April 27, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
April 27, 2026 - Select Board
as chair of the select board i'm going to call tonight's meeting to order this is monday april
27 2026 and at 6 0 2 p.m we are meeting in the town building and in particular in the uh former
coa right i think it's called the whaling commons now and meeting is both in person and remote
access pursuing um to chapter two of the acts of 2025 this meeting will be conducted in person
and via remote access and in accordance with african law one may watch or participate either
in person or remotely with the meeting link that can be found on the select board agenda or if you
go into the whaling town calendar on the web page you'll find that link there as well this meeting
may be recorded and if recorded it will be made available to the public on wakeham as soon as
possible after the meeting public will be excluded from tonight's executive session
you
when required by law or allowed by the chair persons wishing to provide public comment
or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so via um in person or remote access
public comment should be limited to two minutes per person please note i'm going to read the
agenda please note the agenda item times are approximate and items may not be discussed in
the order of the times listed all topics may be subject to discussion
deliberation and vote so we're having a call to order we're going to review the agenda for the
public followed by announcements and public comment afterwards we will enter into executive
session to discuss a strategy with respect to litigation on 16 whispering lane discuss strategy
respect to litigation fire truck price fixing cost recovery uh discuss strategy with respect
to the various collective bargaining units to bring the town we're currently under negotiation
and then we will look at reviewing and approving the executive session minutes march 2nd and march 9 20
27 26 with the intent to hold said minutes we anticipate that we will then return to open
session at about 6 40 p.m uh we will have um a quick discussion on the assuring bridge load traffic
study we will have that followed by the town manager's report our consent calendar the minutes
of march 30th uh 2026.
i don't think the minutes of april 13th were there but they are we will um look at those as well and
at 7 15 we will hold tonight's 26th annual town meeting warrant hearing where we will review page
by page the warrant hearing that we will be looking at and voting on next week i don't know
why that's doing that um afterwards we will meet with the town center owners to discuss plans and
next steps meet and have a meeting with the human rights diversity academy inclusion
committee possibly 910 we will discuss and review the potential to vote on the 25th
holiday advisory committee charge uh we do the real trying to make rail trail informational
science that we're creating that is fabulous review correspondence clear select boards members
reports and concerns topics reasonably anticipated by the chair 48 hours in advance and with any
luck we will adjourn at 9 40. i do want to say that during the committee meeting we will have a
very Boardroom meeting next week and for any other questions we don't have time to difficult
to get to the end the first
webinars that i'm be
so we will hold the affiliate drugiej
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the cv in the meeting room wasBecause Wesley This decade as the new and Mr. Whitney myself, I'm Carol Martin. We're also dry, my town manager and Michael, Some of the evening visits just then as the main meeting room this was brensley mr. van m bem panels twenty and when is does only and online we have our system, wirứcli and online we have our system Tom managerutta leaving this case it's Kasey and a lot of so I got everybody so the first order of the business year here is.
announcements? Does anyone have any announcements?
As many of you may not know, this is Anne Brensley's
last meeting, town meeting. I just
want to say what a pleasure it's been to serve with you the past
three years. Your background
has made a real difference in our deliberations, your
professionalism, your commitment to the town.
I really appreciate the last three minutes.
I do my comment. Thank you. I'm sorry? I was going to make my comment, which is thank you so much for saying that. That's really meaningful. And I knew that this role, I wanted to come in and I had specific goals really that I was focused in on. And I feel like a lot of those we were successful at. And I learned so much. And can I tell you the one thing I really, really learned? Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. The one thing that I would say that I really learned, because from a private sector standpoint, you know, this is my first influence on the public sector. And I just remember at some point, Tom, there was, we were all talking about a specific issue and you wanted to make sure that everybody was going to be addressed and that the issue would be something that we all considered every person in some way, shape, or form. And it changed how I looked at things because in the private sector, sometimes if you're not going to be able to accomplish one specific thing or there's one group that's not working out well, you focus on the rest. You take the majority, you take the bigger win. And I remember thinking, oh, we have to account for it and care about every single group, even if they're the minority, even if it's going to be something that makes the entire process a little bit more difficult. And that really changed how I looked at them. It really, really did. And I realized that you always have to address everybody. And that's different than in the private sector, you know. So it was really impactful. So thank you. Thank you. My turn. Yes, that's fine.
I want to echo Tom's sentiments and say that I first got to know Ann during her campaign for the C3 plus years ago. And what most impressed me about her is I had always shared my advice and the way that I thought things worked well in Wayland. And Ann always did things her way. And her way turned out to pan out for her very well more times than not. And I very much appreciated all of the input over the years, especially when I had the opportunity to serve alongside you over these last couple of years. As much as you say you've learned, we've all learned a lot from you as well. And we wish you the best of luck in Mazel Tov this past Saturday. I know.
Mr. Whitney. Well, I'd like to add my thanks to you, Ann. For those of my colleagues, you've brought an important perspective with your private sector background. I particularly appreciate your real estate acumen. And while we are suffering a grievous loss of another lawyer, you really have contributed importantly to the deliberations in court. So I have my thanks to those of my colleagues. The problem going last is, you know, everybody said everything. So we hit it off from day one, and then we went at the monthly cultural festival. I think it was like the second year they had it, and we were having such fun doing that. And she says to me, oh, wait a minute, I have to go over here and get them food because we don't have a kitchen in our house. I said, what happened? Oh, we've just been redoing it for like 95 years. I said, oh, I would never last for years. But that's you. You just go along and bounce them everything, and then you come to these, and you provide an incredible perspective, especially this real estate background. We are going to miss that skill set. Really enjoyed working with you, Ann. We will miss you. So thank you. Thank you. Michael McCall, what you guys have done, it's been just amazing to watch you guys come together as a team, for you to build your team, and then really just take the role, start controlling the role, and become somebody that people can just depend on. I mean, you can't ask for more than, hey, I know I can depend on Michael, and your team. But thank you. Well, thank you. And I would just say, Madam Sheriff, it's been a pleasure working with you as well, because it does take a team, and I looked at the five of us together with my staff who've worked on all these issues, and I've had buy-in and support from the board, including from you, on some of these initiatives, and I think that's how we've been able to succeed. So thank you. So this gives me a wonderful segue to remind you, to remind everybody, the rest of the announcements, is that tomorrow, of course, we are voting. We're voting right here in the gym, our four precincts, and it's our local election, so we'll elect some new officials, including a new select board member who will be joining us after town meeting. So, which is the next item, next Monday night, we will be meeting in the Fieldhouse at the high school for town meeting. We have 40, I think it's 40 articles now, is it 41? 41 articles we're going to be discussing. A lot of them are, we'll talk a little bit about this a little bit later, but a lot of them are really quick housekeeping items. So, although we hope we would be finished on one night, we're pretty sure we may be there too, so please mark your calendars for Monday and Tuesday night, and town meeting starts at 630. So, anybody else have any announcements? Okay, we're good, so we'll go on to public comment. Is there, let me know if there's anyone on the... line, and is there anybody, Ms. Shuler, anybody in the room who would like to speak?
No, sorry, I already recognized you. Okay, Gretchen Shuler, 126 Old Connecticut Path. I'm here tonight as a member of the Historic District Commission. We have a memo that I tried to get to you, and I went through the wrong channels a couple weeks ago, and then I didn't come to the meeting to do public comment, so I'm here tonight. I know you've got town meeting on your... mind, and you won't be able to think about this until June, likely, but it's about the parking in the town center, and we have some ideas, the Historic District Commission has some ideas on how we can, short-term solutions and long-term solutions, and we hope that you will, in fact, embrace it, embrace the concept. We've got the depot, we've got the library, we've got the Historic District, Historical Society, and then, you know, we've got the new business coming in at the town house, cafe, and bistro, and there's a lot of demand for parking, and we think that some of the ideas might be palatable, and we hope that you will embrace it, and we'd like to participate in that, those solutions if you will have us, and I'll send the memo when I get home tonight. Did you send it already? I sent it to Michael, and to Jaylin, and to two and a half weeks ago right but then I didn't say okay um yeah but I will send it to the members of the board and to Abigail is that correct Abigail yes yes okay so spoiler alert for the board I did have a conversation with Ms. Shuler when this came out and tentatively scheduled them to come before us on June 1st so and if somebody else will come because I will Right somebody will come and tentatively scheduled them before us when you see them thank you nice to see you Mr. Waderbaugh
So, Mike Wienbauer of Plossing Lane I'm speaking on behalf of myself with an approved motion by the board of public works um in 2019 board of public works in coordination of the town administrator for the DPW Directorate put in place a mechanism that allows access to retained earnings our rainy day fund for emergencies and unexpected expenses this year the board of public works acting as water commissioners approved a motion to include water retained earnings as part of the water enterprise budget revenue budget without consulting the board of public works finance staff presented to you folks an article that did not include that funding line the board of public works also was not included in that discussion when it came to discussing that that article this is not the first time staff has either pulled or refused to include the funding line my concern is this appears to be a deliberate attempt there's no coordination with the board and all of the all that i've heard about our budget has been painted in a very negative light as though we're not hitting water revenue targets we're not you because the finance director is putting capital items under water water revenue he's removing this funding line so in 2022 there was an additional five hundred thousand dollars put on water rates that should not have been put on water rates so what i brought to you tonight is an analysis of our operating expenses and revenue budget and as you can see for the past six years we've made a profit so we're not doing a poor job we're not at all we're doing a very good job we set targets every year based on our water enterprise fund consultants targets of 10 to 25 percent of retained earnings of the budget sorry and retained earnings and we've hit that every year we've had our target with twenty percent we are kind of more sum it up in two sentences what i'm asking you to do is what was done in 2021 when the select board added some errata to the packet and included the $200,000 line item and I've included in the information I've included here how that was done. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. Sorry. We asked everyone to go for the three minutes and unfortunately we let someone go over. I can guarantee you. Oh, that's fine. A couple of minutes and now someone will say, but you let so-and-so back in June speak. No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good with that. I went over. I'm sorry. All right. That's okay. Sorry. We let you go a little bit. So just recall. I just want to say, Mr. Wiggenbauer, if you want to contact me separately, you said staff removed that. I don't recall. As I recall, the warrant article was presented, had it, and a question came from the board to Mr. Keveny who was here that evening. So I don't recall staff taking that out in advance, but we don't have an answer. He's either removed it or not included it as the board had voted. We can't debate him. One way or the other, he excluded it.
Okay. You're staying for the warranty, aren't you? Oh, I'm not staying that long.
I have submitted all of the information required. Would you like to speak, please? Yes.
Yes. My name is Chris Hill. I live on Orchard Lane. And I am here tonight to share my thoughts on the proposed visioning committee which I understand is going to be discussed later tonight. In comparing the proposal to the 212 Constituent Advisory Committee, I was surprised and concerned to see a different approach to the resident representation. While 212 Constituent is a smaller site, it is also in a residential neighborhood with homes directly abutting it. That committee included three resident representatives, including one who lived within 0.2 miles of the site. The current 25 holiday proposal includes only one resident. I am respectfully asking that the Select Board consider revising the draft charge to include three Wayland residents, including at least one who lives near 25 Holiday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? There's James Young. My mistake. Yeah, James. Wow. I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm gonna get this wrong, or I'm just gonna be bad. You're recognized. Good evening. Jennifer James Young, Orchard Lane. I'm also speaking ahead of tonight's discussion to share feedback on the proposed visioning committee for 25 Holiday Road. When comparing the Select Board's draft charge to Route 20 South visioning committee, the range of potential uses, is pretty similar the route 20 committee included not only the committees proposed in the draft charge but also the conservation commission i understand that not including conservation could be related to the fact that they don't have permitting jurisdiction at this stage but that's exactly why their input is important early in the process before any decisions are made at the april 13 public forum in response to my question about conservation as a use for holiday road uh select board uh member bill whitney um raised the idea of a potential conservation cluster housing development that reinforces that conservation considerations are in fact part of the discussion for the site so given the size and wooded nature of the site it risks missing an opportunity uh or excuse me a perspective to leave conservation out uh at this stage so it's basically we're missing out of their perspective if we do if we don't include them uh i respect the we ask that the select board and school committee include the conservation commission on the 25th holiday road visioning committee thank you thank you i appreciate it is there anybody else who would like to provide other comments yes miss lee or mylon brookman are also archer lane yes also about the uh the visioning committee in reading your proposal it seems as if the scope of the committee is limited to reviewing um the con what the consultants have come up with uh particularly with regard to soil and water um so that uh it's uh uh other uh visioning committees have been more visioning uh you know looking at things and and proposing alternatives um to the to the select board um so i'm i'm wondering if it would be possible to consider uh enlarging the scope of the charge so that it involves looking at alternatives and presenting it for anybody thank you um that's okay this will be the second time
good to see you again tom hammond orchard lane thank you i see you again uh so yeah also talking about the 25 holiday road visioning committee and the proposed charge um i haven't seen other proposed charges for the other visioning committees but um just going back to something that you said ann just earlier about bringing everybody under the tent um i would hope that you guys might consider expanding the charge to include some language in it about public engagement public discourse during the process or some requirements that the vision committee might have to pull information from the community hold you know however you want to bring engagement if it's public comments um public conversation whatever it may be to bring all the community views in to use the visioning committee to sort of titrate those thoughts down into something thoughtful that can be presented to you all so just it's just a comment about bringing the public again more important in terms of the language and the charge thank you okay thank you yes sir there's nothing online mr stocks that's the sherman's bridge road not here to talk about 25 holiday road so guess what i'm here to talk about
my neighbors and i appreciate the select board's request for the acting police team to conduct a traffic study insurance retro and your correctness in adding a discussion and potential vote to tonight's agenda however i asked the select board to defer this matter to a later meeting for two reasons first is that the data have not been made available to the general public nothing summarizing the results of the study appears in the select board packet for this meeting and without sharing the results of the traffic study beforehand whalen's residents lack the ability to determine their sentiments regarding the speeding and traffic volume situation on sherman's bridge road second is that the select board has an extremely ambitious agenda tonight it looks like the meeting is already running 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule giving the number of public comments and plaudits for ms brinley's service and here's a way you can recover 15 minutes easily so squeezing this discussion in between an important executive session on labor negotiations and the annual town meeting warrant hearing is likely to result in an abbreviated unthoughtful discussion and potentially vote on the matter while i feel this matter is important if you couldn't tell it is not so pressing that the select board should offer a hasty pressured decision as opposed to a thoughtful considered one accompanied by full public input in a few weeks time thank you thank you is there anybody else who would like to a public moment
miss carter i recognize you hi boy have i had zoom problems today glad i'm finally able to make my phone work um thank you very much for letting me um join you for a minute i want to agree with what doug has said particularly in light of considerations for his personal request for um some of the changes that are in my article um that you guys are considering outside of the town meeting and also just to draw your attention to the fact that so many people believe that they're going to have a vote on whether this project goes through or not and it's um i've been trying to explain to them no we have not been given that choice and i'm still not sure why and i do think this goes back to what the previous speaker said, we need more transparency in decisions like this and when and why the public is not allowed to vote on something as important as drastically changing this bridge to something else, which is, you know, not necessary. It does not have to be updated to modern contemporary standards, bridge standards, and I have been saying that for months and been ignored and we're still stuck with this project. So, yeah, I'm sorry, beating a dead horse with my stick again, but I do hope that any other things about the traffic and stuff will wait until the town has a chance to vote at least on the articles that are up there and that going forward, when you make your decisions, you don't only look at the most recent traffic study, but you look at several of them as is usually done when making decisions about how to go forward with any changes to traffic speeds and such on the roads in town. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, so I'm going to close public comment for tonight. And then I am going to move that the select board enter into executive session. A, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on 16 Whispering Lane. B, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation for fire truck fixing and cost recovery. C, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the following units. I'm going to say the Leyland Library staff, the Leyland Police Officers Union, the International Associated Firefighters, the Leyland Department of Public Works, and . And finally, D, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30, Section 21A7, to review and approve the executive session minutes of March 2nd, 2026, and March 9th, 2026, with the intent to boldly say that this is a an effective way to ensure the widespread delivery of legal information to the state. I'm going to take a few minutes. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session? Second. Thank you. The Chair declares that a public discussion of these matters may have a detrimental effect on litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. I'm going to have a roll call vote, please. Ms. Brinsley? Yes. Ms. Dufesne? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Witte? Yes. And myself? Yes, that's going to be 5-0. The Chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, Town Manager, Elsie Powers-Brillette, and Ms. Gileff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McAvoy. Mr. McAvoy, any comments or suggestions? our assistant town manager kate bryan and human resource director jaylen braddock our management analyst slash communications coordinator the committee will rejoin the public meeting for an executive session and we anticipate that we'll return in approximately 30 minutes which will be about 7 p.m thank you thank you so we're going to want to okay you're good to go thank you now call the select board back into open session at 7 0 3 p.m
okay the next agenda item we have is
we're going to review and discuss the sherman bridge road traffic study with potential recommendations we invite uh an acting chief of the police market to join us how are you thank you hello hello to you so what has happened is we we a couple of weeks ago a couple of weeks ago three four weeks ago mark and annie kind of reviewed the original traffic surveys that were done on sherman's visual for us and we had some thoughts that perhaps would like to have another traffic study done another section which is going to tell us give us an update where we are you know with that where's yours sir all right thank you um so i was able to conduct one complete study between last time and uh this week today there was a little bit of an error because the battery died in the middle of it so i did not collect as much data as i wanted to um so we have one full uh set of data to look over i plan on surfing back with tom holder dpw director and kind of going over what we see in the data there uh where i spilled into them a little bit about the issue uh i think we've gone over maybe some speed feedback signs putting the area of the curve there by the bridge uh if we do see a it was speeding issue there where the speeds are kind of creeping up over the posted 25 and you know into the 30s my idea is to put some curb ahead uh signage and some yellow hash marks to try to slow things down like the ware meadow area um over lincoln road in sudbury um so we're going to discuss that and see which ones we think are best from he had a lot of history and a lot of experience in road design um probably more than i do so i'm going to value his input um on this as the dpw director but i think he's got some good ideas that he thinks we can tackle and i think we can tackle as well so i think that for those who are listening and not familiar with this process it's a joint venture between the the acting or the police chief or the police department and the uh department of public works one does the study and then they kind of look at things and evaluate um what their recommendation is so i think that uh what you're saying is you still need a little more time maybe yeah it captures a lot of data the machine and the device a little more that i can process you know just a couple weeks you can do some real quick stuff with it but to really see uh kind of the time frames of the time of day and speed within those time of days it takes a little digging into the data set that i haven't had the time to do so i've seen the 85th percentile the average speed but not kind of the individual time frames but things happen which is i'd like to take a look at and again discuss with the dpw director older how we're going to tackle that issue in that specific area do you have any questions for them absent battery issues how long do you leave that active for how long do you i try to do capture a full seven days uh that's about as long as the battery when it's fully charged and not a dead battery that i'm now disposed of uh it lasts for about between seven and ten days but i think with the age of the batteries we have now seven days what i'm gonna get out of any sort of traffic study the advice that we have and you keep it in the same location yep yeah yeah you can move it um but it's better to collect a whole set of data in that one location and then move it to the next location so and it's capturing frequency motor vehicles and their speed yep so it captures their speed the time that it's gone by frequency the distance between the cars the length of i think the length of the car i got some of the uh titles of the columns i need to look into what exactly that it's capturing but captures a lot of the data. Thank you.
I just had a question for the town manager. It sounds like the goals here and the process really hasn't required Kevin Dandry to be involved yet, who the public's knowledge, the person that town consults with often on traffic issues when needed. Would you agree? Yeah, I would agree. Just so you know, they were involved with part of the Sherman Bridge project. Tech is involved. This was something separate. It originated with some concerns raised by the residents about speeding traffic. So then Chief Berman, he and I talked and he went out and put some sign boards up last fall. And that came to light during a conversation during Sherman's Bridge Road. And after his departure, Chief Huber and I had talked and it came up again about the traffic studies, agreed to do a second one. So there hasn't usually you get Mr. Dandry and tech involved. Like when we were looking at 195 Maine, what are we going to do? Traffic studies and things of that nature. This I don't think rises to that level. This is more what do we do to help curb speeding traffic and things of that nature usually can be resolved with, in my experience, and I'll let the chief speak to it. Signage, random enforcement operations. Sometimes you can get grant money, either from the state or the Federal Highway Traffic Safety, to do directed patrols up there. And that helps with those types of things. But also there is the bad curve. So some signage may be a little bit. Chief, this location hasn't been a location in town where the number of accidents is exceeding average or is a problem in the town? I would not say so. No, not from what I've seen. Anecdotally, I mean, I've looked at all the logs for the last five years, but from just looking over them daily, it's not really maybe a couple of bad accidents over the last decade or so, but not a very common area for bad accidents. Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, I thought you were going to be on the phone, so I was surprised to see you. Thank you for coming in. And we'll be in touch, too, when you're ready. Let me know. Well, we're scheduled to come back in. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. You know what? I'm going to skip number six for the moment. I'm going to put a consent calendar. I'm going to move the consent calendar. I started. Okay. And for the discussion, if everyone was prepared to say aye. Aye. If anything else passes, I think there was something that needs to be signed by everyone. If you have a signer, it has to be right here. And here's the link. Okay, everybody else is signed with me.
Want to do the minutes, then? I think they're on page five. Yes. A motion on the minutes of March 30th, please. Approval is amended. Second. Any edits, please? 30th, nothing.
A2.
A1, A2. Second. Paragraph.
C. Martin announced that the Select Board didn't post a public forum. It should be forum. Okay. Oh, good. Yes. Under page three, references made to Article EE. I would suggest we add something to identify specifically what that is, which is Mentown Code Section 198, Planning Board Appeals, just so someone looks later on. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you're referring to. I had that same thing. A6, there's reference to boards, S, apostrophe, V, apostrophe, S.
And then A6.
What did you say? Who knows?
Okay, well, one finding that everyone knows how many. I've been sending other sessions on this. 30th? No. 30th? I have one on A11 where it says, C. Martin asked the board questions related to the recent certification in the Associate Grant Applications. So when I first read this, it didn't make sense, but now it makes more sense. Really, I think I have asked whether we should revisit the Revolving Fund article and adjust the Energy Fund FY27 expenditure limit in case there was a grant that required matching funds, but I don't know. Did you find that, Evan?
I didn't. Okay. I won't re-vote on this then. All right. So then, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Pass 5-0. Are the minutes 1-13 in here? Yeah. Yeah, okay. The minutes of April 13, 2026 as amended. Second, please. Second. Thank you. Anyone have any edits? Just one edit on A14. Request the insertion of the word OF before 2027. And that's in that paragraph. Okay. All right.
Anybody else have any? I think it's 8-5. It's twice in the same sentence. Really? Paragraph 5?
