April 13, 2026 – Select Board – Video & Transcript

April 13, 2026 - Select Board

Autoscroll:

Thank you, Sarah Martin, Chair of the Select Board. I call the meeting of the Select Board to order for today at 13-2026 at 6.30 p.m. We are meeting in the Wayland Town Building and 41 Constituent Road. Our meeting format is in-person and remote access. This meeting may be recorded, and if recorded, it will be made available to the public on as soon as possible after the meeting. In pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Act of 2025, this meeting will be conducted in person and via remote access in accordance with applicable law. One may want to participate remotely, but the meeting link can be found on the Wayland Town calendar or on the Senate board agenda. When required by law or allowed by the Chair, persons wishing to provide public comment or otherwise participate in the meeting may do so. Here, obviously. In person or via remote access, again, through those links. Public comment should be limited to two minutes per person. We're going to read the agenda in a moment, but first I want to acknowledge that joining me this evening in the meeting room is Mr. Fay, Mr. Levine, Mr. Whitney, and of course myself. We're going to be joined shortly by our Town Manager, Mr. McCall, and we are joined by our Assistant Town Manager, Councilor Powers-Burlett. Ms. Brindley? Ms. Brindley is a 6th member and will be joining us probably around 7.30, 8, via remote leads. Okay. So, for the agenda, please note agenda times are approximate and they may not be discussed in the item or the time listed, and all topics are subject to deliberation and vote. So, call to order, announcements, public comment, approximately 6.40, we will review, discuss, and vote to issue thank you letters. Thank you. Thanks, Ms. Brindley. I do believe we're going to have a couple of questions from the community. I was just going to ask, Ms. Brindley, if we can go ahead and put that in the chat box and see if we can hear from you. So, Ms. Brindley, I'm GUTIERRE. I'm an IT, who's a Head of Tax Advocacy Services, and I'm a member of the Office of claims and collections. I'm a member of the Office of CES. Ms. Brindley? Yes, Ma'am? Ms. Brindley. Dr. Brindley? So to that, after which we will devote some time to the 2026 Annual Town Meeting Discussion. We've been looking at our warrant article updates. We'll be inviting Marina Jones and Ryder to talk about some ATM consent updates. I believe we'll talk about signing the warrant.
That we will have a discussion in terms of our next steps of the Economic Development Committee proposals that were presented to us last week, the last meeting. So we have a discussion review and possible goal to authorize town leaders to sign a revised IMA for our regional 911 Emergency Limitation Center. And anyway, this is a special town meeting that they have in the 2026 Annual Town Meeting. It is supposed to be a placeholder. We will not read this, and we'll have a little more information on that probably later. Town managers report the board questions and follow up. Consent, minutes of March 23rd. Review the correspondence. We are select towards reports and concerns. There were no topics not reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance, and hopefully by 920, we will adjourn. So having said all that, do we have any announcements from the board? You don't? Okay. I have a couple. I want to remind everybody that we are voting on April, the 28th. The voting is all four precincts are here in the gym at the town building. And this is our annual municipal election. New sign looks fantastic. What's the other new sign or billboard out here for a section? Wonderful. Nice work. Thank you. Hopefully they have it done. Okay. And then I also remind everybody of the annual town meeting. Believe it or not, it's fast approaching. It's going to be Monday, May 4th, and Tuesday, May 5th. All right. Does anyone else have any other announcements?
I have several under my announcements later, but because people may not be watching at that hour, town hall will be closed next Monday for Patriot's Day. Great. Thank you. All righty then. Do we have any public comment? Is anybody online? Yes. Alyssa is online. Okay. And is anybody in the room? Yes, you can speak in the room. Oh, we're all set. Okay. Ms. Parter, I recognize you. Hello. So, try to be quick. So, first, regarding the inter-municipal agreement that you're going to vote on the town manager signing. Everything I've heard is that it will add little to Wayland while costing an increasing amount, especially in the future, if we join in paying for the, when we join in paying for the building, and therefore it should go before town meeting and not just be signed. Okay. Thank you. So, we should have a vote on that at town meeting. Regarding special town meeting, if held, I firmly request that it include a vote on the, let's see, yeah, a vote on the Sherman Bridge project, and an explanation of it, as well as how the project team failed to follow mandatory PDDG guidelines, that MassDOT failed to inform them, or the consultants hired, or the town management of these guidelines, and this requirement, if receiving funding from MassDOT, which they are. And the meeting, if at town meeting, it would get a vote on whether to cancel this project in light of the objections to it from the start, many dubious actions carried out by those involved so far. The fact that DPW has already spent over 50,000 without authorization at town meeting to expend such money on this project, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, and that's before the initial limit, to taxpayers of $50,000 out of the $1.1 million estimate for construction costs of this very expensive version of project, and after getting an updated cost breakdown also per MassDOT and its PDDG, tell us what taxpayers are expected to pay outside of the MassDOT covered expenses, and to explain requesting the request to funding to cover what DPW are expecting to pay. And as for Holiday Road, we have, there should be no authorization of any more taxpayer money. We have capable resources here in town between zoning, conservation, and even the DWP. We also received your email this evening of 4.56 p.m., which I'm sure we will all read shortly. Thank you. Yeah, these were on the other agenda items, but I imagine there'll be time to talk later on the Holiday Road. Okay, thank you, Ms. Carter. Thank you. We will be on the phone later. Yes, thank you. All right. So I think that brings us, no, no. I don't see, no. Okay, great. I'm going to close public comment. So now we're going to invite Abigail Warren, Executive Assistant to the Town Manager to speak to us. Now, we had a terrific suggestion here, you know, and I think it's always nice when the staff is always trying to make us look good. I'm sorry. I asked her to be on and explain her suggestion. And also, the samples of the suggestion are in the packet. Sure. So after the committees were disbanded, I was thinking, well, you do the proclamations and citations already, and there's no history in the files of sending thank you notes, it might be nice. So I reached out to Carol. She said, yes, had me draft something. And pages five and six. So I said, she did. five and six in the packet are the final drafts. So it basically just outlines the thanking people who participated in the committee, whether they were there for the whole time or even just a short time. And it outlines the charge of the committee, what they did, and a very, very brief summary of the final results of each one. Thank you. Comments for you, Edward? I appreciate your creative thinking. I appreciate the content of the letter. The only comment I have is I'm a little bit uncomfortable with only two of us signing the letter as opposed to the whole board. I would ask the opinion of Mr. Whitley and Mr. Levine whether they are comfortable with two of us signing it. Otherwise, happy to revise it. We can be authorized to sign for all. So let me explain the genesis of it. Originally, it was just the chair. And I felt since most likely I did not serve on those advisory committees that we had, it would be relevant to have either the select board liaison or in this case, the chair to sign them. So that's why the both of us are on there. But would everybody like all five signatures on here? I think it's fine as is, especially if we send these on a routine basis. I think it makes sense to... I think it makes sense to come from either just the chair of the advisory committee or for both chairs. That's fine. Doug actually, when we did the agenda meeting, reviewed them and gave a couple of words with sense. So you want to say? I agree. I think as graphed, they were very great. So would this be sent by electronic mail? If I have a current email address, yes, I'll send them a copy. Otherwise, I'll do snail mail and I'll get addresses from the town. All right. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Now, I'd like to invite Mike Fair, who's our director of public buildings, to join us. He's going to give us some, you know, this is sort of probably one of many conversations about the ever-famous on-site insight report that the town commissioned. And it's about... Welcome. It's about 400 pages or something huge. It is. It is. And it focuses just on, as everybody, I'm just teaming it up for those who are listening, it focuses on the town buildings only. It was a capital, it was a capital request that we put through the town meeting a couple of years ago. And then we did just a, what page are these? The handout is exactly what's in the packet, page seven, page seven, starts on page seven for those who are following along. And then you're waving at me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. Good evening. Good evening. I was asked to summarize that 4,000-page report that was done. It's a great tool, to give us an idea when we should start planning for capital projects around town. It was nice to have somebody take another set of eyes and put those forward. Fortunately, fortunately or unfortunately, we've captured quite a few of them already. For the early years, just because they needed to get done anyway. So what I've done is I've gone out to 2034, because anything past 2034 is, we don't know what's going to happen really then. So this makes the most sense. So I've taken what they are proposing and our capital year, or if it's already been completed, they're in process. So that just kind of bring us up to 2304 and where we stand. So we can go through these lines. Thanks. line by line real quick. Library, as everybody knows, we've been doing a lot of work in the library. The elevator has been upgraded. The interiors have been upgraded. The outside has had some work done. The mechanical is going to be the next big upgrade, which is happening this summer. We're going to be replacing all the existing heat pumps, removing the heat pump that's in the decorative ceiling above the main area, putting it on the roof, replacing all the roofs. It's part of that because we're going to put equipment up there. It just makes sense to replace the roof. And they wanted us to replace the roof in FY25 anyway, so it worked out well.
Further, you know, they wanted us to do some more maintenance on the exterior, the parking lots and things like that. We have them slated for 29 and 31. So once again, it fits in well with what's going to happen coming forward for the library.
Fire Station 2 is a new building. It's a new build. There isn't really much to do. We've got some, you know, some stuff out in, you know, 2033, 34. So it'll need to be replaced. Just have us start to look at it. But we won't worry about that until we get a little bit closer. So public safety building, we've done a lot of the exterior work already. We've got the new siding. We're going to be doing a partial roof when we replace the chiller on the roof this summer.
Structurally, it's in great shape. Roof systems, like I said, we're going to, 2032, we'll do the big project, but we're going to do under the new equipment. So we don't have to worry about that once that comes around.
Elevators, FY34, we agree with that time frame. The elevator is not in that bad a shape. We have more, more needing customers around town. So we'll start there, including with the town building here. Mechanical, we're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. We're going to start there. Structurally, like I said, the chiller is going in. The boiler is in decent shape. That's proposed out for a few more years. That should be okay. Community spaces, it is a 24-7 operation. You know, they want us to put $470,000 in, 31, 32. We can look at that. It's not a bad time frame, but it's something we should just keep an eye on, maybe push it out a little bit further. So can I just ask a question just to understand this a little bit better? Yep. So for example, under building architectural, where it says structural and exterior, Yep. on-site insights suggested to fiscal years 25 and 34 for almost $800,000. Yep. And our capital plan is the last couple of fiscal years for $365,000. So can you just explain how we should understand that? Sure. Some of their pricing is spot on. Sure. Some of it was a little exaggerated. We structurally, we've repaired all the carrying walls over the doors. We replaced all the existing siding, which was almost like a cardboard material with a cementitious board. So the building is a lot tighter. All the trim was replaced. It's no longer wood. It's plastic, basically. It's PVC. So we were able to do the entire, well, three facades. One was already done, the one facing the parking lot, for this amount of money. So they're estimating it was just a little off. Gotcha. You know, there was some parking lot work and things like that that we can do down the road, but it won't bring us to that number. Okay. Thank you.
DPW building, that one is fairly new as well. We have some resurfacing that they want to take a look at. They want to rip up and re-air the parking lot. It's a pretty busy place. It does get a lot of wear and tear. So, you know, FY28, you can take a look at that. The building itself, mechanically, 25, we've done some repairs. 29, 32, and 34 is what they're suggesting. We don't disagree, but the mechanicals, we've been taking, the PMs have been better, so they should last us a little bit longer on the mechanical equipment. So we're going to keep that up. We're going to keep that up. We're going to keep that up. We're going to keep an eye on that one. We're hoping to be 32, 34 and be able to just slide by 29. So electrically, I don't understand why they want to upgrade the electrical of that building, but they did call for that. We don't, you know, other than lighting and things like that, there's a lot of lights there. I don't think it's $800,000 worth, but right now we've been replacing bulbs. The lights are fine. We're not going to worry about that at this point in time. So I'm down to bay doors. Bay doors are something that we're going to have to replace. They're pretty busy, as you know, they're in and out of there. So 30, 31, 32, maybe, and we're hoping to get out to 35, but we'll see. That's what our plan is. It's 2035. Roof systems, it's a fairly new roof. They're looking at FY29. We're hoping to get out to 2035. Community spaces, and that's included in the hall, stairs and lobby, half a million dollars worth of upgrades. We don't have anything in the near future for that. Their interiors are in great shape. So I don't think we need to worry about that. As I said in my email, the town building was not on this list and that's on purpose. That's, I was asked to take a deeper dive into that. As far as what would it take to actually gut reno this building and make it usable again or make it last for about 50 years. So we've been working with outside contractors. They've been doing us some great favors as far as pricing and things like that. We're getting window pricing, we're getting pricing for new entryways, flooring, you know, walls, painting, the whole nine yards. Some of the, some of the, some of the, some of the pitfalls, we're anticipating these wooden floors where it's wet under here. We've probably 40 to 45% of this will probably have to be replaced structurally because we get a lot of warping and movement. And that's just a big sign of a lot of, a lot of damp from underneath. So things are starting to rot, they're starting to move, they're starting to be pliable. So we have a lot of that here. So that'll have to get replaced if we start changing the floors. So we are doing the elevator starting this year because we have to. It's no longer code compliant. We can't get parts for it anymore, either one. So we're going to do the main town hall this year coming up FY27 if it's approved. And FY28 we'll do the children's way elevator. So at least those will be code compliant. Fire alarm system is in decent shape. That'll need to be rehabbed as well by the time we do the gut reno and bring that up to code. So there's a lot of moving parts on that one. The roofs we're starting, we're going to do the gym, then we'll come over to this one. We'll start piecemealing things until we decide what's going to really happen. But I should have that number, that budget number, probably, I would say, four or five months. I don't have a decent number that we can look at. Questions? Okay. I have a couple of questions for you, I think, for the presentation.
