July 7, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript
July 7, 2026 - Select Board
Good evening, as chair of the Select Board, I'm calling tonight's meeting, July 7th, July 26th, at 6 p.m. of the Select Board 2 quarter.
This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, will be made available to the public on WCAM as soon as possible after the meeting.
We are having an executive session tonight, and we are having an executive session.
Pursuing to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, and this will include two agenda items.
First, we will discuss and develop the Board and the Town of Winter Goals, which will include an overview of the work that we thought we would accomplish last year and what we have done.
And then we will establish the goals, both of the goals for the next fiscal year.
And then finally, we will look at some strategies and identify projects to achieve these goals.
And there are some ideas listed here that would match up with the potential goals.
And there's, of course, just a list of items that may or may not be assigned to those goals.
8 of 3, we will have a quick revo of the organization of the Board to extend the expiration date of our leadership.
We will review the minutes of June 8.
I don't believe that June 15th or June 29th are available.
We'll have a consent item, and at approximately 8.45, we will adjourn.
So, just air out.
Can you guys start with that?
So, then I'll move the Facilite Board, entrance to Executive 2nd, pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A, Section 21A2-3,
to discuss strategy with respect to the way on firefighters' local 1978 agreements, number 2026-000-9, Step 3.
Is there a second to the motion to enter into Executive Session?
Sir.
Thank you.
The Chair declares that a public discussion of these matters may have a detrimental effect on the litigating,
negotiating, providing the position from town.
And before I do a roll call vote, because we're in a different place tonight, I mixed up, and I didn't identify who was in the room with me.
So, joining me this evening is Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Whitton, Mr. Bay, Ms. Levine, Tom Manager, Mr. McCollum,
and the Assistant Tom Manager, Ms. Kelsey Thomas-Burlett, and myself, Carol Martin.
So, now, back to the Executive Session motion, I'm going to have a roll call vote.
Chris.
Hi.
Yes.
Tom.
Yes.
Yes.
And Carol, yes.
It's 5-0.
The Chair invites attendance by Michael McCollum, Town Manager, and Captain Ryan,
the Resources Director.
The Committee will rejoin the public meeting from the Executive Session, and the meeting will return
in approximately 20 minutes.
What that'll do is, that'll get us an architect and engineering team to come in, develop plans,
give us a path forward, what will the building look like, and then,
you know, that brings the number up quite a bit, because to do that type of work, you have
to empty the building.
So, you'll need to rent something or come up with a plan.
If you do the complete job all at once, you know, there's other ways to do it in this, but
it's going to cost money one way or the other.
You're going to have to lease space eventually for somebody.
Working from home is a good idea, but I don't know if the entire building can do that.
You know, this isn't a COVID situation.
It's, you know, facilities would need to be on site, the Town Manager's office, you know,
some of the treasurers are, you know, the usuals.
So, all in, we're estimating about $22.3 million to do a complete government and make the building
what you would like it to look like.
So, the reason that we are looking at this is twofold.
One, we wanted this information and it was in the report.
Secondly, the SIPC, the Capital Improvement and Planning is made, is also interested in,
I think the right word, some direction as to what we think we're going to do with this
building long term as they put together the capital plans.
And they're going to do some repair work, some renovations, the whole renovations, what
are we thinking?
And so, Mike said he would come back and then answer any questions.
So, I'll open it to the floor, Mr. Levine.
Thanks, Mike, for this.
Welcome.
Appreciate it.
My first question is around grants and incentives and how much that will potentially save us,
like for the roof, the insulation, the HVAC.
I was looking up and it seems that, for example, mass saves can come in on municipal buildings,
but also wondering, like on the climate leader, energy, green energy side, and we can bring
out some offsets and this as well.
Totally, I think, a decent amount of money to make it over the water.
There's always grants opportunities.
Unfortunately, the HVAC system isn't part of this number because it's new already, as is
about the boilers.
And any savings we've already realized doing those two pieces.
The green communities, we have some opportunities there.
The larger one, we're looking into doing the middle school HVAC system over.
So, that'll meet up that grant.
We could not do that and we could save it $7 million or $1.1 million for that.
And does it reset each year?
No, it's one time only, yeah.
And what did you say about the roof?
We can't pursue something for the roof work?
The insulation under the roof in the attics, we could potentially get something.
The roofs, it's just, there's really not a bunch of, unless we put solar on them, then
there's some savings there.
So, we could actually roll the entire job into a solar job, all the repairs, the new roof,
and then, but the building would have to stay in the building for 20 years.
Because you could lease them for 20 years.
It's a very big commitment.
As we had RISE come through already, there's a lighting package already in the works to
do the town hall, to upgrade it to, and we've got some great savings there.
So, we're, yes is the simple answer, but we've got a lot of that in the works already, so.
And is there anything that you would foresee, say, like 10 years down the road that the building
would potentially need, like, do you think of this as a phase one repair and renovate, and
there are future phases in the medium term, or this would get you for a while?
This will get you for a while.
Yeah.
If you invest the, you know, the 10 million plus, or whatever it's going to take to do
the repairs, it'll add a lot of life to the building.
Because that, I've included, you know, ripping up the floors, checking the underside, making
sure that there isn't any rot, there isn't any movement.
There's some structural valves in there, so.
So, when you know, when the town manager's eyes, there's a, it changes with the weather.
Yes.
Given what you need in the fall space, so, when the humidity comes, it comes up, when
the dry weather comes in the winter, there's a lot that's going to pop up, I think.
There's some movement, yes.
I don't know if it's a speed bump.
It's a speed bump.
Bless you, though, Michael, though.
But, Michael, this information is helpful.
These estimates, are they from the Insight Report?
Some of them, some of them from OnSight Insight.
OnSight Insight, they did two things.
They lowballed a few of them, in my estimation.
But they also spread a lot of the work out.
Okay.
In 2034, I've been densed all this into one project.
So, yes, I did use their information.
I actually used their format for, you know, what they were looking at.
But I did also gather information from private contractors, square foot numbers.
Like I said, I didn't go, you know, square foot numbers.
And as far as the renting and things like that, it's just an average of the area.
You know, it's actually $28 a square foot.
But I figured by the time we pull the trigger, it's going to be at least 30.
So, that's where the numbers came from.
So, if one were to deduct the roof and the elevators, it's sunk costs of roughly $1.2 million.
You end up with something more like $21 million.
Yeah.
I guess, at 58,000 square feet, it's about $360 a foot, which sounds a lot cheaper than the construction.
Yep.
Do we have a sense of how much space the town really needs?
Or what an efficient way of, you know, say, newly constructed or built-to-suit or anything?
I haven't studied that yet.
It's easy enough to do.
We've started this study.
I just haven't completed it.
And I know there's no estimating contingency here, which...
No.
...percent at this point.
I would say at least I know.
So, I mean, this is good information.
And I expected, frankly, the number to be higher.
I would have expected the number to be higher. So, we have to factor in that there's almost $3.5 million. Oh, it's worth of mechanical work that's already been done. Yeah. That's not included in here. So, your number is close to the 25. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Hopefully, that helps. Thanks. Sure. So, the children's way is moving to a different location. Yes. That's going to open up some space. Yes, it is. So, in that, what if you've got that building will be used well with that space and things and give them the needs of the different projects? May I find this? I have an idea. Go ahead. I do have plans for that space. Michael and I had a discussion and he asked me to put together a plan to move some things around. He has some thoughts of the way things should be laid out. So, he hasn't seen it yet because, unfortunately, between my vacation and his vacation, we haven't had time to sit and talk to each other. But, recreation could move over there. We could put family planning over there. Recreation moved from the second floor over there. They have a ton of space. They're close to the gym. They use one of the classrooms for their summer programs anyways. So, they would be right there. We need two quiet spaces, one for family planning. And there's a visiting nurse that comes in that interviews parents and children. So, there's a couple of nice quiet nurses' offices up there already that we could use those for. Family planning would be across the hall from that. And then, rec would be up where the four classrooms are. A piece of it anyways. Rec space, I would open IT up a little bit. Right now, you walk into IT, and it's their workshop, and it's just not a very useful – there's already a doorway between the two spaces. So, we would push the people in rec over to – I'm sorry, people in IT over to rec, and then that center space would become an actual lobby. And then, they would have a workshop where they're currently sitting so they could work on their equipment instead of, you know, on a small space like that. Schools would take the old facilities area because it just makes sense. It's – at the end of their hallway, they could use it for offices. They have people out in the hallway. So, it just makes sense to put people in there. If we jump down to the first floor, Michael has always wanted to bring planning over to where – in front of conservation. So, we would flip-flop, we'd take the planning, planning, and put them in that area where it's in front of conservation, and we'd take all those live files and put them in planning. That would become the new live file room. We have a lot of live files that we have stored all over the building. This would make a nice area. We could put the plotter in there. We'd become a nice copy.
Downstairs, in the lower level, there's two open spaces that children's way – that will open up for children's way. That will become the new dead storage. There are rooms that are off the large hearing room. There are decent-sized spaces. We don't have enough – we have paper from the schools up in closets upstairs that's a fire hazard person. They don't have any sprinkler system. So, this would bring everything into a room that's sprinkled, has all the proper things.
And that's how I see that laying out a little bit. We would have some extra space upstairs. Probably two of the classrooms. But we could move people around, but we could figure that out. But other than that, I could make very good use of the space.
What's that? We have audios. Yeah, that's what I – there's something wrong with the hour. It's showing that it's off, but I'm watching. Can you see how I keep moving that? And that audio reader is reader. So, I'm assuming that it's fine. No, it's fine. I'm not – sorry. That's what it's off. Yeah, I'm still talking to you. So – Where's my value? I think of me, you know, I believe it's a good question. I'm speaking for myself. I always had a vision that town offices might be the best move to the town center. But it's a good point. It's a good point. So, we build out – build out – build out for you. And sell this part. Out of the numbers. I'm going to ask you a question. Yeah. I think the space doesn't have been accomplished now. You're welcome. Mr. Fay asked my question.
I'm calling my hon. How do we – I have conditioned that our employees to do some preliminary – actually, you may come up with approximately 500 for all of the town office space. That excluded bathrooms, hallways. When you add that in and subtract out the gym, the gym storage area, you get above an additional 12,000 square feet. So, we're up over 20,000 square feet. The upstairs space, the public schools take approximately 6,300. The Children's Way is 4,000. So, the building itself right now, between school, Children's Way, and the gym, is a total of 36,000 square feet. But we're probably only using, at least on the town side, a good 20 to 25,000. Based on Mr. Whitney's, you know, 50,000 square foot, 20,000 square feet, that's a lot of money, and it's – it would be a challenge, I think, to do that at the building on the town side. So, I'm just going to hop in and do my one question for us. I mean, we'll go back. I'll start. So, you know, it was going to be funny when they laughed, so I really did. You know, we get to vote here, and I didn't hear anyone in there who would get in a nice new select room, and so I really think you might want to – we will get that allocation in space. And I know Michael has floated some ideas on, you know, maybe connecting an enclosed space to his office, but particularly when we have to go back and forth between executive session and open session, it just would be more efficient, so I just mentioned that. The fact that I love these – we do have – yes, we did look into that, and there is a number out there for that room, so – That also creates sight and sound separation from HR. Right. Because we – yeah, it's been – I mean, I don't see the volume right now, over there on the corner. Oh, yeah. It's going to – Oh, it is. Okay. All right, that's because of the volume. I understand. I keep playing. I definitely need my gal that lost place. Who's – I didn't miss – Mr. McCauvel. Just a few select board members Faye's point about the building, what we can do afterwards. There have been several residents and board members who have raised the issue of whether or not we can – sell them what we can do, but also it's footprint adjacent to wetlands that it may be better to sell that footprint because somebody might have difficulty building on that site effectively and it's really easy to use. So, it's something that we would have to look at, too. So, I think – so, actually, I go in on Mike. Yes. We were at the 16 meeting last night and Matt and I did send out an email this morning to their members to watch this discussion because they are concerned, you know, as they prioritize the repair projects from the town building, what's the end – what's the end goal. I'm not sure we're going to collectively have that answer by the beginning of October, but I've had this conversation with Mike. I said, you know, let's get this ball rolling and see what we want to do. So, I think – does anyone else have any questions on this? Well, it's been presented before I go to the next thing. So, I think the next step, actually, would be what are our next steps. And I think one thing we've discussed and have it on the list over here, so, you know, that we might establish, you know, if I think about one option might be a working group, you know, to look at the options. Because, obviously, we could do some repair, we could do a full repair, we can – maybe we don't use the whole building, maybe we lease a piece of wood, maybe we still make a new building on the same site, maybe we move, I don't know. So, I think we have that. Tom and I have this conversation a couple times about setting up a town meeting – a town meeting? A town building, working group, and does everybody think that's a good idea? I should say this, Mr. Lee, do you like what I do? I love working groups. Oh, you do good. I'm glad to hear that. Does everyone think we should do that? So, I'm going to, in the interest of really getting out of my time tonight, I'm going to move this along and say, Mr. Fay, would you be so kind as to draft a charge for a working group on a town building? I can do that. And then, you know what we're going to do? Well, look, the board, if you haven't done – I know your workers are so efficient. Thank you. I'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting on the 20th. If we could just maybe discuss that and make sure that's what we wanted to say. We could at least vote the charge and get that vote on the map. Does that – and did you – You didn't list it, but you implied, Mr. Papawono, would that include at least some exploration of whether the town building should move? I think so. I think so. Thank you. So, he's going to create the charge and we'll look at that next meeting and then we can add or expand that as we feel – one, two, the goals we want to achieve from working group. That would be second to the select one. That would be second to the select one. I understand. Yes. No. That's a question. And the table. Right, Tom? And the table. At the risk of trying to cherish patients. I'm furthering off the ways that we can't kick into this. Oh. It strikes me that there's always a threshold question of, you know, do we stay in the existing building and do we move? One question I've neglected to ask, Michael, Mike, is whether this budget would be a gut rehab. This budget? Yes. The budget would be a gut rehab. The gut rehab. Meaning you could demolish all the demise of the walls. You could adjust for area given to cars, which I think are quite generous, and so forth. Open offices, local plan offices, instead of a bunch of small offices. So, I think next steps would include completing the work that's already ongoing with respect to the amount of space that the town needs. Sometimes there's confusion about what the town wants and what the town needs. Those are sometimes two different numbers, but that would be helpful to have that. I think to Mr. Fay's point, it would be well to think about engaging a broker on a fee basis to look at reuse potential of the building. One could imagine it being reused as a multi-family residential. You could probably have some interest on the part of money to do a 40p or some portion of affordable housing, which depressed the salesperson needs. I think a reuse analysis just to know what the income would be as contrasted to the expenses. And then maybe I'd get to do some space planning. I think we have good resources in town. I think members of the permanent building committee might be free to come up with some good ballpark members. I think that if everybody is sort of thinking, I'm going to let you hop in one second. If everybody is sort of thinking in advance of the next meeting, we'll receive the charge and we'll figure out what else should be in that charge. Because Tom doesn't mind if we make a few rentals. No, no. Okay. And Mr. McComb. And there are some communities that recently have either renovated or built a brand new town halls, and it might be interesting to take a view of some of those. Not the same size town, but for instance, Foxboro. I had to visit the town hall there on a couple of occasions in the last five years. And I noticed a beautiful building. The footprint didn't seem that large. Some of them are able to utilize a full basement. That's why you don't have some space. But there may be some, you get some ideas about when you talk about space, what you need versus what you want versus what you really need. And see how others are managing the same type of staff size and departments in a space that's the same and smaller and bigger. Well, I'll set with that idea. And thank you for that concept of what we need versus what we want. It's near and dear to my heart from my finance community as we get more of what we want, including what we need. And this is a big expense. Would you like to say anything before we close this round? No, we're good. I think I'm setting it up. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. You're going to be a frequent guest. Are you ready? I will. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. All right. So now we'll do item number four, which is discussed and review the proposals for the town council, that we had last meeting and those are also in that meeting. There's a chart. Whoops. Oh, I think I believe in the supplemental packet, right? Is that what it is? Yeah. On page two, Jaylee and Kelsey put this together for us to kind of send a nice one with a summary, you know, on the firms, what they offer, what the fee schedule was. We also included in here, I think Kelsey will be able to split to what we pay currently to KP Law as well, which is there's a $7,000 retainer and Kelsey did a lot of work on that, pulling up what we paid for the last three or four years. Did you want to speak to that? Sure. Let me just look at my phone real quick because I sent it to you and then it went poof, found my brain. Well, I think we paid $7,000 a month plus. I thought it was $210,000 an hour. But I think this is, we currently pay $250,000 an hour after the return of all of these other items. Yeah, I think what they were quoting in their original documents was like the overall blended fee. Just bear with me one second while I pull up what I sent you. While she's looking, I just want to comment. I use this room a lot and I'm used to the fan noise. Yes. We're also used to it perturbing our light devices. So I just wanted people to know I turned the heating and cooling off. I know, I saw that. Thank you. And if the group gets too hot or too cold, they can speak up. Thank you. You know, of course, we could have used you in the board when we were meeting the select board meeting because we had a lot of problems with noise from that family into the home and back. Delighted to finally offer some value. That's what it will. What did you say? Delighted to finally offer some value, I'm sure. We're honorable. We're honorable. So I'm just looking at the fee proposal, which I believe is the current fees we pay to KP Law. Their blended hourly rate is 250, but it will increase by $10. So it would go up to 260 if reappointed. Matters for specific appropriations are often referred to as specialty legal services, and that has a different rate. And they also state that the paralegals get charged a half rate, other people within the office they don't charge for. There is a $7,000 retainer per month, and that's basic town council services included in that. And then other matters will be charged at the hourly rate or specialty rate, depending on the subject matter. And then they list out what basic town council services include, which are town meeting, reviewing and drafting of standard contracts, telephone conferences and emails with town officials, review of subdivision documents, draft review and drafting of planning board, board of appeals, and other town board and committee decisions unrelated to excluded matters, and then status reports. And it keeps going into that. For the specialty legal services, it varies depending, but it goes from $3.40 to $3.85 an hour, depending on what is being asked of them. So, is this audio working here? Let me double check. I was hoping you could put a touch on the work that you did to show how much we paid in total to keep you off. Oh, yep. Which was raised from, you'll have to be, is it $2.80? From, yep, from basically. When you do the $7,000 out for the year, I come up with $84,000, and yet we're spending all $200, right? It is $200, right? Yeah. It is $200 since 2023, uh, fiscal year 2023. Yeah. Hold on. So, in fiscal 2023. We're spending, so we have a sense of it as we look at these. Um, I think it was over $200 last two years. Yep. So, fiscal 23, including tax title, because it's combined, is $184,076.60. Fiscal 24 was $201,572.65. Fiscal 25 was $213,414.16. And then for this last fiscal year that just ended, um, it is $208, $296, plus we just got a bill for $14, so that's about $220 something. Yeah, so I think it's safe to say we're spending a solid $200, so just to get, and when you think about the retainer, it's only coming, uh, $86, so they say $84, $86 of that, so that's an interesting, uh, thing. So, I want to open it up to the four, I thought. Um, I do want to say one other quick thing is that I did send a note personally to each one of the four firms last week saying thank you for coming in and, again, apologizing for our targeting is just somewhat uncharacteristic for us, which tend to move along pretty quickly. And then we received about two, uh, two responses that actually talked a little bit about what else they could provide the town. One was from Cape Conning that went directly to the board, and then the other one was that came in, I think, over the weekend from Carolyn Murray, and I had Jalen send that out to you all so you could see what else they had to say, you know, about their, about their, uh, proposal. So, alright. Who would like to start? Put this out, because