Next page on which is Mr. Harris. The end of the second line, it says, he felt I was. I think the word is it was. Right. A couple paragraphs down, Mr. Stotts. Sherman Bridge Road. Sherman Bridge Road. It said he stayed, he was. I think that's supposed to say he stayed. Anything else, Bill? No. Okay. Good. So on A7, when we had the discussion, we were talking about the town center, the municipal parcel. This captures the conversation about the possibility of looking at a playground. But I also think it should say that Martin and Levine relayed conversation with the town center owner who was willing to offer services of landscape architect to look at the entire municipal parcel. It would express interest. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Same. I've quoted him too, so I want to make sure you realize that. The George Harris paragraph. We got that. Yeah. We did. Yeah. Yeah. That's good, though. Keep going. If everybody's all set with that, let's take a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Great. I think we're pretty close. We did start, though. I'm going to tell you what you think. Yep. Yeah. Good. Okay. Just a reminder to come back to some images. We didn't skip you on purpose. You weren't here, so we went right along without you. What we're going to do here is do our annual, what is called a warrant hearing. We're going to go over the warrant. This is the articles that we're going to be giving in the returns. It's going to be presented at town meeting. I'd like to recognize the moderator, one Miranda. Ms. Jones is joining us to participate this evening. She's going to want to talk to us a little bit about some changes in the consent calendar, and we want to talk a little bit about the consent calendar for those who are listening. If you're in the room, there are copies of the warrant up here. There are copies of a number of things, a couple of exhibits that are going to be either in the book or handouts at the town meeting. If you're online and you need a copy of the warrant, we did put in a supplemental package. You can find it. It's left with. The package supplemental is an online version of the warrant if you don't have your copy handy. So now I'm going to... Robert, do you see people online here with their hands raised? Oh, no, I'm not here. Okay. So what we'll do is we'll go through all these. I'd like to let Miranda have the... I've lost her. Oh, there we are. I'm going to give an introduction because I think I want to maybe talk about the consent calendar and how it's going to operate this year. We did it the first time last year, which means they have a chance to give us some information on that. So the floor is yours, Ms. Jones. Hey, thanks. Thanks, everyone. Miranda Jones, moderator. With regard to the consent calendar, I have changed the rules just a little bit. I've tweaked them a little bit based on how things went down last year when we tried it for the first time. I found that several articles were held because people sought more information.
And so this year I've changed the rules a little bit to ask people, I'm going to hold the articles and I'm going to go back while we are going. I'll go through all of the articles on each consent calendar. And then anyone who asks to hold, I'm going to go back to that person and ask them why, if they're seeking information or if they want to debate it. If it's simply information only, and if the question can be answered quickly, then I am inclined to put that article back on the consent calendar. If, however, the holder of the article wishes to debate it, then we'll leave it off and we will go through the regular process for that particular article that's been removed from the consent calendar. And once we get through those, then we will, whatever's remaining on the consent calendar, we will do in one quick vote. So that's the changes in consent calendar. I look at this as being a work in progress. And hopefully as we do it repeatedly year after year, town meeting will get more used to it, and then it will just become a custom. So that's what I have on the consent calendar. Does anyone have any questions? One person. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. They're hand-wringed. Absolutely. Who's that person? Alyssa.
Alyssa, I'll recognize you, but go ahead. I didn't realize I had my hand up, but I do have a question. Does it relate to the consent calendar? Yeah. Does that include the whole warrant? No. The consent calendar is just a mechanism whereby we take votes. So as something comes up that you feel you would like to make, and then you have a question, please raise your hand then. Right.
Yeah, I'm confused. I'm just a little confused about some of the procedures that were in there. But I will wait because I didn't know my hand was raised. I'm sorry. Okay. Just to be clear, the consent calendar, the articles that are in the consent calendar are listed on the front of the warrant in the table of contents. So they are designated, those articles that are going on to a particular consent calendar. And this year we have two. So right now, we're just talking about the consent calendar. And quite frankly, how the consent calendar is going to be done this year because the rules are just a little bit different than last year. There is also, just so everybody knows, on Wednesday night, the League of Women Voters is putting on a forum that it will be on Zoom, in which Carol Martin, the chair of the Select Board, will be present to answer anyone's questions about articles that are on the consent calendars or abbreviated procedure. We're just trying to get some more information. We're trying to get some more information out to the public if the public has questions before town meeting. So maybe some questions will get answered beforehand so that we'll have fewer questions at town meeting and save our time for debate. Excuse me for a second. Ms. Bradica, is the forum listed on the town calendar? Yes. It's not on the town calendar, but where you find the Zoom links to attend meetings, the Zoom link is on that page. Okay. So if someone wants to Zoom in, they're there. Okay. All righty. So we will start then. And obviously, you can do it page by page. If someone has a question on something on the page, please raise your hand or speak up, and we will stop and take that question. So we have the cover. And please note, by the way, town meeting is starting at 630 this year. So page two. Page three. Oh. All right. Yes. Alyssa has her hand. She does? She put her hand down, and now it's back up. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now it's down. Okay. Okay. Then on page four, we have the table of contents. And on page five, I do want to make a note that as Brandon noted, the items with the double dagger are in the consent calendar, and there are, I think, there were a lot more, but we've taken about nine articles. There were also ones. with an asterisk there and those are to be the abbreviated presentation so we will have to add this i think generally to the urana is that number three an enterprise fund um is that still abbreviated that's the one that abbreviated yeah which one is still doing that one abbreviated yeah article three enterprise funds is that still abbreviated presentation uh i don't think so unless you be able to be appropriate not to okay okay well let's leave that like that for now okay page six page seven quantum about how to vote electronically which continues on page eight then we have the report of the finance committee sorry yes i don't know if she's she has her hand up and down she has her hand answer or sure listen listen are you raising your hand yes um back at the beginning um you're saying that the consent calendar is what we get to vote on and we're going to hear about or or and we get to question or not so i just need to understand the question better of course we are going to vote on this consent calendar there when you look at the table of contents yes on the first we're on my page okay uh articles four five six seven eight right somebody this case it will be okay it up and said, we're going to move these articles as one vote. We did this last year. Same articles. They're called a consent calendar because it's a calendar, a list of articles to be voted on at the same time. Okay, so we can make an objection, though, in order to ask questions about one of them, correct? Yes. Carol, if I may? Yes, please. It's not an objection. If you have a question on the consent calendar article, then ask that it be held. What I'm trying to do is not have to, I'm trying to utilize the consent calendar in an efficient way. However, some people may have questions. So we have this form on Wednesday night for people to ask questions then. And if you don't get your questions answered, you can always hold an article from the consent calendar. And if it's simply for information that you seek, then I would be inclined to put it back on the consent calendar because that's the point of it. However, if you want to hold it because you wish to debate the article, then it will remain held. It will be taken from the consent calendar. And then you'll come back to it. Whatever articles are pulled from the consent calendar because some voter wants to debate it, then we will debate it in the regular fashion. The remaining articles that are left on the consent calendar will be voted in just in one vote without further deliberation, without further discussion. Consent calendars are used throughout many town meetings. Consent calendars are used throughout many town meetings. They're still peeled with 35 articles on one consent calendar. So I don't see that ever happening in Wayland, but I would like to see if we can get some articles pushed through that are non-contentious, or the typical articles we see every single year. So that's our goal. And so we can spend our time debating the controversial articles. Okay. Okay? Sure. Of course. Dr. DeGeneres, which is the reporter for the Finance Committee and Mr. Crumby's from the Finance Committee, and Ms. Melba from the Finance Committee are here, if anyone has any questions. Really good. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. on this. So the report of the finance committee is on page 9, page 10, page 11, page 12, and you really should read this. This is a lot of wonderful information. Page 13, page 14 is our capital budget. Page 15, 16, 17. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Lisa, I recognize you. Yeah, I'm back. I looked through this report, the finance report, and it seems like it's reporting a budget and all these budget totals, but many of them will change. And so, it's not complete. And I'm wondering why they don't show, like, a higher thing and say, you know, this may go down instead of saying this is what you're voting on, and then it's going to go up afterwards, and we don't know how much. That just seems kind of misleading. Now, one second. Does somebody want to answer that? This is the current budget we're voting on, correct? Right. With a lot of little notes saying, but then again, you know, this might be added. Okay. Thank you. I recognize you. So, the finance report is just a basic report on, or an analysis on the current budget. It is what was proposed to us and put in front of us. I'm not sure what you mean by numbers, Gina. Well, we're not debating that. This is just an explanation. That's what the question is. I don't understand the question. Lisa, can you explain your question again?
I don't. Can you still hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. We just don't understand your question. Okay. So, there's a lot of little notes, like, for example, on page 15, you see a note does not include the $38.6 million requested in Article 15. Other notes where it says, these are the salaries, but they, you know, doesn't include cost of, or, includes cost of living and these unknown additional raises. You know, stuff like that. So, the numbers, you know, and it says, if that happens, it'll change to this percentage of change instead of the one that we're printing here. You know, so, like in little notes throughout. Lisa, it's just a quick question. And so, then we let the person respond. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, April. I have to recognize myself again. I'm sorry. Do I have to say my name again? No. Okay. So, the $38.6, I think, is an article in the warrants. Right. Until that's approved, we did not include it in the analysis. And then, all the contracts, I believe, are still under negotiation. So, we can't make assessments, we don't make assessments of future what-ifs until they're upon us. Thank you. Okay. So, page 18 and page 19. I want to thank the Finance Committee for all the work they've done. Appreciate it. Okay. So, we go to page 20, which is the legal language. We can hold the town meeting. And then, we go to Article 1. Article 1 is on page 20. So, page 21. And we do have some on this, the names of the... Yes, yes. The name and the names of the names. Yes. And then, if we look at, this is 18. The name and the names of the names of the explicit bill are on page 18. Okay. So, and then, we go to Page 15. Page 15. Okay. All right. So, I think we're good. Article 4, OPEB funding goes right through to 27. Then we have Article 5, the fiscal year revolving fund expenditure limits of our revolving funds, the explanations. On page 28 at the bottom, Article 6, Surface Water Quality Committee budget. On page 29, Article 7, the Capitalist Stabilization Fund appropriation.
Article 3, page 30, we have Article 8, the Special Education Reserve Fund. Article 9 is to update the personal bylaws and wage and classification plan and fund union agreements on those that have settled by the time we go to town meeting. That's on page 31, and it goes on to page 32. Then on the bottom of page 32, the Fiscal Year 27 Omnibus Budget and Enterprise Fund Capital Budgets. Do you have a question, Ms. Lewis? On page 33. I haven't done it yet. Okay. Page 33 was the answer. So let me go to page 34, which is the listings. Page 34 on are the listings for the fiscal year budget by department. So, Ms. Lewis. Can I ask that in the future, if you carry the top of the columns across because on all the other pages, it's only on one page, and it's a little hard to come out. Oh, you see the actual zoning? Yeah. I'm looking to see if I can talk about the other one. Yeah. This is a really different. Appreciate it. So there's a couple of edits that we kind of want to put into this article, but the formatting is, like, challenging, I think. But we will take that under advisement. All right. Page 34. Page 36. Page 36, that starts with the town clerk. Page 37, starts with the budgets for miscellaneous committees. Page 38, building and zoning. Page 39, parking and cemetery.
Page 40, continues the Board of Health, and then goes on to veteran services. Page 41 is the recreation. Starts with that. And then finally on page 42, we have the grand total for the general fund budget. Page 43, we have the proposed omnibus capital budget for July 27, and the listing of all the items we are going to vote on on page 43. And that finishes on the top of 44. And then starting there on 44, I think for the next eight or so pages, we have a detailed block for each item in that listing. So we have starting with those that are being sponsored by or requested by the Board of Public titled. Okay. works. That's items one through six. On page 46, we have an item requested by the Town and Region Office, and then we have one, two, three from IT. Page 47, these are the capital requests for the Pre-Start Alignment, followed by the Joint Communications Center and the Fire Department. On page 49, starting at number 18, is the Facilities Department, and that runs right through, halfway through on page 50, where we start with the Capital Requests from the School Department, and the School Departments run right through page 51, finish up on 52. Now, bottom half of 52, we have Article 11, Choose Town Offices. That's followed by Article 12, Hear Reports. Article 13, Sell or Trade Vehicles and Equipment. On page 53, Page 54, Article 14, Refer Remote Participation at Town Meeting. Page 55, Article 15, Whalen Long-Term Water Supply Construction Funding. That carries on from 56 to 57. Article 16 is 25 Community Road Appropriate nie Funding of the Culinary Design engineering study and appraisal, and that goes on to 58. Article 17, Home Networking plaintiffs and Tges. He's no longer mentioned, is bestnaire and some of them move in e-commerce our will be not reported to inform you this week. Article 17, I don't overdone we need to Natale that we are at 35, I'm hoping you helped, if you have some will allow additional liquor licenses. On page 18 at the bottom is Community Preservation Committee Set Asides and Transfers which continues on 60. On 61 we have the second Community Preservation article a committee article which is Recommended Project Appropriations. There will be an amendment to this article presented at town meeting to transfer the funding location excuse me, transfer the location of the playground funding that was approved at the town meeting of 25 from the town building to the town building and or a school location. That's that. Article 20 Acceptance of MDL Chapter 53 Section 18B Provide Information Regarding Valid Questions The full text is on page 63 runs into 64 with the explanation following that. Article 21 we have the acquisition of permanent and temporary easements and conveyance of temporary easements at or near Weylandtown Center for the Mass Central Rail Trail. I will say this that we have some materials here and also I think in our packet that really show the layouts of the locations of this work that's going to be done and these handouts will be available at the town and town meeting. They did not fit into the warrants but they're purposely not in there because we couldn't fit them in. So that goes on to page 66. On page 66 we have article 22 this is a housekeeping zoning article sponsored by the planning board. Language goes right on through page 72. Page 72 we have another article that's proposed by the planning board. A man flood plane and federal Blood Protection District and the language in the changes proposed and current on pages 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 78.
Page 79 we have another zoning article proposed by the planning board. This is article 24 accessory dwelling unit zoning amendments. This is the explanation and then again the zoning languages. The edits, the changes, the additions are on 79, 80, 81, 82, 83. I'm just going to make a comment for that article and start on 84. And the write-up finishes on 85.
On 85, we have Article 25, Multifamily Housing Route 20, West Sub-District Amend Maximum Dimensions. Again, proposed zoning changes by the Planning Board. That's on, information is on page 85. Finance Committee proposes comments on 86.
Article 26 is on page 87, Van Heavy Commercial Vehicles on Sherman's Bridge Road. This is proposed by a petitioner. Okay, Alyssa, I recognize you. Thanks. I was wondering if citizen petitioners can bring in packets of information if people want to. Can I pick them up? Or can we have slides or anything like that? Do you want me to take that, Carol? Please. Sure. So, Alyssa, you know, maybe you and I should have a conversation on the phone about this. But just quickly, slides, yes, as long as you send them to me first. And I approve them. So you just have to email them to me. And then with regard to packets, again, as long as I see it beforehand, then we can discuss whether or not they're appropriate to be handed out at times. I'm meeting on tables in the back of the field house, okay? But if you want, you're welcome to call me, and we can talk it all through. Should I? We're meeting tomorrow, right? We are on Zoom. You can bring it up tomorrow, too, in our Zoom meeting. Sure. Do you want me to have the materials by then, or do I have a few days? We all, I do, especially slides. Slides have to go to the town manager's office so that they can be incorporated into the audio-visual. So the sooner, the better. They're supposed to be a week before. So I would need to do that. I need to see them fairly ASAP. I don't put them up. Somebody else has to. I just have to review them first. Thank you. Okay, of course. They actually have to be in to the town manager's office, been reviewed and approved by the moderator, and then to the town manager's office by Wednesday so we can make the copies, right? Because we have to make the copies in order to have them there Monday. So we are coming up on the deadlines. We think you can get that done by tomorrow and into the office, but by Wednesday, you're good. Oh, you mean the handouts if I don't do slides? Yes. Okay. But slides are the same thing, ASAP? No, actually, there's two different slides and the handout, but they both have to be pre-approved by the moderator, and then the handouts have to go to the town manager's office. They'll also look at them, and then they will make the copies. Got it. Thank you. All right. So now I'm, thank you. So on page 87 is Article 26. On page 88, we have Article 27, Sherman's Bridge Five-Ton Weight Limit. This continues on 89. And then on 90, we have Article 28, Increased Safety, Reduced Fear for Residents and Vulnerable Road Users of Sherman's Bridge Road and Sherman's Bridge. That goes over to 91. On 92, Article 29, Sherman's Bridge Second Pedestrian Walkway. This continues on to 93. Where we have Article 30, Renegotiate Sherman's Bridge Road Neighborhood Agreement. For 94, Article 31, Acceptance of MDL Chapter 138, Section 12D, Conversion of Wine Malls Licenses. This is proposed by the select board. And now Article number 32 on page 95 is proposed by a petitioner. We have Article 39. The copy and the text is on, continues on to 96. Then the proposes comments and the finance committee comments are on 97. Where we will find Article 33, proposed by the Town Court as to amend Town Code Chapter 149, Peddling Caucus and Solicitation. And that text in horizontal 98, 99, and over to 100. Article 34, Visible House Numbers. It's on page 100. It's also proposed by the Town Court. And again, the copy, I law, where it's going on to page 101, and finishes on 102. Article 35, as home rule, it's also by the select board, Authorization of Green Burials. It's on page 102. Article 36 on page 103 is Acceptance of MDL Chapter 60, Section 2 of 8, up to $25 on fast-due tax bills. And also at the bottom of 103, we have Article 37, which is also a home rule, allow print-free digital legal notices, again, proposed by the select board. The code language is on 104, page 105, we have Article 38, Amend the General By-law Prohibition of Cryptocurrency Machines, this is proposed by the select board, and the explanation goes over to 106. Article 35. Article 36. Article 39 on 107 is Amend Town Code, Chapter 36-1, Town Meeting and Election. Also on 107, if that's proposed by the select board. Also page 107, we have Article 40, Amend Town Code, Cleaning Board Appeals, proposed by the select board. And finally, I think the last one is on 108, it is Article 41, Maintain Sherman's Bridge Historical Appearance. This is proposed by the select board. Supposed by a petitioner. The explanation goes on 109 and finishes on 110. That takes care of the 41 articles. Then we have starting on 111, the appendices. Appendix A is the Wage and Classification plan, and list of talent positions. That starts on 111. Is that the same? Hi, yeah. Is there going to be some explanation? Like, this doesn't show. how salaries are laid out now. Is there going to be any kind of comparison or indication of where people are now on that scale or anything like that so we have an idea of when we're going to be paying more for these raises, which I presume are in addition to negotiated raises and cost of living increases, correct?
Because the appendix only shows the chart, the new chart. It doesn't show the old chart or, you know, how it's different.
Actually, this is the current chart because there has been no collective bargaining settled other than the firefighters, which I believe is in here. If you notice, it says on the top of page 111, non-union wage scales effective July 1, 2025. There's been no cost of living awarded or granted to date. Madam Chair. Yes, I'm going to have Mr. McConspire to this. This card is a question. Is it helpful for her to review the warrants for prior years? I was going to suggest that if I may, Madam Chair. Because each year since I've been here, the appendix reflects what we're voting on, not a historical comparison. So to Mr. Fay's point, you would want to go back and compare year over year. The collective bargaining agreements for prior years are out on the town's web page. So anyone can look at that. But right now, all of the collective bargaining agreements for all of our various unions are up for renegotiation. So at this point in time, we do not have a memorandum of agreement with any of the unions at this point. So there is no information. But in the event we reach an agreement and it is ratified, which has happened in the past, we would put out some type of handout or a slide. I would work with the moderator to get that taken care of. Well, I guess my question was more on the non-union wage scale, having 10 levels. Isn't that new? The new newly that you guys are going to vote on, like on Article 9 or something like that, making it the bylaws that they have all these additional steps. Isn't that new? Compared with like, how many steps did they have last? For the non-union wage scale? There has been 10. Oh, okay. Never mind. So there's nothing that shows, nothing that elaborates on that, making that a bylaw of the new levels that you guys have decided to choose. And it's like Article 9 or... And you guys are going so... Yeah, Article 9, you guys are going so fast, I was still... I'm stuck. Update the personal bylaws and wage classification planned. Is there going to be any... What I would respectfully request, Madam Chair, Ms. Carter has a question. She could call my office tomorrow as I am responsible for making the recommendations on all of these once we have agreements reached working with my HR department. So rather than delay you working through the rest of the articles, I'm happy to take her questions tomorrow. Sure. That was the last one. And who are you? The town manager. Oh. Hi. Okay. It's okay. But we... Ms. Carter, we're still actively trying to resolve some of these so we have some numbers to bring to town meeting and that is my hope that we may get some resolved before the end of this week. Oh, okay. So something will be presented. That's all I really wanted to know. I thought that what was being presented, what was in the back. So... So... But you're going to have some stuff there. So that's fine. I won't bother you tomorrow. I'm going to be really busy. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Ms. Lewis. Annette Lewis, Clay Biddle Road. What you're looking at in nine is contracts for unions and pay grades for unions. What's in the back is for non-union employees. And it's a comparison of what we pay in union versus non-union. Okay. So page 11 is Appendix A, degrees and classifications. Then we have powers over. Yes. 112. The recreation season schedule is on 113. The AFSCME and the library staff are on 114. DPW reports in the transportation line are on 115, followed by the firefighters and the police union on 116. And then we have a chart on... 117 of our full-time equivalents by department and including the schools. Appendix B is Article 12 here, reports. There are certain bylaw and by code committees that need to provide a report to come in every year, and this is where they are. So we have the planning board reports start on 118, and it talks about each one of its articles. It goes to 119, 120. On 121, we have the report from the Board of Assessors. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It carries over right to page 123, where the report of the Community Reservation Committee starts. And then, and I will say this, that the Public Sarah Orison Committee is the first one doing that.
Recipients from their awards are actually going to be doing that as a handout at Town Meeting this year, but next year, hopefully, they will make it in time to get into the warrant. Appendix C is the map. where the article 16 of the 25 Holiday Road, 126 is definitely blank. 127 has the names and in some cases the signatures on the select board as well as the finance committee and then there's the back cover. So Ms. Lewis. I just wanted to inform the moderator that on article 40, which is a change proposed by the Board of Selectmen and we're having a hearing on the 29th. We're going to endeavor to do a report so it would be coming in very late and we will get it to you as soon as we can. But I just wanted to alert you to that. Great. Thank you for that. And also that's part of the errata on page 40, article 40 on page 108, the quantum of the vote is two-thirds, not the majority. And I think also we've not had much of an item in general. Really, really good job this year. There's been a couple items in there. There's a couple of us floating around. So that concludes going through the warrant. If anyone had anything they didn't understand or something was missing, hopefully they've let us know so that we can go through this more smoothly when we get to time meeting next week. So I do have a couple things here. So on the motions, the draft motions that were created, they've been revised. I believe they've been reposted. There's still maybe one or two that are still leaking, but they were reposted today, right Jim? Yes, they were posted today on the time meeting page. I just need to confirm, there's no change in the motion of 40 that originally was well set with that section, right? It's in the motion. You mean in terms of what's cited in terms of the law? Yeah. I haven't heard anything differently from the town council. I don't know what the dates are. The one that we had after the motions meeting is the only one that loads right between rows. The one that we had after the motions meeting, Doug sent another one. That's the only one I'm aware of. Has there been a change in that one? No changes, but I'm just confirming there's no changes to that article's motions. Okay. As written, it's fine, right? No, I don't. Okay. Okay. All right. Miranda, when are you going to open for? I mean Wednesday. So what? We're having a public hearing on Wednesday. I'm sure we'll have some more details then. Okay. All right. So we talked about the handouts, talked about the thing about us. So the only thing I do want to talk about, too, is that, and I actually, my friend is going to be here, and I just want to remind everyone that we, okay, mostly it was me that got reminded. I'm going to use that word by a long, short term resident that when there was an article up for discussion, and I turned to the town manager and I said, oh, perhaps the town manager couldn't, you know, speak to this article. By our code, we cannot participate in what we call the debate, but he can answer questions. So when it comes to the budget, if we would like him to speak about the budget, we have to have specific questions or somebody. And the town manager or another staff member is welcome to answer. So we just want to make sure we're clear on that. You know, I've just had a five, six, seven slide presentation, multi-slide presentation like we did last year. So we're all good. I've tagged up. I've told everyone we've got to do that. All right. Does anyone else have any other questions? You know, about the town meeting? I think I've got everything. We're good? Good. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. Anyone from the board? Okay, great. And I do want to commend Jim and again, I mean, this is terrific, and Kelsey and Chris Kelsey. Doug, I don't know if this applies to you and I, but this is terrific. I'll leave it there.