It's fair to say that by spending these money... Yes. ...for buildings year by year with your recommendation, we'll be actually saving money through long term. When you put it another way, if we don't keep these buildings up to par, you know, the replacement costs would be much higher in the years down the line. Correct. So yes, is the simple answer. As you can see with this building, if things aren't followed up on or kept up to date, Yes. the end... the end result is it's an enormous number to replace or to repair. It's almost probably as expensive to build a new building. And it's just... Well, I'm sorry, because don't forget, now, if you start doing a gut reno there, you have to rent space, you have to put people someplace because they can't be here. Even if you piecemeal it, their work quality is going to be, you know, it's going to be noisy, it's going to be dusty, it's going to be, you know, it's just going to be a mess. So there's other... You just can't do a gut reno. You have to move town hall someplace or have people work from home. And that's another big expense for a year or, you know, 18 months, whatever it's going to take you to do the work. Well, regarding town building, our board has discussed the future of the town building somewhat. And has there been consideration... Of course, it's a progress, it's a progress, it's a progress, sure. Has there been consideration... It's a consideration, it's a consideration. It's a consideration, it is what it is. Has there been consideration... Making changes and improvements to this building that will stick with the building in case the town chooses to possibly sell the building for other uses, such as apartments, that sort of thing. Yes, that's what we're focused on now. So the main thing. So we're focused on roofs, we're focused on elevators, we're focused on, you know, life safety systems. And just things that... That will keep the building up and running. Yes. Thank you. It's all here. Okay. I've got one further question. As I noticed, our sustainability manager is in the gallery this evening. And are some of these projects potentially going to be offset by some grants now that we're... Yes. ...climate matters in the world? Julie has been... She can speak for herself. She's doing a wonderful job finding us money. Town building upstairs lighting. In the arms of... We just submitted a grant to the Green Communities Program on Friday to offset vehicle costs for two electric vehicles, both that have already been budgeted for... So this would offset existing budget. Hopefully get us a little bit more runway with the vehicles. And lighting replacement for all the library. And all of the remaining links for town buildings. You can see here that we have energy-efficient lighting downstairs. Upstairs, we did not do that. So that money would get us sensors and switches and more energy-efficient lighting fixtures. And that'll keep us going and reduce our electricity burden a little bit. And we'd be able to access... That's grant money potentially for a roof refurbishment or replacement. I don't know about roofs. We're not doing green roofs. We're just doing the regular plastic. In the future, we could do windows for the library, which is on the docket for potentially next year because it is a high expense.
And that'll, again, get us more energy savings. And that would work. The same would happen here with the windows and the new storefronts for the entryways. Things like that. All that weatherization stuff is something the grants will cover. The roofs, you know, the structure itself, they would... Yeah. Okay. Mr. Williams? Let me add my thanks to those of my colleagues for putting this together. In your opinion, Mike, what's the accuracy of the inside cost estimates, particularly for some of the outliers?
I'd say that they can... About $50,000. $50,000. Yeah. Yeah. They... It was either very, very high or very, very low. Right. Right. So, yeah, it was kind of a mixed bag. Yeah.
Earlier in my career, did some work with Insight, UpSite, Insight, and found that it was helpful in identifying issues, but the money... The dollar amounts. It was pretty... I'll use my own. Yeah. With respect to this building, you mentioned that a lot of the flooring would have to be... Yeah. With respect to this building, you mentioned that a lot of the flooring would have to be... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would have to be replaced. Is it the subfloor or is it the structure? Both. So, well, I'm assuming it's both. I know the structure's moving. Yeah. Because we're... You know, it's Tom Hennig's office, our... You can tell that the wood is... It's getting very pliable because it lifts a lot now. So, the building is a wood frame building. Yes. Yeah. And with the moisture. Yeah. So, yeah. I'm moving the... Yeah. No, I think the analysis of... of the cost to do kind of some of the basics. You mentioned that a rehab can be as expensive in new construction. I think it's often more expensive than new construction. Yes. Particularly if you want to have it built to suit for the current use instead of inheriting the shell of a former school and the debt. So I agree, but this is very helpful. Thank you. So my question, of course, was about the grant. Now that we're the climate leader, and I was hoping that piece over the gym was going to qualify, but apparently not, so. The roof? The roof. The one with the gym, I thought. However, I did hear we were replacing the heat pumps and stuff at the library. Maybe that qualifies, I don't know. It does. Yeah, okay. So we'll look forward to hearing some of that. Thank you for coming in. I know we have tried to really is interested in finding out, you know, some information about this report. The report is online, and many people know it's online and have actually asked, you know, why we haven't gotten to it. We, like you, we're busy dealing with us. We're trying to get ready for some meeting and all the warrants, and we're just going to keep our buildings humming. Humming, humming, humming. The catch up piece. It's still been humming. So we've been caught up on all the old capital dollars. So that is pretty close to zero at this point, other than the library money. And we're moving forward with some great projects, just to keep everything coming as best we can. So I think we'll look forward to having you come back to visit us, let's say, in a couple months, once you've had, I know you're working on something for CPC. Maybe at the time you're ready to present for CPC, you can also provide us that same information. That would be, does that sound what we'd like to do? That would be great. Well, we'll do it. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for your time. And thank you, truly, for creating the slides. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I don't want to say this, but we are running a few minutes ahead. And so I hope to let you know that Mr. Fedbeck. You have to go to the consent calendar. Yes. I've just got to find a page. So I think there's just two items on the consent calendar as to if we're ready to vote. Since we're all here, let's all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passed, oh, 4-0. How's that sound? I'd like to, there was something I wanted to do there. I don't know if you noticed this. Exactly. It's a great part. Yes, that's exactly what I mean to do. Thank you. It's how we've been working together a while now. Michael, I think we'd like to skip to the agenda item number eight, which is discuss, review, and possibly authorize the town manager to sign the inter-municipal agreement for the regional 9-1-1 emergency communication center. If somebody could just tell all of us, what Dave says in the packet would be lovely.
I think it's going to be way down. I don't know, like 170 or something.
Not that far. Okay, well, we'll find it in Florida. We'll then start that. That would be great.
So what I'm asking here, if I may, Madam Chair, as you know, it was mentioned during the public comment, there was some concerns about us signing. Just to step back, the board has already authorized me to sign in- Excuse me, phase 124, sorry, I'm in the packet. And we have already joined the Metro West Regional Emergency Communication Center. So we are partners with Framingham and Natick on our way to developing this regional emergency communication center. We've also received State 9-1-1, a State 9-1-1 grant, $9 million of which are being slightly amended to roughly $8.9 million will be used to help build out property in Framingham, which will be our dispatch center. What's happening here is there's two minor changes, and I already had KP Law review them for the time. They had no concerns after I explained what the rationale behind. One of the changes is to change the rotation of the leadership. They were going to cycle each town through. There's three members of the board. It's the mayor of Framingham and the two town managers from Natick and myself from Wayland. And we're in a transition phase right now. So they want to have the option, whether we keep the Natick town manager, who's in the midst of this until we open, he would stay as, as the mayor of the board until such time. So that was one of the chief changes. The other change really is the funding mechanism. So right now, the way the IMA was written was for what would happen after the State grant has been utilized. Each of the communities was going to contribute a portion of their share of the funding on a quarterly basis. But in an effort to get more money up front, we want to amend it. So it starts at the beginning of the fiscal year, so that the State can give us all the money up front for the first five years that we're working with the State. And then we would revisit this once the State stops giving us the money and go back to a quarterly payment system when the towns are funding it. So that is the chief reason for these changes. The board is in favor of them. It's my understanding that Natick, has already given authorization to the Natick town manager to do, to approve this. And I believe the city council giving the mayor the authorization. And so, because of our structure, I am coming back and asking your approval to authorize me to sign the IMA with these changes. So we could have done this, you know, on the consent, but because we had not, you know, had an update, if you will, on this topic for a while, I suggested we do it as a topic. And it was really funny because like a few days before that, I would put this down on an article list. I would follow up and like I said, hey, we've got this thing to amend it. So, doesn't anyone have any questions at the IMA or the board's or somewhere we are? If not, we'll have a motion. Just quickly, Michael, what's your expectation as to the cost to the town under this arrangement versus our current arrangement? Well, we are hoping based on, we haven't done final analysis of what it will be projected out several years, but for the first couple of years, as I said, the state is going to pay 100% of some of the costs. We had hoped to start construction earlier this year. And part of the problem was they had to take the roof off and expose the interior while they were doing some of that build out. And given the winter we've had, it's been delayed a good six months. So rather than us being able to get into the building in the beginning of this fiscal year, probably be early January of next year is what they're looking at. And for the first couple of years, we would look at potential savings of the approximately $800,000 in operational costs. However, it does raise a couple of questions that I've been discussing with the chiefs. Many towns who have gone to a regional communication have looked at whether or not we would put somebody in the main lobby during certain hours. The day, and I do believe there's some merit to it because I think a lot of people will always believe that if they're going by the police station, I use the example of say there's a young mother or a young parent, I should say, has a child who starts choking on French fry and they're right in front of public safety. They're gonna pull in there, assuming there's somebody in that lobby. We will eventually put a button that will, when press you will talk to the dispatchers over at framing camp. But I think most people will have an expectation if they come in during business hours, there's gonna be somebody there that could help them. We have staffing upstairs, but people could be on a call. And so we wanna ensure that we have a transition plan there and that people are sufficiently aware that we will not have dispatch there, but we may place somebody. That's still under consideration. So we may not realize all the savings because we may do something along these lines, but for the first couple of years, while the state is funding 100% and then it'll slowly transition off and transfer it back to the towns, by then the call volume coming in will dictate your portion of the share. So when we're the smallest, we should still be, even when it's transferred 100% back to the towns, we still foresee that we should be saving a little bit more than we are paying right now. Thank you. We have a question. Could I have a motion and those in favor make it since you're the liaison to this project. I would move that the board authorize the town manager to sign the revised inter-municipal agreement for the regional 911 emergency communication center. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? Otherwise, we'll just go straight to the vote. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Zero. Passes. Okay. Thank you. I don't want to work up in minutes. I don't believe there's only minutes. Thank you. Please take a motion on this, please. Move for March 23rd, 2026, minutes of the select board as amended. Second.
Does anybody have any comments? No.
Okay. Then I think we'll just go right straight to the vote then. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion passes. 4-0. There are no comments from March 30th. There will be tables in the next meeting.
Michael, can you do your town manager's report in 10 minutes? Do you want to start it? Or what else can we do? We'll just see.
Yeah, post-votants. Does anybody have any comments on vote attendance?
Mm-hmm.
Actually, I thought we were going to have public comments. I actually received a correspondence myself about parking in the historic district. So I don't know if we've received that or if it's just me. But I think the question here is who told that? Who on the parking commission is for the town? And I think Michael is looking into that for us. And when I find out, we'll forward this question to them. And if it's us, it'll be back to us. Does that sound good? Good. Really important concerns. I'm sorry? So if we don't have a correspondence, who can do reports of concerns? Yes, who has reports of concerns? I have one item, and that is just a rail trail empty. You may recall that this poor authorized money is to install historic signs along the rail trail in land. So the state has approved the signs from the library east, going towards the town of Weston. Those signs are likely to be installed. So before August 15th, there's also three signs at the time of the business board authorized outside of the rail trail area. Those likely to be installed by August 15th, signed west of the library, won't be installed until after the construction of the completion of the rail trail, which hopefully will occur by the end of 2027.
There are also three other signs. Jen mentioned this one. Yes, I know. Yeah, I mentioned it. Okay. So those signs are going to be in our packet on April 27th, which I always keep saying that it's the 27th. They are absolutely fabulous. Not big. Really. Do you have any reports of concerns? No. Okay. I'll just give you a couple things. I don't know if Michael's going to mention it, but first I went to the, Michael, I think it was online, to the... He can't hear you. You can't hear me? No. Maybe getting down. I'll make you come up here and sit next to me. All right. Sorry, I'm looking that way. Last Tuesday, I think it was, I went and Michael was, I think, remote to the forum that the Board of Public Works held, you know, on the construction project to the source water system. It was really well attended. I think there was about 20 people, both online and then 20 people maybe or so, you know, in the room. It was a really healthy conversation. They did a nice job, and I think it didn't seem too many questions that were outstanding. I feel that we need to do it, and that's it. So that was well done, I thought. We did send an application with the Select Board. I was asked to do something a week ago Thursday to sign a letter of endorsement for a grant for the Senate Committee. Okay. So it's a small grant, so I wanted to let you know that I signed on our behalf. It came in, of course, it came in Friday morning, and I got it done so fast, I can't believe someone sent it to me all done. How much was that one, $3 million? It's $3.5 to $4 million. And that is, if I may, Madam Chair, that is, for the last minute, when we realized the situation with the SRF, Abby Sharest, we were looking for alternative ways to help fund the project. This was... What's called Congressional Directed Spending, otherwise known as earmarks, and both Senator Markey and Senator Warren's office were looking for projects, and so in order to get it in under the wire, we scrambled Friday morning, the team met, and then we reached out to the Board of Public Works and to the Select Board Chair to get letters of support and put it through on Friday. So, you know, doing everything we can to ensure that we get enough dollars for these projects. So, I just want to let the Board know that I have done that, you know, on our behalf. I'd like to keep you informed of what's going on here. Our next meeting will be on April 27th. That will be the warrant hearing. It's a fairly full agenda. I'm going to say it now, we're probably going to meet closer to 6. That's right.
I'm the only one that doesn't like to sit, so we'll sit there.