they're the lawyers. Well, I was going to ask for Tom's input anyway, because, um, I love the resources available to us from K.P. Law, because they have some 50 plus attorneys who have expertise in all the areas that we need the expertise in. We're obviously paying for it since we're averaging 200 plus thousand dollars over the last year per year. What I was curious, um, to hear what Tom thought is about this flap rate that Mead, Tallerman, and Costa has thrown out there. And if, if you think that that would save us a tremendous amount of money, or would we be running way over because, for example, employment law, labor and employment matters aren't covered, um, in this, in the proposal number two. Uh, I thought it was just an intriguing idea. Um, I think sometimes we have to be careful about just trying to save money because we want to make sure we have excellent counsel. Um, but I'm just, I'm curious to hear Tom's impressions. Um, I, I, I won't, um, I'm always wary of flat fees generally. They, they work sometimes. But, um, what happens is, if there are issues that come up that are very time consuming, it frustrates the law firm. And, it may frustrate the client, in this case the town, because you may not feel like you're getting the service that you really usually get in respect. Um, if we do the flat fee, it's $180,000 right off the bat. And it excludes certain, certain subject areas, which, which I just mentioned. Um, and 180 is certainly less than 2 or 210 that we're currently paying. I also look at the size of our town budget, $90 million. Um, so this is 200,000, 225 a year for, to run a very large organization. And in a town that is litigious. It just is. In addition, you know, we've had issues relative to, to, to positive projects. We've been in town center over the years, or the community center, or the, uh, land next to St. Anne's church, to, to, to, to it. You know, we're doing things. We're making the community better. And you want good advice, because you don't want to deal with other lawsuits down the line. So, you never want to underestimate good advice. Personally, I, I've found, um, uh, KP Law to be, uh, responsive. I said this in the last meeting. Responsive. And, um, uh, lawyers can give effective advice. And, um, I've used, if any broke, why fix it? Having said that, I think it's good that we, we're having this exercise, but I, um, I have no objection to continuing with, you know, KP Law on all areas, including employment, unless the town manager has different opinion on, uh, unemployment. I'm going to, uh, go to the side of the room. Do you want to add something? Well, first I'd like to, uh, thank Tom. Uh, Porter's typology. On the one hand, I'd like to thank him very much for generating these very interesting proposals. On the other hand, it's made it difficult, uh, because I, I think they were really forexing presentations. Uh, I guess one question I would have is whether it makes sense to disaggregate the labor from the general counsel. And I don't have an opinion about that, but, um, obviously we heard from one, one that specializes in labor law. But I don't know. You gentlemen, or Michael, you're also a gentleman, have, have a view on this question of whether to, it's a good idea or a bad idea to disaggregate the labor from the balance of the work. And just to dovetail on that, what percent do we look at each year of our legal issues are related to labor and employment? I'm appreciating for that. Mr. McCall, we'll let you hop in here. So I was very careful the other week. Uh, I, I knew many of the attorneys personally, and just, you know, made sure I said some comments about each one in my relationship. Because I want you people to make your own decisions. Um, I'm always interested. We review the, I have to sign the, uh, accounts payable. I always look at, uh, Kelsey Thurman's media invoices. We look, I look at them sometimes. People get everything together. Month to month. Like, you know, one month, there's a labor case dominating everything. The next month, it's a labor case. Um, so it's really hard, unless we broke it down and did an analysis year over the year, but to, to attorney Faye's point. So we're going to turn it forward. Uh, we, do seem to incur a lot more litigation here than I have in, in, in previous communities. And, I think, not standing KP Law, the money that we've spent has saved money. I, I came into town over the weekend because it's something out of my office. And I, I, uh, took a ride down the toilet with my wife and I pointed to the Mill Creek Project in Weston. And I looked at it and I said, that could be where the new wedding venue is going right now. Um, you know, and we're, we're fighting certain projects in the best interest of the town. And when it comes to labor, I had a good relationship with Mr. Jenkins. We, we align on a lot of things. A lot of times he sets me straight, but I do think that we've had, we've had our share of losses, but we prevailed on some important cases here that he's indicated to me and maybe to you folks as well, that we've saved some money. Uh, there is some comfort level of having someone you've worked with before. Um, I, I, I have, as I said, on the jail and he sat on some arbitrations and, uh, mediation with attorney Murray. And I have had some work with the folks that you tell him in Costa. I had no problem staying with attorney Jenkins. If you're looking for my guns, I, uh, I think we've done well with quite a few of our labor cases. Um, and overall I am satisfied with the guidance that we could get from these folks. Uh, and it's, as I alluded to when it was joked by attorney Murray, there are a lot of times where she'll call me after, I'll call her after hours and there is that comfortable relationship that if something comes up, you know, the police or the fire call me something in the middle of the night saying something going on, you know, search and seizure question, anything. I can call them and they're going to be answered. And I'll leave you with that. So the answer to my, um, to Bill's question is, do you think it's the good idea for us to separate the, uh, label from the general counsel or keep it all on one? That was your question? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So then, because then I want to go for Mr. Reynolds and myself, thank you for their comments on this before we open it back up. Is, is it fungible? I would say no, it is not fungible. But what I can tell you today, um, there was a question that came up with a particular, it's like the bargaining union. And, um, we were talking back and forth from outside labor council from somewhere else. Attorney Jenkins got on the phone with attorney Murray, who used to, our attorney Murray for KP Law, who also did some labor employment. So without, you know, they didn't have to go far to get back up and to share minds. Uh, I, I think there's an advantage of being with one firm because of the breadth and depth of experience that those attorneys have. That, you know, if he needs to phone a friend, he goes across the aisle or we just patch that other person in where some other firm that may not be as large or not have the breadth and depth of experience, you may have to wait a day or two or they call, uh, you know, a colleague and another firm to get an answer and get back to you. Um, and I, and I don't want to buy a short decision in my experiences, but I, I think staying with the firm and having that breadth and depth is, is advantageous. How do we take this? Does that answer your question? Sort of. I know. Sort of. I mean, I get the sense that, uh, labor council and the general council don't necessarily need to consult on another on a regular basis. Is that, is that the case? If there's a labor matter, do you go to Mr. Jenkins directly, work with him, and do you get the sense that Attorney Murray is involved? My sense is not necessarily. Well, from time to time, in a particular issue today, it, um, I had both of them involved in discussion. So, I will say the way I've conducted myself with KP Law and how they appear to, um, work on their side is because Attorney Murray is lead counsel for the town. When certain matters come up, she wants to be copied to you so that she can have an overview of what's going on, reassign people, double up if need be necessary. So, having general counsel at the same firm, they do get that high level overview or able to jump in and leave. Did you have a question or comment about this? Uh, no, my, I think the top most factor here is the quality of the last few years' experience. I'm not qualified to speak to this. I don't have any questions. That's just fine. On the board. Um, so this is, is, is to Tom's point, this is, um, periodic review, um, um, um, um, I'm a setting council with the town, so town council. It is something that we end up, the town manager's act, I'm responsible for conducting the periodic review and then, uh, we actually have a point town hustle. They technically, the board, as I mentioned, teach for our last week, they report, you know, engaged by, uh, the select board. But we delegate the day-to-day, you know, to, um, the town manager. So this is, um, one of the things that we, you know, we wanted to undertake because we should do on a periodic basis, and we want, this is what we're doing. So, um, um, I think that that, um, and just from my secular viewpoint, is, like I said last week, Carolyn is town councilman. She is the place of town council to so many people. And she's been with us for a while, and she really understands a lot. I thought the call, um, correspondence that she sent to me was, was, was just her record that said, you know, not, not everything goes perfectly in a relationship like this. It's such a large undertaking. You know, we're providing it for $100,000 services, you know, every year. There's always one or two things that aren't going to go exactly the way you want. And at the same time, um, I can confirm that both, um, I don't want to use the person, um, attorney Goldberg, and, uh, has reached out to the residential and had expressed some concern about something that had happened, and I don't just had to have a conversation about, you know, what happened. But I do agree with her. She said, you know, nothing's perfect. And I go back and said, there's always room for improvement on both sides. We're probably not a perfect client, are we? No, I don't. So. Sure, we can come up with a few examples. So, um, what, what would we like to do from here? I'd like to talk about it. Can I just ask you one more question? Sure. Can I make a motion? Because you are in this world more than any of us. I thought the one that was most analogous to KP Law was Murphy, Hesse, Toomey, and Lahane. I couldn't find exactly the towns that they represent. Um, we know that KP Law represents some hundred municipalities, but if we were to learn that Murphy, Hesse, Toomey, and Lahane represented a number of peer communities, and it's a similar size law firm, I counted 35 attorneys or so, do you find that the two are analogous based on any experience you might have, or do you think that KP Law is what? I'm familiar with Murphy, Hesse, they're quite confident. Um, I think Mike and I have a better opinion because of his, you know, good opinion because of the show because they wish you months. Right. The people who he knows, I mean, and, uh, the experiences they have to deal with, and litigation and employment issues. And our school uses them. The schools use that firm, too. Right. They are, of all the forms, one, I do not have a lot of experience. I do not have a lot of experience with them. I think I've participated in the labor employment seminar with the attorney, I think it was McCarroll. Um, that came in at that evening. I mean, I've heard good things about them. I think probably, the reason I haven't is, I think they're based Boston and south towards Quincy, south shore. Um, I come from Metro, Merrimack Valley and worked in, uh, central Massachusetts, and now Metro West. So it would just be geographical reasons I didn't want into them. And they did, I know, represent Chelmsford. I think their school is the whole point below. Um, so I've never dealt with them personally on the US side. Okay. But their name has been around for some time. Yeah. Okay. Good. I'd like to move this forward. I, I just wanted to know, cause I don't know how important. Oh, you know, it is, it is. I'm watching it. Um, is that our contract with KP law expired at least a year or two ago. So this would be for a new contract. I, I didn't see it noted. So I just wanted to clarify. Yeah. So before you say, what do we want to have some shape? Cause you know, a lot of these proposals are dealing with one year to, you know, we want to look at something. Or maybe we say, Hey, I might appreciate like a three year contract and see if we'd all get some, um, if that helps that rate. Or is that something the board doesn't want to attend. I want to throw that out before we do. What was the term of the last country? Well, I don't know that. I think it was five years. I think it was five years. And I, and I would think that- We have one, but the 16, and then in 19, we went to the full service, right? I think you want to go down to that side. And then, um, we haven't made the contract for a few years. And so, um, we have, we need to decide. I just wonder if it makes sense for us, um, to look at a longer term. And again, would that result in perhaps, you know, more favorable, uh, or something like that? If you do decide to go down a contract more than three years, you do have to vote to allow that, the extension of the contract. Because by mass general law, procurement, it's limited to three years. But with a vote of the select board, it can be extended as long as you see fit. But I don't even know if we, we like the idea first. I mean, we can stand for that one year. So what does everyone think about, you know, maybe a multi-year contract? That also prevents us from having to do this every year. Um, it also restricts us from doing it every year. So what's it, what do you think, Chris? I have no substantial opinion about this. I'd be interested in what the termination provisions are. Uh, you know, if you want to convince yourself to a five-year term or something, and then if you're three and you're going well, you have the ability to make a change. Maybe not five, but if we went like three or something. So we need a termination term, right? Yeah. Can I just say, standardly, we do put in, at least the contracts I write, um, we always have a termination for cause and without cause, and it's a 30-day notice on both ends. Okay. That takes care of that question. Um, comments over here on maybe doing a... On lineback, I'm coming for five years. If you're on them, sorry. How about the fee arrangement? They may propose three alternatives, I guess. Well, KPL I just have one, right? They have two, actually. They have anomaly rate, and then they would be... You were 7,000. Yeah, 7,000 retainer, which is simply what they would keep for us. Um, so we have the two options. But maybe we should have Michael be talking to them, um, to see what the terms... Does the retainer get just drawn down at the hourly rate? How is that different? How is that different? The... So the retainer pays for... So, I can provide KP Law bills if anybody wants to look at them. But they are break down... They're broken down by, like, topic. And the first two is general... Legal services or general labor services. And in their proposal, they listed exactly what would count under that. So, like, phone calls with Michael count under that. And that gets deleted from the $7,000 retainer. I mean, we've never had a bill under 7,000, but we've had them pretty close. So, it also includes article drafting for the warrant, discussion, motion creation. And since we have a substantial warrant, it's probably why we ended up with that retainer model. I'm sorry, I'm just not following. Are we... When you go with the retainer model, you get up to a certain amount? Certain services are deducted. I think it's a flat fee. It's a flat fee for certain services and then they'll say... And there are school dues. Right. And those are the ones that are at the hour... Which then gets to the point where we spend the 80... What did I say? It was 84 on the retainer. Yeah. And then the other 100, whatever we spent, was on other items. Litigation, tax title, land... Somebody else help me here. Zoning decisions. The zoning is built into the general... I mean, labor... Labor... Labor laws in there too. It's all spelled out in their proposal in our package last week. Yeah. And it's right here too. In their letter, yeah. I was comfortable voting to support a particular law firm and instruct the town manager to negotiate the most effective contractional terms, including how we rate it and the annual interest. Annual interest. Annual interest. But that would be the terms. Okay. Before we do that, could we go back to something you said earlier, Mr. Fay? Is there any... Please just cut me off if this is untoward. Is there any point in spending more money on legal fees, for the reason you noted, where... As a percentage of the size of our enterprise here, this is certainly something to keep an eye on, but I wouldn't call it outrageously high. Could we spend a little money and have a law firm look into litigation minimization training or protection? Well... No would be the fine answer. I think any law firm could do that. I don't know. Law firms give, for example, seminars to physicians, teach them to have a good design. My work does that to me. Right. A lot of litigation does come down to human interaction and emotional intelligence. Right. And both sides. Right. And it can also... Another factor is money. Right. And... But to answer your question, I don't... We certainly ask any law firm we end up contracting with to present a seminar on that. Sure. If I could be pushy just for gravity, I'm sure the law firms could do what you're saying. What I'm really asking is, does Mr. McCall or... Do you think there's any... Would the beach hop there? What? To having trainings? Yeah. So... To having trainings to avoid and to minimize litigation. Well, we do that with Maya. Most... Most of the professional development workshops that we've started doing really did risk mitigation. Teaching our people about harassment and things of that nature. And I want to say in the past that KP Law has offered to help conduct a couple of trainings. We're now really just utilizing these professional development days. We could certainly make sure that's part of the discussion for the contractors that come in and provide some of that for us. I agree wholeheartedly with that. That is something that's why we're going over... I think Kelsey is working on putting together procurement training. We take... Maya, our insurance carrier for property and casualty, offers all sorts of free training to ensure that... They have a different reason. They don't want to pay it out. But teaching people basic risk avoidance for legal matters. Open legal law. Public weapons law. This would be great. That's great. We're worried. So I see for a second. I want to propose the very last sentence in the box. They provide two educational seminars for the three annually. So that would be who wants to decide. I know they've come on and done like... Open minimum are and those kinds of things that have been to. I understand that. My question was should we spend more? The answer I'm getting is no. I'm all set. I think it might be somewhat included, but we can get it from the insurance. Okay, so I'm going to move us along if I may. If anybody objects, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to ask if you'd like to make a motion. Sure. So I move this board town manager to negotiate a five-year agreement with KP Law for legal services on all topics. Ask the town manager to secure the best terms possible in monetary terms. Do I have a second to the motion? We would offer an amendment, a friendly amendment, and authorize the town manager to execute such an agreement. Do we have to execute because we're the ones of the town manager, right? I think he... I think... I think... It's us. We... It's us. You picked out a council and things. I think we would negotiate and come back to... Right. Okay. So what? Okay. So are you finally amended? Finally amended. Final execution by the board. Okay. And... Can I have a second, please? Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion from the board? From Ms. Mulholland and Ms. Morris Burlett? I would respectfully request assistance as needed from select board member Faye. If I have questions about, you know, negotiating the board... Vote without standing. Vote without standing. Yes. Thank you. All right. I'm all sitting along, but I probably need a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries five-zero. And guess what? Even hearing that I've been in practice for about two years... Well, I'm just going to pass it off. Okay. So now we're going to get to the main reason that we're having our meeting tonight. It is something like for us to take a step back and look at, you know, what we've done for the year and then what we would like to do. So, of course, I'd like to just give you a little to you. But what we've done is we've picked... It doesn't actually... I mean, these are not me now, but we've picked five kind of overall objectives for the conference. And then we've filled in some items that would go on for those objectives. And then we've kind of looked on those. And you'll see when we talk about, you know, what we've done. And then we go forward. Rather than make just one long, long list of things that we might do, kind of in the last few years we've kind of narrowed it down. I think we've had some success on making some partners doing that. And the way I add to that is that this is our plan and that things happen and our plan sometimes gets changed and we end up working on all the things. But at least it's a plan where we start from. So I think in the supplemental packet there's also... What I did was, as I did in January, when we did our six month review of where we were with our objectives, I keep calling them goals, sorry. I had written, you know, a progress report. This one, I just threw some high level items and I'm sure I missed a lot here. But for each one of the items, I wrote down the accomplishments, you know, things we have accomplished under each one of those items of the year. I hope everyone thinks those are encompassed most of the items. I think mine, certainly anyone can add anything they want to the list. I just was putting a stick in the bucket here to just... I'm going to start today so that you can see what we've worked on. I just want to prove them. If you want me to read them out loud, you know, from the public, as he's saying. I think I should do... No, good. Good. But don't agree. Good. And then... And that's what we did. So, our first goal was to continue implementation of effective governance consistent with the select one of the town manager act. And so we did a number of things with that. Our second last year... Second objective was to advance the... Well, that should say creation. Affordable housing as for the housing production plan. We emphasis on possible projects in 212, which you do in the town center. And that's the items we worked from that. The third one was develop and implement measurable progress. So, here we are. Here, thank you. On the Route 20 corridor, that promotes economic development and employment growth, including integration and review functions. Participating in the joint task force. And we talked about some of the items we did with that. I think we made some measurable progress there. The fourth was identify the financial constraints, including possible operating overrides and or debt exclusion articles, as well as the impact of implementing long-range asset management and capital improvement plan. And we had some progress there. And then finally, if we are the policy board under the town manager act, we have added on last year. This was really last year. We put this review, amended, promote the town policies, and it was particularly in respect to the select board manual and finalizing the financial purchasing and acceptance of land and naming options. We didn't necessarily do those policies, but we did some others. And, um, I don't know. I just hope everyone thinks that's representative. What? What? All we have accomplished in the last year? That was good. Any edits? No? Great. So the next item on this. I wanted to just kind of go from the script so that we can move on to the next. Michael, um, had, Michael and I both had a summary of interruptions in the last week, but I barely got lined up today. I don't know that he was able to finish, uh, his list. Did you have a chance to finish anything, Michael? To just give us a quick overview? And I do apologize. We put the object, uh, the agenda together quickly, and I left the word goals in here, and I should say objectives, so. So. Um. I'm working diligently because we're not on the right network. It's freezing because I downloaded. Okay. Well then let's, let's work on this one. So, um, do we want to, like, just do ours first and then talk about, you know, what we think, I'm not sure how you want to approach this, but one way would be, we look at these and see if these are still valid, and if we need to replace something, we'll enhance it. Um. I think we need to start with number four. Alright. Can you move it up the list? Because