That's it. That's pretty good. All right. Why don't we go back to the, Mr. Committee, I see you said something. Did you want to say something? No, you're all set. Okay. I just want to make sure before I move on, everybody's good. Why don't we go back into the number six, the town managers report? Does that make sense? Thank you. Excuse me, Madam moderator. Did you have anything you wanted to add? No, I don't. It's just making sure I wasn't needed. People are always welcome to call me if they have questions. Okay. Tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate all your work. You're welcome. All right. So I think then we're on to the town managers report. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of quick items that some of you know, I was doing a staycation last week, so I was not working on some of the collective bargaining, some remotely, but as was alluded to earlier, we're working on a couple, hopeful that we might at least have one deal or not two by the time we get to town meeting next week and some additional information on the non-union. Okay. So I think the agenda mentions our professional development day. As I indicated, we are taking the time to get our staff educated on certain issues that are often encountered in day to day operations here and we're doing it with NIA, our insurance company, so that as we take these courses relative to risk management, it helps us get points and credits towards our insurance premium. We're doing it again this week. And we are going to be closing town hall from 8 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. So the first half of the day, this Thursday, we have attorney Ina Ryan, who I've worked with in the past, who does a great job dealing with discrimination and harassment in the workplace. So we're requiring all of our staff to come in and participate in that. And as I said, this should be not only worthwhile for the staff, but should help us in the long term. So we're taking the time to get our staff educated on certain issues that are often encountered in day to day operations here and we're doing it with NIA, our insurance company, so that as we take these courses relative to risk management, it helps us get points and credits towards our insurance premium. I think creating a better workforce for us and saving money at the same time. Ms. Bradica, who is here this evening, has been working on the transition to the new website. It was supposed to come online last week. Again, there was a glitch in Civic Plus. We're hoping to get it online this week. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say the date, but hopefully by the end of the week, you'll see an updated website. Thank you. I'm still looking for it. So I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it. I'm going to put it on my website for the town of Wayland. Those are the two major items. Again, just my staff has been working hard on the collective bargaining and planning for town meeting next week, and I was very thankful for Ms. Power Spurlett, who was standing in last week with Loudon's Law. Terrific. So I think everyone was also asked to have a discussion about the website at the end of the meeting, a good select board meeting. And I think you originally asked for 518, or so on that. I'm sorry. website update i have that okay just all right so then i think after just to um so we should go right before i've lost my place because number 10 would be next but i don't know is uh miss is there i'm not okay i'm gonna do it i just want to see who's pulling him in for first i'd like to do we're going to 12 we went to 13 first just to toss and sign too much okay let's do 12 uh wait a second okay great so what we're going to do is discuss and review the potential to vote on the 25 holiday road advisory committee charge there is something in our packet somebody will tell me what page we're on um let's write this down sorry 27 27 so i think after the forum that we had last week there was a discussion that you know we would like to consider this today is our resident um charge draft committee um so he's he's created this um i do want to acknowledge that we did receive um a very thoughtfully written um list of suggestions about you know the possible composition of this committee and that certainly was in our emails i personally have a copy of it here i'm sure the other board members do because it's in a correspondence package so i'm going to i'll let you um start being um the discussion i don't know if it's really what to do so i'm happy to start i went to recuse myself for just two minutes and so thank you okay please so um it's a little it's about eight o'clock 7 59 this item's on the agenda for 9 10 but as we stayed in the agenda sometimes we move up items for one reason or another the western residents here i believe who have an interest in this article so i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion um to respect their uh their presence shares indicator discuss this topic now so when we had the hearing public forum on this topic it was suggested by residents who live near holiday road that we put together a visioning committee and that would be well received and uh i like the idea and in fact i think as a board we were discussing doing that uh prior to the public forum um so i thought about the article and i thought about what we're trying to achieve and um the um the idea of putting the warren article together really was an effort to to initiate a review of the property it really wasn't an effort to determine final uses or final recommendations for uses so given that this charge is pretty limited and i credit one of the residents from quality river area who picked that up um and commented upon a public comment that this really is kind of a narrow a narrow charge it can always be expanded by the select board if it's approved but i kind of limited this proposed charge to the to the article itself article 16 of this year's annual time meeting kind of focus on the work of the professionals to look at the site and say, okay, what can happen there? What hurdles might exist if you put a structure there? Would it be a school, housing, or something else, or is it a site that really you should put no structures on there? So it doesn't really come close to the charge that we put together for the Route 20 South Landfill Committee, because we had a sense when we put that charge together as to what might work there, and we wanted to confirm when we created that advisory committee, things like 10 structures go there. But in addition to that, here are some ideas we, the select board, would like this advisory committee to review. Personally, I think it's a bit premature to even go there. The select committee, school committee. It still does have jurisdiction over this property. It's unclear whether they'll be of a mind to want to give up jurisdiction. But I still, as I expressed and Bill Whitney expressed in the public forum, this work still is valuable. It's important. It's a first step to get the discussion moving, to appreciate what can be done. There was a comment earlier today, a public comment, about possibly putting conservation member on there. And I've got to be honest with you, I did put a conservation member on there when I drafted this initially. But I realized that we would end up with nine members. And my experience is that seven members is as effective as nine. In fact, nine can be less effective, in part because of the open meeting law and the challenge of getting a forum. And so I took them off. And the reason was because... My appreciation of this property is such that it's not near waterways. There's no water terribly close to it. It is in the middle of a larger neighborhood. So I really didn't see conservation being critical at this stage, at this stage. And obviously, if anyone, any developer or if anyone ever wanted to put a structure on this property, you would still need a permit from the conservation commission, likely. So I took them off and narrowed the board somewhat. But this is just my thought. I certainly welcome thoughts from other members of the board, relative to the scope or the size of the committee or any aspect of it. Do you have anything on the board? Mr. Fay, was it your intention to have members of this committee shape the scope of the board? No. Okay. Is there a scope of that study? And if so, do those three items within the charge capture that? Or was that not your intention? Well, the article really authorizes money to explore the property by professionals. And the committee would consider the data, information, by and about professionals. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, just to go through the report and report, you know, to the board on the results, it's pretty straightforward. It doesn't, the charge doesn't ask the committee to therefore make recommendations on what should go there. But just, it's pretty straightforward. And the work will be done by these professionals if this article passes. And obviously, the information would be considered by the committee members. By any means, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But it's a fairly limited scope. I have a follow-up question for Mr. Whitney. You may have some more familiarity with these studies than I would. Is there ever a give and take between the professionals and those who charge the professionals with the study? Do they say, well, do you want us to now go to step B, C, and D? Or is it what you set out for the scope at the beginning, they carry it out, and then they return their findings? I would say, in my experience, it's kind of an iterative process. One typically assembles some baseline information and will do a survey to establish specifically the property you're dealing with that could serve as a base for future planning. It would be helpful, I think, to understand the availability and sufficiency of utilities in the area, to understand what's going on. What's involved in bringing them in with respect to soil conditions. It's helpful, I think, to understand the presence of the ledge, the elevation of groundwater, the composition of the soil that will inform where it makes sense to put something, and would also inform recommendations as to foundations. If, for instance, one had a steel-framed school building, that would be a heavier building than a single-family home or townhouses, which typically would be lighter and more forgiving as far as the soil conditions. So I think some of this information will establish the range of what's possible or the range of what's affordable. Beyond that, once one gets into site planning and looking at different uses in different locations, then I think it... You know, if we were to do this, what's involved, whereas if we were to place it here, then that might be a different situation. So I think typically you get this information and you test the various uses against the information you have, and that informs decisions about cost and feasibility, frankly. So is the usefulness of this committee better suited for after this information is received? I would say this. I think it's always useful to have input from different individuals looking at a topic that interests a lot of people, okay? So I think this committee has a lot of value in giving feedback to professionals, and I don't even know if they do. But I think depending on the school committee's decisions in the future, one way or the other, I can see our board expanding this vision. And adding to the charge, that might be more similar to the new 20 Southland. I just don't think we're there yet. And I appreciate the comment, the public comment about possibly expanding this, but I don't think expanding it is time, especially given the fact that the school committee still has jurisdiction over it. Okay. I think this is an interesting approach. If I were on an advisory committee, I think I'd be interested in talking about different uses and that kind of thing. But I think it is helpful to have kind of a base information that would be useful to the school committee as it considers whether the site is one that it wished to propose for a future elementary school and would, I think, be constructive as far as other uses.
If the school committee were in a position to... to make a quick determination as to whether it wished to hang on to this property, then I think it would make sense to go to the next step. But, you know, we have heard some concern expressed about why would you spend money on these other uses when the school committee hasn't yet determined whether it's going to let it go. So, I think the timetable of a report later than December 1st is reasonable, given... I think it would give time for the kinds of information that will determine the developability of the site or the suitability of the site for a range of uses. And then I could go forward with a more detailed or an expanded discussion of potential uses that would be, I think, well-informed by public participation.
Thanks, Morgan. Thank you. No, I agree. I think we'll get it done by December 3rd. Yeah, I think... So, it was interesting because, you know, every committee and even every floor on that would be housed as a different personality. It really does. And when I was looking and thinking about this, you know, from comments we got, you know, is this similar to the 2012, you know, it was a little different. I mean, even the 2012. Well, we had taken this property through TAS.
Thank you. Before we text title. Text title. Thank you. I knew it was a word. I didn't see. And we had a specific goal that we were hoping to accomplish there, which we are in the process of doing. We hope we're getting... You know, so we had like a step, a strategy. Step one, step two, step three, step four, step five. And I think the interesting thing here is... I mean, I look at the... I look at this and step back and said to myself, what is really our goal here? I think we as the executive branch of the town and essentially the policy board, we have... What motivated us is that we are trying to find new revenue sources, no matter where they might exist in town and what form and shape they take. And so that's what's motivating us to say, hey, let's take a look at this piece of property in conjunction with the school committee. The school committee is being motivated because they have to figure out... They want to do it with their school buildings. So, I mean, I think we have to start there is that. Now, you know, it could pass that, like you said, the land is not viable or something, and then we might look at something else. I think we're just doing a due diligence here more than anything else. It's just not only on the land, but we're also doing a due diligence on being... On, you know, trying to act on this recommendation of Mr. Perry and Mr. McCall. We looked for some possible legal options. I think that's what we're trying to do in town. If town doesn't support them, that's fine. But if they do, then this is what we're trying to do. I think it's our job, really, to just kind of look, explore, but really listen. So, I think you did a nice job here. Thank you. I do agree with you about the seven voting members. I think there's probably a good number. How many do we have on? Two-twelve? Eight? Yeah. Yeah, what was experienced. Three-thousand is what it is. Right. But we found that we didn't get perfect attendance quite a bit. Right. Well, see, that's the thing is if you've got seven people, you've got to get at least four. And then if you have seven, you really want to have five or six there so that you have a robust... I mean, we've had situations where we've taken votes on things and said, let's revisit this vote again because we don't want to have a three overall. We want to have, you know, four or five members participating. So, all right. Where do you think we should go from this? Well, I guess I would just point out, this is maybe a bit of a non sequitur, but I think the requested funding under the Warren article is sufficient to do this work plus consideration of alternatives that we're talking about doing as a kind of second step. So, just to be clear about that. Okay. Happy to move. The board's comfortable that this board could not be opposed. Twenty-five quality board regions will be in charge. Second. Any further discussion? And those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five-zero. All right. I am going to go back now to number ten. So, I think I'll see them. And thank you to everybody who's provided input on that item number twelve. Yes, Jessie? Would you like to have your turn? Oh, three minutes early? So, this is, we're going to meet with... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. And I am going to meet with, this is just a quick, more of a meet-and-greet tonight. Madam Chair, do you want me here? Please? Yes. We're going to have you introduce yourself here. This is just a quick meet-and-greet. Mr. Landford and me and the owners of the town center just want to join us as well, sir? Sure. Just introduce yourself. Just come and just sit over here. I will give the spoiler alert that when we spoke, we said we'd just have a quick chitchat today and then we'll be working on your thoughts. If you'd like to come back, and we have tentatively scheduled, we will be four, five-minute. Okay. june 1st does that sound right sounds great okay good well thank you madam chair um members of the board richard mccall um so just introduce yourself yeah absolutely uh jesse barricone president founder of grafito sp joined by anthony rich from legacy capital ventures nice to see you guys tonight so just to kind of frame quickly our goals for tonight i think first one as you mentioned is just a bit of an introduction um we'd like to take the opportunity to kind of walk you all through and do some level setting and talk about kind of all the work we've been doing to date we've now owned way to account center for almost five months give or take so i've been a lot of listening a lot of work um and we're at a place now where we feel like we're charging towards a vision and a plan which on the first of june we'd love to come back and share far more with you as a board um and i think as part of our remarks i'll walk through the very end kind of how we'd like to sequence our work with you all and your planning you more and again you know we view this as being something that is very collaborative that maybe lost partners in the town um so as aj mentioned legacy capital ventures grafito sp we are two of three partners that recently acquired way on town center uh the third is north pond partners out of chicago tom i know has dealt with some folks there as you've been working through i think this is a picture of kind of how we work through this easement scenario for the mass central rail trail hershfeito reimbursement and their areas of services that are on our project is affect the local local level and that's going to be an interesting area to think about so as one of the partners we're going to be working on to date is Work to date has really been about kind of listening and engaging. You know, what's remarkable about this project is that when we started looking at it, and even when we acquired it, our sense was not that it's wholly broken. There are just a lot of things that need to be fixed. And I think through that fix, we believe there's just tremendous potential to add economic value, social value, cultural value, and community value. And we've kind of started from a position of, I think the master special permit was almost 20 years ago. The decision came in 2007, and there was a lot of work we know put in by many folks perhaps here and you all to kind of get to that point. So it's been really interesting to kind of scrub the history of the project, understand why some of the decisions have been made, talk to members in the community. And that has largely been part of kind of the listening we've been doing to date. I will say as part of that listening, just to kind of get, our own bearings, we've met with several town departments. AJ, God bless him, has been the one dealing with DPW, has been sorting through some of the challenges regarding septic. And we've come to a resolution on that with a town, which is a great win. We've met with building department, fire, and police, as we start to think about kind of some of the site-wide improvements and looking at it through the lens of public safety. We've had some good conversations with members of EDC, and we've, we believe there's just tremendous opportunity to look at the project through the lens of economic development for the town. And that's largely the way these three partners think about retail real estate development, is through the lens of economic development. And I think that's what got us really excited about this project. It is the level of engagement from the town, the history here, and how it lines up with some of our collective core competencies makes it pretty special. And I think the last five months have been very validating. I would say, and I'm going quickly because I know we don't have a ton of time, and we'll come back and talk to you again soon. We have been impressed and emboldened by, I think, a lot of the public feedback we've gotten today. We want to make sure that this board understands some of the conversations we've had and some of the things we're going to come back to you on. We've had the benefit of hearing from folks, and I know there's a Waylandtown Post article recently about a dog park. We believe we can accommodate that on site as a really easy win. We've been talking, and Doug, you were at the meeting where he came in, and we talked to Wayland dads. I'm not familiar with towns that have, like, dads groups, which I think is probably an output of, like, Facebook or something. But it's fascinating to hear from other dads. We're both dads. Like, what does the community want to see here? And I think that's largely informed the way we're thinking about the public realm at the town center. There are all these green spaces that are completely inactive, completely inactive. We want to make improvements to those. We want to utilize them. We want to activate them. Some of that work we're going to have to come back and speak with the planning board about. We'll require some amendments to the master special. We'll require some amendments to the master special. We'll require some amendments to the master special. But we're really intent to do some of that. And then the other part of what we've been doing is really just our own team building. We engaged a really great local landscape architect to help us think about the site. We engaged, actually, Bill, you probably remember Whitney Vegas from your days at Berkeley. We engaged them to help us think about site-wide wayfinding and signage, something that's critical for us to make this site more, we'll call it, navigable or user-friendly. It is currently not. We engaged a social media team that, for any of the folks listening or obviously here tonight, our view about retail development is that some of it just happens virtually these days. How do we use the existing content from many of our tenants, broadcast that out, whether it's through Facebook or Instagram, and show the world kind of what's happening on site? We've launched a new initiative to rebrand the site, improving the visual identity and thinking about that in context with the site-wide. The wayfinding and little, although I would say it's big, moves would be kind of looking at the visual appearance and engaging a team to come in and paint what is first, we just started with last week, a medical office building. So some of the cleanup that has just been neglected for years. So that is really the essence of what we've been doing, running new property managers. I would say, and I think AJ would certainly agree, that one of the benefits of having North Pond on this team is that beyond legacy, we're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. They own many similar projects nationwide like this, grocery anchored. They require a level of property management, asset management that we think was lacking with kind of prior ownership and is really important to supporting the tenants. So, you know, I threw a lot at you. We've been doing all this work. And as I said, kind of the very beginning, the reason we've been doing all this work is to kind of formulate a plan and to kind of re-envision the potential for this site. So, you know, we're before you today to provide a little bit of a preview and an update because we believe after town meeting and when the new select board is seated and the new planning board is going to really like to ramp up our meetings with you all and this partnership to try to make some moves and improve the site and make some of those fixes. The best way that we've been able to understand kind of the categories of what we'll call fixes, they're really three buckets of improvements. We are really focused, and I'll come back to each one of them. We have probably five more minutes to go here. We're really thinking about the visibility, the identity of the site, right? That'll be one. We'll come back to that. We are really thinking about the beautification and activation of the site, which I alluded to everything with the public realm. And then the last one is, and this is really important, we're thinking about something that Grafito does a lot of work in this space, kind of the re-merchandising. So starting at the end, I mean, the way we make this place more usable, more attractive, add more public benefit is by improving the use mix, right? I mean, one of the things we've been working hard on, and we think we'll get a deal done very soon, the first thing we heard from all the tenants when we spoke to them, there needs to be coffee on the site. There's no cafe. We've got 160,000 plus square feet of retail, and there's no place to get a cup of coffee until 10 a.m. when Chocolate Therapy opens. I think the only reason... The only reason Pam at Chocolate Therapy is offering coffee is because no one else does. It's not her core business. So we need a cafe, right? We've been thinking a lot about additional food and beverage for the site. This is one of the reasons Septic has been really important. We've been thinking a lot about additional personal services and neighborhood amenities. And that is, I think, where the collective team has a lot of experiences, is in the re-tenanting. And it's the re-tenanting and bringing great small local owner-operated businesses that actually drives the thinking on the other two categories. The first one being just the identity of the site and the visibility of the site. One thing we have heard from tenants and folks that are just aware of Wayland Town Center, many people don't know it's there. The visibility from 27 and 20 is not good. It's a disservice to many of the tenants. We think we can improve this site, and we know we're going to have to work with the planning board, and there'll be some permitting work that needs to get done. We think we can improve this site, and we know we're going to have to work with the planning board, by improving the gateways to the site, beautifying them, better announcing the site, and thinking about how all of that kind of channels folks through and enhances the pedestrian experience through the site. So that's one, and that was a really big one we knew from the start. And, you know, again, that's driven by tenants. That's also driven by the reality that we understand for this place to really work. We have to drive more people there. There have to be more reasons to go there. There has to be more sales for the retailers. There has to be more reasons to go there. There has to be more sales for the retailers. The name of the game for retailers is all about sales and footballs. And the best way we can support the retail tenants that are there are getting more people to the site. And that brings me to the last kind of category of improvements, which is really around how do we think about the activation of the public realm. You know, one area that we were really excited about is the work that you all have done, and many folks in the community, is thinking about Alyssa Avenue and pedestrianizing that. And that's something that we've really taken. We've taken some of the momentum from the community, and we believe we have a good plan, which we'll share in the weeks and months ahead for finally closing down that street and talking to fire and police about what that would mean and creating more enhanced public realm. The larger kind of, if I can call it, urban design move that we believe is really exciting is connecting the path to the park. And we'll go over this kind of when we come back in front of you with plans so it becomes a little bit more real. And this rant, but, you know, have you already, Tom, have you guys discussed the easement already tonight? We've discussed it over the past few meetings relative to the article itself. So I would, I think that the implications, you're all very familiar, probably more so than we are, in terms of the centrality from a site perspective of the Mass Central Rail Trail. And one of the things that we actually have been talking to DCR about and some folks in the community is how do we actually enhance that connection? We think it is really, really valuable for the town. And for the site, and we say path to park, if you think about the Mass Rail Trail as kind of one of the key attributes of the site from a public realm and activation perspective, the movement between the rail trail up Alyssa Avenue into the city-owned park is really, really critical to improve. And there are little things that are dysfunctional right now, like there's a dumpster right there. So we're going to move the dumpster, right? And there are also big things like adding more seating on Alyssa that we'll do. So then again, talking with you all about how we can support, how we can help you in your plans and the community's plans for the park. So, and then the last one I would just say is, you know, the overall activation of Beautification in the public realm. We think there's just a ton of opportunity. There are just a lot of spaces that are inactive, that are underutilized, that we feel like we can add a lot of value to. So that was a lot, but we've been thinking a lot about the site. Again, we feel really emboldened. And enthusiastic and excited about the work ahead. So again, the idea for today was just to kind of give you a quick preview. And then lastly, think about how we can better work with the Select Board, the Planning Board moving forward. Our plan, should you all find it acceptable, would be, we want to do a similar introduction to this with the Planning Board. We're going to do that in May. We are currently scheduled to be in front of the Planning Board, I believe it is on the 13th. And again, do a similar introduction. introduction to them and coming out of that we'd love to come back in front of the slack board and that is on the first to kind of share with you in plan and we'll submit that all prior to the meeting kind of what these moves are we'll share more detail about the support we need specifically from the town the approvals we need and then coming out of that meeting with you all we'd like to go back into the planning board in the middle of june likely the june 17th meeting and share those same plans um so we know there's a lot of work ahead we're really really excited about it and you know that's that's a little bit about what we've been working on and kind of the moves that are ahead or i should say the fixes that are ahead so with that um i'll hand the floor back to you and you know happy i don't know we have time but happy to answer any quick questions so i'll open it up to questions and comments from the board um i am going to be leaving select board you actually have somebody i think behind you who's going to be a little bit more involved but i would love to see something happen at the site i'm so i hate to say but i'm going to hold you to everything i said because i understood that all of it and there was some uh pledges in there it's a real pleasure yes you have you and aj here tonight and have you owned this site um your enthusiasm positivity exciting ideas um is a refreshing i think it's uh been a great development to have people who are retail experts taking charge of this thing and really running with it i'm a little worried about your obvious enthusiasm for night meetings but i don't think i want to say that but uh no i i uh i appreciate your your due diligence uh the fact that you've looked into it that you have a clear vision and we've very much supported to working with you to help you implement that