We're having a number of different things there, including just a lot. So, we may, in fact... We're going to have a little bit earlier on that night. There we go. So, I think this is not a published hearing, and it seems like most people are probably here who want to attend this. I probably could start. Yeah, okay. So, when we have a published hearing, if it says it starts at 7.15, we can't start before 7.15. This is an interim residential forum, so I think we could start. So, we're going to have a forum tonight, an article, and it's kind of... You may be a little confused on the way it's written on the agenda. It's not Article 25. It's Article 16, 25 Holiday Road, just in case anyone's not there. During the forum, we will just accept comments from everybody who would like to speak. We do not restrict you to the two minutes. However, we do ask that you be mindful that there are probably several people who would like to speak. And also, there's nothing wrong with when you get up here. If someone has said exactly what you'd like to say, I agree with so and so. I concur on that. It gets your voice registered, but it also keeps us moving along. I will alternate between the room and online if there are people who would like to speak online so that everybody feels that they're equally involved and they're equally being heard. And before we start, obviously, this is an article that the Select Board is jointly pursuing with the school committee. Mr. Whitney is the liaison to this article. Thank you. And I'm going to open it up. I'm going to send it over to him to make a couple remarks. But also, I want to mention that the article write-up that's going to appear in the warrant is in our packet on page something, somebody tell me.
And also the map. Yeah. No. Now, does anybody want the map up online or we're all set? Page nine. Nine. Thank you. Page nine is the write-up. And then we also included in here a couple other exhibits, which I think we'll speak to briefly. And then. I think we will open it up. So, Mr. Whitney. Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for coming this evening. I'd like to give a quick overview of the warrant article and also a little history. And I hope that Mr. Harris and others can correct me if I'm mistaken about that. But it's my understanding that the property is 13.7572 acres. The property was acquired by the town in 1956 for school-related purposes on a vote, interestingly to me, of 503 in favor and 17 opposed. So, a well-attended town meeting. To date, no development has occurred on the site. At a special town meeting in November of 1981, the Housing Authority proposed two warrant articles to enable the development of elderly and affordable housing on the property. The first of these was. The transfer of care, custody, management, and control of the property from the school committee that was approved on a majority vote. That subsequently was the subject of litigation. And the Supreme Judicial Court only determined in 1984 that the majority vote did not, in fact, affect the change and the two-thirds vote was required. Fast forward, sort of, to June of 2017. When the report. The Whaling Real Estate Planning Committee was issued. The committee was appointed by the Board of Selectmen to develop a comprehensive long-range facilities plan related to future municipal land and buildings. Among the 50 properties studied by this committee was 25 Holiday Road. It was their recommendation that the property be used for market and affordable housing. As the chair has indicated, the article is. Being co-sponsored by the select board in the school committee, we are seeking town media approval of an expenditure of $200,000 to explore a range of potential uses for the site, including active and passive recreation, town use, including a school building, and market rate and affordable housing. This is preliminary due diligence that we expect will inform future decision-making by the town as to the best use of the land. The requested appropriation is for research. And analysis only, it does not affect the need to seek approval at a future town meeting and relevant town boards and committees should project go forward. Also, should these early investigations indicate the development site isn't workable, there will be no need to expand any remaining funds. The school committee is interested in this property, first, as it's in their custody, care and control. And secondly, because it has been preliminary identified. As a potential site of a possible new elementary school, I'm happy to elaborate on the status of that facility's plan and the role that holiday road, the holiday road site may or may not play into it. Our board is interested in pursuing this as it represents a possible opportunity to create more housing in the town and to make a modest contribution to the town's tax base. We have no sign of the students and actually receiving extra support, but it can be offered to any Cobb County inauguration. It encourages students to take further input by partnering with the city. The council admins be Engage in providing expectation of full assistance to small community housing funding ciao. We'd like the everybody in the room to please pause for a moment to discuss the action to complete. I'd like this session to conclude with Erick Bezieyeva, Head of electricity • photos of K hierarchics outside of the town. I should note that much of the work that is planned will be useful to the town should the school committee determine that it not need the site for a new elementary school. However, should the school committee wish to do so, much of the investigation will be useful to it. The Massachusetts State Building Authority would as a condition of agreeing to fund a portion of any new school design and construction would require the completion of such analyses as those planned as part of the feasibility study. With respect to the evaluation of possible housing alternatives, among the options I think we should study are individual house lots based on the existing R4 zoning that might produce 10 or 12 lots or a conservation cluster type approach with the lower scale buildings, such as townhouses located in a confined portion of the site with the remainder being open space. We do not intend to test alternatives that approach the height and density of the VALTA Oxbow development. There's been some confusion about that, but we are considering or suggest looking at only lower scale alternatives. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to open it up to the board and then Tom and Todd, if you want to say something. Can you speak up? I'm sorry. I can't hear you. We can't hear you in the back. Okay, I'm doing my best. Where's, oh. Where's my, is it up there? No, you're not. We don't have a microphone. There's no microphone. There's no microphone. I have a wonderful habit of putting my iPad there and then I blocked my microphone, so I was just checking. I'm really sorry. Could you hear Bill when he was speaking? Barely. Barely. Barely. I see some barely's and some good's and some no's. In the back there. Okay. Well, you'll have to bring your chairs and move forward. How's that sound? We'd love to see your faces up front. Okay, I do want to just end with that. I know it's not necessary, but it did happen once. Before, so now I got to say it is. The Select Board prides itself in conducting itself in a very respectful manner, even when we disagree. And we both then hold these forums in the same vein. They were just sharing ideas respectfully. And with that, I will open up the forum. So who, how many in the room do you think would like to speak tonight? So I get a sense of how many we have. You can count from two, eight, 10, six, eight, 10. Okay. I don't see too many hands raised online. All right. Who would like to start, please? I'll start. Sure. Would you like me to explain? Oh yes, let me explain. I'm sorry. You come up here, you say your name. It's just your street name. You don't have to give them the number. And then you have, you make your comments. Okay, very good. And I also said, I'll repeat it again. If everyone has said the same thing, or you agree with someone, you can say, I agree with what so-and-so said. So good evening. Good evening. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Thanks for... And can you hear me? I'll try to speak really loudly, loudly. My name's Tom Hammond. I live on Orchard Lane, and I've lived in town for about five years now. And thank you guys for hosting this forum. It was a pleasant surprise when we heard about it in the Holiday Road, Orchard Lane community, because given the whole history of this land, the history you gave, it attracts a lot of attention in the neighborhood when people are talking about development. And so when it started to resurface again, several months ago, I can tell you that the neighborhood became concerned. And I'm just here to request, make a statement, and request that you do everything you can to try to include the community. And I'm not saying it's not. I think it's a great way to encourage the residents and the relevant committees and commissions in town to try to maybe form a citizens group, a advisory committee,
the way that the town, I understand, has done in some other cases with great success, whether it's the Nike project, or Vandals, land there, and then the Route 20 South landfill. From what I understand, those projects were also complicated, had constituencies that were probably resistant, but everyone came together with a lot of talent and energy, and I would say realistic expectations to try to get the right project done the right way, and I'm glad about your comment earlier about speaking cordially and friendly to everyone, because we're all Wayland residents, and we really, all we want is what's best for the town, and we understand that there are competing factors here. There's revenue, there's, you know, keeping the neighborhood features the same, but understanding that we need to progress at the same time, so there's a lot of competing constituencies or competing factors. But I can tell you that I was surprised at how, what's the word I'm going to use, how energized and how smart and how experienced the group of people that I've been sitting with for the past many months are about this issue, and I would just encourage you to bring us into the tent and use this energy and this passion for this property to the town's benefit, and I think creating such an advisory board or a citizen's working group would do that, because these are very talented people. They know how things work. They're not putting their heads in the sand, and when I say they, I'm part of it. They really do want to do something right for Wayland, considering all the competing factors, and I would encourage you to take advantage of that, because I think not doing so, you know, it would be a worse outcome. I think that maybe the select board thinks that by not having an advisory board and avoiding that, that maybe things will go faster on the project, because you don't have to include all these citizens and commissions and all that sort of stuff, but I would argue that that would be the wrong assumption. I would argue that things would go much more smoothly, and you'd get a lot more buy-in, and you'd build a lot more agreement by including people and doing such an advisory board, and you'd get a lot of free help, and to do so maybe, you know, before spending $200,000, in fact, would be a good idea too. So that's my comment. I appreciate you letting us come up here to talk. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Somebody else like to join us? Somebody else?
Mr. Bernstein? How are you, Dave? I'm good. Dave Bernstein, 25 weeks in line. Thank you. So I actually have two questions. The first question is, am I correct in my understanding that the school committee is currently in the process of determining what they would need to do with this project? Excuse me, Dave, could you speak up a little bit? Sure. You're all going to have to bring your chairs up close. Could you confirm my understanding that the school committee is currently in the process of planning to determine what their needs are, and whether or not placing a school on the project is a good idea? I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Is there an estimated date at which that process will be in place?
There has been some discussion. There is an advisory committee or a working group that has participated with the school committee and their consultants and has pretty much wrapped up their portion of the work. month or it was scheduled to be completed by april uh the school committee now is considering really a range of options uh they've worked with an architectural firm and a an education planner who came up with five groups of options i think the school committee has narrowed that to two groups of options uh and uh i believe that i have heard that there is uh an expectation that they will uh be able to identify a preferred alternative by the end of this calendar year and then there's a preliminary schedule that calls for submitting what's called a statement of interest to the msba the massachusetts state building authority by april of next year do either of the summer surviving alternatives include building the school on property in question the tool groups of alternatives really speak to uh the configuration of how many buildings get built and of of what sort there are a number of sites that are still in the mix including the sites of the existing three elementary schools the middle school and the holiday road okay so as we stand today it's possible that at the end of calendar 2026 the school committee could inform us that they intend to build a school on this partner that that's a possibility i suppose anything is possible i wouldn't speak for the school committee
we're talking possibility now if if both of their alternatives said we're not going to use this this property for a school then we would know that that would be the case if it was it wouldn't be the case it wouldn't be the answer maybe that way so i think that the future xed election are different so i think in in yaHSR they need to be both writing in across different generations now they're trying to understand where they are
could that just something real quick yes i wanted just for those who are not familiar aware of this i don't know the name of this study group but phil has been serving on this for about six months as a select board representative to that committee so that we are going on in our packet we have a copy that came out on March 23rd, well, a couple of weeks ago. And in it, it shows the five options. It also shows the cost of the five options. And I think the holiday ones that involve a holiday road are more expensive, are they not? I don't know if, I'd have to go back and refresh my memory, but I think the cost pretty much are the cost of building a building someplace as opposed to necessarily this site versus that.
What I'm trying to get to is to understand the argument for spending $200,000 to study a property when the ultimate use of that property is subject to a decision by the school committee that won't be made until the end of the calendar year. Why wouldn't we just, from a financial prudence perspective alone, say, let's let the school committee make their decision. If they ruled it out, then we can start. But if they haven't ruled it out, they're still thinking that they might put a school on that. If they have that property, given that it's their property, why wouldn't we wait until they've made their decision? Then the study can be focused on the use of the property as opposed to now where we don't know. So what's the argument? I think one argument, Dave, is that whether it's a school or housing, some of the use, we as a town will know it's something to be built for. And I think spending this money, it helps the schools if they really want to put a school there. It helps the town if they want to use it for a town building, which is, I don't think it's something that our board has spoken seriously about. As Bill Whitney spoke about, I think housing is more likely something that the select board is considering recommending. But there's still a value in learning, you know, is there something about that land that prevents any construction? I get that, but $200,000 seems like a lot for just to answer that question. And frankly, I think the goal can be achieved for less than that. We just wanted to make sure there was enough money to answer that question. I think it's prudent. I think it's prudent to find out, can something be built there before you start talking about A, B, or C ideas. I don't disagree with that. It's just $200,000 struck me as a lot more than necessary to do that. So if you're talking about $10,000, that's very different. And I know these are not huge numbers, but the town has to be proved now, as you all know. So that's why I'm asking. Thank you all. Thank you, Jim.
Anybody else like to speak? Alyssa? Yes, sir. I'm sorry, I was looking over here to see if I had... What I'm seeing? Yeah.
Good evening, members of the select board. My name is... My name is Mike Young. My wife, Jennifer, and I live at 36 Orchard Lane for the last 11 years. Thank you for hosting the forum. And thank you for your service to the town. My question relates to the stated objective behind Article 16, which I understand is to support new growth and increase the town's property tax base. In that context, I think it's important for residents to understand how this approach compares to other options the town is considering. For example, my understanding is that a majority of the select board did not vote to support Article 25, which would allow for a higher density residential development along Route 20 West on the Sudbury border. At the same time, I believe both the planning board and finance committee voted unanimously to support that article. From a resident's perspective, that creates some confusion. A corridor like Route 20 is more naturally suited to this kind of development and could be a good example of a new development. It would generate tax revenue more quickly than an undeveloped parcel like 25 Holiday Road, given existing infrastructure and ease of access. It also would not require the town to spend $200,000 on a preliminary study. So my question is, how is the select board evaluating and prioritizing different new growth opportunities across the town? And how should residents understand the tradeoffs between pursuing Article 16 versus articles like, you know, Route 20? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to respond. My biggest concern with Article on Route 20 is the height. The articles is asking for an increase of 35 feet, which is the current zoning height for buildings, to 58 feet. And I just think that at that location right on Route 20, it's not a precedent. I mean, it's not a precedent. It's not a precedent. It's a precedent. I'd be comfortable with right on Route 20. Right now at Alta Oxpo in the northwest corner of that property, zoning permits in town being loaded this higher 58 feet, but it's set back from a low rate. But if you come into town from Sudbury, the first thing you see is a six-story flat building on the left. That's not something I was comfortable with, and that's why I do not support it at all. Thank you. Is there somebody else in the agency that would like to speak? Yes, please join us.