it's, uh. Oh, I don't have a different priority order, but okay. You can do that. I'm curious what, um, folks think about keeping the holiday road parcel as part of it in terms of thinking about future development, especially if the school gets closer to making a determination about it. And is that going to be on number four? It's kind of a part of number four. Would that be part of, like, number two? Well, I think if you look at number seven, these are kind of separate, but we, um. Yeah, it would be part of number two. We might change it to, um, Tom and I were brainstorming a little here at the agenda planning and we thought maybe we would change that to municipal land use rather than just affordable housing. Yeah. Uh. Develop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe incorporate the affordable housing concept with it. I think we need to use the term development too, right? We're thinking about expanding development in town. Say it again. You know, we've got economic development generally, but when we created Alta Oxbow, at least according to Brian, that was like one of the most significant developments in this town in terms of added revenue. So I think we need to talk about using the term development. And that's how I was thinking about exploring that Holiday Road parcel. Yeah. Um. But let me ask you this. Do we like, on number seven, do you like the beginning bones of B? I mean, this is the land use. And you could put your Holiday Road in there, give some more language. Sort of work. Did I say B? Sorry. We're not working on this. Yeah. He's kind of moving around to the agenda too, so. I can pull the agenda out too. Where is number seven? On the agenda. It's on the right here. All right. Sorry. Yeah, I'm just looking at the one through five too. Our objectives from fiscal year 2026. All right. So can you put that. Can you put that on my side? Yeah. Sorry. We can try. May I ask where would discussion of how we work as distinct from what I saw up there? I'm sorry. Where would discussion of how we work, how we meet, what we can discuss and not discuss. That sounds a little vague. What I'm wondering about is, has this board already discussed at some point creating a subgroup that, for example, might deal with administrative matters or the consent calendar so that we can have a parallel track for quality and not always be rushing? You know what? We haven't had that one yet, so you can make that as a proposal and see if that's one that we do. Well, I'd be empowered. I don't want to propose it unless they do the lights. Okay. But when Kelsey was able to pull this one up, this number one says continue. Yeah. This really is our umbrella, I think. It's continued implementation with effective governance, consistent with the select board and the town manager act. Last year, we've been trying to streamline the town meeting law and I don't know if we've finished that objective and we're going to miss everything over there. But, last year we wanted to review all the responsibilities and boards. If we felt we wanted to look at consent or something like that, then we would put that on there. I think it might go in there. Well, I'll make a 15 second plea. I think you're in an unfair position and I think observers of this process who aren't on the select board, people not in this room, voters if you will, are in an unfair position and it might be something worth spending a few minutes on. Should there be a subgroup of the select board that deals with nitty gritty administrative stuff so that we would not be in a, we would not be perceived as being in a state of constant ross at the possible expense of quality in our deliberations. Okay. Do you have something that comes to mind as an example, Chris? I did get some feedback that last week, keeping in mind, you know, in the air is a possible override. Also in the air is a possible half billion dollar new school appropriation. The credibility of this group and the reputation for diligence and due deliberation of this group is pretty important. And last week we were reduced to speculation at one point, for example, about whether a court or a registry would have a higher opinion if there were a test of title. And, you know, when there's real estate involved and money involved, our bill asked some really good questions and didn't get answers. I'm also conscious that this board frequently says to people, you know, we deal with policy here, we deal with policy. Okay, we say that when it's convenient, but when I look at the consent calendar, we get pretty granular when we want to. Maybe if there were a subgroup and we just said, look, the board can always say we want that. So anything can get elevated if we think it's actually policy. But if it's a granular administrative thing, there could be a subgroup that would discuss these things, take a little heat off the chair that every meeting has to be so dense. It's worth exploring. I know other towns do this and it seems to work. On the other hand, maybe some other towns I haven't heard of do it and it doesn't work. So I'm open. But it is something that I know people are asking me, Henry, how do you like the select board so far? What's going on? The credibility of this board is very important and the chair has a really tough job as an air traffic controller. So I agree then, Carol, that would fit somewhere within effective governance. Right. I think that fits under that goal. I was just saying at the outset, my initial comment is because it's so pressing, I think of number four as now our most important goal. Because if we're staring down and operating override for the first time in 20 years, that needs to be a front and center discussion for the next several months until we figure it out. And I would want to list that as our number one goal right now. So everybody sort of viewed these in the priority order? I mean, people can read goal number one, goal number two, and they all be equal but you just see it out there. Okay. So number four should go to number one. Okay. So I'm going to just answer the question about the consent calendar. The consent calendar is for us items that we are not going to have a delegation on that generally contracts. There's like an authority to approve up to a hundred thousand and then we delegate it back to him. That keeps us from, I think years ago, we used to do the payroll and everything. So that's usually a very quick item. We don't usually spend much time on that. So go ahead, Michael. If I can make a suggestion as part of number one. I do think given obviously the current climate we're in, just not in Wayland but overall, it is so hard to get quality volunteers. And as Kelsey knows, because we've discussed this, Wayland has one of the highest numbers of boards and committees for a town of size. And I do think a lot of time is taken up on your agendas, appointing people. So I would look at how you do your appointments. But also a review, you know, we've had people come to me the night of the volunteer appreciation gathering we had. I want to say Klaus came to me and said, we need to dissolve the audit committee, move it into the finance committee. So I think we need a, when I say we, a collective review. A real review of the boards and committees to see which ones maybe have either already come obsolete or may be coming obsolete and consolidate. So that when you get good qualified volunteers, you're putting them in the right place to ensure that they're satisfied. Because if they're on a board that isn't meeting and can't get a quorum, you're going to lose those people. But it also, you know, helps with advancing the town manager act, as you say, where you're not having all these silos. You're getting everything to work together. So I think, I do agree with a select board member, Levine, that number one really should be messaging and working on the override. But I think one of your goals that you should work on is working on that volunteer pool and making sure we're not burning out the few that we have. Because we saw the other night, we had one gentleman volunteering, he was on his third major board. So I'm going to need some help here. We're moving around and that's going to end up. I'm going to have cotton paste incorrectly. So I do think, let's start with number one. Let me just start with what's on the paper is number one. That's not going to be number one. Okay. As I didn't read it that way, so that was an interesting perspective. We're going to continue the implementation of the effective governance consistent with the select board town manager act. Does everyone agree that's, that's one thing. Then we can put these includeings. Do we want to still work on streamlining the annual town meeting warrant? Everyone's good with that. Okay. We've made some progress but we've customized this minute. I would say that requires a lot of our legal budget in that particular month. Oh, I know. We know that. Because of the amount of abuse. So if we could streamlining, not only make it more effective and efficient, but we would be saving, you know, thousands of dollars in legal review. So I think what they're talking about, Michael, is this reviewing of the roles and responsibilities of the town boards and the committees. I have to say this is probably one of the areas I didn't, I really couldn't think of working around that. I could think of too many things that we were able to do in that. We have had conversations, I agree, where we think that we should probably look at a mechanism or mechanisms to see if we could get all our board position filled. So maybe we don't, maybe evaluate when we need as many as we have. I don't know. Do you want to ask any of them? I see it as a dual approach. The goal, long term goal is to reduce the number of boards and committees. I think, at the same time, reorganize them, right, on a chart. Certain ones are certain, right, so in a way it helps you because maybe you have a plus or fewer reports maybe, right? But also it enhances communication and so that in one area, let's say it's land management, everyone's kind of rolling in the same direction. So right now our government's very flat and one of the reasons why we passed the time to interact was to address that. So to the extent, and I think, I think if you want to work, you do best fine. I don't miss a ton of management, but I think it starts with you. I think you need to give us some thought and say, you know what, let's say we talk about that. And I think it would be well received. And if there are hard decisions to make, then, you know, we will hopefully back you. And if there are really hard decisions to make, my view always is, make the implementation date, 12, 24 months in the day of the decision, so people can get used to it. But at your point, I do wonder whether town and government in communities like Wyoming are changing, where volunteers are less, are much harder. I hope that's not the case. But if it is, we need to adjust. We need to adjust. We need to adjust. I think it even goes along. The moderators reduced the quorum figure at the time being from 110,000 registered voters. Right. As I look at number one, my initial thought was, you know, we kind of have to know what we're doing. But as I listened to some of the discussion in the recent finance committee appointing board, there was discussion of a lumpy process of putting together the operating budget this year, this past year. And part of it was explained by still getting used to the town manager act and sorting out the relevant roles and responsibilities of the finance committee because of the town manager. So I think that's maybe one that ought to stay. I think there was a lumpy process in general because they ended up with, you know, the capital planning approved when it came along. Right, right. So that was a little late. They didn't necessarily ask for the proposed budget or start looking at the proposed budget until the end of January. When it was normally about to start like in December when it comes out. Carl was pretty clear on wanting to be involved. Right. Sooner or end of the day. Right. Yeah. So I think that it was just one of those perfect storms kind of a thing. Yeah. Unfortunately. But I think that goes to the question, do you maintain that? Yeah, we do. And, you know, to our earlier point, you know, there's this whole question of the importance of the financial mission in Happy Hall project. Possibly a new school or schools, town building, Route 20 landfill. So there are a lot of big things out there. To say nothing with the necessity of the operating of that question. So I have to be honest and say I'm having a hard time following up to put in these one of these lines. So I need a little help there. So are we going to talk about number four at the moment? Identify financial constraints including possible operating override. It should probably be singular. And are debt exclusion articles? Is that good the way that is at the moment? I mean, we'll look at these again the next time. I think it might be best to just, we'll jot down ideas and then we can wordsmith it offline. Because it's really hard to draft as a committee in real time. I don't have a hard time following along here. But to your question, I have no problem making them a full number one with revisions. Right. Which we have done. That we have agreed on. And I think Michael's point fits in under current number one. So we can be a little clearer about it, about potentially consolidating. So we can put that out there that we're looking at that. But how do we... Well, we're not looking at how we're going to do it right now. No. Well, if you could... Carol, if you were going to, at the end of the work committees, you have a comma. Including a consideration of consolidating committees or something like that. Or something like that. Yeah. I mean, I will say that I also have heard about the audit committee and the suggestion to rule and into the finance committee. But of course then, you'd have to have a conversation... You know, the last year you have to have a conversation with... Because we appoint them. You know, some conversations with them. So I think there was another one. I think we have another board, just to get a little specific here. I think there's nobody on the board. I don't think we have anyone in the... Dog control appeals. Dog control appeals board. Dog control board right now. So maybe that's one we want to look at because there's no one there. Maybe that's one, I'm just talking out loud, that we wrap that into our rules because we already do the press for it. I don't know. If it's not controlled by a bylaw, then we have to have a warrant article. It's controlled by a bylaw. Right. So we have to check on that. But that's the kind of one in the... But I think we have had this discussion on one point where we also said... And maybe this is not... I'm not trying to be a naysayer here by accident. Is that, you know, do we want to be the initiator on consolidation or do we want boards to come to us? Oh, no. We need to be the initiator. We're the initiator. Yeah. All right. All right. I think I'm going to number one. I think also on number one, to what Bill just mentioned, you know, I keep this list of everything everyone talks about and there were a number of articles. And I thought this was going to have been mentioned as possible for next year. It doesn't mean these are the only one I'm going to do, but I want to run through these to see if they're still viable and if not, take them off this list. And I thought those could go into number one. So it might be potential such and such articles, including blah, blah, blah, blah. So let me read these. One is, one of them is exactly what Bill just said. One was a bylaw to reduce the quorum below 100. So does the board have an appetite for that? And if not, I'll take that right off the list or I'll put it on. Tell me quorum. Sorry, not quorum. You want to include that in the goal? Are we going to be specific of some things we're going to do? No. In my opinion, no. We want to be global here. Okay. But I'm happy to have a discussion maybe at another meeting, but we start with global and then we get into the next meeting. Yeah, because these things I would like to get... Some of these are not going to go forward. I'd like us to be able to see... Yeah, we're going to have to list them. We're not doing those talking? No. Oh, boring. All right. So the current number two, this is the one that Bill found that Tom and I thought might expand it to not just be affordable housing, but municipal land use. Would you have come into the holiday world? So how does that sound? Municipal land use and then I have something like develop 212 particularly, evaluate the town building. I think 212 has taken off. So I don't think we include that specifically, but I do like the idea of... I would say evaluate municipal, town, property, best uses. Don't you want to discuss the point then? Well, we have this 2017 report done. Right. And there's a lot of small pieces and a lot of larger pieces, but again, it's a global topic and it provides... you know, notice to the town that this is all they're looking. I think there are kind of two pieces, but I had... or... Yeah. 212, I had a cascade site. Right. And... and available municipal site or sites. That's fine. Well, I like that. And in Hollywood? That's when you'd be available at municipal sites or... undeveloped municipal sites out here. But if you don't just go to, you know, there's the other... Yeah. Yeah. Let's go back to that again with the cast dates. Yeah. You know what? I'm going to put a few in and then you guys can take them back out. There's a little confusion about the implementation versus... I'm sure. You know, because it's a lot... it's a gender... we have to put... we're going to try to go on... that was my goal, was to kind of just put this information on here that we've talked about looking at or doing. So... so I guess my question on this... on the... municipally owned land is... is it to be exclusively devoted to housing that could be for other uses? Right. So... I... I... I... I... I... I said yes. I'll use... including possible sales. There may be a small triangle somewhere in town that has no use to the town. Right. And we just... put one article inside the cell. So I think we want to evaluate... if we have time, both... those parts and stuff. Yeah. So right now we have... excuse me... we have town property for best uses. I can specify that out... including sale... Right. But... but what about... promoting affordable housing that is not on the school line? Right. That probably... that could be a different... under a different... different home. I would just advocate for not getting rid of the... affordable housing. No, no. I... Yeah. It's going to be 2A and then that one could be 2. Yeah. You know, you might consider putting that under... or prohibiting some kind of economic development, which could include... the use... the reuse of the town and parcels... also... things like... the route 20 zoning... and... working with the owners of the... town center as they... consider... or as the planning board considers amendments... to... to that... for a potential future expansion. You see, now they were listing items again, but we didn't want to. So see, it's... it's... it's a challenge to not list items. So... you know... so last year we didn't use the phrase economic development, because we didn't want to single out... if I'm remembering correctly, we didn't want to single out like one town functional committee kind of thing over one another. So that's why we use measurable progress, I think. Um... economic development. Sorry. Yeah. It involves... Is it generic? Yeah. It involves so many different boards and committees and departments. Okay. Also, now that we've brought up an override, it's a long-term topic, it may not have been a year ago. Right. Okay. So, under this economic development right now, we have to develop and implement measurable progress on the Route 20 corridor. Um... So, should we... say, continue... continue progress on that? And... economic development would be... do you want to give me a phrase again? Dr. Phil? continue to explore economic development to reduce our issues. I would be tempted to add an EG. But they're not going to lay... I'm going to lay it, but they're not seeking it. We talked about Route 20 last time. All right. Um... And so now we get... Is that... Trying to put something together. Somebody like Kelsey is much better. This is going to have to give me an assist, I think. She's writing notes down all the way. Very casual notes. All right. So then the number four is the identified financial constraints, including... Obviously here, we're going to have to discuss about the possible operating override. Um... I think one thing you can say there... Yeah. Is implementing long-range financial planning and asset maintenance. Implement what? That's how I would start it. Implement long-range financial planning and asset maintenance and capital improvement plan instead of just identifying the financial constraints. Yeah. I mean, we'll have to do that, too. But I think that the idea is to be looking long-term. Right. And here you can make some mention of SIPC because it's relatively new. Do you want to, though, include some consideration of the current financial? I think we have to for this year. Yeah. I would just start it that way, I think. I would remove the operating override. I'm just adding to this goal. Because it looks like we're only identifying the override and then we're implementing long-range asset maintenance and capital improvement plan. But I think we want to think about our whole financial picture, not just about asset maintenance and capital improvement. So it's implement long-range financial planning. I'll work smoothly with you. I'll work smoothly with you afterward. I was hoping you were going to say that. That's great. Is it financial constraints or is it more sort of financial management? Yeah. I don't like the word constraints there, either. Yeah. That's when we just left you because we were identifying what was coming. We were constrained. We knew we were going to be constrained. Now we know we're constrained and now we're going to have another war. But I think particular emphasis on the sort of financial health with respect to the operating That is true. Anything else on that? The new number one? That's better than your mind. That's better than your mind. That's better than your mind? Yeah. What does that say? So then number five, I mean back to this thing about the policies that we do set policies for the town So, you know, we at a vacation we formalized some of the financial policies like the past with Kelsey's help and the staff we put in a number of policies over the last few years just formalized things that we have in town which is just good practice. So I do have a list here of things we've mentioned that I wouldn't mind running down I'm not going to look at these two men I'm going to look at these two things things we've mentioned to see if there are things we want to look at working on next year There was one, I think we did create a social media policy last year but now I think we've decided we need to update it to improve the use of AI I was just going to say we didn't get to my goals and if you recall We'll come back to you I was going to say if you recall last year you didn't initially assign me goals because you thought my goals really were objectives that should align with yours and when we eventually get to mine because of what goes on at town hall including town manager office hours we put a couple there that I think the board has to be involved with the development we're already starting at department head level to have the discussions about AI use internally but also a big one that has come up and came up a town meeting and you can put it on your list I have them on the list so let me go through the list for all of you Okay Thank you Where is my camera today? Alright so update social media policy include the use of AI everyone's good that's one we should do correct? Okay I'm going to skip down here and the one they want to talk about is surveillance yes and I have put that on the list so if we want to look at the surveillance policy there's another one religious expression yes request for religious items on town property right alright I'm going to throw in one here it's called complete streets policy this is coming from the Board of Public Works DPW it's actually part of the grant program and similar to the uh first policy that we did when I saw the first round there's someone the consultant's order it was very broad language again and so we're trying to sift it down to be a little less broad so that by the time it gets to the board the first time looking at it it's probably pretty close to what we want but um I believe we're one of the few communities that haven't signed onto this and it is also some grant money available once you'll create this summer there's one I think we need to look at um I think it's been mentioned too that we have and um I think Michael and I noticed that there's different language plus we have a very old debt exclusion policy and process I think that process I think that process has a full finance committee coming in twice within two weeks to do the same report I think we need to put that and look at that one because we want to look at that and um then it was mentioned recently by a resident on naming items that are wrong this is one we want to pursue or not yeah you think it's good you think it's