and you know doug and i and that suggested before um and one of the things that we brought back to the board last week right because last week not last week was the last meeting was when we had talked about the municipal space that the town owned i think there was a lot of discussion about a possible suggestion that you know you might be willing to have your landscape um designer or architect i don't know what the right word is maybe come back up with some suggestions or since you put you on the spot here but did you want to speak to that yes we we looked into a couple of firms including the landscape architect that we worked with on elissa ave already um and we're getting proposals back of what you know what a early design or concept plan would look like we just want to come back to you guys with some options and say you know here are a couple of suggestions um so i think probably in the next two weeks we should have something to at least suggest and say you know here are some options here are a few folks who would recommend um but yeah we want to want to help and kick starting that and and be a resource and figure out how we can be a part of it so i probably am not lying when i say it has been um um wish list to you know have a discussion and some deliberation on what's the best utilized way to utilize that parcel i know that tom was going to forward i think did you were able to forward the list of environmental constraints they're aware of them they're aware of them okay so um and we're taking that into account i'm sorry we've taken that into account when you've presented that to folks for a proposal about disturbance and site work and working with the existing um you know grades um so yeah no we're we're aware of that i think that obviously we don't want to uh go down a path that's not one that we can actually execute on so my way about that i have reached out to the lsp and waiting to reach back to me i've reached out to the lsp and i'm waiting to hear back from them okay great thank you so this is the beauty of having um you know a board and we share ideas and so we were all excited and then we were told hey we're going to look at environment constraints and tom volunteered so i'm not it's a virtue what would you like to add in um one point one question for you gentlemen um and the point is we've had a couple of occasions to connect over the last few weeks and i think one of the messages that you're hearing from me and several others is the site has such tremendous potential we saw a glimmer of that potential a pretty bright glimmer at whalen fest last year when some 6 000 people appeared at that site and maxed the parking and then some so i think there's a hunger in this town for convening space and community building opportunities question i had for you that i don't think i ever had the chance to ask is what drew you two gentlemen to want to take on this specific site and an attempt to make some improvements there since you've been doing this for some time we may have different answers you want to go first yeah yeah so i i live a mile and a half away from the site and so you know when i saw the property in the market i i i'm a customer of the site go to the stop and shop uh went to bagel table with my kids you have a six-year-old and a ten-year-old and it bothered me how underutilized it was and go there and and it would bother me and so when i when i saw the opportunity i actually brought this to jesse and the north bond folks because i knew it was something you know we all have our our uh you know capabilities right and and no one's better than jesse and what he does in the north bond folks so it was really a great opportunity but for me it's it's uh it's very personal um you know i have a lot of folks in the community that are holding us to doing what we're we say we're going to do too um and we've gotten a lot of feedback so you know i think for me it just always felt to your point here is you know a beautiful opportunity 25 acres amazing infrastructure why aren't families here why aren't taking my family here why aren't folks in this green space why isn't it activated all the questions that everybody's asking um and i think what was you know what what kind of got us very excited is everyone's asking the same questions and everyone's saying how can we help right and so you don't always get that there could be opportunity but there there isn't always kind of this this push forward um and so i think the the hunger to to want to get it right and fix it is only it's only heightened for me um because of that and and also feel now our responsibility to to not only do it but do it in a timely fashion right to to find a way to execute and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and see meaningful change even if it is just painting the buildings right which we started last week so what we got to get started we gotta you know because everything's a domino effect right and you know you're not going to do it all at once but how do we every quarter you know make progress and then what's the vision at the end right if there's 50 pieces to the puzzle right let's start on piece number one now and then how do we get five or ten pieces done every quarter right and so you wake up 12 24 months from now and it just feels like it came together so uh anyways a little bit long with it but yes very very personal to me and and i'm there physically there you know anyways as a customer so yeah i would add to say um the last 20 years in growing profito we've sought out stuck projects right projects that have underachieved from a placemaking and activation perspective um we cut our teeth in kendall square as part of development team over 20 years ago people say good luck there will never be a place here and we were like we're next to the red line the charles river at mit give me a break like of course there will be and we were able to execute on a couple hundred thousand square feet of leasing and bring in a lot of the amenities grocery pharmacy restaurant almost all local by the way small local owner operators and i think since that moment in time when we had success in kind of helping to grow the business we've created place there wasn't just us we've sought out these challenging stuff projects um and we've looked for projects that are close that are fixable and this hits the mark i mean i would also say doug to your point before we closed on it i mean i was at i was there in october i met chris before we our offer was accepted as part of our due diligence and being at that event with 6 000 people i felt two things one was um and chris and i are close enough where i think he'll be okay with me saying this one was wow this is amazing look at all those people that showed up the other one was wow this could be so much better right and like we think we can help make this that was the feeling and not that it wasn't great but like this is what we look for in these projects this is what gets my entire team really really excited and i think the third thing i said they're on two but the third thing would be um we are at our best when there's constant feedback from the communities in which we are active in because i don't live in i'm not right down the street like aj for us to understand what people need and what is valuable we need that feedback and i think our approach to data has probably demonstrated how important that is to us and this town feels like a place where we were getting going to get a lot of that something we won't do right we just won't for for a multitude of reasons but so much of that intelligence and so much of that sharing will help craft the vision that it's it's it really i mean we say it sincerely we are excited about this project we talk every day about this every day um so that's part of it for me so we'll look forward to seeing you on the first we are all very excited that you're here we're just very excited it's just so the energy just knowing there's going to be some energy drilled into that facility in this it's just so exciting so we'll look forward to seeing you on the first thank you for coming in tonight thank you thank you thank you for having us thank you guys thank you that's the immense i don't have to be able to meet with them
so i think we have a couple um things we wanted to talk about here one was um this
communication and requests and expectations and the other was anyone of us to review a request to apply for a grant and i think that's in relationship to the mural uh project that's being contemplated at the wayman pool so if i just speak to my president crime over here would you like to start with the communication what would you want to do with the new white person okay so general will have you explained it to so we we had been asked as the ward to speedy um with the Chris origin the fiscal agent thank you very good yes this is why I think that's why there is that the funder no okay managed basically to manage a grant on behalf of a project that was good being contemplated for the Wayland community pool to build them to put a mural and tell me energy around the town council really didn't think this was such a great whichever there was a lot of possible pitfalls you know for the town is possible take a lot of time be very high maintenance and all that so we had the conversation and then we and then I hope we would sort of agree that we would do it provided there was all these rules we had in place and then for some reason that didn't come to fruition so now you know has come back as the spokesperson for the HRD and I with a different different version of this and so we share it with us and then we're having a discussion yeah so we'd like to apply to the Middlesex Foundation which is the charitable foundation of the Middlesex Bank they they do I think biannual brand-making the next deadline is July 31st and we had well actually I say we paid a lot of attention to that and I think we's really it's a group of residents and everybody is kind of pulling their weight now so the town pool is renovating the building they will they've agreed to have a whole end face of the building painted with a mural and they will get that ready for the muralist we are close to signing an MOU with a muralist who's actually a I think her father is even on the board of the pool. And she has included in her budget, I mean, all the materials, but anticipating long-term maintenance. She's included a number of coatings. So there's a UV coating which protects the mural so that it will last. And there is a special coating that in the event that, you know, if there were ever another attempt to, you know, graffiti over the mural, it can be cleaned. So that is also a protective coating that I think the lifetime of the mural without maintenance is about 10 years. And for the first five years, the muralist, if anything happens, she will come and take care of it. So the grant that we wanted to ask for would be up to $10,000. The, where are we right now? The overall budget is about 27,000. Some details, the lighting, we don't have a hard figure on that. Brad Keyes has been working on that piece of it, but it's about 27,000. Right now, we are, we've raised over half. Current fundraising stands at $15,857. So we would like to apply for the 10,000. If we get a large donation, we would reduce what we asked for. When we came to the, you raised, we asked for a grant through a DEI committee to ask if the committee as a co-sponsor could manage this grant proposal through the town. The committee, in its wisdom, proposed and we voted that the money from the grant would all go towards the artist's fee. She does require a deposit to get started, which I think is about 5000. So the 10,000 would probably go to the artist. So the 10,000 would probably go to the artist. to her operating, you know, buying materials and getting going. And then there's a final payment to her, which is after completion of the project. Any other questions? Did I get all of it? Essentially what's happened is the HRDI would like us to be the fiscal agent now for a grant they want to apply for, and it's going to be a portion of the project. And actually, I think this might be more palatable to others because the way I understand it, it's going to be payments just to the artist, and I believe the town would make the payments directly to the artist. Let's assume the grant was granted and you received the 10 grand. Then we would make two payments, the 5,000 for the deposit and then the final payment. Probably we thought to simplify things, that we would pay her deposit to get started out of existing fundraising, and we would use the grant to pay her the next 10,000. Okay. So it would just be one payment from the town to simplify. But I think, I'm not sure that, he did mention this to Michael when he called me, and a lot has happened since, and so I don't know if he's had a chance to think about this. I'd like to speak, I have Michael, I'll speak to this first and then I'll open it up to the board, if that's okay with everyone. Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the distinction here between the prior time that we were asked to do something like this is, they're an advisory commission to your board, and so it is a town entity, whether the last time it was a third party, that not necessarily a town entity that was asking us to be the fiscal agent. So I think this, I think this is a different and if they get the grant they can accept it, but the board under Mass General Law is still involved in the disbursement and, or you could accept it as well and you can vote to disburse that. So that would be, I think, much easier to process than the other requests that we received. So before we even have any comments, I'm going to say this, my vote hands are on. We have one, see this? One. Capital letters. One contact person that is contacting whomever, if we vote this in, whomever Michael identifies it is, but whoever it is, it's just one person calling in about this. Otherwise we'll probably not look favorably on the spot again. Anyway, open it. Can I ask a question through you, Madam Chair? Is there a contingency? What are the odds that you get the grant? So what if you make a deposit with the artist and you don't wind up getting the grant? What happens there? I don't know if we would speak in with the artist, if we were not secure. But the deposit, did you say, is going to come for the funds that's being raised? Right. So we already have a little over $15,000. So $15,000 plus $10,000 would give you just about the full budget. I'd like it open up to the board. Any comments? Yes, Mr. Hinton. You know, I have a very specific question for you because I've been, somewhat peripherally, a part of this for a number of months. So I was looking at the website for the Middlesex Savings Charitable Foundation, and it breaks the grants down into separate awards and types of categories. Has anybody had a conversation with anybody at the Middlesex Bank to make sure this fits this specific type of request for a mural fits under one of these? Because I'm struggling to find the connection.
So, Heidi, Heidi has been working on this. And what she told me is that she thinks that we can be eligible, actually, for up to $15,000 under their Educational Opportunities Program. So that would be the category that we would apply through.
Job training and job readiness programs, adult education and English as a second language, credit education and home buying seminars, and youth enrichment programs in the last one. I think it would be the youth enrichment. I mean, we've had feedback that I think the ARDS is amenable to involving high school students in the project. Yeah, I heard that at the beginning. And then it's due by July 31st, and they say it's reviewed by October 1st. Right. Okay. I think so. And I just think it's very reasonable. I have a couple of questions. Is it fundraising now? The one that you mentioned earlier, is there a reason for that? The money that you raised, is that going into a town account or something for the 501c3 you created? Wayland Can has, that's kind of their contribution. They are receiving those donation monies. As an agent for the town? No, they're for this project, for the mural project. They're donating. Okay. Yeah. So then they'll donate the money to the town at some point, or for the project to be done. They will spend the money. Directly, you know, for example, to give the artist her deposit, to buy lighting or pay the electrician. So that's a donation that has to be accepted at some point? I think if we can raise the money and it makes the deposit initially, we don't have to be in debt. Oh, 501c3. It's only when HRDEIC becomes a recipient of the grant, we may want to get involved in the acceptance of that with them. And then once it's accepted by the town, the select board usually has to vote to disperse the funds that are received from the grant. And the board of the town pool is in favor of this project. Is that right? And that building is a town building that we leased through an agreement. Yeah, we're the landlords. So the town pool, if I understand correctly, they are going to provide like electricity for the lighting. They will provide. They will provide. They will provide, you know, like basic maintenance. We will always clean up around it. Okay. So I just want to look ahead now. Three, four years from now, eight years from now, it's fading or something has to be done with it. Would that be a town project or a project of the pool administration? So I don't have it committed to memory, but I think when we looked at the lease the last time, the tenant is responsible. The tenant is responsible for the maintenance and the upkeep of that building. So I would probably want to review. I don't know if we did the last time because it didn't get too far whether or not we have to be involved in any type of, if there was an agreement with the artist, I think that was the question last time, if there has to be some type of rights, you know, whether we paint over it or whatnot. Yeah. I don't want to get, I don't think it needs to be too complex. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think that's it. I think everybody's all on board. You raised a couple good questions because it kind of got a mix and match there, but essentially this is a project for the community pool. And they've gone to a number of organizations in town, like the school, and all of them to say, Hey, we want to do this project. We think it's going to be about making 30 million. And so what had happened before is they were looking for grants and none of them have the capability to do it. the capacity if you will not the capability the capacity to be a grant administrator so they have come to us we looked at it and said again it's a one-off because it is a town facility it even though we don't utilize it because we lease it it is still a town building blah blah blah and also because of the the issue this instance is totally different we are just going if they we don't know isn't to get like the grant and they get the grant like to michael's point we will accept it and disperse it directly to the artist and that's all our own bone we don't own the project i got that right correct okay but i think it's a really good question i'm curious who is the grantee assuming the grant is approved um good question it would well we would have to apply as the human rights diversity inclusion committee of the town of wayland so is the town the grantee essentially that's a good question yeah um i i don't know if the committee is a legal entity that could i would like guidance on how to do it correctly and um would you plan to get the artist going before hearing about the disposition of the grant we would we would like to um i think it i think a lot of it depends on how the fundraising continues right and the question i guess for you michael is um if if if the grant is awarded to the hr deic or the town on behalf of the hrdeic can we directly disperse to an artist without having done any kind of rfp or
without ten thousand dollars yes how serious well under ten thousand dollars a you yes but i think um now it's time controlled yes we we talked about some of this before i love great questions so i see this is a good question um
but under ten thousand dollars there's different rules but this there might be a uniqueness here uh argument to be made um the nature of the uh the work that is being done nine years ago couple of years ago this has changed every year essentially there's a few things that are maybe significant in like hiring civil unions like the being done by a former Wayland resident. So it's a good question I would have to research a little bit. I don't mean to cause trouble here, but I want to prevent Carol and Doug from getting into trouble. Like was it 10,000 to a cutoff? Oh, that was big. Should we make it, like, 99,000? Well, there's best practices. I can help you learn. We can talk about it a little bit later. Maybe we can ask Kelsey if she's aware of an exception for artistic projects. Kelsey, if you know of this sort of solution. And it's, yeah. Yeah, so there actually isn't an exemption for artistic designs or what we're trying to accomplish here. Because I know that the city of New Bedford recently had to go out to bid for a mural project in there. In their city. So no, it would not be exempt from procurement laws. And if the, I know that Michael was thinking, you know, since the entire cost of the mural might raise above $10,000, that would be a situation we would have to procure it because it doesn't matter how much the town pays. It's the fact that I think we're involved, which would trigger the procurement laws. But I'm not sure I'd have to double check. Thank you, Kelsey. Thank you. Is there a reason you're not going through the town pool? Because it's a different organization. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Oh, wait, can't. Or Wayland can. Wayland can. Or I wonder if the grant could be conditioned on hiring this artist to do this. I mean, if you needed other quotes, I think there was at least one other quote to meet procurement. I mean, municipalities commission works of art all the time, right? I mean, Chicago, they said, we want Picasso. Right. I don't think it's something hard to do as much as is there just a simpler path. Yeah, right. A lot of the murals are on private buildings. And this is a town structure, but the MOA with the pool boards might give them leeway to control what's on the building. They didn't come to us for painting the building itself. Right. Right. I wonder if they're an eligible grantee of a private partnership. They may be an eligible grantee. And even though it's a town building, with the MOA, with the pool. But it's their responsibility to maintain the exterior. Right. Yeah. Maybe the town doesn't need to be involved. But how does that allow us to? We wouldn't be able to do anything with being their fund. We would have to rely on the good judgment. Right. The pool. Right. Right. And the human rights . So let me just get a sense here of, oh, it doesn't sound like we're ready to do the vote because we need some more information. So is there a sense that we need some more information? Well, let me suggest this in the interest of moving this along. Right. What if we voted to authorize the town manager to apply for a grant if it's determined in his judgment? That's the problem. That's the best solution for the issue. That way, we don't come back again to . So let's have some input here. Because we do have an issue where the next couple of meetings are town meeting, and then we're not having a regular board meeting for three or four weeks. That's not good. Yeah. So this is in my mind as well. So, sir. I was going to raise this, but I think the issue gets resolved by Mr. Fay's motion. The Mass General Law on the Acceptance of Grants and Gifts says an officer or a department of any city or town may accept grants or gift funds from the federal government, a charitable foundation, private corporation, et cetera. Whether they're an advisory committee, I don't know if they're a board department or officer, four-year officers. I could be considered an . Well, to make matters more interesting. But I understand they apply for grants now in different places and get themselves. How does this happen? Well, again, they may be acting as an agent of this board and your officers in the town. Okay. Yeah. So this board authorized the town manager to apply for a grant or grants funding for the system. The system completion of the mural project as presented tonight. Second. Do we have a friendly addition, Annette? If so, approved, it will be one contact person. I don't agree to that. Who would you like the contact person to be? I don't want to be getting these phone calls. Who would you like the contact person to be? Would you like to specify who you want that person to be? Well, you'll have to decide who it is that's working with us. I can't. That's right. I don't agree to that because that's more of a question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any more of a unnecessary procedure item? All right. Yeah. But I know these fine people will abide by the chair's wishes. Most certainly. Or maybe the mean Chair from this Board will call them. I'm getting calls that there's too many people calling on. So, okay. Do I have a second? Or a missed option? You do. I do? You do? Was it you? Mm hmm. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Well, I have an example request that I wanted to talk about. I was going to say it was my reports and concerns, but it probably makes sense to talk about now. So I know Ann has been the liaison to the HRD Act Committee this year, backstopping her. She's been busy at times over the last few months. And I know we're going to rejigger our portfolios after town election tomorrow and town meeting. But a question is, for example, I have spoken with the chair about a budget request. And that's come in separately in conversations with me, with the chair. And I don't know the specific logistics around that. So, for example, I knew how busy... Michael is, and I suggested that they connect directly with Kelsey. But I think that we need to actually come up with a process for questions exactly like this one and timing. Because as we found with our other advisory committees, we see them in this context in a sporadic setting. There's no, they come every 90 days or so. And it would be difficult for us to do that because of the number of advisory committees. So I think in setting the table for this, I think the first point of contact is the liaison, whoever that ends up being in a few weeks. But I think what I wanted to have a discussion with them and this board is, how and who do we bring in from the town staff when the question is beyond a board member's knowledge base? Good question. So I think that we started... I'm going to answer this already. Okay. I think we've had some problems. I don't know that we've kind of fully done this where we're trying to have one staff person and one liaison, you know, for the various committees. I'm not even sure myself if we have one liaison. I think Kelsey was doing it. I don't know if Jalen is it. So I think to your point, we need to show that up. To show that up. Budget. The budget request comes up all the time. I think we should talk about this. Advisory committees do not have budget. That's some... It seems to me that if an advisory committee has ideas on where they want to spend money, those ideas can be presented. Right. As opposed to a budget. Right. And as opposed to a we-not-request these days. It's like a road... And they can put on a consent calendar. Right. It's straightforward, right? And we need a presentation. It's basic. Consent calendar, done. Can you say more about what that means for us? Well, hang on a second. I would like Mr. Oh, sorry. Because we don't have unlimited funds. We have a small budget. So I want him to go find me for everybody. This is great. Let's put in, you know... I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. But I think we have to be very cautious about how we approach this or what type of precedent we set. Because you do have other advisory committees. And you want to make sure... I like the idea of the advisory committee coming to you and asking, because we've already set out the FY27 budget. We have limited expense accounts for this board and for my office that we would most likely fund these from. And because of the shortfall last year due to the snowstorms that we've had, we're trying to now find the $620,000 to cover. So at the end of the year, we're actually going out and asking people to give back money in those expense accounts. So it gets very tricky at this time. But I think it's a good idea to do something. I know you're talking about going forward. But I don't think it would be a good idea to start creating separate expense accounts for each one of the advisory committees. Oh, I don't think that either. No, but I just have to say it. Yeah, for the record. I was thinking that instead of them having these one-off requests that come to us periodically every X number of months, if they have an idea that, say, we need $6,000 over the next 12... Right. That they come and speak to the board, like Tom was suggesting, and then we can discuss that. I think that was our intent initially when we started saying we'd like to meet with the advisories more. I think we're, you know, we're creating new territory here and the rules of the road, if you will, as we go, trying to have more communication. So, you know, because you're advising us, so you come and say, this is what we advise should happen this over the next 12 months, we need $6,000. This, that, or the other. But I do think, to Mr. McCall's point, that we want to be, even we have to be mindful when we come up with things that we would like to do. If there are funds available, we're often saying, well, how are we going to fund this? You know, how are we going to fund this? So I think we have to have come up with, maybe we have to come up with some thoughts on this, how we would do it. I mean, it's... I think what might be most helpful, frankly, is in your brainstorming, if your committee... Yeah. Gave us a sample proposal, as Don suggested, in the next 12 months, this is what we're talking about, this is where we think it might work. Just to give us a sense, right? And that gives us some kind of funding. I think one of the things that has been brought up when we've talked about it in the past is that some of these budgetary items are things that we would want to see every year. And so it's a little different than some other committees. So, for instance, the multicultural festivals. So I think for our town, specifically, the HRDIC has really participated in putting on almost like cultural community events. So it's a little different than somebody saying, hey, I need, you know, something new this year because some issue came up. This is... So their budget's a little different. It's almost an investment into bringing the town closer together in order to save some negative issues that have occurred. And we went to the past. So it's part of the overall commitment to what the HRDIC represents in town. So it's a little different. And I think it's OK for us to treat every committee a little differently depending on what they're doing. And, you know, we look at the environmental group and the energy policy group, whatever that is. Yes. And they I personally believe they've gotten into a really nice team. I feel like I always know why they're coming. I understand what they're going to be asking, how they present. And so it might just be that every group has a little bit different of a flavor. And for the HRDIC, none of us, I think, would ever not want multicultural, the multicultural festival to occur or some of these that we've gotten accustomed to. I think what they're asking for is just a little bit more consistency so that they're not struggling every year trying to figure out how they're going to get it done. I hope that was a good representation. Yeah. All right. So we're good. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all you do. So the next item on the agenda, I put this on here because they're in the packet. Someone told me what base they're on. Are these rail trail signs? Point A. They're just so fabulous. And, you know, I thought, you know, they do a lot of, you know, rye work, I guess. But these are just some terrific things. And I just wanted to. Oh, what do you mean? . Wool sounds pretty wet to me. It seems a lot exciting to you. Wool sounds pretty wet to me. So I don't know if you want to just, you know, or Tom, you want to talk to them. But, I mean, you really put such a fabulous effort into them and they'll be. They work better than us. The content, yeah, the great, it's just fabulous. And I just thought they would take a couple minutes on them. So this board authorized money. . . . . . . . . . . haven't yet but will in a timely fashion the reason for that is because the um majority of the signs that go up east of the library hopefully by the end of the summer um i think three signs are going to go up at some point west of the library when they finish that rail when they finish that portion of the rail track so and then there's um i think three others one of them woods one of the pond um and castle cable which are um in the uh richard area so um i credit um fawning fossils for the hard work in this project as well as red connor and others in town including members of historical uh commission um but i find these uh they did a very good job on these i think they'll be well received oh yeah and thanks to kelsey for helping with that with the um vendors who are going to install these
you don't have anything on the native americans um they're mentioned but not uh the first one yeah first line i mean are we able to change any of this or no no that's done no no no we've been through that yeah yeah i just i just remembered reading something so i think that's what sparked my for example you see that the tribe and town came together okay that's on slide ones i'm going to move us along because i'm going to try to get this out early um review correspondence anyone have any comments on that all right just i've noticed that we had two members of the finance committee who entered their resignations and they wanted to thank them both uh for their service uh amber they were guilty dc uh they really thank you i made a great contribution to the panel and ensure the finance committee tries to really uh appointing the boards it's hard at work trying to read thank you i think that's a terrific comment we will miss them um i don't huh okay okay i'll of course have some uh we received some correspondence and i think may have come in over the weekend and i responded to it but because of the time minutes i'm just going to speak to it it's about um the mosaic that's been selected as being a memorial um in honor of john antes and there has been some change to it i did acknowledge it um i would like everybody if you haven't read it if you do have an issue with something just shoot me or an email otherwise i'm going to consider it we're good to go on this so we're going to put the gender item i head down here thank you for anna of course you've done that um next week we're going to end the town meeting and be um we are going to be meeting early both monday night and tuesday night it's looking like we're going to have executive session possibly both nights those agendas will go well thursday and we will send them out to you so just move on that thought and then finally um the public ceremonies committee has reached out to us and they're looking for a speaker for memorial day wondering if i could find one anybody have any thoughts if we have not already done this week he's done it right and they're done miss martin has done it and miss bremsley's off the hook uh-huh oh is it possible let's get a name tonight that would be great what's the date on the 25th i think may 25th yeah yeah
your schedules yeah yeah i i may be around i may too i'll connect with you about in a week and decide somebody's to connect with me i know but we'll figure it out first yeah and then someone let me know that'd be great okay and with that uh-huh happy to move the chairman of the board because this board will never be the same
sure when you when we do consent from when you were against the mayor you're gonna watch them all
you've been here for a couple hours all right come on i will try to make it get over here um 9 15. i hear a motion on the floor to adjourn yes yes okay all right good great thank you all those in favor say aye aye thank you very much
I do my comment. Thank you. I'm sorry? I was going to make my comment, which is thank you so much for saying that. That's really meaningful. And I knew that this role, I wanted to come in and I had specific goals really that I was focused in on. And I feel like a lot of those we were successful at. And I learned so much. And can I tell you the one thing I really, really learned? Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. The one thing that I would say that I really learned, because from a private sector standpoint, you know, this is my first influence on the public sector. And I just remember at some point, Tom, there was, we were all talking about a specific issue and you wanted to make sure that everybody was going to be addressed and that the issue would be something that we all considered every person in some way, shape, or form. And it changed how I looked at things because in the private sector, sometimes if you're not going to be able to accomplish one specific thing or there's one group that's not working out well, you focus on the rest. You take the majority, you take the bigger win. And I remember thinking, oh, we have to account for it and care about every single group, even if they're the minority, even if it's going to be something that makes the entire process a little bit more difficult. And that really changed how I looked at them. It really, really did. And I realized that you always have to address everybody. And that's different than in the private sector, you know. So it was really impactful. So thank you. Thank you. My turn. Yes, that's fine.
