controversial articles and we've got most people in the seats, the first night, until we get remote participation, which will happen one of these years, you know, I just think it's fair to the residents to have those, the most people participating in those controversial articles. So at 10, 1030 at night, you're going to be having your holiday road article. I don't, I'm not so sure about that. I don't, I'm not so sure about that. If you looked at my original chart, you'd see the amount of time for each one of these articles and you would see that. So by the time we get through the budget, consent calendar, we get up to the water. I think we're up to about 10 o'clock. We do a couple more of these articles because people will have lapped. Then the next night we start in with why you want to put, why don't you put holiday road in 21 and move why then down to the, whatever it is, 31. Say that again, Kelly, you want to do what now? You could move, why don't you move, see, if you're determined to move it up, why don't you, Kelsey, this is, I don't know how much this is going to mess you up here, but it's a lot of work and the good things going on tomorrow. Jeez, girl. Take your rail trail and move it or do a couple of the, see, the thing is the next, if we go like 20 articles the first night or 22, because you don't know where it's definitely going to break. You need a couple for people to get into the seats and settle down, which is why we had put these down here. Um, and there's another, and there's some more strategy in here as well, but, um, madam chair, if I may, yes, please. Um, well, as I can't really speak to, you know, we'll, we'll make whatever the select board wishes work. Of course, as we always do. Um, I did want to note that I did get a note from a resident, um, that concerns the consent calendar. Um, last year we had to pull out, uh, article two or B because that requires a four fifths vote. And then if you do, if you keep that with the other ones that are just a majority vote, um, then the whole entire consent calendar has to be a four fifths vote. Um, and subsequently, because, because this year we put the enterprise capital, um, budgets within the enterprise fund budget article that for borrowing requires a two thirds vote. So that's the same thing that if that requires a two thirds vote, then the whole consent calendar requires a two thirds vote. Um, so I know that probably, uh, throws a little wrench into this, um, organization, but that is something that I did want to bring to your attention. That we, we probably need to remove articles two and four from the consent calendar because they require over a majority vote.
Okay. First I've heard of that, but you're right. That does, since they moved the capital in there, that is true. So two and four. Okay. So I propose that we, I'm not going to make a motion. I propose that we move article 20, the water article, uh, immediately after the budget and how he wrote after that.
It's not, it's usually, usually a good idea. I mean, Terry taught me how to do this. So usually you do a big one and then you have kind of like a little breather thing and then something else. So leave some of these other ones in here. Um, well, you could have the, uh, the consent calendar, uh, items, uh, 11 through 14 after the budget and then do the other two. Tom. It's fine. So do it after 14. So six, the water budget would go in after 14 and then Holly wrote after the water, after the water, or another water budget, but the water article.
Mm-hmm. And so now what is the hook to get people to come on the next night? Their civic, uh, duty. The civic, uh, um, good feeling. I'm sorry? Their, their, their civic, you know, duty and their, their, their desire to participate in democracy in its purest form. We could give everybody candy bars too. That's right. Okay. Kelsey, you got that order? All right. So I'm not kidding. No, I'm not kidding. I am not doing this next year. I'll, I'll, I'll take it on with pleasure. Oh, and it's fun. Yeah, that's, that's on the, that's on the record. So, um, I moved in that this board vote to adopt the 2026 ATM article presenters lineup as in our budget with the following. No, no, that's the article of the orders. The presenters we've already agreed on. This is the article of the orders. Article of the orders. Order of the articles. Accented backwards. Order of the articles. Likewise. Order of the articles with the following changes that after article 14, when the consent calendar, we insert whale and long-term water supply. And after that, we insert 25 holiday road. Otherwise, it stays the same. Tom, would you accept a friendly amendment to pull out pay previous year's bills? And what was the other one, Kelsey? Enterprise. Enterprise fund budgets, article four. So, have those to precede, uh, follow recognized citizens, perhaps? Um, yes. So, we'll present for that as well, then, if we're going to pull those out. I'll second that motion. I appreciate your patience on this, Kelsey. And Carol. Oh, I wouldn't say I was having patience on this one. Um, have we had a second already? Yes. Okay, then let's have a vote. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And let's be surprised, Carol. No.
I'm really worried, oh, this will shake out. Let's see. I probably should abstain, but anyway. All right. Um, we are going to need now a presenter for B and, uh, E, which I will assign to somebody then. Pull them out, they have to be assigned, so. Um, are they someone's articles, anyway? They're Ann's articles. Is she going to be present? So, I can give them to her. Yep. Sure. Okay. All right. So, now the next item we have here, I think I had on my list was presenting. We got all that done. Okay. Now, just, I already mentioned, tomorrow the thing is going to the printer. We wanted to have a big cut down. We went from 131 pages to 130. But we did have six, six codes. You know, lots of zoning. And the two down click articles, which took a lot of pages. The moderator's rules was reduced. We reduced a number of things. We definitely have got to get on a word diet. You cannot understand how much time this takes to put this together. It's a lot of use of labor. I just don't think we're going to go in the right direction. I mentioned the motions meeting is next, is the 8th. Um, on the 13th, we're going to have a regular meeting. And I think the moderator might join us then. She's made a, wants to make a couple suggested changes to the consent calendar rules. So, just want to run and buy us. On the 27th, we're going to have the warrant hearing. Um, and then on the 29th, the moderator is considering having a, um, a Zoom meeting to discuss the consent and the abbreviated articles. All right. And then, of course, we will go, um, and we need a select board member to, to go and speak to the consent and the abbreviated articles on the 29th if someone wants to volunteer. And then we're going to obviously go to town meeting on the 4th and the 5th. So, that's where we go. So, the last item we have to kind of look at here is, as part of the annual town meeting calendar, is that we have a conversation whether we think we will need a special town meeting. And, um, we have to, we have to vote to hold one if we think we're going to need one. The special town meeting is inside the annual town meeting. I think about three or four years ago, we, we had a reason to do one. I am not aware of any reason that we have to do one, but it is, of course, my responsibility to let you know that if we are thinking we want to do one, we need to vote one. I think we have to vote one, uh, 30 days prior. Right, Michael?
I believe statute is 14 days, Madam Chair. Okay. But I think clerk and everybody else would want as much, uh, notice as possible. So, like I said, I'm not aware of any reason why we would have one. Um, but I do have to mention it. So, anyone doesn't have any reason, then I think we can move on to that. If something pops up, I'll call a meeting and we'll have to vote it in. How's that sound? Okay. So, now we're on the, um, the next item on the agenda is that we would like to disband two of our advisory committees. Um, Tom, can I just give this to you to make the motion? Sure. So, maybe sometimes it works. Yep. So, this board voted to create two advisory committees. The two, the Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee and the 212 Constituent Road Advisory Committee. The, um, term of both committees expired in February of this year. Therefore, um, I move that this board vote to disband both of those committees. Is that the motion? That's the motion. Okay. With, with thanks. With thanks. Of course. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. With, with thanks to all the members, including, um, uh, those who I'll list in a moment when we review these reports. Second the motion. Okay. I'm, yes, I was going to add that, that we, we thank you very much for the work, particularly, I'm going to say how many meetings you've had, how many hours you all have put in, and for putting such terrific reports together for us. So. Please. Uh, let's have a, a vote. Uh, Bill? Yes. Uh, Tom? Yes. Carol? Yes. Motion passes 3-0. Okay. So would you like to start with, uh, the Route 20 landfill report? I think that's what we have first, although I see Ms. Lynch here, so I don't know if she should, uh, and is there anybody here from the, uh, Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee should pop up. So I think that I saw Mr. Lewis.
I think that might be it on the 7th Landfill. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I'm just playing the, um, uh, drone, uh, video, um, of the South, um, Landfill, uh, so people can get a sense of the, the property involved. This committee, the South Landfill Vision Committee, was established in 2020 to evaluate the most appropriate and beneficial uses for the town of Wayland's Route 20 South Landfill property. The property is owned by the town and consists of two parcels totaling, totaling 17 acres. The property used to be a town landfill. It was capped in 1980. Members of the committee included, uh, Seema Cherian. She was a Conservation Commission appointee. Erin Gibbons. She was a School Committee appointee. Cliff Lewis, a Select Board appointee. Ira Montag, the Planning Board appointee. Mark Norton, the Recreation Commission appointee. Mike Spellman, the Board of Public Works appointee. And myself, who acted as chair, Select Board appointee. Ex-officio members included the town manager, Michael McCall. Robert Hummel, the town planner. And Tom Holder from the Department of Public Works. He is the director. Other individuals served on the committee during its, uh, life, including Val Inchenko from the Economic Development Committee. Dave Perlman from the Rec Commission. Kim Reichelt from the School Committee. Seth Roman from the EDC. Catherine Schreiber from, uh, Conservation Commission. Kathy Steinberg from the School Committee. Uh, Bill Whitney from the Select Board. And Brad Young from the Recreation. So, the committee, um, initially, uh, focused on 17 potential uses. Um, the committee worked with the Department of Public Works, Environmental Engineers, and Planning Consultants. Specifically, uh, uh, DBW Director Tom Holder attended most, if not all, of our meetings. We also worked with a company called The Collaborative, which is a national public policy planning, design, and communications firm in Boston. We also worked with Weston and Sampson, which provided engineering services. Um, the committee learned from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that the site is suitable for reuse, but not for any structures, provided the cap is well-maintained. So, the significance of that, um, um, advice, if you will, or directive, if you will, from DEP is that, that, that, that housing cannot be built on this property. So, in making its recommendations for utilizing the property, uh, the committee was guided by five core principles. Environmental Protection, Continued Regulatory Compliance, Public Benefit, Fiscal Responsibility, and Risk Management. We also held a public forum where we presented the ideas and listened to feedback. After numerous meetings and extensive discussion, the committee recommends the following uses in the property. First, a rectangular grass playing field without lighting. Two, school bus parking with potential EV charging. Uh, the property does have access to phase three power, which is critical for, uh, such charging. Um, um, um, um, and public, the third, the third used to be Public Works, uh, Materials, uh, Center, which saves the town about $75,000, uh, annually. Um, um, other concepts, we'll call secondary concepts, included walking paths with a hookup to the rail trail. Restaurant facilities will more, will likely be more, in the Port of Johnny variety. Uh, vegetation buffers, which are easy to do right near the, uh, uh, throughout the site. Um, uh, we talked about a dog park, but, um, uh, uh, the, the appetite by committee members wasn't that great. In addition, I learned late last week that the owner of town's center has agreed to, um, uh, work with residents to place a dog park at the Wayland Town Center. Another, another, uh, secondary concept involved a small amphitheater where we, we, we, we use a landscape for that purpose. So, we had these ideas of budgeted and the likely costs, um, if the town were to implement, um, our recommendations would be approximately $5 million. So, the property is a unique municipal asset and does have some limitations, but has significant potential. Uh, it's a great scenic view, you know, as we saw in that video a moment ago. And it's the committee's opinion that the town can effectively transform, uh, this, uh, legacy infrastructure with some thought to be an unusable site to a usable site into a long-term resource that will protect public health, minimize risk, and advance sustainable goals. Um, so I will end there. I, um, open it up to questions or comments. I see Cliff Lewis is with us in the committee and, um, um, happy to, uh, like I said, answer any questions that, uh, you may have.
Um, uh, first, I'd like to thank you and the committee for, uh, your diligence. Uh, you, you considered, I think, 17 alternatives, something like that. So, uh, that was certainly thorough. Um, I guess my only comments were that to the extent that, uh, the, uh, materials handling, uh, and bus parking are ultimately determined to be the, uh, appropriate use, among the appropriate uses there, that there be screening of those uses, uh, given the waterfront location. Also, um, with respect to some of the secondary uses, uh, I think that, uh, a walking path along the water, uh, would not be expensive. And that the parking area for the, for the playing field would be a good place for people to park if they wanted to, uh, walk along the edge, uh, maybe fish. Uh, so, uh, I, I would suggest those as a couple of, uh, thoughts with respect to this, uh, report. Thank you. I don't know, um, where the jurisdiction line is relative to the federal government and, uh, and the town and the state government, but the idea of a walkway along the water is, is, uh, very inviting. We've seen those in other communities, so we'll, uh, I'll make note of that. Uh, uh, Carol? Yeah, so I thank you very much as well. Well, I, um, first learned about this as a liaison for the Board of Public Works, and Mr. Lewis was the chair at the time, and I believe he had a new board member, so he decided that we should walk the property. And we, we went and we met him, and we were walking the property, and they would, it was when they were taking the, the trees down that the mast heap said to come off the cap, which we talk about in the report. So it was quite muddy, and it was a little sinky, and I say little, but Mr. Lewis kept charging along, and myself and Mr. Green. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we've seen enough, we've got the idea. But it was a big piece, and it was delightful, and I, it really gave you a real sense of all the, the magnitude of the work. So I have one question about the, uh, the schools, the school bus parking. I know that when we provide school bus parking, we have to provide facilities, you know, for the dispatching, um, office, I guess an office would be the right word, with facilities. Is that in this, um, proposal, or is it just the parking, and then they would, how would you get the buses to where, wherever we're supposed to have them dispatched? I, I suspect that the office wouldn't take up much space, and I'd like to lift away in on this one, Cliff. Yeah, the, the office is planned, if you, if you look carefully at the, the drawings, uh, there's, there's a space to put the office. It's not, you know, it's not a full building, if you will, uh, and there is a, a restroom facility, but it's, uh, certainly adequate, and it's a heated space where they can, you know, come and get their dispatch. So, yeah, it, it accommodates that completely. Because I do believe that's part of the bus contract. Yes, it is, yeah. Yeah, we have to provide that, uh, those two amenities, the heated area and the facilities for the bus. Because they come at 5 a.m. to turn the, I'm sorry. There's enough space for employee parking, too, so the, the, the, the employee can come and park in a parking place, go to the office, get his, his instructions, and then go get on the bus. Right, because they, even though they, so, then my next question was, thank you for bringing this up, is, how much of the 17 acres are we using here for the three proposed uses of, um, the fields, the school bus parking, and the lay down area? Uh, Carol, I, I'm guessing about nine, the, the balance being a wetland off, off to the east. Is it all wetlands? Yeah. If you're looking at this drawing, uh, that Thomas put up, the, the far eastern boundary there is, in fact, a, a dike, uh, which demarks the wetland to the east and the other property to the west. So you can't really use anything further east than, than, than that, than what we've got marked there. Right, but looking back at that, I believe there's also some encroachment, or there was, I don't know if there still is, on the Sudbury, um, border. And I was wondering. We're not, we're not encroaching anything there at all. We're not. I see, we're being encroached. Oh, oh. That was addressed. That was addressed. That was addressed, okay. Yeah. So I guess my question is, is if we're only going to use nine acres, is it, I know some of it's wetland. Is it possible for us to consider looking at, you know, subdividing it in terms of selling off someone who might want, a business who joins us might want to purchase some of that? We looked very carefully, Carol, at commercial, uh, as a possibility. And, and the, the problem is you can't put any foundations in this area. Right. So you can't really build anything. I sort of think more of that neighbor, if they might, we're looking for some more space for some of their material storage, that we might want to consider selling something to them. That was just a thought. Yeah. You know what? Once you look at the drawing that Tom had put up, there really isn't a whole lot of space left over that isn't a very steep slope. Right. And to, to Bill's question, um, again, if you look at, at Tom's drawing, could you bring that up again, Tom? Well, what, I, what, is this one better, Cliff? Because this shows a demarcation. The demarcation, you're buffing that. No, I, I, I wanted, I wanted the one that shows the fields and stuff on it. Yeah. The, the plan. There you go. Yeah. Bill, you see this, on the, the southwest corner, the little squiggly line that comes off the parking lot? Yeah. That's a path that goes from the parking lot down to the rail trail. Okay. So you have good access from the parking lot down to the rail trail. And then, and then you could go back and forth on the rail trail as much as you want. And I, and I'd also like to point out this space in between the field and the bus parking, uh, that is a flexible community space. You know, this space is going to be here for a long time, long after you and I are, are long gone. And the, the community may want to do something in that space and that's reserved for that use. So there are a lot of things that you could do there. Uh, if you wanted, you'd have parking, you'd have to walk over there. Uh, and the borders, again, we've mentioned the, the border, uh, is very, uh, is very germane and very much a key part of the, of the whole concept here is to be able to establish vegetated borders. So you won't see, you know, the bus parking, you won't see the material center. You see, there's even a space on the drawing showing where the buffers are going to go. And I particularly like the fact that you included in the report that because this would be capital projects, it would have to be go through the capital planning and improvement. And I really appreciated that, you know, it's a new committee and, you know, you really didn't have that as a consideration as you were going through the process all these years. But I do appreciate that you incorporated that into the conversation. Yes. So is there anybody here who, uh, served on that committee besides Mr. Lewis, who would like to, um, have, uh, something to add? I think the, I don't see anybody. No, the rest of you are on the next one, I think. So, uh, Bill, do you have any more, uh, thoughts or comments or questions? No, thank you. Okay. I'd like it to open up to Mr. McCall and Ms. Powers-Burlett. Anybody have any comments on this?
You all set, Michael? Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. So again, we want to thank, um, the committee. Well, right now we'll thank you, Mr. Lewis, for all the work you did on that and for dragging me through the mud on a cold November day. Yeah, you're okay.
I told you not to wear your fancy shoes. Well, the second half of that was while we were clomping along, Mr. Lewis left out of the woods out of nowhere, who was investigating what was going on. Mr. Doucette comes and says, what are you two doing out here?
So there we were. All right. Well, um, Mr. Faye, back to you. Do you have any? Just one final comment. Sure. Regarding the bus parking. I'll be frank with you. If I had my way, we wouldn't have bus parking over there because I think it's such an idyllic spot. But, you know, as members of the select board, we have to look ahead. And our board has discussed potential reuse of the town building or maybe other use of the town building. And for example, if the town decided to, um, commit apartments at the town building and have the town offices go to a different location, I think it'd be very challenging to have bus parking, uh, at, at, at the town building, at the town building location. So, um, uh, and we don't have much town land. We all know this for development. There's so much water in town and so many, um, conservation, uh, restrictions. So, um, um, that's one reason why the committee, um, voted to place bus parking over there. So, uh, but it's all I have. So I thank you for your kind comments. Thank you, Cliff, and other members of the committee. And our board will continue to mull this report and, um, over. And we have a lot of capital expenses coming up in town. So we're not sure where this will fall in the queue, but, uh, uh, appreciate the, uh, all the work of the committee members. And the report is going to be on the, um, web page on the select board. It's a report. It's a selection of reports that we have and Jaylen's in process of, you know, uploading those there. So it will be in existence. All right. Thank you. Then, uh, we have no other questions. And Mr. Faber, you want to go on and speak to the, give the report from the two 12, um, constituent advisory meeting report. Sure. So in 2000, sure. In 2025, um, the annual town meeting, um, authorize the select board to develop this property at two 12 constituent road, which is comprised of four acres of town on land for affordable housing focused on shared living for adults with disabilities and or market rate housing. But if market rate housing is developed, it must be accompanied by affordable housing and or shared living. The select board then created the two 12 constituent road advisory committee, which, uh, has included bill Adams, select board appointee, Brian Bossier, municipal housing trust fund appointee, Stephanie Lynch, select board appointee, Jean Milburn, select board appointee, John Thomas, the way on housing authority appointee, bill Whitney, a select board appointee, and myself as chair and select board appointee. Ex-officio members included Robert Hummel, a town planner, um, a former, um, a former committee member, Catherine Provost, also sat on the committee, um, for the Whalen Housing Partnerships, uh, designation. So, between August of last year and February of this year, the committee met 12 times. We heard from representatives of approximately 21 organizations. We heard from Whalen residents, a former Whalen resident. Um, we heard from abutting neighbors. We heard from state officials. And all these people had experience, most of these people had experience creating housing and programs for adults with disabilities. The information received included, uh, effective developing, financing, operating, and supporting housing for adults with disabilities, not only in this area, but across the state. Uh, the information we received included a broad spectrum of housing types, service models, funding structures, and regulatory pathways. After consideration of all this information, the committee distilled key takeaways and developed a set of scenarios that it believes, I believe may be appropriate for consideration at 212 Cachituit Road. The recommended process would be that this board authorized the town manager and me as chair, um, to finalize a request for proposal seeking entities to submit proposals to the select board. And these proposals would focus on projects and programs that aim to serve individuals with a wide range of disabilities, individuals on the autism spectrum, people with acquired or traumatic brain injuries, and individuals who are duly diagnosed with intellectual or developmental disabilities and mental health conditions. The key factors the committee recommends is choosing an organization that is grounded in long-term sustainability. We recommend that the RFP address both the physical housing and the programmatic services necessary to support residents over time. We would expect that responding organizations demonstrate the capacity to secure appropriate capital financing, deliver construction consistent with neighborhood scale, and sustain long-term operations and services through reliable funding sources. The committee also valued the importance of helping Wayland families and the importance of proximity to family members, caregivers, and established networks for many individuals with disabilities. Concerning the number of structures and the number of units on the property, the committee was persuaded by the many comments made by experts in the field that having a community that felt like home was much more ideal, if not critical, than creating an environment that had more of an institutional feel. The committee also listened closely to the concerns of the buddy neighbors who would be most affected by the property's development.