Mylan Berkman, 50 Orchard Lane. I was intrigued by what you said about misunderstandings or understandings about what's being considered. We've lived in town for 45 years. We lived here in 1981. We've lived in R40 zoning, and we've lived with the constraints of R40 zoning in respect to that during that time. But we understand that the EDC had raised the possibility with the select board of putting in 50 townhomes into that area, which would be five times the currently allowable under R40 or Article 18 cluster zoning. So we also, you know, 550 is a lot. We also understand no decisions have been made. I'm wondering if you can assure the town that if the school committee doesn't need the property for a school, and if it is used for housing development, that the development will require any developer to do that. In terms of the R40 or Article 18 cluster zoning as it currently exists.
I personally have not heard the 50 unit approach, and I don't think it's ever been discussed with this board.
Again, I think the notion was to look at a range of alternatives that would be subject to certainly further discussion. I think it's a very interesting idea to have an advisory group, working with the town on this, and so that being said, I'd be hesitant to unnecessarily or to just say arbitrarily that we won't do more than X number of units. Rather, I think it's useful for everybody in the town to see a range of options and have an informed discussion about that. So the range of options would include the possibility of rezoning the area? Again, I think what we should do is look at a range of options, see how people feel about it, understand its constructability, understand the financial impact, both in terms of revenue and expense, and ultimately this will be the decision made by two-thirds of the, or by the town meeting, where a two-thirds majority is required. Okay, thank you. Yeah, that's a good distinction. I'd like to point out, if I may hop in here, is that in order for the select board to take action, for example, on the two-pronged constituent property that we just had an advisory committee work with us on, we went to town meeting last year and said, please transfer this property to allow us to dispose of whatever the language was some of the lawyers say will help me on, but we couldn't take any action on that property or have a committee until we had that commitment to go full, to do something. And we went to town meeting. Last year, we said, transfer the land to us and we're going to come up with a plan. And everyone said, why should we transfer the land? You don't have a plan. I said, well, we should have the land in that game before we make the plan. So we're, we're, you know, we kind of have a little bit of a chicken and egg. However, in this case, no matter what happens here, if this land changes hands, the school committee will have to declare it a surplus, right? And then it gets transferred by town meeting to the select board, at which time we would have probably a. Better handle on having done the due diligence, a better handle on what could go in there and what we recommend goes in there. And I'm sure we will have had some gotten a lot of input from a lot of folks at that point. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I think on the line we have Ms. Carter, I'll recognize you, please. How are you?
Alyssa?
She's muted Robbins. Yeah, yeah, I'm here. Oh, yeah. Oh, you're muted. Sorry. Thank you.
She may not be done. I think she raised her hand a while ago. Yeah. Okay. Well, you know, just very difficult when you're on remote and we feel very isolated. So we really try to make sure we integrate. So let's see who would like to join us next, please.
Name and street, please. Yes. My name is Jennifer James Young from Orchard Lane, where I live with my husband, Mike, since 2015. And where my. 89-year-old mother now resides and plans to live out the rest of her life. As I understand it, Wayland's open space and recreation plan, OSRP, hasn't been updated since 2016. In fact, it expired in 2023. An expired OSRP makes a town ineligible for certain state funds, including the land park and LWCF grants. This is particularly concerning given Wayland's current fiscal challenges. Okay. And it's apparent willingness to consider selling land to address these challenges. At the same time, the community preservation committee has already earmarked funds to update the OSRP, but the plan remains incomplete. Given this, the logical and responsible approach will be to first update both the open space and recreation plan and the school building plan. So that any decisions about 25 Holiday Road are made with a comprehensive town-wide context, rather than in isolation. My question, can you explain the logic and strategy behind moving forward with a site-specific study that asks taxpayers for $200,000 before completing these broader foundational planning efforts?
Thank you. Is anybody else interested? Yeah, I'll just respond by saying that, as I said before, we need to get the ball rolling. To try to decide now. Okay. I'm going to put in the site, but I appreciate if anyone can fill up with their science. I just don't think it's good public policy. So this is the fair minimum of a look-see on this acreage. And to, I think Dave Bernstein's commented earlier, I think the cost to do this work will be less than, a lot less than the amount. But it's just the bare minimum to get the discussion going. Thank you. And I also support and agree with the, you know, the comments here that a working group, an advisory group, makes a lot of sense. Because it enhances communication and it, as a comment was made, permits people with backgrounds that are conducive to exploring ideas. It ends up in a better end product. Thank you. May I ask a second question on top of that? Absolutely. Okay. This is in public comment. Okay. Great. Let me take the two minutes. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you for being so polite. No. Along the lines of getting the ball rolling, something I also wanted to ask was that, and it has been less discussed, but conservation and preservation. The select board has said that 25 Holiday Road is one, if not the largest remaining town parcels, of land in Wayland, and describes the 13-plus acres as undeveloped, unutilized, and fallow. Framing the land in that way assumes the land only has value if it's converted to another use. In reality, some spaces provide value precisely because they've been left alone. This could be ecologically speaking, environmentally, and for the community. So we've heard this article is just authorizing a study, but even a study reflects, assumptions about which outcomes are being prioritized. Moreover, conservation as a use was included in the article's arguments in favor section, but left out of the arguments opposed section, which is misleading to voters, especially since conservation as a use is not mentioned in the article itself. So my question for you is, will conservation be included in the study's formal scope of services as one of the primary? Will conservation be included in the study's formal scope of services as one of the primary?
I think unlikely, based on, if we wanted, if it was a sense of this board that conservation is the end product, then we probably wouldn't push this article. We would be pushing an article to have the town meeting declare that this is conservation. Wayland has, in the great of Austin, if not the largest, one of the largest areas of conservation land per acre. And to me, it's, it's bluster, you know, it makes our property values high, makes our walks nicer. It's just a beautiful town. But we as, as members of the select board do have to balance everything. We are facing an override next spring. And it's because there's only so much tax revenue coming in to pay the expenses that we all appreciate. You know, whether it be the DPW services, schools, Council on Aging, so it's finding that balance, right? Right. And that's, that's kind of the focus of our, of our discussion on this particular post here. Right, and I think that's why Article 25 might be able to get us there sooner than an Article 16. If I may piggyback on your comments, Tom, one of the possible ways that the site could be developed, some of it can be developed, is cluster zoning, which would aggregate a certain number of units, we suggest townhouses, in a portion. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. of the site and the balance would be conserved to use your term so right it's I don't think it's incompatible to say that some development could occur and a portion perhaps the majority of the site could be conserved thank you thank you anybody online nobody online okay um yeah try again or no try again bye Alyssa Carol recognizing you do you have your hand raised I do okay I recognize you sorry about that I was actually on a gas meeting um so anyway for Holiday Road I do not feel that we should authorize any more taxpayer money at this time for a study um we have capable resources between zoning conservation and even the DPW to get an idea of the feasibility for a variety of purposes um also um there it's been in the news we have a declining number of students it's starting at colleges and it's going downhill so I don't see a reason to build another you know facility use the facilities that we have but if um you know if there is some testing that needs to be done or whatever then um in the school board wants to do it fine you know they they can do that at their own expense they get more than um 70 percent of our taxes and I think that's enough in terms of the town if if you think that it we could get um income for the town by somebody who buys there and builds a nice home or several nice homes or a reasonable um condo complex with expensive condos all of which will contribute to the tax base I think that should be looked at but such buyers should pay for any testing or whatever um I think again the town can figure out whether there's a problem with the zoning or you know a limit on how big something could be but also to meet with people like you're doing tonight people who live in that area um and are going to be affected by it and get their input and as for the the school I understand that it would like to have an opportunity to put something school related there but I I feel it is important to remember that when this land was given to the schools it was a very different town and there wasn't a um a an residential neighborhood with lots of um close together homes community there's a lot of people who live on that road and bringing in school buses and you know whatever would be really disruptive um so you know a private um selling of the land to some kind of developer that um can pay the money and we can get income and is acceptable to the people who live there and will be affected by it um I think is the best way to go on this uh project that's my and then that other people who buy it should do any kind of testing and figuring you know before they make the final offer because that's what you get to do when you buy property
thank you thank you so anybody else in the room like to share Mr Harris nice to see you open a vote here George Harris holiday Road thank you um my comments are in two parts first part is how we get to this article and the second part is the article can I ask how many people in here are not from the neighborhood glad to see others well you'd have to be sleeping under a rock not to know the town has financial difficulties so like when they're disgusted the finance committee has discussed it we all know it the Genesis of this article was to raise or to get more new growth raise tax revenues you know it it's been discussed so this property was examined as a possibility what's happened though is I think I'll call a false flag article false flag like pirate ships now we're adding everything else in we add in some schools we already know it's a school site we have passive recreation active recreation and anything else but that's not the name of the game because many of these other town uses don't produce income don't produce revenue they're not realistic that's not what this is about this is about raising money nothing wrong with that but I just find that it's sort of been camouflaged put all these other things out there and come up with a story which is well we we'd like to know what this land is what can we do with it we can do lots of other things with it I don't think you've been exactly honest with everybody putting this article together because the article doesn't even mention the town's financial difficulties it does say that we could sell the land could be sold but it doesn't it doesn't provide the background the background is the town needs to raise additional tax revenue should be in the article I haven't had a chance I don't know if it's out if the finance committee report that goes in the warrant is out visible is it online if you know the warrant is online it's the whole one okay so I'm sure it's discussed I'm sure I'm sure the the issue was discussed about the town's financial situation I guess it does I don't know that they discussed 25 Holiday Road there I doubt it but I think it should have been in the article it should have been presented there I just think that these other items justifying spending two hundred thousand dollars sort of a smoke screen because the name of the game is raising tax revenue so let's be let's be honest and acknowledge it um to me the seems to be to me to be financially irresponsible let's suppose that uh someone wanted to buy land from a seller and uh the seller wasn't so sure he wanted to sell the land hadn't thought it through yet but the buyer said well would you mind if we spent two hundred thousand dollars to examine the land we'll do all kinds of borings and testings and everything else we'll find out about it would you mind if we did that I'm sure the owner would say go ahead but I'm not promising anything I just can't imagine and I'm not in the real estate business I know others have been in development I'm not but I can't imagine if I was buying it I can't imagine um spending that kind of money without some kind of assurance from the owner the effective owner town owns it but it's under the care custody and control of the school community we all know that that they haven't said we'll give it up that should be a known now and yes we can come up with all kinds of arguments and discussion about what we can get with all these benefits we're going to get from doing this study but I'll bet if the schools had to buy had to build a school there I doubt they would be spending two hundred thousand dollars on investigating the land maybe maybe that's what you spent but I find it hard to believe I think this is financially irresponsible now the selectmen have made irresponsible decisions in the past you remember the bridge too far at the annual town meeting in 1922 the town
wanted to spend the town being the selectmen wanted to spend 450 000 to fix a bridge that wasn't in Wayland didn't know that at the time but it was discovered later and when one went back to town meeting to rescind it by a petitioned article of which I was one of the petitioners the selectmen in Fincom weren't in favor of it let me put it this way they didn't favor the they didn't take a position
didn't take a position although I think they spoke to an article the article passed town meeting the the rescinding of the 250 000 it passed 254 to 69. please don't spend this 200 000 you said it might come in a lot less time you said it might come in a lot less how much less fifty thousand dollars less then why not ask for 150 000 why ask for the maximum because if you put it out the bid for for 200 000 somebody will reply will respond for 200 000 they'll do the study I just don't think you've got I don't think it makes it makes good financial sense to embark on this thing without having some kind of a commitment from the schools let me point out in addition that the schools were an afterthought when you submitted the article the select board with all its wisdom so the school committee was not part of it the school committee didn't even know about it they didn't know this was going on until somebody in the neighborhood went to the school committee and at a meeting and said do you know what's going on with 25 holiday road and they probably said where's 25 holiday road because we have never known it by that's always been called orchard lane i'm glad holiday road is getting into the action but the schools are an afterthought that just it just doesn't rub the neighborhood good i i i we can do better than that way we can do better and we have done better and it's just that this is it the finances are urgent so take urgent actions i thank you though for having this session this was good appreciate it thank you see you all at town meeting so just as a edification and you know how boards work and we had a deadline of january 15th and we were talking looking in the reports where can we find as you say some we were getting we had to have some hard bolts here on the select board level of how to support this budget in 27 so we didn't have an override and everyone that came in to speak to us mostly the finance director and then the town manager kept saying we need new growth we need new growth and so around december we took some looks at some properties and we said gee the holiday road really as you say is this one that comes stands out and come january beginning of january so let's put in an article in but in the meantime we were contacting our counterparts on the school committee um they didn't seem to know about it well we were contacting them i don't say it wasn't a secret that they learned the last time to control the land that wasn't we see we didn't want to put this in until about january 28th we come to vote on 28th because it was due on the the 15th so i think it was it came at that meeting just before we said let's do it so was he right it just sort of popped up and then we said oh my god we've got to we've got to speak to this is their rent so and then they decided to co-sponsor yes i can address to one of your earlier points in your comments um you criticize the article because it includes things that may not be money makers but my question to you was what if a working group was established what if the working group decided okay housing here in this part of acreage makes sense but but a field makes sense here in fact the field might be enhanced the neighborhood may enhance property values in this location that would be active active recreation um do you think i would consider the recommendation of the working group if that's what they if that's what they recommend the working group suggests something like that that's fine but but again the purpose is to raise tax revenue and if you want to put something else in with it along with it uh