I want to echo Tom's sentiments and say that I first got to know Ann during her campaign for the C3 plus years ago. And what most impressed me about her is I had always shared my advice and the way that I thought things worked well in Wayland. And Ann always did things her way. And her way turned out to pan out for her very well more times than not. And I very much appreciated all of the input over the years, especially when I had the opportunity to serve alongside you over these last couple of years. As much as you say you've learned, we've all learned a lot from you as well. And we wish you the best of luck in Mazel Tov this past Saturday. I know.
Mr. Whitney. Well, I'd like to add my thanks to you, Ann. For those of my colleagues, you've brought an important perspective with your private sector background. I particularly appreciate your real estate acumen. And while we are suffering a grievous loss of another lawyer, you really have contributed importantly to the deliberations in court. So I have my thanks to those of my colleagues. The problem going last is, you know, everybody said everything. So we hit it off from day one, and then we went at the monthly cultural festival. I think it was like the second year they had it, and we were having such fun doing that. And she says to me, oh, wait a minute, I have to go over here and get them food because we don't have a kitchen in our house. I said, what happened? Oh, we've just been redoing it for like 95 years. I said, oh, I would never last for years. But that's you. You just go along and bounce them everything, and then you come to these, and you provide an incredible perspective, especially this real estate background. We are going to miss that skill set. Really enjoyed working with you, Ann. We will miss you. So thank you. Thank you. Michael McCall, what you guys have done, it's been just amazing to watch you guys come together as a team, for you to build your team, and then really just take the role, start controlling the role, and become somebody that people can just depend on. I mean, you can't ask for more than, hey, I know I can depend on Michael, and your team. But thank you. Well, thank you. And I would just say, Madam Sheriff, it's been a pleasure working with you as well, because it does take a team, and I looked at the five of us together with my staff who've worked on all these issues, and I've had buy-in and support from the board, including from you, on some of these initiatives, and I think that's how we've been able to succeed. So thank you. So this gives me a wonderful segue to remind you, to remind everybody, the rest of the announcements, is that tomorrow, of course, we are voting. We're voting right here in the gym, our four precincts, and it's our local election, so we'll elect some new officials, including a new select board member who will be joining us after town meeting. So, which is the next item, next Monday night, we will be meeting in the Fieldhouse at the high school for town meeting. We have 40, I think it's 40 articles now, is it 41? 41 articles we're going to be discussing. A lot of them are, we'll talk a little bit about this a little bit later, but a lot of them are really quick housekeeping items. So, although we hope we would be finished on one night, we're pretty sure we may be there too, so please mark your calendars for Monday and Tuesday night, and town meeting starts at 630. So, anybody else have any announcements? Okay, we're good, so we'll go on to public comment. Is there, let me know if there's anyone on the... line, and is there anybody, Ms. Shuler, anybody in the room who would like to speak?
No, sorry, I already recognized you. Okay, Gretchen Shuler, 126 Old Connecticut Path. I'm here tonight as a member of the Historic District Commission. We have a memo that I tried to get to you, and I went through the wrong channels a couple weeks ago, and then I didn't come to the meeting to do public comment, so I'm here tonight. I know you've got town meeting on your... mind, and you won't be able to think about this until June, likely, but it's about the parking in the town center, and we have some ideas, the Historic District Commission has some ideas on how we can, short-term solutions and long-term solutions, and we hope that you will, in fact, embrace it, embrace the concept. We've got the depot, we've got the library, we've got the Historic District, Historical Society, and then, you know, we've got the new business coming in at the town house, cafe, and bistro, and there's a lot of demand for parking, and we think that some of the ideas might be palatable, and we hope that you will embrace it, and we'd like to participate in that, those solutions if you will have us, and I'll send the memo when I get home tonight. Did you send it already? I sent it to Michael, and to Jaylin, and to two and a half weeks ago right but then I didn't say okay um yeah but I will send it to the members of the board and to Abigail is that correct Abigail yes yes okay so spoiler alert for the board I did have a conversation with Ms. Shuler when this came out and tentatively scheduled them to come before us on June 1st so and if somebody else will come because I will Right somebody will come and tentatively scheduled them before us when you see them thank you nice to see you Mr. Waderbaugh
So, Mike Wienbauer of Plossing Lane I'm speaking on behalf of myself with an approved motion by the board of public works um in 2019 board of public works in coordination of the town administrator for the DPW Directorate put in place a mechanism that allows access to retained earnings our rainy day fund for emergencies and unexpected expenses this year the board of public works acting as water commissioners approved a motion to include water retained earnings as part of the water enterprise budget revenue budget without consulting the board of public works finance staff presented to you folks an article that did not include that funding line the board of public works also was not included in that discussion when it came to discussing that that article this is not the first time staff has either pulled or refused to include the funding line my concern is this appears to be a deliberate attempt there's no coordination with the board and all of the all that i've heard about our budget has been painted in a very negative light as though we're not hitting water revenue targets we're not you because the finance director is putting capital items under water water revenue he's removing this funding line so in 2022 there was an additional five hundred thousand dollars put on water rates that should not have been put on water rates so what i brought to you tonight is an analysis of our operating expenses and revenue budget and as you can see for the past six years we've made a profit so we're not doing a poor job we're not at all we're doing a very good job we set targets every year based on our water enterprise fund consultants targets of 10 to 25 percent of retained earnings of the budget sorry and retained earnings and we've hit that every year we've had our target with twenty percent we are kind of more sum it up in two sentences what i'm asking you to do is what was done in 2021 when the select board added some errata to the packet and included the $200,000 line item and I've included in the information I've included here how that was done. It's very simple. It's very straightforward. Sorry. We asked everyone to go for the three minutes and unfortunately we let someone go over. I can guarantee you. Oh, that's fine. A couple of minutes and now someone will say, but you let so-and-so back in June speak. No, no, no. I'm good. I'm good with that. I went over. I'm sorry. All right. That's okay. Sorry. We let you go a little bit. So just recall. I just want to say, Mr. Wiggenbauer, if you want to contact me separately, you said staff removed that. I don't recall. As I recall, the warrant article was presented, had it, and a question came from the board to Mr. Keveny who was here that evening. So I don't recall staff taking that out in advance, but we don't have an answer. He's either removed it or not included it as the board had voted. We can't debate him. One way or the other, he excluded it.
Okay. You're staying for the warranty, aren't you? Oh, I'm not staying that long.
I have submitted all of the information required. Would you like to speak, please? Yes.
Yes. My name is Chris Hill. I live on Orchard Lane. And I am here tonight to share my thoughts on the proposed visioning committee which I understand is going to be discussed later tonight. In comparing the proposal to the 212 Constituent Advisory Committee, I was surprised and concerned to see a different approach to the resident representation. While 212 Constituent is a smaller site, it is also in a residential neighborhood with homes directly abutting it. That committee included three resident representatives, including one who lived within 0.2 miles of the site. The current 25 holiday proposal includes only one resident. I am respectfully asking that the Select Board consider revising the draft charge to include three Wayland residents, including at least one who lives near 25 Holiday. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody else? There's James Young. My mistake. Yeah, James. Wow. I don't know if that's good or bad. I'm gonna get this wrong, or I'm just gonna be bad. You're recognized. Good evening. Jennifer James Young, Orchard Lane. I'm also speaking ahead of tonight's discussion to share feedback on the proposed visioning committee for 25 Holiday Road. When comparing the Select Board's draft charge to Route 20 South visioning committee, the range of potential uses, is pretty similar the route 20 committee included not only the committees proposed in the draft charge but also the conservation commission i understand that not including conservation could be related to the fact that they don't have permitting jurisdiction at this stage but that's exactly why their input is important early in the process before any decisions are made at the april 13 public forum in response to my question about conservation as a use for holiday road uh select board uh member bill whitney um raised the idea of a potential conservation cluster housing development that reinforces that conservation considerations are in fact part of the discussion for the site so given the size and wooded nature of the site it risks missing an opportunity uh or excuse me a perspective to leave conservation out uh at this stage so it's basically we're missing out of their perspective if we do if we don't include them uh i respect the we ask that the select board and school committee include the conservation commission on the 25th holiday road visioning committee thank you thank you i appreciate it is there anybody else who would like to provide other comments yes miss lee or mylon brookman are also archer lane yes also about the uh the visioning committee in reading your proposal it seems as if the scope of the committee is limited to reviewing um the con what the consultants have come up with uh particularly with regard to soil and water um so that uh it's uh uh other uh visioning committees have been more visioning uh you know looking at things and and proposing alternatives um to the to the select board um so i'm i'm wondering if it would be possible to consider uh enlarging the scope of the charge so that it involves looking at alternatives and presenting it for anybody thank you um that's okay this will be the second time
good to see you again tom hammond orchard lane thank you i see you again uh so yeah also talking about the 25 holiday road visioning committee and the proposed charge um i haven't seen other proposed charges for the other visioning committees but um just going back to something that you said ann just earlier about bringing everybody under the tent um i would hope that you guys might consider expanding the charge to include some language in it about public engagement public discourse during the process or some requirements that the vision committee might have to pull information from the community hold you know however you want to bring engagement if it's public comments um public conversation whatever it may be to bring all the community views in to use the visioning committee to sort of titrate those thoughts down into something thoughtful that can be presented to you all so just it's just a comment about bringing the public again more important in terms of the language and the charge thank you okay thank you yes sir there's nothing online mr stocks that's the sherman's bridge road not here to talk about 25 holiday road so guess what i'm here to talk about
my neighbors and i appreciate the select board's request for the acting police team to conduct a traffic study insurance retro and your correctness in adding a discussion and potential vote to tonight's agenda however i asked the select board to defer this matter to a later meeting for two reasons first is that the data have not been made available to the general public nothing summarizing the results of the study appears in the select board packet for this meeting and without sharing the results of the traffic study beforehand whalen's residents lack the ability to determine their sentiments regarding the speeding and traffic volume situation on sherman's bridge road second is that the select board has an extremely ambitious agenda tonight it looks like the meeting is already running 15 to 20 minutes behind schedule giving the number of public comments and plaudits for ms brinley's service and here's a way you can recover 15 minutes easily so squeezing this discussion in between an important executive session on labor negotiations and the annual town meeting warrant hearing is likely to result in an abbreviated unthoughtful discussion and potentially vote on the matter while i feel this matter is important if you couldn't tell it is not so pressing that the select board should offer a hasty pressured decision as opposed to a thoughtful considered one accompanied by full public input in a few weeks time thank you thank you is there anybody else who would like to a public moment
miss carter i recognize you hi boy have i had zoom problems today glad i'm finally able to make my phone work um thank you very much for letting me um join you for a minute i want to agree with what doug has said particularly in light of considerations for his personal request for um some of the changes that are in my article um that you guys are considering outside of the town meeting and also just to draw your attention to the fact that so many people believe that they're going to have a vote on whether this project goes through or not and it's um i've been trying to explain to them no we have not been given that choice and i'm still not sure why and i do think this goes back to what the previous speaker said, we need more transparency in decisions like this and when and why the public is not allowed to vote on something as important as drastically changing this bridge to something else, which is, you know, not necessary. It does not have to be updated to modern contemporary standards, bridge standards, and I have been saying that for months and been ignored and we're still stuck with this project. So, yeah, I'm sorry, beating a dead horse with my stick again, but I do hope that any other things about the traffic and stuff will wait until the town has a chance to vote at least on the articles that are up there and that going forward, when you make your decisions, you don't only look at the most recent traffic study, but you look at several of them as is usually done when making decisions about how to go forward with any changes to traffic speeds and such on the roads in town. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay, so I'm going to close public comment for tonight. And then I am going to move that the select board enter into executive session. A, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation on 16 Whispering Lane. B, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to litigation for fire truck fixing and cost recovery. C, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30A, Section 21A3, to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining with the following units. I'm going to say the Leyland Library staff, the Leyland Police Officers Union, the International Associated Firefighters, the Leyland Department of Public Works, and . And finally, D, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30, Section 21A7, to review and approve the executive session minutes of March 2nd, 2026, and March 9th, 2026, with the intent to boldly say that this is a an effective way to ensure the widespread delivery of legal information to the state. I'm going to take a few minutes. Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session? Second. Thank you. The Chair declares that a public discussion of these matters may have a detrimental effect on litigating, negotiating, or bargaining position of the town. I'm going to have a roll call vote, please. Ms. Brinsley? Yes. Ms. Dufesne? Yes. Mr. Levine? Yes. Mr. Witte? Yes. And myself? Yes, that's going to be 5-0. The Chair invites attendance by Michael McCall, Town Manager, Elsie Powers-Brillette, and Ms. Gileff. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McAvoy. Mr. McAvoy, any comments or suggestions? our assistant town manager kate bryan and human resource director jaylen braddock our management analyst slash communications coordinator the committee will rejoin the public meeting for an executive session and we anticipate that we'll return in approximately 30 minutes which will be about 7 p.m thank you thank you so we're going to want to okay you're good to go thank you now call the select board back into open session at 7 0 3 p.m
okay the next agenda item we have is
we're going to review and discuss the sherman bridge road traffic study with potential recommendations we invite uh an acting chief of the police market to join us how are you thank you hello hello to you so what has happened is we we a couple of weeks ago a couple of weeks ago three four weeks ago mark and annie kind of reviewed the original traffic surveys that were done on sherman's visual for us and we had some thoughts that perhaps would like to have another traffic study done another section which is going to tell us give us an update where we are you know with that where's yours sir all right thank you um so i was able to conduct one complete study between last time and uh this week today there was a little bit of an error because the battery died in the middle of it so i did not collect as much data as i wanted to um so we have one full uh set of data to look over i plan on surfing back with tom holder dpw director and kind of going over what we see in the data there uh where i spilled into them a little bit about the issue uh i think we've gone over maybe some speed feedback signs putting the area of the curve there by the bridge uh if we do see a it was speeding issue there where the speeds are kind of creeping up over the posted 25 and you know into the 30s my idea is to put some curb ahead uh signage and some yellow hash marks to try to slow things down like the ware meadow area um over lincoln road in sudbury um so we're going to discuss that and see which ones we think are best from he had a lot of history and a lot of experience in road design um probably more than i do so i'm going to value his input um on this as the dpw director but i think he's got some good ideas that he thinks we can tackle and i think we can tackle as well so i think that for those who are listening and not familiar with this process it's a joint venture between the the acting or the police chief or the police department and the uh department of public works one does the study and then they kind of look at things and evaluate um what their recommendation is so i think that uh what you're saying is you still need a little more time maybe yeah it captures a lot of data the machine and the device a little more that i can process you know just a couple weeks you can do some real quick stuff with it but to really see uh kind of the time frames of the time of day and speed within those time of days it takes a little digging into the data set that i haven't had the time to do so i've seen the 85th percentile the average speed but not kind of the individual time frames but things happen which is i'd like to take a look at and again discuss with the dpw director older how we're going to tackle that issue in that specific area do you have any questions for them absent battery issues how long do you leave that active for how long do you i try to do capture a full seven days uh that's about as long as the battery when it's fully charged and not a dead battery that i'm now disposed of uh it lasts for about between seven and ten days but i think with the age of the batteries we have now seven days what i'm gonna get out of any sort of traffic study the advice that we have and you keep it in the same location yep yeah yeah you can move it um but it's better to collect a whole set of data in that one location and then move it to the next location so and it's capturing frequency motor vehicles and their speed yep so it captures their speed the time that it's gone by frequency the distance between the cars the length of i think the length of the car i got some of the uh titles of the columns i need to look into what exactly that it's capturing but captures a lot of the data. Thank you.
I just had a question for the town manager. It sounds like the goals here and the process really hasn't required Kevin Dandry to be involved yet, who the public's knowledge, the person that town consults with often on traffic issues when needed. Would you agree? Yeah, I would agree. Just so you know, they were involved with part of the Sherman Bridge project. Tech is involved. This was something separate. It originated with some concerns raised by the residents about speeding traffic. So then Chief Berman, he and I talked and he went out and put some sign boards up last fall. And that came to light during a conversation during Sherman's Bridge Road. And after his departure, Chief Huber and I had talked and it came up again about the traffic studies, agreed to do a second one. So there hasn't usually you get Mr. Dandry and tech involved. Like when we were looking at 195 Maine, what are we going to do? Traffic studies and things of that nature. This I don't think rises to that level. This is more what do we do to help curb speeding traffic and things of that nature usually can be resolved with, in my experience, and I'll let the chief speak to it. Signage, random enforcement operations. Sometimes you can get grant money, either from the state or the Federal Highway Traffic Safety, to do directed patrols up there. And that helps with those types of things. But also there is the bad curve. So some signage may be a little bit. Chief, this location hasn't been a location in town where the number of accidents is exceeding average or is a problem in the town? I would not say so. No, not from what I've seen. Anecdotally, I mean, I've looked at all the logs for the last five years, but from just looking over them daily, it's not really maybe a couple of bad accidents over the last decade or so, but not a very common area for bad accidents. Thank you.
Thank you. Actually, I thought you were going to be on the phone, so I was surprised to see you. Thank you for coming in. And we'll be in touch, too, when you're ready. Let me know. Well, we're scheduled to come back in. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you. You know what? I'm going to skip number six for the moment. I'm going to put a consent calendar. I'm going to move the consent calendar. I started. Okay. And for the discussion, if everyone was prepared to say aye. Aye. If anything else passes, I think there was something that needs to be signed by everyone. If you have a signer, it has to be right here. And here's the link. Okay, everybody else is signed with me.
Want to do the minutes, then? I think they're on page five. Yes. A motion on the minutes of March 30th, please. Approval is amended. Second. Any edits, please? 30th, nothing.
A2.
A1, A2. Second. Paragraph.
C. Martin announced that the Select Board didn't post a public forum. It should be forum. Okay. Oh, good. Yes. Under page three, references made to Article EE. I would suggest we add something to identify specifically what that is, which is Mentown Code Section 198, Planning Board Appeals, just so someone looks later on. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what you're referring to. I had that same thing. A6, there's reference to boards, S, apostrophe, V, apostrophe, S.
And then A6.
What did you say? Who knows?
Okay, well, one finding that everyone knows how many. I've been sending other sessions on this. 30th? No. 30th? I have one on A11 where it says, C. Martin asked the board questions related to the recent certification in the Associate Grant Applications. So when I first read this, it didn't make sense, but now it makes more sense. Really, I think I have asked whether we should revisit the Revolving Fund article and adjust the Energy Fund FY27 expenditure limit in case there was a grant that required matching funds, but I don't know. Did you find that, Evan?
I didn't. Okay. I won't re-vote on this then. All right. So then, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Pass 5-0. Are the minutes 1-13 in here? Yeah. Yeah, okay. The minutes of April 13, 2026 as amended. Second, please. Second. Thank you. Anyone have any edits? Just one edit on A14. Request the insertion of the word OF before 2027. And that's in that paragraph. Okay. All right.
Anybody else have any? I think it's 8-5. It's twice in the same sentence. Really? Paragraph 5?
Next page on which is Mr. Harris. The end of the second line, it says, he felt I was. I think the word is it was. Right. A couple paragraphs down, Mr. Stotts. Sherman Bridge Road. Sherman Bridge Road. It said he stayed, he was. I think that's supposed to say he stayed. Anything else, Bill? No. Okay. Good. So on A7, when we had the discussion, we were talking about the town center, the municipal parcel. This captures the conversation about the possibility of looking at a playground. But I also think it should say that Martin and Levine relayed conversation with the town center owner who was willing to offer services of landscape architect to look at the entire municipal parcel. It would express interest. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. Same. I've quoted him too, so I want to make sure you realize that. The George Harris paragraph. We got that. Yeah. We did. Yeah. Yeah. That's good, though. Keep going. If everybody's all set with that, let's take a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Great. I think we're pretty close. We did start, though. I'm going to tell you what you think. Yep. Yeah. Good. Okay. Just a reminder to come back to some images. We didn't skip you on purpose. You weren't here, so we went right along without you. What we're going to do here is do our annual, what is called a warrant hearing. We're going to go over the warrant. This is the articles that we're going to be giving in the returns. It's going to be presented at town meeting. I'd like to recognize the moderator, one Miranda. Ms. Jones is joining us to participate this evening. She's going to want to talk to us a little bit about some changes in the consent calendar, and we want to talk a little bit about the consent calendar for those who are listening. If you're in the room, there are copies of the warrant up here. There are copies of a number of things, a couple of exhibits that are going to be either in the book or handouts at the town meeting. If you're online and you need a copy of the warrant, we did put in a supplemental package. You can find it. It's left with. The package supplemental is an online version of the warrant if you don't have your copy handy. So now I'm going to... Robert, do you see people online here with their hands raised? Oh, no, I'm not here. Okay. So what we'll do is we'll go through all these. I'd like to let Miranda have the... I've lost her. Oh, there we are. I'm going to give an introduction because I think I want to maybe talk about the consent calendar and how it's going to operate this year. We did it the first time last year, which means they have a chance to give us some information on that. So the floor is yours, Ms. Jones. Hey, thanks. Thanks, everyone. Miranda Jones, moderator. With regard to the consent calendar, I have changed the rules just a little bit. I've tweaked them a little bit based on how things went down last year when we tried it for the first time. I found that several articles were held because people sought more information.