Next, a key objective is to limit the town's ongoing role in financial exposure relative to this land. So the committee recommended that the town not own, operate, or directly manage the proposed development. Whether the town owns the land or provides a land lease is a decision best made by the select board as it negotiates with the potential organization. So based on feedback from many persons who appeared before our committee, it was the consensus of the committee that no more than three or four structures clustered would be ideal. Further, the most successful programs we learned about appear to have no more than five to eight persons in each structure. The committee's final report included a minority opinion held by committee member Gene Milburn to place more structures and units on the land. So Bill Whitney's, and my ask tonight is that this board authorized the issuance of an RFP for a potential disposition into a redevelopment of 212 constituent road, consistent with the authorization and conditions approved by town meeting. That it prioritized development models that create accessible housing for adults with disabilities while also producing subsidized housing inventory eligible units, recognizing that many models that provide housing for adults with disabilities also qualify for SHI eligible units. And direct town staff and any engaged consultants to prepare and issue the RFP with clear submission requirements consistent with recommendations contained in the final report. We want to both, we want to consider both innovative and traditional models. Once the RFPs are received, the select board will then consider one or more of the proposals based on the respondent's compliance with the RFP for approval of entering into a contract with that organization. So with that as background, happy to answer questions or listen to comments. We do have a few members of the committee committee committee with us tonight, including Bill Adams, John Thomas, and Stephanie Lynch, as well as Bill Whitney. And Ms. Milburn. And Ms. Milburn. She doesn't have her audio on. Yeah. So if you're looking for questions from the board, I guess that's me. Okay. But I think that I'm used to letting others go. So I think I like to turn the table, if I may, as anybody on the committee who served. And again, we thank you very much for the work. You're doing an extremely thorough report, extremely easy to read, very well done. Thank you. Shows how much work you did. It was really terrific. Thank you. Appreciate it. On behalf of the, on half of the board, I guess I'll say. Thank you. Does anybody in the committee like to say anything before I add in my two cents? Ms. Lynch, or Ms., would you like to say something? No, it's just been a wonderful experience to, to have a chance to be on this committee. Thank you. And Mr. Adams, how do you have your hand raised? Great. I'm using Tom's link. Sorry. I see that, but I heard the name. Sorry. And yeah, so I think Tom did a really wonderful job of summarizing our point of view. The one thing I might add is there is a very special green space in the middle of this, of the area that's abutted by all the different neighbors. And considering that green space as well, there's some pretty remarkable wildlife that lives there and it's contiguous very closely with the, the large conservation space behind Woodridge Road that goes all the way to Rice Road. So there's quite a bit of space around there. And yeah, and that I'm totally on board with Tom's feeling and the neighbors are too, that this be a place that feels like home and welcomes disabled people to live in a comfortable community space. That's beautiful. And I personally think that if we did this really well, it would be an approach that could be replicated by other towns as a, as a demonstration of what could happen in a, in a, in a town like Wayland. Thank you, Mr. Tom's yeah, I, I would just, um, say that it was a real pleasure, uh, being a member of, and serving on this advisory committee. Um, I've been a resident in this town for 26 years and I was really excited to be a part of, uh, what I understand is the first sort of thoughtful initiative to develop housing earmarked for, uh, adults with disabilities. Um, this segment of the town's population, like it is regionally is underserved, something that we all learned on the committee after hearing a number of, uh, presenters talk about, uh, the demographics of, of the region. Um, it's underserved in the number of housing opportunities that are available. Um, I, I, I was raised in Sudbury and having previously worked in the local state DDS area office in Framingham, uh, I know firsthand the needs of these folks who could be served by this development. Uh, I also grew up with kids in this area who are now adults with disabilities. Uh, I know their families, uh, and I know the people who work with them, uh, and this is a, a really rare and wonderful opportunity. So I'm really looking forward to seeing the project move forward and to see what it will eventually look like. Thank you. And, uh, Ms. Milburn, did you want to speak? Jean? I'm not sure she's with us, uh, fully, but I, I just want to comment that Jean did, uh, author the report and, uh, uh, we'll, uh, we'll, uh, appreciate it. Jean, did you want to also make a comment before I make money? Sure. Um, thank you. It was a real pleasure to serve on the committee and, um, uh, I enjoyed it a great deal. I think the town can look forward to receiving several, um, really interesting proposals. You know, we heard from a number of organizations that produce properties like this. Who seemed very eager, uh, to, to move forward and work with the town like Wayland. So I think you're going to have some real interesting options and I'm, I'm glad that that's going to be the case. Great. Thank you. So, like I said, ordinarily I get questions from the board, but since there's only three of us here tonight and two are on the committee, that leaves me. So I, I, I, um, I'm sure I'm not sure if everybody who's watching at home knows how long we've been working on this. Tom, you and I, Louise brought this land and the concept of us using this land for some town benefit. Some town benefit. I think she may have mentioned it before, but I think she mentioned it was one of the first meetings when I got on the board. So this has been five years in coming. I think we've done a very, to someone's point, a very thoughtful process here. You know, where we made sure that the land was, we were all set. Then we took it to our meeting and now we've come back and forth. So, um, I, I am very excited about what this is going to be look like and be, and what it's going to offer. The one question I didn't see, I, I saw, uh, mentioned briefly in the proposal. And I do want to ask is at one point I was under the impression that sometimes the state requires a two mile, uh, distance between, and I think the right word is group homes. And, um, do we think that's going to be an issue here? Because I know we have one on route 20 and it's slightly under two miles. Is it not? Yeah. And we looked into that issue and we were told that wouldn't be an issue. I mean, it's, it's, it's not like it's next door and, um, and the state dearly needs housing like this really does. So then the question is, we're looking at now there's a sample RFP in the, in the packet. Is this the sample or is this the one that's ready to go? I would say this is a, a strong base that would need to be tweaked a big, tweaked a bit. And, uh, and to that point, uh, we're happy to entertain a motion to permit myself and Michael McCall to, uh, work with a vendor that we've worked with before on this project for the RFI request for information to finalize an RFP consistent with what is in the packet and consistent with the report. Um, to see what, see what proposals, uh, the town receives. So I think, um, that's, that's a good idea. I just want to be clear, uh, clarify one thing in my own mind before we do that is that I think in general that, uh, Kelsey does our procurement here and issues. So I'd like to hear from her if she thinks this is a process we should follow or she would like to be involved or review this because she's, did you, and Michael as well. Did you want to speak? I, I don't really have anything to add, but Michael and I are happy to work with Tom Fay, uh, Mr. Fay to, uh, see this forward. Right. Mr. McCall. Oh, I would echo Ms. Power Spurlett's comments that we would have no issue working with this. Um, as, um, early on, I spoke with Robert Hummel and members, uh, well, at least, uh, Mr. Fay, um, and know some people who've done something, done something similar in my past. So I'm sure we can pull something together without too much effort. Okay. So I think that's probably might be part of our, is to kind of delegate it and let them work with, um, a Tom on an RFP, or do you want them to just come up with something and send it out? You're asking me? Yes. I'm asking somebody. No, I, I, I propose that we use the RFP in the, in the report as a base, work with the vendor to modify it consistent with. With it and with the report and then, uh, issue it, uh, so we can receive some proposals. Okay. I guess we need to, um, I want, I was just clarifying whether we want to do it in house or not. You're saying you don't want to do it in house. You want to send it out. Okay. No, no, just so we're clear. So in other words, it's in house. Right. Michael, um, um, has recommended a vendor who we work with, um, a few, a few months ago on RFI that will assist us to finalize it. And then it would be issued by the town and then respondents would, uh, uh, would react to it and submit what they like. Okay. All right. I think, uh, the vendor to whom Tom refers to someone who's familiar with state law requirements for disposition of property. So I think, pardon me, not to put words in Thomas mouth, but I think, uh, principally it's to put it in the correct form, uh, to ensure that it's properly advertised and so forth. I don't know that the consultant would get involved in, uh, the, the substance of the proposal. Great. I appreciate that bill. Thank you both. Um, why don't we have a motion then? I think there is a motion and I'd be happy to second it. Okay. Well, I, okay. That's fine. Yeah. Do you want to? Do you want to start again? Well, I suggested a motion, but I didn't make it actually. So if you want to make it bill. I didn't hear it either, but that's beside the point. I'm going nuts. Well, let's watch the tape. Um, Mr. Fair, would you like to make a motion? Sure. I'll move that this board vote to, um, point, um, town manager, Michael McCall, and myself, uh, to finalize an RFP, um, uh, with the assistance of, uh, town vendor. And, uh, consistent with the RFP in the, in the final report of the 212, um, constituent road advisory committee, um, and, um, uh, if you, the RFP for, uh, the public. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So for the discussion, then let's have a vote. Uh, bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Motion passes 3-0. Thank you, everybody. Good. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. All right. So the next item on our agenda is, um, do you see, um, Mr. Meese? Um. I think it's a bit early, actually, uh, Madam Chair. I think. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's why I'm asking before I go to that item. So let me then get another idea. I'm happy to move the consent calendar for this week's, uh, meeting. Um. As amended. The consent calendar as amended. Right. In other words, the consent calendar that is revised in our, in our supplemental packet. That's the one I want to move. Yeah. Thank you. Do I have a second? Uh, just a moment, please. The sub. Oops. The supplemental packet includes the amended article EEE. Is there anything else in there with respect to. I think there's a supplemental consent packet as well. That came out at three o'clock. Right. Maybe four o'clock. Because we had a very late request, which is why I was confirming which one Mr. Fay was looking at. Is this the 413? That would be it. Well, again, I, I only see article EEE. So. Supplemental consent. So there's a supplemental packet and then there's a supplemental consent. Consent. Okay. 314. If you would like, Madam Chair, I can read. Well, I can read it too, but I just want to. So why don't I read the consent calendar? How does that sound? So we're going to vote the question of approving a one day liquor license to Gina. Oh shoot. I'm missing a word here. You may have to read it. My thing is. Do you know? I'm missing letters on the end here. I'm forwarding the email to Mr. Whitney. I've got it. Thank you. Okay. All right. So. Do you still need me to read anything, Madam Chair? No, I'm just waiting to see if we're going to have a motion. A second. We've got a motion. I need a second, right? That's where we're at. Right. You. I'll second the motion. Thank you. Okay. Then all those in favor, we'll say aye. Tom. Yes. Bill. Yes. Carol. Yes. That takes care of that. Do we want to go to correspondence? Sure. Anybody have any comments on the correspondence? I have none. No. Okay. Great. Takes care of that. What about minutes? Minutes? Sure. I'll find them. Jean, you're still with us. Yeah. Well, that's true. Thank you. You're welcome to stick around, Jean. It's really fun stuff. Oh, yes. Can you give us a hint on the page numbers in the packet? That's way down here for the minutes. Oh. 75. Excuse me. Can we go back to correspondence for one second? Sure. And I know Michael's going to mention this too, but in the correspondence we received a letter that we are become a climate leader community. I meant to do that in the announcements. And one of the questions that I had, I looked up, there was a link that came with it, you know, for the grants and the grant is actually, I believe somebody clarify and correct me. I believe it's a 10% matching grant. So if we were to apply for the million dollars, for example, would we have to then have to come up with a hundred thousand dollars is my first question. And if so, is there enough funds? This was my question here. Is there enough funds in the room energy revolving fund that we then want to make an edit onto that article and put that hundred thousand there. So it would be sitting there for matching grants, which this is one of the three reasons that account has been established for emergency and matching grants and cap, uh, energy projects in the capital plant. So, um, did anybody else see that? When to click on that deal, OER website in there, it talks about the different grants and I believe the matching grant is, um, uh, I think it's a 10% match. Has anybody else clicked on that yet to see that? That was my question. Yes. I understand it. We're not applying for a grant just yet, but rather, uh, we're qualified now. Yes. We're eligible now. Um, again, I would have commented later, but there's two different things that we can, we can get technical assistance for up to 150,000, then a million dollars for, uh, specific grants, uh, such as decarbonization. But is it matching? Cause I think it's 10% matching. And the question is, where would we, do we have money in that? I know it's at the last minute here, but do we have money in that revolving fund that we want to put into the budget? Then it's sitting there if they need it for the grant. Yeah. I would have to get a response on that. Okay. This only was announced late last week. I know. I just, well, I just happened to read that today and was thinking, oh, maybe we need to do that. So that was one thing I wanted to ask. So would it be the consensus of the board is if that was the case and there was the money there and revolving fund, we would be willing to amend that article to just put it there. Yeah. I guess my preference would be to look at the specific project before we move some money around. Okay. Cause you only can move it once a year. Just so you know. Okay. Let's go on to the minutes then of March 9. Page 67. Thank you. I just got there. Um, do we have a motion, please? Happy to move the minutes for March 9th, 2026 as amended. Okay. Second. Okay. Great. None for me. I have one on, uh, a seven. Um, uh, the last sentence reads, no action was taken on the finance committee's request for a debt exclusion. Dollar question. Uh, would we say recommendation rather than request? Sure. That's all I had. Okay. On a six. Where it's paragraph starts. Be Kevin. The last sentence says, this was also supported by master EP. And I think it's Abraham's group, not Abrams, but Abraham's group. Somebody else smarter than I am will know better. But I think that's where it is. Um, I don't see anything else on that one myself. So, um, all those in favor. Bill. Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Motion passes three zero. Minutes of three 16. They are on page. Now what's the page number here? Uh, page 75. 75. 75. 75. Nice. Happy to move the minutes for March of the select board for March 16, 2026. Second. As amended. As amended. As amended. And second. Yes. Second. Anybody have any edits? I do not. Nope. Okay. And a three under the announcements. The last sentence says, um, K power spread reported. There would be an update on a recent, I believe it's transfer station survey. Not transportation. Then under the, um, a four, the last sentence. Under the a, it says it was a sense of the board for the police department to explore the recommendation relative to the speed on the bend and signage. Um, I thought we were asking, I'm not sure that's the, the sense was, we're going to have another traffic study or look at signage or what, what was, does that make sense to everybody else? Cause I wasn't sure it was clear to me. I defer. What do you think about bill? Does that make sense? Uh, well, I think the chief was asked to take a look at, at the, uh, concern that was expressed. So I think it's okay. Uh, it's okay. Again, I was going to allude to this madam chair, but we are working with the chief. He's going to conduct some additional speed monitoring and furtherance of this item, this previous agenda item. So we'll have more information to share with the board. So we're going forward and just following up. Okay. Maybe we could say rather than explore the recommendation, say, explore further. What was the phrase you just used, Michael? Further studies. Yeah. Or data gathering, uh, relative to the data gathering related to the speed on the bend and signage. Okay. That makes more sense to me. And having said that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Data and information gathering. Yep. Further. Okay. Um, Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Okay. So now we'll go back to the town managers report. Um, we don't have any further minutes. Just those two. Right. I think it's only those two. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. We're all set. So we're out in this packet. And I think. All right. So now we're listening to Mr. McCall. The floor is yours. Well, I think we've, uh, pretty much stolen. I'm sure. But, uh, good evening, Madam chair members of the board. I just wanted to comment as we previously, uh, discussed that the town did receive its climate leader community certification. We were one of seven that were just given that designation last week. There are only 35 in the Commonwealth, which means we, there's a small pool that we would be competing against. Uh, but we are eligible, as I said earlier for different types of grants, uh, 150,000 for technical assistance and up to a million for a certain type of decarbonization grants. I will follow up and look, uh, what the requirements are. I, I want to thank Julie Gagan, um, from our sustainability as well as the ECC for their work on this. Wanted to give a quick update on Snakebrook Dam. Um, we did vote on this last week to receive the grant, but we probably not a lot of people are watching that afternoon meeting. But I wanted to let people know that the town did get the FEMA hazard mitigation grant for the 1.4 million dollars, which will go along with the 800,000, uh, approximately that we received from the seawall and dam repair from the Commonwealth and the over $600,000 in ARPA funds to see this to completion. Um, many thanks go to Linda Hanson and conservation who initially put this application in and we need to thank Senator Markey's office, who I reached out to last year when we weren't getting any traction with FEMA. And despite the, the two shutdowns, Senator Markey's office was able to get this through at the, the 11th hour. And we received the award, as you know, last week, we immediately turned around the contract documents after that meeting and we received our notice to proceed last week. So we are going to be starting in the next couple of weeks, starting with tree removal. And then, uh, the project timeline is such that it should end by the end of this calendar year. If not the, uh, the final, um, demobilization would be in January of 2027. But all of this will be done in a timeline such that we will utilize those ARPA funds. Um, also, Madam Clerk, I, I just put their town building hours. We're going to be conducting a survey again with our folks internally. I'm going through collective bargaining and I had some questions about would we do a four day work week again in the summer. And there's been some additional questions about whether we would ever contemplating would contemplate doing that year round. But there's also been some questions about, uh, the late night that we have here at town hall. We've been asking, uh, various departments to track how many people come in on our late night, which is, is Monday and it has been traditionally. And we're finding that we do not get an awful lot of foot traffic. And some of the unions have asked whether or not they could reduce, um, some of their, um, break time in an effort to shorten the, have the traditional eight to five or eight to four Monday through Thursday and still keep a shorter day on Friday. It's something I'm looking at. We're going to do some additional, um, uh, surveys and I'll bring a suggestion back to the board. Um, and I also wanted to get board input at a future meeting what they thought traditionally, or if they would have any opposition to us, um, eliminating the late night. Um, we find most people are utilizing the remote meetings and we're making progress with our online permitting. So we're seeing less and less foot traffic. Um, my next office hours would be April 6 here in the town offices, select board meeting room at 530. And, uh, just a couple items since, uh, we've last met that I wanted to just touch upon as was alluded to earlier. Um, our staff, uh, Tom Holder, specifically in his staff, Abby Charette, they did a wonderful job at the appeal last week, um, in an effort to get, uh, reconsideration on our efforts to get 0% funding for the, the, um, SRF financials for the MWRA project. Uh, we have, as was alluded to earlier, we, we got a letter from representative Gentile. We've been, I've contacted representative Linsky's office and we had great support from Senator Eldridge last week. Um, at the request of the FinCom chair, Mr. Judas, I did reach out to the Lieutenant governor's office, hoping to get some support there as well. Uh, and we're very optimistic that we'll get some favorable action. I also wanted to give you a quick update. Uh, I've been working with the finance director due to the, uh, significant snowstorms we've had this winter. We have experienced approximately $640,000, uh, overage in our snow and ice. We are working to try and close that, um, shortfall. And so I had been talking to staff here about using their discretion about, uh, their remaining expenses for the balance of the fiscal year. But I may be looking more at a spending freeze for certain departments in the last three months of the year to ensure that we can, uh, pull from enough, uh, into the year budgets to satisfy this shortfall. Um, many communities found themselves in a similar position where we've been, uh, experiencing warmer and warmer winters for the last couple of years. And then this, um, caught a lot of people off guard. And as you know, we had several large storms and a lot of ice events. So we had to put our trucks and our personnel out on numerous occasions, which the overtime just exceeded our snow and ice budget. So, uh, continue to work on that and I'll continue to keep the board apprised of, of how that is going. But even, even our own, the town manager's office and the select board, our expense accounts are, are getting lean. And we may just have to tell folks that come at the end of the year, looking for some money for, um, uh, events and things that, uh, they just have to wait till after July 1 because we're going to have such a tight time, um, finding money to satisfy that shortfall. And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Um, does anybody have any, any follow up questions here for, um, the town manager on his report? Well, Michael, with respect to a decision, uh, from the state revolving fund, do we anticipate that prior to the town meeting? Uh, I would have to clarify with Mr. Holder. I don't know what the timeline is. The, the appeal period essentially ended last week, but that the email traffic that I saw the other day there, they allowed in, um, the Senator's letter after the fact. And I'm hoping if we can get anything from the governor, that will be allowed. So, uh, I know they're reviewing it. I, I would, I would hope we could get an answer before town meeting, um, if not in the next week to two. And I, I can, uh, alert the board as soon as I get any additional information. Thank you. Um, I had a question about the snow and the ice. You know, I think I had read somewhere or maybe we had reported another time that the governor was looking to possibly find funding, whether it was federal or whatever to, um, disperse among the towns and the cities. Because everybody had an overage in the snow and ice. Is there anything on tap that you know about on that? I do know that there are some public safety funds that we can apply for, but unfortunately they won't come in, in, in time for the end of this fiscal year. I know the, the fire chief who is our emergency management director has applied for, for some reimbursement, um, relative to some of their overtime. I will continue, uh, to, to, to look, uh, and see what we can get. But some of this, by the time you apply, uh, we'll be lucky to get it before the end of the year, but we'll, we'll endeavor to get as much as we can back. Madam chair. I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will. Thank you very much. So Tom, did you have any questions or you're all set? You was, I think it was mentioned earlier in the meeting, but, um, Mr. Tom manager, can you tell us again, the money that, um, will be saved? Um, it's already been appropriated by time meeting for the snake book jam. That will be going where? Since we don't need to spend it. Um, so the grant is a reimbursable grant. So we'll have to expend the monies that were provided, but we will get the $1.4 million back. And that came from the real estate reserve fund. So we will not be returning this. It should come back, um, when we do next year, um, recap, probably it may come in through the general fund, but we should reallocate that back to a reserve. Rather than use it for operating expenses. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I believe I see Miss Tenisi here. So Becky, I recognize you. Um, is Miss Kelly joining us? Do you know Becky? Yeah, she is not. She's at the Wayland can event tonight that, uh, also at. So yeah. Okay. Hang on. Just one second here. I had also had gotten an email or a text from Miss Brinsley who said she would be joining us for this topic, but I just looked, I don't see her. If anybody sees her in the list, uh, let me know. Otherwise. All right. So we had, um, met with the EDC back in December and then, um, some of us were lucky enough to be going somewhere where there wasn't so much snow and on overtime nights and said, we'll get together again in February. And then since then, we've been a little bit out straight with articles. So, um, matter of fact, we haven't been able to meet with any of our, um, advisor groups. And we're going to meet with the EDC tonight and ECC the next time. And then we went after that HRDEI because we, uh, weren't able to do that in February as we had anticipated. So, so anyways, um, I can have had a couple of conversations. I know she's spoken with Tom who's a liaison and, um, we've come to the, the, um, the thought it's easier probably to just have the chair or one or two members of the committee come around and then create joint meetings, which is, which I think is fine for us. But I wanted to explain why it was just a one-on-one tonight versus the joint committee. Cause in the past we've had the joint committee meetings. So, um, the floor is yours, Becky. Did you want to, um, do the screen share on your slide? The slide is in our packet. This is similar to the one we saw in December. And, um, somebody helped me out. I know the page 61, 61 in the main packet. Yeah. Sorry. I thought that Robbie would have it up. Let me open it up for a moment. Let's see. Um, do, do, do, do, do, do. Bring it up if you can't. There we go. There we go. All right. So I can, oh, do you guys have it or I can share? You can share. Okay. So. There we go. Okay. Can you see my screen? Yes. Thank you. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So this was a summary from our last meeting, which was December 15th. So now it was three and a half months ago. Um, and we'd update it on the left hand side. And again, if there's any further comments on our efforts that we were doing with the FinCom, happy to, um, receive those comments and thoughts. Um, but the key is really on the right hand side. Um, on the left hand side, we had actually had an infographic and an email. You guys had discussed it, I think like a month ago, um, just to try to shake that one loose. And I think at that point, you guys had basically said, you know, Tom can work as our liaison and basically be that main connection. Um, just so we're not held up, um, you know, waiting for select board. You guys are so busy. Um, so we will coordinate through Tom, who then will coordinate with Michael. Um, so the right hand column is kind of just a, a check in and just letting you know where these same, these items stand. Um, and so with these, they were specifically on this list, just because we had wanted to highlight that it is interacting with town staff. It's not looking for any money necessarily. It's just interacting, um, with town staff on certain issues. So the top one is a town center playground. Um, just globally town center is really getting their sea legs. They've got some great ideas. So town center playground started at the EDC before, you know, it even traded, even sold from Zurich. And so it was really the idea of getting activity going at town center, just any activity and we can control the prey of the, uh, the town green. They're planning a lot of stuff. Um, they are not planning a playground. They, um, you know, first question, would you be willing to pay for it? They're obviously not going to pay for it, but they are willing to have their designer work on it. They have a great landscape designer who's looking at Alyssa Ave, looking at everything they're doing on site. Um, so they've offered that up, um, for them to be able to look at the town center playground. So at this point, just to be crystal clear, there is no ask of the, of the select board to designate, um, use of the town green. There's no ask for designation of funds. It's really exploratory so that we can pull together information to bring to the select board. Um, and the intent is not to use town capital funds. We would only look to potentially CPA, which is clearly a heavy recreation bent. Um, if funds are available there and then potentially doing sort of a public private fundraising. So it's really keeping it very responsible. And, um, ultimately as we get the information working with, you know, asking questions of recreation, really understand the environmental. Um, because clearly this new designer won't, we need to make sure that we all understand that. Maintenance costs land use requirements. So it's debt preliminary information to feed into it. Um, and so as we talk through, we clearly will be coordinating with Tom and ultimately, uh, bringing this information from some of these departments to be able to input into the process, the design process. So again, no firm commitments, everything is exploratory at this point, um, to figure out something that may happen on town green. And also to clarify, it's not, the playground would not take over the entire town green. It's literally using one side of it because that town green was always designed that that center area would be used for larger gatherings, for music, for even a skating rink type of thing. Um, so it's definitely on the periphery. It doesn't, it doesn't take over. So how can we craft something that is cost effective, that would be palatable to the select board in the town that works within the whole town center, um, uh, universe that they'll have going on over there. Um, shared streets is the next one. And so this as a reminder is the just over a hundred thousand dollar grant that Sarki got back in 2021 or 22, um, literally during COVID to activate, uh, either private or public streets, usually public streets. But in this case got the award for private street. Um, and it is to shut down Alyssa Avenue between Andrew Avenue, kind of where X golf is that intersection to the end, just the two blocks where, um, the old to car location and Giacomo's is. So as you may recall, we went far down the road with Zurich to get this done almost to final stages of use agreement. We had put out the bid documents, everything was good to go, and then Zurich put it on hold because they were selling the property. So at this point, Graffitos and their, the new ownership team, they love the concept, very much want to lean into it, want to move forward with it. So we are working with them to clarify their updated layout, um, their quantity and what would be looking for in a bid package to be able to put together with Kelsey as an update, um, and then also updating the use agreement. So that is in process. Um, and so one of the things with town center Graffito, they would love to come see you guys and give you an overall update on everything they're doing on site. Um, and what was suggested was perhaps you guys are so busy, particularly between now and town meeting. Um, maybe it's just 10 or 15 minutes to look ahead and then potentially right after town meeting, having a joint meeting, perhaps with the select board and the planning board, just because it's overall town center. A lot of the different pieces and parts, um, at the beginning, it may be more temporary use things. It would be more select board. Eventually, as they settle in and figure things out like next fall and spring, it may morph into planning board. So it'd be great to kind of have everybody in it together from the beginning. So, um, Carol, you and I talked about a little bit, if it's possible just to get them on your next meeting for literally 10 or 15 minutes, just to set the table and then potentially set up a joint meeting right after town meeting. When everybody can kind of settle down and take a breath and either early or mid May. I don't know when your first meeting is, um, right after town meeting. Are you asking me? Yeah. So just, if you can kind of put that in your scheduling, that would be terrific. Um, I have them tentatively for when I told you, I thought I had them on my list. I didn't have my list with me. I, I have them on for, um, April 27th. We have the warrant hearing that night, but then they could come in next. The next meeting we have, as I've mentioned a couple of times, we have the form for the 25 holiday road. Um, and we also have, um, the ECC and the facilities director coming in for a number of things. So they would end at the, I think the 27th sounds good. I was going to ask the board if they liked that day, but anyway, yeah. All right. So on the shared streets, can I ask one quick question? Sure. Go right ahead. Thanks. Um, or did you want to just finish first? Oh, no, go ahead. We might as well in stride. It's just easier. So, so really a weird question here is it's a hundred grand, $100,000 grant. And you're right. We did have it for a while. Yeah. We have to do an agreement. Right. And just to refresh everyone's memory. Like I think some of the board members will remember, but perhaps the, um, maybe those who are listening aren't, you know, um, we got the grant and it provides. It's helping out here tables and chairs and. And she's. Yeah. It's basically outdoor, movable outdoor furnishings. If you think about during COVID, it was activating a lot of the curves and doing outdoor restaurant seating and things like that. Um, the original plan from Zurich was actually having outdoor seating for both Giacomo's and Takara. They're actually thinking about doing something a little bit differently, which they'll get into. So that's why. And again, so when they need, and especially with the planning board joint meeting, they can kind of walk through that whole layout, which is really exciting because it will support a lot of programming. So just stepping back, the grant is from the state to the town. The town has to buy the furniture. The use agreement basically allows us to access the site, deliver the furnishings. And at that point we wash our hands of it. They basically lease it for a dollar a year. They have all maintenance, all storage, all liability, all everything. We have nothing. Um, and at the end of the day, at the end of the contract, um, you know, and this meets this end of useful life, then we have first dibs to the furniture. If we want to keep it, if not, then they have to dispose of it. So it really gets us out of the middle of all of that, which if you remember in the way back machine, Louise and Sarki went around the bend for a long time with Zurich about insurance and how the, you know, how it's town furniture and private land. And it was crazy. That's just the easiest way we just deliver it, drop it. And they take it from there, which is terrific. So. Okay. Yeah. I think it's good to have that back. I don't know, Bill, you were here when we discussed it before. So I just thought it would be good for us. And if you're just listening, maybe you need your mind refreshed up a bit. Um, and so I think that you're working on the agreement. Okay. Yep. Yep. Thank you. So all of the stuff again with town center is extremely exciting. It's great. They have really hit the ground running. They're going to have a lot of really good things to present. Um, you know, in the joint meeting, lots of great news will be coming out of there. So it's, it's terrific to see. So we'd love to try to get this furniture out there as soon as possible. Um, but do we have to, we do have to go through the bid process and Kelsey hopefully is opening up. She was hoping sort of about this timeframe that she had a lot in her queue. She had to get through. So as soon as she frees up, we'd love to get that, that bid package going. So. Okay. Um, yeah. So next, sorry. Was anything else on that, Carol? I think I'm going on that. Anybody have any questions on the mechanics of that? I know Tom remembers it, but, um, it is a very interesting because once we. Pass through, that's it, it's done. Yep. So the route 20 cleanup with property owners, we had done a whole survey, a photo survey and kind of a whole chart of route 20 cleanup, knowing that terrain is going to open and Duncan's about to open last fall. We really did a photo inventory of all the commercial properties along route 20 corridor. And there's a lot of cleanup that can happen. Um, at the time, if you remember, Duncan was pretty much overgrown with like three feet by weeds. And, you know, that was sort of the annoying thing, but there are a lot of things that are either minor code violations or just being a good neighbor. Um, there shouldn't be temporary signs. There shouldn't be blade signs. There are signs that are out there that weren't approved by the planning board and look like they're painted plywood and there are abandoned vehicles. And, you know, there's a lot of things and there's almost something at almost every single property. So the intent is to go out with letters to all the property owners, right? Nobody's being singled out. It's really, let's all come together and kind of clean up the corridor. So some of it is building code. Some of it is more Michael, your office potentially. So at this point, we're just wanting to coordinate and step forward and start doing this. We're happy to play whatever rule you'd like. We can hand over the database. If you guys have bandwidth to do it, or we can literally queue up the letters, work with you guys and be able to, you know, take on some of the heavy lifting you need to. So we'll coordinate you with you, Michael. And then ultimately with Nate, just checking in on the building department issues. But ultimately we'd love to try to get that out the door so that people can get it cleaned up with Duncan potentially opening up in a couple of weeks and, you know, terrain will start taking shape and it being really nice to get some of this stuff cleaned up this summer. So that is the Route 20 cleanup with property owners. It is also, that's kind of segues in, is outreach to these property owners because of the curb cut and sidewalk engineering. So one of the parts that, if you recall, funds were approved at last year's town meeting. Tom Holder was really tied up between MWRA and, you know, the bridge project, like everything, right? And so his timeframe, his bandwidth has opened up a little bit. So part of that is trying to get that one moving because part of that is then reaching out to some of these private property owners because part of the curb cut sidewalks, the process is literally reaching out to every single property owner. So it's just kind of good to start that conversation with Route 20 cleanup and then ideally being able to dovetail into future stuff with curb cut and sidewalk engineering. So hopefully these property owners will feel like there's good progress and seeing interesting things happening. So we can also self-clean and then be looking ahead at future efforts in the corridor. Should be good conversations to have with those private property owners. The meals tax growth, 2026. This we've been talking about. This is also a favorite issue of Robert Hummel. A lot of towns and communities use meals tax to encourage their commercial districts to potentially have grant programs or to target spending that clean up commercial districts. So we understand that, you know, our meals tax has always gone into general revenue to date. So the intent is not to change that flow. But in 2026, all of a sudden we will be adding terrain. We'll be adding Duncan and Jimmy John's. We'll be adding townhouse. Like these things will be added in and there may be some significant meals tax. It may be, you know, in the range of 50, 60 grand. It's not suddenly, you know, we only collect right now three to 400,000. So it's not going to be a massive bonanza. But targeting those types of funds to improve our commercial districts could make a huge difference. So all we're doing in this regard is working with Robert and researching other towns and cities, what they do, how they potentially handle the funds. I know, Carol, that was your question, you know, is this, you know, how is this managed? Can it actually be targeted? How do other towns do it? So we're just exploring that and working with Robert in that regard so that we can come back and give you some good feedback on that front. And then the last one is exploring a postgame poll for permitting. We, as everybody knows, not speaking out of school, everyone kind of has this idea that Waylon has a reputation of being difficult to do development in. So part of that is really doing sort of a self-survey. What's going on? What's happening right with our permitting? What may be going wrong? Now a lot of it's online, which is great. We'll solve a lot of things. But we do have some big projects just coming through our process. So it's terrain, it's townhouses, Duncan, other ones will be coming. So how do we develop a survey so that when they reach completion and get their CEO, can they take a quick survey and just give us some feedback? What went well? Maybe what went wrong? What could be improved so that we can have that kind of real time feedback? So Needy, who is a new member of EDC, she's really interested in this as a topic. And so ultimately there's no fixed timeline for this, but it's just a thought process of let's start thinking this through and potentially be able to get some good feedback now and going forward from some of the people who have gone through our permitting process to see how we can improve in the future. This has always been a topic, EDC, and it's always been a question of how to address it. So it's always good to just have data and ultimately be able to work with and be able to provide good information to the building department instead of just saying, well, people said it was tough. Like, it's always helpful to have that real feedback to get some real results. So that's just happening in the background. It's kind of interesting pace and we can kind of take it as we can and coordinate along the way as we think about rolling it out. So it's just a hint here of what we're thinking about in upcoming months to be pursuing relatively, I don't know, if we could catch terrain, they'll be done in August, September. So if we can kind of look ahead, that might be a good timeframe this fall to be able to roll it out. So it's just at this point, purely informational and potentially looking around to what other towns have done and thinking through what some of those questions might be. So with all of those, those are all of the kind of reaching out to town departments and otherwise. So we will absolutely follow the lead of Michael and ultimately their staff and what they have bandwidth for. As much as they want to take on, that's great. As much as they want us to step up, we're happy to do so. So we will coordinate in that regard. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to open this up, I guess, for some questions and some comments. I will say this, that I think that we are trying to have a more collaborative or two way communication with our advisory committees. This is why we've established that expanded charge, you know, where we have a liaison kind of is more available to the person. You know, there's going to be some bumps on the road here as we roll that out. But so far, we've only had it in place for a couple of months. I know I mentioned to you that we, the town manager's time is limited and we are trying to push, remove him from, you know, the front end line and receiving by default because of the enthusiasm, you know, emails, you know, regularly from every member on the committee, that kind of thing. Which is why we kind of established this expanded charge. And as he will say, even said it to us last week, is these are our advisory committees and therefore they should be, you know, advising us. So anyways, but anyway, Tom, did you want to speak for us? Or Bill, maybe you, because you haven't had a chance here, so. No, this is very helpful. Good update. Thank you. And Tom? Sure. Let me start by saying how impressed I am with members of the EDC. I mean, the backgrounds of these individuals really are extraordinary. And our board should not underutilize this committee. I mean, there's just a lot of talent and they bring a lot to the table. To you, Michael, Mr. Tom, manager is relative to Becky and her committee's desire to kind of work with staff to get information and in order to make recommendations to our board. Practically speaking, logistically, how do you recommend that? Like, did Becky send an email to them and copy you and me as liaison? Or, because I know you're very appropriately protective of the staff's time and their energy. So, practically speaking, do you have any thoughts on that issue? Well, thank you. And I do enjoy working with the EDC. They come forward with a lot of good ideas. Sometimes things are happening so fast I don't always know when things are going on. But we've worked previously with Zurich on trying to get that shared streets done. So, I'm glad that the new owners over there are as motivated as they are. That being said, one of the main things, not only to protect the staff, but it's also to protect the process. So, I have to not any one specific advisory committee, but to most of them, if they come to me, I generally say, just make sure you're keeping your liaison or your, you know, the select board apprised. You know, I have no problem looking at things. There's, you know, there's certain times where it's just information gathering, but when it starts to, you know, let's, let's sit down with somebody and make a deal or, or, or do something. I want to make sure that the boards involved, at least the liaison and knowing what we're up to. So, that, so I like the liaison being involved. Yeah. So, my recommendation practically then is, like, if you want to reach out to a staff person, just, you know, reach out to them, say, hey, this select board kind of gave me authority to reach out to you. I'm copying town manager and the liaison so they know, and then, and have your, your subject matter and your ask pretty well defined so that their, their time is truly valued. The next topic is, is, is the issue of the curb cut. As I understand it, there's money that's been allocated, but it's just a matter of an okay, or am I missing something here, Becky? Yeah. So, $250,000 was approved last year to start the curb cut and sidewalk engineering. We know it's going to be more than that, but it's a longer than one year process. So, that was approved at last year's town meeting, just with time constraints. And Tom Holder is really the expert on this. And so, really, it takes his, his attention. And he's just been, he's been strapped, right? So, we waited until after the first of the year, and then it's just kind of gearing up. There was some discussion about a Route 20 task force. Ultimately, at this point, we just need to get the curb cut and sidewalk engineering going. Every month that we wait is another month that we're not on the tip list on the other end. So, at this point, you know, we, we, the funds are there to last us. Essentially, we would go to next town meeting and request the rest of it, but we really do need to get it going. And again, the genesis is, we need to have fully engineered curb cut and sidewalk plans to get on the state tip list. The transportation improvements project, because it is a state road, the state will pay for it. But we have to have fully engineered drawings in order to get on that wait list. And it may take us, Michael, what, five, six, seven years to get off of that. And maybe with some political oomph, we can move ourselves up. But we can't even get on the list if we, if we don't get the engineering done. So, that's definitely a push to get that done if we can, as soon as possible. So, are we talking basically an RFP or a, that Tom Holder's involved in and town staff's involved in? Is that what, is that what we're talking here? Yes. So, we had talked with Tom Holder. It really is, you know, he would be the shepherd of it. But he was saying, you know, maybe we set up a small working group and just be able to get the RFP off the dime, depending on where the Route 20 task force goes. But let's get the RFP going. A huge group of people isn't really going to inform a whole lot as to the RFP. It's very technical. These are engineering services. So, you know, the next step is to work with Tom Holder to get that RFP pulled together and be able to get it on the street for an engineering, engineering firms to bid. Yeah. I mean, if we did that soon, it seems to me it would be a good step in our board, our select board meeting its goal of moving development of Route 20 along. Yes. Yes. I'll just say that. And regarding the polling, just so I'm clear, your idea is that when individuals, whether it be corporations, you know, builders or residents have experiences with departments, primarily board of health, planning, conservation. When they're done there, their involvement with the town, they have an opportunity if they wanted to, strictly voluntary to complete a poll. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I got to tell you, I really like the idea. It really permits people, people's voice to be heard. It also improves quality control. So I just, I just voice that. I leave it up to town manager to mull it over, but I do like that idea. That's all I have. Thank you. Bill, did you want to add something else now? I love you too. With respect to the engineering services, I think I recall a conversation with Tom Holder a year or two ago with respect to this. And I think he was indicating that it was not merely sidewalks and curbs, but there is also an interest in replacing some of the storm drains that might be something that the state would do. So I'm a little unclear as to whether the scope is confined to sidewalks and curbs or whether it would also be for other utilities. Presumably, you know, as soon as you have curb cuts and curbs themselves and you get into drainage, right? So these are fully engineered plans. So, Michael, I don't know how much they cover, but it's my understanding. It's like the entire roadway. So if some, if you insert curbs and you need drainage, it's all part and parcel. I know Tom has been thinking about, you know, what about our utilities in the road? Before we get this beautifully paved nirvana, you want to make sure that your water lines are good. And, you know, through Alta Oxbow, we were able to get those upgraded. But, you know, what about wastewater? We should just make sure that our utilities are in good shape so that those get set in place before we get, you know, the big state monies and get the improvements done. So they probably wouldn't do our utilities, but, you know, you get in line and you try to get as much of that paid for as you can. But it's my understanding. It's sort of it's the whole roadway. They own the road. They own the road. They own the shoulder. So they own the drainage. They own like it's all part of that roadway. So presumably be part of the whole tip request. Does that sound right, Michael? Yes. And I have heard Tom say, you know, we want to ensure that if we're going to get this done, that we have our sewer lines, water lines, utilities all up to date. Yep. Yep. And start for the engineering. So that's your point. It does. It does. So you got hopped into on. Are you all set? Do you have another question? No, that's fine. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. So I think that a couple of things here is we have said, you know, I actually was planning on doing this like in a couple of meetings, go for all the things that we've kind of got half started. And one of them is we wanted to meet with the folks at the town center. So as you heard me say earlier, I, I've tentatively scheduled them and if they're available for the meeting on the 27th, because I think we'd like to, you know, meet with them. We've said we want to meet with them about two, three weeks, a couple of meetings ago. So that's moving up then. So, but that's just a short piece. So is there, can there, can we schedule a follow up or are you getting to that? Can I just hold on a second? Thank you. Okay. Where's my new button there? I need my gavel. So sometimes I'm doing that and then we'll see where we go from there to have a little conversation. And Becky has some ideas, but I think Michael has some ideas why they would like to have them come in. And I think that we probably have some ideas. So we'll see if we can't get them all done in the same meeting.