good so does anyone hear anything that they think they don't think they should look the school committee has a I was talking to Captain Brenner about the school committee has a policy about naming or anything the fields are looking the rec commission is looking to develop a policy because they've given they've received I think you tell me seven requests over the last five or so years to name different fields they want to have a policy in place this is actually one of the first meetings I went to when Bill was the chair with Michael he said you really need to have a naming policy in place before we receive a request so so does anybody have anything they think shouldn't be on the list? I would just suggest you name the surveillance policy yes would you like to have a person? big brother policy Bill was here I had an overarching question my original point you recall was I worry about how much administrative we have brought down in versus policy when we say we have this list that we have and don't have to your point are we saying there might be a subcommittee that would look at naming a subcommittee that would look at our surveillance policy or are we saying that this select board is going to do it? so we last year because I had mentioned you know the thing is the school committee has a number of policies of this and they have a subcommittee that appeals to policies they review the existing policies in most cases we're creating them so some of these don't exist there's a couple that we're going to update here but there's some that don't that don't exist and we had said maybe once we got ours won't formalize we might also get on a rotation where we would be reviewing them on a regular basis so we don't end up with for example the data school policy which I think is at least 10 years old isn't it? 10 years old? so that needs to just be reviewed maybe there's no evidence I think this is something that the board can decide once we determine what we're going to do the how we're going to do it could be we have some subcommittee I'm sorry I'm being obtuse not you I am the one being obtuse I'm sorry you're saying is this board going to ask another group to say hey what do you think we should do about naming or school committee you've done something about it no she was thinking of it being this full board working on or out on this yeah but we can also have subcommittees like where two people go up and work on something or one person or one yeah and then bring it back to the board we're working our way into this to do this is what I'm saying these policies well committees well committees of course one person takes two topics and does a little research and does a little draft to do for conservation I think that's I mean these policies are not their way of making many other communities have so it's just a matter of putting information together but to your point what Tom is saying is the suggestion because remember they've just become the policy board in the last year so we're working our way towards and like I said to aspire to the school as it comes to get them on their face they have a rotation of reviewing them all and they have subcommittee that does it one or two board members and they meet and they have agendas and they look at things Tom's suggestion is really we just do single it and bring them to the board and then go from there I will sleep better tonight when I say something I want to make sure that we manage what we're talking about because when it comes to things like an override or a new school for half a billion dollars or really good issues Mr. Whitney brought up earlier about affordable housing I don't want to hear well we're in a rush or we're showing off how fast we can be but not how high quality or whatever it needs to be if somebody tunes into a select board meeting I want them to say wow those guys are being really diligent not being really efficient that's all I will sleep better tonight thank you okay so we're all set on number 5 we've identified a couple of them um did you want me to read up the list of the potential articles that we have identified so far to see which ones are staying or going articles from town meeting yeah I want you to tell our agenda I'm sorry? that's all right that's all right that's all right that's all right well that's part of streamlining and building up the warrant that's what's on here just identifying which ones we're going to look at no I just I actually put it down here on number 7a potential 27 articles okay so the first one was did we want to support in our bylaw change to reduce the quorum I can't tell you I'm sorry but that is real in my agenda okay just potential articles I know what I just think I mean something that specific anybody give public notice I'm sorry all right all right I think each of those could be kind of an individual conversation about itself which would take some time you know that shouldn't even be like a sub-agenda I mean that should be its own main agenda yeah you know we should be thoughtful about each other well I'm pretty sure some of these were not going to make the grade which is why I was trying not anyway okay so I think now what we want to do is go back and Mike were you able to connect in now to be able to show because you sort of you skipped your overview of your time so just you'll see these again at the next meeting um and I think that's what we did last year we looked at them and they would make some tweaks to them and that's it so um they're generic and a little bit specific at the same time oh my if I may I just like to ask are there any other topics that we haven't discussed that members want to have as goals that not on a list that that's what I just said are we all excited we'll just have any spot the first one yeah very happy what they had asked was will we see this again and I said yes we will vote on this will we see it we have to put it together we'll do a little more wordsmithing and Doug has offered to help get it together so it could be in perfect shape so there we go all right what we did skip was because he couldn't connect on was unlike the one did you have something you wanted to show us yeah I think so I told you I told him it was short but we'll see where we go trust me new graphics instead of the same word yeah I can see all right so the objectives that I've given after last year's session were to negotiate bargaining agreements finalized fiscal year 2027 budget review and implement promulgate town policies particularly respect financial policies advance town facility upgrades and renovations continue implementation regional dispatch implement long range asset management maintenance and capital improvement plan including timely and cost effective completion of ongoing planning projects all right enough there'll be some similarities between men and chairs goals updates and accomplishments to what we talk about here so what we did for 26 in an effort to be fiscally minded for FY27 and out years especially when we're contemplating an override when I went into collective bargaining I've tried to hold the line and be conservative and I put non union here but I think it was important that we did something we haven't done in a while they've had their steps as well as their colons and they've had a salary adjustment for the last couple of years this year we did something different in terms of the one year because we may or may not have an override so that was important that you know I made a decision differently in part of what we've done the last couple of years also to set the tone for the rest of the collective bargaining the library is complete and then the others I put in a descending order of how far we are I would say that the asking union if we could reach an agreement on the COLA the cost of living increase we would be able to sign an MOU in the next meeting or so the police again pretty close Teamsters they are ongoing fires ongoing they fired probably the latest start because they were in arbitration and I put the teachers because I've meeting regularly regularly with Dr. Fleischmann members of the school committee and their business manager relative to trying to get that resolved so those are all ongoing key is looking at three year agreements being mindful of the fact that we need an override for one or more years that finalizing fiscal year 2027 budget we passed the balanced budget with level services being mindful of the declining levy we did the capital plan working with the new capital improvement planning committee we were able to maintain this past year our AAA meeting when we reviewed again by Moody's we were actually able to say I think Kelsey could tell us $40,000 just under $40,000 on premium reduction and increased credits by the training Mr. Reynolds you were asking about being proactive and participating in risk management and Kelsey is instrumental in helping with that I know we got an email about this the other day but we did enlist the calling center last year with some grant monies to produce an operational review of some of our facilities HR and IT functions and we've been working on implementing part of that and as you know with your assistance we closed a $1.8 million gap in order to get that little service budget and also remind folks that while we were doing that close to $600,000 shortfall and we did that in the large part by not filling some of the open positions asking people to really crack down on their expenses and overtime budgets review, implement or promulgate account policies with particular interest on the financial many of these were listed by Madam Chair but we did get those financial policies last year which I think were helpful when we went into our review of Moody's start work collectively on our payment and move of taxes policy and the program that we go through it unfortunately we've all had a lot on our plates and we did get to start those meetings but that can be part of what we do next year I have been working with Madam Chair the Select Board manual and this is what I alluded to earlier I've been sitting down with department heads and specifically our IT director start thinking about our artificial intelligence policy for staff and officials and then with respect to surveillance not only the video but the data we're restoring it and the retention policy and those are questions that are coming up as I said town meeting from residents coming in emails and a town manager office hours Are you subject to certain statewide retention policy that we missed found? There are some and I don't think it's that long and I think I asked this to the police chief too the challenge is and you may know from your experience working in law enforcement sometimes something doesn't get flagged right away and without somebody notifying us of something I think there's a 30-day video retention I'd have to check the Secretary of State's guide but there are some that were shorter than I anticipated speaking in the IT director May I suggest you lose the surveillance colon? Oh well I put surveillance the video surveillance the data that we collect on people and our retention policies I think video data and retention policies covers it nicely okay sorry I just was writing that signal there well I think you know you get swapping to big brother I think I started with surveillance and then I think intrusion into I will fix this but I think what happened was I wanted to let you know we're working on surveillance and then break it down a little bit more to the secretary at least the term understood not the subject advanced town facility upgrading renovations you've already heard from Mr. Fay at this evening but I've worked pretty closely with him and all of our staff participated one way or another on the redesign of the town entrances we made at the request of the board and our staff improvements it feels like we're meeting room based on citizen feedback we've worked on trying to improve the audio vision technologies in the building for meeting Mr. Fay led the charge to fix some of the HVAC in the building which have been problematic in elevators and Mr. Fay and I worked with the IT director to update the network we've updated cameras in the building and we're working on the network security firewall and a few other things so making sure we're protected at a variety of different threats and to reduce our exposure to risk continue to implement implementation of the 9-11 9-1-1 regional dispatch center as you know just before our whole session last year we signed the inter-municipal agreement with the framing the end of date we wound up making some amendments and changes to that during the course of the year um I meet every couple of weeks with the the board it's the mayor Mayor Sitsky Jamie Erickson and then we have a financial subcommittee an operations subcommittee they've gone out they've started the renovations in framing and for the center we've been pursuing the state 9-11 grant so we're going to be having a meeting with state 9-11 this week to discuss you know what we're getting and what we can plan for in the future I had earlier in the year some transition discussions with our dispatch are put on going the reason that's ongoing is because of the the state 9-1-1 grants our targeted opening is moving back to July of 2007 we had hoped we would be opening for 2027 I'm sorry there's an extra zero yeah we don't want to be opening in the year well it's not pretty specific to the 9-1-1 you know we updated our mutual aid agreement our major part of how we were regional implementation of long range asset management improvement plan including cost effective completion of projects as you heard quite a bit from Mr. Fayette we completed the facilities assessment last year and he's been working diligently meeting with him as need to prioritize and initiate those projects that includes working with the new capital improvement planning committee to get those priorities placed on the five year capital plan as you may recall this past budget cycle it was the first time we utilized the CIPC and they had a lot of questions about the existing capital plan and because of the questions that Mr. Fayette shared with you this evening about the future building we had to change priorities for some of those capital improvements in the town office building and we'll continue to work on that I just threw these other two out there because they've taken up a fair amount of time over the last year but they are important to what we do with our long term assets but we've had the Sherman's Bridge project and I actually don't think there should be an apostrophe in there it's Sherman's with an S right
in on me because I've been told that you're a apostrophe and we're working we're continuing with CMG to make progress in the remediation of 195 Main Street and that was it you asked me to be shared with Sweet but you had covered a lot in your I did ask you to be shared with Sweet and I just want to consult over here with the former chair do you think that was something I think it was great fabulous we did this a little bit underwater because you know Michael was just we were already starting to talk about you know the goals we had and how we would you know like the word for next year objectives so do you want to talk about briefly you know besides the objectives that we have are there anything in particular that you think we should all be working on or that you want to work on in the next fiscal year well I think I think I chimed in when you were talking about I chimed in when you were talking about some of your goals I couldn't agree more with board members who talked about number one being the financial issues facing the town the town and I do feel strongly that advancing the town and interact removing the silos and really making sure that we effectively utilize our volunteers by reassessing the number of boards we have and where they can be combined and consolidated are huge I think although there are objectives that we have they are recurring objectives that every town should be concerned about I think Route 20 the Route 20 corridor is huge I think we've been working more when we have with time we have an engaged owner here at the town center I'm trying to spend a little more time with Robert our planner in the EDC we have some great support staff there and devoting more time we do a lot of things in the background to support businesses that's how I think we got to remain in by helping them with their licensing we were being active with the legislation for the liquor licenses to help bring small restaurants we may have people that are interested sent out the invitation to get the working group for the historic district parking going invited a lot of people we're looking on the staffing so a lot of things just are happening but I think those who have priorities the economic economic first finances and I would put aligning the boards and then economic development and focusing on corridor is my top two things alright thank you did you want to say anything about Nick? if I had four there would be housing I think I'll do that I think I'll do that ok ok does anybody else have anything on objectives Michael could you cut me off this is out of bounds is there any need for I'm thinking about your question any other topics a typical phrase uses user-friendly government or similar making sure that our processes are accessible or meaningful is that I mean I might argue that in a year with what we've got coming up financially that doesn't cut it I'm asking if you get a lot of feedback about that there is a feeling I've heard a lot of comments about this and I know people feel a little disengaged we're not getting attendance at this I'm not sure that's a challenge I want to take on but I thought I'd ask when you started the question I was thinking it was going to go in a different direction because I think we put an emphasis on customer service and things and I we've been focusing on online and trying to make government more out and be more customer friendly for those who walk in so I I'm I'm hoping that the customer experience for those who come to the building has been improving during my time here what I'm hearing you say is how do we get people more engaged and satisfied with activities and events we're hosting attendance at events all of the above I mean you got six thousand people and what more do you want there an excellent yes so you've got six thousand people yeah well you think being supportive of citizen initiatives such as the Elvis committee you know I was able to get a meeting for Mr. Bernstein with the folks at the MMA you know that will allow more people to participate in time and by the way I thought that was wonderful I'm glad people saw that or will see it it's just great yeah may I withdraw my you answered my question no no no no just one little piece of commentary I mean we the world is vastly different today than when many of us finished high school or undergrad and the way people engage nowadays is a lot different they use this there's not a lot of face to face people you know I'm always amazed when I drive home late at night and the traffic at 11.30 or midnight is the same as it is at 8 in the morning because there is no traditional office there's no real weekends for some people anymore people are always working so we have to realize that not everyone is going to come to a fixed meeting at 7 p.m. but if we have the opportunity to put video out there and allow people to remotely participate I think we're doing our best to engage those people that might not allow people to participate may I just comment because you said the word accessible it like pinged my ear so I applied for a grant through the Office on Disability Commission on Disability to do what's called an ADA self-evaluation transition plan which basically looks at all of the town and how accessible it is and how we can improve that because you mentioned that and I have had some comments because I'm the ADA coordinator for the town I've had some comments from some residents about certain aspects of town not being accessible so to directly address where you said accessible it is something that is on my mind and it is something that I want to work towards it's important to me it's important to me all right so yep so the next item is number 8 and we touched on this briefly last week when we took the vote for the terms for the comment leadership we in the minutes it said that we made it through the town meeting 2027 and technically we need to expand it a little bit longer so that although the language term did say until successes are appointed afterwards maybe we saw the whole language so we put this on here to see if we want to just have another vote real quick to extend it to what we say middle June I don't know it seems like there's a boilerplate every year I'm wondering whether we're overthinking it I know I'm wondering too so I think we can leave it because you know unless we put some of the milk they just stay so I think we're okay on that I am going to say one other quick thing here on the organization report here is that it was like the dog ate my home with my file for tonight that would be please get compromised and I didn't do it so I did not get the liaison list done I will get that done and up on the webpage look for the next meeting in case you were looking for that I do also want to say real quick here that we because it's the summer we announced we'll have all our meetings through up until the end of August we'll all be fully remote starting so just remind everybody of that and I'm going to try to sneak this one real quick in here is that we've had some conversations with them tonight about that the now the number one is identifying the financial planning and situations in town and we are going to start having a conversation about the the operating override we'll be having us Michael said last week we're having the finance team come back in on the 17th to give us an overview of the situation the school committee would like to join and I think the finance committee may join us on the 17th to get a presentation on the 31st meeting the school committee if we would like to join us to talk you know about potential operating override and all that going back then as well so that would be that you're talking about August August, I said August 31st yeah August 31st speak louder August 31st sorry and then in September we would probably if we are going to go forward wanting we wanted to have plenty of time to disseminate information we will need to start thinking about having a vote sometime in September um alternatively scheduled for the 8th I'm sure I think that's a little optimistic because we may identify more information we need to you know that we need before we're ready but um if we want to have plenty of time to be able to have communications and forums and what have you I think we need to start being thinking about that probably maybe mid-September or something like that is that what happened the last time because I wasn't here so the last over I thought was in 08 whether forums and flaggers like how did how did yeah I don't think you weren't on the board that time were you? I don't think so you weren't on this left board in 08 were you? yeah I think you were you know we had a serious
understood kind of in the water yeah I think this is what they know about right this is the last 20 a.m. to 30 a.m. to 30 a.m. and so and I think that um if we were thinking about of the three options last week when to have you know a vote let's say we pick for January or February time frame if you're back at 5 you want to have about 90 days I think not too soon not too not too late I think in the middle would be about 90 days before so for the middle of January we need to be voting by the by the middle of October that's why I'm saying in September I think we need to be make sure we've gathered all the information so when we stop and I'm saying this now so when we stop the process like on the 17th whatever questions or information we're missing anything we need try and let me know then so I can make sure we gather that up for us so anyway when the finance committee comes in that month this meeting another meeting I think it would be helpful
the process for preparation of the FY27 budget kind of a post-mortem on the prior years preparation and also if we could also have a discussion about the role of SIPSE as I recall when the first pocket item is going to be confined to a longer term kind of thing beyond the five year capital plan yeah it's something different now it has become a question about that I'll put that down but I need to be careful off the off the agenda over there mm-hmm mm-hmm okay so the next item we're going to have is the minutes of June 8th are in the the packet move approval of the June 8th 2026 select board minutes as modified in our packet second okay anybody have any edits okay all those in favor aye move the consent calendar move the consent calendar from June 8th June July 7th July 7th July 7th next okay any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye okay take a motion to adjourn at 8th 28th usually you ask if if it has any announcements I'm sure you wanted to ask me that I don't I don't have them on the agenda so I can't make an announcement I don't think so can I make an announcement after we adjourn there's no rule against that is it about scheduling no rule button all right um um I think it was 8th 28th 8th 28th who was the first Tom me thank you okay all those in favor say aye aye thank you sorry
So, I mean, this is good information.