And so this year I've changed the rules a little bit to ask people, I'm going to hold the articles and I'm going to go back while we are going. I'll go through all of the articles on each consent calendar. And then anyone who asks to hold, I'm going to go back to that person and ask them why, if they're seeking information or if they want to debate it. If it's simply information only, and if the question can be answered quickly, then I am inclined to put that article back on the consent calendar. If, however, the holder of the article wishes to debate it, then we'll leave it off and we will go through the regular process for that particular article that's been removed from the consent calendar. And once we get through those, then we will, whatever's remaining on the consent calendar, we will do in one quick vote. So that's the changes in consent calendar. I look at this as being a work in progress. And hopefully as we do it repeatedly year after year, town meeting will get more used to it, and then it will just become a custom. So that's what I have on the consent calendar. Does anyone have any questions? One person. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. They're hand-wringed. Absolutely. Who's that person? Alyssa.
Alyssa, I'll recognize you, but go ahead. I didn't realize I had my hand up, but I do have a question. Does it relate to the consent calendar? Yeah. Does that include the whole warrant? No. The consent calendar is just a mechanism whereby we take votes. So as something comes up that you feel you would like to make, and then you have a question, please raise your hand then. Right.
Yeah, I'm confused. I'm just a little confused about some of the procedures that were in there. But I will wait because I didn't know my hand was raised. I'm sorry. Okay. Just to be clear, the consent calendar, the articles that are in the consent calendar are listed on the front of the warrant in the table of contents. So they are designated, those articles that are going on to a particular consent calendar. And this year we have two. So right now, we're just talking about the consent calendar. And quite frankly, how the consent calendar is going to be done this year because the rules are just a little bit different than last year. There is also, just so everybody knows, on Wednesday night, the League of Women Voters is putting on a forum that it will be on Zoom, in which Carol Martin, the chair of the Select Board, will be present to answer anyone's questions about articles that are on the consent calendars or abbreviated procedure. We're just trying to get some more information. We're trying to get some more information out to the public if the public has questions before town meeting. So maybe some questions will get answered beforehand so that we'll have fewer questions at town meeting and save our time for debate. Excuse me for a second. Ms. Bradica, is the forum listed on the town calendar? Yes. It's not on the town calendar, but where you find the Zoom links to attend meetings, the Zoom link is on that page. Okay. So if someone wants to Zoom in, they're there. Okay. All righty. So we will start then. And obviously, you can do it page by page. If someone has a question on something on the page, please raise your hand or speak up, and we will stop and take that question. So we have the cover. And please note, by the way, town meeting is starting at 630 this year. So page two. Page three. Oh. All right. Yes. Alyssa has her hand. She does? She put her hand down, and now it's back up. Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now it's down. Okay. Okay. Then on page four, we have the table of contents. And on page five, I do want to make a note that as Brandon noted, the items with the double dagger are in the consent calendar, and there are, I think, there were a lot more, but we've taken about nine articles. There were also ones. with an asterisk there and those are to be the abbreviated presentation so we will have to add this i think generally to the urana is that number three an enterprise fund um is that still abbreviated that's the one that abbreviated yeah which one is still doing that one abbreviated yeah article three enterprise funds is that still abbreviated presentation uh i don't think so unless you be able to be appropriate not to okay okay well let's leave that like that for now okay page six page seven quantum about how to vote electronically which continues on page eight then we have the report of the finance committee sorry yes i don't know if she's she has her hand up and down she has her hand answer or sure listen listen are you raising your hand yes um back at the beginning um you're saying that the consent calendar is what we get to vote on and we're going to hear about or or and we get to question or not so i just need to understand the question better of course we are going to vote on this consent calendar there when you look at the table of contents yes on the first we're on my page okay uh articles four five six seven eight right somebody this case it will be okay it up and said, we're going to move these articles as one vote. We did this last year. Same articles. They're called a consent calendar because it's a calendar, a list of articles to be voted on at the same time. Okay, so we can make an objection, though, in order to ask questions about one of them, correct? Yes. Carol, if I may? Yes, please. It's not an objection. If you have a question on the consent calendar article, then ask that it be held. What I'm trying to do is not have to, I'm trying to utilize the consent calendar in an efficient way. However, some people may have questions. So we have this form on Wednesday night for people to ask questions then. And if you don't get your questions answered, you can always hold an article from the consent calendar. And if it's simply for information that you seek, then I would be inclined to put it back on the consent calendar because that's the point of it. However, if you want to hold it because you wish to debate the article, then it will remain held. It will be taken from the consent calendar. And then you'll come back to it. Whatever articles are pulled from the consent calendar because some voter wants to debate it, then we will debate it in the regular fashion. The remaining articles that are left on the consent calendar will be voted in just in one vote without further deliberation, without further discussion. Consent calendars are used throughout many town meetings. Consent calendars are used throughout many town meetings. They're still peeled with 35 articles on one consent calendar. So I don't see that ever happening in Wayland, but I would like to see if we can get some articles pushed through that are non-contentious, or the typical articles we see every single year. So that's our goal. And so we can spend our time debating the controversial articles. Okay. Okay? Sure. Of course. Dr. DeGeneres, which is the reporter for the Finance Committee and Mr. Crumby's from the Finance Committee, and Ms. Melba from the Finance Committee are here, if anyone has any questions. Really good. Thank you. You're welcome. Thanks, everyone. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. on this. So the report of the finance committee is on page 9, page 10, page 11, page 12, and you really should read this. This is a lot of wonderful information. Page 13, page 14 is our capital budget. Page 15, 16, 17. Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Lisa, I recognize you. Yeah, I'm back. I looked through this report, the finance report, and it seems like it's reporting a budget and all these budget totals, but many of them will change. And so, it's not complete. And I'm wondering why they don't show, like, a higher thing and say, you know, this may go down instead of saying this is what you're voting on, and then it's going to go up afterwards, and we don't know how much. That just seems kind of misleading. Now, one second. Does somebody want to answer that? This is the current budget we're voting on, correct? Right. With a lot of little notes saying, but then again, you know, this might be added. Okay. Thank you. I recognize you. So, the finance report is just a basic report on, or an analysis on the current budget. It is what was proposed to us and put in front of us. I'm not sure what you mean by numbers, Gina. Well, we're not debating that. This is just an explanation. That's what the question is. I don't understand the question. Lisa, can you explain your question again?
I don't. Can you still hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. We just don't understand your question. Okay. So, there's a lot of little notes, like, for example, on page 15, you see a note does not include the $38.6 million requested in Article 15. Other notes where it says, these are the salaries, but they, you know, doesn't include cost of, or, includes cost of living and these unknown additional raises. You know, stuff like that. So, the numbers, you know, and it says, if that happens, it'll change to this percentage of change instead of the one that we're printing here. You know, so, like in little notes throughout. Lisa, it's just a quick question. And so, then we let the person respond. Okay. Thank you. Go ahead, April. I have to recognize myself again. I'm sorry. Do I have to say my name again? No. Okay. So, the $38.6, I think, is an article in the warrants. Right. Until that's approved, we did not include it in the analysis. And then, all the contracts, I believe, are still under negotiation. So, we can't make assessments, we don't make assessments of future what-ifs until they're upon us. Thank you. Okay. So, page 18 and page 19. I want to thank the Finance Committee for all the work they've done. Appreciate it. Okay. So, we go to page 20, which is the legal language. We can hold the town meeting. And then, we go to Article 1. Article 1 is on page 20. So, page 21. And we do have some on this, the names of the... Yes, yes. The name and the names of the names. Yes. And then, if we look at, this is 18. The name and the names of the names of the explicit bill are on page 18. Okay. So, and then, we go to Page 15. Page 15. Okay. All right. So, I think we're good. Article 4, OPEB funding goes right through to 27. Then we have Article 5, the fiscal year revolving fund expenditure limits of our revolving funds, the explanations. On page 28 at the bottom, Article 6, Surface Water Quality Committee budget. On page 29, Article 7, the Capitalist Stabilization Fund appropriation.
Article 3, page 30, we have Article 8, the Special Education Reserve Fund. Article 9 is to update the personal bylaws and wage and classification plan and fund union agreements on those that have settled by the time we go to town meeting. That's on page 31, and it goes on to page 32. Then on the bottom of page 32, the Fiscal Year 27 Omnibus Budget and Enterprise Fund Capital Budgets. Do you have a question, Ms. Lewis? On page 33. I haven't done it yet. Okay. Page 33 was the answer. So let me go to page 34, which is the listings. Page 34 on are the listings for the fiscal year budget by department. So, Ms. Lewis. Can I ask that in the future, if you carry the top of the columns across because on all the other pages, it's only on one page, and it's a little hard to come out. Oh, you see the actual zoning? Yeah. I'm looking to see if I can talk about the other one. Yeah. This is a really different. Appreciate it. So there's a couple of edits that we kind of want to put into this article, but the formatting is, like, challenging, I think. But we will take that under advisement. All right. Page 34. Page 36. Page 36, that starts with the town clerk. Page 37, starts with the budgets for miscellaneous committees. Page 38, building and zoning. Page 39, parking and cemetery.
Page 40, continues the Board of Health, and then goes on to veteran services. Page 41 is the recreation. Starts with that. And then finally on page 42, we have the grand total for the general fund budget. Page 43, we have the proposed omnibus capital budget for July 27, and the listing of all the items we are going to vote on on page 43. And that finishes on the top of 44. And then starting there on 44, I think for the next eight or so pages, we have a detailed block for each item in that listing. So we have starting with those that are being sponsored by or requested by the Board of Public titled. Okay. works. That's items one through six. On page 46, we have an item requested by the Town and Region Office, and then we have one, two, three from IT. Page 47, these are the capital requests for the Pre-Start Alignment, followed by the Joint Communications Center and the Fire Department. On page 49, starting at number 18, is the Facilities Department, and that runs right through, halfway through on page 50, where we start with the Capital Requests from the School Department, and the School Departments run right through page 51, finish up on 52. Now, bottom half of 52, we have Article 11, Choose Town Offices. That's followed by Article 12, Hear Reports. Article 13, Sell or Trade Vehicles and Equipment. On page 53, Page 54, Article 14, Refer Remote Participation at Town Meeting. Page 55, Article 15, Whalen Long-Term Water Supply Construction Funding. That carries on from 56 to 57. Article 16 is 25 Community Road Appropriate nie Funding of the Culinary Design engineering study and appraisal, and that goes on to 58. Article 17, Home Networking plaintiffs and Tges. He's no longer mentioned, is bestnaire and some of them move in e-commerce our will be not reported to inform you this week. Article 17, I don't overdone we need to Natale that we are at 35, I'm hoping you helped, if you have some will allow additional liquor licenses. On page 18 at the bottom is Community Preservation Committee Set Asides and Transfers which continues on 60. On 61 we have the second Community Preservation article a committee article which is Recommended Project Appropriations. There will be an amendment to this article presented at town meeting to transfer the funding location excuse me, transfer the location of the playground funding that was approved at the town meeting of 25 from the town building to the town building and or a school location. That's that. Article 20 Acceptance of MDL Chapter 53 Section 18B Provide Information Regarding Valid Questions The full text is on page 63 runs into 64 with the explanation following that. Article 21 we have the acquisition of permanent and temporary easements and conveyance of temporary easements at or near Weylandtown Center for the Mass Central Rail Trail. I will say this that we have some materials here and also I think in our packet that really show the layouts of the locations of this work that's going to be done and these handouts will be available at the town and town meeting. They did not fit into the warrants but they're purposely not in there because we couldn't fit them in. So that goes on to page 66. On page 66 we have article 22 this is a housekeeping zoning article sponsored by the planning board. Language goes right on through page 72. Page 72 we have another article that's proposed by the planning board. A man flood plane and federal Blood Protection District and the language in the changes proposed and current on pages 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 78.
Page 79 we have another zoning article proposed by the planning board. This is article 24 accessory dwelling unit zoning amendments. This is the explanation and then again the zoning languages. The edits, the changes, the additions are on 79, 80, 81, 82, 83. I'm just going to make a comment for that article and start on 84. And the write-up finishes on 85.
On 85, we have Article 25, Multifamily Housing Route 20, West Sub-District Amend Maximum Dimensions. Again, proposed zoning changes by the Planning Board. That's on, information is on page 85. Finance Committee proposes comments on 86.
Article 26 is on page 87, Van Heavy Commercial Vehicles on Sherman's Bridge Road. This is proposed by a petitioner. Okay, Alyssa, I recognize you. Thanks. I was wondering if citizen petitioners can bring in packets of information if people want to. Can I pick them up? Or can we have slides or anything like that? Do you want me to take that, Carol? Please. Sure. So, Alyssa, you know, maybe you and I should have a conversation on the phone about this. But just quickly, slides, yes, as long as you send them to me first. And I approve them. So you just have to email them to me. And then with regard to packets, again, as long as I see it beforehand, then we can discuss whether or not they're appropriate to be handed out at times. I'm meeting on tables in the back of the field house, okay? But if you want, you're welcome to call me, and we can talk it all through. Should I? We're meeting tomorrow, right? We are on Zoom. You can bring it up tomorrow, too, in our Zoom meeting. Sure. Do you want me to have the materials by then, or do I have a few days? We all, I do, especially slides. Slides have to go to the town manager's office so that they can be incorporated into the audio-visual. So the sooner, the better. They're supposed to be a week before. So I would need to do that. I need to see them fairly ASAP. I don't put them up. Somebody else has to. I just have to review them first. Thank you. Okay, of course. They actually have to be in to the town manager's office, been reviewed and approved by the moderator, and then to the town manager's office by Wednesday so we can make the copies, right? Because we have to make the copies in order to have them there Monday. So we are coming up on the deadlines. We think you can get that done by tomorrow and into the office, but by Wednesday, you're good. Oh, you mean the handouts if I don't do slides? Yes. Okay. But slides are the same thing, ASAP? No, actually, there's two different slides and the handout, but they both have to be pre-approved by the moderator, and then the handouts have to go to the town manager's office. They'll also look at them, and then they will make the copies. Got it. Thank you. All right. So now I'm, thank you. So on page 87 is Article 26. On page 88, we have Article 27, Sherman's Bridge Five-Ton Weight Limit. This continues on 89. And then on 90, we have Article 28, Increased Safety, Reduced Fear for Residents and Vulnerable Road Users of Sherman's Bridge Road and Sherman's Bridge. That goes over to 91. On 92, Article 29, Sherman's Bridge Second Pedestrian Walkway. This continues on to 93. Where we have Article 30, Renegotiate Sherman's Bridge Road Neighborhood Agreement. For 94, Article 31, Acceptance of MDL Chapter 138, Section 12D, Conversion of Wine Malls Licenses. This is proposed by the select board. And now Article number 32 on page 95 is proposed by a petitioner. We have Article 39. The copy and the text is on, continues on to 96. Then the proposes comments and the finance committee comments are on 97. Where we will find Article 33, proposed by the Town Court as to amend Town Code Chapter 149, Peddling Caucus and Solicitation. And that text in horizontal 98, 99, and over to 100. Article 34, Visible House Numbers. It's on page 100. It's also proposed by the Town Court. And again, the copy, I law, where it's going on to page 101, and finishes on 102. Article 35, as home rule, it's also by the select board, Authorization of Green Burials. It's on page 102. Article 36 on page 103 is Acceptance of MDL Chapter 60, Section 2 of 8, up to $25 on fast-due tax bills. And also at the bottom of 103, we have Article 37, which is also a home rule, allow print-free digital legal notices, again, proposed by the select board. The code language is on 104, page 105, we have Article 38, Amend the General By-law Prohibition of Cryptocurrency Machines, this is proposed by the select board, and the explanation goes over to 106. Article 35. Article 36. Article 39 on 107 is Amend Town Code, Chapter 36-1, Town Meeting and Election. Also on 107, if that's proposed by the select board. Also page 107, we have Article 40, Amend Town Code, Cleaning Board Appeals, proposed by the select board. And finally, I think the last one is on 108, it is Article 41, Maintain Sherman's Bridge Historical Appearance. This is proposed by the select board. Supposed by a petitioner. The explanation goes on 109 and finishes on 110. That takes care of the 41 articles. Then we have starting on 111, the appendices. Appendix A is the Wage and Classification plan, and list of talent positions. That starts on 111. Is that the same? Hi, yeah. Is there going to be some explanation? Like, this doesn't show. how salaries are laid out now. Is there going to be any kind of comparison or indication of where people are now on that scale or anything like that so we have an idea of when we're going to be paying more for these raises, which I presume are in addition to negotiated raises and cost of living increases, correct?
Because the appendix only shows the chart, the new chart. It doesn't show the old chart or, you know, how it's different.
Actually, this is the current chart because there has been no collective bargaining settled other than the firefighters, which I believe is in here. If you notice, it says on the top of page 111, non-union wage scales effective July 1, 2025. There's been no cost of living awarded or granted to date. Madam Chair. Yes, I'm going to have Mr. McConspire to this. This card is a question. Is it helpful for her to review the warrants for prior years? I was going to suggest that if I may, Madam Chair. Because each year since I've been here, the appendix reflects what we're voting on, not a historical comparison. So to Mr. Fay's point, you would want to go back and compare year over year. The collective bargaining agreements for prior years are out on the town's web page. So anyone can look at that. But right now, all of the collective bargaining agreements for all of our various unions are up for renegotiation. So at this point in time, we do not have a memorandum of agreement with any of the unions at this point. So there is no information. But in the event we reach an agreement and it is ratified, which has happened in the past, we would put out some type of handout or a slide. I would work with the moderator to get that taken care of. Well, I guess my question was more on the non-union wage scale, having 10 levels. Isn't that new? The new newly that you guys are going to vote on, like on Article 9 or something like that, making it the bylaws that they have all these additional steps. Isn't that new? Compared with like, how many steps did they have last? For the non-union wage scale? There has been 10. Oh, okay. Never mind. So there's nothing that shows, nothing that elaborates on that, making that a bylaw of the new levels that you guys have decided to choose. And it's like Article 9 or... And you guys are going so... Yeah, Article 9, you guys are going so fast, I was still... I'm stuck. Update the personal bylaws and wage classification planned. Is there going to be any... What I would respectfully request, Madam Chair, Ms. Carter has a question. She could call my office tomorrow as I am responsible for making the recommendations on all of these once we have agreements reached working with my HR department. So rather than delay you working through the rest of the articles, I'm happy to take her questions tomorrow. Sure. That was the last one. And who are you? The town manager. Oh. Hi. Okay. It's okay. But we... Ms. Carter, we're still actively trying to resolve some of these so we have some numbers to bring to town meeting and that is my hope that we may get some resolved before the end of this week. Oh, okay. So something will be presented. That's all I really wanted to know. I thought that what was being presented, what was in the back. So... So... But you're going to have some stuff there. So that's fine. I won't bother you tomorrow. I'm going to be really busy. Okay. Thank you. I'm going to recognize Ms. Lewis. Annette Lewis, Clay Biddle Road. What you're looking at in nine is contracts for unions and pay grades for unions. What's in the back is for non-union employees. And it's a comparison of what we pay in union versus non-union. Okay. So page 11 is Appendix A, degrees and classifications. Then we have powers over. Yes. 112. The recreation season schedule is on 113. The AFSCME and the library staff are on 114. DPW reports in the transportation line are on 115, followed by the firefighters and the police union on 116. And then we have a chart on... 117 of our full-time equivalents by department and including the schools. Appendix B is Article 12 here, reports. There are certain bylaw and by code committees that need to provide a report to come in every year, and this is where they are. So we have the planning board reports start on 118, and it talks about each one of its articles. It goes to 119, 120. On 121, we have the report from the Board of Assessors. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It carries over right to page 123, where the report of the Community Reservation Committee starts. And then, and I will say this, that the Public Sarah Orison Committee is the first one doing that.
Recipients from their awards are actually going to be doing that as a handout at Town Meeting this year, but next year, hopefully, they will make it in time to get into the warrant. Appendix C is the map. where the article 16 of the 25 Holiday Road, 126 is definitely blank. 127 has the names and in some cases the signatures on the select board as well as the finance committee and then there's the back cover. So Ms. Lewis. I just wanted to inform the moderator that on article 40, which is a change proposed by the Board of Selectmen and we're having a hearing on the 29th. We're going to endeavor to do a report so it would be coming in very late and we will get it to you as soon as we can. But I just wanted to alert you to that. Great. Thank you for that. And also that's part of the errata on page 40, article 40 on page 108, the quantum of the vote is two-thirds, not the majority. And I think also we've not had much of an item in general. Really, really good job this year. There's been a couple items in there. There's a couple of us floating around. So that concludes going through the warrant. If anyone had anything they didn't understand or something was missing, hopefully they've let us know so that we can go through this more smoothly when we get to time meeting next week. So I do have a couple things here. So on the motions, the draft motions that were created, they've been revised. I believe they've been reposted. There's still maybe one or two that are still leaking, but they were reposted today, right Jim? Yes, they were posted today on the time meeting page. I just need to confirm, there's no change in the motion of 40 that originally was well set with that section, right? It's in the motion. You mean in terms of what's cited in terms of the law? Yeah. I haven't heard anything differently from the town council. I don't know what the dates are. The one that we had after the motions meeting is the only one that loads right between rows. The one that we had after the motions meeting, Doug sent another one. That's the only one I'm aware of. Has there been a change in that one? No changes, but I'm just confirming there's no changes to that article's motions. Okay. As written, it's fine, right? No, I don't. Okay. Okay. All right. Miranda, when are you going to open for? I mean Wednesday. So what? We're having a public hearing on Wednesday. I'm sure we'll have some more details then. Okay. All right. So we talked about the handouts, talked about the thing about us. So the only thing I do want to talk about, too, is that, and I actually, my friend is going to be here, and I just want to remind everyone that we, okay, mostly it was me that got reminded. I'm going to use that word by a long, short term resident that when there was an article up for discussion, and I turned to the town manager and I said, oh, perhaps the town manager couldn't, you know, speak to this article. By our code, we cannot participate in what we call the debate, but he can answer questions. So when it comes to the budget, if we would like him to speak about the budget, we have to have specific questions or somebody. And the town manager or another staff member is welcome to answer. So we just want to make sure we're clear on that. You know, I've just had a five, six, seven slide presentation, multi-slide presentation like we did last year. So we're all good. I've tagged up. I've told everyone we've got to do that. All right. Does anyone else have any other questions? You know, about the town meeting? I think I've got everything. We're good? Good. Okay. Well, thank you, everyone. Anyone from the board? Okay, great. And I do want to commend Jim and again, I mean, this is terrific, and Kelsey and Chris Kelsey. Doug, I don't know if this applies to you and I, but this is terrific. I'll leave it there.