Becky and I were going back and forth about doing the joint meetings is what we haven't done is we've received information from the EDC, but we haven't then gone back like we do with other information. And in a future meeting, the next meeting or the meeting after is deliberate on what we've received and, you know, and then see what actions we want to take. So I think that's what I'm going to do is put this list of things, you know, on our hope. I don't know if I can do it the 13th, but we'll get it in as soon as we can, because we're trying to get through telemeeting here. So I think that's one thing we, we probably want to do. Um, I think the other thing is that we need to did you've brought up. It just wasn't clear to me until like yesterday is that when we talk and cause you've presented a playground concept to us a couple of times and we've seen them and we've seen some numbers. Um, I'd like to have those come back so we can look at that as part of our deliberation. But I also think as a bigger picture at play here is, is that we haven't done. And I think you've jogged my memory, at least is there. We really, I think need to sit down and decide what we would like to do with that parcel and as a whole, and then say, okay, this is going to be this or this is going to be that or whatever it is that we're thinking. And I don't know if the board thinks that that's would be a good exercise for us to do as well. Can you explain that again, Kevin? The whole, the whole municipal parcel that we, municipal green and the town green we have at the town center, you know, we've never really sat down and said, what do we want to do with this parcel as a whole? You know, what do we want in there? Do we envision a playground? Do we envision a, I know you had brought a splash pad before, but we weren't keen on that, but you know, do we envision having a stage there or an amphitheater or what do we envision having there? A gazebo or whatever I've heard over the years, I can't remember all the eyes. So I think we should probably sit down and have a look at that and say, and actually, it was my other ideas. I think it would be wonderful. And I know you're not necessarily going to cause you think of playgrounds, but what, maybe you could come up with a list or the EDC could come up with a list of things we could do with that parcel. Provide this for that. I think that would be wonderful. Like Tom says, you're very creative, you get a lot of good ideas. And so maybe you'd have some, you know, maybe you say, hey, we should do pop ups there. I don't know. So I think, does anybody know how big that parcel is? Oh, I don't know exactly how many square feet. But I think to that end, Carol is sort of, you know, the question is, what's the size of the playground? Where does it go? And I think having the, having the designer look at that, I think the first step is literally looking at the whole and saying, what are your options? Almost exactly what you're saying. You kind of start there. And then where we were originally the playground, is that the right spot for it? It might not be right. So I think the first step with that designer would be exactly what you're talking about. Let's look at the overall, what are the pieces and parts? And does that make sense? And then from there, then take the playground from there. Like it doesn't make sense to design a playground if it's going to shift around because that, that park is, you know, it has the undulation. It's very specific. So you almost have to kind of let that settle first and then kind of design from there. So I think with that as a directive, I think it makes perfect sense that we can work with their designer and come up with options. And then go from there. So what I'm saying is I'd like the board to have an opportunity to deliberate as a board on some of these points. So I think we're going to, I'm going to, I see Tom sort of shaking his head. I'm suggesting that's what we do. Take these points. Because we haven't really had a lot of time to just put into them and come up with a plan. So I think that's one thing where I'm thinking. And I will say this on the meals tax thing, Becky, the only thing with this, I have to tell you, a wealth lead has done this. Every time a new thing comes up, they've earmarked it. And now they are trying to undo the earmarks because they're finding it's causing too much restrictions on their budgeting. So I think we would have to get, I understand the concept. I think we would have to get input from Michael and Brian on that before we embarked on that commercial. We'll get all kinds of information from other towns. You know, a lot of it is just seeing how other people have done it, because I've heard the same thing in Ashland. They had designated everything and they clawed some back. So we'll, we'll find out all that and we'll, we'll present the information. And so we can kind of get their sense. I think that's Wellfleet's problem that we're in the process of clawing and having a problem clawing. It's over there. It's hard to get it back. So, all right. I thank you so much for coming. I don't know if, Kelsey and Michael, would you like to, you know, have a question or a comment here? No? Bill and Tom, you're all set? All set. Thank you, Becky. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. All right. Have a good night. Bye-bye. Now, somebody is going to just confirm with me. I think that we are on select those reports and concerns. Everybody agree? Is that where I am? That's correct. That's correct. Look at this right on schedule. So, Mr. Whitney. I am all set. Thank you. Mr. Fay. I'm all set. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. So, I kind of touched on a couple of things I just want to recap here is that the League will reach out to us about some articles, whatever they have in the day. I don't know when the date is, or I would tell you. You know when they have that. Last year was all Zoom. I don't know if it's going to be in Zoom this year or not. I did want to recap a couple of things here. We are going to have that forum on the Holiday Road on the 13th. I think, Bill, may I reach out to you about, you know, what do we need? Do we need any exhibits? Do we need handouts? Do we need anything for that meeting? How you want it structured? So. Sure. Does that sound okay? We'll chat about that. Yeah. I thought maybe you could take the lead on that when we get to that. Um, I know it has been, um, we've sent out a, um, um, press release on that. So I think we're all set on that. I told you we're meeting with the moderator. We are also going to have on the 13th. We're having, um, Mr. Fair is scheduled to come in and speak to us about the insight on site town wide, um, facilities, um, asset inventory that we did. And in particular, you know, start the discussion of the town, you know, the issues we have with the town building that we've been trying to get scheduled. We're going to meet, uh, and we'll, um, do those kinds of things. And then on the 27th, we'll have the warrant hearing and we will have, um, I'm hoping we can meet with the owners of the town center. So hopefully that makes everybody think we're right on target with some of the things that we're looking at. And, um, with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Exactly. 8 53. Thank you. Okay. Okay. All those in favor. Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Thank you very much. I will see everybody on the 13th. Thank you. Thank you all. See you.
No? No, that's what Kelsey you all said. Did I say that correctly on the transfer station, or do you want to add something?
I don't, no, you said it perfectly, I don't need to add anything, thank you. Okay, well, if I said it perfectly, we're going to adjourn now, that's it.
Let's move on to public comment. Do we have any public comment this evening? Yes, we have two people, I have Carol Plum. Okay, come, Miss Plum, I recognize you. Hello, am I on? Yes, ma'am. Okay. I just wanted to make some comments and sort of challenge some of the assumptions on that EDC charge, which was, I was reading along, and I'm questioning whether the select board actually can have jurisdiction over, under the expanded charge, access to town council or other paid professionals will be authorized by the board, the select board, as appropriate. Shouldn't that be coming from Michael McCall as our town manager? And the other one is, if you look at, I just lost the page, number three and number four, to continuous review the town bylaws, regulations, and zones for consistency with the town's economic goals, and make any applicable recommendations to improve permitting, licensing, and regulatory functions to the appropriate board or commission. Do they, do you guys actually have jurisdiction to be able to do that? I mean, we have elected boards and commissions to which you are not supposed to be able to, I mean, you're a parking board. You're not actually supposed to be, or the EDC shouldn't be telling the other boards, like, how to run their business, right? Or at least, and if it was going to be someone doing it, you'd think it would be the town manager. And the other one was, if I look at number four under the purpose of the committee, which is streamlining the town's regulatory processes, my experience with that has been that, like, if you look at the ZBA and the planning board and all these others, what we see is that they're asked to chip off away at the 200-foot buffer, 100-foot buffer, and the 30-foot no-disturb zone, all as one-offs. So they're always presented as, this is a great commercial opportunity to do X, Y, and Z, but the overall, like, effect long-term is that you keep taking more and more pieces out. And that's, there are other places where, you know, if you're going to come in and your only goal is economic development, I don't think that's going to be appropriate. And I guess that was just my thought, is that you, I don't see why you have to expand it. You think item number seven would be the thing that they would be working on the most, which is to support and encourage new businesses, and then maybe number one. But anyway, like I said, I'm just curious as to who's got real jurisdiction here and if you guys can actually do that. So thank you for listening to me. Have a good night. Thank you. Do we have an additional public comment, Robbie? Yes, I have Alyssa online. Yes, Ms. Cotter, I recognize you.
Hi. That was more than two minutes.
The town is seeing a drop in school enrollment, I heard, and still over 70% of the budget goes to the schools. This clearly is a time to rethink, say, taxpayer-funded free child care, i.e. nursery school, which parents paid for only a few years ago, but maybe still offering the neediest families partial fee reduction, maybe to reconsider the school's five- to ten-year new construction plans. Also not a great time to submit a bylaw increasing the town employee wage scale to be higher than 70% of the comparison town's pay scales. You've ignored the limits in the past. What's the rush? With such long-term increases at taxpayer expense coming up and staying for decades. As for the water situation, voters chose to pay for it by water rates, not taxes. Maybe we should reconsider only connecting to state water, which was a cheaper plan. While it's very socialistic to want to find a way that single people with no children but bigger houses, who use a lot less water than families with kids, and a smaller house can pay more, so such families can pay less due to home size. Well, as long as I get a 70% tax reduction, since I never had nor will have kids in the public schools, I might go along with that. Gas bills are going up from already high rates between the gas company's request to issue up to $2 billion in long-term bonds, $2 billion it is, and another request to raise rates. I know my home is losing value from being in the private jet flight plan. It's aging at higher tax bills because it was built 14 years ago, and ever-rising annual budgets and long-term taxpayer expenses guaranteeing that. I just think there needs to be a reconsidering of where we are allocating taxpayer funds. Thank you. Thank you. Robert, do you have any more public comment? I have Lorraine online. I'm sorry? She just dropped her hand out of mine. So you don't think there's any more? I don't think so. There was a hand raised, but not anymore. Okay, great. Thank you. So, Mr. Lewis, I see you, but you might want to disappear for a few minutes. We're going to do one other topic before we get to the review of the votes, the committees.
Okay. So the next item on our list is going to be this annual tellmeeting discussion. Just want to give the board some updates on articles, you know, what's happened to them as they're working their way through the process. Also, I want to review the, who's going to make the motions for tellmeeting and then some timetable items. So, let me run through a couple of them. If you have anything you want to add in on any other articles, please feel free to hop in. So, Article O, which the board already authorized the town manager and the chair to make amendments to, hopefully has gone in without any callers in there because nothing had, none of the contracts have signed. And hopefully we will have some amendments to that at town meeting. And that article, which you'll see on the motion chart, was in the consent calendar, but because it's probably going to and hopefully going to have some amendments to it, I've pulled it out and it will be a separate article deliberated on its own merits. Are we okay with that one? Okay. DD, I already mentioned we're having the forum, that's 25 Holiday Road article. And I'm sorry, I'm not using the correct numbers now because they've converted to numbers, but I did receive some correspondence from the Capital Improvement Planning Committee that reminded me, not that I thought the board forgot, but I will bring it up, is that when we had mentioned that we would be looking at the property in terms of possibly selling or having a developer develop the land, they thought it was not a capital project. But should we decide, but should we decide, but should we decide to come forth with a recommendation for passive recreation, a field or a town building, then it would have to go through the capital project planning process. So I think we're all pretty aware of that, but I thought I would, I said I would re-mention that.
The planning board articles, I know that Bill has been helping on these, when they were reviewed by town council, there was edits to a number of articles, including the planning board articles. Did you want to speak to that, Bill? I don't believe so. I know that Kelsey and Jalen have been working hard. There's been a lot of back and forth among town council, the chair of the planning board and the town planner. So I think it's, for the most part, pretty well nailed down. There may be one or two other items, but everyone is acutely aware of the timetable. Okay, I mean, nothing's particular that changes anybody's votes or anything. Article SS, which I think is visible house numbers, I think there was a phrase in there that town council was not comfortable with, which was that this had been reviewed by the building inspector and the assistant fire chief. So I think the recommendation was to remove that from the proposal's comments, which we've done. I don't think that's material, you know, to the board's vote. Let me know if you think otherwise. I have a note here that there's some edits to I.I. I'm not familiar at the moment what those are. Kelsey, could you help me out with that one?
Yes. So I.I. was the soliciting bylaw and town council had a number of edits to that. And I know that the town clerk, Ms. Reed, addressed those edits and sent them back. And we're waiting for a final, a final notification from town council that it's ready to go. So the issue here is that the edits in the planning board articles and in the two from the town clerk are part of code. So the part that was being edited was, was the town code, not the proposer's comments, not the finance committee comments or the pros and the cons. Correct. I just want everyone to know, so when they see the time, did, did you know that those two articles were having some edits? Those were yours. Not really, but they don't sound terribly substantive, right? Right. I don't think there's one thing that's substantive that I'm going to bring up, but I think I just want the board to be aware. So when it comes out, we don't say what happened. No one told us anything. So HH, which is the long-term water supply. I think, I think Michael's probably going to speak to this a couple of times, maybe in the, in the course of the meeting, perhaps under the town manager's report, an update. But, um, we did ask, there were members that had asked if we would, you know, revisit the, what the status of the funding is. And so I can tell you that, and Michael, feel free to hop in here, please, is that, uh, the appeal meeting was held on the 27th. And, um, I, I think also there's been some, Michael and others have reached out, and we're getting some support from our Senator, Senator Eldridge, um, in terms of our appeal. And hopefully we will have a positive response. Would you like to add to that?
Oh, you're on mute. Sorry.
It is on for part of my update, but what you said is accurate. Um, the, except I think Mr. Holder in this, um, sure rest testified, I think on Wednesday of last week, but nevertheless, I was, uh, informed that the testimony went really well. People were, uh, pleased with what was submitted by Wayland and we've reached out to our legislators and the Lieutenant Governor's office. Um, uh, Senator Eldridge was gracious enough to, uh, reach out to the DEP and write a letter. I worked with his staff to get that done. So we're getting as much as we can in to supplement our, uh, the record and try and get things changed. Um, the only other thing of note they found out last week, I believe it was Lunenberg, um, was slated to get $41 million in SRF funding. And they cannot move forward with that. So our hope is that maybe we can convince people to re-examine our numbers. And if they find that we meet the criteria, that there is now this unused money from Lunenberg that could be allocated to Wayland. So that's where we are on that. So hopefully that answers, uh, the questions. I have a feeling there'll be, this will be discussed or there'll be an update presented at the forum next week. So as we will keep our fingers crossed, article, why, why, which is the real trail. I'm sorry. No, just cough. Oh, okay. I thought you were talking, um, the real trail article. We had discussed that we would be putting in an exhibit into the, the warrant. Um, I'll let Tom explain. I think it's too large. So did you want to give us an update on that? Um, yes, I mean, ideally with an article like that, you want an appendix that, uh, permits residents to appreciate what the ask is. The problem here is that the main document is a very involved multi-page plans, uh, created by the MassDOT. So we have a link in the article that, um, permits people to go to the clerk's office to look at those plans. But I do plan to, uh, intend to put together a packet for handout at town meeting that will have the key areas that people can understand and appreciate that are, that are affected. So just so we're clear, we're talking small pieces of parcels along the current rail trail between the library and Russell's that the, um, that, that, that concern the article, um, primarily temporary easements for construction. However, there's one permanent easement that, uh, um, involves the Wayland Town Center. And I think there's a handout that we're going to have ready. We're hoping to have it ready for our warrant hearing on the 27th. That's correct. And it definitely will have a slide or two on the screen so people can kind of appreciate, uh, what this concerns. So I just mentioned it because it's a change of what we discussed. And it's also, um, I think there would be many fixed residents who would be anticipating to have something in the appendix. So this way we all know why it's not there, but there is a link and then we're going to have a handout. So that takes care of that. Um, the, um, article E. The, um, is the enterprise fund budget. And, um, well, I think I mentioned before we had a board of public works member, not the, not the board itself had requested us to reconsider our, uh, decision. We have now had, uh, we did not, uh, at the last meeting, we kept the article as the same. And so now we have been asked to get an opinion from town council. So I know Michael has reached out to town council and I don't, I don't, did, we did get, did we get a full answer on this or did you want it?
There's not too much I can add at this point. And I, I tried to, uh, we had to prioritize some of the responses and town council was juggling a couple of things today and, uh, had to attend another meeting in another community. So I, I traded some emails, but did not get a neat and a full answer that I could share. Um, other than this is a select board article and the select board does introduce it, but I, I'm hoping that maybe I get something before the end of the evening. Okay. So I just want to let everybody know that I'm just, Bill, yes. What is the question that was posed to town council? Does the select board have the authority to essentially override a board of public works vote? Cause they voted to include retained earnings as a funding source. And when the article came through at the recommendation of the finance team, the select board, uh, elected not to include retained earnings as a funding source. So. Thank you. And I will say that since we're doing this, I think part of the reason is that we need to maintain a certain level of retained earnings in all our funds, whether it's a general fund or the enterprise funds in order for us to enjoy the, um, excellent bond rating and lower rates that we do when we do borrowing. And, um, um, um, the recommendation was made because the, that fund does not have, uh, I think we're supposed to aim for, they just changed the move the river. If you will, we're supposed to be aiming for 25% and particularly in view of the fact that they will be having increased, uh, budgets going forward. Once we pass the long-term water supply construction, that was the recommendation and that's what we went with. So, um, I reached up to Michael and then we decided collectively it would be a good idea to get input from town council. So, and I wanted to mention it to me cause tomorrow the warrant is going out to print. So we have comments on that.
Okay. So the last one, um, another interesting one is there's an article called KK and I think number 33. I don't know. It's not 33. Um, this is the one that was brought to us from the senior tax, um, relief committee. And, um, they are looking to have recognition of service for those who've been here for a number of years, over 65, maybe been here 20 years or what have you would be a redistribution, kind of like a, uh, residential exemption if you ask me, but nonetheless, um, the town council has ruled, come back and said to us that this article is repugnant as it has written because it is essentially providing, uh, an exemption that does not exist. Most exemptions, um, the DOR has through the assessor's office or on the taxes are, uh, through, uh, means tested. And I believe it's chapter 59. So the question was, what do we do with the article? And, um, so Kelsey reached out to, um, town council for me and it came back and it said, I'm going to read this. So if the warrant is still a work in progress, uh, in any article, there's not a petitioner article may be removed and where the senior tax relief committee is appointed by the select board, the board can remove the article. And then once the warrant is closed, of course, once we go to print, then the options are, uh, can be passed over at town meeting. Um, so we found out this information, um, last Thursday night, I think it was, and with us having a meeting tonight and then our, our, uh, deadline is month tomorrow for this warrant. There was not enough time for that committee to obviously get together and, and have a discussion. And so, um, while I understand that we can, in fact, we can, we may just say we have to pull this. I'm, um, I want to have a discussion with, with you on the board, but with the three of us, I guess at this point, because, um, I'm uncomfortable where that board did not have an opportunity. Opportunity time-wise to have a discussion to decide what they would like to do with the article, um, just similarly pulling it. So let me open it up, um, to the, to Bill and Tom.