that's fine thank you thank you thank you wasn't it yes sir so excuse me i want to ask one of the questions how many people would like to speak okay i'm going to cap it probably then at the two after that as we i'll be right away so go a little over but i think then unless somebody feels they absolutely have to speak i'll add you in otherwise if that's true thank you sir uh ryan wade uh holiday road georgia's neighbor um and i i it's my first time doing this so bear with me but i wanted to ask a question about common sense on this and that have any of you gone down holiday road have any of you gone down orchard lane have you have any of you walked through the woods that we're talking about potentially developing um and my questions around common sense i think on paper this parcel of land maybe is potential for to be developed and to help the town um with the taxes and all that but um it's not built right now the the roads are not built to be able to accommodate for something like uh development there um and then the woods itself are a habitat for deer and turkey and for bobcats and lots of different wildlife and i just you know i it leads me to a couple questions that i have on the cost of that and so bringing in that that uh land and uh uh that kind of you know the the course of that utilities and road access to a landlocked parcel in a residential neighborhood can cost tens of millions in massachusetts so where is that cost accounted for in this article and then follow up to that who bears the infrastructure costs on the surrounding streets uh if housing is built the developer or the whaling taxpayers and so you know the road is not built to be able to sustain buses and and two lane traffic so is that coming is that going to be taken away from my property to be able to accommodate for the road being developed is it going to be take you know the electricity the plumbing um you know we have i mean we've had a hard time getting natural gas down the street god forbid so i mean if you know if we're going to be expanding that road to be able to accommodate for a school or for a housing development how's that going to happen and how's that going to affect us the people who are you who have the property that's going to have to cut into it so i again my questions aren't common sense really is that like i just if you think of route 20 and you think of some of these other roads where it makes sense to have some of these developments this is a neighborhood this is seems like there's a lot of money that would have to be put into the neighborhood to be able to develop something where you're actually going to see returns or roi on on your on this development so common sense yeah thank you yeah you're welcome mr start thank you oh you guys may not know me but i'm doug stots of 3090 from an even road i've lived there with my wife for 32 years good to meet you all um among other things you may have your own list of other things i am the wayland coordinator for the bay circuit trail which is managed by the appalachian mountain club i'm also a member of the community preservation committee but i'm speaking here as a private citizen the wayland section of the bay circuit trail today winds through the length of this edge metal concert hall and i'm going to be talking about the length of the the length of this edge metal concert hall and i'm going to be talking about the length of the area unfortunately today the trail goes onto the road surface of gleason lane near settle near saddle lane it then goes in the middle of gleason lane where there is no sidewalk but as you know there's also a plethora of speed tables for about 1800 feet before crossing route 27 into the cal common conservation area this is obviously unsafe and not ideal however the six acre property adjoining 25 holiday road known as 17 blaze in the lane is currently for sale the asking price has dropped from 2.5 million last october to 1.4 million today it would be wonderful if wayland could potentially acquire this property for open space using community preservation act funding and reroute the bay circuit trail through it and the abutting north cemetery reducing the portion of the trail on gleason lane's roadway by half acquiring the remaining parts of this property can facilitate a potential solution where the town receives substantial one-time and ongoing tax revenues from a conservation project that is being carried out and the project is currently under conservation and conservation development upon 25 holiday road while permanently conserving an amount of of land close to 25 holidays roads 13.7 acres drawn between the 17 gleason and the remainder of the 25 holiday road passes i hope whatever working group the select board and school committee choose to appoint will investigate this further thank you thank you good evening hi hi Thank you. Thanks for having us all here tonight. Thank you all for coming. My name is Caitlin LeClaire. I live on Orchard Lane with my husband, Andrew Carpenter. We've lived in Wayland for three years, and we absolutely love it here. I'm going to build on Ryan's question, not so much about common sense exactly as much as a question around how the costs of supporting the infrastructure would be handled. Obviously, the article talks about understanding the suitable uses for the land. But in order to get into the land, there's also obviously infrastructure with roads, moving, widening, connecting utilities on the street, on approaching streets, and other infrastructure to support some kind of structure that would bring in the tax base that you're looking for. But as a resident of Wayland, I'm concerned about how all of that, not only would, how those costs would be absorbed by the town, but even the ongoing costs of supporting this new infrastructure, the roads, the electric, and all of that stuff that needs to be built to make this happen. I'm a taxpayer here, and I'm happy to pick children in a school system. I understand. And I obviously want to do my part, but also, I'm also concerned about how the costs and the ongoing costs will impact taxpayers. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, so, Mr. President, you already spoke. I'll make it really quick. Let me find out if there's anybody else who wants to have one quick last thing. All right, very, very quick, please. Very quick. Better not be a hard question. I don't want to ask hard questions. I know that. 25, please, pay an emergency, 25, please, and leave. Sorry, Chair. I checked, and a basic feasibility study is 10K, not 200K. So, this could be done a lot less expensive. I don't like to ask questions without making a constructive suggestion. So, after listening to this and the comments made here, my suggestion to you all is form a working group. Include the people who live in the area. Fully investigate all the alternatives. Given that the school committee is going to take until the end of the year to decide what they think they need, that's not going to set back the calendar on the project if there's a way to move forward constructively. With the South Landfill Project, you guys really demonstrated how well-working groups can work. And Tom, I read that. That was excellent. I was on the edges of it, but it was just really well done. And this is another opportunity to depolarize, de-emotionalize, get people bought in, understand, study. And we'll save 45 minutes at town meeting, which wouldn't be a bad thing to do. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you all for coming. And thank you for participating. And we have had a number of forums, I think, in the last five years, I'm not saying it's because I got on the boat. I've noticed since the last few years, we seem to have when we think there's a lot of interest in something. And we generally have, and we've done that. And we have set up a number of short-term working groups. for us though um talking out of school because we haven't had a chance we did have that suggestion in the correspondence packet but we haven't had a chance to deliberate you know how that would be structured and how it would go forward but i'm going out on the limb here and i'm kind of looking around to make sure everybody nods their head yes when i say this but i think in order for us to look at it working if we need that article to pass so that we can go forward and we can continue our conversations you know and with the with the um the school committee as well but i'm looking around and i can't see everybody who's taken this i um did bring the point um i think we should put on a agenda for April 27th well and they'll be at 5 30 now that's okay and and the reason and the charge would reflect your comments that i'm sure reflect what we know reflect what we don't know so people's expectations can be reasonable and um regarding the schools if you look at a packet there's a there's a cost range of 490 million to 900 million relative to uh school construction costs within the five options um given given that range it wouldn't surprise me if town meeting wanted to um spend on the higher end of that and and i asked Mr. Levine to weigh in here because you've been involved with this discussion the schools are having but with the higher end costs will likely include construction at Holiday Road that's my understanding i know Bill spoke to this briefly but my understanding is that what's separating some of these ideas for projects the different concepts is the number of buildings and also the number of buildings that are going to be
currently issued by the city of Calais will be and and and and and and the state for that project at the same time versus picking all of these different sites and having to go back to the school building authority for each of the projects and this is on page 14 in our pack at this chart that we're referring to but back to my main point i i think we should discuss the 27th will not be the view of the view of the board that um it's premature but uh i think it's worth discussion can you um thank you well we've been together for a while we're all starting to read each other's minds but for those of you who cannot read my mind yet i've asked mr fay to draft uh draft charge for this uh i agenda item which will put on the 27th i think that's a good suggestion everybody's good with that yep mr whitney yeah okay um we should probably speak to the school committee as well yes i'm but we've also confirmed that it's in the town of whalen
you know and i thank everyone i also want to say another big goal that the select board has which goes hand in hand with housing is whenever we have something like this we're very mindful of two other things one is our housing production plan to make sure that we are providing uh homes by keeping our what we call our subsidized housing index up this is the affordable housing units so for every 10 units you can build in town we need to add one on the affordable we try to add at least two so that we can keep ahead and maintain uh first of all as good stewards that we are maintaining a minimum of the 10 percent of our housing stock is affordable so that will also be a big consideration of anything that we do go forward not just the taxes but also housing production plan so anyway all right i think it's anybody on the board mr mccall and this will have something to add i am going to thank you all and we're going to turn our attentions to a more exciting topic called 20 20 26 annual town meeting uh meet with the moderator to talk about our degrees thank you okay so we're going to go to the situation there's a winner hi everyone hold on a couple seconds while we let the room there take your time bless your heart
um
okay so item number six on our agenda is the 2026 annual town legal discussion um we're going to have some uh reward auto updates we're going to talk with our collaboration talk this one she would like to talk about town meeting was going to talk about uh some updates to her rules particularly consent calendar and also i do want to tell him um just give one little first of all my partner is leaving he's going to miss his accolades but um the warren went to press uh to the printers um on april 1st and i before we do anything else um i could tell you we managed to save one whole page and a lot of zoning and they take up a lot of pages but we did have a lot of adjustments and i think we did tighten up the warrant in many spots um but i do want to give a big shout out to the the warrant team if you will and then kelsey and jaylen from the staff and also kudos and thank you to to doug for all his help um putting these articles together this is was beyond a herculean task um and i just think that um people should recognize i mean i think we put ours yelling down to this project so i just want everyone to know that um so a couple articles updates um i wanted doug to speak to article ee when he comes back but the um we had looked at this is the planning board appeal article and we had looked at some proposed changes in the last um packet that were made or suggested by town And as you know, we had asked the planning board to, you know, give us up in the report. They have to hold a hearing. And of course, we had this was a potential change. Doug went back and the language that's in the packet in the packet in the warrant article now is what's going forward. Obviously, it's only one additional sentence. But we had Michael because we had signed authorized blanket language back in December. He was able to forward to the planning board the revised addition with the additional sentence to the planning board for review and withdrew the first version that we submitted. So we are still on track. We're talking about planning board. We are still on track, if you will, for the planning board's hearing on April 29th. Right. And hopefully they will have a report by town meeting so we can vote on it. Did you want to add something? I was explaining that we had just switched the. No, nothing. Okay. All right. So I think on that article, again, kudos to those who worked on the warrant. I missed your accolade there. I'll watch the tape. The warrant is coming back from the printers. I believe it's coming back Wednesday and it has to be posted. Various locations. Various locations throughout town. And we need to sign that. So Jaylin will send everyone an email once it comes in the printer. And then they have to make arrangements, please, to get it signed. I can't get it later than 10 a.m. Friday. So probably Thursday or Friday morning if you could come in and sign it, that would be great. Everybody's okay with that. And you said an email would go out from the Secretary's office? From Jaylin. Maybe we could send a text as well. That would be great. I don't check my emails as religiously. But if you can get in here the late Thursday or Friday morning to sign, you're all set. I'm coming in Friday morning. Okay. All right. So, Miranda, I would like to give you the floor to talk about changes. You can start. You can talk about whatever you want about town reading. But also I think you wanted to talk about changes to the gift. Great. So I actually did make sort of three changes that I wanted to call your attention to. So I actually did make sort of three changes that I wanted to call your attention to. Some of the other changes are minor. Some of the other changes are minor. But all three changes that I made are in section four of the moderator's rules regarding the meeting. And I wanted to tell you the reasons why I did it. So one of them under B3 it talks about those individuals granted the right to sit on the floor under section 2b above. And those individuals that we're referring to are the town manager, the assistant town manager, town council, police chief, fire chief, public health. town council, police chief, fire chief, finance director, those people. Originally, the language had said, if non-residents shall have the right to answer factual questions, but they do not have the right to vote or enter debate unless they are registered voters of the town. Well, I took a look at the bylaws, and because I had, quite frankly, the town manager in mind, because he does address the budget. And if you look at our bylaws, section 3618 specifically talks about these people, and it says, said town officials shall not be considered in determining the presence of a quorum at town meetings, nor shall any of them be permitted to vote unless they are registered voters of the town. But they do have the right to attend and sit on the floor and answer questions. It doesn't say anything anywhere about them entering debate. The bylaw doesn't address that. So, because of this unique sort of grouping that we have here, and recognizing that the town manager does, in fact, enter the debate when he addresses the budget, I decided to remove three words from this. And so it says, but they do not have the right to vote unless they are registered voters of the town. And I got rid of the words or entered debate. And I don't know if that's going to cause a controversy or not, but that's my thinking is, I was, specifically thinking about the town manager and how to handle that. I don't know if any of you have any comments about that. Would you do me a favor and just repeat that? So you're going to change it? Yep, I'll show you. So now what the statement says under 4B3, it says those individuals granted the right to sit on the floor under section 2B above if non-residents shall have the right to answer factual questions, comma, but they do not have the right to vote unless they are registered voters of the town. And so what I took out was three words, or entered debate. And I don't know how controversial that's going to be, but again, I gave you my rationale for it. So we don't have to all wonder whether or not the town manager can speak to the budget or not.
Ask a quick question. Sure. Hi, Moran. I just have a quick question for you. So last year we updated 36-18 to add the town clerk because we no longer have an elected town clerk and our appointed town clerk is no longer a resident of Wayland. Did you also? Okay, great. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, you know what? You know what, though, Kelsey? No, I didn't update that, but thank you. So it's a town clerk and who else is it? Just the town clerk was added last year. Yeah, I'll add her into section 2B, though. Okay. You know what? I'm looking at the town code and this says, and it's funny because it says updated as of 4-7-2025, but the clerk, oh, no, she is listed in here. She's listed in here, under 36-18, but I'll include it in the moderator's rules, too. Thank you. So let's open this to the floor here. Does anyone, including Michael, do you have any comments about this three-word change? Does that allow, then, the staff to participate in debate, all of them? Well, I suppose, I mean, what I was looking for was there is no bylaw that prohibits it and the town hasn't. So, I mean, you've amended this particular bylaw. In 2009, in 2013, in 2016, and again in 2025, and no one has ever said that they can't participate in debate. The debate, only the moderator's rules said that. And so, I don't know if the bylaw doesn't say that because the moderator's rules covered it or if it's, now that we have a town manager, I'm not quite sure that it makes sense because it is, in fact, entering into the debate. Because just by presenting the budget, that's considered. Entering into the debate, although just presenting the budget as it is in the warrant and not really advocating, just presenting the information back neutrally. Yeah. I mean, you could make the argument based on, I mean, we saw Michael's presentation last year. I can make the argument that he is, in fact, he's speaking in favor of it.