That's it. That's pretty good. All right. Why don't we go back to the, Mr. Committee, I see you said something. Did you want to say something? No, you're all set. Okay. I just want to make sure before I move on, everybody's good. Why don't we go back into the number six, the town managers report? Does that make sense? Thank you. Excuse me, Madam moderator. Did you have anything you wanted to add? No, I don't. It's just making sure I wasn't needed. People are always welcome to call me if they have questions. Okay. Tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate all your work. You're welcome. All right. So I think then we're on to the town managers report. Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a couple of quick items that some of you know, I was doing a staycation last week, so I was not working on some of the collective bargaining, some remotely, but as was alluded to earlier, we're working on a couple, hopeful that we might at least have one deal or not two by the time we get to town meeting next week and some additional information on the non-union. Okay. So I think the agenda mentions our professional development day. As I indicated, we are taking the time to get our staff educated on certain issues that are often encountered in day to day operations here and we're doing it with NIA, our insurance company, so that as we take these courses relative to risk management, it helps us get points and credits towards our insurance premium. We're doing it again this week. And we are going to be closing town hall from 8 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. So the first half of the day, this Thursday, we have attorney Ina Ryan, who I've worked with in the past, who does a great job dealing with discrimination and harassment in the workplace. So we're requiring all of our staff to come in and participate in that. And as I said, this should be not only worthwhile for the staff, but should help us in the long term. So we're taking the time to get our staff educated on certain issues that are often encountered in day to day operations here and we're doing it with NIA, our insurance company, so that as we take these courses relative to risk management, it helps us get points and credits towards our insurance premium. I think creating a better workforce for us and saving money at the same time. Ms. Bradica, who is here this evening, has been working on the transition to the new website. It was supposed to come online last week. Again, there was a glitch in Civic Plus. We're hoping to get it online this week. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't say the date, but hopefully by the end of the week, you'll see an updated website. Thank you. I'm still looking for it. So I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it. I'm looking for it. I'm going to put it on my website for the town of Wayland. Those are the two major items. Again, just my staff has been working hard on the collective bargaining and planning for town meeting next week, and I was very thankful for Ms. Power Spurlett, who was standing in last week with Loudon's Law. Terrific. So I think everyone was also asked to have a discussion about the website at the end of the meeting, a good select board meeting. And I think you originally asked for 518, or so on that. I'm sorry. website update i have that okay just all right so then i think after just to um so we should go right before i've lost my place because number 10 would be next but i don't know is uh miss is there i'm not okay i'm gonna do it i just want to see who's pulling him in for first i'd like to do we're going to 12 we went to 13 first just to toss and sign too much okay let's do 12 uh wait a second okay great so what we're going to do is discuss and review the potential to vote on the 25 holiday road advisory committee charge there is something in our packet somebody will tell me what page we're on um let's write this down sorry 27 27 so i think after the forum that we had last week there was a discussion that you know we would like to consider this today is our resident um charge draft committee um so he's he's created this um i do want to acknowledge that we did receive um a very thoughtfully written um list of suggestions about you know the possible composition of this committee and that certainly was in our emails i personally have a copy of it here i'm sure the other board members do because it's in a correspondence package so i'm going to i'll let you um start being um the discussion i don't know if it's really what to do so i'm happy to start i went to recuse myself for just two minutes and so thank you okay please so um it's a little it's about eight o'clock 7 59 this item's on the agenda for 9 10 but as we stayed in the agenda sometimes we move up items for one reason or another the western residents here i believe who have an interest in this article so i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion i'm going to let you start the discussion um to respect their uh their presence shares indicator discuss this topic now so when we had the hearing public forum on this topic it was suggested by residents who live near holiday road that we put together a visioning committee and that would be well received and uh i like the idea and in fact i think as a board we were discussing doing that uh prior to the public forum um so i thought about the article and i thought about what we're trying to achieve and um the um the idea of putting the warren article together really was an effort to to initiate a review of the property it really wasn't an effort to determine final uses or final recommendations for uses so given that this charge is pretty limited and i credit one of the residents from quality river area who picked that up um and commented upon a public comment that this really is kind of a narrow a narrow charge it can always be expanded by the select board if it's approved but i kind of limited this proposed charge to the to the article itself article 16 of this year's annual time meeting kind of focus on the work of the professionals to look at the site and say, okay, what can happen there? What hurdles might exist if you put a structure there? Would it be a school, housing, or something else, or is it a site that really you should put no structures on there? So it doesn't really come close to the charge that we put together for the Route 20 South Landfill Committee, because we had a sense when we put that charge together as to what might work there, and we wanted to confirm when we created that advisory committee, things like 10 structures go there. But in addition to that, here are some ideas we, the select board, would like this advisory committee to review. Personally, I think it's a bit premature to even go there. The select committee, school committee. It still does have jurisdiction over this property. It's unclear whether they'll be of a mind to want to give up jurisdiction. But I still, as I expressed and Bill Whitney expressed in the public forum, this work still is valuable. It's important. It's a first step to get the discussion moving, to appreciate what can be done. There was a comment earlier today, a public comment, about possibly putting conservation member on there. And I've got to be honest with you, I did put a conservation member on there when I drafted this initially. But I realized that we would end up with nine members. And my experience is that seven members is as effective as nine. In fact, nine can be less effective, in part because of the open meeting law and the challenge of getting a forum. And so I took them off. And the reason was because... My appreciation of this property is such that it's not near waterways. There's no water terribly close to it. It is in the middle of a larger neighborhood. So I really didn't see conservation being critical at this stage, at this stage. And obviously, if anyone, any developer or if anyone ever wanted to put a structure on this property, you would still need a permit from the conservation commission, likely. So I took them off and narrowed the board somewhat. But this is just my thought. I certainly welcome thoughts from other members of the board, relative to the scope or the size of the committee or any aspect of it. Do you have anything on the board? Mr. Fay, was it your intention to have members of this committee shape the scope of the board? No. Okay. Is there a scope of that study? And if so, do those three items within the charge capture that? Or was that not your intention? Well, the article really authorizes money to explore the property by professionals. And the committee would consider the data, information, by and about professionals. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And, you know, just to go through the report and report, you know, to the board on the results, it's pretty straightforward. It doesn't, the charge doesn't ask the committee to therefore make recommendations on what should go there. But just, it's pretty straightforward. And the work will be done by these professionals if this article passes. And obviously, the information would be considered by the committee members. By any means, yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But it's a fairly limited scope. I have a follow-up question for Mr. Whitney. You may have some more familiarity with these studies than I would. Is there ever a give and take between the professionals and those who charge the professionals with the study? Do they say, well, do you want us to now go to step B, C, and D? Or is it what you set out for the scope at the beginning, they carry it out, and then they return their findings? I would say, in my experience, it's kind of an iterative process. One typically assembles some baseline information and will do a survey to establish specifically the property you're dealing with that could serve as a base for future planning. It would be helpful, I think, to understand the availability and sufficiency of utilities in the area, to understand what's going on. What's involved in bringing them in with respect to soil conditions. It's helpful, I think, to understand the presence of the ledge, the elevation of groundwater, the composition of the soil that will inform where it makes sense to put something, and would also inform recommendations as to foundations. If, for instance, one had a steel-framed school building, that would be a heavier building than a single-family home or townhouses, which typically would be lighter and more forgiving as far as the soil conditions. So I think some of this information will establish the range of what's possible or the range of what's affordable. Beyond that, once one gets into site planning and looking at different uses in different locations, then I think it... You know, if we were to do this, what's involved, whereas if we were to place it here, then that might be a different situation. So I think typically you get this information and you test the various uses against the information you have, and that informs decisions about cost and feasibility, frankly. So is the usefulness of this committee better suited for after this information is received? I would say this. I think it's always useful to have input from different individuals looking at a topic that interests a lot of people, okay? So I think this committee has a lot of value in giving feedback to professionals, and I don't even know if they do. But I think depending on the school committee's decisions in the future, one way or the other, I can see our board expanding this vision. And adding to the charge, that might be more similar to the new 20 Southland. I just don't think we're there yet. And I appreciate the comment, the public comment about possibly expanding this, but I don't think expanding it is time, especially given the fact that the school committee still has jurisdiction over it. Okay. I think this is an interesting approach. If I were on an advisory committee, I think I'd be interested in talking about different uses and that kind of thing. But I think it is helpful to have kind of a base information that would be useful to the school committee as it considers whether the site is one that it wished to propose for a future elementary school and would, I think, be constructive as far as other uses.
If the school committee were in a position to... to make a quick determination as to whether it wished to hang on to this property, then I think it would make sense to go to the next step. But, you know, we have heard some concern expressed about why would you spend money on these other uses when the school committee hasn't yet determined whether it's going to let it go. So, I think the timetable of a report later than December 1st is reasonable, given... I think it would give time for the kinds of information that will determine the developability of the site or the suitability of the site for a range of uses. And then I could go forward with a more detailed or an expanded discussion of potential uses that would be, I think, well-informed by public participation.
Thanks, Morgan. Thank you. No, I agree. I think we'll get it done by December 3rd. Yeah, I think... So, it was interesting because, you know, every committee and even every floor on that would be housed as a different personality. It really does. And when I was looking and thinking about this, you know, from comments we got, you know, is this similar to the 2012, you know, it was a little different. I mean, even the 2012. Well, we had taken this property through TAS.
Thank you. Before we text title. Text title. Thank you. I knew it was a word. I didn't see. And we had a specific goal that we were hoping to accomplish there, which we are in the process of doing. We hope we're getting... You know, so we had like a step, a strategy. Step one, step two, step three, step four, step five. And I think the interesting thing here is... I mean, I look at the... I look at this and step back and said to myself, what is really our goal here? I think we as the executive branch of the town and essentially the policy board, we have... What motivated us is that we are trying to find new revenue sources, no matter where they might exist in town and what form and shape they take. And so that's what's motivating us to say, hey, let's take a look at this piece of property in conjunction with the school committee. The school committee is being motivated because they have to figure out... They want to do it with their school buildings. So, I mean, I think we have to start there is that. Now, you know, it could pass that, like you said, the land is not viable or something, and then we might look at something else. I think we're just doing a due diligence here more than anything else. It's just not only on the land, but we're also doing a due diligence on being... On, you know, trying to act on this recommendation of Mr. Perry and Mr. McCall. We looked for some possible legal options. I think that's what we're trying to do in town. If town doesn't support them, that's fine. But if they do, then this is what we're trying to do. I think it's our job, really, to just kind of look, explore, but really listen. So, I think you did a nice job here. Thank you. I do agree with you about the seven voting members. I think there's probably a good number. How many do we have on? Two-twelve? Eight? Yeah. Yeah, what was experienced. Three-thousand is what it is. Right. But we found that we didn't get perfect attendance quite a bit. Right. Well, see, that's the thing is if you've got seven people, you've got to get at least four. And then if you have seven, you really want to have five or six there so that you have a robust... I mean, we've had situations where we've taken votes on things and said, let's revisit this vote again because we don't want to have a three overall. We want to have, you know, four or five members participating. So, all right. Where do you think we should go from this? Well, I guess I would just point out, this is maybe a bit of a non sequitur, but I think the requested funding under the Warren article is sufficient to do this work plus consideration of alternatives that we're talking about doing as a kind of second step. So, just to be clear about that. Okay. Happy to move. The board's comfortable that this board could not be opposed. Twenty-five quality board regions will be in charge. Second. Any further discussion? And those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five-zero. All right. I am going to go back now to number ten. So, I think I'll see them. And thank you to everybody who's provided input on that item number twelve. Yes, Jessie? Would you like to have your turn? Oh, three minutes early? So, this is, we're going to meet with... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Thank you. Thank you. And I am going to meet with, this is just a quick, more of a meet-and-greet tonight. Madam Chair, do you want me here? Please? Yes. We're going to have you introduce yourself here. This is just a quick meet-and-greet. Mr. Landford and me and the owners of the town center just want to join us as well, sir? Sure. Just introduce yourself. Just come and just sit over here. I will give the spoiler alert that when we spoke, we said we'd just have a quick chitchat today and then we'll be working on your thoughts. If you'd like to come back, and we have tentatively scheduled, we will be four, five-minute. Okay. june 1st does that sound right sounds great okay good well thank you madam chair um members of the board richard mccall um so just introduce yourself yeah absolutely uh jesse barricone president founder of grafito sp joined by anthony rich from legacy capital ventures nice to see you guys tonight so just to kind of frame quickly our goals for tonight i think first one as you mentioned is just a bit of an introduction um we'd like to take the opportunity to kind of walk you all through and do some level setting and talk about kind of all the work we've been doing to date we've now owned way to account center for almost five months give or take so i've been a lot of listening a lot of work um and we're at a place now where we feel like we're charging towards a vision and a plan which on the first of june we'd love to come back and share far more with you as a board um and i think as part of our remarks i'll walk through the very end kind of how we'd like to sequence our work with you all and your planning you more and again you know we view this as being something that is very collaborative that maybe lost partners in the town um so as aj mentioned legacy capital ventures grafito sp we are two of three partners that recently acquired way on town center uh the third is north pond partners out of chicago tom i know has dealt with some folks there as you've been working through i think this is a picture of kind of how we work through this easement scenario for the mass central rail trail hershfeito reimbursement and their areas of services that are on our project is affect the local local level and that's going to be an interesting area to think about so as one of the partners we're going to be working on to date is Work to date has really been about kind of listening and engaging. You know, what's remarkable about this project is that when we started looking at it, and even when we acquired it, our sense was not that it's wholly broken. There are just a lot of things that need to be fixed. And I think through that fix, we believe there's just tremendous potential to add economic value, social value, cultural value, and community value. And we've kind of started from a position of, I think the master special permit was almost 20 years ago. The decision came in 2007, and there was a lot of work we know put in by many folks perhaps here and you all to kind of get to that point. So it's been really interesting to kind of scrub the history of the project, understand why some of the decisions have been made, talk to members in the community. And that has largely been part of kind of the listening we've been doing to date. I will say as part of that listening, just to kind of get, our own bearings, we've met with several town departments. AJ, God bless him, has been the one dealing with DPW, has been sorting through some of the challenges regarding septic. And we've come to a resolution on that with a town, which is a great win. We've met with building department, fire, and police, as we start to think about kind of some of the site-wide improvements and looking at it through the lens of public safety. We've had some good conversations with members of EDC, and we've, we believe there's just tremendous opportunity to look at the project through the lens of economic development for the town. And that's largely the way these three partners think about retail real estate development, is through the lens of economic development. And I think that's what got us really excited about this project. It is the level of engagement from the town, the history here, and how it lines up with some of our collective core competencies makes it pretty special. And I think the last five months have been very validating. I would say, and I'm going quickly because I know we don't have a ton of time, and we'll come back and talk to you again soon. We have been impressed and emboldened by, I think, a lot of the public feedback we've gotten today. We want to make sure that this board understands some of the conversations we've had and some of the things we're going to come back to you on. We've had the benefit of hearing from folks, and I know there's a Waylandtown Post article recently about a dog park. We believe we can accommodate that on site as a really easy win. We've been talking, and Doug, you were at the meeting where he came in, and we talked to Wayland dads. I'm not familiar with towns that have, like, dads groups, which I think is probably an output of, like, Facebook or something. But it's fascinating to hear from other dads. We're both dads. Like, what does the community want to see here? And I think that's largely informed the way we're thinking about the public realm at the town center. There are all these green spaces that are completely inactive, completely inactive. We want to make improvements to those. We want to utilize them. We want to activate them. Some of that work we're going to have to come back and speak with the planning board about. We'll require some amendments to the master special. We'll require some amendments to the master special. We'll require some amendments to the master special. But we're really intent to do some of that. And then the other part of what we've been doing is really just our own team building. We engaged a really great local landscape architect to help us think about the site. We engaged, actually, Bill, you probably remember Whitney Vegas from your days at Berkeley. We engaged them to help us think about site-wide wayfinding and signage, something that's critical for us to make this site more, we'll call it, navigable or user-friendly. It is currently not. We engaged a social media team that, for any of the folks listening or obviously here tonight, our view about retail development is that some of it just happens virtually these days. How do we use the existing content from many of our tenants, broadcast that out, whether it's through Facebook or Instagram, and show the world kind of what's happening on site? We've launched a new initiative to rebrand the site, improving the visual identity and thinking about that in context with the site-wide. The wayfinding and little, although I would say it's big, moves would be kind of looking at the visual appearance and engaging a team to come in and paint what is first, we just started with last week, a medical office building. So some of the cleanup that has just been neglected for years. So that is really the essence of what we've been doing, running new property managers. I would say, and I think AJ would certainly agree, that one of the benefits of having North Pond on this team is that beyond legacy, we're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. We're going to be able to do a lot more. They own many similar projects nationwide like this, grocery anchored. They require a level of property management, asset management that we think was lacking with kind of prior ownership and is really important to supporting the tenants. So, you know, I threw a lot at you. We've been doing all this work. And as I said, kind of the very beginning, the reason we've been doing all this work is to kind of formulate a plan and to kind of re-envision the potential for this site. So, you know, we're before you today to provide a little bit of a preview and an update because we believe after town meeting and when the new select board is seated and the new planning board is going to really like to ramp up our meetings with you all and this partnership to try to make some moves and improve the site and make some of those fixes. The best way that we've been able to understand kind of the categories of what we'll call fixes, they're really three buckets of improvements. We are really focused, and I'll come back to each one of them. We have probably five more minutes to go here. We're really thinking about the visibility, the identity of the site, right? That'll be one. We'll come back to that. We are really thinking about the beautification and activation of the site, which I alluded to everything with the public realm. And then the last one is, and this is really important, we're thinking about something that Grafito does a lot of work in this space, kind of the re-merchandising. So starting at the end, I mean, the way we make this place more usable, more attractive, add more public benefit is by improving the use mix, right? I mean, one of the things we've been working hard on, and we think we'll get a deal done very soon, the first thing we heard from all the tenants when we spoke to them, there needs to be coffee on the site. There's no cafe. We've got 160,000 plus square feet of retail, and there's no place to get a cup of coffee until 10 a.m. when Chocolate Therapy opens. I think the only reason... The only reason Pam at Chocolate Therapy is offering coffee is because no one else does. It's not her core business. So we need a cafe, right? We've been thinking a lot about additional food and beverage for the site. This is one of the reasons Septic has been really important. We've been thinking a lot about additional personal services and neighborhood amenities. And that is, I think, where the collective team has a lot of experiences, is in the re-tenanting. And it's the re-tenanting and bringing great small local owner-operated businesses that actually drives the thinking on the other two categories. The first one being just the identity of the site and the visibility of the site. One thing we have heard from tenants and folks that are just aware of Wayland Town Center, many people don't know it's there. The visibility from 27 and 20 is not good. It's a disservice to many of the tenants. We think we can improve this site, and we know we're going to have to work with the planning board, and there'll be some permitting work that needs to get done. We think we can improve this site, and we know we're going to have to work with the planning board, by improving the gateways to the site, beautifying them, better announcing the site, and thinking about how all of that kind of channels folks through and enhances the pedestrian experience through the site. So that's one, and that was a really big one we knew from the start. And, you know, again, that's driven by tenants. That's also driven by the reality that we understand for this place to really work. We have to drive more people there. There have to be more reasons to go there. There has to be more sales for the retailers. There has to be more reasons to go there. There has to be more sales for the retailers. The name of the game for retailers is all about sales and footballs. And the best way we can support the retail tenants that are there are getting more people to the site. And that brings me to the last kind of category of improvements, which is really around how do we think about the activation of the public realm. You know, one area that we were really excited about is the work that you all have done, and many folks in the community, is thinking about Alyssa Avenue and pedestrianizing that. And that's something that we've really taken. We've taken some of the momentum from the community, and we believe we have a good plan, which we'll share in the weeks and months ahead for finally closing down that street and talking to fire and police about what that would mean and creating more enhanced public realm. The larger kind of, if I can call it, urban design move that we believe is really exciting is connecting the path to the park. And we'll go over this kind of when we come back in front of you with plans so it becomes a little bit more real. And this rant, but, you know, have you already, Tom, have you guys discussed the easement already tonight? We've discussed it over the past few meetings relative to the article itself. So I would, I think that the implications, you're all very familiar, probably more so than we are, in terms of the centrality from a site perspective of the Mass Central Rail Trail. And one of the things that we actually have been talking to DCR about and some folks in the community is how do we actually enhance that connection? We think it is really, really valuable for the town. And for the site, and we say path to park, if you think about the Mass Rail Trail as kind of one of the key attributes of the site from a public realm and activation perspective, the movement between the rail trail up Alyssa Avenue into the city-owned park is really, really critical to improve. And there are little things that are dysfunctional right now, like there's a dumpster right there. So we're going to move the dumpster, right? And there are also big things like adding more seating on Alyssa that we'll do. So then again, talking with you all about how we can support, how we can help you in your plans and the community's plans for the park. So, and then the last one I would just say is, you know, the overall activation of Beautification in the public realm. We think there's just a ton of opportunity. There are just a lot of spaces that are inactive, that are underutilized, that we feel like we can add a lot of value to. So that was a lot, but we've been thinking a lot about the site. Again, we feel really emboldened. And enthusiastic and excited about the work ahead. So again, the idea for today was just to kind of give you a quick preview. And then lastly, think about how we can better work with the Select Board, the Planning Board moving forward. Our plan, should you all find it acceptable, would be, we want to do a similar introduction to this with the Planning Board. We're going to do that in May. We are currently scheduled to be in front of the Planning Board, I believe it is on the 13th. And again, do a similar introduction. introduction to them and coming out of that we'd love to come back in front of the slack board and that is on the first to kind of share with you in plan and we'll submit that all prior to the meeting kind of what these moves are we'll share more detail about the support we need specifically from the town the approvals we need and then coming out of that meeting with you all we'd like to go back into the planning board in the middle of june likely the june 17th meeting and share those same plans um so we know there's a lot of work ahead we're really really excited about it and you know that's that's a little bit about what we've been working on and kind of the moves that are ahead or i should say the fixes that are ahead so with that um i'll hand the floor back to you and you know happy i don't know we have time but happy to answer any quick questions so i'll open it up to questions and comments from the board um i am going to be leaving select board you actually have somebody i think behind you who's going to be a little bit more involved but i would love to see something happen at the site i'm so i hate to say but i'm going to hold you to everything i said because i understood that all of it and there was some uh pledges in there it's a real pleasure yes you have you and aj here tonight and have you owned this site um your enthusiasm positivity exciting ideas um is a refreshing i think it's uh been a great development to have people who are retail experts taking charge of this thing and really running with it i'm a little worried about your obvious enthusiasm for night meetings but i don't think i want to say that but uh no i i uh i appreciate your your due diligence uh the fact that you've looked into it that you have a clear vision and we've very much supported to working with you to help you implement that