And I expected, frankly, the number to be higher.
I would have expected the number to be higher. So, we have to factor in that there's almost $3.5 million. Oh, it's worth of mechanical work that's already been done. Yeah. That's not included in here. So, your number is close to the 25. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Hopefully, that helps. Thanks. Sure. So, the children's way is moving to a different location. Yes. That's going to open up some space. Yes, it is. So, in that, what if you've got that building will be used well with that space and things and give them the needs of the different projects? May I find this? I have an idea. Go ahead. I do have plans for that space. Michael and I had a discussion and he asked me to put together a plan to move some things around. He has some thoughts of the way things should be laid out. So, he hasn't seen it yet because, unfortunately, between my vacation and his vacation, we haven't had time to sit and talk to each other. But, recreation could move over there. We could put family planning over there. Recreation moved from the second floor over there. They have a ton of space. They're close to the gym. They use one of the classrooms for their summer programs anyways. So, they would be right there. We need two quiet spaces, one for family planning. And there's a visiting nurse that comes in that interviews parents and children. So, there's a couple of nice quiet nurses' offices up there already that we could use those for. Family planning would be across the hall from that. And then, rec would be up where the four classrooms are. A piece of it anyways. Rec space, I would open IT up a little bit. Right now, you walk into IT, and it's their workshop, and it's just not a very useful – there's already a doorway between the two spaces. So, we would push the people in rec over to – I'm sorry, people in IT over to rec, and then that center space would become an actual lobby. And then, they would have a workshop where they're currently sitting so they could work on their equipment instead of, you know, on a small space like that. Schools would take the old facilities area because it just makes sense. It's – at the end of their hallway, they could use it for offices. They have people out in the hallway. So, it just makes sense to put people in there. If we jump down to the first floor, Michael has always wanted to bring planning over to where – in front of conservation. So, we would flip-flop, we'd take the planning, planning, and put them in that area where it's in front of conservation, and we'd take all those live files and put them in planning. That would become the new live file room. We have a lot of live files that we have stored all over the building. This would make a nice area. We could put the plotter in there. We'd become a nice copy.
Downstairs, in the lower level, there's two open spaces that children's way – that will open up for children's way. That will become the new dead storage. There are rooms that are off the large hearing room. There are decent-sized spaces. We don't have enough – we have paper from the schools up in closets upstairs that's a fire hazard person. They don't have any sprinkler system. So, this would bring everything into a room that's sprinkled, has all the proper things.
And that's how I see that laying out a little bit. We would have some extra space upstairs. Probably two of the classrooms. But we could move people around, but we could figure that out. But other than that, I could make very good use of the space.
What's that? We have audios. Yeah, that's what I – there's something wrong with the hour. It's showing that it's off, but I'm watching. Can you see how I keep moving that? And that audio reader is reader. So, I'm assuming that it's fine. No, it's fine. I'm not – sorry. That's what it's off. Yeah, I'm still talking to you. So – Where's my value? I think of me, you know, I believe it's a good question. I'm speaking for myself. I always had a vision that town offices might be the best move to the town center. But it's a good point. It's a good point. So, we build out – build out – build out for you. And sell this part. Out of the numbers. I'm going to ask you a question. Yeah. I think the space doesn't have been accomplished now. You're welcome. Mr. Fay asked my question.
I'm calling my hon. How do we – I have conditioned that our employees to do some preliminary – actually, you may come up with approximately 500 for all of the town office space. That excluded bathrooms, hallways. When you add that in and subtract out the gym, the gym storage area, you get above an additional 12,000 square feet. So, we're up over 20,000 square feet. The upstairs space, the public schools take approximately 6,300. The Children's Way is 4,000. So, the building itself right now, between school, Children's Way, and the gym, is a total of 36,000 square feet. But we're probably only using, at least on the town side, a good 20 to 25,000. Based on Mr. Whitney's, you know, 50,000 square foot, 20,000 square feet, that's a lot of money, and it's – it would be a challenge, I think, to do that at the building on the town side. So, I'm just going to hop in and do my one question for us. I mean, we'll go back. I'll start. So, you know, it was going to be funny when they laughed, so I really did. You know, we get to vote here, and I didn't hear anyone in there who would get in a nice new select room, and so I really think you might want to – we will get that allocation in space. And I know Michael has floated some ideas on, you know, maybe connecting an enclosed space to his office, but particularly when we have to go back and forth between executive session and open session, it just would be more efficient, so I just mentioned that. The fact that I love these – we do have – yes, we did look into that, and there is a number out there for that room, so – That also creates sight and sound separation from HR. Right. Because we – yeah, it's been – I mean, I don't see the volume right now, over there on the corner. Oh, yeah. It's going to – Oh, it is. Okay. All right, that's because of the volume. I understand. I keep playing. I definitely need my gal that lost place. Who's – I didn't miss – Mr. McCauvel. Just a few select board members Faye's point about the building, what we can do afterwards. There have been several residents and board members who have raised the issue of whether or not we can – sell them what we can do, but also it's footprint adjacent to wetlands that it may be better to sell that footprint because somebody might have difficulty building on that site effectively and it's really easy to use. So, it's something that we would have to look at, too. So, I think – so, actually, I go in on Mike. Yes. We were at the 16 meeting last night and Matt and I did send out an email this morning to their members to watch this discussion because they are concerned, you know, as they prioritize the repair projects from the town building, what's the end – what's the end goal. I'm not sure we're going to collectively have that answer by the beginning of October, but I've had this conversation with Mike. I said, you know, let's get this ball rolling and see what we want to do. So, I think – does anyone else have any questions on this? Well, it's been presented before I go to the next thing. So, I think the next step, actually, would be what are our next steps. And I think one thing we've discussed and have it on the list over here, so, you know, that we might establish, you know, if I think about one option might be a working group, you know, to look at the options. Because, obviously, we could do some repair, we could do a full repair, we can – maybe we don't use the whole building, maybe we lease a piece of wood, maybe we still make a new building on the same site, maybe we move, I don't know. So, I think we have that. Tom and I have this conversation a couple times about setting up a town meeting – a town meeting? A town building, working group, and does everybody think that's a good idea? I should say this, Mr. Lee, do you like what I do? I love working groups. Oh, you do good. I'm glad to hear that. Does everyone think we should do that? So, I'm going to, in the interest of really getting out of my time tonight, I'm going to move this along and say, Mr. Fay, would you be so kind as to draft a charge for a working group on a town building? I can do that. And then, you know what we're going to do? Well, look, the board, if you haven't done – I know your workers are so efficient. Thank you. I'll put it on the agenda for the next meeting on the 20th. If we could just maybe discuss that and make sure that's what we wanted to say. We could at least vote the charge and get that vote on the map. Does that – and did you – You didn't list it, but you implied, Mr. Papawono, would that include at least some exploration of whether the town building should move? I think so. I think so. Thank you. So, he's going to create the charge and we'll look at that next meeting and then we can add or expand that as we feel – one, two, the goals we want to achieve from working group. That would be second to the select one. That would be second to the select one. I understand. Yes. No. That's a question. And the table. Right, Tom? And the table. At the risk of trying to cherish patients. I'm furthering off the ways that we can't kick into this. Oh. It strikes me that there's always a threshold question of, you know, do we stay in the existing building and do we move? One question I've neglected to ask, Michael, Mike, is whether this budget would be a gut rehab. This budget? Yes. The budget would be a gut rehab. The gut rehab. Meaning you could demolish all the demise of the walls. You could adjust for area given to cars, which I think are quite generous, and so forth. Open offices, local plan offices, instead of a bunch of small offices. So, I think next steps would include completing the work that's already ongoing with respect to the amount of space that the town needs. Sometimes there's confusion about what the town wants and what the town needs. Those are sometimes two different numbers, but that would be helpful to have that. I think to Mr. Fay's point, it would be well to think about engaging a broker on a fee basis to look at reuse potential of the building. One could imagine it being reused as a multi-family residential. You could probably have some interest on the part of money to do a 40p or some portion of affordable housing, which depressed the salesperson needs. I think a reuse analysis just to know what the income would be as contrasted to the expenses. And then maybe I'd get to do some space planning. I think we have good resources in town. I think members of the permanent building committee might be free to come up with some good ballpark members. I think that if everybody is sort of thinking, I'm going to let you hop in one second. If everybody is sort of thinking in advance of the next meeting, we'll receive the charge and we'll figure out what else should be in that charge. Because Tom doesn't mind if we make a few rentals. No, no. Okay. And Mr. McComb. And there are some communities that recently have either renovated or built a brand new town halls, and it might be interesting to take a view of some of those. Not the same size town, but for instance, Foxboro. I had to visit the town hall there on a couple of occasions in the last five years. And I noticed a beautiful building. The footprint didn't seem that large. Some of them are able to utilize a full basement. That's why you don't have some space. But there may be some, you get some ideas about when you talk about space, what you need versus what you want versus what you really need. And see how others are managing the same type of staff size and departments in a space that's the same and smaller and bigger. Well, I'll set with that idea. And thank you for that concept of what we need versus what we want. It's near and dear to my heart from my finance community as we get more of what we want, including what we need. And this is a big expense. Would you like to say anything before we close this round? No, we're good. I think I'm setting it up. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. You're going to be a frequent guest. Are you ready? I will. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Thank you. All right. So now we'll do item number four, which is discussed and review the proposals for the town council, that we had last meeting and those are also in that meeting. There's a chart. Whoops. Oh, I think I believe in the supplemental packet, right? Is that what it is? Yeah. On page two, Jaylee and Kelsey put this together for us to kind of send a nice one with a summary, you know, on the firms, what they offer, what the fee schedule was. We also included in here, I think Kelsey will be able to split to what we pay currently to KP Law as well, which is there's a $7,000 retainer and Kelsey did a lot of work on that, pulling up what we paid for the last three or four years. Did you want to speak to that? Sure. Let me just look at my phone real quick because I sent it to you and then it went poof, found my brain. Well, I think we paid $7,000 a month plus. I thought it was $210,000 an hour. But I think this is, we currently pay $250,000 an hour after the return of all of these other items. Yeah, I think what they were quoting in their original documents was like the overall blended fee. Just bear with me one second while I pull up what I sent you. While she's looking, I just want to comment. I use this room a lot and I'm used to the fan noise. Yes. We're also used to it perturbing our light devices. So I just wanted people to know I turned the heating and cooling off. I know, I saw that. Thank you. And if the group gets too hot or too cold, they can speak up. Thank you. You know, of course, we could have used you in the board when we were meeting the select board meeting because we had a lot of problems with noise from that family into the home and back. Delighted to finally offer some value. That's what it will. What did you say? Delighted to finally offer some value, I'm sure. We're honorable. We're honorable. So I'm just looking at the fee proposal, which I believe is the current fees we pay to KP Law. Their blended hourly rate is 250, but it will increase by $10. So it would go up to 260 if reappointed. Matters for specific appropriations are often referred to as specialty legal services, and that has a different rate. And they also state that the paralegals get charged a half rate, other people within the office they don't charge for. There is a $7,000 retainer per month, and that's basic town council services included in that. And then other matters will be charged at the hourly rate or specialty rate, depending on the subject matter. And then they list out what basic town council services include, which are town meeting, reviewing and drafting of standard contracts, telephone conferences and emails with town officials, review of subdivision documents, draft review and drafting of planning board, board of appeals, and other town board and committee decisions unrelated to excluded matters, and then status reports. And it keeps going into that. For the specialty legal services, it varies depending, but it goes from $3.40 to $3.85 an hour, depending on what is being asked of them. So, is this audio working here? Let me double check. I was hoping you could put a touch on the work that you did to show how much we paid in total to keep you off. Oh, yep. Which was raised from, you'll have to be, is it $2.80? From, yep, from basically. When you do the $7,000 out for the year, I come up with $84,000, and yet we're spending all $200, right? It is $200, right? Yeah. It is $200 since 2023, uh, fiscal year 2023. Yeah. Hold on. So, in fiscal 2023. We're spending, so we have a sense of it as we look at these. Um, I think it was over $200 last two years. Yep. So, fiscal 23, including tax title, because it's combined, is $184,076.60. Fiscal 24 was $201,572.65. Fiscal 25 was $213,414.16. And then for this last fiscal year that just ended, um, it is $208, $296, plus we just got a bill for $14, so that's about $220 something. Yeah, so I think it's safe to say we're spending a solid $200, so just to get, and when you think about the retainer, it's only coming, uh, $86, so they say $84, $86 of that, so that's an interesting, uh, thing. So, I want to open it up to the four, I thought. Um, I do want to say one other quick thing is that I did send a note personally to each one of the four firms last week saying thank you for coming in and, again, apologizing for our targeting is just somewhat uncharacteristic for us, which tend to move along pretty quickly. And then we received about two, uh, two responses that actually talked a little bit about what else they could provide the town. One was from Cape Conning that went directly to the board, and then the other one was that came in, I think, over the weekend from Carolyn Murray, and I had Jalen send that out to you all so you could see what else they had to say, you know, about their, about their, uh, proposal. So, alright. Who would like to start? Put this out, because they're the lawyers. Well, I was going to ask for Tom's input anyway, because, um, I love the resources available to us from K.P. Law, because they have some 50 plus attorneys who have expertise in all the areas that we need the expertise in. We're obviously paying for it since we're averaging 200 plus thousand dollars over the last year per year. What I was curious, um, to hear what Tom thought is about this flap rate that Mead, Tallerman, and Costa has thrown out there. And if, if you think that that would save us a tremendous amount of money, or would we be running way over because, for example, employment law, labor and employment matters aren't covered, um, in this, in the proposal number two. Uh, I thought it was just an intriguing idea. Um, I think sometimes we have to be careful about just trying to save money because we want to make sure we have excellent counsel. Um, but I'm just, I'm curious to hear Tom's impressions. Um, I, I, I won't, um, I'm always wary of flat fees generally. They, they work sometimes. But, um, what happens is, if there are issues that come up that are very time consuming, it frustrates the law firm. And, it may frustrate the client, in this case the town, because you may not feel like you're getting the service that you really usually get in respect. Um, if we do the flat fee, it's $180,000 right off the bat. And it excludes certain, certain subject areas, which, which I just mentioned. Um, and 180 is certainly less than 2 or 210 that we're currently paying. I also look at the size of our town budget, $90 million. Um, so this is 200,000, 225 a year for, to run a very large organization. And in a town that is litigious. It just is. In addition, you know, we've had issues relative to, to, to positive projects. We've been in town center over the years, or the community center, or the, uh, land next to St. Anne's church, to, to, to, to it. You know, we're doing things. We're making the community better. And you want good advice, because you don't want to deal with other lawsuits down the line. So, you never want to underestimate good advice. Personally, I, I've found, um, uh, KP Law to be, uh, responsive. I said this in the last meeting. Responsive. And, um, uh, lawyers can give effective advice. And, um, I've used, if any broke, why fix it? Having said that, I think it's good that we, we're having this exercise, but I, um, I have no objection to continuing with, you know, KP Law on all areas, including employment, unless the town manager has different opinion on, uh, unemployment. I'm going to, uh, go to the side of the room. Do you want to add something? Well, first I'd like to, uh, thank Tom. Uh, Porter's typology. On the one hand, I'd like to thank him very much for generating these very interesting proposals. On the other hand, it's made it difficult, uh, because I, I think they were really forexing presentations. Uh, I guess one question I would have is whether it makes sense to disaggregate the labor from the general counsel. And I don't have an opinion about that, but, um, obviously we heard from one, one that specializes in labor law. But I don't know. You gentlemen, or Michael, you're also a gentleman, have, have a view on this question of whether to, it's a good idea or a bad idea to disaggregate the labor from the balance of the work. And just to dovetail on that, what percent do we look at each year of our legal issues are related to labor and employment? I'm appreciating for that. Mr. McCall, we'll let you hop in here. So I was very careful the other week. Uh, I, I knew many of the attorneys personally, and just, you know, made sure I said some comments about each one in my relationship. Because I want you people to make your own decisions. Um, I'm always interested. We review the, I have to sign the, uh, accounts payable. I always look at, uh, Kelsey Thurman's media invoices. We look, I look at them sometimes. People get everything together. Month to month. Like, you know, one month, there's a labor case dominating everything. The next month, it's a labor case. Um, so it's really hard, unless we broke it down and did an analysis year over the year, but to, to attorney Faye's point. So we're going to turn it forward. Uh, we, do seem to incur a lot more litigation here than I have in, in, in previous communities. And, I think, not standing KP Law, the money that we've spent has saved money. I, I came into town over the weekend because it's something out of my office. And I, I, uh, took a ride down the toilet with my wife and I pointed to the Mill Creek Project in Weston. And I looked at it and I said, that could be where the new wedding venue is going right now. Um, you know, and we're, we're fighting certain projects in the best interest of the town. And when it comes to labor, I had a good relationship with Mr. Jenkins. We, we align on a lot of things. A lot of times he sets me straight, but I do think that we've had, we've had our share of losses, but we prevailed on some important cases here that he's indicated to me and maybe to you folks as well, that we've saved some money. Uh, there is some comfort level of having someone you've worked with before. Um, I, I, I have, as I said, on the jail and he sat on some arbitrations and, uh, mediation with attorney Murray. And I have had some work with the folks that you tell him in Costa. I had no problem staying with attorney Jenkins. If you're looking for my guns, I, uh, I think we've done well with quite a few of our labor cases. Um, and overall I am satisfied with the guidance that we could get from these folks. Uh, and it's, as I alluded to when it was joked by attorney Murray, there are a lot of times where she'll call me after, I'll call her after hours and there is that comfortable relationship that if something comes up, you know, the police or the fire call me something in the middle of the night saying something going on, you know, search and seizure question, anything. I can call them and they're going to be answered. And I'll leave you with that. So the answer to my, um, to Bill's question is, do you think it's the good idea for us to separate the, uh, label from the general counsel or keep it all on one? That was your question? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So then, because then I want to go for Mr. Reynolds and myself, thank you for their comments on this before we open it back up. Is, is it fungible? I would say no, it is not fungible. But what I can tell you today, um, there was a question that came up with a particular, it's like the bargaining union. And, um, we were talking back and forth from outside labor council from somewhere else. Attorney Jenkins got on the phone with attorney Murray, who used to, our attorney Murray for KP Law, who also did some labor employment. So without, you know, they didn't have to go far to get back up and to share minds. Uh, I, I think there's an advantage of being with one firm because of the breadth and depth of experience that those attorneys have. That, you know, if he needs to phone a friend, he goes across the aisle or we just patch that other person in where some other firm that may not be as large or not have the breadth and depth of experience, you may have to wait a day or two or they call, uh, you know, a colleague and another firm to get an answer and get back to you. Um, and I, and I don't want to buy a short decision in my experiences, but I, I think staying with the firm and having that breadth and depth is, is advantageous. How do we take this? Does that answer your question? Sort of. I know. Sort of. I mean, I get the sense that, uh, labor council and the general council don't necessarily need to consult on another on a regular basis. Is that, is that the case? If there's a labor matter, do you go to Mr. Jenkins directly, work with him, and do you get the sense that Attorney Murray is involved? My sense is not necessarily. Well, from time to time, in a particular issue today, it, um, I had both of them involved in discussion. So, I will say the way I've conducted myself with KP Law and how they appear to, um, work on their side is because Attorney Murray is lead counsel for the town. When certain matters come up, she wants to be copied to you so that she can have an overview of what's going on, reassign people, double up if need be necessary. So, having general counsel at the same firm, they do get that high level overview or able to jump in and leave. Did you have a question or comment about this? Uh, no, my, I think the top most factor here is the quality of the last few years' experience. I'm not qualified to speak to this. I don't have any questions. That's just fine. On the board. Um, so this is, is, is to Tom's point, this is, um, periodic review, um, um, um, um, I'm a setting council with the town, so town council. It is something that we end up, the town manager's act, I'm responsible for conducting the periodic review and then, uh, we actually have a point town hustle. They technically, the board, as I mentioned, teach for our last week, they report, you know, engaged by, uh, the select board. But we delegate the day-to-day, you know, to, um, the town manager. So this is, um, one of the things that we, you know, we wanted to undertake because we should do on a periodic basis, and we want, this is what we're doing. So, um, um, I think that that, um, and just from my secular viewpoint, is, like I said last week, Carolyn is town councilman. She is the place of town council to so many people. And she's been with us for a while, and she really understands a lot. I thought the call, um, correspondence that she sent to me was, was, was just her record that said, you know, not, not everything goes perfectly in a relationship like this. It's such a large undertaking. You know, we're providing it for $100,000 services, you know, every year. There's always one or two things that aren't going to go exactly the way you want. And at the same time, um, I can confirm that both, um, I don't want to use the person, um, attorney Goldberg, and, uh, has reached out to the residential and had expressed some concern about something that had happened, and I don't just had to have a conversation about, you know, what happened. But I do agree with her. She said, you know, nothing's perfect. And I go back and said, there's always room for improvement on both sides. We're probably not a perfect client, are we? No, I don't. So. Sure, we can come up with a few examples. So, um, what, what would we like to do from here? I'd like to talk about it. Can I just ask you one more question? Sure. Can I make a motion? Because you are in this world more than any of us. I thought the one that was most analogous to KP Law was Murphy, Hesse, Toomey, and Lahane. I couldn't find exactly the towns that they represent. Um, we know that KP Law represents some hundred municipalities, but if we were to learn that Murphy, Hesse, Toomey, and Lahane represented a number of peer communities, and it's a similar size law firm, I counted 35 attorneys or so, do you find that the two are analogous based on any experience you might have, or do you think that KP Law is what? I'm familiar with Murphy, Hesse, they're quite confident. Um, I think Mike and I have a better opinion because of his, you know, good opinion because of the show because they wish you months. Right. The people who he knows, I mean, and, uh, the experiences they have to deal with, and litigation and employment issues. And our school uses them. The schools use that firm, too. Right. They are, of all the forms, one, I do not have a lot of experience. I do not have a lot of experience with them. I think I've participated in the labor employment seminar with the attorney, I think it was McCarroll. Um, that came in at that evening. I mean, I've heard good things about them. I think probably, the reason I haven't is, I think they're based Boston and south towards Quincy, south shore. Um, I come from Metro, Merrimack Valley and worked in, uh, central Massachusetts, and now Metro West. So it would just be geographical reasons I didn't want into them. And they did, I know, represent Chelmsford. I think their school is the whole point below. Um, so I've never dealt with them personally on the US side. Okay. But their name has been around for some time. Yeah. Okay. Good. I'd like to move this forward. I, I just wanted to know, cause I don't know how important. Oh, you know, it is, it is. I'm watching it. Um, is that our contract with KP law expired at least a year or two ago. So this would be for a new contract. I, I didn't see it noted. So I just wanted to clarify. Yeah. So before you say, what do we want to have some shape? Cause you know, a lot of these proposals are dealing with one year to, you know, we want to look at something. Or maybe we say, Hey, I might appreciate like a three year contract and see if we'd all get some, um, if that helps that rate. Or is that something the board doesn't want to attend. I want to throw that out before we do. What was the term of the last country? Well, I don't know that. I think it was five years. I think it was five years. And I, and I would think that- We have one, but the 16, and then in 19, we went to the full service, right? I think you want to go down to that side. And then, um, we haven't made the contract for a few years. And so, um, we have, we need to decide. I just wonder if it makes sense for us, um, to look at a longer term. And again, would that result in perhaps, you know, more favorable, uh, or something like that? If you do decide to go down a contract more than three years, you do have to vote to allow that, the extension of the contract. Because by mass general law, procurement, it's limited to three years. But with a vote of the select board, it can be extended as long as you see fit. But I don't even know if we, we like the idea first. I mean, we can stand for that one year. So what does everyone think about, you know, maybe a multi-year contract? That also prevents us from having to do this every year. Um, it also restricts us from doing it every year. So what's it, what do you think, Chris? I have no substantial opinion about this. I'd be interested in what the termination provisions are. Uh, you know, if you want to convince yourself to a five-year term or something, and then if you're three and you're going well, you have the ability to make a change. Maybe not five, but if we went like three or something. So we need a termination term, right? Yeah. Can I just say, standardly, we do put in, at least the contracts I write, um, we always have a termination for cause and without cause, and it's a 30-day notice on both ends. Okay. That takes care of that question. Um, comments over here on maybe doing a... On lineback, I'm coming for five years. If you're on them, sorry. How about the fee arrangement? They may propose three alternatives, I guess. Well, KPL I just have one, right? They have two, actually. They have anomaly rate, and then they would be... You were 7,000. Yeah, 7,000 retainer, which is simply what they would keep for us. Um, so we have the two options. But maybe we should have Michael be talking to them, um, to see what the terms... Does the retainer get just drawn down at the hourly rate? How is that different? How is that different? The... So the retainer pays for... So, I can provide KP Law bills if anybody wants to look at them. But they are break down... They're broken down by, like, topic. And the first two is general... Legal services or general labor services. And in their proposal, they listed exactly what would count under that. So, like, phone calls with Michael count under that. And that gets deleted from the $7,000 retainer. I mean, we've never had a bill under 7,000, but we've had them pretty close. So, it also includes article drafting for the warrant, discussion, motion creation. And since we have a substantial warrant, it's probably why we ended up with that retainer model. I'm sorry, I'm just not following. Are we... When you go with the retainer model, you get up to a certain amount? Certain services are deducted. I think it's a flat fee. It's a flat fee for certain services and then they'll say... And there are school dues. Right. And those are the ones that are at the hour... Which then gets to the point where we spend the 80... What did I say? It was 84 on the retainer. Yeah. And then the other 100, whatever we spent, was on other items. Litigation, tax title, land... Somebody else help me here. Zoning decisions. The zoning is built into the general... I mean, labor... Labor... Labor laws in there too. It's all spelled out in their proposal in our package last week. Yeah. And it's right here too. In their letter, yeah. I was comfortable voting to support a particular law firm and instruct the town manager to negotiate the most effective contractional terms, including how we rate it and the annual interest. Annual interest. Annual interest. But that would be the terms. Okay. Before we do that, could we go back to something you said earlier, Mr. Fay? Is there any... Please just cut me off if this is untoward. Is there any point in spending more money on legal fees, for the reason you noted, where... As a percentage of the size of our enterprise here, this is certainly something to keep an eye on, but I wouldn't call it outrageously high. Could we spend a little money and have a law firm look into litigation minimization training or protection? Well... No would be the fine answer. I think any law firm could do that. I don't know. Law firms give, for example, seminars to physicians, teach them to have a good design. My work does that to me. Right. A lot of litigation does come down to human interaction and emotional intelligence. Right. And both sides. Right. And it can also... Another factor is money. Right. And... But to answer your question, I don't... We certainly ask any law firm we end up contracting with to present a seminar on that. Sure. If I could be pushy just for gravity, I'm sure the law firms could do what you're saying. What I'm really asking is, does Mr. McCall or... Do you think there's any... Would the beach hop there? What? To having trainings? Yeah. So... To having trainings to avoid and to minimize litigation. Well, we do that with Maya. Most... Most of the professional development workshops that we've started doing really did risk mitigation. Teaching our people about harassment and things of that nature. And I want to say in the past that KP Law has offered to help conduct a couple of trainings. We're now really just utilizing these professional development days. We could certainly make sure that's part of the discussion for the contractors that come in and provide some of that for us. I agree wholeheartedly with that. That is something that's why we're going over... I think Kelsey is working on putting together procurement training. We take... Maya, our insurance carrier for property and casualty, offers all sorts of free training to ensure that... They have a different reason. They don't want to pay it out. But teaching people basic risk avoidance for legal matters. Open legal law. Public weapons law. This would be great. That's great. We're worried. So I see for a second. I want to propose the very last sentence in the box. They provide two educational seminars for the three annually. So that would be who wants to decide. I know they've come on and done like... Open minimum are and those kinds of things that have been to. I understand that. My question was should we spend more? The answer I'm getting is no. I'm all set. I think it might be somewhat included, but we can get it from the insurance. Okay, so I'm going to move us along if I may. If anybody objects, let me know. Otherwise, I'm going to ask if you'd like to make a motion. Sure. So I move this board town manager to negotiate a five-year agreement with KP Law for legal services on all topics. Ask the town manager to secure the best terms possible in monetary terms. Do I have a second to the motion? We would offer an amendment, a friendly amendment, and authorize the town manager to execute such an agreement. Do we have to execute because we're the ones of the town manager, right? I think he... I think... I think... It's us. We... It's us. You picked out a council and things. I think we would negotiate and come back to... Right. Okay. So what? Okay. So are you finally amended? Finally amended. Final execution by the board. Okay. And... Can I have a second, please? Thank you. All right. Is there any further discussion from the board? From Ms. Mulholland and Ms. Morris Burlett? I would respectfully request assistance as needed from select board member Faye. If I have questions about, you know, negotiating the board... Vote without standing. Vote without standing. Yes. Thank you. All right. I'm all sitting along, but I probably need a vote. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Motion carries five-zero. And guess what? Even hearing that I've been in practice for about two years... Well, I'm just going to pass it off. Okay. So now we're going to get to the main reason that we're having our meeting tonight. It is something like for us to take a step back and look at, you know, what we've done for the year and then what we would like to do. So, of course, I'd like to just give you a little to you. But what we've done is we've picked... It doesn't actually... I mean, these are not me now, but we've picked five kind of overall objectives for the conference. And then we've filled in some items that would go on for those objectives. And then we've kind of looked on those. And you'll see when we talk about, you know, what we've done. And then we go forward. Rather than make just one long, long list of things that we might do, kind of in the last few years we've kind of narrowed it down. I think we've had some success on making some partners doing that. And the way I add to that is that this is our plan and that things happen and our plan sometimes gets changed and we end up working on all the things. But at least it's a plan where we start from. So I think in the supplemental packet there's also... What I did was, as I did in January, when we did our six month review of where we were with our objectives, I keep calling them goals, sorry. I had written, you know, a progress report. This one, I just threw some high level items and I'm sure I missed a lot here. But for each one of the items, I wrote down the accomplishments, you know, things we have accomplished under each one of those items of the year. I hope everyone thinks those are encompassed most of the items. I think mine, certainly anyone can add anything they want to the list. I just was putting a stick in the bucket here to just... I'm going to start today so that you can see what we've worked on. I just want to prove them. If you want me to read them out loud, you know, from the public, as he's saying. I think I should do... No, good. Good. But don't agree. Good. And then... And that's what we did. So, our first goal was to continue implementation of effective governance consistent with the select one of the town manager act. And so we did a number of things with that. Our second last year... Second objective was to advance the... Well, that should say creation. Affordable housing as for the housing production plan. We emphasis on possible projects in 212, which you do in the town center. And that's the items we worked from that. The third one was develop and implement measurable progress. So, here we are. Here, thank you. On the Route 20 corridor, that promotes economic development and employment growth, including integration and review functions. Participating in the joint task force. And we talked about some of the items we did with that. I think we made some measurable progress there. The fourth was identify the financial constraints, including possible operating overrides and or debt exclusion articles, as well as the impact of implementing long-range asset management and capital improvement plan. And we had some progress there. And then finally, if we are the policy board under the town manager act, we have added on last year. This was really last year. We put this review, amended, promote the town policies, and it was particularly in respect to the select board manual and finalizing the financial purchasing and acceptance of land and naming options. We didn't necessarily do those policies, but we did some others. And, um, I don't know. I just hope everyone thinks that's representative. What? What? All we have accomplished in the last year? That was good. Any edits? No? Great. So the next item on this. I wanted to just kind of go from the script so that we can move on to the next. Michael, um, had, Michael and I both had a summary of interruptions in the last week, but I barely got lined up today. I don't know that he was able to finish, uh, his list. Did you have a chance to finish anything, Michael? To just give us a quick overview? And I do apologize. We put the object, uh, the agenda together quickly, and I left the word goals in here, and I should say objectives, so. So. Um. I'm working diligently because we're not on the right network. It's freezing because I downloaded. Okay. Well then let's, let's work on this one. So, um, do we want to, like, just do ours first and then talk about, you know, what we think, I'm not sure how you want to approach this, but one way would be, we look at these and see if these are still valid, and if we need to replace something, we'll enhance it. Um. I think we need to start with number four. Alright. Can you move it up the list? Because it's, uh. Oh, I don't have a different priority order, but okay. You can do that. I'm curious what, um, folks think about keeping the holiday road parcel as part of it in terms of thinking about future development, especially if the school gets closer to making a determination about it. And is that going to be on number four? It's kind of a part of number four. Would that be part of, like, number two? Well, I think if you look at number seven, these are kind of separate, but we, um. Yeah, it would be part of number two. We might change it to, um, Tom and I were brainstorming a little here at the agenda planning and we thought maybe we would change that to municipal land use rather than just affordable housing. Yeah. Uh. Develop, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Maybe incorporate the affordable housing concept with it. I think we need to use the term development too, right? We're thinking about expanding development in town. Say it again. You know, we've got economic development generally, but when we created Alta Oxbow, at least according to Brian, that was like one of the most significant developments in this town in terms of added revenue. So I think we need to talk about using the term development. And that's how I was thinking about exploring that Holiday Road parcel. Yeah. Um. But let me ask you this. Do we like, on number seven, do you like the beginning bones of B? I mean, this is the land use. And you could put your Holiday Road in there, give some more language. Sort of work. Did I say B? Sorry. We're not working on this. Yeah. He's kind of moving around to the agenda too, so. I can pull the agenda out too. Where is number seven? On the agenda. It's on the right here. All right. Sorry. Yeah, I'm just looking at the one through five too. Our objectives from fiscal year 2026. All right. So can you put that. Can you put that on my side? Yeah. Sorry. We can try. May I ask where would discussion of how we work as distinct from what I saw up there? I'm sorry. Where would discussion of how we work, how we meet, what we can discuss and not discuss. That sounds a little vague. What I'm wondering about is, has this board already discussed at some point creating a subgroup that, for example, might deal with administrative matters or the consent calendar so that we can have a parallel track for quality and not always be rushing? You know what? We haven't had that one yet, so you can make that as a proposal and see if that's one that we do. Well, I'd be empowered. I don't want to propose it unless they do the lights. Okay. But when Kelsey was able to pull this one up, this number one says continue. Yeah. This really is our umbrella, I think. It's continued implementation with effective governance, consistent with the select board and the town manager act. Last year, we've been trying to streamline the town meeting law and I don't know if we've finished that objective and we're going to miss everything over there. But, last year we wanted to review all the responsibilities and boards. If we felt we wanted to look at consent or something like that, then we would put that on there. I think it might go in there. Well, I'll make a 15 second plea. I think you're in an unfair position and I think observers of this process who aren't on the select board, people not in this room, voters if you will, are in an unfair position and it might be something worth spending a few minutes on. Should there be a subgroup of the select board that deals with nitty gritty administrative stuff so that we would not be in a, we would not be perceived as being in a state of constant ross at the possible expense of quality in our deliberations. Okay. Do you have something that comes to mind as an example, Chris? I did get some feedback that last week, keeping in mind, you know, in the air is a possible override. Also in the air is a possible half billion dollar new school appropriation. The credibility of this group and the reputation for diligence and due deliberation of this group is pretty important. And last week we were reduced to speculation at one point, for example, about whether a court or a registry would have a higher opinion if there were