Are you comfortable with this? Because it says we don't have a bylaw. I think you all stepped over and asked. We don't have a bylaw specifically for, uh, recognized staff members. That's up to the moderator. I mean, I have no problem. I had no idea. I thought that was our rule. So, the world here is everybody's point of view. So, does that suggest that those individuals, uh, could stand at the pro or the con, Mike? Yeah. See, I disagree because, hey, thank you, you're part of the Racial Combat Group. If we need to modify the bylaw for next, uh, meeting, the 27th, we do so, right? To, to, to, we have to do it. Right. To, to, to maybe, uh, carve out presentations, portion of the debate versus. I, I don't know that it's a bad idea for them to speak at the pro or the con, Mike. I'm just trying to understand the implications of. Right. Right. Me too. But then I also tried to decide what, what is the town manager's role here when they, when he's presenting the, the budget? I think, I would suggest he's the proponent of it. He and the finance committee. Not just the town manager. So that's, that's very isolated. I, I agree. It's in the box, but let me say this. We limit the amount of time for debate to 45 minutes, including introducing the article, leaving amendments, any questions, blah, blah, blah. So the pros and the con, Mike, there's only so many that can speak. So if we allow staff members to come up on this list to speak, that might be at the exclusion of a resident who wanted to speak because often they'll say, okay, the time is up or we're terminating debate. And then those who are still in the queue sit down. So.
If somebody proposes an amendment to the budget, right. We pay too much in fringe benefits. I want to cut the fringe benefit in half. Then somebody just got to stand up and say, well, you know, we do have these collective bargaining agreements. See, I'm not talking just about the budget. The budget to me is a different country because it doesn't have a timeline. It's a different country. It's a different country because it doesn't have a time limit. I'm talking about other articles. If we remove this and we change, make this change to these rules, this means that say, I'm the town clerk, I can get up and speak on any article. And if there's only so many minutes allowed, that's a 45 minute max, unless we go to extend debate. So would this, would this in fact, end up concluding some, you know, a resident from speaking if we, you know, some of the ones that have, you know, you'll see the lines on the different articles. What's the time limit? I'm talking about other articles. If we remove this, and we change, make this change to these rules, this means that say, I'm the town clerk, I can get up and speak on any article. If we remove this, and we change, make this change to these rules, this means that say, I'm the town clerk, I can get up and speak on any article. What's the time limit? can go for two hours. Yes, many years ago. So, but I think, Kelsey, would you like to speak? Well, I just have a question. So I've never lived in a town that had open town meeting. But I don't know, maybe Michael has more experience with that. Have you had any experience where department heads who did not live in the town went and spoke to or for something at town meeting? My hometown has represented a town meeting. Usually what happens is, the moderator asks the body whether or not they will let a non-resident speak on a particular issue and usually they do it if the dpw director is going to come up and say something or somebody else so that's how that's addressed i think that makes me we used to be like we used to you know we changed the final so we changed the bottom line to allow them to answer questions but um what's the language of the bylaw what does it say what is the language of the bylaw again you just read it um sure um so it's two sentences and it says um notwithstanding the the their place of residence or voter registration status that that limited group of staff um shall have the right as registered have the same right as registered voters of the town to attend and sit on the floor of town meetings and answer questions period said town officials shall not be considered in determining the bylaw presence of a quorum at town meetings nor shall any of them be permitted to vote unless she or he is a registered voter of the town so the absence of saying participate in the debate essentially says they cannot participate in the debate i don't i don't agree with that i don't that doesn't mean to me that it should have been it specifically says they shall not be considered in determining the the presence of a quorum and they shall not be permitted to vote they should also say they should not be permitted to participate in debate but i mean you have you have two things one sentence says what they can do and one says what what they can't and then you have nothing with regard to entering debate and yet we have a town manager who speaks to the to the budget which i would suggest is he's proposing it that only happened last year i know it was a bit new and then we indicated that we couldn't do that um this year we're going to have to do it ask questions in order for that to happen right or we or we let him speak because he's our town manager
well then we need to maybe look at changing the bylaw and maybe we'll say i'm looking at you over here because they're going to help me here with this maybe we say that the town manager can speak to the budget or something like that are you a lawyer or a moderator do i come across as one because i've been trying to fake it for about 35 six years so i'll join join the club exactly so as we speak then are you suggesting that the town meeting come may should give should take a vote on permitting the town manager to present the budget based on the bylaw today yeah i mean based on what the well based on what the bylaws say the bylaws to me don't speak to it so so my the moderator's rules as they currently are indicates that we would have to ask the town to let him speak it's one thing if he is specifically being asked a question but he's not this is the motion on the budget that he's addressing so he's not answering the question right so i think that's what we should do do what we should ask one member a member of the board select board should ask permission of the town meeting to permit the town manager to speak and and leave the moderator's role as is no i think we should we should talk after time meeting about modifying the bylaw if if the board yeah so just what i mean tom is if we leave it so that they can't the moderator's rules that the non-residents can't enter debate so for this for this year we'll we'll ask the town to allow them the um town manager to speak to the budget you someone from the select board you can bring you can bring that out from the finance committee i want to just interject real quick there's a finance committee article and they will ask this was discussed yeah yeah they will make the the request because they're going to give a little presentation and they're going to say you know for full details matter moderator we would we would like to have what why do we need to do that what we're talking about what we're saying at the time doesn't preclude because the moderator has just said that the way she reads the current bylaw rule is doesn't permit the town manager to enter debate and present it does it does permit the moderator's rules don't allow him to do it i was going to change my rules
i'm saying my moderator's rule says that that he is not allowed to enter debate that's what the moderator's rules say and when i look at it in comparison to the bylaw because george harris put me um on the next thing i'm going to talk about saying that my moderator's rules conflict with the town bylaws i looked at this and i thought why isn't the town manager allowed to speak because why does the moderator's rule say that because the bylaw doesn't say that all right so you can let them you're going to change your rule which would permit the town manager to speak but i'll say this i'm not sure that you carry this out we really want a town manager nothing against mr mccall to be able to go pro and con on audibles as the board i'm not sure our board would be comfortable with that so what i'm suggesting is after time maybe our board can discuss this with you and maybe come up with some uh a possible idea that maybe okay so then i can leave the moderator's rules as is so that he is not allowed to speak and that we will have the fight finance committee um when they propose the budget ask that he be allowed to speak and i'll take a quick vote of the town meeting yeah because my issue is this isn't the town manager speaking to the budget it's when you change that now anyone can speak to anything agree no i understand the concern that's why i brought it up okay bill stern one second yet what if somebody proposes an amendment on the floor to delete a fire truck from the capital budget so then the finance committee will have either the finance committee will address it or they'll say we defer we'd like to have the fire chief have better information wouldn't wouldn't any sometimes any town staff members wouldn't a town statement they go up there and they answer those questions they answer questions it's it's you know let me explain to you the implications of not buying this fire here here's what we're going to do we're going to change it to say the budget article they're all we have done that in the past we say anything there are department heads here who are capable of explaining this information in the budget but you need to look at every article because the budget has no time limit so it doesn't matter if we say mr madam moderator can so and so speak well these folks can get up and answer questions without going through that whole process i understand but but somebody somebody says i don't want to spend 38.6 million dollars i'm going to spend 20 million right so shouldn't tom holder being able to stand up and say let me tell you right this is a bad idea yes let me say we'd like to answer that question it's not a question it's a comment right yeah yeah it's it's an argument no question oh but they will say it i'd like to know from mr why he thinks we should understand that's not what the witness okay bill is saying um if a situation is presented as someone uh permitting a member of the staff who doesn't live in town to make an argument yeah or against something yeah in the budget or otherwise you know do we want for right that's my question whatever we'll change this language we could do something like if they're the article sponsor so for example this is a long discussion right yeah it is all right all right how about this let's leave the rule as is and then when the finance committee introduces three words out yeah don't take them out or take them out here's somebody who has demonstrated the uh the virtue and experimentation i think we should experiment by taking these three words out what's the next item you have on your list all right so i just to be clear i'm not going to take them out i'm going to but we're going to expect the finance committee to um ask to have town managers speak and we'll take a quick vote i won't even do it electronically i'll just do it because no one's going to have a problem with the town manager speaking to the budget so no
except one okay all right did you have another one yeah do all right another this one's going to be another uh point of controversy but this is the one that um uh this is the one that george harris raised to me so um okay um this has to do when somebody um let's see we're right here i'm still again in section four but the you know this outline is so long um all right i'm at five four all right this has to do with if a motion is the main motion you must then declare that it is identical word for word with the substantive portion of the article printed the warrant which is then under consideration or describe the substantive differences in wording between the article and the motion otherwise the moderator will permit no debate or action upon your motion that's in the moderator's rules and that is pulled from 36-14 verification of the wording the issue to the rule so i can follow along 36-14 the verification of wording the rule in your rules what what section and subsection oh okay so that's where it gets that's where it gets hard all right so we're in four right
um
see um see i think c5 yeah c5 we're in the debate we're in section five and um a okay yeah little a yep so you see that first first sentence is is really taken directly from the bylaw of 3614. it's the second sentence that was brought to my attention which says if your main motion is visually available to a reasonable extent throughout the hall you may dispense with the description of substantive differences unless directed to do so by the moderator and that it was brought to my attention by the moderator and that it was brought to my attention that this violates section 36-14 because there are people regardless if we put it up on the screens in front or even if we had a handout we would have people who would have difficulty reading um reading this motion or an amendment so um rather that if it's if the motion that's being brought is not going to be the same as the motion that's in the or the article that's in the warrant that the proponent should in fact describe the differences
every word if there's only a couple well no it's not every word no it's not every word but i mean it would be for example they would probably have it in writing what the different changes are right they would just need to describe verbally if you have some people who have visual issues you know you know if they are sight impaired in some degree that um they would at least just be describing what the differences are so that becomes subjective if you will on what the differences are because invariably when you read a motion there's always like a a little phrase that's a little different or one phrase that's not in the motion that's in the text of the warrant yep is it the question the moderator asks miranda yeah when you ask the speaker if it's substantially the same yeah and you're not you're not comfortable with that question right you're not comfortable with that that's too much leeway for you for that reason no what it is what it is is when the person says that it is there are differences and rather than just providing a handout or putting it up on the screen they want them actually to describe them verbally describe them the phrase reasonable extent protects you here because it says if your main motion is visually available to a reasonable extent throughout the hall so there's always going to be like potentially a couple of people who wouldn't be able to to read that but the reasonable extent seems to cover that but the reasonable extent that whole second sentence doug has been argued that that violates the bylaw itself because that's not what's listed in the bylaw but i think when you ask oh let's think about this now when you ask us if it's pretty much the same we say yes but i'm i've had differences i describe them and say no it adds in this or it takes out that right what what the what has been brought to my attention is the second sentence dispensing with that description as if you provide say a handout or it's up on the screen above and you have some people who may be visually impaired and won't understand what the differences are so that it should nevertheless be described gotcha okay we're all set right all right all right it's easy now what's the next one easy peasy yeah um also just to let you know that i just changed same area of my rules a b c d i've just switched c and d because they were they were in the wrong place um um a b and d all dealt with the main motion and then c did not and so it just didn't uh it just wasn't making any sense so i switched those around that's not a big deal now to the consent calendar so um so the consent calendar i thought was relative we used it for the first time last year it was relatively successful i felt that there were a lot of questions that were asked that articles were held for questions only as opposed to for actual debate and so i want to change that a round i've had some discussions with the carlyle moderator um and um so what i've done is i've changed my rules a little bit and and the procedure for consent calendar is going to be a little bit different i'm going to go through say there's eight articles on the consent calendar i'm gonna go through all eight and see whether or not anyone wants to hold them and then the articles that are going to be held i'm going to ask the holder of the article um if they um have a question on them or if they're holding it for the debate and if they have a question i want to address the question right then and there are two articles that i'm talking about so if i want to there. And if I find out that it's simply a question that's easily answered, I'm going to see if we can put it back. I'm going to see if they have anything further or if anyone has any further questions. And if not, if the person says they don't need to hold it, then it's going to go back on the consent calendar. I'm trying to not go through what we went through last year. I'm hoping that over time, I think this consent calendar will eventually take off. I just think it's going to take us a few town meetings to get here. And so I'm going through the process of trying to make it be very obvious that these are just non-contentious articles and that if people have questions, they can ask them. And in fact, I'm going to have an evening with the League of Women Voters on April 29th, in which we're going to ask one of you to come and attend and answer any of the questions that might be about the consent. If anyone shows up and has questions about the articles in the consent calendar, they can be answered there. And so they don't ask to hold the articles at town meetings. I'm thinking that the more knowledge ahead of time, the better, whether or not anyone attends these events remains to be seen. But so then what I'd like to do is what the articles that I know that are definitely going to be held from the consent calendar, we will go through them the regular way. And then at the end, we will vote all the articles that were left on the consent calendar altogether. Does that make sense? Did you modify your rules about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rules have been changed. I can send them to you if I can't describe them. They're just, they're too involved for this meeting, but I'm happy to forward them to all of you. The other, the thing I was most concerned about was that the select board is empowered with, you know, ordering the number of articles, how the articles are ordered in the warrant. And that if we do pull out articles from the consent calendar, you could make the argument that they're not being heard in order. And so I'm going to send them to you if I can't describe them. They're just, they're too involved for this meeting. So I'm just, I'm trying to figure out what makes the most sense. So I did speak with the chair, with Carol. And, you know, we went through sort of what makes the most sense for the consent calendar this year in terms of not, not violating that rule of the select board having control over the articles of the, unless of course, town meeting votes to change the order. So does that make sense? Great. Yeah. So what happened was we're thinking that, let's say we say items, three to 10 are going to be in the consent calendar. And someone says, I have a question on seven. And then we, the answer is not quickly taken care of. I think we decided we would deal with that person, that, that issue right there, rather than let it sort of hang as a hanging trap, even though it's out of order. So, and then we would go back into the consent. So everyone's good with that. Okay. These changes then get reflected in an erratum? Erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum? Why would this be erratum?