and you know doug and i and that suggested before um and one of the things that we brought back to the board last week right because last week not last week was the last meeting was when we had talked about the municipal space that the town owned i think there was a lot of discussion about a possible suggestion that you know you might be willing to have your landscape um designer or architect i don't know what the right word is maybe come back up with some suggestions or since you put you on the spot here but did you want to speak to that yes we we looked into a couple of firms including the landscape architect that we worked with on elissa ave already um and we're getting proposals back of what you know what a early design or concept plan would look like we just want to come back to you guys with some options and say you know here are a couple of suggestions um so i think probably in the next two weeks we should have something to at least suggest and say you know here are some options here are a few folks who would recommend um but yeah we want to want to help and kick starting that and and be a resource and figure out how we can be a part of it so i probably am not lying when i say it has been um um wish list to you know have a discussion and some deliberation on what's the best utilized way to utilize that parcel i know that tom was going to forward i think did you were able to forward the list of environmental constraints they're aware of them they're aware of them okay so um and we're taking that into account i'm sorry we've taken that into account when you've presented that to folks for a proposal about disturbance and site work and working with the existing um you know grades um so yeah no we're we're aware of that i think that obviously we don't want to uh go down a path that's not one that we can actually execute on so my way about that i have reached out to the lsp and waiting to reach back to me i've reached out to the lsp and i'm waiting to hear back from them okay great thank you so this is the beauty of having um you know a board and we share ideas and so we were all excited and then we were told hey we're going to look at environment constraints and tom volunteered so i'm not it's a virtue what would you like to add in um one point one question for you gentlemen um and the point is we've had a couple of occasions to connect over the last few weeks and i think one of the messages that you're hearing from me and several others is the site has such tremendous potential we saw a glimmer of that potential a pretty bright glimmer at whalen fest last year when some 6 000 people appeared at that site and maxed the parking and then some so i think there's a hunger in this town for convening space and community building opportunities question i had for you that i don't think i ever had the chance to ask is what drew you two gentlemen to want to take on this specific site and an attempt to make some improvements there since you've been doing this for some time we may have different answers you want to go first yeah yeah so i i live a mile and a half away from the site and so you know when i saw the property in the market i i i'm a customer of the site go to the stop and shop uh went to bagel table with my kids you have a six-year-old and a ten-year-old and it bothered me how underutilized it was and go there and and it would bother me and so when i when i saw the opportunity i actually brought this to jesse and the north bond folks because i knew it was something you know we all have our our uh you know capabilities right and and no one's better than jesse and what he does in the north bond folks so it was really a great opportunity but for me it's it's uh it's very personal um you know i have a lot of folks in the community that are holding us to doing what we're we say we're going to do too um and we've gotten a lot of feedback so you know i think for me it just always felt to your point here is you know a beautiful opportunity 25 acres amazing infrastructure why aren't families here why aren't taking my family here why aren't folks in this green space why isn't it activated all the questions that everybody's asking um and i think what was you know what what kind of got us very excited is everyone's asking the same questions and everyone's saying how can we help right and so you don't always get that there could be opportunity but there there isn't always kind of this this push forward um and so i think the the hunger to to want to get it right and fix it is only it's only heightened for me um because of that and and also feel now our responsibility to to not only do it but do it in a timely fashion right to to find a way to execute and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and see meaningful change even if it is just painting the buildings right which we started last week so what we got to get started we gotta you know because everything's a domino effect right and you know you're not going to do it all at once but how do we every quarter you know make progress and then what's the vision at the end right if there's 50 pieces to the puzzle right let's start on piece number one now and then how do we get five or ten pieces done every quarter right and so you wake up 12 24 months from now and it just feels like it came together so uh anyways a little bit long with it but yes very very personal to me and and i'm there physically there you know anyways as a customer so yeah i would add to say um the last 20 years in growing profito we've sought out stuck projects right projects that have underachieved from a placemaking and activation perspective um we cut our teeth in kendall square as part of development team over 20 years ago people say good luck there will never be a place here and we were like we're next to the red line the charles river at mit give me a break like of course there will be and we were able to execute on a couple hundred thousand square feet of leasing and bring in a lot of the amenities grocery pharmacy restaurant almost all local by the way small local owner operators and i think since that moment in time when we had success in kind of helping to grow the business we've created place there wasn't just us we've sought out these challenging stuff projects um and we've looked for projects that are close that are fixable and this hits the mark i mean i would also say doug to your point before we closed on it i mean i was at i was there in october i met chris before we our offer was accepted as part of our due diligence and being at that event with 6 000 people i felt two things one was um and chris and i are close enough where i think he'll be okay with me saying this one was wow this is amazing look at all those people that showed up the other one was wow this could be so much better right and like we think we can help make this that was the feeling and not that it wasn't great but like this is what we look for in these projects this is what gets my entire team really really excited and i think the third thing i said they're on two but the third thing would be um we are at our best when there's constant feedback from the communities in which we are active in because i don't live in i'm not right down the street like aj for us to understand what people need and what is valuable we need that feedback and i think our approach to data has probably demonstrated how important that is to us and this town feels like a place where we were getting going to get a lot of that something we won't do right we just won't for for a multitude of reasons but so much of that intelligence and so much of that sharing will help craft the vision that it's it's it really i mean we say it sincerely we are excited about this project we talk every day about this every day um so that's part of it for me so we'll look forward to seeing you on the first we are all very excited that you're here we're just very excited it's just so the energy just knowing there's going to be some energy drilled into that facility in this it's just so exciting so we'll look forward to seeing you on the first thank you for coming in tonight thank you thank you thank you for having us thank you guys thank you that's the immense i don't have to be able to meet with them
so i think we have a couple um things we wanted to talk about here one was um this
communication and requests and expectations and the other was anyone of us to review a request to apply for a grant and i think that's in relationship to the mural uh project that's being contemplated at the wayman pool so if i just speak to my president crime over here would you like to start with the communication what would you want to do with the new white person okay so general will have you explained it to so we we had been asked as the ward to speedy um with the Chris origin the fiscal agent thank you very good yes this is why I think that's why there is that the funder no okay managed basically to manage a grant on behalf of a project that was good being contemplated for the Wayland community pool to build them to put a mural and tell me energy around the town council really didn't think this was such a great whichever there was a lot of possible pitfalls you know for the town is possible take a lot of time be very high maintenance and all that so we had the conversation and then we and then I hope we would sort of agree that we would do it provided there was all these rules we had in place and then for some reason that didn't come to fruition so now you know has come back as the spokesperson for the HRD and I with a different different version of this and so we share it with us and then we're having a discussion yeah so we'd like to apply to the Middlesex Foundation which is the charitable foundation of the Middlesex Bank they they do I think biannual brand-making the next deadline is July 31st and we had well actually I say we paid a lot of attention to that and I think we's really it's a group of residents and everybody is kind of pulling their weight now so the town pool is renovating the building they will they've agreed to have a whole end face of the building painted with a mural and they will get that ready for the muralist we are close to signing an MOU with a muralist who's actually a I think her father is even on the board of the pool. And she has included in her budget, I mean, all the materials, but anticipating long-term maintenance. She's included a number of coatings. So there's a UV coating which protects the mural so that it will last. And there is a special coating that in the event that, you know, if there were ever another attempt to, you know, graffiti over the mural, it can be cleaned. So that is also a protective coating that I think the lifetime of the mural without maintenance is about 10 years. And for the first five years, the muralist, if anything happens, she will come and take care of it. So the grant that we wanted to ask for would be up to $10,000. The, where are we right now? The overall budget is about 27,000. Some details, the lighting, we don't have a hard figure on that. Brad Keyes has been working on that piece of it, but it's about 27,000. Right now, we are, we've raised over half. Current fundraising stands at $15,857. So we would like to apply for the 10,000. If we get a large donation, we would reduce what we asked for. When we came to the, you raised, we asked for a grant through a DEI committee to ask if the committee as a co-sponsor could manage this grant proposal through the town. The committee, in its wisdom, proposed and we voted that the money from the grant would all go towards the artist's fee. She does require a deposit to get started, which I think is about 5000. So the 10,000 would probably go to the artist. So the 10,000 would probably go to the artist. to her operating, you know, buying materials and getting going. And then there's a final payment to her, which is after completion of the project. Any other questions? Did I get all of it? Essentially what's happened is the HRDI would like us to be the fiscal agent now for a grant they want to apply for, and it's going to be a portion of the project. And actually, I think this might be more palatable to others because the way I understand it, it's going to be payments just to the artist, and I believe the town would make the payments directly to the artist. Let's assume the grant was granted and you received the 10 grand. Then we would make two payments, the 5,000 for the deposit and then the final payment. Probably we thought to simplify things, that we would pay her deposit to get started out of existing fundraising, and we would use the grant to pay her the next 10,000. Okay. So it would just be one payment from the town to simplify. But I think, I'm not sure that, he did mention this to Michael when he called me, and a lot has happened since, and so I don't know if he's had a chance to think about this. I'd like to speak, I have Michael, I'll speak to this first and then I'll open it up to the board, if that's okay with everyone. Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think the distinction here between the prior time that we were asked to do something like this is, they're an advisory commission to your board, and so it is a town entity, whether the last time it was a third party, that not necessarily a town entity that was asking us to be the fiscal agent. So I think this, I think this is a different and if they get the grant they can accept it, but the board under Mass General Law is still involved in the disbursement and, or you could accept it as well and you can vote to disburse that. So that would be, I think, much easier to process than the other requests that we received. So before we even have any comments, I'm going to say this, my vote hands are on. We have one, see this? One. Capital letters. One contact person that is contacting whomever, if we vote this in, whomever Michael identifies it is, but whoever it is, it's just one person calling in about this. Otherwise we'll probably not look favorably on the spot again. Anyway, open it. Can I ask a question through you, Madam Chair? Is there a contingency? What are the odds that you get the grant? So what if you make a deposit with the artist and you don't wind up getting the grant? What happens there? I don't know if we would speak in with the artist, if we were not secure. But the deposit, did you say, is going to come for the funds that's being raised? Right. So we already have a little over $15,000. So $15,000 plus $10,000 would give you just about the full budget. I'd like it open up to the board. Any comments? Yes, Mr. Hinton. You know, I have a very specific question for you because I've been, somewhat peripherally, a part of this for a number of months. So I was looking at the website for the Middlesex Savings Charitable Foundation, and it breaks the grants down into separate awards and types of categories. Has anybody had a conversation with anybody at the Middlesex Bank to make sure this fits this specific type of request for a mural fits under one of these? Because I'm struggling to find the connection.
So, Heidi, Heidi has been working on this. And what she told me is that she thinks that we can be eligible, actually, for up to $15,000 under their Educational Opportunities Program. So that would be the category that we would apply through.
Job training and job readiness programs, adult education and English as a second language, credit education and home buying seminars, and youth enrichment programs in the last one. I think it would be the youth enrichment. I mean, we've had feedback that I think the ARDS is amenable to involving high school students in the project. Yeah, I heard that at the beginning. And then it's due by July 31st, and they say it's reviewed by October 1st. Right. Okay. I think so. And I just think it's very reasonable. I have a couple of questions. Is it fundraising now? The one that you mentioned earlier, is there a reason for that? The money that you raised, is that going into a town account or something for the 501c3 you created? Wayland Can has, that's kind of their contribution. They are receiving those donation monies. As an agent for the town? No, they're for this project, for the mural project. They're donating. Okay. Yeah. So then they'll donate the money to the town at some point, or for the project to be done. They will spend the money. Directly, you know, for example, to give the artist her deposit, to buy lighting or pay the electrician. So that's a donation that has to be accepted at some point? I think if we can raise the money and it makes the deposit initially, we don't have to be in debt. Oh, 501c3. It's only when HRDEIC becomes a recipient of the grant, we may want to get involved in the acceptance of that with them. And then once it's accepted by the town, the select board usually has to vote to disperse the funds that are received from the grant. And the board of the town pool is in favor of this project. Is that right? And that building is a town building that we leased through an agreement. Yeah, we're the landlords. So the town pool, if I understand correctly, they are going to provide like electricity for the lighting. They will provide. They will provide. They will provide, you know, like basic maintenance. We will always clean up around it. Okay. So I just want to look ahead now. Three, four years from now, eight years from now, it's fading or something has to be done with it. Would that be a town project or a project of the pool administration? So I don't have it committed to memory, but I think when we looked at the lease the last time, the tenant is responsible. The tenant is responsible for the maintenance and the upkeep of that building. So I would probably want to review. I don't know if we did the last time because it didn't get too far whether or not we have to be involved in any type of, if there was an agreement with the artist, I think that was the question last time, if there has to be some type of rights, you know, whether we paint over it or whatnot. Yeah. I don't want to get, I don't think it needs to be too complex. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think that's it. I think everybody's all on board. You raised a couple good questions because it kind of got a mix and match there, but essentially this is a project for the community pool. And they've gone to a number of organizations in town, like the school, and all of them to say, Hey, we want to do this project. We think it's going to be about making 30 million. And so what had happened before is they were looking for grants and none of them have the capability to do it. the capacity if you will not the capability the capacity to be a grant administrator so they have come to us we looked at it and said again it's a one-off because it is a town facility it even though we don't utilize it because we lease it it is still a town building blah blah blah and also because of the the issue this instance is totally different we are just going if they we don't know isn't to get like the grant and they get the grant like to michael's point we will accept it and disperse it directly to the artist and that's all our own bone we don't own the project i got that right correct okay but i think it's a really good question i'm curious who is the grantee assuming the grant is approved um good question it would well we would have to apply as the human rights diversity inclusion committee of the town of wayland so is the town the grantee essentially that's a good question yeah um i i don't know if the committee is a legal entity that could i would like guidance on how to do it correctly and um would you plan to get the artist going before hearing about the disposition of the grant we would we would like to um i think it i think a lot of it depends on how the fundraising continues right and the question i guess for you michael is um if if if the grant is awarded to the hr deic or the town on behalf of the hrdeic can we directly disperse to an artist without having done any kind of rfp or
without ten thousand dollars yes how serious well under ten thousand dollars a you yes but i think um now it's time controlled yes we we talked about some of this before i love great questions so i see this is a good question um
but under ten thousand dollars there's different rules but this there might be a uniqueness here uh argument to be made um the nature of the uh the work that is being done nine years ago couple of years ago this has changed every year essentially there's a few things that are maybe significant in like hiring civil unions like the being done by a former Wayland resident. So it's a good question I would have to research a little bit. I don't mean to cause trouble here, but I want to prevent Carol and Doug from getting into trouble. Like was it 10,000 to a cutoff? Oh, that was big. Should we make it, like, 99,000? Well, there's best practices. I can help you learn. We can talk about it a little bit later. Maybe we can ask Kelsey if she's aware of an exception for artistic projects. Kelsey, if you know of this sort of solution. And it's, yeah. Yeah, so there actually isn't an exemption for artistic designs or what we're trying to accomplish here. Because I know that the city of New Bedford recently had to go out to bid for a mural project in there. In their city. So no, it would not be exempt from procurement laws. And if the, I know that Michael was thinking, you know, since the entire cost of the mural might raise above $10,000, that would be a situation we would have to procure it because it doesn't matter how much the town pays. It's the fact that I think we're involved, which would trigger the procurement laws. But I'm not sure I'd have to double check. Thank you, Kelsey. Thank you. Is there a reason you're not going through the town pool? Because it's a different organization. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Oh, wait, can't. Or Wayland can. Wayland can. Or I wonder if the grant could be conditioned on hiring this artist to do this. I mean, if you needed other quotes, I think there was at least one other quote to meet procurement. I mean, municipalities commission works of art all the time, right? I mean, Chicago, they said, we want Picasso. Right. I don't think it's something hard to do as much as is there just a simpler path. Yeah, right. A lot of the murals are on private buildings. And this is a town structure, but the MOA with the pool boards might give them leeway to control what's on the building. They didn't come to us for painting the building itself. Right. Right. I wonder if they're an eligible grantee of a private partnership. They may be an eligible grantee. And even though it's a town building, with the MOA, with the pool. But it's their responsibility to maintain the exterior. Right. Yeah. Maybe the town doesn't need to be involved. But how does that allow us to? We wouldn't be able to do anything with being their fund. We would have to rely on the good judgment. Right. The pool. Right. Right. And the human rights . So let me just get a sense here of, oh, it doesn't sound like we're ready to do the vote because we need some more information. So is there a sense that we need some more information? Well, let me suggest this in the interest of moving this along. Right. What if we voted to authorize the town manager to apply for a grant if it's determined in his judgment? That's the problem. That's the best solution for the issue. That way, we don't come back again to . So let's have some input here. Because we do have an issue where the next couple of meetings are town meeting, and then we're not having a regular board meeting for three or four weeks. That's not good. Yeah. So this is in my mind as well. So, sir. I was going to raise this, but I think the issue gets resolved by Mr. Fay's motion. The Mass General Law on the Acceptance of Grants and Gifts says an officer or a department of any city or town may accept grants or gift funds from the federal government, a charitable foundation, private corporation, et cetera. Whether they're an advisory committee, I don't know if they're a board department or officer, four-year officers. I could be considered an . Well, to make matters more interesting. But I understand they apply for grants now in different places and get themselves. How does this happen? Well, again, they may be acting as an agent of this board and your officers in the town. Okay. Yeah. So this board authorized the town manager to apply for a grant or grants funding for the system. The system completion of the mural project as presented tonight. Second. Do we have a friendly addition, Annette? If so, approved, it will be one contact person. I don't agree to that. Who would you like the contact person to be? I don't want to be getting these phone calls. Who would you like the contact person to be? Would you like to specify who you want that person to be? Well, you'll have to decide who it is that's working with us. I can't. That's right. I don't agree to that because that's more of a question. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Any more of a unnecessary procedure item? All right. Yeah. But I know these fine people will abide by the chair's wishes. Most certainly. Or maybe the mean Chair from this Board will call them. I'm getting calls that there's too many people calling on. So, okay. Do I have a second? Or a missed option? You do. I do? You do? Was it you? Mm hmm. Thank you. Any further discussion? All right. Well, I have an example request that I wanted to talk about. I was going to say it was my reports and concerns, but it probably makes sense to talk about now. So I know Ann has been the liaison to the HRD Act Committee this year, backstopping her. She's been busy at times over the last few months. And I know we're going to rejigger our portfolios after town election tomorrow and town meeting. But a question is, for example, I have spoken with the chair about a budget request. And that's come in separately in conversations with me, with the chair. And I don't know the specific logistics around that. So, for example, I knew how busy... Michael is, and I suggested that they connect directly with Kelsey. But I think that we need to actually come up with a process for questions exactly like this one and timing. Because as we found with our other advisory committees, we see them in this context in a sporadic setting. There's no, they come every 90 days or so. And it would be difficult for us to do that because of the number of advisory committees. So I think in setting the table for this, I think the first point of contact is the liaison, whoever that ends up being in a few weeks. But I think what I wanted to have a discussion with them and this board is, how and who do we bring in from the town staff when the question is beyond a board member's knowledge base? Good question. So I think that we started... I'm going to answer this already. Okay. I think we've had some problems. I don't know that we've kind of fully done this where we're trying to have one staff person and one liaison, you know, for the various committees. I'm not even sure myself if we have one liaison. I think Kelsey was doing it. I don't know if Jalen is it. So I think to your point, we need to show that up. To show that up. Budget. The budget request comes up all the time. I think we should talk about this. Advisory committees do not have budget. That's some... It seems to me that if an advisory committee has ideas on where they want to spend money, those ideas can be presented. Right. As opposed to a budget. Right. And as opposed to a we-not-request these days. It's like a road... And they can put on a consent calendar. Right. It's straightforward, right? And we need a presentation. It's basic. Consent calendar, done. Can you say more about what that means for us? Well, hang on a second. I would like Mr. Oh, sorry. Because we don't have unlimited funds. We have a small budget. So I want him to go find me for everybody. This is great. Let's put in, you know... I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news. But I think we have to be very cautious about how we approach this or what type of precedent we set. Because you do have other advisory committees. And you want to make sure... I like the idea of the advisory committee coming to you and asking, because we've already set out the FY27 budget. We have limited expense accounts for this board and for my office that we would most likely fund these from. And because of the shortfall last year due to the snowstorms that we've had, we're trying to now find the $620,000 to cover. So at the end of the year, we're actually going out and asking people to give back money in those expense accounts. So it gets very tricky at this time. But I think it's a good idea to do something. I know you're talking about going forward. But I don't think it would be a good idea to start creating separate expense accounts for each one of the advisory committees. Oh, I don't think that either. No, but I just have to say it. Yeah, for the record. I was thinking that instead of them having these one-off requests that come to us periodically every X number of months, if they have an idea that, say, we need $6,000 over the next 12... Right. That they come and speak to the board, like Tom was suggesting, and then we can discuss that. I think that was our intent initially when we started saying we'd like to meet with the advisories more. I think we're, you know, we're creating new territory here and the rules of the road, if you will, as we go, trying to have more communication. So, you know, because you're advising us, so you come and say, this is what we advise should happen this over the next 12 months, we need $6,000. This, that, or the other. But I do think, to Mr. McCall's point, that we want to be, even we have to be mindful when we come up with things that we would like to do. If there are funds available, we're often saying, well, how are we going to fund this? You know, how are we going to fund this? So I think we have to have come up with, maybe we have to come up with some thoughts on this, how we would do it. I mean, it's... I think what might be most helpful, frankly, is in your brainstorming, if your committee... Yeah. Gave us a sample proposal, as Don suggested, in the next 12 months, this is what we're talking about, this is where we think it might work. Just to give us a sense, right? And that gives us some kind of funding. I think one of the things that has been brought up when we've talked about it in the past is that some of these budgetary items are things that we would want to see every year. And so it's a little different than some other committees. So, for instance, the multicultural festivals. So I think for our town, specifically, the HRDIC has really participated in putting on almost like cultural community events. So it's a little different than somebody saying, hey, I need, you know, something new this year because some issue came up. This is... So their budget's a little different. It's almost an investment into bringing the town closer together in order to save some negative issues that have occurred. And we went to the past. So it's part of the overall commitment to what the HRDIC represents in town. So it's a little different. And I think it's OK for us to treat every committee a little differently depending on what they're doing. And, you know, we look at the environmental group and the energy policy group, whatever that is. Yes. And they I personally believe they've gotten into a really nice team. I feel like I always know why they're coming. I understand what they're going to be asking, how they present. And so it might just be that every group has a little bit different of a flavor. And for the HRDIC, none of us, I think, would ever not want multicultural, the multicultural festival to occur or some of these that we've gotten accustomed to. I think what they're asking for is just a little bit more consistency so that they're not struggling every year trying to figure out how they're going to get it done. I hope that was a good representation. Yeah. All right. So we're good. Thank you for your time. Thank you for all you do. So the next item on the agenda, I put this on here because they're in the packet. Someone told me what base they're on. Are these rail trail signs? Point A. They're just so fabulous. And, you know, I thought, you know, they do a lot of, you know, rye work, I guess. But these are just some terrific things. And I just wanted to. Oh, what do you mean? . Wool sounds pretty wet to me. It seems a lot exciting to you. Wool sounds pretty wet to me. So I don't know if you want to just, you know, or Tom, you want to talk to them. But, I mean, you really put such a fabulous effort into them and they'll be. They work better than us. The content, yeah, the great, it's just fabulous. And I just thought they would take a couple minutes on them. So this board authorized money. . . . . . . . . . . haven't yet but will in a timely fashion the reason for that is because the um majority of the signs that go up east of the library hopefully by the end of the summer um i think three signs are going to go up at some point west of the library when they finish that rail when they finish that portion of the rail track so and then there's um i think three others one of them woods one of the pond um and castle cable which are um in the uh richard area so um i credit um fawning fossils for the hard work in this project as well as red connor and others in town including members of historical uh commission um but i find these uh they did a very good job on these i think they'll be well received oh yeah and thanks to kelsey for helping with that with the um vendors who are going to install these
you don't have anything on the native americans um they're mentioned but not uh the first one yeah first line i mean are we able to change any of this or no no that's done no no no we've been through that yeah yeah i just i just remembered reading something so i think that's what sparked my for example you see that the tribe and town came together okay that's on slide ones i'm going to move us along because i'm going to try to get this out early um review correspondence anyone have any comments on that all right just i've noticed that we had two members of the finance committee who entered their resignations and they wanted to thank them both uh for their service uh amber they were guilty dc uh they really thank you i made a great contribution to the panel and ensure the finance committee tries to really uh appointing the boards it's hard at work trying to read thank you i think that's a terrific comment we will miss them um i don't huh okay okay i'll of course have some uh we received some correspondence and i think may have come in over the weekend and i responded to it but because of the time minutes i'm just going to speak to it it's about um the mosaic that's been selected as being a memorial um in honor of john antes and there has been some change to it i did acknowledge it um i would like everybody if you haven't read it if you do have an issue with something just shoot me or an email otherwise i'm going to consider it we're good to go on this so we're going to put the gender item i head down here thank you for anna of course you've done that um next week we're going to end the town meeting and be um we are going to be meeting early both monday night and tuesday night it's looking like we're going to have executive session possibly both nights those agendas will go well thursday and we will send them out to you so just move on that thought and then finally um the public ceremonies committee has reached out to us and they're looking for a speaker for memorial day wondering if i could find one anybody have any thoughts if we have not already done this week he's done it right and they're done miss martin has done it and miss bremsley's off the hook uh-huh oh is it possible let's get a name tonight that would be great what's the date on the 25th i think may 25th yeah yeah
your schedules yeah yeah i i may be around i may too i'll connect with you about in a week and decide somebody's to connect with me i know but we'll figure it out first yeah and then someone let me know that'd be great okay and with that uh-huh happy to move the chairman of the board because this board will never be the same
sure when you when we do consent from when you were against the mayor you're gonna watch them all
you've been here for a couple hours all right come on i will try to make it get over here um 9 15. i hear a motion on the floor to adjourn yes yes okay all right good great thank you all those in favor say aye aye thank you very much