Well, if I may, um, did town council indicate whether the article could be revised to make it appropriate? I believe if they add in, I didn't speak of it, but I believe if they add in a means test, and I did speak to the proponent of the article and said, if you added in an amendment, which means test, then you would, um, probably qualify. Does that mean residents attest under oath relative to their income or they have to submit tax returns, if you know? Yes. And I think you do that now under those, um, so I did speak to the, um, um, to, you know, to the proponent, Mr. Click Gordon. And I said, you know, if we did not pull this, then I would expect that committee to meet and get back to the select board by the 27th meeting to let us know what their intent was to do with the article at town meeting. Um, because, um, I just felt it would be nicer to let them have the opportunity to vote to what they want to do with it, pull it or something to see if they can do something else rather than us. You know, that we would pull, they would pass over, but I'm open to conversation here. Bill, did you have something you want to add? Um, well, as you point out, if it goes in the warrant, the only way, and if it is continued to be deemed, uh, repugnant, which I gather is not a value judgment, but means inconsistent with state law, um, then it would, it would have to be passed over. Um, I think it would be cleaner if it were taken out of the warrant, frankly. Uh, in your conversation with the proponent, uh, was there any indication of, uh, interest in amending it to make it a means-tested exemption? Yeah, I think there was some conversation that the problem is, is that because we didn't hear back from town council, so that there was no time to go back to them to say, hey, is an issue, that's where I'm stuck, you know, um, on this. But he did say, they would be open to amendment, they might, they would be open to, they would be open to, uh, passing over it as well, if they, if they can't come to a decision or, or if the amendment would be something that's not their intention.
I kind of feel the same way Bill does. I, I, I, I, you know, if an article does not sustain with the law, it's difficult for us to vote to put it in the warrant, right? Well, we already did vote to put it in, now we're voting to pull it out. Exactly. Right. Okay. So we, you can make a motion and we'll go from there. Uh, I don't know though, Carol, given the fact that they've indicated to you, at least the chair did, that they might be willing to revise it to, um, add language relative to people's income. Um, I feel like it would be appropriate to give them that chance. Tough one. The difficulty of course is that the warrant will have gone out and been read by everyone. I know. The means testing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I know they worked hard on this article, um, but it's not an article that can't be brought, you know, at our next time meeting, you know, and just get it right. You know? Yeah, I just would have been more comfortable, as I said, if we had got heard back. Right. If we'd heard back last Monday, in my opinion, they would have had time to pull the meeting and get back to us and then I'm good. I'm always so sensitive to the fact that because we can do so many things, doesn't mean we necessarily should, you know, as a board. Uh, and I try to make sure we're very collaborative with other boards. And so that's my, my concern. And having said that, thank you for listening. Let's have a motion. So I'll move this board vote to, to, um, insert article, to reinsert article KK. Uh, well, let me, let me, it is, I didn't know whether it needed to be in the affirmative, Carol, or not. So, uh, you are right. It's already inserted. So I'll, I'll make a motion then to pull, um, article KK from the 2026 annual time meeting warrant. Before we have a second, let me just clarify with Mr. McCall, because I agree with you doing it both of those ways. So, um, Mr. McCall, do you think we should say re-vote to insert, in which case we don't? But this is already in, but we could pull it so we could not insert it. And you've got two contradictory votes. Right. So do we say pull it or do we say insert it?
My gut tells me to pull it because I think that's clear and clean to people what your intentions are. I'm going to second the motion.
And what did you say, Tom, to begin with? Did you say pull it? I'm going to vote to pull article KK from the 2026 annual time meeting warrant. I'm good with pull, too. If we're wrong, we're all wrong. How does that sound? Fine. We're running together here. So, all right. Uh, we have to have a roll call vote. So all those in favor, uh, Tom? Yes. Bill? Yes. And I'm going to abstain. And we're still going to pass, right?
Two zero one. Yep. Two zero one. Pass. That's a majority of those present. Once you have a court, it's a majority of those present. Okay, so it's two zero one. We're okay with that? Right. Okay, great. Thanks. And Carol, if you could please explain to the petitioner the, you know, the quandary we find ourselves in, but we think this is a more prudent course. I did have a couple of conversations with them, um, for this very reason, because it certainly is an option that, that the select board has to sometimes exercise, even though I don't know, but I will just think it's all right. Um, I think the other item, my article I have is EE.
Okay. This is the planning board appeal article. Again, we just got information back from town council. I think on Friday, Doug's the liaison for this article. And, um, Carolyn had a couple of suggestions. And so he said, we talked about it and then we said, okay, let's have Carolyn give us the proposed adjusted language. So she did. And it's in the supplemental packet to see, and I had them leave all the comments. I'm sorry. It was late. We were waiting because Doug had another question and Carolyn wasn't able to get back to him today on that, but essentially you can see what the language is going to be here, some changes. And basically I just wanted to share this with you because it's a little bit different than, or a little more expanded, I should say, than what we saw when we voted. I don't think it changes the intent of the substance. The question about, uh, the proposed, uh, section 610.1.1. Yep. For any project that involves construction of a structure equal to or less than 10,000 square feet or alteration equal to or less than 20,000 square feet of a site, anyone may upon denial or issuance of a, any required building permit appeal the site plan decision of the planning board to the zoning board of appeals pursuant to MGL chapter 40, section 8 and 15. I do not know what that section of state law refers to. So I'm trying to figure out if that effectively exempts smaller projects from uh, uh, the ability to, uh, file an appeal prior to the issuance of a building permit.
Um, somebody have a thought here. Michael, do you have a thought?
You're muted, Michael. Yeah.
Trying to look on the fly. I, those, that's the, uh, uh, under state law, chapter 48 controls, essentially, uh, appeals, board of appeals measures and, um, section 8 and 15 are appeals to the permit granting authority and, um, the procedure, uh, section 8, um, is the appeals of the permit granting authority, uh, as the zoning ordinance and bylaw may provide, and then 15. I, I, I don't know them, uh, that well, but that's the sections that that's referring to. That would be the normal appeal process. So is the effect of the second, of this second, uh, the subject section, the second paragraph, uh, to preclude the ability of people appealing these smaller projects from doing so, um, within 20 days of site plan approval, having been followed by the town clerk? What, what is the effect of this second, second paragraph? It's my question.
I think this was in, uh, I'm just looking for it in the packet and I don't think it's in the regular packet. Is it, Madam Chair? It's in the supplement. Supplemental packet, but, um, so Kelsey, Kelsey, excuse me, Doug sent an email back to Carolyn asking a clarifying question. Can, do you, did you get CC'd on that? I did not. No, Madam Chair. I, I, I was CC'd, Madam Chair, but I don't think, let me. Okay. Cause I didn't, um, okay. Cause Doug had a question about this, like these adjustments. So, um, similar to my response, um, uh, counsel had indicated that she could not get back this afternoon. Um, but she said she would take another look to see if, uh, for further clarification under the two-peel, two-tier appeal process, um, based on may be needed.
So I don't have a formal response.
And I, I think Doug reached out only this, uh, select board member Levine reached out this afternoon for the additional clarification. Right. So, Madam Chair, are you, are you concerned that the changes are a substance of change? Cause if not, you know, it's just change and the article's been asserted, right? And voted on, right? Right. But I want you to see it because it's a whole paragraph. And I, and I wanted to explain, see, the thing is, there's nothing worse than opening, you voted one thing and then you open up the warrant and just see something else. Then you come to a meeting when you go, what happened? Well, this is what happened in the middle of proofing things. Stuff changes as Bill can tell you from the plan of order because it doesn't necessarily, as I've said on most of these, they're not going to change the proposal's comments or the finance committee's comments or the pros and the cons or the votes, in my opinion. But this one I wanted you to see because this is one of the ones we've submitted and to just make sure you're all safe with that. And then we're still comfortable with Mr. Levine, you know, working us through the system. My inference is that the second paragraph clarifies that the ability to appeal over the 20 days of site plan approval is applicable only to projects over structures over 10,000 square feet and sites over 20,000 square feet. Pardon me. So I'd be comfortable with it, provided that we get some clarification from town council, but that is indeed the case. Okay. So, Mr. McCauley. As my personal view, I don't know what the rest of the board thinks. Because I will not be speaking to town council, but.
So, Michael, you got that? You're good? So, I think I will speak separately with site board member Whitney, just to get clarification before I speak to town council tomorrow. That's great. I appreciate that. So then I want to also let, are we all set then on that? The change is there, right? Okay. I think I've got them all here. The last thing I want to mention about this article is we forwarded this to the planning board for review. They have to hold a hearing and then they can issue a report. Um, unfortunately they had the Dover amendment projects already on the calendar. So this is now, I think we got noticed today that the hearing will be, is it April 29th? And that they will try to get the report done in time for town meeting. So we'll see what happens after that. How's that sound? I think that's it. I think I've got all the summaries, all the possible changes since his last sermon. Okay. So the next thing is I'd like to have you go back to the main packet and then you'll see right on the, um, page five, I think it is. Um, I took the article list. Now they're by the number, but I left the original letter there just in case you know them by the letter and the item. Um, and then there are 42 articles going to town meeting, um, we had like 27 or 28 and then about 12 or so of ours are, um, are, are grouped into a consent calendar. So in the end, the select board has 17 articles that we will be the article presenter for. And, um, I made this little draft list originally. Um, Doug and I took three and Anne had three and then Bill and Tom, you had four. And then when we realized we had to pull article O, which is number nine out of the consent calendar, because me most likely we'll have some amendments. I said, I would take that one as well. Cause I'm the liaison for, I put some familiar with the, um, with what's going to be happening there. So now I have four. Um, so that what we're doing here is just confirm these are the ones that you would like to speak to at town meeting, um, because we're going to give this list then tomorrow to Kelsey as she's getting us ready for the emotions meeting, which is next week that I will attend on our behalf. So does anybody have any issues with what they have? You want to trade now?
Everybody's good with these? Yes. I'm good with the presenters. I'm not, I'm not loving the, uh, I'm not loving the. Position of one article, which has been quite controversial. And I think the stick it third article from the end and the second night is not doing the residents a good service. And I'd love to consider moving that article up. Um, I know you wait, but the bottom line is the book has been, I cannot tell you how many hours I've spent on this and I've revised it four times and everybody wants the article first. The planning board wants to be first. The CPC wants to be first. Everybody wants to be first. So we moved, um, a holiday road up from 38 to 31. That's what we had discussed there on the 16th or the 9th, the 16th, I guess we discussed that. So, but first of all, right now, everybody's comfortable with the ones that are presenting, right?
Yeah. I know. I have no problem. Yeah. Okay. So that's number one. So then, because what's going to happen is like I said, we're going to set the motions up and then we'll get those done at the same time. The League of Women Voters is probably going to reach out to individual board members because they do an article, um, I don't want to say forum. They do an article discussion night. Right. And, uh, I did hear from Mary, but I did not get the date. So I can't tell you the date. So she will see this list and know who to reach out to. So anyway, all right. So, I, uh, I, uh, I got to agree with Tom. Uh, I think to have holiday road following a zoning housekeeping article is, uh, you know, I, I think there is going to be a lot of interest in that particular article. And, uh, and I appreciate all the time you and the staff has spent pulling this all together. Uh, but I would feel more comfortable if it were more apt to be considered. At the first night of town meeting, assuming we go more than one night. You know, I don't think you fit it into the first night because you're going to do, by the time you do the budget and you do a couple items and you do the water, we will be pretty much out at the time. What happens is you also want to think about when you look at this, it's a huge jigsaw puzzle in that you want to look at the timing. It's not really great to be like nine 30, 10 o'clock at night either, because we tend to lose people around nine, nine, nine 15. So you want some of the, the other ones. Then in the first, next night, you need a couple items that aren't going to be, uh, in case we don't have a huge number there. Yeah. So you're really in a pretty good spot where you are. Um, the third thing I'm going to say is that book is set and they've formatted this. And if we move something, you're going to cause a lot of work for Jalen and Kelsey. We have every confidence in Jalen and Kelsey.
And may I mention, can I want to say this right now? Cause it's on the tape. There's no way. And you know what I'm doing this job next year. You and you, you'll see how much fun this is. I like to duck started it and said to me, can you help me when he did his. So I'd like to move that move that this board vote. I just want to know where you want to move it to before we, we don't have to avoid anything. What's where you move. I want to move it after the budget. All right. So after, after, after number 10. Hmm. So then what you're going to do is you're going to push the water to the second night. Not if we don't, not, not if we move the water to after the, uh, holiday road. Those are the most controversial. It's going to be like 10 o'clock at night. There's not going to be enough people there, Tom. The budget traditionally lasts three or four years. The budget has been fairly smooth. It's been fairly smooth and, uh, and not taking up a lot of time. I just think those are the most controversial articles to have them both the same night. I think it's appropriate. So then the next night we'll be lucky to get a quorum and, um, okay. I, I need, can I talk to you about this offline though? So, um, I'm happy to talk offline, but we need to vote tonight because this is going to print. We don't need to vote it. I mean, the bottom line is you're, you know, we need, in my opinion, we need to vote it just so there's a, there's a record because I know you feel differently, but I think at least two members tonight feel differently than you on this. I think I'd like to hear from the staff about this as well, because the bottom line is you're putting those three on the same night. There won't be. I'm personally okay with putting the water before holiday road. I think that's pretty important. All right. All right. So if you move the water after the budget and holiday road after the water, how does that sound, Bill? You don't usually put big articles, one, two, three. You have something, you have like a little filler, which is the consent calendar. Let's take five minutes to get those done. Well, we'll start a new tradition then. But I just think that those are the most controversial articles and we've got most people in the seats, the first night, until we get remote participation, which will happen one of these years, you know, I just think it's fair to the residents to have those, the most people participating in those controversial articles. So at 10, 1030 at night, you're going to be having your holiday road article. I don't, I'm not so sure about that. I don't, I'm not so sure about that. If you looked at my original chart, you'd see the amount of time for each one of these articles and you would see that. So by the time we get through the budget, consent calendar, we get up to the water. I think we're up to about 10 o'clock. We do a couple more of these articles because people will have lapped. Then the next night we start in with why you want to put, why don't you put holiday road in 21 and move why then down to the, whatever it is, 31. Say that again, Kelly, you want to do what now? You could move, why don't you move, see, if you're determined to move it up, why don't you, Kelsey, this is, I don't know how much this is going to mess you up here, but it's a lot of work and the good things going on tomorrow. Jeez, girl. Take your rail trail and move it or do a couple of the, see, the thing is the next, if we go like 20 articles the first night or 22, because you don't know where it's definitely going to break. You need a couple for people to get into the seats and settle down, which is why we had put these down here. Um, and there's another, and there's some more strategy in here as well, but, um, madam chair, if I may, yes, please. Um, well, as I can't really speak to, you know, we'll, we'll make whatever the select board wishes work. Of course, as we always do. Um, I did want to note that I did get a note from a resident, um, that concerns the consent calendar. Um, last year we had to pull out, uh, article two or B because that requires a four fifths vote. And then if you do, if you keep that with the other ones that are just a majority vote, um, then the whole entire consent calendar has to be a four fifths vote. Um, and subsequently, because, because this year we put the enterprise capital, um, budgets within the enterprise fund budget article that for borrowing requires a two thirds vote. So that's the same thing that if that requires a two thirds vote, then the whole consent calendar requires a two thirds vote. Um, so I know that probably, uh, throws a little wrench into this, um, organization, but that is something that I did want to bring to your attention. That we, we probably need to remove articles two and four from the consent calendar because they require over a majority vote.
Okay. First I've heard of that, but you're right. That does, since they moved the capital in there, that is true. So two and four. Okay. So I propose that we, I'm not going to make a motion. I propose that we move article 20, the water article, uh, immediately after the budget and how he wrote after that.
It's not, it's usually, usually a good idea. I mean, Terry taught me how to do this. So usually you do a big one and then you have kind of like a little breather thing and then something else. So leave some of these other ones in here. Um, well, you could have the, uh, the consent calendar, uh, items, uh, 11 through 14 after the budget and then do the other two. Tom. It's fine. So do it after 14. So six, the water budget would go in after 14 and then Holly wrote after the water, after the water, or another water budget, but the water article.
Mm-hmm. And so now what is the hook to get people to come on the next night? Their civic, uh, duty. The civic, uh, um, good feeling. I'm sorry? Their, their, their civic, you know, duty and their, their, their desire to participate in democracy in its purest form. We could give everybody candy bars too. That's right. Okay. Kelsey, you got that order? All right. So I'm not kidding. No, I'm not kidding. I am not doing this next year. I'll, I'll, I'll take it on with pleasure. Oh, and it's fun. Yeah, that's, that's on the, that's on the record. So, um, I moved in that this board vote to adopt the 2026 ATM article presenters lineup as in our budget with the following. No, no, that's the article of the orders. The presenters we've already agreed on. This is the article of the orders. Article of the orders. Order of the articles. Accented backwards. Order of the articles. Likewise. Order of the articles with the following changes that after article 14, when the consent calendar, we insert whale and long-term water supply. And after that, we insert 25 holiday road. Otherwise, it stays the same. Tom, would you accept a friendly amendment to pull out pay previous year's bills? And what was the other one, Kelsey? Enterprise. Enterprise fund budgets, article four. So, have those to precede, uh, follow recognized citizens, perhaps? Um, yes. So, we'll present for that as well, then, if we're going to pull those out. I'll second that motion. I appreciate your patience on this, Kelsey. And Carol. Oh, I wouldn't say I was having patience on this one. Um, have we had a second already? Yes. Okay, then let's have a vote. Bill? Yes. Tom? Yes. And let's be surprised, Carol. No.
I'm really worried, oh, this will shake out. Let's see. I probably should abstain, but anyway. All right. Um, we are going to need now a presenter for B and, uh, E, which I will assign to somebody then. Pull them out, they have to be assigned, so. Um, are they someone's articles, anyway? They're Ann's articles. Is she going to be present? So, I can give them to her. Yep. Sure. Okay. All right. So, now the next item we have here, I think I had on my list was presenting. We got all that done. Okay. Now, just, I already mentioned, tomorrow the thing is going to the printer. We wanted to have a big cut down. We went from 131 pages to 130. But we did have six, six codes. You know, lots of zoning. And the two down click articles, which took a lot of pages. The moderator's rules was reduced. We reduced a number of things. We definitely have got to get on a word diet. You cannot understand how much time this takes to put this together. It's a lot of use of labor. I just don't think we're going to go in the right direction. I mentioned the motions meeting is next, is the 8th. Um, on the 13th, we're going to have a regular meeting. And I think the moderator might join us then. She's made a, wants to make a couple suggested changes to the consent calendar rules. So, just want to run and buy us. On the 27th, we're going to have the warrant hearing. Um, and then on the 29th, the moderator is considering having a, um, a Zoom meeting to discuss the consent and the abbreviated articles. All right. And then, of course, we will go, um, and we need a select board member to, to go and speak to the consent and the abbreviated articles on the 29th if someone wants to volunteer. And then we're going to obviously go to town meeting on the 4th and the 5th. So, that's where we go. So, the last item we have to kind of look at here is, as part of the annual town meeting calendar, is that we have a conversation whether we think we will need a special town meeting. And, um, we have to, we have to vote to hold one if we think we're going to need one. The special town meeting is inside the annual town meeting. I think about three or four years ago, we, we had a reason to do one. I am not aware of any reason that we have to do one, but it is, of course, my responsibility to let you know that if we are thinking we want to do one, we need to vote one. I think we have to vote one, uh, 30 days prior. Right, Michael?
I believe statute is 14 days, Madam Chair. Okay. But I think clerk and everybody else would want as much, uh, notice as possible. So, like I said, I'm not aware of any reason why we would have one. Um, but I do have to mention it. So, anyone doesn't have any reason, then I think we can move on to that. If something pops up, I'll call a meeting and we'll have to vote it in. How's that sound? Okay. So, now we're on the, um, the next item on the agenda is that we would like to disband two of our advisory committees. Um, Tom, can I just give this to you to make the motion? Sure. So, maybe sometimes it works. Yep. So, this board voted to create two advisory committees. The two, the Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee and the 212 Constituent Road Advisory Committee. The, um, term of both committees expired in February of this year. Therefore, um, I move that this board vote to disband both of those committees. Is that the motion? That's the motion. Okay. With, with thanks. With thanks. Of course. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. With, with thanks to all the members, including, um, uh, those who I'll list in a moment when we review these reports. Second the motion. Okay. I'm, yes, I was going to add that, that we, we thank you very much for the work, particularly, I'm going to say how many meetings you've had, how many hours you all have put in, and for putting such terrific reports together for us. So. Please. Uh, let's have a, a vote. Uh, Bill? Yes. Uh, Tom? Yes. Carol? Yes. Motion passes 3-0. Okay. So would you like to start with, uh, the Route 20 landfill report? I think that's what we have first, although I see Ms. Lynch here, so I don't know if she should, uh, and is there anybody here from the, uh, Route 20 South Landfill Visioning Committee should pop up. So I think that I saw Mr. Lewis.