a test of title. And, you know, when there's real estate involved and money involved, our bill asked some really good questions and didn't get answers. I'm also conscious that this board frequently says to people, you know, we deal with policy here, we deal with policy. Okay, we say that when it's convenient, but when I look at the consent calendar, we get pretty granular when we want to. Maybe if there were a subgroup and we just said, look, the board can always say we want that. So anything can get elevated if we think it's actually policy. But if it's a granular administrative thing, there could be a subgroup that would discuss these things, take a little heat off the chair that every meeting has to be so dense. It's worth exploring. I know other towns do this and it seems to work. On the other hand, maybe some other towns I haven't heard of do it and it doesn't work. So I'm open. But it is something that I know people are asking me, Henry, how do you like the select board so far? What's going on? The credibility of this board is very important and the chair has a really tough job as an air traffic controller. So I agree then, Carol, that would fit somewhere within effective governance. Right. I think that fits under that goal. I was just saying at the outset, my initial comment is because it's so pressing, I think of number four as now our most important goal. Because if we're staring down and operating override for the first time in 20 years, that needs to be a front and center discussion for the next several months until we figure it out. And I would want to list that as our number one goal right now. So everybody sort of viewed these in the priority order? I mean, people can read goal number one, goal number two, and they all be equal but you just see it out there. Okay. So number four should go to number one. Okay. So I'm going to just answer the question about the consent calendar. The consent calendar is for us items that we are not going to have a delegation on that generally contracts. There's like an authority to approve up to a hundred thousand and then we delegate it back to him. That keeps us from, I think years ago, we used to do the payroll and everything. So that's usually a very quick item. We don't usually spend much time on that. So go ahead, Michael. If I can make a suggestion as part of number one. I do think given obviously the current climate we're in, just not in Wayland but overall, it is so hard to get quality volunteers. And as Kelsey knows, because we've discussed this, Wayland has one of the highest numbers of boards and committees for a town of size. And I do think a lot of time is taken up on your agendas, appointing people. So I would look at how you do your appointments. But also a review, you know, we've had people come to me the night of the volunteer appreciation gathering we had. I want to say Klaus came to me and said, we need to dissolve the audit committee, move it into the finance committee. So I think we need a, when I say we, a collective review. A real review of the boards and committees to see which ones maybe have either already come obsolete or may be coming obsolete and consolidate. So that when you get good qualified volunteers, you're putting them in the right place to ensure that they're satisfied. Because if they're on a board that isn't meeting and can't get a quorum, you're going to lose those people. But it also, you know, helps with advancing the town manager act, as you say, where you're not having all these silos. You're getting everything to work together. So I think, I do agree with a select board member, Levine, that number one really should be messaging and working on the override. But I think one of your goals that you should work on is working on that volunteer pool and making sure we're not burning out the few that we have. Because we saw the other night, we had one gentleman volunteering, he was on his third major board. So I'm going to need some help here. We're moving around and that's going to end up. I'm going to have cotton paste incorrectly. So I do think, let's start with number one. Let me just start with what's on the paper is number one. That's not going to be number one. Okay. As I didn't read it that way, so that was an interesting perspective. We're going to continue the implementation of the effective governance consistent with the select board town manager act. Does everyone agree that's, that's one thing. Then we can put these includeings. Do we want to still work on streamlining the annual town meeting warrant? Everyone's good with that. Okay. We've made some progress but we've customized this minute. I would say that requires a lot of our legal budget in that particular month. Oh, I know. We know that. Because of the amount of abuse. So if we could streamlining, not only make it more effective and efficient, but we would be saving, you know, thousands of dollars in legal review. So I think what they're talking about, Michael, is this reviewing of the roles and responsibilities of the town boards and the committees. I have to say this is probably one of the areas I didn't, I really couldn't think of working around that. I could think of too many things that we were able to do in that. We have had conversations, I agree, where we think that we should probably look at a mechanism or mechanisms to see if we could get all our board position filled. So maybe we don't, maybe evaluate when we need as many as we have. I don't know. Do you want to ask any of them? I see it as a dual approach. The goal, long term goal is to reduce the number of boards and committees. I think, at the same time, reorganize them, right, on a chart. Certain ones are certain, right, so in a way it helps you because maybe you have a plus or fewer reports maybe, right? But also it enhances communication and so that in one area, let's say it's land management, everyone's kind of rolling in the same direction. So right now our government's very flat and one of the reasons why we passed the time to interact was to address that. So to the extent, and I think, I think if you want to work, you do best fine. I don't miss a ton of management, but I think it starts with you. I think you need to give us some thought and say, you know what, let's say we talk about that. And I think it would be well received. And if there are hard decisions to make, then, you know, we will hopefully back you. And if there are really hard decisions to make, my view always is, make the implementation date, 12, 24 months in the day of the decision, so people can get used to it. But at your point, I do wonder whether town and government in communities like Wyoming are changing, where volunteers are less, are much harder. I hope that's not the case. But if it is, we need to adjust. We need to adjust. We need to adjust. I think it even goes along. The moderators reduced the quorum figure at the time being from 110,000 registered voters. Right. As I look at number one, my initial thought was, you know, we kind of have to know what we're doing. But as I listened to some of the discussion in the recent finance committee appointing board, there was discussion of a lumpy process of putting together the operating budget this year, this past year. And part of it was explained by still getting used to the town manager act and sorting out the relevant roles and responsibilities of the finance committee because of the town manager. So I think that's maybe one that ought to stay. I think there was a lumpy process in general because they ended up with, you know, the capital planning approved when it came along. Right, right. So that was a little late. They didn't necessarily ask for the proposed budget or start looking at the proposed budget until the end of January. When it was normally about to start like in December when it comes out. Carl was pretty clear on wanting to be involved. Right. Sooner or end of the day. Right. Yeah. So I think that it was just one of those perfect storms kind of a thing. Yeah. Unfortunately. But I think that goes to the question, do you maintain that? Yeah, we do. And, you know, to our earlier point, you know, there's this whole question of the importance of the financial mission in Happy Hall project. Possibly a new school or schools, town building, Route 20 landfill. So there are a lot of big things out there. To say nothing with the necessity of the operating of that question. So I have to be honest and say I'm having a hard time following up to put in these one of these lines. So I need a little help there. So are we going to talk about number four at the moment? Identify financial constraints including possible operating override. It should probably be singular. And are debt exclusion articles? Is that good the way that is at the moment? I mean, we'll look at these again the next time. I think it might be best to just, we'll jot down ideas and then we can wordsmith it offline. Because it's really hard to draft as a committee in real time. I don't have a hard time following along here. But to your question, I have no problem making them a full number one with revisions. Right. Which we have done. That we have agreed on. And I think Michael's point fits in under current number one. So we can be a little clearer about it, about potentially consolidating. So we can put that out there that we're looking at that. But how do we... Well, we're not looking at how we're going to do it right now. No. Well, if you could... Carol, if you were going to, at the end of the work committees, you have a comma. Including a consideration of consolidating committees or something like that. Or something like that. Yeah. I mean, I will say that I also have heard about the audit committee and the suggestion to rule and into the finance committee. But of course then, you'd have to have a conversation... You know, the last year you have to have a conversation with... Because we appoint them. You know, some conversations with them. So I think there was another one. I think we have another board, just to get a little specific here. I think there's nobody on the board. I don't think we have anyone in the... Dog control appeals. Dog control appeals board. Dog control board right now. So maybe that's one we want to look at because there's no one there. Maybe that's one, I'm just talking out loud, that we wrap that into our rules because we already do the press for it. I don't know. If it's not controlled by a bylaw, then we have to have a warrant article. It's controlled by a bylaw. Right. So we have to check on that. But that's the kind of one in the... But I think we have had this discussion on one point where we also said... And maybe this is not... I'm not trying to be a naysayer here by accident. Is that, you know, do we want to be the initiator on consolidation or do we want boards to come to us? Oh, no. We need to be the initiator. We're the initiator. Yeah. All right. All right. I think I'm going to number one. I think also on number one, to what Bill just mentioned, you know, I keep this list of everything everyone talks about and there were a number of articles. And I thought this was going to have been mentioned as possible for next year. It doesn't mean these are the only one I'm going to do, but I want to run through these to see if they're still viable and if not, take them off this list. And I thought those could go into number one. So it might be potential such and such articles, including blah, blah, blah, blah. So let me read these. One is, one of them is exactly what Bill just said. One was a bylaw to reduce the quorum below 100. So does the board have an appetite for that? And if not, I'll take that right off the list or I'll put it on. Tell me quorum. Sorry, not quorum. You want to include that in the goal? Are we going to be specific of some things we're going to do? No. In my opinion, no. We want to be global here. Okay. But I'm happy to have a discussion maybe at another meeting, but we start with global and then we get into the next meeting. Yeah, because these things I would like to get... Some of these are not going to go forward. I'd like us to be able to see... Yeah, we're going to have to list them. We're not doing those talking? No. Oh, boring. All right. So the current number two, this is the one that Bill found that Tom and I thought might expand it to not just be affordable housing, but municipal land use. Would you have come into the holiday world? So how does that sound? Municipal land use and then I have something like develop 212 particularly, evaluate the town building. I think 212 has taken off. So I don't think we include that specifically, but I do like the idea of... I would say evaluate municipal, town, property, best uses. Don't you want to discuss the point then? Well, we have this 2017 report done. Right. And there's a lot of small pieces and a lot of larger pieces, but again, it's a global topic and it provides... you know, notice to the town that this is all they're looking. I think there are kind of two pieces, but I had... or... Yeah. 212, I had a cascade site. Right. And... and available municipal site or sites. That's fine. Well, I like that. And in Hollywood? That's when you'd be available at municipal sites or... undeveloped municipal sites out here. But if you don't just go to, you know, there's the other... Yeah. Yeah. Let's go back to that again with the cast dates. Yeah. You know what? I'm going to put a few in and then you guys can take them back out. There's a little confusion about the implementation versus... I'm sure. You know, because it's a lot... it's a gender... we have to put... we're going to try to go on... that was my goal, was to kind of just put this information on here that we've talked about looking at or doing. So... so I guess my question on this... on the... municipally owned land is... is it to be exclusively devoted to housing that could be for other uses? Right. So... I... I... I... I... I... I said yes. I'll use... including possible sales. There may be a small triangle somewhere in town that has no use to the town. Right. And we just... put one article inside the cell. So I think we want to evaluate... if we have time, both... those parts and stuff. Yeah. So right now we have... excuse me... we have town property for best uses. I can specify that out... including sale... Right. But... but what about... promoting affordable housing that is not on the school line? Right. That probably... that could be a different... under a different... different home. I would just advocate for not getting rid of the... affordable housing. No, no. I... Yeah. It's going to be 2A and then that one could be 2. Yeah. You know, you might consider putting that under... or prohibiting some kind of economic development, which could include... the use... the reuse of the town and parcels... also... things like... the route 20 zoning... and... working with the owners of the... town center as they... consider... or as the planning board considers amendments... to... to that... for a potential future expansion. You see, now they were listing items again, but we didn't want to. So see, it's... it's... it's a challenge to not list items. So... you know... so last year we didn't use the phrase economic development, because we didn't want to single out... if I'm remembering correctly, we didn't want to single out like one town functional committee kind of thing over one another. So that's why we use measurable progress, I think. Um... economic development. Sorry. Yeah. It involves... Is it generic? Yeah. It involves so many different boards and committees and departments. Okay. Also, now that we've brought up an override, it's a long-term topic, it may not have been a year ago. Right. Okay. So, under this economic development right now, we have to develop and implement measurable progress on the Route 20 corridor. Um... So, should we... say, continue... continue progress on that? And... economic development would be... do you want to give me a phrase again? Dr. Phil? continue to explore economic development to reduce our issues. I would be tempted to add an EG. But they're not going to lay... I'm going to lay it, but they're not seeking it. We talked about Route 20 last time. All right. Um... And so now we get... Is that... Trying to put something together. Somebody like Kelsey is much better. This is going to have to give me an assist, I think. She's writing notes down all the way. Very casual notes. All right. So then the number four is the identified financial constraints, including... Obviously here, we're going to have to discuss about the possible operating override. Um... I think one thing you can say there... Yeah. Is implementing long-range financial planning and asset maintenance. Implement what? That's how I would start it. Implement long-range financial planning and asset maintenance and capital improvement plan instead of just identifying the financial constraints. Yeah. I mean, we'll have to do that, too. But I think that the idea is to be looking long-term. Right. And here you can make some mention of SIPC because it's relatively new. Do you want to, though, include some consideration of the current financial? I think we have to for this year. Yeah. I would just start it that way, I think. I would remove the operating override. I'm just adding to this goal. Because it looks like we're only identifying the override and then we're implementing long-range asset maintenance and capital improvement plan. But I think we want to think about our whole financial picture, not just about asset maintenance and capital improvement. So it's implement long-range financial planning. I'll work smoothly with you. I'll work smoothly with you afterward. I was hoping you were going to say that. That's great. Is it financial constraints or is it more sort of financial management? Yeah. I don't like the word constraints there, either. Yeah. That's when we just left you because we were identifying what was coming. We were constrained. We knew we were going to be constrained. Now we know we're constrained and now we're going to have another war. But I think particular emphasis on the sort of financial health with respect to the operating That is true. Anything else on that? The new number one? That's better than your mind. That's better than your mind. That's better than your mind? Yeah. What does that say? So then number five, I mean back to this thing about the policies that we do set policies for the town So, you know, we at a vacation we formalized some of the financial policies like the past with Kelsey's help and the staff we put in a number of policies over the last few years just formalized things that we have in town which is just good practice. So I do have a list here of things we've mentioned that I wouldn't mind running down I'm not going to look at these two men I'm going to look at these two things things we've mentioned to see if there are things we want to look at working on next year There was one, I think we did create a social media policy last year but now I think we've decided we need to update it to improve the use of AI I was just going to say we didn't get to my goals and if you recall We'll come back to you I was going to say if you recall last year you didn't initially assign me goals because you thought my goals really were objectives that should align with yours and when we eventually get to mine because of what goes on at town hall including town manager office hours we put a couple there that I think the board has to be involved with the development we're already starting at department head level to have the discussions about AI use internally but also a big one that has come up and came up a town meeting and you can put it on your list I have them on the list so let me go through the list for all of you Okay Thank you Where is my camera today? Alright so update social media policy include the use of AI everyone's good that's one we should do correct? Okay I'm going to skip down here and the one they want to talk about is surveillance yes and I have put that on the list so if we want to look at the surveillance policy there's another one religious expression yes request for religious items on town property right alright I'm going to throw in one here it's called complete streets policy this is coming from the Board of Public Works DPW it's actually part of the grant program and similar to the uh first policy that we did when I saw the first round there's someone the consultant's order it was very broad language again and so we're trying to sift it down to be a little less broad so that by the time it gets to the board the first time looking at it it's probably pretty close to what we want but um I believe we're one of the few communities that haven't signed onto this and it is also some grant money available once you'll create this summer there's one I think we need to look at um I think it's been mentioned too that we have and um I think Michael and I noticed that there's different language plus we have a very old debt exclusion policy and process I think that process I think that process has a full finance committee coming in twice within two weeks to do the same report I think we need to put that and look at that one because we want to look at that and um then it was mentioned recently by a resident on naming items that are wrong this is one we want to pursue or not yeah you think it's good you think it's good so does anyone hear anything that they think they don't think they should look the school committee has a I was talking to Captain Brenner about the school committee has a policy about naming or anything the fields are looking the rec commission is looking to develop a policy because they've given they've received I think you tell me seven requests over the last five or so years to name different fields they want to have a policy in place this is actually one of the first meetings I went to when Bill was the chair with Michael he said you really need to have a naming policy in place before we receive a request so so does anybody have anything they think shouldn't be on the list? I would just suggest you name the surveillance policy yes would you like to have a person? big brother policy Bill was here I had an overarching question my original point you recall was I worry about how much administrative we have brought down in versus policy when we say we have this list that we have and don't have to your point are we saying there might be a subcommittee that would look at naming a subcommittee that would look at our surveillance policy or are we saying that this select board is going to do it? so we last year because I had mentioned you know the thing is the school committee has a number of policies of this and they have a subcommittee that appeals to policies they review the existing policies in most cases we're creating them so some of these don't exist there's a couple that we're going to update here but there's some that don't that don't exist and we had said maybe once we got ours won't formalize we might also get on a rotation where we would be reviewing them on a regular basis so we don't end up with for example the data school policy which I think is at least 10 years old isn't it? 10 years old? so that needs to just be reviewed maybe there's no evidence I think this is something that the board can decide once we determine what we're going to do the how we're going to do it could be we have some subcommittee I'm sorry I'm being obtuse not