Well, if the moderator's rules have changed from what's in the warrant, This is going to be a run-up. A run-up. It's still here. Yeah. So that's the moderator's rule. Yeah. So the moderator's rule, this is the next question, is we're going to have copies when we do the warrant hearing next week there at the meeting. We're going to have a copy of your plan thing as well. Yeah. And we're going to have them at the town meeting. They'll be up front. They'll be on the select board's desks. They'll be on the finance committee. And those who would like to actually have them and do refer to them. Yeah. And I know Jalen's jumping at the bit to put them up online too, but until I had this meeting with you folks, I couldn't do it. Okay. So the other thing I think we're going to talk about here is we wanted to talk about, and it's kind of, it's managed to meld itself together. This man, Miranda, sorry, wanted to put together some more information and trying to get more people involved in coming to town meeting. And she and Trudy and others have put together a series of little information. Videos.
Yeah. Emmy, Emmy worthy videos. Emmy. I think. And it's a start to have them sitting there like all year on the way camp. So those have been done. And then she's kind of combined with the legal women voters. And I think you may have gotten an email if you've been asked to participate. And for the legal women voters are issues for them. It's been combined with Miranda's going to talk a little bit about consent calendar and some changes to moderator rules and also kind of quickly go through the abbreviated and the consent articles. If anyone is interested in those again, trying to get questions in advance of the meeting. So, and that's on Zoom, right? It's on Zoom. Yep. So whoever's going to join me, that would be great, Carol. Yes. But I think Bill and Tom, I'm also got invited in. Yeah. They're, they're talking about the substantive issues. Some of them are substantive articles. Ours are just trying to get the Q and a for the articles. We're trying to churn through very quickly. I just don't, I don't, you know, trying to push this consent calendar. I don't want to give it, make it come across as if we're trying to withhold, you know, rush through any of the articles and therefore not be as transparent as possible. So if we provide forms for a Q and a beforehand, then we can shame people. We can shame people at town meeting for not attending those. You know, I think that personally, there was a couple of questions last year, but I thought the consent panel and the concept went pretty well for first year. We do have, again, last year we had three, this year we're having two. So I think there's five or six of one and four, something like that. And the other one is an awful lot of articles are abbreviated. I think that also helps. I think we've done the best we can on keeping this down. So does anybody, and Ryan, do you have any other, Nope, nothing else, unless somebody has any questions for me, but thank you for your time. I know I went over my 20 minutes. Thank you for waiting. We were running a little late there. Does anybody else have anything? Thank you. Thank you, madam. Mother. Thank you. Madam. You're all welcome. See 27th. Yep. See you then take care, everyone.
I don't know what page we're on next, but we're going to talk about, we have an item. So I'm sorry. I didn't. So do you know what page it is?
So I think it was, was it the last meeting we met again with the champion, the EGP 22. Thank you. Cause it's way there. I mean, it was wanting to, and there were four or five proposals that they brought for us. We've actually had, I think a couple of books came to see us in the fall and maybe late and maybe in November. And then again, in December and talking about some of these, we had looked at the one of them. I got to find the page here. We had looked at a couple of them and said, you know, could you give us we'd like, when you make proposals, give us the economic benefit, you know, to the town. I'm going to write it. So but I thought this time, what we should really do now is just sort of deliberate. Thank you to liberate, you know, as a board on these four or five ideas and see what our thoughts are, what, maybe there are some next steps and go from there. So this morning of a manager chair of EDC itself had a meeting to discuss some of these issues. Tom Holder participated in part of the meeting. Let's go through the item. It's on the page 122 on the town center playground. I recommend the following that the owner of town center, if they're willing to use their landscape architect to review public land on the town center, and recommend that if they own the land and they want it, and they want to put the playground in, this is where they'd put it. And this is the type of playground that they have. And then that could be presented to us, possibly with joint meeting with recreation commission and the EDC to discuss the idea to see whether our board is comfortable with moving on that idea. As far as funding, if you'd like the idea of a playground at the town center on public property, the chair of the EDC suggested that it could be privately raised for Boston communities and single-seaters or maybe even recreation. So that that's my recommendation on that tongue. So let's, let's do one at a time. Okay. So what's happened is we were trying to schedule, um, Graffito folks from Graffito when the new owners of the town center to come in and, um, you know, speak with a select board where it kind of got pushed off a bit because we've been busy with the meeting every week on this second warrant. And, um, actually Doug and I were at that meeting and then we invited Michael as well with about just to do a schedule, but he kind of went through a few things with some ideas and one suggestion that he suggested, which I thought was very nice was that the landscape architect would look at that parcel in general for us and come back with some suggestions for the whole project. Um, the whole parcel. So I thought, um, we were shaking our head. Yes. So we thought we would bring that to the board and, you know, I, I, after we hung up, I had another thought here, ready. And that is that, you know, if, I mean, they're being very gracious to give us the time of the landscape, but maybe they might like to your point, what are some of the things they think we're looking at? And then maybe what, if they'd, like you said, if they own the land, what would they, what would they do with the land? And I think they have a vested interest in this as well, because you know, we have this parcel right in the middle of their parcel. So if we're all Mr. Whitney, are you in agreement with that idea to have the landscape architect come up with maybe a couple scenarios for us? Well, I, I really have no basis to comment. I've not been involved in any of the meetings nor met with any of the principals. So I don't have an opinion. All right. Well, shall we proceed with this then? I know you're going to speak to the principals tomorrow. It's just been sort of mad, but who've done this path, which part maybe I could reach out on behalf of the board and say, we love that idea. Sure. That's only a good idea. Okay. Moving on to item with respect to the environmental, we have a sense of restrictions on the use of that property. These are the, any. So that's where town council comes in. Town council can typically keep the client would be important on that front to just verify, Ken, the playground go there. We had issues of course, that, that the COACC portion of the property. So that, that question needs to be answered because. Has that ever been explored? That question. Oh, it was, it was tough to explore that at the, at the COACC portion of the property. Sure. And, but I think that was more challenging portion of the property than where this town property is. But I may not be. We also have recent history, north of the river between the retail and the treatment plant as well. So we kind of know the disposition of the former property owner, but yeah, just take fine. I think it needs to be explored. So I would agree. So I'm not sure who's going to captain this, this, this, this effort, but I'm happy to do it, but someone should be the captain in my view. And whoever's the captain should make sure that's on the environmental component itself. No, it's, it's sort of like the, the, the, um, town center owner. Yeah. So, um, why don't I start? I'm sure you have many, many things on your plate. So have four other members who have a lot of knowledge and, and I can finish my sentence, but thank you for allowing me to finish. And you have an awful lot of our news as well. So, um, I was going to say, let us start by at least expressing. interest that we would like to have the architect you know come up with some designs perhaps when the designs come back then we can look at that and say we now need to layer in the environmental concerns to see there may be something that we're interested in they may be plans that we don't really think you know suit our needs well i i think to build this point it would be wise to reach out to town council now and say based on what you know is this even a closet yeah can we i could forward around i have an email with um several of the accessory use limitations and what it does allow and i'm just refreshing my recollection this came through it does allow for passive recreation um in commercial and industrial uses it specifically prohibits child care daycare agriculture horticultural gardening unless previously approved by the lsp in accordance with the obligations set forth in the aul opinion now one could argue passive recreation frisbee playing catch i think your gray area now that you're putting structures that specifically encourage children this is the uh select phone number phase we may need to get a better opinion on it i i'm just going for a record yeah that makes sense with respect to that language who's lsp i think this goes back to john d i can't think of yes um it'll come to me in a minute right as soon as we're on the next article i sure hope we're sorry yeah but we don't find ourselves stopped by drobinsky just john drobinsky he was talking about from erms you know i'm i'm happy to reach out then you might get a lot of fun all right there's a tip just beyond that i can do that all right well let's coordinate i don't want to reach about oh that wireless landscape plan is going on what happened so so i think it's good to know from john bro prix watching earlier so i'm i'm happy to reach out okay great so that's our plan right all right the next one is the shared streets and i'm from this one so this one There's money that's been set aside, some due diligence has been done by the owner of the town center, specifically with fire chief, and Michael, you'd call where we are with the decision-making there. I think I'm talking about a lease or a license. Well, that's a retard license. I'm going to have to go back. Right. When we were working with Zurich, their lawyers wanted to really complicate the agreement in our opinion, kept adding conditions and language, and initially it was supposed to be a very simple agreement, and it predates my arrival here, so I have some forms of the agreement. Once Zurich's former counsel got involved, what I need to do is work a little bit further. We're back to find out what are the initial agreements that are proposed by our counsel, and it may have been a license as opposed to just full MOA, so we just need to do a little due diligence there. And also, I had indicated to both Mr. Fay and Ms. Sinezy that I need to circle back with MassDOT. At one point, the state was starting to look to take back some of these unspent funds, and I reached out with them, and they gave us an extension to work with Zurich. But then... And Zurich started putting the brakes on this because they were looking to sell, so I want to make sure they have no problem with us going to the success of an interest who is very motivated to do this. So I think our plan then was to have the council put together a more simple license versus the 12-5 page. Yeah, so the issue here is what's holding us up? Do we need an MOA? Can we get by our licensing? And we have to get clarification from MassDOT? And before confirmation from MassDOT, but if we're going to do this, they're not going to come back and say, hey, we want the $100,000 after we buy furniture. I don't think this is a situation where we want to ask for forgiveness rather than permission with that amount of money. Okay. But obviously, Glavino was on board. I think Zurich was not willing to be responsible for... Like, insurance was an issue. Insurance was one thing. And it is complicated. It was insurance. This is so simple. Well, that's what we said the other day. It's so simple. We did this for the chat a few years ago. It's a piece of cake. So on the Route 20 cleanup, the proposal is that the select managed office and the chair of the EDC would put together a proposed letter to be sent to the owners of the businesses along Route 20. It would be an upbeat letter talking about a few things. And also, it would include a paragraph. Reminding property owners to abide by the bylaws relative to signs, also to be as diligent as possible, make their property as attractive as possible, including maybe mowing two blades of grass. That's a good part. It would be a positive letter, but a reminder of a letter as well. So the way we left it, the EDC and the chair would put together a draft letter for the time managed to repeat. Okay. So it's supposed to work through the staff person, so would it be through Robert, his first person? Oh, no. I think it would work like this. More like Jalen or... Everybody wants to go to Michael. This isn't a plenty issue. This is not a plenty issue. Okay. So I'm just saying, maybe not necessarily Michael. Maybe it would go for someone else or something like that. Well, I'm happy to be the... I also want to say, this is a bylaw reminder. I don't want the businesses on Route 20 to feel that they're being singled out. I mean, there are other issues in town that maybe, you know, so... Your point's false. I'm just saying, can we discuss that this morning? Are we dealing with... That's why the letter should be put on everybody and be a positive one, but it would be a reminder. So I'm happy to be that person to keep it up to date. Is there anything in the town code that talks about keeping your property in decent, safe, and sanitary condition or something of that nature? I'm thinking about a property on the east side of Route 20 that you said... How's a nursery?
Yes.
That question's gone many times over the past... Is there any way we can, you know, the building commissioner can enforce a bylaw?
I'm not sure there are any bylaws other than a structure that is dilapidated and is a public safety hazard, such as the 212 property. Based on feedback that we've gotten over the years, there's nothing we can do. Okay. I defer to Tom Hendry. Meals tax growth. Sir, can we have just one second here? So I want to be really also clear on the timeline that we're thinking this is going to go out because, you know, everyone says, okay, we agree to this. And then does that move to the top of the list or does that kind of like we'll do this in like a couple weeks or in a month or something like that? I would expect a letter to go out in the next 30 days. Well, we have to find out. Is that something that you can do, Michael? I mean, when we have a town meeting, we've got... Upon finishing the call... I went over and I talked to Ms. Braddock about this. What I suggested on the call was that we engage some of our staff rather than this powers per letter meet. We have a communication coordinator. We have a great person working in the planning and building office, Ms. Amina Flurry, who's been a support person for the two boards. And I thought together that they might be able to work on this and handle the distribution with the ED. Rather than tasking us as we go into town. So Ms. Braddock is aware of it. So they should expect to hear from the EDC, you know, about the possibility of working together. So I haven't seen Ms. Braddock since I talked to her this morning, but she is aware that she may be getting a call. So I think it's possible. But we're delegating so that we're not tying up. I'd be the one to handle that. So that was the way it was handled. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. So, okay. On the meals tax growth, you didn't really follow that part of the conversation too well, Michael. I'm not sure if you did, but... I think the EDC, if I understand this correctly, is hoping that the increase in our meals tax that we anticipate as we bring in more restaurants, with terrain and what's going on at town center, that there could be some of those funds shared to help with economic development. I've heard it mentioned that some other towns may utilize their meals tax for these purposes, and I think the EDC will not have it considered. So essentially... It's not fit to be had. Well, my suggestion would be, why don't we get an opinion from the finance director? This is like, you know, creating a budget, you know, or a pool. And obviously, if we're banking on that to go into an operating budget, then we'd have to request... I don't know how much money you're talking about. I don't know. So should we get some input maybe from the... Finance director's opinion, that's a good idea. To set aside money... You know, he can give us a sense of how much he thinks it might be. Maybe he could, I don't know. And, you know... How it would play out? Because let's say it's 50,000. Let's just make that number up, okay? In the course of the years. We then have to tax the tax base for the 50,000 for already banking on the operating budget. Yeah. So I think we should just... This is area where maybe we should just get some insight. Yeah. You want me to read something? Yeah, sure. Why don't I take that one? And then, if you have another idea... Does anybody have another idea? I'll post this. No? Okay.