I think that might be it on the 7th Landfill. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. So I'm just playing the, um, uh, drone, uh, video, um, of the South, um, Landfill, uh, so people can get a sense of the, the property involved. This committee, the South Landfill Vision Committee, was established in 2020 to evaluate the most appropriate and beneficial uses for the town of Wayland's Route 20 South Landfill property. The property is owned by the town and consists of two parcels totaling, totaling 17 acres. The property used to be a town landfill. It was capped in 1980. Members of the committee included, uh, Seema Cherian. She was a Conservation Commission appointee. Erin Gibbons. She was a School Committee appointee. Cliff Lewis, a Select Board appointee. Ira Montag, the Planning Board appointee. Mark Norton, the Recreation Commission appointee. Mike Spellman, the Board of Public Works appointee. And myself, who acted as chair, Select Board appointee. Ex-officio members included the town manager, Michael McCall. Robert Hummel, the town planner. And Tom Holder from the Department of Public Works. He is the director. Other individuals served on the committee during its, uh, life, including Val Inchenko from the Economic Development Committee. Dave Perlman from the Rec Commission. Kim Reichelt from the School Committee. Seth Roman from the EDC. Catherine Schreiber from, uh, Conservation Commission. Kathy Steinberg from the School Committee. Uh, Bill Whitney from the Select Board. And Brad Young from the Recreation. So, the committee, um, initially, uh, focused on 17 potential uses. Um, the committee worked with the Department of Public Works, Environmental Engineers, and Planning Consultants. Specifically, uh, uh, DBW Director Tom Holder attended most, if not all, of our meetings. We also worked with a company called The Collaborative, which is a national public policy planning, design, and communications firm in Boston. We also worked with Weston and Sampson, which provided engineering services. Um, the committee learned from the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection that the site is suitable for reuse, but not for any structures, provided the cap is well-maintained. So, the significance of that, um, um, advice, if you will, or directive, if you will, from DEP is that, that, that, that housing cannot be built on this property. So, in making its recommendations for utilizing the property, uh, the committee was guided by five core principles. Environmental Protection, Continued Regulatory Compliance, Public Benefit, Fiscal Responsibility, and Risk Management. We also held a public forum where we presented the ideas and listened to feedback. After numerous meetings and extensive discussion, the committee recommends the following uses in the property. First, a rectangular grass playing field without lighting. Two, school bus parking with potential EV charging. Uh, the property does have access to phase three power, which is critical for, uh, such charging. Um, um, um, um, and public, the third, the third used to be Public Works, uh, Materials, uh, Center, which saves the town about $75,000, uh, annually. Um, um, other concepts, we'll call secondary concepts, included walking paths with a hookup to the rail trail. Restaurant facilities will more, will likely be more, in the Port of Johnny variety. Uh, vegetation buffers, which are easy to do right near the, uh, uh, throughout the site. Um, uh, we talked about a dog park, but, um, uh, uh, the, the appetite by committee members wasn't that great. In addition, I learned late last week that the owner of town's center has agreed to, um, uh, work with residents to place a dog park at the Wayland Town Center. Another, another, uh, secondary concept involved a small amphitheater where we, we, we, we use a landscape for that purpose. So, we had these ideas of budgeted and the likely costs, um, if the town were to implement, um, our recommendations would be approximately $5 million. So, the property is a unique municipal asset and does have some limitations, but has significant potential. Uh, it's a great scenic view, you know, as we saw in that video a moment ago. And it's the committee's opinion that the town can effectively transform, uh, this, uh, legacy infrastructure with some thought to be an unusable site to a usable site into a long-term resource that will protect public health, minimize risk, and advance sustainable goals. Um, so I will end there. I, um, open it up to questions or comments. I see Cliff Lewis is with us in the committee and, um, um, happy to, uh, like I said, answer any questions that, uh, you may have.
Um, uh, first, I'd like to thank you and the committee for, uh, your diligence. Uh, you, you considered, I think, 17 alternatives, something like that. So, uh, that was certainly thorough. Um, I guess my only comments were that to the extent that, uh, the, uh, materials handling, uh, and bus parking are ultimately determined to be the, uh, appropriate use, among the appropriate uses there, that there be screening of those uses, uh, given the waterfront location. Also, um, with respect to some of the secondary uses, uh, I think that, uh, a walking path along the water, uh, would not be expensive. And that the parking area for the, for the playing field would be a good place for people to park if they wanted to, uh, walk along the edge, uh, maybe fish. Uh, so, uh, I, I would suggest those as a couple of, uh, thoughts with respect to this, uh, report. Thank you. I don't know, um, where the jurisdiction line is relative to the federal government and, uh, and the town and the state government, but the idea of a walkway along the water is, is, uh, very inviting. We've seen those in other communities, so we'll, uh, I'll make note of that. Uh, uh, Carol? Yeah, so I thank you very much as well. Well, I, um, first learned about this as a liaison for the Board of Public Works, and Mr. Lewis was the chair at the time, and I believe he had a new board member, so he decided that we should walk the property. And we, we went and we met him, and we were walking the property, and they would, it was when they were taking the, the trees down that the mast heap said to come off the cap, which we talk about in the report. So it was quite muddy, and it was a little sinky, and I say little, but Mr. Lewis kept charging along, and myself and Mr. Green. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we've seen enough, we've got the idea. But it was a big piece, and it was delightful, and I, it really gave you a real sense of all the, the magnitude of the work. So I have one question about the, uh, the schools, the school bus parking. I know that when we provide school bus parking, we have to provide facilities, you know, for the dispatching, um, office, I guess an office would be the right word, with facilities. Is that in this, um, proposal, or is it just the parking, and then they would, how would you get the buses to where, wherever we're supposed to have them dispatched? I, I suspect that the office wouldn't take up much space, and I'd like to lift away in on this one, Cliff. Yeah, the, the office is planned, if you, if you look carefully at the, the drawings, uh, there's, there's a space to put the office. It's not, you know, it's not a full building, if you will, uh, and there is a, a restroom facility, but it's, uh, certainly adequate, and it's a heated space where they can, you know, come and get their dispatch. So, yeah, it, it accommodates that completely. Because I do believe that's part of the bus contract. Yes, it is, yeah. Yeah, we have to provide that, uh, those two amenities, the heated area and the facilities for the bus. Because they come at 5 a.m. to turn the, I'm sorry. There's enough space for employee parking, too, so the, the, the, the employee can come and park in a parking place, go to the office, get his, his instructions, and then go get on the bus. Right, because they, even though they, so, then my next question was, thank you for bringing this up, is, how much of the 17 acres are we using here for the three proposed uses of, um, the fields, the school bus parking, and the lay down area? Uh, Carol, I, I'm guessing about nine, the, the balance being a wetland off, off to the east. Is it all wetlands? Yeah. If you're looking at this drawing, uh, that Thomas put up, the, the far eastern boundary there is, in fact, a, a dike, uh, which demarks the wetland to the east and the other property to the west. So you can't really use anything further east than, than, than that, than what we've got marked there. Right, but looking back at that, I believe there's also some encroachment, or there was, I don't know if there still is, on the Sudbury, um, border. And I was wondering. We're not, we're not encroaching anything there at all. We're not. I see, we're being encroached. Oh, oh. That was addressed. That was addressed. That was addressed, okay. Yeah. So I guess my question is, is if we're only going to use nine acres, is it, I know some of it's wetland. Is it possible for us to consider looking at, you know, subdividing it in terms of selling off someone who might want, a business who joins us might want to purchase some of that? We looked very carefully, Carol, at commercial, uh, as a possibility. And, and the, the problem is you can't put any foundations in this area. Right. So you can't really build anything. I sort of think more of that neighbor, if they might, we're looking for some more space for some of their material storage, that we might want to consider selling something to them. That was just a thought. Yeah. You know what? Once you look at the drawing that Tom had put up, there really isn't a whole lot of space left over that isn't a very steep slope. Right. And to, to Bill's question, um, again, if you look at, at Tom's drawing, could you bring that up again, Tom? Well, what, I, what, is this one better, Cliff? Because this shows a demarcation. The demarcation, you're buffing that. No, I, I, I wanted, I wanted the one that shows the fields and stuff on it. Yeah. The, the plan. There you go. Yeah. Bill, you see this, on the, the southwest corner, the little squiggly line that comes off the parking lot? Yeah. That's a path that goes from the parking lot down to the rail trail. Okay. So you have good access from the parking lot down to the rail trail. And then, and then you could go back and forth on the rail trail as much as you want. And I, and I'd also like to point out this space in between the field and the bus parking, uh, that is a flexible community space. You know, this space is going to be here for a long time, long after you and I are, are long gone. And the, the community may want to do something in that space and that's reserved for that use. So there are a lot of things that you could do there. Uh, if you wanted, you'd have parking, you'd have to walk over there. Uh, and the borders, again, we've mentioned the, the border, uh, is very, uh, is very germane and very much a key part of the, of the whole concept here is to be able to establish vegetated borders. So you won't see, you know, the bus parking, you won't see the material center. You see, there's even a space on the drawing showing where the buffers are going to go. And I particularly like the fact that you included in the report that because this would be capital projects, it would have to be go through the capital planning and improvement. And I really appreciated that, you know, it's a new committee and, you know, you really didn't have that as a consideration as you were going through the process all these years. But I do appreciate that you incorporated that into the conversation. Yes. So is there anybody here who, uh, served on that committee besides Mr. Lewis, who would like to, um, have, uh, something to add? I think the, I don't see anybody. No, the rest of you are on the next one, I think. So, uh, Bill, do you have any more, uh, thoughts or comments or questions? No, thank you. Okay. I'd like it to open up to Mr. McCall and Ms. Powers-Burlett. Anybody have any comments on this?
You all set, Michael? Yes. Okay. Thank you. All right. So again, we want to thank, um, the committee. Well, right now we'll thank you, Mr. Lewis, for all the work you did on that and for dragging me through the mud on a cold November day. Yeah, you're okay.
I told you not to wear your fancy shoes. Well, the second half of that was while we were clomping along, Mr. Lewis left out of the woods out of nowhere, who was investigating what was going on. Mr. Doucette comes and says, what are you two doing out here?
So there we were. All right. Well, um, Mr. Faye, back to you. Do you have any? Just one final comment. Sure. Regarding the bus parking. I'll be frank with you. If I had my way, we wouldn't have bus parking over there because I think it's such an idyllic spot. But, you know, as members of the select board, we have to look ahead. And our board has discussed potential reuse of the town building or maybe other use of the town building. And for example, if the town decided to, um, commit apartments at the town building and have the town offices go to a different location, I think it'd be very challenging to have bus parking, uh, at, at, at the town building, at the town building location. So, um, uh, and we don't have much town land. We all know this for development. There's so much water in town and so many, um, conservation, uh, restrictions. So, um, um, that's one reason why the committee, um, voted to place bus parking over there. So, uh, but it's all I have. So I thank you for your kind comments. Thank you, Cliff, and other members of the committee. And our board will continue to mull this report and, um, over. And we have a lot of capital expenses coming up in town. So we're not sure where this will fall in the queue, but, uh, uh, appreciate the, uh, all the work of the committee members. And the report is going to be on the, um, web page on the select board. It's a report. It's a selection of reports that we have and Jaylen's in process of, you know, uploading those there. So it will be in existence. All right. Thank you. Then, uh, we have no other questions. And Mr. Faber, you want to go on and speak to the, give the report from the two 12, um, constituent advisory meeting report. Sure. So in 2000, sure. In 2025, um, the annual town meeting, um, authorize the select board to develop this property at two 12 constituent road, which is comprised of four acres of town on land for affordable housing focused on shared living for adults with disabilities and or market rate housing. But if market rate housing is developed, it must be accompanied by affordable housing and or shared living. The select board then created the two 12 constituent road advisory committee, which, uh, has included bill Adams, select board appointee, Brian Bossier, municipal housing trust fund appointee, Stephanie Lynch, select board appointee, Jean Milburn, select board appointee, John Thomas, the way on housing authority appointee, bill Whitney, a select board appointee, and myself as chair and select board appointee. Ex-officio members included Robert Hummel, a town planner, um, a former, um, a former committee member, Catherine Provost, also sat on the committee, um, for the Whalen Housing Partnerships, uh, designation. So, between August of last year and February of this year, the committee met 12 times. We heard from representatives of approximately 21 organizations. We heard from Whalen residents, a former Whalen resident. Um, we heard from abutting neighbors. We heard from state officials. And all these people had experience, most of these people had experience creating housing and programs for adults with disabilities. The information received included, uh, effective developing, financing, operating, and supporting housing for adults with disabilities, not only in this area, but across the state. Uh, the information we received included a broad spectrum of housing types, service models, funding structures, and regulatory pathways. After consideration of all this information, the committee distilled key takeaways and developed a set of scenarios that it believes, I believe may be appropriate for consideration at 212 Cachituit Road. The recommended process would be that this board authorized the town manager and me as chair, um, to finalize a request for proposal seeking entities to submit proposals to the select board. And these proposals would focus on projects and programs that aim to serve individuals with a wide range of disabilities, individuals on the autism spectrum, people with acquired or traumatic brain injuries, and individuals who are duly diagnosed with intellectual or developmental disabilities and mental health conditions. The key factors the committee recommends is choosing an organization that is grounded in long-term sustainability. We recommend that the RFP address both the physical housing and the programmatic services necessary to support residents over time. We would expect that responding organizations demonstrate the capacity to secure appropriate capital financing, deliver construction consistent with neighborhood scale, and sustain long-term operations and services through reliable funding sources. The committee also valued the importance of helping Wayland families and the importance of proximity to family members, caregivers, and established networks for many individuals with disabilities. Concerning the number of structures and the number of units on the property, the committee was persuaded by the many comments made by experts in the field that having a community that felt like home was much more ideal, if not critical, than creating an environment that had more of an institutional feel. The committee also listened closely to the concerns of the buddy neighbors who would be most affected by the property's development.
Next, a key objective is to limit the town's ongoing role in financial exposure relative to this land. So the committee recommended that the town not own, operate, or directly manage the proposed development. Whether the town owns the land or provides a land lease is a decision best made by the select board as it negotiates with the potential organization. So based on feedback from many persons who appeared before our committee, it was the consensus of the committee that no more than three or four structures clustered would be ideal. Further, the most successful programs we learned about appear to have no more than five to eight persons in each structure. The committee's final report included a minority opinion held by committee member Gene Milburn to place more structures and units on the land. So Bill Whitney's, and my ask tonight is that this board authorized the issuance of an RFP for a potential disposition into a redevelopment of 212 constituent road, consistent with the authorization and conditions approved by town meeting. That it prioritized development models that create accessible housing for adults with disabilities while also producing subsidized housing inventory eligible units, recognizing that many models that provide housing for adults with disabilities also qualify for SHI eligible units. And direct town staff and any engaged consultants to prepare and issue the RFP with clear submission requirements consistent with recommendations contained in the final report. We want to both, we want to consider both innovative and traditional models. Once the RFPs are received, the select board will then consider one or more of the proposals based on the respondent's compliance with the RFP for approval of entering into a contract with that organization. So with that as background, happy to answer questions or listen to comments. We do have a few members of the committee committee committee with us tonight, including Bill Adams, John Thomas, and Stephanie Lynch, as well as Bill Whitney. And Ms. Milburn. And Ms. Milburn. She doesn't have her audio on. Yeah. So if you're looking for questions from the board, I guess that's me. Okay. But I think that I'm used to letting others go. So I think I like to turn the table, if I may, as anybody on the committee who served. And again, we thank you very much for the work. You're doing an extremely thorough report, extremely easy to read, very well done. Thank you. Shows how much work you did. It was really terrific. Thank you. Appreciate it. On behalf of the, on half of the board, I guess I'll say. Thank you. Does anybody in the committee like to say anything before I add in my two cents? Ms. Lynch, or Ms., would you like to say something? No, it's just been a wonderful experience to, to have a chance to be on this committee. Thank you. And Mr. Adams, how do you have your hand raised? Great. I'm using Tom's link. Sorry. I see that, but I heard the name. Sorry. And yeah, so I think Tom did a really wonderful job of summarizing our point of view. The one thing I might add is there is a very special green space in the middle of this, of the area that's abutted by all the different neighbors. And considering that green space as well, there's some pretty remarkable wildlife that lives there and it's contiguous very closely with the, the large conservation space behind Woodridge Road that goes all the way to Rice Road. So there's quite a bit of space around there. And yeah, and that I'm totally on board with Tom's feeling and the neighbors are too, that this be a place that feels like home and welcomes disabled people to live in a comfortable community space. That's beautiful. And I personally think that if we did this really well, it would be an approach that could be replicated by other towns as a, as a demonstration of what could happen in a, in a, in a town like Wayland. Thank you, Mr. Tom's yeah, I, I would just, um, say that it was a real pleasure, uh, being a member of, and serving on this advisory committee. Um, I've been a resident in this town for 26 years and I was really excited to be a part of, uh, what I understand is the first sort of thoughtful initiative to develop housing earmarked for, uh, adults with disabilities. Um, this segment of the town's population, like it is regionally is underserved, something that we all learned on the committee after hearing a number of, uh, presenters talk about, uh, the demographics of, of the region. Um, it's underserved in the number of housing opportunities that are available. Um, I, I, I was raised in Sudbury and having previously worked in the local state DDS area office in Framingham, uh, I know firsthand the needs of these folks who could be served by this development. Uh, I also grew up with kids in this area who are now adults with disabilities. Uh, I know their families, uh, and I know the people who work with them, uh, and this is a, a really rare and wonderful opportunity. So I'm really looking forward to seeing the project move forward and to see what it will eventually look like. Thank you. And, uh, Ms. Milburn, did you want to speak? Jean? I'm not sure she's with us, uh, fully, but I, I just want to comment that Jean did, uh, author the report and, uh, uh, we'll, uh, we'll, uh, appreciate it. Jean, did you want to also make a comment before I make money? Sure. Um, thank you. It was a real pleasure to serve on the committee and, um, uh, I enjoyed it a great deal. I think the town can look forward to receiving several, um, really interesting proposals. You know, we heard from a number of organizations that produce properties like this. Who seemed very eager, uh, to, to move forward and work with the town like Wayland. So I think you're going to have some real interesting options and I'm, I'm glad that that's going to be the case. Great. Thank you. So, like I said, ordinarily I get questions from the board, but since there's only three of us here tonight and two are on the committee, that leaves me. So I, I, I, um, I'm sure I'm not sure if everybody who's watching at home knows how long we've been working on this. Tom, you and I, Louise brought this land and the concept of us using this land for some town benefit. Some town benefit. I think she may have mentioned it before, but I think she mentioned it was one of the first meetings when I got on the board. So this has been five years in coming. I think we've done a very, to someone's point, a very thoughtful process here. You know, where we made sure that the land was, we were all set. Then we took it to our meeting and now we've come back and forth. So, um, I, I am very excited about what this is going to be look like and be, and what it's going to offer. The one question I didn't see, I, I saw, uh, mentioned briefly in the proposal. And I do want to ask is at one point I was under the impression that sometimes the state requires a two mile, uh, distance between, and I think the right word is group homes. And, um, do we think that's going to be an issue here? Because I know we have one on route 20 and it's slightly under two miles. Is it not? Yeah. And we looked into that issue and we were told that wouldn't be an issue. I mean, it's, it's, it's not like it's next door and, um, and the state dearly needs housing like this really does. So then the question is, we're looking at now there's a sample RFP in the, in the packet. Is this the sample or is this the one that's ready to go? I would say this is a, a strong base that would need to be tweaked a big, tweaked a bit. And, uh, and to that point, uh, we're happy to entertain a motion to permit myself and Michael McCall to, uh, work with a vendor that we've worked with before on this project for the RFI request for information to finalize an RFP consistent with what is in the packet and consistent with the report. Um, to see what, see what proposals, uh, the town receives. So I think, um, that's, that's a good idea. I just want to be clear, uh, clarify one thing in my own mind before we do that is that I think in general that, uh, Kelsey does our procurement here and issues. So I'd like to hear from her if she thinks this is a process we should follow or she would like to be involved or review this because she's, did you, and Michael as well. Did you want to speak? I, I don't really have anything to add, but Michael and I are happy to work with Tom Fay, uh, Mr. Fay to, uh, see this forward. Right. Mr. McCall. Oh, I would echo Ms. Power Spurlett's comments that we would have no issue working with this. Um, as, um, early on, I spoke with Robert Hummel and members, uh, well, at least, uh, Mr. Fay, um, and know some people who've done something, done something similar in my past. So I'm sure we can pull something together without too much effort. Okay. So I think that's probably might be part of our, is to kind of delegate it and let them work with, um, a Tom on an RFP, or do you want them to just come up with something and send it out? You're asking me? Yes. I'm asking somebody. No, I, I, I propose that we use the RFP in the, in the report as a base, work with the vendor to modify it consistent with. With it and with the report and then, uh, issue it, uh, so we can receive some proposals. Okay. I guess we need to, um, I want, I was just clarifying whether we want to do it in house or not. You're saying you don't want to do it in house. You want to send it out. Okay. No, no, just so we're clear. So in other words, it's in house. Right. Michael, um, um, has recommended a vendor who we work with, um, a few, a few months ago on RFI that will assist us to finalize it. And then it would be issued by the town and then respondents would, uh, uh, would react to it and submit what they like. Okay. All right. I think, uh, the vendor to whom Tom refers to someone who's familiar with state law requirements for disposition of property. So I think, pardon me, not to put words in Thomas mouth, but I think, uh, principally it's to put it in the correct form, uh, to ensure that it's properly advertised and so forth. I don't know that the consultant would get involved in, uh, the, the substance of the proposal. Great. I appreciate that bill. Thank you both. Um, why don't we have a motion then? I think there is a motion and I'd be happy to second it. Okay. Well, I, okay. That's fine. Yeah. Do you want to? Do you want to start again? Well, I suggested a motion, but I didn't make it actually. So if you want to make it bill. I didn't hear it either, but that's beside the point. I'm going nuts. Well, let's watch the tape. Um, Mr. Fair, would you like to make a motion? Sure. I'll move that this board vote to, um, point, um, town manager, Michael McCall, and myself, uh, to finalize an RFP, um, uh, with the assistance of, uh, town vendor. And, uh, consistent with the RFP in the, in the final report of the 212, um, constituent road advisory committee, um, and, um, uh, if you, the RFP for, uh, the public. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So for the discussion, then let's have a vote. Uh, bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. And Carol. Yes. Motion passes 3-0. Thank you, everybody. Good. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. All right. So the next item on our agenda is, um, do you see, um, Mr. Meese? Um. I think it's a bit early, actually, uh, Madam Chair. I think. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, that's why I'm asking before I go to that item. So let me then get another idea. I'm happy to move the consent calendar for this week's, uh, meeting. Um. As amended. The consent calendar as amended. Right. In other words, the consent calendar that is revised in our, in our supplemental packet. That's the one I want to move. Yeah. Thank you. Do I have a second? Uh, just a moment, please. The sub. Oops. The supplemental packet includes the amended article EEE. Is there anything else in there with respect to. I think there's a supplemental consent packet as well. That came out at three o'clock. Right. Maybe four o'clock. Because we had a very late request, which is why I was confirming which one Mr. Fay was looking at. Is this the 413? That would be it. Well, again, I, I only see article EEE. So. Supplemental consent. So there's a supplemental packet and then there's a supplemental consent. Consent. Okay. 314. If you would like, Madam Chair, I can read. Well, I can read it too, but I just want to. So why don't I read the consent calendar? How does that sound? So we're going to vote the question of approving a one day liquor license to Gina. Oh shoot. I'm missing a word here. You may have to read it. My thing is. Do you know? I'm missing letters on the end here. I'm forwarding the email to Mr. Whitney. I've got it. Thank you. Okay. All right. So. Do you still need me to read anything, Madam Chair? No, I'm just waiting to see if we're going to have a motion. A second. We've got a motion. I need a second, right? That's where we're at. Right. You. I'll second the motion. Thank you. Okay. Then all those in favor, we'll say aye. Tom. Yes. Bill. Yes. Carol. Yes. That takes care of that. Do we want to go to correspondence? Sure. Anybody have any comments on the correspondence? I have none. No. Okay. Great. Takes care of that. What about minutes? Minutes? Sure. I'll find them. Jean, you're still with us. Yeah. Well, that's true. Thank you. You're welcome to stick around, Jean. It's really fun stuff. Oh, yes. Can you give us a hint on the page numbers in the packet? That's way down here for the minutes. Oh. 75. Excuse me. Can we go back to correspondence for one second? Sure. And I know Michael's going to mention this too, but in the correspondence we received a letter that we are become a climate leader community. I meant to do that in the announcements. And one of the questions that I had, I looked up, there was a link that came with it, you know, for the grants and the grant is actually, I believe somebody clarify and correct me. I believe it's a 10% matching grant. So if we were to apply for the million dollars, for example, would we have to then have to come up with a hundred thousand dollars is my first question. And if so, is there enough funds? This was my question here. Is there enough funds in the room energy revolving fund that we then want to make an edit onto that article and put that hundred thousand there. So it would be sitting there for matching grants, which this is one of the three reasons that account has been established for emergency and matching grants and cap, uh, energy projects in the capital plant. So, um, did anybody else see that? When to click on that deal, OER website in there, it talks about the different grants and I believe the matching grant is, um, uh, I think it's a 10% match. Has anybody else clicked on that yet to see that? That was my question. Yes. I understand it. We're not applying for a grant just yet, but rather, uh, we're qualified now. Yes. We're eligible now. Um, again, I would have commented later, but there's two different things that we can, we can get technical assistance for up to 150,000, then a million dollars for, uh, specific grants, uh, such as decarbonization. But is it matching? Cause I think it's 10% matching. And the question is, where would we, do we have money in that? I know it's at the last minute here, but do we have money in that revolving fund that we want to put into the budget? Then it's sitting there if they need it for the grant. Yeah. I would have to get a response on that. Okay. This only was announced late last week. I know. I just, well, I just happened to read that today and was thinking, oh, maybe we need to do that. So that was one thing I wanted to ask. So would it be the consensus of the board is if that was the case and there was the money there and revolving fund, we would be willing to amend that article to just put it there. Yeah. I guess my preference would be to look at the specific project before we move some money around. Okay. Cause you only can move it once a year. Just so you know. Okay. Let's go on to the minutes then of March 9. Page 67. Thank you. I just got there. Um, do we have a motion, please? Happy to move the minutes for March 9th, 2026 as amended. Okay. Second. Okay. Great. None for me. I have one on, uh, a seven. Um, uh, the last sentence reads, no action was taken on the finance committee's request for a debt exclusion. Dollar question. Uh, would we say recommendation rather than request? Sure. That's all I had. Okay. On a six. Where it's paragraph starts. Be Kevin. The last sentence says, this was also supported by master EP. And I think it's Abraham's group, not Abrams, but Abraham's group. Somebody else smarter than I am will know better. But I think that's where it is. Um, I don't see anything else on that one myself. So, um, all those in favor. Bill. Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Motion passes three zero. Minutes of three 16. They are on page. Now what's the page number here? Uh, page 75. 75. 75. 75. Nice. Happy to move the minutes for March of the select board for March 16, 2026. Second. As amended. As amended. As amended. And second. Yes. Second. Anybody have any edits? I do not. Nope. Okay. And a three under the announcements. The last sentence says, um, K power spread reported. There would be an update on a recent, I believe it's transfer station survey. Not transportation. Then under the, um, a four, the last sentence. Under the a, it says it was a sense of the board for the police department to explore the recommendation relative to the speed on the bend and signage. Um, I thought we were asking, I'm not sure that's the, the sense was, we're going to have another traffic study or look at signage or what, what was, does that make sense to everybody else? Cause I wasn't sure it was clear to me. I defer. What do you think about bill? Does that make sense? Uh, well, I think the chief was asked to take a look at, at the, uh, concern that was expressed. So I think it's okay. Uh, it's okay. Again, I was going to allude to this madam chair, but we are working with the chief. He's going to conduct some additional speed monitoring and furtherance of this item, this previous agenda item. So we'll have more information to share with the board. So we're going forward and just following up. Okay. Maybe we could say rather than explore the recommendation, say, explore further. What was the phrase you just used, Michael? Further studies. Yeah. Or data gathering, uh, relative to the data gathering related to the speed on the bend and signage. Okay. That makes more sense to me. And having said that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Data and information gathering. Yep. Further. Okay. Um, Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Okay. So now we'll go back to the town managers report. Um, we don't have any further minutes. Just those two. Right. I think it's only those two. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. We're all set. So we're out in this packet. And I think. All right. So now we're listening to Mr. McCall. The floor is yours. Well, I think we've, uh, pretty much stolen. I'm sure. But, uh, good evening, Madam chair members of the board. I just wanted to comment as we previously, uh, discussed that the town did receive its climate leader community certification. We were one of seven that were just given that designation last week. There are only 35 in the Commonwealth, which means we, there's a small pool that we would be competing against. Uh, but we are eligible, as I said earlier for different types of grants, uh, 150,000 for technical assistance and up to a million for a certain type of decarbonization grants. I will follow up and look, uh, what the requirements are. I, I want to thank Julie Gagan, um, from our sustainability as well as the ECC for their work on this. Wanted to give a quick update on Snakebrook Dam. Um, we did vote on this last week to receive the grant, but we probably not a lot of people are watching that afternoon meeting. But I wanted to let people know that the town did get the FEMA hazard mitigation grant for the 1.4 million dollars, which will go along with the 800,000, uh, approximately that we received from the seawall and dam repair from the Commonwealth and the over $600,000 in ARPA funds to see this to completion. Um, many thanks go to Linda Hanson and conservation who initially put this application in and we need to thank Senator Markey's office, who I reached out to last year when we weren't getting any traction with FEMA. And despite the, the two shutdowns, Senator Markey's office was able to get this through at the, the 11th hour. And we received the award, as you know, last week, we immediately turned around the contract documents after that meeting and we received our notice to proceed last week. So we are going to be starting in the next couple of weeks, starting with tree removal. And then, uh, the project timeline is such that it should end by the end of this calendar year. If not the, uh, the final, um, demobilization would be in January of 2027. But all of this will be done in a timeline such that we will utilize those ARPA funds. Um, also, Madam Clerk, I, I just put their town building hours. We're going to be conducting a survey again with our folks internally. I'm going through collective bargaining and I had some questions about would we do a four day work week again in the summer. And there's been some additional questions about whether we would ever contemplating would contemplate doing that year round. But there's also been some questions about, uh, the late night that we have here at town hall. We've been asking, uh, various departments to track how many people come in on our late night, which is, is Monday and it has been traditionally. And we're finding that we do not get an awful lot of foot traffic. And some of the unions have asked whether or not they could reduce, um, some of their, um, break time in an effort to shorten the, have the traditional eight to five or eight to four Monday through Thursday and still keep a shorter day on Friday. It's something I'm looking at. We're going to do some additional, um, uh, surveys and I'll bring a suggestion back to the board. Um, and I also wanted to get board input at a future meeting what they thought traditionally, or if they would have any opposition to us, um, eliminating the late night. Um, we find most people are utilizing the remote meetings and we're making progress with our online permitting. So we're seeing less and less foot traffic. Um, my next office hours would be April 6 here in the town offices, select board meeting room at 530. And, uh, just a couple items since, uh, we've last met that I wanted to just touch upon as was alluded to earlier. Um, our staff, uh, Tom Holder, specifically in his staff, Abby Charette, they did a wonderful job at the appeal last week, um, in an effort to get, uh, reconsideration on our efforts to get 0% funding for the, the, um, SRF financials for the MWRA project. Uh, we have, as was alluded to earlier, we, we got a letter from representative Gentile. We've been, I've contacted representative Linsky's office and we had great support from Senator Eldridge last week. Um, at the request of the FinCom chair, Mr. Judas, I did reach out to the Lieutenant governor's office, hoping to get some support there as well. Uh, and we're very optimistic that we'll get some favorable action. I also wanted to give you a quick update. Uh, I've been working with the finance director due to the, uh, significant snowstorms we've had this winter. We have experienced approximately $640,000, uh, overage in our snow and ice. We are working to try and close that, um, shortfall. And so I had been talking to staff here about using their discretion about, uh, their remaining expenses for the balance of the fiscal year. But I may be looking more at a spending freeze for certain departments in the last three months of the year to ensure that we can, uh, pull from enough, uh, into the year budgets to satisfy this shortfall. Um, many communities found themselves in a similar position where we've been, uh, experiencing warmer and warmer winters for the last couple of years. And then this, um, caught a lot of people off guard. And as you know, we had several large storms and a lot of ice events. So we had to put our trucks and our personnel out on numerous occasions, which the overtime just exceeded our snow and ice budget. So, uh, continue to work on that and I'll continue to keep the board apprised of, of how that is going. But even, even our own, the town manager's office and the select board, our expense accounts are, are getting lean. And we may just have to tell folks that come at the end of the year, looking for some money for, um, uh, events and things that, uh, they just have to wait till after July 1 because we're going to have such a tight time, um, finding money to satisfy that shortfall. And that's all I have, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Um, does anybody have any, any follow up questions here for, um, the town manager on his report? Well, Michael, with respect to a decision, uh, from the state revolving fund, do we anticipate that prior to the town meeting? Uh, I would have to clarify with Mr. Holder. I don't know what the timeline is. The, the appeal period essentially ended last week, but that the email traffic that I saw the other day there, they allowed in, um, the Senator's letter after the fact. And I'm hoping if we can get anything from the governor, that will be allowed. So, uh, I know they're reviewing it. I, I would, I would hope we could get an answer before town meeting, um, if not in the next week to two. And I, I can, uh, alert the board as soon as I get any additional information. Thank you. Um, I had a question about the snow and the ice. You know, I think I had read somewhere or maybe we had reported another time that the governor was looking to possibly find funding, whether it was federal or whatever to, um, disperse among the towns and the cities. Because everybody had an overage in the snow and ice. Is there anything on tap that you know about on that? I do know that there are some public safety funds that we can apply for, but unfortunately they won't come in, in, in time for the end of this fiscal year. I know the, the fire chief who is our emergency management director has applied for, for some reimbursement, um, relative to some of their overtime. I will continue, uh, to, to, to look, uh, and see what we can get. But some of this, by the time you apply, uh, we'll be lucky to get it before the end of the year, but we'll, we'll endeavor to get as much as we can back. Madam chair. I'm sure we will. I'm sure we will. Thank you very much. So Tom, did you have any questions or you're all set? You was, I think it was mentioned earlier in the meeting, but, um, Mr. Tom manager, can you tell us again, the money that, um, will be saved? Um, it's already been appropriated by time meeting for the snake book jam. That will be going where? Since we don't need to spend it. Um, so the grant is a reimbursable grant. So we'll have to expend the monies that were provided, but we will get the $1.4 million back. And that came from the real estate reserve fund. So we will not be returning this. It should come back, um, when we do next year, um, recap, probably it may come in through the general fund, but we should reallocate that back to a reserve. Rather than use it for operating expenses. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. So I believe I see Miss Tenisi here. So Becky, I recognize you. Um, is Miss Kelly joining us? Do you know Becky? Yeah, she is not. She's at the Wayland can event tonight that, uh, also at. So yeah. Okay. Hang on. Just one second here. I had also had gotten an email or a text from Miss Brinsley who said she would be joining us for this topic, but I just looked, I don't see her. If anybody sees her in the list, uh, let me know. Otherwise. All right. So we had, um, met with the EDC back in December and then, um, some of us were lucky enough to be going somewhere where there wasn't so much snow and on overtime nights and said, we'll get together again in February. And then since then, we've been a little bit out straight with articles. So, um, matter of fact, we haven't been able to meet with any of our, um, advisor groups. And we're going to meet with the EDC tonight and ECC the next time. And then we went after that HRDEI because we, uh, weren't able to do that in February as we had anticipated. So, so anyways, um, I can have had a couple of conversations. I know she's spoken with Tom who's a liaison and, um, we've come to the, the, um, the thought it's easier probably to just have the chair or one or two members of the committee come around and then create joint meetings, which is, which I think is fine for us. But I wanted to explain why it was just a one-on-one tonight versus the joint committee. Cause in the past we've had the joint committee meetings. So, um, the floor is yours, Becky. Did you want to, um, do the screen share on your slide? The slide is in our packet. This is similar to the one we saw in December. And, um, somebody helped me out. I know the page 61, 61 in the main packet. Yeah. Sorry. I thought that Robbie would have it up. Let me open it up for a moment. Let's see. Um, do, do, do, do, do, do. Bring it up if you can't. There we go. There we go. All right. So I can, oh, do you guys have it or I can share? You can share. Okay. So. There we go. Okay. Can you see my screen? Yes. Thank you. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So this was a summary from our last meeting, which was December 15th. So now it was three and a half months ago. Um, and we'd update it on the left hand side. And again, if there's any further comments on our efforts that we were doing with the FinCom, happy to, um, receive those comments and thoughts. Um, but the key is really on the right hand side. Um, on the left hand side, we had actually had an infographic and an email. You guys had discussed it, I think like a month ago, um, just to try to shake that one loose. And I think at that point, you guys had basically said, you know, Tom can work as our liaison and basically be that main connection. Um, just so we're not held up, um, you know, waiting for select board. You guys are so busy. Um, so we will coordinate through Tom, who then will coordinate with Michael. Um, so the right hand column is kind of just a, a check in and just letting you know where these same, these items stand. Um, and so with these, they were specifically on this list, just because we had wanted to highlight that it is interacting with town staff. It's not looking for any money necessarily. It's just interacting, um, with town staff on certain issues. So the top one is a town center playground. Um, just globally town center is really getting their sea legs. They've got some great ideas. So town center playground started at the EDC before, you know, it even traded, even sold from Zurich. And so it was really the idea of getting activity going at town center, just any activity and we can control the prey of the, uh, the town green. They're planning a lot of stuff. Um, they are not planning a playground. They, um, you know, first question, would you be willing to pay for it? They're obviously not going to pay for it, but they are willing to have their designer work on it. They have a great landscape designer who's looking at Alyssa Ave, looking at everything they're doing on site. Um, so they've offered that up, um, for them to be able to look at the town center playground. So at this point, just to be crystal clear, there is no ask of the, of the select board to designate, um, use of the town green. There's no ask for designation of funds. It's really exploratory so that we can pull together information to bring to the select board. Um, and the intent is not to use town capital funds. We would only look to potentially CPA, which is clearly a heavy recreation bent. Um, if funds are available there and then potentially doing sort of a public private fundraising. So it's really keeping it very responsible. And, um, ultimately as we get the information working with, you know, asking questions of recreation, really understand the environmental. Um, because clearly this new designer won't, we need to make sure that we all understand that. Maintenance costs land use requirements. So it's debt preliminary information to feed into it. Um, and so as we talk through, we clearly will be coordinating with Tom and ultimately, uh, bringing this information from some of these departments to be able to input into the process, the design process. So again, no firm commitments, everything is exploratory at this point, um, to figure out something that may happen on town green. And also to clarify, it's not, the playground would not take over the entire town green. It's literally using one side of it because that town green was always designed that that center area would be used for larger gatherings, for music, for even a skating rink type of thing. Um, so it's definitely on the periphery. It doesn't, it doesn't take over. So how can we craft something that is cost effective, that would be palatable to the select board in the town that works within the whole town center, um, uh, universe that they'll have going on over there. Um, shared streets is the next one. And so this as a reminder is the just over a hundred thousand dollar grant that Sarki got back in 2021 or 22, um, literally during COVID to activate, uh, either private or public streets, usually public streets. But in this case got the award for private street. Um, and it is to shut down Alyssa Avenue between Andrew Avenue, kind of where X golf is that intersection to the end, just the two blocks where, um, the old to car location and Giacomo's is. So as you may recall, we went far down the road with Zurich to get this done almost to final stages of use agreement. We had put out the bid documents, everything was good to go, and then Zurich put it on hold because they were selling the property. So at this point, Graffitos and their, the new ownership team, they love the concept, very much want to lean into it, want to move forward with it. So we are working with them to clarify their updated layout, um, their quantity and what would be looking for in a bid package to be able to put together with Kelsey as an update, um, and then also updating the use agreement. So that is in process. Um, and so one of the things with town center Graffito, they would love to come see you guys and give you an overall update on everything they're doing on site. Um, and what was suggested was perhaps you guys are so busy, particularly between now and town meeting. Um, maybe it's just 10 or 15 minutes to look ahead and then potentially right after town meeting, having a joint meeting, perhaps with the select board and the planning board, just because it's overall town center. A lot of the different pieces and parts, um, at the beginning, it may be more temporary use things. It would be more select board. Eventually, as they settle in and figure things out like next fall and spring, it may morph into planning board. So it'd be great to kind of have everybody in it together from the beginning. So, um, Carol, you and I talked about a little bit, if it's possible just to get them on your next meeting for literally 10 or 15 minutes, just to set the table and then potentially set up a joint meeting right after town meeting. When everybody can kind of settle down and take a breath and either early or mid May. I don't know when your first meeting is, um, right after town meeting. Are you asking me? Yeah. So just, if you can kind of put that in your scheduling, that would be terrific. Um, I have them tentatively for when I told you, I thought I had them on my list. I didn't have my list with me. I, I have them on for, um, April 27th. We have the warrant hearing that night, but then they could come in next. The next meeting we have, as I've mentioned a couple of times, we have the form for the 25 holiday road. Um, and we also have, um, the ECC and the facilities director coming in for a number of things. So they would end at the, I think the 27th sounds good. I was going to ask the board if they liked that day, but anyway, yeah. All right. So on the shared streets, can I ask one quick question? Sure. Go right ahead. Thanks. Um, or did you want to just finish first? Oh, no, go ahead. We might as well in stride. It's just easier. So, so really a