you I am the one being obtuse I'm sorry you're saying is this board going to ask another group to say hey what do you think we should do about naming or school committee you've done something about it no she was thinking of it being this full board working on or out on this yeah but we can also have subcommittees like where two people go up and work on something or one person or one yeah and then bring it back to the board we're working our way into this to do this is what I'm saying these policies well committees well committees of course one person takes two topics and does a little research and does a little draft to do for conservation I think that's I mean these policies are not their way of making many other communities have so it's just a matter of putting information together but to your point what Tom is saying is the suggestion because remember they've just become the policy board in the last year so we're working our way towards and like I said to aspire to the school as it comes to get them on their face they have a rotation of reviewing them all and they have subcommittee that does it one or two board members and they meet and they have agendas and they look at things Tom's suggestion is really we just do single it and bring them to the board and then go from there I will sleep better tonight when I say something I want to make sure that we manage what we're talking about because when it comes to things like an override or a new school for half a billion dollars or really good issues Mr. Whitney brought up earlier about affordable housing I don't want to hear well we're in a rush or we're showing off how fast we can be but not how high quality or whatever it needs to be if somebody tunes into a select board meeting I want them to say wow those guys are being really diligent not being really efficient that's all I will sleep better tonight thank you okay so we're all set on number 5 we've identified a couple of them um did you want me to read up the list of the potential articles that we have identified so far to see which ones are staying or going articles from town meeting yeah I want you to tell our agenda I'm sorry? that's all right that's all right that's all right that's all right well that's part of streamlining and building up the warrant that's what's on here just identifying which ones we're going to look at no I just I actually put it down here on number 7a potential 27 articles okay so the first one was did we want to support in our bylaw change to reduce the quorum I can't tell you I'm sorry but that is real in my agenda okay just potential articles I know what I just think I mean something that specific anybody give public notice I'm sorry all right all right I think each of those could be kind of an individual conversation about itself which would take some time you know that shouldn't even be like a sub-agenda I mean that should be its own main agenda yeah you know we should be thoughtful about each other well I'm pretty sure some of these were not going to make the grade which is why I was trying not anyway okay so I think now what we want to do is go back and Mike were you able to connect in now to be able to show because you sort of you skipped your overview of your time so just you'll see these again at the next meeting um and I think that's what we did last year we looked at them and they would make some tweaks to them and that's it so um they're generic and a little bit specific at the same time oh my if I may I just like to ask are there any other topics that we haven't discussed that members want to have as goals that not on a list that that's what I just said are we all excited we'll just have any spot the first one yeah very happy what they had asked was will we see this again and I said yes we will vote on this will we see it we have to put it together we'll do a little more wordsmithing and Doug has offered to help get it together so it could be in perfect shape so there we go all right what we did skip was because he couldn't connect on was unlike the one did you have something you wanted to show us yeah I think so I told you I told him it was short but we'll see where we go trust me new graphics instead of the same word yeah I can see all right so the objectives that I've given after last year's session were to negotiate bargaining agreements finalized fiscal year 2027 budget review and implement promulgate town policies particularly respect financial policies advance town facility upgrades and renovations continue implementation regional dispatch implement long range asset management maintenance and capital improvement plan including timely and cost effective completion of ongoing planning projects all right enough there'll be some similarities between men and chairs goals updates and accomplishments to what we talk about here so what we did for 26 in an effort to be fiscally minded for FY27 and out years especially when we're contemplating an override when I went into collective bargaining I've tried to hold the line and be conservative and I put non union here but I think it was important that we did something we haven't done in a while they've had their steps as well as their colons and they've had a salary adjustment for the last couple of years this year we did something different in terms of the one year because we may or may not have an override so that was important that you know I made a decision differently in part of what we've done the last couple of years also to set the tone for the rest of the collective bargaining the library is complete and then the others I put in a descending order of how far we are I would say that the asking union if we could reach an agreement on the COLA the cost of living increase we would be able to sign an MOU in the next meeting or so the police again pretty close Teamsters they are ongoing fires ongoing they fired probably the latest start because they were in arbitration and I put the teachers because I've meeting regularly regularly with Dr. Fleischmann members of the school committee and their business manager relative to trying to get that resolved so those are all ongoing key is looking at three year agreements being mindful of the fact that we need an override for one or more years that finalizing fiscal year 2027 budget we passed the balanced budget with level services being mindful of the declining levy we did the capital plan working with the new capital improvement planning committee we were able to maintain this past year our AAA meeting when we reviewed again by Moody's we were actually able to say I think Kelsey could tell us $40,000 just under $40,000 on premium reduction and increased credits by the training Mr. Reynolds you were asking about being proactive and participating in risk management and Kelsey is instrumental in helping with that I know we got an email about this the other day but we did enlist the calling center last year with some grant monies to produce an operational review of some of our facilities HR and IT functions and we've been working on implementing part of that and as you know with your assistance we closed a $1.8 million gap in order to get that little service budget and also remind folks that while we were doing that close to $600,000 shortfall and we did that in the large part by not filling some of the open positions asking people to really crack down on their expenses and overtime budgets review, implement or promulgate account policies with particular interest on the financial many of these were listed by Madam Chair but we did get those financial policies last year which I think were helpful when we went into our review of Moody's start work collectively on our payment and move of taxes policy and the program that we go through it unfortunately we've all had a lot on our plates and we did get to start those meetings but that can be part of what we do next year I have been working with Madam Chair the Select Board manual and this is what I alluded to earlier I've been sitting down with department heads and specifically our IT director start thinking about our artificial intelligence policy for staff and officials and then with respect to surveillance not only the video but the data we're restoring it and the retention policy and those are questions that are coming up as I said town meeting from residents coming in emails and a town manager office hours Are you subject to certain statewide retention policy that we missed found? There are some and I don't think it's that long and I think I asked this to the police chief too the challenge is and you may know from your experience working in law enforcement sometimes something doesn't get flagged right away and without somebody notifying us of something I think there's a 30-day video retention I'd have to check the Secretary of State's guide but there are some that were shorter than I anticipated speaking in the IT director May I suggest you lose the surveillance colon? Oh well I put surveillance the video surveillance the data that we collect on people and our retention policies I think video data and retention policies covers it nicely okay sorry I just was writing that signal there well I think you know you get swapping to big brother I think I started with surveillance and then I think intrusion into I will fix this but I think what happened was I wanted to let you know we're working on surveillance and then break it down a little bit more to the secretary at least the term understood not the subject advanced town facility upgrading renovations you've already heard from Mr. Fay at this evening but I've worked pretty closely with him and all of our staff participated one way or another on the redesign of the town entrances we made at the request of the board and our staff improvements it feels like we're meeting room based on citizen feedback we've worked on trying to improve the audio vision technologies in the building for meeting Mr. Fay led the charge to fix some of the HVAC in the building which have been problematic in elevators and Mr. Fay and I worked with the IT director to update the network we've updated cameras in the building and we're working on the network security firewall and a few other things so making sure we're protected at a variety of different threats and to reduce our exposure to risk continue to implement implementation of the 9-11 9-1-1 regional dispatch center as you know just before our whole session last year we signed the inter-municipal agreement with the framing the end of date we wound up making some amendments and changes to that during the course of the year um I meet every couple of weeks with the the board it's the mayor Mayor Sitsky Jamie Erickson and then we have a financial subcommittee an operations subcommittee they've gone out they've started the renovations in framing and for the center we've been pursuing the state 9-11 grant so we're going to be having a meeting with state 9-11 this week to discuss you know what we're getting and what we can plan for in the future I had earlier in the year some transition discussions with our dispatch are put on going the reason that's ongoing is because of the the state 9-1-1 grants our targeted opening is moving back to July of 2007 we had hoped we would be opening for 2027 I'm sorry there's an extra zero yeah we don't want to be opening in the year well it's not pretty specific to the 9-1-1 you know we updated our mutual aid agreement our major part of how we were regional implementation of long range asset management improvement plan including cost effective completion of projects as you heard quite a bit from Mr. Fayette we completed the facilities assessment last year and he's been working diligently meeting with him as need to prioritize and initiate those projects that includes working with the new capital improvement planning committee to get those priorities placed on the five year capital plan as you may recall this past budget cycle it was the first time we utilized the CIPC and they had a lot of questions about the existing capital plan and because of the questions that Mr. Fayette shared with you this evening about the future building we had to change priorities for some of those capital improvements in the town office building and we'll continue to work on that I just threw these other two out there because they've taken up a fair amount of time over the last year but they are important to what we do with our long term assets but we've had the Sherman's Bridge project and I actually don't think there should be an apostrophe in there it's Sherman's with an S right
in on me because I've been told that you're a apostrophe and we're working we're continuing with CMG to make progress in the remediation of 195 Main Street and that was it you asked me to be shared with Sweet but you had covered a lot in your I did ask you to be shared with Sweet and I just want to consult over here with the former chair do you think that was something I think it was great fabulous we did this a little bit underwater because you know Michael was just we were already starting to talk about you know the goals we had and how we would you know like the word for next year objectives so do you want to talk about briefly you know besides the objectives that we have are there anything in particular that you think we should all be working on or that you want to work on in the next fiscal year well I think I think I chimed in when you were talking about I chimed in when you were talking about some of your goals I couldn't agree more with board members who talked about number one being the financial issues facing the town the town and I do feel strongly that advancing the town and interact removing the silos and really making sure that we effectively utilize our volunteers by reassessing the number of boards we have and where they can be combined and consolidated are huge I think although there are objectives that we have they are recurring objectives that every town should be concerned about I think Route 20 the Route 20 corridor is huge I think we've been working more when we have with time we have an engaged owner here at the town center I'm trying to spend a little more time with Robert our planner in the EDC we have some great support staff there and devoting more time we do a lot of things in the background to support businesses that's how I think we got to remain in by helping them with their licensing we were being active with the legislation for the liquor licenses to help bring small restaurants we may have people that are interested sent out the invitation to get the working group for the historic district parking going invited a lot of people we're looking on the staffing so a lot of things just are happening but I think those who have priorities the economic economic first finances and I would put aligning the boards and then economic development and focusing on corridor is my top two things alright thank you did you want to say anything about Nick? if I had four there would be housing I think I'll do that I think I'll do that ok ok does anybody else have anything on objectives Michael could you cut me off this is out of bounds is there any need for I'm thinking about your question any other topics a typical phrase uses user-friendly government or similar making sure that our processes are accessible or meaningful is that I mean I might argue that in a year with what we've got coming up financially that doesn't cut it I'm asking if you get a lot of feedback about that there is a feeling I've heard a lot of comments about this and I know people feel a little disengaged we're not getting attendance at this I'm not sure that's a challenge I want to take on but I thought I'd ask when you started the question I was thinking it was going to go in a different direction because I think we put an emphasis on customer service and things and I we've been focusing on online and trying to make government more out and be more customer friendly for those who walk in so I I'm I'm hoping that the customer experience for those who come to the building has been improving during my time here what I'm hearing you say is how do we get people more engaged and satisfied with activities and events we're hosting attendance at events all of the above I mean you got six thousand people and what more do you want there an excellent yes so you've got six thousand people yeah well you think being supportive of citizen initiatives such as the Elvis committee you know I was able to get a meeting for Mr. Bernstein with the folks at the MMA you know that will allow more people to participate in time and by the way I thought that was wonderful I'm glad people saw that or will see it it's just great yeah may I withdraw my you answered my question no no no no just one little piece of commentary I mean we the world is vastly different today than when many of us finished high school or undergrad and the way people engage nowadays is a lot different they use this there's not a lot of face to face people you know I'm always amazed when I drive home late at night and the traffic at 11.30 or midnight is the same as it is at 8 in the morning because there is no traditional office there's no real weekends for some people anymore people are always working so we have to realize that not everyone is going to come to a fixed meeting at 7 p.m. but if we have the opportunity to put video out there and allow people to remotely participate I think we're doing our best to engage those people that might not allow people to participate may I just comment because you said the word accessible it like pinged my ear so I applied for a grant through the Office on Disability Commission on Disability to do what's called an ADA self-evaluation transition plan which basically looks at all of the town and how accessible it is and how we can improve that because you mentioned that and I have had some comments because I'm the ADA coordinator for the town I've had some comments from some residents about certain aspects of town not being accessible so to directly address where you said accessible it is something that is on my mind and it is something that I want to work towards it's important to me it's important to me all right so yep so the next item is number 8 and we touched on this briefly last week when we took the vote for the terms for the comment leadership we in the minutes it said that we made it through the town meeting 2027 and technically we need to expand it a little bit longer so that although the language term did say until successes are appointed afterwards maybe we saw the whole language so we put this on here to see if we want to just have another vote real quick to extend it to what we say middle June I don't know it seems like there's a boilerplate every year I'm wondering whether we're overthinking it I know I'm wondering too so I think we can leave it because you know unless we put some of the milk they just stay so I think we're okay on that I am going to say one other quick thing here on the organization report here is that it was like the dog ate my home with my file for tonight that would be please get compromised and I didn't do it so I did not get the liaison list done I will get that done and up on the webpage look for the next meeting in case you were looking for that I do also want to say real quick here that we because it's the summer we announced we'll have all our meetings through up until the end of August we'll all be fully remote starting so just remind everybody of that and I'm going to try to sneak this one real quick in here is that we've had some conversations with them tonight about that the now the number one is identifying the financial planning and situations in town and we are going to start having a conversation about the the operating override we'll be having us Michael said last week we're having the finance team come back in on the 17th to give us an overview of the situation the school committee would like to join and I think the finance committee may join us on the 17th to get a presentation on the 31st meeting the school committee if we would like to join us to talk you know about potential operating override and all that going back then as well so that would be that you're talking about August August, I said August 31st yeah August 31st speak louder August 31st sorry and then in September we would probably if we are going to go forward wanting we wanted to have plenty of time to disseminate information we will need to start thinking about having a vote sometime in September um alternatively scheduled for the 8th I'm sure I think that's a little optimistic because we may identify more information we need to you know that we need before we're ready but um if we want to have plenty of time to be able to have communications and forums and what have you I think we need to start being thinking about that probably maybe mid-September or something like that is that what happened the last time because I wasn't here so the last over I thought was in 08 whether forums and flaggers like how did how did yeah I don't think you weren't on the board that time were you? I don't think so you weren't on this left board in 08 were you? yeah I think you were you know we had a serious
understood kind of in the water yeah I think this is what they know about right this is the last 20 a.m. to 30 a.m. to 30 a.m. and so and I think that um if we were thinking about of the three options last week when to have you know a vote let's say we pick for January or February time frame if you're back at 5 you want to have about 90 days I think not too soon not too not too late I think in the middle would be about 90 days before so for the middle of January we need to be voting by the by the middle of October that's why I'm saying in September I think we need to be make sure we've gathered all the information so when we stop and I'm saying this now so when we stop the process like on the 17th whatever questions or information we're missing anything we need try and let me know then so I can make sure we gather that up for us so anyway when the finance committee comes in that month this meeting another meeting I think it would be helpful
the process for preparation of the FY27 budget kind of a post-mortem on the prior years preparation and also if we could also have a discussion about the role of SIPSE as I recall when the first pocket item is going to be confined to a longer term kind of thing beyond the five year capital plan yeah it's something different now it has become a question about that I'll put that down but I need to be careful off the off the agenda over there mm-hmm mm-hmm okay so the next item we're going to have is the minutes of June 8th are in the the packet move approval of the June 8th 2026 select board minutes as modified in our packet second okay anybody have any edits okay all those in favor aye move the consent calendar move the consent calendar from June 8th June July 7th July 7th July 7th next okay any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye okay take a motion to adjourn at 8th 28th usually you ask if if it has any announcements I'm sure you wanted to ask me that I don't I don't have them on the agenda so I can't make an announcement I don't think so can I make an announcement after we adjourn there's no rule against that is it about scheduling no rule button all right um um I think it was 8th 28th 8th 28th who was the first Tom me thank you okay all those in favor say aye aye thank you sorry