The last item is... Post-game poll for permitting. And the idea there is, as the BDC chair explained when she appeared before us, is to permit people the opportunity to answer questions after they've finished their encounter with town's departments relative to permitting, whether it be the hotels, the building, or otherwise. And so then people feel like they have a voice, and also some quality control with respect to town. Yeah. How is the staff doing on meeting people's expectations?
I didn't take a minute of your time to answer the position on this.
Mr. McCall, I'm kind of sick, because Tom kind of keeps it into Tom. I don't want you guys to feel like you're left out. Okay. Go ahead, Michael.
And this is on the survey, correct? Yes, on the survey. So my comments today were, you know, surveys are great. Mission was great. However, again, I think the scope of this should probably be determined by this board there and the advisory committee. I don't like when the advisory committees come to me and ask necessarily what I think you want, because they report to you folks. And I suggested that, you know, working with the liaison on the board, they just clarify with you that this is what you would like them to do, because they're supposed to... They're supposed to advise you. But before we use town resources and put town letterhead on things, that's what the board would like. In principle, I have no problem learning from people, you know, how to improve our customer service. But if they want to do it, I think they should run by it, just like the last survey.
Having once been a regulator, I can... What every developer I worked with would say, you know, I think it's a good idea to get a consumer's perspective. But if somebody is asked to come for a third continuance of a hearing, how do you think they're going to respond? Do we think that... Here's my thought. Do we think this might be a little... No. No. I think we're aware of the fact that we've got some of our... There's a bottleneck there. And we were hoping to create this land use group, and I think that Michael's working more towards that. And then maybe once we got that in with the checklist, that might be a good time to do the survey to see if that's working. It becomes a public document as well.
Great. And if we did do it, then I mean, what would be the timing of it? I mean, certainly, again, we're really sensitive to how busy everybody was and how much stuff we have that we need to get done.
Madam Chair, just one other thing to think about, and Ms. Parrish reminded me of something that I mentioned in our meeting earlier today. Our new IT director has used some funds that were previously set aside to bring in some consultants that are familiar with our online permitting software to help expedite the completion of that. And it may be better to wait until we have that done so we can actually see what the benefits of getting that completed and how satisfied people are with the online permitting once it's complete for building rather than doing two studies. But just food for thought. One of the things I'm interested in is how does Wayland compare with other communities relative to how quickly a person gets, I don't know, a job, or a job that they're doing? I don't know what their mission is, but their subject's tank is. How many days do they have to wait for inspection? Does that indicate a shortage on our part on staff? You know, what are people's experience with, as you mentioned, Madam Chair, certain communities, because continuance after continuance, and what's the reason for that? Maybe it's because the applicant didn't provide information after being asked five times. That's a good point. So that's the, I just want us to be competitive, if you will, from a service perspective.
Let me revisit this one a little bit. That's the list of that, right? I mean, that's what's in the package. The only other thing I have to mention is we did discuss the curb cut issue, and that was the first part of the meeting when Tom Holder attended, and it was a agreement that Mr. Holder would sue, carrying out their current kind of work, all right?
Yes. So let's be certain to, yeah. Which I think is significant because that goes towards one of our goals of working towards the 20 to do two better jobs. So we're going to talk about them all and then do next steps. We kind of did them together, but I want to just follow up two other things. On the 27th, the gentleman, the gentleman from Griffith, Peter was going to come before us and just give us a quick little overview, kind of an introductory thing, like 10, 15 minutes. But then he would like to come back because they're in the middle of kind of putting their thoughts together as well. Is this right? Yeah. And they're going to come back and speak to us on June 1st. We'll have a more of a, a little more back and forth presentation, but, you know, I apologize. I said, you know, we've just been really busy. We aren't ignoring it, but we do need to, we do want to have a partnership where we work together and see, we can't make things work better for everybody, including the residents on this. So I wanted to mention those two things. The other thing is, you know, it's interesting as the development committee comes to us and then we have like, you know, proposals and, and what have you, but I mean, I think we also need to take our next step is do we have things that we would like them to look at, you know, for us and all those kinds of things. So I want to throw that out here today as well. I have a couple of thoughts, but don't shake their heads. So go free. Please. Oh, I'm not ready to share those thoughts yet, but I think it is a good idea for us to be proactive at the advisory committees. Committee so that they don't feel like they're just talking into a vacuum, you know, kind of thing. So one thing I'm actually, you and I talked about this one time is that, you know, we looked around for that and threatened stuff, but maybe they could take a look at that report and see if they find some land where they think we could, you know, do some development, you know, also, you know, our focus really for years has been who Tony, but it's just what may be worth reviewing as well. There's, you know, and there's properties, you know, I think there's some small piece here and there. I mean, there's like a couple of acres here, a couple of acres here. Does it, I don't know. Does that make sense for us? But a fresh set of eyes on that RAP report, what I think would be a really good thing. So I would think that would be something we might want to ask them. They'll see something we don't see would be great. Maybe there's a difference between economic development, selling property to increase your income, your, your, your, your tenant. And, and so if our process that they see as opportunities for economic development, if there are others that, that don't, then maybe our board should discuss, look at possibly putting those future warrant within a warrant article for opposition since they don't, they serve, they are going to be serving a certain purpose for the town only.
Yeah. So I think that, and then the other, the other thing I was thinking was, and I have a thought is they do a newsletter. I think they'll do things in the webpage. And one thing I was wondering if they wouldn't mind adding to it is when we have new businesses, you know, do a little spiel on them because people read the newsletter or people go on the community forum and then they'll say, oh, that place opened up. I want to go there, you know, give a little spiel to them, you know, and we've got one opening here in a couple of weeks and next week, next week. And, you know, wouldn't that be nice to just kind of give them a bounce people read the forum, right? So I can, I can pass on anyone else. I mean, I just, in fact, Mr. Carl is, is all right. Well, I think we have done a pretty good job on that one. So we moved to the town manager. Look for it. What do you say? Wait, that's what I thought. It's Mr. McCuff. Well, I know that Mr. Whitney's favorite, where it is brevity. So what I just want to go over very quickly is we have a trash survey and actually it's been Ms. Powers for that worked on it. I can mention it. And make sure. Uh, just briefly, we've been working with a working group and a consultant on a municipal rubbish and recycling feasibility study to explore options that go beyond the transfer station, including, but not limited to townwide trash pickup. We had our first survey, which was put together by the consultants and it went out and it was live for about a month. We were able to get to about two or three weeks. Um, we received a little over 650, um, entries, which was more than what the consultants had hoped for. So that was great. Um, and we're just working through that. Now we're scheduling another meeting of the working group to go over some preliminary results. I know the consultants are starting to work on those results as well. So we're hoping to have a little bit more information in the next couple of weeks. Ask question. Yeah. Maybe can we move one sentence? Yes. Okay. Great. So the consultant when came in said, I'd really like to have like 300, you know, responses. Do you think, you know, that's what we really aim for? And we said, oh, there'll be 500. And they said, well, how can you be sure we go? Like this was three of us going, we're sure. And I was so excited just how we got into it. Did they mention or do either of you know any of our neighboring peer towns have trash pickup, not framing them like a city, but of a similarly sized town like the Sudbury or even a Concord or Lexington? I'm just curious because I haven't seen that. I know Concord has a very robust town-wide pickup that has even Cadillac services to the point of picking up your stuff right in front of your front door. So they have a lot more options. I believe Lexington also maybe, but I know for sure Concord does. But they have very robust services above and beyond, I think, what's in part of this feasibility system. Yes. All right. Thank you very much. So just going down the line, the next item that I was asked to just give an update on was the long-term water supply funding update. I can give a high-level conversation. Mr. Cavaney, it may make sense, given the hour, to have him draft a little bit of a memo for you folks. But we have a couple of options. And one is obviously to reapply for the SRF. And I've seen what we can do next year. We were given assurances by the DEP. They would help us with our application next year. But if all else fails, Mr. Cavaney said we would go out and we would bond, we would issue bonds for this. And he said we have really four options when we do that. We would either do it over 20 years or over 30. And in each of those options, you would then look at whether you want to do level principal or level debt. And he said the best-case scenario, is when we would do a 20-year with level principal. And that would cost the town about $54 million, versus if we were to do a 30-year with level debt. And level debt is essentially like a mortgage. Most people have, they pay the same amount on a regular basis. He said that would cost about $67 million. So he used 4%, and he asked Hilltop to run some of these numbers. So, the best-case scenario, we would be paying back $16 million in interest. The worst case, at 30 years with the level debt, would be approximately $28 million. But he said there's, you know, we have some time, we can reapply. We're looking for some other funding. But in short, he said those would be our four options when we go out to bond. And if we have to do it from the interest, those are the costs that we're looking at that range.
But doesn't that suggest that if you go the level principal route, you pay interest on the outstanding principal. And so, in the first year, you pay a lot of interest. You pay a lot of interest. And that, I mean, it's really sobering. And then, you know, the P&I payments go down as the debt service, or as the principle is amortized. But, you know, it would be interesting if Hilltop could do sort of a time-value-of-money thing because that cost in year one is very substantial. It's kind of a game-lock, right? Oh, sorry. And I can ask him, so I said it might be helpful just to see. And I think, did Hilltop present that to the DPW at a meeting? We did see those charts somewhere. I think they have a slide.
But they have a slide about the MDRs, WRAs, water. And to your point, those payments would be hitting when we're having the greatest financial challenges in the next three years, those first-level payments. So I can try and get some additional information, and maybe if you want to send me something, you can ask a question, and I'll pass it on to this friend so we can put it on the slide. But I think it would just be helpful to see, you know. The funding? Yeah, just sort of. We may already have that. We have some documents that. You know, the four options, and what would the principal and interest rate be? I saw that somewhere. Maybe that was at the WRA. I think that's what it was. Yeah, I just saw that.
I want to ask. I've got to ask it as a question here, because we don't want to tell me, and I just think we're going to make it a question here.
What did Ms. Ryan say about the funding, these SIL loans from the state? This is my understanding that there isn't just 0%. They do have an admin fee on them of about 1%, Ted. I believe that she said that because they're no longer using PFAS, they're no longer giving the 0% on the PFAS loans, they're going to be changing their schedule. I might want to look into that as well. She said it to me when the meeting ended, but then, of course, I got interrupted, and so I think we should verify that, so that people are not thinking that there was a possibility of a completely 0% loan because it never was original, a totally 0% loan. The other thing I think we need to factor in when we do this calculation is that even though you look at the $38 million, we are planning on putting that, whatever PFAS funds we get, we're applying that. If we sell the Dory property, we'll probably put that against this. So there's things that may reduce that principle. Maybe we won't spend $3 million in contingency. So there's a possibility of that meeting at number one. Anyway. I'm sorry. Sorry, Michael. Go ahead.
Website. The new website should go live on April 23rd. We had some issues. They were, after they had the shell of it set up, there was some content migration issues where they copy over some of our existing material. So they've rescheduled the release for next week on the 23rd. I want to remind everybody we are closed on the 20th, or Patriot's Day. And just a quick recap. We had a flag-raising ceremony at the COA last week. We had the American Legion post 133 there. It was a nice ceremony, beautiful day. Had a lot of folks come out. As was mentioned, there was the Board of Public Works forum last week on the long-term water supply. And I did have my town manager office hours. And I do think it's important to let you know that, you know, I have a fair amount of people that show up on a regular basis. I had some of the same issues that come up a lot related to Sherman's Bridge still. But there's, I had several neighbors did come in to speak to me about some developments on Dudley Road out at the end, if you know, it's on Dudley Pond, about a couple of lots that are out there that may be coming up for development. So a lot of times I hear about those first. Mr. Levine was in attendance. So it's always interesting that he can see how it goes. But it's always good. We will set it up again for next month. And that's all I have left. Okay. And on that, I'll take a motion to adjourn, please. At 9.23. No moves. Thank you. I was on famous. I was on famous. 9.27. Hang on a second. Did you want to address agenda topic number nine? Oh, I guess I didn't want to. Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry. I thought. I wonder. I'm all done. So number nine was the possibility for us to open a, say, we would vote to hold a special town meeting, a town meeting. I have this agenda item on the agenda last time. Just a page tonight would be the absolute last day for us to do this. There was some discussion earlier this week where we might have to do one, but instead we're going to make an amendment to an existing article. I'm sorry. I have a question. So the revised agenda. I don't see it in mine. Did you send out in the. Came out. When was the revised agenda? The revised agenda was posted today. Well, did you send it to us? I wouldn't have. I know what I printed mine off. I didn't even go in here. So there was no supplement. That's fine. It doesn't matter. I'm not doing it. I just, I didn't see it. I'm going to make a grabby sentence. Yeah. Thank you. Just posted. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm trying to read it. And to the website, I think what may also transpired is, you know, I was on a phone call. I may have had them hold on sending it until I got that clarification. So it may just be a coordination issue because we determined by the end of the day. So the bottom line is we don't need it. And thank you. I'll see if I can make sure I miss anything else. We're jumping all over. We'll move to it. Thank you. What time? 9.29. That's it. Thank you everyone. See you in the 27th. Thank you.