weird question here is it's a hundred grand, $100,000 grant. And you're right. We did have it for a while. Yeah. We have to do an agreement. Right. And just to refresh everyone's memory. Like I think some of the board members will remember, but perhaps the, um, maybe those who are listening aren't, you know, um, we got the grant and it provides. It's helping out here tables and chairs and. And she's. Yeah. It's basically outdoor, movable outdoor furnishings. If you think about during COVID, it was activating a lot of the curves and doing outdoor restaurant seating and things like that. Um, the original plan from Zurich was actually having outdoor seating for both Giacomo's and Takara. They're actually thinking about doing something a little bit differently, which they'll get into. So that's why. And again, so when they need, and especially with the planning board joint meeting, they can kind of walk through that whole layout, which is really exciting because it will support a lot of programming. So just stepping back, the grant is from the state to the town. The town has to buy the furniture. The use agreement basically allows us to access the site, deliver the furnishings. And at that point we wash our hands of it. They basically lease it for a dollar a year. They have all maintenance, all storage, all liability, all everything. We have nothing. Um, and at the end of the day, at the end of the contract, um, you know, and this meets this end of useful life, then we have first dibs to the furniture. If we want to keep it, if not, then they have to dispose of it. So it really gets us out of the middle of all of that, which if you remember in the way back machine, Louise and Sarki went around the bend for a long time with Zurich about insurance and how the, you know, how it's town furniture and private land. And it was crazy. That's just the easiest way we just deliver it, drop it. And they take it from there, which is terrific. So. Okay. Yeah. I think it's good to have that back. I don't know, Bill, you were here when we discussed it before. So I just thought it would be good for us. And if you're just listening, maybe you need your mind refreshed up a bit. Um, and so I think that you're working on the agreement. Okay. Yep. Yep. Thank you. So all of the stuff again with town center is extremely exciting. It's great. They have really hit the ground running. They're going to have a lot of really good things to present. Um, you know, in the joint meeting, lots of great news will be coming out of there. So it's, it's terrific to see. So we'd love to try to get this furniture out there as soon as possible. Um, but do we have to, we do have to go through the bid process and Kelsey hopefully is opening up. She was hoping sort of about this timeframe that she had a lot in her queue. She had to get through. So as soon as she frees up, we'd love to get that, that bid package going. So. Okay. Um, yeah. So next, sorry. Was anything else on that, Carol? I think I'm going on that. Anybody have any questions on the mechanics of that? I know Tom remembers it, but, um, it is a very interesting because once we. Pass through, that's it, it's done. Yep. So the route 20 cleanup with property owners, we had done a whole survey, a photo survey and kind of a whole chart of route 20 cleanup, knowing that terrain is going to open and Duncan's about to open last fall. We really did a photo inventory of all the commercial properties along route 20 corridor. And there's a lot of cleanup that can happen. Um, at the time, if you remember, Duncan was pretty much overgrown with like three feet by weeds. And, you know, that was sort of the annoying thing, but there are a lot of things that are either minor code violations or just being a good neighbor. Um, there shouldn't be temporary signs. There shouldn't be blade signs. There are signs that are out there that weren't approved by the planning board and look like they're painted plywood and there are abandoned vehicles. And, you know, there's a lot of things and there's almost something at almost every single property. So the intent is to go out with letters to all the property owners, right? Nobody's being singled out. It's really, let's all come together and kind of clean up the corridor. So some of it is building code. Some of it is more Michael, your office potentially. So at this point, we're just wanting to coordinate and step forward and start doing this. We're happy to play whatever rule you'd like. We can hand over the database. If you guys have bandwidth to do it, or we can literally queue up the letters, work with you guys and be able to, you know, take on some of the heavy lifting you need to. So we'll coordinate you with you, Michael. And then ultimately with Nate, just checking in on the building department issues. But ultimately we'd love to try to get that out the door so that people can get it cleaned up with Duncan potentially opening up in a couple of weeks and, you know, terrain will start taking shape and it being really nice to get some of this stuff cleaned up this summer. So that is the Route 20 cleanup with property owners. It is also, that's kind of segues in, is outreach to these property owners because of the curb cut and sidewalk engineering. So one of the parts that, if you recall, funds were approved at last year's town meeting. Tom Holder was really tied up between MWRA and, you know, the bridge project, like everything, right? And so his timeframe, his bandwidth has opened up a little bit. So part of that is trying to get that one moving because part of that is then reaching out to some of these private property owners because part of the curb cut sidewalks, the process is literally reaching out to every single property owner. So it's just kind of good to start that conversation with Route 20 cleanup and then ideally being able to dovetail into future stuff with curb cut and sidewalk engineering. So hopefully these property owners will feel like there's good progress and seeing interesting things happening. So we can also self-clean and then be looking ahead at future efforts in the corridor. Should be good conversations to have with those private property owners. The meals tax growth, 2026. This we've been talking about. This is also a favorite issue of Robert Hummel. A lot of towns and communities use meals tax to encourage their commercial districts to potentially have grant programs or to target spending that clean up commercial districts. So we understand that, you know, our meals tax has always gone into general revenue to date. So the intent is not to change that flow. But in 2026, all of a sudden we will be adding terrain. We'll be adding Duncan and Jimmy John's. We'll be adding townhouse. Like these things will be added in and there may be some significant meals tax. It may be, you know, in the range of 50, 60 grand. It's not suddenly, you know, we only collect right now three to 400,000. So it's not going to be a massive bonanza. But targeting those types of funds to improve our commercial districts could make a huge difference. So all we're doing in this regard is working with Robert and researching other towns and cities, what they do, how they potentially handle the funds. I know, Carol, that was your question, you know, is this, you know, how is this managed? Can it actually be targeted? How do other towns do it? So we're just exploring that and working with Robert in that regard so that we can come back and give you some good feedback on that front. And then the last one is exploring a postgame poll for permitting. We, as everybody knows, not speaking out of school, everyone kind of has this idea that Waylon has a reputation of being difficult to do development in. So part of that is really doing sort of a self-survey. What's going on? What's happening right with our permitting? What may be going wrong? Now a lot of it's online, which is great. We'll solve a lot of things. But we do have some big projects just coming through our process. So it's terrain, it's townhouses, Duncan, other ones will be coming. So how do we develop a survey so that when they reach completion and get their CEO, can they take a quick survey and just give us some feedback? What went well? Maybe what went wrong? What could be improved so that we can have that kind of real time feedback? So Needy, who is a new member of EDC, she's really interested in this as a topic. And so ultimately there's no fixed timeline for this, but it's just a thought process of let's start thinking this through and potentially be able to get some good feedback now and going forward from some of the people who have gone through our permitting process to see how we can improve in the future. This has always been a topic, EDC, and it's always been a question of how to address it. So it's always good to just have data and ultimately be able to work with and be able to provide good information to the building department instead of just saying, well, people said it was tough. Like, it's always helpful to have that real feedback to get some real results. So that's just happening in the background. It's kind of interesting pace and we can kind of take it as we can and coordinate along the way as we think about rolling it out. So it's just a hint here of what we're thinking about in upcoming months to be pursuing relatively, I don't know, if we could catch terrain, they'll be done in August, September. So if we can kind of look ahead, that might be a good timeframe this fall to be able to roll it out. So it's just at this point, purely informational and potentially looking around to what other towns have done and thinking through what some of those questions might be. So with all of those, those are all of the kind of reaching out to town departments and otherwise. So we will absolutely follow the lead of Michael and ultimately their staff and what they have bandwidth for. As much as they want to take on, that's great. As much as they want us to step up, we're happy to do so. So we will coordinate in that regard. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much. I'm going to open this up, I guess, for some questions and some comments. I will say this, that I think that we are trying to have a more collaborative or two way communication with our advisory committees. This is why we've established that expanded charge, you know, where we have a liaison kind of is more available to the person. You know, there's going to be some bumps on the road here as we roll that out. But so far, we've only had it in place for a couple of months. I know I mentioned to you that we, the town manager's time is limited and we are trying to push, remove him from, you know, the front end line and receiving by default because of the enthusiasm, you know, emails, you know, regularly from every member on the committee, that kind of thing. Which is why we kind of established this expanded charge. And as he will say, even said it to us last week, is these are our advisory committees and therefore they should be, you know, advising us. So anyways, but anyway, Tom, did you want to speak for us? Or Bill, maybe you, because you haven't had a chance here, so. No, this is very helpful. Good update. Thank you. And Tom? Sure. Let me start by saying how impressed I am with members of the EDC. I mean, the backgrounds of these individuals really are extraordinary. And our board should not underutilize this committee. I mean, there's just a lot of talent and they bring a lot to the table. To you, Michael, Mr. Tom, manager is relative to Becky and her committee's desire to kind of work with staff to get information and in order to make recommendations to our board. Practically speaking, logistically, how do you recommend that? Like, did Becky send an email to them and copy you and me as liaison? Or, because I know you're very appropriately protective of the staff's time and their energy. So, practically speaking, do you have any thoughts on that issue? Well, thank you. And I do enjoy working with the EDC. They come forward with a lot of good ideas. Sometimes things are happening so fast I don't always know when things are going on. But we've worked previously with Zurich on trying to get that shared streets done. So, I'm glad that the new owners over there are as motivated as they are. That being said, one of the main things, not only to protect the staff, but it's also to protect the process. So, I have to not any one specific advisory committee, but to most of them, if they come to me, I generally say, just make sure you're keeping your liaison or your, you know, the select board apprised. You know, I have no problem looking at things. There's, you know, there's certain times where it's just information gathering, but when it starts to, you know, let's, let's sit down with somebody and make a deal or, or, or do something. I want to make sure that the boards involved, at least the liaison and knowing what we're up to. So, that, so I like the liaison being involved. Yeah. So, my recommendation practically then is, like, if you want to reach out to a staff person, just, you know, reach out to them, say, hey, this select board kind of gave me authority to reach out to you. I'm copying town manager and the liaison so they know, and then, and have your, your subject matter and your ask pretty well defined so that their, their time is truly valued. The next topic is, is, is the issue of the curb cut. As I understand it, there's money that's been allocated, but it's just a matter of an okay, or am I missing something here, Becky? Yeah. So, $250,000 was approved last year to start the curb cut and sidewalk engineering. We know it's going to be more than that, but it's a longer than one year process. So, that was approved at last year's town meeting, just with time constraints. And Tom Holder is really the expert on this. And so, really, it takes his, his attention. And he's just been, he's been strapped, right? So, we waited until after the first of the year, and then it's just kind of gearing up. There was some discussion about a Route 20 task force. Ultimately, at this point, we just need to get the curb cut and sidewalk engineering going. Every month that we wait is another month that we're not on the tip list on the other end. So, at this point, you know, we, we, the funds are there to last us. Essentially, we would go to next town meeting and request the rest of it, but we really do need to get it going. And again, the genesis is, we need to have fully engineered curb cut and sidewalk plans to get on the state tip list. The transportation improvements project, because it is a state road, the state will pay for it. But we have to have fully engineered drawings in order to get on that wait list. And it may take us, Michael, what, five, six, seven years to get off of that. And maybe with some political oomph, we can move ourselves up. But we can't even get on the list if we, if we don't get the engineering done. So, that's definitely a push to get that done if we can, as soon as possible. So, are we talking basically an RFP or a, that Tom Holder's involved in and town staff's involved in? Is that what, is that what we're talking here? Yes. So, we had talked with Tom Holder. It really is, you know, he would be the shepherd of it. But he was saying, you know, maybe we set up a small working group and just be able to get the RFP off the dime, depending on where the Route 20 task force goes. But let's get the RFP going. A huge group of people isn't really going to inform a whole lot as to the RFP. It's very technical. These are engineering services. So, you know, the next step is to work with Tom Holder to get that RFP pulled together and be able to get it on the street for an engineering, engineering firms to bid. Yeah. I mean, if we did that soon, it seems to me it would be a good step in our board, our select board meeting its goal of moving development of Route 20 along. Yes. Yes. I'll just say that. And regarding the polling, just so I'm clear, your idea is that when individuals, whether it be corporations, you know, builders or residents have experiences with departments, primarily board of health, planning, conservation. When they're done there, their involvement with the town, they have an opportunity if they wanted to, strictly voluntary to complete a poll. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I got to tell you, I really like the idea. It really permits people, people's voice to be heard. It also improves quality control. So I just, I just voice that. I leave it up to town manager to mull it over, but I do like that idea. That's all I have. Thank you. Bill, did you want to add something else now? I love you too. With respect to the engineering services, I think I recall a conversation with Tom Holder a year or two ago with respect to this. And I think he was indicating that it was not merely sidewalks and curbs, but there is also an interest in replacing some of the storm drains that might be something that the state would do. So I'm a little unclear as to whether the scope is confined to sidewalks and curbs or whether it would also be for other utilities. Presumably, you know, as soon as you have curb cuts and curbs themselves and you get into drainage, right? So these are fully engineered plans. So, Michael, I don't know how much they cover, but it's my understanding. It's like the entire roadway. So if some, if you insert curbs and you need drainage, it's all part and parcel. I know Tom has been thinking about, you know, what about our utilities in the road? Before we get this beautifully paved nirvana, you want to make sure that your water lines are good. And, you know, through Alta Oxbow, we were able to get those upgraded. But, you know, what about wastewater? We should just make sure that our utilities are in good shape so that those get set in place before we get, you know, the big state monies and get the improvements done. So they probably wouldn't do our utilities, but, you know, you get in line and you try to get as much of that paid for as you can. But it's my understanding. It's sort of it's the whole roadway. They own the road. They own the road. They own the shoulder. So they own the drainage. They own like it's all part of that roadway. So presumably be part of the whole tip request. Does that sound right, Michael? Yes. And I have heard Tom say, you know, we want to ensure that if we're going to get this done, that we have our sewer lines, water lines, utilities all up to date. Yep. Yep. And start for the engineering. So that's your point. It does. It does. So you got hopped into on. Are you all set? Do you have another question? No, that's fine. Thank you. Okay, you're welcome. So I think that a couple of things here is we have said, you know, I actually was planning on doing this like in a couple of meetings, go for all the things that we've kind of got half started. And one of them is we wanted to meet with the folks at the town center. So as you heard me say earlier, I, I've tentatively scheduled them and if they're available for the meeting on the 27th, because I think we'd like to, you know, meet with them. We've said we want to meet with them about two, three weeks, a couple of meetings ago. So that's moving up then. So, but that's just a short piece. So is there, can there, can we schedule a follow up or are you getting to that? Can I just hold on a second? Thank you. Okay. Where's my new button there? I need my gavel. So sometimes I'm doing that and then we'll see where we go from there to have a little conversation. And Becky has some ideas, but I think Michael has some ideas why they would like to have them come in. And I think that we probably have some ideas. So we'll see if we can't get them all done in the same meeting.
Becky and I were going back and forth about doing the joint meetings is what we haven't done is we've received information from the EDC, but we haven't then gone back like we do with other information. And in a future meeting, the next meeting or the meeting after is deliberate on what we've received and, you know, and then see what actions we want to take. So I think that's what I'm going to do is put this list of things, you know, on our hope. I don't know if I can do it the 13th, but we'll get it in as soon as we can, because we're trying to get through telemeeting here. So I think that's one thing we, we probably want to do. Um, I think the other thing is that we need to did you've brought up. It just wasn't clear to me until like yesterday is that when we talk and cause you've presented a playground concept to us a couple of times and we've seen them and we've seen some numbers. Um, I'd like to have those come back so we can look at that as part of our deliberation. But I also think as a bigger picture at play here is, is that we haven't done. And I think you've jogged my memory, at least is there. We really, I think need to sit down and decide what we would like to do with that parcel and as a whole, and then say, okay, this is going to be this or this is going to be that or whatever it is that we're thinking. And I don't know if the board thinks that that's would be a good exercise for us to do as well. Can you explain that again, Kevin? The whole, the whole municipal parcel that we, municipal green and the town green we have at the town center, you know, we've never really sat down and said, what do we want to do with this parcel as a whole? You know, what do we want in there? Do we envision a playground? Do we envision a, I know you had brought a splash pad before, but we weren't keen on that, but you know, do we envision having a stage there or an amphitheater or what do we envision having there? A gazebo or whatever I've heard over the years, I can't remember all the eyes. So I think we should probably sit down and have a look at that and say, and actually, it was my other ideas. I think it would be wonderful. And I know you're not necessarily going to cause you think of playgrounds, but what, maybe you could come up with a list or the EDC could come up with a list of things we could do with that parcel. Provide this for that. I think that would be wonderful. Like Tom says, you're very creative, you get a lot of good ideas. And so maybe you'd have some, you know, maybe you say, hey, we should do pop ups there. I don't know. So I think, does anybody know how big that parcel is? Oh, I don't know exactly how many square feet. But I think to that end, Carol is sort of, you know, the question is, what's the size of the playground? Where does it go? And I think having the, having the designer look at that, I think the first step is literally looking at the whole and saying, what are your options? Almost exactly what you're saying. You kind of start there. And then where we were originally the playground, is that the right spot for it? It might not be right. So I think the first step with that designer would be exactly what you're talking about. Let's look at the overall, what are the pieces and parts? And does that make sense? And then from there, then take the playground from there. Like it doesn't make sense to design a playground if it's going to shift around because that, that park is, you know, it has the undulation. It's very specific. So you almost have to kind of let that settle first and then kind of design from there. So I think with that as a directive, I think it makes perfect sense that we can work with their designer and come up with options. And then go from there. So what I'm saying is I'd like the board to have an opportunity to deliberate as a board on some of these points. So I think we're going to, I'm going to, I see Tom sort of shaking his head. I'm suggesting that's what we do. Take these points. Because we haven't really had a lot of time to just put into them and come up with a plan. So I think that's one thing where I'm thinking. And I will say this on the meals tax thing, Becky, the only thing with this, I have to tell you, a wealth lead has done this. Every time a new thing comes up, they've earmarked it. And now they are trying to undo the earmarks because they're finding it's causing too much restrictions on their budgeting. So I think we would have to get, I understand the concept. I think we would have to get input from Michael and Brian on that before we embarked on that commercial. We'll get all kinds of information from other towns. You know, a lot of it is just seeing how other people have done it, because I've heard the same thing in Ashland. They had designated everything and they clawed some back. So we'll, we'll find out all that and we'll, we'll present the information. And so we can kind of get their sense. I think that's Wellfleet's problem that we're in the process of clawing and having a problem clawing. It's over there. It's hard to get it back. So, all right. I thank you so much for coming. I don't know if, Kelsey and Michael, would you like to, you know, have a question or a comment here? No? Bill and Tom, you're all set? All set. Thank you, Becky. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. All right. Have a good night. Bye-bye. Now, somebody is going to just confirm with me. I think that we are on select those reports and concerns. Everybody agree? Is that where I am? That's correct. That's correct. Look at this right on schedule. So, Mr. Whitney. I am all set. Thank you. Mr. Fay. I'm all set. I'm all set. Thank you. Okay. So, I kind of touched on a couple of things I just want to recap here is that the League will reach out to us about some articles, whatever they have in the day. I don't know when the date is, or I would tell you. You know when they have that. Last year was all Zoom. I don't know if it's going to be in Zoom this year or not. I did want to recap a couple of things here. We are going to have that forum on the Holiday Road on the 13th. I think, Bill, may I reach out to you about, you know, what do we need? Do we need any exhibits? Do we need handouts? Do we need anything for that meeting? How you want it structured? So. Sure. Does that sound okay? We'll chat about that. Yeah. I thought maybe you could take the lead on that when we get to that. Um, I know it has been, um, we've sent out a, um, um, press release on that. So I think we're all set on that. I told you we're meeting with the moderator. We are also going to have on the 13th. We're having, um, Mr. Fair is scheduled to come in and speak to us about the insight on site town wide, um, facilities, um, asset inventory that we did. And in particular, you know, start the discussion of the town, you know, the issues we have with the town building that we've been trying to get scheduled. We're going to meet, uh, and we'll, um, do those kinds of things. And then on the 27th, we'll have the warrant hearing and we will have, um, I'm hoping we can meet with the owners of the town center. So hopefully that makes everybody think we're right on target with some of the things that we're looking at. And, um, with that, I'll take a motion to adjourn. So moved. Exactly. 8 53. Thank you. Okay. Okay. All those in favor. Bill. Yes. Tom. Yes. Carol. Yes. Thank you very much. I will see everybody on the 13th. Thank you. Thank you all. See you.